The Peace Garden has been a labor of love for students at NEIU, no more so than for Joe Hertel. It received official status last month by President Salme Steinberg after the Student Government Association (SGA) passed a resolution endorsing it.
As reported in the Sept. 26 issue of the Independent, the Peace Garden began as an idea of Hertel’s in 2004 as a memorial for those who fell in Iraq.
SGA President Eron McCormick and SGA Speaker of the Senate Kimberly Murphy proposed a bill on Aug. 8, 2006 to entitle the outdoor common area the student populace calls the Peace Garden officially as the “Peace Garden.”
This resolution passed the SGA unanimously, as reported in the Sept. 26 issue of the Independent, and according to McCormick, was to be presented to the Board of Trustees to become official.
The memorial started out simply as an art display called Whispers in the Wind, involving 1,000 blank dog tags on the trellis of the common area outside of the cafeteria. It later evolved into a sanctuary for various works of student art.
The Sept. 26 issue of the Independent also reported that in April of 2005, Joe Kish, former vice president of Facilities Management, requested that the display of dog tags be removed. Hertel lobbied the administration in response, and the display has remained on the trellis since.
As of this issue, the Independent has been made aware of information that the Sept. 26 story about the Peace Garden did not accurately represented. It stated that “it appears that McCormick, Hertel, and the rest of the university community will have to wait until the Board of Trustees convene their next meeting” in order for the garden to be named.
The Independent learned that, as part of university procedure, once a proposal has reached the school administration, it only needs Board approval if the school administration decides to reject said proposal as a final appeals process.
As the story developed, it was reported that Student Trustee Peter Michalcyzk told the Independent that the Board of Trustees failed to address the issue. The Independent has since learned that Michalcyzk arrived at the Trustee’s meeting late and therefore missed information from Vice President of Finance and Administration Mark Wilcockson stating that the administration had approved of the proposal to officially name the Peace Garden.
Editor’s Note: The Independent regrets the reporting error as described above. We at the Independent strive to provide an accurate account of all events that are reported and we wish to express our apologies to all parties involved.