AUSTIN, Texas — When he blew the whistle on a university dean suspected of financial malfeasance, college professor Jeff Blodgett had to weather a fierce attack from the dean’s allies. “If I didn’t have tenure,” he recalled, “they would have done their best to get rid of me.” Blodgett, who has taught at four universities and is now a marketing professor at the University of Houston-Victoria, survived that ordeal in the University of Illinois system more than a decade ago. Now in his 31st year in higher education, he is president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University…