UIUC: Beer and Background Checks

There were a couple news items related to University governance this week on athletic beer sales and a followup on the report of the expanded background checks in hiring. The News-Gazette laid out the basic beer sales guidelines Tuesday:

On tap: Beer sales coming for many Illinois athletic events
...
The Division of Intercollegiate Athletics announced on Tuesday morning it will add beer to public concession options in general seating areas at Memorial Stadium and State Farm Center beginning in the fall of 2019...

The DIA will have policies in place to enforce as part of a complete alcohol management plan.

Those polices include:
...
-A limit of two beers purchased at one time per legal ID for stands in the east/west side and horsehoe at Memorial Stadium.

-Limit of one beer purchased at a time per legal ID in the north stands, where students traditionally sit

-Sales would begin when gates open at football (90 minutes prior to kickoff) and basketball (60 minutes prior to tip)

-Beer sales would end at the end of the third quarter during football games, while monitoring night games for a time to to be determined. During basketball games at State Farm Center, sales will end at a predetermined time after halftime. At baseball games, beer sales would be suspended after the middle of the seventh inning, and for softball games, after the middle of the fifth inning.

More at the full article here. The paper went into some more of the reasoning and expectations for the changes at a followup article on Wednesday here. The following excerpt seemed to hit the high notes:

"But we've found when researching this that Year 1, you have some operational costs. Everybody thinks there's going to be a windfall, but ... that's not necessarily the case right away."

And he said the bigger revenue increases should come from getting more fans in the stadiums...

Part of the revenue increase will go toward paying for more security at games, even though UI officials expect alcohol-related incidents to decrease...

The decrease in incidents is expected for two reasons: less binge drinking during tailgating, and fewer attempts to smuggle alcohol into the stadiums, Kaufmann said.

A decrease has happened at other schools, including when Ohio State added beer at football games in 2016. UI Police Chief Craig Stone was working at OSU at the time and "felt there was a pretty smooth transition," Wade said.

That full article here.


There was also some Daily Illini coverage on the recent report on expanded background checks in University hiring. This comes after News-Gazette coverage of the same here, which we highlighted in a post of UIUC updates last month here. The DI coverage also had an overview of the report data and also a basic overview of how the background checks system works:

Job offers are dependent on successful completion of the background check process. They are utilized for both job applicants and individuals who are already employed by the UI System transitioning into positions that are “security sensitive and critical,” according to the report.

“The 25 offers withdrawn represent .2 percent of the total number of background checks conducted (13,066) in the 12-month reporting period. An offer may be withdrawn if the criminal conviction has a nexus to the duties and responsibilities of the position sought,” Painter said in an email.

A “finding” in an individual’s record does not mean the applicant will not be hired, according to the report.

The Hiring Risk Assessment Review Committee reviews the records of the applicants who possess a criminal background, considering elements such as their prior work history, the length of time since conviction, as well as whether there is a connection between the conviction and the job they applied for.

The committee then makes recommendations on final hiring decisions for faculty, both specialized and tenured, and a designated senior administrative officer makes the final decision.

More at the full DI article here and a previous Cheat Sheet post here.