[Peace] Press conference TODAY! 4pm, Townsend/Miller call for diversity at UIUC

[Brian Dolinar]

The announcement of a report to be released today by Terry Townsend and
Martel Miller is already making the news.

Come out *TODAY 4pm at the University YMCA* to hear Townsend and Miller
call for more diversity and access at the University of Illinois!

BD

https://www.facebook.com/events/1551702315103033

*Critics: Fire Wise over diversity shortfall*

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-02-27/critics-fire-wise-over-diversity-shortfall.html

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

As The News-Gazette reported in October
<http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2014-10-12/prescription-disaster.html>,
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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

The report points out that the UI's international student undergraduate
population exceeds 22 percent.

"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.

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.

"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."

Two big factors in the decline are cost and financial aid, Bailey said.

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.
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.

"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.

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.

He said the chancellor's message that diversity is a crucial part of
excellence is one "people need to hear, and hear more often."

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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."
-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
briandolinar.com
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