Category Archives: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Keep Loving, Keep Fighting: Meditations from the Days after Trump Presidency Was Declared

Posted on 01/19/2017 by Brett Ashley Kaplan

I’d wager that for all of you November 9, 2016 was a day of shock, revulsion, horror, disbelief, tears, confusion and a huge amount of fury. Like most of you, I had a very hard time focusing on anything but … Continue reading →

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Demands for a Transformed University

Posted on 10/16/2016 by Public i

On September 9, 2016, a “Rally for a Transformed University” was held at the alma mater on UIUC campus. It corresponded with the release of a list of demands. Led by Black Students For Revolution, the coalition of student organizations … Continue reading →

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NTFC Local #6546: Work Actions Lead to a Settled Contract

Posted on 05/27/2016 by Shawn Gilmore

For the last nineteen months, NTFC Local #6546, the union that represents about 500 non-tenure-track faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, fought for our first contract. When we started bargaining, in October 2014, we heard from our colleagues … Continue reading →

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The Reality of the Worker: May Day Speech

Posted on 05/27/2016 by Augustus Wood

by Gus Wood May Day speech inspired by the activism and speech/words of the legendary Lucy Parsons Brothers and sisters, the objective is clear today: We need workers to unite. Workers! Unite! Brothers and sisters, we have reached the point … Continue reading →

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UIUC is Balancing a False Budget “Crisis” on the Backs of Students and Faculty

Posted on 04/10/2016 by Mary Grace Hebert

Illinois has not yet passed a state budget for higher education, and schools like Chicago State have been left in the lurch. According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago State will not be able to pay employees after April. Similarly, the … Continue reading →

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Fraternities, Sororities and Racism at Illinois’ Flagship Land-Grant Institution

Posted on 03/11/2016 by Stacy Harwood

Efad Huq, Stacy Harwood and Ruby Mendenhall Research from the 2011-2012 Racial Microaggression online survey indicates that one area of concern expressed by students of color is the explicit racism they experience when interacting with largely White fraternity and sororities. … Continue reading →

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The Struggle for Tuition-Free Education

Posted on 03/11/2016 by Mary Grace Hebert

By Mary Grace Hebert A breathtaking piece by Black Students for Revolution in the January 2016 Public i called for tuition to be eliminated because it perpetuates an unjust system. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has called for free college; similarly, Republicans … Continue reading →

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Where is My Radical Gender Equality?

Posted on 03/11/2016 by Julie Laut

In my youth I had a sense that my generation was perfectly poised to make a leap toward gender equity. A child of the 1970s, I admired the strength of my grandmothers’ generation, which had negotiated the Depression and World … Continue reading →

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A Running List of CU Businesses Supporting White Supremacy

Posted on 02/13/2015 by Ryan Kenji Kuramitsu

Offensive imagery is a big problem on our campus.  That is, the entrenched white supremacy that formed and birthed my institution of higher learning resists erasure in powerful ways.  Each year we see a familiar slew of problems – in residence halls, some students hang Confederate … Continue reading →

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Important Questions Related to the Steven Salaita Case at the U of I

Posted on 11/13/2014 by GaryStorm

For university faculty, when, if ever, is speech that includes what may be perceived as vulgar, discourteous or uncivil language protected from putative action by university administrators and/or boards of trustees? Is speech which uses such language, even swear words, … Continue reading →

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UIUC Report on Hiring of James Kilgore

Posted on 11/10/2014 by Brian Dolinar

On Monday, November 10, the Friends of James Kilgore held a press conference outside the Henry Adminstration building on the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus. They encouraged the Board of Trustees, meeting this Thursday, to reinstate Dr. Kilgore. After a right-wing … Continue reading →

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Central Illinois Jobs With Justice’s Statement on the Termination of James Kilgore by the University of Illinois, Urbana

Posted on 06/24/2014 by Public i

Central Illinois Jobs with Justice (CIJWJ), a coalition of labor, faith-based, and secular civic organizations that advances the interests of the  unemployed and working people in both the public and private sectors, condemns the  termination of  James Kilgore and calls … Continue reading →

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Pete Seeger’s 1958 Visit to UIUC Amidst the Red Scare

Posted on 06/06/2014 by Brian Dolinar

A series of events took place in May celebrating the life of folk singer, banjo player, and political activist Pete Seeger, who passed away earlier this year. After a flyer for the events was circulated, my friend Barbara Kessel emailed … Continue reading →

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April 4-6: Books to Prisoners Book Sale

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Public i

Ten years ago Urbana Champaign Books to Prisoners began its program of sending books through the mail at no cost to inmates in Illinois prisons.  Since then, over 92,000 books have been sent out to more than 14,000 inmates.  The … Continue reading →

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Why Tenured Professors Need Unions

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Janine Drake Giordano

I once got stuck in an airplane sitting next to an off-duty pilot. As we sat on the runway for an hour, only to find that we had to change flight crews and pilots because of the long delay, a … Continue reading →

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SEIU Holds 3-Day Strike on U of I Campus

Posted on 04/03/2013 by Public i

After 9 months of negotiating at UIUC, Building Service and Food Service Workers pulled off an enormously successful strike with 97 percent of the workforce walking off the job and 2/3 picketing over the three days. Garbage overflowed, food was … Continue reading →

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Service Employees Fight Back at UIUC

Posted on 02/24/2013 by Ricky Baldwin

“The … administration has followed a reverse policy of hiring incompetent leadership at the highest prices. If it were up to the university no hourly person would make much more than minimum wage. How are we going to support your … Continue reading →

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The New Jim Crow Comes to Champaign-Urbana

Posted on 02/20/2013 by James Kilgore

If there was one constant during my six-and-a-half years in prison (apart from bad food), it was being surrounded by thousands of  mostly African-American and Latino men doing sentences like twenty, thirty or forty years for drug-related crimes. One friend … Continue reading →

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Building a Solidarity Union

Posted on 01/21/2013 by Anna Kurhajec

How do you build a solidarity-oriented union? Our Graduate Employees Organization has found that looking beyond the campus and using our voice, funds, and organizing skills to help community causes has made us one of the strongest locals in east-central … Continue reading →

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Graduate Employee Tuition Waivers, Protecting Public Education, and Boxed Coffee

Posted on 10/12/2012 by Stephanie Seawell

      As I write this, the Graduate Employees Organization, or GEO, at the University of Illinois is engaged in an effort to protect access to quality public higher education here in Champaign-Urbana. The GEO is a union that … Continue reading →

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