MONDAY September 9, 2019
THE DAILY ILLINI
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The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Vol. 149 Issue 5
Buddy Guy counters life blues with musical blues Read about the last day of Ellnora Guitar Festival on 5A
BRIAN BAUER THE DAILY ILLINI
Buddy Guy performs in the Ellnora Guitar Festival at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday. The living blues legend brought energy and humor to the set, telling stories between songs about getting old, reminiscing on the late B.B. King and growing up on a sharecropper’s farm. When it comes to the future, “I’m gonna keep on playing as long as I can,” Guy said.
Chief diversity officer responds to noose incident
University continues to avoid College Board resources BY JOSE ZEPEDA ASSISTANT DAYTIME NEWS EDITOR
The College Board, creator of the SAT, has introduced a new resource for college admissions officers to use in the process of selecting students to attend their respective colleges, and the University is getting some use out of it. The resource, called Landscape, is used by college admissions officers to better identify the students applying to their college. It is a dataset of information that shows how one student compares to other students at the same high school. Landscape itself is an improvement upon a previous resource released in May called the Environmental Context Dashboard. Landscape is a product of feedback and criticism of the ECD. “We listened to thoughtful criticism and made Landscape better and more transparent,” said David Coleman, CEO of College Board, in a press release. “ La ndsc ape prov ides admissions officers more consistent background information so they can fairly consider every student, no matter where they live and learn.” Previously, the ECD provided a single score, from a range of 1 to 100, that represented high school and neighborhood information. A score of 100 indicated higher student adversity. For Landscape, This has changed to a list of data with descriptions. Some of the data La ndscape w ill provide includes high school locale, Advanced Placement participation and performance, household structure, median family income, education level and senior class size. When the ECD was first released in May, the University did not immediately take full use of the resource. Andrew Borst, director of undergraduate admissions, said the University was in an analysis phase, meaning the data was not being used in
BY EUNICE ALPASAN STAFF WRITER
HANNAH PRESTON THE DAILY ILLINI
Books intended for SAT preparation sit on a shelf at Barnes and Noble on May 22. The College Board recently announced the Environmental Context Dashboard, a tool intended to measure social and economic adversity on college applicants’ backgrounds.
determining potential students but instead to gather data associated with schools underrepresented at the University. Although the ECD has transitioned into Landscape, the University’s stance is still the same. Landscape will not be used in the admissions process, though the University will continue to use the data in other ways to find out more information about where students are applying from. Dan Mann, associate provost for enrollment management at the University, said students will continue to be evaluated solely on information included on their admission applications, high school courses and grades,
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The University’s first Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Sean Garrick is still adjusting to life in the state of Illinois. Garrick said his days consist mostly of meetings, where he learns about the challenges and issues the University faces. “It’s a lot of listening, which is good because I don’t know the institution of the campus intimately, so I need to rely on those who have been here for a long time to give me a sense of their perspective and what they see the needs to be,” Garrick said. Garrick’s role as vice chancellor and chief diversity officer is to pursue opportunities for educational and cultural transformation relating to bias and discrimination against any group of people, according to the University’s job description. On Sept. 1, a noose was found in an elevator at Allen Residence Hall. A student was later arrested and charged with committing a hate crime, according to the University Police Department. “On campus, off-campus, these things have been going on for decades,” Garrick said. “It’s part of the history of our country. It’s a national trend, unfortunately. It is our goal to try to address it and remove instances like that from our campus and our community. As a University, we have to embrace that trust that students place in us and then deliver.” A Massmail sent out by Chancellor Robert Jones stated the University will continue to use all of its resources to investigate and address incidents as quickly as possible. Furthermore, the vice chancellor for student affairs and the vice chancellor for diversity, equity & inclusion started a series of opportunities for students to have safe places to discuss the incident.
test scores and personal essays, at least through the Fall 2020 admissions cycle. This remains unlikely to change going forward. The College Board also plans to make the data Landscape collects available to high school students and counselors. This is something that interests Borst and Emily Erazo, senior at Morton West High School in Berwyn, Illinois. “Stuff like this could be helpful to know, especially when considering which schools to go to or which schools I’ll consider applying to,” Erazo said. Erazo is interested in applying to the University and studying business. She hopes to be a part of several different organizations,
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including the earth science club and the Latinos in business organization. “I spent two nights there and fell in love with the campus and the diversity of the school,” Erazo said. For Erazo, seeing the University is not using Landscape data would be a sigh of relief. “It would create a bias (toward) students who go to lower-end public schools and (create) a stereotype and affect the chances of students who (want to) get in,” she said. Borst had been critical of the EDC in the past, saying its original rollout was poorly conveyed to the public. He added Landscape is a step in the right direction, but further analysis is still needed to see if
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the data could really help the admissions process at the University. Erazo said she believes colleges should focus on the students and not the schools they come from. “I believe it’s important to know the student at a personal level when applying and not have much bias (toward) the type of school they went to, along with the scores of the school because that’s the average and not the individual student.” When asked for a comment, the College Board referred to its press release, the Landscape website and a link to its data description. jzeped4@dailyillini.com
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