Brandi Donnelly impresses in first year
Kilgore allowed to be rehired to teach at UI
Donnelly has had big shoes to fill after senior and Illinois career digs leader Jennifer Beltran graduated
YIK YAK GROWS POPULAR ACROSS CAMPUS
Board of Trustees reverses position, passes measures that ease hiring process
Student body embraces anonymous social media app
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SPORTS, 1B TUESDAY November 18, 2014
THE DAILY ILLINI 5he independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Salaita claims FOIA violation in lawsuit against UI STAFF WRITER
Steven Salaita filed a lawsuit against the Board of Trustees on Monday, claiming the University violated the state’s open records law. The lawsuit claims the University failed to comply with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, which requires public bodies, such as the University, to disclose specific records, unless the records fall under an exemption. Maria LaHood, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a representative of Salaita, said the lawsuit is about getting the documents that Salaita requested under the law. The documents were emails containing specified keywords sent among University officials. “This is not a suit about his termination. This is just about getting the FOIA records,” LaHood said. She said she expects the lawsuit to only take a few months to be resolved, but said it depends on how the University responds. “We haven’t seen the suit, and therefore don’t have any response to make other than we will review it carefully and defend the interests of the University,” said University spokesman Tom Hardy. Salaita requested the documents on Sept. 17, six days after his appointment to join the University as a professor in American
Student fee continues to rise from SFAC Student committees vote on future student fee changes BY ANDREW NOWAK STAFF WRITER
In this past election season, students overwhelmingly passed a bike fee measure for coming school year. The fee is a $1 increase per semester that contributes to all things bike-related on campus: new bike racks, repainting and improved maintenance to bike lanes, among other improvements. The Student Fee Advisory Committee will meet in the coming weeks to consider the recommendations on the fee before forwarding it to the Chancellor.
What is the SFAC? The purpose of SFAC is to provide oversight on student initiated fees, first when they are approved by the student body in a referendum and then regularly after the fees are established. The voting portion of the committee is composed of one staff member appointed by the vice chancellor and 10 students. All of the student members are nominated by the Illinois Student Senate. Non-voting members of the committee include the Treasurer of the Illinois Student Senate and Ed Slazinik, chairman, associate vice chancellor for student affairs and director of auxiliary services. Mitch Dickey, president
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Indian Studies Program was officially rejected by the Board of Trustees. The University responded to his request, saying the FOIA request was unduly burdensome and urged Salaita to narrow his request. On Oct. 15, Salaita issued a new request, which asked for emails between 15 University officials over a three-month period, according to the lawsuit, which was published by The Chicago Tribune. The University again orally rejected the request, stating that it would require reviewing between 8,000 to 10,000 emails. Salaita responded by requesting the FOIA again on Nov. 5, this time reducing the timeframe to just over one month. However, he claims that he never received a response. The lawsuit, filed in Champaign County, asks the court to order the Board of Trustees to give Salaita the requested documents and admit to violating act, to award civil penalties, reasonable attorney fees and any other compensation the court deems appropriate. According to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, any party found in violation of the act is required to pay civil penalties of no less than $2,500 and no more than $5,000 per violation.
Abigale can be reached at asvoboda2 @dailyillini.com.
Student-Initiated Fees for 2014-2015 Academic Year
The following list includes all of the current student-initiated fees, which totals $66 per semester. Values listed are the amounts paid per semester. $2.00 Cleaner Energy Technologies Fee: Used for purchasing solar, wind, hydrogen and geothermal technologies, as well as other energy-efficient items and renewable energy from non-University producers $2.00 Collegiate Readership Fee: Used to purchase copies of non-campus newspapers to be provided to students for free $2.58 Cultural Programming Fee: Used to support cultural programs in six areas including AfricanAmerican, Asian-American, Latina/o, LGBT, Native American and women’s programming. $17.28 Krannert Center Fee: Used to help fund productions at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts $12.94 Legacy of Service and Learning Scholarship Fee: Used to fund need/ merit-based scholarships, whose requirements in part include community service $1.85 Media Fee: Used to help fund the Illini Media Company, which includes The Daily Illini, Illio, WPGU, and other campus media $5.50 Student Organization Resource Fee: Used to help fund services provided by Registered Student Organizations $5.20 Students for Equal Access to Learning Fee: Used to help fund existing financial aid for students with need $4.59 Study Abroad and Travel Scholarship Fee: Used to fund scholarships for study abroad students or travel scholarships for graduate and professional students $12.06 Sustainable Campus Environment Fee: Used to help make the campus sustainable by funding: green building, recycling and energy efficiency
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INSIDE
PHOTO COURTESY OF PAUL MCNAMARA
Women in a farmer’s group plan an agricultural extension program for the next growing season in Tajikistan.
Efforts for food security ACES receives funding to help women farmers and nutrition BY ESTEFANIA FLOREZ STAFF WRITER
For women in many developi ng c ou nt r ies around the world, farming is a means of empowerment that can help them receive higher incomes and nutritional outcomes for their families. The College of ACES was awarded $7 million by the United States Agency for International Development to continue a project known as INGENAES: Integrating
Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services. The project aims to strengthen gender-neutral farming careers and promote nutritional values for families through agricultural extension and advisory services. Ultimatly, IGENA ES aims to reduce poverty, improve food security and reduce malnutrition within eight countries ACES will work with. “It’s about shaping and
improving services in developing countries to better reach women farmers and to have more impact on nutrition,” said Paul McNamara, project director for INGENAES and associate professor in nutritional sciences. He added that the project helps the livelihood of the womens’ families. The project will help women farmers improve their access to services and help integrate nutrition into agricultural extension programs, which will help the women find access to training, equipment and supplies necessary to farm. I NGENA ES, a new-
ly started project, stands as part of three projects ACES is contributing to, including a $12 million project working to modernize extension and advisory services, funded by USAID. “Through the activities we will do in the developing countries we will continue to learn quite a bit,” Andrea Bohn, associate director for INGENAES, said. “We look forward to be working in the focus countries and trying to overcome problems together.” Bohn also explained the
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State homeless rates decline Critics say numbers underestimate true homelessness levels BY FATIMA FARHA STAFF WRITER
In a recent report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, the number of homeless people in Illinois seems to have declined by 8.9 percent between 2010 and 2014. According to the report, the homeless population in Illinois decreased from 14,395 in 2010 to 13,107 in 2014. However, Melany Jackson, executive director at C-U at Home, said it would be impossible to know exactly how many homeless people there are in the state. Jackson said the numbers reported by HUD do not account for all homeless people, and that the numbers will only account for 400 to 500 people, when there are actually many more. “It’s very clear to those of us who work with the homeless that there are well over 1,000 right here in Champaign County,” Jackson said. “So if you multiply that by all the counties in Illinois you’ll see that the number you have is very, very skewed. You can’t get an accurate count.” Paul Gallagher, managing director at C-U at Home, also said the HUD reports don’t seem to be compatible with the actual number of homeless people in the local area. Gallagher said in his experience, he has seen that homelessness due to poverty has actually increased, but many
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of the people are not accounted for in reports such as the one compiled by the HUD. Gallagher mentioned there are many reports from the government that are often skewed because of the numbers the government uses to make these reports. Because of this, he said, even inflation and unemployment numbers are often inaccurate. “I see more and more, I think back then in ‘96 we’d see a lot of substance abuse related homelessness and domestic violence. We weren’t seeing much directly related to poverty and income,” Gallagher said. “But now what I’m seeing is a lot more, you know people living paycheck-to-paycheck and just can’t make it anymore and just fall through the cracks.” HUD Spokeswoman Shantae Goodloe said the numbers that HUD reports are an aggregation of the numbers from all counties in Illinois. “What we report is accurate in terms of what selfreported continuum of cares have told us they have found in the community. It’s based off of information of what they’ve given us,” Goodloe said. Kerri Spear, outgoing chair for the Champaign County Continuum of Care, said the reports do appear to be skewed because they are not completely accurate representations. Spear said the Continuum of Care is an organization that decides where the federal funding for homelessness will go in the county. If a county wants funding, the
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Volunteers having a meeting to discuss the service schedule at Phoenix homelessness daytime drop-in center, which has been open since July 2014. federal government requires that the county performs a count of homeless people living on the streets on a given date chosen by the government. The count is supposed to represent the people living in situations unfit for humans, not those living in shelters. Spear said the last count was done during one of the coldest nights in late January, when emergency shelters were put up so people would not be out in the cold. Because of this, there were fewer homeless to count on the streets and many of the people in the emergency shelters were reluctant to be interviewed. On Jan. 28, the continuum conducted a survey of the county’s homeless population, both sheltered and unsheltered, and found that 222 people in 176 household
Illinois Sees Decline in Homelessness from 2010-2014 In the past four years, while there have been spikes in the number of homeless people in Illinois, there has been an overall decline by 8.9%. 15000
14,395 14,144 14,009
# of homeless
BY ABIGALE SVOBODA
12000
13,425 13,107
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
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