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Daily Egyptian THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2014 VOLUME 98 ISSUE 138
Proposed budget cut would impact university, students Joshua Murray
@JoshMurray_DE | Daily Egyptian
One of Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner’s proposed budgets could result in major losses for the university and higher tuition and fees for students. The potential plan could mean serious cuts in services and programs provided by the university, President Randy Dunn wrote in an email to faculty and staff Wednesday. This comes after an email was sent Nov. 24 to public universities from the Illinois Board
Salukis remember Kent Haruf
of Higher Education regarding the new administration’s budget. The original email sent by James Applegate, executive director of the board, said all state agencies, including public universities, should draft a budget that accounts for a 20 percent cut in state appropriations. Applegate said this is a worst-case scenario and not a certainty, but agencies should plan for a significant cut. Dunn outlined some of the possibilities that could follow that kind of decrease in
state funding. “I won’t even attempt to sugarcoat the potential impact of such a reduction to our budget,” he wrote. A 20 percent cut would leave the campus’ state appropriations at $83 million and the School of Medicine’s at $31 million, for a total of $117 million. “The last time the two campuses saw that level of state funding was a quarter of a century ago,” Dunn wrote. Please see BUDGET · 2
Preparing for the show
Austin Miller
@A_MIllerDE | Daily Egyptian
A former professor crafted an entire city in his head, knowing exactly where the fictional train station, general store and tavern were located. Now, visiting his imaginary town may be the best way to pay respect to the now deceased author. Kent Haruf, the author of several books, including “Plainsong” and “Eventide,”died Sunday at the age of 71 of interstitial lung disease. Beth Lordan, professor of English, joined the SIU faculty along with Haruf in 1991. She said Haruf was deeply committed to his students while he taught at SIU. She said he would often tell her they were here to help those students who struggled and showed a love for writing. “He was utterly committed to fiction itself,” said Lordan, co-director of the creative writing department. “He would tell students that fiction was his religion and they shouldn’t mess on the altar.” She said she remembers him stopping by her office in the morning and asking, “What’s the good news?” As well as keeping several photos from parties the two attended. While writing “Plainsong,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999 and a best seller, he settled in the cellar of his house with just a typewriter, chair and lamp. Lordan said while typing with his favorite yellow paper, he would wear a ski mask that covered his face. “He didn’t want to self-edit while writing,” she said. “He wanted everything to just come to him.” In an interview with the New York Times in 1999, he said it forced him to tell stories, not polish them. “It takes away the terror when you’re blind and you can’t go back and rewrite a sentence,” he said. Mike Rosenwald, staff writer for the Washington Post, said his idiosyncrasies created a love for the common man. Rosenwald, who graduated from SIU in 1996, first had Haruf as a professor for an introductory creative writing class in 1994. He said Haruf would always change the subject away from himself, preferring to listen other people. He liked having breakfast at Mary Lou’s and eavesdropping on the people, Rosenwald said. He enjoyed talking to the normal people that lived in small towns and would carry around a small notebook in the front pocket of his flannel shirt to jot down the interesting things people said. Rosenwald said as weird as it sounds, seeing Haruf do this helped Rosenwald become a better writer. “He loved ordinariness,” he said. “He loved the small details that many people do not notice. He taught beauty with simplicity” He loved to attend SIU football games, and Rosenwald said he would occasionally accompany him. Rosenwald said Haruf loved his time in Carbondale, which aided his writing of “Plainsong.” Please see HARUF · 2
L ewis M arien D aiLy e gyptian J.J. Ceniceros, a graduate student from Perryton, Texas studying speech communication, adjusts the lighting Tuesday during a rehearsal of “Spotlight Hour” at Kleinau Theatre. Ceniceros said he works as the lighting specialist for the theater this semester and enjoys seeing the actors and actresses performing a variation of pieces. “It’s really cool to work with people that have completely different sets of aesthetics,” he said. “To come back to this and do lighting every once in a while is a lot of fun for me.”
Committee meetings end, progress begins Marissa Novel
@MarissaNovelDE | Daily Egyptian
Chairman Jack Langowski said the Downtown Advisory Committee has heard about 230 ideas from community members. The committee held its eighth and final meeting Wednesday at the Carbondale Civic Center. The committee, created to gather input on downtown improvements, has met biweekly since August. It discussed topics such as transportation, signage and entertainment among others. “It’s unprecedented, really, the amount of responses we’ve received,” Langowski said. He said the projects, including a multimodal transportation center, are hoped to be completed within five to seven years. Three committee members and city staffers will select engineering, landscaping and other consultants between now and Feb. 1, he said. A majority of the projects will take several years, but one committee project is
already underway. D. Gorton, committee member, said he meets regularly with Frontier Communications and Clearwave Internet providers about the possibility of wireless Internet downtown. He said both providers have invested in fiber optic wiring in the city. “We may be the most wired, high-speed city in the country,” he said. Gorton said the project is still in its infancy and needs investors before it can progress. Ray Simpson, 57, of Carbondale, said he is weary about what kind of progress will occur with the committee’s ideas without the help of privatized funding. He said the city also has to be realistic in light of the university’s economic regression. “There are so many things that have to happen for these projects to really gel,” he said. Jim Hagler, 56, of Carbondale, said he appreciates how the committee broke down each issue into several meetings, all with individual themes, but the city’s main priority should be branding itself.
“People are calling us ‘Carbon-hole’ because we don’t have our own crafted brand source,” he said. Hagler said a well-known brand would attract more funding from Springfield and make it harder for politicians to ignore the city. Salukis also had the opportunity to contribute to new downtown concepts. Students from the senior program in the School of Architecture studying urban landscaping presented a model, including visual representations of a revitalized downtown, before the meeting. The conceptual downtown featured new additions including a skate park, several new buildings for commercial businesses and a pedestrian walkway extending the Saluki Way pathway to the Strip. Langowski said the model, meant to provide fresh ideas for the downtown, highlighted the committee’s ideas while providing original concepts. He said it will be on display at the Old Train Depot, and hopes to present it to consultants in the future.