SPORTS Women’s Basketball Northwestern falls in heartbreaking loss to Indiana » PAGE 8
NEWS Around Town Local diaper pantry receives $2,500 grant » PAGE 2
OPINION Kadir Changes must be made to college admissions process » PAGE 4
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The Daily Northwestern Monday, January 25, 2016
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Socioeconomic diversity studied NU prof, student research academic confidence in low-income students By STAVROS AGORAKIS
the daily northwestern @StavrosAgorakis
Geiger declined to comment as negotiations continue. Employees currently work 37.5 hours without the possibility to work overtime, Davis said. Employees are understaffed and overworked, according to a petition written by student activists in November that advocated for better working conditions.. “We will continue to fight for a fair contract,”
Amanda Walsh said she is continually surprised to hear from seniors who, in their four years at Northwestern, were unaware of the challenges students with a low socioeconomic status face in college. Walsh, president of the NU Quest Scholars Network, said low-income students face daily challenges to fit in. “It is much less likely for a student who has low income to be able to participate in activities and to explore the curriculum that will allow them to develop as a student leader as quickly as some other students might be able to do,” the Communication senior said. A recent study by SESP Prof. Mesmin Destin and graduate student Alexander Browman found messages and attitudes toward socioeconomic diversity affect academic confidence. Students in the experiment were presented with either “warm” statements, emphasizing the school’s ability to support students with financial need, or “chilly” statements, framing the school as serving wealthier students. Participants
» See SODEXO, page 6
» See STUDY, page 6
Construction reduces Sheridan Road to two lanes
delays, the University said. Additionally, the University asked pedestrians to limit crossing to designated crosswalks with traffic signals, as the fencing and limited visibility caused by construction vehicles will make crossing elsewhere more difficult. Shuttle service will continue to follow normal routes with the exception of Wednesday, Jan. 27, when pickup for the Patten Gym stop will be relocated across Lincoln Street to the northeast corner of Lincoln Street and Sheridan Road. Shuttle riders should anticipate delays due to construction, the University said.
Jeffrey Wang/The Daily Northwestern
FOOD FIGHT Northwestern Dining cook Melvin Davis addresses students and food service employees about the goals of their demonstration. Davis and other food service employees met with Erich Geiger, district manager for NU Dining, about improving work conditions.
Students, dining workers march for rights Food service employees demand fair wages, better treatment By MATTHEW CHOI
the daily northwestern @matthewchoi2018
Students joined a march down Sheridan Road on Friday to demand better treatment for Northwestern food service workers. The rally, organized by the food service workers and attended by more than 80 people, began at The
Arch and continued along Sheridan to Haven Street, where workers talked about their demands with Erich Geiger, district manager for Northwestern Dining. NU food service workers, who are contracted by the food distribution company Sodexo, are negotiating for the ability to work 40 hours per week, a more manageable workload, fair raises and more respect, Melvin Davis, a cook with NU Dining, told The Daily.
Medill prof talks documentary ‘Saving Mes Aynak’ explores work to save artifacts in Afghanistan By MADELINE FOX
daily senior staffer @maddycfox
Poring over National Geographic magazines and dreaming of adventure while growing up in small-town Ohio, Medill Prof. Brent Huff man never imagined he would be making repeated trips into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to chronicle Afghan archaeologists’ race against time — but beginning in the summer of 2011, he did just that. The documentary filmmaker spent a year and a half traveling in and out of the country to cover the excavation of Mes Aynak, an ancient Buddhist city near the Pakistan border that has been purchased by a Chinese mining company for its wealth of copper. Huffman filmed the documentary, which followed the archaeologists working to save some of Mes Aynak’s artifacts before mining begins, over the course of a year and a half, all done in five or six trips of two to three weeks to the archaeological site.
“Looking back, it was a very ‘Indiana Jones’ sort of experience,” Huffman said. “It was really dangerous to go out there, but I felt the risk was worth it.” The risk did pay off for Huffman. His film, “Saving Mes Aynak, won a $50,000 grant from The Reva and David Logan Foundation earlier this month, and was picked up by international distributor Icarus Films. Getting it to this point, though, was a challenge, Huffman said. Setting out with a grant from the Buffett Institute and without a crew — he said he didn’t want to put other people at risk — Huffman joined up with a local “fixer,” someone who spoke the language and understood the customs, and began filming in June 2011. Working without a crew, however, had challenges beyond simply the logistical. “When you’re a crew of one, you feel that obligation and that pressure to get the story out there,” Huffman said. “If I was killed, the story would die too. There’s no one who’s going to pick up that story and finish it.” Telling stories, particularly about people or issues he says are often ignored or misrepresented in the media, has always been one of Huffman’s passions. One of his first forays into filmmaking was a documentary
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he made in high school about a maximum security prison in Ohio that focused on the individuals spending their lives behind bars and the corrections officers supervising them. Growing up in the “one-stoplight, really tiny middle-of-nowhere, surrounded-by-Amish-country” town of Spencer, Ohio, Huffman said he was always more of an outsider, which drew him to stories about other outsiders, particularly marginalized and oppressed cultures in the U.S. and abroad. He said he was interested in film while he was growing up, and his National Geographic subscription fueled fantasies of traveling and having adventures beyond his hometown. After high school, he pursued his interests with majors in documentary filmmaking and anthropology at Antioch University in Ohio, which he capped off with a master’s degree in journalism with a documentary focus at the University of California-Berkeley. “I loved art and was really interested in anthropology — and still am — and documentary filmmaking really combined all of that for me,” he said. “It allowed me to become a » See HUFFMAN, page 6
Beginning Monday, Sheridan Road will only have one lane instead of two in each direction due to city water main improvements. The construction will last for several months and is expected to be completed in late May, according to the city’s website. The construction area will be fenced off from just north of The Arch to Lincoln Street and is expected to cause traffic
— Madeline Fox
Lauren Duquette/Daily Senior Staffer
ROAD WORK Fences span Sheridan Road in preparation for construction beginning Monday. Due to city water main improvements, traffic along Sheridan Road will be reduced from two lanes to one in each direction.
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