Student newspaper of Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928

technewsiit.com

CAMPUS 2-4
SGA 5
AErE 6

SLIPSTICK 1

Campus inclusiveness, college affordability, more take center stage at President, Provost Forum

Soren Spicknall
COPY E DITOR

Once per semester, Illinois Tech’s
Student Government Association (SGA)
hosts an open event in which students of
the university are invited to bring issues
of personal importance forward to the
institution’s president and provost in a
public space, seeking answers Moderated
by the sitting SGA president, the semiannual
President and Provost Forum involves staff
and faculty members far beyond the top floors
of IIT Tower, with dozens of individuals in
attendance from ofiices across the university
The first such assembly of this academic year
came on Wednesday, November 9, hosted in
the Hermann Hall Ballroom during the 12:45
pm to 1:45 pm lunch hour shared by most
Illinois Tech studentsl Though the ofiicial time
frame for the event was brief, a broad array
of topics was discussed by President Alan
Cramb and Provost Frances Bronet in the time
provided

Beginning the President and
Provost Forum, SGA president Hamze Leo
Sukkar introduced three basic “ground rules,"
modifying the previouslyless structured nature

 

Protesters clog downtown stree

of the gathering He would alternate between
taking ineperson questions and reading from
those submitted online, rather than covering
all online questions first before moving on to
those who wished to speak in person Each
topic would be allowed only ten minutes of
total discussion (regardless of the number of
students wishing to ask about it), presumably
an adjustment made to avoid domination by
any single topic, something that occurred
with printing credit policies in the Fall 2015
semester and with undocumented student
grievances in the Spring 2016 semester
Additionally, any student asking a question
would only be allowed one followiup, and any
online submission would only be able to spawn
one additional discussion from a student
in attendance While that final rule was not
strictly adhered to during some topics which
generated a natural backiandiforth discussion,
the first two were upheld faithfully throughout
the Forum

The first question of the afternoon,
from an online submitter, asked what Illinois
Tech was doing as a whole to promote the
involvement and empowerment of women in
STEMI Dr Mike Gosz, the university’s Vice
President for Enrollment, was brought up

t» — ,.

  

ts in oppositi

to the front of the room to discuss the issue,
speaking about Illinois Tech’s array of summer
programs aimed at high school students as a
method for recruiting more young women
into popular majors offered here Gosz
specifically highlighted a coding camp for
young women devised by the Department of
Computer Science to encourage interaction
with a discipline in which women are
currently extremely underrepresented, even in
comparison to other typically maleidominated
fieldsl He pointed out that the university hit
33 percent female enrollment from its class of
firstiyear students for the Fall 2016 semester,
and explained that a target of 40 percent was set
for the near future Expanding on those topics,
Bronet stated that part of the university’s push
for female recruitment (and general outreach)
included a focus on the fact that many of
its programs had potential for broad social
impact, connected to issues beyond the pure
technical knowledge of the degree She also
brought up that multiple department chairs,
two academic deans, and the university’s own
provost (herself) were women, and that Illinois
Tech had the capacity to stand as a leader
among engineeringifocused schools in that
regard

    

The first iniperson question came
from a student who began by remarking on
the vitriol surrounding domestic politics in
the past year (the US presidential election
had taken place the day before the President
and Provost Forum)l Connecting Illinois Tech
to an ongoing debate between supporters of
unmoderated free speech and campaigners
against discriminatory expression, the student
asked how the university planned to create an
environment that was at once open to people
of varying personal identities and discourse
which may sometimes question the legitimacy
of those identitiesl Cramb’s response focused
on the principle of respect, imploring all
Illinois Tech students to keep in mind the
frame of reference that each person had for
their own views when discussing subject
matter which they disagreed upon Bronet
said that beyond encouraging students to
behave in a mutually respectful fashion, the
university itself hoped to inform its own policy
decisions on related issues with student input,
allowing those enrolled at the institution to
shape its approach to accommodating different
identities and viewpoints

Continued on Page 3

on to Trump's election win

STARS AND Z‘Plh
US 93 HUNJRS VETE

k,“

we f»

 

Photos edited for obscenity

Photos by Andrew Adams