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The Daily Northwestern DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM
Friday, May 8, 2015
Find us online @thedailynu
ASG pushes for reducing credit By shane McKeon
the daily northwestern @Shane_McKeon
Daily file photo by Nathan Richards
divest discussion Northwestern students turned out in droves in February to watch Associated Student Government narrowly pass a resolution calling for the University to divest from companies that sponsors said violate Palestinian human rights. A bill now moving through the Illinois legislature calls on the state to not invest in companies that boycott Israel.
State mulls anti-boycott bill By Kevin Mathew
daily senior staffer @kevinwmathew
Illinois will not invest in companies that boycott Israel if a new bill passes. The policy, which could be the first in the United States to take action against the boycotts, would affect companies that take “actions that are politically motivated and
are intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with” Israel and Israeli-based companies. The state Senate passed the bill on April 22 unanimously with three senators abstaining. Committees are currently reviewing the bill, which Gov. Bruce Rauner would sign if it passes the House, Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly told The Daily. “We need to do our part to stand up to anti-Semitism, whenever and
however it appears,” she said. “This historic bipartisan legislation does just that by making Illinois the first state in the nation to divest its public pension funds from companies that boycott Israel.” Registered lobbyist Suzanne Strassberger, associate vice president of government and community partnerships at the Jewish United Fund, said the organization supports the » See Boycott, page 8
As the arrival of the new Weinberg dean approaches, ASG has issued a report calling on the school to reduce the number of credits students need to graduate, although it’s unclear whether the proposal has enough faculty support to change the requirement. The report, compiled by Associated Student Government Senate’s academic committee and released in March, calls on the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences to reduce the minimum number of credits needed to graduate from 45 to 42. It also asks for individual Weinberg departments to reexamine major and minor requirements and for the school to re-evaluate its Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate credit system, which the authors say disadvantages students who didn’t attend high-performing high schools. Senate passed a resolution in April endorsing the committee’s report, and ASG President Noah Star, a Weinberg junior, and Executive Vice President Christina Kim, a McCormick junior, advocated for a similar reduction during their campaign.
Whether the proposal will become policy, though, is far from certain. Some faculty members are skeptical, and it’s not clear where incoming Weinberg dean Adrian Randolph will stand on the issue. ‘A really large part of this student body is struggling’ Weinberg senior Anna Rennich and SESP junior Yair Sakols authored the ASG report and said students’ experience has changed in recent years, with extracurricular involvement becoming more central to students’ time at NU. “There’s a general sense that something at Northwestern needs to change,” Rennich said. “A lot of students come to Northwestern because we have this great academic system, but right now it’s just about getting through classes.” The report’s authors compared NU to peer institutions, particularly quarter-system schools with similar admissions rates, like the University of Chicago, Stanford University and Dartmouth College. Rennich said although it’s sometimes difficult to compare NU to schools with vastly different systems, NU largely stands alone in its credit » See Credit, page 8
Rauner budget would slash Alzheimer’s funding, care By Julia Jacobs
the daily northwestern @juliarebeccaj
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed budget would cut more than $3 million from three state Alzheimer’s disease centers, including $330,000 from Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Slashes to funding for Feinberg Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center would most severely affect services such as educational conferences, support groups for patients and lifestyle enrichment programs, which engage patients in activities that help strengthen symptoms like memory and communication. “Our ability to continue functioning at the current level will be seriously challenged,” said Dr. M. Marsel Mesulam, director of the Feinberg center. Although state lawmakers have until the end of the legislative session on May 31 to approve the budget, there is
still disagreement over nearly $2 billion in proposed cuts to human services, according to the Chicago Tribune. Rauner’s budget would eliminate funding for two other Alzheimer’s disease centers — Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center and Southern Illinois University’s School of Medicine’s Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders would each lose $1.5 million. The Illinois chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association is attempting to salvage the funding with a petition, disseminated on April 23, that urges Rauner to reconsider. On Thursday, the petition had more than 2,300 signatures — just 200 short of the goal the organization wants to reach before sending it to the governor. Alzheimer’s is one of the most underfunded, yet expensive, diseases to treat, said Carrie Jackson, chair of recruitment for Chicago’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Jackson learned the impact of the disease after she spent eight years taking care of her father, who died of Alzheimer’s almost three
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years ago. Although Rauner’s proposed budget would take effect in the 2016 fiscal year, Mesulam said checks from the state have already stopped coming. Similarly, SIU’s center hasn’t received any money for the 2015 fiscal year and has not been contacted by the state. The center’s director Dr. Tom Ala said. Ala said he has written off receiving the money this year and hopes it will somehow materialize in the 2016 budget. Based on the proposal, SIU’s center will lose all of its $1.5 million from the state — which will affect nearly every facet of its research, clinical work and education efforts — but the center can’t make specific decisions until after the budget is finalized, Ala said. SIU’s outreach programming would be most severely affected, Ala said, which includes 37 sites in downstate Illinois where patients are evaluated for Alzheimer’s and dementia according to » See alzheimer’s, page 8
Daily file photo by Paige Leskin
falling funding Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed budget would cut $3.3 million from Alzheimer’s disease centers, affecting research, patient care and family support.
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