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The Daily Northwestern Wednesday, September 26, 2012
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The search for Harsha Maddula
Family, University expand efforts to find missing student
By MARSHALL COHEN
daily senior staffer
The search for missing Northwestern student Harsha Maddula intensified Tuesday as FBI officials arrived on the scene and search parties scoured campus and downtown Evanston. Family and friends of the McCormick sophomore, many flying in from the East Coast, congregated throughout the day in front of University Police headquarters. Harsha, 18, was last seen early Saturday morning leaving a party in the 2000 block of Ridge Avenue. His friends first told UP of his disappearance later that day and the University sent out a campus-wide alert Monday night. University spokesman Al Cubbage told reporters Tuesday morning that the administration has taken steps to expand the investigation into Harsha’s disappearance. Previously, the missing person case was handled internally by UP. UP officials met with members of the FBI on Tuesday, and the Evanston Police Department has assigned detectives to the case as well, Cubbage said. State and county law enforcement agencies have also been notified of the situation. The U.S. Coast Guard, which was involved in the most recent high-profile search for a missing NU student, is not currently participating in this investigation, according to a Coast Guard official who oversees operations around Lake Michigan. During the investigation, UP repeatedly searched Harsha’s one-person room in Public Affairs Residential College,
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Rafi Letzter/Daily senior staffer
FANNING OUT Sairavi Suribhotla and Shanthan Toodi (from right) responded to a Facebook post asking for volunteers to search for missing student Harsha Maddula. They traversed campus with three freshmen on Tuesday.
reviewed security camera footage from the dorm and checked his electronic key and cell phone. Police concluded he has not been in the dorm since he left Friday night and that the searches turned up no new leads about his current whereabouts, Cubbage said. “This is the start of our school year, so it’s really a tough time for the family and a tough time for the university,” Cubbage
said. “It’s a matter of great concern.” The student’s parents, Prasad and Dhanalakshmi Maddula, arrived in Evanston late Monday night. They met Tuesday with University President Morton Schapiro, as well as officials from UP and the Division of Student Affairs. “Everybody is upset and sad that we cannot find him after almost three days now,” Prasad said. “This is the fourth day
Student aid rises after tuition hike University accepts more low-income students in 2012 By ALLY MUTNICK
PERCENTAGE OF
STUDENTS USING
FINANCIAL AID
the daily northwestern
More than half of Northwestern students are sharing a record number of financial aid. This year, 51 percent of students, not including athletes, will receive a fraction of the allotted $118 million — an 11.4 percent increase in financial aid from last year. According to data from the office of university enrollment, this is the highest amount distributed in at least seven years. Aid has risen consistently, nearly doubling from the 44.9 percent of non-athlete students who received about $64 million in 2006. The increase comes in the form of a combination of tuition hikes and the admittance of more lowincome students, according to Michael Mills, the associate provost for university enrollment. The University has made it a goal to accept more low-income students, Mills said. This year, 708 students were given financial aid packages made up entirely of grants rather than loans. This number has
with the family in Evanston and help organize search parties at NU. In all, about four groups of 20 people each searched both on and off campus, posting flyers and looking for traces of the missing student, Surekha said. Students, alumni and Evanston residents, as well as Harsha’s family and friends, were all part of the effort. Members of the South Asian Student Alliance, which Harsha was involved with last year, participated in the searches Tuesday. Students from the MuslimThis is cultural Stuthe fourth day dent Association and the and we want International them to get Student Assohim — that’s the ciation also contributed. bottom line. “Anyone Prasad Maddula, who could father of missing just dropped NU student whatever they Harsha Maddula were doing and helped out,” said SASA Co-President Nikhil Bhagwat, a Weinberg junior. In addition to promoting the search effort, Surekha has acted as a family spokesman for the reporters that descended on campus Tuesday. News of Harsha’s disappearance spread quickly beyond Evanston to Chicago’s main newspapers, television networks and radio stations. Media in New York City picked up on the story, as did some national news outlets, including FOX News and the Huffington Post.
50%
44.9% 45.3% 43.0% 46.5% 46.5% 50.1% 51.0%
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Infographic by Tanner Maxwell /Daily Senior Staffer
risen by about 200 students since 2008. “We are admitting more students who are very needy which is a good, important, laudable thing to do because those students across our peer set are vastly underrepresented,” Mills said. Though tuition increases every year, with a 4.3 percent rise for the 2012-2013 school year, aid is
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
increasing at a faster rate. Mills said that the University increases financial aid two to three times more than it increases tuition each year to “offset the blow on the neediest students.” The economy has played a role in the increases as well. Since the recession began in 2008, Mills said, NU has had more freshmen who demonstrate need, and the University has increased aid to accommodate them. To fund the aid increases, NU uses its endowment and institutional funds, which is money to be used at the University’s discretion. Students applying for aid submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form and the College Board financial profile to NU’s financial aid office, which then determines the estimated family contribution and the aid package. Mills noted that there was little equity between the total percentage of the population that is below the poverty level and the number on college campuses. He said the University would like to see more low-income students because they make for a more diverse freshman class. “I know for sure this is the top priority at Northwestern,” Mills » See FINANCIAL AID, page 7
and we want them to get him — that’s the bottom line.” Holding back tears, Dhanalakshmi said her son is a quiet boy with only a small group of friends. “He likes to study and he worked so hard to come here,” she said. Surekha Maddula, Harsha’s aunt, left her medical residency at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York on Tuesday to be
» See MISSING, page 7
Chabad House
Rabbi: Chabad will lose official status By CAT ZAKRZEWSKI
the daily northwestern
A growing rift between the Tannenbaum Chabad House and Northwestern was thrust into public view Tuesday after Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein sent an email to Jewish students saying that he was asked to resign earlier this summer. In an email titled “Yom Kippur Relfection: A Very Personal Message,” Klein announced that Wednesday would mark his last formal service on the NU campus. Hours before Tuesday’s Yom Kippur services began, Klein’s email publicized the University’s decision to revoke Chabad House’s official status on campus. Klein wrote that Patricia Telles-Irvin, vice president of student affairs, met with him in July and told him to resign immediately or the University would cut ties with him and Chabad. Telles-Irvin informed Klein that Chabad House had not been following “university policy on alcohol consumption,” according to Klein’s email. Telles-Irvin declined to comment on Klein’s narrative Tuesday. NU spokesman Bob Rowley also had no comment,
citing pending litigation. Chabad filed a complaint in federal court against the University, stating Northwestern is discriminating against the Jewish faith by disaffiliating from Chabad, but not other campus organizations, according to Courthouse News Service. Klein told The Daily he would not be discussing his email until after Yom Kippur, a day of atonement in Jewish culture. Klein’s roots in the NU community span nearly three decades. In his email, he recalled the “seven-year court battle” that brought Chabad to Evanston in the early 1980s. Jewish students and members of the Chabad community said Klein’s email caught them off guard. “I couldn’t ask for a better campus rabbi,” said Evangeline Su (GWCAS ‘12), who has been active in Chabad since 2000. Su said when she first came to campus, there were few kosher options available to students. Klein would take students shopping at kosher stores, she recalled, and was instrumental in bringing kosher meal options to » See CHABAD, page 7
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