Students Give U of I Administration Failing Grade

Campus labor unions say University of Illinois administrators continually fail to address issues like affordable tuition, a living wage, and accountability.

The groups used the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education for a noon hour rally on Thursday. About 70 people went from the Alma Mater statue to the Swanlund Administration Building in protest.

Campus faculty association Vice President Susan Davis said this National Day was about addressing concerns for everyone they represent, ranging from food service workers, to students to faculty. Davis said U of I leaders are continually passing the buck and blaming their problems on the state's budget woes.

"What we hear from them is 'after the election we'll be able to do this, after there's a budget we'll be able to talk to you about this,'" she said. "In the meantime, they're making a lot of very radical changes to the administrative structure of the university, and probably also to the educational structure."

Groups like the Campus Faculty Association and Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) delivered three large report cards, giving U of I administrators an 'F' in the areas of access, diversity, and stewardship.

GEO Co-President Stephanie Sewell said changes in one area, like a tuition freeze, is not the panacea for the university's budget problems. Sewell also said that a tuition freeze should not keep the U of I from diversifying its student body by closing the cultural houses and consolidating them into one space.

U of I Associate Chancellor Bill Adams received the report cards when the union walked into the Swanlund building. He said many of these issues were already presented in the recent U of I Board of Trustees meeting in Urbana, but he said leaders are willing to continue the conversation.

"We are as concerned as they are about the issues that they raise," Adams said. "The issues of diversity. The issues of affordability. I think the one thing that is not mentioned there is quality, and the quality somehow has to enter into the equation as we move along."

President Michael Hogan will meet with some of these union heads at the University YMCA on Friday.

(Photo by Jeff Bossert/WILL)