Fighting for our services at SIU

STUDENTS AT Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC) are facing an ongoing struggle with an administration that keeps removing student services and adding ones that will make either the school, or the administrators, more money--without adding any educational value to the university.

A group known as Students for Peace and Democracy (SPD) has been organizing for several months regarding the issues of a small first aid station, the Student Health Assessment Center (SHAC). Recently, SPD had a second meeting with Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Larry Dietz. This meeting, which took place on September 15, 2010, was scheduled as a question-and-answer session.

Dr. Dietz was presented with questions well ahead of the scheduled meeting so that he could come as prepared as possible to answer them. Many students who were concerned for both the cuts to academia such as the Students Against University Cuts (SAUC) and the cuts to health services (SPD) showed up to this meeting.

Nicholas Rion, a grad student and an organizer for SPD, started by introducing Dr. Dietz and turning the floor over to him so that the questions would be answered.

The list of questions had eight focus areas, including asking why programs were being cut when the budget had been referred to as "secure," and why bus routes, which many students use to travel to classes at the airport and home to apartments on the South Side of town, were re-routed to a conglomerate beer and hot-wings establishment. Dietz had an hour to answer these eight questions, but did not make it through three.

When he spoke about the security of the budget, Dietz only said that by "secure" he meant the budget coming from the state was listed as secure as it was guaranteed money. He then followed that up by stating, "[B]ut we're still waiting to receive these funds." He also stated that he meant that there was a secure income of federal and state grants for research, but that these funds are not available to the school itself, only to the specific program in which the research is conducted.

Dr. Dietz spat out a few more names of persons to be contacted about certain other issues of the budget such as Provost Don Rice and Vice Chancellor Ricky McCurry.

He then moved on to the second question, which referred to the building of many facilities unrelated to academia, such as a new alumnus center. Dietz's answer to this is that in 2000, a few years before the recession started, a huge committee of about 200 people convened to draft a document on how SIUC should be spending its money for beautification of the campus until the 150-year anniversary for the school.

This document, titled "Southern @ 150," suggested using funds from the school during a time of prosperity to beautify the school to increase its popularity until the 150th birthday of the school in 2019. However, this document did not contain a "Plan B" for what the school should do with the money if something such as a recession struck.

WHEN DR. Dietz began to cover the SHAC specifically, the meeting became too emotional for the members of SAUC and SPD, and it became a dialogue.

Dietz started by stating how much the SHAC cost per year, which is roughly $50,000 for a nurse's salary and $20,000 for costs of student workers' wages, for a total of $70,000. But when he moved directly to how much money closing the SHAC will actually save, he responded with "nothing."

He stated that all of the positions are still utilized and that the only thing that has changed was the relocation of services to the Student Health Center (SHC). After hearing this, Nick Rion couldn't help but speak out and ask Dietz why the SHAC needed to be closed if there were no savings involved.

Dr. Dietz said that the spots were relocated to make services better at SHC, to which James Reeves asked, "Well, if that's the case, then why, when I went to SHC and asked to consult a nurse, [did they tell] me nurses cannot give advice anymore, and that I would have to wait a week to talk with an actual doctor?" Dietz only stated that he would look into it.

The last question that Dr. Dietz was able to give an answer on was the guarantee from SIUC that student's health services were not slated to be privatized. He would not give a full guarantee, but he did state that he had no intention to privatize health care, such as has already happened with the bookstore and the food services on campus.

After this, I asked Dr. Dietz whether, if the students raised this money, would SHAC be returned. He didn't answer that with a concrete answer either. He said, "Surely, if you had a private donor who said they would give us this money, but it only if we put the SHAC back, it would sweeten the deal a bit, but I would still have to consult with Dr. Ted Grace to see if he felt that it was a smart enough decision to do so."

Emotions flared among the students again. Adam Turl, a member of the International Socialist Organization and of both SAUC and SPD, burst out: "If you're not saving any money, then why are you cutting health services? This is isn't a matter of convenience or money, people's lives are at stake here."

To end the meeting, Nick Rion asked Dietz to make an opening for another meeting in two weeks, and that Dr. Dietz come to that meeting with a typed affidavit of why the SHAC was closed.

Even though the members of the Coalition to Save the SHAC (including the SPD, SAUC and ISO) were not successful in getting the SHAC back, they still saw this meeting as a success. James Reeves stated, "They've gone from a definite 'never,' to a hazy 'maybe.' If we continue to press this issue, we'll get the SHAC."

The coalition plans to meet again with Dr. Dietz and to also schedule meetings with Rita Cheng, the school's chancellor, as well as stage a protest in front of the SHC on September 20. These protests and meetings by the coalition are preliminary actions leading to a major demonstration for an October 7 day of action.