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Improper Police Investigation Press Conference part 1

Kiwane Carrington Press Conference 1

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Two girls are at a Union party at the University. The music is loud and everyone is dancing to the music. One of the girls bumps into a Champaign resident. The girl proceeds to call her a "townie." This starts an argument and later a confrontation. The resident begins to use profanity towards the girl, as everyone gathers around and the music stops. This is what Odinaka Ezeokoli, senior in LAS, recalls occurring when her friend got into a confrontation at a party with a local resident.

"This was my first time realizing that people really do not like this world," Ezeokoli said.

She is anxious to return to Chicago, and feels she is here only to get a degree. She said she feels no connection with the community because she is not from here.

Heather Downs, a graduate student in sociology, said this is the typical attitude one would find at any college campus in the country. She said this is not a racial phenomenon, but just a phenomenon that students typically do not connect with their outside community. She said that a student can get caught up in a world of social academics, which makes it hard for that student to break away from the world.

"I think this is also a class issue," Downs said. "U of I is a middle-class institution and you will have people of color who come from a variety of classes . but the institution within itself is middle class and it will dictate how students view their surrounding environment."

Ezeokoli lives in Chicago, and outside of going to school here, she said she feels no connection with the city.

"I like Chicago better, but I don't look down on those who are from here," Ezeokoli said.

Downs said typically, students are not concerned and maybe clueless with what is occurring outside the campus. She said this can be described by what sociologists call a social bubble. She said the students will only relate to people who exist in this bubble and they shut out everyone outside the bubble.

"A lot of students aren't identifying themselves as members of other communities, and therefore they are not invested in this community," Downs said. "I think this is damaging to both the University and the outside community."

Lauren Senter, junior in Communications, said the University may play into how students view the local residence of Champaign.

"The students bought into the hype that this University is selling that they are the best and the brightest the nation has to offer," Senter said.

She said students feel since they made it into this school, that they are above those who did not.

"(Students think) I am observably better than the people who work in the kitchen at the dining halls, because that is the best they can do," Senter said.

Downs said this is due to the University being a middle-class institution.

"It is a middle-class institution and it teaches middle-class values," Downs said. "It prepares you for a middle-class job and it is going to reflect middle-class interests."

Gregory Wilson, a graduate student, said he feels the factor of time constraints prevents students from getting involved. He identified reasons students do not volunteer in the community.

"We come to a point in society where students don't feel as though they have to give back to any communities anymore," Wilson said.

He said this type of attitude helps the gap between the community and the campus grow, which he feels is a major problem.

"I think at some point, we just lost that since of urgency," Wilson said.

He said this problem is going to continue to grow because of the students the University admits.

"I think people are coming from more affluent backgrounds and they are emerging from more situations to teach them to sort of just believe in the factor," Wilson said.

He said the University students view the community as people who engage in multiple fights at the University. He said it is this misconception that helps further the separation between the community and the campus.

"We come down from wherever we emerge from and we are trying to tell them that they can't come to our events and they have been here longer than us," Wilson said. "I think there is a systemic pattern of miscommunication and misunderstanding is really the source of the contentious relationship between the two groups."

Downs said the campus is experiencing a class divide. She said the University is middle class and they see everything through that lens.

"The hostility from the community to the campus is described by social class theory," Downs said. "There is an issue of stratification that is economic."

Downs said the economic stratification suggest that people will only be with each other who are in the same social class.

"I think that in our community there are a lot of organizations that need a lot of help and they will benefit from having young people a part of their organization," Downs said.

Oliver Hatchett, senior in Communications, said he feels people who do not interact with the community are missing out on meeting great people. Hatchett owns an entertainment company in Champaign and he said this has helped him meet many of the residents in town.

"Because I throw parties out here, my advertising is primarily done to the community," Hatchett said.

He said the students on campus are not open to new experiences and they can sometimes be closed-minded to new opportunities.

"I think a lot of the times we need to be more accepting, knowing that we are going into their town," Hatchett said.

Hatchett said many of the students do not leave the campus, and as a result, they miss out on the many services the community has to offer.

Ezeokoli added, the campus needs to have more programs that will make the community feel welcomed and this will eventually end the disconnect.

"We need more things on campus besides parties; if there were more programs and interactions it would not be this way," Ezeokoli said.

This is the second part of a three-day series on the relationship between the African-American communities on campus and in Champaign-Urbana.

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This is the third part of a three-day series on the relationship between the African-American communities on campus and in Champaign-Urbana.

A female resident of Champaign stands in front of a crowd of 30 people swaying back and forth humming at first and then bursting into a song. She is dressed in a green head rap, blue shirt and black pants. She claps her hands as a student joins her on stage. They begin harmonizing together. Their voices echo through the coffee shop of the Krannert Art Museum.

This performance was apart of the SPEAK Cafe. SPEAK stands for Songs, Poetry, Expressions, Art and Knowledge.

Heather Downs, a graduate student of sociology, said programs like this are needed to bring the community and the campus together. She said organizations that do outreach programs linking the experience of the campus to the community are the best way to overcome the disconnection. Downs said if the University had classes that required students to go out into the community this would expose students to the idea of outreach.

Professor William Patterson, assistant director of the African-American studies program, with a combination of students and local residences started this monthly open mic event in order to help link the campus and the community together while digitizing the hip-hop generation.

"This serves as an opportunity for black people and black students to be stewards of managing the image of black people and black artists," Patterson said.

Patterson said when he originally constructed this idea he wanted the community to be involved. He wanted SPEAK to be a place where residence and students could meet and address social issues.

"The goal was to get the community on the campus," Patterson said.

Patterson said this task is difficult because not all of the community trusts campus.

He has noticed this barrier more as he tried to connect with the community from the University's side.

"You often hear about being concerned that the University is always taking and not giving back," Patterson said. I think the University gives back, it just gives back in different ways."

He said SPEAK is just one idea to help bridge this gap between the campus and the community.

Gabrielle Pendleton, sophomore in Engineering, is the president of SPEAK. She said the idea started with Patterson's class.

"It started off as an idea, and it is amazing that now it is actually in the works," Pendleton said.

She is in charge of bringing in monthly artists from the community and the campus.

"We are all African-Americans . regardless we are still being discriminated against," Pendleton said.

Stefanie Jones, senior in LAS, is a very active member of SPEAK. She said she is currently working on the Black Power conference, which is set to be held in April.

"I am working on the overall funding of this show and the organization," Jones said.

She said she worked on a committee over the summer to get the effort off the ground.

"Many people on the campus don't know anything about the community and vice versa," Jones said, "We are trying to bring those two sectors together."

Ed Vinci, resident of Champaign, said before SPEAK he never wanted to come to campus because of how he thought the students were.

"People from the community stay away because it is a lack of resources and knowledge," Vinci said.

He started coming around the campus because his fianc‚e was a student here. He said before dating her he did not have the need or feel welcomed to come to campus.

"I was blind to it myself, I did not see all the things that went on because it was not advertised to the community," Vinci said.

Nathaniel Banks, director of the African-American Cultural Program, said efforts like SPEAK are great but the University needs to get more involved.

He said the Chancellor is trying to come up with ideas that would benefit the local community and create programs that would fall under the Land-Grant mission of the University.

"Part of our mission is the community engagement," Banks said. "The black community is a significant percent of the population, and that community needs to be engaged with the same type that takes place with the local farm community or even the areas in Engineering."

He said there need to be more programs like the East St. Louis Project. He said that program is proof that the University can create successful programs to engage the community.

Jinni Sorensen, assistant director to the East St. Louis Project, said this project has existed since the late eighties, and it brings students along with professors into the community to help build its landscape. She said state representatives wanted the University to become involved with the city of East St. Louis. She said the area at the time was impoverished and needed extra assistance from outside sources.

"The University, led by some of its faculty members, took this area under its wing," Sorensen said.

The project is responsible for creating buildings and parks in the community, but there is not a program such as this that exists in Champaign.

Banks said if the University could help in East St. Louis, they can assist with the black community here in Champaign.

"We already have the resources," Banks said. "Rather than seeing it as an aside, we can also view this as an important part of the mission of the University of Illinois."

Patterson said he is on a steering committee that looks at civic engagement at the University.

"The Chancellor's office and the President's office are looking into this whole idea of students' engagement in communities and provide that service, which helps them become stronger citizens and how the University play in this development," Patterson said.

Patterson said he does not know if SPEAK will be back next year, but he feels the program has been successful.

"It is not about rocking the crowd, it is about rocking the world, and you do this by understanding how to create the space for artistic expression," Patterson said.

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Two years ago, Student Affairs and the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations put out a national search for a new director for the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center (BNAACC) after Nathaniel Banks left to become director of Campus Community Interface Initiatives.

Two years ago, Student Affairs and the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations put out a national search for a new director for the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center (BNAACC) after Nathaniel Banks left to become director of Campus Community Interface Initiatives. The search went a bit longer than expected.

After Banks’ departure, the University suffered from a hiring freeze due to lack of funding, which put the search on hold until March 2009. Since then, the center has been operating with a small staff, a few student workers and Acting Director Nameka Bates.

Last spring, Rory James was selected out of a national pool of candidates in late March 2009 as the new director of the BNAACC. He and three other candidates were choosen to come on campus for an extensive interviewing process with Anna Gonzalez, associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs, and a search committee of academic professionals and African American students on campus.

“During his interview process, I was very impressed and excited with his understanding about the culture center’s history and the African American experience at the University of Illinois,” said Angela Clark, BNAACC assistant program director.

Part of the interviewing process entailed public presentations and a series of meeting and interviews with the stakeholders and students on campus.

Founded 40 years ago, the BNAACC has served as a space on campus to show the promise and potential of African American students as well as educating the campus community and other races of the African American experience.

James, a Chicago native, earned his undergraduate degree in biology at Tuskegee University, a historically black college, and later completed a Masters of Public Health at Tulane University.

Before James came to Illinois, he served as the founding director of University of North Carolina at Ashville’s Intercultural Center.

One of James’ goals is to focus on addressing the needs of marginalized populations within the African American community such as gender, faith and religion, LBGT issues and academia.

“I want to make sure everything I am doing as a director will not only benefit the African American students and the community but the entire campus and the Champaign-Urbana community,” James said.

Growing up in Chicago, he said he learned that people sometimes are put in monolithic groups and he hope to break that grouping and get all students in touch culturally.

“James has really good insight about the changing needs of African American students,” Gonzalez said. “I think Mr. James is very forward thinking and this is why I believe the cultural center was built.”

James is looking to expand his services to ensure there is more diversity in the classrooms and that African American students have the tools they need to deal with issues through focus groups, student retreats, internships and collaborating with other colleges and universities.

“Everything appears overwhelming, but I am ready for the challenge,” James said. “I don’t think I would had taken this job if I did not feel I can do it.”

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