Prof’s research featured on ‘60 Minutes’ » PAGE 3
SPORTS Men’s Tennis Cats blow leads in narrow loss to Notre Dame» PAGE 8
OPINION Nielsen Lawsuit has troubling implications » PAGE 4
High 23 Low 10
The Daily Northwestern Wednesday, February 12, 2014
DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM
Find us online @thedailynu
Ludlow’s role at NU up in the air By CIARA MCCARTHY and ALLY MUTNICK daily senior staffer @mccarthy_ciara, @allymutnick
Philosophy Prof. Peter Ludlow, whose alleged sexual assault of a Medill junior spurred a Title IX lawsuit filed Monday against Northwestern, is a candidate for a position at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, the school confirmed Tuesday. Rutgers did not confirm Ludlow had been offered or accepted a position. “This was not brought to our attention by either the candidate or his employer. We are looking into this matter thoroughly including requesting all relevant information to fully evaluate his candidacy,” Rutgers spokesman Greg Trevor told The Daily in a statement Tuesday. Leiter Reports, a philosophy blog run by University of Chicago Prof. Brian Leiter, said in November that Ludlow had accepted a senior position at Rutgers. The blog reported he would serve as the director of the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science. Leiter confirmed the report to The Daily via email Tuesday night, saying the information came from both Ludlow and Rutgers and the professor’s position was “not in doubt.” Ludlow, who has taught at NU since
2008, implied in a public Facebook post in November that he would be going to Rutgers. “I read this on Leiter, so it must be true,” he wrote, linking to the post. Multiple Rutgers professors congratulated him on the new position on Facebook. Kristin Case, Ludlow’s attorney, declined to comment on his future employment. Ludlow is teaching two 300-level philosophy courses this quarter.He taught at least one of these classes, Philosophy of Psychology, Tuesday afternoon as scheduled. Ludlow was set to teach two additional philosophy courses Spring Quarter, but the philosophy department has since removed his scheduled classes from their website. As of early Tuesday morning, the philosophy department listed Ludlow as teaching a freshman seminar and 200-level class. Currently, the department website does not list Ludlow as a teaching any courses this spring. CAESAR no longer lists Ludlow’s freshman seminar, but the 200-level class was still listed as of Tuesday night. Philosophy Prof. Sanford Goldberg, the chair of the department, directed requests for comment to University Relations. » See LUDLOW, page 6
Brian Lee/Daily Senior Staffer
RAISING THE CURTAIN Award-winning writer Tony Kushner discusses his college education in Medieval studies in front of a packed Harris Hall Tuesday evening. The event was part of the Northwestern University Contemporary Thought Speakers Series.
Kushner comes back to NU By JULIAN GEREZ
the daily northwestern @jgerez_news
More than 300 people filled Harris Hall to capacity Tuesday to listen to Tony Kushner, a Pulitzer, Emmy and Tony award-winning playwright and screenwriter talk about the value of liberal arts, the integration of politics into writing and his famous works.
Kushner was interviewed by english and gender and sexuality studies Prof. Nicholas Davis, The audience also had the opportunity to ask Kushner questions following the discussion. Davis began by asking Kushner about his formative experiences as a screenwriter and the incorporation of political ideas into his writing. Kushner graduated from Columbia College in New York City with a degree in Medieval Studies in 1978, and his love for history helped influence
his future works. Ultimately, Kushner acknowledged that theater has a power, but a very indirect one. “If you want to see anything happen in the world, you have to go out and make things happen,” Kushner said. “Theater is an engine for teaching critical consciousness. Activism is a job that everybody has.” Kushner was brought to Northwestern » See KUSHNER, page 6
7th Ward reacts to Whole Foods Study: Brains can
modify memories
By CIARA MCCARTHY
daily senicr staffer @mccarthy_ciara
When Evanston’s newest Whole Foods Market opens next year, it will have to find a way to replace a longtime 7th Ward staple. After last week’s announcement that the organic grocer will fill the retail space at 2748 Green Bay Road, formerly occupied by a Dominick’s grocery store, 7th Ward residents expressed relief that future of the space had been settled but mourned the loss of a beloved community center. “It was the employees who created a warm culture at the store, and that’s part of what people are missing,” Ald. Jane Grover (7th) said. “It just had a different feel to it.” Since the Green Bay Road branch of Dominick’s closed Dec. 28, Evanston residents have been sorely missing the beloved market. Grover said she frequently speaks with former Dominick’s customers about the “difficult time” they’re having adjusting to shopping at a new grocery store. Whole Foods Market, Inc., announced last week it acquired seven leases from Safeway, Inc., for spaces formerly occupied by Dominick’s grocery stores. Safeway, the parent company of Dominick’s, closed all branches of the Chicago-area chain last year. In addition to the new Evanston branch, Whole Foods will open locations in Chicago and other nearby suburbs. The new acquisitions will bring the number of Chicago-area Whole Foods stores to 29 once construction is completed. The new
By CHRISTINE FAROLAN
the daily northwestern @crfarolan
Annabel Edwards/Daily Senior Staffer
REPLACING A STAPLE Whole Foods Market will move into the property on Green Bay Road previously occupied by a Dominick’s grocery store. The company has confirmed plans to buy a total of seven former Dominick’s locations in the Chicago area.
Evanston store is expected to open in 2015 and will be the third Whole Foods in the city. “Evanston is an extremely vibrant community and can support the three stores,” said Allison Phelps, a Whole Foods spokeswoman. “It’s not unusual to have a cluster of Whole Foods markets.” City officials had relatively little input as to what store replaced the Dominick’s. Economic development coordinator Paul Zalmezak said the decision was between the property owner, Safeway and Whole Foods. At a meeting last month, Zalmezak spoke to the city’s lack of input in the decision. “We’re trying to be sensitive to the ongoing negotiations, which we literally have no control over,” he said at the time. “It’s a Safeway process.”
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
Phelps said it will take between 12 and 15 months for the new store to open. Whole Foods said in a news release that it will remodel the new stores to reflect the communities they are a part of. Jacqueline Haimes, a 7th Ward resident and member of the Mayor’s Grocery Store Working Group, said she was pleased that the space was filled so quickly, but that the concentration of the store was “a lot.” “For some people, Whole Foods is more on the expensive end so it’s not necessarily a place that people can shop every week,” Haimes said. The working group will continue its efforts to find a replacement for the other former Dominick’s location, 1910 Dempster St. ciaramccarthy2015@u.northwestern.edu
Humans’ brains are constantly modifying their memories of the past, making the memories less accurate but better for decision-making in the future, according to new Northwestern Medicine study. Donna Jo Bridge, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in medical social sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine, asked 17 men and women to recall the locations of 168 objects on a computer screen with varying backgrounds. Participants completed the experiment in an MRI scanner so their brain activity could be observed. Scientists tracked the hippocampal region of the brain, which is involved with memory and creating an association between two arbitrary elements with which a person is not previously familiar, Bridge said. “The hippocampus is responsible for binding or tying those two things together so you have the basis of a memory,” Bridge said. “So we showed that the same structure, the hippocampus, is also involved in modifying existing associations that we have.” Bridge said these results indicate updating our representations of events is an adaptive mechanism that our brains must continue to do as a basic learning process.
“Memory is not just bringing up the past, it’s using the past to inform current decisions and build on current information,” Bridge said. Bridge offered the example of a breakup with a significant other to illustrate this theory. People who are newly single might be heartbroken at first because the breakup is viewed as a loss. Later, they may project their present feelings onto the memory of the relationship and realize that the break-up was actually a good thing. An additional, simpler example, Bridge said, is recalling childhood memories of parents. They would have looked younger then, but people tend to see their parents the way they look now because their brain’s present-day view is what remains coded in memory. Continuing with similar research, Bridge is currently working with drugresistant epileptic patients who have had part of their brain removed. She said if the patients had the left side of their hippocampus removed instead of the right, they may lose the ability to modify memories because brain activity recorded during the study on adjusting memories always occurred on the left side. She said this could leave recollections unchanged. “We think that changing (memories), even if it may seem like an impairment, we think, is actually adaptive and a good thing,” Bridge said. While completing her doctoral » See STUDY, page 6
INSIDE Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | Opinion 4 | Classifieds & Puzzles 6 | Sports 8