SPORTS Women’s Tennis Cats win one, lose one against Michigan opponents » PAGE 8
Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses need for reparations » PAGE 3
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The Daily Northwestern Wednesday, April 1, 2015
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ASG presidential campaigns launch
Noah Star and Christina Kim By SHANE MCKEON
the daily northwestern @Shane_McKeon
Medill junior Haley Hinkle and Weinberg junior Noah Star
announced their campaigns for Associated Student Government president Tuesday night, formally beginning the nine-day campaign period before voting opens April 9. Hi n k l e’s e x e c ut i v e v i c e
Haley Hinkle and Chris Harlow presidential nominee is SESP junior Chris Harlow and Star’s running mate is McCormick junior Christina Kim. Hinkle currently serves as ASG’s director for transportation and campus safety. Star just finished
his third quarter as Speaker of the Senate. Hinkle said her campaign, whose slogan is “Build Up,” will focus on student wellness, inclusive community and student groups. “We’ve already invested a lot
of time in these things,” she said. “We know that gives us the tools to hit the ground running on Day One and that there’s much less of a learning curve.” » See ELECTIONS, page 6
Northwestern falls short of Canvas transition goal By KIMBERLY GO
the daily northwestern
Northwestern fell short of its goal to transition 75 percent of classes from Blackboard to Canvas by the end of Winter Quarter, but still hopes to have 90 to 100 percent of courses on Canvas by the end of Spring Quarter. The University aimed to have three in four courses on Canvas, but only about 70 percent were on the new course management system by the end of last quarter. Faculty members did not have enough time between Fall and Winter quarters to learn the new system because many were preoccupied with grading, the holidays and preparing for the new quarter, said Victoria Getis, NU Information Technology’s manager of faculty support services. However, she said NUIT could have done a better job reaching out
to faculty. “The hardest part of any switch like this is just being sure that you get the word out,” Getis said. Northwestern was ahead of schedule at the start of the school year with more than half of classes on Canvas, but each of the University’s 12 undergraduate and graduate schools are in different stages of transition. The School of Law and Feinberg School of Medicine have already fully transitioned to Canvas, but the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Professional Studies and The Graduate School have faced more difficulty moving courses. “Weinberg is hard because it’s the biggest school, it’s got very diverse faculty and they have varying levels of IT support and information,” Getis said. “Some areas have amazingly good
support and information right in their own departments and in others, people are pretty
Graphic by Jacob Swan/The Daily Northwestern
much fending for themselves.” German Prof. Katrin Voelkner, a member of the Canvas Transition Committee, said Weinberg has taken longer to transition because it has larger classes, which require more planning to move to Canvas. The School of Professional Studies, on the other hand, is moving to Canvas in a very “planned fashion” so whole programs move at the same time, Getis said. She added The Graduate School has certain programs where the faculty are not as tied to specific departments, making it tougher to coordinate. Getis and Voelkner both said students and professors have responded positively to the transition. “I’ve heard lots of students saying ‘thank you,’ which is really nice,” Getis said. “The faculty satisfaction with Canvas is pretty high, and I find
it’s a good indicator that people are getting used to it and getting more comfortable.” Weinberg sophomore Yining Zhang said although she feels Canvas and Blackboard serve the same purpose, Canvas looks better and is slightly more organized. Looking forward, Getis said she has no worries about completing the transition to Canvas. All schools are on track to have 90 to 100 percent of classes transitioned by the end of spring quarter, according to NUIT’s website. “I think we’ll be in great shape,” she said. “The idea is that this summer, Blackboard will be available for retrievable purposes only, not for teaching. So I expect that starting in the fall, once we’ve turned off Blackboard, there just won’t be any more Blackboard courses.” kimberlygo2018@u.northwestern.edu
Child care funds still vulnerable Parents, teachers talk PARCC testing cons By KEVIN MATHEW
daily senior staffer @kevinwmathew
Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill Thursday to fix the 2015 funding deficit, which had disproportionally hurt low-income child care centers. The new law allocates $293 million for early childhood education by taking funding from other services and by cutting government functions 2.25 percent across the board. However, critics say child care centers for lowincome families will still face instability until new methods of revenue are proposed. Centers for low-income children tend to offer mainly state-subsidized
programs through the Child Care Assistance Program fund, and when that fund faces sudden changes, lowincome centers often do not have the reserve revenue to survive tough times. Sessy Nyman, vice president for policy and strategic partnerships at the child care advocacy group Illinois Action for Children, said centers most easily diversified their revenue sources by doing the same services they are trained for, while transitioning to a more private approach. “(Centers) might minimize the percentage of low income kids that they take to the percentage of full fee paying kids,” Nyman said. “That then provides them the stability that they would need from a business perspective to say, well if something
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happens to the Child Care Assistance Program … I still have 65 percent of my monthly income coming in on a regular basis because those are private fee families.” While Illinois sought a solution to the funding difficulties, centers relied on their own revenues and on the federal half of the CCAP after the state stopped paying its share. Nyman said low-income centers almost entirely relied on the CCAP and generally only pay off their debts month to month. Because centers cannot cut services below a minimum level for each child, cuts can only happen by reducing the number of children who receive care, Nyman said. The state did not budget
» See BUDGET, page 6
By MARISSA PAGE
the daily northwestern @marissahpage
Parents, teachers and community members met Tuesday evening to discuss the possibility of children enrolled in Evanston school districts opting out of future state-mandated PARCC testing. About 20 to 25 people gathered at the Levy Senior Center, 300 Dodge Ave., to attend the forum, which was organized by parents involved in the anti-standardized testing group Park the PARCC Evanston. Several of the parents in attendance had already opted their children out of the
first round of PARCC testing, which took place throughout March. PARCC testing, which stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, is required by the Illinois State Board of Education and is meant to gauge the effects of Common Core standards in language arts and math. The superintendents of both Evanston/Skokie School District 65 schools and Evanston Township High School said at a joint State of the Schools address in January that implementing PARCC testing requires a surplus of time, money and » See PARCC, page 6
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