University’s own report card in need of much improvement

Originally published December 15, 2009 for the Daily Illini’s fall 2009 semester-in-review edition.

Here we are at the end of another semester, final exams the only thing standing between students and their grades. After agonizing over last assignments, projects, and now tests, we still get to play the torturous waiting game until grades are posted.

Thankfully, the University doesn’t have to wait for its report card. I’ve taken the liberty of compiling some of the biggest areas of concern this fall.

So, without further ado, U of I’s final semester grades:

Efficiency: D.

Notes: Hey, remember Lincoln Hall, that building people used years ago for class or something? It’s been closed for so long most people can’t remember when they had a class in there. Of course, the building was closed for important reasons—namely, sitting unused until the legislature and Gov. Quinn sort of maybe approved the idea of funding for renovations in July and December 2009. The university began relocating classes in the fall of 2008, doesn’t plan to begin renovations until 2010, and won’t be finished until the fall semester of 2012.

Integrity: F.

Notes: Ex-Chancellor Herman sent out a mass e-mail way back in May the day the Chicago Tribune broke their “Clout Goes to College” series, which publicly revealed the existence of a clout list used in the university’s admissions process. The scandal continued into the fall, rocking student and university legislative bodies way more than the mostly-apathetic student body.

At some point, many of the members of the Board of Trustees got the hint and resigned. At least Joe White knew when to throw in the towel.

But not Herman! He hung on until the bitter end, and for his efforts, was reward with a year of paid sabbatical and a cushy teaching gig with a $240,000 salary.

The moral of this story: you can make big bucks tarnishing the reputation of a public institution founded as a land-grant university. You can also make big bucks being an untouchable Illinois legislator, none of whom were punished for their explicit involvement in the clout mess.

Budgeting Skills: F.

Notes: Speaking of Herman’s professorial salary, let’s consider the university’s ability to manage its finances.

We can apparently afford $115,000 paychecks and greater for people like Niranjan Shah’s (the ex-president of the Board of Trustees) future son-in-law, who was going to be employed here for less than nine months. But we still needed to raise student fees in November for the next academic year, and though the tuition rate is still a nebulous issue right now, I can guarantee that next fall’s new students will face a price hike.

Not to mention, of course, that since the Graduate Employees’ Organization’s contract ended in August (and well before), the University argued that it could not afford any increase in salary for TAs and GAs.

Knowing that the request for increased payment would anger people without adequate information on the strike situation (read: undergraduates), the University purposely argued that the proposed wage increase was the primary issue at hand.

Ouch, U of I. Sounds like you’ve got some room for improvement—no Dean’s List this semester. Try again in the spring.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Strike at UI to have long-lasting effects

Originally published November 19, 2009.

It’s been a crazy week on campus, but ultimately one that offered an unprecedented experience for University of Illinois students. Regardless of the many different opinions expressed by students, faculty, and staff, one of the most important things to take away from the GEO strike is understanding—understanding of what a strike means, its protocol, its causes, and its effects.

Like many students, especially American ones, I had never experienced or even really seen a strike prior to Monday. I can only remember that when I was much younger, the teachers at my elementary school went on strike.

Being somewhere between four and eight years old, I was more curious than upset. I liked not having any class for days on end. I had no idea what was at stake for my instructors or what was even happening.

Since then, strikes continued to remain only on the periphery of my life, just stories on the news. That is, until recently, as the possibility of a GEO strike loomed large while the University continued to act as though ignoring the problem they created would make it disappear.

As my TAs discussed strike and picket procedures last week, the whole idea was suddenly both wild and real.

Walking out at 7:45 Monday morning to rally in the rain threw off my sense of time, as if I’d stepped into an effort to stop it. In a way it was, as graduate employees marched, shouted, carried signs and played makeshift instruments on the main quad, halting their respective classes. When Tuesday afternoon rolled around I felt like I was in an endless Saturday and had to remind myself of my normal schedule.

The sounds of chanting and homemade noisemakers drifted around the edges of the quad, easy to hear as I passed its south side on my way to a relocated class. It was exciting and disconcerting.

The noise was a very distant cousin to the din of extreme political action, like rioting. It was the softest murmur of violence potential within any opinionated activity. Demonstrations like this, harmless as they may seem, are where struggles—both physical and political—begin.

And yet it’s an impressive feat, equal to the swift, peaceful trade-out of one elected official for another, standard practice in the U.S. but sometimes notoriously difficult to enact elsewhere. A strike is democracy in action.

And that’s cause for excitement—people working hard to organize and spread information, forcing others to think critically about their own opinions.

With some of that thinking came support from a variety of places—from faculty here and across the nation; from graduate employee unions at other institutions; from other local unions; from undergraduate students and university staff and from people in the community. Classes were cancelled, relocated, and voluntarily not attended.

In the hours of picketing Monday and Tuesday, it was impressive to see a community mobilized on so many fronts.

While a strike is never a desirable outcome, witnessing our thankfully very brief one isn’t something I’ll forget anytime soon. Its execution and the factors leading up to it (as well as its still-unfolding aftermath) offer a huge opportunity for learning about the nature of contractual labor agreements, community organization and what a strike can be.

In addition, this strike is extreme encouragement for students to be aware of what’s going on around them. It’s easy to ignore things on this campus and in this community, and the strike fought our tendencies toward ignorance and apathy. Sometimes it’s the things that seem small that can have the greatest and most direct impact not only our education, but our lives.

Most importantly, at the heart of a strike regarding tuition waivers is the ongoing battle over the affordability and privatization of college education. This is only the beginning of that war, and a signal that we need to do more than simply pay attention. We must act.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Supporting the GEO is in undergrads’ best interest

Originally published November 5, 2009.

After months of getting the runaround from University administration regarding their contract, the GEO will vote later this week on whether they will strike. As undergraduates at this institution, it’s in our best interest for a number of reasons to support graduate employees in their negotiations.

Graduate employment positions exist to offset the workload of professors and assist University staff, but more importantly to make graduate school education affordable for prospective students and to provide them with valuable teaching and professional experience.

That said, graduate students are confronted with the same unaffordable hikes in tuition as undergraduate students. As it becomes even more difficult for people to attend college at any level simply on the basis of cost, graduate and teaching assistantships are no longer a “thoughtful gesture” toward incoming students on the part of the University, but a highly-sought necessity: people depend on these positions to even have a chance to attend graduate school in the first place.

Undergraduates paying for college on their own should understand this problem better than anyone else. Any undergraduate working a job while taking a full load of classes knows what it’s like to feel completely overwhelmed by both.

Coming from a “traditional” educational environment (K-12), we maintain some assumption that all of our instructors do nothing but teach our classes. We forget to apply any background we have as working students. Almost a quarter of our classes here are being taught by people just like us — students.

But we also let our primary role as students blind us — TAs are only a portion of all of the graduate employees here.

Everyone has had different experiences with graduate employees as an undergraduate student at this campus, but for those students who argue that graduate employees don’t deserve a better deal from this university, or even that these employees deserve less money because they’ve had bad TAs in the past, consider this for a moment.

When you’ve got too much on your plate (working and school, for instance), both of them often take a hit as far as your performance is concerned.

The same logic easily applies to the people teaching a good portion of your classes. When pressed to get their own work done for classes, it makes sense that their job performance would suffer. In the same vein, when they have eighty or more papers a week to grade, their personal academics pay the price.

With that in mind, consider how this imbalance could be magnified by the necessity of a second job just to make ends meet. From a strictly selfish perspective, it’s in the best interest of undergraduate students if students in positions of graduate employment are paid more by the University — it translates into a better educational experience for undergrads to have instructors who have less stress and more time to bring to teaching classes and meeting with students.

On top of that, well-prepared and financially-established graduate employees are a much greater asset to faculty and administrators than ones who are constantly preoccupied with things like living expenses, medical bills, and finding adequate, affordable childcare.

After all, not every graduate employee is a “traditional student.” Many are older, married, and have families to support without time to even consider an extra job. That these positions are “part-time” is misleading. They are jobs without enough hours to overtly (that is, on paper) compromise a person’s study time but with too many hours to comfortably allow for additional employment in many circumstances.

So, to my fellow undergraduates: support the graduate employees whose work you benefit from every day. If you’re unsure where you stand, then at the very least, talk to involved GEO members, ask questions, and make a choice. Regardless of how you feel, the struggle of our graduate employees affects your education, your University, and your future.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Politicians pointing fingers in clout scandal conveniently forget where idea comes from

Originally published July 27, 2009.

After getting the run-around from the chairman of the Board of Trustees last week, the Illinois Admissions Review Commission will see current University president B. Joseph White step up to the plate today.

But will a thorough examination of White’s involvement in the clout scandal really make that much difference in the outcome of the proceedings?

Doubtful.

The daily reports from the hearings have been appalling enough on their own. Most recently they’ve included Niranjan Shah’s attempts to pin the blame on everyone from previous University president James Stukel to Shah’s own secretary at his engineering firm for meddling in admissions and housing decisions, not to mention scoring a six-figure job for Shah’s son-in-law.

The estimated 8,000 pages of documents submitted to the review commission have undoubtedly contained the numerous quoted e-mails White himself sent regarding the admittance of many clout-backed candidates.

It’s easy to see the huge scope of the clout scandal when reading any news related to the University these days.

What’s equally apparent are the deep roots of the scandal firmly seated in the Illinois legislature. And Governor Quinn and his Illinois Admissions Review Commission plan to keep a hallowed state tradition alive by turning a blind eye to obvious political corruption.

Thus far, the commission has required the University to send at least two dozen staffers to the admissions hearings. They’ve only asked nine legislators to testify. A grand total of two agreed—Rep. Mike Boland, whose name doesn’t even appear in any of the materials released by the U of I in relation to the Category I list, and Sen. Chris Lauzen.

The big dogs have all politely told Abner Mikva thanks, but no thanks: House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, and House Republican Leader Tom Cross.

Madigan has acted on behalf of more applicants than any other legislator with a total of 43 over the last five years. According to his spokesman Steve Brown in a Tribune piece last Saturday, Madigan “believes he has little to contribute to the probe” as he was only acting on requests by constituents.

As if Madigan had no idea what his lil’ ol’ requests could do.

Mikva, head of the review commission, “seemed unconcerned about” lawmakers’ unwillingness to participate, saying in the aforementioned Trib article that “the heart of the problem is that the university had no policy of pushing back to the pressure that was exerted.”

Instead of commenting on the absurdity of this statement obvious to anyone with even a minimal knowledge of Illinois politics, I’ll follow up with an example that captures it exactly.

Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Republican candidate for governor, has already introduced a bill that aims to remove all nine members of the University Board of Trustees. And who better to demand swift, decisive action to restore public confidence in the university than someone who put his political influence behind seven applicants, three of whom were admitted?

No, we certainly cannot allow University officials to come out of this investigation unscathed, nor can we leave admissions practices unchanged. But, as with almost all of this state’s troubles, nothing’s going to change until we confront the real problem: Illinois legislators’ belief that nothing can touch them.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.

Student outrage missing in response to admissions scandal

Originally published June 8, 2009.

After the Chicago Tribune broke its story on U of I’s admissions clout list over a week ago, several parties expressed mild dismay. The Sun-Times requested that the university eliminate the list (which has, at least for the time being, been suspended). Illinois House representative Mike Boland called for legislative hearings and the resignation of all University officials and trustees who encouraged the continued usage of the list. And of course, the DI’s Web site presented the opinions of several students and graduates, whose responses were mostly variations of “I worked hard to get here, and I would be upset if an under-qualified applicant had gotten my spot.”

Among all this talk, students haven’t really expressed much anger, let alone any demands that the specific people involved with the clout scandal take responsibility for their actions. Even journalists seem afraid to demand that the people who need to be punished the most are state legislators.

For many students, it seems that the sheer fact that they were admitted is enough to balance the blatant inequity created by the clout list. They can view their acceptance as clear proof that the admissions process was fair in their circumstances. Few seem inclined to pursue the matter of responsibility for the clout list any further.

Even the Daily Illini has hesitated to rile anyone to action over the matter. Its news coverage of the list has included a generic AP article somewhat absolving U of I administration and staff of blame for its actions since it’s not the only University that engages in them.

To top it off, we’ve also given a full article’s worth of space to paraphrasing the mass e-mail Chancellor Herman sent the day the Tribune story broke, as if he needed more of an opportunity to offer his perspective. His letter, I might add, attempted to obscure the matter at hand in the Tribune article by offering unrelated data as a response (including the total number of applications received for next fall and their average ACT score) and essentially approved of the implementation of the list.

Aside from a single editorial, the DI’s coverage selection seems to admit that well, yeah, the University did a bad thing. But it’s not like we’re the only ones! It’s not that big of a deal. And even the editorial only generically requests that University officials and state legislators get their act together.

It’s as if students are convinced that even explicitly mentioning, much less blaming, Richard Herman and B. Joseph White will incur some horrible administrative wrath.

I don’t think anything should be able to match the wrath of a student body that’s discovered even one applicant was admitted to the University based on political leverage.

But more importantly, everyone—journalists included—needs to legitimately consider the involvement of state legislators in this entire clout process. Should White and Herman have caved in to political pressure? No. The trustees? The admissions staff? No. But as employees of the state’s flagship public institution, they are at the mercy of the murderous circus that is Illinois politics. Our politicians, after all, hold the purse strings.

Rep. Boland needs to turn his pointed finger of blame elsewhere, toward people like the all-powerful Michael Madigan, speaker of the house and, according to the Tribune’s follow-up article, the clout behind more U of I applicants than any other legislator in the last five years.

Before heads start rolling among University administrators, we must confront those politicians who have essentially created the clout list and administer swift and decisive punishment. And we—the tuition- and tax-paying student voters—must lead the charge.

Chelsea is a senior in LAS.