Serving the Northwestern and Evanston communities since 1881
The Daily Northwestern Monday, January 31, 2022
DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM 3 CAMPUS/History
4 OPINION/From the Newsroom
Black History Month events on campus
How to pitch The Daily a story idea, and how we decide what news to cover each week
Find us online @thedailynu 8 SPORTS/WBBALL
Wildcats fall to No. 23 Iowa in overtime
High 32 Low 16
Green House leads sustainability efforts Residents petition for residential college status By JOANNA HOU
the daily northwestern @joannah_11
McCormick sophomore Katrina Kuntz spent most of her weekends in Fall Quarter volunteering with her fellow Green House residents at ecosystems around Evanston, getting her hands dirty and pulling invasive plants out of the ground. Kuntz is the design chair at Green House, a special interest on-campus housing unit. While the house has an environmentalism theme, a student executive board and a constitution, it is not recognized as a residential college. It does not have faculty-inresidences, cannot host joint events with other residential colleges and lacks other residential college privileges. Because of these challenges, Weinberg sophomore Julian Zea, Green House’s president, created a petition to convert the house to a residential college. He said he plans to meet with a
residential housing representative next week to discuss next steps. “In our current state, we don’t believe that we have the publicity, the visibility or the community at our disposal to actually spread awareness (and) cooperation concerning environmentalism within the student body,” Zea said. “By becoming a residential college, we become a part of a larger community … that would give us the means and the stronger connections to spread environmentalism to other housing units.” Green House promotes sustainability around campus through two main programs: environmental education and composting. During Fall Quarter, Zea said Green House started a new composting initiative which aims to collect food scraps and other compostable items. He said the four bins are “filled to the brim” with compost each week. Zea added he wants to work with other residential colleges to implement more sustainability programs like the compost initiative. He said this could help reduce
» See GREEN, page 6
Olivia Abeyta/The Daily Northwestern
Some Evanston hair salons have changed their policies and pricing to become more trans-inclusive.
Hair salons aim for trans inclusivity
Evanston salons are working to change gendered pricing models By AVIVA BECHKY
the daily northwestern @avivabechky
Like many other hair salons, Aim & Ailie Hair Boutique on
Central Street used to split its services into men’s and women’s haircuts. But when the shop’s thenmanager, SESP junior and lifelong Evanston resident Trin Collins, came out as
nonbinary, the salon’s owners brought up the possibility of changing their pricing model. Together, they worked out a new gender-inclusive policy. “We all met and had a more meaningful conversation
about what does it mean to be trans inclusive, what does it mean to create a safe space,” Collins said. “Because if we were going to say, ‘Hey, we’re
» See SALONS, page 6
NU’s COVID-19 case count declines ETHS teachers ask Campus positivity rate slightly increases, testing no longer mandatory By ANGELI MITTAL
daily senior staffer @amittal27
While Northwestern positive COVID-19 cases have been declining since the first week of the quarter, the University’s positivity rate increased this week with fewer tests taken. The University did not mandate testing this week, marking the first week since the start of the quarter without required testing. NU administered 4,000 fewer tests than last week and saw 181 new positive cases compared to last week’s 229, following the declining trend since the start of January. However, likely because fewer tests were taken, the positivity rate has gone up to 2.4% from last week’s 2.01%. Undergraduate students accounted for 48% of positive cases, with 86 this week. Nonundergraduate students constitute 54 of the positive tests, while faculty and staff account for 25 and 16 of the remaining cases, respectively. NU students, faculty and staff are able to receive free,
Recycle Me
in-person asymptomatic testing at the Donald P. Jacobs Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m on weekdays. Those
with symptoms should use the northwest side testing entrance at the Jacobs Center to receive in-person testing
between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. amittal@u.northwestern.edu
for diverse hires
Black and Latinx teachers advocate for district to prioritize retention By OLIVIA ALEXANDER
daily senior staffer @oliviagalex
Angeli Mittal/Daily Senior Staffer
The Donald P. Jacobs Center. While the University hasn’t mandated another week of testing, the positivity rate went up, with undergraduate students comprising the majority of the positive cases this week.
In the fall, the Evanston Township High School math department wrote a letter to the District 202 Board of Education to advocate for hiring more Black teachers in its fiveyear goals. According to ETHS’s Illinois Report Card, the school’s teaching staff is about 69% white, 16% Black and 7% Latinx. Meanwhile, 27.3% of students are Black and 18.4% are Latinx. ETHS math teachers Jamilah Dorsey and Dawn Eddy said all students benefit from having more Black and Latinx teachers at school. “The support that we get from teachers that look like us strengthens us in the classroom,” Dorsey said. “The more secure we feel with our content, with ourselves, (and) how we present it benefits all
students.” Dorsey added that when students of color have a teacher that looks like them, they perform better. Representation matters, Eddy said, because students who see themselves in their teachers will believe they are capable of learning in those subjects. “ We add more to our department, we add more to our classrooms, we add more to the school,” Eddy said. “We want to make sure that other Black teachers have the ability to be able to come and add to what’s already going on in the school.” She said when there are fewer Black teachers, it’s harder for Black students to be heard. Abdel Shakur, English teacher and chair of the Black Caucus at ETHS, has taught at the school since 2013. He said the first two years working at
» See TEACHERS, page 6
INSIDE: Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | Opinion 4 | Classifieds & Puzzles 6 | Sports 8
