Fall 2014

JASON TSIRTSIS || BALLIN’ ON A BUDGET || MENTAL HEALTH FALL 2014 northbynorthwestern.com

north by northwestern

DISORDERED EATING IN COLLEGE FINANCIAL AID’S FATAL FLAW THE EVANSTON NORTHWESTERN MONEY WAR

RACISM:

ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE AT NORTHWESTERN

LAST YEAR, NORTHWESTERN INTERFRATERNITY COUNCIL MEN Helped raise more than

$75,000

in philanthropic efforts

Contributed more than

10,000

community service hours

Had an average GPA of

3.42

(cumulative)

THINKING ABOUT JOINING A FRATERNITY?

IT’S NOT TOO LATE Winter recruitment is coming.

First week of Winter Quarter 2015

Register at recruitment.northwesternifc.com

CONTENTS: PREGAME MAGIC CLUB - 6 Three students dazzle their peers.

THE OTHER WILLIE - 9 Learn more about the University Archives’ taxidermy cat.

ONE OF A KIND - 10

Read about four students who are the only representatives from their countries.

GENIUS MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS - 16

Northwestern expands its resources to support its student body.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH - 18

Students like to keep busy, but doing so comes at a cost.

CAFFEINATED CRUSHES - 19 We help you pick the perfect coffee shop for a date.

SPOTLIGHT EARN IT BACK - 21

photo by michael nowakowski

Make your tuition dollars count.

OUT OF THE CLASSROOM, INTO THE WORLD - 23 Finding field trips that would make Miss Frizzle proud.

QUAD WORLDS COLLIDE - 31 A new class brings art and engineering students together to collaborate.

FILLING THE GAP - 36 The Arab Students Organization (ASO) celebrates its first year.

NCAA WRESTLING CHAMP - 37 Jason Tsirtsis prepares for his next big win.

FEATURES SUSTAINED DISCOMFORT - 38

The first step to solving Northwestern’s inclusion problem is finding safe spaces.

TOWN VS. GOWN - 42

We assess the state of economic relations between Northwestern and Evanston

TALKING BODIES - 46 College stress can exacerbate eating disorders and body image issues.

FULL NEED, FULLY EXPLAINED - 50 The college financial aid system might be fundamentally flawed.

HANGOVER ELECTRONIC BLOWJOBS - 56 One entrepreneur transcends the boundaries of human-robot relations.

NU SPORTS SIMPLIFIED - 58 The essential guide for the athletically illiterate awaits.

NU + UCHICAGO? - 59 People actually thought this would be a good idea.

GOOD LUCK, CLUCK! - 24 We got our money’s worth at these Evanston chicken joints.

fall

2014 | 3

*COVER DESIGN BY CHRISTOPHE HAUBURSIN FROM PHOTOS

BY JEREMY GAINES AND MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI

FALL 2014 WHAT’S YOUR UNOFFICIAL JOB AT NBN?

NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

#cooldad

NORTHBYNORTHWESTERN.COM

managing editor Sylvan Lane editor-in-chief Sam Hart facebook sticker curator creative director Christophe Haubursin executive editor Kevin Kryah photo director Jeremy Gaines managing editors mama bear senior section editors Shannon Lane and Anne Li Martina Barrera-Hernandez and Preetisha Sen assistant managing editors senior t-swift analyst associate section editors Rachel Fobar, Samuel Niiro and Sarah Turbin human duck Megan Fu and Jasper Scherer news editors senior feature editors Julia Clark-Riddell and Medha Imam Christian Holub and Lucy Wang assistant news editors snack runner assistant editor Shelbie Bostedt Candace Butera and Sasha Costello girl who still says senior design editor Alex Lordahl opinion editor Caroline Levy “cool beans” designers Carolyn Betts, Lauren Kravec, Lucas Matney, assistant opinion editor Kelly Gonsalves Vasiliki Valkanas and Mande Younge features editor Zachary Woznak assistant photo director Alexis O’Connor assistant features editors photographers Ryan Alva, Ben Breuner, Alex Furuya, Abbey crafter-in-chief Celena Chong and Elizabeth Santoro blonde guy #2 Kutlas, Ned McGregor, Michael Nowakowski and Arisa Toyosaki life & style editor Tanner Howard illustrator Hallye Webb assistant life & style editors digital producer Mallory Busch Grant Rindner and Ricki Harris entertainment editor Tyler Daswick assistant entertainment editor Peter Adams sports editor Daniel Hersh NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN, NFP assistant sports editor Jasper Scherer subterranean hip-hop board of directors politics editor Clayton Gentry correspondent president Sam Hart assistant politics editor Ben Zimmerman executive vice president Kevin Kryah writing editor Ali Pelczar vice president Sylvan Lane assistant writing editor Tia Anae treasurer Samuel Niiro photo editor Rosalie Chan secretary Hillary Thomas assistant photo editor Lucy Wang video editor Jon Palmer assistant video editor Kelly Gonsalves corporate interactive editors directors of marketing Andrew Dain and Andrea Swejk Shelbie Bostedt and Alex Duner director of operations Samuel Niiro assistant interactive editors director of talent Preetisha Sen Morgan Kinney and Luis Sanchez director of ad sales Grant Rindner creative director Nicole Zhu webmaster Frank Avino

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4 | northbynorthwestern.com

PREGAME

get started

LIFE ADVICE FROM A PROFESSOR:

Marcia Grabowecky

professor of psychology IN T E R V I E W B Y CA RO LI N E LEVY PH O T O B Y A LEX FU RU YA “The Buddhist approach to mindfulness is to be aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it and to be reacting to your experience essentially in a non–judgmental way. It becomes a really powerful thing to take control of our experience a little bit and actually become happier people.” fall

2014 | 5

PREGAME

Photo by MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI 6 | northbynorthwestern.com

Pictured: Thomas Grudzinski (left) and Justin Dresner (right)

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

Three NU students connect with their peers through sleight of hand.

BY AN N E L I

jamie chen, a McCormick junior, believes engineering is similar to performing magic tricks because in both, “you’re creating something out of nothing.”

Last spring, Chen founded NU Magic—a club in which members perform for strangers on the street and aspire to put on formal shows–with Weinberg sophomore Thomas Grudzinski and Bienen sophomore Justin Dresner.

Behind each trick is an investment of time, money and confidence. Of the 48 students who signed up for the NU Magic listserv, only those who make it through an audition will be able to join the three original members in learning, exchanging and performing tricks.

“A lot of people try to figure out the trick,” Grudzinski says. He practices his new tricks only on friends whom he trusts the most. “Magicians know how to steer away from people like that and steer towards people who love magic.”

But for all their confidence and friendly banter when performing, Grudzinski claims to be clumsy, and Chen, a native of Taiwan, says that a language barrier exists between him and most English speakers.

Chen, who used magic as an icebreaker to meet classmates during his freshman year, once spent a week in New York City performing street magic for a high school senior year project.

“If I think that magic is a universal language, then I could connect with strangers too,” Chen says. “My hands were shaking, but once you get in a couple of performances, once things get moving . . . I make them believe in something.”

A good magician, Grudzinski says, injects personality into his tricks, going beyond the mechanics and entering the minds of his audience. NU Magic hopes to be performing regularly for students by next quarter and, as Grudzinski says, “bring more magic into Northwestern.”

fall

2014 | 7

PREGAME

in case you missed it B Y RA C H E L FO B A R

“This accident led to the loss of a loved member of the Northwestern community, but that doesn’t mean it should lead to the loss of two.”

McCormick senior NIKHIL BYANNAR in a Change.org petition calling for rising McCormick senior Michael Szot’s readmission to Northwestern. Szot pleaded not guilty to nine counts of aggravated DUI in an accident that killed fellow rising McCormick senior Mihirtej Boddupalli and Indiana University student Sajaad Syed.

560 Lincoln St.

‘We’re all in this together.’

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA in an Oct. 2, speech to Northwestern students. Obama focused on the economy and the role college students play in its future.

Where WILLIAM RAWN ASSOCIATES will construct a new residence hall, the University announced. It will be the first newly constructed dorm on campus since 2002. This is the first step in a 10-year housing master plan.

41 DIANE FOLEY, whose son James was beheaded by ISIS in retaliation for U.S. military action in the Middle East. Foley was a freelance journalist who earned a Masters degree from the Medill School of Journalism in 2008.

8 | northbynorthwestern.com

23%

The percentage of the CLASS OF 2018 that identify as African American and Latino, claiming the new record for Northwestern’s most diverse class.

photos by tim reilly and pete souza, public domain

“We thank Jim for all the joy he gave us. He was an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person.”

The number of college campuses using FRIENDSY. The campus-specific application that launched Sept. 28 matches users as “friends,” “hook-ups” or “dates.” Developed by two Princeton University seniors, one of Friendsy’s selling points is a certain degree of anonymity: You won’t know the identity of your secret admirer unless you send a request back.

CHECK THESE OUT

Willie Reborn “Want to pet it?”

These Northwestern alumni authors have you covered for winter reading.

BY GUSTAVO BERRIZBEITIA A Song of Ice and Fire series

by George R. R. Martin Martin (Medill ‘70, MSJ ‘71) may be the most popular author to come out of Northwestern.

He’s since produced intense high-fantasy novels widely read not just in America but throughout the world. And of course, his work inspired a television series.

photo courtesy of susan russick

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town

by Nick Reding

BY MART INA BARRE RA-HE RNANDE Z

willie the wildcat got a makeover just in time for Homecoming this year.

We all recognize the mascot running around at football games or student events, but students who’ve explored the University Archives may have run into another furry friend: Willie the taxidermy bobcat.

Kevin Leonard, University archivist and assistant director of Special Collections, says the bobcat was donated to the University in 1966 by a group of alumni.

Willie was kept at the Alumni Association until 1990 when he was transferred to the University Library Archives. Since then, Willie has become as much of a celebrity as his living counterpart.

However, after nearly 50 years at Northwestern, Willie was in need of a serious makeover. The restoration required reconstructing ears to replace what was left of the original, disintegrating ones.

That’s where Susan Russick, Special Collections conservator at Northwestern’s conservation lab, stepped in to help.

Every six months the Preservation Department meets with the Special Libraries curators to figure out which projects are most urgent. Willie had been on the back burner behind other restoration projects, and he finally got his turn.

“Personally, I was happy enough with the small, damaged ears, especially as the cat never complained to me about loud noise in the Archives,” Leonard says. “Probably couldn’t hear that well.”

This unique restoration project involved an unusual challenge for Russick and her team. She first consulted a specialist to figure out what kind of ears Willie should have: bobcat ears, with a point of fur on the tip. She then contacted private conservator Lisa Goldberg,

her boss from when she worked at the Smithsonian 20 years ago, to construct the new ears.

It took four days of delicate work to make Willie’s new ears.

First the damaged parts of the ears were removed, and then Goldberg had to shape and fit new ears out of epoxy clay. After the ears were fit correctly, she added fur and painted them to match the rest of Willie’s coloring.

“They looked absolutely hilarious before they were trimmed down,” Russick says. “Like earmuffs or a Halloween cat costume.”

Along with new ears, Goldberg cleaned Willie’s fur to make sure he was pristine for Homecoming.

Now taxidermy Willie has nothing to envy about his livelier counterpart.

“He’s not just a bobcat anymore,” Russick says. “He’s Willie the Wildcat.”

Reding (CAS ‘94) graduated with a degree in creative writing, but found employment in journalism and in that field made his name as a Wildcat author.

His 2009 work documented astronomical amounts of methamphetamine plaguing the streets of tiny Oelwein, Iowa.

Engaging the Muslim World

by Juan Cole Juan Cole’s (CAS ‘75) 2009 book Engaging the Muslim World was a landmark work that sought to dispel much of the built-up rhetoric and mythology about Islam. Cole’s also been awarded two Fulbrights and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Flynn earned her masters in journalism in 1997, and started her career as TV critic for Entertainment Weekly. She’s published three well-received suspense novels, and her latest, Gone Girl, was adapted for film and was released in October. fall

2014 | 9

PREGAME

Singled Out photo by alexis o’connor

Imagine being the only person from your country at Northwestern.

BY D A N E T T E FREDERI Q U E

Salomé Lezhava, Medill junior, is painted with the Georgian flag. She is the only student at Northwestern from Georgia.

S

alomé Lezhava, Dino Mujkic, Arkar Hein and Mariana Alfaro are each one of a kind. Literally.

They stand as the sole representatives of their home countries at Northwestern. Hailing from Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Myanmar and El Salvador respectively, Lezhava, Mujkic, Hein and Alfaro are all thousands of miles away from their homelands.

Leaving home for the first time in this context has shaped their campus involvements and extracurricular activities.

“I think I’m the only person here who plays handball or who has ever played handball,” says Mujkic, a Weinberg sophomore.

The non-existence of handball, a popular sport in Europe, at Northwestern is just one of the things to which he had to adjust.

Mujkic joined the Chicago Inter Handball Club to maintain this favorite pastime from home.

“It’s a really big bonus for me to continue that sport which is really big in Europe, but not that popular in the U.S.,” Mujkic says.

Still, there’s one thing he misses from home that Northwestern, Evanston and Chicago cannot give him: homemade 10 | northbynorthwestern.com

Bosnian food.

Chicago has a strong Bosnian community, and Mujkic has been fortunate enough to see a bit of it through a few Bosnians and Serbians he met playing handball.

These expats have shown him enclaves of Bosnians and Serbians on the city’s north side.

Even so, “it’s nothing close to homemade food from Bosnia,” Mujkic says.

“That’s the one thing I miss about it,” says Lezhava, a Medill junior, about her native Georgia.

“It’s a lot of meat and cheese and spices. It’s just so delicious.”

She spent 11 years living with her family in— ironically enough—Atlanta, Georgia, and Lezhava is the only student from her home country.

“It’s actually really sad because in Atlanta where I lived before, there was a big Georgian community, so I was used to that,” she says. “When I came here I was hoping there would be some Georgians but it’s just me.”

She knows of only one other Georgian in the area: a friend from Atlanta who attends the University of Chicago.

While it’s hard to replace native food, Lezhava and Mujkic adjusted to Chicago winters

thanks to their experiences with similar weather in Eastern Europe. Hein, though, still struggles with the cold.

“I had never seen snow before I came here, and that was a huge experience for me,” the Weinberg senior says with a smile.

“Last year, the polar vortex I was just like ‘Okay, enough. Why do people live here?’”

Since Hein doesn’t get to go home often and there isn’t an adequate Burmese presence on campus as he expected, he engages with the small Burmese community in Chicago when he can.

Sometimes he travels to Burmese Buddhist monasteries in the city for religious assemblies.

Hein talked about other “cultural dilemmas,” that he encountered upon moving to Northwestern’s campus, like someone asking him how he is without waiting to hear the answer.

“I would try to continue the conversation,” Hein says, “but then I realized that you’re not supposed to actually continue the conversation. I had a lot of awkward moments with that.”

Medill freshman Mariana Alfaro is the first student from her international school in San Salvador, El Salvador to be accepted

to and enroll at Northwestern.

She heard about the school as an 8th-grader from her best friend’s aunt who works at the El Salvadoran Consulate General in downtown Chicago.

She realized in ninth grade that she wanted to become a journalist, so she began looking up American universities with strong j-schools. She found Medill was ranked among the best.

“I thought, ‘That’s at that Northwestern school!’ So the name just kind of stuck,” Alfaro says.

A former Medill Cherub, Alfaro is a member of the Daily Northwestern, the ASG Diversity Committee, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and “Noticiero Northwestern”— Medill’s only Spanish-language broadcast organization Off campus, Alfaro was pleasantly surprised by the Salvadoran community, mostly in Chicago’s northern neighborhoods like Rogers Park, Albany Park, Logan Square and Edgewater.

“You’d be amazed,” Alfaro says. “I’ve heard, while walking down the street, expressions that are from El Salvador, and I’m like “Oh, my God, a Salvadoran!”

GENIUS

Live smarter

COME ONE, COME ALL

Dive head first into the Chicago sex shop scene.

Photo by BEN BREUNER

BY ALE XIS O’CONNOR fall

2014 | 11

GENIUS

LOCAL SEX SHOPS Early to Bed 5044 N. Clark St. Off the Argyle stop Emphasis on education/safety, friendly for first timers

Taboo Tabou 3228 N. Clark St. Off the Belmont stop Small toy selection, good for lingerie and bachelorette party favors

Tulip Toy Gallery 900 W Belmont Ave. Off the Belmont stop Emphasis on education/safety, located in Boystown

Andersonville’s Early to Bed offers everything from dildos to harnesses.

M

12 | northbynorthwestern.com

more friendly, education-based sex shops has definitely helped people become open and curious about sex toys because it’s no longer a shady place for mostly single men to go to.”

Early to Bed specializes in sex education and safe sex habits.

Whether going solo or sharing the fun, Early to Bed encourages newcomers to ask questions as they explore an array of pleasure products, even if they “think their questions are weird or unusual,” Gelport says.

Lakeview’s Egor’s Dungeon also sees its fair share of first-timers.

Assistant manager Alex Mason encourages young adults to explore their sexuality and utilize sex shops in pursuing sexual identification.

“We get all ages, but we do get a fair amount of students,” Mason says. “They’ll come in with a group, and they’ll laugh and point, and then they’ll come back one-by-one by themselves because they saw something they liked.”

Although sex shops are commonplace in Chicago, 63 percent of Americans peruse for their intimates on the Internet, according to Adam and Eve, a popular online sex shop—but Gelport supports in-person shopping.

“The FDA doesn’t regulate sex toys like they do most everything else that we put in and near our bodies,” Gelport says. “There are a lot of sex toys out there made out of harmful materials.”

Some sex toys sold online are made of porous materials that capture bacteria even after being

cleaned, Gelport says. Sex shops like Early to Bed self-regulate products, making sure they’re all body-safe. And although it seems obvious, toys sold in shops are new and unused—which can’t be guaranteed with online products.

Mason agrees that shopping in store has added benefits—store employees can narrow down the field to help customers find the perfect addition to their secret stash of sex toys, from new condom flavors to cock rings.

Egor’s Dungeon, like many other local shops, also ensures customers understand how to properly and safely use the products they are about to buy.

“In the store, we put batteries in and make sure that they like it, that they’re comfortable with it, and that they know how to use it,” Mason says. “There’s nothing worse than getting something and having to read the manual.”

While sexual expression, equality and freedom are often at the forefront of public discussion, Chicago sex shops offer a safe space for people of all orientations and genders to talk about traditionally taboo topics. Diving into the world of lube and love machines may be intimidating, but Mason advises college students to be fearless.

“When we’re young, we’re told that sex is private, it’s dirty, it’s bad,” Mason says. “You’re bad if you have sex before marriage.

You’re bad if you hold out. You’re bad if you’re a tease. And it causes fear. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask something you don’t know.”

Egor’s Dungeon 5044 N. Clark St. Off the Argyle stop Close to public transportation, edgier atmosphere

FUN FACTS

One-in-three men own at least one adult toy.

One-in-two women own at least one adult toy.

Consumers spend more than $15 billion on sex toys yearly.

photos by ben breuner

y first sex shop experience was with my mother. Staring at walls of dildos and racks of porn with your mom may not sound like the most comfortable experience, but it is one I won’t forget soon. Although her methods were a little unorthodox, my mom’s message was clear—sex and sexuality should be celebrated, not hidden.

Sex shops, like many things related to sex, are stigmatized.

While some view sex shops as dirty, underground hubs of deviant activity, Americans spend more than $15 billion on sex toys yearly, according to Newsweek— enough money to supply every American adult with a Rabbit Habit Vibrator and batteries.

Although lube and condoms are the main moneymakers, adult toys like vibrators and anal beads are sliding into the majority of homes in America. More than one-in-two women and one-inthree men own at least one toy for self-indulgence or spicing up sex, according to a study by Indiana University.

Sex shops delve into a world of pleasure, but there are many other benefits to a healthy sex life. Frequent fun in the sack eases stress and keeps your immune system strong, according to WebMD. And Julia Gelport, a sexuality educator at Early to Bed sex shop, says sex toys and sex education encourages communication and self-confidence.

“I think college is a place where people have freedom to explore,” Gelport says. “Having

Spin City

Evanston’s barbershops have a tumultuous past.

photo by ryan alva

BY ALEX NITKIN

Noyes Barber Shop keeps the old-school vibe alive with its classic chairs. after spending years going to the same barbershop, I realized haircuts aren’t just about getting rid of much-too-long hair. What I love about barbershops, even more than the feeling of losing my gnatty baggage, is the familiarity of it all: the same worn-down chair, the same folksy barber, the same closecropped haircut. When I got to Evanston, I struggled to replicate this experience.

Of course, there’s no shortage of places for men to get their ears lowered near campus. There are cookie-cutter franchises with the stretch flat-screen TVs, the boutique wax-and-trim salons, and then there are barbershops.

Noyes Street Barber Shop and Jay’s Barbershop are Evanston’s last holdouts of a dying breed: the ol’ three-chair, towel-and-talcum-powder, shootthe-shit men’s barbershop.

But on Jan. 15, 1969, things were different. That night was a watershed event for Evanston:

the night the City Council chambers of the Evanston Civic Center were packed with nearly 40 angry barbers. The city just started cracking down on spinning striped poles, those weathered symbols of an open barbershop.

Citing a 10-year-old ordinance banning automated storefront signs, the City Council was about to vote on the fate of the fixtures.

All the familiar characters of the Evanston hair trade were present. There was Joseph Fera of the Fountain Square Barber Shop down on Sherman Avenue, who printed 2,000 “Save Our Barber Poles” bumper stickers. There was Sam Johnson of the Church Street Barber Shop, who would have to wait another decade for the afro trend to pass before his business started to pick up. Then there was the mustachioed Jay Rogisich, who four years earlier had taken over a little space on Maple Avenue and Davis Street and named it after himself.

Mercifully, the City Coun-

cil decided that night to spare the poles, and the time-honored trade symbols kept twirling. But over the next four decades, the tight-knit network of barbershop owners began to wither away. If the City Council voted today to outlaw barber poles, in fact, only two shops would be affected: Noyes Street Barber Shop, still in business 87 years after Fred Bruhn opened it with a $3,000 loan from his uncle; and Jay’s Barber Shop, still giving crew cuts after Rogisich’s death in 2005.

At the turn of the 20th century, few industries saw as much daily bustle as the small-change haircut-and-shave shop. None served more customers than Luther Hatley’s on Church and Benson, which took up the craggy brick building now home to the Evanston Athletic Club. The success of Luther Hatley’s led to a boom of small barbershops, and even the Great Depression didn’t stifle their popularity. Men still

craved the personal haircut experience, and in 1933 a well-known barber moved his high-class shop into the Carlson Building.

By the time Pole-gate shook up the city in 1969, the barbershop industry had hit its peak, with no fewer than a dozen shops reachable by a short walk from University grounds. But in 1972, the industry took a turn with the opening of Bayard’s Hairstyling Studio and Toupee Center for Men, the city’s first business to secure both a barber’s license and a beautician’s license. Suddenly there was a place where you could get a buzz or a “tint job;” the unisex salon was born.

What followed was a massive decline in the local barbershop trade: Between 1972 and 1990 the number of barbershops in the United States fell by 42 percent, and the number of licensed barbers nearly halved. In 1984, SuperCuts moved into town, driving adjacent barbershops out of business, and the rest is history.

Fast-forward 27 years, when I was two weeks into school and ready for my first Evanston haircut. I tried the obvious places, but when I found the barbershop familiarity I craved when I found Jay’s. I’m not sure how I wandered into Jay’s, but I felt comfortable as soon as I smelled the barbicide and musty instruments. It smelled like something personal.

There I got to know John, a barber of 20 years who moved to Chicago from Syria in 2000.

He became my guy, someone to catch up with and practice a little Arabic. Every time I walk into the little shop he greets me with a genial “How are ya, habibi?,” and goes to work on my usual cut. I sigh under the familiar hum of the clippers, excited to be rid of my poofy hair and thankful that there are still a few poles spinning in Evanston. fall

2014 | 13

GENIUS

CULINARY MASTERPIECES

B Y P R E E T I SHA SEN One Northwestern alumnus creates a feast for the eyes.

forget what your parents said: Playing with your food is not only acceptable, it’s a relaxing pastime. At least that’s what one Northwestern alumnus discovered. Harley Langberg (WCAS ‘10) lives in New York and started experimenting with food art last year, imitating artists like Pablo Picasso and Banksy with Oreos, eggplant, rosemary and an array of other foods.

“It’s just a fun hobby, like going to a movie,” Langberg says.

He tries to make one project each week, which can take anywhere from one to five hours, depending on what materials he’s using. While creating food art can be difficult, Langberg says it gets easier with practice.

“It’s just fun,” he says. “I want to keep doing it forever.”

Langberg also sees a greater message in his work: educating 14 | northbynorthwestern.com

others about unique fruits and vegetables, and encouraging healthy eating. His artwork also plays on names like making Julius Caesar out of Caesar salad, and a dragon out of dragonfruit.

But Langberg is still using his Northwestern education—he has no intention to quit his full time job at CMS Technology, where he’s putting all those economics classes to use.

Langberg’s work is becoming more popular with a recent feature on Refinery29’s Instagram page for New York Fashion Week and more collaborations in the works.

Although he “didn’t expect to see a penny” out of food art, Langberg says many people are willing to pay for plates at dinner parties or even album artwork. After all, eggplant Picassos are not that easy to come by.

photos from @harleysfood_art one instagram

BY PR E E T I S H A SEN

photo by jeremy gaines

SPREAD THE LOVE

B

ack in those brighteyed days of decorating hand-turkeys and constructing paper cornucopias, most of us learned Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful. But if you’re stuck at Northwestern over the long, lonely weekend, getting a little wrapped up in Netflix-fueled self-pity is easy. Instead, if you’re bumming around Evanston this holiday break, consider making yourself useful.

Turkey Goes Global For international students stuck in the United States over Thanksgiving, the sudden turkey feasting might be disorienting.

That’s why Northwestern’s International Office began the “Host an International: Thanksgiving” program in 2009, pairing international students with local families to teach them what all the gobble is about.

“It’s a great opportunity for students to connect with the community,” says International Office advisor Stephanie Cisneros. “The food is definitely a draw for them to try it out, but students also get to experience and learn about an American tradition.”

Last year, 101 undergraduate and graduate students partnered

with host families, ranging from Northwestern faculty and alumni to Evanston residents. But with more than 6,000 total international at Northwestern, Cisneros says they’re always looking to expand the program.

How you can help: Let your international friends know about this chance to experience Thanksgiving and enjoy a good old-fashioned American meal. For hosting information, contact Stephanie Cisneros, stephanie.cisneros@ northwestern.edu.

Turkey Trot Before those of you staying in Evanston dive into your improvised Thanksgiving feast (Easy Mac and Andy’s anyone?), there’s a chance to offset some of your gluttony and give back, too.

The Flying Turkey 5K is in its fourth year in Evanston, with about 2,000 people running across Northwestern’s campus on Thanksgiving morning. Race organizers are collecting canned goods for Evanston’s Harvest Food Pantry and the Evanston Running Club is gathering shoes for not-for-profit Soles4Souls.

A portion of the race’s proceeds will be donated to three local organizations: the Harvest

Stuck in Evanston over Thanksgiving? Here’s how you can give back.

BY SCOT T B R OW N

Food Pantry, Foundation 65 (benefitting School District 65), and Evanston Swims, a free water safety and instruction program.

Jonathan Cain, race director of the 5K with Jet Events, says the charitable aspects of the race were all a “natural fit,” since the company’s two owners live in Evanston with their two kids.

How you can help: Register to run online anytime at Evanstonflying5k.com, as well as at the event. Registration costs $40 the day of the race. If you’re not feeling motivated, you can volunteer on race day from 7:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Email jcain@mychicagoathelete.com for information.

Putting Turkey on the Table Many Evanston residents don’t have access to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but two Northwestern groups try to help out. Roger Boye, Medill professor emeritus-in-service and master of the Communications Residential College has taken residents to volunteer at St. Mary Church in Evanston since 2004, assembling and delivering more than 150 Thanksgiving meals for those in need. Afterwards Boye invites the group of about 15 students to his home for dinner.

“Particularly for freshmen, this is their first big holiday away from home and their families, and it can be a tough holiday,” Boye says. “I noticed that doing this, particularly when they make the deliveries, they realize there are a lot of other people who are by themselves.”

On a larger scale, Campus Kitchens, a Northwestern student group that uses dining hall leftovers to feed Evanston residents in need, delivers more than 300 meals through their annual TurkeyPalooza.

Donated food collection began in October, and meals are delivered to Campus Kitchens clients and partners like Connections for the Homeless and the YWCA. “I think giving students the opportunity to do that is great,” says Samantha Warren, Campus Kitchens coordinator at Northwestern, “and without us, [the clients] wouldn’t be able to put a Thanksgiving meal on the table.”

How you can help: If you’re a CRC resident, look out for Professor’s Boye’s Thanksgiving event.

Otherwise, you can sign up as an individual or a student group to help out with TurkeyPalooza at cknorthwestern.campuskitchens. volunteerhub.com. fall

2014 | 15

GENIUS

HELPING HANDS AND OPEN EARS

Northwestern tries responding to students’ increased needs and demands of mental health services.

B Y SA M H A R T

N

orthwestern is stressful. We hear about it every day in the line to Norbucks, the library, on our way to class. It’s nothing we’ve never heard before, nothing we haven’t thought about. Cliché as it sounds, we need to start listening more carefully.

In a 2012 survey by the American College Health Assessment, 50.6 percent of respondents reported feeling “overwhelming anxiety” in the past 12 months, and 45.3 percent reported feeling “hopeless.” Amid the prevalence of mental health problems on college campuses, a study by the National Alliance on Mental Illness reported that 40 percent of students with diagnosable mental health conditions did not seek help, and 57 percent did not request accommodations from their school.

The study cites stigma as the number one reason students are not seeking help. Here are four organizations trying to get at the root of the problem.

NU Active Minds

Started in 2011, the Northwestern chapter is one of more than 400 across the country trying to reduce stigma and increase 16 | northbynorthwestern.com

dialogue around the issue of mental health on college campuses.

The organization seeks to combat stigma by organizing events that create dialogue.

“One of the biggest things is that we were one of the founding forces behind getting the mental health [Essential NU],” says Amanda Meyer, Weinberg senior and Active Minds co-president.

Meyer says that in her personal experience at a school like Northwestern, people talk about stress as a “badge of honor” rather than sympathizing with each other when talking about what’s stressing them out.

AccessibleNU

Part of the Dean of Students Office, AccessibleNU (formerly Services for Students with Disabilities) advocates for students navigating the stresses of Northwestern life with physical, learning or psychological differences.

The office serves about 700 students, and Director and Assistant Dean of Students Alison May, who stresses she’s not a mental health expert, notes that about 25 percent of these students register for physical differences, 50 percent for learning and attention differences and 25 percent for psychological differences.

May says that many students may not realize they are eligible for accommodations. She encourages anyone coming in with a diagnosed disability to register with the office, whether they want to seek accommodations or not. Reasonable accommodations for mental illness or learning disabilities include anything from extra time on tests to earlier registration times to reduce stress.

May says that the high-achieving nature of Northwestern students makes it such that they are less likely to acknowledge or share when they feel they aren’t “cutting it,” which creates a vicious cycle of feelings of inadequacy.

“I feel that that’s why we see students that seem like out of nowhere, all of a sudden they’re in such bad shape,” May says.

NU Listens

The student-run service was founded in 2011 and offers a technique called “active listening,” a counseling approach where an engaged listener does not offer feedback or advice, but merely verbalizes to indicate the speaker is understood. The service is anonymous and aims to be complementary to the campus coun-

seling service.

The group acknowledges that while their services cannot replace professional counseling, they exist because professional services can be expensive, intimidating or stigmatized.

CAPS

Northwestern Counseling and Psychological Services is the University’s office for clinical services from professional therapists. Students are allowed up to twelve sessions during their four years at Northwestern.

Students have recently complained that the consultation process is too arduous and potentially triggering and that the twelve-session cap breeds inconsistency in students that need therapy.

And students do need therapy. Last year 2,283 students used CAPS’ counseling services out of around 17,000 total undergraduate and graduate students. The office has 18 professional counselors working directly with students, a counselor to student ratio of 1:982.

Given this ratio, therapists often find themselves referring students to local professionals to ensure consistent therapy.

“If they need something spe-

photo illustration by alexis o’connor, michael nowakowski and alex lordahl

cialized or something longer term, going off campus they can utilize insurance and be seen by someone for a longer period time and with specialized services,” says Dr. John Dunkle, executive director of CAPS. “I think that CAPS is only part of the puzzle,” Dunkle says. “Addressing mental health and suicide prevention is a community issue.”

May and Dunkle work closely together in referring students to one another’s services, and both emphasize how important the creation of a holistic support network is to a mentally healthy atmosphere on campus.

“We are in close collaboration with the Dean of Students’ office,” Dunkle says, “because again it’s part of a support network we’re trying to create here on campus.”

May says the number of students who seek AccessibleNU’s services has tripled in the past 10 years, which reflects the significant demand for accommodations on campus. But she believes the increase reflects bigger systemic changes that need to be made.

“At what point are there so many exceptions that you decide the rule isn’t working?” May asks.

“It’s time to change the rule.” fall

2014 | 17

GENIUS

JUST SAY NO Too many activities can become too much to handle.

BY J A S P E R S C HERER

photo by michael nowakowski

take four classes, a workstudy job and a couple of extracurricular activities. Throw in an intramural sports team, that event you promised your friend you’d check out and the movie that you’re dying to see. Feeling overwhelmed yet?

That’s the problem facing 8,000-plus Northwestern students, and no matter what they prioritize, there’s an overcommitment issue here. The selection of clubs, sports, organizations, publications and performance groups, not to mention time spent in the classroom, creates a certain pressure to be involved— too involved, in some cases.

Northwestern psychology professor Ben Gorvine says “choice overload” can help explain overcommitment among college students. The term is typically used in behavioral economics to explain actions of consumers, but Gorvine says it also applies to students with a slate of 18 | northbynorthwestern.com

extracurricular options.

“There is research now showing that lots of choice is not in and of itself a good thing,” Gorvine says. “It’s something that’s kind of paradoxical to what we usually think. The more choices and options you have, the greater the potential to just be overwhelmed by it all.”

When faced with choice overload, consumers—or, in this case, students—often make decisions without adequately researching the available options.

Kelci Lynn Lucier, an education consultant and author of College Stress Solutions, says while students have good intentions, committing to so many activities can have the opposite effect of what was intended.

“People want to be involved and seen as friendly and committed and reliable and outgoing,” Lucier says. “But if you overcommit yourself, you end up perceived as unreliable and flaky

and someone who doesn’t follow through.”

Why, then, does everyone continue to do it?

“There’s a certain culture in college,” Lucier says. “Sometimes with stress, it can get a little contagious. It’s rare to find students just keeping by themselves; there’s an external factor.”

That could explain why the emotional and mental health of college students as a whole has taken a hit. “The American Freshman National Norms,” an annual education study conducted by UCLA’s Cooperative Institutional Research Program, reported in Fall 2012 that students’ perception of their emotional health was lower than it had been in 27 years—that is, fewer students than ever rated their emotional health as “above average.”

That number has been in freefall since the late ‘90s, only to level out at just over 50 percent during the past few years.

But Gorvine speculates that our improved knowledge and awareness of the fields of mental and emotional health has played a role in the drop-off.

“This might be a reflection of a greater societal cultural understanding of mental health,” Gorvine says, mentioning that he sometimes debates this very issue in his psychopathology class.

“If you look at psychiatric diagnoses, they’re up from 50 years ago across a variety of areas. The question is, are there more of these now because we’re falling apart as a society, or is it just that people are better educated about these things and they’re getting identified?”

Whatever the case, Lucier believes the solution is clear.

“It’s really important to say no. That seems so simple, but it’s really complicated,” Lucier says.

“Feeling comfortable saying no is okay. Really take the time to take care of yourself. It’s important.”

Where Should You Take Your Date for Coffee?

A FLOWCHART!

BY TANNE R HOWARD START HERE!

How do you want to order a drink in front of your date?

“I’ll have a large latte, please.”

You know, the usual expensive coffee shop prices.

“I’ll have a Venti, no foam, breve Teavana® Oprah Chai Tea Latte, please.”

Is it a faux pas to use an equivalency meal to buy my date a drink?

What’s your budget?

NORBUCKS

I prefer my coffee shop experience to not be themed, thank you very much.

I have no problem doubling my student loans on two drinks.

How pretentious do you want your coffee shop to be?

Do you actually care about this date or are you using it as an excuse to try out a new flavor of pie?

Who’s to say I can’t enjoy pie and care about this date?

THE HOOSIER MAMA PIE CO. & THE DOLLOP COFFEE & TEA CO.

Sure, you care about this stranger you met at a party and have no memory of anymore. At least you’ll have your pecan pie to comfort you when things turn sour.

I want to pontificate on the way we use words as a social construct at a place that spells “caffeine” in the douchiest way possible.

Of course I care about this date! How dare you!

PEET’S COFFEE AND TEA

I’ll have a unicornthemed shop with my espresso, please.

Quiet, simple and a five-minute walk from the Arch, Peet’s is the place to go if you want to enjoy your drink and, more importantly, your date. Good luck out there.

You clearly don’t mind sounding like an insane human being when ordering your coffee, so you must be really confident about your date prospects. At least you can use any leftover meals on your date at Norbucks!

KAFEIN

Have no qualms dropping $10,475,000 for two drinks?

You’re in luck, because Kafein would love to take your money! In exchange, you’ll find the perfect spot to brag about all the Nietzsche you’ve been reading.

UNICORN CAFÉ

Just as unique as Kafein without quite as much pretentiousness, Unicorn is a solid first date choice.

Just be careful to not get caught up in the atmosphere and reveal your inner brony self. fall

2014 | 19

GENIUS

FED & GONE: THE EVANSTON EDITION We remember the lives of these dearly departed destinations.

T

BY LAURE N KRAVE C

he recent closing of Buffalo Wild Wings reminds us that our favorite restaurants don’t just serve great food, but also amazing memories, whether it’s NUDM trivia or midnight munchies. If you’re going to miss watch-party wings, here’s a throwback to what the Evanston food scene used to look like.

THE KEG OF EVANSTON (1976-2013)

MCDONALD’S (CLOSED 2003)

Although The Keg of Evanston opened as a swanky restaurant, upperclassmen remember it as a staple of Northwestern’s social scene. Named the ninth-best college bar in the country in 2011 by Complex, students bragged about getting in using their WildCards. After multiple underage drinking incidents, Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl revoked the bar’s liquor license in 2012. The Keg got its license reinstated but owner Tom Mignon still closed the bar in April 2013.

There wasn’t always a world where the only inexpensive burger in downtown Evanston was a Whopper. Actually, McDonald’s competed with Burger King from less than a block away, occupying the space where Farmhouse is now located. The fast food chain closed in 2003 due to the renovation of the Hilton Orrington, but it’s better that Burger King was the one that stayed—McDonald’s wasn’t open 24/7.

LULU’S (1993-2014)

TINY DOG CUPCAKE (2010-2012)

Offering dumplings, stir fry and curry, Lulu’s served a wide variety of Asian cuisine for more than two decades. At the end of 2013, owner Dan Kelch, who also owns the recently burned down Taco Diablo, decided to close the popular restaurant. Those who miss Lulu’s dim sum can rejoice as Kelch plans to reopen both Lulu’s and Taco Diablo at new locations next summer.

Before the cronut started trending, the nation went crazy for cupcakes. While the bakery had an assortment of classic flavors, it also offered unconventional goods like savory cupcakes for brunch, cupcake-flavored milkshakes called cupshakes and even cupcakes for man’s best friend. The shop was also known for partnering with Northwestern student groups to hold fundraisers and other events. Tiny Dog shut down in 2012 as the cupcake fad died.

A C N w o n s i S C U

@NUCareerAdvance northwestern.edu/careers

20 | northbynorthwestern.com

dvancement esterne. AdCvaancree yoerur caAree Northyow r. ur confidenc Advance

SPOTLIGHT

Ballin’ on a budget

MAX OUT YOUR CARD

Here’s how to make the most of your WildCard discounts, one purchase at a time.

BY LINDSE Y KNE P SHIE LD

Bagel Art 10 percent off

Best Western University Plaza Discounted rates (Call for prices)

Trendy Nail Boutique 20 percent off regular manicure, pedicure or mani/pedi combo

DMK Burger & Fish $1 fries with purchase of a shake or burger

Francesca’s 10 percent off American Apparel 10 percent off a purchase of $25 or more

Art Institute Free admission Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop 20 percent off

Guitar Works Up to 25 percent off list price on most items

Enterprise CarShare One year free membership Northwestern LASIK Physicians $1150 off LASIK or PRK surgery

Adler Planetarium BOGO general admission tickets

Art + Science 10 percent off cut or color

The UPS Store 20 percent off shipping supplies and free pick-up

Photos by MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI

fall

2014 | 21

SPOTLIGHT

your tuition in t-shirts How much free Northwestern swag is your yearly payment worth? northwestern may cost a steep $65,554 each year, but, hey, at least we get a lot of free stuff. We took each free item Northwestern has given us over the years and calculated exactly how many of each we would need to compensate tuition. The answer: a lot.

4,109

copies of the

47,302

One Book, One Northwestern

bottles of Goose Island from catered events

book

13,110

pairs of cheap sunglasses

29,968

655

10,925

loads of laundry

NU football tickets

lanyards

11,847

pounds of Jolly Ranchers from free candy bowls

58,313

condoms from CARE

1,092,566

printed pages for Medill students

7,283

NU t-shirts

219

iPad minis from raffles

Photos by MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI 22 | northbynorthwestern.com

Adventure Time Four courses get you out of the classrooom and into the world.

BY J E SSICA P E N G bored of scrolling Facebook during long lectures?

We’ve got your back. Here’s a guide to classes with the most interesting, fulfilling field trips.

EARTH 201: Earth Systems Revealed. Offered every Spring Quarter.

FIELD TRIP: During mandatory weekend trip to Baraboo, Wis., students look at different types of rocks, geological structures and landscapes. Be prepared for some beautiful scenery that will literally rock your world. photo by michael nowakowski

THEATRE 140: Theatre in Context. Offered every Fall Quarter.

FIELD TRIP: This class organizes three to six trips to some of the best venues in Chicago, like the Lookingglass Theatre Company and Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Something Old, Something NU Turn your unwanted Wildcat gear into fabulous gifts.

B Y SO FI A R A D A chances are you’ve compiled a mountain of purple junk somewhere in your room. Instead of just throwing it away, here’s how you can turn it into gifts for your friends and family.

WATER BOTTLES/MUGS Still have a few leftover from Wildcat Welcome? With a little paint and some creativity you can beautify any of these lessthan-cute plastic contraptions and finally put them to use. With a hot glue gun, some glitter, ribbons, stickers or any other material you’d find in an elementary school classroom, you can turn your mountain of reusable water bottles into a cute gift. Fill them with candy to give your gift-giving cred an extra boost.

LANYARDS Give them a wash, grab some scissors and string, and you can transform your lanyards into pretty ribbons to give to your friends to spice up their Homecoming look. While no one really uses lanyards after Wildcat Welcome, you probably have a friend that would look extra cute (or at least extra spirited) on game day with some purple ribbons in her hair.

TOTE BAGS Tote bags are the Swiss Army Knife of regifting. You could give it as a gift on its own after decorating it with pins, ribbons or something craftier with the help of a hot glue gun. You could also use the tote as a gift-wrap and fill

it with anything else you’d like to give your friend. Hint: You might have a pile of Northwestern t-shirts that someone else will love.

POMPOMS Even if you’re not the cheerleading type, nobody can deny the joy of ruffling purple pompoms. With a little elbow grease and elastic, you can transform them into cute tutus for your younger and cuter siblings to compensate for your lack of pep.

With all the free stuff we get throughout the year, it’s easy to start discarding everything. Next time you get some swag, think about the ways you can revamp it and make someone else happy.

SESP 303: Program Design & Implementation.

Offered Fall Quarter 2014.

FIELD TRIP: There are individual or small group field trips to the Center on Halsted in the Lakeview neighborhood in Chicago. The Center on Halsted, a non-profit organization, is dedicated to the well-being of the LGBTQ community in the Chicago area. Students will learn about the community programs the center offers to the public and how they are implemented successfully.

SOC-POL 351: Special Topics in Social Policy: Supreme Court Seminar.

Offered last Spring Quarter.

FIELD TRIP: A daylong trip to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. During the 2013 trip, students had a private tour of the Supreme Court.

They got to meet Justices, listen to an oral argument and talk to the attorney who argued the case. fall

2014 | 23

SPOTLIGHT

BANG

FOR YOUR

JOY YEE

CLUCK Evanston’s array of chicken options can be overwhelming. From 7-Eleven to Chicken Shack, we found out how far $5 will take you.

ET U Q EN N K A B HIC N C E V EN E EL OZ 7 FR

CHICK

EN SHA CK

$5 OVER

EL

JEW

WINGS

BU

RG

ER

KI NG

DIXIE

CO

OS

Photos by JEREMY GAINES & MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI 24 | northbynorthwestern.com

KITCH

EN

Explore campus

QUAD

A WORLD OF THEIR OWN Two Northwestern theatre groups create immersive experiences for children.

BY SARAH E HLE N shakespeare once said all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. For many Northwestern students, this is certainly the truth. NU’s campus has no shortage of theater groups and boards, but Seesaw Theatre and Purple Crayon Players serve a niche audience that is not typically found strolling around campus: children.

CONTINUED

>

Communication sophomore Martin Downs plays 12-yearold Simon Ives in The Boy at the Edge of Everything.

Photos by MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI

fall

2014 | 25

QUAD

Communications sophomore Martin Downs and Communications junior Tom DeFrancisco star in Purple Crayon Players’ fall show The Boy at the Edge of Everything, about a boy who travels to the end of the universe to escape the responsibilities of his life only to learn to appreciate what he has.

26 | northbynorthwestern.com

touring in the spring.

One aspect of the group that keeps it a leader in its field is called PLAYground, a festival of never-before-seen TYA work.

“We bring in plays that playwrights have been working on, and it’s an incredible opportunity to see TYA pieces come into being,” says Emily Wills, Communication senior and outreach coordinator for Purple Crayon Players.

PLAYground gives Purple Crayon Players the chance to preview new TYA shows, which often go on to become mainstage shows for both professional theater companies and Purple Crayon.

Since the group aims to connect children to deeper life lessons through theater, Purple Crayon occasionally receives pushback from parents and school officials for controversial material. Last season’s winter mainstage show, The Transition of Doodle Pequeño, featured a young boy who just moved to the United

States and was bullied for wearing a tutu on Halloween.

Wills says teachers thought the show was inappropriate for children, but argues, “[The show] was for young kids for whom gay, straight and bi aren’t real yet, but bullying is a reality for them. Adults put connotations on this theater for youth, and the kids don’t see it that way.”

With shows like Doodle Pequeño, Purple Crayon tries to incorporate performances that will tackle issues that are prevalent in the lives of their young audience members, like following one’s dreams even in the face of obstacles or spreading a message of acceptance.

“We usually stick with our gut, knowing that these are important pieces of theater that will change kids’ lives,” Wills says.

Seesaw Theatre Seesaw Theatre—formerly known as Theatre Stands with Autism—focuses its perfor-

photo by michael nowakowski

Purple Crayon Players A one-of-a-kind group, Purple Crayon Players creates shows that give children a better understanding of theater, themselves and the world at large. Established in 2005, the group connects actors with local children through shows on campus, touring productions and artistry workshops.

Purple Crayon Players’ artistic director and Communication senior Khari Shelton says the group parallels any professional theater company found in the real world.

“Purple Crayon produces professionally written theater pieces and we like to think of ourselves as people at the forefront of what’s happening in the larger world of [theater for young audiences],” says Shelton, who’s also a Seesaw Theatre member.

Purple Crayon Players is active in theater for young audiences (TYA) year-round, putting on two mainstage shows per year, creating special projects, holding workshops and

“These kids teach you so much more about what it means to be human in terms of experiencing art, and I think art is one of the more innately human things that we do.”

KHARI SHELTON, COMMUNICATION SENIOR

mances on an audience of children with autism and other developmental disabilities. Through sensory-based theatrical experiences, Seesaw Theatre aims to connect with these individuals on a deeper level, giving them unconventional performances meant to ignite curiosity in the arts and the world overall.

Each season, Seesaw Theatre creates an interactive, multi-sensory performance for its audience, diverging from what one might consider a typical theater show.

“The shows are always in Shanley [Pavillion], and we transform it into a world so individuals can come and do what they want,” says Claire Huntington, SESP senior and Seesaw Theatre’s executive director.

The performances veer away from a conventional theater setting, encouraging audience members to walk around, talk, scream, touch props and set pieces, and explore the space throughout the performance.

With this niche audience comes the need

for a unique show structure, which Seesaw Theatre achieves by providing different show experiences following a larger theme. This year’s show In the Game features different experiences based on board games, video games and computer games, Huntington says.

Though a Seewsaw Theatre performance doesn’t necessarily follow the story arc of a typical play, the performance incorporates actors to carry the plot and perform lines and dialogue while Adventure Guides work individually with audience members to lead them from experience to experience. This allows the audience to play and explore in a safe space.

“The audience members may not care much about plot, but we still rehearse, use test audiences and try to give the actors a chance to be interactive,” Huntington says.

Seesaw Theatre typically keeps their audiences fairly small to ensure a 1:1 ratio of adventure guide to child. This year’s cast will feature between 10 and 13 members, and the

group grows every year.

Unlike other campus theater groups, Seesaw Theatre is independent of the university and incorporates cast members with majors both in and outside the arts and theater tracks.

As Seesaw Theatre expands, they hope to do more outreach in Evanston and the Chicagoland area with philanthropic groups and local schools.

Not many student actors and actresses have worked with the type of sensory-based material that Seesaw Theatre performs in the past, but nearly every cast member either has some personal connection to autism made a personal connection with an audience member in their time in Seesaw Theatre.

“These kids teach you so much more about what it means to be human in terms of experiencing art, and I think art is one of the more innately human things that we do,” Shelton says. “They are so uninhibited, truthful and honest in a way that other kids aren’t.” fall

2014 | 27

QUAD

During his presentations, Washington asks students to stand if they identify with certain categories.

Sometimes it’s hundreds of students who stand; sometimes it’s just one.

28 | northbynorthwestern.com

Stand Up. Sit Down. Engage.

Jamie Washington has a mission to unite Northwestern students.

BY SHANNON L AN E P HOT O BY MICHAE L NOWAK OW S K I

stand up if you’re the first person in your family to attend college.

Stand up if you identify as mixed race.

Stand up if you’ve ever felt excluded.

Welcome to the Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington’s Essential NU seminar, “NU Inclusion,” in which you’ll confront topics like engagement, diversity and discussion.

He’ll ask you to recognize when you’re an “only” and he’ll ask you to consider how you contribute to the discussion of diversity on Northwestern’s campus.

“People don’t learn this stuff best by being talked at,” Washington says. “Folks are most likely to explore if they’re given the good questions and given opportunities to engage.”

Washington is the president and founder of both the Washington Consulting Group, a multicultural development firm based in Baltimore, and the Social Justice Training Institute (SJTI).

The SJTI was founded in 1998 to help people understand privilege and to create inclusion where exclusion previously existed.

“Diversity is not going anywhere and if they’re going to work in the world, it’s important to prepare them for that,” Washington says. “That’s the responsibility of higher education.”

College students in particular, he says, are in their “own little world,” and he admits he was too at that age. Being thrown into a melting pot on a college campus magnifies the differences between Evanston and their hometowns.

“Part of the experience of NU, it invites them to see the world of others,” Washington says.

NU’s Class of 2018—famously regarded as the most diverse class in Northwestern’s history—is comprised of 41.7 percent students from minority backgrounds, nearly seven percent more than the Class of 2017.

Northwestern has a difficult history with these issues of diversity and inclusion.

In Spring 2012, Jazzy Johnson (Comm.

‘13) was one member of a group of students who pushed for better educational campus resources and inclusive spaces. She’s worked as a program assistant in the Office of Campus Inclusion and Community since its founding

in Fall Quarter 2012 and says the office “has to exist” at Northwestern to provide for students who fall outside the realm of what’s “normal.”

“The important thing is for us to realize that every one does not walk around this campus or this world with ease, as many of us do, which is a big part of the definition of privilege,” Johnson says.

Just a few years ago, conversation through programs like Sustained Dialogue, a student-run discussion group that Johnson oversees, was an afterthought. But now, both Johnson and Washington see the future of Northwestern improving through productive conversation. “[Washington] sets the culture of talking about difference up for the students,” Johnson says. “That’s what he jumpstarts for us. It’s not weird to talk about this. It’s not awkward to talk about this.”

Dubbed the “Engagement Specialist” on his Washington Consulting Group bio, Washington believes thought-provoking questions are the best way to learn. By engaging with their own experiences, he says, college students can begin to understand how those experiences are shaped by the privileges they may or may not enjoy.

“We all matter,” he says. “If we’re to build an inclusive community, we must understand ourselves as well as others and that understanding starts with building relationships.”

Washington says this work is guided by four lines from a song sung at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral: “If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody that he or she has traveled wrong, Then my living shall not be in vain.”

To Washington, this is more than just words sung to a tune; it’s more than an empty promise made in a moment of inspiration.

They’re words to live by.

“It’s about living a life that’s about a contribution” he says. “My purpose here on the planet is to be a service. I believe that if I helped someone, then my living shall not be in vain.” fall

2014 | 29

QUAD

WORLDS COLLIDE

Engineers and artists take on technical challenges together with an eye for aesthetics.

B Y T E R E S A BALI STRERI

W

30 | northbynorthwestern.com

photo by jeremy gaines

h a t do you get when you put artists and engineers in a class and give them a quarter-long assignment? Solutions with social impact and quick turnover.

The McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Segal Design Institute offered a class titled “Artists and Engineers Collaborate” for the first time this fall, bringing together engineering and advanced art students to identify and solve a problem in their immediate environment.

The class of 17 students is divided into four teams of equal parts engineers and artists. To reach students from both backgrounds, McCormick professor Malcolm MacIver and art theory and practice professor Jeanne Dunning teach the class together.

“It’s important to have us both teaching the class,” Dunning says. “He’ll point out a good point but I don’t think of it because I’m coming at it from a different set of empathies.”

Bryan Berger, a junior manufacturing and design engineering major taking the class, says engineers typically think of pragmatic solutions to problems, while artists take a more creative approach.

“As an engineer I’m very conscious of how what I build should accomplish the goal,” Berger says. “I think artists have a lot to contribute in terms of creating social impact, and that’s something that really interests me.”

After a few weeks of discussion-based classes, Maclver and Dunning used Michael Rakowitz’s paraSITE—an inflatable personal shelter—to spur students’ imaginations as they studied examples of solutions to social problems with symbolic impact.

“The point is that like the pieces we want the students to do, [paraSITE] responds to a real problem,” MacIver says.

“It’s not just an artist conceptualizing the issue, it has to be an actual problem in the world.”

MacIver says some students may be able to physically implement their projects. However, if it is not feasible for all groups, they can turn in mock-ups or simulations at the end of the quarter.

“We don’t want to put any constraints on the imagination and creativity,” MacIver says.

Although this is a new course, MacIver and Dunning have high hopes for its future.

“We have a really interesting group of students and so far it feels like it’s a cool thing,” Dunning says. “It’s nice that other people can see that.”

DTC: DOWN TO CREATE How to make these inventions work for you.

BY BROOKE S LOAN Northwestern’s Segal Design Institute offers design courses that focus on fixing real problems submitted by clients from the community. Here are few ways to make those products work for you.

THE TUXEDO

START ME UP

Up-and-coming entrepreneurs embrace Northwestern’s emphasis on innovation.

illustrations by vasiliki valkanas hallye webb

BY H A N N A B O LA Ñ O S just two years after Matthew Wilcox, Donovan Morrison and Wesley Youman created Luna Lights, they received a $50,000 investment to help launch their company—and they’re all under the age of 24.

The two 2014 McCormick graduates and one McCormick senior first met during a sixweek Design for America (DFA) summer program in 2012. Luna Lights is an automated lighting system meant to prevent older adults from falling. Though it may seem that starting a successful company so young is a result of sheer luck, the team attributes most of its success to Northwestern and the resources it provided.

The team says DFA played the largest role in helping them develop the concept of Luna Lights. DFA, which started at Northwestern six years ago, is a network of student-led teams working together to solve social problems through humancentered design. It’s expanded to 21 universities nationally with more than 550 involved students, says Sami Nerenberg, DFA’s associate director.

After finishing the summer studio program, the Luna Lights team was introduced to

Billy Banks, a DFA adviser and Northwestern adjunct professor who pushed them to think bigger.

“He and the other mentors we’ve been put in contact with through Northwestern have been paramount to our success. We couldn’t have been where we are today without them,” Morrison says.

In addition to the guidance mentors provided, Nerenberg says the overlap between DFA’s work and Northwestern’s curriculum makes the University a great resource.

“There’s always professors that want to help,” Nerenberg says.

“It’s been a really neat process for [Luna Lights] to work on it as an extracurricular, but also find coursework and professors that can help them develop their product and business model.”

DFA offers sessions during the school year and a six-week summer program. Each student team is given a different social problem and has varying types of success. Nerenberg says some teams disband after their sessions, some fail to make solid prototypes and others don’t receive enough funding to get off the ground.

However, launching a profitable company is not DFA’s end goal.

“In DFA we don’t measure

our success by the number of startups, we measure our success based on the impact we’re able to make with our projects and our students as leaders,” Nerenberg says.

DFA is just one of the ways design projects emerge from Northwestern.

Jeff Coney, the director of economic development for Northwestern’s Innovation and New Ventures Office, estimates 95 percent of the research at Northwestern is conducted by tenured faculty, who are not likely to quit their jobs to start companies. Instead, they sometimes work with students who are willing to make something of their findings.

“They need to find somebody to take the ball and run with it,” Coney says. “Somebody young who’s got some fire in the belly who doesn’t have a family and kids yet is a better profile.”

For Luna Lights, even though the odds of success may seem small, the team stays positive.

“We all really are passionate about this and really believe in it,” Youman says. “We see the risk, putting our lives into it, but we see that it will be worth it, and we think it’s a great opportunity.”

The Tuxedo is a waterproof shoe that protects a penguin’s foot from sores while allowing the penguin to move freely. The shoe is wrapped around the penguin’s foot and ankle and in between its toes.

To Antarctic-proof your own feet, just wrap up them, pull on your boots and never fear the walk to class again.

SWINGS ON SHERIDAN To make the trek down Sheridan more enjoyable, students proposed installing swings next to the sidewalk on the Ford lawn. Once these swings go up, witness and laugh at everyone else’s awkward encounters while enjoying your favorite childhood pastime of fake flying.

LANDMINE Landmine is an app that attempts to help people maintain friendships from far away by turning messages, photos, audio or videos into “landmines” that you place at a location.

When the friend goes to that place, you’re both notified and encouraged to reconnect.

There’s nothing better than a never-ending scavenger hunt to keep the love alive. fall

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THE SECRET LIVES OF NORTHWESTERN PROFESSORS Who knew they were this cool?

B Y CA R O LI N E LE VY PH O TO B Y A LE X I S O ’ CON N O R as young children it was hard to believe that our parents had lives before we were born.

College can be a similar time of ego-centrism. We should remember: Our professors did some pretty sweet things before they got to Northwestern.

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THE NAME: Jacob Smith NICKNAME: “The Rocker” DEPARTMENT: RTVF professor since 2010 LIFE BEFORE NU:

There’s a double-platinum record on the wall of Smith’s office, an emblem of the rocker’s experiences in the music world. In the early ‘90s, Smith was in a band called Antenna, whose “Shine” music video was played on the MTV show 120 Minutes. Freda Love Smith, another RTVF professor, was a drummer in the band.

When Antenna broke up, Smith started the band Mysteries of Life in the mid-‘90s, which was signed to RCA and played on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. When the record deal started to fall apart, Smith went back to school hoping to “switch gears” and do something that still felt creative and exciting.

He continued to write songs and play as a session musician.

He played bass on the entirety of The Fray’s 2005 record, How To Save A Life—hence the double-platinum souvenir. Smith said the job sounds more glamorous than it was, noting that his gig with The Fray was paid hourly.

FROM THERE TO HERE:

Smith and Mysteries of Life began publishing and distributing a zine in the mid-90s.

“I liked writing about music and culture. It seemed almost as exciting as touring around and playing the shows,” Smith says.

Smith says he shifted from writing music to writing about music and culture. He was inspired by a musician and film professor at the University of Florida, among other people, who led him to think, “Why should I have to choose between one or the other?”

Smith hasn’t yet retired from his musician role: He occasionally plays with The Vulgar Boatmen, a rock band formed by a group of students at the University of Florida in the early 1980s.

THE NAME: Loren Ghiglione NICKNAME: “The Small-Town Journalist” DEPARTMENT: Journalism professor since 2001, dean of Medill from 2001–2006

LIFE BEFORE NU:

By the age of 28, Ghiglione was publishing his own daily newspaper. After a “controversial reign as editor” of the student paper at Haverford College and an internship with the Washington Post, Ghiglione realized he’d be happier publishing his own paper. He owned and edited the Southbridge (Mass.)

Evening News and headed its parent company, Worcester County Newspapers, from 1969 to 1995.

Ghiglione was also president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors from 1989 to 1990. There he established committees for journalism history and disabilities, and pushed for greater diversity in the field.

FROM THERE TO HERE:

Ghiglione says that in his 50s, “I was deciding what I wanted to do when I grew up,” and eventually settled on journalism education. He says it’s good for Medill to have a small–town journalist, because “if you’re trying to understand America, I think you need to go beyond the cities.”

While at Northwestern, Ghiglione has certainly reached beyond Evanston. As dean of Medill he helped start the Journalism Residency program in South Africa, and in 2011 and 2012, Ghiglione drove almost 14,000 miles across the United States with a Medill student and a graduate, following the path of Mark Twain as part of a project, “Traveling with Twain in Search of America’s Identity.”

THE NAME: Todd Rosenthal NICKNAME: “Tony-winning Todd” DEPARTMENT: Theatre professor since 2001 LIFE BEFORE NU:

Rosenthal is no stranger to the stage, creating sets for Broadway and at regional theaters around the world. He won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for August: Osage County. Rosenthal says he created the set for August in a very small window of time, without the show even fully written.

He says he enjoys designing for smaller, more intimate venues, like when he made the set for An Iliad, a one-man show at the Court Theatre in Chicago.

FROM THERE TO HERE:

Rosenthal was drawn to the community of universities and says he loves being in a classroom when someone discovers something for the first time.

“There’s nothing better than being a professor and seeing the light bulb go off when a student makes a wholly original choice,” he says.

Rosenthal says his set design experiences inform his teaching, with his failures helping him steer students away from “the pitfalls of this profession.” Rosenthal mentors students in his classes and Theatre and Interpretation Center productions. He has hired students for internships with his studio, the XL Scenic Studio in Evanston, and currently has four former NU students working in the studio with him on the Larry David play, Fish in the Dark. Outside of the classroom, Rosenthal continues to design sets for various productions.

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photo by abbey kutlas

CAGE MATCH When students compete for school film equipment, nobody wins.

B Y CA M I P H A M Communication senior Mikhail Tsirtsan preps a RED camera on the set of Communication senior Emai Cepeda’s “Senior Directing” project Abraxas Productions.

last spring Communication junior Haley Boston and Communication senior Nicole Ramberg gathered a crew and cast for a short film. After spending more than five months in pre-production, they were upset when they didn’t receive a grant, but decided to continue making the film independently.

Ultimately Boston and Ramberg had to abandon their film.

They didn’t gain access to University equipment and their budget didn’t allow them to purchase it from an outside source.

“We were more upset once we realized how nearly impossible it would have been to make the film independently,” Boston says, “so we felt it had been a waste of time once we scrapped the project.”

RTVF students and numerous film production companies on campus constantly struggle to gain access to the Equipment Cage, where all University film equipment is stored. And once students are granted Cage access, they’re forced to fight over scarce cameras and lights. Not only has this posed a problem for student 34 | northbynorthwestern.com

filmmaking groups, but it’s also interfered with classes over the years, says Sam Freedman,* a Communication junior.

Students only get access to the Cage if they’re enrolled in a production class or making a film for University-accredited student groups. Only certain student groups are given access to the Cage, like the Northwestern University Women Filmmakers Alliance (NUWFA) and Studio 22 Productions, a production company that funds filmmaking projects outside of Northwestern courses.

Up-and-coming student groups like NU Channel 1, the RTVF department’s only producer of student-created web series, and Applause for a Cause, a student philanthropic production company that makes an annual feature film and donates the proceeds to charity, are not granted access to the Cage. This rejection forces groups elsewhere to purchase their own equipment, exhausting their budgets, Freedman says. Student groups such as NUWFA, Niteskool and Studio 22

do get access to Cage equipment because they are department-recognized.

Northwestern offers a course on RED cinematography, yet there are only two RED cameras.

But why are RED cameras so important?

“The RED is an industry standard and many mainstream Hollywood movies are shot on the RED, so it’s definitely a top-tier instrument and in high demand,” Boston says. “It’s the best camera we have here at Northwestern.”

Freedman says that this often causes students to drop the class solely because they couldn’t access one of two cameras in time for project deadlines.

“If that’s not a broken system,” Freedman says, “I don’t know what is.”

Brian Perkinson, film and equipment manager for the School of Communication, declined to be an interviewed for this story.

At Magnanimous Media, a video production store in Chicago, students can rent RED Epic Packages for $950 per day or $2850 per

week. The RED Epic camera itself is $550 per day or $1650 per week.

The Northwestern Qatar campus doesn’t have RTVF students, but offers a major in Media Industries and Technology (MIT) that has RTVF curricular components. Scott Curtis, director of MIT at NU Qatar, says there are 104 students majoring in MIT— and 12 RED cameras.

Despite the problematic search for sufficient equipment, RTVF junior Grace Hahn says being able to work with a small budget can be a valuable trait for anyone working independently in the film industry.

“Obviously it’s hard work and a large commitment,” Hahn says.

“But we’re actively making films that we’re proud of and could potentially help us in our future careers, which is what a lot of RTVF students are here for anyway.” *Full Disclosure: Sam Freedman is a former NBN contributor.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

A world-renowned Africana collection is just a scan away in Main Library.

B Y MO R G A N K I N N EY that the Herskovits Library contains more than 400,000 volumes, along with scores of periodicals and rare artifacts. Particularly notable is the library’s extensive collection of unique ephemera— that is, letters, traveler’s accounts, maps and the like.

The library contains more than academia, like a collection of African artifacts commemorating President Barack Obama’s 2008 election, ranging from “Presidential Lager” beer to holographic Obama belt buckles.

“They have some crazy things,” Taylor says, “and a lot of people don’t really know it’s there.”

Northwestern owes this extensive collection to the library’s namesake. Melville J. Herskovits

was an anthropology professor who pioneered the University’s African studies program—the first of its kind—in 1948. In 1954, Herskovits established an Africana collection in Deering Library. The collection became the Herskovits Library upon moving to its permanent home in 5E when the library was completed in 1970.

Speaking at the collection’s formal opening, renowned Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o underscored Herskovits’ enduring influence on African studies.

“He combined very good scholarship with the right kind of perspective,” Thiong’o said in the speech. “A lot of Western scholarship, even when it is good, is often

based on prejudiced assumptions that did not accept that African or black people generally have had a dynamic past and have contributed much in the modern world.”

Taylor believes in the enduring symbolism of the Herskovits Library and its importance for African studies at large. Thanks to Herskovits’ landmark scholarship, the library remains a global nexus for the advancement of Africana, she says.

“Having the Herskovits means that there’s institutional support for African Studies and that’s not going away,” Taylor says. “Because we have some of the best resources in the world, there is institutional support to keep on trying.”

photos by jeremy gaines

There’s nothing remarkable about the fifth floor of Main Library’s east tower at first. But for Rachel Taylor, a History graduate student from the United Kingdom, it’s the reason she came to Northwestern.

Taylor left her life in London to study at Northwestern just for the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies—or as some students know it, 5E. Bedecked with worn burgundy carpet and the radial shelf design familiar to any Northwestern library patron, the Herskovits collection’s unassuming façade belies its status as the largest and most highly regarded collection of Africana in the world.

All told, Northwestern reports

(Clockwise from top left) Helmet from 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa worn by supporters of the Ghana Black Stars; Monopoly game set in Lagos, Nigeria; Two early volumes of Black Orpheus - pioneering Nigerian and pan-African literary magazines; South African clock made from repurposed vinyl record depicting President Obama; Poll worker apron from South Sudan’s 2011 Independence Referendum. fall

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COMMON GROUND

The newly-formed Arab Students Organization unites an underserved segment of campus.

BY K AT H E R I N E R I CH TER

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*Full disclosure: Margaret Kadifa was a designer for North by Northwestern.

(left) photo by michael nowakowski (right) photo courtesy of northwestern athletics

McCormick senior Sara Abu-Ghnaim poses with the Jordanian flag.

tables at the student activities fair are typically occupied by clubs’ cheeriest spokesmen armed with quarter sheets, laptops for listserv signups and overflowing bags of candy. This fall the Arab Students Organization (ASO) manned perhaps the most original display: a table stocked with a hookah and baklava. ASO is entering its first full year as Northwestern’s first Arab cultural group, already representing nine countries including Morocco and Jordan.

When Medill senior and ASO co-founder Margaret Kadifa* was a new student at Northwestern, no such club existed. Kadifa—who is half-Lebanese—had looked forward to joining Arab life on her college campus after hearing her older brother talk about membership in a Lebanese organization at the University of California-Berkeley.

“When I came here, I was shocked that we didn’t even have a group for everybody,” Kadifa says.

McCormick senior Sara Abu-Ghnaim attended many Jordanian weddings and dinner parties while living at home—an environment of Arab celebration and pride. She too felt the absence that Kadifa observed.

“Coming into college, I met a few Arabs through McSA [Muslim-cultural Students Association],” Abu-Ghnaim says. “I thought, ‘Hey, there should be some sort of Arab thing.’

I wanted that freshman year. I didn’t have the resources and I didn’t know where to go so that dream kind of died.”

Returning to campus from study abroad to begin junior year, Kadifa still felt a gap in the available multicultural campus groups. She assembled a list of potential members with the help of Weinberg senior Serene Darwish to contact about an introductory meeting.

“I remember having this meeting and flipping out that no one would show up, but 15 people came and I was shocked,” Kadifa says.

“I thought it would be me, the adviser and one other person—I was totally prepared for that.”

Kadifa mobilized the group, immediately asking the new members what kind of organization ASO would be.

“What was the vision and why were people there? Would we be cultural, would we be religious, would we be political? [We discussed] what was our purpose on this campus,” AbuGhnaim says.

Weinberg sophomore Malika Gehant wanted to find other Arabs on campus and discovered ASO on Facebook.

“There is a Muslim group on campus but not everyone who is Muslim is Arab, and not everyone who is Arab is Muslim,” Gehant says.

“This [group] was needed.”

Co-presidents Kadifa and Abu-Ghnaim now have nearly 40 students on their listserv.

At their first meeting of the 2014-2015 year the pair discussed next steps, including applying for grants and holding events such as a hookah night and drinking Turkish tea on the Lakefill.

“Our vision is to get Arab students together,” Abu-Ghnaim says.

AHEAD OF HIS TIME

BY DANIE LLE E LLIOT T

NCAA champion wrestler Jason Tsirtsis won’t settle for a second-year slump.

tiger woods was two years old when he started playing golf. Serena and Venus Williams learned to play tennis at age three. Weinberg sophomore Jason Tsirtsis was four when he learned to wrestle.

After sitting out his first year of competition to save a year of eligibility, Jason, now 21, went on to become the 2014 Big Ten Champion and the NCAA champion in the 149 lbs. weight division in his freshman varsity season.

Jason grew up in a wrestling family. His dad and two older brothers, Alex, 29, and Michael, 35, wrestled in high school. Alex went on to wrestle at the University of Iowa, where he qualified for NCAA championships all four years.

Despite their eight-year age difference, Alex and Jason were close, and Jason followed Alex to practice at a young age.

“I would just roll on the mat to get comfortable,” Jason says. “Ever since theveren I’ve gotten more intense. It’s been a lifelong sport, that’s for sure.”

Jason grew up watching Alex wrestle as a role model. Alex was undefeated in high school but had difficulty adjusting to losses in college.

“The sport is so mental and people don’t see that. He just put so much pressure on himself so he just always kind of underperformed,” Jason says. “ I learned from his downfalls.”

Alex never made it to NCAA finals, but Jason considers his brother one of the best wrestlers he’s faced and frequently practices with him. Today Alex runs a wrestling club in Gary, Ind., and he is heavily involved in Jason’s training. Once a week he visits Northwestern or Jason travels to see him.

“It’s not about wins and losses, but about doing the right thing in terms of strength training, conditioning and progressing,” Alex says. “If he does all the things we say he should do, he should win. If not, it’s back to the drawing board.”

Northwestern wrestling coach Drew Pariano calls Jason a student of the sport. He watches international wrestling videos to learn from the best wrestling countries in the world, like Iran and Russia, and dreams of competing in the Olympics.

“Jason has a high wrestling IQ,” Pariano

says. “He has meticulous technique. He can make adjustments in matches with opponents in ways other athletes can’t.”

After having shoulder surgery before his freshman year of college, Jason decided to redshirt the year to recover and ease his way into Big Ten competition. He had a year to get comfortable with all the nuances of college wrestling, like learning to diet and cut weight the right way.

The next year he planned on winning an NCAA title.

Jason wrote “2014 NCAA Champion” atop of every page of his practice log, and on his door and desk.

The 2014 NCAA tournament took place in Oklahoma City, where 16,217 spectators came to watch the competition. To make it to the finals, Jason had to win four prior matches, but he wasn’t intimidated.

“I was more confident than nervous,” he says. “When you’re nervous, you hesitate.”

The closest match was in the semifinals when Jason wrestled Drake Houdashelt, the No. 1 seed in the tournament from the University of Missouri.

In double overtime and with one second left, Jason made a narrow escape to win the match, cutting his eye in the process. With blood rushing down his face from his eyebrow to his chin, Jason lept into Pariano’s arms. It was a picture-perfect moment, captured on the Northwestern Athletics website, wrestling posters and newspapers across the country.

“It’s something we will never forget,” Pariano says.

But it wasn’t the final match. The next day Jason won another, but less intense, overtime match. When he won the crowd erupted in cheer, respectfully watching the new champion with his hand raised overhead by the referee. Jason blew a kiss to the stands where his dad and his brother stood hugging, rocking side to side.

Jason fulfilled the family dream.

Now the bracket posters from his titles hang on his bedroom walls above his NCAA and Big Ten trophies. On his nightstand is his new notebook, with “2015 NCAA champion” written on the heading of each page. fall

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FACING THE TRUTH Confronting racism at Northwestern means embracing discomfort.

By SARAH TURBIN

Photos by JEREMY GAINES & MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI

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Noor Ali, the assistant director for Multicultural Student Affairs at Northwestern, speaks of safe spaces.

Ali was hired last winter by Northwestern to create more collaboration among the four departments within MSA: African American Student Affairs, Asian/ Asian American Student Affairs, Hispanic/Latino Student Affairs and the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center.

One of Ali’s jobs is to help create settings where students can talk about complex issues like race, as MSA coordinates with other offices to form educational programs on topics like identity and difference. Ali is also taking on more responsibility for administrators to be on the forefront of making these spaces—spaces where people can question stereotypical ideas and engage in a constructive dialogue to better their environments—rather than expecting students to find or make them independently.

But the complexity does not end there. The key component for these kinds of settings is a balancing act. This is where the terms “safe” and “brave” come in: Participants must feel secure enough to challenge the status quo but unafraid of being challenged themselves.

“Many times when I talk about a ‘safe space,’” says Ali, “I’m also thinking about creating ‘brave spaces’ as well.”

But here, at Northwestern?

“I think I’m still struggling to find a brave space on our campus,” she says.

SUSTAINED DIALOGUE MAY be one such space. Beginning at Northwestern in the aftermath of a collection of racist events on campus in 2012, Sustained Dialogue is part of a national network spanning more than 50 college

campuses. It was founded by a government official who used its strategies in foreign policy peacemaking.

Weinberg junior Justin Marquez is a Sustained Dialogue moderator. He co-leads discussions for groups of about 10 people who take on topics like ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, ability and religion. He says the group of students stays the same throughout the quarter to build trust over time.

Trust also comes from a few ground rules. Weinberg senior Amina Dreessen, whose involvement with Sustained Dialogue started with community talks in response to the events of 2012, is both a discussion moderator and the director of community engagement for the Sustained Dialogue Leadership Team.

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In an email, Dreessen explained that each group creates its own rules, but moderators make sure that some basic ones are covered.

These include using only in “I,” not “we statements,” speaking from experience—not assumptions—and criticizing ideas, not the person who is expressing them.

In his experience as a moderator, Marquez says that ground rules like these are fundamental to Sustained Dialogue.

“It’s supposed to be a space where we can find people of various identities, and how we can navigate a conversation that might put these identities in conflict, but without putting them combatively against each other,” he says.

Marquez recognizes that some criticize Sustained Dialogue for not leading to any action, but says that the first step to creating understanding is the willingness to learn and listen to others.

Dreessen also points out that groups in Sustained Dialogue can come up with action plans. NU Threads, an organization that provides professional apparel for job interviews for students who can’t afford it, started through an action plan.

Sustained Dialogue has grown from its beginnings, and Marquez says current discussions include identities that were missing from ones last year. Weinberg sophomore Joyce Long is in her second quarter of participating in Sustained Dialogue and feels as though it’s “still trying to figure out what it’s supposed to be.”

There’s more emphasis on dialogue as the end goal rather than dialogue as a means to get somewhere. This fall during the first meeting of her Sustained Dialogue group, Long’s moderators said “literally, ‘dialogue can be the end goal.’ They framed it in that way, and it made sense,” she says.

you’ve never even thought to think about before. Asking “Why do I feel uncomfortable?” could be the first step. Identifying your triggers by asking “‘What is this reminding me of?,’” Ali says. “Why is this threatening my sense of self in this way?’”

Marquez has a rule for his discussions: “If someone says something that might offend you,” he says, or “makes you uncomfortable, we want that to be an opportunity for you to educate.”

AMRIT TREWN (WCAS ‘14) holds degrees in statistics, African American studies and critical theory, but he began his college career as a math major. Trewn calls his own journey a “transformation brought on by a series of events,” which started by taking African American studies classes in his sophomore year.

They were no longer talking about closed-off stories, because literature reflected the world. Trewn hadn’t been pushed to think critically about privilege and power before he came to college. As a college freshman, he never consciously uttered words like power, privilege, difference or inequality—they were only mentioned implicitly.

“I don’t know everyone’s experience in high school, but…for my experience, we weren’t taught to speak about race outside of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. We weren’t taught to think about class outside of, you know, Gatsby,” Trewn says.

There are classes that could be key to shaping Northwestern’s campus awareness. In February 2013 the University Diversity Council proposed a Social Inequalities and Diversity requirement for all incoming students. The council, formerly known as the Faculty Diversity Committee, was renamed and broadened in 2012. Shortly afterward, the Ski Team played beer pong in headdresses, bastardized bindis and other offensive makeshift cultural apparel, showing how much work the committee had left to do.

At the end of April 2012, Northwestern released “Diversity and Inclusion,” a faculty diversity report from 2010. Students petitioned for its release the beginning of that Spring Quarter, and, students could only look at it by appointment before it made it public. The report outlined recommendations for the university, one being “Every student in order to graduate must take and pass two diversity courses, one in their major and one as a distribution requirement.”

Nearly a year later in February 2013, the “Curricular/Co-curricular Requirement Proposal” was published by the Academics/Education working group, a subgroup of the University Diversity Council. It outlined goals for a potential Social Inequalities and Diversities requirement to be implemented by Fall 2015: “One academic course and one co-curricular component for all undergraduate students, to be completed within a student’s first two years at Northwestern.”

The 2013 proposal also outlines how Northwestern’s curriculum regarding a “diversity requirement” compares to those at other peer institutions. Northwestern does not fare well stacked up against schools like Michigan State University and Purdue University, which have multiple-course requirements, nor to schools like the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin, which have single-course requirements.

“The question is: Are [diversity requirements] doing what they’re supposed to do? And the evidence is out on that,” says Mary Finn, the associate dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “This concerted effort to think about the requirement in the context of this larger effort that begins with the Council on Diversity and Inclusion, I think, makes it more feasible that this will actually accomplish what it’s meant to accomplish.”

One challenge is scaling up the amount of courses in order to be able to make such a requirement. For now, since Weinberg is between deans, the requirement would not go into place in Fall 2015 as the pro-

TO LOOK UPON THE ARCHIVES AT NORTHWESTERN IS TO LOOK UPON AN UGLY TANGLE OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM.

SO EXACTLY WHAT happened here in 2012?

Tonantzin Carmona (WCAS ‘12), a Latina student, was taunted by drunken students (“Why are you being so rude? No habla inglés?” ) on her way home from the library in January.

In April the Northwestern Ski Team hosted what’s since been dubbed the “Racist Olympics,” a party where attendees played beer pong in culturally insensitive costumes. A few weeks later, Asian students were egged and subjected to racially charged insults (“Fuck you, Asians!”) on the tennis courts near Colfax Street. In December, Michael Collins, a black warehouse associate at Northwestern, came to his desk one morning to find a stuffed teddy bear hoisted up with a rope around its neck—lynched.

Some underclassmen may recall the events of last spring when Project Wildcat leaders apologized after some members wore what was described as “war paint” while harassing students of color one evening.

Perhaps this is the first time you’ve ever heard of these incidents.

Many students involved in the events of 2012 have already graduated, and there seems to be so much bigotry that it can be hard to keep a running tally. Not to mention that talking about these incidents can be difficult—not as difficult as being the target of racism, but certainly hard to confront.

THAT DIFFICULTY TO CONFRONT has to do with a concept called “learning edges.” Ali says that everybody has a comfort zone, a place where nobody is being challenged. People can mentally leave conversations that aren’t challenging by mutually agreeing to disagree. Things are left as they are. But Ali says people need to push beyond that space, because that’s where “we actually have change happen.”

For most, seeking out opportunities to feel discomfort isn’t appealing, but this is crucial to learning and changing. After all, it’s past the comfort zone where the learning edge lies.

From here, a new space can be explored—a space that, perhaps,

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posal initially outlined.

Finn says the requirement could look different from how it was first characterized, but in the event it is voted on and passed, it will be effective no earlier than 2016 for Weinberg. She is optimistic that there will be some kind of requirement.

But Finn’s point—about how difficult it is to determine whether or not a diversity requirement would achieve what it is meant to—is critical. Do the messages from these kinds of courses linger after a student graduates?

“There’s a real value in a lot of classes at Northwestern...a place where you can frankly and on a relatively intellectual level talk about race,” says Stephen Rees (WCAS ‘14). Rees took classes on race relations during his time as a student, and one was Professor Barnor Hesse’s African American studies class, “Unsettling Whiteness,” which focused on whiteness throughout history in western culture and politics.

“We did spend a lot of time talking about what a safe space should be,” Rees says. Since the class, what Rees has thought about most is how things have changed for him.

After graduating, Rees realized that it’s difficult to reconcile his liberal arts education with his reality.

“I live in Cincinnati, in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood,” he says, “but now there’s very stark racial and class difference in the neighborhood. I’m participating in the gentrification....[in] pushing out an entire demographic.”

ers opposed him pledging because he was Chinese, so he withdrew.

When Wu’s story circulated on campus and in publications like Time and Newsweek, the brothers defended their actions. Having “an Oriental in the house would degrade [Psi Upsilon] in the eyes of other fraternities and make it more difficult to get dates from the sororities,” they claimed.

Afterward Northwestern created a committee that would identify discriminatory practices. At the time, there was nothing legal that kept Wu from being depledged due to his race, and some fraternities even had discriminatory clauses written into their bylaws. The committee issued a deadline for removing these bylaws.

Was there justice elsewhere? Reiley, the aforementioned admissions director, was removed in 1964 after Al From, a reporter at The Daily Northwestern, called the admissions office for information on Northwestern’s quotas. On the phone, Reiley was so angry that he threatened to take away From’s scholarship.

Wu received an outpouring of support from other college students. Fraternities around the country showed their solidarity in the form of honorary bids.

But there are plenty of things that went unchanged. Reiley was not fired after threatening a student. He was simply moved to a different department as the new dean of Administrative Services, a position that had just been created by the University.

As for Psi Upsilon, Northwestern never punished them for what they did.

Examining our past like this makes it clear: Things are not the same, but they’re still not as different as we would hope they would be. The old adage holds true: Even at Northwestern, history repeats itself, in both its deplorable nature and its moments of immense dignity.

EXAMINING OUR PAST LIKE THIS MAKES IT CLEAR: THINGS ARE NOT THE SAME, BUT THEY’RE STILL NOT AS DIFFERENT AS WE WOULD HOPE THEY WOULD BE.

MARQUEZ SAYS COMING TO NORTHWESTERN made him feel like he faced different pressures as a person of color. It was something he hadn’t thought of much in high school.

“I think Sustained Dialogue gave me the outlet to explore, ‘What does this actually mean? How does this affect the way I have my experiences on campus versus my other friends in my hall?’” he says.

Trewn calls what happens at Northwestern a “generational lineage.”

He says that you could ask yourself, “‘What was the big scandal, the big event when you were a freshman or sophomore?’ And ‘How were the [upperclassmen] responding to it?’”

After Carmona was harassed on Sheridan, she posted on Facebook about her experience. Others who had experienced racism at Northwestern shared their stories as well, and a few days later students attended a forum, the “Caucus Against Racial Prejudice,” in Harris Hall.

While the Collins incident didn’t involve the student body directly, students determined that there was a lack of sufficient administrative response. They reacted by holding a walk-out protest march that Winter Quarter. Students responded to the Ski Team party in a similar action, holding a student forum on Deering Meadow called “How Many White People Do You Know?” in its wake.

Is this how it’s always been? When racism involving students finds its way into the light—and not every instance does—do students speak out? Go backwards, before 2012, to answer this.

To look upon the archives at Northwestern is to look upon an ugly tangle of institutionalized racism. A report by the Midwest Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League published in 1964 claimed that discriminatory quotas at Northwestern lasted from 1948 to 1964. And famously, somewhere in the thick of our school’s policy to cherry-pick almost entirely white Protestant student bodies, there is what happened 1956.

It was so terrible that Pete Seeger wrote a folk song about Northwestern—“The Ballad of Sherman Wu” is actually a protest against the actions of one Northwestern fraternity. One scathing letter addressed the offenders: “You have shamed your university, and you have disgraced your country before the whole world.” It was from muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair.

In the fall of 1956, Wu had pledged to Psi Upsilon, but a few broth-

WHEN ASKED ABOUT what students may see as isolated incidents of racism at Northwestern, Trewn makes it clear: We must be careful of how we separate “us” from “them.” “[We say], ‘I’m here, it’s there. It happened there, and that happened over there, and that other thing happened over yonder,’” he says.

Trewn recalls when one of his friends, a member of a Latino interest fraternity at Northwestern, challenged this notion by attending a dialogue held by Greek life student leaders on gender and sexuality in Greek spaces last year.

“I found it quite brave that he went in there as someone who wasn’t identifying as heteronormative and engaged at discussion,” he says.

“That’s one way you refuse to get isolated. By putting yourself in those rooms where those conversations need to be had and speaking up.”

Trewn himself participated in Sustained Dialogue. He found it fruitful, but says that unless it becomes more popular on campus, the real change is yet to come. The recent controversy over Kappa Kappa Gamma and Zeta Beta Tau’s cancelled “Jail N’ Bail” fundraising event, criticized for trivializing the systemic racism of the American prison system, is an indication of exactly how far we have left to go.

Ali wants students to be included. Not only that, but we must “really involve all students. We can’t just say let’s include all students, let’s tolerate all students. We need to be really critical about our language around this, too.”

But she says that groups like Sustained Dialogue are “moving into good work” to allow for more communication across difference.

“The thing that Northwestern’s doing right is that it’s continuously trying,” Ali says. “It’s continuously looking at how we can be better, and continuously being critical of [the fact that] we’re not doing it well enough yet, and if we ever get to a place where we think we’re doing it well enough, then we are doing something completely wrong.”

fall

2014 | 41

PUTTING ON A HAPPY FACE

The economic relationship between Northwestern and Evanston has never been better. Can it last?

BY SAMUEL NIIRO PHOTO BY ALEXIS O’CONNOR GRAPHS BY VASILIKI VALKANAS

42 | northbynorthwestern.com

I

n 1855, the trustees of what was then NorthWestern University sent an amendment to their charter to the Illinois legislature. The amendment was comprehensive, barring the sale and manufacture of all liquor within four miles of Northwestern. Within decades the amendment would turn “Heavenston” into a hub of the temperance movement.

Attracting far less attention and looking almost like a legislative afterthought, the fourth clause of the amendment was simple. It appended to the University’s charter a short but comprehensive modification: “That all property of whatever kind or description, belonging to or owned by said corporation, shall be forever free from taxation for any and all purposes.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONEY Relations between Northwestern and Evanston are at something resembling a historic high. The University has dropped off the Princeton Review’s list of most strained town-gown relations, no one hollered about blowjobs or brought any fucksaws to school this year and despite students’ best efforts, the noise from Dillo Day concerts caused a bigger stir than any off-campus parties. Evanston’s property tax rates are two percentage points higher than those of any other municipality in Cook County, but no one has proposed bleeding money from Northwestern to lower those rates.

That last one marks a turning point. For what feels like the first time in decades, financial relations between Northwestern and Evanston are harmonious.

Credit Northwestern’s donations to the city, or perhaps the $2 million brought in for Evanston by building permit fees for campus construction, but these days there’s a palpable sense of partnership between the city and the University. As Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl wrote in an email, “We plan to have the best town-gown relationship in the nation and we will get there, hopefully sooner rather than later.”

Though rowdy students and haughty academics have done their part to harm Universitycity relations, the heart of the tension between Northwestern

and Evanston has always been money. Take the property tax amendment, long a source of contention. It was intended as a way for the state government to support the University and to acknowledge the scholarly contributions it makes to its community without having to spend money.

It did not take long for that well-intentioned gesture to become a source of enmity. In 1875, the county collector found Northwestern delinquent in its tax obligations and assessed the University for more than $10,000 (more than $200,000 in 2014 dollars). Northwestern disputed the matter in court. When the Illinois Supreme Court came down on the side of the county, Northwestern took the fight even higher. As then-University treasurer T.C. Hoag put it, “The tax cases involve so much in the future that it is very important we leave nothing undone.” That approach paid off. In 1878, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Northwestern in the case of

relations. It helped undermine a proposed 1930s merger between the University of Chicago and Northwestern thanks to rumors that UChicago was trying to pull itself off the tax rolls. It played a role in the creation of the Lakefill, when the University found it cheaper and politically easier to reshape nature itself than to buy land in Evanston.

When Evanston failed to pull tax revenue out of Northwestern’s land, it turned instead to students.

To fight budget shortfalls in the late 20th century, the city three times floated the idea of a tuition tax. Had the 1983 proposal— the most viable—gone through, Northwestern students would now be paying an additional $702.54 on their tuition. Each time, students avoided such a tax thanks to a national outcry fueled by higher education.

“It sounds like a really ominous thing,’’ John Vaughn of the American Association of Universities said to the New York Times. “If Evanston can get away with it, it would be foolish for

WELL-ENDOWED The most commonly-used measure of university wealth is the University endowment, which is comprised of the many donations given to the University. These are usually invested, allowing their value to appreciate over time and making a steady revenue flow for the school. Some of this is reinvested and some is spent on University operations or other expenses. In fiscal year 2013, Northwestern’s endowment was valued at $7.883 billion, the 7th largest endowment among private universities.

University v. People. Students celebrated by building bonfires in a “blaze of glory,” reminding us that tone-deaf student behavior transcends the centuries.

In the 160 years since that case, Hoag has been proven right: The property tax exemption is still critical to town-gown

other communities not to try it.’’

That the city would so frequently return to an idea that, each time, earned it bad press across the nation is indicative of the acrimony that existed between the city and the University. Northwestern, Evanston residents felt, was not

paying its fair share. Relations between the city and the University reached their lowest point at the start of the new millennium. In 2000, more than 80 percent of voters supported a toothless referendum that asked the city to negotiate with the University to get Northwestern to pay its “fair share.” Citizens formed a Fair Share Action Committee that lobbied the University to make a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, seeking $15 million annually for the city.

The Independent Senior Citizens of Evanston even floated a plan to cast the University off entirely, deannexing it from Evanston proper. Alderman Ann Rainey stressed to the Chicago Tribune at the time that a deannexation plan would never go through, because even in the worst periods of their relationship, the city and the University are still inseparable. “We couldn’t divorce Northwestern. It’s an intricate part of this community,” Rainey said.

Even if deannexation was unfeasible, Rainey could still dream. As she told the Chicago Sun-Times, “What I’d like to do is carve Sheridan Road and have [Northwestern] float away into Lake Michigan and maybe attach itself to Waukegan.”

UNBALANCED RELATIONSHIP In the 15 years since the heady days when Evanston residents dreamed of cutting Northwestern adrift, the financial situation has gotten worse for Evanston.

In the first half of the 2000s, the city was still running a surplus on its general fund. Since 2005, the city has been unable to bring the expenditures of its general fund below revenue. Government spending and public employment still have not yet returned to pre-2008 levels.

While the city has suffered economic distress, the University has come out relatively well.

Though the recession took a toll on Northwestern’s investments, the endowment is back above 2008 levels. And where Evanston has tightened its belt, Northwestern has expanded its enrollment and poured millions of dollars into building new facilities. With the start of the University’s $3.75 billion We Will fundraising campaign, that gap will likely widen still further. fall

2014 | 43

PILOT CONTRIBUTIONS OF OTHER SCHOOLS D

Payments in lieu of taxes to respective municipalities

IV ER SI T

Y

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Source: lincolninst.edu

and its endowment is only a tenth the size of Northwestern’s.

For many students and officials who think tuition is high enough and that Northwestern does enough for its community already, this may seem like the correct decision. After all, Evanston as we know it would not exist without Northwestern.

Former Senior Vice President for Business and Finance C. William Fischer may have summed up that line of thinking best in a 1992 letter to the Chicago Tribune. “Who is the overall beneficiary in this relationship?”

Fischer wrote. “As our students say: ‘Let’s get real.’”

CONVERSATION AND BEYOND So how have Evanston and Northwestern put to rest their contentious relationship over money? If you ask officials, the answer is simple: talking it out.

“My sense is a lot of it has to do with communication,” says Evanston City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz.

“When [Northwestern] President [Morton] Schapiro came in 2009, he understood that there were issues and he went out of his way to be very forthright and communicative with the city.”

1851: Northwestern is founded.

1855: Classes begin at Northwestern. Amended charter makes campus dry and exempts NU from property taxes.

From the University’s end, Cubbage agrees. “President Schapiro has made a real effort to improve relationships with the community,” he says.

That’s true on both sides of the relationship. Schapiro and Tisdahl now meet at least once a quarter to discuss town-gown issues, and relations are strong all the way down the line.

“Our facilities management people work really well with the city zoning folks, our University police are an incredible resource for Evanston police,” Cubbage says. “I think there’s that kind of professional respect for one another at the staff level.”

1908: Northwestern again successfully defends its amended charter, now before the Illinois Supreme Court.

1857: Evanston formally splits off from Ridgeville Township.

44 | northbynorthwestern.com

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This isn’t to suggest that Northwestern doesn’t play a major financial role in the community.

The University pays about $7.3 million a year to Evanston in non-property taxes and fees. A 2012 report estimated that the University also pays about $590,000 in non-tax payments yearly to the city, thanks to irregular payments like the purchase of a $550,000 firetruck in 2009. That figure is echoed by Northwestern’s Vice President of University Relations Al Cubbage, who estimates the University’s non-tax and fee contribution to the city at about $500,000 a year.

“Our position always has been that the University is certainly willing to provide financial support on a project-by-project basis,” Cubbage says. “What Northwestern has not been willing to do is PILOTs.” In this, Northwestern is relatively unique among wealthy universities. The only private university with a larger financial endowment than Northwestern that does not make a PILOT contribution is Columbia University. Unlike Evanston, though, New York City’s budget is measured in the billions, not millions—more importantly, its budget is balanced. The University of Notre Dame pays less than Northwestern, but it’s located in unincorporated land.

Even Northeastern University in Boston—our mirror universe double—makes a larger direct contribution to its municipality,

1878: Northwestern successfully defends its amended charter before the U.S. Supreme Court.

TAXES AND FEES PAID BY NORTHWESTERN TO THE CITY

$ 918,645.58 Athletic Event Tax

$ 578,427.54 Electricity Tax

$ 360,406.69 Gas Tax

$ 1,764.00 Liquor Tax

$ 677,108.88 Parking Tax

$ 14,165.00 City Stickers

$ 311,510.00 Easements

$ 11,950.00 Elevator Inspections

$ 8,680.00 False Fire Alarms

$ 156,627.00 Lodging Estab. License Fees

$ 402,658.48 Miscellaneous Charges

$ 1,927,050.79 Permits

$ 41,164.83 Salt Payments

$ 1,877,089.84 Water Payments

$ 7,287,250.00 TOTAL Source: Northwestern University Accounts Payable

That respect seems to have paid dividends, at least metaphorically. Barring studentcentric controversies like the death of The Keg and Evanston’s abandoned plan to more strictly enforce the “three-unrelated” ordinance (the brothel law, as students know it), public relations between the University and city have been relatively warm these past few years. Northwestern hasn’t taken the city to court, and Evanston hasn’t tried to extract revenue in new and exciting ways from the University and the student body. Though there are occasional minor brouhahas— the construction of the new visitor’s center and arts buildings along the lakefront caused some consternation for residents near south campus—it feels as though

relations between Evanston and Northwestern are humming along in a way they haven’t in the past.

“I think the war is officially over,” as Mayor Tisdahl put it to The Daily Northwestern last year.

Part of that has to do with funding.

Under Schapiro, Northwestern has favored an approach that moves from project to project, making large and concrete donations. Along with the fire engine mentioned above, the University purchased an ambulance for the city.

Northwestern has also partnered with Evanston to cultivate area startups, and invested heavily in relations with the local public education system.

“What Northwestern has done, to a great extent, is support financially the school districts,”

Cubbage says. Through its “Project EXCITE” program, Northwestern offers math and science enrichment for minority elementary school students all the way through high school.

The “Good Neighbor, Great University” program offers significant financial aid to students coming from Evanston and Chicago high schools.

Northwestern even has a full-time employee who works as a liaison between Evanston Township High School and Northwestern.

The campus is also involved in the community in countless other ways.

Northwestern students frequently choose Evanston-area charities as targets of philanthropy. Most notably, Northwestern University Dance Marathon has for 17 years donated a portion of its proceeds to the Evanston Community Foundation, a partnership that topped $1 million in total in 2014.

Northwestern also employs more than 1,700 Evanston residents on the undergraduate campus. The slew of students, faculty, visiting scholars, families and assorted other travelers that NU brings to the area spend huge sums in the area, too. In a 2006 study commissioned by the University,

an urban economics consulting firm estimated the monetary benefit to the Evanston economy from Northwestern’s presence to be somewhere between $145 million and $175 million annually.

Still, student philanthropies and economic activity aren’t the same as taxes, and the financial disparity between the University and city remains vast.

Northwestern’s contributions to its community are valuable, but they pale in comparison to its own vast income. Take that $550,000 firetruck from 2009, for example.

That same year, Northwestern brought in more than 50 times that cost in unrestricted private donations alone.

As We Will and campaigns like it add to Northwestern’s endowment, the disparity between the University and its community will only grow. Communication eased that tension, but a quarterly conversation isn’t quite the same as a PILOT. Almost 160 years ago, Northwestern was declared forever free from property taxes.

The controversy surrounding that clause and the tone it set for financial relations with Evanston, even if it goes quiet occasionally, seems likely to last just as long.

1999: Fair Share Action Committee lobbies NU to make a PILOT contribution of $15 million. The Independent Senior Citizens of Evanston call for deannexation.

2000: 80 percent of Evanston voters vote yes on a non-binding resolution to make Northwestern pay its fair share. Evanston establishes a historic district including 56 university buildings; NU takes Evanston to court. Evanston floats the idea of a head tax on major employers; NU calls it “an attack essentially directed at [the University].”

1962: Construction of the Lakefill begins.

1934: Plans to merge UChicago and NU are scrapped.

1983: Evanston City Council proposes a 1.5 percent student tuition tax.

1972: Evanston City Council proposes a $30 tuition tax per student.

2004: The city and Northwestern settle out of court in the historic district case; NU pays the city’s legal fees; Evanston removes 15 buildings from the district.

1990: Evanston City Council adopts a 0.5 percent student tuition tax. Then-Mayor Joan Barr vetoes it.

2009: President Schapiro and Mayor Tisdahl take their respective offices.

fall

2014 | 45

(NO OTHER SPECI the stress of college life has dire consequences for those with disordered eating.

Story by SHELBIE BOSTEDT Photos by MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI

E

DNOS is not just restricting calories. EDNOS is not just purging after a large meal. EDNOS stands for “eating disorder not otherwise specified” and is more than the number of meals in a day or the number you see when you step on the scale.

For some, EDNOS is spending hours in the gym and refusing to eat bread. For others, EDNOS is purging in a dorm bathroom

46 | northbynorthwestern.com

despite eating nothing that day. For me, EDNOS was the monster hiding under my dormroom bed throughout my freshman year, keeping me paralyzed in fear at the thought of losing control of the body I had worked so hard for.

I shuffled into the 1835 Hinman dining hall and scanned the nutritional information of each item—540…710…460—looking for something that would fit the calories I had left for dinner.

Perfect: 370. I grabbed the tiny plate of what the dining hall called Mediterranean Quinoa Salad and shuffled away unnoticed.

OT RWISE IFIED) “Is that all you’re going to eat?” one of Hinman’s Sodexo employees called after me. “Here, let me get you some potatoes or chicken to go with that.”

I tell him that I’m going to come back once I finish this, but I know that’s a lie. I go to the salad bar and load a bowl full of vegetables—no dressing, of course—and quickly make my way to the dining hall.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from eating disorders at some point in their lives, and four out of 10 people report suffering from disordered

eating or knowing someone who does.

High-stress situations like starting college increase the likelihood of disordered eating. Focusing on something that seems as trivial as the number of calories consumed in a day may help to alleviate the stress students feel about larger issues like homework or exams.

According to a 2007 report from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, college students are more susceptible to mental health problems due to the stressors of campus life, including desired perfection or perceived incompetence. fall

2014 | 47

I was nine years old when I had my first experience with disordered eating. My mom would make me a turkey sandwich for lunch and I would pick it apart, laying aside the bread and cheese, eating only the two thin slices of meat. I would silently applaud myself if I made it through the 30 minutes of lunch without touching anything else in my lunchbox and would dump the entire thing out before heading out to the playground, thinking nobody would notice.

Between the ages of nine and 17, my weight bounced up and down until I found myself unable to appreciate my body underneath the layers of fat I wished to escape from.

The summer before senior year of high school, I lost almost 50 pounds. I ate less than 500 calories a day, popping appetite suppressants like Tic-Tacs to keep myself in line and under budget. As I was getting ready for Northwestern, I would spend two hours at the gym each day, scrolling through the Class of 2016 Facebook group on my iPhone to waste time on the elliptical.

By the time I’m standing in the dining hall, I mastered the art of eating under a caloric budget.

Fall Quarter is about to end and, as I’ve bragged to friends back home, instead of gaining the Freshman 15, I lost 10 pounds.

When I arrived on campus, I was pleased with how my body looked and what it could do after spending hours working out over the summer. I ate what I wanted during Wildcat Welcome: waffles topped with ice cream, French fries and bottomless cereal bowls, hanging out with new friends and acquaintances. I forgot what it was like to eat without restriction, and it was nice.

I would get back to my dormroom at night and do a quick mental count of everything I had consumed that day. I was surrounded by girls whom I perceived as prettier, smarter and, most importantly, thinner.

I strived to make a good first impression while constantly distracted by the caloric number crunching in my head—and it was torturous. Once classes started, I told myself, I would get back on track and get back to the gym.

For Weinberg sophomore Isabel Sturla, disordered eating was a thing of the past when she arrived on campus in 2013.

Sturla struggled with disordered 48 | northbynorthwestern.com

eating throughout her freshman and sophomore years of high school, beginning as dieting and escalating into obsessive exercise and refusal to eat certain foods.

Though she has been recovered for nearly four years, Sturla’s experience with disordered eating helped her recognize possible triggers in the people she met on campus, after witnessing many of her peers

I knew that was irrational, but that’s part of the disease.”

But instead of relapsing into disordered behavior, Sturla chose to remove herself from toxic environments and separate herself from body negativity.

“I don’t blame those girls,” Sturla says. “But I had been through such a low point and I knew it wasn’t worth it to do anything to myself again.”

according to the national eating disorders association, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from eating disorders at some point in their lives. criticize themselves and their eating habits.

“I would be eating double what they were eating. They would be eating a salad and saying, ‘I’m eating so much today. I really need to go to the gym and work out,’” Sturla says. “I thought, ‘Well, if I easily weigh so much more than them and they’re concerned, shouldn’t I be concerned?’ And

Two weeks into school, I found that I no longer fit into my size two jeans, which I’d literally worked my ass off to wear. An overwhelming need to shed my skin came over me as I struggled to wriggle the jeans off of my toowide waist, over my too-fat ass and down my too-large legs.

At this point, I had two choices: love my body enough

to respect it and work toward a goal in a healthy way, or fall back to what I knew to be effective, if torturous. If I didn’t have time to work off the calories I ate, I told myself, I just wouldn’t eat.

During Fall Quarter of my freshman year, the only constant in my life was that ache in my belly begging to be satisfied with more than the measly amount of calories I allotted myself each day—and even that I could stifle by chugging enough water or turning in early.

“When people are feeling very overwhelmed by all of the change and trying to cope, the thing that is soothing to them and gives them that sense of control is to really focus on what they eat,” says Sherrie Delinsky, a clinical psychologist in Wellesley, Mass.

When she worked at a university eating disorders clinic program, Delinksy saw a common denominator in her patients: the added stress of the Freshman 15. In her study of freshman year weight gain and disordered eating, Delinsky found that in the anticipation of the dreaded Freshman 15, students would resort to drastic eating behaviors as preventative measures.

“While the phenomenon is totally overblown, the Freshman 15 can be avoided by being mindful and balanced in their eating,” Delinsky explains. “But a lot of the time, people are very extreme and their obsessions become more of a problem than the actual weight gain could potentially be.”

These obsessions dominated my life. I would walk to class every day with phone in hand, adding what I ate to MyFitnessPal, a calorie-tracking app that became my best friend and my antagonist.

At the end of each day, I would submit my food diary to MFP and get the warning I was eating too few calories to sustain myself.

Meant as a caution against undereating, these warnings motivated me.

As the weeks flew by during Fall Quarter, my weight became my obsession and my motivator. If I read through these three chapters, I’ll forget how hungry I am. If I eat this box of raisins to keep myself awake in “Introduction to Islam,” I won’t need to eat lunch. While my grades in class were determined by how much a TA liked my paper or how well I had understood the reading, my weight was a direct

reflection of my hard work.

I was so engulfed in my own battle to keep pushing my body’s boundaries that I neglected to notice my hallmate and close friend’s similar struggle. Having suffered and recovered from disordered eating in the past, she began to wither away before the entire hall’s eyes, lauded in compliments for her weight loss, which served only to add fuel to the fire feeding her relapse. I watched as she ate nothing but a few raspberries, refused to go to the dining hall with us and retched in the shared stalls minutes later.

According to Eating Disorders Review, a professional journal about eating disorder treatment, life transitions have the propensity to provoke eating disorders in patients of all ages and any diagnoses.

“We hear a lot about anorexia and bulimia with images attached of emaciated young women,” says Claire Mysko of the National Eating Disorders Association.

“But people who struggle from disordered eating come in all shapes and sizes, all genders, ages and ethnicities. Eating disorders don’t discriminate.”

I saw the dangers of my friend’s eating habits, but thought nothing of mine. “Well, I’m not purging,” I told myself when I started to doubt whether I had, in my vast misunderstanding of the topic, a legitimate eating disorder. I’m still eating, I assured myself. Just not as much as before. This isn’t an eating disorder; it’s just a diet. I could stop whenever I wanted to.

“One of the biggest misconceptions of eating disorders is that they are always accompanied by very extreme behaviors of what people think eating disorders are supposed to look like,” Mysko says. “People think what they’re doing isn’t serious enough to seek help.”

This was the category I found myself in: serious enough to notice my eating disorder, but not enough to raise the alarm. I saw my friend sucked deeper and deeper into her eating disorder. I saw her go on leave for medical and psychiatric attention. At that point, I couldn’t deny that what I was doing was just as damaging— if not to my body, to my mind.

While SESP junior Eric Morales has not struggled with disordered eating, body image issues have plagued him for years.

They started in the sixth grade when he initially noticed his

weight gain following a trip to France. But when he came home, Morales became increasingly aware of the differences between his body and the bodies of those around him.

“I was never overweight. I was never obese,” Morales says. “I was just surrounded by people hitting puberty earlier and faster than me. It was definitely throughout

these issues at the beginning of his freshman year, they resurfaced after he was bullied by a hallmate.

“It was the first defining moment of ‘Crap, someone can see this besides me,’” Morales remembers. “I guess it just sort of started to catch up. I was so stressed out with classes, work, midterms, research, and when you come home and take your

my weight became my obsession and my motivator. If I read through these three chapters, I’ll forget how hungry I am. that time that I developed a very negative image of myself.”

The pressure of not looking like those around him negatively impacted Morales’ self-esteem, manifesting not only in how he viewed himself, but also in how he interacted with others.

Morales hoped for a fresh start when he got to Northwestern, and while he was able to ignore

shirt off at night to go to sleep, you just say, ‘Well, ain’t that the cherry on top of the cake.’”

It’s hard to shake these feelings. My crippling body image and obsessive dieting continued into my sophomore year. I was eating too little, stressing a lot and working out too much for my body to handle with the miniscule amount of fuel I would give it.

This downward spiral continued until Winter Quarter.

I was living on my own and too distracted by classes and work and activities, all staples in any Northwestern student’s day-today life, to neurotically track my intake. Eating like a “normal person” gave me energy and strength that I lacked when I refused to let my calories top 800.

I liked the energy, but hated my body and the jeans that couldn’t be pulled over my ass. So instead of throwing myself on the ground and crying about how fat I had become, I tossed the jeans.

Sophomore year Shelbie had shit to get done and couldn’t afford to waste time crying in bed over going up a pant size. That was not going to ruin my year.

As I shoved my too-tight jeans under my bed, I stood at the same crossroads I had encountered a year earlier—but I was not the same person.

I was worth more than 400 calories a day, more than a diet, more than a disorder. With 1,001 other responsibilities on my metaphorical plate, stressing about the calories that crossed my actual plate was not going to become one of them.

I decided to put all of my newfound and pent up energy to use. I slapped on some sneakers and hit the asphalt.

As the burning summer sun cut through the cool spring air, I traded in hunger pangs for sore calves and burning lungs; I slashed through mile goals rather than caloric ones. I held myself accountable to my body’s needs by registering for a half-marathon with the support of my friends and family, knowing that running was simply impossible without the right fuel.

I count each time my foot slaps the pavement, staying aware of the forward motion of my body, not from the fire in my lungs and the echo of my heartbeat in my head, but the number of steps I’m taking.

My legs may shake and my breath may catch, but I push through the pain because in these moments, I am amazed at what my body can do. It’s in those steps that I realize loving my body for what it is will get me further than hating it for what it is not, and while recovery may not lie in a mile goal or a number on the scale, it is on the horizon and I’m headed toward it. fall

2014 | 49

++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++

FAFSA CSS EFC EPC FCI 1040 ICI IFAV

(and you.)

50 | northbynorthwestern.com

Even though Northwestern promises to meet full financial need, the math doesn’t always add up.

THE UNBALANCED EQUATION

By CLAYTON GENTRY

A

fter a four-monthlong appeals process, Emma Krupp decided she had no choice.

She’d have to give up her place at Nor thwester n’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, at least for the time being. The University had offered her a financial aid package, but it wasn’t enough to meet her full demonstrated financial need as she and her family saw it.

A Class of 2014 graduate from Cary-Grove High School in Cary, Ill., Emma acted in every school production after her freshman year. And as an upperclassman, she began directing some of them as well. Midway through her junior year, she became the editor-in-chief of the school paper.

For about 20 years, Cary-Grove’s school colors were purple and white. Since it opened in 1961, the high school has used the tune of Northwestern’s fight song as its own. And for Emma, Northwestern admittance had been a goal since she was eight years old—her college of choice without competition. Alongside 2,827 others, she applied early decision in the fall of 2013, a binding agreement stipulating that Emma enroll if accepted unless financial incapacity prevented her from doing so. During a break in rehearsal, as she stood in a circle of chatting troubadours, she checked her email and spotted

a new subject line: “Northwestern Application – Status Update.”

“I called my mom—she was the first person I called when I was at school—and she was absolutely thrilled for me,” Emma says. “And then I called my dad, who was also happy, but said, ‘You know you’re going to have to be realistic about this. I don’t know if this is going to be something we’re going to be able to afford,’ was one of the first things he said to me. So it was in my mind immediately.”

A week later, as she sat on her bed reading an email with a callback list for another school musical, Emma received her Northwestern financial aid statement.

“I looked at it and did the subtraction of how much the total cost of attendance would be every year, and just closed my laptop and was like, ‘Oh, my God, how are we going to be able to do this?’

“I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve got to quit musical. I’ve got to quit everything I’m doing at school and get a job immediately and start working to pay for this,’ which is ridiculous because no minimum wage job is going to finance Northwestern,” she says. “But I was like, ‘I can’t let this go. I can’t just give up on this.’”

Emma says she appealed the decision because the school’s determination of her need did not account for the financial costs of her parents’ divorce, a process that included both parents hiring lawyers, selling their home at a loss and purchasing new properties. Her father, Fred Krupp, 55, says he had to begin paying child support and that his primary source of income would be cut off in 10 years. Krupp flies for a commercial airline, which mandates retirement at age 65, per Federal Aviation Administration rules. fall

2014 | 51

I

52 | northbynorthwestern.com

Name: Emma Krupp High school graduation year: 2014 Reasons for not attending NU: Her financial aid did not account for the cost of her parents’ divorce as well as her father’s profession, which he is mandated to retire from in 10 years.

Name: Will Nicholson High school graduation year: 2014 Reasons for not attending NU: His financial aid form asked for income and asset information from his father, a non-custodial parent unwilling to help with tuition.

Name: Margaret Schlofner High school graduation year: 2013 Reasons for not attending NU: Her financial aid did not account for her parents paying the cost of education for her two older sisters. She also had to worry about the cost of car repairs.

percent of the net value of the student’s home the EFC—that is, sales value minus mortgage value. The Profile, therefore, would add about $33,600 to the EFC of a student with a home net valued at $600,000. This means the FAFSA might say a student with that house owes $17,000 a year, while the Profile would say he owes $50,000.

Additionally, colleges can append special questions to the form—some schools, for example, may incorporate a family’s car models.

“Demonstrated need” at School A, therefore, may be a different number at School B, even if both schools cost the same.

Divorce lawyers, a parent who is unwilling to pay or multiple siblings are just three of the countless factors that might inhibit a family’s ability to pay for college. Because each student’s financial situation is unique, crafting a formula that completely levels the financial playing field is impossible. It might seem, then, like a more complex formula, one that asks more questions and accounts for even more factors, is the correct solution. But financial aid expert Paul Wrubel disagrees.

Though high schools have employed him as a teacher and an administrator, Wrubel is widely known for his expertise in the college finance realm, co-founding the non-profit MindWorksUSA, which aims to make college accessible to more high school students.

The fault, Wrubel says, lies not with the employees of aid offices at schools like Northwestern, but rather with the system itself, and it starts at the highest level.

“In 1965, the federal government provided enough support system dollars to make it a viable system,” Wrubel says. “But as the cost of college has risen at least 300 percent since then, the federal government, which invented this whole system—per person, their contribution is a tiny fraction of what it used to be

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

from top: photo courtesy of emma krupp, photo by clayton gentry, photo courtesy of margaret schlofner

n the end, the cost was simply too much. Following a lengthy appeals process, which extended beyond the decision deadlines of all the other schools to which she applied, Emma and her parents finally decided that her only option would be to take a gap year in Cary. Northwestern would have to wait.

Emma’s story isn’t unique. Other students, like DePaul University sophomore Margaret Schlofner and Columbia College freshman Will Nicholson, were also admitted to Northwestern but received financial aid packages that they say weren’t enough to allow them to pay for four years in Evanston. Margaret, an aspiring opera singer who applied to the Bienen School of Music, says she has two sisters who just graduated from college and a car that needs significant repairs, expenses that knocked Northwestern out of her financial reach. Will, who applied to the School of Communication to study theatre, says his father, a non-custodial parent, wasn’t willing to help pay for his education. Will’s father didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

“I said, ‘Mom, come look at this—it’s my financial aid from Northwestern,’” Will says.

“And she looked at it and was like, ‘So, they want us to pay $60,000 a year? Alright, so— let’s have a talk about how we can’t afford that.’”

Will thinks his aid package would have been much larger had he not been required to provide income and asset information about his non-custodial father on the College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile.

What, then, does “full need” really mean?

And who’s to blame when students like Emma, Margaret and Will still can’t afford the cost even after their full need, as Northwestern determined it, has been met? The applicants?

The University? Or is this a systemic problem wrapped up in the highest levels of financial aid distribution—the United States Department of Education?

Northwestern was one of 62 American colleges and universities that covered applicants’ full need in 2013, according to data compiled

by U.S. News & World Report. According to Northwestern, 64 percent of undergraduates receive some form of financial aid, and the University doled out about $126 million in scholarships for undergraduates in 2014.

On paper the phrase “full need” refers to the total cost of attending a university minus the expected family contribution (EFC) as calculated using the Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and, for some schools (including Northwestern), the CSS Profile. Theoretically, that number should be the same across different schools—what you’re able to contribute toward a Northwestern education should be the same as what you’re able to contribute to, say, an in-state public school.

But the math is rarely so objective.

The EFC refers to the amount that a family is expected to contribute toward its student’s college every year. Northwestern is one of a group of primarily higher-end private schools that uses the CSS Profile to determine this

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + number. Whereas FAFSA + + the + + + +allows + +students + + + to apply for aid from the federal government, + + + + + + + + the CSS Profile allows students to apply + for + aid + from the coffers + +of+the+university + + +itself. + +Goo+ + gle “FAFSA formula,” and the first result is a + + + + + + + + + + + 36-page PDF on the Information for Financial + +website, + + +where + +you+ can + see + + Aid Professions the two-page, 51-line process that determines + + + + + + + + + + + the EFC for dependent students. + + calculates + + + how + + + the + + First, the+ formula much applicants’ parents are expected to pay based + + + + + + + + + + + on their income from the previous year, their + + the + value + +of+their + assets + + and + + available income, any tax allowances. + + + Then + +it+calculates + + +how + + much the student is expected to contribute + percentage + + + +of + + factors + + + using a higher the+ same and adds the+two +numbers—expected + + + + + + student + + + contribution and expected parent contribu+ + + + + + + + + + + tion—to determine the EFC. + +becomes + + + + + + univer+ + + But the math hazier when sity dollars enter the formula.

Many colleges + + + + + + + + + + + use the standard CSS Profile algorithm, which + +to + + + includes + + +a few + + although similar the+ FAFSA, key distinctions. + +Whereas + + +the+FAFSA + + adds + +20 + percent of a student’s assets to that student’s + + adds + +25+percent. + + + + + + EFC, the Profile However, the main difference + + +lies+ in+the+Profile’s + + +inclu+ + sion of home equity in its calculus, a factor the + out. + + + +adds + +about + + FAFSA leaves The+Profile 5.6 +

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + in+real + dollar + + terms. + It is simply not sufficient and that deficit continues to grow annually, leaving + colleges + + +and+ families + who are almost always unaid to fend for themselves.” + derfunded + + + by + financial + other words, colleges aren’t receiving the + same + In+federal + +subsidization + they used to, and while + costs + +have + risen + + because of inflation and increas+ ing + demand + + +for+a college education, colleges have been left to cover a much higher proportion of + these + +costs + + than+they used to. Higher education institutions have + + + + + +responded to this increasing financial burden in different ways, often dependent on + the + amount + + +of resources + at their disposal. + + But + what + + about + elite schools like Northwestthe midst of the largest + ern? + +The+University +campaign + isininschool fundraising history. Called We push for $3.75 billion plans + Will, + +the+campaign’s + + + to +allocate + + $1.163 + + billion to “Student Experience,” which includes increasing financial aid for all stu+ dents. + +Northwestern’s + + + We Will website says one of the campaign’s + + + + + +goals is to “make a Northwestern education more accessible to the very best stu+ dents, + + regardless + + + of their financial resources.” no + circumventing the cost of paying + + There’s + + + world-class faculty, constructing state-of-the-art + facilities, + + +maintaining + + campuses on different conin revolutionary innovation. + tinents + + and + +investing + costs money. + Competing + even + +so,+with + elitesaysuniversities But Wrubel we could do better with some systemic changes all revolving around a larger federal investment in higher education.

Wrubel wants to eliminate the FAFSA, which he says is inaccessible to people who lack the financial understanding to fill it out because of its complexity. He also wants to do away with the CSS Profile, which Wrubel calls “a swamp of uncertainty.”

“The CSS Profile is a way for colleges to avoid giving out financial aid,” Wrubel says, adding, “Colleges are largely victims of the system too.

Their financial aid offices are filled with real heroes who have to try to help needy families every day but who simply have inadequate resources to do their job.”

Wrubel’s plan would require students’ families to submit their previous year’s Adjusted Gross Income from a 1040 tax return. The U.S. Department of Education would publish a Family Contribution Index, or FCI, which would set a percent of the total cost of college that the family would be expected to contribute. The FCI would establish a baseline income level, and college would be free for all families whose income doesn’t meet that level. For all other families, their expected contribution would increase by a portion of a percent for every $1,000 above the baseline.

In Wrubel’s plan, income is the sole determinant of a family’s ability to pay for college. He says assets, especially savings, should not be incorporated into the EFC calculus because that discourages preparing for other parts of life, such as retirement.

After a university receives income validation for all continuing students, which it would compile alongside that of its entering class, it would calculate how much it could expect to receive from its entire student body that year.

The U.S. Department of Education would then create an Institutional Contribution Index (ICI) to determine the university’s ability to pay for itself and its students, incorporating data like

paul wrubel’s way to fix financial aid

At an $18,000 college, the family pays $1,620 + the college’s required contribution of 30% or $4,914 + the federal contribution of $11,466 At a $36,000 college, the family pays $3,240 + the college’s required contribution of 30% or $9,855 + the federal contribution of $22,995 At a $45,000 college, the family pays $4,050 + the college’s required contribution of 30% or $12,285 + the federal contribution of $28,665 At a $52,000 college, the family pays $4,680 + the college’s required contribution of 30% or $14,196 + the federal contribution of $33,124

the size of the university’s endowment, its level of debt and the level of outside funding it receives, like that through a We Will-type fundraising campaign. Wrubel adds that the ICI would incentivize consistency and fair tuition prices, and would reward universities that consistently succeed with “high four-year graduation rates, post-college placement in grad schools and the job market, student outreach and diversity programs, successful fund-raising efforts, cost-lowering programs and exemplary use of technology.”

Wrubel’s plan calls on the university to invoice the federal government for the remainder of the cost after the expected student-body contribution and expected university contribution are calculated. This exchange would occur on what Wrubel calls an “Institutional Financial Aid Verification form,” or IFAV. He offers on his website the following estimates for what differently-priced schools operating under his system would then cost.

According to this math, at a $65,000 college like Northwestern, the family pays $5,580 + the college’s required contribution of 30 percent of $19,500 + the federal contribution of $41,405 = $65,000.

Even so, Wrubel says Northwestern’s aid program is more generous than most, and he said the problem schools tend to be public universities whose endowments aren’t large enough to satisfy the financial needs of their applicants. Wrubel says his plan focuses on making the system fairer for all, but especially for students attending schools that lack the resources to fully meet their needs.

On the whole, Wrubel’s plan aims to make the federal government more accountable for assisting the financial aid programs of all universities.

He advocates for a return to the level of federal investment in higher education in 1965, before rising college costs began significantly outpacing government support.

For Wrubel, what many perceive as stinginess by universities represents only a symptom of a much larger systemic problem that starts at the federal level. The Northwestern aid board doesn’t need to be fairer or any more generous, even with a massive endowment and We Will resources. But perhaps the process does. College represents an expensive investment, but where does the sticker price become unreasonable, even for those who can afford it? What if colleges, with a check from the federal government, could go beyond merely meeting the full need of their admitted students, but exceeding it? Few people disagree that an upfront investment in Northwestern returns dividends along the scope of its graduates’ careers.

But what if a top-down overhaul could make that upfront investment less uncomfortable? Wrubel’s plan might strike some as radical, but the idea that we as a people, and by extension, our government, should invest in higher education is perhaps the most practical idea of all, especially if it means cost would no longer be a reason students say no to Northwestern, even if Northwestern says yes to them.

“Getting in was supposed to be the hard part,” Emma says. “Getting in was supposed to be the hurdle.” **The Northwestern Office of Undergraduate Aid and the Office of Alumni Relations and Development both declined to comment for this article. fall

2014 | 53

All NU undergraduates are eligible for research grants.

Maybe research isn’t what you think...

Watch “The Adventures of Grant Man” videos!

They’re an info session at home. develop a project. We’re here to help.

Learn how to apply for a research grant.

Get Funded for your project in any discipline!

UndergradResearch.Northwestern.edu UndergradResearch@Northwestern.edu

Watch the web series taking over campus. youtube.com/OURNU

HEAD OUT

BALL SO HARD We ranked the best falafel in Evanston.

BY GRANT RINDNE R

NAF NAF GRILL: Naf Naf Grill, opened in Evanston in November 2013, features supreme speed and convenience. The falafel itself is solid with a satisfying crunch, as is the freshly baked pita bread, but the sauces and vegetables leave something to be desired.

Quantity: 9/10 Taste: 7/10 Convenience/Speed: 9/10 Atmosphere: 6/10 OLIVE MEDITERRANEAN GRILL: Olive Mediterranean Grill, opened in January 2014, is the franchise’s third location in the Chicago area. The atmosphere is definitely more relaxed and casual than Naf Naf’s and the falafel tastes fresher and more organic in comparison. OMG’s falafel has a spicy flair without being too hot to detract from the taste.

Quantity: 8/10 Taste: 10/10 Convenience/Speed: 8/10 Atmosphere: 8/10 THE OLIVE MOUNTAIN: The Olive Mountain has been in town the longest and is also the only non-chain falafel joint—something evident in the restaurant’s atmosphere. The falafel has a fresh, leafy green color and a satisfyingly crisp bite, but is noticeably drier than the other two options, which makes getting through an entire portion a little tough. The falafel is a little on the blander side and could benefit from additional seasoning.

Quantity: 8/10 Taste: 7/10 Convenience/Speed: 7/10 Atmosphere: 7/10

Photos by MICHAEL NOWAKOWSKI fall

2014 | 55

HANGOVER

TAKE A LOAD OFF Get blown (away) by modern technology.

BY TANNE R HOWARD

the world of robotic sex is coming. Thanks to the wonders of modern engineering and the fundraising might of Indiegogo, humankind now has access to the Autoblow 2. The future of human-robot sexual relations has never been brighter.

The product took the Internet by storm earlier this year, garnering heaps of media attention that propelled the project to raise $279,905 on Indiegogo, far surpassing its $45,000 goal. In the campaign, inventor Brian Sloan billed the device as a “realistic robotic oral sex simulator for men,” promising users that it’s the best male sex toy ever designed.

Buyers have responded in droves to the new product, with more than 15,000 Autoblow 2 devices sold since the Indiegogo campaign began. Sloan, who was born and raised in Skokie and moved to China to manufacture sex toys, has been busy shipping the product worldwide since the close of his Indiegogo campaign.

Sloan now sells the device exclusively online. While he hasn’t lived in the area since entering the sex toy industry, his parents still live in Skokie, and his father managed construction and served as the general contractor of Slivka Residential College.

56 | northbynorthwestern.com

Sloan claims that in the process of using the device, men will actually become better at sex, training themselves to resist ejaculation for longer with regular use. Laura Haave, former coordinator for sexual health education and violence prevention for SHAPE and owner of the Tool Shed, a feminist sex store in Mil-

of the product, the Autoblow 2 portends a dystopian future for some. While Medill junior Alli Shapiro, co-chair of Northwestern’s Sex Week, appreciates the product’s desire to help men fulfill their sexual needs, she personally worries about the implications it holds for men’s abilities to find actual sexual partners.

“WE HAVE A LOT OF MEN COMING INTO OUR STORE CONCERNED ABOUT LASTING LONGER.” waukee, notes that other sex toy companies like Fleshlight make products designed for similar purposes. In this sense, the Autoblow 2 improves one’s sex life, rather than merely serving as a mechanical substitute.

“We have a lot of men coming into our store concerned about lasting longer,” Haave says. “I certainly tell men about products like the Autoblow amongst other methods to help delay ejaculation.”

Despite the innovative nature

“It’s clearly supposed to be a replacement for a woman,” Shapiro says. “To actually build a machine that will just do it without the human interaction that’s normally necessary to get a blowjob is a dark utopian future to me.”

Chinese manufacturers developed the first iteration of the Autoblow, created to be sold under different names in different markets. Sloan, who has sold a variety of sex toys for the past six years, set about creating the second version after deciding that the origi-

nal could be improved.

“The concept of the Autoblow already existed before the Autoblow,” Sloan says. “It just hadn’t been executed properly by anybody else.”

While there remains a social stigma surrounding the use and discussion of sex toys, particularly for men, Haave says many types of people use them, not just single men unwilling or unable to find human partners. Men in long distance relationships come into her shop looking for products like the Autoblow 2, and her staff aims to make those people feel comfortable about buying her products.

“Whenever people ask, I try to dispel the myth that there’s something wrong with using sex toys,” Haave says. “They’re not just for people who aren’t in relationships or can’t find someone else to have sex with.”

The success of the Autoblow 2 suggests that buyers are responding to a product that’s come a long way in replicating a human sexual experience. Whether the incoming robosexual revolution proves beneficial for society or creates a dystopian future of sexually self-sufficient but lonely people remains an open question.

Photos by NED MCGREGOR fall

2014 | 57

HANGOVER

HOW DO I TALK TO MY FAMILY ABOUT MY LOVE LIFE?

BY KE VIN KRYAH

A FLOWCHART!

DO YOU HAVE A SIGNIFICANT OTHER? No

Yes

Well, have you hooked up with anybody recently?

Do your relatives know about your significant other?

No

Yes

Do you think your family will like your new significant other?

IT’S ALL GOOD!

You don’t need this flowchart.

Tell the truth!

Yes No

Yes

DRINK!

Grab some of your grandparents’ booze to prepare yourself for the barrage you’re about to endure.

No

Like... more than three people?

No LITTLE WHITE LIES

Alright, alright, alright. Tell your relatives that you have plenty of “admirers.”

Yes Uh, have you been “talking” to anybody recently?

ACTUALLY LIE

Use one of their names and say you’ve been on a few dates. The Deuce counts, right?

Yes

Not a sports person?

Here's your guide to Northwestern athletics.

BY SYLVAN LANE NORTHWESTERN SPORTS have a devoted following of fans who trudge all over campus through hell and high water to cheer on the ‘Cats.

And then there’s the other 75 percent of the student body.

If you didn’t come to Northwestern for the Big Ten athletics, here’s a guide to NU sports in terms you might understand.

A BOWL GAME n. /ā bōl -gām/ Something Northwestern football wins every 64 years.

NORTHWESTERN WOMEN’S LACROSSE n. /nôrTHˈwestərn ˈwimins ləˈkrôs/ What NU students use to prove they’re good at sports. Also, one of the most dominant teams in the sport’s recent history.

CHRIS COLLINS n. /kris ˈkä-lənz The Barack Obama of Northwestern basketball coaches—a young guy with local ties who came into the biggest job of his life with lots of energy and high expectations.

COLLEGE GAMEDAY n. /kälij - gāmdā/ When Northwestern was good at football in 2013, ESPN gave us fall Dillo Day.

No

NEBRASKA n. /nə-ˈbras-kə The school with a football team that plays exclusively to crush Northwestern’s dreams.

SIT THIS ONE OUT

MICHIGAN n. /ˈmi-shi-gən The school with football and basketball teams that play exclusively to crush Northwestern’s dreams.

BE VAGUE

Use their name, make up scant details. Next time your relatives ask, say they’re studying abroad.

Say you’ve been buckling down in the library. Maybe next quarter will be better?

58 | northbynorthwestern.com

Cover Your Bases

The Universities of Chicago What would happen if your worst nightmare—a Northwestern-UChicago merger—actually came true?

BY ORKO MAN N A

in the midst of the Great Depression, University of Chicago President Robert Maynard Hutchins came up with a daring idea: a Northwestern-UChicago merger. As terrifying as it sounds, the reasoning made sense. The 1933 plan was meant to provide financial stability for both institutions, as well as create a higher education powerhouse. The most notable attributes of UChicago and Northwestern— research and professional education, respectively—were to be combined under one enterprise: “The Universities of Chicago.”

Both universities’ Boards of Trustees worked long and hard, but the proposal failed.

Northwestern’s Medical School wanted a more hands-on approach to education, and NU alumni feared a loss of Wildcat tradition.

Differing educational philosophies and rumors about UChicago’s motives resulted in what Hutchins called “one of the lost opportunities of American education.”

But if it had worked out, what would life on the Evanston campus look like today?

Falling Sheri-down Walking down Sheridan Road is already a struggle. The nearly one-mile stretch is filled with hoards of people zombie-walking to Tech, violent bike riders ready to deck you and too many people drinking PSLs and texting their BFFs. Now imagine 6,000 more people on your journey from Elder to Harris Hall.

The sidewalks would get way too crowded— like cookie-riot-in-Norris crowded.

illustration by hallye webb

Go Wildix!

Like any school, Northwestern takes pride in its mascot, Willie the Wildcat. He appears in promotional items and is frequently a photo target for clout-hungry social media users.

UChicago’s mascot is Phil the Phoenix. Put those two together and what do you get? Honestly, I don’t know. A wildcat with wings? A phoenix with Willie’s face? Whoever has the joy of being inside that suit would run into everything in his path. And what would it even be called? Pheocat? Catnix? Wildix? Okay, that last one really wouldn’t be good. Any way you splice it, “Wildcat” and “Phoenix” do not go together.

Student Life Alert The number of happy memories we make at school would be equivalent to the number of football games we win: not that many. Academic and intellectual engagement would infiltrate all aspects of student life. Dance Marathon would turn into Reading Marathon.

At the end of every block, you would have to finish a book, and crewmembers would pass out eye drops instead of food so you could keep reading. Oh, and it would be inside Main Library, our favorite place on campus! Dillo Day would turn into Drink-and-PhilosophizeAbout-Life-on-the-Lakefill Day. Smooth jazz would play in the background as students discuss Voltaire and Plato while simultaneously getting plastered off Two Buck Chuck. Lectures by historians would garner more attendance than the Deuce on Thursday. fall

2014 | 59

MEDILL

“

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Journalism • Media • Integrated Marketing Communications

The Medill Undergraduate IMC certificate has been so much more than a piece of paper to me. My professors who were industry leaders, not only taught me the fundamentals of marketing and communications that I use every day, but also inspired my passion for what I hope to achieve in my career.”

Kimberly Lee (BSJ13, IMC-Cert13) WeChat US Marketing Communications Specialist at Tencent

Medill offers a five-credit IMC certificate program for undergraduates. Students develop skills for understanding and analyzing consumers in traditional markets and evolving digital communities and networks. Students must apply to be accepted to the certificate program and complete the prerequisites.

For more information and to apply: http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/ experience/imc/certificate/index.html