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Tuesday April 10, 2012
The Daily Illini www.DailyIllini.com
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Vol. 141 Issue 129
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ELECTIONS 2012
Johnson’s former chief of staff to run for House seat Jerry Clarke latest addition to list of GOP candidates BY MATT RICE STAFF WRITER
Another candidate is in the running for the seat of Rep. Tim Johnson, R-15, who dropped his bid for re-election last Thursday. Jerry Clarke, Johnson’s former chief of staff for nine years, announced his candidacy for the 13th congressional district Monday at the Champaign County Courthouse. Clarke said he is motivated to serve because he knows about Congress’ problems and can solve them. “I’ve seen the dysfunction of Congress up close, the partisanship, endless gridlock and the failure to solve the serious problems we face,” he said. “The people of central Illinois see the impact of an incompetent Congress: lack of job growth, bad roads, high taxes and endless debt. I believe we can do better, and I’m ready to serve.” Clarke, who is currently chief of staff for Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Winfield, is a University alumnus and Urbana resident. He is also a war veteran who served three tours in Iraq. The announcement adds Clarke’s name to a list of Republican hopefuls that includes State Rep. Adam Brown, R-Decatur; Rodney Davis, aide to Rep. John Shimkus; R-Collinsville and Mike Tate. “There are a lot of people out there who could win the seat, but I’m glad Jerry threw his hat
into the ring,” said Phil Bloomer, Johnson’s spokesman. “The guy’s a natural leader.” Habeeb Habeeb is treasurer for the Champaign County Republicans and running for Champ a i g n More inside: County Check out R e pu bl i the editorial can chairman. He to read the board’s said he has opinion on Rep. Tim re c eived Johnson’s decision numerous to drop his bid for calls from re-election Page individu- 4A. als interested in the House seat, including Jerry Clarke, Rodney Davis, Adam Brown and Mike Tate. Counties are awarded weighted votes based on primary turnouts, and Champaign county received the highest number of voters, Habeeb said. If elected chairman, Habeeb will be one of 14 chairmen presiding over a nomination committee. “On (April 20), we expect that those elections will be certified,” he said. “Nothing really can happen before then.” There is no state central committee person in the district, so Illinois Republican party chair Pat Brady appointed himself as chair of a non-voting committee. “I just want to make sure that we keep this seat and the rest of the seats we won in 2010 because we want to turn this state around,” he said. David Bender, campaign manager for Clarke, is optimistic about the candidate’s chances. “We now have to convince a majority of 14 county chairmen,” he said. “(You have to) lay out
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Random Rab DJs as dancers from Beats Antique perform with lit-up hula hoops at the Canopy Club in Urbana. Monday’s show started College Fashion Week.
Fashion Week kicks off
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Student organization features style competition, runway show BY LAURA SHAY DAYTIME ASSISTANT EDITOR
The second-annual College Fashion Week began Monday night with a concert at the Canopy Club featuring performers Beats Antique and Random Rab. College Fashion Week, founded at the University last year, is an independent student organization that aims to give students across the nation the opportunity to be a part of the fashion community. Jennifer Ruppert, founder of the organization and senior in Media, is anticipating increased student involvement this year. “It’s going to be huge this year,” she said. “This is our second year on campus ... so now people get the gist of what (College Fashion Week) is, see what it would be like to get involved (and see) that it’s more than just fashion.” The week will highlight current indus-
try trends and intends to inspire interest in design, style and event coordinating, Ruppert said. In addition to students interested in fashion, it will also provide an outlet for those in advertising and marketing, graphic design and other majors. Working all school year to plan the week of fashion events, the student group looks to provide real-life experience for the members. Nicole Rojas, vice president of marketing for College Fashion Week and senior in Media, was in charge of the group’s marketing subcommittee, which specializes in social media and marketing for the event. “I was surprised by how well my education prepared me for this,” she said. “It was fun to push myself ... to develop this idea.” Secretary for College Fashion Week Jessie Whitman said organizers of the event work all year for this week.
Visiting lecturer focuses on Middle East issues
SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Input sought in search for Urbana campus provost BY LAUREN ROHR STAFF WRITER
Speaker shows religious obstacles of democratization MELANIE CHALLBERG THE DAILY ILLINI
BY CARINA LEE STAFF WRITER
Duke University professor of economics and political science, Timur Kuran, visited the University last night to give a lecture on the “Religious Obstacles to Democratization in the Middle East.” The event was part of the Cline Symposium and intended to allow students to gain more insight on certain issues in the Middle East, said Scott Althaus, Associate Director for Cline Center for Democracy and associate professor in LAS. “The focus of the Cline Symposium is to pick out important issues affecting the democracy of both the U.S.A. and the world and provide a forum for the students at the University of Illinois
INSIDE
In addition to her work with the group, Whitman also runs a fashion blog — dirtylittlenotions.blogspot.com — which she said will feature insider information on College Fashion Week’s events. Whitman’s blog will include interviews with industry professionals who will attend the events this week. Events planned for the rest of College Fashion Week include a student style competition and a Fashion’s Night Out party, which all lead up to the Premiere Runway Show on Saturday night. The Premiere Runway Show will take place at the iHotel Illinois Ballroom at 7 p.m. Saturday. The runway show will feature student designers Gordana Rasic and Omar Villalobos of GOCA Designs, Polly Bland of Paulie Antiques, Brent Rawlinson of Vintage by Bike, local Champaign boutique Le Shoppe and Chicago designer Wanda Grace.
Scott Althaus, left, of Savoy, listens to a presentation by Dr. Timur Kuran at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center. Dr. Kuran discussed the developing democracy in the Middle East on Monday. and community,” he said. Kuran pointed out the impact of political development and the history of the economic systems in the Middle East. He also spoke about the conditions needed for a civil society. He said obstacles in economic development related to issues with business trends. “Small and short-lived enterprises do not face the sorts of communication problems through the institution pre-activity,” Kuran said. “(But it) became a major economic handicap for the region during the industrial revolution across the efficient exportation of modern technologies (which) required large and per-
petual companies.” Linda Brown, certified veterinary technician in the College of Veterinary Medicine, said she came to the public lecture to learn more about political science. “I thought it was very interesting and offered a lot of insights as to why the Middle East is not a democracy,” Brown said. She said that the lecture gave her an opportunity to think about how a democracy should not be required for every country but rather as an option. “I think that there are a lot of changes that need to be made, but it’s not something we (the United States) can do for them,” she said. Althaus said the event provid-
ed a chance for people to better understand the issues that the Middle East is facing. “I think we have succeeded in raising the attention of the campus and people who are participating here to some of the issues that we need to understand in order to move into the next step,” he said. After the lecture, a Q-and-A section was held for attendees to ask Kuran questions. The lecture was a follow-up event from a forum that was held yesterday at the Materials Science and Engineering Building called “Looking Back at the Arab Spring: Why It Happened, Why It Matters Today and What’s Coming Next.”
The method by which faculty leaders will weigh in on the search for a new provost was on the mind of the members of the Senate Executive Committee, or SEC, at their meeting Monday. Members of the committee were encouraged to attend the public forums that introduced the three provost candidates last week and then submit feedback on each candidate. Senate chair Matthew Wheeler suggested that committee members combine their comments and submit them as a whole, even though the provost search website only allows comments to be submitted individually. Not all SEC members supported sending in their comments together. Nicholas Burbules, member of the SEC and chair of the general university policy committee, said he was concerned with the committee’s involvement in the search. “Obviously, as individual people, we can weigh in as we want,” he said. “I’m a little concerned about something that might look like SEC taking a position on the candidates collectively, as a committee, especially if... the person the SEC favors is not actually chosen.”
More onAbbas air: To learn Aminmanmore about sour, Illithe search nois Board of Higher for a new provost, Education tune in to WPGU represen- 107.1-FM for the 5 tative, rec- p.m. newscast. ommended a compromise, proposing members contact the chancellor directly if they have individual comments. Or, he said, they could also indicate that they are part of the committee if they submit feedback online. “If we sent (our feedback) directly to her, maybe they’d be given a little bit greater weight, since we have participated in several things with the candidates, as opposed to putting them on the website,” Kim Graber, University Senates Conference representative, said in agreement with Aminmansour. Joyce Tolliver, senate vice chair, added that the search committee and Chancellor may find it useful for anyone who submits feedback to weigh relative strengths and weaknesses of each candidate and recommended the SEC do this, too. Also at Monday’s meeting, Richard Wheeler, interim pro-
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