<div dir="ltr"><div><div>The announcement of a report to be released today by Terry Townsend and Martel Miller is already making the news. <br><br></div>Come out <b>TODAY 4pm at the University YMCA</b> to hear Townsend and Miller call for more diversity and access at the University of Illinois!<br><br></div>BD<br><br><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1551702315103033">https://www.facebook.com/events/1551702315103033</a><br><div><div><div><div><br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt"><b style><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%">Critics: Fire Wise over diversity shortfall</span></b></p>
<br><a href="http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-02-27/critics-fire-wise-over-diversity-shortfall.html">http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-02-27/critics-fire-wise-over-diversity-shortfall.html</a><br><p>CHAMPAIGN — Prompted by shrinking numbers of black students at the
University of Illinois, some community activists are calling on trustees
not to renew Chancellor Phyllis Wise's contract.</p>
<p>Terry Townsend and Martel Miller compiled a report that they say
documents the UI's failure on a number of fronts to "fulfill its
land-grant mission of providing accessibility to all residents of
Illinois, particularly its African-American residents." They plan a
press conference this afternoon at the University YMCA on campus.</p>
<p>The report describes "deplorable conditions" at the Bruce D. Nesbitt
African American Cultural Center, a "precipitous drop" in black student
enrollment, and the "dismally low" number of black faculty and staff on
campus, among other issues.</p>
<p>UI officials say they are working to address those challenges and
that Wise, in fact, has led the effort to build a more diverse campus.
Her five-year contract runs through 2016.</p>
<p>"The rationale that she has articulated has always been that to
achieve our goal of pre-eminence, we need the brightest minds working
together to solve society's most vexing challenges. And if you limit the
pool ... it only prevents you from having the greatest possible
impact," campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler said.</p>
<p>As The News-Gazette <a href="http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2014-10-12/prescription-disaster.html" target="_blank">reported in October</a>,
356 black freshmen enrolled at the Urbana campus last fall, down from
433 in 2013. That represents just over 5 percent of the 6,937 students
in the freshman class.</p>
<p>The number has been on the decline for a half-dozen years, even as
the campus continued to set new enrollment records overall. The last
time the number of black freshmen topped 500 was in 2008.</p>
<p>Campuswide, the percentage is less than 5 percent. Overall, there are
2,126 black undergraduate, graduate and professional students on
campus, or 4.87 percent, down from 6.08 percent in 2008. By comparison,
the state's black population is 14.7 percent.</p>
The report from Townsend and Miller
also said the numbers of minority faculty and staff "leave room for
improvement." The latest figures, from 2013, show 4.87 percent of
faculty are black, or just 88 of the 2,172 professors on campus.
<p>Meanwhile, Townsend and Miller said black unemployment in
Champaign-Urbana remains an alarming 17.4 percent, compared to the
Illinois rate of 6.2 percent.</p>
<p>Some campus and community observers have urged a new initiative to
recruit more black students to campus, similar to the Project 500
launched in 1968.</p>
<p>The report points out that the UI's international student undergraduate population exceeds 22 percent.</p>
<p>"We need to rededicate ourselves to the underrepresented. Chancellor
Wise is more concerned about achieving global diversity, rather than
reaching African-American students from Champaign, Chicago or Ferguson,"
said Townsend, a UI alumnus and organizer of the 40th anniversary of
Project 500.</p>
<p>African-American studies Professor Ronald Bailey, who heads the
campus Committee on Race and Ethnicity, said the panel has a
subcommittee working on the enrollment issue.</p>
<p>"Nobody thinks that enough has been done," he said. "We can't have
fewer students enrolling now than the 565 that came in with Project 500
in 1968. ... It's not going to work because it means that we are not
making the contribution to educating the citizens of this state that we
want to make."</p>
<p>Two big factors in the decline are cost and financial aid, Bailey said.</p>
<p>The same students the UI is trying to attract, particularly from the
Chicago area, are recruited by other top public and private universities
that offer lucrative financial packages, making their schools more
affordable than the UI, he said.</p>
The committee and the campus are
looking at ways to offer more competitive scholarships through private
fundraising. The UI also is hiring a new vice provost for enrollment — a
higher-level position than the admissions directors in past years — and
the Committee on Race and Diversity pushed to be involved in the search
to make sure the issue is "on the table," he said.
<p>"We want to see somebody who comes in who is very conversant with
these issues and challenges, and somebody who has a track record" of
rallying support from people throughout the university to help
recruitment efforts, he said.</p>
<p>Asked about Wise's record on diversity, Bailey pointed out that the
charge for his committee came from the chancellor, and her office has
been strongly supportive of its various initiatives.</p>
<p>He said the chancellor's message that diversity is a crucial part of
excellence is one "people need to hear, and hear more often."</p>
<p>"It really takes more than just saying, 'We don't have enough black
students.' What do we do about it? And my sense is that there's a lot of
very positive discussion."</p>
<p>Overall, he said, campus leaders have to be held more accountable —
not just the chancellor and provost, but deans, other administrators,
department heads and faculty.</p>
<p>The community report says the university failed to deal with the poor
conditions at the African-American Cultural Center until students
complained in an all-campus letter last spring.</p>
<p>Provost Ilesanmi Adesida later acknowledged that conditions at the
center — a house at 708 S. Mathews Ave., U — were "unacceptable," and
the campus moved the program to a Campus Recreation building at 51 E.
Gregory Drive, between Oak and First streets, far from the center's
former home near the Quad.</p>
<p>Long-term, the campus wants to build a new facility for the program
at its historic location on Mathews, Kaler said. She said deferred
maintenance is a problem across campus, and "we do the best we can."</p>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.<br></div><div></div><a href="http://briandolinar.com" target="_blank">briandolinar.com</a><br></div></div>
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