DAILY ILLINI INFO NIGHT | THURSDAY 1/28 AT 7 P.M. | 112 GREG HALL THURSDAY Thursday 28, 2016
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Vol. 145 Issue 68
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Grad students defend right to tuition waivers BY ALI BRABOY STAFF WRITER
NIKITHA GAJULA THE DAILY ILLINI
Pulitzer Prize Winning Reporter, Bob Woodward, giving the inaugural speech for “The New Lincoln Lectures” at Foellinger Auditorium on Tuesday.
Pulitzer Prize winner gives UI lecture BY AARON NAVARRO STAFF WRITER
Before Bob Woodward could delve into how Abraham Lincoln relates to the 21st century during a lecture at Foellinger Auditorium on Tuesday, he addressed his outfit choice. “I do not have a coat and tie on because I got stranded out of Washington because of the snow,” Woodward said. “The dean generously offered his best suit, and I declined. Because my daughter, a freshman in college, said, ‘Now you look like a real professor: underdressed.’” The Washington Post reporter is best known for his work in unveiling the 1972 Watergate scandal. Over the course of his career, Woodward has written multiple non-fiction bestsellers and has covered and interviewed every U.S. president since Richard Nixon. His writing ranges from the inner workings of the Supreme Court to actor John Belushi’s
drug overdose. Woodward started his career at The Washington Post following a five-yeartour in the U.S. Navy. Two weeks later, he was released by his editor Harry Rosenfield due to his lack of “journalistic experience.” After working at the Montgomery Sentinel for a year, Woodward returned to the Post in 1971 and has been there ever since. So how did the College of Law and Dean Vikram Amar secure Woodward as the first speaker in its lecture series, “The New Lincoln Lectures: What Abraham Lincoln Means to the 21st Century”? “The answer also turns out to be quite simple,” Amar said before introducing Woodward at the lecture, “We asked.” While the fact that Amar’s brother Akhil Amar, co-taught with Woodward at Yale University helped sway Woodward, he said he also realized that Lincoln and the eight presidents he has covered have a lot in common.
“I thought about it… and I didn’t know a whole lot about Lincoln. But I spent the last month reading a lot,” Woodward said in an interview with The Daily Illini. “What I’ve done is distill the characteristics that Lincoln has, and take the eight presidents that I have written books about and tried to show how they used Lincoln, how they learned from Lincoln and in some cases how they failed to learn from Lincoln.” Woodward, who attended high school in Wheaton, Illinois, graduated from Yale in 1965. “Yale was hard. It was the hardest I’ve ever studied,” he said. “Except for the Lincoln Lectures.” As a result, Woodward said he learned Lincoln is still incredibly relevant in the 21st century.“President Obama said, a month after his inaugural, ‘Lincoln made my own story possible.’ And that
SEE WOODWARD | 3A
UI Professor develops temporary implant sensor Technology would help postsurgery healing
tion to remove it because the sensor simply dissolves. “Our ultimate goal is to develop a technology that has utility for the human population,” Rogers said. “Realistically the research is at the earlier stages, but we’ve demonstrated the ability to make the device and make the measurements at the required accuracy and in a bioresorbable form.” The sensor is made from materials that are already commonly found in the body, such as magnesium and silicon, that are also inexpensive. It is currently 85 percent resorbable, takes about two to three months to dissolve and has no long term effects on the body. “We had been working in bioresorbable electronics since 2012 and have developed a whole range of materials that allow us to do different kinds of functions in electronics with materials that are biocompatible and which dissolve in biofluids,” Rogers said. “Neurosurgeons became aware of that work and identified an application of relevance to their field specialty.” One of those neurosurgeons was Rory Murphy from the Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, who recognized the technology’s potential. “I was reading about (Rogers’) work in journals and I thought we could use this technology and his knowledge for the brain,” he said. “We do deal with a lot of brain injuries, but other
BY LILLY MASHAYEK STAFF WRITER
A chemistry professor at the University has developed new medical technology that performs a disappearing act. John Rogers said it was through conversations with neurosurgeons that led him to develop a new brain sensor. The sensor wirelessly transmits data about a patient’s temperature and pressure from the sensor attached to the brain to a sensor planted on another part of their body. These two parameters need to be monitored during a patient’s recovery, which usually lasts a week, because they can indicate potential complications. “Temporary implant sensors that make those measurements have to be surgically extracted when the patient doesn’t need them anymore,” he said. “So (neurosurgeons) identified a really powerful opportunity … to do that same kind of monitoring but with a device platform that doesn’t need to be surgically extracted anymore.” The second sensor is placed in a part of the body where its removal is much less harmful than if it were in the brain. Once the sensor is done with it’s job, there is no need for a second opera-
The Graduate Employees’ Organization will celebrate its successful defense of graduate students right to tuition waivers at a rally Thursday. Grace Hebert, grievance officer for GEO, said the organization was made aware Tuesday that an arbitrator found the University in violation of the terms and conditions of the GEO’s contract, in a case involving graduate students in the Professional Master of Computer Science program. Hebert, graduate student in LAS, said the GEO and the University went into arbitration in August 2015 over issues involving tuition waivers for graduate students in the Professional Master of Computer Science program at the University. The GEO’s Facebook page states that for more than six years, the organization has been fighting for the protection of tuition waivers, but “the University administration continues to look for ways to erode tuition waivers and profit off of graduate students.” Hebert said students — most of them international students — were being recruited specifically for Engineering’s MCS program, and were under the impression that they would receive an appointment when they got to the University. But, when the students arrived at the University, it was difficult for them to receive assistantship because the University departments employing them were asked to
pay for the graduate students’ tuition, instead of the tuition being waived. Failing to waive tuition for students in this program violated the University’s contract with the GEO, Hebert said. “The College of Engineering has started recruiting international students by telling them they can find a waiver-generating appointment when they arrive on campus,” A post on the GEO Facebook page stated. “After moving halfway around the world those students arrive at UIUC and find themselves functionally unemployable because their academic department demands that any employing department pay that employee’s tuition in cash!” Andreas Cangellaris, dean of Engineering, said the college doesn’t recruit international students to specific graduate programs. He said international students’ applications to the college are driven by the reputation of Engineering and students’ interests. “Graduate students are an important part of our campus, and they are the backbone of our educational and research efforts in the College of Engineering,” Cangellaris said when asked about the GEO’s claims. The arbitrator said a remedy has to be made between the University and the GEO, Hebert said; but a deadline has not been set. Hebert said the cost of the arbitrator was split by the GEO and the University. According to a statement from the arbitration, “The
SEE RALLY | 3A
Illinois statewide survey on Medical Marijuana UNSURE - 4% OPPOSE - 16%
Do you support or oppose allowing patients in Illinois to legally use medical marijuana if their doctor recommends it?
problems can occur.” Jeff Karp, an associate professor from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, was also intrigued by Rogers’s work. “There’s a lot of opportunity for implantable devices that can sense all kinds of cues,” he said. The sensor is currently being tested in animals, but Murphy said the hope is to eventually use these sensors in human patients. But, Karp said, the transmission into humans presents new challenges that need to be addressed. “One of the key challenges is that you really want to miniaturize the systems, be able to deliver them via a needle, for example,” he said. “John Rogers and his team have been able to develop a system that addresses these problems and this work really just puts us up a step further in terms of being able to monitor signals, in particular in the brain.” Murphy said these sensors can be used to monitor the brain after surgery, and possibly even as a tool for diagnosis. “It opens up new avenues to make diagnoses and get information from a person, and the sensor then dissolves away,” he said. Rogers said he hopes to improve some of the engineering aspects of the sensor, such as extending the time which it is able to relay
UNSURE - 11%
OPPOSE - 20%
SUPPORT - 80%
Do you support or oppose expanding Illinois’ medical marijuana program so that more people are eligible for it like veterans suffering from PTSD? SUPPORT - 69%
RISKS OUTWEIGH THE BENEFITS - 27%
Do you believe the overall medical benefits of medical marijuana outweigh the potential risks? BENEFITS OUTWEIGH THE RISKS - 73% SOURCE: HARPER
MICHELLE TAM THE DAILY
Medical marijuana support grows BY JOE LONGO STAFF WRITER
Twenty-two body bags were sprawled out in front of the Abraham Lincoln statue at the Illinois State Capitol Building on Wednesday. The body bags represented the estimated number of veterans who commit suicide everyday, according to the United States Department of Veteran Affairs; Medical Cannabis Outreach held a rally in Springfield urging Gov. Bruce Rauner to approve eight more conditions for the medical cannabis pilot program, including post traumatic stress disorder, autism and chronic pain syndrome. The remaining five conditions are a series of chronic pain-related conditions including
SEE SENSORS | 3A
intractable pain, osteoarthritis, postoperative pain, pain due to trauma and irritable bowel syndrome. Dan Linn, an executive director for The National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws Illinois chapter, expected Rauner to approve the eight conditions on the day of the rally, but Rauner now has until Feb. 1 to rule on the conditions. In September, Rauner rejected the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board’s recommendations for 11 conditions to be added to the program, including osteoarthritis and PTSD. “We’re hoping that lawmakers will see that there is an overwhelming amount of
SEE MARIJUANA | 3A
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Illini set for rematch
Prioritizing vocational education will lessen burden on millenial students.
Slut shaming, harassing women for being sexually active, is a prevalent issue
Groce and Co. looking for revenge against Ohio State after earlyseason two-point loss.
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