The Daily Northwestern - April 18, 2019

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The Daily Northwestern Thursday, April 18, 2019

DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM

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arts & entertainment

Writer for The Late Show shares experiences

A&E

NU parents take to social media group Parents find support, positivity in Facebook group By JOSIAH BONIFANT

daily senior staffer @bonijos_iahfant

Julia Esparza/Daily Senior Staffer

Evanston Family Focus, 2010 Dewey Ave. The center’s building is for sale, but Family Focus President and CEO Merri Ex said the programming will not leave Evanston.

Family Focus commits to City

Looking for buyer, Evanston organization maintains programs

By CLARE PROCTOR

daily senior staffer @ceproctor23

The Family Focus Evanston building, is up for sale, but Merri Ex — the president and

CEO of Family Focus, Inc. — said Family Focus in Evanston is “not closing.” “We are not leaving Evanston,” Ex said. “We are selling the building, but we have committed to maintaining our programs in Evanston.”

Student employees get paid sick leave New ordinance mandates time for work-study students By AUSTIN BENAVIDES

daily senior staffer @awstinbenavides

If you have a work-study job at Northwestern, you may be eligible for financial compensation via paid sick leave. Starting on Sept. 1 of last year, Northwestern work-study students became eligible to accrue paid sick leave hours. Students earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours that they work, with the ability to accumulate up to 40 hours of paid sick leave per year. If they don’t use all of their available sick hours in a year, then half of the hours they earned will transfer over to the upcoming year. The policy kicks in after a student has worked for a minimum of 80 hours. Weinberg freshman Aaliyah Berryman didn’t know she had earned hours of paid sick leave, but she wished she “would have known about it

earlier,” when she got sick this fall. Berryman, who works at the Women’s Center, said the University could do a better job at communicating this information early in the work study process. “Make sure people are aware of it when they start a job because you have to go through this whole process of getting on the payroll at Northwestern,” Berryman said. “I think it would be beneficial for everyone if you incorporate that information within the paperwork or within the process of being set up for a job on campus.” Hours given for paid sick leave apply if the student themselves is sick, if a family member is ill or if the student or family member is a victim of sexual violence or domestic violence, according to Northwestern’s Office of Human Resources. In July of 2017, The Chicago and Cook County Paid Sick Ordinance went into effect and set the minimum standards for paid sick leave across Cook » See SICK HOURS, page 6

Serving the University and Evanston since 1881

The Evanston Family Focus center, located at 2010 Dewey Ave., learned that the organization’s headquarters and board of directors decided to sell the building nearly two years ago, said Colette Allen, the center’s director. Allen said

the decision to sell and resulting uncertainty has left residents “upset” and “stressed.” As more time continues to pass without a purchaser for the building, Allen said it » See FAMILY FOCUS, page 6

Northwestern mom Amy Brewer of Waco, Texas said she enjoys scrolling through the multiple notifications she receives everyday from the Northwestern parent and family Facebook page to read campus updates alongside memes and tips for surviving Northwestern. The only thing: this popular Facebook page she speaks of with over 2,300 members is an unofficial group created in 2014 as an alternative to New Student and Family Programs’ official parent Facebook page. “The page is not run by the University and there’s no one from the University moderating it,” Brewer said. “That was done intentionally so that the conversation could be very open, and so that people wouldn’t have concerns over what they can or can’t post.” Brewer said the overall spirit was one of “positivity,” so that even though posts aren’t regulated as they would be through NSFP, divisive posts mostly get ignored. Instead, she said most of the threads contain helpful advice for families new to Northwestern,

with the winter weather tips being most valuable to her as a Texan. Northwestern NSFP Director Patricia Hilkert organizes the official Facebook page and said their most popular post was one announcing canceled classes January 29-31 due to the polar vortex. She said she is still interested in what goes on in the unofficial group. “I tried to join the group a few years ago but they rejected me,” Hilkert said. “The administrators of the group said they do not want campus administrators to be part of it.” Brewer said the offshoot group now has a new subgroup specifically for parents of Bienen students, which has been invaluable for receiving concert content she wouldn’t have seen otherwise and has connected her more to her daughter. McCormick sophomore Sarah Coughlin said the informal parent’s Facebook group was helpful as it helped her find a sublet for her apartment over the summer within an hour of her mother’s post, when she hadn’t had any luck asking around in-person. Coughlin also said she bonds with her mom by making fun of some of the posts, including one memorable one about a parent’s outrage about Compass Group North America replacing Sodexo » See PARENTS, page 6

ASG demands NU denounce racism

Resolution urges admin to condemn incidents, acknowledge ‘failure’ By ATUL JALAN

the daily northwestern @jalan_atul

Associated Student Government on Wednesday unanimously passed an emergency resolution calling on the University to acknowledge and condemn recent racist incidents on campus and “its failure to adequately address them, as well as its failure to support Black students.” The resolution, which gained over 300 co-sponsors, comes in response to the discovery of a noose in the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion on March 15 and a sticker with the white supremacist slogan “It’s okay to be white” that was discovered in Allison Dining Hall on April 6, among other incidents. University Police investigated the appearance of similar “IT’S OKAY TO BE WHITE” posters in November 2017. University senior leadership issued a statement in response to inquiries from The Daily strongly condemning the incident involving the noose-shaped rope, in addition

Owen Stidman / Daily Senior Staffer

From left to right: Meron Amariw, Soteria Reid, Christian Wade and Emma Evans discuss a resolution demanding the University condemn recent racist incidents on campus during ASG Senate.

to launching an investigation into the matter, though there have not been any updates on its progress. A University spokesperson issued another statement earlier this month saying that UP would investigate the sticker, adding acts of hate would “note be tolerated.” Neither statements were made to the broader public. Thus, one demand of the resolution is that the University

not only investigate all such incidents, but also make those investigations more transparent to the student body. “I’ve definitely seen that this school likes to push things under the rug and it happens with things that I don’t necessarily agree with,” said Saqib Siddiqi, the senator for the South Asian Student Alliance. “We’re not a very politically active school — this isn’t like

Berkeley — and so they just think that these kids are so busy, they’ll forget it about it.” Weinberg senator Christian Wade, a co-author of the resolution, said that because the University issued its statement condemning the noose only to The Daily and not the wider Northwestern community, it lacked the transparency the » See SENATE, page 6

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


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