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THE DAILY ILLINI
TUESDAY April 29, 2014
The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
75˚ | 46˚ Vol. 143 Issue 113
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SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
SEC decides to halt progress on resolution BY MARYCATE MOST STAFF WRITER
Members of the UrbanaChampaign Senate Executive Committee deliberated over resolutions on academic freedom and a review over a statewide library program at their meeting on Monday. Following an executive session about a resolution to reaffirm principles of academic freedom, fair employment and appropriate unit governance over curriculum, the committee announced that it would not move the resolution on to the senate due to concerns for privacy and precedent, committee chair Roy Campbell said. “We don’t want to set a precedent that we will discuss individuals,” Campbell said. “We don’t want to prejudice any of the committees by talking about this thing. The individual can appeal to those committees for those principles and we shouldn’t get in the way of those committees doing their work.” This resolution, which would have voiced senate support for the University’s commitment to the principle of academic
Breaking down hateful words
freedom, fair employment, and appropriate unit autonomy over curriculum, comes a week after students and faculty began petitioning to restore the employment of James Kilgore, a nontenured faculty member in FAA. Kilgore was notified on April 9 that he will not be hired by the University for the 2014-15 school year. Petitions accused the University for choosing not to hire Kilgore based on media attention that publicized Kilgore’s history of convictions. Only graduate student Calvin Lear mentioned Kilgore by name. The resolution and the other senators referred to “a wellregarded lecturer” and “an individual” throughout the meeting. Provost Ilesanmi Adesida also voiced the administration’s concern about these matters. “As I said, more work needs to be done,” Adesida said. “There needs to be more clarity about the roles, responsibilities and privileges assigned to specialized faculty. We are going to be working with departments and colleges on these processes,
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Edward Escatel disassembles the “Wall of Prejudice” where students wrote down common prejudices they experience. The wall will travel from the Engineering Quad to the south Quad and to the Main Quad before it is smashed with a sledgehammer later this week. The wall was created by members of Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.
SEE SEC | 3A
Unknown pollutant spotted in Boneyard Creek
New ISS president hopes to increase campus involvement BY EDWARD GATHERCOAL STAFF WRITER
Although habitable, discharges still impair water quality BY AUSTIN KEATING STAFF WRITER
It was a Friday; the sun was blaring over the Bardeen Quad as a group of students threw a football around, but then it landed in the middle of Boneyard Creek. After the group spent a few minutes grappling at the air, one girl started to roll up her jeans. But before she got the chance to jump in the shallow waters, the wind brought the ball back to the bank. As it turns out, the wind saved her from more than just wet jeans. On April 15, just three days earlier, a cloud of white pollutants moved downstream from Champaign, said Alex Nagy, civil engineer for Champaign Public Works. He called the event a “discharge.” “By the time we got there, it had gone down the channel. We tracked it upstream, but lost the trail of it,” he said. “We did find a shock vac in an ally with some residual white stuff in it, but we were unable to catch anyone in the act of doing it on Tuesday. So the trail went cold.” Although they don’t know what it was that snaked through the creek on April 15, Nagy said the most common discharges tend to be paint, construction materials and chemicals that get sent down storm water inlets. “A lot of times, people think their waste goes to a treatment plant, instead of directly to a creek. That’s why a lot of the inlets you see around the city have ‘dump no waste’ medallions on them,” Nagy said. But, whoever discharges may not know what they are doing is illegal, said Eliana Brown,
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROB KANTER
An unknown opaque, white substance winds downstream of Boneyard Creek behind Engineering Hall. The discharge occurred April 15. Environmental Compliance coordinator for the University. From his office window in the Mechanical Engineering Building, Professor Emeritus of Engineering Clark Bullard saw the trail of white in the creek and reported it to Brown and Nagy. And it’s not the first time he’s noticed something like it.
“In the 1960s, when I was a student here, the creek would be a different color every day.” CLARK BULLARD
PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF ENGINEERING
“In the 1960s, when I was a student here, the creek would be a different color every day. Anything from slimy green to red and rust colored. There was no EPA,” he said. “There were dozens and dozens of pipes com-
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ing out of University buildings and labs putting all kinds of pollutants in.” When the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, the EPA was created. And with the help from the University’s Facilities and Services and Champaign’s Public Works, the Boneyard Creek was made habitable, and over time, most of these pipes were closed off. Brown said the University’s Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination program has been in place for 10 years and tracks down these pipes. The team has gone to over 300 University buildings and has looked at a little over 17,000 drains and sump pumps to make sure they’re being plumbed correctly. “We do find ones that are plumbed incorrectly, and what we do is plug those or reroute them,” she said. “We had a priority setup so that we looked at sources that had the potential to cause the most harm to the Boneyard, say buildings with chemicals in them.” Bullard has kept a coffeestained note of the 19 different species of animals he has seen come back to the Boneyard since the ‘60s, but even though the creek has gotten better since those days, he says more needs to be done to pro-
tect the Boneyard’s habitat from discharges. As of now, in the event of a discharge, Illinois EPA delegates Brown or Nagy to address the issue. If they find whoever is discharging, they will talk to them and have them correct it. “I would say (that works) almost 100 percent of the time. People will comply and correct whatever it is that they’re doing and prevent it in the future,” Nagy said, adding that his and Brown’s offices can employ several different kinds of punishments, like fines, if there is no compliance. “Alex goes out and he talks to them and he listens to their story and they say they won’t do it again and it happens again, because it’s a different contractor this time,” Bullard said. “The mantra with EPA is ‘we don’t want to punish people, we just want to improve water quality, and if talking to them nicely will do that, then that’s what we’ll do.’” He said that there needs to be fines big enough that it’s not seen as a business expense. “Right now, nobody has an economic incentive to do the right thing,” he added.
Austin can be reached at akkeati2@dailyillini.com or @austinkeating3.
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SEE ISS PRESIDENT | 3A
PORTRAIT COURTESY OF JONATHAN DAVIS
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To most, Mitch Dickey may just seem to be simply another student on campus, blending in with those around him. However, as a sophomore, Dickey was elected to serve as the next student body president for the Illinois Student Senate. Over the course of the last year serving as a member of the Illinois Student Senate, Dickey said he noticed the discrepancies between what the campus leaders wanted from the student senate and what the student senate was actually doing. Through his careful observation of these differences, Dickey believed he would be the best candidate for the presidency. He joined the student senate at the beginning of his freshman year and served as a chair for the Committee on Campus Affairs and the Committee on Community and Governmental Affairs. One of his goals as president is to increase overall campus awareness and involvement with ISS. “I really want to get people that are really interested in the things that we’re doing ... I want to make sure their voices are being heard,” Dickey said. He believes the most effective way to increase campus involvement is through a trickle-down effect by first reaching out to campus leaders, committees and officers of RSOs.
“I think once you get all of the campus leaders, the people that students trust, involved, everyone else hears about that and then knows what’s going on and even maybe feels empowered themselves and know that their voice really matters,” Dickey said. He has already met with Being Black at Illinois, Illini Democrats and others. “I think one of the reasons Dickey won the presidency was because he listens to students,” said Vice President-External, Matt Hill. “He has a strong track record of listening to students, working with students and getting things done for students.” However, his outreach doesn’t just stop at the local academic community. Dickey has met with student governments from Illinois State University, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and members of the Illinois State Board of Education. “We are working towards reaching out to our schools and seeing what we can do collectively,” he said. Senator Rachel Heller, junior in LAS, supports Dickey and believes he “has a lot of passion.” “I’ve known Mitch the past two years and I’ve worked very closely with him on several projects and I’ve seen his commitment and excitement from day one, when I met him,” she said. “And I believe he truly, truly
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