The Daily Northwestern — Nov. 22, 2021

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Monday, November 22, 2021

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THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

AROUND TOWN

ETHS advocates discuss Illinois mental health bill Recognizing some students may be hesitant about speaking with staff, Schultz said schools should allow students as much agency as possible.

She encouraged schools to build connections with external mental health resources in the community so they can offer students a variety of options.

“Check in with the student and asking them, ‘How do you feel about being connected to resources?’” she said. “We want them to have choice.”

By AVIVA BECHKY

the daily northwestern @avivabechky

Mental illness keeps Claudia*, a sophomore at Evanston Township High School, from getting out of bed and going to school some days.

“It’s like any other sickness. It’s like I have a fever or a cold,” said Claudia, who chose a pseudonym to protect her privacy. “Only ... my brain is actively trying to hurt me in my case.”

Under Illinois law, mental health is not an approved reason to miss school. But that’s about to change.

In August, the Illinois legislature passed a new law effective Jan. 1, 2022 authorizing students ages 6 to 17 to take up to five mental health days off of school. These days would let students take an excused absence to stay home and care for their mental well-being without a doctor’s note.

The law also allows schools to direct students to support staff after their second mental health day. But it does not change the number of days students can be absent per year. Here’s why some advocates support the law — and why some say it falls short.

Mental health at ETHS Some ETHS students said they’ve taken mental health days in the past, even though they weren’t officially allowed.

Senior Lauren Dain said she has called in her absences as mental health days, even prior to the policy change. According to her, the absence was typically marked as a “sick day” in the attendance book.

“I think that ETHS would excuse it if you say it like that,” Dain said. “It was always kind of an unspoken rule.”

Recent ETHS graduate Nora Mille said students also often told the school they were sick or at a doctor’s appointment when taking mental health days.

Advocates for the new law, such as Illinois House of Representatives sponsor Rep.

The wider mental health landscape

Emma Yarger/Daily Senior Staffer

A law authorizing Illinois students to take mental health days goes into effect Jan. 1, 2022. Some advocates say this will help destigmatize mental health support. Some also say it doesn’t go far enough.

Lindsey LaPointe, hope it will promote wider awareness.

“It helps to destigmatize the need for mental health support,” LaPointe said. “We are changing our system to recognize that people need to take pauses sometimes to just take a breath or actually get support for mental and behavioral health care needs.”

Referring students to support staff The new law says after a student takes two mental health days, they “may be referred to the appropriate school support personnel.”

The specifics of what this entails are left to individual school districts.

Advocates say this measure proactively takes the burden of asking for help off of students and allows the school to identify struggling students.

“I would be especially worried if students take multiple mental health days in a short

period of time,” ETHS physics teacher Mark Vondracek said. “That’s kind of a smoking gun.”

But some students expressed reservations.

ETHS senior Emi Brady understands the value of monitoring students’ well-being, but said the provision makes them feel like the school is controlling her.

“That gives me less incentive to call it a mental health day then, because I don’t want to get a call from a social worker and make my parents frightened,” they said. “Mental health days look different for everyone.”

Dain acknowledged a hesitation among students to reach out to staff, but said she thinks that makes the provision even more important.

“Within ETHS specifically, there’s a bit of apprehension to go to the mental health resources,” she said. “I think it’s a good connection that forces the adjusting of what’s going on with the student.”

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Mental health days are one element in a larger student health system — one that many say still needs significant improvement.

Angela Allyn, a parent of three ETHS graduates, said the law doesn’t address more systemic problems within mental health care.

“It’s an easy gesture. It’s low hanging fruit,” she said. “Giving someone a mental health day may help them not get to (a) crisis, but it provides no support.”

Allyn pointed to more deeply-rooted issues: a lack of teachers, social workers and psychologists in schools and long psychiatric evaluation wait times, for example.

Many called for further change. Vondracek discussed the need for greater emphasis on social-emotional learning. Brady noted the lack of research on mental illness among Asian women and other marginalized communities.

Dain said schools need clearer communication about resources available to students.

Beyond these changes, however, Claudia thinks the current school system cannot genuinely support student mental health.

“In many ways, our school system has been designed for burnout and anxiety and depression between college pressure and grade pressure, and pressure from peers and all these different things.” she said. “This system isn’t sustainable.” avivabechky2025@u.northwestern.edu

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THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

3

ON CAMPUS

Medill advisers leave, office understaffed

By JOSHUA PERRY

Editor in Chief Isabelle Sarraf

eic@dailynorthwestern.com

daily senior staffer @joshdperry

After the departure of several Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications advisers in the course of just three months, students are adapting and navigating new challenges in academic and career preparation.

Former Medill career adviser Fiona Sykes left on Sept. 8. In October, former academic advisers Jessica Scott and Joy Fernandez, along with graduate career adviser Stephanie Bassill, all publically announced their departure from Medill. By November, Daniel Mackenzie was the only academic adviser left.

Medill Dean Charles Whitaker sent out an Oct. 22 statement addressing the “adviser transition” at the Office of Student Life. He noted Medill administrators would make adjustments to help accommodate for inconveniences.

“We knew students were going to be panicked about registration, and we really needed all hands on deck for academic advising,” Whitaker said.

Staff from career services were temporarily tasked with providing academic advising for students, he said. Whitaker also announced in November he would be personally available to meet with and advise students in need. He said working directly with students is something he enjoys, so he’s glad to have the opportunity.

According to Whitaker, the academic advising team should be fully staffed again by early January.

He said he hopes the career services positions will also be filled in early 2022.

For Medill graduate student Sarah Stark, career advising resources for graduate students was one of the main reasons she chose to study at Medill. They were billed as a cornerstone of what the master’s program could offer, she said. It seemed that making progress on career advancement — updating your resume, networking through LinkedIn and more — was built into the master’s in journalism education, she added.

Stark said students in the master’s program weren’t given advance notice about Bassill’s impending departure, possibly due to a miscommunication.

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Medill has lost several advisers this fall, leaving many students unsure of how the future of their academic experience will play out.

To compensate for the advising vacancy, Medill offered temporary appointments with two career coaches, but Stark said those appointments filled up less than an hour after they were announced.

The lack of official communication from the school has left Stark and others in the master’s program in the dark about when advising would be back up and running. That is especially discouraging, Stark said, because the master’s in journalism program only lasts one year.

“We have no sense of timeline,” Stark said. “It could be two weeks from now — which I highly doubt, because they would have told us that — or it could be six months, or not at all.”

Other students have relied on advisers for support transitioning into college. Medill sophomore Maggie Sullivan said she had a rough freshman year. She sought support from Scott, her academic adviser, when she was struggling with her mental health and falling behind academically.

While she wasn’t using the academic advising office to address her mental health concerns, she

said her advisers had an intimate understanding of her specific academic difficulties at NU and a plan to overcome them.

“That was really crucial for me, because without it I don’t know that I would have passed very much last year,” Sullivan said. “I was in a really bad place.

So, I’m really thankful for the help there.”

Sullivan said she’s gotten by this quarter with Mackenzie’s help, but she said she’ll miss the close connections she had formed with former advisers.

The departure of Medill advisers has put additional pressure on Mackenzie. He said he’s doing the best he can to keep up with the increase in student demand for his appointments. But at least for now, he said, he’s managing.

“It’s certainly not feasible to create enough time for everyone to have an in-person or Zoom appointment, but I’ve answered every email by the end of every day,” Mackenzie said. “That’s generally how I am surviving.” joshuaperry2023@u.northwestern.edu

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4 THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

OPINION

Join the online conversation at www.dailynorthwestern.com

From: Enter the job world confidently and dream big AL FROM

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

In spring 1966, I arrived in Washington, D.C. to join the inaugural class of the Washington program at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. I never left.

NU changed my life, putting me on a life trajectory I could never have imagined growing up in an insular community in South Bend, Indiana.

When I entered Northwestern as a freshman in fall 1961, I was quite certain of my life’s course.

I would study journalism at Medill, get a job at a newspaper and, if all went right, work my way up to managing editor or editor in chief.

Then, my five years at Medill exposed me to ideas and opportunities I never knew existed and helped me develop the skills necessary to succeed in a fastchanging world. My experience as editor in chief of

The Daily gave me confidence to take on big challenges long after I left Fisk Hall.

But two experiences, more than any others, changed the course of my life.

The first was a meeting with legendary Mississippi newspaper editor Hodding Carter II, about whom I had learned in a History of Journalism class my freshman year. That meeting in 1965 convinced me to write my master’s thesis on how his newspaper led Greenville, Mississippi, to racial progress during the Civil Rights Movement.

The second came during the Washington program in spring 1966, when Edgar May (Medill ’57) asked me to work for him in the War on Poverty.

May’s offer came just as I was preparing to return to Chicago and begin a job as a reporter at the Chicago Daily News. I accepted May’s offer, called the Daily News to tell them I would not be returning to Chicago and never looked back.

My job was to investigate how War on Poverty programs were working on the front lines and to send missives back to headquarters that read more like New Yorker articles than stodgy government

reports. I was assigned to the Deep South, the hotbed of civil rights activity that I had written about in my thesis.

My career was on a new and exciting trajectory and the skills I learned at Medill served me well at every stop. After the War on Poverty, I worked as a staff director of a U.S. Senate subcommittee, a presidential advisor in the White House and as director of the U.S. House Democratic Caucus. In 1985, with a young Arkansas governor, Bill Clinton and others, I founded the Democratic Leadership Council, which redefined the Democratic Party and helped Clinton catapult to the presidency.

In 1998, with the president and First Lady Hillary Clinton, I began a dialogue with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other world leaders as the DLC brand became a model for resurgent center-left governments around the world.

After retiring from the DLC, I wrote a book, “The New Democrats and the Return to Power,” which was made into a documentary film called “Crashing the Party” and I teach an online graduate school course in government at Johns Hopkins University.

My advice to graduating Medill students is to enter the job world confidently and to dream big.

Your years at Medill have prepared you not only to succeed in your first job but to make choices throughout your career that will allow you to rise to heights that you cannot yet envision.

When I made that fateful decision to stay in Washington in 1966, I could never have known that the prestigious Chicago Daily News would close its doors in 1978. Nor could I have imagined that my career would give me the opportunity to work at the highest levels in Washington and with leaders around the world.

But my Medill experience prepared me for all possibilities.

Al From (Medill ’65, ’66) is a member of the inaugural class of the Medill Hall of Achievement. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

Moore: Be brave, try to follow your inner compass BRENNA CLAIRR MOORE

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

“Don’t be so busy telling everyone else’s story that you forget to share your own.” One of my Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications professors said those words during my freshman year at Northwestern, and they’ve stuck with me.

Like all of you, I have a unique story. I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, where I went downhill skiing in the winter and played soccer at 10 p.m. in the Alaskan summer sunlight. I watched bears and moose in my backyard, and I still refer to the rest of the country as the “Lower 48.” I was extremely passionate about writing throughout my childhood. I served as the editor of my high school newspaper and loved interviewing students who may not have received the spotlight otherwise.

I was a broadcast journalism major at NU and can distinctly remember sitting in Journalism 2011: Reporting and Writing during my freshman fall. I never felt so challenged, overwhelmed and intimidated in my entire life. In full transparency, I considered transferring out of Medill during my freshman year.

I didn’t think I had it in me to put up with the

constant stress and agony over every comma, word choice and quote. But in retrospect, I’m thankful my professors pushed me to dig deep and step out of my comfort zone. I had to learn to make mistakes and take some risks with my writing. I began to thrive on the tight deadlines, pressure to make every word count and the responsibility of getting each quote exactly right.

During the over 10 years since I graduated, I received a master’s degree in public relations, lived in five states and served in communications and public relations roles at a large PR agency, mid-sized professional services firm, a private university and two global corporations. I have also returned to campus several times to guest lecture for undergraduate Introduction to PR classes at Medill, which is incredibly rewarding. I currently serve as a senior manager for global communications at KimberlyClark, the parent company for brands like Huggies, Kotex, Kleenex and Cottonelle. I live in Dallas with my husband, Chad, and the light of our lives — our tabby cat, Chester.

What have I learned along the way? If you want to be an impactful leader in your professional and personal life, trust your inner compass. Sharing your voice and trusting your inner compass takes courage and vulnerability, but that sets true leaders apart.

As renowned psychologist and researcher Brené Brown said, “Vulnerability is hard and it’s scary, and it feels dangerous. But it’s not as hard, or scary or dangerous as getting to the end of our lives and

having to ask ourselves: What if I would’ve shown up?”

When I reflect on my own journey thus far, professionally at various employers and personally through my relationships with family, friends, significant others and my community, I’ve realized the ability to truly show up requires us to own our story — all of it.

I have always been passionate about speaking up about the causes and people I care about, but I wasn’t super comfortable when it came to speaking up for myself. As I entered the corporate world after graduating from NU, I realized I had a lot to learn.

When I first started working at an international energy company early in my career, I entered a maledominated industry with a preference for technical employees and engineers, not communications professionals. During my time at the company, I worked across numerous states in very male-dominated environments where I was often the minority in terms of gender and background. I always felt like I had to prove myself from day one to show that I could add value. The number one way I did that was to speak up and share my voice in all contexts. While people didn’t always agree with me or do what I advised, I never regretted voicing my opinion.

Speaking up, however, isn’t just something we need to do at work. Serving as a true leader in our own lives can be even more challenging. Several years ago, I ended an engagement and a three-year relationship two weeks — yes, two weeks — before

the scheduled wedding. It was the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make, but I knew in my gut and my heart that it wasn’t right. What followed was quite possibly the hardest few months of my life up to that point, but I don’t regret my decision for a single second. If I hadn’t changed my path, I wouldn’t have met my husband, who is the partner and best friend I always dreamed of meeting but never thought I would find.

Be brave and don’t ignore your inner compass, whether that be at school, work or in your personal life. As you all continue your own leadership journeys at the University and beyond, I encourage you to share your voice in all aspects of your life.

Leadership comes from within, and your voice is so important.

My former classmates and professors at NU inspired me to pursue my own story — one that isn’t always perfectly written and definitely still has some holes. But that’s okay because I’m still writing it. I can’t wait to read yours.

Brenna Clairr Moore (Weinberg 03) is a senior manager for Global Communications at Kimberly-Clark.

If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern. com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

Browning: Relationship building is key to your next career RYAN BROWNING

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

My name is Ryan Browning and I’m a Weinberg alumnus from the class of 2003. When I arrived on campus 22 years ago, my excitement was palpable.

The support from my parents, combined with my hard work, resulted in access to a world-class education. However, I now realize after building a career for 20 years that I missed an equally, if not more so important, aspect of Northwestern: building worldclass relationships.

No matter your ambition or how you choose to apply yourself, your fellow students, the alumni, faculty and administration are all connected to the ecosystems of interpersonal relationships that can facilitate your chosen path.

Whether you pursue medicine, law, business or social justice, there are relationships you can develop at NU that will orient you to the most efficient pathways to your goals. To be clear, congeniality does not guarantee success, and at the same time neither does being the absolute best at something.

Hardworking entrepreneurs not only need a killer idea, but also the right relationships to build a team and raise financial capital. The same can be said for researchers, politicians, portfolio managers, movie directors and so on. Beyond financial support for ideas, social capital plays an even more critical role for success in all professions.

During my time at NU, I did not fully understand this. Echoing in my ears was a value held in my

family, and arguably common in the African American community, that one must work harder and be smarter than one’s peers in order to be successful.

My personal interpretation of that sentiment shaped my behavior at NU in such a way that I over-indexed on knowledge acquisition over relationships.

Practically speaking, I created separate academic and student life personas. In my academic life, I saw the institution as an authority, hence my relationship with it became transactional: a teacher’s assistant was a means to practice problem sets, a professor was the gatekeeper of pertinent information, a mentor program helped me learn how to get a job after graduation, etc. Conversely, my student life was much less structured, and I made the most of expanding my horizons by being myself and making friends based on shared interests.

Because of my reverence (or at times indignation) for the faculty and administration, I excluded them from my personal life. I had no idea there were students who made no distinctions between their academic and student life.

The way I built relationships with my peers in my work-study job in Norris University Center, or after hours at the Black House, was the same way they interacted with their TAs and professors. As a result, the relationships they made academically and personally were built on authenticity and mutual interests. Relationships characterized by their depth and durability. I made the mistake of being too formal and shortsighted about my academic relationships.

My focus was on working hard, gaining knowledge and surviving the minority experience on campus.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized some of my peers had ongoing relationships as professionals with professors.

Unfortunately, this distinction was something that I carried into my early career. I maintained a posture of deference to my company’s executives and my direct manager. After a decade, I caught on and saw that my colleagues with the most desirable projects or fastest successions of promotions had a similar casual approach to leadership/authority. I slowly realized that building personal relationships, however difficult due to cultural differences, would be necessary to be fully known, appreciated and recognized as a professional.

I can report that my dissolution of the academic life/student life construct a few years after graduating opened me up to more opportunities than would have been possible by just honing my craft further. This is easier said than done, especially if you identify with a marginalized community. This is something that I’m constantly tuning and adjusting given my experience as a Black professional that is on the front lines — even more so with the current racial awakening nationwide.

I believe it is easiest to gain wisdom from others’ life experiences (i.e. learn from other’s mistakes), and I encourage undergraduate students to seek deep connections beyond the student body. Both structured and unstructured encounters with alumni and faculty will help you gain outside perspective that will help challenge limiting assumptions based on your own cultural background. I am confident that taking that step will enhance your on-campus experience and ultimately help you find more efficient ways to put your world-class education to work.

Ryan Browning (Weinberg ’03) is currently an executive at WPP, the world’s largest advertising holding company focusing on Innovation and Corporate Strategy. If you

would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

The Daily Northwestern Volume 143, Issue 27 Editor in Chief Isabelle Sarraf

Opinion Editor Alex Perry

Managing Editors Rebecca Aizin Samantha Boas Alex Chun Jacob Fulton Maia Spoto

Assistant Opinion Editors Annika Hiredesai Lily Nevo

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR may be sent to 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, via fax at 847-491-9905, via e-mail to opinion@ dailynorthwestern.com or by dropping a letter in the box outside The Daily office.

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THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

5

Julia Nichols/The Daily Northwestern

Jack Austin/Daily Senior Staffer

Julia Nichols/The Daily Northwestern

REFUSIONSHAKA SHAKES NU

ReFusionShaka, Northwestern’s largest annual dance performance, was put on Friday and Saturday nights in Cahn Auditorium. The show was performed by three student dance troupes — Fusion Dance Company, Refresh Dance Crew and Boomshaka — who started rehearsals over the summer. The event was

highly anticipated by Northwestern students, with tickets for two of the three shows selling out before doors opened.

— Jack Austin

Take NU with you, wherever you go.

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6

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

NU-Q students protest to address discrimination

By MAIA PANDEY

daily senior staffer @maiapandey

Content warning: This story contains mentions of sexual assault and death.

Students at Northwestern University in Qatar protested earlier this month for increased student wages, better support services and concrete steps to address discrimination against the University’s South Asian, East Asian and Black students.

The event came exactly two years after NU-Q students’ last major protest, responding to derogatory comments then-Dean Everette E. Dennis allegedly made about students observing Ramadan. While Dennis stepped down in January 2020 and NU-Q appointed Marwan Kraidy as the new dean, students said systemic issues remain and NU-Q has not addressed many of the demands raised in 2019.

At a scheduled town hall meeting with Kraidy, students shared personal stories of their frustrations with the University and held up signs that read “We are not N this together” and “2 years later and we’re still here?”

Organizer and senior Khadija Ahmad spoke at the protest and helped write a statement of nine demands detailing student concerns and proposed solutions, which was issued before the protest. Fifteen NU-Q student groups have since signed in support of the statement.

Ahmad said students issued formal demands and organized the protest because they needed “urgent relief.”

“We were desperate. We weren’t getting a livable wage. We were seeing terrible things happen to our peers, and we were like, ‘It’s inhumane to keep us waiting, to tell us to go through the bureaucratic process,’” Ahmad said. “We could not survive like this anymore.”

Low-income students struggle with changes to worker policies Protesters’ main demands include changes to University policies to better serve low-income students. According to the student statement, NU-Q’s student wages are lower than some other institutions in Education City, a development which houses satellite campuses of multiple international universities.

In a recent town hall meeting, Kraidy said NU-Q was “dealing with a 20% budget reduction,” and administrators were deciding between providing summer housing and creating a student emergency fund, according to The Daily Q. However, in response to student questions about financial aid, an NU-Q spokesperson told The Daily budget cuts have not affected financial aid.

“These concerns expressed by a student are unwarranted,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “To date there have been no budget-related cuts to student financial aid and it is not related to the budget process.”

Students demanded the University raise the minimum wage from 27 Qatari rials per hour to 35 QAR. In comparison, current student wages at Georgetown University in Qatar typically range from 40 to 50 QAR, according to its website.

Organizers are advocating for the 35 QAR to correspond with the Evanston campus’ minimum wage of $13 per hour, the statement said. Although the $13 wage would correspond to 47.32 QAR, they adjusted their request to account for the fact NU-Q allows its students to work 20 hours a week, while the Evanston campus allows 15.

Reasonable wages are critical to living in Doha, one of the most expensive cities in the Middle East, senior Nadege Bizimungu, who also spoke at the protest, told The Daily.

“We cannot even study if we don’t have food on the table, if we don’t have the wages that we need,” they said. “If we cannot satisfy our basic human needs, how do you expect me to go to class in the first place?”

Bizimungu also said her family lost a significant portion of its income during the pandemic, but the expected family contribution to her financial aid increased. They currently have a

COVID-19 positivity rate increases before Thanksgiving As the number of COVID-19 tests taken on campus continues to decline, the positivity rate has risen.

Out of roughly 4,000 tests taken this week, 37 came back positive, putting the positivity rate at 0.92% — an increase from last week’s 0.60%.

Photo courtesy of Northwestern University

Northwestern University in Qatar. Students held a protest this month demanding systemic change at NU-Q, exactly two years after their last major protest.

registration hold for the upcoming term because they cannot afford the increased tuition.

Students also demanded NU-Q reverse a decision made earlier this year decreasing the maximum number of work hours during academic breaks from 40 hours to 20 hours. GU-Q currently allows students to work 40 hours during its summer and winter breaks.

“Current senior and junior students … factored this income into their university budget, and in the middle of their undergraduate studies, they were informed that they could no longer depend on it,” the statement said.

Lack of institutional support for Title IX complaints, mental health struggles Students also advocated for reform of mental health services on campus and the establishment of an Office of Equity and ombudsperson similar to the Evanston campus. Adequately addressing Title IX claims through an Office of Equity, among other complaints, was also a demand of the 2019 protest.

Bizimungu said she filed a Title IX complaint at NU-Q. The campus doesn’t have its own Office of Equity, so she has been working with a member of the Center for Awareness, Response and Education on the Evanston Campus. However, Bizimungu said communication with the CARE office has been inconsistent and staff from the Evanston Campus do not understand the cultural context of Qatar.

For example, Bizimungu said students under the age of 21 who report assault cases involving drugs and alcohol to the police may face deportation because the law is stringently enforced in Qatar.

“The issue is having to explain ourselves multiple times, which ends up re-traumatizing us, specifically victims of sexual assault, and discouraging us from even reporting in the first place,” Bizimungu said. “One thing that I know for sure is that I wish I had not reported my case.”

Students also criticized NU-Q’s Health and Wellness department and advocated for the hiring of more department staff and standardization of accommodations for students struggling with mental health.

Senior Iffah Kitchlew spoke at the protest about her ongoing struggle to receive accommodations from NU-Q and her professors after her sister became terminally ill and died earlier this year.

Kitchlew told The Daily she attended online classes from the hospital last winter, but could not afford to let her grades drop because her merit-based financial aid scholarship is contingent on her GPA. While she contacted the Health and Wellness Non-undergraduate students continue to account for about half of positive tests, at 19.

Undergraduate students and staff account for nine positive tests each, comprising a little less than one-fourth of the positive results. While faculty again constitute three of the positive tests, the group proportionally represents fewer of the overall positive results compared to last week.

With Thanksgiving coming up, Northwestern Medicine released guidelines for staying vigilant of COVID-19 during the holiday season. To encourage frequent testing during the break,

department requesting representatives liaison with her professors to explain the situation, she said the department told her it was not under their jurisdiction.

“I was specifically told, ‘You of all people know that life is unfair and not everything works out,’” Kitchlew said. “When you’re told this by the one place that (says) they care about you, it’s heartbreaking, and I didn’t have the energy to fight it.”

Without support from the department, Kitchlew said she had to balance caring for her sister with continuously explaining the circumstances to her professors, which was “debilitating.”

When her sister died, Kitchlew said she asked a friend to communicate with NU-Q on her behalf while she grieved with family. Still, she said NU-Q contacted her directly to tell her she could take a week off classes but would have to meet with professors individually to discuss accommodations.

Days after her sister died, Kitchlew said she had to sit through Zoom meetings with professors. When she contacted Health and Wellness this fall to discuss accommodations for continuing anxiety and grief, she said the representative was unaware of her situation — indicating a lack of internal communication.

“I have been in this university for four years, and I’ve given so much to it,” she said. “We’re not in our homes, we pay a lot of money to come here, this is the only community we have — it’s very isolating to feel like you’re not being listened to or feel like you are continuously being turned away.”

Black, East Asian and South Asian students advocate for curriculum representation Students also called for better support for Black, East Asian and South Asian students by hiring faculty of these ethnicities and offering more courses studying these groups.

NU-Q established a minor in Africana Studies earlier this year. But Bizimungu, president of NU-Q’s African Students Association, said the University has no permanent Black and subSaharan African faculty on staff — something students say should change.

Students are also advocating for the hiring of at least one East Asian faculty in residence and research committee member and the expansion of South Asian studies.

Junior Monazza Farooqi, an international student from Pakistan, said they only recall one course related to South Asia offered during their time at NU-Q: a class on British India, taught by a white British professor.

“Most of the sources that we were examining were written by British people, and the professor was like, ‘It’s British India, so obviously the University is providing free at-home tests for students, staff and faculty at the Donald P. Jacobs Center.

To encourage and accommodate testing both before and after Thanksgiving break, the Jacobs Center will be open for extended hours Monday to Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m this week and the following week.

Testing centers are closed over the Thanksgiving holiday, Nov. 25 through Nov. 28.

If national news, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director expanded eligibility for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech

we’re going to teach this from the British perspective,’” Farooqi said, “which doesn’t really make sense because you should not be teaching colonialism from the colonizer’s perspective.”

Both Farooqi and Ahmad, who is also from Pakistan, said they have been called a racial slur referring to Pakistani people by other students on campus.

Ahmad said the large South Asian migrant worker population in Qatar shapes the experiences of South Asian students, who are one of the largest groups of international students on campus.

People in Qatar are used to seeing South Asian migrants in service jobs, Ahmad said.

“When people see us around campus, I feel like in the back of their head, we’re always the lucky ones,” she said. “(They think) we’re poor, we’re dirty, but somehow we landed ourselves this opportunity where we got the same education as them.”

Challenges to continued organizing At the town hall, Kraidy said he would look into student concerns — including establishing an Office of Equity in Doha — during his visit to the Evanston Campus this month. As of Sunday morning, Kraidy was still in Evanston.

“There’s no excuse to delay, but these steps by necessity do take some time,” Kraidy said at the protest.

While students plan to keep advocating for their demands, Kitchlew said sustaining momentum is difficult because upperclassmen organizers will graduate.

Some students also fear retribution for speaking out against the administration, she added.

“It’s important to keep talking about these things to push for reform because the institutional memory resets every four years,” Kitchlew said.

Ahmad said students who speak out against NU-Q risk their chances of getting hired for student ambassador positions on campus because the University expects these students to act as “the perfect PR person.” Faculty have directly spoken to her about messages she has posted on social media criticizing NU-Q, she added.

Still, Ahmad said she is committed to advocating for change on NU’s Doha Campus.

“I don’t have anything else left to lose,” Ahmad said. “I find this such a reprehensible place that the only plausible solution for me is to fight for it and make it better because what we are going through is unlivable.” maiapandey@u.northwestern.edu booster shots Friday for all adults who received their last COVID-19 vaccination of either series at least six months ago.

While the University said it does not intend to hold booster clinics in the foreseeable future, Evanston recommends those interested complete its vaccine booster survey for notification of future events in the city.

Booster shots are being offered in retail pharmacies such as CVS, Walgreens and Meijer via appointment.

— Angeli Mittal

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

7

TMAC book club centers trans stories, authors at EPL

By SARAH AIE

daily senior staffer @sarahaie_

When Chicago resident Aron Marie came out as queer several years ago, reading books centering queer stories helped him understand who he was.

But up until a year ago, Marie had never read a book featuring a transgender character. He had watched movies and television shows telling trans stories, but said those portrayals felt “very narrow and very limited.”

Last November, Marie, a self-proclaimed book nerd, decided to seek out more meaningful representation by starting a virtual monthly book club highlighting books by and for trans communities.

“I really just want to have a chance to see what books written by trans folks about trans folks look like,” Marie said.

Transmasculine Alliance Chicago is a peer-led community group for people assigned female at birth who identify as a trans man, transmasculine, non-binary or are questioning their gender.

Through the organization, Marie connected with Pim Halka, the exhibits and creative programs library assistant at the Evanston Public Library.

Together, they created T-MAC Book Group, a book club geared toward transmasculine individuals and open to assigned female at birth trans, gender nonconforming, non-binary and questioning adults.

Now, T-MAC Book Group is gearing up to celebrate its one-year anniversary later this month.

Halka said ze has enjoyed the culture that has built up between group members as they bond around books.

To zir, it’s proven meaningful to experience a casual gathering space where transmasculine and non-binary readers can bond outside of formal spaces organized for pride events.

“It’s really heartening to just come together regularly to celebrate our own art and culture, and not exclusively around something like Pride or Trans Day of Remembrance or Trans Day of Visibility,” Halka said. “To just come and get to know each other better and by getting to know each other better, build culture.”

T-MAC Book Group meetings are held every fourth Friday of the month from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Meetings are promoted on Transmasculine

Illustration by Hank Yang

Hosted by Evanston Public Library, Transmasculine Alliance Chicago Book Group meets every month to discuss selected works by trans authors.

Alliance Chicago social media channels, including Facebook and Discord, and usually attract between four and 10 attendees.

The group meets over Zoom, which Marie and Halka said was a deliberate choice to make meetings as accessible as possible. Meeting in a virtual space eliminates barriers like transportation, although lack of consistent internet connection can present a problem.

Each meeting begins with introductions and a check-in activity. Then, attendees participate in an informal popcorn-style discussion of the month’s book, which Marie said often leads to animated conversation about all manner of subjects.

“In general, conversation has never stalled out,” Marie said. “Trans folks reading books by trans authors — there are a lot of things to unpack and a lot of things to discuss so generally, it’s a pretty lively meeting.”

Attendees vote on future book selections at the end of every meeting. Members can also add to a running document of past book titles and future suggestions. So far, the club has read a variety of genres, including nonfiction, poetry and a graphic

novel.

In January, the book club read Julian Jarboe’s “Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel,” a collection of 16 stories ranging from bodyhorror fairy tales to mid-apocalyptic Catholic cyberpunk.

Through the library’s connections, Halka invited Jarboe to attend the meeting. Jarboe, whose book tour was canceled due to the pandemic, said they were already looking for alternative virtual events, so when this opportunity came they were excited to speak to a trans audience.

“I don’t need to talk about things like trans voices as this abstract force,” Jarboe said. “We can just talk about the stories. It’s not necessarily that a trans audience understands exactly what I’m doing, either. It’s that their interpretations just are going to be surprising in more complicated ways that I find really exciting to talk about.”

Jarboe spoke to the group about the book’s allegories and influences before participating in the discussion. While many stories include queer and trans characters, Jarboe said they were also interested in writing about disability, monstrosity

and science fabulism — a type of science-fiction that incorporates Italo Calvino-esque fantasy.

Attendees also examined the way Jarboe integrates themes of religion and spirituality, something Marie said many trans people grapple with throughout their lives.

“I was just really delighted to be able to visit with the book club,” Jarboe said. “I think of it as probably one of my favorite alternative book tour stops.”

This month’s book selection is Nick Krieger’s “Nina Here Nor There,” a contemporary memoir about the author’s gender awakening after moving to San Francisco.

Prior to starting his own list, Marie said he had difficulty finding collections of trans stories by trans authors. He said lists of LGBTQ+ books often led to literature featuring cisgender characters.

“When you search LGBT books, you’re not necessarily getting trans-specific books,” he said.

“Certainly, there’s a lot of overlap in communities, a lot of folks within trans communities also identify as queer. But there are differences in experience.”

The group’s running document is part of its larger goal of increasing access to trans books through public libraries. The Evanston Public Library obtains digital copies of every T-MAC Book Group selection and often orders physical copies as well, Halka said.

“This program has been helpful to bring to light independently published, but also in-community popular trans voices that otherwise just wouldn’t have been in the collection,” ze said.

Moving forward, Halka said ze hopes to hold more virtual author talks and build diversity within the club.

Marie said he is proud to have found the 12 books the club has read so far, and is excited about the growing field of trans literature.

“You don’t come to know yourself or to know your identity in a vacuum,” Marie said. “We’re always sort of looking for things that we can connect with in broader society. And being able to just see yourself represented in literature is a really powerful thing.”

Book club attendees can register for future meetings here. sarahaie2024@u.northwestern.edu

The Daily Northwestern Fall 2021 | An independent voice since 1923 | Evanston, Illinois EDITOR IN CHIEF | Isabelle Sarraf PRINT MANAGING EDITORS | Rebecca Aizin, Jacob Fulton, Maia Spoto DIGITAL MANAGING EDITORS | Samantha Boas, Alex Chun ___________________ DIVERSITY & INCLUSION CHAIRS | Ilana Arougheti, Janea Wilson ___________________ WEB EDITORS | Samantha Anderer, Diego RamosBechara, Natalie Wu SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR | Grace Wu AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT EDITOR | Jorja Siemons ___________________ CAMPUS EDITOR | Waverly Long ASSISTANT EDITORS | Hannah Feuer, Isabel Funk, Joshua Perry ___________________ CITY EDITOR | Max Lubbers ASSISTANT EDITORS | Ilana Arougheti, Katrina Pham, Jorja Siemons

SPORTS EDITOR | John Riker ASSISTANT EDITORS | Lawrence Price, Skye Swann ____________________

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

MOYANA OLIVIA

Bienen sophomore Olivia Pierce releases new music

Madison Smith/Daily Senior Staffer

In an upcoming audio story about her work, Pierce talks to the Daily about bringing her community together in the music production and marketing process.

Onyekaorise Chigbogwu/Daily Senior Staffer

Olivia Pierce, also known by her stage name Moyana Olivia, released her new single, “Missing You” earlier this month. The acoustic version dropped on Spotify last night.

Onyekaorise Chigbogwu/Daily Senior Staffer

Pierce released her first song “Long Distance” in June.

Pierce hosted an on-campus release party for “Missing You” on Nov 15. During the party, Pierce put on a live performance of two of her original songs.

The Ripple: “No Wiindigo economy”: The fight for fossil fuel divestment In October, oil started flowing through Line 3.

Despite protests, in November the Biden administration refused to shut down Line 5. Indigenous rights and climate activists, however, argue that pipeline development threatens Indigenous peoples’ treaty rights, exacerbates carbon emissions and threatens ecosystems throughout the Upper Midwest. Some Northwestern students have been involved in protest efforts both on and off campus, organizing supply drives, leading teachins and traveling to Minnesota for demonstrations.

In this episode of The Ripple, student activists and faculty discuss their experiences with environmental and Indigenous rights activism, as well as how fossil fuel divestment on Northwestern’s campus ties into their efforts. You can listen on SoundCloud, Spotify and Apple Music.

The Ripple spoke with student activists and faculty about advocacy against oil pipelines in the Midwest as well as the push to divest from fossil fuels at Northwestern.

— Will Clark

Digitized pages of The Daily Northwestern now available through 2018!

Northwestern students, faculty, staff & alumni can search digitzed print archives of The Daily all the way back to 1881, courtesy of NewsBank Inc. and Northwestern University Libraries.

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021

THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

Northwestern shuts out Liberty, wins first title

By SKYE SWANN

daily senior staffer @sswann301

With 10 seconds left on the game clock, Northwestern players huddled together on the sidelines of Michigan’s Ocker Field, waiting for the horn to sound off and call the match.

In a flash, players rushed to the field, dogpiling sophomore goalkeeper Annabel Skubisz as the announcer crowned the Wildcats the 2021 NCAA Division I Field Hockey National Champions.

“I can’t even describe it,” said sophomore midfielder Maddie Zimmer, who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

“It’s so exciting. I can’t believe we are here. We knew we could do it. We finished. We did the details. We came out on top.”

NU (18-5, 5-3 Big Ten) defeated Liberty (20-3, 7-0 Big East) 2-0 Sunday in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to win its first title in program history. In a tightly contested match, Zimmer and junior defender Alia Marshall recorded the Cats’ two goals in the third quarter, bringing home the title for the squad.

This is coach Tracey Fuchs’ first title in her 13 seasons leading the program. Fuchs, who has won one national title as a player and two as a coach, gave the credit to her team. Another aspect that made the game special — Flames coach Nikki Parsley-Blocker played for the Cats in 2013.

“She really put our program on the map,” Fuchs said. “She was one of our top recruits when I first got there, and you could see her team takes after her as they gave us a great game today.”

The first half was hardly smooth sailing.

Near-freezing temperatures and pouring rain, along with the tenacious Liber ty defense, kept the Cats from playing “Cat Hockey” in a scoreless first half, according to Fuchs. She said the group had too many turnovers for her liking, adding that these missed opportunities gave the Flames plenty

of chances on offense.

“We were a little bit frantic,” Fuchs said.

“We weren’t playing our best. Liberty had great tacklers so we really had to adjust.”

From the start of regulation, both squads played aggressively, pushing each other to rev up the pace of the match to hold possession.

Liberty exploited NU’s lagging start, dribbling the ball to the Cats’ backline with hopes of a goal. The Flames were nearly successful, earning a corner a minute into the game.

Still, NU’s defensive unit denied Liberty, showcasing a “defense wins championships” mentality. Marshall, junior defender Kayla Blas and graduate student back Maddie Bacskai were the key leaders inside the circle, making big saves during the Flames’ five corner attempts.

But the main piece of the Cats’ show-stopping defensive puzzle was Skubisz. Facing immense pressure from Liberty’s fast-paced forwards, she defended the cage with prestige, shutting out each shot attempt.

Denying five corners in the f i r st ha l f

alone, Skubisz credited her teammates for helping her keep her head up.

“You definitely heard more communication from me during those moments of stress to combat (the Flames offense),” Skubisz said.

“The team did a really good job of staying on the same page and making sure that people who needed to be pressured were pressured.”

NU’s offense struggled to connect in the first quarter, getting outshot by Liberty and earning just one corner. The second 15-minute period of the half was similar, highlighting a different side of the Cats team that felt the pressure of the high-stakes game.

NU’s slow offensive start seemed to turn when junior Bente Baekers was awarded a penalty stroke opportunity following a Flame foul close to the goalline in the second quarter.

Instead of allowing the game’s first score, Liberty goalkeeper Azul Iritxity Irigoyen rejected Baekers’ shot, handing the forward her second career missed penalty stroke. Baekers also missed in the Cats’ semifinal win against Harvard.

During halftime, Zimmer said the squad discussed amplifying its intensity, noting the first 30 minutes lacked drive. Bacskai and Fuchs agreed, saying the team strategized settling its nerves in the next half and playing the Cats’ game on the field.

And NU made those adjustments, immediately winning possession of the ball and shutting out the Flames from any corner attempts through the third and fourth quarter. With the Cats kicking into high gear, the group’s offense star ted rolling , allowing Marshall to open scoring in the con-

test from a penalty corner. Zimmer followed with a buzzer-beater, scoring a coast-to-coast fastbreak goal with six seconds remaining in the third quarter.

Following a crushing NCAA tournament loss in the Elite Eight to Iowa in the spring — just six months earlier — Fuchs said winning the title was a full-circle moment for the program. With a talented team, including Princeton transfers Bacskai and graduate student forward Clara Roth, Fuchs said all the pieces of NU’s 2021 fall season “just came together.”

“Over a year ago, when I committed to Northwestern, I called Tracey and told her.

‘We’re winning a national championship,” Bacskai said. “She honestly snickered on the other end, saying, ‘Hold on Maddie, we got Big Ten, we got the Final Four.”

“I went up to her after (the game) and I said, ‘Tracey, we did it.’ We won our national championship.” skyeswann2024@u.northwestern.edu

John Riker/Daily Senior Staffer

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11

Carroll: Wildcats reach peak with championship win

By GABRIELA CARROLL

daily senior staffer @gablcarroll

Last year, Northwestern made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a massive accomplishment. The Wildcats had only made the second round one other time during coach Tracey Fuchs’ tenure, which at the time spanned 12 years.

Though NU made it to the tournament the year prior, they lost in the first round and missed the tournament in 2018, many of the seniors’ first year on the squad.

Looking back at my three years covering the team, seeing the growth of these now national championship-winning players has been magical.

Junior forward Bente Baekers was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2019, scoring the second-most goals in program history with 28.

She made the shot in overtime that sent NU to

the championship game.

Senior defender Kayla Blas was second team All-Big Ten in 2019, then just a sophomore but already a steady defender. She made the crucial save on Liberty’s best penalty corner try in the second period to keep the score tied at zero.

Junior defender Alia Marshall was a freshman in 2019, with just one career goal. She scored the game-winner early in the third, a tip-in on the penalty corner.

Sophomore midfielder Maddie Zimmer was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2020. The NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player scored the Cats’ second goal, a long shot from the top of the circle that was deflected by a Liberty player, in the dying seconds of the third quarter, icing the game.

Sophomore goaltender Annabel Skubisz got her first start in the first game of the 2020 season after graduated goaltender Florien Marcussen suffered an injury, and never relinquished that role. She pitched a shutout today on the biggest possible stage.

This team has grown together. With new additions came new energy and skills, and each graduation took stars away. Each year, the Cats advanced further and further, building off their progress. This national championship is the culmination of it all.

The moment NU’s season started to feel like something truly special, to me at least, was its 2-1 win over previously undefeated No. 1 Iowa.

The Cats were having a pretty standard season. They’d beaten a lot of good teams, they’d lost to a few good teams and were middle of the pack in the Big Ten. NU was still in the top ten in the country, but as many as five Big Ten teams were ranked ahead of them at any given time.

Beating Iowa was a turning point. When Iowa tied the game late in the fourth quarter, it felt like the Cats were headed toward another overtime loss, having not won in overtime all season.

But NU prevailed.

Just under four minutes later, junior midfielder Ana Medina Garcia banked in a rebound, and the Cats defeated the number one team in

the nation for the first time in program history.

Going into the Big Ten tournament, NU was on a five-game winning streak. But after earning the fifth seed, they fell to Michigan in the first round in a shootout. The Cats were likely to make the NCAA Tournament, but with so many excellent teams in the field, they weren’t even close to the favorite to win it all.

But they dug in, and they won, conceding just one goal in the entire tournament. NU held the nation’s highest scoring offense in Liberty at bay, after defeating the three-time defending champion North Carolina in the first round, and beating a familiar foe in Iowa in the second.

Just making the Final Four was a massive accomplishment for Tracey Fuchs’s squad — the last time the program made the Final Four was in 1994.

And then they won, and advanced to their first-ever national championship game.

And then they won it all. gabrielacarroll2023@u.northwestern.edu

John Riker/Daily Senior Staffer

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Monday, November 22, 2021

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THE DAWN OF THE NIL ERA

Northwestern navigates new NCAA landscape with goals to ‘educate and empower’ student-athletes

By CHARLOTTE VARNES

daily senior staffer @charvarnes11

Graduate student attacker Lauren Gilbert has long been one of Northwestern lacrosse’s greatest offensive assets.

The Oregon native has been lethal on attack for the Wildcats, receiving All-Big Ten honors in 2021 and ranking ninth in the country in goals scored in 2021. She was also nominated for the 2021 Tewaaraton Award, an annual honor given to the top player in college lacrosse.

Prior to July 1, well-known college athletes like Gilbert could not accept endorsement money or advertise their appearances at sports camps without considerable consequences. That all changed for Illinois student-athletes on June 29, when Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed Senate Bill 2338 into law: the Student-Athlete Endorsement Rights Act. The legislation defined compensation for student-athletes and set boundaries for how they could profit off their name, image and likeness. It provided a blueprint for Illinois universities, like NU, about how they should approach NIL. The University has since introduced its own NIL policy, heavily influenced by Illinois’ legislation.

Now, with this legislation in place, Gilbert can take advantage of being a wellknown figure in the college lacrosse world and market herself through her name, image and likeness.

“It’s a lot easier to advertise now because we are allowed to use our name, image and likeness,” Gilbert said.

“Whereas, before, (when working at lacrosse clinics) it was gaining clientele through your built-in network, now we can really advertise ourselves.”

Early NIL conversations on campus Internal conversations about NIL stretch back a “long, long way,” but began to take shape over the past two years, according to Paul Kennedy, associate athletic director for communications.

This timeline goes hand in hand with the acceleration of NIL discussions nationwide. In September 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Fair Pay to Play Act into law, which, starting in 2023, will prohibit universities within the state from punishing student-athletes who receive compensation from endorsement deals. The following month, the NCAA announced it would re-examine and modernize its name, image and likeness rules by January of this year.

[Read The Daily’s look into the impact NIL legislation would have on NU athletes before the legislation was passed.]

However, the NCAA had to indefinitely table changing its rules in January when it received a letter from the Department of Justice’s antitrust division claiming the legislation could place the organization in legal jeopardy. In the meantime, several states created their own variations of NIL legislation.

So the NCAA adopted an interim policy in June, granting all student-athletes the ability to profit off their name, image and likeness in order to ensure all student-athletes across the country had opportunities to pursue business deals.

Kennedy emphasized the uncertainty surrounding this period, saying it was difficult to plan for NIL when it was uncertain whether there would be federal legislation imposing the same rules on all states or if it would be a “patchwork of scattershot solutions” based on individual state law.

“It was clearly something that was going to change in college athletics,” Kennedy said. “You want to be (as) prepared as you can for it, but it was very difficult to assess or ascertain what you were supposed to be prepared for.”

Prior to 2021, Illinois lawmakers proposed several different versions of legislation that would have allowed student-athletes to make money off their NIL. However, none succeeded until S.B. 2338 was passed.

At the same time, NU was experiencing a transition in athletic directors. Derrick Gragg took over as athletic director on July 1 — the same day NIL legislation took effect in Illinois. Kennedy said he was especially impressed with Gragg’s support

during his early days at NU, saying he thinks Gragg brings a “unique perspective” to the issue given his own experience as a college athlete.

As the legislation advanced in Illinois, associate athletic director for compliance Kristina Minor closely followed along so that the University could keep up to speed with the changes. Minor pulled a draft of S.B. 2338 from the internet and set to work on creating NU’s official policy with a team of officials from across the University. She worked alongside the general counsel to ensure the policy was “on the right track” and followed NCAA and state rules.

From this, NU’s own NIL policy came about. Neither Kennedy nor Minor could remember the exact date, but the official policy was released on Northwestern Athletics’ website over the summer.

Educating student-athletes Following the establishment of NU’s policy, the focus turned to educating student-athletes about NIL. Minor said she views education as being two separate tracks: one about NIL policies and the other with “industry-specific” information. Athletics started teaching student-athletes about the rules over the summer, starting with an optional webinar with information about the basics of NIL. She said the goal was to ensure student-athletes had enough knowledge at their disposal that they knew when to come to her with questions and to “educate and empower” them in the process.

“We’ve got athletes that are wholly uninterested and that’s fine,” Minor said. “There are student-athletes that are interested in maximizing every opportunity possible.

That is also perfectly fine. We want to make sure they are all educated and making informed decisions.”

While the athletic department can advise students about the rules of NIL, policies dictate it cannot help students make deals or advise them in specific business scenarios. However, the department is allowed to refer students to outside experts or resources on campus who can answer their questions.

Kennedy said athletics feels lucky to be on such a “dynamic, achieving” campus with plenty of resources for student-athletes to take advantage of. He said linking student-athletes with resources around campus has been an important component of the university’s NIL policy.

The University has partnered with the app INFLCR to track athletes’ NIL deals, adhering to state policy that deals must be disclosed. The app allows athletes to input details about their deals, which are then shared with the compliance office. Minor said she then goes through to approve deals, only disapproving them if students don’t provide all of the information needed by law.

From a student-athlete’s standpoint, Gilbert said athletics has done a “really good job” with their education process, saying it has offered plenty of guidance to student-athletes. She said lacrosse has an annual compliance meeting each year, and this year the University spent time walking them through what steps they have to take to remain compliant and benefit from NIL.

Students take advantage of NIL NU student-athletes have inked deals with a variety of companies now over the past few months that they have the ability and resources at their disposal to benefit from NIL. Sophomore football player Brandon Joseph has a deal with Sarchione Auto Gallery, a car dealership in Ohio. Graduate student football player Charlie Kuhbander has a deal with Evanston’s Cantuccio’s Pizza and debit card company Enzo. Sophomore field hockey player Maddie Zimmer won a national championship while partnered with STX, a field hockey equipment company.

Joseph, an All-American selection in his redshirt freshman season in 2020, spoke on his NIL prospects during Big Ten Media Days in July. Even then, just two weeks into NIL, Joseph said he had been approached by sponsors. Joseph said social media is an especially powerful marketing tool, with some companies promising him goods in exchange for advertisement posts.

Beyond making brand deals, studentathletes can now advertise their own camps and clinics. Prior to NIL, student-athletes could work at sports camps, but couldn’t advertise for the camps with their name, image or likeness.

Gilbert and her sister Katy, a lacrosse player at Stanford, took advantage of this last summer, when they worked camps with the lacrosse clubs Oregon Pride and Cityside Lax. “I coached a camp in Seattle, and I think they were able to attract more people because they were able to use my name in their advertisements for the camp,” Gilbert said. “There were girls (at the camp) who watch college lacrosse and knew who I was, and that’s a really great way for me to build my brand among people wanting trainings around that area.”

The future of NIL at NU NU’s status as the Big Ten’s smallest university and only private institution makes it an interesting case study. With national championships in women’s lacrosse and field hockey in the last decade, the University’s athletic depart-

ment also has the potential to challenge the hierarchy that king football and basketball as the main moneymakers.

NU women’s lacrosse alum Lindsey McKone didn’t get to profit off her name, image and likeness in college. But said she’s especially interested to see how NIL affects non-revenue versus revenue sports and the “parity of sports” between genders and teams.

Gilbert, one of McKone’s former teammates, said she was excited about NIL’s potential to allow female athletes to build their brands while in college.

“It’s really cool to build this platform while we’re in college, so whether or not we’re able to make a career out of our sport, we’re still able to have this platform with athletics as a foundation of that,” Gilbert said.

Still, it’s been impossible to track a trend thus far. Kennedy said student-athlete involvement with NIL has been “all over the map,” so far. He said businesses have expressed definite interest in NU student-athletes so far, and he expects that to continue in the future.

Despite all of the uncertainties of NIL, Minor said she is very proud of how things are going so far. She said problems, like different states having different NIL policies, remain, but she’s sure it will be resolved eventually.

“I’m very happy with the way our student-athletes have taken this on,” Minor said. “I stay impressed by Northwestern students, in general. They have really good heads on their shoulders.” charlottevarnes2024@u.northwestern.edu