THE
Daily Egyptian SERVING THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1916.
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2023
VOL. 107, ISSUE 18
Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative to be highlight of eclipse viewing
Crumbling Campus: The state of SIU’s buildings a cause for concern Grayson Bittner Guest Contributor
Many of the buildings that make up Southern Illinois University Carbondale are architectural gems. But these relics of the past are expensive to upkeep, and some are in serious disrepair. An Excel spreadsheet detailing maintenance requests obtained from Southern Illinois University’s Facilities and Energy Management shed light on the extent of the problem. The maintenance log, obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, shows the types
of concerns that have prompted students and faculty to call campus maintenance. They include dozens of instances of plumbing troubles, water damage, heating and cooling issues, mold, insects and more spanning from 2019 to 2022. In total, facilities management fielded 16,384 different requests over that time frame. Much of the problem is attributable to a backlog of needed repairs, technically known as deferred maintenance. Susan Simmers, vice chancellor for administration and finance, said that deferred maintenance at higher education CAMPUS BUILDINGS | 8
Carly Gist | cgist@dailyegyptian.com
Yarauseth Zavala | yzavala@dailyegyptian.com
Community comeback
Cairo’s New Grocery Co-op Jamilah Lewis jlewis@dailyegyptian.com
Janice Russell, a longtime resident of Cario used to frequently drive across the river to Missouri to do her grocery shopping. Since a new grocery store opened in Cairo over the summer, she now has an option closer to home. Even though Russell finds herself still going to Missouri since it lacks the meats she usually buys, Cairo’s store offers a more convenient local option, she said. “I’m alone, so [I come] at least maybe three… or four times a week,” Russell said. “It depends”. As of this summer, Cairo ended its 7-year run without a grocery store with the opening of Rise Community Market. Cairo had been without a grocery store since the Wonder Market closed in 2014. “In some communities you see you would consider [them] healthy communities,” said Illinois’s Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. “Then, you have other communities, where for lots of different reasons, based on where
Steve Tarver stocks soft drinks in the beverage isle Oct. 20, 2023 at Rise Community Market in Cairo, Illinois. Lylee Gibbs | @lyleegibbsphoto
industries pull out [and] based on targeted disinvestment, and lots of other issues in the communities their struggles are more pronounced.” Stratton said there is a perception that food insecurity in Illinois is mostly a problem in urban areas. But it’s also very much a problem in Illinois’ rural communities. Across
the country, these challenges have only worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic. “Even in farming communities, there are people who think, well if it’s a rural community, or if it’s a farming or agricultural community, there’s no food insecurity,” Stratton said. “That’s simply not true.”
In addition to food insecurity in rural communities, there’s usually one store and it’s Dollar General that doesn’t sell fresh produce. Just frozen meals and canned goods, Stratton said. “I think about, do people have access to food? I think about, do GROCERY CO-OP | 3
The Southern Illinois Crossroads Eclipse Festival is less than four months away. Carbondale Public Library held an educational program on Jan. 16 to discuss the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast (DEB) Initiative, a nationwide NASA project led by Southern Illinois University. “They [total solar eclipses] do not happen very often, and you’ll notice you’ve gotta be in exactly the right spot. Southern Illinois is the magic right spot,” Dr. Corinne Brevik said. “We are exactly on the path of both the 2017 and 2024 eclipse, and that’s very rare and it’s very exciting.” Brevik is a member of the SIU School of Physics, part of the steering committee for the eclipse planning efforts at SIU and team coordinator for the DEB Initiative. According to its website, the DEB Initiative “creates a North American network of volunteer citizen scientist solar observation teams.” These teams “conduct coordinated solar observations” prior to the eclipse and will “web broadcast images from observing sites in near real-time.” Brevik described the initiative as “80 telescopes spread across the whole U.S. that are going to be providing feeds that [will be used] for both science and to share with [the public].” Brevik discussed Citizen CATE, a similar science project conducted in 2017. “In 2017, the eclipse went from Oregon to South Carolina, and in that case, we had a project called Citizen CATE…Anytime you do a citizen science experiment, you get a bunch of volunteers from, in this case, across the country,” she said. “They are not necessarily professional astronomers… They come from a variety of backgrounds. Some of them are people who have never used telescopes before but they want to get involved, and we teach them how to use the equipment.” That project consisted of 70 telescopes spread across the path of the eclipse, she said. Citizen CATE’s goal BROADCAST | 5
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