UIS student testifies to House committee

By Emily Martin - Public Affairs Reporter

Some Illinois drivers may find that testing their vehicle’s emissions rate could protect more than just the environment; it might save them a trip to jail.
House members of the Transportation and Motor Vehicles Committee met last Tuesday to determine if current air quality regulations are too harsh on motorists. Although the city of Springfield does not require vehicle emissions testing, one UIS student was affected by the regulations and testified at the Capitol building last week.
According to Representative Mike Tryon, R-Crystal Lake, “Each state in the United States has to adopt some type of air pollution program to control vehicle emissions as a requirement of the Federal Code of Regulations.” He said Illinois adopted a clean air program for the metropolitan areas of Chicago and East St. Louis, and with it a way to deal with violators. 
As UIS student Catherine Morrison found out at a routine traffic stop in her northeast hometown of Cary, a driver’s license can be unknowingly revoked if the registered vehicle has failed to comply with federal emissions standards. “The first time I heard of my license being suspended was when I was pulled over for an expired sticker,” said Morrison, “I had no idea.”
Morrison came to UIS in 2003 and filed for a change of address with the Secretary of State. As a central Illinois resident, she was no longer required to have her vehicle tested. But when Morrison came home last summer, the Chicagoland native said she was surprised of her license being suspended and even more stunned when she was handcuffed and arrested. 
“It’s a very embarrassing experience to be hauled off in a police car if you’re from a small community,” said Morrison’s mother, Angela, who was with her at the time of the arrest. Angela said the punishment was too excessive, and in Catherine’s case, unjust. She said she and was glad legislators were looking to change penalties.
Unlike the other 33 states with vehicle emissions penalties, Tryon said Illinois was the only state to adopt a license suspension program. “What happens is, when you are caught driving on a revoked driver’s license, you get arrested,” said Tryon. “That’s what happened to Catherine. [She] was arrested and booked, and when you look at for what, it was because she failed to get her emissions test done.” 
At the hearing on Tuesday, Tryon introduced an amendment to House Bill 4314, calling for a reduced penalty for emissions test violators. He stated a mishandling of paperwork, like in Morrison’s case, has caused unneeded arrests and excess difficulties for drivers. “When you take away somebody’s driving privileges, they can’t earn a living, they can’t drive to school and that creates quite a hardship,” said the representative. 
Christopher Demeroukas, of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, spoke in favor the bill last Tuesday, stating vehicle registration denial is the preferred method of the USEPA for dealing with emissions violations. “We have the alternate approved method,” Demeroukas said, referring to Illinois current license suspension program. He said under the ideal method of registration denial, drivers would not be arrested for lack of compliance, but ticketed and refused vehicle registration until emissions tests were passed.  
Representative Careen Gordon of Grundy County said she believes the amended bill would allow drivers to “thumb their nose at the law.” Gordon said the registration denial system would let motorists drive away after receiving a ticket, all the while emitting unlawful emissions. 
Demeroukas contended even with the current mandate, a person could drive up to nine months in violation of the emissions laws before the Secretary of State pulls his/her license. Tryon said the purpose of the amended bill is to help control emission compliance rates without sending people to jail, and hopefully clear up some of the red tape.
Tryon said the only reason Illinois did not adopt the registration denial system first was the lack of technology available to have such a method. He said he is working with the IEPA and Secretary of State’s office to develop the proper hardware and software changes to allow for a registration denial system, which would also help reduce some paperwork confusion.
Representative Ron Stephens, R-Bond County, said the current license suspension method holds too much room for discrepancy. He said a person might sell their car, or move to a non-compliant area as Morrison did, and still have to prove acquiescence to the law. “I think the bill makes perfectly good sense. There’s no sense in punishing someone for something they may not have not done,” Stephens said last Tuesday.
The House committee will vote on the issue next week to perhaps find, as Tryon said, “a punishment fitting of the crime.”

An idea to increase diversity

By Laura Camper - General Assignment Reporter

Brace Clement, SGA Sergeant at Arms, thinks UIS needs to work harder to achieve diversity in the student population. Clement says increasing the diversity at UIS would be an asset inside and outside the classroom by introducing students to new ideas and viewpoints. “It helps you to be a more well-rounded individual,” he says. “That’s what all universities should strive for.”
Clement says an easy way to attract a diverse student population would be to recruit from junior colleges in the Chicago area. “A lot of them (junior college students) have a lot of life experience. They’re more prepared for college. They are more focused.” He says their life experiences have given them a different perspective to share with other students.
Clement, himself a transfer student from Prairie State College, sees junior colleges as an untapped resource for UIS.  “All those students have to go somewhere.  Why not here?” he says.  But when he was looking for to transfer to a four-year university, he had never heard of UIS.  A chance conversation with a UIS graduate led him here for a visit. UIS has a lot to offer, he says.  The university just needs to get the word out.
As Sangamon State, the university relied on transfer student but after becoming UIS, the university lost that focus, says Clement. He suggests looking into offering scholarships to graduates of specific junior colleges to get the students looking at UIS.
Michael Jeffries, UIS admissions counselor, agrees that UIS is one of Illinois’s “best kept secrets,” and he would like that to change. “It challenges us to make a lot more (college) fairs and classroom visits,” he says. “We need to build relationships with school counselors.” Those relationships make it more likely that students will hear about UIS and come for a visit.
Preview Days are what really sell the school, he says. Once they see the school and talk to other students they see the advantages. “A lot of students I run into realize that they’ll be more successful at a smaller school.” They are looking for more individual attention, a chance to talk to a professor, not just a graduate assistant.
Jeffries says that all recruitment is critical. UIS is canvassing the entire state, not just particular areas. There are several schools in the Chicago area where students have shown interest in UIS but it takes time to get the word out. “There has been a lot of change since 2001. We get more attention now,” he says.
Evidence of that is in enrollment. While transfer students from the Chicago area made up only about 13 percent of the total number of transfer students, residents from Cook County and the surrounding five counties made up about 33 percent of Capital Scholars this past fall.

UIS student testifies before House committee

An idea to increase diversity