NBN Magazine Winter 2024

An ode to the arts

A look at the 2024 Dittmar Community Art Show — and the people and poetry behind it. | pg. 50

NORTH BY

What is the title of your mixtape?

northwestern WINTER 2024 print

staff web staff

EDITORIAL

MANAGING

PRINT MANAGING

EDITOR Julianna Zitron

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Audrey Hettleman

COPY CHIEF Jenna Anderson

EDITORS-AT-LARGE Jimmy He, Mia Walvoord

SENIOR FEATURES EDITORS Sam Bull, Emma Chiu, Noah Coyle, Caroline Neal

ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITORS Andrew Katz, Zoe Chao

SENIOR DANCE FLOOR EDITORS Katie Keil, Maya Krainc, Sarah Lonser, Mitra Nourbakhsh, Chloe Rappaport

ASSISTANT DANCE FLOOR EDITOR Jenna Amusin

SENIOR PREGAME EDITORS

Hannah Cole, Indra Dalaisaikhan, Sarah Lin

ASSISTANT PREGAME EDITORS Jessica Chen, David Sun

SENIOR HANGOVER EDITORS Bennie Goldfarb, Julia Lucas

ASSISTANT HANGOVER EDITORS

Mya Copeland, Olivia Kharrazi

CREATIVE

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Grace Chang

ASSISTANT CREATIVE DIRECTOR Allison Kim

DESIGNERS & ILLUSTRATORS Jessica Chen, Bennie Goldfarb, Audrey Hettleman, Laura Horne, Abigail Lev, Sammi Li, Jackson Spenner, Allen You

PHOTOGRAPHERS Alessandra Esquivel, Audrey Hettleman, Elisa Huang, Elena Lu, Lavanya Subramanian

FREELANCE

Eleanor Bergstein, Sela Breen, Zoe Kulick, Esther Lim, Steph Markowitz, Victoria Ryan, Sarah Serota, Jade Thomas

COVER DESIGN BY GRACE CHANG

COVER PHOTO BY AUDREY HETTLEMAN

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Christine Mao

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Conner Dejecacion

MANAGING EDITORS Astry Rodriguez, Olivia Abeyta

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITORS Sammi Li

Mya Copeland, Ava Hoelscher

DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION EDITORS

Sammi Li, Yasmin Mustefa

SECTION EDITORS

NEWS EDITOR Arden Anderson

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Jezel Martinez

POLITICS EDITOR Gideon Pardo

ASSISTANT POLITICS Editor Jerry Wu

ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Ariel Gurevich

LIFE & STYLE EDITOR Chloe Que

SPORTS EDITORS AJ Anderson, Maggie Rose Baron

INTERACTIVES EDITOR Manu Deva

ASSISTANT INTERACTIVES EDITOR Ava Mandoli

FEATURES EDITORS Sara Xu, Darya Tadlaoui

ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR Yong-Yu Huang

OPINION EDITOR Abby Hepner

CREATIVE WRITING EDITOR Jillian Moore

AUDIO & VIDEO EDITORS Jessie Chen, Indra Dalaisaikhan

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Lianna Amoruso

GRAPHICS EDITOR Rachel Yoon

SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS

INSTAGRAM EDITORS Kim Jao, Sara Xu

TIKTOK EDITORS Jade Thomas, Sara Xu

TWITTER EDITOR Jade Thomas

CORPORATE

PUBLISHER Stephania Kontopanos

AD SALES TEAM Grace Chang, Jessica Chen, Indra Dalaisaikhan, Janice Seong, David Sun, Grace Wang

SPECIAL EVENTS CHAIR Kim Jao

WEBMASTER Ziye Wang

Jay-z’s Jams.

Hetty Wap EP. bootsandkatzandbootsandkatz.

hyperpop mix (dolby atmos stems) (8D audio) (lonely witch version).

The Billboard Thot 100.

The disparaging sounds of an Adobe error pop-up.

It’s really not that bad!

Liked songs.

Choreographed madness.

Hep Tunes by Abby.

Readers, Dear

To an unassuming campus visitor, Winter Quarter may seem like a quiet time. But while the Lakefll and beaches are empty, music still fows from a classroom in Kresge. Students gather in Norris to see the newest art gallery. Fans cheer loudly and proudly for their sports teams from the bleachers. Here’s the thing about this school: There is never a quiet moment on campus.

Even in freezing temperatures and bitter winds, the NBN staf showed up time and time again to put together this issue. They have mused on every word in this magazine and created beautiful designs, highlighting that even when the skies are gray, the Northwestern community is still buzzing.

In our Pregame section, you’ll hear from the students behind the Songwriters Association at Northwestern and how they turned an idea into a collection of entirely student-produced songs. In Dance Floor, we spoke with a religious studies major turned pilot and fight instructor, intimacy coordinators trying to make the student theater and flm safer places and the frst Argentinian Global Rhodes Scholar.

In our Features section, six D-1 student-athletes tell us about how the life of an athlete is not all glitz and glory. Their experiences show the ofen overlooked side of college athletics — the mental and physical stress overshadowed by the cheering fans and record-breaking achievements. Our cover story, “An Ode to the Arts,” goes behind the scenes at the Dittmar Gallery in Norris University Center. Their current exhibition is run entirely by student curators and emerging artists.

We’ll close out our magazine with a guide on how to avoid adopting a foster cat (unsuccessfully) and a raving review of Evanston’s newest, hottest indoor trampoline park in the Hangover section.

This issue would not have been possible without the fantastic staf behind it. The hard work and dedication of these editors, designers and writers is the only reason this magazine you hold in your hands exists. As much as I fnd myself complaining about the cold, creating this magazine helped to remind me of the reasons I chose Northwestern in the frst place — and I hope it does the same for you.

Sincerely,

Julianna Zitron

Beyond the syllabus

Beats by SWAN

From pool to pavement

Level up!

The secret life of campus dogs

A new playbook

Scripting safety

Campus Kitchen

A major switch

A match made in Heavenston?

On the Rhode

Running on empty

Breaking barriers, building futures

Getting down in E-Town

An ode to the arts

Why, Northwestern?

How to break into Spring Break

Hangover goes to Sky Zone

Fostering mental health a cat

Ring by spring

Beyond the syllabus

Need reading recommendations? Take a page out of these professors’ favorites.

WRITTEN BY MITRA NOURBAKHSH

DESIGNED

PHOTOS

BY

BY

JACKSON SPENNER

ALESSANDRA ESQUIVEL

In a quest to fnd Spring Break reading material, NBN asked four professors from across the University for their endorsements. Hopefully, these book recommendations are more entertaining than the hundred-page textbook readings they usually assign.

Daniel Immerwahr

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Immerwahr’s all-time favorite book comes with high praise.

“Pale Fire is not only [Nabokov’s] best novel, but the best novel ever written,” he says.

It’s funny. It’s delightful. It’s confusing. And it’s meant to be reread over and over — in Immerwahr’s case, no less than seven times. Pale Fire is a story within a story; it takes the form of a 999-line poem with an introduction,

index and annotations written by a fctional editor whom Immerwahr calls “a little unhinged.”

“You get to the poem, and, interestingly, you can’t tell if it’s good or bad,” he says. “The annotations get increasingly insane, and then this story starts to unfurl.”

Give it a read … or seven. Hopefully, it lives up to Immerwahr’s high praise.

Sara Broaders

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

For Broaders, it’s hard to choose her all-time favorite book because there’s so many that have shaped her identity.

“It’s like choosing your favorite child,” she says.

But when pressed, Broaders named a recent read she thinks students would enjoy.

Fourth Wing is a fantasy and romance novel about a college quite diferent from Northwestern. Instead of training

future consultants, Basgiath War College trains dragon riders.

Full of action and with Broadersendorsed character development, Fourth Wing tells the tale of a bookish 20-yearold forced to compete for a chance at a life of dragon riding.

“Some books do too much trying to give you too much context. I just think she tells a good story,” Broaders says.

Jules Law

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

While it’s not his all-time favorite book ( Tess of the d’Urbervilles takes that spot), nor his favorite contemporary novel ( 2666 gets the honor), Law says Salvage the Bones is easily “one of the greatest novels of the last 20 years” and probably the most compelling to students.

Salvage the Bones tells the gutwrenching story of a coastal Mississippi family during the 12 days leading up to

J.A. Adande

Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. The story is compelling, poetic and visceral.

Law is drawn to novels that illuminate the human condition and grapple with whether behaviors are instinctive or socially conditioned. While his favorite books tend toward the somber, Salvage the Bones defes that pattern.

“It’s depressing and uplifing,” Law says. “Students fnd it really, really powerful.”

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

If you’ve ever wondered whether you have what it takes to be an astronaut, this is the book for you. Spoiler alert: You probably don’t.

The Right Stuf dives into the stories of astronauts and test pilots of the 1940s and ’50s to understand who was brave (or stupid) enough to risk going to outer space.

It is the vividness of Wolfe’s writing that makes this Adande’s favorite book; he remembers being completely engrossed by it during his

“I didn’t know you could write like that, bring it to life and just spend paragraph afer paragraph talking about someone’s hair or the sound of his voice,” he says. “It helped make me want to become a writer. Like, wow, he can make the words jump of the page like that.”

Beats by SWAN

With their second mixtape on the way, the Songwriters Association at Northwestern has songs for everyone.

WRITTEN BY HANNAH COLE // DESIGNED BY ALLISON KIM // PHOTOS BY ELENA LU

Sof sounds of pop, folk and rock foat around a small room in Kresge. Students line up to add songs to the eclectic Spotify queue. From over-the-top, campy music by Chappell Roan to slow, soulful tunes by Hozier, the selection mimics the diverse musical interests of the Songwriters Association at Northwestern (SWAN). While the music plays in the background, the students discuss their upcoming mixtape.

In 2022, SWAN entered the school’s music scene, hoping to provide a comfortable space for songwriters to share their work and collaborate with other musicians and producers. Last summer, the still-emerging group released Swan Song, their frst mixtape composed entirely of student-written and produced music.

The first project included a diverse mix of genres and songs, reflecting

the club participants’ unique interests, styles and experiences with music.

McCormick fourth-year Donovan Batts, a founding member and executive board member of SWAN, considers Swan Song a success because of the broad music styles featured.

“We had some instrumental tracks. We had some heavy metal stuf,” Batts says. “We had some really experimental songs as well — folk, pop, singer-songwriter.”

“We want to lay the groundwork for what this club will look like in future years and leave our legacy.”

Lylajean Bariso Weinberg fourth-year

Afer Swan Song, the club is beginning its second mixtape with a more refned approach, which they hope to release in April. In May, SWAN will give out CDs and host live performances from mixtape contributors at Kresgepalooza, an event that turns Kresge classrooms into “tiny desk” concerts, à la NPR, for musicians to showcase their songs.

Last year, SWAN paired one artist with one producer. Now, they want to make the process more collaborative, Batts says. Rather than working in pairs, students will engage in groups of four to fve people.

The collaborations allow students to improve their work and learn from people with diferent musical backgrounds. Students ofer a range of expertise, from poetry to production to the mastery of numerous instruments. These instruments include, but are not limited to, piano, voice, clarinet, keys, ukulele and guitar. Each person in a collaboration group will use their talents to create an original song.

Members of the club appreciate the collaborative approach because it teaches

them new techniques and aspects of the music-making process. McCormick fourth-year Chealen Berry learned about music production when she contributed to the frst mixtape and worked with student producer and Weinberg fourth-year Joy Fu.

“It was cool to see what she’s been taught,” Berry says. “It was really fun working with her because I got to see the more technical aspect of recording.”

Berry and other artists write and perform their songs, but the producer makes the music come to life.

While Berry previously released music, for some students like Weinberg fourthyear Leslye Molina, the mixtape was their frst opportunity to share their work with the public.

“I’ve always written songs or played stuf on my guitar just for myself. It was my frst time doing something published for other people to hear,” Molina says. “The genre I did was more experimental, electronic techno. I’ve never done that before, and that was really fun to do.”

With the upcoming mixtape, Molina hopes to switch up her sound.

“This time, I’m thinking something different. I’m thinking a little bit more mellow,” Molina says. “Maybe something more pleasing to hear, but still keeping that edge in the lyrics. I’m excited to play around with that.”

Creating music and forming new ideas can prove challenging for club members. Batts says the process starts with a dream or spark of an idea. Students need to discover why they are writing a song or what goal they hope the song accomplishes.

Each student has diferent writing processes, and for people like Batts and Berry, thinking of the initial idea can be the most difcult part.

“I write a song when I have heavy emotions, and I need to express them in some way. That’s where the good ones come from,” Berry says. “I’m not really the type of person who’s always able to just sit down and be like, ‘OK, today I’m writing a song; let’s choose a random topic.’”

Because the songwriting process can be challenging, SWAN is a commitment. The executive board expects students to make headway on their songs throughout the quarter. People must check in with their song groups every week, but most mixtape work occurs outside club times, meaning students must hold themselves accountable.

However, Batts strives to keep the environment comfortable, stress-free and safe for sharing music. SWAN only requires mixtape artists and producers to attend three club meetings, and the club promotes group outings to places like museums and record stores to foster a sense of community.

“We want to make sure the people involved don’t feel stressed at all. It’s not a sixth class. It’s an extracurricular, creative outlet,” Batts says.

SWAN executive member and Weinberg fourth-year Lylajean Bariso says she hopes the mixtape becomes a yearly tradition, ensuring the club provides a platform for self-expression for future students.

“We were such a new club. We want to lay the groundwork for what this club will look like in future years and leave our legacy,” Bariso says.

Berry encourages all artists or producers interested in the process of putting out original music to join SWAN.

“Why not? If you come up with an idea, share it,” Berry says. “Try to fnd a good community where you feel comfortable sharing those ideas because that’ll allow you to develop your songwriting skills and get more feedback.”

Leslye Molina, SWAN member and guitarist in the bank Dark Refections.

Back row (lef to right): Elsa Steen Koppell, Lianna Amoruso, Daniel Martin, Elisa Johnson, Rogelio Munoz-Franco.

Front row (lef to right): Lylajean Bariso, Anna Selina, Ellie Caro, Leslye Molina.

How Northwestern Triathlon Club trains students for success.

WRITTEN BY ANDREW KATZ // DESIGNED BY ABIGAIL LEV

Despite running track in high school and training for months before the event, Weinberg fourthyear Jules Wathieu says his frst triathlon was “traumatic.”

“It was way harder than I expected it to be, especially the transition from biking to running,” Wathieu says. “That was kind of a wake-up call for me … but it feels really good to fnish it even though you don’t get a medal.”

With the sound of a starter pistol, the race is on. Competitors in a standard Olympic-distance race swim the length of over 17 football felds before hopping on their bikes and riding 25 miles. But it does not stop there; the triathlon ends with a 6-mile run.

In February, Northwestern Triathlon Club hosted its own event: the Wildcat Indoor Sprint Triathlon. The race is a fundraiser that helps sponsor the team’s spring trip to the USA Triathlon Collegiate Club National Championships. In the recent indoor triathlon, triathletes competed in a 10-minute swim, 20-minute bike and 15-minute run, vying for the furthest distance.

The club raises money from visiting schools, but the event is entirely free for members. This year’s visitors include the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, Purdue University, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

Gearing up for three diferent sports can be pricey. Weinberg fourth-year and Northwestern Triathlon Club President Aaron Lu’s goal is to make Triathlon as afordable as possible. In addition to free Wildcat Sprint Triathlon entry, the club lends bikes to members and highly subsidizes their costs to attend nationals, including their airfare, hotels and entry fees.

“Our mentality is to promote accessibility, in terms of having as many resources as we can to teach people how to get used to triathlons, but also provide resources for them to compete in the races as well,” Lu says.

Wathieu also emphasizes the club’s commitment to accessibility for less experienced members. Many students join the club not having experience in all three aspects of a triathlon. Team members are divided by skill level during practices so everyone can participate and learn.

Lu was attracted to the club because of the consistent training schedule and the social atmosphere.

“I just think Triathlon attracts a certain type of person,” Lu says. “It’s quite an indescribable quality. … There’s just a collective friendliness on the team.”

SESP second-year Paloma Jourdes serves as the fundraising and alumni relations chair on Triathlon’s executive board. Like Lu, she joined Triathlon Club because she enjoys the social aspect of working out in a group setting and appreciates the club’s consistent training schedule.

To balance classes and schoolwork with rigorous training, she says triathletes must be dedicated, disciplined and careful with their health. This means going to sleep early, eating nutritious foods and not drinking alcohol.

“I am a frm believer that if you do not prepare for the two weeks before, cleanse and hydrate your body, it’s not going to go well,” Jourdes says. “You can’t do that kind of thing hungover.”

For Wathieu, Triathlon Club has meant much more than staying ft and competing.

“Sophomore year was a time when I was feeling a little isolated, and Triathlon made me feel more comfortable and gave me a community.”

Level

UP!

Step into Norris’s new Nexus Gaming Lounge with Northwestern Esports.

WRITTEN BY SARAH LIN // DESIGNED BY JESSICA CHEN

PHOTOS BY LAVANYA SUBRAMANIAN

With two quick taps of the keyboard, the monitor stirs to life. The blue light illuminates Weinberg frst-year Hannah Kwak’s face and refects of her gold-framed glasses. As the game loads, she fts a red headset over her ears, centers the microphone to her mouth and stretches her wrists.

Afer this routine, perfected over dozens of hours spent in the Nexus Gaming Lounge, Kwak is ready to play.

In October 2023, the Nexus Gaming Lounge opened in the Game Room of Norris University Center’s basement. Northwestern Esports and Norris collaborated to build the Lounge, equipped with state-of-the-art gaming monitors, headsets, chairs, keyboards, microphones and its own live-streaming room.

Although any Northwestern student, faculty or staf member is free to use the Lounge, Northwestern Esports occasionally books the space for its fve competitive gaming teams to practice and play matches against other schools. Before the Lounge opened, Northwestern Esports competed virtually but ofen faced connectivity issues.

“People would play from their dorms, sometimes at the mercy of Northwestern Wi-Fi, so it really was like a mixed bag with which people could actually participate in the club’s activities, just because barriers to entry for Esports itself are pretty high,” says Shannon Tan, Esports external vice president and McCormick second-year.

Maintaining functional Wi-Fi and installing high-speed data lines, along with furnishing other amenities, is expensive. According to Norris’s Executive Director Corbin Smyth, the Lounge renovation cost around $150,000.

McCormick second-year Carlos Nueva is on the varsity Valorant team, representing Northwestern in ofcial gaming matches against other Big Ten and regional schools. He says the opportunity to play with all of his teammates in the same space makes for a better gaming environment.

“Whenever we win, we can actually get up, high-fve each other, get hyped and really feel more energy than when we’re of playing separately,” Nueva says.

Kwak also prefers to practice and play with her junior varsity Valorant teammates in the Lounge, but she says the virtual aspect of video games is what originally drew her to Esports.

“I like the fact that you can play with people around the country,” she says. “I can’t see my friends [from Philadelphia] anymore, but I can still play games with them and spend time with them online.”

Even though the Lounge technically opened this past fall, the space is still a work in progress. The club plans to add decor, including banners and TVs to broadcast gameplay live, and their ultimate goal is to make the Nexus Gaming Lounge a hotspot for all local gamers.

“Eventually, we would love to expand the room, increase the number of PCs, maybe bring it into a space that’s more open and accessible to all members of the Evanston community,” Tan says.

Norris’s Assistant Director for Co-Curricular Learning and Recreation Linda Luk shares Tan’s vision of fostering community through accessibility.

“The Nexus was this place to come together, and that’s the intention of the design,” Luk says. “I think students really stood behind that vision and that idea.”

Northwestern students enjoy the Nexus Gaming Lounge in Norris University Center.

The secret life of campus dogs

An inside look into the lives of our campus furry friends.

WRITTEN BY VICTORIA RYAN // DESIGNED BY GRACE CHANG // PHOTOS BY ALESSANDRA ESQUIVEL

It’s a sunny day on the Lakefll at the beginning of spring. The birds are chirping and the breeze blows through my fur. I look around and see people talking, going on walks and … squirrel!

Dogs owned by professors, Northwestern sta are a common sight around campus. But what is life like for these furry friends? investigates the daily lives of the dogs we know and love.

Editor’s Note: Due to the language barrier between dogs and humans, these interviews are based on conversations with their owners.

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

North Area Resident Director Sarah Loefer moved to Schapiro Hall in September 2021 with her husband and rescue dog Bella. Bella is a mix of breeds, mostly Australian Cattle Dog and black lab. Loefer adopted her right af pandemic began in 2020.

This unique living situation allows Loefer to bring Bella to work.

“I bring her to my weekly o hours and people who miss their dogs from home get to see her,” she says. “That really brings a lot of joy to my heart.”

Let’s see how Bella is enjoying

NBN: What is your favorite spot on

The beach, because I like to drag my parents there even if it’s too cold. Sorry, Mom and Dad!

NBN: What is your favorite food and

I looooove playing fetch with my tennis ball. I’m very good at it. I also love playing with my toys and dragging them all over the apartment. I take them out one by one and lay them across the rug. I have so many favorite foods, but Easy Cheese spray is my top choice. It’s so yummy and delicious! I also love turkey, especially on Thanksgiving.

NBN: Describe your social life on

I’m a bit of an introvert, so I socialize mostly with my parents. I have a small chihuahua mix cousin that I see occasionally. He’s OK. My parents will babysit other dogs sometimes, and I tolerate them, but I like being in a one-dog house. The students, on the other hand, I love. They give me so many treats, and they’re always so happy to see me.

Silvia Toledo is the Program Assistant for the Latina and Latino Studies Program, and her border collie Banksy frequently visits campus. Banksy is a rescue and is currently taking on therapy dog training.

“She’s very smart,” Toledo says. “We are waiting for her to ofer to do our taxes.”

Now, let’s hear from Banksy herself.

NBN: What is your favorite spot on campus?

Banksy: The Lakefll, for sure. Oh, wait,

Banksy & Silvia Toledo

Bella & Sarah Loefer

I also love the area by the Rock with all of the trees. I go bananas for the squirrels.

NBN: What are your favorite foods?

Banksy: Chicken! I also really like treats. My favorites are dog ice cream and peanut butter, for sure.

NBN: Describe your social life on campus.

Banksy: Lots of playdates with my dog and human friends. I have two dog siblings, and I love going running with them. I meet a lot of people and dogs when I run, and it’s the best!

NBN: What is your favorite thing about being on campus?

Banksy: Meeting new people and making them happy!

NBN: What does your ideal day look like?

Rosie: I like to run around before I go inside and sit in my mom’s ofce. I love it when people come to the ofce and pet me and play with me. Then, I like to go to classes. Afer the day is done, I get more time of-leash before I get into the car and go home. Mom will always give me food, no matter what time it is.

NBN: What is your favorite food and favorite toy?

Rosie: My favorite food is Bully Sticks. My favorite toy is my hedgehog named Hedgy. My mom calls me a hedge fund manager because I get a new one every six months, but I won’t get rid of my old ones.

Another familiar face on campus is Rosie, a labrador and hound mix belonging to Gender and Sexuality Studies professor Jillana Enteen. Enteen rescued Rosie seven years ago from a local shelter and says she knew right away that she was a perfect match. Having completed emotional support animal training, Rosie attends classes and comforts students dealing with college stress.

NBN: What is your favorite thing about being on campus?

Rosie: My favorite part is getting to meet students. I love when they come to the ofce, when I’m invited to their classroom, when I see them when I’m walking around on campus or when I can comfort them. The best thing about Northwestern is all of the dog-loving students!

NBN: What is your favorite spot on campus?

Max: There’s a rock on the walk between Lincoln and Deering. I go there all the time and snif it. It’s a very nice rock.

NBN: What does your ideal day look like?

Max: Seeing lots of students and having

Here is what Rosie has to say about her time on campus.

NBN: What is your favorite spot on

Last, but certainly not least, is President Michael Schill’s dog Max. The two enjoy going on walks and seeing students along the way. Max is a mix of breeds, including Pomeranian and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Schill adopted him from a shelter during COVID-19.

Let’s see how Max enjoys campus life.

Rosie & Jillana Enteen

Max & Michael Schill

PHOTO COURTESY OF ELISA HUANG

A new

playbook

The new basketball ticketing system is reshaping the student section — for better or for worse.

WRITTEN BY ELEANOR BERGSTEIN // DESIGNED BY JACKSON SPENNER

At Northwestern feld hockey’s national championship game this fall, forward Sophie Dix found herself marveling at the size of the crowd. The Weinberg third-year couldn’t help but notice that the University of North Carolina had to add seating for the game’s 3,200 fans. Supporters crammed into the stadium, which usually only seats 900, and even watched from surrounding streets and hills.

Field hockey is one of Northwestern’s winningest teams — this was their third consecutive championship appearance — yet not a single home game this past season drew over 633 fans.

Last year, students clamored for men’s basketball tickets and flled Welsh-Ryan Arena with never-before-seen crowds. Dix wonders why her team, ranked second in the nation, does not attract the level of support other Northwestern sports have proven is possible.

This fall, Northwestern athletics introduced a new points system to organize men’s basketball ticket claims and incentivize attendance at other sporting events. In the new system, students accumulate points by attending diferent games, which determine their priority in claiming men’s basketball tickets.

The system has helped encourage higher attendance across the board. However, its shortcomings also raise questions about the hierarchy of Northwestern sports and fan engagement. Highly successful teams, like feld hockey, have not reached attendance levels concordant with their accomplishments. Many teams are still struggling to fnd

student fanbases, and there is a large discrepancy between crowd sizes at men’s and women’s basketball games.

The system’s success: rising attendance

Weinberg fourth-year and Wildside Programming Chair Vir Patel remembers attending games his sophomore year and seeing people doing homework in the stands. He says the points system has encouraged students to show up for previously lower-attended events and bring more energy.

“It seems like the culture around what going to games is like has completely shifed,” Patel says.

Attendance statistics provide insight into this culture shif. Field hockey, volleyball and men’s soccer all saw rising attendance this fall. The average home volleyball game, for example, brought almost 700 more fans in 2023 than in 2022. Men’s soccer’s average home attendance went from 467 last year to 567 this season.

SESP second-year Nigel Prince, a defender on the men’s soccer team, says he noticed the increase in support. In 2022, the team won one game at home. This year, they went 8-2-1 in Evanston. Prince says the energy brought by a bigger crowd played a role in this improvement.

“Just the home feld advantage, having the crowd saying your name, rooting for you, chanting, in your corner, for us made a huge diference,” Prince says.

Welsh-Ryan Arena

According to Wildside Social Media Chair and Medill second-year Dylan Friedland, Wildside collaborates with the athletic department to designate some events as being worth double points. Along with giveaways, this encourages more students to attend games.

In September, Welsh-Ryan Arena saw its largest-ever student crowd show out for volleyball’s match-up against University of Wisconsin-Madison. The 1,746 students were incentivized, at least in part, by the game’s double-point status, according to Patel.

“People are physically the sport.” there, [but] that doesn’t mean they’re invested in

Raghav Khosla Medill second-year

To prevent students from scanning their Wildcards to get points and immediately leaving, several safeguards were implemented. For example, at soccer games students had to stay until at least halfime to get points. For volleyball, they had to stay for two sets.

Dix and Prince say the added student support is worth it, even if people only come for the beginning of a game.

“We do what we do for the school,” Prince says. “We hold the ‘N’ and we hold the purple very highly, so it’s always great to have our fellow students come out and support.”

The fipside: critiques of the system

While the points system has helped spark rising attendance, there is room for improvement.

The system assigns a certain number of points to diferent games. For example, women’s basketball games are worth

fve points, and other Olympic sports are worth four. To claim men’s basketball tickets, students are sorted into four windows based on how many points they accumulated from attending various events this fall and winter. The system is designed to reward students who support Northwestern athletics across the board. The reality is not so simple.

Medill second-year Raghav Khosla thinks the athletic department should encourage the student body to appreciate the athletic successes of all teams. He questions if the points system may inadvertently reinforce the hierarchy that prioritizes men’s basketball by making those games the reward obtained from attending other events.

“It’s not just football and basketball. Northwestern athletics is so much more, and that should be the main goal,” Khosla says. “That should be a vision statement, and that’s what they build a system around.”

Khosla says he is frustrated that some students only go to games to get points.

“People are physically there, [but] that doesn’t mean they’re invested in the sport,” Khosla says. “It’s unfair to the studentathletes who know people are coming to their games not to watch them but just to get points to watch the men’s basketball team. Those student-athletes deserve to have fans that are rooting for them.”

Many students, including McCormick third-year Brett Lickerman, went to feld hockey and soccer games for the frst time this fall to improve their chances of getting men’s basketball tickets. This winter, Lickerman attended several women’s basketball games, especially trying to go when a double-points incentive was ofered.

“Unfortunately [these women’s basketball games] were on Sundays, when football is, so I would bring my computer and watch football while I was at the game,” Lickerman says.

Lickerman says if it weren’t for the points system, he wouldn’t have attended these games.

“Women’s basketball was defnitely more exciting than I expected,” he says. “Women’s feld hockey, I got a little into it, too.”

Women’s basketball’s average home attendance is higher

5

3 POiNTS

1

this year, from 1,320 fans a game in the 2022-23 season to over 2,000 in 202324. In comparison, attendance at men’s basketball is averaging at over 5,000 fans per game.

McCormick second-year cheerleader Anna Lee is at every home basketball game. She says the diference between support for the men’s and women’s teams is staggering.

“For women’s basketball, no one feels the social pressure to go,” Lee says.

Attendance counts

“When people go to the men’s games, the atmosphere is so good. It’s exciting, and it feels fun to be at. I think both are equally as fun to watch, but it’s a very different atmosphere when there’s other students there.”

Patel says a combination of factors contributes to lower attendance at women’s basketball. For example, he says when the games are on Sundays there is no shuttle service to Welsh-Ryan Arena.

Students may also be demotivated since the women’s season happens at the same time that men’s basketball claim windows are released, so they no longer have the same incentive to collect points.

Even though many students attend games with the primary goal of earning points, Patel says it is worth it for the teams to receive more support.

Prince says exposure to diferent sports may help students discover new interests, even if they originally came for points.

“I think the more people that come will realize it’s a great experience and any sport can be enjoyable and can be fun to watch,” Prince says.

Some students have also expressed frustration with the fact that the points system puts constraints on their schedules.

There is a 20-point penalty if a student claims a ticket and does not use it on game day. Since claim windows are ofen weeks before the actual games, gamedays ofen see a scramble of students trying to transfer their tickets to others.

Many students in the last claim window have been able to get tickets to all the games they want, raising the

question of whether the points system is even necessary. But Patel says some students purposefully don’t claim right when their window opens because they aren’t able to commit so far in advance.

“People are worried about not being able to make games or not being able to get rid of their ticket,” Patel says. “I also think the infux of people who are willing to give away their tickets makes people feel they will have the opportunity to get a ticket later on.”

Patel adds that the demand for men’s basketball tickets has not decreased from last year; the claim windows have simply helped organize who gets tickets.

“The points system gives people who want to make sure that they’ll be at these games the opportunity to do that,” he says.

“Lacrosse, they’re national championship contenders year in, year out, and sofball made it to the tournament last year,” Patel says. “Leaning on that is defnitely going to be key, maybe re-incentivizing the point system.”

“You’re no longer your team.” just playing for

Sophie Dix Weinberg third-year

Patel expects the ticketing system will be reassessed and improved, hopefully with the consideration of student feedback.

“I think we learned a lot from these two quarters,” Patel says. “This is the frst time we’ve done it, so there are a lot of things we can improve on, of course.”

Patel says despite some “growing pains,” the points system has helped make important improvements to athletics and built better atmospheres in the stands.

Khosla and Patel agree that the biggest beneft of the points system is highlighting the variety of incredible teams and athletes.

Looking to the spring, Patel expects a rebound in attendance, especially at lacrosse and sofball, which he says are easy to market because of their successes.

Dix hopes lower-attended sports, especially women’s sports, can be promoted to students in other ways beyond the points system. She says she would like to see students supporting athletes as fellow classmates. Seeing students in the stands makes her feel like she’s part of something greater.

“You’re no longer just playing for your team,” Dix says. “You’re playing for Northwestern.”

SAFETY

Intimacy coordinators are creating safe spaces for performers at Northwestern and changing the entertainment industry.

WRITTEN

BY ESTHER LIM // DESIGNED BY ALLEN YOU

* Content warning: This article contains mentions of rape and sexual assault.

In their sophomore year of high school, Communication third-year

Julie Monteleone joined their local theater company’s cast. There, they witnessed a moment that would come to shape their presence in Northwestern’s student theater scene: an unscripted, nonconsensual kiss.

“Someone on stage added in a kiss that had never been talked about before, and the other actor experiencing it was really thrown of,” Monteleone says. “Having seen that, being part of that production, with moments that felt unsafe physically for myself when I was working as an actor — that was, unfortunately, the impetus.”

Monteleone says the swirling feelings of discomfort and tension among the cast inspired them to work as an intimacy director on student sets at Northwestern.

As the entertainment industry grows more vocal about consent and sexual exploitation, Northwestern’s student performing arts scene is also engaging in this dialogue by incorporating intimacy coordination and direction into their work.

In flm or theater productions, intimacy directors (for the stage) and intimacy coordinators (for the screen) act as liaisons between the performer and the director to create intimate scenes that require special attention to various emotional, mental and physical sensitivities. This could be a simulated sex scene or a scene depicting domestic assault.

During their frst year at college, Monteleone worked as a fght director on the set of Spring Awakening, a musical put on by the Jewish Theater Ensemble. Here, they got to see intimacy work in practice for the frst time. Kira Nutter (Comm

’21) helped bring challenging, heavy scenes depicting rape and sexual assault to the stage without turning to literal reenactments of this violence.

“A big part of consent practices and boundary practices is this idea that there’s always a diferent way to tell the story,” Nutter says. “What is written on the page doesn’t tell us what we can and can’t do as artists when telling that story. We have ownership of that story and we can tell it in a way that supports our artists in that room.”

Being in a safe environment allows performers to fully apply their creative agency to express the emotions of the scene, Monteleone says. This means intimacy work also includes providing methods for the actors to distance themselves from those ofen intense emotions.

Communication third-year Angelena Browne’s frst-ever flm role included

a scene depicting fashbacks of sexual assault. Working with a professional intimacy coordinator allowed Browne to lean into the emotional vulnerability of her performance without the pressure of confronting the emotional intensity of the scene all on her own.

“Acting is a very vulnerable thing, so I think it’s hard sometimes for both actors to feel open enough to actually talk about what’s going on and fgure it out for themselves,” she says. “That’s where the coordinator comes in.”

To build this safe space, Monteleone frst meets with the production team to discuss the nature of the intimate scene — is it violent? Romantic? Abusive? From there, they sometimes meet with the whole cast and crew to conduct a workshop about consent and safety. Then comes the choreography, where they use tools such as body mapping, where the performer indicates where and how they would or would not like to be touched that day.

Beyond choreographing and leading workshops, Monteleone advocates for people of color, queer individuals and women, who have historically experienced unbalanced power dynamics in the industry.

Last year, Monteleone worked as the intimacy director on the set of Pillowtalk, a play featuring vignettes of stories taking place in a bedroom. The cast and crew of the play had a complex question on their hands: With an allwoman cast and a storyline involving domestic and sexual violence, could they be perpetuating harmful narratives about queer relationships?

Monteleone engaged in active discussions with the cast and crew about how their work might reverse these narratives and make the act of telling these characters’ stories gratifying for the performers. This meant they had to closely consider the gender dynamics at hand.

“Abuse exists everywhere and domestic violence can happen between anyone, but also, we have to hold space for the statistical reality of how many cis[gender] straight men are the ones perpetuating assault,” Monteleone says. Ultimately, the production decided to have one of the actors portray the abusive character as a man.

Producing a

SAFE SPACE

Discussscenes withproduction

“It was a lot of checking in — are we still feeling safe with this? Is this feeling sustainable, as opposed to just perpetuating trauma over and over again?” Monteleone says.

These questions are especially important to reckon with given recent movements for equity in the industry, such as the #MeToo movement and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union strikes.

Sarah Scanlon, a Chicago-based actress and intimacy coordinator/director, was one of the frst to be certifed in the city. She has also been a member of an organization called Not In Our House, which drafed a document outlining the protocols and procedures for maintaining safety in the theater world known as the Chicago Theatre Standards. It was created in light of cases of sexual exploitation in the Chicago theater scene.

Workshop with cast&crew

Scanlon notes that awareness of intimacy directing grew alongside the #MeToo movement. Now, when she enters a project, she feels she can hit the ground running. In conjunction with the recent writers’ strike, Scanlon recognizes a movement of creatives in the entertainment industry refusing to let their work, well-being and craf be devalued.

“I think the intimacy direction movement has really helped with that: in creating spaces that are advocacyfocused and making sure that the art we’re creating is being done in a safe and respectful way,” Scanlon says.

Bodymapping & choreography

The feld is still fnding its place in the entertainment industry, which Nutter fnds exciting and full of potential, especially in the education and certifcation of new intimacy professionals. Organizations like Intimacy Directors and Coordinators push for a certifcation-centered approach, while organizations like Theatrical Intimacy Education push for a model where individuals build their expertise over time through several classes. Nutter is interested in the bridge between these two approaches where actors know they are working with a certifed professional who is also continuously learning.

“There’s a lot of diferent things blending together into what the intimacy industry looks like right now in a way that I don’t think anyone has a set answer for, and that’s exciting,” Nutter says.

As an undergraduate student at Northwestern, Nutter had the opportunity to gain experience by shadowing professionals who had been hired to do intimacy work for productions at the Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts. Over time, Nutter was able to build their practice working with student projects on campus. Looking back, they recognize the campus’s rich and diverse theater and flm scene as an unique opportunity for encouraging the growth of the feld of intimacy work.

“Are we still feeling safe with this? Is this feeling

sustainable, perpetuating trauma

as opposed to just over and over again?”

Julie Monteleone Communication third-year

“A unique facet of Northwestern is that we have such a strong student theater and flm community,” Nutter says. “It’s having so many opportunities to work in so many diferent rooms, on so many diferent stories and with artists who have very diferent ways of approaching storytelling as well.”

And yet at one point, Nutter found themself spread thin, working on 13 projects in one quarter. Nutter hopes for better resources for student intimacy workers. These resources might look like department-sponsored guidance or more mentorship opportunities for students to connect with professional intimacy coordinators and directors.

“That’s the solution a lot of us are fghting for, to normalize [intimacy work] as a standard, especially in a hub like Northwestern and other creative arts communities, where we’re telling so many stories constantly,” Nutter says. “Being able to have that resource is going to create that full level of support that we’re striving for across the industry as a whole.”

As student performers look to their future careers, some such as Browne acknowledge that intimacy work is just the beginning of changes that need to be made in the industry. Still, her experience with intimacy coordinators and directors during her time at Northwestern has been a valuable tool to advocate for herself as an artist.

“Northwestern is a very progressive space for an actor. They are focusing on the good of theater and creating a safe space for performers,” Browne says. “The outside world hasn’t necessarily caught up to that or even put down the groundwork to try and fgure that out. I think having this experience will help [me] advocate for myself more out there. I know what acting in a safe space feels like.”

KITCHEN

One student group is repurposing leftovers to fght food waste and tackle food insecurity.

WRITTEN BY NOAH COYLE // DESIGNED BY ALLISON KIM

In the kitchen of 1835 Hinman’s bygone dining hall, SESP fourth-year Emily Lester dons a pair of latex gloves and a hair net. She portions a scoop of rice into a plastic container before passing it to the student next to her. For the next hour, Lester and the other volunteers will pack lunches for those in need.

Lester is one of the co-presidents of Campus Kitchen, a student organization that repackages lefover food from campus dining halls and events and distributes it to Evanstonians in need. The pandemic halted operations for the club, but Lester and her co-president, Weinberg fourth-year Sean Pascoe, rebuilt the organization in 2021. Now, Campus Kitchen recovers thousands of pounds of food a year and hopes to expand their impact in the future.

Campus Kitchen’s goals are twofold. First, they aim to reduce food waste by recovering lefover food from campus. They also help fght food insecurity by repacking that food into individual meals for members of the Evanston community.

Campus Kitchen recovered nearly 700 pounds of food and donated more than 1,100 meals this past fall. One of Campus Kitchen’s community partners is the residency at the McGaw YMCA on Grove Street. Campus Kitchen provides around 40 to 60 meals each Wednesday

to help serve approximately 150 lowincome residents living in the YMCA’s men’s residence.

“Evanston is super de facto segregated, which is not super evident necessarily, especially if you’re a Northwestern student existing in the Northwestern space,” Pascoe says.

Pascoe says poverty is an overlooked issue in Evanston. While he acknowledges the importance of engaging with underserved communities in Chicago, Pascoe emphasizes a need to refect on local issues as well.

“Having these local networks is really important — for one, being more sustainable about how we use food, but also getting involved with the issues of equity around us,” he says.

Recover, prep, deliver

Campus Kitchen applies a handson approach to volunteer work, which is what initially attracted Lester and Pascoe.

“The nice thing about this is it’s a break from your normal life. It’s very tactile. You’re actually touching the food, and you know you’re making a diference,” Lester says.

To collect the thousands of pounds of food they recover over the school year, Lester and Pascoe must remain

dedicated to contacting the University’s chefs for donations and coordinating with volunteers to ensure the food is safely stored, packed and delivered.

“Me and Sean always like to joke that it’s like our full-time job,” Lester says.

The process of gathering and distributing food from dining halls and campus events is divided into four shifs: recovery, resourcing, meal prep

and delivery. It begins on Tuesday and Friday mornings, when Campus Kitchen contacts food providers around campus to see if they have untouched lefovers available. If so, volunteers for the recovery shif gather food from providers and bring it to Hinman.

The resourcing team then ensures that the recovered food is at a safe temperature before freezing it. Next, during meal prep shifs, which take place on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, volunteers thaw inventoried food and arrange it into individual, well-balanced meals. Finally, volunteers drive to deliver the meals to community partners, such as the YMCA and the Rotary Club of Evanston, or directly to individuals.

A course of change

Even with a sufcient number of volunteers, Campus Kitchen’s community impact hinges on the quantity of food they can collect from campus partners. This year, the lefovers aren’t amounting to much.

“We’ll have all these volunteers who are ready to make meals and then we have one pan of tofu and one pan of rice,” says Lauren Kelley, Weinberg third-year and Campus Kitchen internal vice president. “There’s not much we can do with this.”

The lack of available lefovers makes delivering the promised number of meals to community partners each week a challenge, but Lester does see the positive side: Campus dining is not producing as much waste as in previous years.

Campus Kitchen can only accept entirely untouched food. As soon as a tray is put out for students, that food cannot be recovered. According to the Dine On Campus website, all food scraps, lefovers from the service line or food that was taken but uneaten by students is composted.

Because Campus Kitchen is entirely student-run, the organization relies on the resources available to students to conduct its operations. This presents an additional challenge: limited access to cars. Northwestern took away the club’s access to campus vehicles; now, delivery shif volunteers use their personal vehicles or Zipcars to distribute food to community partners and individuals.

Many of the issues Campus Kitchen has faced in recent years are consistent with the organization’s history of continuous transition.

The creation of organizations like Campus Kitchen was facilitated by the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996. By minimizing liabilities related to making food donations, the act empowered altruists nationwide to combat both food waste and food insecurity by giving food that would have otherwise been disposed of to those in need.

Five years later, associates of the food-recycling D.C. Central Kitchen founded the Campus Kitchen Project, and Northwestern’s chapter was established in 2002 as one of the frst. This arrangement lasted 16 years. In 2019, the Campus Kitchens Project suspended its national operation to focus on the Washington area.

Newly solo, Northwestern’s Campus Kitchen entered a transitory period in which it became a student-run organization and moved its headquarters from one campus locale to another. Before the national nonproft folded, Northwestern’s Campus Kitchen was equipped with a full-time staf member. Now, Lester says she and Pascoe have assumed the responsibilities of this fulltime employee.

“Despite being an established org on campus, when Sean and I came in as freshmen and started running the org, we were essentially rebuilding the org from not scratch, but essentially from scratch,” Lester says.

To help remedy the pressures that the disbanding of the national nonproft brought, Northwestern’s Campus Kitchen partnered with the Food Recovery Network (FRN), a nonproft that has similar goals to Campus Kitchen. Since Northwestern’s Campus Kitchen was already established before becoming a chapter of the FRN, it has more freedom to continue operations as usual. Lester and Pascoe say this partnership adds legitimacy to their organization and ofers support when necessary.

Kelley will take over for Lester and Pascoe as the next president of Campus Kitchen. According to her, specifc expansion plans include procuring a vehicle and sourcing food from local restaurants, nursing homes and Evanston Township High School. They are also hoping to further streamline operations through their partnership with Northwestern Develop + Innovate for Social Change (DISC) to create an app to better organize shif scheduling and food-collection data.

Though there have been several changes to the organization since they frst assumed their presidential posts, Lester and Pascoe believe Campus Kitchen’s future is bright.

“Sean and I have been here for so long,” Lester says. “I feel like we’ve had a very unique opportunity to set up a future, leave a legacy in a way, setting up a very sustainable thing.”

A major

S MAJOR CAREER

witch

How some students apply their degrees in unexpected ways.

WRITTEN BY SARAH SEROTA // DESIGNED BY LAURA HORNE

Northwestern ofers over 85 undergraduate majors. But for some students, the range of disciplines fails to capture their future ambitions. Rather than remaining within the confnes of their concentration, some Northwestern students and alumni pursue entirely diferent professions, defying the norms for their area of study.

John McDermott

A priestly pilot

John McDermott’s (Weinberg ’23) studies at Northwestern seemed grounded. As a Religious Studies major, he focused his learning on religious texts and movements.

Yet McDermott’s career goes far above literary analysis. Rather than sifing through religious documents, McDermott can be found fying thousands of feet in the air as a pilot. Currently, McDermott is a certifed fight instructor and is interviewing for fight teaching jobs to gain experience until he meets the minimum requirements to fy for commercial airlines. Ever since he discovered his passion for aviation in early high school, McDermott never considered an alternative to piloting. His love for fying did not start in the air; it began with a book.

A Higher Call by Adam Makos explores the story of a German fghter pilot during World War II who lost the opportunity to win the German equivalent of a Medal of

Honor because he escorted an American bomber back to the U.K. The book sent McDermott down a “rabbit hole of aviation” that he has yet to escape. He became infatuated with everything about pilots: how they trained, the culture among them and the diferences between pilots from varying countries.

The Northwestern major catalog contains no feld of study focused on aviation, so McDermott’s choice of major instead stemmed from his love of learning about history and culture. McDermott, who went to a Catholic high school but is not Catholic himself, dedicated his studies to exploring the multitude of religions the world has to ofer.

Taking the traditional college path is not a requirement to become a commercial pilot, but uncertainties about job stability in aviation, as well as family encouragement, motivated McDermott to go to college anyway. McDermott says temporary leaves can be fairly common among pilots, so having a background in another feld is reassuring.

Unlike some aspiring pilots, McDermott had no relationships with anyone in the feld, as neither his friends nor family members few.

“Connections are ofen highly important, at least in aviation,” McDermott says. “[They] can ofen be critical to making bigger steps in careers sooner.”

The key to making his dream a reality

To: A new career path

was perseverance. Northwestern does not ofer fight training, so McDermott trained on his own time. He also founded Northwestern’s Aviation Club, which brings together students interested in aviation and creates a space to learn professional skills required within the feld.

Refecting back on his undergraduate career, McDermott says it was important to study a subject he was passionate about so he could leave time and energy to pursue other goals.

“It is a matter of choosing what you study wisely,” McDermott says. “Figure out the best way to make both happen and go get it.”

Bradley Altman

Stocks and stoichiometry

Tucked away in a high school chemistry classroom, experiments exploded colorfully before Bradley Altman’s eyes. The vibrancy of his chemistry class hooked Altman, now a Weinberg fourth-year, on the study of molecules and matter. During the summer afer his junior year of high school, he opted to enroll in an organic chemistry class at his local community college. He majored in Chemistry for the year he attended Brandeis University, and

chose it once again afer transferring to Northwestern for his sophomore year.

But as Altman’s graduation approaches, he is not searching for a job in a laboratory or planning to pursue higher education in science. Instead, Altman plans to take a starkly diferent path — one of Patagonia vests and Excel spreadsheets — in fnance.

Altman loves chemistry’s interdisciplinary qualities; it ofers a mix of theory and hands-on aspects, allowing Altman to create something of his own using mathematical and analytical skills.

“To me, chemistry is a culmination of being able to attack something on the cutting edge that is very theoretical and translating it into groundbreaking physical applications that can be used in a smattering of felds,” Altman says.

Initially, Altman anticipated staying in the feld. He strongly considered pursuing an M.D.-Ph.D. post-graduation, which would involve going to medical school while also seeking a Ph.D. in chemistry.

During his junior year, however, Altman reached the apex of the Northwestern chemistry sequences: the physical chemistry classes. The course load demanded extensive time and labor, meeting fve times a week. On top of the daily lectures, Altman had to enroll in an advanced lab sequence, which took up 13 hours weekly. With chemistry work piling on, Altman began to consider what his work-life balance might be like as a post-grad, where he would live and

“It is a matter of choosing what you study wisely. Figure out the best way to make both happen and

John McDermott Weinberg ’23

whether he wanted to pursue additional years of education.

A growing passion for fnance blossomed during Altman’s pause from chemistry. Afer transferring to Northwestern, Altman joined Delta Sigma Pi (DSP), a business fraternity on campus. DSP gave him the opportunity to explore a future in business — whether that be fnance, consulting or entrepreneurship.

Altman soon realized he could apply his theoretical and problem-solving skills from chemistry to a job in fnance. And while Altman’s future in private equity does not involve thermodynamics or quantum mechanics, he doesn’t regret the time he spent studying chemistry.

“[College] ofers opportunity,” Altman says. “There should be no fear associated with [it]. Just because I’ve spent so much time and this is what I’m primarily focusing on right now … [it] doesn’t mean that you can’t branch out and explore diferent areas.”

Instead of a standard neuroscience path, Lee opted to travel. She spent most of her junior year abroad in Paris, which she says greatly altered her career path. While there, she enrolled in Northwestern’s Institute for Field Education (IFE) program, where she spent most of her time abroad interning for a company instead of taking classes. While studying abroad, Lee interned at a medical equipment manufacturing company as part of her IFE requirements. Her experience abroad cemented a passion for working on a global scale, and when the company asked if she wanted to continue interning there as their medical marketing intern, Lee jumped at the opportunity. When she returned to Northwestern for Spring Quarter, Lee knew that she wanted her career to go global.

Lee’s career journey would take her far

outside of the realm of a doctor’s ofce or lab. Currently, she works as a change management consultant for a global digital consultancy. While she is typically based in Chicago, she is currently on a temporary secondment in Auckland, New Zealand. She still fnds herself applying the scientifc method to solve other companies’ issues.

“We have to be able to present the content we create for our clients in the way that suits their communication, behavior, training [and] learning mindsets as a company,” Lee says. “A lot of the types of classes that I did around cognitions or learning-based psychology were really helpful in what I do today.”

Lee found value in staying true to her passions, regardless of what other peers or advisors may say or think.

“My biggest advice to all the students out there would be just to try and tune out some of the noise from the pressure,” Lee says. “Just be yourself and be confdent in [your] decisions and try not to be too bogged down by the anxiety of existing in society today.”

Scrolling through Northwestern’s website as a frst-year, Annie Lee (Weinberg ’19) scoured the diferent majors Northwestern had to ofer. Lee felt subject-agnostic, though generally aware of what she was interested in. When she entered college in the fall, she had planned to double major in Psychology and Economics. But neither fulflled her educational passions.

Lee found her love for learning in an interdisciplinary mix of French and Business Institutions, alongside Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience. But as she got further into her studies, Lee realized her future aspirations difered greatly from those of her peers. She never pictured a future in a lab or as a doctor.

“I distinctly remember a conversation with my neuroscience department advisor,” Lee says. “She asked me what are the odds I go to medical school and choose that path for myself. And I said, ‘1%.’ It would need to be a life-changing experience to sway me.”

And swayed she was not.

1. Go to Northwestern

A match made in

Fewer and fewer Northwestern couples are saying “I do.”

WRITTEN

BY SARAH LONSER // DESIGNED BY LAURA HORNE

The best majors, extracurriculars and student-to-teacher ratios are all things a counselor might bring up when you’re considering colleges. One thing they don’t mention? The dating scene.

The prospect of fnding a “college sweetheart” has grown increasingly unlikely over the years. The Northwestern Alumni Association (NAA) says the marriage rate among Northwestern University graduates peaked in 1979 at 2.5%. Though the NAA is not able to give an exact current percentage, they can confrm it has declined. There are certainly stories of more recent successful Northwestern meet-cutes, but according to current students and national marriage rates, marriage appears to be less of a priority for college students.

Love by the

lakefront Heavenst n?

Don’t fret if you’re a Wildcat looking for “the one.” Sidney Stewart (SESP ’10) did not spend his time at Northwestern actively looking for a relationship. To him, college seemed more like a place to meet people casually and see what happens.

Though Stewart says he didn’t feel any pressure to begin a relationship in

college, he did think to himself, “If I do date somebody, then this could be the one.” When he met his now-wife Celeste Stewart (Comm ’12), his gut instinct was correct. Both grew up in Michigan but did not meet until a mutual friend introduced them, though Celeste Stewart knew of him

because she was friends with his sister.

The two fnally connected at a party hosted at Sidney Stewart’s fraternity house. Afer meeting, they eventually began dating and married in 2014.

Laura and Abraham Schulte (both

Weinberg ’15) have been together since 2018. The pair frst met at a Willard resident meet-up during the freshman orientation Six Flags trip. They stayed close friends while both being in and out of relationships with other people. They didn’t begin their romantic relationship until 2018 when Laura Schulte was working at Northwestern over the summer and Abraham Schulte came from California to visit her. On Clark Street Beach, Laura Schulte asked him if he would consider a relationship. The rest is history.

“Back when we were there, 2011 to 2015, I think overall the dating culture was sort of a hookup culture,” Abraham Schulte says.

The Schultes agree that college seems to be the place where the possibility of meeting someone similar to you is highest, especially compared to life afer college. Laura Schulte explains that it’s almost like people have been “pre-screened.”

Abraham Schulte says being around so many people within your age range and with similar experiences makes it easier to fnd things in common with people and form

relationships. He says while he was at Northwestern, he thought college was probably where he was going to meet his life partner, if he was going to have one.

However, not all current Northwestern students think the same way. Weinberg second-year Stephen Levitt had diferent ideas about dating and relationships when he entered Northwestern.

“I got the idea of college as everyone is wild and young,” Levitt says. “I defnitely felt the pressure to be a part of hookup culture.”

That was before he met SESP secondyear Anya Mateu-Asbury at a party in Chicago. On a whim, he decided to ask her to a formal his fraternity was hosting. Neither was actively looking for a relationship when they met, but that changed once they got to know each other.

Afer spending more time together, the two decided to pursue their relationship more seriously. Both Levitt and MateuAsbury agree that the possibility of meeting a life partner in college does exist, but that doesn’t mean it is the only or most common option.

First comes love, then comes — marriage?

Northwestern’s Relationships and Motivation Lab (RAMLAB), led by professor Eli Finkel, dives deep into the science of relationships. Ph.D. candidates Emma McGorray and Erin Hughes are researchers in the RAMLAB; McGorray’s research focuses on LGBTQ+ relationships, while Hughes studies identity within relationships and the efects of incarceration on relationships.

“The average age that people are getting married has continuously gotten older and older … which is probably showing that it’s become less common over time to meet someone in college and get married to them, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing,” Hughes says.

Alexandra Solomon, clinical psychologist and “Marriage 101” professor, thinks the rising marriage entry age refects a change in how college students think of relationships, as marriage is becoming the last step in adulthood rather than the frst.

“We as a culture have decoupled relationships and sex and are making space for other types of commitment,” Solomon says.

“Hooking up” was a term coined by Generation X, as they were the frst generation to openly experiment with the idea of casual sexual encounters, Solomon says. However, the concept of a “situationship” may be more recent.

“The idea of a stable but uncommitted relationship is a bit of a newer development — a reflection of our growing collective imagination of what relationships can look like,” Solomon says.

Even though, according to Sidney Stewart, people were dating casually when they were in college, Celeste Stewart thinks these relationships are not the same as the situationships we see today.

“People either were dating or they weren’t dating,” Celeste Stewart says. “I know nowadays a lot of people are ‘not really seeing each other.’”

“The idea of a stable but uncommitted relationship is a bit of a newer development — a refection of our growing collective imagination of what relationships can look like.”

Alexandra Solomon

Clinical psychologist/ Northwestern professor

Dating in the digital age Embracing the single era

For students interested in dating, fnding opportunities has its own set of difculties. Communication second-year Autumn Grieb says one issue that plagues current students is how fast information spreads around campus, whether on social media or by word-of-mouth. Though Northwestern is a medium-sized school, the student body can feel small when it seems like everyone knows everyone — and their personal business.

“We’re a little too interconnected. It shouldn’t be that when I start talking to someone new, everyone knows it,” Grieb says.

Grieb says dating is made difcult since noncommittal, indecisive situationships are common among college-age students. But there may be a more Northwesternspecifc reason why Wildcats are drawn to situationships.

“It’s a campus full of ambitious, hardworking, ofentimes burned-out young people, and romantic relationships require emotional bandwidth,” Solomon says. “They require you to center somebody other than yourself and that’s a really hard ask for students who are pretty stretched.”

At an academically rigorous institution like Northwestern, relationships may sometimes take a backseat to the various classwork, never-ending midterms, internship applications and extracurriculars. But that doesn’t mean people lose their innate, biological need for closeness, bonding and — let’s be honest — sex. A situationship can allow people to fulfll these needs, but with fewer expectations about emotional commitment and capacity, Solomon says.

Another change in the collective view of relationships is a shif in the way we view singlehood. According to McGorray, there has been an increase in research literature about singlehood and the reasons why people may be single. McGorray says one reason may be related to issues with attachment. Someone who fears they are unworthy of love may have an anxious attachment style, while someone who lacks trust in their relationship may be avoidantly attached. But there may be an even simpler reason. Being single may just be “a fulflling personal choice,” McGorray says.

If you are feeling satisfed with your other close relationships with friends, family, coworkers or whoever else may be in your life, you may not feel compelled to pursue a relationship. Everyone fundamentally needs close bonds, but they may not come in the form of a romantic relationship, depending on the person. And if you’re worried you’re not fnding “the one” — or anyone for that matter — in college, don’t despair.

“There’s so much waiting for you afer college,” Hughes says.

On the

Rhode

WRITTEN BY CAROLINE NEAL

DESIGNED BY SAMMI LI

PHOTOS

BY

ELISA HUANG

Meet Nia Robles, Northwestern’s newest Rhodes Scholar.

Weinberg fourth-year Nia Robles spent much of her childhood painting, writing and excelling in humanities classes. But when she learned why ice foats in water during her frst high school physics class, Robles was fascinated. She found herself drawn to gaining a deeper understanding of how the world works. That day, Robles found a passion for physics that has endured through her undergraduate career. In November, Robles was named a 2024 Global Rhodes Scholar, making her the frst Argentinian to receive the scholarship and the 20th scholar from Northwestern since the Rhodes Scholarship was introduced in 1902.

“I didn’t know that [the] Rhodes Scholarship was a thing until last summer, which is crazy because I know many people know [about] this their entire undergraduate career,” Robles says.

Given to 100 scholars annually, the Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest international postgraduate award, allowing selected candidates from around the world to conduct their graduate studies at the University of Oxford. The scholarship is awarded by constituencies, or “a country, a group of countries, and/or territories, regions or states, grouped together for the purposes of administering scholarships,” according to Oxford’s website. Out of 100 scholars, 32 are from the United States, 11 are from Canada and 10 are from countries in Southern Africa. The remaining scholars hail from smaller constituencies around the globe.

Only two Global Rhodes Scholarships are awarded to candidates living outside these constituencies — and Robles, being from Argentina, is one of them.

Her experience at Northwestern — from taking quantum mechanics and particle physics classes to working as an undergraduate research assistant — allowed her to discover her main area of interest: researching the unknowns of the world through theoretical physics.

“I was fascinated by how you can use math to understand the world and explain the phenomena that happen around the world,” she says.

Robles got her start in an experimental physics lab at Northwestern but knew that path wasn’t for her. Robles struggled with the subject, so one of her professors suggested she talk to a Ph.D. student in her current research group who encouraged her to take graduate level classes and work for a theory group. Though theoretical physics groups are harder to fnd at universities than experimental groups, Robles says this is more of what she imagines herself doing as a physicist.

Now, Robles is part of professor John Joseph Carrasco’s Amplitudes and Insights Group, which works in scattering amplitudes, essentially investigating how tiny particles interact with each other. Robles says Carrasco’s group is interested in using supersymmetric theories to understand the general behavior of quantum feld theory and ultimately the nature of the universe.

Carrasco, who wrote one of the letters of recommendation for Robles’s Rhodes application, says Robles frst approached him about joining his research last academic year. Afer seeing her dedication, Carrasco allowed Robles to become the frst undergraduate student in his research group.

“There’s a combination of technical facility and genuine interest that drives her to keep learning,” Carrasco says.

Robles’s journey to becoming a Global Rhodes Scholar started last April when she first visited Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe, the director of Northwestern’s Ofce of Fellowships.

Following a rigorous application process, Robles went through two rounds of interviews. For the last interview, the Global Rhodes Scholar fnalists few to Oxford, stayed in the Rhodes House and took part in dinners with the other candidates, judges and committee members.

“It was kind of fascinating,” Robles says. “Part of me was like, ‘Even if I don’t get this scholarship, I still got a full expense paid trip to Oxford.’”

Each candidate’s fnal interview was 20 minutes. The scholarship winners were announced at dinner that evening.

“It was so shocking,” Robles says. “That weekend felt so surreal for me. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’”

Lewis Pardoe says it’s important for candidates to be “genuinely engaged, interested and committed” to their future graduate study at Oxford — a trait Lewis Pardoe says she saw in Robles.

“Nia [Robles] was clear from the outset that she had identifed precisely why she was interested in Oxford, precisely

the facets of the academic structure and the academic subjects that she wished to pursue there,” Lewis Pardoe says.

Robles’s other interests — social justice and expanding the presence of women in STEM — were “lovely supplements to that core, academic application,” Lewis Pardoe says.

Indeed, Robles wants to use her work as a physicist to make the feld more inclusive, especially for women of color.

Robles says when she started at Northwestern, she didn’t see anyone who looked like her or had the same experiences. Now, she’s organizing a group for Latinx students in physics afer noticing that many “don’t have families in academia” and are international students.

Robles says she believes a space like this would’ve helped her during her freshman year, especially since she was the only Latina in her frst advanced physics class.

“I was so lost, and I think this place can help others fnd a place and fnd people to talk to. Sometimes those people are not just going to be other undergrads, but also Ph.D. students or postdocs or faculty,” she says. “It’s very inspiring to see people who come from a similar background as you that made it to a tenure faculty position.”

Despite her academic accomplishments, Robles says she’s faced backlash from some

people in Argentina who take issue with her background.

“I’m very glad that most of my country is happy that I won the scholarship and I was the frst Argentinian to win it,” she says. “But there [are] still some of these people who tell me, ‘You’re not Argentinian because you are not white and because your parents are Peruvian and because Argentinians come from European parents only.’”

For her, this pushback serves as motivation.

“It shows you there’s still so much deconstruction people need to do about who they see as a physicist or who they see as valuable,” she says.

Robles hopes to inspire people to follow their goals despite negative comments. People with similar backgrounds as her have told her that her story has inspired them to pursue their interests, whether in science or another feld.

Academia itself was a new environment Robles had to navigate when starting at Northwestern.

In high school, Robles attended a university talk where a researcher told her she wouldn’t “get into any of these fancy places in the U.S. because people like you don’t get into those places.” Robles says in Argentina, many people who go into academia and science have parents, relatives or know people in these advanced felds.

“I wasn’t informed at all how academia worked, and my frst [introduction] to academia being someone telling me, ‘You’re never going to make it’ was defnitely impactful,” she says.

“It’s very inspiring who come from similar to see people background as you that made it to a tenure faculty position.”

Nia Robles Weinberg fourth-year

Robles says she also benefted from her early humanities classes. During her freshman year, she was a part of Northwestern’s Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities. With a professor from one of her Kaplan classes, she researched Simon Pokagon, an advocate for Indigenous people and member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. Though she eventually decided to major in Physics and Math, Robles appreciated the opportunity to explore another feld of study and say, “Now I know I want to be a physicist, and I’m not going to have any regrets.”

Alongside her STEM pursuits, she’s kept up with her creative outlets. In addition to writing poetry, Robles previously worked as a stylist for both STITCH and BlackBoard Magazine, as well as a photographer for the latter.

In her free time, Robles enjoys going on walks around campus with a friend and running to Taylor Swif’s “The Eras Tour” setlist at the gym. When weather permits, Robles also likes to paint landscapes of diferent parts of campus and Evanston. She also recently got back into writing, hoping to one day write poetry from the perspective of a physicist.

Robles believes it is necessary to “feed on creativity” because it is viable in every feld, especially in problem solving.

But her creative outlets also serve as a way to step away from physics.

“When I do too much physics and … I stop writing, painting [and] doing the things I enjoy, it actually starts afecting my mental health, and I noticed that it afects how I do physics. I feel more burnt out, I have less energy, I struggle a little bit more thinking,” Robles says, adding that she doesn’t believe she could give up these creative outlets, “even if I become a full-tenured faculty at some point, fngers crossed.”

Robles says she believes more STEM majors should also engage in creative outlets or humanities.

“It can teach us a lot about not only how to communicate to others what we’re doing … but also the consequences of our work [and] how they impact society,” Robles says.

Robles shows off some of her artwork.

Running on

EMPTY

The highs and lows of student-athlete life at Northwestern.

WRITTEN

BY

ANDREW KATZ & STEPH MARKOWITZ

DESIGNED BY JESSICA CHEN

PHOTOS BY ALESSANDRA ESQUIVEL & ELISA HUANG

Frankie Tal-Shahar

Fiona Lenth Jamie Berg

Morning practice from 6:45 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Classes until 2 p.m. Afernoon practice from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Go home to eat. Study as much as you can. Sleep.

That is how one Northwestern swimming and diving athlete described her schedule, and it is not too diferent for athletes on any one of Northwestern’s other 18 Division I teams.

The life of a college athlete may seem glamorous: playing the sport you love at a high level, exclusive dining halls and facilities, personal scooters and recognition from your peers. But for some student-athletes, the combined stress of classes and rigorous training schedules can be overwhelming.

While Weinberg third-year and cross country runner Fiona Lenth hoped there would be more glitz and glory, she knew how hard life as a Northwestern athlete would be.

“The choice to come here is the choice to work really hard for four years of your life,” Lenth says.

The Northwestern cross country team practices 17 hours a week with only one day of, but Lenth says she is still at the

facility training on her “rest” day. Lenth also runs or cycles three days a week before class to “shake the legs down and recover.”

Lenth is pursuing a double major in Economics and Environmental Policy & Culture. Due to her practice schedule, her classes must all end before 2 p.m.

Alana Goodchild, a Communication second-year on the women’s basketball team, says written schedules do not paint the full picture of the time commitment required for athletics. The team’s schedule might read, “Practice from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.,” but that doesn’t account for rehabilitation for an hour before and afer practice, plus travel time to and from facilities.

Goodchild knew that between the hours dedicated to her sport and a Northwestern education, she was signing up for a considerable workload. But for her, degree value was a priority from the beginning.

“Sadly, as a female in sports, you do need a degree, because professional female athletes tend to be retired by their 30s,” Goodchild says. College athletes know what they’re signing up for, but that doesn’t make it any easier when they have to miss out on many aspects of the traditional college experience.

Shooting for the STARS

Jamie Berg, a Weinberg fourth-year on the wrestling team, remembers his freshman year fondly. The COVID-19 pandemic meant the team was essentially alone on campus, and online classes lef Berg free to throw himself into the sport — and for six months, it was all he did.

“I loved it,” he says. “It was honestly what I dreamed of. It felt like being a professional athlete.”

His teammate, SESP fourth-year Frankie Tal-Shahar, also came out of the gate swinging: Afer a strong frst few months on the team, he quickly landed a spot in the starting lineup.

In this early “honeymoon stage,” as Tal-Shahar calls it, athletes can relish in the newfound community and prestige of their team.

Berg says it took him until his junior year to truly realize the sacrifces he

had signed up for. Following a string of injuries, he was temporarily benched. Without his sport, Berg found himself unexpectedly free to lean more into his social life and academic interests.

“At that point, I started to realize a little bit what I was missing out on, and it informed my sense of where I want to be later in life,” Berg says.

Suddenly, his life was more than just the sport.

Anna Delgado, a Weinberg frst-year on the cross country team, says her frst quarter of college cross country was challenging, especially with the time spent traveling, but that it was a benefcial learning experience.

“It really teaches you how to be organized,” Delgado says. “In high school, I would just go with the fow and not really have a super organized system, but

“Of course, it’s fun playing basketball,” she says. “I love my teammates, and I love the team. But the travel schedule, managing classes … we’ve missed out on every single social activity because of traveling for games.”

Alana Goodchild

it’s definitely made me micromanage my calendar.”

Delgado expected time management as a student-athlete to be challenging but was excited to be on a cross country team full of girls. In high school, Delgado ofen had to run alone or with the boys’ team, and she was looking forward to that sense of community.

Northwestern coaches emphasize having a holistic experience of being a student and an athlete during the recruitment process, Delgado says. She says her coaches make sure she’s not only having good workouts but also getting enough sleep and prioritizing her mental health.

Courtney Albinson, director of sport psychology services at Northwestern, calls attention to the importance of sleep for athletes. Albinson, who has worked with Northwestern athletes for 20 years, says sleep schedules are the main aspect of the student-athlete experience she wishes she could change.

“If you’re away for competition and you have a game that is at eight o’clock at night, they’re usually trying to get back

to school as soon as possible afer that, and then they’re getting up and going to class like everybody else as a student, and I think that can be hard on them,” Albinson says.

Despite only being a freshman, Delgado already has a grasp on the Northwestern student culture. She says a lot of Northwestern students have Type-A personalities and put a lot of pressure on themselves. She has learned a lot from the upperclassmen on her team about time management and what works best for them as student-athletes.

“It’s fne if you don’t have it all together. You’re learning and [you should] give yourself that room to grow in that space,” Delgado says.

Wrestling with decisions

Part of life as a college athlete is adjusting to a new environment. Most people going into a Division I program were at the top of their game at their respective high schools. Lenth says she went from being one of the fastest runners in her district to fghting to be on Northwestern’s travel squad.

“You go from being able to have success and have it be praised — you’re the best where you are — to a situation where you are kind of average in the pack,” Lenth says.

That pressure to excel as an athlete pervades every aspect of a studentathlete’s life.

“I think sometimes there’s a perception that there’s a true ofseason,” Albinson says. “But they’re always training, and they’re always doing things in the service of their training.”

Wrestling, in particular, needs to be considered in every aspect of the athletes’ lives; Eating and sleeping are intrinsically tied to their performance and strength.

“In wrestling, the culture is such that if you’re not doing everything you possibly can to get better, you’re failing,” Berg says.

“As you go through each day, you’re competing with somebody,” he continues. “If you make the wrong decisions, there’s someone at Ohio State or wherever who

you’re going to wrestle and who is making the right decisions, getting better while you’re failing to get better.”

Tal-Shahar says he didn’t really conceptualize the efort and intensity it takes to be a student-athlete until he arrived at Northwestern. Wrestling is hard on the body, and both he and Berg have dealt with repeated injuries and chronic pain.

“In early high school, I thought I might train for the Olympics post-grad,” he says. “When I got to college, I realized what that would really mean.”

Lenth says success in her sport is built largely on mental strength. In training, recovery and other aspects of life — Lenth says it all comes down to, “Are you thriving?”

Her teammate Delgado has already faced the struggle of balancing athletics and academics. For three meets in the fall, the cross country team lef on a Wednesday, meaning Delgado would miss three days of class at a time — nine days total. She had to coordinate with her professors and peers to fnd the work she needed to do and get it done on time.

While the team was traveling in the fall, Delgado had to take a midterm proctored by her assistant coach. She says taking an exam in a hotel room or on a

Frankie Tal-Shahar

bus, as many athletes have to do, can be difcult and awkward.

With such busy schedules, athletes ofen have to sacrifce either athletics or academics to make time for the other.

Lola Mull, a fourth-year now studying at Michigan Technological University (MTU), knows this feeling all too well. Mull broke several school records during her three years on Northwestern’s swimming and diving team.

Originally from Portland, Michigan, Mull returned to her home state this year afer a turbulent experience as a Northwestern athlete. She is one of the Wildcats’ best distance swimmers ever, setting school records in the 1650-meter freestyle, 1000-meter freestyle and 500-meter freestyle. Mull comes from a family of collegiate swimmers and has swum all of her life. While the college schedule is ruthless, Mull thought her life as a high school swimmer would have prepared her for Northwestern.

“My entire high school career was very academic-focused,” Mull says. “It was academics and swimming, and that’s what I thought Northwestern was going to be. Then suddenly I was alone and scared in a place where I wasn’t happy.”

Mull spent years wanting to be a chemical engineer, but once she was at Northwestern, she felt it was no longer feasible to pursue swimming and her dream job. She chose swimming, leaving chemical engineering and joining the Manufacturing and Design Engineering program.

Mull had to make this decision at the peak of her swimming career. During her sophomore season, Mull broke the school record in the 1000-meter freestyle, swimming what she described as the “best race of her life.” As she prepared for another race the next morning, her coach told her that if she lost the race, the team would lose the meet. Despite the pressure of her entire team counting on her, Mull won the 500-meter freestyle.

Later that season, Mull was waiting to compete in what she describes as “the biggest meet of a swimmer’s collegiate career,” the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships. But instead of thinking about the race, she was preparing to take an organic chemistry exam.

Ultimately, Mull passed the exam and the class, but these high-stress moments

in an already high-anxiety sport made her feel like she couldn’t perform at her best in swimming or academics. She switched majors shortly afer.

“For our athletes, certainly their athletic identities are very important to them, but they also have other identities that are important,” Albinson says. “For some people, if that athletic identity takes up a lot more space than the others, it might mean there’s less of an opportunity for them to explore other things about themselves or other things where they might fnd value and meaning.”

Feels like

drowning

Like many, Mull’s freshman year was derailed by COVID-19. She grew up in a rural, agricultural area and says Evanston was a big transition for her. The curfews, strict regulations and lack of in-person classes prevented Mull from forming close bonds with her teammates. She says she felt very alone in her freshman year and just threw herself into swimming.

“Those relationships were tumultuous at best, and I felt like I was drowning, for lack of a better word, trying to be the best swimmer that I could be,” Mull says.

Afer a record-setting sophomore season, Mull says her swimming plateaued junior year. Swimming is an objective sport: Mull’s times told her exactly how she was performing, and they were not up to the standard she had set the prior year. Additionally, Mull got a respiratory infection at the end of her sophomore season that lingered throughout her junior year. She says she was dealing with constant pneumonia and sinus infections, which affected her performance.

What once felt like home was now the center of anxiety in Mull’s life. She says her relationships with her teammates had deteriorated, and every practice “felt like walking into a battlefeld.” Mull says all of these factors led to her decision to transfer.

“I love my teammates,” Mull says. “I love my team. I will forever be a Wildcat, but I just couldn’t take my college experience being so unhappy.”

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LOLA MULL

On top of dealing with the complexities of student-athlete life, there is always the inherent risk of injury. Lenth sufered from shin splints her freshman year. Delgado has been dealing with a stress reaction in her tibia from the impact running has lef on her body.

Even minor injuries like these can afect an athlete’s mental health.

“There were a lot of moments there where I was thinking, ‘Oh, this isn’t for me. This is all too much,’” Lenth says. “I kept at it, I leaned in, learned a lot as a person and I’m stronger for it.”

For Berg, the euphoria of a wrestling-

focused freshman year was undercut by knee and ACL injuries as well as multiple concussions. Ongoing symptoms and unanimous professional opinions pointed to a permanent departure from the sport to which he had dedicated so much.

It took Berg a long time to adjust to this new life.

“I wasn’t letting myself plan a career afer college because all I wanted to think about was wrestling,” he says. “But now, I was hit in the face with it: I need to fll this time. I need to fnd a new passion.”

As he started to emerge from the other side of a physically and emotionally painful period, Berg found that the life previously closed of to him was now within his grasp.

“I’ve gotten really into climate research, and I now work with the climate change research group in the Earth Sciences department,” Berg says. “As much as wrestling leaves a void, I’m able to fll it with a much more complete, wellrounded undergraduate experience than I had up to this point.”

However, these healthy redirections of his focus couldn’t fully compensate for the loss Berg had sufered.

“It feels like a death,” he says. And so he needed to grieve.

“That feeling subsides over time, but it doesn’t leave. And there are moments when I’m reminded of it. I think I’m probably going to carry it for a while,” Berg says.

Anna Delgado

Swimming through it all

Berg and Tal-Shahar say wrestling has taught them valuable life skills, including time management and prioritizing physical and mental wellness.

Tal-Shahar says wrestling forces you to learn how to make sacrifces, be intentional with everything and pay attention to details.

“This sport has given me the right principles to thrive,” he says. “There were a lot of developmental stages in my career where I had to grow, and I had to grow really fast. That shows up in a lot of diferent aspects of life.”

While athletics can instill a sense of drive and accountability in players, not all of it will live up to what students imagine.

“When you’re in high school thinking about what your college years are going to be, especially college athletics, I think I had a perception of it being a lot more glory, a lot more recognition, a lot more obvious moments of triumph,” Lenth says.

She says she has adjusted to this, and it made her reconsider her approach to her athletic career in a really positive way. Lenth says she is now able to run with a lot more intentionality and joy.

“There is kind of a blessing in that it takes you out of this ‘winning, winning, winning is the only thing that matters’ mindset and puts you into this mindset of ‘OK, at the end of the day, it’s the process of training, the process of recovery that defnes a good moment rather than one moment of success,’” Lenth says.

Since transferring to MTU, Mull says her mental health and physical ability have made a “complete 180.” She has participated in social activities and enjoyed life experiences she would have never gotten at Northwestern. MTU does not have a collegiate swim program, but Mull now swims on the club team and plays club water polo. With so much more time, Mull can major in chemical engineering as she had always dreamed, and even kick back and relax every once in a while.

“I can see why I had the mental and physical issues that I did,” Mull says. “I no longer have those because I get to sleep, I have time for a social life, I have time to sit at home and watch a movie. I don’t think I watched a movie or a TV show in those three years.”

The issue of student-athlete mental health has become more widely discussed, as evidenced by Albinson’s observations about her feld.

“When I went to grad school, it wasn’t a thing to get a full-time job in sports psychology. It didn’t exist. And Northwestern went from no dedicated sports psychology area when I frst came here in 2004, to now having a team of eight people,” she says. “So that really shows you how far we’ve come in recognizing how important it is and how necessary it is to invest in it.”

Goodchild says this development has helped her mental health a lot, in addition to remembering “your sports performance doesn’t dictate you as a person. If you had a bad game, it doesn’t mean you have to have a bad week.” She will continue to play basketball unless “it becomes a chore.”

Goodchild looks forward to her remaining two years as a Northwestern student-athlete. Seniors, on the other hand, now refect on the impact this experience has had on their lives.

“As much as it’s been hard over the past four years, it’s made me into the person I am today,” Tal-Shahar says. “I’ve met so many great people during this process — my best friends, mentors.”

He’s also been able to act as a mentor to his younger brother, a second-year wrestler at Wisconsin.

“There are times where he may feel crushed, but I’ve been there and I know he’s going to get through to the other side of it and be a better man because of it,” Tal-Shahar says.

The pressure of Division I athletics and the emphasis on statistics and performance can feel overwhelming, and as Albinson says, prioritizing refection and self-care is pivotal.

“You’re people before players,” Goodchild says. “You’re actual human beings. It sounds cliché, but you’re not just a number.”

Breaking barriers, building futures

Northwestern’s Prison Education Program expands the scope of college education.

WRITTEN

BY

SELA BREEN // DESIGNED BY ABIGAIL LEV

On a late Thursday afernoon in January, people trickle into the School of Professional Studies building on Church Street for the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP) community hour.

At the end of the meeting, philosophy professor Jennifer Lackey brings out a birthday cake for Yolanda Fields, the mother of NPEP student Leon Fields, who is currently incarcerated. His friend Broderick Hollins grips her hand and reads an emotional letter Leon had sent to Hollins to be read to his mom on her birthday. As she wipes away tears, Yolanda opens a purple gif bag to fnd a shirt reading “Northwestern Mom.”

NPEP was founded in 2018 by Lackey and is the only bachelor’s degree-granting program for incarcerated individuals ofered by a top 10 university in the United States. Not only does the program provide a high-quality liberal arts education to incarcerated individuals, but it also creates a tight-knit community of support for students both in and out of prison.

Lackey had a longstanding interest in prison education, but only began drafing the proposal for the program afer she taught a one-of version of one of her Northwestern courses at Stateville Correctional Center in 2015. During this course, Lackey realized her students there were just as capable as her oncampus students.

NPEP ofcially launched in 2018 under Provost Jonathan Holloway as a program simply allowing students to take Northwestern classes for college credit. It was not until Provost Kathleen Hagerty took charge in 2020 that NPEP became a frstof-its-kind degree-granting program. Hagerty has remained a champion of the program throughout her tenure.

The program started in 2018 with a cohort of 22 students at Stateville Correctional Center. Sixteen of these students became the program’s frst graduates in November 2023. There are now four cohorts of about 20 students each. Courses are taught to male students at Stateville and female students at Logan Correctional Center.

Students can also take advantage of many University resources, both when they are in and out of prison, including research resources from Northwestern Libraries and essay support from the Writing Place. Students released from prison also have access to therapy services from the Family Institute.

Admissions

Broderick Hollins was sitting in segregation, commonly known as solitary confnement, when one of the wardens brought him the NPEP application. Hollins had no idea what Northwestern was, but the warden, who knew Hollins took philosophy classes, said it was the best university in Illinois.

“ “ BRODERICK HOLLINS NPEP GRADUATE I had thrown the application to the side, but the longer I was sitting in seg, the bigger the piece of paper got.

“I had thrown the application to the side, but the longer I was sitting in seg, the bigger the piece of paper got. So I flled it out,” Hollins says.

Hollins felt amazing when the warden told him he was accepted. “Is this shit real?” Hollins kept asking, “Like this is the Northwestern? The Northwestern?”

NPEP applications are open to all incarcerated men and women in the state of Illinois who have either earned a high school degree or passed the GED, except for those subject to restrictions from the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).

NPEP distributes applications to prisons and jails across the entire state of Illinois, according to Lackey. The program received 400 applications last admission cycle. The pool is narrowed based on the written portion of the application, including a resume and two essay-style questions. About 70 people are then chosen to do interviews with Lackey and the School of Professional Studies team before the fnal cohort of 20 is chosen.

Brandon Perkins applied to NPEP soon after getting to IDOC. He spent six and a half years in pretrial custody at Cook County Jail but was sent to a prison downstate, far from his family in Chicago, when he was finally processed. When the NPEP program popped up on his tablet, he immediately applied, excited about the opportunity to get an education and be closer to home.

Perkins heard nothing from the program for a few months until he received a piece of institutional mail instructing him to report to the school ofce the next day for a Zoom interview with the director of NPEP.

“I’d never had any kind of a school interview before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was really nervous,” Perkins says.

The interview went well, but Perkins lost hope when internal afairs put him into solitary confnement. A fellow inmate accused him of something he did not do, and even afer the true culprit was caught, Perkins was kept in solitary for almost a month.

When he received his acceptance letter to NPEP, Perkins was still in solitary and on his fnal day of a hunger strike. He thought because he had been found guilty of this disciplinary action, there was no way he could be part of NPEP.

“I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was starving. So I got the mail, it said I got into NPEP, but I thought it was over. That’s actually what made me eat too, because I was so pissed,” Perkins says. “It was a bittersweet moment.”

When Perkins got out of solitary, it didn’t cross his mind that he might still be part of NPEP. Most of the time, afer one gets disciplinary action, any upcoming transfers are stopped. But a couple weeks later, Perkins was sent to get a new photo and be swabbed for COVID-19. When he asked the ofcers what was going on, they assumed it was for him to go to court, but Perkins told them he had just been to court a month ago.

Afer a couple of calls, one ofcer fnally told Perkins he was being shipped out the next day for “some program.” He couldn’t believe it.

“I was so happy to get out of there,” Perkins says.

CLASSES a Northwestern University “

BRANDON PERKINS NPEP GRADUATE I’d never had any kind of school interview before, so I didn’t know what to expect.

I was really nervous.

“

Classes

The quarter began less than two weeks afer Perkins was transferred to Stateville. Perkins says he was nervous because, while he had taken single classes in county jail ofered by DePaul and Dominican University, this felt diferent. It was the beginning of a four-year journey.

His frst class was with Lackey in what the students call the “Purple Room” because the walls are painted Northwestern purple. Other classrooms are bland, Perkins says, with regular prison walls and rolling desks, but walking into the Purple Room on his frst day, Perkins could immediately tell the NPEP environment was diferent.

All NPEP students work toward a Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences for about four years, for all four quarters in the academic year. The classes are equivalent to those ofered on the Evanston campus — professors teach the same content with the same expectations and rigor.

For the frst two years of the program, most NPEP students take general education classes, similar to distribution requirements. These classes are ofered based on what Northwestern faculty are available to teach each quarter.

Northwestern sociology professor Mary Pattillo taught one of NPEP’s frst classes in 2018. Before NPEP came to fruition, Lackey had invited Pattillo to speak to one of her classes at Stateville.

“It was exhilarating, infuriating … all of the things prison education is. But the students were fabulous,” Pattillo says. “I was eager to be involved, and once [Lackey] launched the program, I was the frst to sign up.”

Five years later, Pattillo still teaches with NPEP and is a member of the program’s Faculty Advisory Council. The NPEP student body — older, usually more racially diverse, singlesex — brings a fresh set of perspectives to the classes she has taught for years.

“The fact that there’s no technology in the classroom makes sure everybody is present,” she says. “[The students] really do the reading and come super prepared. I can barely get out what I want to say for class before they’re ready to jump in for a discussion.”

Pattillo led one of Benard McKinley’s frst classes in 2018. McKinley had participated in many education opportunities ofered to incarcerated people before NPEP — he even found out about the application through friends he had made in classes. However, NPEP was unlike other educational opportunities McKinley had been involved in. Instantly, he could sense there was a diferent standard.

“They are not going to look at you any diferently than oncampus students just because you are incarcerated. If anything, they’re going to be more strenuous on us,” McKinley says.

He was especially grateful one of his frst classes was with Pattillo.

“She allowed me to see exactly how rigorous the program was gonna be, and she gave me a chance to exercise my potential,” he says.

Re-entry

When NPEP students leave prison, they can continue their Northwestern classes as soon as they would like by Zooming into class with the rest of their cohort in prison.

“If they are released on a Wednesday, they could be Zooming into the classes they were just in on Thursday and continuing with their classmates,” Lackey says. She says once the student makes contact with NPEP, the program will help them get set up with a laptop right away.

Students also have the option to come to campus and Zoom into classes from the School of Professional Studies building. Hollins was the frst NPEP student to be released from prison and came to Northwestern’s campus for the frst time about a week afer getting out.

“Anxiety kicked in because it was too many people walking by me. When you’re in prison, everyone’s walking the same way,” Hollins says. “They literally were holding my hand because there was too many people around here.”

NPEP helped Hollins adjust to the anxieties of returning to the world outside of prison, he says. Graduate student tutors helped him learn to use the laptop to log on to classes. NPEP also helped him navigate the difculties of classes on Zoom, including unreliable audio that made it difcult to follow along, by setting up one-on-one meetings with professors.

Darryl Johnson got into NPEP when he was about to be released.

“I wasn’t even excited [when I got in] because I was in the process of going home,” Johnson says. He hesitated to even sign the papers confrming his participation in NPEP.

“Two weeks later, I was at the freakin’ bus stop, and I’m trying to contact everyone and say, ‘Can I still go to school?’ I couldn’t reach nobody,” Johnson says.

He called every Northwestern ofce number he could fnd, but nobody knew what he was talking about. He even tried to get in touch with people in NPEP who were still in prison.

Finally, he got a call from Michelle Paulson, deputy director of NPEP. While Johnson had been trying to contact NPEP, they had been looking for him too.

With the help of NPEP, Johnson signed on to his frst day of classes from the halfway house computer.

Johnson says NPEP has been like a family for him outside of prison. He says Lackey has played a major role in helping him process his anger afer leaving prison, and the program’s routine provides a needed structure to his daily life.

“It keeps me busy, out of trouble and gives motivation to people that they can do it too,” Johnson says.

Northwestern Prison Education Progam is founded

Students in the frst graduating class 16

Total applications received in the most recent admissions cycle 400

Applicants receiving an interview 17.5% Acceptance rate 5%

`

“

N P E P

back [in jail] by now.

BRODERICK HOLLINS NPEP GRADUATE They want me to win, succeed. Without them, I’m sure I probably would have been

“

What’s next for NPEP?

As more universities around the country are considering starting prison education programs, Lackey says NPEP is serving as the model. She receives emails from multiple universities a week and has become the de facto advisor on creating and implementing prison education programs.

Lackey is also working with Pattillo on research with the Mellon Foundation, part of the two $1 million grants Lackey received for NPEP. The research compares students who did and did not get into NPEP from the fnal round of the admission process. They are currently in year two of fve of the study, which evaluates how prison education afects students’ lives, considering variables such as mental health, physical health, relationships with peers and perspectives on politics.

As more NPEP students are released, Lackey and the rest of the NPEP team are working to create a community for students outside of prison. Students receive a Wildcard and have the opportunity to attend programming, like monthly community meetings on campus. They gather at the School of Professional Studies building, grab meals together and help each other through the obstacles of transitioning out of the carceral system.

And the backbone of this community is Lackey and the NPEP faculty.

“They put their all in me. They want me to win, succeed,” Hollins says. “Without them, I’m sure I probably would have been back [in jail] by now.”

Getting down in E-Town

Getting down in E-Town

The past, present and future of Evanston nightlife.

WRITTEN BY JADE THOMAS // DESIGNED BY

*Names of underage students have been changed to preserve anonymity.

McCormick third-year Anna* has developed a defnitive system for her weekends. One night is devoted to a bar or club. The next night is for a house party or a similar event. The fnal night is more lowkey, like staying in with friends.

“It’s fun at Northwestern because I feel like there’s a pretty wide range of house parties happening or a lot of going into the city, and you can kind of choose your own battles depending on the weekend,” Anna* says.

This kind of tried-and-true system isn’t new for Northwestern students. Joel Sternstein (Weinberg ’91), used to balance elaborate annual “beach parties” at the Chi Phi fraternity house with occasional outings to see plays or grab dinner in downtown Chicago.

“I kind of knew that for any type

TAXING TIMES TAXING TIMES

There aren’t many establishments

geeky” and “a little punk rock” on its website.

The bar opened in September 2023, and its co-founder and general manager, Lo McGrath, characterizes the bar as “the island of misft toys.” McGrath wants to help expand the nightlife scene

frst distillery. Before that, they managed a live music venue in Washington D.C., an experience they say taught them to “dream a lot bigger than what [they] see in Evanston.”

McGrath says for nightlife to actually take of in Evanston, the city needs more establishments like theirs.

“At this stage of the game, [competition] doesn’t exist,” McGrath says. “We need more businesses like this to survive in the long term.”

Diana Hamann owns The Wine Goddess, a wine bar on Main Street. She agrees the liquor consumption tax can make doing business in Evanston difcult, but she appreciates the consumers of Evanston.

“What I would prefer would be the city to change their ways,” Hamann says. “I don’t even think about leaving Evanston because I live here. I do business here. My customers are my friends. Why should

ON DRY LAND ON DRY LAND

Unlike other areas around Chicago, alcohol sales are a relatively recent development in Evanston.

In 1855, Northwestern’s Board of Trustees asked the Illinois General Assembly for an amendment to the school’s charter. They wanted a zoning distance of 4 miles to be drawn up around the school, banning any sale of alcohol within its limits. The amendment passed.

As a result of the temperance ferce advocates, prohibition became a national guideline with the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in 1918. Even afer it was reversed with the 21st Amendment in 1933, Evanston City Council didn’t approve the sale of alcohol until 1972.

Frances Willard, who was present at the founding of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1874, was also an Evanston resident. When she became president of the WCTU in 1879, she continued to live at her home, down the street from what is now Whole Foods on Chicago Avenue.

Willard’s national advocacy paired with the alcohol-free history of Northwestern cemented Evanston’s dry status — the effects of which still loom over the area today.

“I think [because of] the history of being a dry town, certain businesses developed and others didn’t, and certain traditions developed and others didn’t,” Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss says.

Medill fourth-year Michael Barthelemy is from Evanston. Despite growing up in the area, he didn’t know what the Evanston nightlife scene would look like. As someone who graduated from high school at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, his experience was made all the more unique.

First and second-year students were not allowed on campus for Fall Quarter in 2020. When students did arrive for Winter Quarter in 2021, they had to quarantine for two weeks.

For some fourth-years, like Barthelemy, their o didn’t begin until their second year at Northwestern.

Reza’s Restaurant, which specializes in Mediterranean and Persian cuisine, opened its Tap Room and Lounge in August 2021. Barthelemy says he’s visited Reza’s twice.

“I think [because of] the history of being a dry town, certain businesses developed and others didn’t.” dry town,

Daniel Biss Evanston Mayor

“You went one time and you got the general vibes of it just being very stu a lot of people, very crowded, not a lot of room for yourself,” Barthelemy says. “And then you get to the second time you go like, ‘OK, I think I’ve had enough of this,’ especially because, at least for us, it’s very freshmen-centric.”

Anna* echoes Barthelemy’s refections, but she says she enjoyed her nights out near campus.

“I defnitely have some fond memories of freshman and sophomore year going to the little bars in Evanston,” she says.

But she agrees the Evanston scene is insufcient, even if alternative options pose their own problems.

“Unfortunately, the solution a lot of the time is just to go into Chicago, which is kind of tough, just ’cause it gets so much more expensive when you’re going into the city,” Anna* says. “And then obviously if you’re underage, it’s harder.”

McGrath says bars specifically intended for college students are the best solutions to the current dearth of establishments.

“Y’all need more spaces that are not just going to be welcoming to college students, but have y’all’s safety in mind,” they say.

When SESP second-year Samantha* envisions nightlife, she says she thinks about “going out, getting drinks, dancing” or “going into clubs” — things she fgured didn’t really exist in Evanston when she applied to Northwestern.

When she visited a friend at The Ohio State University, she says she was surprised at the number of college student-friendly bars around its campus.

“We lef her dorm and walked fve minutes to go to one bar. And then [at] that bar, we got bored,” Samantha* says. “So we went to a diferent bar that was a minute walk from there. There’s just like, a street full of bars that let in college students.”

Despite a perceived lack of nightlife, SESP fourth-year Jacob Rosner says he mainly stayed in Evanston his frst two years. He enjoyed going to house parties and local establishments like Reza’s or Bob’s Pizza.

But now that Rosner is 22, he says Chicago has a lot more to ofer, with much better options.

“It’s a lot of fun having all of Chicago at your disposal,” Rosner says. “There’s

“Y’all need more spaces that are not just going to be welcoming to college students, but have y’alls in mind.” safety safety

Lo McGrath Co-founder and general manager of Bitter Blossom

so many diferent environments you can immerse yourself in, whether that’s clubbing, or bars or speakeasies. It’s such a big city, and I think there’s something for everyone.”

Even still, Rosner, who is on the swimming and diving team, says he’s had fun in Evanston. He likes hosting gatherings in the backyard of the “swim house,” where he can grill and play games with friends.

“I mean, it gets a bad rep compared to other schools who are like, ‘Nerdwestern’ and things like that,” he says. “But I’ve enjoyed the social scene here.”

A BRAVE NEW EVANSTON A BRAVE NEW EVANSTON

In December 2023, Evanston’s Liquor Control Review Board recommended the liquor consumption tax be decreased from 6% to 2%. Biss, the board’s commissioner, says the current liquor

consumption tax is an outlier compared to other municipalities and poses a serious competitive disadvantage for businesses in Evanston. For reference, nearby Skokie currently has a comparable packaged liquor tax of 2%.

According to Biss, the tax currently brings the city around $3 million in revenue. If the tax is lowered, the city has to make up that loss.

He says the board originally had the idea to replace this tax with a more common one, like a food and beverage tax. This suggestion resulted in pushback from restaurant owners, so the board considered raising the sales tax, which corresponds to most purchased goods and services. But Biss says that would make the Evanston sales tax higher than its neighbors.

Right now, Evanston and Skokie have the same combined local and state sales tax of 10.25%.

Biss says the Review Board took a variety of opinions and considerations into account when it created the proposal for a replacement. Now, Evanston City Council is using that recommendation to inform its discussions of how to handle the situation.

“We’re in the process of doing the research and interviews to make sure that when it goes to council, we have the information we need to make a responsible decision for the community,” Biss says.

Barthelemy says he believes the city is at a crossroads or “an identity crisis.” Its location relative to villages like

“My vision is an Evanston that is here to facilitate people being together being together. ”

Daniel Biss Evanston Mayor

Wilmette or Kenilworth, paired with its combination of the student population and other residents, has created a challenge, he says.

“In general, Evanston is somewhere in between Chicago and the North Shore and it hasn’t quite fgured out where it wants to stand,” Barthelemy says.

But Biss hopes restaurants, bars, events and public spaces in Evanston can bring people together in a meaningful way.

“My vision is an Evanston that is here to facilitate people being together,” Biss says. “Life is at its best when it is easy and comfortable and fun for us to be with each other. I would like to see the City of Evanston do everything it can to make that easier.”

Weinberg fourth-year Matthias Neumann hangs his piece “Untitled (dream)” with curator Ellie Lyons.

An ode

TO THE ARTS

A look at the 2024 Dittmar Community Art Show — and the people and poetry behind it.

WRITTEN BY JENNA ANDERSON // DESIGNED BY ALLEN YOU // PHOTOS BY ALESSANDRA ESQUIVEL

The frst foor of Norris was full yet quiet, typical for a Tuesday night during midterm season. But just to the right of Shake Smart, a celebration of art, poetry and community in the Dittmar Gallery pierced through the silence.

A bassist, drummer and pianist from the Northwestern Jazz Club food the room with sof music. A live poet clicks away at a typewriter, rushing to keep up with the many requests for on-demand poems. About 50 patrons of all ages chat and laugh in hushed voices. Guests wander around the gallery, noshing on hors d’oeuvres and taking in the art at the exhibition opening.

Running until March 15, the 2024 Dittmar Community Art Show Well Versed explores the interaction between visual art and poetry. Each of the visual pieces from the 33 artists showcased in the gallery is inspired by a poem. More than any other exhibition at Dittmar, the annual community show fulflls the gallery’s mission of supporting emerging artists, including Northwestern students, faculty and members of the Chicagoland community.

The Dittmar Gallery, established in 1972, is completely student-run. Weinberg fourth-years Ellie Lyons and Eve Downing currently lead the team of four student curators and assistants, who

each dedicate about 10 hours a week to the campus job. Each year, they select and produce three to four exhibitions while curating the community show and hosting the annual senior thesis presentation. The team handles everything from art selection and installation to event programming and de-installation — even sanding and painting the walls. But the biggest challenge is encouraging the community to show up.

“We’re really working through: How can we get visibility for Dittmar? How can we get the community to know that we have this beautiful art space?” Lyons says.

With artists across many disciplines featured in Well Versed, the team hopes to capitalize on this chance to reveal one of Northwestern’s hidden gems.

“Dear Lady, don’t crush my heart with pains and sorrows” by Rachel Balter

Verse 1: Art Curation

About a month before the opening night of Well Versed, Communication second-year Maggie Munday Odom hides behind a desktop Mac in the basement of Norris. The desk with the massive computer takes up at least half of the space in Dittmar’s tiny ofce in the ARTica Studios, with cluttered bookshelves flling the rest. Still, the blue sky and fufy clouds painted on the walls — and Odom’s sunny disposition — make the tight space feel welcoming.

Well Versed is Odom’s brainchild. As a freshman last year, Odom co-curated the community show with Lyons. The upperclassman showed Odom the ropes, and she came in this year ready with the theme for the community show. As a double major in Theatre and English, Odom says she sometimes feels the arts get siloed on campus.

“In admissions, people talk about ‘And is in our DNA.’ Then you get here, and there’s a tendency to exist in bubbles,” she says. “I’m excited about the prospect of inviting students and community members to pop those bubbles.”

When Odom proposed the idea of exploring the intersection between visual art and poetry, Lyons loved it, and the curators fnalized the Well Versed theme in December. Right before Winter Break, they opened submissions and spread the word about the show by sending email blasts, posting fyers and reaching out to local art organizations, including the Chicago Artists Coalition. As submissions

rolled in, the team started planning the events around the exhibition, including a lively opening night and three additional literacy-centered programs during the show’s run.

Submissions closed in late January, and the entire Dittmar team reviewed the pieces. They set up a projector and displayed each piece of artwork, the poem of inspiration and the artist’s statement. Typically, they don’t turn down any submissions for the community show, but they rejected about 10 submissions this year from more established artists, directing them to Dittmar’s solo exhibitions instead.

“We try to include as many people as we possibly can and really get that mix of personalities and backgrounds,” Lyons says.

Once they choose the artists and send out contracts, the team fnalizes the event planning and installs the artwork — but it’s not as simple as hanging up frames. There are a variety of visual mediums featured in the show, and the curators have to consider specifc placements and installation requests. For instance, one artist who created a heart sculpture inspired by the romantic poems of Sappho asked for her work to be staged at “heart height.”

Finally, it’s time for opening night. Odom and Lyons both stress the importance of in-person events and the power of art to bring people together.

“The most important aspect of art is

Verse 2: Art Creation

For Siqiao Mu, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Applied Math department, her interest in art can be explained by a Pablo Picasso quote: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Mu took art classes as a kid and AP Art and Design in high school, but she was too busy to create art during undergrad. Then, she came to Northwestern for graduate school and found the time to start making pottery in the Norris Ceramics Studio.

Now, afer three years honing her craf, she’s showcasing her pottery in a gallery for the frst time. Mu is presenting “Stargazey,” a teapot with two cow heads as spouts, inspired by the poem “TwoHeaded Calf” by Laura Gilpin. As Mu explains in her artist statement, a twospouted teapot is not functional unless the user is pouring into two cups at once, encouraging people to connect.

“Like the two-headed calf, it is an anomaly that invites people to appreciate beauty in strangeness,” Mu says in the statement.

Mu was always interested in displaying her work in Dittmar’s community shows, but her art never ft the theme. This year, she’d been working on other ceramics inspired by prehistoric pottery — including a sheep pot and a bowl with three ram heads — and found a way to connect the style to this year’s show.

Afer conceiving the idea, Mu says she threw the clay on the wheel, made the

Two-Headed Calf

by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys fnd this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north feld with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

more, and the teapot was ready for the Dittmar Gallery.

“Making things in general is really fulflling and an important part of the human experience,” Mu says. “I feel really in touch with my ancestors when I’m shaping a mug and fring it. That’s exactly what they did 10,000 years ago.”

Mu has sold her ceramics at the Norris Fall Arts and Crafs Fair and Mayfea, an art fair presented by Mayfest, but she’s ecstatic to present for the frst time in a gallery. Similarly, Weinberg fourth-year Zara Hasnani is excited to showcase her art in Well Versed, but this will be her second time in the Dittmar community show.

This year, Hasnani is presenting “Mehndi ke Rang (Colors of Henna),” an oil painting inspired by her brother Shahryar Hasnani’s poem, “a necessary form.” Her piece shows an older woman, draped in traditional Pakistani attire, delicately applying henna to the hand of a young girl.

“This scene mirrors the themes of crafsmanship and growth depicted in the

poem, where the act of applying henna becomes a metaphor for life’s journey and the passage of wisdom from one generation to the next,” Hasnani says in her artist statement.

Hasnani — a Biology major on the premed track with minors in Asian Languages and Cultures and Art Theory and Practice — says the art really keeps her sane. She typically paints with acrylics but started working with oil paint for the frst time this winter for a Northwestern art class. The professor encouraged the students to look to other mediums like poetry for inspiration, and she saw the chance to complete an assignment and submit it to Well Versed

. She refected on her brother’s poem and found a reference image from a video she took over Winter Break with her family in Karachi, Pakistan. Before painting, Hasnani thought through all the aspects of the piece, like the color palette, tone and lighting.

Afer 10 to 15 hours of painting, the piece was ready for the show (and the assignment due date). When her painting

“Pre-Loved” by

Jessica

Vallan

is presented in Well Versed, Hasnani hopes some audience members will resonate with the experience of wearing henna, something she remembers fondly.

“If it’s somebody from the culture, I hope they get something slightly diferent,” she says. “I hope it’s some kind of warmth and nostalgic feeling.”

Beyond the element of connection that comes from artwork, Hasnani says she paints for the satisfaction of creating something that wasn’t there before.

“On top of that, I feel like everyone needs a way to express themselves that isn’t just saying it,” she says. “This is my mode.”

a necessary form

by Shahryar Hasnani

Hands press the wheel with fngers stretched and taut, they breathe life into each piece of wet clay. The mud assumes a shape that it is not, on its sof skin the touch will make its way. Each turn reveals another edge to trim, each spin a chance to throw the sides anew. The coiling chokes the core to be more slim, the beating molds the walls that were askew.

Both nested eggs and clay are just the start, they grow to babes who learn to walk alone. When mother and her mouth have done their part, And they must seek their food for they have grown, fy a little with each breath, Since nested birds that fall know only death.

“Above the Time” by Gin Ko

“Mehndi ke Rang (Colors of Henna)” by Zara Hasnani

“Potato Potahto” by Marina Kuchinski

“Stargazey” by Siqiao Mu

Verse 3: Art Celebration

Back at the opening night of Well Versed, Odom and Lyons shake hands with the guests, snap photos with the art and take in the moment with their friends and family.

For Odom, Dittmar has become a home on campus. She says the curators — who have a group chat called “Dittmar Love” — work closely with one another and enjoy the autonomy of being a studentled group.

Afer graduation, Odom is considering a career in public programming for art. She says she has enjoyed learning about arts administration through Dittmar, as it has given her immense respect for the people producing events and exhibits.

“We talk about the impact of artists, and that’s super important. But arts administrators and those who are working behind the scenes are doing a lot of important work so artists can do what they do,” she says. “Arts administrators make the art world go ’round.”

Lyons, who is graduating this spring, plans on pursuing art curation and echoes Odom’s respect for the arts.

“Art is important because it’s just so human,” Lyons says. “Our lives are so focused on work and productivity. Art is a space where we don’t have to focus on that anymore. You can really express how you’re feeling without that cage.”

Above all, the artists and curators alike point to human connection as the most important aspect of art, and the Well Versed opening certainly delivered. Between the discussions, hugs and laughter on opening night, the sense of community couldn’t have been clearer.

“We are not alone. Going into an art gallery and seeing someone’s specifc lived experience, but also the way it connects to your own, makes us feel less alone,” Odom says. “Art is the heartbeat of the human experience.”

Odom and Lyons on the foor of the Dittmar Gallery.

Why, Northwestern?

Current students respond to Northwestern Admissions’ quirky era.

WRITTEN BY ZOE KULICK // DESIGNED BY SAMMI LI

This fall, Northwestern replaced the classic “Why Northwestern?” essay with new, hyper-specifc prompts on the undergraduate application. These have some people speculating Northwestern is trying to compete with UChicago and their ridiculous questions like, “If an apple a day keeps a doctor away, then who does a grape fend of?” We’re already taking over the title of “where fun goes to die,” seeing as Thirsty Thursdays are about as rare as a solar eclipse and the hottest place for a weekend day trip is Periodicals. Still, there is no denying these quirky questions mark the end of an era. To mourn the loss of “Why Northwestern?” we asked some current students to respond to the new prompts.

1) Question: If you could dream up an undergraduate class, research project or creative efort, what would it be? Who might be ideal collaborators? *

Answer by: Senior who had to put a screen time limit on LinkedIn.

I’ve realized there’s one thing connecting all Northwestern students: a desperate need to relax. I’d love to create a genuine “chill pill” that students are required to take daily. In a perfect world, it would combine Xanax’s intensity with Prozac’s consistency while omitting the whole “losing your sex drive” part (the last thing uptight students need is abstinence). My ideal collaborators would be pre-med and biomedical engineering students. Not only are they the most in need of the product (besides the theatre majors who post weekly journal entries debriefng their mental health on Instagram), but they would also know how to formulate it.

NU FUN FOR ALL

2) Question: Tell us about one or more communities or student groups you see yourself connecting with on campus. *

Answer by: Freshman Voice and Economics major who put his name on every single Listserv at the fall AND winter org fairs.

I see myself creating a club for the rejects. Thinking you’ll get into THUNK and AKPsi over the children of Hollywood producers and fnancial fraud experts is just naive. Rather than trying out again next year and risking admission into a psych ward instead of your desired organization, I encourage everyone to join my “fun for all” club, where we gather weekly to joke, dance and drown out the voices of self-doubt and disappointment.

3) Question: Northwestern’s location is special: on the shore of Lake Michigan and close to Chicago. What aspects of our location are most compelling to you? *

Answer by: Evanston native admitted to the Class of 2028.

I’ve lived in Evanston my whole life, and all I can say is “snooze-fest!” I’m most excited about the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie. Shake Shack, Lululemon, the Apple Store and so much more all rolled up into one pristine outdoor shopping center. It’s a dream come true. Lake Michigan is pretty, but I know better than anyone there are only three days of the school year when it’s actually warm enough to sit there comfortably — and don’t even think about having a picnic! If the risk of having your utensils swept away by the wind isn’t enough of a deterrent, then I assure you swallowing 1,000 gnats in a ten-minute period will do the trick. Do you know what meal can never be ruined? An indoor mac and cheese dining experience at Old Orchard’s California Pizza Kitchen.

Is Northwestern’s gradual shif towards UChicago an indicator of our reputation growing nerdier and nerdier every year? That’s a complicated question, but the answer is yes. What if, instead of supplements, high schoolers just submitted an acrostic poem highlight their cool, chill personalities? That’s the world I want to live in.

How to break into

Spring Break

It’s not what you can do for Daddy’s money. It’s what Daddy’s money can do for you.

WRITTEN BY MYA COPELAND // DESIGNED BY ALLISON KIM

Sources say 87% of Northwestern students are going on a Spring Break trip without you. And only 12% of them feel bad about it. Scratch that, new data coming in — only 0.12%. The only way to be anything, mean anything, is to be in That Group. You know the one. They all wander around campus, lost in a tropical daze in the middle of the polar vortex. They laugh with the ease of people who have their Spring Break planned while you scamper around like a back alley rat trying to sneak your way into their suitcases. But what if your dream could come true? As the most reliable source on campus, here’s my step-by-step guide to snagging that last spot on their private jet.

Step One: LinkedIn stalking

You might think your frst move should be to befriend the members of That Group, but you’re wrong. The most important thing to remember is who is bankrolling their trip of a lifetime: Daddy. So, the frst step is going to be fnding him on LinkedIn. Learn everything you can about him. He graduated from Northwestern in ’94. He met his wife on a dark and steamy night at the Deuce. Request him, then send him a message about how much you love his work (he’s an entrepreneur) and how you want to follow in his footsteps. He ofers to take you out for cofee. You learn that he loves to crochet. He crochets you a hat during your cofee chat at Peet’s. “I’ve never done this for anyone before,” he tells you.

Step Two: Social media stalking

Now that you’ve secured the invite to Brian’s 30th reunion party with his crew from the good ol’ days, it’s time to move on to other, lesser forms of social media. Go ahead and pull up the Northwestern directory. This is the best place to fnd everything you could ever possibly need to know about anyone, ever. Just plug in a vague estimation of your target’s name, and you’ll get their email, phone number and probably their SSN if you look hard enough.

Then, to Instagram. You’ll be able to fnd them easily — a brand ambassador is always public. @therealaliviyah is a Poppi girlie, @itsbeberly has an Amazon sponsorship and @britbrit has at least four MLMs linked to her account.

Then fnd that Snapchat handle (check the bio, it’ll be next to the random assortment of beach/mountain/vacation emojis that taunt you about Spring Breaks past). Add them on Snap and start memorizing their Snap Map locations throughout the day.

Step Three: Real-life stalking

You’re ready for the big leagues. As Brian’s favorite saying goes, “It’s time to tie of the last stitch.” With your knowledge of where they are at all times, start bumping into them in the Norbucks line. Watch them ignore your wave. Pretend you were just fxing your hair. Hide in the basement gaming lounge to recover. Convince one of the Esports nerds to hack their computer and give you access to their Life360. They’ll never realize that you haven’t been in That Group since the beginning.

Step Four: Spring Break stalking

You’ve made it. Aliviyah, Beberly and BritBrit are your best friends now. You do everything together. You’ve promised to be in each other’s weddings. Your group chat is constantly pinging with updates about the Spring Break trip. “OMG girls where r we goingg-

DISCLAIMER: I’ve been informed by NBN’s legal team that it’s in my best interest to tell you I’ve never been on a Spring Break trip with friends ever, and I’m not liable for any legal action that may be taken against you afer attempting these steps.

Hangover goesto

oGo high.

WRITTEN BY HANGOVER EDITORS // DESIGNED BY JACKSON SPENNER

Club Pilates, Pure Barre, Orangetheory. Bid adieu to the mundane world of Evanston workout facilities and their state-of-the-art machines ofered at prices no one can aford. A hot new bombshell has entered the villa. They wear orange and blue and charge a competitive membership fee. Why settle for toned abs when you can have a twisted ankle and a trampoline-induced existential crisis? Welcome to high-fying, gravity-defying insanity. Meet Sky Zone.

During a 90-minute jump sesh, Hangover experienced each trial and tribulation handed to us by this polypropylene wonderland. What follows is an expert account of each Sky Zone attraction.

Drop Slide

Are you curious about what happens right before you die? This age-old question has fnally been answered by some random architectural designer at Sky Zone. No, it isn’t God at the end of the tunnel. It is, however, a young mother recording you as she waits for her child to go down the slide afer you. We understand the speed of light is technically the fastest a person can go, but Jesus Christ, do you feel like you’ve transcended this world when you’re fying through the air onto a giant airbag. You only need to go on this once.

shit myself / 10

Zip Line

We are unsure whether the appeal of the Zip Line is riding it or watching child afer child shoot through the air before being jolted to a stop and plummeting to the ground in acrobatic and possibly paralyzing poses.

2 / 10 (Watch at your own risk)

Freestyle Jump

The Sky Zone archetype: felds of four-by-four foot trampolines, littered with joyful jumpers all wishing they could do a backfip. The black and orange grid called to us with a cosmic magnetism, begging us to fy between the trampoline tiles, to seek airborne moments of instantaneous elation. The Freestyle Jump is as unbeatable as MOD Pizza’s Maddy — classic, simple, never misses. Bouncing on the small but mighty plot of tramps, we took in the opulent beauty of the rest of the park from the humble attraction where Sky Zone’s empire began.

9

/ 10 (Wish there were more)

Hangover editors show of their grippy socks.

King of the Hill

We really don’t teach children violence like we used to. But fear not, the King of the Hill attraction will inspire unbridled ruthlessness in children and college-aged visitors alike. Ascending the balance beams toward their central meeting point to knock your opponent into a sof, humiliating bed of defeat is the Sky Zone equivalent of The Hunger Games. Friend turning on friend, editor turning on editor, Bennie taking a devastating 0-3 loss. Feel free to ditch the giant infatable “jousting sticks” and just resort to hand-to-hand combat. / 10 4

(May tear your Minnesotan family apart)

Couch

Sky Zone by the numbers

Front fips done: 0

Money spent on Sky Zone monthly subscriptions: $111.96 takenChildrenouton theobstacle course: 1

Timespent ourcontemplating choice:37(sohours far)

It’s a place for rest, recovery and trying really hard to take a cute picture of your grippy socks. It’s an oasis amid an orange-and-blue desert. This is our love letter to the Sky Zone double-backed couch. We’re still dreaming about this couch. Where else could you strategically take a break while pretending to be experiencing everything Sky Zone has to ofer? When we weren’t hurling ourselves into the foam pit or attempting to launch ourselves through the ceiling via trampoline, we only had eyes for the couch.

/ 10 10

(Would sit again)

Ninja Warrior

2024 Hangover Bucket List: Doing the splits between two swinging platforms. was anyone recording that? / 10

Foam Zone

An elbow here, a shoe there. As we fung ourselves of the ledge and into the foamy abyss, it was ofen unclear whether we landed on a cube or a child — both small, both squishy, both chock-full of the CDC Current Outbreak List.

5 / 10

Conclusions

We came, we jumped, we conquered. We purchased memberships. We canceled said memberships. This vast bouncy mecca touched our grippy sock-clad souls. Thank you for fying with us.

Back fips done: Really? Stop inquiring.

Nacho cheese: Yes, there is a whole standalone machine dedicated to it.

Sock Review

Remember those Balenciagas? The ones that look like socks? Well, they’ve been reincarnated. The Sky Zone grippy socks are Evanston’s hottest trend. A shock of orange peeks out from the shoes of campus’s biggest fashion influencers: Pink Beret Girl breaks her rosy streak for them, Neon Kid incorporates them seamlessly into his wardrobe and that girl from your English class pulls them artfully above her Docs. No longer do the frats ask for the names of three brothers. No, they simply take a peek beneath your sneaks. Don’t be caught in the bland, slippery socks of the dark pre-Sky Zone ages. Upgrade to the unshakeable fortitude of a sock that will never slip away, unlike your high school boyfriend. His mistake? Never taking you to the local trampoline park. Don’t settle, ladies and gentlemen. Reach for the stars — jump for them in fact — but be sure to strap into your grippy socks first for a safe jumping experience.

Fostering mental health a cat

Meow meow meow meow. WRITTEN AND DESIGNED

BY BENNIE GOLDFARB // PHOTOS BY AUDREY HETTLEMAN

Let me set the scene for you: You’re sitting on the couch in your dimly lit living room. It’s 62° F because your heat keeps breaking and your landlord is Satan. Afer eating buttered noodles for the fourth time this week, your roommate suggests you all get a foster cat for the apartment.

As any supportive roommate would, you tell them, “Wow, what a fantastic idea! Cats are so much easier to care for than dogs. I’m sure that will cure our depression.” But two weeks later, you actually come home to your roommate and their newly fostered cat.

Suddenly there’s cat vomit on your beloved rug that somehow survived your dorm “parties” in Bobb 304 but cannot survive a six-pound tabby, and the lint roller your mom bought you freshman year has gotten more use in one week than in your entire college experience.

Would that nightmare cure your depression? Nuh-uh. But you’re in luck. Afer speaking with psychology majors (to get the inside scoop on my roommate’s brain) and future virologists (to understand this epidemic), I came to a realization: The “fostering a cat” virus is plaguing the minds of thousands of ofcampus students.

I bestowed upon myself the responsibility of giving you four simple, straightforward ways to cure CATVID-24. Because let’s face it: Journaling while listening to Lana Del Rey didn’t “protect your peace.”

My frst tip to magically curing your depression (which is how curing depression works, as any medical professional will tell you) is to download this cool meditation app I just discovered called Headspace.

Start with a 14-day free trial, and then for a mere $69.99 per year (put it on the parent’s Black Card; they won’t notice), you can reap all the benefts digital meditation has to ofer.

Afer practicing meditation for three months, you’ll have a sudden epiphany that all that sitting and deep breathing was a waste of time. In all honesty, maybe just get a cat. Keeping a small animal breathing seems much easier than regulating your own.

Tip 2: Visit Evanston’s hottest

new club

If meditation doesn’t work to cure CATVID-24, the next step is to head over to the newest local luxury ofered to Evanston residents. Sky Zone, the “leader in the indoor active entertainment industry,” as quoted from PR Newswire, ofers a safe haven for the average extremely wealthy, sad and nostalgic Northwestern student.

For just $31.99 per month, the Sky Zone elite membership ofers park access every single day of the week! What a steal! You might want to convince a friend to come with you, though. Jumping alone at Sky Zone is not what you need right now. If this doesn’t work, maybe try fostering a cat. Imagine your new cat jumping at Sky Zone. Now that would be cool.

Tip 3: Wellness overload

If you STILL feel compelled to heal without a cat, I recommend listening to Headspace meditation while jumping at Sky Zone. As you close your eyes and focus on your breathing, try not to trample that unsupervised 7 year old.

Then combine that with a SPAC massage ($59) and white light therapy (doesn’t work) ofered in the Wellness Suite. Now we’re talking.

Tip 4: OK, we’re grasping at straws here

If you try all of my recommendations and still have no luck, buy a fsh and testrun how well you do with an animal in the apartment. Can you keep it alive? Did you forget to feed it for the third day in a row? Did the fsh bowl freeze over?? Oh my God, you should really get your heating fxed.

OK. Fine. You really are getting desperate here. Well, my fnal recommendation is an inanimate cat. I present to thee: “JOY FOR ALL - Orange Tabby - Interactive Companion PetsRealistic & Lifelike” for only $124.99 on Amazon (free Prime two-day shipping)!

Hold on — my sources are telling me that fostering a real, animate cat from a shelter is free. And that when they’re happy, cats will purr on your lap. That sounds cute as shit AND it’s the best deal in this how-to guide yet! In all honesty, this guide sort of sucks. You should just try fostering a cat with your roommate. Hell, why not get two?

Tip 1: Get on the app(s)

Ring

Pursuing my MRS. degree.

WRITTEN BY JULIA LUCAS

DESIGNED BY SAMMI LI

My time as an undergrad is winding down, and amidst the typical existential dread about securing a post-grad job, moving away from my friends and learning what a deductible is, one shining defciency comes to the forefront of my aging mind: I am nowhere near earning my MRS. degree. For the South Campus superstars wondering which branch of McCormick that is, let me clarify: I am in danger of leaving college without an engagement ring. This may seem like great news for a young, hot girl like me (why quit while you’re ahead?), but the post-grad world is a scary place. Have you seen the rent prices? My dreams demand a dual income. My f rst obstacle is that I don’t have a target. I’m sorry to say this is not a guide for my hopelessly romantic seniors hoping to lock down their college sweetheart for good. No, my desire to get wifed up is purely for making rent and causing drama. I hear there are tax benefts too, but considering I still enlist my dad to f le my W-2s, that’s not for me to know.

by

our beloved spray-painted rocks fail to coax out a smaller, sparklier one, I’ll opt for divine intervention — like asking them to meet me at that Bible study the campus missionaries are always promoting. I bet those meetings are a great place for a meet-cute. There’s wine, there’s bread, everyone knows how to read … what an aphrodisiac.

Ultimately, I’m looking for a spark of love, but also of convenience. Perhaps one of my roommates (we wouldn’t have to divide up as much furniture), the coordinator from my summer internship (a return ofer AND a spouse with a salary) or the group project member who is currently the least on my nerves (they say the best marriages begin with a slide deck).

I don’t have time to wait for some gullible suitor to cra f a completely original proposal. Quick and dirty will do. I mean, doesn’t everyone want a low-maintenance, chill-girl wife? If I conspicuously loiter around the Lakef ll rocks painted with “Will you marry me?” maybe they’ll seize the opportunity. But if a few laps around

wine and the power of suggestion has properly swayed my suitor, I’ll be well on my way to those sweet, sweet marital tax benefts. And besides the f nancial rewards, the best part of an engagement is shock value. The only thing better than a strategic sof launch? A diamondadorned, rock-hard, hard launch. I’m thinking big. Like, people fghting for tickets to catch a glimpse of us big. A basketball game. The jumbotron. The kiss cam f ashes “Will you marry me?” I say yes. Ty Berry sheds a single tear. Sorry king, maybe in another life. The stadium erupts. It’s the stu f of legends. Fear not, non-ticket holders, my engagement announcement shall not be gatekept. I get proposed to at every game for the rest of the season. Take that, Boo Buie.

Once campus is abuzz with the news of my of-the-market status, I’ll be able to look back at my former single life with a nostalgic tear in my eye. But before bidding her adieu, I must ful f ll the ageold tradition of the bachelorette bash. Because I’m starting my married life so young, I need to party hard enough to make up for the 80 or 90 boring, unslutty years ahead of me. What better place to do so than Bob’s Pizza? Pitchers of vodka cran for all will pair beautifully with a traditional round of Bob’s Trivia. The theme? Divorce law. Nothing sexier than an airtight prenup!

Finally, the big day. Instead of wedding bells, the Wildcat Growl played at football games rings out over campus, announcing the occasion. My bridesmaids, the drag queens from the Dolphin Show’s Kinky Boots, stand dutifully beside me as I commit myself to whichever incoming Blackstone junior associate has fallen for my tricks. But looking into the eyes of my betrothed, all I can see is my refection: young, hot, full of potential — I obviously need to f nd a way out of this. Instead of leaving my new spouse at the altar (way too predictable), I’ll go through with it. I’ll just use my divorce trivia prowess to propel me through the LSAT and into law school. That’s certain to break us up! No big-shot investor would settle for a measly lawyer. “What about rent?” they say. “What about a dual income?” All I said was RING by spring, OK? I’ll just sell the ring for cash and spend my summer in Ibiza.