http://ift.tt/2iuh5CC Board of Higher Education Director James Applegate has announced he will be stepping down from his post next month. Applegate announced his resignation in IBHE’s bi-weekly report Friday. He says he will be leaving to “pursue other opportunities to serve American higher education.” The 65-year-old began working with the state in February 2014. He made $200,000 per year in his position as executive director. In the newsletter, Applegate noted achievements during his tenure, which he says include raising grant funds to support college readiness and access. He also said that under his watch, the board expanded efforts to help community college students transfer to four-year institutions and launched programs to improve workforce outcomes for college graduates.
HL004 — HL
Richland Community College cuts high-ranking positions
DECATUR — Richland Community College will eliminate five positions as part of a restructuring caused by severe loss of state funding.
“The restructuring is not a reflection of any employee’s performance, rather, the need to restructure in light of the College’s limited financial resources,” said Richland President Cris Valdez in a prepared statement released Friday evening.
The cuts include three administrative officers, including chief of staff, vice president of economic development and innovative workforce solutions and director of human resources. Two positions will also be eliminated in the Duplication Center, which will close this spring.
The cuts will be effective Feb. 28.
“Colleges and Universities across the state have engaged in cost-cutting measures that have resulted in personnel cuts and program cuts,” Valdez said in the statement. “Richland Community College has avoided personnel changes up to this point.”
The statement did not make clear whether those holding the administrative positions would be moved to other positions within the college. Current Chief of Staff Lisa Gregory declined to comment, while Vice President of Economic Development Douglas Brauer referred questions to Valdez.
Richland Board President Bruce Campbell also referred questions to Valdez.
Valdez could not be reached for further comment.
Richland has seen a nearly 13 percent drop in enrollment over the past six years, as well as a 12 percent decrease in state funds over that same time period.
The board of trustees recently passed a budget that did not include any money from the state, relying solely on the tax levy and enrollment to fund the college.
News of the cuts were proof once again for state Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, that the state must do more to support education at all levels.
“One of the big losers right now in the budget situation is our schools,” Mitchell said. “The state isn’t living up to what it should be doing. Asinine is the only word I can use to describe it.”
He said he was hopeful that lawmakers could come together in the new session to pass a budget for the first time in nearly two years and provide some funding and stability for Richland and other schools.
rvoyles@herald-review.com|(217)421-7985
tchurchill@herald-review.com|(217)421-7978
Local colleges brace for MAP grant cutbacks
http://ift.tt/2iPAzAeRebecca Susmarski The Register-Mail
GALESBURG — The lack of a state budget could impact low-income students this academic year, and colleges have begun planning for how to assuage the situation if that happens.
The state has promised Illinois students funding for Monetary Award Program grants, but if the General Assembly doesn’t pass a final budget this year, students may not receive that money. Only students with the greatest financial need qualify for MAP grants, which help cover tuition costs and do not need to be repaid.
The faculties and students at Knox College, Monmouth College, Western Illinois University and Carl Sandburg College have felt the impact of uncertain MAP grant funding over the past two years. Karrie Heartlein, director of government and community relations at Knox College, said many Knox students who receive MAP grants have also taken out the “maximum loan amount,” leaving them no other funding option if the MAP grants do not come in.
“As long as there is no state budget, these students are sitting in a sort of financial limbo waiting on their financial aid, and that’s very stressful,” said Karrie Heartlein, director of government and community relations for Knox College. “It’s an incredible burden for students who are trying to get an education.”
Some schools cover MAP funds and wait for state reimbursement, including Western Illinois University and Monmouth College. Western Illinois University covered $16.5 million in MAP funding from the fall of 2015 to the fall of 2016, and as of Jan. 7, 2017, the school has allocated approximately $4.5 million to 2,220 students for the spring 2017 semester, said Darcie Shinberger, assistant vice president for advancement and public services at the university.
The April and June 2016 stopgap budgets reimbursed the university about $11.2 million total for the fall 2015 and spring 2016 semesters, but the university has not yet been reimbursed for the fall 2016 semester. To make sure the university had enough money to cover the grants before then, 502 employees participated in a furlough program that saved approximately $1.5 million in fiscal year 2016 and $530,000 in fiscal year 2017.
Monmouth College funded about $2.4 million to about 550 MAP-eligible students in the 2015-2016 school year, which the stopgap budget reimbursed, said Duane Bonifer, executive director of communications and marketing at the college. The college expects to fund $2.2 million for about 500 MAP-eligible students this school year.
Bonifer said many alumni and friends of the college helped raise the money by making donations specifically for financial aid. The college also maintained a policy of “prudent fiscal management” and not exceeding expenditures.
“Students come up with ideas for programs they’d like to see implemented at the college, and we don’t have the money for that,” Bonifer said. “But in the long term I think it’s more than worth it because you’re able to provide young people with an education, and not just an education but an affordable, high-quality education. That’s part of the sacrifice that you make.”
In the case of community colleges like Carl Sandburg, however, funding can be hard to come by even when schools aim to refrain from spending. Lisa Hanson, director of financial aid at the college, said Sandburg has lost 90 percent of its state funding within the last 10 years; for a comparison, the state provided $500,000 in stopgap money for this academic year when it previously allocated $6 million in 2008.
Sandburg had been able to cover half of MAP funding for its students for the fall 2015 semester, then supplied the other half when state payments came through in January of 2016. Yet as the budget situation became more dire, the college found it couldn’t do that any longer.
To offset the state’s imbalance, Sandburg allows MAP-eligible students who also have Pell grants — federal grants that can be used for school supplies and other education-related items — to apply them toward the MAP money. If the state does make its MAP payments, the school would then reimburse the students on their Pell grants.
“The Pell is $5,815 for 2016-2017, so it’s more than our tuition and fees (about $4,690 in 2014-2015), but it amounts to a third at a public four-year institution and counts for less at a private one,” Hanson said.
Private school Knox College has been able to give students a credit toward their MAP funds when they pay their tuition, then reimburse them. Last year the college agreed to pay for students’ MAP grants if the state did not fulfill its promise of funding — the stopgap budget ultimately covered the funds for fall 2015 through spring 2016 — but the college has not yet decided if it will be able to make that offer for this academic year.
Heartlein estimated that it would cost the college $4,720 per student if it decided to cover the MAP funds for this year, for a total of about $1.5 million for 300 students.
“The college doesn’t have a million and a half dollars just sitting around waiting to be spent,” Heartlein said. “It’s an important decision and it’s something that’s going to take a lot of consideration. And of course, there will be a lot of budget items that perhaps won’t be funded should we make that decision.”
Students at all four schools have spoken out over the past three years in an effort to motivate state legislators to change the MAP grant situation. Sandburg’s website contains links to the General Assembly’s site so students can find out how to contact their legislators, and Hanson often refers students to the General Assembly if they have questions about their MAP grant.
Knox encouraged students, their families and faculty members to write to their legislators about the issue in November 2015, and in April 2016, Heartlein took some students down to Springfield to lobby for the grants. Student government groups at Western Illinois and Monmouth have participated in similar events, and Monmouth has planned to attend another MAP rally in Springfield this spring.
“Whenever budgets get tight, typically the students become more aware and even more involved to some extent with what is happening in terms of the public policy arena, because they see how failure of leadership affects them,” Bonifer said. “I think it’s encouraging in the long run because you produce citizens who are active and engaged, and that’s a good thing.”
Rebecca Susmarski: (309) 343-7181, ext. 261; rsusmarski@register-mail.com; @RSusmarski
SIU will not adopt sanctuary campus designation
January 06, 2017
SIU will not adopt sanctuary campus designation
by Tom Woolf
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois University System President Randy Dunn today (Jan. 6) announced that none of SIU’s three locations — Carbondale, Edwardsville and the School of Medicine in Springfield — will be designated a sanctuary campus.
SIU Carbondale’s Undergraduate Student Government and Graduate and Professional Student Council sent a letter to Dunn and Interim Chancellor Brad Colwell in December requesting the sanctuary campus declaration to protect undocumented students. Dunn indicated that together with the campus chancellors and other officials, staff would review potential policy and legal considerations, noting also that any decision would apply system-wide.
Dunn said that review concluded that the concept of a sanctuary campus is not clearly defined in any legal sense, adding that the designation suggests that the university would be willing to violate the law. Doing so would put SIU and all of its students at risk, including the potential loss of federal financial aid.
“At the same time, there are key principles that we believe are important during this uncertain period,” Dunn said. “We will continue to do everything we can within the scope of established law to support our students. And we take our responsibility to protect student privacy under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) very seriously. SIU is committed to an inclusive, welcoming environment in which all of our students can continue progress toward their degrees and graduate on time.”
The issue caught fire on campuses across the country following Donald Trump’s election as president. During the campaign, Trump promised to deport as many as 3 million immigrants who have criminal records or who are living in the country illegally. That prompted concerns about undocumented students attending college under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Created in 2012 through an executive order by President Obama, the program gives young undocumented immigrants protection from deportation and a work permit. The program expires after two years, subject to renewal.
SIU enrolls fewer than 60 DACA students among its system-wide enrollment of more than 30,000.
Dunn, Colwell and SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook are among the nearly 600 university leaders nationally who have signed a letter calling for the continuation of DACA.
“The SIU campuses have been trusted destinations for all of our students and we maintain an enduring commitment to providing access to students traditionally underrepresented in higher education,” Dunn said.
(For more information: Contact John Charles, the SIU System’s executive director for governmental and public affairs, at 217/545-8080.)
Awaiting a State Budget, Illinois Colleges Adapt and Hope
Awaiting a State Budget, Illinois Colleges Adapt and Hope
Local colleges continue to struggle with uncertain state funding
JOLIET – As Illinois enters 2017 without a budget in place, higher education institutions such as Joliet Junior College continue to struggle with the uncertainty of state funding.
JJC spokeswoman Kelly Rohder said the impact of the state budget impasse on the community college has been ongoing since the crisis started in 2015.
“We’re doing what we can with what we have,” she said.
The college will have discussions at a Jan. 31 board workshop meeting on ways to control costs, such as scheduling efficiency and tuition increases, she said.
The state’s stopgap budget that was approved by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner on June 30 expired Saturday. Colleges and universities, along with students, continue to struggle without a state budget in place.
One area where students are struggling is with Monetary Award Program grants. Students will enter a second semester without them. JJC advanced more than $1 million in MAP grants last school year, but was unable to do so this year. The Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which administers MAP grants, stated in a Dec. 14 news release that funding for MAP and ISAC grants and scholarship programs for the current academic year have not been appropriated because of the delay of the state’s budget.
“We’re all very hopeful there will be a budget and that it will include MAP,” said Lynne Baker, ISAC spokeswoman.
In a fall 2016 ISAC survey of MAP-eligible students, respondents indicated they worked more to cover expenses because of lack of MAP funding, took out more loans, took fewer credits or transferred to a less-expensive school in or out of state because they could not afford tuition without MAP funding.
State Sen. Pat McGuire, D-Joliet, who’s chairman of the higher education committee, said with reduced state funding, schools such as JJC are forced to cut back on services or staff, or increase tuition.
“I fear JJC will be forced to consider cutbacks and/or tuition increases this spring if the state doesn’t provide the operating grant funds that JJC is expecting,” McGuire said.
JJC has responded to unreliable state funding by closing its Small Business Development Center, identify contingency items in its budget and approving a tax levy that does not rebate back to taxpayers the interest earned on bonds for major projects.
McGuire said he was going to work toward funding MAP, as well as community colleges and universities when the state legislative session resumes this month.
He said he was hoping state lawmakers can replicate the bipartisan success last April, when emergency funding for major Illinois universities and colleges was approved.
“We need to do it again and we need to do it sooner than April,” he said.
Year in Review 2016: A Critical Year for Chicago State, CTU
Defender Contributing Writer, Erick Johnson
Chicago State University is limping its way through the school year as the predominantly Black school faces a year-end deficit that may force officials to slash expenses to keep the school afloat.
The latest development in CSU’s financial woes caps a year of serious challenges and uncertainty in the school’s 149-year history. While 2016 was a tough for CSU, it was a victorious one for nearly 25,000 teachers in the Chicago Teachers Union, which finally signed a new contract after a year and a half of contentious negotiations, protests and threats to strike.
It was also a good year for Dyett High School, which opened as an arts enrollment school this past fall, thanks to activists who went on a 19-day hunger strike in 2015 to keep the 44-year-old school in Washington Park open. The fruits of their efforts resulted in Dyett opening as an arts enrollment school this past fall.
While the achievements provide fresh hope for CTU and Dyett High School, an uncertain future remains for Chicago State as the state’s budget crisis drags on and enters a record second year. The Legislature’s Democratic majority and Gov. Bruce Rauner remain deadlocked over a spending plan as the state’s $7.8 billion budget deficit lingers and threatens to grow. Since the budget crisis began in 2015, many social programs have been hit with layoffs and budget cuts, and some have been forced to close as the state faces a $10 billion backlog of unpaid bills. An emergency stop-gap measure that was passed by the state in July expires on Dec. 31.
To keep its doors open, CSU received $32.5 million from two stop-gap budgets over a year and half. Despite the relief, the school’s trustees were forced to declare a state of financial emergency in February as the school laid off 40 percent of its employees, cut spending and travel plans and shortened library hours.
Although the state of emergency was lifted in early December, school administrators see a tough road ahead for CSU. According to news reports, the school is expected to burn through its cash reserves before the end of the school year, and may force officials to make additional cuts to keep the school afloat.
News reports say CSU could exhaust its $26 million cash reserves by May as the school stands to miss one month’s payroll of $3.5 million.
Adding to CSU’s problems in 2016 was the abrupt departure of the school’s president, Thomas Calhoun Jr., who left in September after just nine months on the job. Calhoun was paid $600,000 — equivalent to his salary for two years — as part of a separation agreement approved by the school’s trustees despite heavy opposition and outcry from students, faculty and staff.
Chicago Teachers Union President-Karen Lewis
Chicago Public Schools
The year was better for Chicago Public Schools. The district narrowly averted a major strike when the Chicago Teachers Union and CPS agreed to a new contract on Oct, 11 after intense negotiations that continued late into the night. In the end, the union signed a four-year contract that many say was not a win for either side.
Under the terms of the contract, CPS will continue paying the 7 percentage points required for their pension contribution. New teachers who are hired after Jan. 1 will not receive the benefit. To make up for the loss, new hires will get boosts in pay raises. In the last two years of the contract, current teachers will receive pay hikes of 2 and 2.5 percent, based on their level of experience and education. Union members will also begin paying higher health costs in 2019.
Also On The Chicago Defender:
Editorial: Make colleges a sanctuary from deportation threat
A nationwide movement to declare university campuses “sanctuary” spaces for students who are undocumented immigrants has arrived on the doorstep of Southern Illinois University.
SIU students have asked the university’s administration to protect those among them who are undocumented if and when federal immigration officials attempt to identify them — or to question, arrest or detain them — after Donald Trump becomes president Jan. 20.
Universities have an obligation to stand up for their students — all of them. Almost all of these young people on college campuses who fear deportation were brought to this country as babies or small children. They are Americans in every way except for that official citizenship paper. They are the so-called Dreamers. This is their home, the only one they have ever known.
To our thinking, all Illinois universities and colleges, public and private, should declare themselves places of sanctuary, just as cities such as Chicago and New York and counties such as Cook have done. They would send a signal to Trump, who campaigned on an indiscriminate promise to get tough on undocumented immigrants, that Americans are better than that — at least when it comes to Dreamers.
EDITORIAL
More than 740,000 Dreamers have temporary protection from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, implemented by executive action by President Barack Obama in 2012. But their futures are up in the air.
On one hand, Trump has promised to rescind all of Obama’s executive actions, memorandums and orders. He has said they are unconstitutional. During the campaign, he promised to deport all undocumented immigrants from the U.S. — about 11 million.
On the other hand, Trump has softened some of his rhetoric and no longer seems hell-bent on expelling all of them. In an interview with Time, Trump said of those with DACA, “We’re going to work something out that’s going to make people happy and proud.”
Nevertheless, some of Trump’s advisers are hard-liners on immigration. Between that and his unpredictable nature, immigrants understandably remain worried.
And it’s not just undocumented immigrants who are afraid. International students from the Middle East worry Trump’s administration will make it more difficult for them to continue studying in the U.S. They, too, want to know universities’ administrations will advocate for them.
Schools should spell out policies and protections, stating them clearly to students, campus police, faculty and staff. It’s not asking too much.
Whether or not administrators label a university a “sanctuary” campus is not the central issue here. The word is largely symbolic. The American Council on Education points out that it has no clear meaning. Policy is what counts.
“Sanctuary” has become an incendiary term that riles some conservatives. Sanctuary cities and counties across America have incurred the wrath of Republicans in Congress. Part of Trump’s 100-day action plan is to eliminate all federal funding to sanctuary cities. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has vowed that Chicago will continue to be a sanctuary city despite Trump’s promise. Other cities also are refusing to back down.
In a letter to student groups pushing for Southern Illinois University Carbondale to designate itself a sanctuary campus, Interim Chancellor Brad Colwell cited potential loss of federal student aid as a concern, according to the Southern Illinoisan.
Earlier this month in a letter to faculty, staff and students, University of Illinois President Timothy Killeen and other university officials said, “We cannot declare our campuses as sanctuaries, as the concept is not well specified and may actually jeopardize our institution.” They vowed to work within the law to help.
These universities need to grow stronger backbones and stand firm that they will protect their students — at any cost. Trump has no mandate to go after undocumented immigrants. Polls consistently show that the majority of Americans support their legalization, with a path to citizenship.
University presidents from this state joined hundreds of others in expressing support for DACA. That was a good starting point. Some universities, such as the University of Connecticut, have let students know that campus police will not work with federal agencies to arrest or remove students for deportation. Connecticut’s policy is stated clearly on a university website.
Illinois universities must adopt similar transparent policies and stick to them. The best way to counter inhumanity is to stand together.
Follow the Editorial Board on Twitter: @csteditorials
Eastern Illinois Univ. advertises on trucks
CHARLESTON, Ill. (AP) — Eastern Illinois University is betting it will catch the eyes of potential students with a rolling message on the side of big-rig trucks.
The Charleston school said in a news release that four trucks that belong to the Rural King retail chain will haul trailers bearing Eastern Illinois’ logo and messages such as “Our Alumni Go Places” over an 11-state area.
Rural King owns stores that sell farm and home products and is based in nearby Mattoon.
Steve Rich is assistant vice president for advancement at Eastern Illinois. He said the chain agreed to the idea provided the university pay for the vinyl trailer coverings carrying the ads.
The trucks will travel through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and five other states where Rural King operates.
ilhigheredcoalition 