Monday, May 2, 2016
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Vol. 100 Issue 86
Stepping hard
Faculty to host teach-in Monday CORY RAY | @CoryRay_DE
Faculty members planned their own events for a day scheduled full of rallies and protests. In response to a YouTube video that calls for lynchings on campus that day, history professor Holly Hurlburt has organized a teach-in along with half a dozen to a dozen professors to educate students on social justice. The event will begin at noon near the Faner Hall breezeway. “We were all pretty angry about the video,” Hurlburt said. “We were pretty upset that whoever created the video felt like he or she could threaten people in that way, and in particular, make it as though it’s not OK to come to school.” Hurlburt said this is not a strike alongside the May 2 Strike Committee; rather, it is an attempt to let those propagating violent speech know it will not stop people from coming to the university Monday. For Hurlburt, she plans to use the teach-in as a way to evoke conversation about racism. The faculty will also screen “Strange Fruit,” a 2003 film about the history of lynchings. “We need to have an honest conversation on this campus about the legacy of lynching,” Hurlburt said. “Because when that video chose to use that terminology, that wasn’t accidental. That was fear-mongering.” While she doesn’t want professors to cancel classes because of the event, she hopes it will attract them to bring their classes to it. Then at 4 p.m., students can join an open mic reading about social justice in Faner 2302. “We believe quite strongly that conversation and dialogue will go a lot further than in solving problems than threats of violence will,” Hurlburt said. SIU Police Chief Ben Newman said Sunday his department will have extra officers on duty in response to anticipated protests. Cory Ray can be reached at cray@dailyegyptian.com or 618-536-3325.
Jacob Wiegand | @JacobWiegand_DE Tim Huff, a senior studying Africana studies and president of Iota Phi Theta, leads a step routine early Sunday morning as Player’s Ball attendees begin to file out of SIU Arena. Kappa Alpha Psi’s 38th annual event returned to SIU after a four-year hiatus.
Carbondale adult-education school will close if state funding doesn’t come soon ANNA SPOERRE | @AnnaSpoerre
The Carbondale High School Rebound program — started in 1970 to give southern Illinois residents the opportunity to receive their high school diploma or earn their GED certificate — faces uncertainty going into next school year thanks to the state budget impasse. “If we don’t have a budget by the end of June, we’re going to plan on not opening in the fall,” Stephen Murphy, superintendent of Carbondale Community High School, said of the program that serves about 225 students every year. The prospect of the school’s closing is concerning to employees and alumni of the program, which,
like most state-funded institutions, has not seen any state money since July 1 amid the budget impasse between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic legislators. Jake Burns, 21, of Murphysboro, said he never had a formal high school education because his parents pulled him out of school in eighth grade. At first first he thought it was really cool to be out of school, but he said that feeling of freedom only lasted for so long. “You realize you’re in a gutter and you’re not going anywhere with life,” he said. “It just sucks.” In 2013, when Burns was 18, he came to Rebound to complete his GED before he started at John A. Logan Community College in
Carterville that summer. “This place is a crutch for a lot of people who have been told that they don’t mean anything or that they don’t matter,” he said. He said the people here change students’ lives. For him, that person is Candy Calcaterra, who recently helped him get admitted into SIU with more than $10,000 in scholarships per year. “Three years ago I would have never thought I’d be at SIU,” Burns said with a grin as he pulled his new student ID out of his wallet. Burns is not the only one who got a second chance at an education at Rebound. When Marcie Johnson first stepped beneath the colorfully-
Editor’s note: Starting with this edition, the Daily Egyptian will use an updated masthead to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of SIU’s student-run publication.
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painted ceiling tiles in the small, five-classroom school, she had not received an education past 11th grade. Decades later, she decided she wanted to receive her high school diploma. Johnson, now a grandmother of two, started at Rebound in 2005 — testing at a fourth-grade reading level and a third-grade math level. “The more I learned, the better I started caring about myself,” she said. “Education gives you tools.” She graduated from Rebound in 2010 with a high school diploma and has attended John A. Logan College since, working toward an associate’s degree in art. Please see REBOUND | 2