A letter to our representatives: Mizzou should inspire end to violence PAGE 4A THURSDAY November 12, 2015
THE DAILY ILLINI The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
WWW.DAILYILLINI.COM
Vol. 145 Issue 49
BY SAMANTHA JONES TOAL STAFF WRITER
KAROLINA MARCZEWSKI THE DAILY ILLINI
Alex Villanueva opens up the ISS meeting by speaking about the importance of veterans day in the Pine Lounge at the Illini Union on Nov. 11, 2015. Discussions on the campus mascot, or lack thereof, are also present at the meetings.
THE CHIEF: An Unspoken Presence Part II BY ANNABETH CARLSON ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR
Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in a four-part series about how the tradition of Chief Illiniwek continues on campus despite its ban in 2007. The Daily Illini will focus on why the Chief has remained a prevalent image, and the mark it has left and will eventually leave on the C-U community and those of Native American heritage. See Monday’s edition of The Daily Illini for the next installment, which will discuss the presence and impact of Chief imagery and paraphernalia. Alex Villanueva sees a void at the University. With nearly a decade of scandals and recent departures of officials, the void is growing every day. But he has an idea of how to fix it: introducing a new school mascot. Villanueva, junior in LAS and senator for the Illinois Student Senate, or ISS, is exploring the possibility of adopting a new University mascot and symbol. A resolution, created by Villanueva and three others, to create a committee for this purpose was passed at the senate’s Oct. 28 meeting. The committee will spend the coming months working with the student body to see if they want a new mascot. “It’s something that can bring a new representation to our University, especially in this time of distress, of administrative issues, of political issues, of student issues,” Villanueva said. “A new mascot, or at least finding out we need a mascot, could do a great step to find-
ing some unifying factor on this campus.” Villanueva said the issue of the Chief and whether a new mascot should be chosen has been a tearing point on campus for nearly 10 years. “Something that is so simple, something that we should all be able to accept and be happy about, has really damaged this University,” he said. “If we want to make this University a cohesive, united campus, I think this is a great symbolic way to start.” Jay Rosenstein, media and cinema studies professor and American Indian Studies affiliate, said he agrees with the resolution because it could help get rid of Chief imagery for good. “Not having a mascot creates a void, and something has to fill that void, and what’s filling it right now, I think is all these other kinds of t-shirts ... with images of headdresses and things like that,” he explained. Bennett Kamps, sophomore in LAS, however, said he opposes the resolution because he wants to preserve the Chief. Kamps, who is currently trying out to be the new unofficial Chief, has attended recent ISS meetings along with members of the Students for Chief Illiniwek Registered Student Organization and Ivan Dozier, the current unofficial Chief and graduate student in Crop Sciences, to speak out against the resolution. “We’re obviously trying to stop it, but there is never going to be a mascot that goes up against the Chief and makes as big of an impact,
Disability advocate, DRES founder dies at 92 NEWS EDITOR
Tim Nugent, the ‘father of accessibility,’ died at 92 Wednesday morning. Nugent is well-known for founding Disability Resources and Education Services, DRES, at the University in 1944. Nugent originally founded DRES to give wounded World War II veterans the opportunity to attend college. Rep. Rodney Davis released a statement on Nugent’s death Wednesday evening. “Today, we lost a pioneer in architectural accessibility and a relentless advo-
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US minority class possibly required
LIFE & CULTURE
BY ABIGALE SVOBODA
52˚ | 39
YOUR VOICE
Q: Would you like to see a new mascot?
COMPILED BY ANNABETH CARLSON ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR
“Definitely. Anything to get rid of the Chief paraphernalia on campus because it’s gross and racist obviously and inappropriate.”
SIERRA SOLAND, senior in AHS
Ron Lewis, senator and co-chair of Being Black At Illinois, mobilized different African American and Hispanic groups to attend the Illinois Student Senate meeting Wednesday evening to support a change in curriculum at the University. “We want to make sure the community understands what happens to us,” he said. “This is something relevant to the African American and Hispanic community.” Representatives of several campus minority organizations attended the meeting to voice their support for an ISS resolution that would require undergraduates to take three credits of a U.S. Minority course. Currently, each student must take a Western Cultures class and either a Non-Western or U.S. Minority course. This resolution requires undergraduates to take all three courses to fulfil their general education requirements. “Having our school saying, ‘We want you to learn about these things,’ it really makes me feel like you guys care,” said Chibuihe Asonye, president of the Black Student Union at LAR and Allen Hall. Spencer Copeland, sophomore in business, said she supports the resolution because there is a divide between students at the
University and requiring a class that embraces different cultures could lessen this divide. “It will help us understand each other before we have issues like at Mizzou,” she said. Recently, issues of racism at the University of Missouri have led to the resignation of the president and chancellor, student outrage and threats of violence. Rochelle Wilson, advertising major, said adding a U.S. Minority class to the curriculum helps ensure that the true stories of minorities are told. “For a lot of us growing up, we only learned what the textbook told us,” she said. “Give U of I a chance to have a standard of inclusiveness and a holistic view.” After the public comment portion, senators also came forward to voice their support for the resolution. Joseph Mosely, student senator, compared an incident where his mother was called racial slurs in 1976 to the Payton Head incident at Mizzou. He emphasized the similarity of the incidents but the drastic difference in time period. “There are cultures that people can’t connect with and don’t connect with,” he said. “This place of higher education is a place to create an atmosphere of understanding.”
SEE REFERENDUM | 3A
“Yes, I think it would be really nice to see a new mascot instead of just having the Fighting Illini because it doesn’t havea face.”
SIERRA SOLAND, senior in AHS
Budget constraints hit MAP grant funds BY MARIJO ENDERLE ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
“I’m good with the old one, the Chief. It’s pretty cool. It doesn’t bother me that much.”
NIKHIL JERATH, freshman in LAS
especially on alumni. Nobody who ever went here while the Chief was here is ever going to accept that,” Kamps said. “The Chief is never going to die, so why would you compete with that?”
SEE CHIEF | 3A
The University announced Tuesday that students may be required to refund part of their financial aid package in the spring, due to Springfield’s ongoing fight over the state budget. In a massmail sent to Monetary Award Program, MAP, grant eligible students, Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson said the University may remove the MAP grant award amount from student’s accounts and require students to refund the money if the University does not receive funding for MAP grants from the state when the overdue budget is finalized. “It’s a tremendous tragedy
(for students),” said Mitch Dickey, student body president. Thus far in the fall semester, over $12 million in MAP grants has been distributed to 5,667 University students, despite the lack of a planned state budget. The University’s decision to credit MAP grants was made on the assumption that the budget would be decided and the program would be funded at $373.25 million, the same amount budget in fiscal year 2015. On June 25, Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed a bill that would have allocated $397,073,100 to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission to fund MAP
SEE MAP | 3A
Illinois’ report card released BY AARON NAVARRO STAFF WRITER
DAILY ILLINI FILE PHOTO
cate for people with disabilities,” Davis said. “He challenged the way many regarded disabled individuals and opened the doors of higher education to millions of Americans. During a September visit to the University, Nugent and Rep. Rodney Davis discussed DRES and Nugent’s work in improving accessibility. “I was going to quit my sophomore year,” Nugent said in a previous interview with The Daily Illini. “But then my first veteran, Harold Sharper, died in my arms. He said, ‘Tim, don’t quit. These sons of bitches don’t know
SPORTS
what they’re doing.’ So, I stayed.” During the visit, Davis announced he was nominating Nugent for a Congressional Gold Medal. According to the Office of the Historian, Congress has awarded gold medals for national appreciation of various achievements since the American Revolution. “We take how far we’ve come on campus in not too many years,” Davis said in a previous interview with The Daily Illini. “A lot of that is due to Tim Nugent.”
asvobod2@dailyillini. com
Forty-six. That’s the percentage of Illinois public school students that scored a 21 or higher on their ACT, and is the percentage of students that the Illinois State Board of Education defined as “college-prepared,” according to its annual report card. The composite ACT score is only a starting point of data to determine college readiness. The ACT organization has determined benchmarks that specify college readiness by subject. The benchmark for the English portion is 18, Mathematics is 22, Reading is 22 and Science is 23. According to the report card, only 25 percent of students passed the college readiness benchmark in all four subjects. The report also found that 54 percent of students are from low-income households as compared to 48 percent of students in 2011. Jennifer Delaney, associate professor in education, said she correlated the percentage of college-prepared students
with not only the increase of low-income students, but also with the obstacles first-generation students face. “We worry about lowincome, first generation students whose parents don’t have post secondary schooling and don’t have the networking or relationships with those to help the rather complicated, navigated process of applying and enrolling in education,” Delaney said. Delaney also said the increase of minority students in Illinois could affect the increase of low-income students; about 51 percent of public school students identify as a minority. Julia Nadler, a high school administrator at Prairie Ridge High School who facilitates standardized tests, said the problem of inequities is not new. “Every couple of years a new standard of measurement is implemented that just redefines the same problem,” Nadler said. “The interrelationship between race and income unfolds as educational outcomes become uneven-
LIFE & CULTURE
ly distributed in geographic regions.” Timothy Brewer, a graduate student and teaching assistant in educational policy studies, said the same problems in Illinois exist across the nation.“What that suggests is that we have less of a ‘schooling problem’ in the US and more of a systemic poverty and inequality problem,” Brewer said. “Research has proven time and time again that a student’s socioeconomic status is the leading factor in academic outcomes.” In addition to measuring college-preparedness, an ACT score of 21 has been used to determine readiness for a four-year university but not necessarily readiness for a community college. However, recent state budget cuts, have raised concerns that the free ACT test may not be available to students in the future. “When the state picks up the tab for the test fee, it means that everybody can
SEE REPORT | 3A
SPORTS
Illini set for Buckeyes
Talks on micro-aggressions
Basketball season begins
Cubit and Co. preparing to host reigning national champion for senior day
Members of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity will discuss racism and discrimination at vigil
Pair of 2015 NCAA tournament teams mark men’s opening weekend in Springfield
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