| Opinion | May. 15, 2008 | 10:34 pm |
NU gets all dressed up for the occasion
By
This week at Northwestern, we were a big deal. We made a splash, made the news and made some friends in high (royal!) places. We may have missed the mark a few times, though, as some of the choices we made this week were questionable at best. But as they say, any publicity is good publicity.
For a second on Wednesday, I thought I was living in a real version of the Princess Diaries when I saw police escorts and heard rumblings of royalty on campus. But alas, to my dismay, it seemed Anne Hathaway would not be getting a makeover and finding her true love at Northwestern — instead, Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al-Missned, the wife of Qatar’s head of state, came to visit.
At first, I was tragically disappointed, but the fact that she was visiting Medill students and asking them questions about media relations between the United States and the Middle East was exciting. Would we live up? Would we be disappointing? Whenever someone especially noteworthy (female royalty especially, even if she wasn’t wearing crown jewels and robes à la Julie Andrews in the Diaries) comes to Medill, I get a little nervous that we won’t live up to our world-renowned name. But my fellow Medillians didn’t let me down. We showed her SportsNight! Bulls-eye!
After that ace-in-the-hole, our music school changed its perfectly-fine name to the Bienen School of Music. The Bienen School of Music. Well, it doesn’t exactly roll right off the tongue, and shouldn’t the name of a music school be a little more harmonious? Maybe something French? At this point, I can only hope that Daft Punk (they’re French) soon swoops in with a hefty donation and a swift name change.
That’s not to say, however, that President Bienen doesn’t deserve a tribute. SESP is still nameless, and I’m sure no one would mind if the Shakespeare Garden became the Bienen Garden.
And early this week, we finally found the new dean of Weinberg. Sarah Mangelsdorf, dean of the liberal arts college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will be taking over the helm. We wish her the best in avoiding a Dean Lavine-like start.
We showed Qatar royalty the best of our sports coverage, gave the School of Music a cacophonic new name, and lay the groundwork for another dean-related scandal this week. The news was big, but the irony was bigger. I’m confused, Northwestern. Another stunt like this and we’ll be having Jerry Springer as a commencement speaker. Oh, wait…
Ryan said,
May 17, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
I am somewhat disappointed in this entry. Probably shouldn’t rip on Emmy winners. People on SportsNight work just as hard as the people on this site do. Maybe if you understood sports, you would get it.
Aaron said,
May 17, 2008 @ 9:01 pm
Actually Ryan, I’m pretty sure people on SportsNight work a lot harder than this writer did on this so-called “opinion” piece. Way to dismiss hours and hours of hard work with a sarcastic crack Ms. Nguyen.
Josh said,
May 17, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
Why are you attacking SportsNight? The show she watched won an emmy for best college newscast in the country. That’s a greater accomplishment than NBN has ever known (or will ever know if articles like this keep up). As a former NBN sports writer, I’m frankly embarrassed by the pessimism and thoughtlessness of this article.
Aaron P. said,
May 17, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
Beyond SportsNight, in what way does hiring a dean “lay the groundwork for another scandal”? And as for the School of Music, it did not have a name either. Henry Bienen has worked to bring the music school to the premier level it should be at. He’s done as much as anyone for that school and deserves the honorarium. So I’m sorry you were disappointed that you saw royalty and could not find anything else to bitch about. NBN would have been better off without this entry.
Madeline said,
May 17, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
Allow me to express my condolences that the visit of the wife of Qatar’s head of state didn’t live up to your Disney-movie dreams. It’s completely understandable that you should express your disappointment by insulting the endeavors of your fellow students. Not to worry; there’s always a chance that Northwestern will entertain royalty again…when you win a Hearst Award.
Aaron said,
May 17, 2008 @ 10:37 pm
This article is simply terrible. First, I’m glad they showed her Sportsnight instead of this garbage, considering that this article presents a strong argument against freedom of the press. When I showed the Mayor of Packanie some episodes of SportsNight, he was very impressed. Why? because something like that takes effort and work, something a bitchy inconsequential piece of trash article like this doesn’t take. I just want to give a shout out to Todd Ainge and Lonnie Carlson and my Boys in Packanie. Cheesesticks out.
George S said,
May 17, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
Well then, looks like the SportsNight guys take themselves a little too seriously. Slow your roll boys, you have quite a few shows to go before you get to have an Outside the Lines type attitude. Which is not to defend the writer, as we as a student body should really not put down the efforts of our fellow classmates, even those SESP dorks. I wish that that Packanie had won the state championship in ‘05/’06 but a few costly errors, and some hitting breakdowns prevented it. At least they sent a few players to D1 schools like Stanford.
in the know said,
May 17, 2008 @ 11:30 pm
I like how the people who are ripping on this article are the one who produce and anchor sportsnight.
Aaron Morse said,
May 17, 2008 @ 11:40 pm
And yet they had the guts to use their real names. Unlike you sir. Oh, and I don’t believe Madeline or Aaron P. or George work for SportsNight. So man up, use your real name, and we can have a discussion about this.
Carl said,
May 18, 2008 @ 1:09 am
Along with clips from a SportsNight episode, the Queen also saw parts of a film produced by Medill’s documentary class and met with students that work on Northwestern’s studuent-produced news program. Perhaps this author should try doing what all those students did: RESEARCH a story before you report or comment on it.
Hannah said,
May 18, 2008 @ 10:28 am
the people who commented might have worked on sportsnight, but they didn’t give themselves an emmy. clearly they’re not the only ones who see the high quality of their work.
Patrick said,
May 18, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
This article is a joke. I won’t trash the rest of NBN because I like a lot of what you guys do.
But Vi-An, you aren’t funny. You’re ignorant. Grow up.
Ryan said,
May 18, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
That’s alright, Tom and other former CRCers that work on this site. I respect what you guys do. There is some good stuff on here. But I always feel that it’s not good practice to dig another media entity.
urdumb said,
May 20, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
The comments on this article are roughly 10000x funnier than the article itself