[Peace-discuss] My letter in today's N-G

[Karen Aram]

Brilliant, and necessary. Keep up the good work David, your voice needs to be heard.


On Feb 15, 2019, at 07:26, David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com<mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com>> wrote:

My letter as published in today's N-G, followed by the article to which it refers:

The headlines of a Julie Wurth article (2/2) proclaim: “University of Illinois Five-Year Plan: ‘We are planning to tear down many academic walls’; Diversity in its many forms key to progress, professors say.”
While diversity is desirable and discrimination to be abhorred, neither agenda addresses the growth of economic inequality in the neoliberal era. In this context, “diversity” itself has become an ideological aspect of the neoliberal capitalist class agenda, whether in corporate or academic arenas. While “academic walls” are torn down, exploitative walls between the laboring and professional/financial classes—obviously including (tenured) academics and administrators—are raised and reinforced.
Those walls are accompanied by numerous means of surveillance, control, conformity, and domination, all of which in the academic context are implemented with the grandiose, high-minded, evangelical rhetoric that characterizes the professorial testimonials in Wurth’s article, whether from the “humanities” or professional disciplines.
The commoners should not be fooled by this manipulative, self-interested, brand-driven nonsense.
Between 1980 and 2014, 8% of U.S. GDP—$1.2 trillion in 2014 dollars—was transferred from the yearly income share of the bottom half of American adults to the top 1%. Effectively, in 2014 and since, every 50 adults in the bottom 50% contributed $10,000 each to 1 adult in the top 1%, who thus received $500,000, resulting in a $16,200 average income for the former group vs. $1.3 million for the latter.
This article is essentially an advertisement on behalf of those who justify this trend, weaponizing “diversity” while implicitly mocking social equality.
David Green

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FIVE-YEAR PLAN
‘We are planning to tear down many academic walls’
Diversity in its many forms key to progress, professors say
By JULIE WURTH
jwurth at news-gazette.com<mailto:jwurth at news-gazette.com>
URBANA — In a book published after his assassination, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. asked the question: “Where do we go from here? Chaos or community?”
On the first day of Black History Month, University of Illinois Professor Ruby Mendenhall cited the civil-rights leader as she and a half dozen other UI faculty members explained Friday how they hope to fulfill the goals of the campus strategic plan, “The Next 150.”
 “We are planning to tear down many academic walls and engage the community in unprecedented ways that will transform Champaign-Urbana and hopefully the larger society,” said Mendenhall, a professor of sociology and African-American studies and assistant dean at the new Carle Illinois College of Medicine.
A crowd of several hundred people gathered at the Illini Union for the launch of the five-year plan, which calls for an emphasis on diversity and public service in key areas such as the arts, data sciences, the humanities, globalization, food security, undergraduate education, health sciences and sustainability.
Bioengineering Professor Rohit Bhargava, head of the UI’s new Cancer Center, described how it will pull together experts from across campus — who study everything from biology to engineering to racial disparities in health care — to “change the way we monitor people with cancer, change the way we diagnose cancer, change the way we treat cancer ... and invent tomorrow’s technology to change their lives.”
History Professor Antoinette Burton, director of the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, talked of infusing humanities throughout the curriculum, to meet a rising demand for workers with imagination and critical-thinking skills, and investing in emerging areas such as environmental and medical humanities.
Psychology Professor Brent Roberts, faculty coordinator for the Center for Social and Behavioral Science, said it will work with other disciplines to take on “grand challenges” such as poverty, the impact of human behavior on cancer and heart disease, and how people interact with technology.
Professor Jana Diesner of the School of Information Sciences outlined initiatives already underway to expose every student to data science and apply it to real-world problems. A task force is working on ways to improve datascience course offerings, and a new pilot statistics course that drew students from 20 different majors will be expanded next fall. Professors from colleges across campus are also working on a proposal to the National Science Foundation to develop a multidisciplinary approach.
 “Here at Illinois, we believe that data acumen is becoming vital to every discipline ... and a range of professions,” she said. “Data science is there for all of us.”
Tracy Sulkin, dean of the College of Media, described proposals for “modular curricula” and collaboration across departments so students have more opportunities for dual degrees and joint majors.
And Mendenhall, who researches the health impact of gun violence on mothers in Chicago, described how the medical school and other units are working with “citizen scientists” to collect data and participate in research. She mentioned two young girls who took part in an NAACP program, one working on a cure for sickle-cell anemia and one researching the triggers for children with epilepsy. Both will take part in a “health make-athon” this spring.
 “We are creating an ecosystem where we can nurture diverse types of genius,” she said.
The strategic plan builds on the “Visioning Future Excellence” plan developed in 2013 under former Chancellor Phyllis Wise, which focused on six themes — education, economic development, energy and environment, health and wellness, information and technology, and social equality and cultural understanding.
That plan led to the creation of the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the Siebel Center for Design, and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment, which recently attracted a $115 million grant.
Chancellor Robert Jones said the plan lays out a collective vision and priorities for the campus over the next five years and beyond, as it defines what it means to be a land-grant university for the 21st century.
 “You won’t find any big surprises here. What you will find are big ideas with the potential to transform the way the world lives, thinks and learns,” he said.
Provost Andreas Cangellaris called it a “bold and ambitious vision for our future.”
 “For 150 years, University of Illinois has changed the world,” he said. “We cannot afford to rest on our accomplishments.”
The plan includes two key principles: — That the diversity of the campus is its most powerful asset, so removing any barriers that limit access to opportunity, financial or otherwise, is a priority.
— The UI’s service mission, making a positive impact on the community, should be part of “everything we do,” Cangellaris said. “As a public university, it should be the centerpiece of our mission.”
Afterward, city of Champaign Planning Director Bruce Knight gave the plan high marks, saying it presents an opportunity for the university and community to work together.
 “They really opened the door through their strategic initiatives to that idea,” he said. “The University of Illinois is what makes Champaign-Urbana what it is. We would not be the same community without it. I think it’s exciting that they’re looking for ways to innovate and improve the world, starting with the local community.”





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