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The Daily Illini
Monday April 8, 2013
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The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Vol. 142 Issue 133
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Ebertfest to tribute departed host Ebert’s funeral service:
BY ALISON MARCOTTE FEATURES EDITOR
This year’s Ebertfest marks the 15th anniversary since the start of the famed film festival. It also will be the first since the passing of its esteemed host, Roger Ebert. The festival will continue, said festival director Nate Kohn, despite the news of Ebert’s recent death on Thursday in Chicago. Additionally, the festival will be continuing for years to come, said Associate festival director Mary Susan Britt in an email. “We want people to know that it was Roger’s wish that we continue the festival,” Kohn said. “And we’re going to honor his wish.” Ebertfest, which is scheduled for April 17-21, is an annual film festival sponsored by the College of Media and hosted in The Virginia Theatre in Champaign. The festival features a selection of films chosen by Ebert and Kohn. In addition to the film screenings, there are academic panel discussions at the Illini Union Pine Lounge in Urbana. Filmmakers and other special guests also speak at the annual event. This year, Chaz Ebert, Ebert’s wife, will again serve as the emcee of the event, which will act as a tribute to Ebert. The organizers also have a few surprises planned in honor of Ebertfest’s 15th anniversary, Kohn said. Steven Bentz, director of The Virginia Theatre, acknowledged the sadness that will resonate with everyone who attends the event and also throughout the ChampaignUrbana community. “It’s going to be an extremely poignant moment when almost 1,500 people come into this
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Scheduled for Monday at 10 a.m. at Holy Name Cathedral, 730 N. State St. in Chicago. The program is open to the public, and seats are limited. More inside: Learn about
the origins of Ebertfest, Ebert’s impact on the festival and the instrumental work of Nate Kohn Page 5A
room and Roger Ebert isn’t able to be sitting with us,” Bentz said. “It can’t help but be an emotional moment, and I think we all know that we have that coming.” Betsy Hendrick, Ebert’s friend and sponsor of the event, became friends with Ebert when they were both reporters at The News-Gazette. She said that she expects a high attendance rate this year as visitors will be coming to honor the former host. “I think that people who haven’t been here for a few years would like to come back, kind of as a tribute to Roger,” she said. The week of Ebertfest also marks the grand reopening of The Virginia Theatre, which underwent an extensive renovation that cost roughly $5.5 million, Bentz said. The construction began in June 2012, and the reopening will be on Saturday, April 13, four days before Ebertfest. Bentz said the Champaign Park District kept Ebert informed about the renovations throughout the year. “We are really, really so sad he is unable to walk in that door and see the freshly restored Virginia,” Bentz said. With Ebert’s passing, visitors
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Adam Booher, president and maker at Bump, and Ehsan Noursalehi, vice president and designer at Bump, speak as part of TEDxUIUC on Sunday.
TEDxUIUC inspires students BY DANIEL WICENTOWSKI STAFF WRITER
Even before the first speaker took the stage at TEDxUIUC on Sunday, Kendall Rak was thinking about Why. A junior in engineering, Rak balanced a notebook filled with functions and symbols in his lap — the result of taking a class in higher mathematics. But that class, to Rak, was the What and the How; he said he wanted more from his engineering education. He wanted the Why. Eight hours later, he would have new notes scribbled alongside the equations of his notebook, new perspectives on creativity, intuition, risk, failure and love. Eight hours later, TEDxUIUC would bring Rak closer to that elusive Why. *** TEDxUIUC is a localized version of the wildly popular TED
See EBERT, Page 3A
conference, and like many students in attendance, Rak is an avid fan of TED videos that have garnered millions of views on YouTube. Organized by students, the TEDxUIUC conference has been held since 2009, and this year’s event attracted an audience of mostly engineers and science students who were selected from among a pool of 900 applicants. The conference was split over the day into three themes: Initiate, Innovate and Inspire. The conference kicked off with Deana McDonagh, chair of the industrial design program at the University. Wearing a pair of seemingly physics-defying heelless pumps, McDonagh spoke about the nature of “design thinking,” a type of thinking that values childlike curiosity and creative problem solving.
STAFF WRITER
The grand-opening of the Urbana Landmark Hotel bar Saturday night was an accomplishment for hotel owner Xiao Jin Yuan, as hotel renovations were contested as an issue in local politics. At least 550 people attended the opening, Yuan said, which featured music by Vena, a Latin American bachata supergroup. The after-party at the bar followed an event hosted by the Alpha Chi chapter of the Lambda Upsilon Lambda fraternity at the Illini Union on Saturday night. The event included a history of bachata, a style of Dominican music and dancing, a Q&A with the group and a free live performance. Vena reserved the ballroom for the after-party and later decided to reserve rooms to stay in the hotel. The Urbana Landmark Hotel has been open since December 2012 with 45 guest rooms available. Because of delays in obtaining liquor licenses, Yuan had been unable to open the bar until last weekend. Many have eagerly anticipated the opening of the bar, including one current guest at the hotel. “I have great hopes that it (the hotel) will continue to thrive and be a presence in
Urbana,” said Richard Briscoe, University alumnus and former area resident. “I know XJ’s (Yuan’s) got it in the plan, but having the tavern open will be great.” Yuan said he has met many setbacks while renovating the hotel but still wants to bring it back to life. The hotel was designed by Joseph William Royer, an Urbana architect and engineer who designed many buildings in Urbana like the Champaign County Courthouse. “I fell in love with the building,” Yuan said. “I believe the risk of investment in this building is manageable with my current finances.” Yuan spent 12 years as a commodities trader in Hong Kong, which required him to travel extensively. He said through his travels, he saw what it means to preserve historic buildings, as well as what it means to let them go to waste. “Even today, if you travel in Europe, you will see a lot of well-maintained old buildings,” Yuan said. “People didn’t tear them down ... they maintain some of the very old walls of their cities.” Along with the historical significance of the hotel building, Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing said she doesn’t see a much
INSIDE
BY DAN WELIN STAFF WRITER
EMILY OGDEN THE DAILY ILLINI
XJ Yuan, owner of Urbana Landmark Hotel, stands in front of the counter of his newly opened bar called Alumni Tap just inside the hotel on Saturday.
Costs to renovate the Urbana Landmark Hotel Hotel owner Xiao Jin Yuan pledged to renovate the Urbana Landmark Hotel and use his personal finances to make semi-permanent improvements to hotel rooms. The cost of upgrading the historic hotel’s furnishings and amenities proved more costly than originally planned. 1,000,000
$970,552
800,000 600,000 400,000
$525,250 $341,210
200,000 0
Expected total cost to update 128 rooms
Actual total cost of updating 45 rooms
Source: City of Urbana through a FOIA request
See LANDMARK, Page 3A
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More online: Didn’t
make it to TEDxUIUC? See a photo essay from the conference that aimed to initiate, innovate and inspire students at DailyIllini.com incredible doors are nailed shut by other people. Are we not here to nurture and encourage and empower and enable people to live a full life?” Allowing people to live a full life was also the subject of the pair of speakers who followed McDonagh. Adam Booher and Ehsan Noursalehi founded Bump, a non-profit design studio that provides prosthetic arms to those living in the developing world. However, their presentation wasn’t about their successes, or at least not directly. It was about
See TED TALKS, Page 3A
SEIU approves 4-year contract
Urbana Landmark Hotel opens Alumni Tap bar BY JANELLE O’DEA
“We apply design common sense, which really isn’t that common,” she said of industrial designers. Two large projector screens on both sides of the stage showed examples of her students’ work: elegant high-heels made of paper and glue, a wedding dress of plastic bags, a bikini top made of CocaCola cans that left the imagination spinning. Later, during one the various networking breaks throughout the day, McDonagh explained that the nature of the current education system sometimes works to stifle that kind of free and creative thinking. “We realize that creativity has been dampened by their lifetime of education. My heart sinks when I hear a student say, ‘But I’ve been told all my life I can’t draw,’” she said. “What saddens me is that
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New projected total cost to update 128 rooms SCOTT DURAND Design editor
The Service Employees International Union Local 73 ratified a four-year contract with the University on Friday after more than nine months of negotiations. The new contract guarantees yearly wage increases and a signing bonus for union members. Members voted an overwhelming “yes” on the University’s contract proposal. Food service workers voted 89 percent in favor, while building service workers had a 93 percent approval rate, according to SEIU lead negotiator Ricky Baldwin. Baldwin said the vote speaks for itself regarding union members’ opinions of the new contract. “The most important thing is these folks stuck together and stayed tough and some of the other unions on campus stayed with them,” Baldwin said. “It’s really a victory for the whole campus.” Campus spokeswoman Robin Kaler said she was also relieved. “We’re delighted,” Kaler said. “It’s great to have everybody working together to serve our students.” After the union and the University reached a tentative
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agreement on March 27, the SEIU negotiating team recommended members vote “yes” on the contract. “If this vote had been ‘no,’ we would have had to go on strike again until we reached an agreement, which people didn’t want,” Baldwin said. Baldwin speculated the final contract will include terms such as fitting food and dining service workers for shoes once a year. In addition, employees will now be guaranteed to have two week’s notice before undergoing a shift change. Under the old contract, employees’ schedules were subject to change with minimal time to plan accordingly. The last time union members voted on a contract with the University was March 10. They rejected the contract, citing wage increases being too low, and went on strike for three days. The University preferred a four-year contract, but Baldwin said the union was open to a three or four-year contract as long as wage increases were high enough. With the new ratified contract, Baldwin said the University and the union will meet to review and sign the final agreement.
Dan can be reached at welin1@dailyillini.com.
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