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JUSTICE CHAPMAN delivered the opinion of the court:

Walker Allen, the petitioner, appeals from a decision of the chief legal counsel designee of the Illinois Department of Human Rights (Department), Michael I. Lieberman, sustaining the Department's dismissal of the petitioner's charges of discrimination based on age, sex, and disability against his former employer, Southern Illinois University, for a lack of jurisdiction. On this direct appeal to this court, pursuant to section 8-111(A)(1) of the Illinois Human Rights Act (775 ILCS 5/8-111(A)(1) (West 2004)) and Supreme Court Rule 335 (155 Ill. 2d R. 335), the petitioner alleges that the Department and Lieberman acted arbitrarily and capriciously. For the following reasons, we affirm in part and reverse in part.
 

The petitioner was employed as the director of admissions and records at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (University) from 1997 to December 31, 2002. In June of 2001, he applied for the newly created position of assistant vice-chancellor for student affairs. He was not offered the position. A few months later, Dr. Larry Dietz informed the petitioner in a letter dated December 12, 2001, that the University was not renewing his continuous appointment as the director of admissions and records, to accommodate the reorganization of the enrollment-management unit, and that his continuous appointment would change to a 12-month term appointment which would end at 5 p.m. on December 31, 2002. The petitioner sent a memorandum to Dietz on December 2, 2002. In the memo, the petitioner acknowledged that his term contract was set to expire at the end of the month, and he expressed his desire to continue working at the University. He inquired about whether the University intended to renew his contract, and he requested a written response. Dietz informed the petitioner in writing on December 12, 2002, that his term appointment would not be renewed. Additionally, Dietz offered to continue to assist the petitioner in his job search and to host a reception for him as he had done for other departing directors. The petitioner's employment with the University ended on December 31, 2002.

On April 4, 2002, approximately four months after he had been first informed that his appointment had been changed from continuous to term, the petitioner filed a charge of discrimination (No. 280A200931) with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). He alleged that he had applied for a position for which he was qualified but was not selected for an interview, in violation of the University's policy. He alleged that the University had hired a younger, less-qualified, and nondisabled woman for the position and that it had given him a one-year term contract because of his age, sex, and disability. He was 64 years old at the time, and his right arm and hand were paralyzed and impaired.

The charge form the petitioner filed with the EEOC contains areas with questions to answer and boxes to check. In the area entitled "cause of discrimination", the petitioner checked boxes next to "sex", "age", and "disability". In the area entitled "date discrimination took place", the petitioner stated "October 10, 2001" and checked the box indicating that it was a continuing action. (The record is not clear regarding what facts or events are associated with the date of October 10, 2001.) At the bottom of the form, above his signature and the date, the petitioner checked a box preceding the following statement:

"I want this charge filed with both the EEOC and the State or local Agency, if any. I will advise the agencies if I change my address or telephone number[,] and I will cooperate fully with them in the processing of my charge in accordance with their procedures."

The petitioner had the form notarized and filed it with the EEOC on April 18, 2002.

The EEOC transmitted this charge to the Department on April 25, 2002, along with a fully addressed transmittal form addressed to the Department in Springfield, Illinois. Like the charge itself, the form contains a number of boxes to check indicating a variety of investigatory options for the EEOC and the Department. For reasons not explained in the record, none of these boxes was checked on the transmittal form, and aside from the petitioner's request we do not know why the EEOC sent the form or the charge to the Department. The EEOC dismissed this charge in February of 2003; however, the record is silent regarding the basis underlying the dismissal.

About one year after he filed his charge with the EEOC and two months after the EEOC dismissed it, the petitioner's counsel's paralegal contacted the Department to inquire about the status of the transmitted charge. He learned for the first time that the Department had not assigned the charge a docket number because it had not been filed directly with the Department. When asked to identify the Department regulation or other legal authority creating a direct-filing requirement, he was told that there was no such regulation or authority.

Based on this information from the Department, the petitioner filed a charge directly with the Department on June 5, 2003, and again checked the box indicating that he wanted the charge filed with both the EEOC and the state or local agency. In this second charge, he stated that he had previously filed a charge in April of 2002 with the EEOC, and he incorporated the allegations in his first charge into the second charge. The petitioner continued to allege discrimination based on age, sex, and disability, but he changed the date of discrimination to December 12, 2002, i.e., the date of Dietz's second letter informing him that the University would not offer him an additional contract. This time, he did not check the box on the charge form indicating that the alleged action was continuing. The Department assigned No. 2003SA3596 to the second charge and filed it with the EEOC, which assigned its own number.

On December 15, 2003, the petitioner's counsel's paralegal spoke to Tonya Malin, the Department's investigator assigned to the second charge. Malin informed him that the Department was investigating the jurisdictional basis for the second charge and that it appeared that it might have been filed out of time. The paralegal informed Malin about the first charge and told her that the Department had not assigned a number to it. He explained to her that the petitioner had filed the second charge directly with the Department only after becoming aware that the Department had no intention of processing the first charge. He asked her to assign a charge number to the first charge and to compute the limitation period set forth in section 7A-102(A)(1) of the Illinois Human Rights Act (775 ILCS 5/7A-102(A)(1) (West 2004)) with regard to the date the first charge had been filed.

The Department dismissed the second charge for a lack of jurisdiction on February 18, 2004, based on a report authored by Malin. The report reflects that the alleged violation occurred on December 12, 2002 (the date of Dietz's second letter confirming that no further contract would be offered), but this date was "corrected" to December 18, 2001 (the date the petitioner received the change-of-assignment form). (For clarity, the corrected date should have been December 12, 2001, the date of Dietz's initial letter informing the petitioner for the first time that his continuous appointment would not be renewed and offering a 12-month term appointment set to end on December 31, 2002. However, Dietz's letter was not a part of the investigator's file. This detail does not affect the parties' arguments, this court's jurisdiction, or our disposition of the appeal.) Malin observed in her report that on December 2, 2002, the petitioner had requested a reconsideration of his contract and that Dietz affirmed the University's earlier decision the following week. Malin characterized Dietz's response to the petitioner's request as a reaffirmation of the University's earlier decision and not a new harm. She further noted that the petitioner had incorporated his first charge into his second charge, but she stated, "[B]ecause the allegations in the EEOC charge were not [sic] being filed 604 days after the alleged harm and the fact that another administrative agency was already addressing those allegations, the Department did not process these allegations."

On March 19, 2004, the petitioner filed a request for a review of the Department's dismissal. The petitioner noted in the caption of his request that he sought the review of charge Nos. 280A200931 and 2003SA3596. Therein, the petitioner discussed work-sharing agreements between the EEOC and the Department governing discrimination proceedings under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.