Editorial: Disability awareness is crucial for all students PAGE 4A WEDNESDAY November 4, 2015
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Proposed bill to aid undocumented students in Illinois
Nine Illinois universities propose new bill BY ADAM KAZ STAFF WRITER
For 1,500 undocumented students attending public universities in Illinois, one clause often limits their opportunity to receive financial aid: legal residency in the U.S. “I know a few (undocumented) students who excelled at their academics in high school, who had really great scores, achieved extremely high educational attainment, but were unable to go to college because they were unable to gather the money in conjunction with scholarships, merit, outside sources to go to college,” said Amorita Antoine, junior in Urban Planning and La Casa Cultural House employee. A coalition of students, administrators and faculty
members from universities across the state have decided to combine efforts to combat this situation. Nine Illinois Universities, including the University’s Chicago and Urbana campuses, have contributed to the creation of the Student Access to College and Career Education for Statewide Success Bill, ACCESS. According to the bill’s factsheet, the bill would provide legal authority to four-year public universities to give aid to undocumented students who enroll there. Mark Chiang, a professor of English and Asian American studies at the University’s Chicago campus, serves as a co-chair for the task force behind the bill. “I feel that undocumented students that come to this country, who come here with their parents, and have lived here, in most cases, for nearly all their lives... deserve to have a chance to fulfi ll their educational goals that they’ve worked so hard to achieve,” Chiang
said. He added that undocumented students who don’t have access to fi nancial aid face bigger obstacles when trying to achieve higher education goals. Since he joined the task force this fall, Chiang has pushed for new ways to encourage state legislators to support the bill. In order to support the bill, undocumented students contributed testimonials about their struggle to pay their way through college. “The strategy is fairly straightforward. When people go to visit (legislators), generally it’s a group of students with a faculty person or a community organizer,” he said. “And very often some of the students themselves are undocumented, and they’re simply telling their story about the hurdles that they face and the difficulties that they’ve gone through in trying to simply graduate from college.”
TIFFANY ZHANG THE DAILY ILLINI
Trudie Jackson (Navajo), a Graduate Student in American Indian Studies-Tribal Leadership & Governance of Arizona State University, speaks about her experiences of a transgender Native American to a group of students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Nov. 3, 2015.
Graduate student speaks on healthcare for LGBT minorities BY VIVIENNE HENNING STAFF WRITER
When Trudie Jackson returned to school in 2009 to earn her degree in social work, she realized the need to address LGBT health. As a case manager in the human service field, she was supposed to serve 15 clients but ended up with a caseload of over 24 clients. Jackson, graduate student in American Indian Studies and Tribal Leadership and Governance at Arizona State University, is an advocate for proper health care rights for LGBT identifying Native Americans and spoke about the challenges they face at the Medical Services Building on Tuesday. Native American and Alaskan Native health care has long been carried out by the Indian Health Services, IHS. But those who identify as LGBT have not received the same level of health care services as those who don’t identify as LGBT. Jackson represented the LGBT-identifying Native American community at the American Indian Physician Conference where she gave a presentation to the IHS director. “I asked: When is the IHS going to take strong, critical matters into addressing the increasing number of HIV/AIDS patients in Native Americans within
SEE ACCESS | 3A
Which states have tuition equality laws?
States with tuition equity laws or policies and some state financial aid States with tuition equity laws and scholarships States with tuition equity laws States with tuition equity policies at major instituitions States that ban enrollment to undocumented students States where some college systems deny enrollment CHRISTIE LEARNED THE DAILY ILLINI
SOURCE: National Immigration Law Center
the country?” Jackson said. “If it impacts your family, your immediate family, will it finally be addressed? Because we are losing American Indians who are asking for help with HIV/AIDS.” Another barrier to the Native American LGBT community is the concept of having access to proper healthcare and outlets to speak and raise awareness in urban versus rural environments, as many of these sessions are in Washington or IHS headquarters in Maryland. “LGBT Native Americans or Alaskan Natives may not have the money or the resources to travel to the East Coast to have their voices heard,” Jackson said. “I’m hoping that with these sessions that the IHS will seriously look at developing and implementing LGBT clinics at all IHS sites across the country, so LGBT care can be provided to all American Indians and Alaskan Native.” Jackson also voiced how at times she is the only Native American LGBT representative working with community partners in Phoenix on raising awareness. “If you’re sincere about your community, raise your voice so your population is heard because you may be the only voice in the room for your community,” she
said. “But that voice is powerful because when you get that funding for your population, you’re doing a service to your community to help get outreach and prevention education for the population that you’re advocating for.” She also spoke about the importance of frontline workers being sensitive and open-minded when reaching out to Native American communities with LGBT individuals. “The frontline workers, the people that do community outreach, are the ones that really hold the key to the community because they interact with the community,” Jackson said. “When they build that trust with the LGBT community individuals will share that name within their circle.” Similarly, Jackson stressed the importance of proper training for health care providers in interacting with LGBT patients. “When you walk into a patient’s room and they may appear different compared to what’s on the chart, always ask how they would like to be addressed,” Jackson said. “That is the key because that will make the patient aware that you are open-minded and that you are non-judgmental in the LGBT community.”
vhenni2@dailyillini.com
Moody’s Credit Service negative outlook raises concerns BY STEPHEN NYE STAFF WRITER
Six Illinois public universities credit ratings were recently lowered by Moody’s Investor Service, although the University and Illinois State University managed to avoid credit rating downgrades. Moody’s Investor Service rates organizations such as countries, states and universities on a scale from Aaa to C. Baa3 is the lowest prime rating an organization can receive. The University and ISU avoided credit downgrades but Moody’s still reported that the outlook is negative. According to Moody’s, the relatively high amount of available or liquid assets the University has access to was one of the reasons its Aa3 credit rating was maintained. However, the lack of a state budget caused Moody’s to rate the University’s future outlook as negative.
Dr. Dorothee Schneider, a lecturer in history and communications chair for the Non-Tenured Faculty Coalition, pointed to the University’s ample endowments, “fantastic research” and rising applicant rate as reasons Moody’s did not downgrade the school’s ratings. “The University has squirreled away enough money to keep its operations running for one year without help from the state,” Schneider said. “The U. of I. has a rising number of applicants ready to pay full tuition. For example, the number of international students has doubled in the last ten years.” Schneider also said the University only derives 15 percent of its operating budget from the state, compared to Eastern Illinois University’s 45 percent. Sch neider said the effects of the state budget standoff can already be seen in the freezing
of across-the-board pay raises. Dana Rabin, associate professor of history, said she is concerned with the state of the University’s fiscal outlook and its effect on employees. “It’s got me very worried,” Rabin said. “There’s a great deal of uncertainty at the moment.” Students have also expressed concern about the state of the University’s fi nances. Kevin Riordan, a sophomore in LAS, said he is surprised that the topic has not been made a bigger issue among students on campus. Riordan said he hopes the budget issues can be resolved, ideally without increased privatization of the University or an increase in tution. Wyatt Beaty, a junior in LAS, said he looks forward to seeing the budget issues resolved quickly. He said
SEE MOODY | 3A
How the University’s Moody’s credit rating compares to other Illinois universities The University was able to maintain its previous credit rating but six public universities in the state received lower ratings and in the futures of all were deemed to have a negative outlook. U of I criteria considered: Total revenues exceed
Enrollment was over
$5.4 billion
76,000
FY 2015 preliminary pledged revenue of
FTE students for fall 2014
Public colleges ratings: University
Rating
University of Illinois
Aa3
Illinois State University
Aa3
Western Illinois University
Baa3
Eastern Illinois University
Baa3
Governor’s State University
Baa3
Northeastern University
Baa2
Northern Illinois University
Baa2
Southern Illinois University
Baa1
$1.2 billion
covered maximum annual net debt service 12.3 times
Global Long-Term Rating Scale Aa High quality and are subject to very low credit risk Baa Medium-grade and subject to moderate credit risk and as such may possess certain speculative characteristics National Scale Short-Term Ratings Ability to repay short-term senior unsecured debt obligations relative to other domestic issuers: N-1 Strongest N-2 Above average N-3 Average
NATALIE GACEK THE DAILY ILLINI
SOURCE: Moody’s Credit Service
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