The Daily Northwestern - May 15, 2013

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SPORTS Old and new

Q&A with standout senior and decorated freshman » PAGE 8

Conservative activist O’Keefe screens Breitbart film » PAGE 2

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The Daily Northwestern Wednesday, May 15, 2013

DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM

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Dillo Day

Mayfest unveils wristband policy By JEANNE KUANG

the daily northwestern @jeannekuang

Source: Semester Online screenshot

‘A NEW VENTURE’ Semester Online, a new online for-credit education platform, incorporates weekly video conferences with classmates and individual assignments. Applications for the classes are due May 24.

Schools question online classes By LAUREN CARUBA

daily senior staffer @laurencaruba

As registration deadlines near for taking the new for-credit Semester Online classes, concerns over cost and educational value have provoked shifts among participating universities. Since it was rolled out in November, the group of Semester Online schools shrank from the 10 initial participating schools to seven. Including Northwestern, six universities will offer 11 courses this fall. Applications for the classes are due May 24. Duke University recently opted out of the new online platform based on a faculty council vote in late April. Vanderbilt University and the University of Rochester also pulled out earlier this year, and several other schools remain on the fence.

In its decision, the Duke council cited numerous issues, including a lack of control over curriculum, educational quality and little interaction with students. Duke officials could not be reached for comment. Vanderbilt is instead pursuing other online platforms like Coursera, a massive open online course provider. Vanderbilt recently passed the 200,000 mark for students taking its Coursera offerings, Cyrus said. The University of Rochester has also chosen Coursera over Semester Online’s for-credit classes. NU will participate in both platforms. Besides NU, University of Notre Dame, Emory University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brandeis University and Washington University in St. Louis remain in the consortium. Boston College, not originally included, is now offering two courses, while NU will offer an integrated marketing communications

Proposed state bill would protect gang witnesses By CIARA MCCARTHY

the daily northwestern @mccarthy_ciara

Illinois state senators will vote in the coming weeks on a bill that would provide protection to witnesses of gang crimes, a measure that could help the efforts of Evanston police. The Gang Crime Witness Protection Act of 2013 unanimously passed the Illinois House in April. Police have determined the two most recent homicides in Evanston are gangrelated. Justin Murray and Javar Bamberg were killed last year in an ongoing gangaffiliated family feud. The investigations have been stalled because not all witnesses are cooperating, according to police. Evanston Police Cmdr. Jay Parrott said witnesses to gang crimes are often unwilling to cooperate with police because of a “no-snitch culture.” Parrott said the bill could provide greater incentive for them to come forward. State Rep. Chris Welch (D-Westchester), the chief sponsor of the bill, said it would create a new fund that would protect and, in extreme cases, relocate, witnesses of

gang crimes who are unwilling to provide information out of fear of retaliation. Welch (Communication ‘93) said he observed gang problems while living in Evanston that are similar to those in his district. “I think it’s a good tool for law enforcement throughout the state of Illinois to break the code of silence and get these crimes solved,” he said. The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority would create the program, Welch said. Local police could apply for funding through the ICJIA in the event of a gang crime. Parrott acknowledged the bill would be another tool for lawmakers but said the legislation might have limited impact in the face of a larger no-snitch culture. Parrott said gang members or witnesses to gang crimes would have to be willing to leave the gang environment before working with police or accepting protection services. State Sen. Patricia Van Pelt (D-Chicago), who is sponsoring the bill in the Illinois Senate, said she expected the bill to pass. ciaramccarthy2015@u.northwestern.edu

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class. The fluidity of the consortium’s makeup has not fazed NU officials. “We’re watching it, we’re aware, but I don’t know if concern is the right word,” said Jake Julia, associate provost of academic initiative. Julia said changes within the consortium do not diminish its potential. Many NU faculty members have expressed interest in engaging with the platform, he said. “More than anything, there’s just an excitement about giving us an opportunity to innovate,” Julia said. The courses cost $4,200 each and include individual assignments and weekly video interactions with professors and classmates. The price has put off some schools, including Vanderbilt. Cynthia Cyrus, the school’s associate » See ONLINE, page 7

Non-Northwestern Dillo Day attendees under the age of 19 will be more strictly monitored with a new wristband policy, Mayfest announced Tuesday. Like last year, Dillo Day guests who are not registered by a NU student will need to be accompanied by an adult. This year, that adult must be over the age of 25. NU students will only be permitted to register four guests, and only two may be under the age of 19. Under-19 guests will be registered under the contact information of their accompanying NU student or over-25 adult and given different wristbands that link to the chaperone’s wristband through a serial number. “The adult can’t leave Dillo Day,” said Mayfest promotion co-director Bri

Hightower. “They have to stay at Dillo Day with their guest.” The Communication junior said this system is meant to ensure under-19 guests could be tracked back to an adult. This is the second year that Mayfest has enacted policies to restrict the entrance of guests under the age of 19. The policies began as a result of the physical, alcohol-related or medical incidents that came with a rising number of local high school students attending Dillo Day in recent years. “The reason why we were targeting under-19 guests specifically was because we’ve seen that a lot of these problems … were coming from these under-19 guests,” said Jesus Roman, Mayfest’s director of university relations. “We wanted to limit that population and track how many people came.” » See DILLO, page 7

Daily file photo by Meghan White

ENTRANCE EXAM Dillo Day, which will be held June 1, will enforce new restrictions on high school attendees this years. Mayfest said the event last year saw fewer problems after enacting stricter entrance policies.

CAESAR alternative goes live By REBECCA SAVRANSKY

the daily northwestern @beccasavransky

As preregistration for Fall Quarter classes begins, a group of Northwestern students is trying to make the process faster and easier. Seven students teamed up to create a website called “Courseseek” that addresses some of the flaws of the University’s course registration system, CAESAR. Courseseek went live May 13 and has had 2,133 unique visitors thus far, according to the students who created it. “We wanted to do something to help people make their schedule,” said Corey McMahon, a Weinberg sophomore on the team. “In the beginning, all we had was a table with course information, which isn’t useful. Then, the whole project was finding a way that the information could be put to good use, and we decided on something that lets you put classes in a calendar and easily see conflicts.” Courseseek has a calendar feature, something CAESAR lacks in the preregistration stage. CAESAR’s course registration process is not conducive to

how most students want to visualize their schedule, said Weinberg junior Moritz Gellner, a member of the development team. The website puts each class the user looks at on a calendar to view and alerts users if there is a time conbefore We wanted to flict adding do something subsequent to help people classes to their lists. make their The developers started schedule. working on Corey McMahon, the website Courseseek at the beginteam member ning of the quarter as a class project and have spent upwards of nine to ten hours a week on it since. The team encourages users to submit any problems they find while using the website. “People have been really good about coming to us and saying what isn’t working about specific classes,” said McMahon, a former Daily staffer. “Most of them fall under the same bug, but it’s good to know that we have specific incidences of this bug so we can always make sure it’s fixed and working properly.”

Some students have been impressed with the website and are giving feedback. Weinberg sophomore Augustine Santillan made a few suggestions for the site after using it to search for his classes. “I think it’s a really cool interface, and it’s so much easier than CAESAR to just see when all the courses are,” Santillan said. “It could provide more information based on the five digit course identifier, the location of the class and maybe a link to the description.” Weinberg sophomore Alex Krule agrees that Courseseek is a great concept and would benefit from a few added features. “I thought it was great,” Krule said. “If it could have descriptions or CTECs, those would also be great features. But now, it’s really easy to look at the time on Courseseek and then go back to CAESAR to look at the CTECs for the professor.” While the developers are spending most of their time trying to fix the bugs users have brought to their attention, some members of the team plan to make new additions to the website in the future. “We have big plans with this,” Gellner » See COURSEWEEK, page 7

INSIDE Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | Opinion 4 | Classifieds & Puzzles 6 | Sports 8


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