Fall 2015

NORTH

BY NORTHWESTERN

FALL 2015 northbynorthwestern.com

INSIDE: GET TO KNOW THE DEUCE LIFE AFTER ATHLETICS NU’S MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM

LGBTQ+ GOES GREEK WINTER BREAK ON A BUDGET SOLAR CELLS IN SPACE

OUT OF THE DUNGEON AND INTO THE LIGHT

The NU Kink Education Society goes beyond 50 Shades to fight misconceptions.

CONTENTS: PREGAME LIFE ADVICE — 5

Journalism professor Matt Paolelli talks about how cancer changed his life.

REAL FOOD — 8

The movement making the dining hall a better place.

QUAD LGBTQ+ IN GREEK LIFE — 22

Are the most heteronormative groups on campus breaking the binary?

UNDOCUMENTED — 24

For these students, applying is only part of the battle.

FEATURES GENIUS GETTIN’ WILD — 10 P-Wild advisor John Huston lives life on the edge.

EYE-DENTITY — 15

One student explores his race in a personal narrative.

SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS — 32

Students are working to power the world ... in zero gravity.

IIRON-CLAD — 36

Student activists create change through action.

A CULTURE OF SILENCE — 40

Why do we leave our mental health until the last minute?

KINK — 44

SPOTLIGHT YOU’RE HIRED — 16 Let us help you line your pockets with cash.

NUKES discusses what being kinky really means.

HANGOVER LIFE IN SEXILE — 48

Helping you make the best of a sticky situation.

fall 2015 | 3

COVER DESGIN BY HANNA BOLAÑOS COVER PHOTO BY EMMA SARAPPO

FALL 2015

NORTHBYNORTHWESTERN.COM

NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN MANAGING EDITOR Shelbie Bostedt CREATIVE DIRECTOR Hanna Bolaños PHOTO DIRECTOR Natalie Escobar SENIOR FEATURES EDITORS Martina Barrera-Hernandez, Shannon Lane SENIOR SECTION EDITORS Ben Zimmermann, Danielle Elliott ASSOCIATE EDITORS Ethan Cohen, Jacob Meschke ASSISTANT EDITORS Sasha Costello, Samantha Max SENIOR DESIGNER Lauren Kravec DESIGNERS Medha Imam, Andrew Simpson, Samantha Spengler, Bo Suh, Kelly Tan ASSISTANT PHOTO DIRECTOR Alex Furuya PHOTOGRAPHERS Ethan Dlugie, Allison Mark, Jacob Meschke, Alexis O’Connor, Emma Sarappo, Jackie Tang, Anna Waters, Mia Zanzucchi WEB LIASON Aditi Bhandari ASSISTANT WEB LIASONS Sasha Costello, Nick Garbáty, Ashley Wu CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Andy Brown, Nick Garbáty, Sam Hart, Tanner Howard, Hannah Johnson, Mollie Leavitt, Mia Luo, Orko Manna, Emily Moon, Virginia Nowakowski, Alexis O’Connor, Cami Pham, Jasper Scherer, Preetisha Sen, Carter Sherman, Austin Siegel, Madeline Sims, Mira Wang, Anna Waters, Alyssa Wisnieski, Jess Zeidman

NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN, NFP BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PRESIDENT Preetisha Sen EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Carter Sherman VICE PRESIDENT Shelbie Bostedt TREASURER Sam Hart SECRETARY Daniel Hersh

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Preetisha Sen EXECUTIVE EDITOR Carter Sherman MANAGING EDITORS Daniel Hersh, Tanner Howard ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITORS Julia Clark-Riddell, Morgan Kinney, Samuel Niiro NEWS EDITORS Amal Ahmed, Candace Butera ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Morgan McFall-Johnsen FEATURES EDITOR Madison Rossi ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITORS Madeleine Kenyon, Jackie Tang LIFE & STYLE EDITOR Mira Wang ASSISTANT LIFE & STYLE EDITOR Julia Song ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Malloy Moseley ASSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS Trevor Bohatch, Claire Fahey SCIENCE & TECH EDITOR Jasper Scherer SPORTS EDITORS Andy Brown, Austin Siegel ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR Will Fischer POLITICS EDITOR Anna Waters ASSISTANT POLITICS EDITORS Mollie Leavitt, Jason Mast OPINION EDITOR Carrie Twersky ASSISTANT OPINION EDITOR Nicolas Rivero PHOTO EDITOR Wei Wei ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Allison Mark VIDEO EDITOR Rose McBride ASSISTANT VIDEO EDITORS Jesus Campos, Jackie Tang INTERACTIVE EDITORS Nick Garbáty, Hayley Hu ASSISTANT INTERACTIVE EDITOR Stephanie Minn CREATIVE DIRECTOR Nicole Zhu SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Sarah Turbin IDENTITIES EDITOR Madhuri Sathish WEBMASTER Alex Duner

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IF Y O EMOJ U WERE A I N WOUL , WHICH ONE D YO U BE ?

PREGAME

GET STARTED

LIFE ADVICE FROM A PROFESSOR MATT PAOLELLI Adjunct Professor, Medill School of Journalism

BY ORKO MANNA PHOTO BY MIA ZANZUCCHI “I think the biggest thing I learned from having cancer was that everybody has cancer of some sort. So maybe it’s not actually cancer, but everyone is dealing with something. And it feels really good when the people in your life—and even complete strangers sometimes—reach out to ask how you’re doing, or to encourage you, or to share their experience of what they were dealing with. Now it’s something I strive for in my own life—to check in with people, even if I don’t know that something is wrong. But if I do know that something’s wrong, I try to be as engaged as possible with them.” *Check out our website to read more.

FALL 2015 | 5

PREGAME

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED A history of visits from the Commander-in-Chief

BY EMILY MOON Northwestern knows how to entertain a president. On Oct. 2, 2014, President Barack Obama’s helicopter grazed the Lakefill, onlookers lined Sheridan and students streamed his speech online. But this was, by no means, Northwestern’s first go. Since its founding, the University has entertained several presidents—current, former and yet undiscovered.

The Rookie

The One that Got Away

On April 2, 1903, Theodore Roosevelt rolled into Union Station, and Chicago loved him. The Boston Daily Globe headlines read, “Roosevelt Enthusiasm: Chicago Wild With It. Crowds Greet Him Everywhere.”

The very first to greet him? Northwestern University. The president met a crowd of 10,000 including students and Evanston residents, who cheered into megaphones, beat drums and “pelted him with flowers,” according to The Globe. In his speech, Roosevelt urged students to cultivate “manly athleticism” in both their physical and educational pursuits, saying, “I welcome all forms of manly, vigorous, rough exercise.” He also thanked the University for his welcome, calling it his “second alma mater,” since he received an honorary degree from Northwestern in 1893.

In 1975, a peanut farmer charmed campus with his Southern style, winning over 150 new student supporters. Jimmy Carter was still relatively unknown at the time of his first campaign stop at Northwestern, says Linda Solomon (CAS ‘79), then-organizer for Students for Carter. Solomon picked him up from the airport and drove him to campus, where he spoke with students in the basement of Willard. The Daily Northwestern reported Carter criticized then-president Gerald Ford’s foreign policy and emphasized the importance of student support for his campaign. Solomon remembers Carter’s frank tone and his characteristic Southern drawl. “We were all very inspired by him,” she says.

“He was such a contrast for that moment in history.”

When President Gerald Ford turned down an invitation to speak at the Medill School of Journalism in the fall of 1975, the ensuing media speculation prompted Ford’s press secretary to stop disclosing the president’s travel plans for the rest of his term. Chicago papers cited concern over recent assassination attempts as the motive for the cancellation, but White House staff denied these claims. If he had followed through, Ford would have been well protected. According to The Daily, Medill spokesmen presented the White House with an “elaborate security plan,” in which Ford would enter Pick-Staiger Hall through underground tunnels. Then again, maybe not—Pick-Staiger building staff could not confirm the existence of such a tunnel. Good call, Ford.

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Pho to co ur tes y of No r th wes ter n U n ive r s ity Ar ch ive s

The All-Star

Dine and dance

BY MIA LUO

Discover four Chicago restaurants that will satisfy your stomach and your eardrums.

Promontory

Il lu str atio n by Han n a Bolañ os

5311 S. Lake Park Ave. West

Smoke Daddy 1804 W. Division St.

Promontory’s trendy style is unlike anything you’ll find in Evanston. One of Hyde Park’s newest additions, it’s a great venue to discover an unknown DJ or soul singer. Tickets can cost up to $40, but most of the underground techno you’ll hear will be $10 to $20.

The concert venue is upstairs while the restaurant is downstairs, so dinner and the show come separate. The chefs put mouthwatering twists on American classics (lamb burger with chickpea fries, anyone?). An entree and appetizer will be $20 to $40, but it’s worth it. Since it’s farther away, Promontory provides a more upscale night out, especially for the 21-and-up who can try their artisan cocktails.

Smoke Daddy in Wicker Park is not only home to some of the most amazing BBQ ribs in Chicago; it’s also a place to kick back and listen to (free) live blues. If you’ve ever want to witness the true American spirit in a restaurant, Smoke Daddy is the place, in a more metropolitan, less “fire up the pickup” way.

BBQ isn’t always cheap, but considering how much meat you get, Smoke Daddy is a good deal. Under $20 for a full order of rib tips and two sides isn’t half bad.

The live music can be a little loud for comfortable conversation, but your mouth will be so full of meat smothered in delicious gluten-free BBQ sauces that it might not matter.

Always be wary of music venues downtown where super-expensive tourist traps abound. Fortunately, Bandera restaurant is not one of them.

At around $30 per person—fairly reasonable for dinner and music on the Magnificent Mile—Bandera offers a slightly fancier atmosphere than your average gritty jazz-and-blues bar, along with a nice view of the most bustling section of the shopping area to boot.

A bit of a hidden jewel on Michigan Avenue, Bandera is the perfect location for those too lazy to trek to River North for a break from shopping or sightseeing to enjoy some tunes and food.

Martyrs’, just west of Lakeview, is a golden opportunity to immerse yourself in hipster culture.

A cozy venue to hear anything from local bands to slam poetry to Pecha Kucha Nights (fast paced presentations on art and architecture), Martyrs’ has an amazing sound system for its size. Covers for shows are very reasonable, ranging from $7 to $20, and there’s even room to dance.

They have a limited menu of new takes on cheap, American bar food, such as fairly tasty $12 smoked ham and fig pizza. Still, go for an interesting show, an artsy dim-lit atmosphere and friendly, bespectacled, flannel-wearing clientele.

Bandera 535 N. Michigan Ave.

Martyrs’ 3855 N. Lincoln Ave.

fall 2015 | 7

PREGAME

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT Real food comes to campus.

BY VIRGINIA NOWAKOWSKI

HOW TO MAKE A RE A L FO O D SA N D W I C H

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VEG G I ES Tomatoes, lettuce and onions are probably the easiest ingredients to find.

Simply go to a grocery store and look for the word “organic.”

ria,” says Medill senior Miranda Cawley,* co-director of Northwestern’s Real Food group. “It doesn’t have to meet all of the four criteria.”

Examples of real food include fair-trade coffee, or even potato chips made from potatoes grown within a 250-mile radius.

Including more real food in the dining hall certainly does not require students to eat only vegetarian or healthy choices.

“We’re committed to making sure that no matter what your dietary preference is or what your taste preferences are, you can still participate in this new food system that we are building,” Cawley says.

Rachel Tilghman, director of communications and engagement for Sodexo at Northwestern, says that many students may not notice the change in food.

“For the most part I think it’s going to be pretty subtle,” Tilghman says. “There’s no overnight black-and-white changes where we are flipping an entire dining hall to be an organic farmer’s market, as awesome as that would be. We have to make sure that we’re being cost-conscious and fair, and not completely changing the diets of people who want to have corn dogs and mac-and-cheese.”

Tilghman is a member of the Food Systems Working Group, a collaborative created to plan and accomplish the goal set by Northwestern’s institutional commitment.

ME AT To meet Real Food criteria, animals must be well-treated and locally sourced. Your best bet is to find a local butcher shop.

Other key members of the group include representatives from Northwestern’s administration, the Office of Sustainability, Associated Student Government, Sodexo, NU Dining and, of course, Real Food at NU. Before they make a strategy, members of the group must first determine how much “real food” Northwestern currently offers. Renee Schaaf and Kimberly Clinch, both student analysts for Real Food at Northwestern, have been busy examining Sodexo’s product orders to determine whether each item meets standards created from “real food” criteria.

When they have the final estimate, the members of the Food Systems Working Group will work with food providers like Midwest Foods, Gordon Food Service and local farmers to receive options that meet “real food” qualifications as certified by organizations like the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Fair Trade USA. While it may seem that Real Food at Northwestern has a mountain of work ahead of them, Cawley is already looking beyond the 20-percent goal. She says it’s a perfectly reasonable starting place from which the movement can continue to grow.

“It should be no problem at all to continue to increase it,” Cawley says. “If our peer institutions can do it, we can do it.”

*Miranda Cawley has previously contributed to NBN. CHE E SE NU is 50 miles from Wisconsin, America’s cheese capital. Local cheese produced on a living wage from Wisconsin cows can be found at Whole Foods.

B R E AD Hewn Bread on Dempster or Great Harvest on Central both source grains from local farmers in the tri-state area.

Ph oto by E m ma S ar appo

High fructose corn syrup: it’s one of the most common processed ingredients in our food system, a likely culprit responsible for hikes in national obesity and potentially a risk to our ecosystem. You’ve probably seen it in candy, jelly, ketchup, soda… even bagels.

That’s right, like the Powerade you drink and the barbecue sauce you throw on your chicken, the bagels you eat in Northwestern’s dining halls currently contain high fructose corn syrup.

Real Food at Northwestern is planning to change that.

As a student group dedicated to building a better food system for producers, consumers and the world, Real Food has been campaigning for a year to get Northwestern to include more natural, “real food” options on campus.

Thanks to their advocacy, President Morton Schapiro signed a commitment in June 2015 to have 20 percent of all food in Northwestern dining halls meet “real food” standards by 2020.

But what exactly is real food?

According to Real Food at Northwestern’s website, real food is “community-based, fair, ecologically sound and humane.”

“The good thing about real food is that it can be anything, it just has to be sourced sustainably or meet one of the four crite-

GENIUS

LIVE SMARTER

WILD THING From the North Pole to Northwestern, John Huston explores every direction.

BY HANNAH JOHNSON In the bone-chilling temperatures and eerie isolation of the North Pole, John Huston is in his happy place. The sound of wind whipping against his face and skis trudging through the snow leaves Huston alone with his thoughts, able to concentrate solely on the journey. While the trek is treacherous, underneath all of his layers, a huge smile is plastered on Huston’s face.

“I think that is what’s fun and interesting about life, pushing myself outside my comfort zone to experience new and different things,” Huston says.

“Otherwise I would get bored and not [be] living to my full capacity.”

CONTINUED

Photo by Emma Sarappo

fall 2015 | 9

GENIUS Huston’s courage and sense of adventure have taken him everywhere from the North Pole to the South Pole, and now back to his alma mater, Northwestern.

After many of his own successful expeditions, Huston now helps students explore their own paths through Project Wildcat, or P-Wild, a pre-orientation program he helped launch during his own undergraduate career at Northwestern.

For a world-famous explorer, Huston is unfazed by his success. A thoughtful and serious speaker, he fondly tells stories of his adventures, always reflecting on the important values he learned along the way. He’s so humble that he’s embarassed to call himself such.

“I can’t call myself that, can I?” he says as he laughs.

His journey began when he was a curious and adventurous child with big dreams.

“I wanted to be Indiana Jones,” Huston says. “I even dug up the backyard, making my own archeological digs.”

Huston’s drive to explore guided him through his time at Northwestern, where he majored in history and anthropology, with a focus on archaeology. In addition to working in many archaeological digs

dogs matching the 1911 expedition. The 72-day, 1,400-mile expedition through Greenland, which Huston completed by dog sledding and skiing, was filmed by BBC and the History channel.

For Huston, his incredible South Pole expedition was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the all the goals he wanted to accomplish.

“I really enjoy putting a challenge and a goal out in front of myself and seeing what kind of journey it takes me on,” Huston says.

Following the Amundsen excursion, Huston was an expedition manager for an educational trek in Baffin Island, Canada, in 2007 and an expedition leader on a South Pole trip later that year.

All of these trips led up to Huston’s most well-known and challenging trips to date: an unsupported quest to the North Pole.

In 2009, he completed the first American unsupported expedition to the North Pole with expedition partner Tyler Fish. Huston calls this trip, which was 100 percent human powered and had no resupplies, “probably the hardest trip that I will ever do.”

As the intense 55-day ski trip pushed

plorer. He’s a motivational speaker, wilderness safety and logistics consultant and involved with Chicago Voyageurs, a mentorship and wilderness program for at-risk youth.

“I love working with young people who are motivated and passionate about what they’re pursuing,” Huston says.

“So if I can add a little bit of my experience to their journey, then that feels really good to do that.”

This outreach also brought Huston back to Northwestern to one of his most rewarding experiences as an explorer.

After orchestrating a safety review for P-Wild, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, Huston soon joined the program as safety advisor in 2011.

He serves alongside five to six student leaders on the P-Wild Steering Committee, which essentially plans all aspects of the weeklong camping trip on the Superior Hiking Trail in northern Minnesota.

Members of the Steering Committee get to know Huston beyond his identity as a wilderness expert, but also as a laidback, fun-loving guy.

“John is just such an interesting character,” says senior Steffi Brock-Wilson, a 2015 Steering Committee member. “He

a challenge and a goal out in front of “ I really enjoy putting myself and seeing what kind of journey it takes.

“

through the Anthropology department, Huston also participated in the first P-Wild trip in 1995 and helped make the program what it is today.

It was his own experience on Project Wildcat that inspired Huston to pursue a career in wilderness education.

“Combining teaching and learning and leading and all the wonderful things of outdoor education, I was just totally hooked,” he says.

After graduating in 1999, Huston worked for five years at Outward Bound, a wilderness leadership program in Ely, Minnesota, where he found his passion for wilderness education and dog sledding. Connections through the program also helped further propel Huston’s dream to explore the world.

In 2005, Huston was the only American chosen to join an all-Norwegian team restaging famed explorer Roald Amundsen’s race to the South Pole.

“I got to go into the pages of my favorite books real time,” Huston says.

To relive the experience of Amundsen, who Huston considers one of his “biggest beacons,” the team used only the food, clothes, equipment and 48 sled 10 | northbynorthwestern.com

him to his limits, Huston says he felt proud and accomplished, not to mention exhausted upon completion.

“We just wanted to take a nap,” Huston says of the trip. “It was a huge relief to get there because of all the work and pressure we had to make our deadline and how much exertion, physical and mental exertion, it took to get to the North Pole unsupported.”

While most would be happy never to go on an expedition again after this feat, the ever-ambitious Huston aspired to explore more.

Most recently in 2013, Huston’s exploration of Canada’s remote Ellesmere Island was filmed for a documentary that premiered in Norway and Europe.

While Huston doesn’t have any excursions scheduled soon, he went to Norway in October to meet with some expedition colleagues about planning some future trips.

“I’m a dreamer,” Huston says. “I’m always thinking of new things to do or different ways to do things.”

Though Huston has a love for exploration, he’s also passionate about helping other people find their inner ex-

can be very comical, it’s very fun.”

While he often quotes his favorite movies, talks about his dogs and brings students spiced popcorn to munch on, Huston also always gives valuable advice and tips for camper safety.

“Working with John is great because he has so much experience and really holds the safety of the trip in high esteem,” says senior Lucy Blumberg, a 2014 Steering Committee member.

Huston takes the time to hold feedback sessions with campers to find the right balance between safety and fun.

“A lot of the time he knows answers but he lets us talk through solutions,” Brock-Wilson says. “I really value that he let us always come up with our own solution.”

For Huston, returning to the school where his career in exploration began makes his work with P-Wild all the more rewarding.

“My undergraduate time at Northwestern was one of the highlights of my life,” Huston says. “To go back on campus and reconnect with students and the administrators who support the students has been a thrill.”

Thought One professor’s historic quest to revolutionize the college curriculum

Pho to co ur tesy of Nor th we s te r n U n iver sity a rch ive s

BY TANNER HOWARD It’s a quote ripped straight from any thinkpiece in The Atlantic about college education: “The failures of higher education in America have become the concern of millions of people who a few decades ago would have been indifferent.”

Yet the thought comes from 1952, written by Northwestern professor Baker Brownell, who created the Contemporary Thought Lecture Series at the University, which brought notable thinkers like architect Frank Lloyd Wright, activist Jane Addams and others as lecturers to make the university more attentive to the well­-rounded development of the college student.

Today, debates rage on about the future of the university system as we know it. In October, The New York Times columnist David Brooks declared, “Universities are more professional and glittering than ever, but in some ways there is emptiness deep down.” Harper’s writer William Deresiewicz also chimed in, writing, “College is seldom about thinking or learning anymore.”

Brownell, who lectured at Northwestern from 1921 to 1954, went further than merely debating these issues in the abstract. Instead, his work in founding the Contemporary Thought Lecture Series, a cross­ disciplinary class that ran for more than two decades

Revival

beginning in 1922, positioned Northwestern as a leading institution in giving students a richer understanding of the world. Just as Brooks calls on colleges today to create “interdisciplinary humanities programs” to foster students’ “emotional, spiritual, and moral sides,” Brownell took that task to heart while he was crafting the course.

His philosophical writing in the mid­ -20th century emphasized the importance of the “human community,” and the state of human relations in the modernizing world.

He saw the ways of rural life, what he thought was the truest expression of a genuine human community, being decimated— while at the same time, the urban world limited people from actually knowing each other in meaningful ways, and made it harder to form a true, tight-knit community.

At the center of these two worries was his frustration that universities were causing students to think too narrowly, without a broader context for their world. Thanks to a growing emphasis on specialized knowledge, students were being taught in increasingly rigid departmental structures, giving them no basis to work with one another. To that end, the Contemporary Thought class gave students a rare opportunity to understand the complex world with the day’s leading thinkers across all fields as their lecturers.

“The colleges train their students for an individual­ -centered career, not for a community-centered or family-centered career,” he wrote. “Whether they be progressive or reactionary, the colleges are concerned usually with some concept of individual attainment,

individual salvation [and] individual success.”

Imagine this: Frank Lloyd Wright, teaching a class on architecture. Bertrand Russell, on philosophy. W.E.B. DuBois, on racial politics. These were just some of the most impressive lecturers included over the course’s history, which was also comprised of former U.S. Vice President Harry Wallace and poet Carl Sandberg. By drawing on his personal ties to the leading figures of the day, Brownell brought together an intellectually heavy -hitting lineup of thinkers, an opportunity rarely seen in a single college class.

“From an intellectual history perspective, it’s shocking,” says History professor Daniel Immerwahr, who researched Brownell for his Ph.D. dissertation. “He’s pulling from all over, and he’s trying to fashion his sense of what a university can do.”

As part of an effort to enrich the whole of the human community, the series was unique in its inclusion of Chicago-area residents.

For several years, the lectures were broadcast on Chicago radio stations WMAQ and WIBO, and in the later years of the course, area residents were welcome to attend the lectures freely. In Brownell’s estimation, this resulted in attendance of 1,500 to 2,500 students and residents.

Despite Brownell’s best efforts, the lectures were shut down after two decades. Other professors in the University chafed at the interdisciplinary nature of the class, as he wrote about in “The College and the Community.” Never-

theless, his efforts to create an idealistic model for educating students in a well-rounded way provides an interesting hypothetical as we continue to reconsider what the purpose of the University should be. And while it is no longer a class, the revival of the Contemporary Thought Speaker Series in 2012, bringing notable speakers, such as activist Angela Davis, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson and journalist Ezra Klein, suggests students are still eager to learn from today’s brightest thinkers.

“In some ways, Brownell was trying to actualize what was a utopian demand of a few decades before,” Immerwahr says. “And that’s one of the ways in which he was very forward thinking.”

fall 2015| 11

GENIUS

THE NORTHWESTERN WING Wildcats take the campaign trail.

F

ifty years ago, The Daily Northwestern editor Al From (Medill ‘65) was in the inaugural class of aspiring political journalists at Northwestern who made the quarter-long trek to D.C. for Medill on the Hill. After starting his political reporting career at Medill, From took his skills to Washington permanently and became a chief architect of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, as well as a major player in the Democratic Party.

Northwestern has produced countless political strategists like From, working in all sectors of government and influencing major elections across the country.

As the 2016 election cycle ramps up, Wildcat alums are already leading many major campaigns in positions such as Hillary Clinton’s chief speechwriter and Carly Fiorina’s deputy campaign manager. And in 2008, a former Wildcat managed Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the Democratic primary.

Patti Solis-Doyle (Speech ’89) began working for Hillary Clinton in 1992 as Clinton’s husband Bill was running for president, well before she was herself a presidential candidate.

“She didn’t have any people, any staff; I was a one woman show,” Solis-Doyle says of her early days with Hillary Clinton. “By the time she announced she was running for president, I knew Hillary so well—I had worked for her for 16 years.”

Solis-Doyle worked for Clinton until the 2008 election, in which Clinton ultimately lost to Barack Obama. She now works as a political commentator with CNN. Another major player in recent elections, Stephen Krupin (Medill ’04) worked as Obama’s director of speechwriting in his 2012 reelection campaign after advising several other major Dem12 | northbynorthwestern.com

BY MOLLIE LEAVITT

ocratic players. He attended Medill because of an initial interest in political reporting, but after doing his journalism residency, Krupin realized he wanted to pursue a career where he could still be involved in politics, but not necessarily through journalistic writing.

“I’m enormously grateful that Northwestern gave me a chance to take a speechwriting class from a former presidential speechwriter,” Krupin says.

“That was the first time I said to myself, ‘This is a job you could do full time.’”

Starting in 2007, Krupin worked for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, before working on Obama’s reelection campaign, where he wrote speeches for surrogates speaking on Obama’s behalf, among other tasks.

Mirroring the path of Krupin and others, From worked for years climbing the political ranks to become a close confidant of the Clintons, even using NU connections to land new positions.

“When I graduated, I was supposed to go work for the Chicago Daily News,” From says. “But instead I ran into Medill alum Edgar May, and he asked me to help him with the War on Poverty.”

Afterwards, From worked in Congress before founding the Democratic Leadership Council, a center-left political organization that helped further Bill Clinton’s moderate appeal.

Republican political pundit Guy Benson (Medill ‘07) also landed his first post-college job “purely out of a Wildcat connection,” he says.

“I wasn’t exactly sure what was next after graduation, but then I got an email out of the blue from an alumnus who had read a profile of me in a magazine,” Benson says. “He offered me a serious job working in Chicago media, starting my career in Chicago, which was a dream come true.”

Soundbites on the 2016 election

“Every four years there’s a pretty different environment in which they’re running, and it’s harder to judge who’s up and who’s down the further out you are. It’s much less a horse race than a roller coaster.”

Stephen Krupin, Medill ‘04 Director of speechwriting for Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign

“Hillary is a lifetime gold member of the political class, and I would argue a corrupt one. She is not talented, likeable or honest, and she is running for Barack Obama’s third term.”

Guy Benson, Medill ‘07 Townhall political editor Fox News contributor

“It’s hard for me to see anybody really challenging Hillary for the Democratic nomination.

However, historically, it’s hard to elect a party for three straight elections.”

Al From, Medill ‘65 Founder of the Democratic Leadership Council Domestic policy advisor to Bill Clinton

“Sen. Graham is his own candidate. He always is and will be ... All of the candidates bring something different to the race, and Sen. Graham’s is foreign policy and national security.”

Tracie Gibler, WCAS ‘03 Iowa state director for Lindsey Graham’s 2016 presidential campaign

“We wanted to run on her qualifications, not just being good for a woman. But she’s really making that a focus this time around ... And the fact that we have gone this long in our history without electing a woman president in shameful.”

Patti Solis-Doyle, Speech ‘89 Campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign

CHECK YO’SELF These locations offer accessible STI testing for students.

Center on Halsted

BY ALEX FURUYA

Located in Lakeview, this center is about 45 minutes away, including a six-minute walk from the Addison Red Line stop.

3656 N Halsted St., Chicago, IL 60613

The Center on Halsted is the Midwest’s most comprehensive community center dedicated to the well-being of LGBTQ+ people, with over 1,000 community members visiting the Center daily. It offers appointment-based and walk-in HIV testing for free, in addition to educational programs to help reduce transmission. It also offers a range of other programs and events, from film screenings to career development workshops.

“They may feel more comfortable here if they identify as LGBT. Perhaps they are not out on campus, or perhaps they don’t want to be seen or stigmatized as getting an HIV test or receiving treatment.” —Peter Johnson, director of public relations

Angles Clinic

Using the Purple Line train and the 423 bus, this clinic is about 50 minutes away.

1779 Maple St., Northfield, IL 60093

The clinic only offers tests for chlamydia, gonorrhea and HIV, but is far cheaper than Searle. At Angles, the cost of a standard chlamydia and gonorrhea test is $20, and an HIV test is an additional $20. It provides other services and resources including morning-after pills for $30 and other contraceptives, such as 10 condoms for $1. The clinic also provides support groups and community service programs for high school students.

“When it comes time to be tested for STIs, [students] prefer to come here because we don’t even take insurance, so their families won’t find out.” —Amy Skalinder, executive director

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At Searle, the cost of a standard chlamydia and gonorrhea test is $55, while a confidential HIV test is $30. Student insurance can often cover these STI tests. Searle also provides other STI tests for trichomoniasis, HPV, syphilis and others at varying costs. Health Service maintains it will accommodate students that want to protect their privacy.

“We will try to work with students to maintain that confidentiality … A lot of students feel embarrassed to come in [because they are] concerned about their parents learning about their sexual activity.”

— Kimberly Seipel-Carrow, medical director of the Northwestern Health Service

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No need to pack a lunch.

Add a WildCat Meal Pack to your Wildcard to use at any campus dining location. dining.northwestern.edu

STOCK UP & SAVE: 1-2 packs = $120/pack 3-4 packs = $110/pack 5+ packs = $100/pack

10 MEALS 25 WILDCAT POINTS 6 DINING HALLS 13 RESTAURANTS & CAFÉS FALL 2015 | 13

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THE RACE TO RIO

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14 | northbynorthwestern.com

the world to different countries. Everywhere from Buenos Aires to China,” Dumas says.

In her three years at NU, Dumas has become one of the leaders of the fencing team. She led the Wildcats to a 10th-place finish at the NCAA Championships as a junior, before taking the 2014-15 season off to focus on qualifying for the Olympics.

Wilimovsky’s gold medal in the 10-kilometer open water event in Russia secured his place in Rio, but he has also achieved success in collegiate races. He owns school records in the

get your time for each lap.”

Much like cycling, open water swimmers travel in a pack and can receive water and hydrating gels during the race. Wilimovksy says he was responsible for keeping track of the various supplies he needed during a meet.

Fencing is a sport that boasts a global appeal, a popular form of recreation and military training for centuries. Competitors attempt to hit their opponent while staying within the boundaries of a narrow court, with rules varying on the kind

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so enjoy it.”

500- and 1,000-yard freestyle as well as the 400-yard individual medley. And he’s dominated the 1,650-yard freestyle, where he has won a Big Ten championship and finished third at the NCAA Championships in addition to a school record.

But the event at which he excels (the 10-kilometer open water marathon) is one of swimming’s least understood events. It was only added to the Olympic program in 2008, and many fans still don’t totally appreciate how the event works.

“You swim on a circuit of buoys that they have out in the ocean or a lake,” Wilimovsky says. “Typically it’s four laps and you have timing chips on your wrist to

of sword used during combat.

Dumas is an épée fencer, meaning she uses the largest and heaviest weapon found in the sport.

Traveling to different countries presented its own challenges for Wilimovsky, who was forced to adjust to different climates and weather patterns all over the world. Because his race strategy is based on everything from water temperature to wave height, Wilimovksy was constantly adapting to the local wind and water conditions.

“If it’s flat you’re just going to stick with whatever your race strategy is but if it’s choppy you might have to adapt and stay within the pack more, because it’s harder to swim

BY AUSTIN SIEGEL

by yourself when the waves are bigger,” Wilimovsky says.

At last summer’s World Aquatics Championships in Russia, Wilimovsky faced 69 competitors in a marathon swim down the Kazanka River. He started slowly, hanging with the pack before turning on the jets and pulling away to win by 12 seconds.

With the 2016 Summer Olympics approaching, Wilimovsky will look to accomplish the same feat in Rio. The field will be even more crowded and the conditions just as unpredictable, but he’s already begun to plan his strategy.

Recent projections have the water temperature in Brazil hovering in the low 60s next summer, a little chilly for Wilimovsky, but he says he will make adjustments.

As Wilimovsky continues his Olympic preparation, he’s taking a redshirt season from the NU swim team.

The thought of competing on sport’s biggest stage would be enough to rattle even the most experienced athletes, but Wilimovsky says he has spoken with several former Olympic swimmers who offered him the same piece of advice.

“They just said it’s an incredible experience,” he says. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so enjoy it.”

I llu s tr a ti on by S aman tha S pe ngl er

ourtney Dumas, 22, isn’t always sure how people will react when they find out she’s a world-class fencer.

“I get a lot of people picking up sticks and asking me to fence them on the spot,” Weinberg senior Dumas says.

For Jordan Wilimovsky, 21, competing as an open water swimmer can lead to its own set of puzzling questions.

“A lot of times people just ask me if I’m swimming out into the ocean all the time like it’s some kind of different sport,” Wilimovsky says.

“But it’s swimming, so I’m training in the pool everyday.”

Dumas and Wilimovksy are two of the best athletes from Northwestern University, but most students don’t know much about these athletes or their sports. Over the past year, both of these Wildcats have been going through the highs, lows and frequent flyer miles of Olympic qualifications.

As an open water swimmer, Wilimovsky traveled the world with the United States National Team, including a trip to the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia. It was there, along the banks of the Kanzanka River, that Wilimovsky punched his ticket to next summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Dumas didn’t finish among the top four U.S. fencers who will head to Rio, but competing against the world’s best took her about as far from Evanston as any Northwestern athlete could hope to go.

“I was traveling almost every weekend for a large portion of the year, just all over

Two Wildcat athletes; two Olympic hopefuls.

All eyes on me Small eyes have long been a source of low selfesteem. Now, one writer seeks to reclaim them.

By BO SUH Photos by ALEXIS O’CONNOR

O

n a nondescript day of elementary school, I stared at my reflection in my dirty bathroom mirror and asked why God made me look different from all the blonde, blue-eyed boys in my suburban Virginia neighborhood. It was the first time I considered my race.

When we reminisce about our childhoods, we tend to remember firsts. The first day of kindergarten, the first time seeing the ocean, our first crush. Sometimes these memories are formative, blissful and rosy, while some are bad or even traumatic.

For me, my most vivid early memories share a common factor: my identity.

A couple years later, I had my next prominent first: hearing the word “chink” targeted at me. “Your eyes are so chinky,” a faceless kid told me on the school bus. I don’t remember the details—after the fourth or fifth time, the faces blurred together into a nebulous, colorless shape looking down on me. But I do remember knowing immediately what the word meant. My eyes were small, abnormally so, and I was ashamed.

They say that the first way people connect with each other is by looking into each other’s eyes. But when you have small eyes, people don’t look past that. When I was younger, I would tense up every time my eyes came into question. I would be reduced to an object of scrutiny, exposed to my peers and their unbridled curiosity.

“Do you see everything, like, wide-screen?” they would ask.

“Are you squinting? I can’t tell.”

“You wear contacts?

How do you even put them in your eyes?”

I would answer their questions half-seriously, half-jokingly, mostly to get them to stop bothering me.

There was nothing to retaliate with—having big eyes was a good thing. I would just wait for someone to change the conversation and move on.

Conversations like this peppered my childhood, even though my race was hardly something I thought about. I was a second-generation Korean American in a heavily diverse community in northern Virginia. I was surrounded by people who looked like

me, spoke like me and ate the same food as me. But people thought living in a diverse community afforded them the right to talk about race unapologetically. Being around so many other Korean Americans compelled me to compare myself to them, and that usually took the form of seeing if my eyes were bigger or smaller than theirs. Many of the comments about my eyes came from other Koreans and after a certain point, I started to criticize other people’s bodies, too.

But the way I view my appearance has changed in the past couple of years, especially with the shift in how the media treats people with small eyes. In fashion specifically, more and more non-white models are celebrated for their unique facial features, including small eyes, and have become more visible in a dominantly white, Eurocentric industry.

And yet, there is still some risk with these images being celebrated in fashion.

Casting models with smaller eyes toy with the line between representation and fetishization: Calling these models “ethereal” in their beauty har-

kens back to proclamations of the foreign and non-white as “exotic” and “mystical” during the 20th century. But still, it’s hard not to feel a little better when I can see myself in a model and know that someone with small eyes can still be considered attractive.

Now, as an adult, I’m more self-assured in my appearance. I can understand the context and history that made me so insecure about my eyes and looking “too Asian.” Still, it’s hard to unlearn all of these concerns and insecurities; I still feel a little self-conscious when I smile in photos, afraid that my eyes will look closed.

It’s a long process, albeit a worthwhile one.

When people ask me about my first memory, I remember one that doesn’t have anything to do with my looks, emotions, or growing understanding of the world.

It’s of seeing my grandmother walking through the hallway of my preschool to pick me up and take me home. It’s a simple memory, devoid of much context, but one that still tells me about my family history: who came before me, where I came from and who I am.

And there’s power in that.

FALL 2015 | 15

SPOTLIGHT

CAMPUS CASH

FEELING THE URGe NU wants to give you money for your research.

BY ALYSSA WISNIESKI Undergraduate research is not a foreign concept to a university like Northwestern. From the first day students arrive on campus, they receive countless emails, flyers and reminders about these nifty little things called Undergraduate Research Grants (URG). But with more types of grants than you can count on one hand, confusion is inevitable.

According to its website, Northwestern offers multiple different grants to help research-oriented students accomplish their goals. Two very popular options include Summer Research Grants and the Undergraduate Research Assistant Program (URAP).

Study break

Summer Research Grants: These grants provide $3,000 for “full-time eight week independent academic and creative work” relevant to your faculty-advised research project. The money can be used to cover both living and research expenses.

Weinberg sophomore Jo Machesky received her grant last year. She spent the summer on Northwestern’s campus and worked in the lab at the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology. She looked at the interaction of nanoparticles that could leak from batteries with her research group. As a chemistry major with Ph.D. aspirations, she valued the opportunity to start her independent research so early in her college career.

“It was fantastic,” she says. “The URGs are available for every subject, which is very helpful. The experience of figuring out what research is and if that research is right for you is great.”

Undergraduate Research AssistProgram (URAP): Simply put, this grant pays students $10 an hour to work on a faculty member’s research project with them. This is a good way to ease into the URG scene on campus.

Communication senior Sarah “Sasa” Schwartz, who works in the Hearing and Language Lab, started there the summer after her freshman year and continued throughout her junior year as well. As part of the URAP, she teamed up with a faculty member to facilitate audiology studies with toddlers and adults.

“I would definitely recommend [the URAP],” she says. “It’s a great bridge for figuring out how research really works and all the work that goes in behind the scenes.

You get a lot of oversight from whoever is creating the project so you don’t have to do everything on your own.”

Need extra cash? Try these research studies.

BY NICK GARBÁTY SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

PSYCHOLOGY

What?

Psych studies have a focus in clinical, social, cognitive, brain, behavior and cognition, and personality and health psychology

Topics include: personal preference, consumer behavior, decision-making in strategic situations, political media messages, brand perception and neural basis of decision making

Where?

Usually in Swift Hall or Cresap Laboratory

Usually in the Jacobs Center

How long?

Between 20 minutes and an hour

From two minutes for an online survey to an hour

From one to four hours

How much?

Between $5 and $15 per session

Between $5 and $20 per session and possible raffle entry for a $25 gift card

Pays $10 per hour

16 | northbynorthwestern.com

KELLOGG

School of Communication studies have a focus in audiology, social media, bilingualism, child studies and speech pathology Usually in Swift Hall or Searle Hall

I ll us tr ation s by Sas ha Co stel lo

Who?

HELP WANTED Make that dough, on or off campus.

BY MIRA WANG When you attend one of the 100 most expensive colleges in America, everything costs a lot of money. Slept in and missed your 9 a.m. lecture? May as well burn $102.18 (based on the $49,047 sticker-price tuition for the 20152016 school year, found on U.S. News & World Report).

For a lot of us, finding a job is a necessity, and NBN is here to help.

For hipster artists who like art in weird places

Alley Gallery

ARTica

Tucked in the alley across from CVS, the aptly named Alley Gallery boasts a decades-long legacy of museum-quality custom framing, a wide collection of art from local artists and its own talking parrot named Jessica.

JOB: Part-time framer WHO: Art history majors who want to learn custom framing from expert framers—no experience required WHAT: Learn how to make frames HOW MUCH: $8.25 per hour

For gym buffs

Mail and Package Center Who says squats and bicep curls are reserved for the gym? Work your muscles as you lunge for that package and shoulder-press those textbook deliveries.

“We had ownership of what were were doing and a responsibility that made the shop survive.”

—Ross Martens, co-owner of Alley Gallery and Communication alum

JOB: Clerk (Work-study) WHO: People who would rather be paid to work out WHAT: Sort, deliver and forward mail to residents; keep track of packages as they enter and leave the mailing center HOW MUCH: $8.50 per hour (starting) HOURS: 8 to 15 hours per week

For history (or fashion) junkies

Crossroads Trading Co. A historical crossing between humans with and without clothes, this consignment store echoes with the sound of mysterious lives lived while wearing fashionable apparel.

JOB: Floor staff WHO: People who love fashion WHAT: Assist with fitting rooms, keep store clean and organized, conduct ongoing merchandise processing, “Every step of the answer phone calls, perform point-of-sale tasks way I learned something and assist with interior and window displays and new and store security was given constructive HOW MUCH: Pay commensurate with experifeedback to enhance my design skills.” ence, competitive with other retail jobs —Matthew Ehinger, HOURS: Flexible depending on schedule, but 15 McCormick senior to 30 hours per week generally

If you’re into underground art, literally, look no further than the Norris Underground’s ARTica Studios, where you’ll help other Northwestern students discover the joys of ceramics, sewing machines and so much more.

JOB: ARTica attendant (Work-study) WHO: Crafty work-study students with great customer service skills WHAT: Assist with area’s development and daily operation, promotion and advertising, equipment usage, safety HOW MUCH: $8 per hour HOURS: 8 to 12 hours per week

For smooth talkers

Phone-A-Thon Get over your millennial phone-phobia by repeatedly cold-calling alumni and asking for money, all while earning some money for yourself. Added bonus:You get to interact with some great future employers!

JOB: Phoneathon aide (Work-study) WHO: People who want to make networking connections with alumni WHAT: Contact alumni and ask for donations HOW MUCH: $9.25 per hour (starting) with raises as you gain experience HOURS: Students are expected to work two full threeand-a-half hour shifts per week

For foodies, and obsessive eaters

Northwestern Dining In terms of numbers, our dining halls actually outrank NU academics. Food website The Daily Meal ranks us the fifth-best college for food last year. Go ‘Cats! Join the awesome NU Dining team as an intern and learn what makes us number five.

JOB: Graphic design intern WHO: Computer-savvy students who are interested in marketing WHAT: Work with event coordinators to create flyers and materials—think business cards and promotional videos—for upcoming dining events HOW MUCH: $10 per hour HOURS: 12 hours per week between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday fall 2015 | 17

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WALKING OFF THE FIELD Former student-athletes struggle to find a new identity.

BY MADELINE SIMS

Photo by Alex Furuya Illustration by Hanna BolaĂąos

In late fall of 2014, crowds of Northwestern students filled Ryan Field, standing tall and cheering as their beloved Wildcats rushed onto

the field. One student, however, was sitting down alone in silence. Then-sophomore Zachary Guritz was in tears.

It had been months since he

sustained a shoulder injury that ended his one-year football career at NU, but the pain of no longer playing had yet to subside.

“In the essay I wrote to get into Northwestern, I wrote about being a football player

CONTINUED fall 2015 | 19

QUAD but not being defined as a football player,” Guritz says. “It wasn’t until I got away from the sport that I realized how much the sport defined me. It really defined my friendships; it defined how people knew me.” He had prided himself on being an exception to the student-athlete stereotype, someone who was much more than the sport he played.

But the pressure and time constraints of being a student at Northwestern limited Guritz’s time to do other things while juggling his athletic schedule. Guritz dedicated 20 hours a week to football and his teammates were his closest friends. Now away from his sport for the first time, he, like many other athletes and students, was forced to realize who he was apart from the thing that used to define him.

Those who have quit struggle to build new relationships, find their niche and essentially develop a new life at NU. Disengaged from the team, Guritz says the biggest difference he experienced was in his social life. He didn’t get to see his football friends anymore, forcing him to find a new group of friends. Determined

to reimagine himself, Guritz tried many different things.

He joined and then dropped out of a fraternity, disenchanted by the fast-paced promotion of brotherhood. He then turned to his major, industrial engineering, and found a sense of community.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have a job within the industrial engineering department because that’s where I joined different clubs and met all sorts of wonderful people,” Guritz says.

According to former fencer and SESP junior Christina Allen, the fear of being disconnected from former teammates can be overwhelming.

“They’re your best friends, so if you quit the team, you have no one else,” Allen says.

However, some ex-athletes have kept in close contact with former teammates. Caroline Grant, a Weinberg senior who quit varsity diving in the spring of 2015, says her friendships with old teammates are still intact. She thought her biggest adjustment would be not spending time with the

team daily, but she still sees them regularly.

“Really, the newest thing is not having to be at the pool every day,” Grant says.

Another big change comes in the form of scheduling. Allen says the demands of her Learning and Organizational Change and Economics double major require classes that conflicted with her practices—practices she was told she could not miss. She chose to leave the team after her freshman year. With this free time, she can schedule classes whenever she likes.

“The biggest difference is that I sleep a lot more,” Allen says. “I really feel like I’m still so busy. There are so many other things you can pursue at Northwestern that will help you later in life, so it felt a little silly to me to keep going.”

For Grant, quitting diving allowed her to gain a new perspective on her identity that left behind the judgmental nature of her sport.

“I’m trying not to define my identity based on my accomplishments but more on

my relationships,” Grant says.

“It’s more about how I can relate to other people.”

But for some, like Guritz, the wound is still healing.

While he is sure he made the right move, he admits that it is still hard to be in the football stands instead of out on the field.

“It’s like like when you see an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, and they have a really smoking hot date for homecoming,” Guritz says. “You hoped that after you broke up they’d be totally in shambles and just get fat off ice cream for the rest of their lives.”

Life is different for these students now. Guritz traded in his old 5:30 a.m. wake-up call for an 8:30 a.m. alarm before class. Allen goes to sorority functions instead of team dinners. Grant goes to class at 1 p.m. instead of practice. But all of these changes are bound to happen at some point, Guritz says. He even says that it was an advantage to experience this transition earlier.

“I’m at peace with it but the whole year-long process was brutal,” Guritz says. “But, at the same time I’m very thankful for it.”

Pho to by E mma S ar appo

20| northbynorthwestern.com

RACE: UNSPECIFIED Students of color try to carve a place in NU theatre productions.

BY BO SUH

I llu str ati on by Bo S u h

T

he incoming class of 2014 was proclaimed to be the most diverse class in history. Of the 2,043 first-year students who enrolled, 52 percent identified as a race other than white or non-Hispanic. But in certain schools on campus, diversity, inclusion and representation are works-in-progress, especially in the performing arts.

For a student of color involved in theatre, racial identity is a mixed bag. On one hand, there are hardly any parts that require the actor to be nonwhite. On the other, the chances of being cast in a non-white role are high due to lack of competition. Kori Alston, a sophomore theatre major, recognizes this catch-22 as an actor and as a playwright.

His original play, The Alexander Litany, will premiere in the winter and feature a dominantly non-white cast.

Casting such a racially specific play from a pool of mostly white actors comes with obvious difficulties.

“There are four characters of color in the play. The director and I have started reaching out to different student groups because there aren’t enough people of color in the theatre department to be able to cast this show,” he says. “It’s only four.”

While playwrights have the autonomy to create completely original works, producers are the ones with the power to bring the play to life. And if a producer is white, or is not interested in telling stories about race, then the chances of a racially specific play being produced falls. “[Playwriting] has made me question the types of things I can write. I want to be produced on this campus, but if I’m writing parts for people that aren’t here, it’s hard,” Alston says. “That’s something I’ve had to balance: writing

what I want to write, but also being able to cater to the lack of diversity that exists within the department.”

This mentality that students lack the resources to produce diverse productions deters them from trying in the first place. However, Henry Godinez, a Communication professor, believes, “If you do the work, we will get the students.”

Godinez, a Cuban-American actor and director, has a long history of working in Latino theatre in Chicago. Fundamental to this attitude is the foresight to keep future generations in mind, especially potential students.

“There’s value in producing a play by a playwright of color, even if you don’t have the right students to cast it,” Godinez says. “Prospective students of color will look at our website and go, ‘Oh my goodness, they’re doing that play.

That play is about me. Maybe I should go [to NU].’ If you wait to have the students, you never get the students.”

Communication senior Aurora Real de Asua says technically anybody should be able to play any role in theatre, but that becomes complicated when race enters the picture.

Race becomes a limitation in a medium that is meant to be liberating.

“Theatre walks this fine line, where in one way, it should be imaginative and it should explode barriers and defy race.

Those things shouldn’t exist on stage,” Real de Asua says.

“And yet at the same time, a huge aspect of art is unpacking the world we live in and why it is the way it is. That is where race becomes a very important issue.”

Real de Asua says that if theatre existed in a nonpolitical void, then colorblind casting

would be fine. While she says the classroom is “apolitical,” or a place where students can learn to play roles outside of their comfort zones, the stage is not. “[As a director] I don’t want to make my work political, but in a way, every choice I make is,” she says.

At Northwestern, casting is a laborious and complicated process. After general auditions, department shows produced by the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center have priority over casting.

Once those lists come out, then student theatre boards can determine which shows get which actors while considering the actor’s preference sheets. Communication senior Tristan Chiruvolu describes this process as an “algorithm” that tries to create the best outcome for all parties. When trying to cast a multiracial show, the process becomes even trickier.

“Let’s say you have three people of color at the top of

? your list. You can’t guarantee they’ll be in your show because of how preferences work,” Chiruvolu says. “So even if you make an effort with a whole cast of race-nonspecific people to have a diverse cast, it’s not up to you.”

Student theatre is still making strides toward greater diversity. Lovers and Madmen’s production of Titus Andronicus, a classic Shakespearean play, features six actors of color and will open during Winter Quarter. Lipstick Theatre cast six black women in their production of For Colored Girls, which opens this fall.

Students may not have control over the theatre department’s admissions process, but they can still dictate which shows to produce on campus.

“Diversity and inclusion is enriching without being threatening,” Godinez says. “[They] give you more opportunities of looking at and understanding the world.”

FALL 2015 | 21

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BY ANNA WATERS ILLUSTRATION BY MEDHA IMAM

LJ Krohn is a sister in Kappa Delta sorority, but they do not identify as female.

Krohn, a Communciation senior, is genderqueer, so they identify as neither man nor woman.

The Greek system, however, has no gray area—women join sororities, and men join fraternities.

Those who do not subscribe to this gender binary face unique challenges in their memberships if they choose to join at all.

Even before joining Greek life, the strictness of sorority recruitment can deter LGTBQ+ students from getting involved.

Those who go through the process make decisions about which sororities they prefer based on conversations with members.

Though never an official policy, potential new members have been advised to avoid the Five B’s: Barack (politics), Booze (alcohol or drugs), Boys (sex, relationships, etc.), Bank (wealth) and Bible (religion). Now it is being discouraged for 2016 recruitment. Regardless, sexuality can be difficult to bring up.

“It has to be incredibly stressful to be going through recruitment, trying to decide whether or not you need to make your sexuality known,” says Elyse Ausenbaugh (WCAS ‘14), the former president of Alpha Phi sorority, who identifies as lesbian. “You want to make sure that whichever chapter you end up in will be comfortable with it.”

Treyvon Thomas, a Communication junior and former member of Sigma Chi fraternity who identifies as queer, says potential fraternity members may have it a bit easier.

“It’s very different in fraternity rush. You can say whatever you want to, so you can straight up ask what it’s like being queer in a fraternity,” Thomas says.

“It’s really comforting to know that you can just ask because you want to make sure you’re in a place that’s going to be accepting of all parts of you.”

For those who do end up joining Greek life, there are many social events between fraternities and sororities, a tradition built on heteronormativity, or the presumption of heterosexuality and an adherence to a strict gender binary.

Krohn says when they brought a female date to a formal, some members of their sorority assumed she was just a friend. Kate Slosburg, a SESP junior in a sorority, says these comments tend to come from a lack of awareness, not homophobia.

Most, if not all, Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association chapters on campus have LGBTQ+ members, but Slosburg says chapters might not be aware of all their queer members.

Those who don’t fit into the sexuality and gender norms of Greek life say they are constantly reminded of it. Krohn says gendered language permeates almost every area of these institutions, and it can be hard to remember that they belong.

“As easy as it is to hear rituals calling us women and think that I don’t belong here, I have to remember that we were founded way back in the 1800s, and people like me were just unheard of,” Krohn says.

Now, the LGBTQ+ community is more visible, though perhaps not in Greek life. Changing that requires coming out: a process that isn’t easy, particularly in a Greek organization.

“There was no script for coming out in a sorority because I didn’t know anyone else who’d done it,” Ausenbaugh says. “It made the whole thing so much more anxiety-inducing because you had no idea what would happen when you came out.”

Once she took the plunge, she says it had a positive snowball effect, and younger women in her chapter reached out to her. Beyond her own chapter, she says she was accepted into a “small but mighty” group: the gay Greeks. Officially, this group is called Lambda. They meet weekly to discuss the intersection of their sexualities and Greek organizations, though this year the group expanded to include LGBTQ+ athletes.

Slosburg is the facilitator of the group and says it serves an important purpose.

“Just being able to voice concerns and being able to talk about things that can be problematic in Greek life with other queer members can be therapeutic in itself,” Slosburg says.

However, many LGBTQ+ Greeks say just talking is not enough. Krohn says they are frustrated at Greek organizations’ reluctance to improve or change. Completely removing heteronormativity from the system seems impossible, Krohn says, especially because a vast majority of members of Greek life aren’t LGBTQ+ and creating a new system wouldn’t be easy.

“My first instinct would be to create groups that don’t focus on gender, but unfortunately we live in a society where that isn’t really feasible because of things like sexual assault and gender inequality,” Krohn says. “There’s going to be a problem with any kind of system you set up because if you just make queer fraternities or sororities, you’re still distancing yourself from the

ties, creating opportunities for members of any sexuality to find people they are interested in.

During Fall Quarter of his freshman year, an upperclassman told Wood she could see him fitting in at Pi Kappa Alpha, but changed her answer to a different fraternity after finding out he was gay. He started looking into the other fraternity, but ended up at Pike, saying he does not use his sexuality as an identifier.

“I never go up to people and say ‘Hi, I’m Bryan Wood, I’m gay,’” he says. “If I’m not into you then it has nothing to do with my personality at all.”

At the end of the day, the complications, fear and entrenched heteronormativity could be discouraging to those considering going through the recruitment process. However,

“THERE WAS NO SCRIPT FOR

COMING OUT IN A SORORITY BECAUSE I DIDN’T KNOW

ANYONE ELSE WHO’D DONE IT.”

Greek community. To me, that’s not really inclusion.”

All sororities now have Diversity and Inclusion chairs, and at least some members of their executive boards are safespace trained. Last year, Lambda reached out to Fraternity and Sorority Life to try to incorporate heteronormativity in the NU Greek Leadership retreat, but the idea was turned down.

Slosburg suggests simple changes such as reminding members not to assume anything about anyone’s gender or sexuality. She says especially for social events where some sorority and fraternity members are set up with dates, asking what gender(s) someone would prefer is an easy way to be more inclusive.

Bryan Wood, a Communication sophomore and member of Pi Kappa Alpha, suggests mixers between four Greek chapters: two sororities, and two fraterni-

many LGBTQ+ members of the Greek community could not recommend it more.

“Going Greek was the single best thing I did since graduating high school because of the community you get with it,” Ausenbaugh says. “Joining a sorority gave me that community that I think ultimately was able to lift me up enough to have the courage to come out, which was a really incredible, powerful and special thing.”

Krohn also says they are incredibly thankful for the community and support from their sorority, even if they aren’t exactly a “sorority girl.”

“I’m definitely very glad to be part of a sorority,” Krohn says. “Just because I don’t identify with the gender that most of my sisters identify with doesn’t mean I’m not one of them.” *Check out our website to read more. fall 2015 | 23

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RESOURCES FOR UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS

UNDOCUMENTED AND UNSUPPORTED. Northwestern lacks resources and information for undocumented students.

BY JACOB MESCHKE

L

eezia Dhalla left Northwestern University with $110,000 in student loan debt.

As an undocumented student, she received no financial aid from Northwestern.

“We showed them our tax returns, and they said if I was a U.S. citizen I would’ve gotten almost a full ride,” Dhalla says.

“There was nothing they were willing to do.”

Since graduating from Medill in 2012, Dhalla has worked multiple jobs to help pay off her loans. She benefits from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which makes recipients eligible for a stay of deportation proceedings and a temporary work permit to eligible applicants for a two-year period.

Her parents believed that money should not prevent her from an opportunity like Northwestern, so they encouraged her to attend. Now she’s feeling the financial burden.

In recent years, Northwestern has fallen behind neighboring institutions such as the University of Chicago, Dominican University and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in its policies toward undocumented students. The 24 | northbynorthwestern.com

University’s lack of tailored resources makes it difficult for undocumented students to attend.

In 2010, Northwestern President Morton Schapiro added his name to a letter to Congress signed by the presidents of nine Illinois universities in public support of the federal DREAM Act. The bill proposed a path to citizenship for eligible undocumented immigrants, but fell short by five votes in the Senate the same year and has not been reintroduced since.

“Universities are institutions committed to the education of young people. It is our duty to prepare the next generation for lives of service and achievement,” the statement says. “When one segment of our community is cut off from educational and career opportunities, it is also our duty to act.”

Two spots above Schapiro’s signature is that of Dominican University President Donna Carroll. Dominican is a private Catholic university of about 4,000 students, located in River Forest on Chicago’s West Side.

Though on paper both schools appear strong supporters of undocumented immigrants, their policies differ widely.

Dominican is now a national leader in its initiatives to provide support for undocumented students. Northwestern has not changed its policies at all.

“We’re in education, and our primary purpose is to develop the talents that students have,” Carroll says. “Providing those opportunities are part of our challenge and our obligation as educators.”

Northwestern is a needblind institution for applicants who are U.S. citizens—financial need isn’t considered when deciding to admit an applicant.

However, under Northwestern policy, undocumented students are considered international students. International applications are need-aware, meaning that, for them, financial need is taken into consideration.

If accepted, undocumented students are eligible for almost zero financial aid. They are unable to receive federal or state financial assistance, including Pell Grants, federal subsidized loans or the Illinois Monetary Award Program (MAP), all of which are often provided to lower-income households.

Northwestern allots a small amount of aid for international students, which it calls “very limited.”

A 2014 report by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights estimated that 63 percent of undocumented immigrants in Illinois live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line (at the time $47,100 for a four-person household).

Northwestern’s financial aid website says its average financial aid award, including both Northwestern and government aid, for an annual family income of $60,000 or less is almost $53,000 a year.

Undocumented students who wish to attend Northwestern must replace that aid on their own or through outside scholarships, many of which are unavailable due to documentation requirements. Loans too can be problematic, since they often require a U.S. citizen cosigner, which can be difficult to find.

Alan Cubbage, vice president of University Relations, says that undocumented students are welcome to attend Northwestern, but the University mainly focuses its support on federal legislation.

“What we’ve been trying to do as an institution is support the DREAM Act so that those students would become eligible for federal aid,” Cubbage

!

Oops! No results found for “Resources for undocumented students”

says. “That’s really been the focus of the University’s efforts, is to get that first step of funding, so that then the University could add onto that as we do with domestic students.”

In contrast, Dominican has created its own policies in the past eight years. It does not require a social security number on its application, and considers all applicants, regardless of citizenship, eligible for its merit-based scholarships. In 2012, the University provided $274,000 in financial aid for 17 undocumented students, according to USA Today.

“It’s important to have welcoming policies because education should be accessible to everyone,” says Arianna Salgado, an undocumented immigrant who graduated from Dominican in 2015. After speaking directly with Carroll, Salgado financed her education at Dominican through merit-based scholarships and private donors.

In response to student activism, the University of Chicago released a message that same year, clarifying its policy that it considers all applicants, regardless of citizenship, for admission and “every type of private financial aid that the University offers.”

Northwestern currently provides no online informational resources specifically for prospective undocumented students. Searches of the word “undocumented” on both Northwestern’s financial aid and admissions websites receive zero search results. “[Officials] on campus don’t know what to do with these applicants or students,” Dhalla says. “There’s nobody that can answer your questions and you’re kind of on your own.”

Maria Alejandra Salazar (SESP ‘11), originally undocumented, gained permanent resident status during her junior year of high school. Now she works with undocumented students and their families as the Director of Multicultural Resources at Northside Community Resources in Rogers Park, Chicago.

“There are so many points in an undocumented student’s life where they could be easily dissuaded from pursuing any kind of higher education,” Salazar says. “Students can get really depressed and they can stop trying.”

These points include researching schools and both their financial and informa-

enough, especially if you are the first one in your family to go to college.”

Salgado never considered Northwestern because she heard from other undocumented students that the school was “very unwelcoming in terms of the application process and economically.”

“I was looking for a school that would not force me to provide a social security number and [would allow] me to access some financial support,” she says.

The University of Chicago offers information on its Campus and Student Life website explaining its policies and explaining relevant laws to undocumented students. UIC

“THEY SAID IF I WAS A U.S. CITIZEN I WOULD’VE GOTTEN ALMOST A FULL RIDE. THERE WAS NOTHING THEY WERE WILLING TO DO.” tional resources for undocumented students, she says, as well as how to handle applications that ask for their citizenship information.

Salazar says the resources a university offers and how easily accessible they are can make a huge difference for an undocumented student trying to continue their academic career after high school— exactly the sort of thing Northwestern lacks.

“If I’m a high school student anywhere, and I’m trying to find out more about Northwestern, who do I talk to, what office, who would actually help me navigate this?” Salazar says. “College is confusing

maintains a specific website to “provide information and resources to current and prospective undocumented students and their families.” The site includes explanations of laws and rules on citizenship and financial aid, explanations of UIC policies and links to independent scholarships that undocumented students can apply to.

“If you have these resources, there has to be a way to let prospective students know about it,” Salazar says. “If it’s going to be this complicated maze, why would I apply to [Northwestern] when I can apply to UIC and I know what I’m going to get?”

Students at Northwestern have worked toward change in the past but with little success. Salazar was involved in a now defunct student coalition called Undocumented NU that attempted to work with administration but made little headway.

During her junior year at Northwestern, Dhalla compiled a report on the experiences of undocumented immigrants in higher education at the Center for Global Engagement, using Northwestern as a case study. Dhalla’s report highlights several efforts by students in 2003 to lobby for changes in policy, including one proposal that was supported by Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. Then-president of Northwestern President Henry Bienen pledged to “continue to study this issue,” the report says.

Cubbage says the University is not currently reevaluating its policy toward undocumented students, stressing its support of future federal reform.

If there was a conversation, it “would involve the admissions office, the financial aid office, the provost office, all of the top administrative offices of the University.”

For Carroll, the decision is an obvious one. She believes that Dominican’s and any university’s goals should be to do all they can to educate any qualified student who wants to be educated.

“Education in general has a social justice mission,” Carroll says. “Academics are about providing those transforming opportunities for students, and that’s the core argument.” *Check out our website to read more.

FALL 2015 | 25

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AS CLOSE AS YOU CAN GET Football’s student managers take life by the balls.

BY BEN ZIMMERMANN

A

26 | northbynorthwestern.com

Football student manager Rob Shiffer packs up the coaches’ headsets after the team’s loss to Iowa on Oct. 17.

games, help assistant coaches with play calling during games and aid in various tasks at other times. The nine managers attend all practices and almost all games, unless a flight is required, in which case only five attend.

“Pretty much every time the team’s here, we’re here,” Shiffer says.

As part of the job, which some do as a work-study position, the managers receive a ton of Under Armour team gear and the chance to be in the locker room for momentous occasions like the 2013 Gator Bowl win—which Shiffer calls his favorite moment with the team. Head coach Pat Fitzgerald even wrote Shiffer a recommendation letter for job applications.

“It’s one of the best gigs on campus, to be able to travel with a Big Ten program and to be able to see it all,” says Communication sophomore Zach Gold. “It’s really all about the experience for me.”

By 7:56 a.m., they are done setting up practice ahead of schedule, leaving them with some downtime before the players arrive. Shiffer, Gold and others throw a ball around on the practice field, simulating plays and arguing over close calls while chatting about recent NFL trends, fantasy football and the past weekend’s party scene.

By 8:16 a.m., one minute after warmups officially start for the team, music starts blaring from the loudspeakers and an assistant coach screams at stragglers. But the student equipment managers have already been on the field for over an hour, doing the dirty work for the team in exchange for a chance to be as close to the action as possible.

“You really gotta love football,” Shiffer says. “It’s probably more intensive than your average work-study, but there are not too many jobs where you get to be behind the scenes of a major college operation like this.”

Ph oto by Natalie Es cobar

t about 7 a.m., nine student equipment managers, clothed in Wildcat garb from head to toe, are already working in the football team’s equipment room, reviewing the day’s practice schedule, planning which equipment will be needed, and preparing for the team’s workout and walkthrough.

Minutes later, they start up golf carts in the bowels of Ryan Field, just as sprinklers are giving the turf a morning rinse.

The squad of equipment managers, led by head offensive student manager Rob Shiffer is already joking around, talking football strategy and carefully executing the plan to prepare for practice, as if they’ve been awake for hours, doing it for years.

Shiffer, a Weinberg senior, started working with the team the summer before his freshman year after getting connected with the equipment office as his work study job.

“It was definitely an interesting way to get started at Northwestern, not the typical thing,” Shiffer says. “I figured I could either work in the library and sit at a desk or do something more fun.”

After injuries ended his high school football career, he thought working with the Wildcat team as an equipment manager would give him a way to stay connected to his passion. He’s stuck with it since freshman year.

“I’ve kind of gotten hooked on it since then,” he says.

Shiffer works with the quarterbacks and their position coach, ensuring they have all the equipment they need and warming up with them.

By 7:35 a.m., after various trips around the sports complex surrounding Ryan Field to pick up and drop off equipment for the day, the crew of equipment managers is arguing over a minute football rule detail.

They quickly transition to meticulously selecting the right footballs for each position player. Shiffer points out yesterday’s balls for the quarterbacks were “not the best.”

The group spends countless hours together during the season and even during spring workouts and summer training camp. They load and sort equipment onto trucks for road

KEEPING THE FAITH Tahera Ahmad is NU’s first female Muslim chaplain.

Ph oto by Al lis on Mar k

BY ALEXIS O’CONNOR In the first weeks of class, NU Associate Chaplain Tahera Ahmad started a selfie tally. Students approached her for a quick photo to show they had met the woman who stole headlines this past summer.

Her recent claim to fame was not because of her work as one of few female Muslim chaplains or her visits to the White House. It wasn’t because of her impressive background in Islamic studies or her university interfaith initiatives. Instead, she made national news because of an Islamophobic attack against her.

In May, Ahmad asked for an unopened Diet Coke while on a United Airlines flight. The flight attendant told her no, stating that it was a security concern.

After she objected, a nearby passenger lashed out: “You Moslem, you need to shut

the fuck up ... You know you would use it as a weapon.”

Ahmad took to social media and her story went viral.

Her story went from a single Facebook post to a segment on Islamophobia on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in one week. Thousands of #UnitedForTahera tweets rallied in her defense, while others spread bigotry. Since then, United Airlines has publicly apologized, and Ahmad has worked with them to improve diversity training for staff.

“Even if it’s a very small change in terms of United’s attitude of taking something more seriously, I think that’s a positive change,” Ahmad says.

Ahmad’s work on campus embodies this positive change. She strives to create safe spaces for students to talk and learn about faiths. Her role as chap-

lain encourages dialogue, education and tolerance.

“Literally anyone can come through this office: faculty, staff, students,” Ahmad says.

“I provide pastoral counseling for anyone. In the last six years, I’ve definitely had more non-Muslims come through my office than Muslims.”

University chaplaincy includes everything from spiritual guidance to safe dialogue. The concept is derived from a Christian tradition but has evolved into a counseling outlet for those who ascribe to any or no faith.

The National Association of College and University Chaplains reports a chaplain presence on approximately 165 campuses in the nation.

Muslim chaplaincy began in the military in the late ‘50s. From there, it spread to prisons, hospitals and universities. In the last 15 years, the number of Muslim chaplains in American universities has grown to more than 50.

Ahmad is the first fulltime female Muslim chaplain employed by a single private institution. She is one of three chaplains at Northwestern and the only

tiative meetings in October.

“It’s kind of like a three-tier process,” Ahmad says. “We hope to increase appreciative knowledge of each other and that should help change attitudes, which then should help us collaborate with each other and engage with each other.”

Ahmad also works with Muslim life on campus through leadership and educational development.

Between the Evanston, Chicago and Qatar NU campuses, Ahmad estimates there are 1,000 Muslim students at Northwestern.

Alex Nelson, a Bienen senior and student worker in the chaplain’s office, accompanied Ahmad to the Parliament of the World’s Religions conference in Salt Lake City this October. Nelson has worked with Ahmad for over two years.

“Traveling to this conference with her gave me the opportunity to see that this— educating herself and communicating with people—is what she does constantly, both on and off campus,” Nelson says.

Faith is often an uncomfortable topic in the American public, but Ahmad

I TAKE THIS ROLE VERY SERIOUSLY BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS FOR A LOT OF YOUNG MUSLIM WOMEN WHO ARE CONSIDERING SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP. Muslim chaplain on campus.

“I think my role as a female Muslim chaplain is very unique, pioneering and it’s very significant,” Ahmad says. “I take this role very seriously because I know what it means for a lot of young Muslim women who are considering spiritual leadership.”

In addition to her work as an associate chaplain, Ahmad is the director of interfaith engagement and helped kick off this year’s NU Interfaith Ini-

says the discrimination she experienced on the United Airlines flight has helped start much-needed discussions on interfaith collaboration and education.

“When Jon Stewart did his piece, a lot of young Muslim women wrote to me,” Ahmad says. “That’s when I felt I made a difference. When people started to say they were able to talk about [their religion] in a way that was productive and not awkward.”

FALL 2015 | 27

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TOP OF THE FIRST Spencer Allen brings a new mantra to the Wildcat baseball team.

BY ANDY BROWN Northwestern’s new head baseball coach Spencer Allen is ready to stop talking about his race.

With his hiring on June 14, he became the first black head coach in Big Ten baseball history and the third in major conference college baseball history. Allen says that race often seems to be the focus of articles written about him, but it couldn’t be further from what he’s focused on.

“If others see [my hiring] as a great thing and a motivator, that’s great, you know,” Allen says. “And it’s cool in that sense so I don’t want to downplay it, but is it on the forefront of my mind on a daily basis? Not really.”

28 | northbynorthwestern.com

He’d much rather talk about the visions he has for the baseball program.

In an office decorated solely by a poster depicting what NU’s home field, Rocky and Berenice Miller Park, will look like when full-scale renovations are completed this spring, he talks about the NCAA Tournament as a yearly goal for his new team.

That’s beyond ambitious— the Wildcats haven’t won the Big Ten since 1957 and haven’t finished with a winning record since 2000. Allen, however, says he’s in the business of defying the odds.

“Especially in the game of baseball, you can achieve above expectations when that

trust [between the team and the coach] is there, so that’s number one,” he says. “You have to have passion in a program. At the end of the day we take it very seriously, but it’s also still a game, so we need to remember that and make sure it’s present in our program.”

That daily development is the foundation of a mantra Allen introduced to the team: “Dominate the Day.” It emphasizes exercising patience and focusing on the task at hand rather than the big picture.

“I think it makes a lot of sense,” senior first baseman Zach Jones says. “Rather than going through the motions and saying, ‘I just have to get this done,’ it’s, ‘I’m going to

do it. I’m going to do it well.

I’m going to do the best I can and get the most out of it.’”

Allen’s plan of action looks great on paper, and his optimism is overflowing. Nonetheless, even in the smoothest of coaching transitions, it’s often not all roses underneath what some might call ‘coach speak.’ The fingerprints of Paul Stevens, Allen’s predecessor who retired this spring after 31 years in Evanston, are still all over the program. Beyond the new coach’s ongoing efforts to mold the program into his own identity, connecting with players is no small feat.

But Allen knows how to work a room.

“The first thing I told the team was ‘You are my guys, okay? Whether I recruited you or I didn’t, you’re my guys,’” Allen says. “It’s been fun getting to know the guys, their families and their stories, how they got to Northwestern. I think there’s a lot of guys who feel like they’re starting off on a clean slate.”

Redshirt junior outfielder RJ Watters says he appreciates the nuanced positive energy and excitement Allen has brought to the early stages of preparation for 2016.

“He’s really positive with all the guys,” Watters says. “He’s very clear in his message, what he wants and how he wants

to execute things and get things done. And he’s just really knowledgeable. He knows the game.”

Josh Reynolds, the team’s new assistant coach, says he knows bet-

in the Midwest, and Reynolds says Allen went out of his way to make him feel comfortable at the beginning of his coaching career.

Reynolds says it’s Allen’s unbridled passion, initiative and ability to create a positive atmosphere that define him as a head coach and have been on display since day one.

“In that first meeting, you could just see in [the players’] faces, they believed what he was saying,” Reynolds says.

Watters can confirm that.

“He cares about all of us,” Watters says.

“He’s gotten every single one of us to buy into what he’s selling.”

HE’S VERY CLEAR IN HIS MESSAGE, WHAT HE WANTS AND HOW HE WANTS TO EXECUTE THINGS AND GET THINGS DONE.

Washington State Assistant Coach, Recruiting Coordinator (2010-2012) Advanced to the NCAA Regional Rounds in 2010

Creighton University Associate Head Coach, Recruiting Coordinator (2013-2014) Won the regular season Big East Championship in 2014

University of Illinois Assistant Coach (2015) Won the regular season Big Ten Championship and advanced to the NCAA Super Regional Round in 2015

P ho to s by Al ex is O ’Con n or

ter than anyone in the program that Allen is not one to “blow smoke” or make false promises, even without having worked with him before. They crossed paths often when they worked at other schools

ALLEN’S LAST THREE COACHING STOPS

Head Coach Spencer Allen throws to players during fall batting practice.

FALL 2015 | 29

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Night at the Afropollo NU’s largest talent show provides a stage for campus’s unsung stars.

BY SAMANTHA MAX

Afropollo co-host and Medill junior Sierra Boone poses at a promotional photo shoot for the event.

O

30 | northbynorthwestern.com

take place on Saturday, Nov. 21 in Ryan Auditorium.

Unlike typical talent shows where a panel of judges selects the winner, the audience of Afropollo has all the control.

Just like at the Apollo, the performer can either be cheered or booed off the stage.

“The audience votes on who gets to win the final prize,” ASA

Weinberg sophomore Sterling Harris, who tap danced last year, says the audience typically tries to support the performer rather than discourage.

“To hear people cheer and clap and scream was really rewarding, and it encouraged me to keep going and do better,” he says.

Afropollo is not only an

If you don’t leave with a new friend by the end of Afropollo, then maybe you did it wrong. president Thelma Godslaw, Weinberg senior, says, which adds another layer of pressure for the performers.

“You have to start off strong and stay strong,” says Thaddeus Tukes, one of last year’s hosts, and a fourth-year Bienen and Medill dual-degree student. “It really forces the performers to push their limits to see what they can do and how far they can go with their performance.”

event dedicated to celebrating student talent but also an evening of community.

“It’s something that’s come to be a tradition on Northwestern’s campus within the black community and the African community,” Godslaw says.

However, ASA aims to attract students from all corners of campus to show them more about the group.

“They should expect to

learn a few things about the African continent,” says ASA vice president Emmanuel Darko, Weinberg senior.

Tukes first heard about the show from friends as a freshman, and he’s attended every year since.

“I just like seeing the joy on people’s faces when they perform and hear people applaud,” he says. “People who may have been scared to sing decided to go for it, and now they have all of their peers cheering and yelling and screaming their names during the performance. I think that’s kind of one of those precious moments for sure.”

Tukes loves coming to Afropollo every year and witnessing the talent of his fellow Wildcats. But he also comes for the people.

“Afropollo, as an overarching event, is more than just, ‘Sit down and watch people perform.’ It is very interactive,” he says. “If you don’t leave with a new friend by the end of Afropollo, then maybe you did it wrong.”

Ph ot o by J acob Meschke

verwhelmed by the roar of the crowd in Ryan Auditorium, Weinberg junior Faith Ogungbe stepped outside into the silence for just a moment to practice her dance moves one last time. Then a freshman, Ogungbe was about to perform for the first time in Afropollo, Northwestern’s biggest annual talent show hosted by the African Student Association (ASA). The final performers of the evening, Ogungbe and her friend Amakie Amattey, Weinberg junior, stood anxiously in the wings as their act approached.

“When we actually were onstage, we heard all of our friends cheering, even people we didn’t know. It just became really fun and very exhilarating,” Ogungbe says.

Inspired by Amateur Night at the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, Afropollo provides dozens of students, regardless of major or extracurricular involvement, the opportunity to showcase their talents in front of their peers. This year, Afropollo will

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SCIENCE IN THE SKY Northwestern students lift off with NASA on a zero-gravity quest.

BY JASPER SCHERER

S

ix miles above the Gulf of Mexico, Krysti Scotti presses her bright orange tennis shoes firmly against the white interior wall of NASA’s C-9 airplane. Here in zero gravity, where easy tasks become difficult and difficult tasks become nearly impossible, Scotti must come up with creative ways of keeping herself in place: by contorting her body into positions straight out of a child’s game of Twister.

While the plane descends 10,000 feet in roughly 30 seconds, Scotti freezes a slurry of ice and titanium oxide nanoparticles by placing the mixture inside a

32 | northbynorthwestern.com

small, cold copper box while trying to maintain her position.

Felicia Teller, one of Scotti’s teammates and a fellow Northwestern School of Continuing Studies student, battles zero gravity’s effects as she clutches a spiral-bound notebook. Others, suspended in midair, spin in circles while grasping a thin strap that runs along the wall of the plane. Scotti’s long black hair floats haphazardly.

The area inside the C-9 is contained chaos.

“I tend to get in a zone and everything is kind of slow-motion-like,” Scotti says of zero gravity. “It’s hard to remember actu-

al feelings during that time. And since we need to use our hands, we brace ourselves in goofy configurations.”

Scotti, who is 34 years old, has flown twice in zero gravity—most recently as part of the Flight Opportunities Program (FOP), a NASA-run operation in which teams like the one Scotti has led for the last two years conduct research that would not be possible on Earth’s surface. As a much cheaper alternative to spaceflight, teams fly in the C-9, an aerodynamic jet that travels in a series of parabolas to achieve zero gravity within Earth’s atmosphere for brief 30-second periods.

Photo courtesy of NASA/James Blair

Left From left to right: Felicia Teller, Amelia Plunk and Bryce Tappan in the process of freeze-casting.

Scotti first flew—floated, rather—in June 2012, six months after she had transferred to Northwestern from Harper College, a community college in Palatine, Illinois, about 20 miles west of Northwestern’s campus. Before that, Scotti worked at a transportation company called ABF Freight, where she was promoted to credit manager—a position that technically required a degree Scotti lacked, prompting her to take night classes at Harper. She then landed an internship at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama (NASA’s rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research facility) and proposed an experiment to study aluminum and silver oxide nanoporous foams in zero gravity. In January 2012, Scotti transferred to Northwestern on a scholarship worth more than $100,000 and finally traveled to Houston that summer.

For her first reduced gravity flight, Scotti and a team of her fellow Community College Aerospace Scholars from the Marshall Center created metallic nanofoams through combustion synthesis, a self-propagating high-temperature process that uses aluminum and silver oxide as reagents.

These nanofoams—a type of porous material with many microscopic openings—contain antimicrobial properties (ones that kill harmful microorganisms) that would be enhanced if constructed in zero gravity and in turn be used to help regrow damaged tissue. This research preceded the project that Scotti would initiate at Northwestern, one that morphed out of her initial work on metallic nanofoams.

In the moments before Scotti’s first flight, she and her teammates sat in a briefing room at Ellington Airport, where the FOP is based, and endured Houston’s scorching June heat. The program mis-

sion managers—those who brief research teams pre-flight, give final approval to fly and oversee experiments—delivered a message that would stick with Scotti and shape the next three years of her life.

“They said, ‘Make sure when you get up there you take a minute to look around and look at everybody around you and look at your environment and really take it in,’” Scotti says. “Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity … And right after I heard that I was like, ‘Well, now I have to figure out how to go back.’”

In May 2014, Scotti met with Dr. David Dunand, a materials science and engineering professor whose research focuses in part on metallic foams like the ones Scotti had previously used. For her new project, Scotti initially wanted to use combustion synthesis again, this time to create better solar cell electrode materials.

But combustion synthesis was often unreliable and offered Scotti little control in her experiments. She needed a new fabrication method, so she turned to Dunand.

Dunand grew up in Switzerland, the birthplace of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs)—the types of cells for which Scotti wanted to create better electrodes. Though DSSCs are cheap and simple to manufacture, they are inefficient relative to monocrystalline solar cells, which make up the panels found on most house rooftops.

While monocrystalline cells convert upwards of 20 percent of the light they absorb into electrical power, DSSCs reach just over 10 percent.

“They don’t do a great job of transferring the electrons they capture from light into whatever system they’re trying to insert it into,” says Kimberly Clinch, a Weinberg junior and former lead engineer on Scotti’s team. “The base of the solar cell is [made up of] a porous foam material, and with all these random holes

There were a lot of things that I remember seeing on the plane that you just don’t really think about.

I saw a bubble of liquid just, like, floating away. I saw a nut start turning in the air slowly, just crazy things like that.

going through it, the electrons bounce around and get lost and then it’s hard for them to travel straight to where they need to go.”

Like other solar cells, DSSCs convert energy from the sun into an electric current, which is generated through titanium dioxide, a cheap pigment commonly found in white paint.

The titanium dioxide is coated with dye that absorbs incoming photons, or light particles, and excites the electrons into a higher energy state, much like chlorophyll in photosynthesis. The titanium dioxide then conducts the electrons toward an electrolyte solution in the cell, which closes the circuit by returning the electrons to the dye, creating a current.

In zero gravity, if Scotti were able to fabricate better electrodes, she would then, theoretically, improve the DSSC’s efficiency.

“We were trying to increase the orderliness of those pores,” Clinch says. “And our hypothesis was that if you manufactured the foam in [zero]

gravity, you would get that orderliness that you wanted.”

But with combustion synthesis off the table, Scotti needed to find a way to construct foams in zero gravity. When she posed the issue to Dunand, he suggested an alternative method: freeze-casting.

Freeze-casting begins with a mixture of water and titanium oxide nanoparticles, which Scotti’s team prepares before the zero gravity flights.

Then, once airborne, a team member places the mixture inside a small container which then goes into a very cold copper box.

At this point, the liquid at the bottom of the container—nearest to the cold copper—begins to freeze, creating branches of ice crystals called dendrites. The dendrites shoot to the top of the container, pushing the titanium oxide particles out of the way like bumper cars. The particles gather around the dendrites to avoid getting pushed around, and by the time the dendrites stop growing, the particles have filled in the spaces between the dendrites.

On Earth’s surface, gravity doesn’t allow the dendrites to grow as straight. But free from gravity’s constraints, the branches of ice shoot up in straight lines. This allows the particles to gather in a more orderly fashion, thus making the electron’s journey more efficient and increasing the cell’s efficiency.

“During the [flight], we can study the effects of the absence and presence of gravity on the growth of the ice and on the settling of the particles,” Dunand says. “The idea is twofold. One is to get a better understanding of zero-g, because if we understand zero-g, we can better understand what happens here on Earth under one-g. It’s a way to understand and make the process here on Earth better.

“Two is to actually think long term and maybe in the future—say 20, 40, 50 years from now—produce solar cells in orbit, under zero-g, for satellites fall 2015 | 33

Photo courtesy of Space Ice

Photo by Alexis O’Connor Above Center Forming the crystal structure requires frigid temperatures.

The containing copper box is cooled to the proper temperature with dry ice at negative 109 degrees Fahrenheit.

Above Right The titanium dioxide crystal structure can only be seen under a powerful microscope.

To the naked eye, it appears to be simple white paint. or places where people live.

For that, we need to understand how they work under zero g.”

Two months before she first freeze-casted on the C-9 airplane, Scotti left Dunand’s office and spent her entire walk home researching freeze-casting on Google.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Scotti says. “I was too excited, and every paper I read made me more excited.”

In February 2013, more than a year before her meeting with Dunand, Scotti had submitted her proposal to the FOP to create titanium-based nano34 | northbynorthwestern.com

foams for DSSC electrodes.

Four months later, NASA selected the proposal, scheduling Scotti and her team to fly in zero gravity in July 2014, two years after her first flight.

By that point, Scotti had already compiled a team of students for the project. In one of her School of Continuing Studies biolab classes she met Felcia Teller, a 27-year-old New York native working on her post-baccalaureate degree.

Teller would help Scotti develop the method for freeze-casting samples within the 30-second window afforded by zero gravity flights.

But getting others on board proved difficult. Scotti was drawing from a pool of students who, unlike her colleagues at the Marshall Center, were not all in the same place for the express purpose of immersing themselves in the world of aerospace.

“I had a hard time finding people because, apparently, students at Northwestern are a little busy,” Scotti jokes.

In January 2014, Scotti emailed the listserv for an engi-

neering club called NUSTARS (Space Technology and Rocketry Society) asking for help on her project. The first to respond was Clinch, a then-McCormick freshman (now studying integrated science in Weinberg) who quickly became lead engineer on the project.

Clinch reached out to her friend, then-McCormick sophomore Emily Northard, and the two teamed up to create the copper block that would go inside the box used for freeze-casting. The block had to be removable so the team could soak it in dry ice just before the flights, allowing the block to stay cool—which was especially important for the mid-90s summer weather in Houston, where the team would travel in July.

Bobby Roe is a busy man.

As a missions manager of the FOP—the operation that accepts flight proposals, then sponsors and directs the flight teams in Houston—Roe manages, by his estimation, about 100 different teams. He coordinated with Scotti’s team before

it arrived in Houston to decide on flight times and dates, how many parabolas the team needed for each flight, and how many people would be on the plane at a given time.

The team—made up of Scotti, Northard, Clinch, Teller, Dunand and a chemist from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico named Bryce Tappan—flew out of Ellington Airport, which sits in the southeast part of Texas about half an hour outside of downtown Houston and houses many of NASA’s high-altitude aircraft, including the C-9.

On July 23, Scotti’s team touched down in Houston and made it to Ellington the following day—a little late after the taxi that picked them up from their nearby hotel got lost, marking a foreboding start to a hectic trip.

“You’re running around like a chicken with your head cut off getting all your T’s crossed and your I’s dotted,” Scotti says. “It’s crazy. It’s difficult to even recount because you’re so busy from the time that you get there to the time you leave.”

Each flight team generally spends a week in Houston.

The first two days involve a “hardware review”—where Roe checks out and approves the materials each team uses on the plane—and a Test Readiness Review, the same meeting at which Scotti’s mission manager ironically told her about the “once in a lifetime opportunity” she was now about to embark on for the second time.

Scotti’s team was scheduled for its first flight on Monday, but rain clouds, thunder and lightning over the Gulf created too much turbulence to fly in smooth parabolas. The team packed two flights into one marathon Tuesday.

But the work didn’t stop back at the hotel. Freeze-casting requires heavy preparation, and Scotti and her team had to put together the titanium oxide slurry mixtures the day before the flights. That meant working in the hotel room until as late as 3 a.m., then making it back to Ellington by 7 a.m. the following morning “It’s essentially no sleep and a lot of stress,” Scotti says. “But you’re in a zone the whole time. You’re not upset— but it’s exhausting.”

Former International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield once compared loosening a bolt with a wrench in zero gravity to changing a tire while wearing ice skates and goalie mitts on Earth. Imagine doing that on four hours of sleep for three days in a row in sweltering heat.

But at the same time, many people dream of flying in zero gravity at least once. This wasn’t a time to let months of work go to waste. Plus, it was kind of fun.

The team spent the first few parabolas getting used to this unique, new sensation. When the plane reached the air over the Gulf of Mexico, everyone moved from their seats to the experiment area, a mostly empty space in the plane where the freeze-casting took place.

To reach zero gravity, the C-9 flies parallel to Earth’s horizon around 24,000 feet

above the surface, then pulls up at a gradually increasing angle until the aircraft reaches roughly 45 degrees in relation to the horizon and an altitude of about 34,000 feet. While the plane climbed, Scotti’s team felt up to two g’s of force, giving them the sensation that they weighed twice as much as they would while standing on Earth’s surface.

Then, when the C-9 reaches the peak of its parabolic arc, it “pushes over,” or makes a rapid descent for about 10,000 feet.

At this point, the team felt the sensation of weightlessness.

“It just takes you by surprise,” Northard says. “It’s not something you can easily prepare for.”

Dunand compares the sensation of zero gravity to scuba diving without the water.

Teller says it’s like the top of a roller coaster, only for a much longer period of time.

“There were a lot of things that I remember seeing on the plane that you just don’t really think about,” Teller says.

“I saw a bubble of liquid just, like, floating away. I saw a nut start turning in the air slowly, just crazy things like that.”

Because the centrifugal force acting on the plane and its contents “cancels out” all the gravitational force that would normally pull those in the aircraft downward, microgravity—a more accurate way of referring to zero gravity— occurs as those inside the C-9 experience about as close to zero g’s as they could get.

“What was kind of weird for me was, maybe after two or three parabolas, microgravity started to feel more normal than anything,” Clinch says. “At first I needed to get used to how to control my body, when there was nothing forcing it in any direction.

Once you got into position, figured out what arrangement of straps you wanted to use to hold yourself so you could do work, microgravity became more comfortable.”

During the four zero gravi-

ty flights, Scotti and her team collected 221 samples of frozen slurry. The hardest part came next: analyzing each sample.

The team transported the samples back to Northwestern, dehydrated them using the freeze dryer and baked them to keep the titanium oxide particles in place. Once the samples were ready to go, they were placed under an electron microscope. The painfully slow process of studying every sample took about a year.

But for Scotti’s team, the tedium was worth it. They found that the pores in the foam samples aligned almost perfectly perpendicular to the surface they were frozen on in the plane. This provided the team with exactly the results they hoped for, though they still wanted to further study the relationship between gravity and the solidification of the samples.

In June 2015, Scotti’s team returned to Houston for another flight week, only this time to fly in a few different levels of gravity—including lunar gravity, the same condition as if you were walking on the moon.

The team also had a slightly different look: Clinch left late in 2014. Scotti was diagnosed with an autonomic nervous system disorder, which kept her off the flight. She brought on Amelia Plunk, then a thirdyear NU student pursuing a master’s in materials science and a member of Dunand’s research group, to fill her spot.

Northard led the team in Scotti’s place, less than two years after joining the team as an engineer “knowing basically nothing about materials science,” as she puts it.

“Obviously I was very upset about not being able to go,” Scotti says. “[But] I didn’t have a question in my mind that Emily would be able to do everything, and she did.”

The idea with the second flight was to learn more about how gravity impacts the way the foams form by gathering more (and different) data to better model the relationship.

This understanding is import-

ant for discovering how to efficiently manufacture the solar cell components back on Earth, but also for the team’s other, greater ambition: sending the experiment to the International Space Station (ISS) for additional and more involved testing—where you have days of zero gravity instead of 30-second periods.

During the second trip, Scotti’s team toured NanoRacks, a private research company that funds and coordinates transportation to the ISS, from which the team has since secured sponsorship.

But once on the ISS, the project will be out of Scotti’s team’s hands. At that point, they will be closer than ever to reaching their objective—which can become hazy and indistinct in the midst of a complex project like this.

Though Scotti acknowledges she couldn’t realistically make electrodes in microgravity for commercial purposes —the cost of flying would far outweigh the profit generated by the electrodes—she sees another, more long-term function of her team’s work.

“If you do make them better, then you can learn how they got better, and then maybe make modifications on the ground that will allow you to get something similar,” Scotti says.

By nature, Scotti is an explorer. Her insatiable desire to always know more and to push boundaries—her “scientific vision,” as Tappan describes it— has driven the project forward from the beginning.

“There are tons of unknowns; the implications are incredibly diverse,” Scotti says.

“We’re essentially combining over three centuries of scientific discovery in an attempt to answer fundamental questions about how the universe works.

Who knows what we’ll learn?”

For more information on the project, vist: www.spaceice.org fall 2015 | 35

36 | northbynorthwestern.com

Of

Turning conversation into action, one student at a time.

BY PREETISHA SEN Photos by ANNA WATERS and NATALIE ESCOBAR Art by HANNA BOLAÑOS

I

t’s April, and the NFL Draft is in Chicago for the first time ever.

Millions of people came from all over the country to watch, but Zane Clarke Waxman* isn’t here as a spectator—they’re here as a protester, standing with students who aren’t just classmates, but fellow organizers.

Above their heads, posters read, “Student power over corporate greed.”

Clarke Waxman joined more than 100 other students across the city in a protest challenging Roosevelt University’s financial aid policies, in an attempt to force the administration to acknowledge the misinformation given to marginalized students about financial aid.

Some were asked to withdraw from the university because they couldn’t pay sufficient tuition, according to the Chicago Tribune.

In October, Roosevelt president Ali Malekzadeh apologized for the “inaccurate information” the university gave students, saying that the same mistakes would not be repeated.

“It’s very rewarding to see people who really don’t want to have to deal with the problems we’re talking about, forced to,” Clarke Waxman says.

For Clarke Waxman, organizing people and resources to create action like this is the only thing that ever has a tangible impact. Change happens when you get people to stand together and challenge corrupt institutions, Clarke Waxman says. *Clarke Waxman’s pronouns are they/them/theirs

That’s how they got interested in IIRON, the Illinois and Indiana Regional Organizing Network, and then went on to be a founder of Northwestern’s IIRON chapter.

Dealing with systemic imbalances of power is not a new experience for Clarke Waxman, who grew up between multiple households in low-income and mixed-race families. They heard stories of a black step-grandfather who was denied work opportunities and forced into segregated communities after fighting in World War II as a Tuskegee Airman.

In 2010, Clarke Waxman came to Northwestern and began taking political science courses, learning about what they saw as corrupt campaign financing practices and what they now say is one root cause of inequality in America.

“I became very, very depressed,” Clarke Waxman says. “I felt like the challenges we face were insurmountable, as a species, as a planet.”

And so, after two years, Clarke Waxman took a break from Northwestern.

They returned to Evanston in September 2013 with a newfound interest in community organizing.

They resumed classes in March 2014 just as IIRON was looking to grow at Northwestern. IIRON emphasizes the power of young people and uses collective action to challenge systemic issues. The IIRON Student Network (ISN) trains students by building chapters on Chicago-area campuses.

Clarke Waxman calls the timing “auspicious,” and maybe it was. ISN fall 2015 | 37

wanted a Northwestern chapter; Clarke Waxman and a few of their friends were prepared to start organizing and creating action.

“It was exactly what we were looking for,” they say.

IIRON Students of Northwestern United (ISNU) wants to do more than just talk about issues; they want to organize.

That means placing students in the heart of the NFL draft to get a university president’s attention. It means marching from Loyola to downtown Chicago to advocate for an increased minimum wage. It means encouraging Northwestern students to “carry the weight” by moving mattresses all across campus to raise awareness of sexual assault.

Members say dialogue can only go so far—at a certain point, change requires action.

With Northwestern’s chapter of IIRON, students want to motivate others to attend actions because it’s “in their own self interest to be there,” says Weinberg senior Robel Worku, a leader of ISNU’s Black Lives Matter efforts.

“There are a lot of people on campus that are frustrated about social issues,” Worku says. “And a lot of people are able to eloquently describe these issues and the problems associated with them, but there is a lack of action. And that’s precisely the role that ISNU plays.”

building a legacy Emiliano Vera came to Northwestern wanting to make the world better. He joined student groups that seemed to “deliver that sense of doing good,” but dropped most by sophomore year when he realized they didn’t create an impact. When he walked into an IIRON meeting, he noticed the difference.

“It’s weird to say that the structure of the meeting turned me on to it, but they seemed serious,” says Vera, a Weinberg senior. “They seemed to have a personal 38| northbynorthwestern.com

interest and personal investment in people.”

Vera worked with Clarke Waxman to soldify IIRON’s role on campus. In the winter and spring of 2014, students started to participate in actions and discuss names for the Northwestern IIRON group, but they “didn’t have a structure as an organized institution,” Vera says.

In February, ISNU screened The Hand that Feeds, a film about injustice in the food service industry. In October, the group held a climate change rally on campus. In April, about 30 students went downtown to participate in the “Fight for $15,” a national movement to raise the minimum wage to $15.

“That was really exciting, because that was definitely

things, but we’ve been able to contribute at least something to everything we’ve taken on,” Vera says.

The concept of community organizing has been around since the 1930s. Saul Alinsky, a Jewish American writer, is known as its founder—his book Rules for Radicals is about taking power away from “the Haves” and bringing it back to “the Have-Nots” through grassroots movements.

To get more students involved, ISNU follows Alinsky’s methodology, recruiting primarily through one-on-one meetings with interested students to gauge where they fit into the movement.

Once people show significant interest in organizing, they are invited to attend daylong training sessions in Chi-

There are a lot of people on campus that are frustrated about social issues, and a lot of people are able to eloquently describe these issues and the problems associated with them, but there is a lack of action. the biggest action that we’ve mobilized for,” Vera says.

Raising minimum wage is just one of many systemic problems ISNU works to solve. In Winter Quarter 2014, ISNU worked with other student groups to protest during the height of sexual assault awareness movements.

Over the summer, they participated in IIRON-wide actions against Governor Bruce Rauner’s budget cuts through movements called Moral Mondays, taking over the streets of Chicago and occupying intersections. In October, they joined a Chicago action called “I Shocked the Sheriff,” confronting the International Association of Chiefs of Police about police brutality and violence against black people in the U.S. “We’ve taken on several

cago. Members of ISNU describe these trainings as heavy, intense days where they’re forced to confront broad concepts like power and identity.

“It’s intended to provoke you a little bit, and to start engaging in more critical self-reflection,” Worku says.

Worku wants people to “stop admiring the problem.”

He first noticed demographic differences as a low-income black student attending a predominately white, wealthy private high school.

Through ISNU, he says he’s had the opportunity to think more analytically about these cultural problems. He attended IIRON’s daylong training session in the spring and a weeklong training over the summer. He returned with a better understanding of orga-

nizing and how he fit into the picture.

“That was the first time I understood that there really was a stringent and wellthought-out methodology behind how they approach organizing,” Worku says. “It helped me understand how the organization worked to achieve its goals.”

Northwestern’s careerism, combined with many students’ race and class privilege, can create the feeling of a “reactionary” campus, Vera says. When Communication professor Laura Kipnis wrote about the power dynamics in student-teacher relationships, Northwestern students called for the University to reaffirm its Title IX policies.

ISNU aims to be more intentional than this by meticulously planning actions in a way that gets attention. For IIRON, the word “organize” describes gathering people and resources, but actions themselves require a deep level of organization to make sure they’re reaching the right people and being heard in the right places.

Part of the challenge of organizing is finding enough people to participate, but college campuses are the perfect place to find that energy, says Kristi Sanford, IIRON’s communications director.

“While students are in college and have the desire, time and energy to really think critically about what’s going on in the broader world, is the ideal time to be organizing,” Sanford says.

Actions can be physically taxing. People spend hours standing outside, sometimes in horrible weather, to make their voices heard. Northwestern students who participated in the Fight for $15 campaign took buses downtown, marched in Chicago and bused back to campus in between classes. But beyond the physical challenge, Vera says being part of a protest is difficult mentally, too.

“Is being out on the streets, marching, shouting slogans and being an inconvenience

in other people’s lives actually doing anything? Because when you’re out there, sometimes it doesn’t,” Vera says.

Vera says that organizing and participating in actions is about realizing there’s a bigger picture. When people get together and stand in action, they make sure the world takes note.

“It’s not like we’re just showing up and shouting— and if we are, it’s not a very well-planned action.”

Inclusion at NU In January 2013, a Northwestern maintenance worker came back to his office to find his black stuffed panda bear hanging from a rope as if it had been lynched.

Last May, Dr. Barnor Hesse, a professor in the department of African American Studies, withdrew his name from the senior’s “Last Lecture” vote because he thought his biography “reduce[d] [him] to a figure of amusement or curiosity” while other candidates were noted for their professional accomplishments.

And in August, the Department of Student Affairs proposed repurposing parts of the Black House—a building that has historically served as a safe space for black students—in order to create more offices for the Department of Campus Inclusion and Community (CIC).

“With how the University talks about diversity and inclusion and wanting to make this a priority, I’m very skeptical about the reason that CIC has to move there in the first place,” says School of Education and Social Policy junior Matt Herndon. “Why can we not give CIC enough room to operate by themselves in the first place? CIC deserves a place of their own to operate.”

Herndon, who was previously more involved with ISNU, says the group increases awareness and education on campus through its events.

One of his goals as the Associ-

Some ISNU students demonstrated their support of raising the minimum wage by participating in the “Fight for $15” rally in downtown Chicago last spring. This is just one example of a movement that ISNU advocates for.

ated Student Government VP of Accessibility and Inclusion is to put some of that responsibility on the University.

“A lot of times, students with marginalized identities on campus have to do the education themselves,” Herndon says. “Having to talk about why they feel marginalized, and why they feel oppressed, is not their responsibility as students. It’s not something that they should have to do— it can be exhausting.”

In September, Northwestern bolstered its offerings in CIC by forming a Social Justice Education (SJE) department, which aims to give students various co-curricular opportunities to start conversations about race and privilege on campus. Herndon hopes that Weinberg will soon have an educational requirement covering these topics so students can learn about thissues themselves. But Assistant SJE Directors Michele Enos and Noor Ali say implementing such a requirement isn’t easy.

“You can’t just take a course and get this stuff,” Ali says. “It helps plant the seed, but it’s definitely a culture, and something we’re hoping

to build within our campus in numerous ways.”

Ali and Enos have many vehicles toward planting that seed. Sustained Dialogue and Peer Inclusion Educators are two programs where students are able to talk about backgrounds and biases, and use those conversations to change campus culture.

Finding where dialogue fits into action is where activism can get tricky. Some believe that the two cannot coexist, but Ali and Enos both say action is most useful when combined with meaningful dialogue—when people recognize different aspects of their identities, whether that’s race, gender or economic status.

Factoring self-awareness into issues of marginalization is key to change, Ali says.

Many of ISNU’s founding members are now seniors, and so, a huge focus is preparing underclassmen to carry the group forward, as well as recruiting more students to grow the organization.

For now, ISNU wants to create a bigger campus presence by gaining recognition not only from students, but administrators, as well. Enos

and Ali both come from different universities, and say that Northwestern is a place where the administrators don’t necessarily talk about campus activism, but students do.

“I feel like Northwestern could do a better job of highlighting student activism on campus,” Enos says. “Knowing what I know about Northwestern … I was very excited to see that student activism played such an important role on campus.”

But Enos also says that students have a lot of power at Northwestern. Students talking to administrators is what opened up funding for her job. ISNU hopes to build on that type of action to get the University’s attention.

“It’s not like there’s a lack of knowledge—people know that Chicago is cutting the budget, that schools are being closed and that people of color are being killed by the police,” Worku says. “It’s just a question of the knowledge of organizations and campaigns that you can join with and potentially become leaders within to change those things. If we can adjust the culture in that way, that’ll be a big win for us.” fall 2015 | 39

NORTHWESTERN’S

MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM What happens when we leave our mental health until the last minute?

BY SAM HART Photos by JACOB MESCHKE and ALEX FURUYA

40 | northbynorthwestern.com

JILLIAN SELLERS WROTE LOVE LETTERS TO HER FUTURE SELF. The high-achieving high school senior was elated.

She had gotten into her dream college and was happy with her high school accomplishments. She was a competitive cheerleader, and she planned to continue cheering on the sidelines when she arrived at Northwestern. She knew she loved writing and was excited to do so at one of the best journalism programs in the nation.

The 18-year-old (now a Medill senior) also knew that her Major Depressive Disorder would not allow her elation to last, and that’s where the letters came in.

Written by a younger Jillian, addressed to her future self succumbing to the stress she knew she would encounter at Northwestern, they give her the reminders she needs from time to time. “‘She’s asking you to fight for the Jillian of the future.

And she wants you to be happy, and she wants you to thrive. And you are worth so much more than trying to end your life.’”

Through mental breakdowns, depressive episodes, and her fight with body dysmorphia and an eating disorder that have punctuated her time at her dream school, she’ll pick up the letters to remind herself why she’s here.

She sometimes has moments where she has to remind herself that life itself is worth living at all.

And Jillian is certainly not the only one struggling.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, more than 25 percent of students at institutions of higher education have been treated for mental illness by a professional, a number that is rising.

Sellers has battled mental illness from the age of three, but its onset varies case by case. For Weinberg senior Becca Dugan, the issues started in high school, and the competitive aspect of Northwestern student life set in a layer of stigma.

“I think being at Northwestern made it worse, because, I was in all pre-med classes and it’s just so competitive,” she says. “For a while I didn’t feel comfortable talking about it because I felt like it was something I would be judged for, or seen as being weak.”

And for Jacob Pope, a fourth-year Bienen and Weinberg dual-degree student, trials with depression and suicide attempts in high school meant he came to Northwestern with a heightened awareness of mental illness.

Northwestern’s Counseling and Psychological Services center (CAPS), an office with a staff size of 18 full-time-equivalent clinicians, reported that roughly 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students (out of a pool of around 17,000) sought their services last year, around 60 percent of whom were undergraduate.

The large uptick in recent years is straining the infrastructure NU has in place. But some argue that while increasing levels of mental illness on college is not an easy issue to deal with, it may be a good sign—a sign that a

particular slew of students are making it to college campuses at all.

MENTAL ILLNESS: A NEW FORM OF DIVERSITY? Alison May has a student crisis to handle before we can sit down to speak. I wait quietly for about 15 minutes until she welcomes me into her office, tucked away in a building I, a Northwestern student without a disability, had never before visited or even really noticed on Sheridan Road.

The delay was a perfect reminder of the nature of her job. As director of AccessibleNU, she’s serving as an intermediary between students, their healthcare providers and their professors. Her office sees dozens of students come in at the end of their rope, desperately trying to navigate through the school’s red tape to ensure they’ll make it through the quarter.

What a lot of students don’t know or may forget is a mental illness diagnosis is a registrable disability, and as such, May has seen a fair share of students with these come through her office for help with accommodations—a fair share that has tripled in the last 10 years, she estimates.

When May talks about mental illness at Northwestern, she does so with a combination of face-value realism and motivated optimism. To her, physical, mental and emotional impairments form a new kind of diversity (demonstrated in her office’s re-brand to AccessibleNU from Services for Students with Disabilities), and accommodating mental illness is one piece of the giant puzzle that is creating an inclusive and accessible community.

“I feel like my role is to make our office not need to exist,” she says, suggesting that rather than having a specific office devoted to accessibility, it could be built in throughout the various aspects of campus life. “If you’re doing a good job, you’re working yourself out of a job.”

May has her work cut out for her.

She largely sees the upswing in students seeking these accommodations as a result of a huge policy-driven paradigm shift in the early 1990s, and the changing pool of applicants for institutions of higher learning.

The American Disabilities Act of 1990 made it illegal to discriminate based on disability—physical or mental.

In the same year, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act passed, seeking to ensure students with disabilities received the education they need to lead fulfilling adult lives.

“If you think about it, who are the students who had the full benefit of special education or other student services? Students born in the early ‘90s,” May says. “And that’s the students who are undergrad right now.”

Essentially, these laws made college possible for students for whom it was not before. Students who had beFALL 2015 | 41

fore been neglected by the school system as having subpar performance for a number of reasons—the fact that ADHD prevented them from sitting comfortably at a desk all day, or that dyslexia prevented them from reading with the same ease as their peers—were granted accommodations that allowed them to succeed.

“This is sobering to say, but I think a lot of the students we work with wouldn’t be alive this long ... medical advances have allowed them to live longer, to function better,” May says.

Accordingly, May says she thinks focusing on students with disabilities and mental illness as exceptions is the wrong approach.

“At what point are there so many exceptions that we decide the rule isn’t working?” she says. “It’s time to change the rule.”

STRAIGHT-A STUDENTS, GRADE-A BREAKDOWNS Jillian and I were in the same multimedia storytelling section freshman year.

Jillian’s first mental breakdown at Northwestern happened in the middle of a reading week class period leading up to our final presentations. “[Our professor] himself took me, in the middle of class—he walked me over to CAPS from his office in Fisk and sat with me in the waiting room until I got an emergency appointment with one of the therapists there,” Jillian says.

Jillian had looked fine all quarter.

Maybe it’s that I wasn’t looking closely, maybe it’s that she was good at hiding it.

But it’s probably some combination of the two that’s not unique to this particular situation. It’s a fact of life at Northwestern.

The New York Times recently identified “Penn Face” at the University of Pennsylvania, a colloquialism used by students to describe the pressure to put on a happy face despite stress and strife underneath the surface. At Stanford, it’s called “Duck Syndrome,” the idea that a duck appears to glide across the surface of the water despite paddling furiously underneath.

At Northwestern, we’ve failed to even come up with a conversational name for the phenomenon.

“Because you all have been so successful, and this is the first arena in which you encounter failure, it’s pretty devastating,” May says.

“My colleagues and I, we say we worry so much more about the Straight-A students than we do about pretty much any other group of students,” she continues.

“Unfortunately a lot of times they are the ones who just fall to pieces when the criteria for failure is so much lower than it is for 42 | northbynorthwestern.com

most of the rest of us.”

Jillian, with the help of her academic advisor, our professor and her support system, took an incomplete for the class that quarter.

I don’t even remember her being absent for our final presentations.

CHANGING A CAMPUS CULTURE For as long as Weinberg senior Sarah Moss has been part of NU Active Minds, she’s remembered the group’s ultimate ambition of bringing the Send Silence Packing event to Northwestern. And on Sept. 28, with her as a co-chair of the Northwestern chapter of a national mental health organization, that became a reality.

“At what point are there so many exceptions that we decide [it] isn’t working? It’s time to change the rule.”

All day, 1,100 backpacks sat out on Deering Meadow, each with a story attached detailing an experience with suicide. The location made it difficult to miss, and on a campus where today’s seniors can remember the deaths of five students to suicide, Moss says bringing the conversation to Northwestern was important.

The Northwestern chapter, around since 2011, is one of 400 across the country. Recent achievements include organizing the Send Silence Packing event, a traveling display put on by the national organization, as well as implementing a mental health Essential NU, the information session during Wildcat Welcome that educates all freshmen on mental health resources on campus.

Moss says student life at Northwestern often deprioritizes mental health. When it comes to changing a campus culture, she believes it’s a worthy task.

But Active Minds is one of several recently started student organizations that is trying to do just that—tackle the issue of mental health on campus. NU Listens, an anonymous peer listening service, was started in the 2011-12 school year “with the intention of supplementing the mental

health services offered on campus,” according to their Facebook page.

NU Listens assistant director Brooke Feinstein maintains that the organization is not a substitute for therapy or counseling, but rather a service aimed at improving overall mental health at Northwestern.

“I think that there’s a bit of a misconception that mental health is just about mental illness,” the Weinberg junior says.

“But the thing is mental health is just like physical health in the sense that everyone needs to take care of themselves in order to be healthy.”

GROWING OFFICES, GROWING SUPPORT NETWORKS Becca remembers summoning up the courage to finally go in and set up an appointment with CAPS Fall Quarter of her sophomore year. She had been struggling with her depression all of freshman year, and at the persistent requests of her mother and friends, decided to finally seek help from counseling services.

When she was typing her name in on the computer to sign in and take the assessment survey, a drop down box of all the other students whose names began with the letter “R” showed up.

“That really bothered me because that is not something that should be public,” she says.

She says she then proceeded with her initial evaluation, where she was told no one would be able to see her for around three months.

In all, Becca describes her experience with CAPS as “frustrating, but not awful.” For Jillian, however, CAPS was there during a time of crisis, and was able to help her out of it.

“I have to tell people, I’ve never had a problem with CAPS from day one,” Jillian says.

According to Executive Director John Dunkle, CAPS offers same-day crisis appointments—like the one Jillian had—as well as same-day initial consultations.

From there, the office will work with the student to determine the best options for future care, which can include outside referral, referral to CAPS group therapy or continued counseling with CAPS for up to 12 sessions (Dunkle says of students who continue with CAPS sessions, the average sessions used hovers around six or seven.)

Dunkle also says the office can now accommodate an in-person counseling experience within seven days.

CAPS has been adding staff members, but the number of students reaching out for counseling services from CAPS has also been steadily increasing.

“I think what CAPS can do in that

area is we can offer essential mental health services, we can offer psychoeducation programming, we can offer crisis intervention, those types of things to the community. But there’s others that need to also be a part of that,” he says.

And in terms of increasing the size of CAPS, the office has added three new clinicians in the past two years.

Mona Dugo, associate dean of students in Student Assistance and Support Services (SASS), works closely with CAPS in helping students navigate medical leaves of absence. From what she’s seen in the number of students she’s dealt with, adding more staffers to CAPS would not solve the larger problem.

To take a medical leave of absence for mental health reasons, a student must first make a request online to the Dean of Students’ Office. Then, the student is evaluated by CAPS, who makes a recommendation to SASS, at which point a meeting is scheduled with a member of SASS to continue with the final details of the process.

Dugo, who has been in her position at Northwestern for three years, talks about a pervasive perception that the school bullies students into taking a leave. She says when the office sees students who are chronically suicidal or have self-destructive and self-harming behaviors, staff members may talk to the students about taking leave.

“We will talk to them about our desire for them to get treatment,” she says. “But it’s really a decision students have to make for themselves. I can’t make the decision for the students.”

She says a toxic campus culture pushes students to their limits.

“I’m really struck by it,” she says. “I work with amazing students that are so bright and so talented. And they just continue to be so hard on themselves.”

BUILDING IN SELF-CARE The metaphor May, the director of AccessibleNU, uses is simple.

Picture the ramps in front of Tech. The long, eased-grades slant upward alongside the central steps that lead pedestrians up from the street level to that of the ground floor about ten feet above, a cohesive design compliant with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. May notes that, to some degree, slapping a wooden ramp onto the back of the building could also comply with these standards, but would not be nearly as graceful or as inclusive as the comprehensive design utilized by hundreds of students and professors every day.

And on any given day walking to

your orgo class you might see a student in a wheelchair rolling up the steps to get to class or a mother with a stroller. All who use the ramps are seamlessly accommodated in their journey up from street levels to the doors of Tech, and they barely even notice.

These ramps are universal; they’re not seen as exclusively for students who lack the physical ability to climb the adjoining stairs. In the same way, May believes curriculum and policy could be designed in such a way that students with mental illness could all be accommodated alongside their peers. Support for students can be built in to campus culture and student life, she says.

“In an ideal world anyone would be able to walk in at anytime and get that support, or that support would be built in throughout the campus in more pockets,” she says. “Self-care, looking out for each other and having that supportive environ-

“This is the first arena in which you encounter failure. It’s pretty devastating.” ment built in and not having to go to a certain place for that support.”

To her, the problem at Northwestern is that students bottle their emotions and neglect self-care until they desperately need the professional therapeutic services of CAPS, at which point it becomes harder to navigate reaching out for help due to the severity of their mental state.

The quarter system, implemented in 1942, today requires 45 credits to graduate across the span of 12 quarters (this is standard across all schools with the exception of Bienen and Bienen dual-degree programs, which require more credits), a contributing factor to student stress.

May herself spent her undergraduate years at fellow quarter-system school Dartmouth, which requires only 35 credits, and her graduate years at Northwestern. She described the quarter system workload at Northwestern as a “different beast.”

Dugo adds that she believes a lot of student stress is perpetuated by our quarter system combined with a high number of requirements to graduate, which “naturally create a rigorous system.”

A Faculty Task Force on the Under-

graduate Academic Experience is currently evaluating student needs with a particular focus on mental wellness and the academic workload. Interestingly enough, a similar task force in 1988 recommended the school switch to a semester system or lessen the load on the quarter system. Nothing came of that particular suggestion.

Weinberg senior Emily* is currently on a medical leave of absence for her anxiety and depression. While her experience with the leave of absence process was largely an easy one, reinstatement had its hiccups.

Because you’re technically not enrolled as a student, you lose access to your netID after a certain number of days of inactivity.

“And that is kind of very difficult when I thought that I would be back in the fall,” she says. “Because I wanted to register for classes in the spring and I couldn’t.” (Emily ultimately decided to extend her leave after hospitalization this past summer.)

There’s now an iPhone app, NUHelp, which allows students to carry in their pocket the contact information for every office (and more) mentioned here. Resources are being built into campus life, and as Jacob Pope tells me, “momentum is on the upswing.” *This student asked that her real name not be used.

WHAT CAN WE DO? “I think seeing people that speak about their experience and like, for them that makes it a lot more real,” Emily says.

“And I think that people who are dealing with those issues would feel a lot less isolated.”

It’s no coincidence the students most interested in speaking to me about their experiences with mental illness at Northwestern are all in their fourth year at this school.

“By the time you’re a junior or senior you start to realize being this absurdly busy and stressed is not necessarily a natural part of coming to college; it’s a thing that you actually want to fight back against,” Jacob says.

But by the time junior or senior year comes around, half of the college experience is gone.

Support exists and is becoming more engrained in student life. Students are becoming more open about their experiences. But so many more are still suffering in silence. And that’s the nature of Northwestern’s mental health problem, which makes it a difficult one to address.

“There’s no silver bullet,” says Jacob. “[But] there are things that you will never see, that you can still positively influence.”

FALL 2015 | 43

OUT OF THE DUNGEON One student group works to fight misconceptions about kink.

BY CARTER SHERMAN

T

he students look as motley and unremarkable as a macro discussion section. Though one guy rocks a pair of crimson cowboy boots, most sport the normcore uniform of baggy sweatshirts and Converse. If you happened to wander past this Annenberg classroom, you would never guess that these students are here a meeting of the NU Kink Education Society.

After about 30 minutes of talking, laughing and eating Chips Ahoy, a man with a mop of brown hair shuts off the music. The topic for the hour-long meeting is consent and negotiation, the best ways for people to set sexual boundaries and

44 | northbynorthwestern.com

limits on what is and isn’t acceptable, and Erik*—the group’s co-founder and co-president—is ready to get started.

“Generally, [you] have to ask someone for consent if you’re gonna have sex with them,” Erik starts to say.

One girl wearing a baby blue fleece jumps in with an amendment: “Uhh, 100 percent of the time,” her fingers tracing the digits in the air with an assured swoop. Everyone laughs, and plunges in.

The NU Kink Education Society, or NUKES, is not for everyone. The club, which first met last May, seeks to educate and build community for students interested in kink. Such

clubs are far from unusual; in fact, Northwestern’s embrace of kink lags behind schools like Harvard University and Columbia University, which have had kink-centric clubs for several years. NUKES aims to help Northwestern catch up, to dispel—or at least illuminate—the misconceptions and debates over kink’s motivations and acceptability that remain rampant on campus.

If you’ve somehow managed to avoid 50 Shades of Grey, the meaning of “kink” might be a little murky, but it generally refers to any sexual behavior that society deems unconventional or beyond the norm. Fetishes, or objects that cause sexual desire

in some individuals, fall under the kink umbrella.

So does BDSM (Bondage/ Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadomasochism), which embeds sex with power exchanges of varying intensity, from handcuffs to practices like “blood play.” (It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like.)

Not everybody who likes kink likes BDSM, and not everybody who’s into BDSM is into every kind of play. “[Kink] doesn’t always have its expression in sexual ways,” says Bruce,* who runs the Chicago-based kink convention Kinky Kollege and often speaks to university kink clubs. “That is one of the wonderful things about

P h oto by Emma S ar a ppo

the kink community. It is wide open to lots of different expressions. It isn’t strictly sexual and it isn’t strictly BDSM-related.”

Never heard of these definitions or distinctions? You’re not alone. Many of the Northwestern organizations associated with sex education skirt the topic of kinky sex practices altogether. When asked, one Sexual Health and Peer Education (SHAPE) leader declares simply, “We don’t do kink!”

“That’s not their primary mission,” explains Lisa Currie, director of health promotion and wellness at the Center for Awareness, Response and Education (CARE). CARE advises and supports both SHAPE and

Men Against Sexual Assault (MARS), so both groups fall under Currie’s supervision. MARS, she says, solely addresses sexual violence prevention and educating men about consent.

SHAPE, meanwhile, has a broader mission and aims to also tackle healthy sexuality.

But while SHAPE’s peer educators learn about kink in their own training, “they’re not gonna become in-depth experts on any one topic,” Currie says.

“We try to include it, but it’s not something that’s a dominant part of their curriculum.”

Beyond SHAPE’s occasional foray into the topic, Northwestern’s kink-interested students are out of luck when it comes to University resources. Yet as kink emerges from the shadows, both in people’s personal lives and in pop culture, more and more students will likely have questions.

“The way that our society views BDSM and kink has changed a lot in the past few years, partly because we’ve had a cultural moment that was sparked by 50 Shades of Grey,” says Laura Haave. “What it did is bring the idea of kinky play and BDSM into the mainstream consciousness and spark a huge amount of dialogue about, ‘Is this good or bad? What does authentic desire mean? Can kinky relationships be healthy?’”

Haave is the director of the Gender and Sexuality Center at Carleton College in Minnesota, but she served as Northwestern’s coordinator of sexual health education and violence prevention until the 2014-15 academic year. She frequently mentors students of all gender identities and sexual orientations.

“Prior to 50 Shades of Grey coming along and changing the national discussion on the issue, I would have people who felt like there was something wrong with them. ‘I’m sick.’ ‘I wish I didn’t have these desires.’ That’s lessened a lot.”

Haave, who also worked as SHAPE’s adviser during her time at NU, recalls Northwestern students as possessing a fledgling understanding of kink.

When she held programs related to kink or BDSM, she could usually expect a solid turnout.

Kink-involved students often showed up to offer themselves as a resource.

“People who identify as kinky want to welcome other people to that space and ensure that people are safe and healthy,” Haave says. “There’s a long tradition of people being like, ‘As a community, we’re gonna teach other, because there’s not a lot of information available about this in mainstream society.’”

NUKES, it seems, is here to join that tradition.

J

essica Castellanos can’t remember a time before she liked kink. At 14, she realized she wasn’t cut out for conventional, or “vanilla,” relationships. At 16, she delved into her first dominant-submissive relationship. She is now in a new relationship, with a man she often describes as her “master.”

Her partners have always accepted her desires—but explaining and sharing them with her family and friends proved a little more difficult. Even at Northwestern, which Jessica sees as “very sex-positive,” the Weinberg sophomore faces criticism.

“There was a week where my master was restricting what I ate, and when everyone was having dessert, I told one of my closest friends, ‘Oh no, I actually can’t eat that,’” Jessica recalls.

“She was like, ‘You’re letting him tell you to do what?!’”

Like many NUKES members, Jessica is far from the imposing, black-leather-clad stereotype of kink devotees. She wears clunky glasses beneath side-swept bangs and laughs frequently, her voice chipper and welcoming.

Maybe that’s why Jessica sometimes hears kink dismissed as “Stockholm Syndrome, but with sex”—no one would guess the reason she wears long sleeves is to hide her bruises.

“It’s isolating to not have anybody who understands the nature of your relationship,” Jessica says. “It’s nice to have people to talk to that aren’t going to think that you’re in an abusive relationship just because it’s different than the norm.”

But friends’ confusion and strangers’ dismissal pushed Jessica to realize that Northwestern

was missing something: a safe space for people who happened to enjoy, among other things, being tied up every now and then.

Jessica posted on FetLife, one of the most common and reliable social networks for kinksters: “Hey wildcats! Freshwoman here. I’m officially trying to start a BDSM club. I figure it’s been done at Tufts, UChicago, Harvard, Columbia, University of Minnesota, etc. so we can sure as hell do it here. In my mind, it would be a place people could go to talk about experiences, explore interests, get advice and talk about how to stay safe and sane (but also insane and unsafe in all the right ways).”

“My fear at first was that I would be the only person who would actually want to meet in person,” Jessica says. “But once I started sending messages on Fet, I got like ten responses back.”

Erik sent one of those responses. Like Jessica, the Weinberg sophomore knew he liked kink long before he ever stepped on Northwestern’s campus. Unlike Jessica, he kept his interest carefully hidden in his Chicago-area high school.

“I didn’t want to piss anyone off,” he says. “I didn’t want to anger anyone.”

He started heading to munches—casual social gatherings for the kinkily inclined— and kink clubs in Chicago, learning how to engage in kinky practices, or “play,” both pleasurably and safely. When he saw Jessica’s Fetlife post, he was instantly intrigued. “‘Oh, that’s something I would really like to join when it begins, as a member,’” Erik remembers thinking. “Then I thought, ‘What the hell did I have to lose by helping people, even if it’s a little delicate? What do I have to lose by helping people have fun?’”

Jessica and Erik soon joined forces as co-founders of what became NUKES. Around 25 people showed up to their first meeting, held May 6 of last year.

“We actually ran out of chairs,” Jessica recalls with a small laugh.

Each NUKES meeting starts with a munch, before launching into a more formal discussion. fall 2015 | 45

46 | northbynorthwestern.com

T

he definition of kink remains an open debate.

It can be called an activity, a community, an identity, an orientation. Even experts, like Haave, lack answers. And they don’t particularly want to provide them.

“Those [thoughts] can all be valid for different people, and I think they can all mutually coexist,” Haave says. “There’s not just one way to engage in kink or be a kinky person …

[For] any marginalized sexual or gender identity, with any marginalized community, that faces some kind of stigma by society, there can be a struggle to figure out what that identity means to you.”

College Feminists, Northwestern’s feminism club, discussed this very question at a meeting last year. According to some members, it got heated.

“Someone brought up that they believe that kink is queer,” recalls College Feminists President and SESP ju-

nior Sydney Selix. “I had never even considered that.”

Even Jessica and Erik, the resident authorities on the subject, are split. Jessica labels her kink interest as “definitely an orientation,” while Erik admits he “[doesn’t] know what to call it, honestly.” What they do know is this: Be careful who you tell.

“I’m very open with my friends about this. But I’m always someone who’s looking towards long-term ramifications,” says one senior who attended four NUKES meetings last year. While he confesses kink fantasies to friends, he did not want to be identified, because future jobs “very much care about public image and what’s ‘morally corrupt’... It’s not fair, because I don’t think there’s anything wrong if it’s between consenting people.”

Until this year, NUKES lacked even a Facebook page to respect members’ privacy.

The page, which describes

*Last name withheld.

Ph oto by E mma S ar appo

The topics range from everything from kink in media—at a meeting last year, members debated the sexual innuendo of Scooby Doo, Where Are You!—to post-play aftercare.

Afterwards, members often stay and chat. Then everyone goes home to do their homework, just like every other Northwestern student.

“Whether students are actually involved in the group or even just on the listserv, having a group present on campus helps people broaden their understanding that there are other forms of sexuality out there, that are real and are normal,” says Currie, who offered to serve as NUKES’s adviser once the group receives university accreditation (a process Erik and Jessica say is ongoing). “They don’t have to remain behind a closed door, just because the majority of people don’t engage in it.”

NUKES as “a confidential social and learning environment for the sexually curious,” advises readers that it’s alright if they don’t want to publically “like” the page.

“It’s okay to not come out or to come out as much as you want to,” Jessica says. “But also I tell people, ‘You’re probably going to hear a lot of ignorant things.’”

Castellanos came out to her mother around the time NUKES was started. Her master had just moved to Portland, so Castellanos purchased a $300 ticket to visit. Her mother called her, frantic, at 7:30 in the morning, believing the card had been stolen—and Jessica decided to tell her the truth. Now, Castellanos says her mom is “completely fine with it.”

“I’ve just always been a hugely sexual person,” she says. “It’s such a big part of my personality that if I didn’t talk about it, nobody would really know me.”

Ask Currie about how Northwestern—as an institution, as individuals—can help, and she holds her hands inches apart to demonstrate how society conceives of human sexuality as “this narrow little band,” a short list of preferences and practices.

“It’s way wider than that!” she exclaims. “Some people think you have to take people on the fringe and bring them into the center, and the reality is we have to take people from the center and bring them out to the fringe. Not necessarily to engage in it, but to open their eyes, understand and raise awareness.”

We need to have conversations, she says. We need to remember our similarities and respect our differences. We need to accept one another, so no one needs to live in fear.

“Most people want to be healthy,” Currie says of sex.

“Most people want it to be safe. Most people want it to be consensual. Regardless of what people are engaging in, there’s common ground there.”

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Become a Leader in Entertainment, Media + the Arts with a One-Year Program http://creative.northwestern.edu

Apply Now for Winter or Fall 2016

HANGOVER

HEAD OUT

SOCK ON THE DOOR...

fire up the stove!

It’s a tale as old as time: You’re in bed watching MasterChef Junior, telling yourself that it’s been a long week and you need to relax, when suddenly your phone buzzes with a text from your roommate, saying they need the room. Now. Then comes the flash of resentment. The realization that you’ve got to relocate to see which eight-year-old whips up a better crème brûlée, just so your roommate can “get some.” Un-be-lieve-able.

Before you pull a Gordon Ramsay and let loose all that pent-up anger, take a minute. Maybe this intimate inconvenience is a blessing in disguise.

You know what they say: When your roommate closes the door on you so they can get laid, you have a window of time to do whatever the hell you want.

BY JESS ZEIDMAN

GO TO WHOLE FOODS

Do it! Spend too much money on that cold-pressed juice! Sure, it’s just fruit-sweat that’s mostly sugar and calories, but baby, you’re worth it! Also, while you’re roaming the aisles, make sure to look at the latest food trends. Who knows what’ll inspire you!

BUY YOURSELF DINNER

If you have to deal with a sock on the door, then you might as well treat yourself to an expensive dinner of whatever fine cuisine piques your fancy. Hey! Maybe even get out of Evanston, go to downtown Chicago and pull your own “restaurant takeover” like Episode 6, Season 3 of MasterChef Junior “Restaurant Takeover.”

APPLY TO LE CORDON BLEU With all this extra time on your hands, why not crank out an application to the most prestigious cooking school in the world? You’ve already made it one of the best schools (some might say lucky No. 13) in the country. One more essay can’t hurt. Plus, this will no doubt solve whatever study abroad issues you’ve been having. Two escargot with one shell, as they say!

BECOME THE BEST CHEF IN YOUR CLASS

COMPETE ON MASTERCHEF JUNIOR AND WIN You know what you have to do. You’ve been out of the room so long, it would be weird to go back. Plus, what if they’re still doin’ it?

Safest bet is to follow this plan out to the end. You have the skill set.

You have the motive. Now all you need to do is sharpen your knives and get the title that was rightfully yours all along.

48 | northbynorthwestern.com

I llu st r ati on by Car me n Mackin s

Pop in a DVD of Julie & Julia, sit back, and rise through the ranks.

You already know what it takes to be a good student at one of the best universities in the United States, why should this université française be any different? All you need to do is prove yourself at every step.

Let them know that you’re no sous chef, you are a YOU chef.

Snow place like school Staying during winter break may be cheaper than a plane ticket home.

From the comfort of campus $0

Binge-watch a new show

Watch that Netflix show you haven’t had time for. You know you want to, and now you won’t feel guilty. If you don’t have Netflix, ask a friend. Hopefully he or she will be in the giving mood this holiday season.

We recommend: How To Get Away With Murder, Narcos and Parks and Recreation

Take a lights tour

Ph oto by Jacob Me sc hke

St. Louis

See the frosted gateway arch and buy a ticket to ride to the top for $10.

$13

Use your free time as an opportunity to enjoy everything Chicago has to offer (prices include El fare and additional costs).

$33

$43

Try a new recipe

Winter break is the perfect time to try those recipes you just never can find time to make. Gingerbread cheesecake bites are a perfect op<$2 tion. With only four ingredients Hit up Norris: 0 (powdered sugar, gingerbread cookie mix, cream cheese and Rent a cross-country ski package vanilla) and five minutes of prep for two, for four to seven days. It time, it’s a great way to get into the includes skis, boots and poles. cooking game once and for all. To Ice skate rental is $3. You can see the full recipe and more, visit also take your gear to the various northbynorthwestern.com. parks around the Chicago area.

Just be sure to request items five days prior to date of pickup.

Grab some friends and travel to a new city (all prices round trip by Greyhound and additional costs).

Visit the Huron-Clinton Metroparks on Maltby Lake, that includes 24,000 acres of parkland and a $13 cross-country ski rental package.

$0

Take a trip around Evanston and Wilmette and see some holiday lights. Try walking down Orrington Avenue or up north by the Bahá’í House of Worship.

Pack some snacks, grab hot chocolate and embrace the holiday spirit.

Beyond Evanston Detroit

BY CAMI PHAM

Milwaukee

$13

Visit Havenwoods State Forest. You can bring along some snowshoes and have an outdoor adventure.

Ice skating at Millennium Park

$6.5

0

The park is open every day from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Take the Red Line down to the Chicago stop. The park and ice skating are free, and you can grab hot chocolate for just $2.

ZooLights at Lincoln Park Zoo

$4.5

0

This attraction is open most weekends from late November to early January, 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The zoo is a 15 minute walk east of the Fullerton El stop. You can see light shows, 3-D displays and live ice carving.

FALL 2015| 49

HANGOVER

Meet me at the Deuce Take a crash course in Northwestern’s favorite bar.

BY LAUREN KRAVEC

N

50 | northbynorthwestern.com

open lots on the block. The bar opened in one of those lots in 1958, after Anton’s uncle George returned from military service. The Mark II Lounge was named after his car, a Continental Mark II. “He wrecked the car, hit a building and then he used the insurance money to build the bar,” Anton says. “And that’s how it all started.”

Anton’s mother, Steffani, says that running a bar “was where his heart was.” Eventually, George opened the Mark II Lounge and left Anton’s parents to take over.

Anton has worked at the lounge since he was 16 years old. After college, he worked various jobs before returning in 1996 to help his family modernize the bar by adding drafts and credit card machines. Northwestern students started coming in around that time.

In the late ‘90s, his whole family, including his parents and three younger sisters, all worked at the bar, and Northwestern patrons were growing in number. Now he considers Wildcats to be part of the Mark II’s extended family.

“I love the Northwestern students—I protect them,” Anton says.

“This is probably the first bar that a lot

of them come into, [so] if someone’s been overserved, I make sure they get home safely.”

For some Northwestern students, the Deuce has been more than just any bar. Anton particularly remembers Evan Eschmeyer, one of Northwestern’s best ever basketball players, as a regular at the lounge. Eschmeyer and his girlfriend became friends with Anton and his father.

“They played their song on the jukebox, and ultimately that was the song they played at their wedding,” Anton says.

In 2003, one Northwestern student asked him to take over the billiards mini course at Norris, and he taught the class for the next three years. Afterwards many of his students joined the leagues the lounge organizes.

Even though Anton now owns five other bars in the Chicagoland area and one in Pittsburgh, he says the Mark II Lounge is one of his favorite places. And more than 50 years after it opened, the Mark II is still mostly family run.

“My mom opens up. My dad closes,” Anton says. “We always have family here.”

Ph oto by Eth an Dl ugi e

estled between an electronic repair store and a nail salon in Rogers Park, the only flashy parts of the Deuce are a few neon beer ads in the window and the red lettering on its black sign: “MARK II LOUNGE.” But on Thursday nights the Deuce comes alive. Northwestern students in cabs and Ubers flood across the border between Evanston and Chicago and pack the Deuce to capacity, singing karaoke, eating free pizza and searching for a not-awkward-the-next-morning dancefloor hookup.

There’s no denying that the Deuce is the Northwestern bar—even its address on N. Western Ave. is a match made in heaven. But how did some random bar all the way in Rogers Park become nearly synonymous with the Wildcat experience?

Beloved oatmeal cookies, a 4 a.m. closing time and $1.50 domestic beer specials are part of it. But the Mark II also has a long and interesting history with a strong family tradition.

In 1929, owner Tony Anton’s grandfather immigrated to Chicago from Psari, Greece, and in 1941 he bought four

EXHALE EVANSTON OPENING JANUARY 2016 BARRE • CARDIO • YOGA • HIIT

Exhale’s award-winning fitness classes are coming to Evanston — just steps away from Northwestern University!

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Specialize in Politics and National Security at Medill Northwestern University Set yourself apart with this exclusive opportunity AMINA ALI ISMAIL (MSJ15), eating her first MRE at a hostile environment training in Twentynine Palms, California

As a master’s student specializing in Politics and National Security at Medill you will: • Be press-credentialed and report from Capitol Hill, The White House and the Pentagon • Get your own Medill mentor. Mentors include Helena Andrews of The Washington Post, John Hendren of Al Jazeera English, New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Elisabeth Bumiller and Politico reporter Elena Schneider.

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www.medill.northwestern.edu