Welcome to a new feature on LJWorld.com. A companion to Chad Lawhorn’s popular Town Talk, Heard on the Hill is a daily compendium of news, notes and links about Kansas University. Enjoy.

• As KU continues its search for a new business dean, the B-School will also be tasked with filling two other key leadership positions. Keith Chauvin, associate dean, and Charles Krider, academic director of the MBA program, both informed Dean William Fuerst last spring that they intend to return to faculty posts in fall 2011. Fuerst has announced he will resign his deanship and move to the faculty at that time, too.

Krider’s and Chauvin’s decisions predated any of the questions or meetings with MBA students that raised concerns with accounting practices and differential tuition spending that eventually led to an audit report of the school. But the MBA students who initially raised the concerns have pointed to the vacancies as an additional way to move forward in a positive direction.

Krider has been on the faculty for more than 40 years, and has served as the academic director for the MBA program for the last six years. Chauvin has been on the faculty for more than 20 years and has served as associate dean for the past 10 years.

• University Senate is exploring the idea of tuition assistance for faculty and staff, dependents and partners.

As it stands now, university support staff can take one course for free at KU (some faculty are eligible, too) and Coca-Cola scholarships provide scholarships for dependents of benefits-eligible KU faculty and staff who meet academic criteria.

The university senate’s task force will examine the issue, determine what kind of assistance is available at peer universities, identify possible funding sources for a program and if a more comprehensive tuition assistance program is desired, will propose a specific plan.

• And speaking of senates, KU’s Student Senate will consider a resolution at its Wednesday meeting to name a building after former KU Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers, who died one year ago last week.

Chalmers is the only former chancellor who doesn’t have a KU building named after him, and the dispute surrounding the situation is an old one. Supporters point to Chalmers’ cool head during Vietnam War-era protests at KU, while detractors thought he was too liberal and easy on students. Chalmers resigned under pressure from the Kansas Board of Regents in 1972. The students’ resolution is non-binding, and, if passed, would do little but register their support for such a measure.

One of the things I remember most about covering Chalmers’ death was when the former chancellor’s son reached out to me and said that his father always wanted a building named after him on campus — and that even the Chalmers Outhouse would have been nice.

Former chancellors Robert Hemenway and Del Shankel each had buildings named after them in late 2009.

• This year’s Rhodes Scholarships have been announced and Marshall Scholarship winners have been notified (a full list of winners should should be posted on the scholarship site soon), and though KU’s three nominees weren’t selected to receive awards, they’re still pretty neat folks. Read more about them here.

• Looking for good places to study for finals? KU’s School of Law blog has some recommendations, with ratings on study quality, munchies and Internet connectivity. The Spahr Engineering Library ranks as their best on-campus spot.

• Got a tip for Heard on the Hill? You can find me scouting out a good on-campus spot to put the Laurence Chalmers Outhouse at ahyland@ljworld.com.