A new Illinois bill providing money to minority male education majors will help only a few NIU students, but is a first step toward creating role models for youngsters from broken homes.

Gov. James Thompson signed the bill Sept. 6 to provide about $250,000 to pay half the room and board costs of minority males seeking teaching certificates from Illinois universities and colleges.

The bill, which will go in effect Jan. 1, is intended to “increase as a whole the visibility of minority males seen as role models,” said Ripley Young, legislative assistant for Sen. Earlean Collins, D-Chicago.

Collins, a member of the Senate Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, is one of the bill’s sponsors.

“I definitely think it’s a good idea,” said Alfonzo Thurman, NIU college of education associate dean. “I think we need to do as much as we can to bring minorities into the teaching arena.”

Because only about 5 percent of students seeking teaching certificates are minority males, the bill will help about 100 Illinois students each year, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

Thurman said NIU’s college of education doesn’t know the exact number of minority males in the teaching program, but it’s “probably very small. We don’t have all that many minorities, period.”

Of the college’s 1,800 undergraduates, about 4.5 percent are minorities and 80 percent of the total are female, Thurman said.

NIU room and board costs for a double room range from $1,333 to $1,368, so funding recipients would receive about $675 per semester.

Students receiving assistance are obligated to teach for two years at either an Illinois public or private school in an area with a disproportionate number of families headed by females, Young said.

The money will be handled through a financial aid process by each respective school, Young said, adding recipients do not have to live on campus.

Aside from providing role models, Thurman said the aid might curb the declining amount of minorities entering education during the past five years.

If things don’t change, “by the year 2000, we’ll only have about 5 percent minority teachers,” Thurman said. Currently, about 15 percent of teachers are minorities—a percentage representative of the minority population, he said.

Among many factors, Thurman said it’s likely the decline is caused by “more opportunities opening up for minorities and women” outside the field of education.