Education

Lack of evacuation plans leaves students, staff unprepared

Submitted by admin on Sun, 2012-02-05 00:43

Education

By Mary Beth Versaci/For CU-CitizenAccess.org/On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 students in two separate attacks on the Virginia Tech campus, one in a residence hall and the other in a classroom.

On Feb. 14, 2008, Steven Kazmierczak entered a lecture of about 150 students at Northern Illinois University and shot 26 people, killing five of them.

If a shooter were to walk into a classroom on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, the University is ready with a campus-wide Emergency Operations Plan , but no campus mandate requires each individual campus building to have an all-hazards evacuation plan.

Darrell Hoemann/Foellinger Hall on Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. While the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus has a campus-wide Emergency Operations Plan, only 16 percent of its buildings have building Emergency Action Plans. The Office of Emergency Planning began an initiative to establish such plans for every building on campus more than two years ago, but estimates it will take a decade to get plans in place. The plans help building staff prepare better responses to emergencies like the presence of a gunman in a classroom.

Four years later, state-funded campus security grant waiting for disbursement

Submitted by pdempsey on Sun, 2012-02-05 04:37

Education

By Mary Beth Versaci/For CU-CitizenAccess.org/Nearly four years after a report on Illinois campus security recommended that $25 million be appropriated for the improvement of campus security across the state, no college or university has received any money, and state officials are just beginning to draft plans for a grant program using the funds.

“At this point, the program hasn’t been developed,” said Patti Thompson, Illinois Emergency Management Agency media contact. “There is no program for colleges to apply for grants.”

Sidebar: Behavioral Intervention Teams

Submitted by admin on Sun, 2012-02-05 01:58

Education

By Mary Beth Versaci/For CU-CitizenAccess.org/A Behavioral Intervention Team is made up of representatives from offices across the University of Illinois campus meets once a week to discuss students whose behavior can be considered disruptive and concerning to the rest of the campus community.

This behavior oftentimes does not require disciplinary action, but it has reached a level of concern and needs to be addressed before it escalates, said Ken Ballom, dean of students.

Darrell Hoemann/The hallway of the English Building Friday, Feb. 3, 2012, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Counseling and psychiatric services at Midwest universities are straining under the increased demand from students who are entering schools with more serious illnesses than seen before. A 2011 national survey of counseling center directors found increases in students who are on psychiatric medication and longer wait times for services at counseling centers.

Campus lacks resources to meet demand for mental health services, safety initiatives

Submitted by admin on Sun, 2012-02-05 00:47

Education

For the past five months, journalism students and faculty have examined the state of mental health treatment at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus.

By Darrell Hoemann/Gregory Hall Friday, Feb. 3, 2012, on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Campus. Counseling and psychiatric services at Midwest universities are straining under the increased demand from students who are entering schools with more serious illnesses than seen before. A 2011 national survey of counseling center directors found increases in students who are on psychiatric medication and longer wait times for services at counseling centers.

University campus struggles to meet growing demand for mental health services

Submitted by pdempsey on Sat, 2012-02-04 02:57

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is seeing more demand for mental health services but is struggling to meet that demand.

More of the university’s students are on psychiatric medication and more students are diagnosed with severe issues such as depression and anxiety than in years past.

For most college campuses across the nation, this is now considered “the norm” rather than atypical, Carla McCowan, director of the Counseling Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign said.

Cowan said that years ago counselors dealt with students saying they had problems with roommates or were homesick or having trouble in classes.“

Darrell Hoemann/Carla McCowan, director of the Counseling Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, discusses student mental health in her office Friday, Feb. 3 at Espresso Royale near the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. Counseling and psychiatric services at Midwest universities are straining under the increased demand from students who are entering schools with more serious illnesses than seen before.

Rising tuitions hurt middle class students most at University of Illinois

Submitted by pdempsey on Mon, 2011-11-07 13:08

By Christen Grumstrup/For CU-CitizenAccess -- As tuition rises at the University of Illinois, the middle class student is facing the most financial pressure, say financial aid officials and students.

Sandy Street, the director of the University Office for Planning and Budgeting for all three university campuses, says that the middle class is most affected by tuition cost because they are the ones that “don’t get the state aid.”

See also

Rising tuition creates concerns among students

Pam G. Dempsey/CU-CitizenAccess/Main library at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaing Monday, Nov. 7, 2011.

University president opens up scholarship to undocumented students

Submitted by CU Citizen Access on Thu, 2011-08-11 18:51

By Sean Powers/Illinois Public Media/University of Illinois President Michael Hogan says he has set up a scholarship fund that is available to students who are U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants.

Students who are not living in this country lawfully have been ineligible for scholarships in Illinois, but that changed this month after Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation known as the Illinois Dream Act. The measure opens up privately funded college scholarships to illegal immigrants.

Sean Powers/Illinois Public Media/University of Illinois President Michael Hogan speaks at the Illini Union in Champaign in February 2011. Hogan recently opened up a scholarship to include undocumented students.

Local elementary school joins the Backpack Program

Submitted by CU Citizen Access on Tue, 2011-05-03 15:13

By Rubina Ali/For CU-CitizenAccess/ Food insecurity – not knowing where your next meal will come from – is a problem that more and more people face every day. Even children.

But a program right in Champaign County is providing relief to kids from families who experience food insecurity.

The BackPack Program sends in-need children home on Friday afternoons with backpacks full of food to make sure there’s enough to eat over the weekend. According to a 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly 50 million people, including one in four children, struggle to get enough food to eat.

Rubina Ali/Social worker Mary Bragg hands fifth-grade student Tyrone Gordon a bag of food to take home over the weekend courtesy of the BackPack Program recently at Carrie Busey Elementary School. This was the first year the school had the BackPack Program, a national program that provides qualified students with supplement food during the weekends.