Chief Illiniwek decision put on hold

URBANA, Ill. -- A University of Illinois trustee said other issues at the school have caused her to shelve plans to reintroduce a resolution calling for retirement of the Chief Illiniwek symbol at the board's meeting next month.\nTrustee Frances Carroll said recent announcements that U of I President James Stukel will retire and Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Nancy Cantor will leave the school have diverted board members' attention away from the Illiniwek issue.\n"I don't want to put it on the table when I don't have a sense of where my colleagues are on this issue," Carroll said Wednesday night. "There have been so many things that have happened in the last few weeks."\nShe said she plans to bring up her resolution again, but wouldn't say when.\n"I'll be ready when it all falls into place," she said.\nStukel announced Jan. 23 he plans to retire from the university next February. Two weeks later, Cantor announced she will leave the Urbana-Champaign campus in July to become president and chancellor at Syracuse University.\nChief Illiniwek has been the symbol of athletic teams at the university's Urbana-Champaign campus since 1926. The board of trustees voted in 1990 to support the symbol, but for years it has divided those who revere it and those who believe it is racist.\nCarroll's resolution was originally submitted for board consideration last November. It called for Chief Illiniwek to be "honorably retired at a time and in a manner to be determined by the Urbana-Champaign campus" in consultation with faculty, alumni, students and others at the school.\nThe possibility of a vote drew hundreds of people to the board's meeting on the UIUC campus, and the board heard from both sides. But Carroll withdrew the resolution before a vote, saying she did not have the votes to pass it.\nCarroll indicated she planned to reintroduce the resolution at the March meeting.\n"We tried to have it happen in Urbana, but there are so many situations that have happened that I don't think that is going to be a criteria," she said.\nShe said she plans to give more than the required 48-hours notice when she brings up the issue again.\nThe board meets in Chicago in April and June and won't meet again in Urbana until July.\nCarroll, who was appointed to the board last year by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said she was not pressured by the governor, neither to introduce the resolution nor to pull it back.\n"This is not something we have ever discussed," she said. "There was no pressure."\nEarlier this month, student government at UIUC repealed a 2002 resolution calling for the Chief's retirement and scheduled a referendum for March 16 and 17 so the student body could determine what position student government should take. Carroll said her decision to keep her resolution off next month's agenda might have been different had the students' vote been scheduled before the trustees meet.\nThe board's voting student member, UIUC senior Nate Allen, said he thinks the student vote will only reaffirm the campus is divided on the issue. He said the trustees need to deal with the issue before a new president is hired.\n"My opinion is that we need to take care of this before the next president is hired," Allen said. "I see a time window is the next two meetings. If we're going to do it, we should do it now."\nAllen said he believes the Chief should be retired.