<p>I know next to nothing about Chicago. However, within a university system, if a job title is created for a person, and then ceases to exist when the person leaves, that does not usually indicate that the position was a sinecure. Instead, it usually means that the person has specific skills that the university needs, the university needs to move the person up, and the people holding the existing higher-level positions aren’t going anywhere. The creation and elimination of Vice Presidential titles is a fairly common practice in this situation.</p>