The Daily Northwestern Thursday, October 20, 2016
DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM
A&E
arts & entertainment
Find us online @thedailynu
’CATS ’n COMEDY Recent Northwestern alumi try to break into comedy through Chicago stand-up scene
Pages 5-8
High 58 Low 43
ASG aims to better funding system New committee will recommend changes in January By FATHMA RAHMAN
daily senior staffer @fathmarahman
Associated Student Government Senate passed a bill establishing a funding reform review committee that will gather student opinion about how ASG funds student groups. The committee, authored by ASG President Christina Cilento, will make recommendations and guidelines based on student feedback on the current funding model, in which students pay an activity fee that ASG then allocates to student groups. Results will be presented to Senate the first week of January. The fee, set at $180 for the 2016-2017 school year, is collected from undergraduate students. The $1.5 million is distributed through ASG’s A-status and B-status finance committees. But the fairness of the system has come under question in recent years, Cilento said. “We’ve heard from multiple student groups and multiple students throughout the years that the way we currently fund is not ideal,” the SESP senior said. “We want to be able to expand the funding that we’re able to offer to student groups, solve some of those inequities,
look at the Student Activities Fee and figure out how we can make sure that all student groups that show financial need are able to be funded.” Last April, ASG Executive Vice President Macs Vinson, a McCormick senior, told The Daily he wanted to explore reducing the “hierarchy” between student groups. “Our funding system literally only accommodates only a few groups, and the other groups are just finagled to fit into it,” Vinson told The Daily in April, citing groups such as A&O Productions and Mayfest. “What we’re effectively trying to do is thinking about all the groups we have and how to best cater to them.” Cilento said if Senate approves the committee’s recommendations, Patricia Telles-Irvin, vice president for student affairs, and Nim Chinniah, executive vice president, would present them to the Board of Trustees in March 2017. Eric Oringer, vice president for A-status finances, said ASG has been discussing funding reform throughout the past three years and that the bill shows progress toward a better funding system. “ We can’t do funding reform without presenting this to the Board of Trustees because it is ultimately up to them,” Oringer told The Daily. “But this committee is a step in the right direction.” » See SENATE, page 9
Lauren Duquette/The Daily Northwestern Republican congressional candidate Joan McCarthy Lasonde speaks to supporters and the media outside of the office of Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) at 820 Davis St.
Schakowsky called on to resign
Congresswoman accused of connection to husband’s comments By ERICA SNOW
daily senior staffer @ericasnoww
Republican congressional candidate Joan McCarthy Lasonde called for U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) to resign at a press conference outside Schakowsky’s Evanston office Thursday. Lasonde said Schakowsky was the “ringleader” of
protests and riots that led to the cancellation of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s March 11 rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Lasonde referenced undercover videos released by the conservative advocacy site Project Veritas Action that appear to show Jan Schakowsky’s husband, political consultant Robert Creamer, discussing voter fraud.
The leaked videos also show Scott Foval, the former national field director for Americans United for Change, talk about hiring “mentally ill” and homeless people to protest at Trump rallies. Surrounded by supporters on the sidewalk outside Schakowsky’s office at 820 Davis St., Lasonde said Schakowsky was either involved in or knew about the alleged
incitement of violence at Trump rallies and didn’t do anything to stop it. “If Schakowsky wasn’t part of the wrongdoing, she’d had to have made a huge effort to keep her head in the sand, and willful ignorance is no excuse,” Lasonde said. “Her resignation now is the first step to ensuring that violence will not be used as a means to » See SCHAKOWSKY, page 8
Unions debate representing grads By YVONNE KIM
daily senior staffer @yvonneekimm
Ingrid Cherry/The Daily Northwestern
McCormick senior Macs Vinson addresses senators at ASG Senate on Wednesday night. Senate passed a bill to establish a funding reform review committee.
More than 100 people attended a debate hosted by the Northwestern Graduate Workers on Thursday between two unions — the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Teachers — vying to represent graduate students at NU. The debate, held at Evanston Public Library, comes nearly two
months after the National Labor Relations Board ruled in August that student teaching assistants have the right to collectively bargain as university employees. The ruling lifted barriers for graduate students at NU to seek union representation, and some chose to form NU Graduate Workers last month. SEIU is in the process of collecting signed authorization cards from graduate students who hope to be represented by the union, while AFT’s strategy is to wait for a more concrete election timeline.
At least 30 percent of the bargaining unit must sign a card to initiate an official union election with the NLRB. Two representatives from each of the unions spoke at the debate, which opened with questions collected from graduate students beforehand. Questions reflected graduate students’ interest in the unions’ differing backgrounds and strategies in approaching the potential election. “(The unionization issue) comes down to a really, really simple equation, which is voice,”
AFT national representative Samantha Jordan said. “The work that you do is incredibly vital to this institution. The research that you do not only enhances the reputation of the institution but also brings financial benefits to the institution. You don’t reap those financial benefits.” Jason Grunebaum, a bargaining member at the University of Chicago’s Faculty Forward Union, which is represented by SEIU, said graduate students » See UNIONS, page 9
City, schools take steps to soothe residents’ clown concerns By ALLY MAUCH
the daily northwestern @allymauch
With Halloween approaching, a city committee is taking steps to discourage clowns from creating a disturbance. Police and school officials
spoke to roughly 20 attendees at a City-School Liaison Committee meeting Wednesday about reports of roaming clowns, which have popped up around the country in recent weeks. Evanston police Sgt. Jason Garner said there are two active investigations in
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
Evanston regarding clowns, and police are pursuing search warrants on Facebook and Twitter accounts in order to find the perpetrators of reported hoaxes. “We have had an uptick in reported incidents involving clowns either chasing or scaring children, but we haven’t
had any bona fide incidents where we’ve determined that a clown was actually present,” he said. In addition, the superintendents of districts 65 and 202 outlined steps schools are taking to combat the clowns. The committee — which meets three times per year and
coordinates between Evanston, District 65 and District 202 — met at Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center. Recently, social media reports of clowns in the area prompted District 65 to send a letter to parents. The letter said the threat was potentially a hoax but that the school was
taking it seriously. The letter also requested no children dress up as clowns for Halloween in order to make it easier to identify potentially dangerous situations, said Paul Goren, superintendent of District 65. » See CLOWNS, page 9
INSIDE: Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | A&E 5 | Classifieds & Puzzles 10 | Sports 12