The Purple Route, Purple Express, Intercampus Shuttle and Ryan Field Shuttle will each operate under new routes intended to be more efficient and less confusing to students, according to a presentation prepared by ASG Vice President Tommy Smithburg and others, and presented to the Senate on Wednesday night.

“The common thread within each improved shuttle route is that no matter what shuttle you take, you are guaranteed to stop near the Arch, the Jacobs Center, and Tech,” Smithburg and others wrote in the presentation.

The presentation cited the Purple Route, for example, as serving “areas of campus with low demand.” The new route will run through Campus Drive and Lincoln Street, and will do a shorter loop around off-campus areas. The Purple Express will also run through Campus Drive, and will make seven stops instead of 11, for a “more simplified route.”

Student officials made the changes after conducting a study which found that more than half of student respondents did not use Northwestern’s shuttle system.

“We were a little alarmed” to learn of a sharp decline in students using shuttles in recent years, Smithburg said during his presentation to the Senate.

Smithburg noted that while about 54 percent of students surveyed said they did not use campus shuttles, only 7.6 percent said that they prefer to walk.

“We can actually have an active role in increasing ridership on the shuttles,” he said.

The presentation also suggested new names for each shuttle route, saying that the names of the Purple Express and the Purple Route caused confusion. If the name changes go through, the Purple Express would be renamed the Campus Loop. Student officials are still considering a new name for the Purple Route.

Chloe Benoist contributed reporting.

The nonprofit employs a “Street Outreach” program to find homeless children, “Outreach Centers” as “safe and caring environments” for them and a “Don’t Run Away” program to teach elementary school kids how to deal with abusive families. DM is hoping to “make connections with the more than 26,000 children living on the streets in Chicago,” according to a press release.

This is the second time in its 36-year history that DM will primarily serve a social cause. “Although DM has focused a lot on medically-related philanthropies in the past, this is going to be a great opportunity to reach out to the community in a different way,” said Lauren Troy, co-chair for next year’s DM.

Last year, DM donated $576,470 to Project Kindle, a nonprofit for families of children with HIV/AIDS.

The Evanston Community Foundation will be DM’s secondary beneficiary for the thirteenth year. Last year DM raised $64,052 for the nonprofit.

Mayfest announced the two bands as performers for the May 30 festival at its annual Battle of the Bands at Tommy Nevin’s Pub on Sherman Ave.

Industry sources confirmed to North by Northwestern in early April that the groups were slated to perform, but Mayfest declined to comment at the time.

A third headliner will be announced Friday night at the second night of Battle of the Bands, also at Tommy Nevin’s Pub.

To read a primer on The Decemberists, click here. For a primer on N.E.R.D., click here.

Want instant updates on swine flu at Northwestern? Email us, with the subject line “Swine flu,” and we’ll send you new information as soon as we post it.

Northwestern has its first confirmed case of swine flu.

An undergraduate student who lives on campus is recovering from the infection at home, according to a university press release. “She is recovering from her infection without complications,” according to the statement, released by Alan Cubbage, vice president of media relations for the university.

“Northwestern does not plan to close,” the statement added. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as state and local public officials, advise against closing a university where swine flu has been detected.

In an interview, Cubbage declined to comment about the residence or its whereabouts, but did note that it was not a large residence. The university is in the process of contacting all of the members of that residence now, he said, and giving them information similar to that on an FAQ page about swine flu posted on Northwestern’s Web site.

“Students, faculty and staff who are feeling ill should stay home and not go to work or classes,” the release said. “If students have flu-like symptoms, they should go to Northwestern Health Services for testing and treatment.”

More to come.

Mayfest will announce three Dillo Day headline acts tonight and tomorrow, the group confirmed on Thursday.

The announcements will be made at Mayfest’s annual Battle of the Bands, which starts Thursday night at 9 p.m. at Tommy Nevin’s Pub on Sherman Avenue and continues on Friday. Two headliners will be revealed Thursday, and a third will be announced on Friday night.

Asked when during the show the acts would be announced, Mayfest Co-Chair Diana Richter said, “To be honest, we don’t know.” But she said the announcements would probably be spread throughout the show, and wouldn’t all be at the end of each night.

Mayfest initially posted about the impending announcement on the group’s Twitter page. On its Web site, Mayfest has billed its Twitter page as the place for students to “be the first to hear all official updates — including bands.”

Mayfest has yet to announce any of the acts for the annual festival, but industry sources confirmed in early April that indie band The Decemberists and hip-hop group N.E.R.D. were slated to perform for the May 30 event.

Announcing the headline acts at Battle of the Bands is a yearly goal for Mayfest, Richter said. “This is something that we’ve always tried to do.”

Ten groups are competing in Mayfest’s Battle of the Bands. The winner plays on Dillo Day.

All eight patients are “either fully recovered or are on their way to a full recovery with no serious complications,” according to a City of Evanston press release.

The cases range in age from three to 28 years old.

These are the first confirmed cases of swine flu in Evanston. The quick rise in confirmations comes as area labs go through the backlog of suspected cases.

In a statement, Carl Caneva, acting director of Evanston’s Health and Human Services Department, advised against closing schools for confirmed or suspected cases “unless there is a magnitude of faculty or student absenteeism that interferes with the school’s ability to function.”

“We are urging people to take a very practical, common sense approach to this flu,” Caneva added. “Wash your hands frequently, cover your mouth when you cough, and if you or your children are sick — stay home so you do not infect others.”

As of 11 a.m. on Thursday, Illinois had 204 confirmed cases of swine flu, the most of any state in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are nearly 900 confirmed cases nationwide.

In response to Feb. 23 proposals from the Undergraduate Budget Priorities Committee asking the University to set aside additional money to make improvements to student life, administrators recently agreed to make a number of “incremental changes” to improve Norris, residential halls and other campus amenities. The promises were limited because of the University’s current financial situation, said William Banis, vice president for student affairs.

The administration will continue to fund the Saturday intercampus shuttle to downtown Chicago, as well as Be the Change grants, which student groups receive for projects to beautify campus or build community. The University has already improved lighting at five different campus locations; it will also continue installing air conditioning and start putting whiteboards in residential halls.

Within the context of across-the-board budget cutbacks at Northwestern, “these are nice little improvements,” Banis said.

But along with placing limits on an overhaul of Norris, the University has withdrawn funding for a Mid-Winter Event and will not provide money for late-night dining on North Campus, which was another UBPC request. The administration is hoping to further improve cell phone reception on campus, but has not yet found funding to do so.

“It’s a tradeoff. If you do A, then you can’t do B,” Banis said, “and somebody has to make those decisions.”

Associate Vice President for Budget and Planning Jim Hurley said that “we have very little, if any” money for new initiatives in the upcoming year. “Not just these, but the entire university’s budget as well,” he said.

The UBPC’s top four priorities, as outlined in the Feb. 23 letter, were the student center, lighting on campus, improvements to residential spaces, and late-night North Campus dining.

Weinberg senior Jonathan Kent, who was chair of UBPC when the committee made its proposals, said he was pleased with the administration’s answers. “We were kind of bracing for a limited number of positive responses,” he said, but “all of them except for one got some kind of positive response,” referring to the administration’s deferral of the late-night dining proposal.

Four of the committee’s requests followed up on proposals originally made last year: the funding of Saturday shuttles, the mid-winter event, the Be the Change grants, and cell phone signal improvements.

Sandeep Kini, the current UBPC chair, also said he was happy with the University’s response to the requests, particularly regarding Norris and the Saturday shuttle. “We were able to get a lot of the things that we asked for,” the Weinberg junior said.

A year-long process

Last fall, the UBPC polled students on NU Link and held an open forum to ask what they wanted to improve on campus. Committee members also asked for ideas from their friends. “From that we get a long list,” Kini said.

The committee — comprised of Kent, then-ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin and five others, including Kini — then trimmed the list to what they thought was realistic, and met with administrators in January and February to test the waters. After that “we had a pretty firm understanding” of what was feasible, Kent said.

The committee then drew up its proposal and made a PowerPoint presentation at a Feb. 23 meeting with university officials, including University President Henry Bienen and Provost Dan Linzer. In past years this meeting would have lasted an hour, but this year the committee had an hour and a half to make their case, Kent said.

Bienen “was especially candid with us this year,” perhaps because he is leaving at the end of the school year, Kent said.

Linzer and Eugene Sunshine, senior vice president for business and finance, then sent a letter, dated May 1, outlining the University’s response to each of the committee’s requests. Committee members received the letter Tuesday morning.

Norris

The UBPC considered Norris to be the most pressing issue — and decided to communicate that opinion — despite the administration’s budgetary limits.

“We decided to make that priority number one,” Sales-Griffin said, even though they knew that they wouldn’t get the money for a major renovation.

The committee made that clear in its proposal.

“The UBPC firmly believes that the best course of action is to start anew with the creation of a new student center,” the committee wrote. “What is unacceptable is to permit Norris, as it currently exists, to function as the student center over the long term.”

“With this said, we understand the financial situation of the university may not allow for such a bold course at this point,” the committee added in the proposal.

To accommodate that “financial situation,” the UBPC gave the University three recommendations with differing price levels: A new student center altogether, a renovation of the ground floor, or the addition of a Starbucks-level franchise to attract more students.

Committee members were satisfied with the university’s offer to replace furniture and add new video screens and lighting.

“I think any news for Norris is good news,” said Weinberg sophomore Jonathan Green**, who wrote the proposal for Norris.

SESP sophomore Meixi Ng, who also worked on the Norris proposal, said she that the furniture addition was a “pleasant surprise,” adding, “We thought that would happen three years down the road.”

Kent said the University’s answer on Norris was “pretty much what I was expecting.”

“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said.

A complete overhaul of Norris is a long-term priority, Kini said, but “we obviously were not expecting an entire new student center” in the near future, especially since it would likely require the University to raise funds through a capital campaign.

Hurley said that the new furniture and TV screens on the ground floor would “make it more livable down there.”

The administration plans to re-evaluate long-term plans for Norris after this summer’s renovations, when Morton Schapiro becomes the new University president.

“We understand it’s a real high priority,” Hurley added.

“What we’re intending to do is make incremental improvements to Norris that will not leave us with a lot of sunk cost,” Banis said.

Banis added that major renovations to Norris would “require our taking the facility off line for a year, year-and-a-half.”

Sales-Griffin said that a new Norris is possible within the next five years. If there isn’t one within the next 10 years, “I’d be baffled,” he said.

An end to the mid-winter event

In February, after the university withdrew six-figure money for a mid-winter event, Banis said that future funding for it would depend on the economy.

In the May 1 letter, administrators said they were withdrawing funding for the mid-winter event next year — with the economy still weak, the letter said, it was hard to justify the spending.

“While it would be nice to do that it wasn’t a priority in relationship to other critical needs that we have,” Banis said Tuesday.

The UBPC proposal did ask for a renewed commitment to a winter event, and outlined the planning logistics for it.

“What the University lacks and what students want to see more of – and would benefit more from – is large-scale programming. In order for this level of programming to be realized, the University must be willing to provide significant funding and investment,” the UBPC wrote in the proposal.

But committee members weren’t taken aback by the University’s decision not to fund the event.

“That certainly wasn’t a surprise to us,” Kent said.

Kent said that the idea would have to wait until the University has more resources at its disposal.

Sales-Griffin said that he’s got another plan in the works that “that might even surpass the ambition of the mid-winter event.” He declined to go into detail, but said to look for it next year.

Saturday shuttle success

Committee members were particularly pleased that the administration agreed to keep funding the Saturday intercampus shuttle.

“We were really excited about that,” Kini said.

Banis also said that he was “very pleased” with this decision.

The University provided funding for a pilot program last year. The shuttle began running in October. About 245 riders use the shuttle to go to and from downtown Chicago on average each weekend, according to the UBPC proposal.

“Based on these numbers, ASG, the UBPC, and University Services conclude that the Chicago Express is an affordable and worthwhile institutional investment,” the committee wrote in the proposal.

Kini said that the University’s willingness to sponsor the shuttle for another year showed its commitment to students.

“They saw the success of it, and they continued it,” he said.

Keeping the economy in mind

The University’s monetary limitations came up in every step of the process.

The economy “was always on the back of our minds,” Ng said. “We had to be more frugal, and really creative with our proposals.”

Though Kini said the UBPC “still asked for the big-ticket things” such as improvements to Norris and the installation of air-conditioning units, he said the committee tried to frame its proposals so that they were flexible enough to match the University’s unstable budget. That’s why the committee made three separate proposals to change Norris, for example.

Committee members said they were pleased with administrators’ candor about Northwestern’s economic obstacles.

“We were able to have honest conversations with them,” Kini said.

For their part, Hurley and Banis said that the UBPC’s proposals were well-thought-out.

“They were very reasonable and, as usual, very well prepared,” Banis said.

Mike Elsen-Rooney contributed reporting.
**Disclosure: Jonathan Green wrote a few pre-election blog posts for North by Northwestern

Correction appended

Unless you made it to University Health Services, you wouldn’t know from walking around the Northwestern campus on Wednesday that swine flu has hit Chicagoland.

By 5 p.m, “cover your cough” signs had been hung across the check-in desk at Searle and bottles of hand sanitizer sat in prominent positions. An employee said Health Services was handing out surgical masks to people with coughs.

Authorities announced nine probable cases of swine flu across greater Chicago during the day on Wednesday, but aside from some changes in Searle, life at Northwestern was relatively undisturbed.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s just the flu, and if we wash our hands, we’ll be fine,” said Weinberg senior Eric Kramer.

“I’m actually not concerned at all,” said Weinberg junior Moriah Hnath. “Maybe I should be [...] It just feels really distant to me. I think part of that is being on a university campus.”

Some students hadn’t heard about the cases in the Chicago area, and those who had were mostly unclear on the details. Mitch Bergson, a Weinberg sophomore admitted that he’d bought some Vitamin C and hand sanitizer but said, “I’ll go on living my life, and keep an eye on how I feel.”

In one case, an elementary school less than five miles from campus was shut down. Chicago Public Schools officials closed Kilmer Elementary School in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago while they investigated a suspected case of swine flu in a twelve-year-old student.

Ron Huberman, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, said the school is closed for at least two days.

Only blocks away, officials at Loyola University Chicago announced later in the day that one Loyola student, a 20-year-old male who lived on campus, had probably contracted swine flu.

Even before the announcement, though, the university began taking precautions. Signs at the Loyola Wellness Center asked Wednesday morning, “Do you have the flu?” The sign told visitors showing symptoms to “please put on a mask while you wait.” Loyola students spoke casually about the virus on Wednesday morning before learning about the case on campus.

Loyola senior Darkus Beasley said around 11 a.m. on Wednesday that he used to live in an off-campus apartment near Kilmer Elementary School. But for now, he said, the swine flu is “not pertinent to me. I don’t feel like I’m going to catch it.” Beasley added, “Until somebody I know has the swine flu, I don’t really think I’ll consider it.”

But the threat became a lot more immediate for Beasley and his classmates at 5 p.m., when the university released a statement about the infected student. The letter reassured students that the university would “conduct business as usual” and urged them to “take precautions in order to stay healthy and to do your part to keep the community safe.”

Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage said this morning that Northwestern is monitoring the situation nearby, but has not made any immediate changes to its response plan.

“There are other cases that are very nearby. Notre Dame had a case,” Cubbage said.

That case is the first one confirmed in Indiana, and the first in any state bordering Illinois. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 91 cases in the U.S. had been confirmed as of 11 a.m. Wednesday.

The CDC Web site states, “Most people will not have immunity to this new virus and, as it continues to spread, more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths are expected in the coming days and weeks.”

“We will continue to monitor the situation and we’re aware of the developments,” Cubbage said. “If circumstances change, we will continue to update the campus community.”

Associate professor Dirk Brockmann, who had created a “worst-case scenario” projection for swine flu in urban areas, said, “It’s very important not to panic and overreact to these incidents.” He also stated that this potential outbreak does not present any new danger.

Robert Lamb, John Evans Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Northwestern, said, “So far, it’s clear that there’s human-to-human transmission of the virus. It seems there’s always been a link to Mexico somewhere, but clearly that’s a job for the epidemiologists to figure out. No, I don’t think there’s anything we can do at the present time, except wash our hands frequently.”

No officials from Northwestern University Health Services could be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Updated: 4/30 3:30 a.m:The original version of this article called CEO of Chicago Public Schools “Richard Huberman.” His real name is “Ron Huberman.” Thanks to commenter Medill F for for the correction. North by Northwestern regrets this error.

Muhammad Safdari will not face an impeachment trial after all.

The Associated Student Government Rules Committee decided Tuesday that the case against the newly-elected academic director did not warrant a trial, according to ASG Parliamentarian Grace Adamson. Adamson declined to comment further, but said the committee would release a full report on Wednesday.

Some questioned whether Safdari’s pre-election e-mail skewed the results in favor of Mike McGee. File photo by Katherine Tang / North by Northwestern.

The articles of impeachment charged Safdari with “unduly and unfairly influencing the outcome” of the run-off election between Mike McGee and Bill Pulte. The morning before polls opened on April 17, Safdari sent out a widely-forwarded e-mail accusing Pulte of using “extralegal” tactics to win votes.

After the decision was announced, Safdari said he wanted to “close the chapter” on this incident. He said he regretted sending the e-mail but that the action did not merit impeachment.

“I understand the spirit of why [the impeachment] was being pushed, but there were no merits for the case,” Safdari said. “Once they looked at the information, they realized there was just a lot of confusion and misunderstandings.”

Former ASG Parliamentarian Will Upton, who co-authored the articles for Safdari’s impeachment, expressed “deep disappointment” with the decision.

“Not moving on impeachment sets the precedent that people can use tactics like the e-mail and get away with it,” he said.

Upton also said the decision called into question the effectiveness of the Rules Committee. “Political biases left over from the campaign influenced the decision of the committee,” he said.

McGee said he is glad that the issue has been resolved and is ready to move on to productive work, with the help of Safdari.

“It’s naïve to say everything will be 100 percent great” from here on out, considering the tension Safdari’s e-mail and the impeachment process have stirred, McGee said. He said Safdari should continue to focus on “show[ing] the students why they elected him” in the first place.

McGee said he is confident in the integrity and effectiveness of the Rules Committee and that he was glad to see the “facts win out. We didn’t want any personal decisions to get in the way.”

Although part of the case for Safdari’s impeachment was the claim that his e-mail skewed the results of the election in favor of McGee, the ASG president said that the committee’s decision doesn’t give his election victory any extra validity or legitimacy.

“Elections are interesting because there’s no exact way to know why everyone voted the way they did,” he said. “There are always outside factors, I can’t control that.”

McGee won the run-off with 60 percent of the vote. In the general election April 15, Pulte garnered 48.6 percent of the vote, compared to McGee’s 47.9 percent — a difference of 33 votes.

McGee said he still believes he won because “I met thousands of students” and clearly communicated his plans for the future of ASG.

Pulte declined to comment for this story.

Neal Sales-Griffin chose which stops would be made on the Saturday shuttle from campus to downtown Chicago. On the spot. “Off the top of my head,” he said.

The SESP senior was meeting early in Fall Quarter with Director of University Services Brian Peters and University Services Manager Marge Grzezczuk, and “they were like, ‘All right, [we've] got $12,000 and we have a shuttle that can go downtown. Where would you like it to go?’” Sales-Griffin said. “I was like, ‘Well, we could take it to the River East and Navy Pier and [Shedd] Aquarium.’ And they were like, ‘Okay.’”

To the now former ASG president, this signaled one thing about student government’s role at Northwestern: “You do stuff,” he said. “It’s not as bureaucratic as people perceive.”

Monday, Communication junior Mike McGee begins his first full week as ASG president, which means, according to his predecessor, that he is now the supposed “voice of the student body.” McGee will meet often with top administrators such as Vice President of Student Affairs William Banis, and try to represent the views and needs of the 8,000 undergraduates on campus.

“The best way to truly determine students’ approval or disapproval of something is through ASG, ironically enough,” Sales-Griffin said.

But how does ASG accurately understand what students care about, and properly convey this to administrators in charge of our tuition, meal plans and classes? Can a small group of students holed up in Norris truly represent the eclectic and diverse interests of the student body without skewing their priorities, at least somewhat? In a recent interview as he prepared to leave office, Sales-Griffin said that improving ASG’s ability to do so has been “the whole point of my presidency,” and offered other insights into the capabilities — and limitations — of student government at Northwestern.

During the past few months, ASG has set up three separate forums with administrators, the last one with outgoing University President Henry Bienen and Banis. Only about 40 students attended the most popular forum, with Bienen. But the point, according to Sales-Griffin, is not to get every person involved; it’s to give students the opportunity to be heard if they so desire, and to ensure that those students get full and real answers from school officials.

What students don’t always realize, according to Sales-Griffin, is that Bienen, Banis and others “do take us seriously.” But they’re not always fully aware of what students want or need. This was most apparent to Sales-Griffin when he was pushing for a new student center to replace Norris during a meeting of the Undergraduate Budget Priorities Committee. Bienen “said that it was too hard to raise money for it,” Sales-Griffin said. “And I’m sitting there like, ‘You know, as far as I’m concerned, that’s not good enough. We need to have this.”

“They struggled to understand why, as students, Norris was a frustrating building. And I was baffled. Because I know why Norris is frustrating, because I live here. But they don’t,” Sales-Griffin said. Administrators may not always see it through our lens, but “It’s up to us, though, to communicate our side,” he said. “We need a strong advocate.”

That advocacy may be all the more important next year, Sales-Griffin notes, when Morton Schapiro becomes the new university president, and potentially tries to raise funds through a capital campaign. “This is something that the next ASG president is going to have to champion like none other,” he said.

The hope is that such advocacy doesn’t come from ASG leaders who “just do things and just hope that students like it.” Sales-Griffin said that he had answered every email from students during his tenure, in one way or another. He also noted that ASG often tries to get students who are vocal about specific issues to join a committee and work on them.

But some students think that ASG is still unable to get in touch with students’ needs. For example Blake Yocom, who ran against Sales-Griffin a year ago, said that ASG is still “self-serving” — they do things to bolster their own image instead of improve the lives of students.

Sales-Griffin is mostly bullish about his accomplishments. “You can size me up if you were to take the accomplishments of this year and look at last year and compare them,” he said. “I’m confident in those types of things but what matters more to me is the sort of a long-term establishment of an action-oriented group of people that are passionate. And I think that’s what we fostered.”

But of course many other ideas designed to make ASG more representative of students are still in the works. One such idea is near fruition: a new Web site designed to make interaction with students easy.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if a student had a question or concern, we could submit a question on the ASG front page, we could have an answer right there,” Sales-Griffin said. “‘Why don’t we have U-Passes?’ ‘How do I start a student group?’ ‘Where does the $1.2 million that we pay for student activities go?’” Students will find the answers to such questions on the site itself.

The site will also have a “projects page,” which will show each issue that student government is working on, and assign a percentage to show how near completion each proposal is.

“Simple stuff. Why didn’t we have this before? I don’t know. We’ve been talking about it for a while.”

Mike Elsen-Rooney contributed reporting.