Pulte, a Medill junior, and Smithburg, a Weinberg junior, were sworn in as Vice President and Human Resources and Operations Director respectively during Wednesday’s ASG Senate session. These two positions were created this year by ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin and his executive board to help redistribute the responsibilities of the president and executive vice-president, as well as to help restructure ASG and make the organization more efficient.

Pulte and Smithburg have only had limited experience with student government prior to their appointments as members of the executive board. Pulte was the campaign manager for Blake Yocom’s ASG presidential campaign last spring, but had maintained good relations with Neal Sales-Griffin.

Smithburg was a senator during Fall Quarter of his freshman year, but quickly became disillusioned.

“I didn’t like the way it was working,” he said. “I saw a lot of room for improvements, but I didn’t really see an outlet for those ideas, so it was kind of discouraging”

But for Pulte and Smithburg, their status as ASG outsiders was more of an advantage than a hurdle.

“Being an outsider gives you a fresh perspective, kind of a clean slate to really write down those problems and think about them in a new way,” Smithburg said.

Pulte shared this opinion: “During my Northwestern career I’ve been able to accomplish things outside of the organization,” he said. “Because I’ve had the success of achieving those different things, I believe that’s going to translate into success in the objectives I set for myself as I strive on.”

Pulte is the current president of Pi Kappa Alpha (or “Pike”), while Smithburg is the former president of Delta Upsilon. While both have had similar responsibilities, their experiences were drastically different.

Pulte was able during his presidency to get his fraternity a house on-campus after 13 years of being off-campus

“[Pike] takes a great deal of my time,” he said, adding that the fraternity, along with his aerial photography company, Great Lakes Helicopters LLC., were “pretty self-functioning bodies,” leaving him ample time to fulfill his duty in ASG.

Smithburg was president of Delta Upsilon last year when the fraternity organized a controversial pledge event involving a midget wrestling group. But for Smithburg, the ordeal was an important learning opportunity.

“I wouldn’t call it a failure, so to say. Learning from your experiences and learning from especially challenging experiences like this, that’s where you can find future success,” he said. “Reflecting on my experiences as DU president, seeing what I could have done better, I think makes me a better person overall because I can use a lot of those lessons in the future.”

Both students saw an opportunity for change with the Sales-Griffin presidency.

“I really saw this exec board as being open to change, and I saw this position as a great way to express that,” Smithburg said.

“What I’m hoping to do is get actual results and actual services for the students,” Pulte said. “We’ve got the right people there, so now it’s just a matter of making sure things get through.”

For Smithburg, his new situation as Human Resources Director gives him an occasion to talk individually with other exec board members and puts him in an interesting position to see what things could be changed.

“Even just letting them vent, and letting them spew all the ideas they want, it’s been really interesting, because they’re giving me gold on things that we can help with ASG,” he said. “I think the benefit of my position is that I can help people individually improve. I can think about it and work through problems they have, and I can also sit back and say, ‘There’s a common problem here.”"

After slightly more than two weeks to adjust to their new responsibilities, Pulte and Smithburg are already in the full swing of things, focusing notably on establishing airport shuttles and a Northwestern equivalent of Craigslist.

“Bill Pulte and I, I’ve been texting him, calling him, e-mailing him every hour in the last two weeks,” Smithburg said. “We’re really excited to be here.”

Boehm had been missing for 11 days before his body was found in Lake Michigan on Sunday and identified the next day.

A vigil, which had been planned for several days, took place on Monday night, hours after he was confirmed dead. For Stevens, the memorial is a chance for something more thoroughly planned.

“It’s just a memorial service to celebrate his life and to express the grief that everyone feels,” he said. “It will give people an opportunity to come together and say their goodbyes, pay their respects. It’s a way to support one another in a time of loss.”

Stevens added that the presence of Boehm’s fellow students at Monday night’s vigil meant a lot to his parents.

“His parents, one thing they appreciated about the vigil was the opportunity to talk to students who knew Trevor, because they’re eager to know what his life at Northwestern was like and to have that connection with his friends here,” he said.

According to Stevens, the ceremony will include music, a reading by some of Boehm’s classmates in the theater department. Anyone who wants to speak about Boehm will be given the opportunity to do so. The event is open to all students.

“We’re doing this for the family, but also for the extended family at Northwestern,” Stevens said.

Former Northwestern University Provost Lawrence Dumas died Monday at age 67. He was battling a brain tumor for the past year, according to a university press release.

“Larry was an extraordinary man in many ways, and no more so than in his distinguished service to Northwestern,” Northwestern President Henry Bienen said in the press release. “He provided unparalleled leadership and thoughtful guidance to the entire university. He looms large in the history of Northwestern.”

Mr. Dumas had been a member of Northwestern’s faculty since 1970, and was one of the founding members of the university’s department of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology; he was its chairman from 1985 to 1988.

Mr. Dumas served as the dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 1996 before becoming the Northwestern University Provost. He continued in that role for 11 years until September of 2007, when he took a leave of absence before returning to work in the department of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology.

Mr. Dumas is survived by his wife, Sally; two children, Robert Dumas and Aimee Dumas Long; and three grandchildren, Meredith, Natalie and Jackson. A memorial service will be held on Nov. 21 at 2 p.m. at Alice Millar Chapel.

In lieu of flowers, the statement said, gifts should be made to the Lawrence B. Dumas Distinguished University Professorship, c/o Sarah Pearson, Northwestern University Office of Alumni Relations and Development, 2020 Ridge Ave., Evanston, IL 60208; or to the Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute, Feinberg School of Medicine, c/o Terri Dillon, 750 N. Lake Shore Dr., 9th Floor, Chicago, IL 60611.

Read the statement below.

FORMER NORTHWESTERN PROVOST LAWRENCE B. DUMAS DIES AT AGE 67

EVANSTON, Ill. — Former Northwestern University Provost Lawrence B. Dumas died today (Nov. 17) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital Hospice.

Mr. Dumas, 67, died after battling a brain tumor for the last year.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday (Nov. 21) at Alice Millar Chapel on the Evanston campus. A reception will follow in the Guild Lounge.

“Larry was an extraordinary man in many ways, and no more so than in his distinguished service to Northwestern,” said Northwestern President Henry S. Bienen. “He provided unparalleled leadership and thoughtful guidance to the entire university. He looms large in the history of Northwestern.”

Mr. Dumas served as Northwestern University Provost from January 1996 to 2007. In September 2007 he stepped down to begin a leave of absence before returning to active professional life in the department of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology. In recognition of his significant contributions to Northwestern, the University established the Lawrence B. Dumas Distinguished University Professorship.

He was named Provost after serving as dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 1996. A member of the Northwestern faculty since 1970, Mr. Dumas was named an associate professor in 1975 and professor of biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology in 1980. He was one of the founding members of the department of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology and was chair from 1985 to 1988.

As Provost, Mr. Dumas worked with faculty members, administrators and trustees to develop a strategic plan to guide the University as it moved toward the “highest order of excellence” envisioned by its founders. This initiative had the support of deans of the various schools and an ad hoc faculty group, which identified key issues affecting the University’s future. Those efforts resulted in a document entitled “The Highest Order of Excellence,” a statement of fundamental goals, priorities and strategies for Northwestern University. The vision expressed in the document built on the recommendations of earlier task force reports on the undergraduate experience, and on graduate education, and outlined an agenda for focusing on four key priorities: (1) Invest in the faculty; (2) Intensify undergraduate learning; (3) Redesign graduate education and strengthen professional education; and (4) Build the infrastructure for teaching, learning and research in the 21st Century. Mr. Dumas worked with a steering committee to oversee the implementation of these plans.

Mr. Dumas also spearheaded planning that resulted in significant new tuition revenues available for initiatives in undergraduate education. He fostered analysis and planning that led to a decision to phase out the Dental School. With the Senior Vice President for Business and Finance and the Associate Vice President for Budget, Mr. Dumas made significant changes in the budget decision-making process of the University.

Mr. Dumas focused his research on molecular studies of chromosomal replication, and his laboratory made significant contributions to the identification and isolation of proteins that catalyze the replication process. His research was funded by the American Cancer Society, National Science Foundation and the U.S. Public Health Service.

Mr. Dumas received the John Boezi Award for Outstanding Molecular Biology Research from Michigan State University (1987) and the U.S. Public Service Career Development Award (1974-79). He was the recipient of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award 1979-80.

Mr. Dumas was a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists, American Society for Microbiology and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a past member of the medical advisory board of the Leukemia Research Foundation, and he has served on the recombinant DNA safety committee at Abbott Laboratories.

Mr. Dumas received a bachelor’s degree with high honors in biochemistry from the Michigan State University Honors College in 1963, a master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1965, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Wisconsin in 1968. He was the recipient of a U.S. Public Health Service pre-doctoral fellowship (1964-67) at Wisconsin and a postdoctoral fellowship (1968-70) at the California Institute of Technology.

Mr. Dumas, a resident of Evanston, is survived by his wife, Sally, and two children, Robert Dumas and Aimee Dumas Long, and three grandchildren, Meredith, Natalie and Jackson.

n lieu of flowers, gifts should be made to the Lawrence B. Dumas Distinguished University Professorship, c/o Sarah Pearson, Northwestern University Office of Alumni Relations and Development, 2020 Ridge Ave., Evanston, IL 60208; or to the Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute, Feinberg School of Medicine, c/o Terri Dillon, 750 N. Lake Shore Dr., 9th Floor, Chicago, IL 60611.

More to come.

According to ASG Financial Vice President Seva Rodnyansky, groups were “fairly satisfied” by SAFB recommendations this year.

“Last year, by second-hand account, it was rather ugly, so I think people thought that this was better,” Rodnyansky said. “What struck us was how few groups actually appealed.”

Rodnyansky said Wednesday’s meeting was much less time-consuming than in previous years.

“Usually these things take two days, and yesterday it took us three hours,” he said. “I think people were more educated about the process. I think it made a big difference in spring and it carried out to fall.”

A&O and Mayfest were the main beneficiaries of the supplementary fund, receiving $83,855 and $52,950 respectively.

Mayfest received more than $8,000 more than last year, an increase that Mayfest co-chair and Weinberg senior Diana Richter attributed to the popularity of last year’s Dillo Day.

“It’s pretty reasonable considering the incredible successful year we had last year. I think it was in line with what we deserved,” said Richter. “We were more than happy.”

A big portion of Mayfest’s funding is to go into trailers for artists in between concerts.

“This will prevent Mayfest from shutting down Norris 2nd floor on the day of Dillo Day, as well as remove the need for additional motorpool to transport these artists,” said the SAFB in its recommendations.

The SAFB also justified increased funds for Mayfest as Northwestern’s administration, who has contributed to the group through discretionary funds in the past, might not be able to donate as much money as it normally did due to the economic crisis.

“Administrators no longer have discretionary funds because of the University’s financial situation in the current economy,” the recommendation read. “This also played into our decision to give Mayfest this increase in honorarium.”

A&O successful programming last year also explained their extra funding increase from $73,245 last year.

“We got an increase because for our winter speaker series which we had last year, we had four acts come and we sold out each event. When you sell out events, it merits an increase,” said A&O Chairwoman and Music senior Sydney Cohen.

But Cohen added that money wasn’t the only thing that made A&O’s events popular.

“Increased funding will help us to a certain extent, we will be able to effectively promote the event and bringing acts that students want,” she said. “But we can’t just throw money at something and make it spectacular, there’s a lot that goes into planning an event.”

As the first full quarter of his presidency unfolds, Sales-Griffin and ASG’s executive board have laid the foundations for change across most parts of ASG. But in addition to debating constitutional changes and setting up new events, the ASG executive board has been trying to undertake an even bigger challenge: changing the mentality within ASG.

The executive board has decided to generate new pilot vice-president and human resources director positions to ensure the accountability and commitment of members of the student government, something that current ASG exec members say has been lacking in the past.

“Everyone in ASG in the past tried and cared and was passionate and put a lot of hard work and did some great things, but the accountability across the board was not necessarily there,” remembers External Relations Chairman Samir Pendse. “I’ve been in committees where nothing happened, you’d literally be in the room and do nothing, and nothing bad would happen.”

Another major change to the structure of the ASG Senate has been the implementation of an interview process to apply for committees. For many, this has changed the attitude of senators in regards to their work.

“I’ve been in ASG committees for the past two years, a lot of people are in it for maybe the wrong reasons, a lot of people are in it just to be on a committee and they don’t even really know what it’s about,” Pendse said. “When there’s an interview and an application, that gets rid of that sense of entitlement that a lot people had in the past.”

And the difference is allegedly already visible.

“People are more invested in the process. They feel it’s much more of a responsibility of theirs to follow through with everything,” said Student Services Vice President Nate Perkins.

Sales-Griffin said he hoped that the new energy seen in the committees would extend to other aspects of ASG.

“We want this culture of action and collaboration to be contagious,” he said.

ASG Senator Scott Belsky has seen the change in mentality that Sales-Griffin is trying to implement firsthand.

“Neal is trying to get a lot of senators to coordinate effort outside of Senate to function properly as an organization whose functioning isn’t limited to an hour on Wednesdays,” he said.

These modifications come down to one word: accountability. Recently released attendance records showed that an overwhelming majority of senators have not attended meetings so far this year, a trend Sales-Griffin is trying to reverse.

“ASG has been loose or lenient in the past in terms of attendance,” Sales-Griffin said. “Exec Board wants to make strong point in terms of being on time and in attendance.”

The executive board has been discussing ways to make senators more accountable, including the possibility of losing one’s seat after too many absences.

“We’re trying to engage people more,” Sales-Griffin said. “My goal is by the end of the year to have full attendance at Senate.”

Executive board members have also started to spread out throughout the room during Senate meetings, as opposed to being huddled together, in an effort to be more accessible to senators.

ASG has also increased its transparency, allowing reporters to attend one of their weekly executive meetings, something that hadn’t been done since 2004.

“It was all confidential and secret. We’re trying to change a lot of that type of stuff,” Sales-Griffin said.

Executive board members are also planning on having office hours to talk to students and weekly e-mail senator updates. ASG also sent its first student quarterly report last week.

“It’s not something that we perfected yet in terms of distribution, but I think it’s saying a lot in terms of transparency that we’re willing to put all this information out there and trying to make sure that it reaches everyone on campus,” Sales-Griffin said.

As a member of ASG for the past two years, Pendse has seen firsthand the drastic changes in mentality that have taken place in the student government since the last election.

“A lot of good things happened in the previous administrations too, but I think that the attitude was ‘we’ll do as much as we can, given the circumstances,’” Pendse said. “When Neal came in, the shift was ‘we won’t be satisfied with what we have… We’ll make a new reality.’”

Belsky concurred.

“Jon Webber was all about ad-hoc things and working with what you have,” he said. “He [Sales-Griffin] is kind of the polar opposite from Jon Webber.”

“I think the mentality is a lot more about taking action,” Senator Steven Eilers said. “I feel as though the senators are more informed this year compared to last year about what they can or can’t do, more people speak up because they know the rules.”

According to Pendse, the whirlwind of change going through ASG this year is likely to have a visible effect on the organization in the future.

“It’s a totally new future going for ASG for the next few years,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of the benefits and ramifications of this next year and in the year two and three after that. It’s definitely setting a foundation for what’s to come.”

But change might be difficult to adapt to for certain members of Senate, according to Hariharan Vijay, an ASG senator, member of the Committee of Rules and North by Northwestern staffer.

“Some thought that this was too radical of a change too soon,” Vijay said. “It’s hard to explain 15 pages of the constitution and explain it efficiently in one or two Senate meetings.”

But Vijay added that he didn’t think reforms would be completely bogged down if Senate opposed change.

“Even if the changes get shot down, Neal has the authority to form them as ad-hoc positions, which is what I think we’re going to end up doing if Senate isn’t open to the idea,” he said. “You’re not going to know if these things won’t work unless you try them out, and even if they don’t work, it isn’t exactly going to make things worse.”

Sam Barnett contributed reporting.

ASG External Relations Chair Samir Pendse said that 215 passengers used the new service on its opening day on Oct. 11, and 163 used it the next weekend.

Pendse called the numbers the “as good as you could have hoped,” and noted that all the seats were taken on the first shuttle he rode.

The pilot program has funding for the rest of fall quarter. Shuttles will run to downtown Chicago locations every Saturday in October and November, after which point the university will decide whether or not the it’ll be funded further. A University Services official wasn’t available for comment late this evening.

The university first approved the service in April after the Undergraduate Budget Priorities Committee proposed it.

The report points to the organization’s new structure and steps to improve transparency, as part of an ongoing effort to change ASG’s image and role within the Northwestern community.

“ASG is prepared to hold itself accountable for developing legislation representing the needs and concerns of the student body,” ASG President Neal Sales-Griffin said in the report.

Sales-Griffin, a SESP senior, said in an interview that a report like this is nothing new, but sharing it with the student body is.

“Apparently ASG has been doing this for years; we’ve always had a report on a current basis for administrators,” Sales-Griffin said.

The report highlighted some of the student government’s plans currently in the works, such as One Northwestern, an ad-hoc committee to organize events fostering school spirit.

“One Northwestern is ultimately a collaborative, student-run project that seeks to bring Northwestern together,” ASG Treasurer Claire Lew, a SESP sophomore, wrote in the report.

Other notable novelties include work on a 24-hour campus space and a diversity-themed week during Fall Quarter.

The quarterly report provided a platform for members of the executive board to present their recent achievements, such as NU Decides, Big Bite Night and the pilot Chicago Express shuttle.

Following Sales-Griffin’s electoral promise to restructure ASG from the inside, pilot vice-president and human resources director positions have been created. These currently vacant positions are to be tested for a year.

According to Sales-Griffin, he and the executive board “plan on hopefully addressing Senate again with some potential constitution changes” if the positions prove to be successful.

The human resources director title has become especially relevant as the selection process of Senate committee members is now done through interviews, another recent organizational change.

“It’s been a huge hassle right now in terms of trying to figure out committee applications, interviewing, people-management within the organization and recruitment outside of it,” Sales-Griffin said.

“I personally have taken that position up myself to some capacity, but I was not able to fulfill it in the way that we envision this position going forward because I have a lot of other commitments as ASG president,” he said.

ASG will also send out weekly senator updates and event guides to students.

“It’s not something that we perfected yet in terms of distribution,” he added. “But I think it’s saying a lot in terms of transparency that we’re willing to put all this information out there and trying to make sure that it reaches everyone on campus.”

“Zakat” and “Sawm” — charity and fasting — are two of the five pillars of Islam that were highlighted on Sunday as the Muslim Cultural Student Alliance organized its first Fast-a-Thon. It culminated with a charity dinner, benefiting the Greater Chicago Food Depository, at sundown.

“This year we decided to add the Fast-a-thon with [the Iftar, the meal celebrating the end of a fast], because with the lunar calendar, Ramadan moves up a couple of weeks every year, so this year only a couple of weeks were during the school year,” Anisa Rahman, a Weinberg junior and member of McSA, explained. “It’s an awareness event, but it’s also a fun event — we eat, we talk.”

For McSA co-president and Weinberg junior Mustafa Rahman, who is not related to Anisa, the act of fasting helps put many things into perspective.

“We all take for granted the things that are given to us by God, and food is a huge part,” he said. “I feel that [fasting] it’s cathartic to people.”

Rahman emphasized the fact that the event did not cater only to Muslims. According to him, about 100 of the fasters registered online, and out of them, “only 20 or 30 were Muslims.”

Weinberg senior Mark Crain was one of those who fasted. He addressed the crowd to talk about his perspective on fasting from his Protestant point of view. For Crain, the event was a sign of unity on campus.

“At Northwestern in particular, we constantly seek to realize the ideal that there is indeed more that unites us than separates us,” he said.

McSA co-founder Anas Osman (WSAC ‘98 and Kellogg ‘08) was the keynote speaker for the evening. He discussed the relationship between Islam and hunger, and the need for action against it.

“The idea in Islam, and I think it is true of all faiths, it that we have an ethical imperative to not sleep with the knowledge that your neighbor is hungry,” he said.

Osman also condemned the selfishness of some Western countries in regards to the food crisis because, according to him, their trade barriers and food waste are some of the root causes of hunger in the world.

“The haves have it, and the haves could easily give it, but they don’t,” he said.

The event, which will take place in Tech LR4 at 7:30 p.m., will oppose two members of the College Republicans, James D’Angelo and Jonathan Green, to two members of the College Democrats, Ryan Murphy and another student who hadn’t yet confirmed.

For D’Angelo, who is the College Republicans president, the debate will be an educational experience for the audience.

“We don’t have any votes to win, so we’re really going to break it down and make it easier for college kids to understand,” he said. “I think it’ll be very beneficial to both ends.”

The debate, mediated by North by Northwestern staffer Ben Armstrong, is to focus on the debaters’ personal opinions, and not the official stances of their respective presidential candidates.

“I think the fact that the debate is going to be between real people talking about what they think about the world is going to be very interesting to the general public,” Murphy wrote in an e-mail interview.

NU Decides member Lillian Cheng hoped the debate will be beneficial for undecided voters.

“I’m not necessarily saying that this [debate] will help somebody who used to be a McCain supporter to suddenly become pro-Obama, but it will definitely help people who are in the middle,” she said. “We just to make sure that people are supporting a candidate for the right reasons and that they’re making their decision on their own.”

“We’re really excited about this initiative because it’s giving a non-partisan perspective on issues, especially for this presidential election which is so polarized,” she added.

This debate is part of NU Decides’ month-long political program prior to the elections.