The Daily Northwestern Thursday, February 13, 2020
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Students revamp The Dolphin Show Relaunch aims to address institutional issues, old concerns By WILSON CHAPMAN
daily senior staffer @wilsonchapman10
When Communication junior Rachel Khutorsky was a freshman, one of the first student groups she joined was The Dolphin Show, as an assistant producer for that year’s production of “Ragtime.” Dolphin quickly became her favorite organization on campus, and she served as director of corporate relations on next year’s “Hello, Dolly!” However, after briefly serving on the executive board as one of the directors of development for the 78th Dolphin Show, she ultimately left the board after disagreeing with decisions made during the show selection process process. Despite her resignation, Khutorsky was determined to return. “Because I care about this organization so deeply and always have, I always knew that I wanted to return to Dolphin one
day,” Khutorsky said, “and help really create structural changes in the organization that will allow it to thrive and survive on campus for years and years to come. This show has been running very similarly for the past 78 years. It makes sense that a lot of things that we have in place don’t work anymore, because it doesn’t make sense that you’d be doing something the same way for 78 years.” Khutorsky is now serving as The Dolphin Show’s community producer, a new producing role focused on building the organization’s community, for the 78th annual Dolphin Show, which is planned to go up next winter. Khutorsky is relaunching the organization with fellow Communication juniors Paia Amelio, who will serve in the businessfocused role of general manager, and Emma Flanders, who will supervise the artistic side of the organization as production manager. The three producers are relaunching Dolphin after a yearoff, with a focus on modernizing the organization and making changes to its process. The 78th iteration of The » See DOLPHIN, page 6
Photo by Yunkyo Kim
Speaker of the Associated Student Government’s Senate Matthew Wylie proposed an amendment to reduce Senate seats due to low attendance rates. At this Wednesday’s meeting, the Senate did not reach a vote on the amendment.
ASG unable to vote on seat reduction Without quorum, Senate couldn’t vote on change addressing low attendence By YUNKYO KIM
the daily northwestern @yunkyomoonk
After over an hour of discussion on an Associated Student Government constitutional amendment to reduce seats due to chronic low attendance of senators, Senate
members were forced to head home into the snow without voting on the amendment. The reason? Ironically, there were not enough senators present to proceed on the vote. ASG Senate needs a quorum of 26 members — a majority of the 51 total senators — in attendance to further consider and vote on
an amendment, Matthew Wylie, speaker of the Senate and Weinberg sophomore said. Even though ASG had the required number of senators at the beginning of the session, several members left during discussions, which made it impossible for the Senate as a whole to vote on the amendment at this Wednesday’s
session. “It is ironic, I will say, that we are having this conversation about attendance and we find out that we don’t have enough people in attendance to make the decision,” Izzy Dobbel, ASG president and SESP senior, said. » See SENATE, page 6
NU unlikely to end legacy admissions Audrey Thompson As some schools phase out, Schapiro, Holloway said practice to continue By TROY CLOSSON
daily senior staffer @troy_closson
One year after the college admissions scandal underscored inequities within higher education, University President Morton Schapiro and Provost Jonathan Holloway discussed Northwestern’s use of legacy admissions in interviews with The Daily — and said it’s unlikely the practice will end in the University’s near future. Last month, Johns Hopkins University made headlines after the school’s president penned an article in The Atlantic on how phasing out of legacy admissions led to incoming classes with higher proportions of first-generation and low-income students — without intense pushback or a drop in alumni giving. Among U.S. News & World Report’s top 15 global universities, nine schools have either ended or never used legacy preferences including the University of Washington, University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley. Legacy preferences involve taking into account whether an applicant’s family member attended an institution. The definition of the practice varies among experts — with some using “legacy” to refer only to an applicant’s whose parents went to a school, while others include siblings, grandparents and more.
Still, their consideration is a widespread practice with 42 percent of private institutions using them, according to a 2018 survey. Northwestern considers legacy status in admissions, along with schools like Stanford University, the University of Notre Dame and Harvard University, according to each institution’s common data set.The school’s official policy considers whether “a student has a sibling, parent, or grandparent that graduated from Northwestern,” but notes that “no admission decision will ever be made solely based on legacy status.” While acknowledging that Johns Hopkins was able to make strides in diversity among its incoming classes through ending the practice, Schapiro said he doesn’t believe considering legacy status has hurt Northwestern. “It depends on what you do with legacies, if you’re breaking ties (between applicants), is that really the end of the world?” Schapiro said. “If you’re giving extraordinary preference over non-legacies, that’s probably hard to defend morally.” Schapiro told The Daily last year that he reads a select pool of about 550 prospective students’ applications with the group including children whose family members have donated to NU and legacy students. In today’s world of higher education, Schapiro said, there’s another factor to consider in
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
enters new city role Post-Brown firing, community services manager named By EMMA YARGER
the daily northwestern @emmayarger
Daily file photo by Evan Robinson-Johnson
Segal Visitors Center. University President Morton Schapiro and Provost Jonathan Holloway said it’s unlikely the consideration of legacy status in admissions will end in the University’s near future.
discussions around phasing out legacy admissions: what populations might now be impacted by their elimination. “Wouldn’t it be ironic,” he said, “now that we have a substantially more diverse student body, if the kids of those graduates all of a sudden didn’t get the legacy advantage that the rest of the people in their dorms did when they were there.” Some critics of the practice, however, say the same goal can be achieved through holistic and race-conscious admissions processes and argue that its continuation would only continue to perpetuate different forms of economic inequity. Schapiro estimated that about 10 percent of the undergraduate student body is made up of legacy admits when factoring in parental
connections alone. As the practice rises in controversy, schools — including Northwestern — are often quiet about legacy admissions data, typically not publicly releasing hard numbers. That’s why the 2018 lawsuit challenging Harvard’s use of race-conscious admissions policies unexpectedly shined new light on the practice. Court documents filed during the lawsuit showed 21.5 percent of white students admitted to Harvard had legacy status — while those figures lowered to 6.9 percent for Latinx applicants and 4.8 for black applicants.Total, students with legacy status made up around 14 percent of a given class. At schools across the country, students with legacy status might » See LEGACY, page 6
Audrey Thompson began serving as community services manager for Evanston in January after Kevin Brown was fired from the same position. The city fired Brown in November. According to the city, Brown was fired due to misuse of a city credit card to pay off parking tickets on city vehicles. Brown contested that reason, and said he was fired for speaking out against unequal treatment of city staff and the budget for the Youth and Young Adult division. His firing sparked an outcry from residents who called for him to be reinstated. “The real reason the city manager terminated my employment in November 2019 was not for the use of a credit card over parking tickets, but because I was a champion for racial equity at the city,” Brown said in an email to The Daily. “Also because I challenged discriminatory policies such as the one regarding payroll implementation for the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program.” After some department restructuring, the Youth and Young Adult division became a part of the
health department Jan. 1, Interim City Manager Erika Storlie said. With this restructure, Thompson’s position changed from long-term care ombudsman to community services manager. Storlie said Thompson is now in charge of both senior and the youth services. “We’re very enthusiastic about her,” Storlie said. “She’s doing a fantastic job and it’s all good.” Evanston residents spoke out against Brown’s firing multiple City Council meetings from November to January. At the Jan. 13 council meeting, Ald. Cicely Fleming (9th) addressed the issue. She said racial equity is still a priority for the city and that the Youth and Young Adult division would continue to be supported. However, Brown said the city is not doing enough to support residents of color, particularly the youth who benefit from the program. “I was also a fierce advocate for the Youth and Young Adult Division program that primarily served black and Brown residents of Evanston,” Brown said. “The city has been attempting to reduce the program’s budget for years.The city succeeded in doing that this year by eliminating the functions of my former position.” Thompson said she was unable to comment on the story at the time of publication. emmayarger2023@u.northwestern.edu
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