NBN Magazine Winter 2017

northwestern NORTH BY

WINTER 2017

New

NU's

PROVOST

FIGHTING FOR

REPRODUCTIVE

burger king

RIGHTS in the age of Trump Examining

Sapphic Sex The story behind the

JOHNNIE VASSAR LAWSUIT

WINTER 2017 | 1

COVER DESIGN BY MISSY CHEN COVER PHOTO BY ALEX FURUYA

northwestern NORTH BY

WINTER 2017

NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN The breads of Evanston

MANAGING EDITOR Natalie Escobar

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Missy Chen PHOTO DIRECTOR Alex Furuya

SENIOR FEATURES EDITORS Jacob Meschke and Emma Sarappo

SENIOR SECTION EDITORS Jason Mast and Mira Wang

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Will Fischer and Sam Spengler ASSISTANT EDITOR Daniel Fernandez

19th century racists

SENIOR DESIGNER Andie Linker

DESIGNERS Aine Dougherty, Emma Kumer, Lauren Bally

Missy Chen, Lucy Dwyer, Mia Zanzucchi ASSISTANT PHOTO DIRECTOR Ying Dai PHOTOGRAPHERS Ethan Dlugie, Jackie Tang, Cassie Majewski, Alex Furuya, Ying Dai, Leta Dickinson, Emma Danbury, David Gleisner, Mia Zanzucchi CONTRIBUTORS Elizabeth Guthrie, Trevor Lystad, Aine Dougherty, Elizabeth Phillips, Rachel Frazin, Cat monetization Darby Hopper, Alex Furuya, Emily Karl, schemes Lauren Bally, Madeline Coe, Paola de Varona, Isabella Jiao, Emma Sarappo, Sam Spengler, Virginia Nowakowski, Meg Pisarczyk, Elena Sucharetza, Justin Curto, Natalie Pertsovsky, Lila Reynolds, Libby Berry, Will Fischer, Mia Zanzucchi, Isabel Schwartz, Gabrielle Bienasz, Claire Bugos, Stern, Emma Kumer, Daniel Fernandez

NORTHBYNORTHWESTERN.COM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Andy Brown

MANAGING EDITORS Libby Berry and Rachel Wolfe

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITORS Rachel Frazin, Lila Reynolds, Mia Zanzucchi NEWS EDITORS David Gleisner and Maggie Harden FEATURES EDITOR Isabella Jiao LIFE & STYLE EDITOR

Morgan Smith

ASSISTANT LIFE & STYLE EDITOR Dani Cohen OPINION EDITOR David Guirgis

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Justin Curto

Scamming

ASSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Milan Polk SPORTS EDITOR Hayden King

POLITICS EDITOR Paola de Varona WRITING EDITOR Jenna Lee

PHOTO EDITOR Virginia Nowakowski

VIDEO EDITORS Jesus Campos and Alejandra Fernandez INTERACTIVE EDITOR Maxine Whitely

SCIENCE AND TECH EDITOR Ashwin Kulkarni AUDIO EDITOR Helen Lee

Unicorns

IDENTITIES EDITOR Asha Sawhney

SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Mia Zanzucchi MAGAZINE LIAISON Maxine Whitely CREATIVE DIRECTOR Emma Kumer WEBMASTER Maxine Whitely

NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN, NFP BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT Andy Brown EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Carolyn Twersky VICE PRESIDENT Natalie Escobar TREASURER Leo Ji SECRETARY Andy Brown CORPORATE

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND AD SALES Candace Butera DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS OPERATIONS Leo Ji

2 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

More qualified women

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Carolyn Twersky

Rita Ora's daily happenings

PREGAME 5 Life advice from Mary Pattillo 6 Sugar high 8 Little shack of wonders 9 Ca$h flow 10 Seabury, unburied

TABLE OF CONTENTS

GENIUS 13 Rockin' Robyn 14 Repaving 16 Say it right 18 Farming fix 19 Poppin' tags 20 Beyond the uniform SPOTLIGHT 22 Right-hand man 22 What the hell is a provost, anyway?

24 From Bulldog to Wildcat QUAD 27 Practical pre-law 28 Honoring the past 29 Art 101: Intro to ATP 30 Shallow roots 32 Back in the saddle 34 A more perfect union FEATURES 35 Examining sapphic sex 39 Started from the bottom 42 When you're not strong 46 Boxed out 51 Baby-proofing

PHOTOS BY ALEX FURUYA

HANGOVER 56 Can this university-subsidized condom handle YOUR love?

57 Evanston, as told by an old racist 58 30 hours in the BK lounge 60 Exceeding ex-SPAC-tations 61 Dorm divorce 62 Will your NU love last?

A damNBN way to start the party

4 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Sugar high Little shack of wonders Ca$h flow Seabury, unburied

PHOTO BY EMMA DANBURY

5 6 8 9 10

Life advice from Mary Pattillo

Mary Pattillo

from

PHOTO BY CASSIE MAJEWSKI

Life advice

BY ELIZABETH GUTHRIE

Mary Pattillo, the Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, is an esteemed professor, researcher and author. Her work examines race, segregation, urban life and the Black middle class, digging deep into America’s legacy of discrimination.

NBN: How has the knowledge that you’ve gained through your research and work influenced the way that you live your life?

Pattillo: It creates a lot of guilt. Everything from knowing the disparities between what I make as a tenured full professor to what the people who work on Northwestern’s campus make, who pick up the trash in the offices or work in the food service places or do the landscaping. Oftentimes I’ve organized my guilt into action. I’ve been involved over my time at Northwestern in living wage campaigns and helping students facilitate those social movements to some success a couple of years ago … In my personal life, I give a lot of money away to organizations that I believe in and that I know are doing good work.

I’m involved in a struggle to preserve public housing on the North Side in a place called the Lathrop Homes. All of that comes from what I know about American society, but what I know is daunting. Attacking the depth of the disparities and real suffering on the low end of the socioeconomic scale seems daunting frequently. Sometimes it just kind of paralyzes you.

With events like bringing Ta-Nehisi Coates to campus and having Black Lives Matter weeks, how do you think that relates to what’s been going on politically and socially?

I think flying a Black Lives Matter flag and having two weeks of thinking about Black Lives Matter is exactly what some Trump supporters would say alienates them. I’m not at all affirming that alienation, I think that alienation is misplaced and misguided, but when people feel their power being eroded ... then something like two weeks of a discussion of Black Lives Matter at Northwestern is proof for them of the erosion of that power. I am searching for a good analysis of how not to placate that kind of rhetoric of fear – that if Black lives matter, that must mean

that now I no longer matter – while simultaneously giving space to groups who haven’t much had space. I think it’s a double-edged sword in that these kinds of activities are the exact things that people who feel aggrieved point to as to why they feel aggrieved.

Like you said, it is oftentimes a double-edged sword, and it’s difficult to find the answer. What do you think that Northwestern students and other young people can do to figure out the answer?

I think what students can do is be leaders of a kind of charismatic message that says, “Okay, let’s look at two things.” One, is there any empirical evidence that men are losing power, that cisgender folks are losing power? “No.” And that’s not to say that’s a good thing, like to say, “Hey, look, you’re still in power, you can be okay.” But rather, let’s have a real discussion about power, and let’s have a real discussion about how we can have a more economically, politically, culturally egalitarian place that’s not built upon the unhidden privileges of the folks who now feel scared they might lose them.

How can students use the knowledge and skills they learn at Northwestern to affect real change in their communities?

Any kind of major at Northwestern can lead to some kind of social good, and really what it takes is a commitment to doing it. It just takes getting up out of our chair and stop talking about it and actually doing it. And it takes sacrifice, because it’s a sacrifice of our time, of our money, of our time with our family, of our sleep, so it’s a decision to make that sacrifice.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

WINTER 2017 | 5

Pregame

Sugar high

Chicago pastry chef Mindy Segal makes edibles for a refined palate.

Dark chocolate almond toffee

BY AINE DOUGHERTY

Strawberry sparkling wine hard candies

M

arijuana lovers should have high hopes for the future, thanks in part to Chicago-based pastry chef Mindy Segal.

Segal isn’t afraid to push the boundaries – that’s probably why she won the highly acclaimed James Beard Foundation’s “Outstanding Pastry Chef ” Award in 2012 (after being nominated five times previously). The owner of Mindy’s Hot Chocolate in Wicker Park and author of “Cookie Love” has concocted delicious hot chocolate, cookies, cakes and ice cream over her career.

Now, she makes edibles.

That’s right. In 2016, after 30 years of experience in the pastry industry, Segal decided to partner with one of Illinois’ leading cannabis cultivators, Cresco Labs, after they approached her about starting her own line of cannabisinfused sweets. Illinois legalized medical marijuana in 2013 and decriminalized possession of small amounts of the drug in 2016, but has yet to give the go-ahead on recreational use, sale

Vanilla bourbon butterscotch hard candies

66 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

and cultivation. So for now, medical marijuana dispensaries are the only place you’ll be able to buy Segal’s product line, dubbed Mindy’s Artisanal Edibles.

Lisa Kamerad, edibles general manager for Cresco, says the company is trying to “break away from some of the stigma surrounding that ‘bad brownie’ experience, and the most professional way to do that was to align with an expert.”

So forget about that nasty, burned pot brownie mess you just took out of your oven – Segal crafts high-end, artisanal products like chocolate brittle, caramels and hard candies infused with Cresco’s flavorless, odorless cannabis extract.

Because of her pastry chef background, Segal says her line of edibles is very focused on flavor and quality, and it incorporates ingredients like Belgian chocolate and real vanilla bean.

“It’s a chef-driven product,” Segal says. “So it’s using my knowledge of being a chef and a pastry chef and bringing that to the marijuana culture.”

Chocolate sea salt caramels

Key lime hard candies Milk chocolate peanut brittle

Cooking with cannabis isn’t that different from cooking normally, says Matt Robowtham, the head facility chef at Cresco who helps bring Segal’s ideas to life.

“The main difference is introducing a unique flavor and also ensuring homogenization between the cannabis and the food,” Robowtham says. “You need to balance and pair the flavors of cannabis and the other ingredients in the treat.”

Kamerad says Segal has been an integral part of the process every step of the way, from designing the kitchen where the edibles are made to developing the mouth-watering recipes.

According to Cresco’s press release from December 2015, Segal wanted to give back to people suffering from chronic pain by “reinventing the marijuana-infused sweets industry.” And if you have a medical marijuana card for one of the 40+ preexisting conditions covered under Illinois state law, you don’t need to venture far to get Segal’s innovative creations. Pharmacannis, the licensed medical marijuana dispensary in Evanston at the

Citrus dreamsicle caramels

corner of Maple Avenue and Clark Street, sells Mindy’s Artisanal Edibles just steps away from Northwestern’s campus.

For under $10, medical patients can purchase a tasty caramel, hard candy or piece of chocolate brittle containing 10 to 25 milligrams of THC, or they can grab a whole box of goodies for between $40 and $80, depending on the potency.

However, Cresco’s advice for its customers is to “start low and go slow” when it comes to edibles for pain relief because it takes longer to feel their effects.

Segal is hopeful for the future of Mindy’s Artisanal Edibles, as she continues to work with Cresco to develop and perfect her line of products and expand to other recreational states by the end of this year.

“The future depends almost entirely on the law,” Kamerad says. “But we are on the path to frame edibles as both palatable medicine and great-tasting treats. In a legalized and recreational market, the industry has the potential to reinvent dining experiences.”

Apricot peach hard candies

Peanut butter and jelly caramels

IMAGE SOURCE FROM CRESCO LABS GRAPHICS BY AINE DOUGHERTY WINTER 2017 | 7

Pregame

Little shack of wonders

BY ELIZABETH PHILLIPS

Dilapidated but beloved, Shanley Pavilion is home to countless student-run productions.

F

rom the outside, Shanley Pavilion looks like the kind of shed someone would store their lawnmower in during the winter.

When you step inside the structure between performances, it’s devoid of light because every surface, even the windows, is painted black.

Shanley looks like it was abandoned years ago.

It’s hard to believe that anything exciting has ever happened in such a dark and small place, yet it currently hosts a constant rotation of fine arts performances, from comedy groups to dance troupes to theatrical productions.

“You think of [Shanley] as this jack-ofall-trades,” says Communication senior Will Altabef. “You can kind of make it do whatever you want.”

But most students don’t know just how versatile this space truly is. Originally built in 1943, Shanley Hall housed a dining hall and recreation center during World War II for the men of the V-5, V-8 and V-12 Navy Programs.

Between the war and the early 1970s, it became two classrooms for post-war students, then a lunchroom for commuters, a university book store and even a student-run hippie coffee shop called Amazing Grace.

Many students haven’t been particularly fond of the building’s aesthetic. In 1966, former student and associate editor for The Daily Northwestern David Nelson ranted, “The squat, wood frame building is not attractive! No matter what season, or what time of day, it looks like a shadow, or outgrowth of Lunt Hall.” Shep Shanley, son of the building’s namesake, told The Daily in 1983 that “the building is a shack” and “should have been destroyed in 1946.”

Despite the lack of appreciation, Shanley remained on campus as the university tore down and replaced other buldings. After a short stint as the home of the Interpretation 88 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Department’s Food and Fiction Dinner Theater Program, it became a popular site for all kinds of student productions.

In fact, various different groups book Shanley almost around the clock. According to Communication freshman Jeremy Pesigan, performance groups often step in Shanley on Sunday afternoon, right after the previous group has performed their show and broken down their own set. Then, they only have a week to put a new set together, have dress rehearsals, perform their show and break down their set. By that time, the next group will be waiting to move in, starting the process all over again.

“What kind of makes it special is the fact that so many students have passed through there and worked so hard,” says Heather Strauss, a Communication junior and co-chair of the Northwestern Student Theatre Coalition (StuCo). “It’s very much a scrappy place where a bunch of broke college kids come out with no money and no direction and just make art. You can feel the love in the building.”

But no one could have foreseen Shanley becoming the creative hub it is today – the building was never supposed to sustain anything more than the barracks of NROTC. According to Harvey Young, chair of the Northwestern Theatre Department, the building was meant to be temporary, but over time the Northwestern community repurposed it.

“There’s always been this idea that Shanley is a temporary structure and that maybe one day it will go away,” Young says.

“And it’s still here.”

While Shanley has managed to stick around, it’s also started to break down. In 2004, a a falling light hit a Northwestern senior, who had to go to the hospital. Two different renovations, one in the summer of 2002 and

PHOTO BY EMMA DANBURY one during the 2005-2006 school year, were desperately needed. According to current students, Shanley needs further repair – the dressing rooms are falling apart, toilets break in the middle of shows and the floor is patchy from all the different sets.

“There are screws and hooks in the ceiling where we don’t know where they came from or if they’re going to fall out if we try and tie something to them,” says Communication junior and StuCo equipment manager Isadora Porte. Describing what sounds like a quirky shot in a Wes Anderson movie, Strauss says the only way to control the heat is to stand on a toilet in the boy’s bathroom and pull a lever from the ceiling.

Norris University Center has controlled Shanley since the 1970s, but Young thinks of it as mostly a “student-controlled space.” Besides the check-ins that happen for an hour between shows, the maintenance staff comes in three days a week just to clean the bathrooms and replace the paper towels. This gives student performance groups more freedom to create, but has also contributed to the breakdown of the building, as students are responsible for the majority of the cleaning and upkeep.

But according to Communication sophomore Chloe Howard, it’s all part of Shanley’s charm. There have only been four major renovations in the building’s 73-year history, and another is definitely needed. But until then, Shanley will continue to serve as the dysfunctional yet beloved home to many of NU’s student productions.

“Overall, [Shanley] is a place that a lot of people cherish and one of the best places to experiment with theatre on this campus,” Howard says. “The Theatre community would feel less complete without it.”

Ca$h Flow NBN follows the money of your profs’ campaign contributions.

BY TREVOR LYSTAD | ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMMA KUMER

Thanks to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, every time you donate to any political candidate or political action committee, the world will know about it – if they’re creepy, bored or curious enough to look. Fortunately, NBN is all of those things, so we examined the political donation habits of some of Northwestern’s most prominent faculty members, alumni and professors. A quick trip to the Federal Election Commission’s website told us all that we needed to know ... and much, much more.

ALUMNA Julia Louis-Dreyfus Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is by far the biggest donor on our list. More than $58,000 of the money she donated was through joint fundraising contributions, which collect money and redistribute it to other candidates. For example, she donated $30,000 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012. All of her direct donations have been donations of $1,000 or more to Lois Capps, the former Democratic congresswoman from her district in California.

FORMER PRESIDENT Henry Bienen

$66,300 NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: Rep. Lois Capps • Obama Victory Fund • Democratic National Committee

$15,000 NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: Democratic Party of Illinois • Barack Obama • Bill Bradley • Sen. Chuck Schumer

FORMER PRESIDENT Arnold Weber In contrast with Bienen, former President Arnold Weber has consistently donated to Republican candidates throughout the 2000s, including $750 for former Illinois senator Mark Kirk’s failed campaign in 2016. Notably, Weber donated to both John McCain’s and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, but not Donald Trump’s.

ALUMNUS Stephen Colbert

$6,275 NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: Sen. John McCain • Sen. Mark Kirk • Sen. Mitt Romney • Republican National Committee

$4,500 ONLY CONTRIBUTION: Elizabeth Colbert Busch

CURRENT PRESIDENT Morton Schapiro Morty’s donations went to Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., a PAC that donates to both Republican and Democratic candidates. (He's been on the board of Marsh & McLennan since 2002.)

In 2016, the PAC donated $195,000 to Republicans and $140,500 to Democrats.

Comedian Stephen Colbert’s only political donation went to the losing congressional campaign of Elizabeth Colbert Busch, one of his 10 siblings. Colbert Busch, a Democrat, the 2013 special election, losing to former Republican governor Mark Sanford.

PROVOST Dan Linzer

ALUMNUS George R. R. Martin Instead of writing the sixth Game of Thrones book, alumnus and author George R.R. Martin has been busy donating to two prominent Democratic Senators: Tom Udall and Elizabeth Warren. Martin’s biggest donation was $2,000 in 2014 to Udall, who represents his home state of New Mexico. He donated $500 to Warren for her senate race in 2012.

Former President Henry Bienen has been an active donor since the 90s, donating to a wide range of Democratic candidates as well as the Democratic Party of Illinois. In 2008, Bienen donated the maximum amount ($2,300) to the Obama campaign. He also donated to Democrat Bill Bradley’s failed presidential campaign in 2000.

$2,500 NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: Sen. Tom Udall • Sen. Elizabeth Warren

$2,250 NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: Democratic Party of Illinois • University Public Issues Committee • Barack Obama (‘08) • Hillary Clinton (‘16)

PROFESSOR Gary Saul Morson

$1,000 ONLY CONTRIBUTION: Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. Political Action Committee (MMPAC)

Provost Dan Linzer has donated $2,250 over the past 10 years, all to Democratic institutions or candidates (other than one donation to the University Public Issues Committee, which donates to both parties).

His biggest donation came in 2008 when he donated $1,000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

$571 NOTABLE CONTRIBUTIONS: National Republican Congressional Committee • Mark Kirk

Popular Russian Literature professor Gary Saul Morson contributed a total of $571 between 2015 and 2016 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and former Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL). Interestingly, Morson donated almost biweekly in increments between $25 to $75.

WINTER 2017 | 9

Pregame

Seabury, NBN explores the other seminary on Sheridan.

I

unburied

t was the seminary on Sheridan. No, not Garrett. The other one. The one across the street.

Until 2009, Seabury Hall, now known as 2122 Sheridan, was home to the SeaburyWestern Theological Seminary, an Episcopal divinity school. Seabury-Western was born from a merger between Seabury Divinity School and Western Theological Seminary in 1933. The campus took up most of a city block (creatively dubbed “the block”) but throughout the years, it educated, fed and housed between 50 and 100 students per year, their families and faculty. Seabury Hall, added in 1956, provided a student commons, more classrooms and more library space to the campus.

The seminary chugged along under the radar as Northwestern University grew up around it, offering students a variety of religious graduate programs that changed in name, curriculum, rigor, prestige and demand 10 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

STORY AND PHOTOS

BY MIA ZANZUCCHI

over time. Seabury-Western students were called juniors, middlers and seniors and took classes like Elementary Greek, the Planning and Composition of Sermons and Psychology of Religion during their own version of the quarter system, known as Michaelmas, Epiphany and Easter terms (with an optional Trinity term in the summer). They were also cross-registered at Northwestern until World War II. Seabury-Western students had access to Northwestern and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary library collections, but they also had stacks and collections of their own. Before Northwestern turned it into a hodgepodge of storage and empty space, the Seabury Hall basement was home to thousands of books. A bragging point for Seabury-Western was its Hibbard Egyptian Library, hidden away in a side hallway on the second floor. Gifted to Western Theological Seminary by Lydia Beekman Hibbard (a wealthy Episcopalian

Chicagoan), the collection included books about ancient Egypt and Assyria as well as a first-century Egyptian “portrait mummy” of a 5-year-old girl with a painted face, found in 1911 in Hawara, Egypt. Garrett would later buy the entirety of Seabury-Western’s library collection, and you can now visit Hibbard’s mummy in Garrett’s United Library on Sheridan.

By the 2000s, Seabury-Western began to feel the hurt from their relatively small endowment, and by 2008, Northwestern was leasing space in Seabury-Western for dorms.

In 2009, Seabury-Western stopped accepting new Masters of Divinity students (called “MDiv,” it was Seabury-Western’s main program and the first academic stepping stone to becoming a priest). It then began selling its remaining property to Northwestern and phased out of Evanston. According to former Seabury-Western librarian Newland Smith, their endowment of $10 million paled in comparison to other seminaries (the Virginia

IMAGE COURTESY OF NORTHWESTERN ARCHIVES

Theological Seminary, one of the more successful Episcopal seminaries in America, has an endowment of around $140 million).

The seminary’s future was in limbo until 2013, when it announced a merger with Bexley Hall from Columbus, Ohio, another economically failing Episcopal seminary, and established its current campus in Chicago’s Hyde Park.

For a while, Northwestern didn’t seem to know what to do with Seabury Hall. It functioned as a subpar dorm for a couple dozen students (24, according to its old Wildcat Connection page) for a few years before the university carried out massive renovations and rebranded it as 2122 Sheridan.

It reopened in 2014 as office space, and the last few stragglers moved out of the dorms shortly after. The steeple is now silent, and the Hibbard Egyptian Library is empty and locked away from the world. The only remnants of Seabury-Western’s organs are the pipes that stick out in the Performance Hall – according to Smith, one of the organs was from the 1933 World’s Fair and was “too large” for the space, and the other is now in Alice

1968 2017

Millar Chapel.

Like a lot of architecture at Northwestern, Seabury Hall is gothic and pointy, dotted with intricate stained glass and open archways.

From the outside, it looks like a chapel. And from the inside, it also kind of looks like a chapel. Pews, not benches, provide seating in its brightly lit hallways and the inconspicuous, frosted windows on the outside are bright stained glass works of art on the inside.

Back in its heyday, the 2122 Performance Space was Seabury-Western’s Anderson Chapel, a memorial to Right Reverend Charles Palmerston Anderson, the Episcopalian Bishop of Chicago for 30 years. Not only was it named after Anderson, but it was also Anderson’s postmortem home for several decades. According to the Chicago Tribune in 1930, Anderson was buried “in a crypt beneath the plain marble altar in the chapel.” He, and later his wife, remained under the chapel until his family moved them to Wisconsin before Northwestern took over, according to Smith.

No longer a burial ground (as far as NBN knows), Seabury Hall is now home

to a myriad of NU offices like Residential Services, Residential Academic Initiatives and AccessibleNU, with classrooms on the second floor and the Performance Hall on the ground level. A hallway connects it to 600 Haven Street, another former Seabury-Western building. The Gregory Reading Room, a study room under Seabury-Western, is now The Graduate School commons, and the large, Hogwarts-esque study tables now reside in Garrett’s United Library.

Northwestern students occasionally wander into 2122, maybe looking for an office or hidden classroom. It’s disconnected enough from the east side of Sheridan that sometimes NU servers think you’re connecting from off campus.

Its combination of regal exterior and sleek, modern interior – with a dash of vintage church – make it a unique, albeit slightly confusing, building to navigate. The days of the Northwestern Fighting Methodists are long gone, but at 2122 Sheridan, a hidden theological past flickers on.

WINTER 2017 | 11

Inspiring you to live smarter

12 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Repaving Say it right Farming fix Poppin' tags Beyond the uniform

PHOTO BY JACKIE TANG

13 14 16 18 19 20

Rockin' Robyn

Rockin' Robyn

President Trump recently said Chicago should seek federal help for its gun violence problem. What role, if any, should the federal government have?

We should seek federal help for jobs and education. Those are the two areas that would ultimately help improve communities. I’m not sure that bringing in the National Guard would be a solution. I don’t think our neighborhoods need to be more militarized. We need to have less guns on the street rather than more.

Meet your state representative.

In the past you've campaigned for medical marijuana for adults and children with epilepsy. Do you support that being expanded in the future?

Since the bill was passed, we have allowed people with other illnesses to access medical marijuana. People who are sick need to be able to have all the treatments that are proven to be beneficial to them. So yes, I do support medical marijuana. I also think way too many people are in jail right now based on marijuana in general and decriminalizing it is not a bad idea. We have to look and see what happens in other states since Illinois wouldn’t be the first state to do this.

BY EMILY KARL

I

n a way, Illinois House Representative Robyn Gabel isn’t so different from Northwestern students. On election night you could find her in Nevin’s, eating fish and chips and getting ready to celebrate.

Though things didn’t turn out the way she wanted with Trump's win, that just means her government work is far from over. In her seven years in office, Gabel has focused on children and women’s rights, passing bills to ban teenagers from tanning beds, to promote the use of medical cannabis and to reduce nicotine poisoning in children from e-cigarette liquids. Under the new White House administration, Gabel looks forward to asserting states’ rights and making progressive change at home.

NBN: What got you interested in politics?

Gabel: I got involved in politics in the 1970s in the women’s health movement.

I worked with women’s health centers and Planned Parenthood. Then I got involved in electoral politics with Harold Washington in Chicago when he ran for mayor and several alderman races. It was very exciting and very powerful and I decided, “Well, maybe electoral politics isn’t all that bad.” So from there I became the executive director of a non-profit organization that did policy and advocacy for women and children’s health.

What are your top priorities for the upcoming legislative session, and what do you think are the biggest issues for the 18th District?

During this past election cycle, the notion of tuition-free colleges was very popular with many young voters. Do you see this as a viable policy solution for the future? If so, who will pay for them?

I did see some information that was put out about making the first two years of college free. Usually if someone makes it through the first two years, they can figure out how to pay for the second two.

We already have some federal scholarships and state dollars that are put towards this. I would like to see us do what we can to make college more affordable.

PHOTO BY YING DAI

In these new times we are living in, there is a big push to decentralize and have the states be responsible for more policy, so in the future I’m looking at working on three major issues. The first is protecting the environment. Second is women’s right to choose and making sure women have their own say and access to healthcare that they need. That’s how I started in politics and it looks like I’m continuing that struggle. And third is being a welcoming state and allowing immigrants to feel comfortable here in Illinois.

What advice do you have for young people looking to get involved with politics?

This is definitely the time to get involved. Talk to your friends and meet new people and organize groups working on issues. The first thing I would say is get involved in someone else’s campaign. Learn the ropes. I worked in many campaigns before I ran myself. So see if it’s really for you. See where your skills fit in. I would also volunteer at an elected official’s office. Go in a couple days a week. Offer to do some writing, research or help with a particular issue you’re interested in. Go to your city council meetings. Evanston has open city council meetings on Monday nights. *Editor's note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

WINTER 2017 | 13

Genius

In August 2014, the city of Evanston introduced the Sheridan Road improvement project. One of the project’s priorities was the addition of bike lanes. But almost three years later, the bike lane construction plans are still just that – plans. After the death of Northwestern freshman Chuyuan “Chu” Qiu, who was hit by a cement truck while biking on Sheridan Road in September, the question re-emerged: why are there still no bike lanes?

According to Sat Nagar, project manager for the Sheridan Road improvement project, there was a lot to consider when figuring out how to improve one of Evanston’s “major arterial.”

Connecting North Shore neighborhoods with Northwestern and downtown Chicago, Sheridan Road sees a lot of action – in 2014, the city estimated that an average of 1,000 cyclists, 10,000 pedestrians and 12,000 to 18,000 vehicles use the road every day.

The city had also deemed Sheridan Road a “high-crash corridor,” engineering jargon that surprisingly isn’t difficult to understand. Along with a bike lane, the improvement project included traffic signal upgrades, resurfacing, restructuring and intersection improvements.

First, the city formed a steering committee, which held a series of meetings to provide guidance, examine findings and help create project priorities. Then, it hired consultants to help determine the best way to redesign Sheridan Road to accommodate its many modes of transportation. The city’s aldermen also began to meet with Northwestern students and staff, Evanston bicycle clubs and other constituents.

City documents from August 2014 show that construction was scheduled for the next year,

in summer 2015. But a month later, on Sept.

29, 2014, the city council voted to push parts of the construction back to 2017, delaying the implementation of the bike lane as well as the traffic signal upgrades, resurfacing and other street improvements.

“It needed more analysis, we wanted to make sure it was done right,” Nagar says. “We had to make sure we paid attention to everything.”

Sheridan Road is considered a “multi-modal corridor,” Nagar says, as it supports cars, buses, pedestrians, bikes and taxis. Because of its importance to so many different stakeholders – from commuters to Northwestern students to bus drivers – Nagar and other city officials believed getting Sheridan Road right was more important than getting it done quickly.

In addition, Green Bay Road was already under construction, and Nagar says that simultaneous projects on Green Bay and Sheridan would have caused too much traffic congestion. A “lengthy” engineering process with Federal Highway Administration and Illinois Department of Transportation also contributed to the delay, and Nagar says the city did not want the construction to interfere with Northwestern’s school year.

When Qiu was killed in September, the bike lanes that remained scheduled for construction became a focus of campus attention. Northwestern mourned her loss, but many students and community members also wanted to act. By December, Evanston reduced the speed limit on Sheridan from 30 to 25 mph, largely due to the efforts of Communication senior Emily Blim. As a member of both Northwestern’s triathlon team and an Evanston cycling team, bike safety hits home for her.

PHOTOS BY ETHAN DLUGIE

14 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Repaving

Sheridan Road changes finally come after years of bureaucratic wrangling and a tragic accident.

When Blim saw an email about the accident on her cycling team listserv, she made a petition demanding Evanston reduce the speed limit on Sheridan. It garnered over 600 signatures from concerned students, parents, alumni and Evanston residents.

“Ideally, they would turn Sheridan into a twolane road: one lane going each direction, which would minimize the speed-track mentality that drivers get,” Blim says. She also says she would prefer the speed limit be reduced to 20 mph, the speed limit for school zones in Evanston. Not all city officials agree with Blim, as Ald. Brian Miller (9th) argued in September that a lower speed limit could create more traffic and actually make Sheridan less safe.

Other groups also demanded changes.

In October, Northwestern’s Faculty and Associated Student Government senates passed resolutions calling for lowering the speed limit. ASG created a task force of students, administrators and professors to talk about transportation issues and potential safety changes and distributed 330 bike helmets. The University later took on this expense and began issuing bicycle helmets, locks and lights to students who registered their bicycles.

“I’m a biker,” says ASG President Christina Cilento, who helped organize and advocate for these changes. “I don’t always wear my helmet, don’t always put on my lights and often think that I can weave in and out of traffic as I please, so Chu’s death really struck me and I realized that there’s probably tons of students on campus that could have happened to.”

At the time of Qiu's death, Nagar says the improvement project was under Illinois

Department of Transportation review. Deciding on a two-lane bike path with a raised curb, bikers would be able to travel from around Patten Gym all the way down to Allison and continue on Chicago Avenue through Davis Street – safely, separated from car traffic. North of Northwestern Place, by Garrett Seminary, the city also planned to reduce the number of lanes, creating a threelane cross-section to slow traffic and reduce the distance pedestrians have to cross.

While there’s no way to know for sure if these changes would have prevented Qiu’s death, Evanston Chief of Capital Planning Lara Biggs says that she feels the changes will definitely make Sheridan Road safer.

“It may very well have improved the situation simply by reducing the number of interactions between cars and bicyclists,” she says. “By going to this two-way protected bike lane, there are fewer places where bicyclists can cross Sheridan Road, the crossings are going to be controlled into just a few locations and there will be places with traffic signals.”

Biggs says that the construction of bike lanes on Chicago Avenue between Sheridan and Davis will take place between early April and midJune of this year and that the construction on Sheridan between Chicago Avenue and Lincoln will take place mid-June to mid-September. In the meantime, students hope the changes will bring about some kind of positive impact.

“We’ve been looking at it from a preventative standpoint to make sure that we not only honored Chu’s death and remembered her,” Cilento says, “but did something so that in the future hopefully we would minimize those sorts of accidents.”

ILLUSTRATION BY ANDIE LINKER

BY RACHEL FRAZIN

WINTER 2017 | 15

PHOTO BY ALEX FURUYA

Genius

Say it right Students with non-Anglophone names all know the feeling.

BY ALEX FURUYA

F

uruya. Not with a soft “R” like ribbon, but with a rolled “R” almost like an “L.” There’s no trick in the vowels; it’s pronounced just how it looks and almost rhymes with “Tutu, yeah.” As simple as it is to me, my last name has always been challenging for people to pronounce. I’ve gotten surprising variations of my name – Fur-rai-ya, Fer-ya, even Ferrari. More often than not, when people read my name aloud, they won’t even attempt to pronounce my last name and simply say, “Alex–” as if they were interrupted. Often I just nod, but if they ask, I tell them it is “Foooo-ya” ( is a unique Japanese sound pronounced similarly to a rolled "R"). It does not carry a fancy meaning – in fact, the literal Japanese meaning is “old valley.” However, I still feel familial, cultural and personal ties to it. It is my identity, and too often it is butchered.

Students like me wince when our names are mispronounced. It happens often, but every time I feel a certain twinge. Some, like Adwaith Nair, a McCormick junior, have lived with an alternate version of their names for more than half their lives.

It was the first day of kindergarten. Adwaith, then a shy kid, was as nervous as any kid on their first day of school. The students introduced themselves, and everything went smoothly until it was Adwaith’s turn.

He told the class his name – “Udth-weigth” – but his white, middleaged teacher couldn’t get it. He tried again, but she still didn’t get it.

Finally, after repeating his name for the third time, he gave up. The name stuck – “Ad-with.”

Adwaith, whose name means “uniqueness” in Sanskrit, attended the same predominantly white school system from kindergarten to high school. “For like 12 years people would just mispronounce my name,” he says. “It wasn't really a thing you could change halfway through.”

16 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Names come from a lot of places, both geographically and historically, and often hold personal significance for an individual. In the U.S., and especially at Northwestern, non-Western names, both first and last, are common. According to numbers published by the International Office, the number of international undergraduate students increased about 60 percent from the 2010-2011 school year to the 2016-2017 school year, from 508 students to 815. This number doesn’t even include students like me who were born in the U.S. but have non-European names.

My last name, “Furuya,” is a common surname in Japan. Still, it gives me power. It ties me to my paternal grandfather, who become a dentist to avoid the draft in Japan. It ties me to my paternal grandmother, who couldn’t be a doctor because of restrictive gender norms. It ties me to my parents, who left their stable home to move to the U.S. in hopes of giving their child more opportunities. In the process, they sacrificed a lot. My family inspires strength, and so does my last name.

When I was in high school, I used to pronounce my name in a more American way to avoid the five-minute awkward conversation about the correct way to pronounce my last name, where it comes from and what it means. So I have two last names, Fur-roo-yah and Foo- oo-ya. It’s a common strategy for many.

“I know that there's a specific way to say my last name and to be honest, most of the time when I tell people my last name, I say it in the Americanized way,” says Catherine Zhang (Zay-ng), a Medill junior.

“Just to make things easier because it's easier to pronounce.”

Students sometimes shorten or alter their names in everyday conversation to make them easier to read and pronounce.

“When I was younger, people would always have trouble with my name, especially from teachers, like during roll call,” says Simedar (Sim-uh-dar)

Jackson, a recent Medill graduate who now lives in New York. “When they would get to me there would always be a hesitancy and then they would just say, ‘Jackson.’ It became such a thing that I went by Simmie.”

Simedar had another reason to change her name: she also didn’t want the negative stereotype that follows Black women with “different” names. When she was just in elementary school, an adult told her that her name was “ghetto.”

“I really internalized that and that made me feel like my name wasn't worthy,” Simedar says. “I didn't want someone to automatically think that I was, quote, ghetto, and discredit everything else that I would say after.”

Most people don’t mispronounce names out of malice. They do so because certain names come from different languages and have little in common with English names, according to Emily Cibelli, Ph.D. (Sih-be-li), a research associate and lecturer in the Department of Linguistics.

“There's two hurdles you have to overcome,” Cibelli says. “First is that you have to recognize that the sounds are different from the ones in your own language.”

The second part is actually being able to pronounce the name. “You've got this listening challenge and you've also got this pronunciation challenge,” Cibelli says. “Those together, unless someone sits you down and actually instructs you on the pronunciation, is where people often stumble in pronouncing something from another language or another culture.”

English, in particular, makes it harder for people to correctly pronounce non-Western names.

According to Cibelli, the spelling of a name and the pronunciation of a name do not strictly correlate.

“My last name, for example, is Si-be-li, a lot of people look at it and pronounce it as ‘Chibelli’ because they know of other Italian American names pronounced that way. ” When I was a kid, I was teased for having an accent, so I would stay in my room practicing my vowels because I wanted to fit in. I hated my last name because it contained remnants of a language that others didn’t value, one which made me automatically different. If I said my last name the Japanese way, I was afraid I would revert to my “foreign” accent.

Every time someone mispronounces my last name, I am reminded of those long hours spent trying to pronounce words like “development” and “volcano” and wishing I wasn’t Japanese.

The anxiety you feel right before someone new mispronounces your name isn’t just a childhood struggle. In fact, it can happen here on campus, and to a greater degree. Eish (Eesh) Sumra, a Medill junior, remembers this anxiety during Wildcat Welcome, even after three years. As part of an orientation game, his PA group had to go around in a circle and say their names, along with the names that were introduced earlier.

“Someone said, ‘Meish,’ and someone said ‘Seish,’ and someone said ‘Shaish,’” Eish says.

“I've said it so many times but people couldn't just get it. I couldn't understand why. Even the

PAs didn't stop it 'cause I don't know if even they knew what my name was.”

Sometimes, however, mispronunciation can help a group of students come together. When I’m with my Japanese friends and family members who live in the U.S., we laugh when people try to say our names out loud. For us, the pronunciation of our names is as obvious as knowing the alphabet. And yet most people have trouble pronouncing common Japanese names like Noriko and Aiko.

According to Simedar, having a name that is often mispronounced is one small component of the minority identity, but also one that can bring people together.

Simedar says. “I think for that very fact, a lot of my friends had first or last names that were not typical and we all had some connection to wanting someone to pronounce our names correctly.”

While the process may be awkward, there are certain ways to go about learning people's names. The biggest mistake you can make when you encounter a name you are not familiar with is to not try – or worse, offer nicknames.

“When I introduce myself and you don't ask or don't try, that's when it bothers me,” Communication senior Xiomara (See-o-mah-rah) Contreras says. “If it's just you being lazy, I don't understand why I have to [make the effort].”

Rather, the first step is to ask. “I don't like when people try, like they're like, ‘Ehhh.. ish?’ Don't do that cause that's just stupid. Just ask,” Eish says.

The second step is persistence. Recognize that name pronunciation is difficult but important. I do not mind if you ask me how to pronounce my name multiple times – in fact, it makes me happy because it shows you care. Don’t take it personally when we correct your pronunciation.

“People have to eventually learn it, and so you may as well force them by just keep going on,” Eish says.

Finally, just keep practicing pronouncing the name. Every name is pronounceable. Breaking a name into bite-sized pieces is a great tactic.

“I honestly keep repeating [my name] until they say it correctly,” Simedar says. “Every time they say it wrong, I'll be like, ‘Sim-uh-dar.’ When you break it down into a couple of syllables, it usually only takes a couple of tries.”

Furuya. I used to hate the rolled “R” that sounded almost like an “L.” I hated how people thought there was some trick in the vowels. My name was so obvious to me that when I heard people mispronounce it, I thought they did it on purpose. It took some time, but now I appreciate my last name. When I see my last name, I think about my grandparents, my relatives and my parents and all the sacrifices they made so I could be here today. I don’t think about the time I spent trying to perfect the American pronunciation of my name.

Although I still wince when people butcher it, I now love my last name. It’s pronounced “Foo- oo-ya.”

Alex Furuya (Foo- oo-ya) “Old Valley” in Japanese

Ei s h S u mr a (Eesh)

“God” in Hindi (Short for Eeshvar)

Adwaith Nair (Udth-weigth) “Uniqueness” in Sanskrit

Catherine Zhang (Zay-ng)

“Piece of Paper” in Mandarin

Xiomara Contreras

(See-o-mah-rah)

means “Ready for Battle” in Spanish (from German)

Simedar Jackson (Sim-uh-dar)

“Blossom” in Hebrew

Emily Cibelli (Si-be-li)

Italian origin WINTER 2017 | 17

Genius w

Professor Mercouri Kanatzidis wants to save the world – with fertilizer.

BY DARBY HOPPER

M

ercouri Kanatzidis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, an administrative capital of the Roman Empire and Constantinople’s sister city in the Byzantine Empire. It’s a place steeped in greatness – an appropriate hometown for a chemist dedicated to worldchanging research.

“I wanted to generate new knowledge for humanity,” Kanatzidis says of his younger self. “I thought by doing research and discovering new things ... that would expand our knowledge as humans.”

Now a chemistry professor at Northwestern, Kanatzidis and his research group work in relative obscurity (well, as obscure as you can be when you’re one of the most cited researchers in your field). But as recently as last November, Kanatzidis flew to Israel to receive a shared $1 million prize for his work on reducing fossil fuel use in automobiles through thermoelectricity.

That, along with his research in the field of non-silicon solar panels – he works with the mineral perovskite to make low-cost options that work well in low light – fills the majority of his research lab’s time. While all these endeavors have the potential to be revolutionary, it’s actually one of his smallest projects that might someday have the biggest impact.

More than a century ago, two scientists discovered how to artificially fix nitrogen to produce ammonia – most commonly found in fertilizer. Called the HaberBosch process, it completely altered the 20th century, greatly increasing crop productivity, and spurring the green revolution and fueling massive population growth. “[It’s] the most important reaction that we humans perform on this planet,” Kanatzidis says.

But the technology has its flaws. The process requires a huge amount of heat and energy along with a high-pressure environment. Although scientists have improved it over time, the process still consumes an enormous amount of fossil fuels annually, and leads to the contamination of waterways and greenhouse gas emissions.

If the fossil fuel-free version of artificial nitrogen fixation sounds too good to be true, it is. As it stands now, the reaction Kanatzidis has discovered is even less efficient than the Haber-Bosch process – far too slow for successful commercialization.

But that isn’t Kanatzidis’ immediate concern. His lab

18 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

continues to edit their nitrogen-fixing process to improve it for future use. Kanatzidis says even just the new possibilities created by this discovery, despite its infancy, are reasons to dream about a new, more sustainable world agriculture.

“This is an exciting prospect,” Kanatzidis says. “I think we will hear more about this.”

Kanatzidis has had a long journey through academia.

He attended Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, then spent time doing postgraduate work at the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan and Northwestern.

He worked for nearly two decades at Michigan State University (the team he sides with in the MSU-UofM rivalry, for curious Big Ten fans), but he always knew that he wanted to be on the other side of Lake Michigan.

Currently he serves as a Northwestern professor of chemistry and materials science, the head of the university’s Kanatzidis Research Group and a senior scientist at Argonne National Lab. As his work evolved, Kanatzidis challenged himself to pursue research with an immediate impact – things that could change society in five or six years, rather than decades, as is traditional with discoveries in inorganic chemistry.

“You try to make a difference in [real world] applications such as energy conversion, environmental remediation, radiation detection and things like this,” Kanatzidis says. “Even though the core of our program is trying to answer the question, ‘How do we discover a new material?’ the periphery can be even more important.

Once we discover a new material [in the lab], what can we do with it that will make a difference in the world?”

The professor, who scoffs at the concept of free time and laughs at the idea of having hobbies, pours his heart into his work, comparing his various projects to children.

Even his traveling – his favorite destination is Greece – is usually related to work, whether for graduate student recruitment or international conferences.

But Kanatzidis doesn’t mind, because he’s doing what he loves. He advocates that all students just try to find something that “clicks.” “If you find that passion, just dedicate yourself to it and don’t work about the money or the glory. Just do it because you like it,” he says.

He pauses, smirking. “Both of these actually might come anyway.”

POPPIN' TAGS

BY CAROLINE VAKIL

Classy Closet owner Emanuel Wilder has taken a long and winding road to his current career.

A

retro red and white typeface flaunts ‘60s-era flair – “Classy Closet” – across the windows of this Evanston thrift shop.

In the front display, one mannequin wears a blouse and a calf-length ‘50s plaid skirt. The mannequin opposite dons an early 2000s bodycon dress that forms to the shape of her fake little derriere. “Superstitious” by Stevie Wonder and Ella Fitzgerald’s “Misty” play back-to-back.

Classy Closet stands at the corner of Custer Avenue and Washington Street in South Evanston. Open the door, and you’re greeted by the jingle of chimes and the scratch of hangers. If you know where to look, you’ll find discounted J. Crew sweaters, Eileen Fisher cardigans, Ralph Lauren jeans and Nike shoes. But if you look past that, you’ll find store owner Emanuel Wilder in a full pantsuit complete with cowboy hat, handkerchief and cowboy boots, sitting behind a desk covered with boots and purses.

In 1981, Wilder used to be just a loyal customer at the shop, then called Crowded Closet. The sister store to its main location on Dempster Street, Crowded Closet was considered the “dumping ground” for menswear and clothes that didn’t sell. He frequented the store so much that when previous owner Noel Coker was ready to sell the shop, her employees told Wilder to call Coker for a quote. The price was right, and he bought the shop.

Wilder likes to tell stories, and how he came to own Classy Closet is one of his favorites. But he has lots of other stories, and they are not all as uplifting. Jump back a couple decades in Wilder’s life, and the story is much different.

Growing up in the '60s and early '70s as a Black man in rural Alabama, Wilder says he fought for an education and worked his body to the bone for eight hours a day on a cotton plantation. Conditions on the plantation were harsh. Temperatures reached 90 degrees and people received $2 per 100 pounds of cotton, which usually took a day’s work to collect.

However, his experience in the fields instilled in him a strong work ethic, an interest in fashion from having to make his own clothes and dreams of leaving the plantation behind.

“We lived off the fat of the land,” he says.

The clothes he wore as a child often had to last him a few days before his family could do laundry, which meant wearing the same outfit more than once. It’s antithetical to Wilder today, who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the same outfit twice – he cycles through highend brands like Brioni Purple Label, Kiton and Oxford, which retail for upwards of $5,000.

Plantation life also propelled Wilder to move out of Alabama and escape miserable conditions. After attending college and teaching in Alabama, Wilder visited Chicago for the first time in

PHOTOS BY JACKIE TANG

the summer of 1975 and never looked back.

Chicago afforded Wilder more opportunities.

After becoming a part-time GED instructor for the City Colleges of Chicago, he landed a job as a public service administrator with the Illinois Department of Public Health. In 1980, one of his coworkers introduced him to resale shopping – something Wilder had never done before – at Crowded Closet.

After Wilder bought the store in 2003, he instituted a major clean-up, organizing past inventory and finding better merchandise.

Wilder took out the lower-end merchandise that wasn’t selling, brought in more designer brands and revamped the spirit of the store, which previously felt dingy and dirty.

“He loves men’s fashion, he loves putting an outfit together and using fashion as a way to stand out,” supervising manager Kim Ortiz says. “He approaches his business from a place of love.”

Wilder has come a long way from the plantations of Alabama, creating a life in which he says every day brings new promise.

“I meet a lot of people, and since I’m retired it gives me something to do everyday,” he says. “I like the stuff people bring in – You never know what you’re going to be getting from day to day.”

WINTER 2017 | 19

Genius

Beyond the uniform Cyrine Hilton

Sargent Dining Hall

BY YING DAI AND LETA DICKINSON

“I changed all of my life coming here, and sometimes I’m so afraid of not getting success. But every day, I wake up in the morning and I try again.”

Cynde “Mama” Goines

Chapin Maintenance

“When I see my students, I always say ‘good morning’ and ‘have a blessed day.’ If they have problems, I try to help them – everybody calls me Mama.”

20 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Meet the Northwestern employees you see every day outside their uniforms.

Shay Woods

Norbucks

“It may not seem like we are doing a lot, but we are. You never know what your customers were going through, and just being here and getting their orders with a smile is great for me.”

Gloria Graham

Northwestern University Police

Graham with her daughter Aliyah Gaines

“My favorite thing about this job is watching our students coming as freshmen, then watching them progress through their college experience and become citizens of a community.”

WINTER 2017 | 21

Spotlight

SPOTLIGHT NBN's guide to the provost.

Right-hand man Outgoing provost Dan Linzer has left his mark on NU.

BY LAUREN BALLY ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMMA KUMER

If you participated in Dance Marathon in 1991, you’d find, among the masses of undergraduates, future Provost Dan Linzer sweating on the dance floor. As part of the first faculty group to participate in DM, Linzer told The Daily Northwestern that getting out with the “young folks” was a bit daunting, but he and his compatriots helped to raise nearly $190,000 for charity, helping set what was then DM’s record for donations.

But even before his dancin’ days, Linzer was making an impression.

He joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology as an assistant professor in 1984, and in 1985 he was named one of 20 Searle Scholars, a prestigious award from the Chicago Community Trust for younger researchers that paid $180,000 over three years. The next school year, he was named to ASG’s Faculty Honor Roll.

After nearly 20 years as a professor, including time as an associate dean, Linzer was announced as the new dean of Weinberg in February 2001, replacing Eric Sundquist. He took over the position’s responsibilities in 2002. During his five years as Weinberg’s dean, Linzer helped to pioneer new programs like Global Health Studies and the Kellogg Certificate in Financial Economics, expand liberal arts curricula, and establish the Alice Kaplan Humanities Program. Under his watch, applications to Weinberg increased by more than 60 percent.

In September 2007, President Henry Bienen selected Linzer as his right-hand man, a position officially known as the provost. Although his almost decade-long tenure as provost has been filled with plenty of ups and downs, Linzer’s departure from Northwestern at the end of this academic year will affect many. After more than 30 years at Northwestern, he will no doubt leave a legacy – both good and bad – for many years to come. Here are five lasting impacts from Linzer’s time as provost.

WHAT THE HELL IS A

PROVOST?

BY PAOLA DE VARONA

22 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Northwestern Strategic Plan OCTOBER 2011

One of the ways Linzer will likely influence Northwestern after his retirement is through Northwestern’s Strategic Plan, which was unveiled in October 2011. The plan identified four overarching goals: to discover creative solutions to contemporary challenges across the world, extend academic experiences beyond the classroom, create a more inclusive and united community on campus and connect Northwestern to Chicago and global communities.

These plans have resulted in updated facilities, increased academic opportunities for students and strengthened alumni relations. They have been spurred on by more than $3 billion of donations since the fundraising campaign launched in March 2014.

Institute for Sustainability and Energy 2013

The Institute for Sustainability and Energy was originally launched as a five-year research initiative under then-President Henry Bienen in 2008 to address a gap on research in energy and sustainability. Linzer was responsible for approving the funding that created the institute in 2013. Since its creation, the institute has created new opportunities for students to pursue an interdisciplinary curriculum through nine new classes that are available to all undergraduate students, formed a collaboration space in the J wing of Tech, funded

Although the role of provost has changed significantly in the last six decades, current Provost Dan Linzer also has a lot more to juggle than his predecessors. When the position was first created, only three people reported to the provost: the vice president and dean of faculties, the vice president for medical affairs, and the director for university libraries.

Now, Linzer presides over an enormous university bureaucracy, including an office of 35 administrators

innovative projects like building solar cars and launched small companies like SiNode, an energy-efficient alternative to typical lithium batteries. “[Provost Linzer] was on board right from the word ‘go’ and it’s done wonders for promoting the whole field and really consolidating things that have allowed us to move forward in a vigorous and energetic way,” says ISEN Executive Director Michael Wasielewski.

The task force developed six “Global Themes” that Northwestern should focus on to shape its global strategy and action, though it remains unclear exactly how the funding will be delegated.

Karl Eikenberry Appointment to Buffett Institute 2015

Global Strategy Task Force MAY 2015

After Roberta Buffett donated more than $100 million to Northwestern in May 2015, the largest single gift in Northwestern history, Linzer launched a 12-person Global Strategy Task Force to explore ways Northwestern could use the money to increase its global activity and engagement over the next 10 years. According to Kellogg Dean Mary Blount, who co-chaired the project with Executive Vice President Nim Chinniah, the task force engaged approximately 500 faculty, students and staff during the 18 months before they released their report last November.

Blout wrote in an email, “Our hope is that the Task Force’s work will catalyze significant global activity across the university, both in enabling the university to expand our global horizons and to integrate global perspectives more deeply into our intellectual life within the U.S.”

to assist him in carrying out the various duties that keep Northwestern functioning.

They definitely have to do a lot to keep the school up and running: Linzer is responsible for distributing the University’s resources among the various undergraduate schools, which includes budget setting, making final decisions on faculty appointments, promotions and tenure, and overseeing

In 2015, the newly created Buffett Institute for Global Studies needed an executive director. In November, Schapiro and Linzer named former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry to fill the role. However, his appointment was met with disapproval from Northwestern faculty and students, most notably political science professor Jacqueline Stevens. Stevens said Northwestern’s trustees ignored normal hiring practices in their selection of Eikenberry, who lacked a Ph.D. and did not make a campus visit prior to the appointment. She later wrote in a letter cosigned by professors Jorge Coronado and Michael P. Ginsburg that Eikenberry’s refusal to distribute his CV and his “deeply disturbing statements on behalf of the Rwandan government and its military” made him an unsuitable candidate to lead the institute.

Linzer, along with Schapiro, Eikenberry defended before the Faculty Senate at ASG. However, his defense sometimes put him on shaky ground – he called the opposition to Eikenberry a “conspiracy theory” and warned then-ASG President Noah Star that

admissions for both undergraduate and graduate programs although he doesn’t make admission decisions.

The provost works with ASG analytics to include student opinions in the budgeting process, and has helped greenlight studentled initiatives like WiFi in residence halls, more gender neutral bathroom options and increased shuttle service.

a student-proposed resolution to rescind the appointment could be grounds for legal defamation. In the end, however, Linzer emailed Buffett faculty in April 2016 that Eikenberry would not become the executive director for the institute.

Ending Women’s Center Counseling SEPTEMBER 2016

In September 2016, Linzer sent an email to Northwestern undergraduate students stating that counseling services would no longer be offered at the Women’s Center, and would instead be absorbed by Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). For students like SESP junior Ariana Hammersmith, the decision made accessing mental health care more difficult because of the long wait-times at CAPS. However, Linzer defended the decision, pointing to the fact that CAPS had lifted its 12-session limit.

“Initially, I was shocked and disappointed when I heard counseling services at the Women’s Center would end. I was abroad and struggling to find short-term counseling, so the news that I wouldn’t be able to return when I got back to Evanston was frankly devastating,” Hammersmith says. “I’d like to see the reinstatement of counseling at the Women’s Center and the expansion of CAPS by increasing funding and the size of the staff in order to reduce wait times and provide a long-term model of mental health care.”

In essence, the provost takes leadership for all the initiatives taking place at Northwestern and tries to bring together numerous perspectives to fund programs that will benefit students and faculty alike.

For Linzer, this means being provost is less a matter of individual vision, and more about collaborating on projects that bring together the voices and ideas of a lot of people.

More on next page!

WINTER 2017 | 23

J

Spotlight

From Bulldog to

Wildcat

Evanston is a NU haven for Yale’s outgoing dean, Jonathan Holloway.

BY MADELINE COE AND DANIEL FERNANDEZ

onathan Holloway has called New Haven home for the last 18 years. But on July 1, 2017, he will move from his current position as Dean of Yale College and Yale’s Edmond S. Morgan Professor of African American Studies, History and American Studies to Northwestern, where he’ll succeed Dan Linzer as provost.

Beyond filling the shoes of Provost Linzer, who has been at Northwestern for more than 30 years, Holloway will need to adapt to a new university bureaucracy, institutional culture and location. The transition from dean to provost is not necessarily an easy one, he says, even though some onlookers may see the move as little more than a jump in status within the hierarchical world of academia.

“The big issue is the scope of the job,” Holloway says. “At Yale College, I’m responsible for everything in the undergraduate experience.

As provost, I’m responsible for managing the entire university on the academic agenda.”

Holloway will leave Yale with a complicated legacy: As the first Black Dean of Yale College, he was a central figure in a series of protests during Fall 2015, which garnered national coverage in The New York Times and other major publications. They emerged, in part, from an email written by Erika Christakis, thenassociate master of Silliman College at Yale.

In an email to residents, Christakis pushed back against an email from Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Council that said students should avoid making culturally unaware or insensitive choices like wearing feathered headdresses, turbans or ‘war paint’ along with “modifying skin tone or wearing blackface or readface.” While Christakis did not want “to trivialize genuine concerns about cultural and personal representation, and other challenges to our lived experience in a plural community”, she wrote “I think there might be something missing in our discourse about the exercise of free speech (including how we dress ourselves) on campus, and it is this: What does this debate about Halloween costumes say about our view of young adults, of their strength and judgment?”

Citing her husband, Nicholas Christakis, who was then-Master of Silliman College, she also recommended “if you don’t like a costume

A brief history of the provost

BY DANIEL FERNANDEZ At Northwestern, the provost serves as the chief academic officer, holding them responsible for overseeing all of the school’s academic affairs.

Despite the position’s importance today, the provost is actually a rather new addition to the university’s bureaucracy — Northwestern had

24 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

been around for more than 100 years before we got our first provost.

The position emerged as a part of a restructuring plan brought to Northwestern’s Board of Trustees in March 1969 by Booz, Allen and Hamilton, a Chicago consulting firm (and the same folks who employed Edward Snowden while he worked for the NSA).

Basically, the plan recommended that the responsibilities of Northwestern’s president be

split into two jobs: a chancellor who handled external affairs like fundraising, and a president who handled day to day administration. A provost was also created to oversee all academic affairs, including the recruitment of faculty. It also added a vice-president for medical affairs to head Northwestern’s medical school in Chicago.

In the following months, the recommendations that Booz Allen and Hamilton made to the Board of Trustees were not made public;

someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society.”

This message, which many saw as culturally insensitive, combined with an earlier instance of alleged racism at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, created a brief but intense fervor within the Yale community.

One of the enduring images to emerge from the protests was of Holloway standing on a flat sculpture called the Women’s Table above a frustrated crowd of students at the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Library, more commonly known as “Cross Campus.” Holloway says he came to Cross Campus that day to support students who were chalking affirmations for women of color at Yale and to bear witness.

But soon after arriving, students gathered around Holloway. First, there were a handful who made demands for a more definitive response from Holloway and Yale’s administration. They cited an instance a year earlier where Holloway had sent an email in less than 24 hours responding to swastikas being chalked on various buildings around campus. He tried to explain the response to the swastika incident differed from the one at SAE because there was no alleged perpetrator, though he now says he wished he had done more to make clear to students that the SAE investigation was being taken seriously.

Within a matter of minutes, the small crowd had ballooned into a throng of students. And what happened next, according to Holloway, was remarkable.

“Students started telling me their pain – and it was brutal,” Holloways says. “What wounded me was their deep disappointment, that they had expected better.”

Holloway knew he had to listen. He wanted to capture the pain and anger, the disappointment and confusion, all that raw emotion the students were feeling. He wanted them to know he heard every word they said, witnessed every tear they shed, and was moved. Although the students may not have known the whole story behind the SAE investigation or may have said things that upset him, he knew their feelings were

genuine, and he didn’t know how to respond except to acknowledge it. And to the students, that made a difference.

“There was a lot of pain and struggle going on in the public sphere, and a big struggle for us was that administrators didn’t seem to be listening,” says Isaiah Genece, a fourth-year undergraduate student and Yale freshman counselor. “The first and foremost thing he did was listen. It says a lot that he was willing to put his own concerns aside and hear all the words and concerns of the student body, especially in contrast to other administrators.”

In the moment, Holloway says his solemnity may have gotten the better of him.

In trying to be Dean of Yale College – the dean of everyone, not just those students on Cross Campus chalking and protesting – he may have overcorrected and been too restrained.

Maybe, in retrospect, he didn’t do enough to show his support for the students in public.

But Peter Huang, president of Yale College Council (YCC), has worked with Holloway on multiple projects and has seen his commitment to the undergraduate community first-hand. He collaborated with Holloway on initiatives to improve mental health services and residential communities at Yale, and says many students have talked about Holloway’s devotion to the school following the protests.

“There was a lot of anger and a lot of confusion about what it meant to be an undergraduate student at Yale,” Huang says.

“I was very glad and grateful to have Dean Holloway there. He was very emotionally present during the protests.”

Although Holloway sometimes wonders if he was too restrained, some think he was too vocal in his support. And things were ugly: Erika and Nicholas Christakis resigned from their positions at Silliman last July, and some students refused to shake Nicholas’ hand when they accepted their diploma during graduation. These critics say Holloway offered too much praise, and as a result, he may have threatened the rigorous intellectual freedom Yale has long prided itself on.

Zachary Young, who was a resident of Silliman when the protests occurred, wrote an editorial for The Wall Street Journal in

in fact, even after the files moved to University Archives, it was impossible to access them without the written permission of the university president until 1995. At the time, the editorial board for The Daily Northwestern speculated the secrecy was because “many of the recommendations were controversial.” This was, in no small part, because Allen (of Booz, Allen and Hamilton) sat on the Board of Trustees and authorized

the changes proposed by the study, in addition to representing the firm which was ultimately responsible for leading the search efforts to fill these various positions. It cost the university an undisclosed sum of money, but the firm screened and collected biographic information for more than 300 candidates for the various positions, so it’s hard to imagine it was cheap. These concerns were only magnified by the fact that Northwestern had

June 2016. In it, he said the Christakises were damaged by a “witch-hunt mentality,” and that Holloway did little to avert or ameliorate the situation when “he offered his ‘unambiguous’ support for the Intercultural Affairs Committee’s guidelines, calling their intent ‘exactly right.’”

Holloway says the Christakises may have inadvertently stepped into a minefield when Erika published her letter, but he also emphasizes they were not removed from their jobs: Nicholas still heads his lab, and Yale has reached out to Erika to teach her lecture course again, though she has not accepted the offer, according to Holloway. He also says colleges and universities like Yale are places of immense passion, and that disagreement is a sign of a healthy academic community.

But he also speaks of a need for a renewed sense of respect and dignity. “We are all losing faith in one another – that we can actually talk to people we disagree with and recognize that we actually share things in common,” he says. “I’m not trying to wage an ideological campaign. I will support the students with whom I disagree as much as I support the ones I agree with.”

As Holloway begins his transition to Northwestern – as of January, he’s already made several visits to campus to meet with faculty and administrators – it is likely that he will be asked to engage these sorts of uncomfortable topics once again, whether it relates to how buildings should be named (Yale renamed Calhoun College this February, in a controversial decision that contradicted statements made by university president Peter Salovey in April), the nature of student protest or how academic freedoms ought to be defended.

But Holloway feels confident that Northwestern is “in amazing shape,” and he, his wife, Aisling Colón, and his two children are looking forward to the move. In fact, they’re already singing praises of the town’s “Midwestern charm.”

But back at Yale, many students will likely miss Holloway's calm voice in these debates. “He’s always pointed us in the right direction,” Huang says. “Northwestern is lucky to have him.”

reduced raises among faculty that year, and saw various construction projects fall behind schedule.

Despite these murmurings, the restructuring plan was approved, with then-University President Dr. J. Roscoe Miller serving as chancellor and former vice-president and dean of faculties, with Payton S. Wild becoming the first provost.

WINTER 2017 | 25

A scoop on the big things happening around you.

SHAWN MCMILLEN PHOTOGRAPHY 26 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

27 28 29 30 32 34

Practical pre-law Honoring the past Art 101: Intro to ATP Shallow roots Back in the saddle A more perfect union

ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA SARAPPO

Practical pre-law A

trial is underway at the Richard J. Daley Center in downtown Chicago for the third annual Great Chicago Fire Invitational. Lawyers cross the courtroom with purpose in polished shoes and pressed suits, speaking smoothly and clearly to the jury about their client and the case. Witnesses respond nervously to biting questions, brightening the dimly lit space with colorful accents. As the judge stares down each speaker, the question looms: guilty or not guilty?

“Mock trial is basically what it sounds like: it’s a mock trial where one team is one side of the trial – either prosecution or plaintiff – and another team is the defense,” says Kate Hayner-Slattery, a co-captain of one of Northwestern’s three mock trial teams.

It all starts at the beginning of the academic year. The American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) releases a 150-page case file, giving colleges nationwide the details they need to put together a convincing argument for both sides of the case; they’ll have to perform each one during separate rounds of competition.

After all, “winning” a round of mock trial is not determined by the actual facts of the case; it’s based on how each team member performs when presenting them.

“The winner is basically an addition of scores for each individual, so the person that did a statement gets a score, the person who is a witness gets a score,” says Alla Cherkassky Galati, a 2010 graduate of Northwestern’s

BY VIRGINIA NOWAKOWSKI

NU's mock trial team will see you in court.

Pritzker School of Law and a coach for the Northwestern team.

Teams assign their members roles as witnesses or attorneys. For attorneys, grading is fairly straightforward; a judge scores them on categories such as eloquence and argumentation. Witnesses have more opportunity for creativity. They get scores for their acting ability and the quality of their characters' “backstories.” While the case file includes a few key details about each witness, teams can craft the rest of the character however they choose. The human resources manager might speak with a Southern drawl, or he could have a passion for fine French cooking – it’s all up to the team to decide.

Drop in on any Northwestern mock trial practice and it may seem like a sketch comedy team or a theatre troupe is at work, trying out accents or adding “Nordic heavy metal” vibes to spice up a character.

“Most of the mock trial characters are very plain,” says Weinberg sophomore Nick Anderson. “Where the true individuality of each team comes out is how they change the character.”

“Northwestern is an overall clever scriptwriting team,” Hayner-Slattery says. “We write good material [and] we present it well.”

National rankings seem to agree. Last year, Northwestern’s A team placed 13th in the National Championships held by AMTA. The year before, Northwestern’s A team placed 8th and the B team was the top-ranked B team in

the country. This year, the program hopes to return to the top 10.

Winning is always great, but it’s not the only reason why students are passionate about mock trial.

“I think for me, mock trial is like the perfect combination of the two things that I really love doing, which is debating and acting,” says SESP junior Joy Holden. Holden, like about of half of the team, hopes her performances could assist her in her future career – she’s currently applying to law school. For all of the students, though, mock trial is about more than the final verdict.

“I’m an engineer, I’m a CS major, I’m not pre-law,” Hayner-Slattery says. “Maybe someday I could decide to go to law school, but I'm not doing this as a career preparation thing – I’m doing it for the thing itself.”

“Most of the mock trial characters are very plain. Where the true individuality of each team comes out is how they change the character.”

– Nick Anderson WINTER 2017 | 27

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Research, long overdue An Indigenous Studies center comes to Northwestern.

BY JUSTIN CURTO

T

he story of Northwestern’s founding is, after a century and a half, a story well told: John Evans, Evanston’s namesake, bought most of the land from Dr. J. H. Foster with eight other men in 1853 to establish a university for the Northwest Territory. But the story fails to mention that before the land belonged to the university, Evans or any other settler, the people of the Council of Three Fires – the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi – called it home. To them, along with other Native nations in the area, the Evanston and Chicago area was a place for traveling, trading, gathering and healing.

Today, you’ll probably only hear the land you stand on called “stolen” at an event put on by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Alliance (NAISA) or at student protests. But in December it plans to return some of the benefit of the land to Native peoples again by establishing a Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.

Many Native students and Native American and Indigenous Studies faculty see the center as a step forward for the university’s relationships with Native peoples. They have hopes for the future of the center and what comes after it, even as they wait for the university to meet more of their original demands.

The push for the center began with the formation of NAISA in 2012, and the establishment of the Northwestern University Memory Project, a NAISA effort focused on increasing awareness of Evans’ actions toward Native peoples. NAISA co-President Adam Mendel (WCAS ‘13) had heard of the Sand Creek Massacre in a class, and NAISA soon 28 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

petitioned for an investigation into the matter and reparations for Evans’ involvement in the murder of more than 165 Cheyenne and Arapaho people – historical accounts vary – 1864, when Evans was governor of the Colorado Territory, where the it happened.

Although the investigation recieved plenty of press coverage, the NAISA petition also called for, among other things, a Native American and Indigenous Studies program, a memorial for those who died at Sand Creek and scholarships for Cheyenne and Arapaho students. Another petition from 2015 called for the university to remove John Evans’ name from all university buildings.

The university completed an investigation in 2014 that found Evans would have “opposed the attack,” but a separate university of Denver report found Evans “central to creating the conditions in which the massacre was possible and even likely.”

The report was the first action Northwestern took in response to the petition. The center is the second and, students say, a huge step.

SESP senior Forrest Bruce, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe, was involved with NAISA when the initial petition was released. He says it’s now up to future Native students at Northwestern to continue this activism.

“To see them make a formal announcement on it is really gratifying,” Bruce says of the center. “There’s a lot of promise. The Native community here has a lot of momentum.”

Younger Native students see the creation of the center as the beginning of broader changes across the university. Weinberg freshman Lois Biggs, who is White Earth Ojibwe and Oklahoma Cherokee, credits past members of NAISA for their activism and hopes the center can spur on future progress.

“I know there are other things that NAISA would and Native American faculty on campus would like to see happen,” Biggs says.

“But, it’s really cool to see that they’re taking all of this dialogue and all of this visibility of Native American issues on campus and translating it into something concrete.”

The initial investment in the center comes from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which supports the humanities and arts. That money will go toward bringing visiting professors, speakers and artists-in-residence to campus, along with funding undergraduate, graduate and faculty research, according to Ann Bradlow, Weinberg’s associate dean for academic initiatives. Bradlow says programming could give way to a major or minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies, but there aren’t any concrete plans yet.

Kelly Wisecup, an assistant professor of English who specializes in Native American literature, co-chairs the steering committee for the Indigenous Studies Research Initiative, which will give input as the university develops the center and searches for a director. She hopes the center will work to acknowledge the impact of Sand Creek.

“Just [be] aware that you are on Native land and that there are Native peoples here still, because we’re so often overlooked and cast aside. We have so much to offer to academia, to just the world. So why not?”

– Lorenzo Gudino

“I think that’s really important for every student, to [understand] what it might mean for them to be Northwestern students and alums and to be connected to that history now,” Wisecup says.

Sand Creek aside, many Native students and Native American and Indigenous Studies faculty see the center as tying back to the university’s land. Medill senior and NAISA President Lorenzo Gudino knows he won’t be around to see the center come to fruition, but hopes it will help Native students in the future. To Gudino, a member of the Fort Sill Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache, it’s a matter of visibility for Native peoples in scholarship.

“Just [be] aware that you are on Native land and that there are Native peoples here still, because we’re so often overlooked and cast aside,” Gudino says. “We have so much to offer to academia, to just the world. So why not?”

Art 101: Intro to ATP NU’s Art Theory and Practice department moves into new digs.

BY SAM SPENGLER Art Theory and Practice senior Isabel Ngan doesn’t want to be a career artist.

Armed with a B.A. in Art Theory and Practice and a Segal Design Certificate, Ngan hopes to go into marketing or advertising before getting her master’s degree in design.

She already has practice; she recently designed an awareness campaign about contamination risk for Chicago’s water.

Those who are close to Ngan may know her artwork. She has a large portfolio of installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings, many of which resemble the human body in gruesome, surreal representations.

But many students are surprised to learn Northwestern has art majors at all. Visibility has been an issue for the Weinberg program, which usually has no more than 35 majors.

This year, after a three year hiatus, they’re coming home to a newly renovated – and decked out – Kresge Hall. The department hopes that when they move in this fall with course changes, a new minor program, and new resources, they’ll be able to greatly expand the relatively small program.

According to Program Assistant Matthew Martin, their new space in Kresge contains a brand new laser cutting machine in the woodshop, a black box-style room with multiple projectors, and a large studio space for majors that includes movable walls for more flexibility. The studios will feature a Wildcard entry so that the students can access their spaces at any hour.

These renovations and countless more are a drastic upgrade to the old Kresge or 640 Lincoln Street, where the department resided during construction. Kresge’s central location also puts ATP students back on the campus map.

“I think being in Kresge allows us to integrate better into campus as well as [into] people’s minds,” Ngan says.

Ngan is one of 28 current undergraduate ATP majors. While some plan on careers in the art world, others have chosen her route – majoring in art for the fun and the abstract skills it builds. Every ATP major NBN interviewed had started in another program before taking a class and becoming a major.

Junior Siena Moreno is a double major in ATP and English. She loves creating art, an asset she says she will help her pursue her

real passion: teaching particularly at nontraditional, student-focused Montessori high schools.

“I’m creating the things versus just interpreting them and understanding them,” Moreno says. “So I think it really helps me see the world differently.”

Moreno works primarily in paint and photography, focusing on concepts such as public space and the trajectory of women’s roles throughout the history of TV sitcoms.

Limited course options have prevented her from taking the photo classes she wants, but that might change with Kresge’s expanded photography lab and computer lab, complete with a separate space for audio and video editing.

For some, small class sizes, though, are part of the program’s allure, allowing students to form close relationships with AT&P’s numerous elite faculty. Last year, five professors appeared on Newcity Art’s “Art 50” list of influential Chicago artists.

“Classes are small so they actually pay attention and care about you,” junior Aric Waldman says. “One of my professors even yelled at me to call him by his first name.”

Invariably, these students’ work will emerge in Norris’ Dittmar Gallery. Every senior participates in the collective “senior show” as part of their graduation requirement. Those who visit may find something revelatory – or transgressive.

Last year, the show was an exploration of vulnerability entitled “Nudes?” Senior Michael Gross’ contribution was an animation that condensed 600 porn GIFs – a work that was immediately taken down out of concerns some of the actors were underage, which prompted Gross to compose a 60page works cited (dubbed the world’s sexiest bibliography we hope).

Gross says the piece was a shining example the ATP department’s think-andcreate, outside-the-box mentality.

“As Northwestern students, we really encourage ourselves to be good immediately, otherwise why are we doing this?” Gross says. “There’s this weird imposter syndrome. Breaking that illusion is a really vital step to feeling comfortable and being able to create.”

PHOTO BY JACKIE TANG

WINTER 2017 | 29

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shallow roots

For some NU students, “home” is complicated.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX FUURYA & YING DAI

BY ISABELLA JIAO

30 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

“S

o tell me about China!”

“Did you study all the time in China?”

“Why don’t you have siblings?”

I used to dread these questions, posed by my new friends when I first arrived at my public school in Singapore on a scholarship age 15. To attend, I had left China, my family and the life I had known.

I smiled politely and answered patiently.

Growing up, I learned to observe the traditional Chinese values of humility, patience and tolerance, but in my head, a voice would say, “Stop pointing out how different I am from you.”

But that was just the start of my life as a different sheep in every herd I’ve been in.

It’s hard to write about myself when I can hardly define who I am – when one of my biggest strengths has always been my ability to write away my identity to assimilate into a new environment. Because of that, one of my biggest weaknesses is that I constantly change myself to blend in, instead of looking at who I really am.

I answer the question, “Tell me about yourself,” by drawing a line along a world map: China, Singapore, the United States. What I don’t say is that none of these places represent me anymore.

Since I left my hometown in China, change has been the only constant in my life. Foreignness creates the strongest sense of familiarity.

Living in Singapore was a big change: no more going home to the smell of Mom’s homecooked meals, no more Chinese New Year celebrations. I didn’t even read Chinese books or listen to Chinese songs because I was busy immersing myself in everything Singaporean.

But returning to China during summer breaks was also a shock. I didn’t understand the latest slang my Chinese friends used, and they couldn’t understand that “lol” didn’t mean “League of Legends.” I wasn’t showing off when I inserted English words when speaking Mandarin – I was just already used to thinking in English.

On the other hand, my transition to the U.S. felt seamless. Before coming, I had thought to myself, “Just repeat at Northwestern what you did best in Singapore: conceal yourself and blend in.” But I was wrong. Sure, I adopted the American way of speaking, behaving, and sometimes, even thinking, but this time I wasn’t purposefully hiding my past. In fact, as much as I was interested in learning about different cultures, I found most people are just as interested in the cultures I represent.

I can laugh at ridiculous stereotypes of Chinese people and debunk myths people might hold regarding my race, my nationality or my experience. I don’t feel singled out, but empowered, by the unique path I’ve chosen.

I’m not the only one at NU who feels this way. Medill sophomore Samarth Soni was born and raised in Dubai to Indian parents in an

English environment and moved to India with his family at the age of 12. Soni says the global outlook he gained as an expatriate, together with a self-assuring sense of identity inspired by his family, prepared him for a relatively painless transition to Northwestern. “I really think that I was privileged enough to have grown up in a foreign environment to start with,” Soni says.

“I felt comfortable with [Americans]. I can’t speak the same for someone who’s never left India coming to the U.S.” In contrast, Weinberg senior Radhika Kalra found life at Northwestern challenging at first. Having moved from Delhi to Bangkok, Singapore and most recently Hong Kong, the only social circles she knew were full of international students from different countries. She shared little in common with many of her new American friends at Northwestern, some of whom lived just an hour’s drive away from home.

“Even though a lot of my friends in Singapore were American, I still had a lot in common with them. Here, it’s just more difficult,” Kalra says.

She was shocked her freshman year when an American friend asked her if Singapore was in South America.

She tried to fit in with other international students, but unlike her, most of them grew up in a single location. Still, she says her experience has its advantages: she has greater adaptability and flexibility.

“Having moved so much means you are already used to it,” Kalra says. “In the next five years, I have no idea where I’m gonna be, and I’m very excited for it.”

Kalra’s experience resonates. Having stumbled so much as a teenager facing the challenges of an independent life in a foreign country, I can adapt anywhere I end up. Still, other students felt the same disconnect with their past as they moved. The people and places they knew faded away like trees in the rearview mirror of a fast-moving car. “I think because I travel so much, I’m very bad at keeping in touch with my old friends,” Kalra says.

When I see my old friends, the initial euphoria of reunion is tempered when we realize we don’t have the rapport we used to have. Our experiences and worldviews have drifted apart as we’ve assimilated to different corners of the world.

Kalra and Soni can see how a global outlook and readiness to change prepare them for a future with possibilities unbounded by geographical constraints. But they find “home” and “identity” two blurry concepts. Raised in a household that emphasized Indian culture and identity, Soni has always considered himself Indian, despite living abroad for the majority of his life.

“I keep saying move ‘back’ to India when that’s really not the case because it wasn’t exactly home until we moved there,” Soni said.

Living in India was nothing like occasionally visiting for vacations. Soni found himself in a “domestic-foreign environment” with new cultural norms. He realized that being street-smart was almost a prerequisite for assimilation. Bargaining and efficient moneysaving skills acted as entrance exams to becoming truly “Indian.” He was also surprised by the intensive academic competition in school, with classmates openly asking about one another’s scores after an exam.

As a seventh grader, Soni says he attempted to act and talk in a way similar to his Indian friends just to blend in, but never to the extent of compromising who he was. “I never thought that keeping [the Dubai] side of me hidden … or being more contextually Indian was something I had to do,” Soni says.

Kalra was born in Delhi, but her birthplace feels foreign. “I feel more like I’m from Asia,” Kalra says. She has lived the life of a nomad in mostly Southeast Asia and said of all the countries she’s lived in, India is probably where she feels the least comfortable.

I wish I had a city where I’m always comfortable. The truth is, my hometown is familiar and strange at the same time.

Whenever I’m there, I need to consciously remind myself I’m home. I know my town is where I belong when I see Chinese characters in the streets and hear the noises of the bustling outdoor markets. But now, the family stores where I bought snacks on the way to school are fancy restaurants; the lake I fell in during fourth grade is a parking lot. Roaming the streets, I sometimes feel like a stranger seeing this place for the first time.

Normally, Kalra introduces herself as from Singapore, where she spent half of her life. But she doesn’t identify as a Singaporean because she hardly interacted with local Singaporeans.

Almost all her friends were foreign students at her international school. “I’ve lived in a bubble pretty much my entire life, the international expat kid bubble,” Kalra said.

Having a clearly defined place called home or a life-long group of friends from childhood is a luxury for Kalra. “When people talk about ‘oh, in 10 years I eventually want to move back home,’ I can never say that … I don’t want to move to Delhi, but is Singapore actually home?” Kalra said.

No matter how much I travel outside of China, at least I can always point to that city of mine and call it home – where I can find my family and heritage, where the smell of roasted sweet potatoes from street peddlers lingers in the frosty winter air, where the small airport that sent me overseas for the first time many years ago always waits to greet me when I fly back, no matter how long I’ve been away. Yes, I realized, that’s my home.

WINTER 2017 | 31

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Back in the

saddle

After a traumatic accident, Weinberg senior Catherine Tyree gets back in the show ring and pursues her passion.

BY MEG PISARCZYK

SHAWN MCMILLEN PHOTOGRAPHY 32 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

mitted Professional photos sub en by tak and ee Tyr ine

by Cather raphy.

Shawn McMillen photog herine It’s All White (below) Cat four her of one ai, Tyree and Bok horses.

Tyree Out of the Ring (far left) r to his with Free Style in 2015, prio ring. w sho the in th dea ic trag currently High Flying (left) Tyree is. She competes with Enjoy Lou gium and has traveled as far as Bel g. pin jum France for show

T

wo rounds in, and everything was going as planned.

It was January 2016 at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida. Weinberg senior Catherine Tyree sat atop her horse Free Style, guiding her around the ring between jumping events, when suddenly, Free Style collapsed.

When the horse fell, Tyree was pinned beneath hundreds of pounds of muscle, hair and show accessories. She would later find out that Free Style’s collapse was triggered by a fatal aneurysm. On top of losing her competition partner and beloved companion, the impact crushed Tyree’s entire left foot. Instead of spending Winter Quarter of her junior year training full-time in Wellington, Tyree spent the rest of the quarter undergoing reconstructive surgery, three months on crutches and three weeks in a walking boot.

“The four months that I went without riding were pretty miserable – I missed it a lot,” she says. “When I finally started walking, three days later I started riding again. It was hard at first; it was definitely painful, but I just tried to stay positive and keep a strong mentality.”

For Tyree, who has ridden since age five and become one of the best young riders in the country, the injury was a huge blow – the equivalent of Bryant McIntosh or Justin Jackson being sidelined for the year. But Tyree, who’s performed in Europe and accrued hundreds of thousands of dollars in winnings, is better at her sport than either McIntosh or Jackson are at theirs.

After rising through the ranks with Free Style, Tyree had to adapt to Enjoy Louis, another one of the four horses her family currently owns. They trained through the spring and worked on building a strong bond. Six days a week, Tyree rides her horses for 45 minutes at a time, focusing on fundamentals of riding and competing like slowing down, going forward, turning around and maintaining a straight path.

“A lot of riding has to do with the communication between the horse and rider, so I make sure that’s what I’m asking of them and that I’m very clear,” Tyree says. “A lot of the day-to-day is just working on that communication.”

Tyree also had her own physical training to catch up on after being out of commission for so long. People often think the horse does all the work, but equestrians need superior core strength to stay balanced while their horses trot and canter. Arm and leg strength is paramount for jumping, the event Tyree competes in.

The rider must hold the reins steadily to signal the horse, the legs must push up off the saddle at just the right moment to keep the rider from flying off, and the rider’s heels must clench the horse’s belly almost continuously to give signals.

Tyree had to work extra hard to strengthen her left side to maintain balance while riding.

It all came together in September. Just months after literally getting back in the saddle, she and Enjoy Louis finished second in the HITS Saugerties most prestigious $1 million 5 Star Grand Prix, one of the highest class competitions in the country, walking away with $200,000 in prize money. The victory shocked Tyree because it came so quickly after her surgery.

“Words can’t even explain how it feels to be back in the ring …

Especially with my king ,” Tyree wrote on Instagram after the event alongside an image of her and Enjoy Louis suspended mid-arc.

Tyree has competed in other events with cash prizes.

The money she wins first gets applied toward the costs of traveling to and attending the competition; any excess funds go back to her parents.

After the HITS competition, Tyree faced a dilemma premier student-athletes before her have faced. She has a riding résumé polished enough to be a professional equestrian, but hasn’t yet decided if that’s the route she wants to take. Last year Tyree, an economics major, worked at Goldman Sachs through the Chicago Field Studies program, as she might want to pursue a career in finance.

But this winter, she went back to Wellington to focus on conditioning and training for the spring and summer competition season. Tyree was able to take online classes and stay on pace to graduate in June; after last winter’s accident, she didn’t want to risk giving up the opportunity to ride just yet.

“I’m at a place with my riding where I’m able to do a lot more things,” Tyree says. “I compete against the world’s best riders and people who have gone to the Olympics. I’ve stepped into that highest level and I want to focus on that right now.”

Those four months that I went

without riding

were pretty miserable for me.

WINTER 2017 | 33

Quad

A more perfect ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA KUMER

NU grad students attempt to unionize.

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BY ELENA SUCHARETZA

Another union debate has come to Northwestern – yes, another one.

With the football team organizing in 2014 and adjunct faculty doing the same last summer, it’s like the ghost of César Chávez himself hangs over Northwestern. This group seeking unionization lives in limbo, neither just faculty nor just students but both: graduate students.

The push for unionization began in August in Washington D.C., when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled for the first time that graduate students at private universities could unionize. The plaintiffs in that fight, Columbia University students, voted to unionize in December, four months after the NLRB decision. At Northwestern,

it’s been a bit more complicated.

After the decision, two labor organizations, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), began jockeying to represent Northwestern graduate students. Northwestern University Graduate Workers, a pro-union group of graduate students, held a debate between the two groups in October. Although leaders say that competition between two groups is common, it poses a problem.

For the students to hold a vote for unionization, they need 30 percent of eligible workers to sign a union card. But both the AFT and the SEIU are handing out cards, and they don’t double count. If 25 percent of grad students sign cards

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with the AFT and 25 percent sign with the SEIU, neither would reach the 30 percent threshold, even though half of all students wanted to unionize. This could prevent the students from organizing, which would continue to leave them with little recourse for their grievances, which include: • Lack of full preventative health care benefits • Better compensation and work conditions • Lab hours for Ph.D. students in the sciences that can run into the early morning hours • Fair procedure for handling grievances between faculty and graduate students Northwestern has said it treats grad students as students first and that unionizing would “significantly change the relationship between these students, their faculty mentors and the university.” You might recognize that language from the university’s response to the athlete labor fight.

It didn’t work then. Time will tell if it works out this round.

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Ho wa em 54t rd h/C wa e rd rma For For n est k est Par Par Mid H k k a wa rlem y Kim Loo k bal 95t p l Ho h/D wa an rd Engage R M y i CHICAGO Ho an dw 34 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

PHOTOS BY ALEX FURUYA

The traditional definition of “sex” depends on heterosexuality and penises, so defining it without either is hard.

BY EMMA SARAPPO

I

t took McCormick junior Katie Perry a while to figure out whether she’d had sex.

Perry hadn’t forgotten the encounter; the details of her experience were clear.

She was 18, and she’d had her first sexual experience with another woman. The question she was wrestling with was one most of her straight peers would never have had to ask themselves. She wasn’t sure if what had transpired “counted” as sex.

Perry, who is bisexual, had this uncertainty because there was no penis involved.

Therefore, there was no classic “sexual intercourse” experience acted out, the kind defined in middle school sex ed as penis-invagina-to-completion. Since she was sleeping with another woman, there was no clear line, no action she could take that would leave her completely sure she had lost her virginity.

She wondered what she would say if someone asked if she had. “Yes, but technically it was with a girl, so what is that? A half-virginity?”

She looked it up on the internet and even asked her best friend if what happened “counted.”

Her response: “I don’t think so, technically.”

But that didn’t sit right with Perry, who knew the heteronormative definition was too limited. “You don’t have to have a guy to have sex,” she says.

Finally, she made a decision. “I’ll just say it counts, say I lost my virginity and move on,” she says.

In an era where mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ people is unprecedented, heteronormative ideas about sex and virginity remain dominant. This penis-entering-something cultural script overshadows conversations about sex; whether or not this definition of sex feels reductive, it’s fairly easy to imagine classic sex between men. That penetrative narrative infiltrates culture to the point that many queer women and nonbinary people with vaginas – basically, anyone having sex that typically doesn’t involve any penises – have no clear roadmap for what their sex even looks like. This poses a problem, because it’s nearly impossible to understand sexual orientation without the thing at its center: sex.

Growing up, Medill sophomore Katie Pach attended Catholic school in suburban Ohio, where she didn’t learn much about sex at all – let alone sex between women.

She says she wouldn’t have known that gay people even existed without television and movies. “It just wasn’t something that existed, so it never occurred to me that I

might like girls,” she says.

Once she started attending a public high school, Pach met new friends who expanded her worldview, often just by talking about sex.

And once she saw and met girls who liked other girls, she began to think about her own sexuality. She’d often think “Wow, it’d be crazy if I was a lesbian! But I’m totally not, so it’s fine!” she says. But seeing that it was possible for girls to like other girls in turn made it possible for Pach to understand her feelings. Today, she identifies as bisexual, or often simply, “queer.”

While Pach’s straight peers had models for dating and sex on television and in movies, she didn’t. When straight friends complain to her about their lack of sex ed, Pach responds, “Yeah, but at least your sex is in every TV show. Every movie has a straight couple.”

In American heteronormative society, particularly in rural or suburban areas with a nonexistent or invisible LGBTQ population, people have relied on popular culture to understand and construct their identities.

However, pop culture hasn’t always provided the most truthful or compassionate narrative.

And while gay men have seen increased visibility from the late ‘90s onwards, beginning with shows like Will & Grace and continued WINTER 2017 | 35

in hits like Modern Family and Shameless, queer women’s representation – when it exists – has been particularly fraught.

Syd Shaw, a Medill sophomore who is bisexual and nonbinary, pointed out that much of the lesbian sex portrayed on television and in film is “for the male gaze.” In other words, it’s full of wide shots that pander to straight male desires by showing extreme, graphic sex and gratuitous shots of naked women’s bodies – meaning these movies give a warped message of queer female sexuality, instead of guidance, to their viewers.

“I feel like when you’re a queer woman, you can kind of tell when you watch these things, when they’re wearing fake nails and obviously catering to the male gaze, and when it’s realistic,” Shaw says. For the record, long, sharp, hard acrylic nails are not a common choice for women who plan to touch sensitive vulvas.

Olivia*, a gay Communication sophomore, agrees, citing the 2013 French film Blue Is the Warmest Colour as an example of lesbian sex filmed for men. “It’s those long shots focused on body parts that during actual sex you’re not focused on that much,” she explains. “It felt very much like, ‘Audience, look at them. They’re hot.

They’re being hot together. Look at them.’”

These messages can stick with their viewers. Take scissoring, for instance, an ageold frustration in lesbian circles.

While some people attempt the practice, it’s fairly uncommon.

However, its cultural presence is so strong many queer women feel they have to actually “have sex.”

“Because of the male directed, ‘This is what lesbian sex looks like,’ I was kind of led to believe ‘This is something I have to try,’” Olivia says. It didn’t go well. “There was a lot of figuring out what were myths and what were jokes and what were actually things people did,” she says of her early sexual experiences.

The pervasiveness of scissoring in even the most lauded lesbian films, such as Blue and The Handmaiden, led to an essay by Shannon Keating, Buzzfeed’s LGBT editor, exploring this misconception. She concludes that “people don’t think what queer women do even counts as sex. To a lot of viewers it’s a meaningless college hookup, or a performance for horny guys, a phase or a mistake. One of the reasons why scissoring is still such a popular depiction of lesbian sex, even though most queer women don’t attempt it at all … is because scissoring looks ‘real’ to straight people.”

In other words, these films reinforce the idea that sex isn’t “real” unless it follows those dominant, straight cultural narratives. By reducing queer women’s sex to a spectacle for straight men, or worse, ending with the death of the queer women in question – a trope

widely known across the internet as Bury Your Gays – these pieces of media question the validity of queer women, their love and their sex altogether.

That spills over to real life. Many women whose sexual experiences don’t fit the typical mold say they are constantly asked to explain or to justify how they have sex. Once, when Olivia’s Lyft driver hit on her, she told him she was gay so he’d leave her alone. Instead, he started pressing her for details on how she had sex. She’s also in Greek life, and although she says mixers have been less negative than she expected, she’s had to have intimate conversations about her sex life with curious boys. Likewise, Pach says friends have asked her about her sexual mechanics when they learn she’s queer.

“Being so out, some people take it as an invitation of ‘Oh, I have all these weird sex questions, let me just ask [Olivia]!’” Olivia says. Pach agrees. “My life is not on display for you. We’re not a spectacle,” she says. “I love that people want to get educated about stuff, but I’m also like, don’t ask me really personal questions!”

At least lesbians appear on screen, even if it’s in warped and fatalistic depictions.

Many other women and designated female at

She compares having sex to taking a walk on a slightly chilly day: “I know it’s good for me scientifically, and it’ll probably make someone happy if I go on a walk with them, but I’m also fine staying inside” – a very different attitude from what society says she should feel about sex.

Emily* is also asexual and “doesn’t care” about the gender of her partners. Navigating sexuality and sex on campus has been a struggle for her as well. She’s gotten to a point where she comfortably and casually hooks up with close friends, but sex carries no emotional weight or attachment for her, and intimacy is a different thing entirely.

That’s something some sexual people can feel, but it’s compounded by Emily’s lack of sexual attraction not just to her partners, but to anyone.

The definition of sex based on penises and vaginas isn’t only a problem when two vaginas meet in bed. It’s a dominantly heterosexual narrative that excludes transgender people.

For example, a transgender lesbian with a penis might have traditional penis-invagina sex, but the common story still doesn’t fit, says Lindsey Weiss, a nonbinary Communication sophomore. If that trans lesbian and her cisgender girlfriend have sex, that cis woman has “lost her virginity,” but only in the context of a script that calls her partner a man. The moral? “What looks and mechanically functions as heterosexual sex is not always that,” they say.

Although Weiss isn’t a woman, their experience as someone who presents “fairly femme” and was DFAB has a lot of overlap with queer women. For example, they’re part of the Rainbow Alliance splinter group QNU, a space for queer women and nonbinary people.

That space, however, is mostly occupied by people attracted to other women. “I don’t feel excluded by not being attracted to women,” they say. “I don’t think that group is super preoccupied with discussions of sex, or even relationships, or even dating.”

Instead, the group discusses the common, general experiences they share; sometimes that’s about queerness, but sometimes it’s just about mundane things like school, work or life. While sex is an important part of the queer experience, it isn’t the only thing queer people can connect over.

“My life is not on display for you.

We’re not a spectacle.”

36 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

– Katie Pach

birth (DFAB) people who locate themselves elsewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum, including transgender, asexual and nonbinary people, have almost no models their identities, what sex looks like and for what sex is supposed to mean.

It took Shaw years to realize that culturally dominant labels for sexuality and gender weren’t the only ones available. “I didn’t really know what transgender was … I didn’t know what bisexual was,” they say. “It took a long time before I realized there were these other options, these other terms that fit.”

For both Shaw and Perry, sex became charged, a test. People questioned whether either could be “sure” about their bisexuality until they had slept with both men and women.

“I think there’s a lot of pressure to categorize your experiences as ‘was this sex?,’ Shaw says. “‘To what degree was it sex?’ ‘Is this an experiment or is this who I am?”

For asexual people, it can be complicated as well. Kinsey Erickson, a Weinberg sophomore, is asexual. She doesn’t feel sexual attraction to other people, but she’s not “sex-repulsed,” and she isn’t a virgin.

For many queer women, the representation they needed, along with connection and solidarity, came from the internet. Pach learned a lot about the actual mechanics of sex with women through YouTube personalities like Sex Nerd Sandra or Dr. Lindsey Doe’s channel “Sexplanations.” Likewise, Erickson

and Emily didn’t know what to call themselves until they both first encountered the concept of asexuality on Tumblr in high school. They’d never known there was a possible label that fit how they felt.

But television and movies are starting to represent a wider range of identities. Netflix’s hit Orange Is the New Black was independently brought up by multiple women as a good example of a show with realistic womanon-woman sexual encounters. In contrast to the “hot lesbians” of typical media, the sex scenes feel more natural – for example, leads Piper and Alex are shown having sex almost fully clothed in loose-fitting prison uniforms. “These two ladies are getting off together, with no one around, for each other,” Pach says. “Two women making each other feel good without pandering to whoever’s watching.” Additionally, the anthology series Black Mirror’s third season features an episode titled “San Junipero,” where two women flirt, have sex, fall in love and find a happy ending in a futuristic digital afterlife.

Even asexuality is getting representation outside of the “sociopathic or mentally disabled, doesn’t have a lot of friends, is super smart and has no romantic attachments and is therefore asexual” mold, Emily says. She points to BoJack Horseman’s Todd Chavez as the “golden light” of asexual representation. “He’s this stoner slob who lives on someone’s couch, he’s not that smart, and he has romantic interests,” she says, but the show confirms he’s asexual – helping challenge some stereotypes.

It is hard enough for queer people to understand themselves sexually, but acting on their sexuality can be even harder, particularly while trying to escape the male gaze and its influence.

Although many queer women still join Rainbow Alliance and similar groups, a lot of women are just what Pach calls “casually queer.” They’re not involved in any LGBTQ groups and don’t often talk about it in public, but they’re out and open in their personal lives.

“You have to find them. Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s not,” Pach says. “Sometimes they look like stereotypical flannel-wearing, short hair, Birkenstocks lesbians, and sometimes it’s like ‘I had no idea that girl was gay!’”

Multiple women say they’re hesitant to try to find others who share their identities outside of visible LGBT groups like Rainbow Alliance, QNU or Transform. “All the people in Rainbow have all dated each other,” says Pach jokingly. Gay men run into a similar problem, but apps like Grindr make it much easier to find each other on campus. Equivalents for women like the app HER are far less popular.

For women and DFAB students coming to college uncertain of their sexuality, it can be

hard to find someone willing to try out anything sexual with them. “Nobody wants to be your first girlfriend,” Pach says. It’s a common attitude, she explains, because of the possibility a girl you get attached to doesn’t actually like other women and was just “experimenting.” Additionally, a woman with no sexual experience with other women isn’t

“If you think you had sex, and it feels like you had sex, you had sex.”

– Lindsey Weiss an ideal choice for a quick hookup after a party, especially if you have to “teach her how to have sex.”

There’s always Tinder, but Pach’s options dwindle when she sets hers to only women. “Okay, here we go, gotta go to like 100 miles to find five girls,” she jokes. Many of the women who do appear are just looking for a partner for a threesome with their boyfriend, another reinforcement of the idea that two women having sex on their own is somehow an invitation for male participation, or illegitimate on its own.

The dream, many of these women say, is a world where queer sex exists on the same plane as heterosexual sex, or just one where expectations and scripts around sexual activity are abolished. At the very least, better education about the many different kinds of sex a person can have, both in sex-ed settings and in popular media, is a major focus. Normalizing queer sex is a big step towards normalizing queer people and queer relationships.

Olivia wants people to know that although she’s gay, she’s not that different. “I think a lot of straight people get that the queer experience is different. I don’t think they get that it’s not alienating, in that it’s not that different from what they experience,” she says.

Many women wish, most of all, that straight people would stop and just listen to their queer friends. “Make fewer assumptions,” Emily says.

And not just about strangers, but about friends as well. “Be aware of what your queer friends struggle with and have to deal with. Some things are just kind of strange to ask them!” Olivia says.

But the cultural emphasis placed on virginity can sometimes help people who aren’t having penetrative sex define their experiences. Weiss says that because it’s made into such a big deal, you get a certain feeling that helps you define for yourself when you’ve “lost your virginity.”

“If you think you had sex, and it feels like you had sex, you had sex,” they say.

*Editor’s note: Names have been changed to protect students’ identities.

WINTER 2017 | 37

Started from the bottom Northwestern has climbed its way from obscurity to no. 12 in the rankings.

Here's how it happened.

BY NATALIE PERTSOVSKY

A

lan Cubbage’s office door is a messy scrapbook of his life here at Northwestern – the good and the bad.

Assorted flyers, stickers and printed articles describe the highs and lows of his 20 years as vice president of University Relations: a photo of Cubbage shaking hands with President Obama, an old headline about the gambling scandal that rocked the athletics department and the Chicago Tribune story about the Pritzker family’s $100 million donation to Northwestern’s law school.

Cubbage has been the public face of the university for two decades, during which he has watched the school he represents grow in size, endowment and prestige.

“Honestly, twenty years ago, there was the whole thing of, ‘Do you mean Northeastern in Boston?’” says Cubbage in his office on Ridge Avenue. In the corner of the office are two bikes he’s storing for students, and a purple NU sweatshirt is draped over a letterman jacket on the back of a plush chair. From this office Cubbage makes statements on behalf of Northwestern and fields calls from media outlets like the Chicago Tribune.

Cubbage arrived at Northwestern in 1997, two years into Henry Bienen’s Northwestern presidency. Back then, members of the class of 2020 were not yet born, the Arch was just three years old and University Hall’s dramatic renovations were still brand new. Things were different. Northwestern was just beginning to reach the national and global heights its name implies today. The effects of its long, tumultuous history and the concerted campaign in past decades to improve its international prestige were just coming to fruition. It may not have been clear at the time, but soon that school in Boston would be overshadowed.

Northwestern’s growth has been a long, meandering process, with plenty of moments

38 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

of defeat among its triumphs and advances, but the underlying goal to consciously propel the school upwards has been present for years.

In 1983, U.S. News & World Report published its first “America’s Best Colleges,” and its rankings quickly became a national standard.

The report brought 2.6 million unique visitors to the U.S. News website in 2014, securing its status as the most widely quoted report of its kind in the United States. Northwestern first appeared in U.S. News rankings in 1987 at no.

17. That year, the university’s endowment was roughly $950 million. Today, Northwestern comes in at no. 12, tied with the California Institute of Technology. Its endowment has grown to just under $10 billion. And NU has never been more popular nor more selective.

More people applied to the Class of 2021, both early and regular decision, than ever before – the university received 37,256 applications, a 6 percent increase from the Class of 2020 – and the overall admissions rate dropped to an alltime low of 10.7 percent.

Northwestern wasn’t always like this, even though it often acts like it was. How exactly did NU get to this point? Let’s start at the beginning.

A start on stolen land

The year was 1851. Harriet Tubman was ferrying slaves to freedom as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. London was hosting the first world’s fair. That year, the state legislature of Illinois granted John Evans and eight other men a charter to create a university in modern-day Evanston, despite the land being home to sovereign nations, including those of the Council of Three Fires.

They envisioned it as a school that would serve the Northwest Territory, an intellectual haven the region lacked. Though the university was never religiously affiliated, Northwestern’s

motto, “Quaecumque sunt vera,” translates to “Whatsoever things are true” and comes from the New Testament’s Book of Philippians.

Through the 1870s and 1880s, the university endowment increased in fits and starts, and during this period it merged with three already existing schools of law, medicine and dentistry in Chicago. The best known of those schools, the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, remains the oldest law school in Chicago.

But two decades of growth for Northwestern were threatened when a rival appeared to the south. In 1890, the University of Chicago was founded with the help of seed money from oil magnate John D. Rockefeller.

“It became, overnight, an important academic institution because they had the largess of John D. Rockefeller to build it,” university archivist Kevin Leonard says.

Suddenly, Northwestern had competition for the intellectual haven of the Midwest that Evans had envisioned. “It probably served as a spur for Northwestern to up its game,” Leonard says. It forced Northwestern to create and develop programs which required more physical buildings, prompting campus development, and Northwestern began working to improve its athletic programs, especially football, in response to U of C athletics.

In contrast to Northwestern, the University of Chicago focused on research from the outset.

Northwestern’s transition from small liberal arts college to research university took a long stretch of time, and as both schools attracted the populations living around them, suburban Evanston couldn't compete against the dense population of Chicago, Leonard says.

But Northwestern gained status in 1917 when it was invited to become a member of the Association of American Universities, the nation’s premier group of research

universities, a tangible recognition of its improvements.

On the other side of the world, Russia’s Tsarist autocracy came to a bloody end with the Russian Revolution.

In 1920, Walter Dill Scott assumed the presidency.

Scott would stay at its helm until 1939, and during his tenure oversaw major changes to campus. The sorority quad, the Chicago campus, Ryan Field (then called Dyche Stadium) and Deering Library were all built under Scott’s oversight. Deering, opened in 1933 and modeled after Cambridge University’s King’s College Chapel in an imposing Collegiate Gothic style, looks strikingly like the University of Chicago’s Harper Memorial Library, built in the same style in 1912.

In 1929, the stock market crashed. Like everywhere in the United states, The Great Depression whalloped Northwestern. The University of Chicago also felt financial strains, so in 1933, Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, proposed combining his institution with Northwestern to create “the greatest educational enterprise in the world,” as Hutchins said in a memo. President Scott, faced with a dramatic choice, called it “the most important problem ever presented to the Board of Trustees.” Scott lauded the proposal as a way to ensure the university’s stability to board members and alumni. But heavy opposition from both universities, alumni, the city of Evanston and Northwestern’s medical school – whose students burned Hutchins and Scott in effigy – helped kill the deal, to Scott’s chagrin.

Ten years after the crash, amidst the chaos and economic collapse still distressing the nation, Scott gave new president Franklyn Bliss Snyder the reins in 1939.

President Snyder led the university through a trying financial period. It was difficult to pay staff and professors, and students often couldn’t pay for school, if they enrolled at all. On top of that, World War II descended upon the still-struggling nation like a powerful rapid. The draft swept up Northwestern’s male students and faculty for the war effort, leaving a largely female campus.

Snyder’s tenure only lasted a decade. In 1949, J. Roscoe Miller, the well-connected and admired former dean of the medical school, stepped in to take Snyder’s place.

Northwestern’s post-war boom

In the midst of the country’s new feeling of optimism and prosperity, President Miller used his influence to improve the school’s academic stature. “He was able to get people in the university to buy into ambitions to improve it, to grow it, to renovate and construct new physical facilities,” Leonard says.

Northwestern saw more applicants than it had in the previous years as soldiers returned from the war, eager to

“I’d like this school to be clearly identified in the

first rank of American educational institutions.”

- former president Arnold R. Weber

finish their academic careers. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, also known as the G.I. Bill, gave veterans a gateway into academics by providing a range of financial benefits to help pay for school. Unfortunately, the campus did not have the space to house all its new enrollees, and temporary shelters were a common sight on campus for years. Deering Meadow was filled with Quonset huts: lightweight, steel halfcylinders with no heating or electrical system, which housed veterans and their families.

Miller’s most tangible accomplishment lies green and beckoning to the east. The Lakefill, a key feature of today's Northwestern landscape, was completed in 1964.

Envisioned as “the canvas on which others can paint their buildings, their laboratories, classrooms,” according to Leonard, and briefly known as Wthe James Roscoe Miller campus, the Lakefill was created by turning reclaimed land from Lake Michigan into a seawall of limestone blocks and literally building on the lake. This addition almost doubled the size of the previously 85-acre campus.

His mission became complicated when outrage over the Vietnam war bubbled over onto campus. In May of 1970, along with dozens of other campuses, Northwestern erupted into a slew of protests in reaction to the Kent State incident. After 5,000 students rallied on Deering Meadow and 2,000 gathered at Rebecca Crown Center, Miller, with support from the Faculty Senate, canceled three days of classes and shut down administrative offices.

The Miller administration attempted to navigate this tumultuous atmosphere, making changes based on dialogue with student leaders. The Board of Trustees sat down with students in closed meetings, hoping to ease the tensions and understand their concerns. But students continued to call vocally for Miller’s termination, and his 21-year tenure ended among almost constant political protests. Robert H. Strotz took his place as president in 1970, but that didn’t soothe tensions on campus. The Daily Northwestern and the Associated Student Government objected to his appointment, largely because Strotz opposed closing the campus during the Kent State protests in May. But the frantic politicization of the campus slowly quieted to a murmur as the U.S. finally pulled out of Vietnam in 1975. Strotz used the rest of his time as president to shift the school’s focus towards academics and fundraising – especially as the economic troubles of the ‘70s were felt at Northwestern. By the end of his presidency, Strotz’ financial prowess had saved the school from further economic downturn. He had nearly doubled the school’s endowment, but budget problems continued to make themselves apparent in the ‘80s. The administration declined all salary increases for faculty in 1982 – a year where the school’s deficit hit a record $12 million.

To succeed Strotz, Northwestern brought in Arnold R.

S

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F UNIVERS

O OURTESY PHOTOS C

WINTER 2017 | 39

Students protest in an anti-Vietnam demonstration in 1969.

PHOTO COURTESY Weber, who was president of the University of Colorado and Northwestern’s first outside presidential hire in decades. Weber was focused on increasing the school’s academic reputation and stabilizing university finances, a major concern of the Board of Trustees who had courted him.

Weber’s background in administration gave him confidence as he entered Northwestern. His assertive decisions, which included putting hard limits on departmental budgets, often came at the expense of his popularity. But this didn’t seem to bother Weber too much. He had a greater vision for the school, and the road to realizing this vision wasn’t necessarily going to be easy.

Weber took over in a world made newly small by advances in media and communication. Suddenly, Northwestern had a chance to gain name recognition on a national level, not just a regional one, and he worked to make this a reality. Weber began by focusing on academics. In 1985, The New York Times opened an article titled “Northwestern Dreams of Moving Up” by saying the school “plays second fiddle academically to the University of Chicago.” Weber was aware of this perception and made an intentional and concerted effort to push Northwestern into an elite group of academically renowned universities. It would play “second fiddle” no longer. ‘’I’d like this school to be clearly identified in the first rank of American educational institutions," Weber told the Times. Right now, I think it is in that range, but there is some ambiguity about it." And the metrics to measure his progress appeared just as his plan did: U.S. News started ranking schools during Weber’s presidency, and partially thanks to his sustained effort, NU made the list for the first time in 1987. By focusing on and investing in 40 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Medill, Kellogg, the School of Communication (then Speech) and graduate programs like law and medicine, Weber envisioned the Northwestern of today – one close to cracking U.S. News’ top 10 and hitting single-digit admissions rates.

Northwestern bursts onto the elite scene

Henry Bienen became president in 1995, turning his focus onto sports, student life, and high caliber research. Bienen was previously the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and director of Princeton’s Center of International Studies. His administration experience at a prestigious institution made him an ideal candidate to continue what Weber had started.

Bienen worked to make the school a place that students wanted to go, a view that helped build the Northwestern we know today.

Under Bienen, campus saw the construction of the McCormick Tribune Center (now the McCormick Foundation Center) in 2002, the Ford Design Center in 2005, and added an Asian American Studies minor after student protests. He helped increase the university’s endowment and established Northwestern’s global presence with the founding of the Qatar campus in 2008. Bienen, a sports fan, also invested in Northwestern’s athletic programs.

So when Cubbage first interviewed at Northwestern during the beginning of Bienen’s tenure, he found the Office of University Relations buzzing with excitement after Northwestern made it to the 1996 Rose Bowl, a proud moment for Bienen and a watershed moment for the Wildcats. Suddenly, Northwestern’s name was everywhere, and

CHIVES

OF UNIVERSITY AR

huge marketing opportunities became possible, Leonard says.

Another extremely impactful event during the Bienen administration was the development of Lyrica, a drug used to treat epilepsy, neurological pain and anxiety. In 1990, Northwestern chemistry professor Richard Silverman developed the chemical pregabalin, Lyrica’s core ingredient. “It was what’s known as a ‘blockbuster drug’ for Pfizer [the company that first marketed Lyrica], which means that it sells about a million dollars a year worth of that drug,” Cubbage says.

Because a Northwestern faculty member made the discovery, Silverman and the university received royalties off of sales of Lyrica. Northwestern also sold portions of the royalty rights on two occasions, once for $700 million and again later for an undisclosed figure.

Today, between royalties accrued, the sales of patent rights and interest on this revenue, Northwestern has received around $1.4 billion.

Bienen’s decision to invest Lyrica revenue in the endowment, rather than on specific projects, changed the direction of the university.

“President Bienen was very emphatic that rather than spending the money on building a new building or something like that, you put them in the endowment,” Cubbage says.

Northwestern uses around 5 percent of the annual dividends and interest from the endowment towards its operating costs each year. As the endowment grows, through interests and other sources (like the sale of Lyrica), annual interest accrued grows as well. That means that 5 percent of the annual endowment earnings grow each year as well.

In theory, Cubbage says, Northwestern has $50 million more in discretionary spending each year, but the numbers fluctuate year to year. Bienen used this system to focus on

certain areas within the university, Cubbage says.

“President Bienen put a lot of it into graduate education and a lot of it into financial aid, and that has continued over the course of the years,” he says.

Managing a mega-university in the modern era

When Bienen stepped down in 2009, Northwestern was radically changed. It had gone from the lesser option in the Chicago area to an internationally recognized academic powerhouse, an institution with a mighty endowment, shiny glass buildings and dramatically increased applications. This was the Northwestern Morton Schapiro inherited, and the Northwestern he became responsible for leading into a new age.

While Cubbage has worked at Northwestern, both administrations have consciously taken step toward moving the school up in the rankings. However, rankings became increasingly controversial as the 21st century rolled around. Willard Dix, a college counselor and consultant, and former associate dean of admissions at Amherst College, is a well-known critic of university ranking systems. “The people who are most concerned with rankings are really concerned with status, not education,” Dix says. “I think some of the worst ways to rank would be looking at applications and yield, things like that. Since the rankings came out, the need to reject more students every year has become a measure of goodness, the assumption being that the more selective you can be, the better students you’ll have, and that makes you a better school.”

Yet Dix acknowledges that it’s tough for schools today to reject that system because of how competitive the world of college admissions is. “It would be hard to be a dean of admissions or enrollment manager right now because you’re really on pins and needles to make sure you get the right number,” Dix says.

Chris Watson, Northwestern’s dean of undergraduate admissions, was dealing with getting the right number in early February. The reading season for regular admissions was in full swing, and the mood in the office was eerily quiet. This is understandable: the admissions office is responsible for whittling a pool of more than 37,000 applicants to around a tenth of that number.

Before evaluations start, the provost’s and president’s office hand down priorities for the year. The Schapiro administration has particularly set the goal of increasing the amount of early decision applicants on campus, and the admissions office has met that goal in past years. “The president wanted to have more students on campus for whom Northwestern was their first choice,” Watson says.

“This past year we had almost 4,000 applications for early decision, which was far and away an all-time record.”

“We have some momentum, and I think there’s always the idea that we want to maintain our momentum, in terms of the school’s popularity,” he says. Watson’s task for the coming years is to select the best of the best applicants “to strengthen year after year our academic reputation as one of the best universities in the world,” he says.

Schapiro’s challenge is to maintain growth, but especially to manage the new logistical issues that have

"The people who are most concerned with

rankings are really concerned with

status, not education."

- Willard Dix, former associate dean of admissions at Amherst College

come with the reputation boom Weber and Bienen helped initiate. For example, as popularity grows, the admission office has had to accommodate the influx of applications. “As the priorities within the office and the university have shifted, we have created and recreated roles within the office,” Watson says. “We have folks whose duties have changed, or we have new positions or different job descriptions and different teams. We have a communications team. We have an international team.”

Other considerations have included how to handle new demand for tours of campus. “We have new brochures and all the presentations in the visitors center,” Watson says. “We have the visitors center!” The center opened in September 2014. “That has been the biggest boost of all the our efforts, I think," he says. "We never have to turn anyone away, whereas before, if we had too many students on a busy day, we couldn’t accommodate all the families.

Now we can.”

And crucially, Northwestern has started to work on managing its image – not a concern it had historically needed to worry about. To help with this effort, Mary Baglivo was named vice president of global marketing in 2013.

“There was a belief, which I agree with, that we could be more focused and ambitious in the way that we presented ourselves to audiences so that we could further enhance the academic reputation of the university,” says Baglivo.

“We needed to do some clean up on the brand identity and design because there were about, I can’t even imagine how many logos; it looked like a very dysfunctional family.”

She helped develop a strategic frame that represented what students and faculty knew to be strong about Northwestern, but also what was aspirational.

But she disagrees that improving Northwestern’s branding is all about status. “When you have a strong reputation, you can attract the best and brightest faculty and students and it helps with research funding and grants, and it helps with philanthropy and fundraising,” she says.

“If you put the most talented people in excellent facilities with the right kind of funding, you can really accelerate that discovery of changes that are going to help our world.”

How well has this worked? Baglivo lets the numbers speak for themselves. “Look at the data: how many more people are applying and the selectivity of the classes that are coming in,” she says. “One has to correlate some of it to information and storytelling that is more potent and powerful and persuasive.”

Watson, who came to Northwestern at the tail end of Bienen’s presidency, compared Bienen to Schapiro. “Bienen certainly wanted to strengthen the academic caliber of the student who was enrolling to broaden and strengthen the quality of the applicant pool,” he says – and Bienen did, making a world of difference for the university. Schapiro has focused on other areas of the undergraduate experience, especially financial aid. Now that Northwestern already attracts such bright and accomplished applicants, the school's job is to convince those accepted to actually attend.

The university’s branding and image today emphasizes the school’s selectiveness. The attitude of the administration and their confidence in the university’s prowess makes it seem like a place that has always been prestigious – the kind of college acceptance that impresses your friends’ parents – but this level of status hasn’t always been there, even if sometimes we pretend it has.

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Mental health issues make it hard enough to take care of yourself – let alone your friendships.

BY LILA REYNOLDS PHOTO BY EMMA DANBURY 42 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

i y e r u d l i a bo f ane* was sitting in her apartment the night her roommate tried to kill herself.

From her room, she could hear her friend struggling with a bottle of pills in their bathroom. At first, she wasn’t alarmed.

‘Okay,’ she thought, ‘she’s probably taking her meds.’ She heard some more rustling and the toilet flush. Then she heard the door to the back porch open and her roommate walk outside. Still in her room, she overheard her friend call her doctor to tell him she’d almost swallowed a handful of pills but spit them out at the last minute.

Practically in front of her, Jane’s roommate Mia* had tried to end her life. And Jane had no idea it was coming.

“I was trying to pay attention to those things that were off,” Jane says. “And for me personally, I’m trying not to be guilty and feel like a failure because suicide is never your fault as a friend. But I should know better.”

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Jane and Mia met freshman year through their sorority. They were never close, but Jane was one of the people who made the sorority feel like a safe place for Mia. In 2015, they decided to live together during their senior year. Jane seemed to be able to calm Mia down, ground her and make her a little less depressed; it seemed like becoming roommates could only be a good thing. But Jane didn’t realize the toll it would take on her own health until her roommate landed in the hospital the first week of November 2016, after she spit out the pills.

Even though Mia assured Jane that she didn’t need or want anything aside from space, Jane found herself struggling not to feel culpable for her friend’s health after Mia returned from a brief hospital stay.

“It’s this feeling of personal guilt and responsibility,” Jane says. “Which is completely irrational, but at the same time, you have to live with her.”

Mental illness doesn’t always manifest through a suicide attempt or a hospital stay.

The National Institute of Mental Health reports 17.9 percent of Americans over the age of 18 experience mental illness each year. Inevitably, it will touch the lives of each student at Northwestern. The Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) 2015-2016 Annual Report reported that 18 percent of their self-report Northwestern survey respondents said that they had seriously considered suicide in the past five years, and 4.1 percent said they had made an attempt. Compare that to the American College Health Association (ACHA)'s 2016 report that found 10.5 percent

of college underagraduates nationwide have considered attempting suicide.

When someone experiences a mental illness, its impact spreads beyond them; each student who struggles comes with a network of friends, family and peers who are also affected. Jane’s senior year has been shaped by respecting and empathizing with her roommate while simultaneously trying to make sure she’s taking care of herself.

SESP senior Sunny Han, one of NU Active Minds’s co-presidents, says while people acknowledge how difficult living with a mental illness is, the impact it can have on friends is often overlooked.

“Being a friend of somebody with a mental illness is pretty challenging,” Han says, especially during peak periods of mood instability. “The really unfortunate thing about mental illness is that those are the times you need people around you the most – and it’s also when you push them away the most.”

Finding statistics about the way a romantic partnership is affected by mental health is easy.

Statistics can show, for example, how many people turn to couples’ therapy and how many others divorce. But there’s relatively little talk about how it plays into friendships, and in college, when students develop many important and often lifelong ones, this information is necessary.

Medill sophomore Allyna Mota Melville is one such friend. She considers herself a caretaker and says she has often put the needs of friends before her own. She didn’t

realize the strain she was putting on her own mental health until last summer, when she was diagnosed with depression and anxiety after having a particularly intense panic attack at her internship. She’d spent so long taking care of her friends that it was difficult for her to feel like she could take care of herself, she says.

“I’ve always been the person who is like, ‘oh, my problems aren’t that bad, their problems are worse, I need to make sure they’re ok first,’” Mota Melville says. “It doesn’t feel like a burden on you when you’re doing it because, like, you want to take care of your friend, but at the end of the day, it’s about your mental health.”

But the truth is, it can be a burden. There’s a term for this. It’s called compassion fatigue, and occurs when a person becomes overwhelmed or burnt out after hearing the same things their friend is struggling with over and over again.

Steven Andrews, Ph.D., the coordinator of peer initiatives and a clinical psychologist at CAPS, says a lot of this comes from trying to fix a problem and failing – because, of course, no one can really “fix” another person.

“Not surprisingly, when we figure out that we can’t fix things, helplessness can come up,” Andrews says. “And I think it’s important to realize it’s not your job to fix someone if you’re their friend.”

Andrews thinks the best thing a friend can do is provide a nonjudgmental source of support, but also recognize that support can become challenging. He says, “You don’t have to be alone in that.” Without the proper support system, he says, caring for another person in distress can be painful or traumatic for the caretaker, too.

WINTER 2017 | 43

Mia’s best friend Rose*, who has struggled with anxieties of her own since high school, knows how valuable it is for Mia to have a friend who understands. She says she can be the person to remind Mia that she is stronger than she thinks and has people who love her unconditionally.

“It's this feeling of personal guilt and responsibility, which is completely irrational, but at the same time, you have to live with her.”

– Jane* “I get it, and not everybody gets it, and because not everybody gets it, somebody has to get it,” Rose says. “I know she needs someone in her life that’s gonna tell her that it’s normal.” Still, she acknowledges that being friends with Mia can be challenging.

Striking a balance between helping a friend and helping yourself is something that NU Listens, Northwestern’s anonymous peerlistening service, sees as very important.

Brooke Feinstein, a Weinberg senior and NU Listens’ training chair, says the group puts selfcare on the agenda to train listeners how to take care of both callers and themselves. “You have to put self-care first, not just for your own wellbeing, but just to be an effective listener,” Feinstein says. “You might tell yourself, ‘Oh, I just gotta push through it to help my friend,’ but then you’re going to possibly get burnt out or lose your ability to help.”

NU Listens’ director Elena Dansky, a Weinberg senior, compares it to being on a plane and being told that you need to put your own mask on before you can help anyone else. “It’s better to be at your best for helping other people so it ultimately helps both people,” she says.

Often, people with mental illnesses are painfully aware of just how distressing their illness can be to friends. Nathan Moxon (WCAS ‘17), a former listener with NU Listens, says that feeling guilt and anxiety about encumbering a friend was a common cause for a call. “I think the best thing you can do as a listener is empower the person and say there’s no reason that you should feel bad for circumstances you don’t have control over,” he says.

The problem is that sometimes, feeling responsible for another’s health is a burden – even if it isn’t the other person’s fault. Many people say they have lost friends because of their mental illnesses. While Jane has been supportive through Mia’s process, Mia says that throughout her life, other friendships 44 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

have failed. She’s lost count of both the attempts she’s made on her life and the number of friends she has lost.

“I have severe mental illness issues, and I know that it hurts a lot of the people I’m around,” Mia says. “I think it makes it very difficult to be my friend oftentimes, just because sometimes it gets so severe.”

While it sometimes is stressful to not know how Mia is doing or even where she is, Rose says she is able to get beyond feeling hurt by her because she has a deeper understanding of mental illness than many of Mia’s peers. “When you’re friends with someone who has a mental illness, you have to love both parts. You love them and their demons,” she says.

It’s not always as simple as committing to loving all parts of a depressed, bipolar or schizophrenic person. Mota Melville has seen situations where friends have felt hurt by others who withdrew or were absent when they were needed. Communication, she says, is really the only way to handle that situation.

“Be honest and let your friends know what you’re going through,” Mota Melville says.

“It can feel really alienating, because mental health can make you lash out or be really reclusive to people, so other friends can feel really hurt by that.”

Mia says that she acknowledges and takes responsibility for the pain she causes, but sometimes she feels like her mental state makes her into a different person. “I try to use techniques to prevent that person from coming forward,” she says. “But it's a really long battle, because the part of me that just wants to destroy everything in my path – including myself – in order to prevent it from hurting me is a defense mechanism. To get past it, I have to be vulnerable, and that's what I have the most trouble with.”

The situation gets even more complex when both friends are going through low points in their mental health, especially in a competitive academic environment like Northwestern’s. Aside from putting a level of emotional stress on each other through asking for help, each person in a relationship has different needs. While one person may need to talk something out when stressed, the other may push friends away.

Robert Noone, an Evanston marriage and family therapist, calls this the “dance” of the distancer and pursuer. “Some people, when they get anxious, they start distancing,” Noone says. “And then, if they’re in a relationship and the other person picks up on their anxiety, they start to pursue them. And when they pursue them, the person gets distant, and when the person gets distant the person pursues them.”

Noone says one way to manage this problem is to recognize the “dance” is occurring. If you realize your distance causes another’s pursuit, working to be less distant can help the friend ease up.

In trying to attack this problem, Feinstein says it’s also important to recognize how different

coping mechanisms work, without judgement.

“There’s really no right way to handle certain things,” she says. “The fact that people handle things differently is perfectly okay and should be recognized. A lot about active listening is about the other person. So for example, if I was more withdrawn and my friend wants to talk it out, I might talk it out, because that’s what she needs.

To be a friend, I have to understand that this is how she needs to do it.”

While Feinstein recognizes how her friend’s needs may be different than her own, Mota Melville often finds herself trying to be a proxy between her friends. “Sometimes with my friends I’ll be the only one to remind them that this person isn’t trying to be mean,” she says.

Something that Noone says he notices in his practice is that when one person is upset, it tends to upset their counterpart. This is applicable to friendships too.

“Anxiety, which is a part of any emotional disorder, is contagious,” Noone says. “But another good principle is that calmness is contagious too. If someone is very upset emotionally, and someone else can relate to them, and not get so distraught but still be able to engage them, then they calm down.”

Of course, keeping your cool can be difficult.

Being able to recognize the distinction between what is your friend’s pain and what is your own is challenging. And when those boundaries aren’t so clear, Mota Melville says taking a step back is important. When she begins internalizing her friends’ pain, she gets hurt. At the same time, Mota Melville says, causing pain doesn’t necessarily put someone at fault. “It’s not your fault if you accidentally hurt someone, because it’s your mental illness,” she says.

“The fact that people handle things differently is perfectly okay and should be recognized.”

– Brooke Feinstein Mia doesn’t think mental illness should remove a person’s responsibility to be a good friend, but that’s often easier said than done.

“I think it should never be an excuse unless it, like, physically disables you, which has definitely happened to me, but I find myself using it as one,” she says.

In order to try to assuage some of this pain, honesty has been crucial for Mia – on all sides.

One of her biggest frustrations is feeling that people aren’t emotionally honest with those with mental illnesses. “We’re not so fragile that you almost have to put up walls and barriers,” she says. “That feeds the paranoia, that feeds the feeling of isolation. We are real fucking people.”

Even so, Jane is sometimes nervous to push back on Mia and tell her she can’t accept an

emotional burden. She knows that Mia will have a relapse at some point – she just doesn’t know when. If that relapse does force Jane to step back, it would likely affect Mia very deeply, as Jane has been one of the few people she connects with.

Weinberg senior Jacob Swiatek comes from a part of campus where emotional disorders often aren’t addressed: the frat quad.

Swiatek noticed just how far-reaching the scope of mental illness is on campus his sophomore year. He noticed a friend was selfharming and approached him after class to ask about it. While Swiatek had encountered mental illness in friends before, this encounter served as a catalyst for him; although he has not struggled with a mental illness, he became committed to getting more involved on campus.

“I basically realized that more and more people around me were going through this kind of stuff that I didn’t initially notice,” Swiatek says. “I kind of developed this sense that mental health isn’t just about depression, anxiety. It’s also your day-to-day dealings of what’s going on in the world around you.”

Swiatek particularly notices how isolating mental illness can feel in fraternities, where you’re supposed to find “brothers” and make friendships that will last forever. But because the culture doesn’t condone talking candidly about these issues, he says, that often doesn’t happen. Mental illness can feel like an individual problem instead of one within campus and fraternity culture.

Swiatek describes the common attitude like this: “If you’re in a frat and you’re going through something but you don’t feel comfortable talking to your brothers or you still feel alone, something must be wrong with you.”

This speaks to what Swiatek sees as a problem in campus culture. “Everyone’s so busy that people are hesitant to schedule time out for each other,” he says.

In Weinberg junior Nehaarika Mulukutla’s experience, this comes down to a lack of understanding about how to address individual mental wellbeing. She believes that our generation hasn’t been taught to address and manage emotions well, so when people reach a breaking point, they have trouble coping.

“People here, when they hit the stress test, and they start to see themselves sink or fail, their automatic reaction is to push other people who are struggling as well away,” Mulukutla says.

“We’re all individually drowning – and we don’t know how to handle our own emotions, so how could we know how to handle someone else’s?”

That’s not to say that we can’t learn to address our emotions better. Noone says that in order to address campus culture, individual wellness is the first step. “Getting better at managing stress helps with relationships,” Noone says. “Our brains operate better if we’re less stressed. The thinking part of the brain shuts down when we’re more stressed, and the emotional brain takes over.”

Finding spaces to learn about methods of self-care and care for friendships on campus can be difficult. While there are resources for mental health offered by Northwestern like group therapy – which Andrews says is all about improving the ways students connect with one another – workshops, trainings for student groups, CAPS counseling and referrals, it doesn’t always trickle down to the friend-to-friend level.

“Where do you find the space for you as an individual, and your relationship with the other individual?” Jane says. “Because all these relationships at Northwestern are predicated upon you being on the top of your game constantly.”

“There's so many ways to get help and it can be treated.

If someone is talking about suicide, that's a symptom of a mental health issue, so I think if we take it out of the context of suicide, that can sometimes hopefully lighten that burden.”

– Steven Andrews And when you’re not at the top of your game, that’s where things start to spiral. The ACHA reported in 2008 that the suicide rate among young adults has tripled since 1950. The Daily Beast ranked Northwestern as the fifth most stressful campus in the nation in 2011, and it’s no surprise to Jane that in just seven years, Northwestern has seen six suicides, three of which were in the past two years.

“That’s not fucking okay,” Jane says. “And we just kinda sit there and go, ‘oh, look, another one. And another one, and another one.’”

Han says Northwestern’s culture expects people not to show their stress, so often their friends may not know they are struggling at all – which is incredibly problematic when talking about suicide.

Even if they do know, many people shy away from the topic of suicide for fear that if they ask a friend if they are suicidal, they’re more likely to do it. “It’s actually the opposite,” Han says. “You should ask them ‘are you thinking about doing it?’, because that can make all the difference. To actually address that is really important.”

In his years of clinical experience, Andrews has never seen someone respond negatively to the question “are you suicidal?” “The person always has a choice in whether or not they answer,” he says. “But to know someone cares enough? That’s incredibly important.

That is something we can do as a university community: to notice that it’s scary and then hold the fear and do it anyways.”

In fact, bringing it up and asking if someone is considering it can lead to connecting a friend with resources that could save their life. Someone might not want your help or ask for might ask for confidentiality, but Andrews says that asking a friend not to divulge that you may be a risk to yourself can put them in a tough position, especially because approaching a professional is often the best gift a friend could give. The internal conflict that comes from trying to support what friends want and keeping them safe can result in tension or even the end of a friendship.

It’s hard to realize that with something as extreme as suicidality, treatment is still possible; these thoughts are not standalone, but instead a relatively common symptom of a wider health issue. “I think most people want help,” Andrews says. “There’s so many ways to get help and it can be treated. If someone is talking about suicide, that’s a symptom of a mental health issue, so I think if we take it out of the context of suicide, that can sometimes hopefully lighten that burden.”

Knowing what to do when a friend struggles with mental health issues, or about suicide in general, is not commonplace on campus. A number of students attributed the lack of resources to the lack of value placed upon friendships.

“I feel like when people talk about relationship problems or how to navigate relationships, they’re usually talking about romantic relationships,” Feinstein says. “I feel like people don’t talk so much about friendships.

And I don’t know if that’s because people think that they’re less complicated or not as valuable.

At my stage in my life right now, my friendships have all been more valuable than any dating.

This is the time for developing friendships.”

But without ways to learn about and develop those healthy friendships, Mulukutla says it’s more difficult to know how to be a caring friend when someone asks for help.

“It’s not wrong to say I can’t do that for you right now,” she says. “But I also don’t think enough people stop and say ‘I can.’ So that’s what makes it hard.”

Because Jane trusts in her own ability to cope, she’s felt she could say “I can” to Mia during times the majority of Mia’s peers haven’t. Jane has found a balance by using an outside network of friends as well as her therapist, but it remains a challenge because she knows that Mia’s problems won’t miraculously dissipate.

“It’s ongoing, and it’s a chronic disease that just doesn’t go away,” Jane says. “So what can I do as a person, besides going to a therapist to talk out my own issues and make sure that I’m not putting so much emotional labor on myself and be a good friend?” *Editor's note: Names have been changed to protect students' identities.

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PHOTO BY ALEX FURUYA 46 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Even at the most supportive schools, NCAA policies can make athletes feel powerless.

BY WILL FISCHER Twelve months ago, Weinberg sophomore Paulina Anasis stopped playing softball. For most of her life, the sport had been her central passion, one of the places she felt most comfortable.

But now she prefers to not even think about it. Her parents don’t bring it up – it just causes too much pain.

In September 2015, Anasis arrived at Northwestern as one of only a few freshmen on a full athletic scholarship for softball. She’d waited for the day since 2013, when she committed to play softball at Northwestern as a high school sophomore.

Anasis says she chose NU over superior softball programs because she wanted a challenging academic environment and a passionate coach, which she found in Northwestern softball head coach Kate Drohan.

“When I came for my visit here, [Drohan] basically told me and my parents that the difference between us and other schools is that I will take care of you like you’re my own child,” Anasis says. “So I looked up to her and always just wanted her approval and to impress her.”

Drohan’s players have described her as “intense” and “really tough.” In April 2014, The Daily Northwestern published a profile on Drohan’s “success through tough-love leadership,” writing that most of her recruits initially feel intimidated and that at one tournament Drohan heckled a recruit through the center-field fence.

Drohan, who became head coach in 2002, aims to get the most out of her players, making them stronger women through a regimented team culture – and Anasis says she was looking forward to it.

“I’ve been playing softball a particular way my whole life, and a lot of the reason I got recruited was because I have a lot of

personality when I play. I’m very upbeat and fun,” Anasis says. “Kate is a very focused person, and I admired that about her. I wanted her to make me better and stronger, and more focused and hard-headed.”

Anasis was dedicated to softball, but understood there was more to life than the sport. In high school she penned a blog post on balancing softball and life, writing, “I hope that my fellow student-athletes can find the balance between their commitment to what they do and their commitment to who they are because it is a muffled reflection of what they will one day turn out to be.”

“She’s 100 percent herself in every way,” says Aubrie May (Comm ‘16), Anasis’ former teammate on a high school travel team and at Northwestern. “It’s a beautiful thing. So many people worry about what others think and she doesn’t.”

While Anasis wanted to please her coach, she didn’t want to fundamentally change the way she had always lived and played the game she loved. But her personality clashed almost immediately with Drohan’s philosophy. Anasis barely played, pinch hitting only three times, even in early season tournaments, when coaches typically rotate their squads the most.

As her teammates competed for playing time, Anasis felt like she wasn’t getting a chance, and says she became increasingly isolated and alienated. But her options were limited.

“Essentially, they are giving me a lot of money to carry out a job, and it’s kind of like if your boss doesn’t like the way you do that, you can’t just quit your job,” Anasis says.

“You have to re-think how to do that [ job], especially if you have a contract for four years.

I would describe that situation as trapping …

You have to change, but it’s also like, how much can I change myself for my job?” Drohan and a current softball player declined to comment for this story, citing privacy laws.

you have to change, but it's also like,

how much can i change myself for my job?

- paulina anasis

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A rigid structure

i think it's obvious that

the coaches have a great amount of power over the players.

- Kain colter

48 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

The NCAA might not agree with the exact language Anasis uses, but the business-like contractual agreement between studentathletes and their respective schools definitely exists. The NCAA and schools like Northwestern pay for all the expenses of a college education – tuition, fees, room, board and books – and most schools, including Northwestern, also offer other types of support, like academic advising services and priority class registration.

In return, student-athletes must “conduct themselves in an appropriate manner at all times,” according to the NU Athletics StudentAthlete Handbook. That includes passing their classes, following the rules and being a generally upstanding member of their team.

The handbook tells Northwestern athletes to follow the P.R.I.D.E. policy, which stands for Perseverance, Responsibility, Integrity, Dedication and Education, a values statement intended to “guide the actions of the members of the athletic community.”

The end goal for the NCAA and its member schools is to generate revenue and improve their reputations through sponsorships, television deals, merchandise, tickets and alumni donations. Though they’re technically non-profit entities, they compete intensely to build the best facilities, attract the best players and win the most games – all of which costs money. In fact, Northwestern has invested over $400 million in athletic facility projects in attempt to vault itself into an “elite area,” says Jim Phillips, NU’s Vice President of Athletics and Recreation.

“I don’t know many programs in the elite area that don’t have [these facilities],” Phillips says. “It’s an investment in a program that’s really important to us.”

The contractual agreement studentathletes enter seems like a great deal for all sides – until something goes wrong. If a player violates a team or NCAA rule, they could lose their scholarship. But what if, like in Anasis’ case, the coach and player don’t get along, and the player suffers?

The only real option is to transfer, which is often an exceedingly difficult and complicated process. But Anasis didn’t want to transfer – she loved Northwestern.

She came for the academics and, outside of softball, she’d found a home on campus. So she kept pushing and working harder, trying to earn playing time and carve out her place on the team. But it never happened.

In March 2016, Northwestern suspended Anasis indefinitely from the team for a conduct violation. A spokesperson for NU Athletics declined to comment, citing privacy laws.

By that time she was calling her parents, crying, on most trips to away games. Anasis left Northwestern for Spring Quarter 2016, describing herself as “severely depressed and severely anxious.”

With time away from the team, Anasis healed. She moved out of Bobb and lived near her treatment center in downtown Chicago.

After a few months, she went back home to Santa Ana, California, where she received more treatment and got a summer job at a local familyowned restaurant. Since her separation from NU Athletics, Anasis says she’s had almost no mental health issues, and she’s since returned to Northwestern as a full-time student.

Northwestern granted Anasis a medical non-counter for mental health reasons before her sophomore year began, a type of financial aid category usually used for a student-athlete who has suffered a career-ending physical injury, but still has an expectation to receive rightful academic aid. It’s like an insurance policy for student-athletes – if they can no longer provide athletic services as part of their contract with the NCAA, their education isn’t at risk. Anasis feels lucky to still be a student at Northwestern, but in the last year, she says she’s lost a large part of herself.

“My parents know not to talk to me about it because I like to think about that part of my life positively,” Anasis says. “To reflect on last year would tarnish softball as something in my life.”

The NCAA’s complete control Anasis’ experience isn’t entirely unique – many student-athletes don’t get along with their coaches. Sometimes it becomes a problem and sometimes it doesn’t, but all too often, the student-athlete is the one who suffers.

This is largely due to the power structure of the NCAA: The organization and its member institutions make all the rules and regulations, and if athletes want to play, they must comply.

On a day-to-day basis, it’s seen most clearly through player-coach interactions.

“I think it’s obvious that the coaches have a great amount of power over the players,” says Kain Colter (WCAS ‘14), a former quarterback on the Northwestern football team. “Everybody wants to play on Saturdays, and they don’t want anything to affect that. The coaches obviously have control over who’s going to play and really, kind of the guy’s status on the team, so I think going against anything the coaches are opposed to can put that in jeopardy.”

Colter has been battling the NCAA since January 2014, when he attempted to unionize the Northwestern football team and formed the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA).

Colter says the NCAA’s economic motivations, along with a lopsided power structure, aren’t difficult to establish.

“All you have to do is look at these huge endorsement deals that these sporting apparel companies are giving to these universities,” Colter says. “Look at the coaches’ salaries, look at the amazing facilities being built, all of this is revenue generated off the backs of the players, and there’s nothing amateur about it.”

This “facade of amateurism,” Colter says, denies college athletes equal protection under

the law. The NCAA and its schools maintain that college athletes are students – not employees – and don’t have all the same rights employees do, such as collective bargaining. In fact, Walter Byers, the first executive director of the NCAA from 1951-88, admitted to creating the term “student-athlete” in 1964 to avoid paying workers compensation. “[The] threat was the dreaded notion that NCAA athletes could be identified as employees by state industrial commissions and the courts,” Byers wrote in his 1995 book, Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes. “We crafted the term student-athlete, and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations as a mandated substitute for such words as players and athletes.”

Amid mounting pressure and countless legal battles, the NCAA and its member schools have improved conditions for their student-athletes over time, offering increased medical coverage, removing various scholarship limitations and paying court settlements to players who were previously wronged. But neither the NCAA, nor any NCAA school, has ever conceded that student-athletes are employees, or that they should be treated as such.

In March 2014, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Regional Director Peter Sung Ohr went against the NCAA, ruling the NU football players were employees because they dedicated more time to football than their schoolwork, and more time than most full-time employees do at their jobs. It was a monumental decision, challenging the fundamental nature of the NCAA. Chaos ensued. Coaches, administrators and universities across the country, including NU head football coach Pat Fitzgerald and Northwestern, took a hard stance against unionization, doubting its necessity and questioning the ramifications. The decision threatened to disrupt the status quo and upend the power structure the NCAA had enjoyed for decades.

In August 2015, after Northwestern appealed Ohr’s ruling, the five members of the NLRB in Washington unanimously agreed to not exert jurisdiction, fearing a decision would harm labor stability. The status quo remained intact. But at the same time, the NCAA’s power structure was affecting another Northwestern athlete.

he was still at Northwestern. For over seven months, no one on the outside really knew what had happened.

Things became clearer on Nov. 14, 2016, when Vassar filed a lawsuit against Northwestern and the NCAA. The suit claimed that NU head coach Chris Collins and his coaching staff harassed Vassar to transfer, forcing him off the team and making him perform “janitorial and maintenance duties” for the athletic department. By May 5, 2016, according to the lawsuit, the university replaced his athletic scholarship with a full academic scholarship. Northwestern responded in court on Jan. 31, 2017, arguing Vassar wanted to transfer and willingly signed a “Non-Participant Scholarship Status” agreement, removing himself from the team and working an eight hour per week service requirement in the athletic department to maintain his athletic scholarship.

Both Vassar and Northwestern declined to comment while the lawsuit is still pending.

PHOTO BY DANIEL HERSH ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA KUMER In November, Johnnie Vassar sued Northwestern and the NCAA over alleged mistreatment.

Vassar’s version Communication junior Johnnie Vassar played his first minutes for Northwestern on Nov. 22, 2014, scoring two points in a 68-67 overtime win over Elon. Vassar scored only 13 more points the entire season, playing sparingly in 18 games. On March 30, 2015, 18 days after the final game of the season, Northwestern announced Vassar was transferring, and Vassar tweeted a statement confirming his decision.

But Vassar never transferred. He was no longer a member of the basketball team, but WINTER 2017 | 49

Regardless of how things actually played out behind the scenes, the story is the same – a coach and a player didn’t see eye-toeye, and the player suffered. In the lawsuit, Vassar claims Collins “berated” him after a game in February, telling him he “sucked” at basketball, “had a bad attitude” and “didn’t do ‘shit’” when he was in the game.

The quick, bouncy Vassar seemed to fit well enough on Collins’ upstart team in his second year at the helm. But according to Vassar, it didn’t work out that way.

Vassar tried to transfer, reaching out to schools like DePaul, Utah and Georgia Tech.

But according to his lawsuit, none of the schools wanted him because he’d have to miss an entire season due to the NCAA’s year-inresidence bylaw. In the NCAA’s dense 37-page Transfer Guide (its stated purpose is to help understand transfer rules, but good luck), it says transfers must spend one academic year in residence at their new schools before they can compete. Basically, they have to sit out a year before they can play.

The rule intends to prioritize education over athletics, but it can harm studentathletes. The NCAA also has something called a five-year clock, meaning student-athletes only have five years of eligibility from their initial enrollment. Not only does the year-inresidence take up one of those years, but it also discourages schools from acquiring the older transfers. The NCAA caps its Division I men’s basketball scholarships at 13 per team; many schools would rather invest in a younger recruit with more years of eligibility.

Vassar’s case is part of a national class action lawsuit brought against the NCAA by Hagens Berman, a Seattle-based class action litigation law firm. Steve Berman, the Hagens Berman attorney representing Vassar, is challenging the legality of the year-in-residence bylaw, arguing the rule is a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Passed by Congress in 1890, the Sherman Act prohibits companies from attempting to control a market, with the goal of promoting fair competition. By regulating the free movement of players, Berman’s argument is that the NCAA is restricting competition, preventing the best matching of players and schools. Over the past three years, Berman has won at least $248 million in settlements for college athletes through alleged NCAA antitrust violations, from video game licensing to scholarship caps.

Northwestern within a problematic system Northwestern Professor Robert Gundlach has seen this pressure build on many of the NCAA’s policies, and he himself has worked to improve the student-athlete experience.

Gundlach, a linguistics professor and the director of the Cook Family Writing Program since 1977, has served as Northwestern’s 50 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

faculty athletics representative to the NCAA and Big Ten since 2002.

Gundlach’s main priority is promoting the ‘student’ in student-athlete. A disciplined believer in the value of a college education, Gundlach believes NCAA athletes should receive the best academic experience possible.

Accordingly, Northwestern does this better than almost every other school in the NCAA, scoring a 97 percent overall Graduation Success Rate in 2016. It’s a source of pride for NU, so much so that Gundlach served as interim athletic director for three months in 2008. At other schools, the commitment to education isn’t as evident – in 2014, an athletics report at the University of North Carolina found that the school engaged in 18 years of academic fraud largely to keep its athletes eligible – meanwhile, Northwestern put a linguistics professor in charge of its athletic department.

In addition, Colter called Northwestern a “pioneer” in offering protections for its student-athletes, as it was one of the first schools to offer multiyear scholarships and grant aid up to the full cost of attendance. So why, at one of the NCAA’s model institutions, have there been claims of mistreatment, lawsuits and a call to unionize?

According to Colter, it has a lot to do with the NCAA’s fundamentally broken system.

But Northwestern still has room to improve, he says, and that’s why studentathletes need representation. Colter says he and the NU football players didn’t organize because they felt Northwestern was specifically mistreating them, they did it to improve the rights of college athletes across the NCAA and gain equal protection they felt entitled to under labor laws.

Anasis also believes these issues stretch far beyond Northwestern. In order to compete, NU must work within the NCAA’s rules and regulations. That includes convincing young high schoolers to verbally commit to entering contractual agreements. After beating Indiana in January, Communication junior and NU point guard Bryant McIntosh casually called this recruiting process “a business” without any response from the press room. But at such young ages, Anasis says coaches have no idea how a recruit’s personality or athletic ability will develop, and as part of the business, the athlete can become the neglected worker.

In the NCAA’s existing power structure, student-athletes at Northwestern and all over the country are limited under their contractual agreements. When something goes wrong, whether it’s a disagreement between player and coach or an unexpected development in a player’s life, Anasis says these student-athletes can all experience a similar feeling, one that is constantly perpetuated by the NCAA: “trapped.”

why, at one of the NCaa's model institutions, have there been claims of

mistreatment, lawsuits, and a call to unionize?

Baby- Proofing NU students scramble to protect their contraceptive options in the shadow of Trump.

BY LIBBY BERRY

WINTER 2017 | 51

When Cristina Polenica (SESP ‘16) graduated from Northwestern last spring, she thought she’d be looking for a job, not a new form of birth control. But when Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, she immediately decided to stock up on longacting contraceptives. Trump wouldn’t take office for a few more months, but for Polenica, the future of women’s healthcare already felt uncertain. “I have no idea what’s going to happen after Trump [becomes president],” Polenica remembers thinking. “He’s been saying all of this really scary shit, and I might as well go and do this now, while I still can.”

In December, a little over a month before Trump took office, Polenica had an intrauterine device (IUD) inserted, a more permanent birth control method that can last several years. “I saw my chance, and I took it,” she says.

She’s not alone. As members of the Northwestern community look to the future, many worry about what reproductive rights and care they may lose if state or national laws are overturned. With the Supreme Court’s balance in flux, the possibile repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Planned Parenthood under threat, those affected (basically anyone with a uterus) are taking action to protect themselves and their bodies over the next four years.

However, restrictions on reproductive care won’t affect all women equally: Low-income women, particularly low-income women of color, stand to lose the most if lawmakers slash funds and cut off care.

For many Northwestern students, college is the first time they’re wholly responsible for their own health care. Making informed choices about sex and contraception can be difficult, especially in a new environment.

Medill sophomore Claire Fahey* says that while she was already familiar with local reproductive

resources, transitioning care might be tricky for residents beyond the Windy City. “I was really lucky, because I had an OB-GYN before and I’m from Chicago,” she says. “I didn’t have to go find a new one, which I know is a big problem for a lot of students.”

For those interested in counseling and advice for contraceptive options in Evanston, the Women’s Health staff at Northwestern University Health Services (NUHS) is available for consultations with a nurse practitioner, general physician or an OB-GYN. But there’s a catch: University policy says all degree-seeking students must have health insurance, either through the Student Health Insurance Plan (NU-SHIP), or private coverage that meets certain requirements. Beyond Northwestern, current federal health care law through the ACA also requires all Americans to be insured, but allows parents with their own health insurance to cover children through the age of 26. The ACA also mandates private insurers must cover birth control for policyholders at little to no cost.

Post-election, many women have chosen to have IUDs inserted in response to legislative changes that will take away affordable access to short-term birth control methods like the pill. Planned Parenthood has reported a 900 percent increase in demand for IUDs since Election Day. Fahey says she’s already thinking ahead to a time after college without the ACA when she might have to fend for herself. She’s been looking into getting an IUD now, while she has coverage, as a more long-term solution that could last through the next presidential election.

After deciding on a birth control method, next steps include obtaining and filling a prescription. To do so, interested students can visit NUHS, an outside doctor or the nearest

Roe v. Wade BY MAGGIE HARDEN In 1970, Norma McCorvey needed an abortion. But her home state of Texas didn’t allow for abortions unless the mother’s life was endangered, and McCovey couldn’t afford to travel out of state to safely terminate her pregnancy.

Two female lawyers sympathetic to McCorvey (who assumed the pseudonym Jane Roe during court proceedings) brought her case to a Texas federal court, claiming that outlawing abortion violated McCorvey’s constitutional rights. In the meantime, while the case traveled through the court system, McCorvey gave birth to a daughter and gave her up for adoption. She never testified in the case that would change abortion law in the United States. The case was heard by the Supreme Court, and on Jan. 22, 1973, the Court ruled 7-2 in favor of McCorvey, on grounds the Texas statute violated a woman’s right to privacy. McCorvey found out through a newspaper.

The controversial decision affirmed women’s access to safe, regulated abortion. Before 1973, 44 states outlawed abortion in nearly all situations, so the majority of women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies had to either travel to another state or perform risky “black market” abortions themselves at home. After the decision, abortions became both safer and more accessible.

The decision also had an impact far beyond just making terminating a pregnancy more accessible. Along with the emerging feminist movement of the era, the increased control women had over their reproductive decisions contributed to women moving beyond the home and into the public sphere.

52 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Planned Parenthood, located less than five miles away in Rogers Park. Local drugstores chains like CVS and Walgreens can also fill prescriptions there.

Ashley Boval, a SESP senior, says she went to Planned Parenthood for a few years to get her prescription. She’s one of many women who have relied on the organization since it was established more than a hundred years ago. According to a 2013 Planned Parenthood fact sheet, 34 percent of the organization’s services are contraceptive-related, and the group estimates it helps patients avoid roughly 515,000 unintended pregnancies every year.

If a Northwestern student did experience an unintended pregnancy, they would be able to terminate it in Illinois. Although Roe v. Wade made abortion legal across the country, many states have passed legislation restricting when and where women can end their pregnancies.

Known to be more pro-choice than other Midwestern states, Illinois has become a hub for women crossing state lines to practice their constitutional reproductive rights.

“Women are already traveling hundreds of miles to get abortions, so if you lessen the access, it’s only going to be limited to rich women who can afford to make hundreds and hundreds mile travel, miss work, buy plane tickets,” says Abby Student, director of operations for the Midwest Access Coalition (MAC), a Chicago-based organization that seeks to provide accommodations to women who need to travel to Illinois to get safe and legal abortions. “[Illinois] is going to become a haven for women seeking reproductive care, specifically abortion.”

The Republican control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, at least for the next two years, could mean drastic changes to access to reproductive care. Congressional Republicans have promised to not just repeal the ACA but replace it with an alternative system. However, they have not yet provided details on what that system would look like. Planned Parenthood could also face cuts to its funding.

Government money, which makes up around 43 percent of Planned Parenthood revenue, comes in two main forms: Medicaid reimbursements and family planning funds through Title X. The Hyde Amendment, passed in 1976, has prevented Medicaid money from going to abortion services (with a few exceptions), but lawmakers can shrink the budget for the organization’s other services by amending the legislation that controls Medicaid and Title X to prohibit funds from going to Planned Parenthood. States also have a say on funds, and since Planned Parenthood funding isn’t a line item in any budget, many have already come up with a variety of creative ways to prevent money from reaching the organization. Now that an increasing number of governor’s mansions and state legislatures have turned red, more states could deny funding for Planned Parenthood and similar

what our insurance covers.”

After joining a Facebook support group created by a Northwestern student in response to the presidential election, Polenica says she began to explore her contraceptive options more fully. When conversation turned to IUDs, she realized it was the best option to keep her protected for the next several years. “The changing birth control thing was something I was thinking about before the idea that Trump was actually president, but that kind of like spurred me to go do that,” Polenica says.

“Instead of completely shutting down with the fear that I felt, it kicked me into action.”

Fahey also says Trump’s unexpected win made looking into long-term contraception feel more urgent. Although she’d been considering an IUD before Election Day, the possibility of impending changes pushed her to act more quickly. Like Polenica, Fahey reached out to others in the Northwestern community for advice about IUDs and more. “I had a new organizations. and she was able to get insurance for the first sense of urgency toward that aspect of my life, Two Republican leaders in particular, time under the ACA, so while she’s older and just because I could see the ways in which his Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of no longer needs birth control, that would be election could have a real impact on my day-toKentucky and Vice President Mike Pence, have terrifying to me as a young woman. No longer day life in that manner,” Fahey says. “Trump had been vocal about targeting the organization. As being able to afford insurance, because it’s not a huge impact on how many people I’ve talked governor, Pence worked hard to defund Planned made affordable to you by the government.” to about this and definitely made me realize Parenthood in his home state, while McConnell Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat in the Illinois I really want to do this and take agency over has recently made a point of including it in his House of Representatives, says recent something.” goals for the party moving forward. legislation should keep contraceptive care But switching birth control methods And it’s important to note that these affordable in Illinois. Nekritz sponsored isn’t risk-free, especially if the decision is federally funded programs serve the Illinois’s Comprehensive Contraceptive rushed. While Polenica says she loves her most vulnerable women. According to Coverage Act, which became state law in IUD, each person responds differently to the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual health June 2016. The law expands on the provisions each type of contraceptive, and some types research organization, more and more low- defined in the ACA and closes loopholes that aren’t for everyone. income women – especially those who are prevented some women from getting coverage.

Communication sophomore Gracie Black and Latina – have come Brakeman thought getting to rely on publicly-funded an IUD was her best option. reproductive care clinics over “I think that it sucks that as a woman, that we Although she was on the pill, the past decade. Black and Latinx Brakeman says it was difficult might have to be cognizant of that, choosing people are overrepresented to stick to the strict timetable among those who use Planned - with her erratic sleep schedule, Parenthood services, making up a challenge other women forded to us or what our insurance covers.”

15 and 23 percent of patients, echoed. The concept of an despite comprising only 13 and 17 - Cristina Polenica IUD was attractive, she says, percent of the general population. because it doesn’t require daily Whatever a Republican health maintenance. “Why would you care overhaul might entail, it’s unlikely to “Especially given the results of the November take something everyday if you could just get include much, if anything, in the way of federal election [and the] people that completely something once?” she says. “It seemed like a protections for contraception or abortion want to repeal the ACA, having that be the law lot more reliable.” services coverage. Without such rules, in Illinois really does help to protect women,” To explore her options, Brakeman reached businesses wouldn’t have to provide it, even Nekritz says. out to Northwestern Health Services for if they didn’t have a religious motivation.

But protections will likely vary from state a referral to a local doctor. They provided This in turn could have a trickle down effect to state if national healthcare laws change, her with a list of gynecologists practicing in on students covered by the insurance of and Boval says that could possibly impact Evanston and she booked an appointment parents employed by such a business. major life choices moving forward. “I feel like to have the IUD inserted. But the procedure Some worry that in a rush to fulfill campaign a lot of people on this campus are fortunate doesn’t always go well, and the various promises, Republicans in Washington would enough to have parents that use insurance we brands, sizes and designs of IUDs don’t all go even further and repeal the ACA without can continue to be on, or have job prospects in work for everyone. Brakeman’s IUD caused a proper replacement, leaving millions of the future that will provide us with affordable excruciating pain and the doctor removed it Americans uninsured and cutting off its insurance,” she says. “Whether or not that almost immediately. other protections. insurance will cover birth control will entirely While being on her parents’ insurance “So many women who don’t have the depend on where people work, and I think that allowed Brakeman to get an IUD at an resources to have insurance received insurance it sucks that as a woman, that we might have to affordable price, for those without premium under the ACA – my mom is one of them,” Boval be cognizant of that, choosing where we work insurance, the failed procedure would have says. “[She] technically runs her own company, based on what benefits are afforded to us or been much more costly. According to market WINTER 2017 | 53

research from Amino Inc., the out-of-pocket median cost for a Mirena IUD, one of the common brands of IUD, including both the device and the procedure, is $1,109.

When women aren’t able to afford reliable contraception, the risk of unplanned pregnancy rises, which creates a need for stronger reproductive choice policies. But pro-choice legislation may be vulnerable to the Trump administration efforts. Though the process to overturn Roe v. Wade could be a long one, Trump already has one conservative justice lined up, and could appoint several more over his four years. In a November interview, Trump said women may have to travel to other states to have abortion procedures if that happens.

Student, the MAC director of operations, says these statements are concerning, and if laws change, Student says MAC’s services will need to grow. “The amount of women needing to travel to Illinois [is going to go up], because it’s going to become a haven for women seeking reproductive care, specifically abortion,” she says. “I see the clinic that I work at, our volume of patients being seen going up and our surgery hours being longer and women having to wait longer, so I really just see it being terrible for women.”

While Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has supported pro-choice causes during his time in office, Nekritz says this collaboration isn’t necessarily enough to continue to protect reproductive access moving forward. Rauner is up for reelection in 2018, and in such a polarized political environment future Republican candidates may not be willing to back substantive legislation that support women’s health. Although she was able to push the Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act through before the presidential election in November, Nekritz says even in a blue state like Illinois voting margins are often thin, and representatives tend to vote along party lines. “It’s really really hard for us to pass affirmative, good pro-women’s health legislation,” she says. “It would be a big battle in Illinois whether or not we could fend off bad legislation, and whether we could pass affirmatively good legislation to protect healthcare.”

As Trump makes his way through his first 100 days in office, students and Chicago reproductive advocates are evaluating their place in the resistance. For some, that means working to destigmatize abortion and contraceptive use. “We need to make sure that we’re having conversations so that people in

54 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

Affordable Care Act BY CANDACE BUTERA Obamacare, officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), was designed to increase health insurance quality, affordability and accessibility. Since the law passed in March 2010, almost 20 million more people have gained coverage, though the law has faced criticism.

Obamacare has three main provisions: an individual mandate for health insurance coverage, which means most people must have insurance or pay a penalty, the expansion of insurance for low-income individuals through Medicaid, and the creation of insurance exchanges where people can shop for coverage. “Minimum essential coverage” under Obamacare, or

Washington are understanding that this is the direct effect of your actions,” Boval says.

According to Nekritz, these conversations, although difficult, are crucial if progress is to be made. “I think what’s happening in the choice advocacy arena is, women are looking at that and saying ‘Why are we losing this battle, and why is it a partisan issue and what can we do to change that?” she says. “I think that we’re just going to have to start talking about it more.”

When looking at the mobilization against the Trump presidency, Brakeman, who attended a protest shortly after the election, says the intersectionality of the movement is inspiring. “A huge amount of the people at the protest had [signs] like, ‘My body, my choice,’ a lot of people with Black Lives Matter signs,” she says. “It was kind of terrible, because the reason that all these people had to come together is the face of injustice.”

Boval says while protesting is a good first step, it’s important for Northwestern students to continue advocacy work once the streets empty out. “We need to focus on fighting for what matters. That means, as a college student, donating to Planned Parenthood, volunteering at abortion clinics, making sure that women walking to get abortions aren’t harassed and speaking up and volunteering at centers for rape victims,” she says. “Kind of just stepping up in different areas that I don’t think we always think about stepping up [in].”

*Editor’s note: Claire Fahey has previously contributed to North by Northwestern.

plans that exempt an individual from the penalty for not having insurance, includes covering medical costs such as trips to the hospital, prescription drugs and emergency care.

Plans in the Health Insurance Marketplace must also cover contraceptive methods, such as the pill or IUDs, without a copayment – even if an individual hasn’t met their deductible. However, specific methods might not always be covered by certain plans, and religious employers don’t have to comply with the terms for contraceptive coverage. Additionally, no provider is mandated to provide coverage for abortions or abortion-inducing pills.

A laugh before you go.

56

Can this universitysubsidized condom handle YOUR love?

57 58 60 61 62

Evanston, as told by an old racist 30 hours in the BK lounge Exceeding ex-SPAC-tations Dorm divorce Will your NU love last?

PHOTO BY YING DAI WINTER 2017 | 55

Hangover

Can this university-subsidized

CONDOM YOUR LOVE? HANDLE

NBN puts it to the test.

BY ISABEL SCHWARTZ

D

eep within Northwestern University Health Services’ cavernous Searle Hall lies a trove of sexy goodies: an allyou-can-eat buffet of FREE condoms. Given our Cheeto in Chief’s distaste for female reproductive rights, these free condoms could soon be the only reliable form of protection available to Northwestern students. We tested three of the brands offered at Searle – One, Trojan and Durex – using hyper-rigorous scientific methods to see if they could be the condom America needs in these trying times.

Any self-respecting condom must be, above all, durable. We asked our latex playthings a crucial question: are they more fragile than your boyfriend’s masculinity? To test this, we held the condoms up to your boyfriend and asked if he needed a smaller size. He fled.

Then we stretched them over commonly available household items – gourds, lamps,

roommates – to determine their breaking point. All three sex balloons tore just as they made it over the roommate’s calf.

Next, the baby catchers went through a series of rhythmic gymnastics exercises to test physical strength. They lifted more than your boyfriend (it was a tough afternoon at SPAC for him). The Trojan, despite being branded with a warrior’s helmet, was the weakest and tore at the base. The rubbers failed to perform anything close to a respectable somersault and flopped weakly onto the pole vault.

The next experiment tested the condoms much like the election tested America’s values. Do these love gloves respect your reproductive rights? To determine this, we showed them a series of photographs of women buying birth control and gauged their reaction from zero to Trump. The One had points deducted for its aggressive hot-pink

Spicy suggestion:

Have a latex allergy? Vegan?

Crochet your own baby-catcher.

Hot condom tip:

Want to make a Go-Gurt-style soup container for your minestrone on the go? Grab a fresh love sack!

coloring. The Trojan and Durex remained an impassive living room beige.

Prophylactics must also be convertible into homemade weapons in the event of civil war. We flung the rubbers at our enemies and measured the condoms’ success by how far our nemeses fled. The Trojan, which has ribs, was the most easily grippable and traveled an impressive six feet when slingshotted from a thumb. The strawberry flavored One, which smells more like a mouthful of disappointing cotton candy than anything close to a living berry, flopped on the ground miserably. Durex made it 2.5 feet and curled up into a ball, defeated.

There’s no clear winner of the Great Condom Olympics – all three candidates gave lackluster, uninspiring performances. Frankly, we’re disappointed you’re still thinking about sex while the world is burning.

69 percent

of condoms report feeling sad after a one-night stand.

27%

69% 33%

27 percent

of condom owners keep their condoms in their wallets for years, developing a strong friendship.

PHOTOS BY ALEX FURUYA

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Evanston,

The NBN Review of Books

as told by an old racist Frances Willard would be spinning in her grave if she knew how much y’all drink.

A Classic Town The Story of Evanston

By Frances Willard 488 pp. Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association. $32 on Amazon.

The first thing you’ll see when you open Frances E. Willard’s A Classic Town: The Story of Evanston is a hairy old white man, his wispy silver comb-over avalanching into a proto-Marxian beard and his sunken eyes transfixed, apparently, by the bow-tie that seems to be choking him. The daguerreotype is captioned, “ORRINGTON LUNT, discoverer of Evanston.” This may not seem like a huge accomplishment, but remember, it is very difficult to “discover” land that people have been living on for over 1,000 years. Perhaps it’s a fitting introduction for one of the first written histories of Evanston, a book dedicated in large part to the overhyped travails of white (mostly male) settlers. So I took a shot of Fireball and walked the book out of the library, its 125-yearold pages as old and crumbly as Willard’s vision.

Willard published A Classic Town in 1891, eight years before her death and four years before her riveting memoir, A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle (actual title). This book is just as over-the-top as the title of the other memoir suggests Willard is. She claims University President Henry S. Noyes, a man of “temper-perfect and physique phenomenal in power,” died under the strain of running the university. “What wonder under such pressure, his health began to break!” she writes. (Almost every page has an exclamation mark.) She draws a cartoonish Little Dipper to close a passage on the Dearborn Observatory.

In her wildest flights of fancy, she declares Evanston “the Western Athens.” Clearly she never stepped into Burger King at 1 a.m.

But casting Evanston as a “Western Athens” was the whole point of her book.

Willard was part of one of Evanston’s founding families, the president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the namesake of Willard Residence College (and the giant keg-fueled parties that used to take place there). Evanston was a “classic town” because it was, in its founders’ eyes, a utopian vision of the model American suburb, free of vice and definitely free of liquor. Willard casts herself in the role of “a pilgrim pioneer in this human oasis” and Evanston’s “affectionate and loyal daughter.”

And, as Mary Barr documents in Friends Disappear: The Battle for Racial Equality in Evanston, Willard’s utopian vision was free of Black people. She and other temperance leaders promulgated racist stereotypes of drunk Black men raping white women in order to secure support for their cause.

“Alcohol and other vices were associated with foreign-born immigrants, blacks, and the poor; banning one effectively banned the others,” Barr writes. “Willard all but admitted this when she wrote, ‘The freedom of our town from saloons also does much to render it unattractive to thieves and thugs.’”

I don’t know about you, but my vision of Athens is filled with epic tales of Orpheus, Odysseus and philosopher kings dueling it out in Sophocles’ academy. Not so in this Western Athens. Here, the most riveting tale is about the university’s founders bouncing between tracts of grass looking for suitable land for campus until they found a place that Lunt says “continued in my dreams all that night.”

Another gripping tale is how the waterworks system arose out of the annexation of North Evanston into Evanston proper. The heroes are men like Bishop Randolph S. Foster,

“the fitting temple of a great soul.” There are no villians in Evanston. Willard writes “There is a celestial Evanston, there is terrestrial Evanston and there is diabolical Evanston,” and she notes “celestial Evanston is the ascendancy.” Now, I have no idea what “celestial Evanston” is (Dillo, maybe?) but the diabolical is the drunk and its embodiment in Willard’s other writings is the Black man.

She writes that the “profane ones” called it Evanstown and ignored “the rare discernment that invented a name not then borne by any town and since then by but one – Evanston, Wyoming – doubtless named in honor of our own.” (It wasn’t.

Entirely different old white man with last name Evans.) She continues her overblown praise, describing campus as “a grove of massive oaks amid which stand the noble buildings of the university.” You’ll forgive her on this count; University Library didn’t appear until 1970.

There is a trope present in almost all literature, commonly called “conflict.” But while almost everything that happens in Evanston from 1851 to 1891 is recorded here, nothing exciting takes place. Even the Civil War is glossed over: “No town in America met the shock of Civil War more bravely than our own.” The war is over in six pages. It’s all “John Goodrich this” and “Henry Noyes that.” It’s a shame, because Evanston has a story to tell – but it ends exactly where Willard thinks it began. “We will not try to penetrate the legendary period still more remote, when Indians skimmed the great lake in their skims,” Willard writes. “It is the pioneer who built a home and tilled the peaceful acres his industry had won with whom all actual history begins.”

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PHOTO BY ALEX FURUYA

BY JASON MAST

BY STERN

block 1 (fri 4 - 7 p.m.)

My freshman year, I spent a lot of time in the Evanston 24-hour Burger King. I’d visit after a movie, in the middle of a 3 a.m. study session and whenever I was feeling sad. However, after becoming a vegan, my options were severely limited there, so I decided to call it quits. Break-ups are hard.

Every year, the Northwestern Speech Team – which I am heavily involved in – competes in the Illinois State Tournament the same weekend as Dance Marathon. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will never get to partake in those beloved 30 hours of self-congratulatory performance art.

Maybe it’s for the best. I never have to come up with a phony excuse for why I can’t do it.

Instead, I decided to do something else. Maybe it was out of loneliness.

Maybe it was because I felt left out of a shared experience. Maybe it’s because I missed my good friend, the BK Lounge.

However it happened, all that matters is that I decided to stay in the 24-hour Burger King for 30 hours in a row.

The Rules:

• I must purchase and eat a large order of french fries (pretty much the only thing I can eat here) every three hours. This is mostly so I don’t get kicked out for loitering.

• I must stay awake during the 30 hours. This is also mostly so I don’t get kicked out for loitering.

• I cannot leave the BK Lounge, but I can do homework during my stay. This is kind of so I don’t get kicked out for loitering, but mostly for my own sanity.

58 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

The Burger King is empty when I begin my journey. I buy fries, a Dutch apple pie (it’s vegan, I checked) and a large drink. I don’t drink soda and the “Coca-Cola Freestyle” machine doesn’t have an option of water.

Before you say I’m wrong, know four editors doubted me and fact-checked this. For the next 30 hours, I decide to try all of the available seven flavors of Dasani’s flavored water.

Over the course of this block, it goes from light to dark both outside and inside my soul.

block 2 (fri 7 - 10 p.m.)

I get ketchup with my fries this time. I remember that I don’t like ketchup very much.

I do some reading. Most people order to go, but about six to eight students hang out in the Beta Kappa and get some homework done.

block 3 (fri 10 p.m. - sat 1a.m.)

There’s a secret alcove in the Burger King that’s out of view from the rest of the store. I was planning on hiding here during the early morning, but an employee moves the trash cans in front of it to block any entrance. I consider trying to sneak through, but decide against it.

The Burger King is popular at this time of night. This is likely the result of post-party festivities. I wonder what it’d be like to be at a party instead of at this Burger King for 30 hours.

As I leave the bathroom, I witness either a drug deal or a very discreet handshake.

block 4 (sat 1 - 4 a.m.)

The cashier aggressively shouts out order numbers. He reminds me of an auctioneer.

There are about 50 people in the store, and the customers are lackluster in picking up their food.

I sit under the TV and start to get paranoid block 7 (sat 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.) when people look my direction.

I am once again the only customer in this Burger King. When I order my fries, the cashier gives me a quizzical look. block 5 (sat 4 - 7 a.m.)

“You’re still here?”

If I take my jacket off, I am cold. But if I keep I just smile. I am so close, yet so far. my jacket on, I get drowsy. I can’t win.

I start to fall asleep and an employee yells “STAY AWAKE!” at me. I am grateful, but also block 8 (sat 1 - 4 p.m.) afraid. What happens if I fall asleep? This feels Some of my friends visit and I am like a Nightmare on Clark Street. rejuvenated, partially.

I get in the zone. Time flies. I love Burger King.

block 6 (sat 7 - 10 a.m.)

To my surprise, each order of french fries has been a pleasant surprise. The garbage flavored water continues to suck. Orange was my least favorite flavor, and everything I try afterward tastes like ambivalence.

Light returns outside. I begin to think maybe I can make it.

block 9 (sat 4 - 7 p.m.)

block 10 (sat 7 - 10 p.m.)

When I signed up for this, I expected to get like three weeks ahead on my homework. I only barely caught up. Hah. I buy my last french fries at 9:45. They taste like freedom.

Dasani drink rankings

(From decent to garbage) 1. Strawberry 2. Cherry 3. Lemon 4. Grape

5. Raspberry 6. Lime 7. Orange

Every once in a while I look around and realize I am still here. I’m ready to be done, but Bathroom Breaks: 25 I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to leave. This is Free Humans: 1 my life now.

I eat my french fries, but I am still empty inside.

PHOTO BY YING DAI

WINTER 2017 | 59

s n o i t a t C ex-SPA

Hangover

Exceeding

. trash bodies r u o r fo ts u orko N rates hot w

NB

BY CLAIRE BUGOS

YOGA SCULPT

PHOTOS BY LETA DICKINSON, EMMA DANBURY, ALEX FURUYA

Wednesday 7-8 p.m.

HIIT Monday & Friday 1212:30 p.m., Tuesday & Thursday 11-11:30 a.m.

Soreness:

Soreness :

Difficulty:

Difficulty:

True to its name, the High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) class packs tons of intense, sweat-inducing cardio and strengthening moves into 30 excruciating minutes. It’s the ideal fix for someone with a “get in and get out” mentality who wants to minimize their time at SPAC while maximizing their heart rate.

Although most of the class attendees were marginally chiseled and could do consistent kick-ass jump squats, even a novice like myself could generally keep up with the moves. When I couldn’t, the fast pace of HIIT saved me – I only had to hold on for about a minute.

Even though it was short, this no-nonsense class made me feel extra-accomplished.

Plus, after every HIIT class, there is a 30-minute core conditioning or BodyPump class to round out your workout if squats and pushups didn’t quite do you right.

This class started with a few benign downwardfacing dogs, but before I could even stretch out my perpetually tight hammies, we were busting out lunges and single-legged vinyasas at an alarming speed. We quickly abandoned the comfort of our yoga mats for across-the-floor exercises.

Some of the exercises were truly excruciating – I could feel the backwards army crawls for at least a week and a half after.

The instructor was encouraging and made the moves diverse and exciting.

However, she was also one of those gorgeous, impressive people who is both strong and flexible, which meant that her demonstrations gave me an unrealistic expectation of what I would look like when I did the move. I recommend avoiding the mirrors at all costs.

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CYCLE

CHALLENGE 5:30-6:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 8:15-9:15 a.m. Saturday Soreness : Difficulty: If you have an hour to kill and want to maximize your sweat, hit up NU’s very own version of SoulCycle.

This class is fairly popular, so you may have to venture close to the front to find a non-rusty bike that you’re sure will hold your weight. (Pro tip: snag a bike that has a red lever and displays your gear setting. It is much easier to follow along when you’re not blindly setting your resistance several gears too high.) As the name suggests, this class can be tough if you bump up your resistance and stay with the instructor.

As a single spinning machine, we battled through numerous seated and standing climbs, fueled by the instructor’s mid2000s pop playlist and the delusion that if we spun faster we might actually summit some non-metaphorical mountain.

However, despite the burning in my quads and butt, the class became pretty repetitive.

Regardless, the constant pumping of my legs in this class exhausted me far more than any of the others.

ZUMBA 5:30-6:30 p.m. Monday 7-8 p.m. Tuesday 12-1 p.m. Saturday Soreness : Difficulty: I fully expected the class to be littered with the traditional middle-aged-woman-sportingneon-leggings stereotype, complete with cheesy smiles and Fitbits. But though there were a few older women, most attendees were students who kept their neon clothing in check.

The instructor was cute and energetic. She frequently made a chirping sound when she wanted us to repeat a move. Other than this occasional noise, there was no verbal instruction, so I found myself desperately trying to watch and mirror her motions while fumbling my way through the routines.

You might not consider foot stomping and hip twisting to be too difficult, but when you throw in some opposing arm movements and the expectation that you learn the dance as you go, Zumba really gives Orgo a run for its money.

The music, an upbeat mix of reggaeton, Bollywood and Pitbull kept the mood light even as I frustratingly muddled my way through the routines.

Hangover

Will your NU love last?

Locking eyes across the crowd in Norris and romantic walks along the lakefill ... Ah, NU love.

You and your significant other might seem like you’re meant to be, but on a campus as hectic and stressful as ours, is there a chance you’ll be replaced by Willie the Wildcat before the quarter ends? | BY EMMA KUMER Have you gone a romantic date to Dave’s?

Did you meet on Tinder?

actually, in real life! a professional shot by the one and only Justin Barbin

duh!

What’s the most exotic place you have kissed?

shirtless photo

What’s their Facebook profile picture?

Dave who?

the roof of Swift the lakefill

no

their PA group, all holding up The Claw

yes

Would you dare hold hands on Sheridan? yes

ART ST So ... are you guys technically “dating”? it’s 2017, who knows?

Did your S/O donate to your DM team? they’re on my team

no, we’re not ones for PDA

Did you meet during Wildcat Welcome?

Trader Joe’s

um, they said they would, but I’m still waiting Millennium Park

hell nah

No.

no

No.

no

How soon did you f*ck?

If we spot you two on the ‘L’, where are you headed?

yes

yes

we don’t f*ck, we make love

yup yeah, we share a pocket in the winter

Did they super like you?

yeah...

that night

Are you 100 percent sure they are the person you want to spend the rest of your life with?

a month in

tell your S/O: “Hey, I was doing just fine before I met you.”

DEAR GOD YES

You want to go see The Chainsmokers at Dillo. Your S/O wants to see Pitbull. What do you do? down a few shots of Fireball and get ready to Feel That Moment

Yes!*

*North by Northwestern cannot be held liable if said relationship does, in fact, end.

Bottom line is, relationships are hard – even if you do everything right.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMMA KUMER 62 | NORTH BY NORTHWESTERN

WINTER 2017 | 62

WINTER 2017 | 63

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