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THE DAILY ILLINI
THURSDAY September 26, 2013
82˚ | 52˚
5he independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
Vol. 143 Issue 19
UI to replenish faculty with 500 new hires
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FREE
Pensions, pay concerns for recruitment of faculty Effect on students
BY JOHNATHAN HETTINGER
The declining number of faculty has adversely affected students on campus. Students have had to deal with larger classes, as well as fewer classes taught by faculty. The student-to-faculty ratio, which was hovering around 15.4 throughout most of the 2000s, reached 17.6 students per faculty member in 2012. Wise said this prompted the University to make a change. “The University is all about you (the students), and we would not be here if not for our real desire to give you the strongest possible experience here,” Wise said. “Part of that obviously is recruiting the very best faculty. That’s really the foundation of your experience.” Wise said the academic landscape has changed over the past five years, and, while the University plans to replenish faculty members, it may not do so in the same areas where faculty members were lost. “What we want to pay real attention to is where is the student demand? What majors are the most popular? And are we understaffed in those areas? In which case we’ll be recruiting new faculty into those areas,” Wise said. The College of Engineering is one area where student demand has increased significantly in recent years. The college rose from 7,307 undergraduates in fall 2007 to 10,039 students in 2013. At the same time, the college had 390 tenure-system faculty members in 2007, compared to 368 in 2012-13. Admissions director Stacey Kostell said Engineering has started having larger freshman classes because of a nationwide increase in demand for engineering. In ICES forms at the end of each semester, students have continually given faculty members higher scores than teaching assistants, a sign that they
STAFF WRITER
After undergoing a large exodus of faculty in recent years, the University will try to rebuild by hiring 500 new faculty members in the next five to seven years, including 170 in the upcoming academic year. Since 2008, the number of tenure-system faculty on campus has decreased from 2,100 to 1,856, and all levels of faculty have decreased amid budget and pension uncertainty. Chancellor Phyllis Wise said this decline had to do with an increasing number of retirements, as well as the University’s unwillingness to replace professors while facing fiscal uncertainty. Many employees have retired early due to fears of having their retirement benefits depleted by pension reform. But the campus now believes it is able to replenish its academic staff. “When faculty left, we did not use all of the money that we were able to save to recruit immediately because we weren’t sure exactly where the budget would be for the next year,” Wise said. “So in collaboration with each of the colleges and some central money, we believe that we can recruit new faculty.” The Visioning Future Excellence Report, which was published in July, identified six different cluster areas for the new faculty members: energy and the environment; health and wellness; social equality and cultural understanding; economic development; education; and information and technology. The University will start hiring the 170 faculty members in the first three cluster areas. Campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler said exactly what these clusters entail is still being formalized, but “you’ll likely see groups that have humanists and creative artists working alongside engineers and scientists.”
BRENTON TSE THE DAILY ILLINI
Mike Locashio, Evelyn Holmes, Nathaniel Pendleton, Cirgol Hawkins, Shango Johnson, Walter Burnett and Ronald Holt sit on a panel for the City on the Brink event in the Illini Union Ballroom on Wednesday. The event addressed the death of Haidya Pendleton and the violence in Chicago.
Event highlights Chicago violence City on the Brink focuses on ending urban conflict with youth activism BY TAYLOR ODISHO STAFF WRITER
Hadiya Pendleton had just taken her final exams at King College Prep High School in Chicago. Earlier that week, she had performed at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration with her high school marching band. She was spending time with her friends in Harsh Park when she was shot and killed earlier this year. Chicago recently surpassed New York in homicides and was named the new murder capital of America, according to statistics released by the FBI. The National Association of Black Journalists hosted City on the Brink: A Closer Look at Inner City Gun Violence to bring to light the violence that is occurring in Chicago and what changes can be made to make the city safer. There was a panel discussion
BY STANTON POLANSKI CONTRIBUTING WRITER
When Lynne B. Hellmer looks at the white house at 57 E. Armory Ave., she looks past its boarded up door and chipped paint coating. She does not simply see an old building soon to be demolished. For her, she sees her childhood home and one of the few buildings still intact on the street she lived on as a child in the mid-’50s. “There’s not much left,” she said. “But a lot of kids used to live there. The girls lived down on the corner — but that’s an apartment building now.” The house she lived in and the one next to it at 59 E. Armory Ave. will be demolished once the University receives a response from the state regarding how to deal with preservation organizations looking to salvage items in the houses. Hellmer said the houses are way past their prime, and she has no idea what the University would do with the older buildings now, making them perfect candidates for demolition. Rich Cahill, board member of
Number of faculty
2,500
2,083 2,100 2,096 2,061 1,963
1,915
1,871 1,856
1,500 4 5 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 6 200 200 200 200 200 200 201 201 201 201
University has fewer faculty per students The student-to-faculty ratio has increased in recent years, due to a rise in the number of undergraduates, as well as a decline in the number of faculty members.
Students per faculty
18
17.5
17.6
16.3 15.4
15.4
15.4
15.0
15.4
15.1
15.6
13 4 5 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 6 200 200 200 200 200 200 201 201 201 201 SOURCE: DIVISION OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
Taylor can be reached at news@dailyillini.com
Association works for preservation before University finalizes teardowns
SEE FACULTY | 3A
The number of faculty at the University has decreased in recent years amid budget and pension concerns. The University will hire 500 new faculty members in the next five to seven years.
2,000
our kids can get out is through rap,” Hawkins said. “They’re only speaking with the knowledge they have.” Hawkins said the community must work together to educate Chicago’s youth so they will begin to change the way they speak. The panel went to great lengths to discuss changes that can be made by community organizations, politicians and the people in the communities. “A lot of young people feel like they’re invisible, and that’s why they act out in front of us,” said Alderman Walter Burnett, 27th Ward. “We just need to let them know that we care.” Holt encourages University students to make a change by starting anti-violence community organizations and transferring those changes to Chicago. “You are the young and the educated,” Holt said. “You are the bridge.”
University to postpone historic home demolition
University sees significant drop in faculty size
2,008 2,045
with seven prominent figures from Chicago who are working to make these changes, including Hadiya’s father, Nathaniel Pendleton. The event began with a presentation from photojournalist Mike Locashio from ABC-7 Chicago. It highlighted last week’s mass shooting in Chicago that left 13 people injured, including a 3-year-old boy. “It’s a story we’re, unfortunately, used to covering on a daily basis, and it doesn’t change,” Locashio said. There was also a discussion about the media’s portrayal of gun violence. Evelyn Holmes, a reporter for ABC-7 Chicago, said reporters are quick to jump to conclusions. “Black kid, black neighborhood, obviously it must be gang related,” Holmes said. “The first question reporters ask is ‘was he in a gang?’ and that drives me nuts.”
Shango Johnson works with CeaseFire Englewood, a violence prevention program for the youth in the community. He explained that many types of crimes go unreported. “The ones that are victimized that don’t get shot or killed don’t get any attention at all,” Johnson said. Johnson was concerned that no one had taken the time or effort to walk around communities like Englewood, which has the highest crime rate in Chicago, to talk to the people who experience this violence on a daily basis. The panel also addressed the impact that social media and music have on violence. Virgol Hawkins, CEO of AON Center for Community Arts and Development, explained why he believes Chief Keef’s term “Chiraq”, coined to describe the violence in Chicago, had been glorified by rappers and the younger population in the city. “Our area is infected with posttraumatic stress, and the only way
AUSTIN BAIRD THE DAILY ILLINI
the Preservation and Conservation Association, said he wants to keep anything useful or historic in the two houses that the University does not want before the rest goes to the landfill. The association may gain access soon enough, but not before the University hears back from the state. Cahill said he fi lled out the forms, turned them in to the University and was told that the forms had been sent to the state. But then he found out the forms had never been sent. In a meeting with Chancellor Phyllis Wise last Tuesday, Cahill and the association presented their case. The demolitions are now on hold. “This is good, but it shouldn’t have gotten this far,” Cahill said. “... If the University wants to say that it’s sustainable and green, they shouldn’t have anything that can be of use end up in the landfill.” Campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler said she has no idea what the state’s response might be and that each case can vary. “We’re just trying to make sure materials that might be sal-
COURTESY OF LYNNE B. HELLMER
The Beberman kids pose in front of their house at 57 E. Armory Ave. with the Kiburz kids before a wedding in 1956. The Kiburz family lived at a house where an apartment complex now stands. vageable do not go to the landfill,” Kaler said. And Hellmer knows from experience that there is a lot that can be used. “Demolishing it makes no sense if there are people who would like some of the elements around the house,” Hellmer said. “And there’s a lot.” Inside the boarded up door is an oak floor with an exposed oak staircase, Hellmer described. On both sides of the entrance to the
living room are columns that stretch from the ceiling down to a platform. Hellmer remembers kids playing on these platforms. The upstairs has a built-in linen closet. “They just don’t do things like that anymore,” she said. “It’s just a three bedroom house — everything else about it was pretty ordinary. But those touches of oak woodworking really made
SEE DEMOLITION | 3A
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