Ray Saved!
Thanks in part to the public pressure placed on the Graduate College and the College of Medicine, Ray Morales has been assigned a faculty advisor - thus allowing Ray to remain in the Ph.D. / MD program at UIUC. Thanks everyone for your support.
Watch or listen to Ray Morales by clicking on the below links
Windows Media Player
QuickTime Player
Mp3 File
Ray Morales is currently a Ph.D./M.D. student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since arriving on this campus, Ray worked within existing organizational structures to make positive changes for all students - especially those interested in Urban Medicine, serving lower-economic populations with medical access, and confronting institutional forms of racism at local and national levels. In addition, Ray is an active fighter to create challenging and creative learning environments for marginalized students within the sciences.
On April 2, 2007 Ray's Ph.D. advisor (Dr. Scott K. Silverman, scott@scs.uiuc.edu, (217) 244-4489) dropped him from his supervision and permanently removed Ray from his laboratory for making a statement in January stating he would (paraphrased) "tear down the University's bigoted practices and policies which directly exclude and repress students of color".
The Dean of the College of Medicine, Bradford S Schwartz, has also sabotaged Ray's ability to maintain his status as a Ph.D. student. Dean Schwartz has apparently counciled possible advisors from accepting Ray Morales as an advisee. Without an advisor, Ray can not stay within the Ph.D. program and will lose his external scholarships which require him to be enrolled in a joint Ph.D./MD program.
Ray is an outstanding scholar with a high GPA. He was also presented the Humanitarian of the Year Award at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Black and Latinos in Medicine sponsored by the Urban Health Program and SNMA on April 18, 2006.
Read materials provided by Ray in PDF format.
What you can do to keep the pressure on the College of Medicine at UIUC:
Please Contact
Bradford S Schwartz, Regional Dean of Medicine
Email:
schwart2@uiuc.edu
Office Phone (217) 333-5465
Address: College of Medicine
190 msb
mc 714
506 s Mathews
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Please ask Dean Schwartz
- What are his plans for diversifying the tenured track teaching staff within his college?
- What support plans does he have for encouraging multiple pedagogical approaches within his school?
- How are the needs of students from marginalized communities being addressed?
- What is he doing to ensure that Ray Morales acquire a new advisor for his Ph.D. program.
- What additional financial support can he provide to potential advisors to offset additional lab fees?
- What plans does he have for recruiting and retaining students of color within his college?
Listen to recent Liberacion! - WEFT 90.1 FM (Champaign, IL) radio program featuring Ray Morales and some of the work he has done to expose histories of racism at UIUC http://radioliberacion.org/audio/KKK.mp3
Listen to Chancellor Herman on the legitimate issues raised by the "Racism, Power and Privilege at UIUC Forum" organized by the STOP Coalition (Audio was recorded from WILL 580 am, Urbana Illinois). This is a forum that Ray (as a member of the STOP Coalition) worked hard to organize as a way to systematically address obstacles he experiences within the College of Medicine.