The Daily Northwestern — May 5, 2015

sports Basketball What statistical analysis tells us about next season » PAGE 8

Odesza to perform at Dillo Day 2015 » PAGE 3

opinion Kirkland After Baltimore, we must face inequality head on » PAGE 4

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Tuesday, May 5, 2015

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In Focus

Northwestern visiting professor’s past raises questions about hiring process

By Ally MUTNICK

daily senior staffer @allymutnick

An Ohio State University investigator found last year the then-chair of the university’s English department had “created a hostile work environment” that made female administrative staff feel “harassed and intimidated.”

That English professor, Sebastian Knowles, is now a visiting professor at Northwestern for Spring Quarter 2015.

A series of interviews conducted by the investigator with department staff painted Knowles as “volatile” and described violations of Ohio State’s policies on sexual harassment and workplace violence. The investigator

found Knowles threatened and intimidated department staff. According to the report, staff said he initiated “inappropriate and unwelcome physical contact” and made “inappropriate comments of a sexual nature” on several occasions.

Knowles refutes these claims and any wrongdoing. In a written rebuttal, he admits to losing his temper and cursing at staff, but attributes this to stress brought on by an illness.

He denies making sexual comments, claiming they were taken out of context, and said the staff members themselves initiated inappropriate sexual

remarks.

NU said it was unaware of the allegations against Knowles but will review the matter. In interviews, NU administrators said it’s difficult to learn professors’ past disciplinary records in a hiring process complicated by privacy laws and heavily focused on candidates’ academic merit.

“If someone misbehaves at some institution, there are not good mechanisms for communicating that,” said mathematics Prof. John Franks, the Weinberg senior associate dean for » See hiring, page 6

Photo illustration by Sean Su and Jackie Marthouse/Daily Senior Staffers

Aldermen select SAFE as new animal shelter tenant

By Marissa Page

the daily northwestern @marissahpage

Aldermen chose Saving Animals for Evanston as the new tenant for the Evanston Animal Shelter on Monday.

The selection will now go in front of City Council on May 26 for final approval.

The Human Services Committee recommended the city continue to fund the shelter until October 1, at which point SAFE will support all operations using funds collected from adoption fees. The vote on SAFE was postponed from an April 6 meeting, because the committee was unsure whether specific enough guidelines had been set for the new organization that would take over the space.

The six aldermen on the committee included newly elected Ald. Brian

Housing staffer charged with aggravated assault

Police arrested a Northwestern housing staffer Friday morning after he allegedly displayed a knife and threatened a Sodexo

Miller (9th). Miller was sworn in Monday night before the meeting in front of a crowd of about 40 people at a special City Council meeting.

The eight other aldermen voted unanimously to confirm Miller after Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl chose Miller on Friday out of five aldermanic applicants. Miller, chief of staff of Cook County’s 13th district commissioner, replaced Coleen Burrus, who left council last month to take a job at Princeton University. He will serve out the rest of Burrus’ term.

The search for a new organization to run the shelter began in May 2014, after the city severed ties with the shelter’s previous operator, Community Animal Rescue Effort. CARE was voted out of the shelter in April 2014 following concerns about its 45 percent euthanasia rate for dogs and its lack of cooperation with the city.

In the interim, Evanston police and

volunteers have run the shelter.

“When (CARE) left, the shelter was thrown into a state of flux,” said Evanston resident Emma Smith, who has volunteered at the shelter for over a year. “Thanks to the competency and ability of the women who developed Saving Animals for Evanston, Evanston received the organization that perfectly fit its needs.”

Several other volunteers with SAFE, as well as aldermen, voiced their support of the organizations at the meeting.

“This is an effort that has been going on now for … a long time, and for everyone who’s been involved I know it’s been a really tough road with ups and downs, but I think we’ve landed in the right place,” Ald. Judy Fiske (1st) said. “I’ve always had confidence that SAFE folks could do a great job, their hearts are in the right place, they’re experienced and they have the trust of

the volunteers.”

The committee unanimously approved the motion, which calls for city manager Wally Bobkiewicz to negotiate a two-year contract with SAFE. The organization also plans to

change its name to the Evanston Animal Shelter Association.

employee.

Maurice Henry, 45, told the Sodexo employee he was going to “kill him” after they got into a verbal confrontation, University Police Deputy Chief Dan McAleer said.

McAleer said the Sodexo worker arrived at Sargent Hall to check in for work and was unable to enter the building because

it was locked. The worker saw Henry sitting on a couch inside and knocked on the door so Henry would open it, but he did not, police said.

When the worker finally gained access to Sargent, he asked Henry why he did not open the door, McAleer said. After the two started arguing, Henry pushed the Sodexo employee and then pulled out a

knife, police said. McAleer said there was a witness who observed the encounter from about 30 feet away.

Henry had multiple NU keys and a WildCARD, which the police took, McAleer said.

Police arrested Henry and took him to the UP station, McAleer said. He was released on a recognizance bond and

charged with misdemeanor aggravated assault. He is scheduled to appear in court on June 8.

University spokesman Al Cubbage and Paul Riel, executive director of Residential Services, deferred their comments to McAleer.

Serving the University and Evanston since 1881

Julia Jacobs/The Daily Northwestern

new to the ninth City clerk Rodney Greene swears in Brian Miller as 9th Ward alderman. The new alderman took his seat on City Council for a Human Services Committee meeting Monday.

Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. marissapage2018@u.northwestern.edu

— Tyler Pager

INSIDE Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | Opinion 4 | Classifieds & Puzzles 7 | Sports 8

2 NEWS | the daily northwestern tuesday, may 5, 2015

Around Town New city proclamation advocates greater sense of community

Evanston officials will aim to deter young people from violence and create a greater sense of community.

The “Evanston Own It” proclamation, signed

by Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl and city clerk Rodney Greene, encourages residents to be more invested in their surrounding community, the city announced Monday.

The proclamation came about after a meeting

between Tisdahl and community faith leaders in July 2014. It stresses that residents should be able to live in a protected community where everyone takes responsibility for that happens, regardless of where they live.

“The goal of ‘Evanston Own It’ is to build a stronger sense of community,” Patricia A. Efiom, a pastor at the local Ebenezer AME Church, said in a news release.

“We wish to help mold the community to be engaged with one another in all aspects of community life.”

Evanston faith-based organizations will provide support to the proclamation and work with residents to achieve its goals, the city said. They will also help spread the idea that what happens to one person in the city affects everyone.

“We are especially committed to providing opportunities for our youth to have meaningful opportunities to come to know and be in partnership with the larger community,” Efiom said in the release. “We believe that through ‘Evanston Own It’ we will help to create a stronger, safer Evanston.”

To support the proclamation’s message, the faith community will host “Evanston Sings,” a choir concert with about 250 participants. The event will take place at 7 p.m. on June 19 at Evanston Township High School. All proceeds will go to the 2016 mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program.

— Tori Latham

The Daily Northwestern www.dailynorthwestern.com Editor in Chief Sophia Bollag

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Newsroom | 847.491.3222 Campus desk

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City desk

Police Blotter Woman attacked Friday night in Evanston A Chicago woman told police that two men she knew hit and kicked her Friday night, officials said.

The 23-year-old woman went to Evanston Police Department’s headquarters, 1454 Elmwood Ave., on Friday night to report the incident, police Cmdr.

Joseph Dugan said. Although she refused medical treatment, she displayed scrapes on her left elbow and knee, Dugan said.

The woman had accompanied her male cousin earlier that night while he made a work delivery in

Special Olympics members recognized as “outstanding team”

The group of Evanston participants in the Special Olympics received recognition for being an “outstanding team,” the city announced Monday.

Leonard Woodson, the city’s Special Olympics program manager, and the Evanston team athletes and coaches received the 11th annual Kevin T. Kendrigan Outstanding Team Award on April 26 at the Special Olympics Illinois Area 18 track meet, which included teams from around Cook County’s northern

the 2400 block of Main Street, police said. Two men — ages 19 and 23 — who the woman knew, were at the parking lot when they arrived, Dugan said.

The 19-year-old man approached the woman and slapped her, police said. After she slapped him back, he threw her to the ground, and then both men kicked her in the stomach and ribs, Dugan said.

The woman provided the names of the two men to detectives, and they are investigating the incident, Dugan said.

Man kicked, punched by group of men

Around 10 men attacked a man at a gathering in Evanston on Sunday, police said. suburbs.

Area director Jordan Feldman lauded Evanston’s team for its great athletes and coaches, as well as its impact on the city’s community, the news release said.

Feldman also commended the city’s participants for their commitment to better the quality of life and emphasize a leisurely lifestyle for those with disabilities through advocacy and awareness, the city said in the release.

The award is named after Kevin T. Kendrigan, who helped to create and improve the Special Olympics Illinois Area 18, according to the release.

— Tori Latham

Police responded to the 1000 block of Dodge Avenue on Sunday to meet with a man who reported he had been attacked, Dugan said.

The man attended a gathering in the 1500 block of Fowler Avenue a little after midnight Sunday, and was kicked and punched by a group of around 10 men, police said.

The man lost consciousness during the attack and suffered scratches and a “bloody bump” on his head, Dugan said.

The man knew one of the men who attacked him by nickname and police are following up on the incident, police said. ­— Paige Leskin

Setting the record straight In Monday’s print edition, the baseball teaser on page 1 mischaracterized the outcome of the games. Northwestern lost two of three games against Nebraska this weekend.

“Wong Fu filmmakers screen new movie” misidentified where the money collected at the event will be donated. It will be given to the Nepal Red Cross Society.

The Daily regrets the errors.

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TuesDay, may 5, 2015 the daily northwestern | NEWS 3

On Campus Fossil Free NU plans for meeting with trustees By emily chin

the daily northwestern

Fossil Free NU held a teach-in Monday night encouraging students to support divestment from coal companies. The teach-in was held in part in preparation for a meeting between the group and members of the Board of Trustees.

The group, formerly known as Divest Northwestern, is trying to get student support following an Associated Student Government referendum that recently passed in support of coal divestment.

In addition, both ASG Senate and Faculty Senate passed resolutions for coal divestment in 2013.

“It’s really important to educate and keep people educated on the science aspect,” Alex Kirschner, Fossil Free NU action coordinator, told The Daily. “(People) get really caught up on certain words with climate change and not really understand the science behind it.”

Fossil Free NU will talk to members of the Board of Trustees in June to discuss coal divestment. Part

of the reason for the teach-in was to get support leading up to the meeting, Christina Cilento, Fossil Free NU’s community outreach coordinator, told The Daily.

Although the turnout wasn’t as good as they had hoped, Cilento, a Weinberg sophomore, said the discussion that came out of the event was positive.

Four members of Fossil Free NU talked about the science behind climate change, the human rights aspect of divestment, the economics of investing in coal and reasons why NU should divest from coal.

Kirschner, a Weinberg sophomore, showed graphs about climate change and talked about the environmental and health impacts of climate change.

He said people often don’t believe in climate change because they pick specific examples that deny it, whereas looking at the larger picture shows the human impact on climate change.

Cilento argued that climate change goes beyond science and that it’s a human rights and moral issue.

Africa and Asia suffer more from climate change — a problem created in regions like North America,

she said.

“Until the day when (climate change) starts affecting policymakers sitting at their desks making the decisions, this is going to be something that isn’t taken seriously,” Cilento said.

Fossil Free NU organizers also argued that the University isn’t profiting by investing in coal. Scott Brown, Fossil Free NU campaign coordinator and a former Daily staffer, said coal is a bad investment because the Dow Jones coal index is decreasing.

In addition, NU’s Strategic Plan states that the University will “contribute to the solutions for renewable energy and a sustainable environment and to how public policies and economic incentives promote implementation of new technologies and practice.”

Fossil Free NU organizers said NU should divest from coal to reflect these beliefs.

Kirschner encouraged students to get involved because they can make a significant impact on a larger issue.

“For me, it’s been important because I found it really difficult to deal with climate change and how

Sophie Mann/The Daily Northwestern

coal conversation Weinberg sophomore Christina Cilento, Fossil Free NU’s community outreach coordinator, talks about climate change and human rights.

to respond to such a big issue like climate change,” he told the Daily. “This is something that I see as the most positive way for students to get their voices heard.” emilychin2018@u.northwestern.edu

Electronic duo Odesza to perform at Dillo Day By emily chin

the daily northwestern

Mayfest confirmed Monday that Odesza will perform at Dillo Day. Mayfest teased the group’s performance Sunday night, with the front page of the Dillo Day website matching a logo from Odesza’s 2014 album “In Return.”

An electronic music duo, Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight gained popularity with their first album, “Summer’s Gone,” in 2012.

Odesza’s popular songs include “Say My Name” and “Sun Models.” The duo’s remix “Lost and Found” was also featured on the “Divergent” movie soundtrack.

The group will play in the festival’s electronic music slot at night, which was filled by Ryan Hemsworth last year.

Odesza played at Coachella in April and will play at some of the nation’s largest music festivals this year, including Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.

“What’s really cool about them for us is their relevance,” said Communication senior Michael Bass, Mayfest’s concerts chair. “Odesza is something that we feel makes the electronic community really happy, but also brings in a bunch of different communities that we haven’t been able to target with this particular slot.”

The group’s music crosses a lot of genres, which makes it appealing to a wider range of people, said Mayfest co-chair Ian Robinson, a Medill senior.

He said Mayfest received positive reactions from

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students after they teased the performance Sunday night.

When Mayfest found out Odesza was available for Dillo Day, the group immediately jumped on the opportunity. Odesza was Mayfest’s “frontrunner” since day one, Bass said.

“Much like (Charli XCX), their rise is now,” he said. “So we’re bringing them in their rise which is very exciting. I do think that every student has heard ‘Say My Name’ and based on the incredible response last night from our teaser, I do think that every student knows something about them to come out and have a great time and enjoy it.”

Mayfest has already announced that Charli XCX, a British pop star, will perform at Dillo Day on May 30. Odesza is not the festival’s headliner, Robinson said.

Odesza’s live performance skills and ability to connect with the audience is what made them stand out from other possible performers, said Steven Goldstein, Mayfest co-chair of promotions.

“One thing that we said with (Charli XCX) that definitely applies here is that we’re really looking not just at the biggest possible name, or the trendiest option, or even the best music, but the best live performance,” the Medill senior said. “And I think that their live performance encompasses a lot of things that are not typical of an EDM show.”

Goldstein said that even if students aren’t familiar with Odesza’s music, it’s “easy to get into once you’re actually there.” emilychin2018@u.northwestern.edu

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Tuesday, May 5, 2015

PAGE 4

Unicorns, bubbles, hubris define Silicon Valley Lucas Matney

Daily columnist

The InterContinental Hotels Group, one of the world’s largest hotel companies, can trace its origins all the way back to 1777 and has steadily built up its business to a market cap of almost $10.1 billion. Airbnb, a 7-year-old Internet space-renting company and another leader in the industry, is in the process of fundraising that would value it at $20 billion.

Welcome to the new economy.

Last May, I wrote a column detailing how, due to rampant overvaluations, Silicon Valley was headed to hell in a handbasket and the bursting of the “hashtag” bubble was just around the corner. I decried how some of the central pillars of the most rapidly accelerating industry in our economy could possibly be built simply on the promise of future advertising profits. But you know, it turned out I was wrong.

That bubble has continued to inflate and proves to be much more elastic than many others, and myself, thought possible. How has Silicon Valley possibly defied expectations this time yet again? The answer is not simple. It is largely the result of more pervasive economic factors and legislation that continues to encourage investment in the industry, but it is also the result of the valley succeeding in diversifying its impact across a wide swath of industries.

When Uber launched five years ago, it saw an opportunity to attach itself to and dominate a market that had yet to be disrupted by the digital age. It believed that taxi services had grown complacent in their shared success and had failed to bring consumers the level of innovation that could reasonably be expected. Today, Uber’s valuation leaves it at about $41 billion. It has achieved a Fortune 500-equivalent valuation in just a few years

by championing an intuitive interface with simple payment options made possible by the proliferation of smartphones.

The lingering question plaguing investor and venture capitalist minds is whether valuations like Uber’s and Airbnb’s are realistic.

When Facebook was valued at $104 billion upon going public in 2012, investors faced the same question only to kick themselves years later as they realized how much they had low-balled Facebook’s potential for growth. Three years later, Facebook is the 13th most valuable U.S. company with a market cap of almost $225 billion.

The lessons of Facebook have majorly influenced the amount of money pumped into the valley. In January, Fortune estimated more than 80 privately held companies had been given “unicorn” status by venture capitalists, meaning valuations of $1 billion or more. Many of these companies have been founded in the past several years while others are more than a decade old and are just now managing to find their major investors.

With this massive influx of funds comes a fear of flying too close to the sun. These unicorns are forcing investors to speculate about how many of these 80 companies with hundreds of millions — and in some cases, billions — of venture capital funding are going to survive. Could a few dead unicorns kill the Icarian Silicon Valley, or is it on the fast track to spreading its innovation across so many industries that it effectively becomes bubble-proof?

What’s so intensely exciting about Silicon Valley right now is that it appears the latter option is now more feasible than ever.

The transportation sector is one of the most apparent cases of this, where new consumer technologies are rapidly changing the underlying tenets of how the entire industry operates. With ride-sharing powered by Uber and Lyft, self-driving vehicles powered by Google and ultra-efficient battery technologies pursued and researched by Tesla, among others, we may be at the cusp of a breaking point

Graphic by Lucas Matney /The Daily Northwestern

due solely to the innovation of the valley.

With the advent of so many amazing technologies, ones that are gaining funding at heightening rates, it’s easier for me to express optimism in the future of Silicon Valley. All bubbles must eventually burst or deflate, but if the valley can continue to diversify its innovation into revamping major industries’ ways of doing business, then the destruction will in no way match that of the dot-com bubble crash of 2000. That being said, assured growth and risk-free speculation beget recklessness and greed as we see in

markets like these time and time again, so it would be wise for investors and founders not to fully forget the sins of the past. Regardless, it will be exciting to see how many industries this crazy place touches as it flies toward the sun before eventually either crashing down or launching a revolutionary update to its obsolete wings.

Lucas Matney is a Medill junior. He can be reached at lucasmatney2016@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com.

After Baltimore, we must face inequality head on will Kirkland

Daily columnist

Say what you will about the protests in Baltimore over the past few weeks (or, better yet, let Ta-Nehisi Coates say it for you), but one thing is clear: In one key respect, they worked. If the goal of a protest movement is to shed light on an injustice and bring national exposure to a problem, they succeeded.

The injustice is the death of Freddie Gray and the immediate problem is police brutality. In place of justice denied in the cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, there is hope that Gray’s family will see justice served. On Friday, six Baltimore Police Department officers were charged for their role in his death.

But the problem in Baltimore, just as in Ferguson and Staten Island and Cleveland, runs deeper than police brutality. The deeper problem is about inequality. It’s about the fact that the median wealth of white families in America in 2013 was 13 times the median wealth of black families and that middle class wages have stagnated while 93 percent of additional created income in 2010 went to the top one percent.

Inequality is a familiar story. We’ve read the books and seen the documentaries and we can

see it on graphic display in the devastated Baltimore neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester where Gray was from.

Our politicians have read the statistics and heard the stories, too. In the wake of the Baltimore protests, Hillary Clinton, leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, devoted her first major policy speech of the campaign to an impassioned condemnation of criminal justice inequality in America today.

Republican candidates have also turned their sights on inequality, focusing specifically on the inequality of opportunity. In February, likely candidate for the Republican nomination Jeb Bush gave a speech in Detroit titled “Restoring the Right to Rise in America.” The previous month, at a policy debate in California, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz all agreed that inequality represents a signature issue of our time.

Prominent academics, like economists Robert Reich and Joseph Stiglitz, have long been sounding the economic inequality alarm.

Stiglitz’s 2012 book “The Price of Inequality” described a series of market manipulations and structural transformations that have piled wealth into the overflowing coffers of the already rich. Thomas Piketty’s blockbuster “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” offered a hugely influential model showing that the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate of economic growth in the long term, resulting inevitably in vast inequality that destabilizes

the whole system.

Again, we all know about inequality. The protests in Baltimore prevent us from making any feeble attempts to sweep it under the rug.

But what on earth can we do about it?

If you really stop and listen to what Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush are saying or read what economists like Stiglitz or Piketty are writing, it’s hard to come away with any sense of optimism.

Clinton’s speech addressed the problem of police brutality by proposing the simple and effective policy of issuing body cameras to police forces nationwide. But when she spoke on the problem of economic inequality, which she has made one of her central campaign themes, she offered virtually zero policy solutions.

She’s not alone. In the sentences that directly followed indictments of inequality, Bush, Rubio and Cruz reverted back to vague economic plans that offer few meaningful ideas for solving the central problem.

Additionally, some of the same academics who sounded the alarm don’t seem to have many good answers either. After hundreds of pages of compelling data describing the growing problem of inequality, Piketty’s suggested solution is an utterly unfeasible global capital tax.

Thanks to the protesters in Baltimore and elsewhere, we’re having conversations about how inequality manifests itself in America

today. What we need now is a more fruitful discussion of how to fix it.

At this point, the policies we identify need to be radical, if not revolutionary. I’m all for raising the federal minimum wage and expanding union membership, but those steps alone aren’t going to restore economic mobility or erase the 20-year life expectancy gap between inner-city Baltimore and its adjacent neighborhoods.

The depth of inequality necessitates deep reform and hard-hitting policy changes. We need to put ideas on the table like drastically increasing the top marginal tax rate (most Scandinavian countries hover around 60 percent), passing full employment legislation, doubling or quadrupling the Earned Income Tax Credit, expanding public sector jobs programs or actually voting for Bernie Sanders for president.

To salve the deep wounds laid bare in Baltimore, we need to broaden our focus to systemwide solutions and real structural reforms. At the very least, we need to foster a more creative conversation about what can be done to shrink the huge gap that allows some communities to prosper while others remain mired in poverty, injustice and brutality.

William Kirkland is a Weinberg junior. He can be reached at williamkirkland2016@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com.

The Daily Northwestern Volume 135, Issue 116 Editor in Chief Sophia Bollag

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6 NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN faculty. “That information is usually completely private.”

The issue extends beyond NU. Administrators and experts who study campus safety say it’s a widespread problem caused by a lack of methods for colleges to vet candidates beyond their resumes, writing samples and reference letters. Schools communicate very little during the hiring process.

“Frankly, some of those people who are causing trouble for the department — department chairs or deans want to get rid of them,” said John D. Foubert, an Oklahoma State University professor of higher education who studies campus sexual assault.

“There’s a practice among some people,” he said.

“They call it, ‘Pass the trash.’”

The Ohio State investigation During Knowles’ time as department chair, an administrative staff member hesitated when he asked her to increase a co-worker’s salary, according to Ohio State’s investigation report. Knowles slammed his fist on the desk, grabbed a paper from the woman and told her to “shut up and listen.”

Just 10 minutes later, he was back in the woman’s office apologizing, the investigator wrote in the report, which The Daily obtained from Ohio State’s public records office.

“I love you,” the woman recounted Knowles saying. “I love you. I love you. I’m so sorry for yelling at you.”

Knowles put his arm around her and, according to the report, pulled her close and said, “We just need to hug. I’m so sorry.”

The report described Knowles’ interactions with female administrative staff who worked for him during his time as chair. The two women mentioned in the report declined to speak with The Daily for this story,

TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015 matter can be handled in the department or if Ohio State’s human resources office should investigate. He also complained the investigator failed to take into account “severe mental stress” brought on by personal illness and his mother’s health problems.

Although Knowles told the investigator the two

with professors in the English department made clear that top officials from Ohio State were familiar with complaints about Knowles’ behavior.

In a March 2014 meeting, administrators asked English department faculty and staff to act professionally toward Knowles and welcome him back, said Ohio

“We still don’t really know how to prevent something like this from

happening in the future. What if this didn’t come up in the news? Then he could be here right now.”

Prof. Laurie Shannon, current chair of the English department, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Knowles, who spoke to The Daily about the hiring process but not the investigation, said he was first asked about the position six years ago. He wasn’t available then, but when asked again last year, he submitted a resume with references. The Weinberg dean sent a letter offering him the position about six weeks later, he said.

The typical hiring process for a tenure-track professor, both for the English department and for the rest of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is more thorough. Candidates submit an application letter, a research statement, a description of their teaching philosophy and letters of recommendation, Franks said. Applicants are first reviewed by a hiring committee then by the department. Top candidates visit campus to interview, meet with faculty and may give a lecture on their area of expertise.

After department faculty vote, final hiring decisions are made by the dean of the school and then the provost. Each school at NU has slight variations in the hiring process, but most follow this model, said SESP Prof. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, associate provost for faculty.

NU administrators said it’s not common practice for the University to ask for personnel files or disciplinary records of candidates. University spokesman Al Cubbage said NU did not know of Knowles’ policy violations at Ohio State before offering him the position.

Depending on the state, parts of a personnel file, including disciplinary records, may be protected by privacy laws. For public institutions, NU could, in some cases, submit a request under a state’s open record laws. But faculty often don’t want their employ-

SOMEONE MISBEHAVES SOME INSTITUTION ...

“If a potential faculty member was caught smoking marijuana HAT INFORMATION IS as an undergraduate. Is that grounds UALLY COMPLETELY for saying you’re not eligible for a RIVATE. faculty position? … The question — Rutgers sophomore Maci Nordone

women made sexual comments, the investigator found those claims to be unsubstantiated.

Knowles agreed on Dec. 12, 2013 to take a voluntary leave from his position as chair. He was permitted to continue teaching during the 2014 spring semester because the misconduct concerned his role as department chair, not as a professor, according to the report.

Throughout his career, Knowles has garnered a slew

State English Prof. Koritha Mitchell. It was a request some in the department found to be a dismissive approach to sexual harassment claims, she said.

Professors at the meeting said administrators told the department the file could be requested from the university’s public records office. Under Ohio’s Public Records Act, anyone can request a record from a public office, including a state university.

is where do you draw the line?

“We still don’t really know how to

prevent something like this from — Prof. John Franks but their interviews for the investigation give a detailed account of Knowles’ misconduct.

The women reported Knowles repeatedly made them upset and uncomfortable. One woman described a pattern of “volatile outbursts,” followed by apologies and gifts, including $300. Staff reported to the investigator “multiple incidents of unwanted physical contact.”

In an official written response to the allegations, Knowles said claims of unwanted touching and comments from one administrative staff member could be “simply rebutted” because she once gave him a hug and made a comment about ejaculation. According to the report, Knowles told the investigator the staff member said the word “self-ejaculation” when it appeared while she was using a spell checker.

One woman said Knowles compared his feelings seeing her stretch to the way he feels when seeing his wife in the bathtub.

Knowles wrote in his rebuttal that this was an attempt to explain he found the situation “awkward” and wanted to avert his gaze.

The investigator found Knowles “repeatedly initiated physical contact, including hugging and kissing, with female staff members,” who reported the behavior to be unwanted “in every instance.” Knowles acknowledged this conduct but denied the behaviors had any “sexual motivation” and told the investigator no bodily fluids were exchanged.

In his findings, the investigator noted Knowles’ response to the claims indicated a failure to understand what behaviors constitute sexual harassment.

Knowles told The Daily he did nothing wrong and declined to comment further on the investigation, deferring to his written rebuttal. He wrote in the rebuttal he was not given a chance to resolve the complaint internally. The university’s guidelines on harassment investigations say a supervisor should decide if the

happening in the future. What if this didn’t come up in the news?

Then Hiring at NU

of teaching awards. An Irish literature scholar, he is the president of the International James Joyce Foundation and the editor of a book series on James Joyce.

Ohio State began investigating Knowles’ conduct in mid- December 2013 and issued the final case report in February 2014. The two women mentioned in the investigation moved to work in different departments at the university.

Knowles will be at NU for Spring Quarter only.

He is the Carole and Gordon he could be here right now. ” Segal Visiting Professor of Irish Literature, a position endowed by the alumni couple who co-founded the furniture store Crate & Barrel.

The selection process for the position is less inten-

“If a potential faculty member

was caught smoking marijuana as

an undergraduate. Is that grounds

for saying you’re not eligible for a faculty position? … The question is where do you draw the line?

—Provost Daniel Linzer

The investigator wrote in his conclusions Ohio State will take “appropriate corrective action” against Knowles based on the policy violations but did not suggest any specific actions. He also noted Knowles would benefit from sexual harassment training.

The investigation file and subsequent interviews

sive than for a full-time professor and the candidate pool is smaller, limited to those who specialize in Irish literature. NU invites scholars to the position after a department subcommittee nominates candidates, said English and Communication Prof. Susan Manning, a former chair of NU’s English department.

ers to know they are contemplating a move and NU faculty searches are kept confidential, Provost Daniel Linzer said.

Most of Weinberg’s new hires are Ph.D. or postdoctoral students who have not held faculty positions before, Franks said.

But for those coming from other universities, Franks said NU hopes letters reveal any sexual misconduct or disciplinary infractions. The University sometimes solicits additional reference letters from experts in the candidate’s field. He said Weinberg has on some occasions asked for a personnel file for a potential senior hire if they detect “a cause for concern.”

For the English department, Manning also said references are important but department staff also rely on “intuition and judgment” when evaluating a new hire.

“There is a sense of professionalism where we do assume that if someone comes recommended by six of our colleagues in the field,” she said, “we are not assuming we’re hiring people that have a past that is covered up.”

A bigger problem NU is not the only school to unknowingly hire a professor accused of misconduct.

In May 2014, Loyola University Chicago found itself in a similar situation after it hired Miguel H. Díaz, a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican who previously taught at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

While Díaz was at Dayton, an investigation conducted by outside counsel found he likely engaged in “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” toward a married couple who worked with him at the Catholic university, according to a letter obtained by the website Inside Higher Ed. The confidential letter from the provost to the

the daily northwestern | NEWS 7

tuesday, may 5, 2015 married couple acknowledged the couple’s concerns that Díaz had sexually harassed them through “various requests and references to explicitly sexual feelings” even after being told to stop.

Though it was sent in July 2013, the letter was not made public until May 2014, after Díaz had already made plans to leave Dayton for Loyola. After the sexual harassment accusations came to light, Inside Higher Ed reported Loyola reviewed the allegations against Díaz and ultimately decided not to withdraw their offer. He became a professor at Loyola last year.

Controversies surrounding University of Illinois Prof. James Kilgore, a convicted criminal who was involved with a 1975 bank robbery that left one person dead, and Pennsylvania State University’s Jerry Sandusky have sparked conversation of faculty background checks. After Sandusky, an assistant football coach, was found guilty of sexually abusing young boys — some on Penn State’s campus — the university began conducting background checks on new hires and on volunteers who work with children. Other Big Ten universities, including the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois, followed suit with similar policies.

Linzer said NU does background checks on some hires, but the process is too complicated to replicate for every new hire. Some information that appears in background checks is sensitive, and NU may not want to distribute it to the hiring committee. The University also has to give professors a chance to respond to findings, which can slow the hiring process, Linzer said. It also puts NU in the position of deciding a fair system for what kind of infraction would invalidate a candidate.

“If a potential faculty member was caught smoking marijuana as an undergraduate,” Linzer said, “is that grounds for saying you’re not eligible for a faculty position? … The question is where do you draw the line?”

Other occupations incorporate background checks into the hiring process. Some states require checks in professions ranging from teachers to school bus drivers to mortgage salesmen.

Although background checks can pick up criminal infractions and lawsuits filed against a candidate, violations of university sexual misconduct policies would not surface. That information can usually be provided only by the university or the candidate.

A flaw in the system For a student trying to transfer to another university or matriculate to a graduate school, it’s much harder to hide a violation of a sexual misconduct policy. Many applications, including The Common Application, ask students to authorize another institution to access their transcript and some student conduct information from a former school.

NU receives several hundred requests for student conduct records from other universities students have applied to transfer to or attend, said Dean of Students Todd Adams.

NU will reveal student conduct issues only if the violation resulted in a suspension, expulsion or exclusion from certain University privileges and activities,

Adams said. If a student received one of these disciplinary sanctions, NU will report that to the inquiring university along with the policy the student breached.

Adams said this is a common practice nationwide.

In its guidelines for handling allegations of sexual misconduct, the Association for Student Conduct Administration recommends universities indicate suspensions or expulsions on a student’s transcript to ensure any future institution the student attends is aware of any behavioral issues.

But professors typically aren’t subject to this level of scrutiny and don’t have common, transcript-like documents they are required to show when applying for new teaching positions. A personnel record is the common thread among all professors who transfer from one university to another. State laws vary in how much information from these files universities or other agencies can disclose. In some states, these disciplinary records are completely confidential and protected even from open records law requests. The Illinois Personnel Record Review Act, however, has a

lawyer knowledgeable in public records law. If a private university sends employee disciplinary files to a state school, those records then become part of that school’s file and can be requested by anyone under state open record laws.

Then there are schools that have a problematic professor with tenure. Telling another institution about faculty members’ misconduct could mean they won’t leave their current post, said Foubert, the Oklahoma State higher education professor. But in states with strong open record laws, there is often nothing legally stopping a university from checking a professor’s past disciplinary record. And none of the reasons to keep sexual misconduct findings secret are more important than protecting students, said sociology Prof. Laura Beth Nielsen, NU’s director of legal studies.

“We could take a more assertive role in vetting incoming professors by asking for these records in states where we’re allowed,” she said. “So then why aren’t we doing that?”

— Prof. John D. Foubert, Oklahoma State University The Ludlow case

provision that allows employers to disclose to a third party a “disciplinary report, letter of reprimand, or other disciplinary action” that is less than four years old if they notify the employee.

Cubbage said the University is aware of the law but, as a matter of practice, does not disclose any information about employees except the dates of employment and the position held.

“We would never share a faculty member’s personnel file with another institution unless required to do so by a court,” Franks said.

It’s not a practice unique to NU. Schools do not typically communicate with one another during the hiring process or ask for disciplinary records. However, even if the practice were common, experts in campus safety and employment law say there are multiple deterrents to disclosure.

Schools may choose not to reveal misconduct findings to a third party because it could open them up to lawsuits from professors who want to challenge the validity of a school’s investigation processes, said Aaron Maduff, a Chicago employment lawyer. A university could spend months tied up in costly litigation.

Disclosing records makes it hard for a university to keep the results discreet, said Esther Seitz, an Illinois

In spring 2012, NU’s Title IX Coordinator Joan Slavin sent former Weinberg dean Sarah Mangelsdorf the results of her investigation on philosophy Prof.

Peter Ludlow.

“Ludlow repeatedly refused to answer whether he has had any sexual, dating, or romantic relationships with Northwestern undergraduate or graduate students,” Slavin wrote. “I am concerned that Ludlow may have a pattern of using his position as a faculty member to engage in sexual or romantic relationships with young female students.”

In the investigation, Slavin substantiated many of the claims made by a Medill senior who said Ludlow sexually assaulted her after a February 2012 art show the two attended together in downtown Chicago.

Through his lawyer, Ludlow has denied the student’s claims and sued NU for defamation. The suit was later dismissed.

More than 19 months after Slavin’s investigation, Ludlow alluded to a job change on Facebook by linking to a post on a philosophy blog that announced he would move to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. According to the blog, he was hired as director

of Rutgers’ Center for Cognitive Science, where he had been a visiting professor in fall 2012.

The move seemed certain. The blog’s writer, University of Chicago Prof. Brian Leiter, told The Daily in February 2014 he had learned the information from both Rutgers and Ludlow.

Slavin had asked the student to keep confidential the limited findings she had shared with her from her investigation on Ludlow. NU’s investigation didn’t become public knowledge until February 2014 when, frustrated with the University’s handling of her reported sexual assault, the student filed a Title IX lawsuit against the school.

What had been hidden in personnel files and confidential emails could now be easily accessed online.

The day after news broke of Ludlow’s alleged sexual misconduct, Rutgers balked. At the time, spokesman Greg Trevor told The Daily that Rutgers was not aware of the allegations in the lawsuit and would not confirm the school had offered Ludlow a position or that he had accepted. In July 2014, Rutgers announced Ludlow would not join its faculty and pushed blame toward Ludlow for not being forthcoming with details of alleged misconduct at NU. “When Rutgers learned of allegations against Professor Ludlow at Northwestern, the university requested relevant information from Professor Ludlow and his attorney,” the spokesman wrote in a statement. “This information was not provided. As a result, Professor Ludlow will not be coming to Rutgers University.”

Ludlow’s attorney Kristin Case said the requested information could not be provided because of confidentiality issues. NU declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Mobilizing under the campus group Women Organizing Against Harassment, Rutgers students protested Ludlow’s candidacy and petitioned their university to vet candidates for sexual misconduct.

The university’s near hiring of Ludlow left some students feeling shaken, said Maci Nordone, a member of WOAH. “We still don’t really know how to prevent something like this from happening in the future,” said Nordone, a Rutgers sophomore. “What if this didn’t come up in the news? Then he could be here right now.”

Worried about Ludlow’s plans to move to Rutgers, a group of about 20 concerned NU professors wrote a petition in February 2014 to the Board of Trustees asking them to make sure “professors who have been determined (by campus or legal processes) to have committed sexual harassment, violence, or abuse shall not be ‘passed on’ to other Universities.”

With the hiring process centered on a candidate’s academic record, experts say it’s easy for disciplinary infractions to go unnoticed. Rutgers was unaware of the allegations against Ludlow just as NU was unaware of Knowles’ misconduct at Ohio State.

“Might we be vulnerable to hiring someone who committed academic fraud? Plagiarism? It could be anything — I have no idea,” University President Morton Schapiro told The Daily in March. “It’s a fair question.” allymutnick@u.northwestern.edu

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Friday’s Puzzle Solved

SPORTS

ON DECK MAY

7

Women’s Golf NCAA Raleigh Regional, All Day Thursday

ON THE RECORD

Baseball is a game of adjustments, so we just got to keep going out there and trying our best.

— Scott Heelan, senior catcher

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

@DailyNU_Sports

Men’s Basketball

What statistical analysis tells us about next season

By Bobby Pillote

daily senior staffer @BobbyPillote

There’s already buzz surrounding Northwestern men’s basketball’s 20152016 season, and with good reason.

The Wildcats’ losses coming off of last season are minimal: guard Dave Sobolewski, a holdover from the Bill Carmody era who never found a home in coach Chris Collins’ system; JerShon Cobb, an effective but oft-injured wing player; and Jeremiah Kreisberg, a graduate transfer who lost his job as backup center down the stretch.

And the potential for improvement is obvious. Guard Tre Demps and center Alex Olah — the team’s two leading scorers last year — both return for their senior seasons. That pair is supported by a bumper crop of talented sophomores-to-be, including guard Bryant McIntosh and forward Vic Law, as well as exciting newcomer forward Aaron Falzon.

Hope springs eternal, but none of it can be realized until the next season tips off in November. In the intervening months, advanced statistical analysis provides some early insight into how the team will fare.

The development of Tre Demps

To the casual observer, Demps was on fire at the end his junior season. The shooting guard seemed electrified during NU’s late surge and capped his year with a 20-point performance against Michigan, when he twice hit a gametying 3-pointer to extend the contest.

Given Demps’ career arc, the uptick in productivity makes a lot of sense: His freshman year he was a role player in the rotation, his sophomore year he became the undisputed sixth-man, and his junior year he stepped into the role of full-time starter.

The stats follow that narrative, as Demps’ offensive rating — an estimate of how many points he produces per 100 possessions — has steadily climbed from 95.7 to 100.7 to 104.1 over the past three seasons. He also posted a career-high player efficiency rating — a general measure of everything a player contributes on the court — in 2014-15.

And as expected, all of Demps’ traditional stats — points, rebounds, assists and shooting percentage — have also been climbing for the past three years.

But what’s most interesting about his junior campaign is the split between his full-season statistics and his conference-only statistics.

For the first time in his career, the shooting guard posted a higher effective field goal percentage — a combined shooting statistic that accounts for the greater value of 3-pointers — in Big Ten play than he did overall. In other words, Demps became a more efficient shooter later in the season against a higher level of competition.

For a player often derided for poor shot selection, this is a big and potentially very important jump. But looking ahead to next season, it needs to

be determined if Demps actually got better as the season went on or was just riding a particularly hot hand in February and March.

His conference numbers can be bifurcated into two samples — the first nine games and the second nine games — which can then be compared against each other to determine if any difference is statistically significant or just the result of random chance.

At a 90 percent level of confidence, Demps was indeed a significantly better shooter overall and from long range during the second half of the conference schedule than during the first. In other words, there’s an over 90 percent chance Demps’ hot streak was actual improvement, and a minimal chance it was random variance.

The best part about Demps’ stats is that he took an equal number of 3-pointers, 43, during the first and second halves, making the two excellent for comparison. The idea that Demps actually became a more efficient shooter is big, and it means his 2015-16 stats can be projected to improve on his 2014-15 line.

2-3 or not 2-3?

Demps may have had the steadily improving hand, but the greatest catalyst for NU’s late-season improvement was likely the adoption of a 2-3 zone defense. Before the zone, the Cats were 1-10 in conference play. After they switched, they went 5-2.

Of course, such a simple analysis belies the complexity of basketball, but on the surface the zone certainly seems to have helped. With defensive centerpiece Olah returning for his senior season, the question facing Collins is whether to continue using the zone.

The best way to determine the effectiveness of the zone is to look at NU’s opposing points per possession in each of its games, and then compare that to each opponent’s season average points per possession. If the zone was effective, there should be a more negative difference among zone games than among other conference games.

Sample size is an issue here because the Cats only played seven games using the zone, but based on the available data, the zone defense isn’t discernibly better based on points per possession allowed. The average difference in conference, non-zone games was 0.11 points per possession and the difference in conference zone games was a smaller 0.04 points per possession, but the gap between those numbers is more likely due to random chance or quality of opponent than the effectiveness of the defense.

The zone doesn’t make the defense as a whole better, but it may still be a boon for Olah. The 270-pound center saves a considerable amount of energy parked under the basket and not out on the perimeter dealing with pick-androlls, and it follows that his stats would be better as a result.

And the data indicates Olah plays significantly more minutes when the team is playing a zone and also pulls down a significantly greater number of rebounds, even when controlling for

Graphic by Dylan Storey/The Daily Northwestern

the additional playing time.

The zone doesn’t definitively help the NU defense but it doesn’t definitively hurt it either, and the added benefit for the Cats’ big man may be worth sticking with the defensive set.

The Cats are definitely improving, and next year will probably be their best chance since the 2011-12 run. It’s difficult to predict the outcome of an entire season, but some insight can be gleaned from NU’s average point differential.

Points scored and points allowed — and the scoring margin, the difference between them — are actually good predictors of win percentage through a formula known as Pythagorean WinLoss. Because of that, scoring margin can be used as a proxy for making the NCAA Tournament.

The Cats averaged a scoring margin of -1.1 points per game last season.

Maryland, the lowest-ranking team in scoring margin in the Big Ten that qualified for the NCAA Tournament, averaged a difference of 5.7 points per

game.

Using the Terrapins’ mark as the minimum cutoff, NU would need to jump up 6.8 points per game next season in order to make the tournament field. It’s possible, especially given that it’s very difficult to project the Cats’ exact degree of improvement, but it’s very unlikely.

Out of 351 Division I schools, just 30 made an equal or greater jump from 2013-14 to 2014-15. Of those 30, four made the NCAA Tournament and six made the lesser NIT. Of the four that made the tournament, just two were “Power Five” conference schools: Kentucky and Notre Dame.

Kentucky can be removed as an obvious outlier. The team was already talented enough in 2013-14 to make a run to the national championship game, and then reloaded in 2014-15 in a way only Kentucky can. NU clearly lacks the same recruiting base.

That leaves Notre Dame. On the surface, the case of the Fighting Irish should actually give Cats’ fans some hope. Notre Dame’s 2013-14 record — 15-17 overall and 6-12 in conference — is identical to NU’s 2014-15 mark, and the Fighting Irish are also led by a Mike Krzyzewski acolyte in Mike Brey.

But the Cats are missing Jerian Grant. The Notre Dame guard was the best player on the nation’s second-most efficient offense, averaging 16.5 points and 6.7 assists per game, en route to be considered for every major individual award.

NU also doesn’t have anyone like Pat Connaughton, a versatile wing who swallowed boards — averaging 7.4 rebounds per game in 2014-15 — as well as he shot 3s, making 42.3 percent from beyond the arc.

It’s possible for McIntosh and Law to develop into players of a similar caliber, but it’s very unlikely. The Cats should see increased production out of those two, as they should with Demps and Olah, but it probably won’t be enough to cover that 6.8 point scoring margin gap.

One out of 65 power conference teams isn’t very good odds, and that’s a dubious “one” given that Notre Dame had even better circumstances than NU. Next season will be fun to watch and should be another step in the right direction for the program, just don’t expect Collins and his squad to go dancing — yet.

momentum, keeping it rolling and moving forward with it, and whenever something bad happens improving on it,” senior catcher Scott Heelan said of the team’s inconsistency following the Nebraska series. “Baseball is a game of adjustments, so we just got to keep going out there and trying our best.”

The Cats sit three games out of the Big Ten Tournament with six conference games remaining, so the team’s margin for error is slim.

And it will be even slimmer if star centerfielder Kyle Ruchim remains

sidelined with an oblique injury.

Coach Paul Stevens has not set a timetable for the senior prospect’s recovery.

“Right now, he’s out,” Stevens said.

“I’m not taking a chance on injuring him or playing him. He’s our best player and I love him to death. But until he’s ready to go I’m not jeopardizing his career.”

NU’s weak point this season has been on the mound, but the bats have taken a step back as well with Ruchim on the bench.

Although the 11-0 loss Sunday was a disaster on both sides, the Cats received stellar pitching performances in the first two games from senior Brandon Magallones and junior Matt Portland.

Magallones allowed 3 runs in eight innings while striking out eight batters, and Mason tossed a completegame shutout, the first of his career, in NU’s only win of the series. He earned Big Ten Pitcher of the Week honors Monday.

Will Northwestern make the NCAA Tournament next year?

bpillote@u.northwestern.edu

Baseball

Cats aim for even play in final nonconference series Kansas vs. Northwestern Evanston 3 p.m. Tuesday

Going into its final non-conference series this week, consistency has been a major issue for Northwestern this

season.

The team’s problem showed once again in last weekend’s series loss to Nebraska. After winning Saturday’s game 5-0, the Wildcats posted their own goose egg Sunday in an 11-0 defeat.

NU will start a two-game set Tuesday against Kansas. The Cats have their eyes on building and harnessing positive momentum before heading into their final two Big Ten series.

“We just got to do a better job of when we get that little bit of positive

— Jesse Kramer