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The Daily Northwestern Friday, October 30, 2015
DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM
Class withdrawal policy updated
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NU implements uniform policy across 6 undergraduate schools By PETER KOTECKI
daily senior staffer @peterkotecki
With the Oct. 30 drop deadline for Fall Quarter courses nearing, Northwestern’s undergraduate schools announced a uniform course withdrawal policy this week, including a provision that allows McCormick students to drop individual classes for the first time. University Registrar Jacqualyn Casazza said the University is now ensuring all undergraduates who drop a course after the drop deadline will receive a withdrawal grade on their transcripts. In addition, there is now a defined period during which students can request to withdraw from a course, she said. Previously, Casazza said, there was no uniform course withdrawal policy among the six undergraduate schools. Joseph Holtgreive, assistant dean for student career development at McCormick, told The Daily that McCormick students prior to the policy clarification announcement could not withdraw from an individual class. “After the drop deadline, if a student wanted to withdraw from a class, they had to withdraw from all of their classes,” Holtgreive said. “This change allows students that flexibility to request to withdraw from individual courses.” Holtgreive said the change in interpretation is beneficial to students because it allows them to have more flexibility with courses. “What I think is really important — and this is why students still have to request to withdraw — is that we don’t want students to simply panic,” he said. “We want to have a conversation and let them understand that they
do have options.” Casazza said research examining other universities’ course withdrawal policies revealed NU was far outside the norm of its peer institutions. “The norm is that there is a withdrawal period, and every student who withdraws in that period gets a W,” Casazza said. “We are aligned now with what our peers are doing.” The interpretation change aims to give every student the same experience with dropping a course, Casazza said. “(Whether you would) get a W or not get a W kind of depended on who you talked to that day and what school you were in,” she said. “It should be a consistent experience for students.” Previously, undergraduates were allowed to submit withdrawal requests until the end of the term, but the definition of the term’s end was not clear, Casazza said. “Classes end at different times,” she said. “Some classes in the fall end before Thanksgiving … some classes end a week before exam week, and so we wanted to make sure that we weren’t allowing students to request a withdrawal after the course ended.” In an email to Communication students, Sally Ewing, associate dean for advising and student affairs at the School of Communication, said students may request to withdraw from a class until the due date of the final exam, paper or project in that particular class. Dorina Rasmussen, Medill’s director of the student life, said the due dates of Medill students’ final assignments will be confirmed with the students’ instructors. Mary Finn, associate dean for undergraduate academic affairs, as well as Ewing and » See WITHDRAWAL, page 9
See more coverage on page 8 Lauren Duquette/The Daily Northwestern
PROJECT PUMPKIN A child eats candy after trick or treating at Project Pumpkin. More than 1,000 elementary and middle school children from the Chicago area came to Norris University Center on Thursday for Project Pumpkin, an annual event allowing children to play games and trick or treat in a safe environment. Sponsored by the Northwestern Community Development Corps, Project Pumpkin featured a haunted house and other activities.
City OKs gender-open signs By ELENA SUCHARETZA
the daily northwestern @elenasucharetza
All Evanston public facilities with only one single-occupancy restroom will now be required to have genderneutral signage under an ordinance approved by City Council on Monday. If there are three or more restrooms in a facility, at least one of them must be labeled as gender-neutral. The city’s Community Development Department authored the ordinance in order to accommodate Evanston’s transgender community, department director Mark Muenzer said. Under the ordinance, public single-occupancy restroom facilities must be designated for men, women or as gender-neutral. Muenzer said after he was named the city’s LGBT liason last year, he worked
with city staff to come up with several different ways the community could be more welcoming toward the LGBTQ community. “We are the sixth or seventh city in the entire nation to do an ordinance like this — there are none in Illinois or Chicago that we are aware of,” Muenzer said. “We did research on comparable communities and we went through different reviews of the ordinance and got to a point that we felt was acceptable to the transgender community.” Muenzer said although there is no official count of how many residents favor the ordinance, he has received several phone calls expressing support. Existing businesses with public restrooms will have 60 days to comply with the ordinance, and new businesses will be notified of its requirements. Ald. Jane Grover (7th) said City Council suspended its rules designating
a two-week waiting period before an ordinance is given final approval and passed it unanimously in one meeting. Grover said city staff consulted a transgender Evanston resident named Carly Lehwald about the requirements for the ordinance. Lehwald stars with her son, Ben Lehwald, an Evanston Township High School student, on the ABC Family series “Becoming Us.” The series documents their lives navigating a marginalized identity. Grover said Lehwald was present at the council meeting Monday and offered her support for the ordinance. “This ordinance was to update our building codes … to make them where they need to be in terms of inclusivity,” Grover said. “To make a transgender person feel welcome and included at something as simple as a restaurant.” elenasucharetza2018@u.northwestern.edu
NU patents, licensing profits down over 90 percent By DREW GERBER
the daily northwestern @dagerber
Northwestern saw only $32 million in profits from its patents and licensing agreements this year, down from $357 million last year, according to a 2015 report from the NU Innovations and New Ventures Office.
In 2014, the University sold its remaining royalty interests in the fibromyalgia drug Lyrica, which largely contributed to the profits earned last year. The patent for Lyrica is set to expire next year. Pregabalin, the chemical name for Lyrica, was developed by NU chemistry Prof. Richard Silverman nearly 25 years ago. Ultimately licensed to pharmaceutical company Pfizer, the world’s
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
second-largest drug and biotech company, the probability of having a success like Lyrica is like winning the lottery, said Alicia Loffler, executive director of INVO. NU sold off the initial portion of its royalty interests in Lyrica at the end of 2007 for $700 million, which has helped the University remain one of the topranked universities in terms of profits from patents and licensing for the past
seven years, Loffler said. Generally producing 211 inventions and roughly 12 startups a year, the University’s mission is to move its research to the public and to the market as part of its responsibility to contribute to economic growth, Loffler said. Additionally, because the University receives roughly $620 million in sponsored research, a large portion of which comes in the form of research grants
from various federal agencies, there is an obligation “to make every effort to convert that research into products that will help humanity,” she said. Loffler said the number of inventions produced each year by NU has been growing, with Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the Feinberg School of Medicine and the McCormick School » See INVO, page 9
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