The Daily Northwestern — April 23, 2018

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The Daily Northwestern Monday, April 23, 2018

DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM 8 SPORTS/Lacrosse

3 CAMPUS/Events

Wildcats’ win streak rolls on versus Rutgers

NU students honor victims of Columbine school shooting on 19-year anniversary

Evanston hosts annual cleanups

Find us online @thedailynu 4 OPINION/Schwartz

Environmentalism needs political action

STARS ALIGN

Community celebrates Earth Day, Arbor Day the daily northwestern @snhandler

» See CLEANUP, page 6

Roughly 70 food workers march

Workers petition for support amid dining transition

By SAMANTHA HANDLER

The city hosted an Earth Day and Arbor Day celebration Saturday, designating cleanup spots around Evanston and providing family-friendly activities at the Evanston Ecology Center. The event — “Clean Up, Evanston!” — is the city’s annual Earth Day celebration. The city chose about 10 cleanup spots, though residents could also submit their own neighborhoods or parks as locations to receive support from Evanston, according to a city news release. At the ecology center, 2024 McCormick Blvd., residents participated in seed-planting and nature-play activities. The city and several community organizations including Citizens’ Greener Evanston and the Repair Cafe also provided information about ways residents could live more sustainably. “We hope that people learn a little bit more about what they can do to help the environment and the things they can do to help the planet,” Matt Poole, one of the programming coordinators at the ecology center, told The Daily at the Saturday event. “It’s a little chilly and so it’s not as well attended as we had hoped, but there’s only so much you can do with outdoor-based, weather-based activities.” Evanston sustainability coordinator Kumar Jensen said the city picked cleanup areas based on each site’s needs and how many people the site can accommodate. He said some of the organizations that Evanston partners with for the event — including Canal Shores Golf Course and Ridgeville Park District — also hosted cleanups. Jensen said Canal Shores in particular has been “super gung-ho” about participating in the cleanup event and has seen a lot of participation in their chosen locations along the golf course. He added that Canal Shores has many projects it needs done on its property. Saturday’s event was similar to last year’s, but Jensen said some past Evanston Earth Day events only featured one of the three main components Saturday: a cleanup, tree planting or mulching.

High 54 Low 43

By ALAN PEREZ

daily senior staffer @_perezalan_

mater, questioning the choice to build an NU campus in Doha, Qatar (“Some have called Doha the Evanston of the Persian Gulf ”), poking fun at the simplistic name of the CommFest reunion weekend (“It just barely edged out ‘Message Meeting’ and ‘Word Thing’”) and breaking out his best Chicago accent to point out the absurdity of trying to teach “mellifluous speech” in the Midwest. The show, he said, would be both a celebration of the past 150 years of the school’s history and a kickoff for a new chapter with the acting MFA initiative. “Now tonight is called ‘A Starry Night,’ and it’s an evening that’s bound to be historic,” Colbert said. “Partly because we’re being sued by the estate of Vincent van Gogh. But mostly because tonight, we will be surrounded by some of the most talented Wildcat alumni of the past seven decades.” The night was chock full of crossovers between NU’s past and present stars as alumni performed side by side with current students. Adam Kantor (Communication ’08) took a night off appearing in the Broadway musical “The Band’s Visit” for a return performance with a cappella group THUNK. Waa-Mu Show alumni and current members staged a medley of hits from the past decades of the student-written show. And past and present Mee-Ow comedians joined forces to revive sketches from previous years. Some of NU’s biggest Broadway names — including Richard Kind (Communication ’78), Gregg Edelman (Communication ’80) and Heather Headley (Communication ’97) — had solo moments. Brian D’Arcy James (Communication ’90) returned to the role he originated in “Hamilton,” singing “You’ll Be Back” as King George III. The show also honored alumni who had passed away. Garry Marshall (Medill ’56) — who directed the series “Happy Days” and movies including “Pretty Woman” and “The Princess Diaries”

Roughly 70 of Northwestern’s food workers marched Friday to present their current employers a petition asking for support during the transition process to a new company. The group raised concerns about the change from Sodexo and Aramark to Compass Group North America, including the transfer of paperwork and the vulnerability of long-held posts. Aramark employs food service workers in the Kellogg School of Management Global Hub while Sodexo employs most other workers on the Evanston and Chicago campuses. Demonstrators expressed a desire for a seamless transition, and it was not immediately clear what Compass will require of current workers during it. “We just want everybody to stick together,” said Melvin Davis, who works in Sargent Hall. “We’re here as a family. We would like to keep our family together.” Jon Yates, a University spokesman, told The Daily in an email last week that Compass will ask all current workers to join the company with the same pay, benefits and seniority, though he did not specify whether that is a requirement in the company’s contract with NU. The workers’ petition asks Sodexo and Aramark to transfer I-9 employee eligibility verification forms to Compass, and for Compass to accept those forms without requiring new paperwork. It also asks Compass not to participate in background checks, drug tests and the federal E-verify program — which checks if employees are eligible to work in the U.S. — for existing employees. Participation in the E-verify program could threaten the jobs of workers who are undocumented. The University does not reveal if or how many undocumented workers are at NU. Also threatening to workers is uncertainty over whether Compass will take over the contract with UNITE HERE Local 1, the union that represents workers. Compass has not publicly announced whether it will adopt or honor that contract. “It’s my responsibility to make sure there’s a smooth transition between Aramark and the new company,” said Scott Hastings,

» See COMMFEST, page 5

» See MARCH, page 6

Source: Jim Prisching/Northwestern School of Communication

‘A Starry Night’ gala show brings students, famous alumni together onstage for arts performances, fundraising initiative By MADDIE BURAKOFF

daily senior staffer @madsburk

The world isn’t in such good shape, according to Stephanie D’Abruzzo (Communication ’93). D’Abruzzo led the original opening number for “A Starry Night,” the gala hosted by Stephen Colbert (Communication ’86) to cap off the School of Communication’s “CommFest” weekend. After keeping up with world news, she said she wasn’t feeling up to the task of bringing the audience the “happy, punchy, bouncy” opening they wanted. Instead, the “Sesame Street” puppeteer asked the conductor, “Would you please play me something that speaks to the dystopian hellscape that is my soul?” But Ana Gasteyer (Communication ’89), of Broadway and Hollywood fame, joined her fellow alum onstage to remind her that it wasn’t all doom and gloom. The fundraiser, she said, was meant to uplift and pay it forward — literally — to students who would become “the next generations of artists and storytellers.” “Life is rough, life is trash, but now we’re coming together,” Gasteyer sang. “We can sing, they have cash, so now we’re coming together.” That “coming together” became a continuing theme in a night that centered on connecting all different members of Northwestern’s School of Communication. The show, a star-studded celebration of the school’s legacy, was attended by nearly 3,000 students, alumni and faculty. The gala — held in the brand-new Ryan Fieldhouse, which was transformed into a glimmering theater just for the occasion — was equal parts talent showcase, alumni reunion and fundraising effort to help catalyze the school’s plan to add an MFA program in acting. In his opening monologue, Colbert took some jabs at his alma

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