The Daily Northwestern Thursday, May 31, 2018
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How Mayfest made Dillo Day come to life
Remembering Ananya
NU community honors Agrawal University gathers at Alice Millar Chapel memorial By ALLY MAUCH
daily senior staffer @allymauch
Source: Ethan Roubenoff
Ananya Agrawal.
Friends remember Weinberg senior as humorous, caring person By ALAN PEREZ
daily senior staffer @_perezalan_
Humorous memories of Ananya Agrawal aren’t hard to come by. Agrawal once told a friend he
was attending a baseball game “starring the Cubs.” A gym enthusiast, he once bought a shirt of a buff Willie the Wildcat below the word “Northchestern.” And while living in an apartment for the first time, he filled the dishwasher with bubbles after mistakenly using dish soap.
“He lightened the aura of the room,” said Weinberg senior Ethan Roubenoff, a member of music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha who lived with Agrawal in the chapter house for three years. “He really had the ability to bring up the mood of the area. He made his presence known.”
Agrawal, a 22-year-old Weinberg senior, died Saturday night. A coroner has not made an official ruling, though the Evanston Police Department is investigating Agrawal’s death as a suicide. » See AGRAWAL, page 5
Music filled Alice Millar Chapel on Wednesday evening as community members gathered in memory of Ananya Agrawal, a Weinberg senior who died Saturday night. More than 100 students, faculty, administrators, alumni and family members came to the memorial hosted by the Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity, which Agrawal was a member of. On campus, Agrawal was also involved in the Northwestern University Marching Band for two years, and he recently received the Chemistry Department Scholar Award. PMA president John Girotto began the service noting the warmth and kindness Agrawal brought to campus. The McCormick fifth-year student said the evening was “about sharing music and sharing memories, mourning death and celebrating life.” Vice president for student affairs Patricia Telles-Irvin also spoke at the event after meeting with Agrawal’s family earlier in
the day. Telles-Irvin described Agrawal as a “kind, empathic, brilliant, jovial person,” as well as a scholar, a generous friend and an innovator. “He was a remarkable young man who gave so much of himself,” she said. “He wanted to make a difference in the world, he wanted to make it better.” PMA members performed several songs in memory of Agrawal, including renditions of Blink-182’s “I Miss You” and the Northwestern University Alma Mater. McCormick senior and PMA member Tushar Chandra stressed how important music was to Agrawal — he sang in addition to playing the piano, bass guitar, drums and saxophone. “(Music) was part of the very fabric of his life, integral to his very existence and to his identity,” Chandra said. “He was a musician, among many other things.” Chandra said Agrawal’s commitment to music demonstrated his “determination and courage,” noting how he learned to play the saxophone so he could join NU’s marching band, despite never having been in a marching band. He added that Agrawal was a “fierce and loyal friend.” » See MEMORIAL, page 5
Illinois legislators CTA, Pace announce draft proposal Plan aims to provide alternative travel options to, from ETHS approve ERA State House votes 72-45 to ratify amendment By SYD STONE
daily senior staffer @sydstone16
The Illinois House voted 72-45 on Wednesday to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, becoming the 37th state to greenlight the amendment designed to guarantee equal rights for all citizens regardless of sex. The House vote follows an April vote by the Senate, and the amendment does not need approval from Gov. Bruce Rauner who has said he supports equal rights but has been criticized by Democrats for not taking a stance on the ERA. Representatives from Indivisible Evanston have been calling on Rauner to publicly support the amendment. Indivisible Evanston is one of more than 5,800 Indivisible groups nationwide formed in the wake of the 2016 election
with the mission to resist a conservative agenda on local, state and national levels. Linda Tate (Weinberg ’76) told The Daily earlier this month that she, along with other representatives from Indivisible Evanston, has been calling constituents in other districts that are not as much of a “blue bubble” as Evanston is. She said ratifying the amendment is “absolutely critical.” “As a woman that’s been in the business world … there was a lot of discrimination against women, and it still exists,” she said. “It’s really important that women are treated as equal to men.” The country is now one state away from meeting the 38-state requirement to ratify the amendment in the U.S. Constitution. Only 35 states ratified the amendment before the 1979 deadline set by Congress. State Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago), who co-sponsored the legislation, said in a Wednesday news release the ratification can provide a » See ERA, page 9
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
By SYD STONE
daily senior staffer @sydstone16
Pace and the Chicago Transit Authority announced a draft proposal Wednesday for changes to the city’s transit service plan, aiming to supplement service that will be eliminated with the 205 Chicago/Golf Road CTA bus route, according to a city news release. In April, Pace and CTA announced a proposal to discontinue the 205 Chicago/ Golf Road CTA bus route and instead provide an alternate service via Pace routes 208 Golf Road and 213 Green Bay Road. Evanston residents and other commuters voiced concerns about the bus route at an April 24 public hearing, saying students would lack sufficient transportation to and from Evanston Township High School. In the original plan, Pace representatives had proposed a single morning trip to school and a single trip back on the 213 Pace route to replace the discontinued service. “This is a terrible idea,” ETHS superintendent Eric Witherspoon said at the
Allie Goulding/Daily Senior Staffer
A Pace bus passes under the CTA Purple Line. CTA and Pace shared a draft proposal of the bus route changes Wednesday.
hearing. “If we, as a community and a society, don’t take care of our children, what have we become? Do you think all the children are cookie-cutter, and they all have to be at the school at the same time?”
In response to the feedback and comments received from the community, transit officials have released the draft proposal, which must be approved by both Pace and CTA boards before being implemented.
To address the community’s concern about the elimination of a travel option between the CTA Howard Station and ETHS, the revised service plan » See PACE, page 9
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