MONDAY September 12, 2016
THE DAILY ILLINI The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Local art exhibit honors fallen Illinois
soldiers
or woman from Illinois who died while serving in the war on terror. As of 2010, there are 124 portraits. The portraits arrived on campus Sept. 8, and they are currently on display in the Center for Wounded Veterans and the Armory. The portraits will remain on campus until Sept. 13. Joy Henderson’s son, Private First Class Seth Miller, 27, died April 14, 2008. The portrait doesn’t make her sad. Instead, she feels proud and remembers when she first saw it. “Every family, after their soldier passed, would receive [the portrait] either personally handed .... or in the mail, ” she said. Henderson recieved hers personally from Schilling. Ava Thompson, whose son Private First Class Lucas Starcevich, 25, died on April 16, 2007, in Baghdad, believes the portraits are a positive way to honor her son, but struggles with their presence. “[The portraits are] bittersweet, it’s nice that he’s honored in the portrait,” Thompson said. “It’s tough looking at the portrait of a child because he’s gone, because I’d rather have him with me.” Both of their sons joined the military due in large part to the terrorist attacks
BY ADAM KAZ STAFF WRITER
BRIAN BAUER THE DAILY ILLINI
Students from Centennial High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance carry handmade signs in the C-U Pride Parade.
C-U celebrates LGBT pride
BY MICHAEL SEMACA AND JOSEPH LONGO STAFF WRITER AND ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Veronica Bleaus sat on the back of a convertible clutching a microphone and talking to the crowd as she cruised through downtown Champaign. But this wasn’t just any normal drive. Instead, Bleaus was partaking in the Seventh Annual Champaign-Urbana Pride Parade on Saturday. Under the stage name Veronica Bleaus, John Musser has been performing drag for nine years. Self-characterized as “The Worst Drag Queen of the Midwest,”
Bleaus knows she’s a stand out in the drag world. However, Saturday’s parade embraced her oddity. “I’m admittedly a little bit of a strange queen, so it’s good to see different kinds of representations of drag performers and queer life,” Bleaus said. “That’s what this is all about.” Bleau was among several drag queens to partake in the Champaign-Urbana Annual Pride Festival and Parade. Beginning just seven years ago, it holds the title as downstate Illinois’ only Pride Parade. Pridefest originated as an indoor event in Urbana’s Lincoln Square Mall. How-
ever, three years ago, Josh Laskowski helped bring the festival to downtown Champaign. Laskowski works for the festival organizer, the Uniting Pride Center, or UP Center. “From a one day event to a weekend event,” he said. “The parade itself from three years ago has grown from 30 entries to almost 800 entries this year.” Laskowski estimated a major increase in attendance relative to last year’s event. He said the festival attracted 7,000 people in 2015 and had expected up to 12,000 this year. When deciding the festival’s theme months ago,
organizers considered several different ideas including a tribute to the victims of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting. However, because it’s an election year, they went in a political direction, Lasowski said. Both of Illinois’ senators, Mark Kirk and Dick Durbin, walked in Saturday’s parade. “If we want to pass new laws, we need people that are going to vote for the things we want,” Laskowski said. Senator Durbin even served as the festival’s Grand Marshall, an honor
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A year after Sept. 11, 2001, Jason Sakowski shipped off to Iraq. A year later he was in Afghanistan and a year after that he returned to Iraq. The global war on terrorism is a very real part of Sakowski’s life, but he doesn’t believe every other American understands its importance. Now Sakowski, the current coordinator for Veteran Student Support Services at The Chez Family Foundation Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education, is using his position to ensure the University recognizes the sacrifices of fallen soldiers. “After 2001 or the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it was the every day news, but over the years it just kind of died down,” Sakowski said. “A lot of people don’t realize that we have troops deployed to poor countries in harm’s way on a daily basis. We take for granted being able to be ... in the comfort of our own homes.” Last spring, Sakowski requested for the Portrait of a Soldier exhibit to visit the University to commemorate the events of Sept. 11. “Portrait of a Soldier” is a project started by Illinois artist Cameron Schilling to create pencil sketches of every man
SEE PORTRAIT | 3A
Students rally for change BY ANDREA FLORES AND VIVIENNE HENNING STAFF WRITER AND ASSISTANT DAYTIME EDITOR
Students gathered under the outstretched arms of Alma Mater Friday afternoon to “Rally for a Transformed University,” anevent held by the group Black Students for Revolution, or BSFR. In a Facebook post by the group Friday morning, the organization highlighted three main objectives for their rally: to join in solidarity with the Nationwide Prison Workers Strike, to release a list of demands that will radically transform the University and to be an initial starting point in a new era of students coming together to bring power to oppressed groups on campus. The rally had displays of black cultural and political action through poetry, music and political statements. “The multiple organizations that worked in solidarity to construct this list of demands and organize this rally condemn the toxic patterns of economically exploitative, racially oppressive and gender/sexual discriminatory practices that drastically deteriorate the material and social conditions of underrepresented groups and individuals on the campus and in the community,” BSFR said on their Facebook page. Ritse Adefolalu, a member of the BSFR, spoke about how a 1960’s group of black students got together and formed an organization called the Black Students Association (BSA). The BSA worked with community members from Urbana-Champaign to put forth a project called ‘Project 500,’ demanding that the University increase the amount of enrollment from underrepresented populations around Urbana-Champaign. At the time, only 300 students on campus were African American out of the 30,000 enrolled. The next fall semester, 565 additional African American and Latino/Latina students were admitted to the University. Within their fi rst year, the BSA listed 35 demands,
one of which called for the creation of an African American studies department. “That student power is the same thing we’re trying to tap into right now, right here, with this rally and with our demands,” Adefolalu said. “We can get together and raise our voices, raise our power and make the things that we need to happen, happen.” Taskin Sehitoglu, speaking for Gharbzadegi Art Collective, said that many students fi nd the University’s fi nancial tuition beyond their reach and how the Great Recession disproportionately affected people of color. The cost to attend UIUC has increased six-fold within the last 30 years. “The onus is on us, as students and community members, to demand that this type of federal institution offer affordable education for taxpayers in Illinois and the surrounding community,” Sehitoglu said. Mohammad Yousuf, speaking for Students for Justice in Palestine, said that when the University makes cuts because of the state’s budget crisis, the most disproportionately affected areas are those geared towards oppressed and marginalized communities. “We demand the full funding of all student resource centers on campus,” Yousuf said. “The funds which we funnel into this University must go towards creating a sustainable and accessible environment for all students, especially those from marginalized communities and disadvantaged backgrounds.” Tyler Camp, from Campus Union for Trans Equality and Support, said queer students, especially persons of color, are often the most vulnerable, most likely to be homeless and most likely to be cut off fi nancially or emotionally from their parents. They said that the recent all-gender housing provided to queer and trans students is some of the most expensive housing on or off campus. “We demand that our University cease this intentional impoverish-
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ment of its most vulnerable students,” Camp said. “What our University can and must do is provide safe and affordable all-gender housing for queer and trans students and provide it at the lowest standard housing rate.” Camp also said that they demand that students should be able to say if they identify as trans or queer on their applications. They want this information to be collected for the LGBT Resource Center so that queer and trans students can have the ability to access affi rming and empowering resources. “We need the University to recognize the intersecting needs of all the students that it serves,” Camp said. “We will no longer stand to be cut off from our communities, separated and silenced by administratively constructed barriers. We will stand together for our revolution and a transformed University.” Kailah Lee, representing BSFR, talked about the nine sexual assaults that have been reported on campus since 2016. Five of the nine happened at fraternity houses, and five of the nine assailants were known to the victim. “Upwards of 25 percent of all college women will experience some form of sexual violence. Even this number may be too small, as less than five percent of all sexual assaults are reported to the law,” said Lee. “Those nine survivors we learned about in those Massmails are in the vocal minority of a large community of survivors.” L ee presented the demand that all members of fraternities and sororities on campus undergo intensive sexual assault and consent training program called GUARD. The demand lists that should a member of a fraternity assault someone after the training, they are to be suspended from the fraternity until they have completed a semester-long course on sexual assault and gender violence. The demands also state that should any member within a chapter that already has one recorded
Source: Division of Management Information
UI continues record enrollment BY MEGAN JONES STAFF WRITER
Killeen receives $100K for performance-based incentive
The Board of Trustees approved a $100,000 performance-based incentive for President Timothy Killeen at Thursday’s meeting. During a time of financial uncertainty from the state, Killeen said he does worry how the move will play in Springfield. “Executive compensation is a real, fundamentally public thing. We are in a public institution and it’s important that it be looked at with very careful attention,” he said. “This process was built into my contract and I didn’t draft that or even think it through carefully enough, perhaps. But I do think pay-for-performance is appropriate for a board that seeks leadership that is accountable on specific goals and objectives that are illuminated and defined ahead of time, and assessed quantitatively.” Trustee Patrick Fitzgerald noted that it is not a bonus, but something that is earned.
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Killeen was evaluated based off of nine performance areas he set with the board. “At least from my perspective, he has earned every dollar of it,” Fitzgerald said. “When you look at the leadership he has shown … we are headed in the right direction.” Trustee Patricia BrownHolmes also voiced support for Killeen’s incentive, saying that Killeen has done everything he said he would do and brought pride to the university. University of Illinois at Chicago Chancellor Michael Amiridis was also approved to receive $75,000. Killeen’s initial contract included a $225,000 retention bonus if he remained president for five years, but he requested to drop the bonus. Fitzgerald said that that is important, sending the signal that we are paying him for performance and not just for sticking around. Faculty and staff were notified early August that no general raises will be given for the second year in a row. When asked how the faculty would react to Killeen’s
incentive, he said the budget situation is tricky and he is working hard at restructuring salaries. “We need to reward people appropriately,” he said. “And we can’t forget that, even though the budgetary situation is tricky and we are hundreds of millions of dollars behind.” Killeen said that he is looking at available resources and making sure UI can commit to keeping the raises and not giving a “one-off that goes away.” He said raises would be a “modest” increase and asked for employees to be patient, adding that he hopes raises will come before January. “There is a lot of uncertainty going forward, but given all of that, our most important asset is our people and we need to invest in our people, so we are working hard to find a way to do that,” he said.
UI system reaches record enrollment
The UI system has more students on campus
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Wildlife Medical Clinic helps first bald eagle with recovery
PAGE 6A Illinois football on the right track following Saturday loss
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