NU participates in Body Acceptance Week » PAGE 3
SPORTS Men’s Basketball A look back at the historic 20112012 season » PAGE 8
OPINION Zorn Why we can’t stay silent on issue of divestment » PAGE 4
High 16 Low 6
The Daily Northwestern Tuesday, February 17, 2015
DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM
Students petition Weinberg faculty
Find us online @thedailynu
Biss talks retirement policy
Signees request U.S.-centric diversity curriculum item By OLIVIA EXSTRUM
daily senior staffer @olivesocean
Students have circulated a petition throughout the past week urging Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences faculty to support a Social Inequalities and Diversity curriculum requirement focused on the United States. The petition launched after students heard that some professors would support a more internationally-focused requirement. “We want students to critically engage with social inequalities that happen in their own backyard,” said SESP senior Austin Romero, ASG vice president of accessibility and inclusion. The petition, which Romero launched Feb. 9, is co-sponsored by Associated Student Government and multiple student groups. As of Monday evening, Romero said it had 281 signatures. He plans to present the petition at a forum for student input on the requirement Feb. 23. The requirement has been the topic of discussion among Northwestern faculty for two years. The original proposal, rolled out in February 2013 by the University Diversity Council, called for all six undergraduate schools to adopt the Social Inequalities and Diversities curriculum requirement. If approved, the requirement would be the first University-wide undergraduate academic requirement. The School of Education and Social Policy and the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications have already implemented the requirement in their curricula. The requirement was first proposed
amid student activism responding to racially-charged incidents on campus. The original proposal supported requiring students to take a course that would fit several learning goals, including the ability to “think critically about issues in political, social, scientific, economic and cultural life stemming from the diversity of experiences related to social inequalities and diversities.” The requirement, which the proposal suggested would be completed in a student’s first two years at NU, would also include an extracurricular component involving Sustained Dialogue discussion sessions. The requirement’s goal is for students to interact and work with students of different life experiences and cultural backgrounds, Dona Cordero, former assistant provost for diversity and inclusion and head of the diversity requirement effort, told The Daily in February 2014. In its proposal, the Academics/Education working group of the University Diversity Council said the focus of the requirement would be on the United States, “although it does not exclude global perspectives.” Mary Finn, Weinberg associate dean for undergraduate academic affairs, told The Daily last week that 45 Weinberg faculty members attended a forum earlier this month to discuss the requirement. She said there was a “very interesting” conversation about the focus of the requirement. She said although the requirement may not have a U.S. focus, she expects courses will have students self-reflect on their relation to the material. Romero said he and Weinberg senior Anna Rennich, ASG vice president of » See DIVERSITY, page 6
Police: Bomb threat at local hotel likely a hoax
Evanston police officers responded Sunday afternoon to a bomb threat that officers now believe was a hoax. A man called police and said he had a bomb and was staying at a hotel in downtown Evanston, police said. The man, who gave only his first name, placed the call to EPD’s front desk at 3:48 p.m. Sunday, Evanston police Cmdr. Joseph Dugan said. The man said he had a bomb and he was going to start shooting people, Dugan said. The man also said he was staying at the Best Western University Plaza hotel, 1501 Sherman Ave., and was distraught because a family member had died. Officers went to the hotel and searched the building but found nothing suspicious. The hotel staff also told police there was no one there with the name the caller gave, Dugan said. Detectives are currently trying to trace the call to locate its source. At this time, the call appears to be a hoax, Dugan said.
Daily file photo by Melody Song
PENSION POLICY State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) speaks with a student. Biss discussed state retirement policy on Monday with community members.
By BEN SCHAEFER
the daily northwestern @bschaefer27
State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) spoke Monday night on the state of retirement policy in Illinois, focusing on long term funding deficits, teacher pensions and looming decisions on retirement funding in the capital. MidLife Ventures, a nonprofit that provides information and educational services for seniors, and the Merion, a luxury senior living home at 1611 Chicago Ave., cohosted the talk at the home. Stacey Foisy, co-founder of Midlife Ventures, introduced the state senator and spoke about how imperative the discussion was. “If our state was a person that came to us in crisis we’d have our work cut out for us,” she said. Biss spoke in opposition to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposal to transition public workers’ pension plans to 401(k)s, which several states have attempted. The 401(k) proposal,
NU reserves funds for Indigenous Research Center Sean Su/Daily Senior Staffer
FALSE ALARM Officers responded to a call Sunday from a man who said he had a bomb at the Best Western University Plaza. Police believe the call was a hoax, Evanston police Cmdr. Joseph Dugan said.
As of Monday afternoon, the hotel had no comment about the situation.
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
— Stephanie Kelly
Northwestern funds have been reserved to create an Indigenous Research Center, the University announced this month. The creation of the research center is among many recommendations that the Native American Outreach and Inclusion Task Force submitted to top University officials in November. The Office of the Provost released an update on the recommendations last week. “Conversations already have taken place with the WCAS Dean’s Office and with Professor Doug Medin to
which Rauner spoke about in his first State of the State address on Feb. 4, removes the assurance of collective power in public workers’ pensions and destabilizes retirement security, Biss said. “The 401(k) experiment has gone on for years and the jury’s in: It doesn’t provide retirement security,” Biss said. “Let’s not intentionally replicate the errors of states that have done it wrong.” The future of the Illinois pension system is uncertain, Biss said. In March, the state Supreme Court will review the 2013 pension reform law that was deemed unconstitutional by a trial judge in November. Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed an appeal for the case. The pension reform law seeks to restructure pension guidelines and ease the $110 billion pension debt that the state faces. “For years the state didn’t pay what it needed to in order to pay for (pension) systems,” Biss said. “We haven’t built structures that make it easy to provide retirement.”
Biss sponsored a bill passed in December that created the Secure Choice Savings Program. The plan automatically provides each worker statewide with a retirement account if they do not already possess one. It is the first of its kind in the country. The policy deducts 3 percent from employee’s incomes and puts it into their retirement accounts manually, unless they opt out. “It’s a savings plan funded by the workers, but the state organizes it so that the state is sort of a conduit between the worker and the investment manager,” Biss told The Daily. “Fundamentally it’s not a defined benefit system so it doesn’t have the same risk of creating a debt for the state that a defined benefit system would.” Community members who attended the talk were specifically concerned about how teachers’ pensions would be managed. The Illinois Teachers Retirement System is between $50 billion to $60 billion in debt, Biss said.
go forward with the planning process for such a center to determine specific areas of research and participants,” officials wrote in the update. Several of the recommendations will be implemented once the center is created. The center will serve as a place where Native Americans from tribal colleges can visit the University to do research, as well as a location to hold the annual Carlos Montezuma Conference on Ethics and Research, according to the update. In addition, a database of about 450 Native American alumni has been created that will allow greater outreach. Discussions have begun to commission a Native American artist to create an exhibition at a University gallery.
The admissions office is also “reviewing how to enhance outreach to prospective Native American students.” A search for a new Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion is underway, and an open forum for students will be held Tuesday. The new provost will be the liaison between the University and the Native American community. Other proposals that are currently under revision include being able to study an Indigenous language in order to satisfy a language requirement and including American tribes and tribal colleges as destinations in the study abroad program, according to the update.
» See BISS, page 6
— Mariana Alfaro
INSIDE Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | Opinion 4 | Classifieds & Puzzles 6 | Sports 8