Comeback kids
Gospel Explosion Ma’at Black Student Union hosted the 4th annual Gospel Explosion on Sunday. See a video of the event at DailyIllini.com.
Illini able to overcome large deficits in back-to-back games SPORTS, 1B
Tuesday February 12, 2013
The Daily Illini www.DailyIllini.com
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Civic Leadership Program awaits final decision BY TYLER DAVIS STAFF WRITER
The Civic Leadership Program, currently closed for enrollment, may be resurrected in fall 2013 at the earliest. The program was a two-anda-half-year, joint undergraduate and master’s degree program for students interested in public leadership. The College of LAS and the political science department announced in August that the University would stop admitting applicants and planned to terminate the master’s portion of the program. Since then, the political science department has been discussing the future of the program and drafting preliminary plans. William Bernhard, political science department head, said the department felt the previous program was too resource-intensive and was “at arm’s length with the department’s main mission” of education and research. “If it’s going to last and be durable, the program has got to be integrated into the fabric of the department,” he said. Bernhard wrote a working proposal for the program on Sunday, which he has been circulating among faculty and administration. The proposal, however, is not ready to be released to the public, he said. Though some of the current program fellows are frustrated with the department’s rate of progress, he said he does not want to present anything to students and alumni until he has something concrete. He also said the program’s restructuring is a collaborative process for the political science department’s faculty. “It’s not like a business. I’m not the boss of the faculty,” he said. “It’s a process of consensus building. ... The downside of that is that it takes time. The upside is that if we can achieve consensus, then we’ve got buyin, we’ve got sustainability, then everyone is on the same page.” The department has been discussing alternatives for the program since 2010. Bernhard said the faculty saw too much intellectual value in the program to shut it down but wanted to fi nd a direction for the program before seeking
other sources of revenue. One of the options department heads discussed was taking the elements students liked from the program and putting them into a Bachelor of Arts concentration. Bernhard said if the department goes ahead with this concentration, it could build relationships with donors and investors that could fund the re-establishment of the master’s year of the program after establishing a sound foundation. At last week’s Illinois Student Senate meeting, the senate unanimously passed a resolution, sponsored by senators and program fellows Max Ellithorpe and Lauren Eiten, “condemning the trend of informally closing programs.” The resolution calls on the Urbana-Champaign Senate’s Committee on Educational Policy to create a subcommittee to investigate the restructuring of the program. Ellithorpe and Eiten both serve as student members on the committee. Ellithorpe said he hopes the committee will hear the senate’s legislation. He said he and other fellows feel that cutting the program director position, previously held by Donald Greco, and refusing to admit students is an informal way for the department to close the program without the Urbana-Champaign Senate’s approval. “I know that these restructuring processes are complicated and have a lot of stakeholders,” he said. “I’m confident that the College of LAS and the Department of Political Science will hear us and listen to us and hope they have a slow, thorough and meaningful restructuring that takes into account how important the Master’s degree is.” Eiten said the senate’s legislation is about more than the Civic Leadership Program. This resolution works with previously issued legislation to close an academic loophole that the student senate feels the department is using to shut the program down. “They keep saying they’re not shutting it down, (but) if you change any portion of a program significantly, it should go through the process,” Eiten said.
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Vol. 142 Issue 99
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A ‘fresh, never frozen’ returns to campus
More online: To get an inside look at this Wendy’s location and hear students’ reactions to its return to campustown, check out the Vidcast atwww.DailyIllini.com.
KELLY HICKEY THE DAILY ILLINI
Students line up to be among the first to order their lunch at Wendy's Grand Opening on Monday. This campus location opened at 608 S. Sixth St. in Champaign.
Police departments tackle social media
»Twitter» accounts » » »created » » to spread information on crime alerts BY CARINA LEE STAFF WRITER
With the increasing popularity of social media, local police departments are fi nding more ways to use sites such as Facebook and Twitter to inform residents about crimes occurring in their neighborhoods. The Champaign Police Department is no exception as Lt. Jim Clark launched a program called #CPDTweetAlong on Feb. 1, when he tweeted about crimes that he responded to during his shift. “The idea came across because one of our officers was looking at the social media sites for all other police departments around the country,” Clark said. “So we thought we would try it also.” Clark said the program was a success as he received an additional 100 followers during his shift using a “Tweetalong” for the fi rst time.
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Tyler can be reached at tadavis2@ dailyillini.com.
“I think it went great,” Clark said. “We had very positive comments and people tweeting back, and they liked it.” When the department fi rst started using Facebook and Twitter last year, Clark said engaging the public in the department’s social media accounts was challenging. He said getting followers and friends and creating content for posts were some of the major challenges the department faced. The Urbana and University police departments are also using Facebook and Twitter as tools to raise awareness on crimes that occur on campus and its surrounding communities. Lt. Richard Surles of the Urbana Police Department said he thought social media would attract the public’s attention and inform them about safetyendangering campus crimes instead of having the public
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seek out the information on the department’s website. “In order to get the information out on the website, people had to deliberately come to the website and look for the information,” he said. “If I had people follow me on Twitter or like us on Facebook, then I can push the information to them.” The Urbana Police Department’s Facebook page has 593 likes and 530 followers on Twitter. Surles said page views and followers increased when the Urbana homicide happened last week. “We had a spike,” he said. “(From) Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, we had 23,051 people (viewing the page)... We are up to about 600 unique views per week.” The University Police Department also sends public advisories and tweet out important crime alerts through its Illini
People to Follow Local Departments Champaign Police Department: @ChampaignPD Urbana Police Department: @UrbanaPD University of Illinois Police Department: @UIPD Champaign frequent Tweeters Lt. Jim Clark - South Patrol Commander: @ClarkCPD Lt.Robert Rea - Investigation Division Commander: @ReaCPD Sgt. Tom Frost - Day Shift Patrol Sergeant: @FrostCPD Sgt. Bruce Ramseyer - Evening Shift Patrol Sergeant: @RamseyerCPD Sgt. David Griffet - Detective Sergeant: @GriffetCPD Rene Dunn - Public Information Officer: @PIOCPD
See TWEETALONG, Page 3A
Chinese institute to open on campus
Breaking new ground
Confucius Institute will offer Chinese language, cultural programs DAILY ILLINI STAFF REPORT
The University will open a Confucius Institute on campus for at least five years, as approved by the Urbana-Champaign Senate on Feb. 4. The institute will provide community outreach on Chinese language and culture, Chinese language testing research and general support for Chinese studies activities on campus, according to the proposal to the General University Policy Committee. The Confucius Institute will collaborate with the College of Education and the
See CONFUCIUS, Page 3A More online: Find out more
EMILY OGDEN THE DAILY ILLINI
Monday marked the grand opening of Common Ground Food Co-op in Urbana. Mayor Laurel Prussing performed the ribbon-cutting ceremony with help from staff and patrons of the new establishment.
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about the University’s new Confucius Institute and what it has to offer on www.
University of Minnesota: Opened in 2008. Has offered Chinese language and culture classes since 2009.
University of Iowa: Opened in 2006. Mandarin Chinese classes had an enrollment of 289 in University of Michigan: Opened 2010. in 2009. Future plans include building a theater workshop and Michigan State University: Chinese Opera. Opened in 2006. Three-year Confucius Institute of the Year Penn State: Opened in 2011. award by the Chinese Ministry Focus on Penn State’s Chinese of Education. language programs. Purdue University: Opened in 2007. Includes unique emphasis on business and engineering Chinese language.
University of Maryland: Opened in 2004. Had 460 students enrolled in its language classes in 2010.
University of NebraskaLincoln: Opened in 2007. Began operating in 2008 when new building was opened.
Rutgers University: Opened in 2008. Hosts summer camps in China and U.S. for high school and college students.
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Big Ten universities with Confucius Institutes
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Po l i c e 2 A | H o r o s c o p e s 2 A | O p i n i o n s 4 A | C r o s s w o r d 5 A | C o m i c s 5 A | B u s i n e s s & Te c h n o l o g y 6 A | S p o r t s 1 B | C l a s s i f i e d s 3 B | S u d o k u 3 B