ILLINI LAND THEIR MAN Twenty days and an indefinite amount of interviews after Bruce Weber was fired, Ohio University’s John Groce was hired Thursday as the new head coach of Illinois’ men’s basketball team.
The Daily Illini
Friday March 30, 2012
www.DailyIllini.com
The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
Vol. 141 Issue 122
State strives to improve college graduation rates with 3 new bills BY CHRISTINE BEDNARZ STAFF WRITER
A new reform package made up of three bills seeks to increase college completion rates and improve students’ readiness for the workforce. One of those bills, co-sponsored
by Sen. Michael Frerichs, D-52, made it to the Illinois House of Representatives on Thursday. According to a press release, the bills address the most necessary skills for students competing in the Illinois job market. The bill that is now in the House aims to oblige the Illinois State Board of Education to design a recommended statewide model for mathematics. The bill mandates that public high schools require four years of mathematics and offer high school seniors the opportuni-
ty to receive college credit for mathematics courses. The goal is to decrease the amount of time incoming college freshman spend in remedial math courses and therefore speed up the graduation process. On the topic of the dual credit, Robert Murphy, professor of mathematics, said the current system, such as the nationally accepted Advanced Placement credit, works just fi ne. “It would be very difficult to work with each high school to figure out proper transferring
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Simon looks to help state’s college-completion rate Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon is sponsoring a reform package aimed to prepare students for college better and hopefully decrease drop-out rates. For every 10 freshmen seeking a two-year degree, less than one actually graduates in less than three years, according to numbers provided by Complete College America. 100
Full-time students in two-year colleges who return to campus
80
of credits since each school has completely different standards,” Murphy said. On Monday in Springfield, Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon addressed the Illinois Senate Education Committee regarding the third bill, stressing the importance of including education reforms in mathematics. “Students learn locally but compete globally,” Simon said. “By several measures, Illinois needs to work on its competitive
Percentage of Returning Students
New reform seeks to address students’ skills in competing job market, math
High: 73˚ Low: 43˚
Part-time students in two-year colleges who return to campus
40
20
0
See COMPLETION, Page 3A
Full-time students in four-year colleges who return to campus
60
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Part-time students in four-year collegse who return to campus
Year 4
BRYAN LORENZ Design Editor
Source: wxww.completecollege.org/docs/illinois.pdfF
African-American heritage event calls for social activism Muslim group calls attention to history of blacks, Islam BY CLAIRE EVERETT STAFF WRITER
PRITEN VORA DAILY ILLINI
University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise performs the ribbon-cutting to officially inaugurate the Neustar Labs building. The newly added lab opened Thursday afternoon at the University’s Research Park.
Research Park welcomes new lab
Neustar’s new facility at UI provides students with unique, hands-on education BY HARRINI KRISHNAN STAFF WRITER
Neustar, a technology company, has chosen the University’s Research Park as its new research facility. On Wednesday, company executives, University officials and local politicians gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to christen the new facility. Mark F. Bregman, senior vice president of Neustar, said the new facility’s main purpose is to develop innovative ideas to broaden their client’s services. Bregman said Neustar gathers and uses real-time information, such as phone numbers and shopping preferences, to help client companies target or analyze their customers’ demographics. “We’re looking for lots of new ideas that can ultimately influence our business,” he said. “The parallel to that is that we’re also looking for a lot of new talent that we can hire. So being on a campus like this, at the University of Illinois that has such a large number of high—qual-
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ity students working in these areas, will “And this means that they are at an advantage when they’re trying to get a job.” help us in both cases.” Local politicians that spoke at the cerBregman said that one of the reasons Neustar believes in employing students emony, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-ILL, and Champaign Mayor Don is their freedom from preconceptions. “You get someone who is the experi- Gerard , added that the community of enced professional—they know all the Urbana-Champaign and the midwest, will things that don’t work,” benefit economically and will help the community he said. “You get a student they don’t know that keep up with the technologically changing times. (something) doesn’t work and so they fi nd a solu“I think, especially tion where an experifrom a municipal level, enced person might say: we really need to turn ‘Oh no, I already tried the page and step into the that ten years ago. It won’t twenty fi rst century, we work. I’m not going to try can’t just rely on retail and real estate,” Gerard again.’” He said the access to said. “And this is really talent at that early stage is the ground fl oor of cut“critically important for ting edge technology— innovation.” The Univerthe types of things we sity, he said, is a great fit want to invest in and get because of the large numentrenched into the fabbers of students in comric of our community...It’s puter science and other the type of thing we want DON GERARD, technological majors and Champaign to be known mayor of Champaign the resulting high level for.” of competition amongst Bregman said his hope those students. for the future of this program is to fos“[This offers students] training not only ter an interest in this environment and out of textbooks, not only in the classroom educate them in this sector of technolbut real-life experiences so that when ogy, to stimulate those students to purthey go out and get a job, they are real- sue further education and to ultimately ly ready,” Chancellor Phyllis Wise said. become respectable employees.
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“I think, especially from a municipal level, we really need to turn the page and step into the twenty first century, we can’t just rely on retail and real estate.”
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In order to call attention to issues of oppression, the Muslim American Society hosted an event Thursday called Black American Heritage: An Inspiring a Movement for Social Justice at the Digital Computer Lab. “It’s actually a part of the religion of Islam to be involved in social justice,” said Martin Curran, emcee for the event and graduate student. “The Muslim American Society tries to bridge out to other groups and not just advocate for Muslims, but the justice of any human.” Curran said most people are not aware that there is a long history of African-American Muslims. “The plurality of Muslims in the United States is AfricanAmericans, either by being decendents of slaves or immigrants from Africa,” he said. Several people in the audience wore hijabs, or religious headscarves, and hoodies to honor Trayvon Martin, the African American teenager who was recently shot in Florida. The event targeted education, acknowledgement and support for social justice as its aim. To educate attendees, a fi lm called “African-Americans and Islam” was shown. Guest speaker Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Free-
dom Foundation, also addressed social justice without limits to color, religion, ethnic background or gender. “We feel we need to support the African-American Community,” said Dr. Ahmed Taha, president of the Illinois chapter’s Muslim American Society and graduate student. “In the society we live in today, they do deserve our support. No one can say the oppression is done.” A multi-faith Ska band called Skalalitabs, whose name was derived from Ahl al-Kitab, which means “the people of the book” in Arabic, played at the event. The band is made up of people of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths. For the acknowledgement section of the event, Aaron and Carol Ammons received an award for their work in the community. Ammons serves on the 5th District Champaign County board and is a member of the Muslim American Society. Aaron Ammons is a co-founder of the Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice. The two have recently been involved in a proposal to expand on the county jail. “Sometimes when you work hard, you don’t necessarily think people pay attention, but these kinds of awards make you continue doing what you’re doing and affect positive outcomes in the community,” Ammons said. Rahamat Odunsi , sophomore in DGS, who identifies as an African-American Muslim, attended the event, and commented on the racial diversity among Muslim attendees. “I was really excited to see such a mixture of different kinds of Muslims at the event,” she said.
“The Muslim American Society tries to bridge out to other groups and not just advocate for Muslims, but the justice of any human.” MARTIN CURRAN, graduate student
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