Photo by Katherine Tang / North by Northwestern

College guidebooks may insist that romance at Northwestern is dead, but maybe we’re not trying hard enough. It takes more effort than drinks at the Keg followed by a swoon-worthy 3:30 a.m. dinner at BK to win hearts. If your excuse for having Joy Yee’s for the eighth date in a row is that you’re worried there’s nothing that suits you in Chicago, stop fretting. With this list, you can appease even the most finicky of dates. Be warned: you may have to actually talk on the El.

If the sun never set on your British empire

Take heart colonialists, there is even something for you. Suggested accessories: top hat and monocle.

Get in touch with your inner Brit with high tea at the Drake Hotel. Enjoy live harp music while sipping your tea and discussing how uncivilized everyone else is. Reservations are recommended; the teeming masses can be so inconvenient. Red Line to Chicago

If you’re up for a journey, marvel at the wonders of the modern age at the Museum of Science and Industry (originally the Palace of Fine Arts during the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893). #10 bus South

If going south of the Loop is too much for your delicate constitution, ride the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier to celebrate the Exposition’s debut of the original. Red Line to Grand

Come dinnertime, how better to indulge your imperialist tendencies than enjoying a Shanghai Sling while white-coated waitstaff bring you pho at Le Colonial for French Vietnamese cuisine? Red Line to Chicago

If your only excuse is you’re broke

Penniless students can have fun too. Suggested start: your very own kitchen. Make a picnic dinner and head to the gloriously free Lincoln Park Zoo. If polar bears and baby monkeys can’t make your date happy, you probably can’t either. Picnic on the lawn outside. Red Line to Fullerton

If you want to splurge, see the Neo-Futurists’ Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind for $9 plus a roll of the die ($10-$15 total) – not bad for 30 plays in 60 minutes. Red Line to Berwyn

If you’re pining for study abroad

Visions of exotic locales may dance behind your lids every time you close your eyes, but how do you get to those far-off shores without selling a kidney for a plane ticket? Try and take the edge off with some of Chicago’s cultural neighborhoods.

If you’re yearning for a different kind of Greek life head to Greektown on the West Side. Stores and restaurants named after practically every island or god in the pantheon should soothe your inner Classicist. If you’re just in it for the food, try the Taste of Greece festival at the end of August. Blue Line to UIC/Halsted

If your tastes lie farther East, Chinatown Square features the standard food and shopping, as well as the Pan Asian Cultural Center and Ping Tom Memorial Park on the river. Check the Chicago Chinatown Web site for festival days like the Autumn Moon Festival. Red Line to Cermak/Chinatown

If Chicago is your kind of town

Despite what those East Coast kids mutter about “flyover country,” there’s plenty that’s worthwhile in the Windy City besides Barack Obama. This one’s for you, classic Chicago fans.

If you want to go a little more upscale for dinner, pick one of Chicago’s many steakhouses – head toward the river if you really want to impress. Try Fulton’s on the River if you can afford the view. Red Line to Grand

For something lighter (at least on your wallet), go for the deep-dish pizza. Its origins remain shrouded in mystery, but Pizzeria Uno stakes a decent claim on creatorship. Red Line to Grand

Venture to the Green Mill, a historic jazz club and cocktail lounge. If the jazz itself isn’t Chicago enough for you, the Mill has a long and nefarious history of involvement with Al Capone and his associates. So raise your glass and tip your fedora, but please keep the machine gun under the table. Red Line to Lawrence

Evanston’s trick-or-treating laws are as arcane as the Necronomicon, and if you eat an entire bag of pumpkin-shaped Reese’s you’ll never fit into your slutty Snow White/Hermione Granger/bumblebee/bobblehead Dwight Schrute costume. So what is a celebratory college student to do this Halloween?

The same thing we do every holiday, Pinky: Drink. We’re not talking about chugging Skol, though. There are enough recipes for Halloween shots, mixed-drinks and punch to keep you tipsy long into November.

(By the way: We’ve got Halloween food recipes, too)

Shots

Candy-corn shot

What you need:

• 1 part Bailey’s
• 1 splash vanilla liqueur
• 1 part butterscotch schnapps

What to do: Combine and shake in cocktail shaker with ice, pour in shot glass.

Creepy Jell-O shots

What you need:

• 1 box Jell-O mix
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 cups vodka
• Garnish: black jelly beans, gummi worms, candy corn. Be creative.

What to do: Pour boiling water over Jell-O mix in a bowl and stir. Wait until it cools, then add vodka. Refrigerate until Jell-O sets. For a festive touch, try orange and black cherry. Then, while the Jello-O is setting, add your choice of garnish to float in the middle (or, in the case of gummi worms, extend out the top). If you’re having a Halloween blowout and need larger quantities, just adjust ratio as needed.

Apocalypse Now

For many students, this is the first time our Halloween fun has been combined with an impending election we can actually vote in — an election featuring a candidate that can be turned into a sexed-up costume that doesn’t involve a grotesque rubber mask. If the 153rd fake Sarah Palin outfit you see makes you want to rip a beehive hairdo off of someone’s head, or if you’re anticipating the apocalypse on November 5, try this shot. And if you’re feeling apolitical, what’s more fear-inspiring than the end of the world? (Other than zombies.)

What you need:

• 1/3 oz. dry vermouth
• 1/3 oz. Irish cream liqueur
• 1/3 oz. tequila

What to do: Pour tequila and vermouth into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well, then strain into shot glass. Float the Irish cream on top.

Mixed Drinks

Trick or Treat

What you need:

• 1/2 oz. Amaretto
• 1/2 oz. vanilla vodka
• 1/2 oz. Triple Sec
• 1 dash Grenadine
• Orange juice

What to do: Pour everything except the orange juice into a glass with ice. Fill the rest with orange juice and stir. For garnish, try sticking some candy corn on a skewer.

Ghost

No matter what you think the temperature is when you look out your window and see barely-dressed co-eds frolicking through the frat quad, it’s still the end of October and yes, it’s still quite cold. The Celtic Knot Public House here in Evanston does a brisk business in the fall selling drinks that owner Patrick Breslin describes as “drinks that’ll warm you up.” One of the most popular “warming drinks,” he says, is whiskey.

What you need:

• 1 oz. whiskey
• 2 oz. vanilla rum
• Cream soda

What to do: Pour ingredients in glass and stir. Avoid urge to haunt old buildings, rattle chains, or mysteriously move around objects.

Jack-O-Tini

Recommended by Bar None Drinks, with enough whiskey to keep you warm throughout your long night of mischief and mayhem.

What you need:

• 1 part apple Pucker
• 1 part cranberry juice
• 1 part bourbon whiskey

What to do: Combine in cocktail shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled, then pour. If you’re feeling classy, Bar None recommends a spiced crab apple garnish.

Punch bowls and pitchers

If you’re generously hosting the party rather than the pre-game, you may need something a little larger than a single shot. Here’s what to make.

Zombie Punch

What you need:

• 2 fifths of dark rum
• 2 fifths of light rum
• 1 fifth Bacardi 151
• 2 pints Triple Sec
• 3 quarts lemon juice
• 1 quart Grenadine

What to do: Mix all ingredients thoroughly and chill with ice in punch bowl. Serve. Keep a shotgun and/or chainsaw stashed nearby should your friends suddenly turn into the shambling undead and come after you and your tasty, tasty brain.

If you prefer to avoid having to decapitate your former friends-turned-ghoulish-brain-eaters, hearken back to simpler days when the best part of Halloween (after the candy) was watching Charlie Brown on the television. Because you know you still believe in the Great Pumpkin.

Great Pumpkin Punch
What you need:

• 1 part apple cider
• 2 parts ginger ale
• 1 part rum

What to do: Mix and serve. For added ambiance, do so in a hollowed-out pumpkin. Ideally not one with a face already carved in it.

Blood Sangria

“Sangria” comes from the Spanish word for “bloody.” Just try to avoid spilling this on anyone’s expensive costume or you may be sporting a bloody nose yourself. Red wine, according to Breslin, is also another fall favorite at the Knot.

What you need:

• 1 bottle red wine
• 12 oz. club soda
• 2 oz. cognac
• 3 tbs. warm honey
• Fruit: Drink of the Week recommends 4 sliced figs, ½ cup red or black grapes (halved) and ½ cup pitted cherries

What to do: Combine fruit in a large bowl, adding cognac and honey until dissolved. Pour in wine and stir. Refrigerate. When ready to serve, add club soda and stir more.

While booze itself is important, for those of you who are hosting parties, presentation is equally key. Allrecipes.com suggests filling latex gloves with water and freezing them for a day; once fully frozen, run warm water over the gloves and remove the frozen ice hands for placement in your punchbowl.

So go forth, in your minidresses and generic “This is my costume” t-shirts, and remember: To kill a zombie, you have to make sure you take off the head.

If you’re a Northwestern student, you probably don’t. Now when you think of summer, you probably just think of business-casual dress codes and tedious office drudgery. The patio’s been overtaken by a gray, windowless cubicle, the popsicle has been replaced by a Starbucks latte, and forget about that tan: The only rays you’re catching are from fluorescent lights.

For those of you who haven’t caved to the pressure and are part of the non-interning masses, with summer looming on the horizon you might suddenly be feeling something like this: “Oh my god, I’m the only person in the universe without an internship my resumé’s going to suck forever and I’ll never get a job because I have no qualifications and I’m a useless silly waste of oxygen and everyone hates me and my life is pain oh no oh no.”

And that is completely wrong.

Not that internships are useless. According to Medill professor Steven Duke, they’re still valuable for a variety of reasons.

“You can learn a lot in the classroom,” Duke said, “but no matter how hard we try, classrooms are never the same as real experience. It doesn’t have the pace or the pressure or the expectations that are present in a real job.”

But the primary benefit, according to Duke, isn’t just the workplace lifestyle — you know, dingy lighting, hours spent trying to resist the urge to go Office Space on the photocopier — it’s your boss, and his or her potential for serving as an impressive reference. Regardless of how respected your professor is in his chosen field, his recommendation doesn’t hold as much weight as someone who has seen you work outside of academia, five days a week, in a real work environment.

According to Lonnie Dunlap, director of University Career Services, internships are helpful in some fields, especially business-related ones, but not as essential in others.

“You really need to know how internships function based on what your area of interest is,” Dunlap said. It’s the experiential learning that’s important — and there are plenty of other ways to get that, and they’re probably a lot more interesting.

Anti-internship solution: Get a job doing something else. If you want to make money, find something that pays. If you don’t, volunteering is equally valid; find something fun that still carries some responsibility.

You don’t need an internship to meet Duke’s recommendations, just a boss. “Reliability, work ethic, diligence, timely arrival at work: All those [are] things that matter to an employer,” Duke said. They’re things you can display without selling yourself to the internship machine. Once you get a real job, you won’t be able to hang out at the animal shelter for hours anymore.

“Students really need to sort out how they want to use their summer and what opportunities are open to them,” Dunlap said. “Employers recognize the value of multiple types of experiences, and it doesn’t have to be a field that’s directly related to what you’re entering.”

If you’re in Medill, chances are that you’re even more freaked out than some of your Weinberg counterparts, thanks to the somewhat-inherently-spastic nature of your journalist peers — and completely without reason. “At Medill, if you’ve got your [Journalism Residency internship] and no other internships, you’re still ok,” Duke said. “I would not obsess about this.”

According to Dunlap, it’s “very unrealistic” to have an internship all three summers of your Northwestern career; most are done between junior and senior year, and the internship fog is creeping into the summer following sophomore year.

“Between your freshman and sophomore year it’s important to experience what [you want],” Dunlap said. “Exploration is really, really important.”

And you can let the contacts bit slide a little. One of the perks of shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars of tuition means that you’re pretty hooked up — maybe not with your peers right now, but with a fairly impressive network of accomplished people.

“Be aware of what decisions you’re making and how you’re making your decisions — that’s more important,” Dunlap said. Don’t blindly follow the interning masses.

If the thought of interning makes you want to curl up under your desk or burn every suit you own, the benefits — work experience, someone to write you a nice letter of recommendation — don’t outweigh the cost of losing your summer. So really, take a vacation. Even the professionals say you can relax. Not getting an internship won’t cripple your chances in the career market forever.

If you really want a summer internship, go ahead. But if you don’t want one? Don’t get one. Don’t let the overachiever pressure cooker stop you from being happy. If you’d rather spend your summer gallivanting around Europe with nothing but a change of clothes and your passport, do it. Be a camp counselor. Hole up in a tiny cabin in Vermont and write poetry by yourself. Hop in your friend’s car and make a pilgrimage to every tacky Midwestern roadside attraction.

Even if you’re not planning on spending your summer anywhere but on the beach, stop letting your friends who decided to be office minions give you an inferiority complex.

“I would not be overly concerned as a freshman or a sophomore,” Duke said. “I don’t know that you necessarily need four [internships] by the time you graduate, but it’s certainly helpful if you have at least one.”

One, Northwestern overachievers. Not seven. So if you want to devote your off time to developing the perfect tan and reading Gossip Girl so you can spoil future episodes for your friends, you’re allowed. Hell, you’re entitled.

If you were the 13-year-old captain of your gym class kickball team, lanky bespectacled Aaron Eisenberg probably wouldn’t be your first pick. But six years later, when you’re slaving over textbooks while he takes the stage at New York comedy clubs, the joke’s on you.

“I was not the most popular kid in middle school,” says Eisenberg, a Communication freshman. “I was a theater kid, I liked student government. I found my sense of humor, I think, by being made fun of by the other kids in middle school.”

Eisenberg, who trained with the Upright Citizens Brigade at the end of high school, has moved on from his years of awkwardness. After his first stand-up performance at an open mic night at Café Ambrosia, he landed a spot at New York comedy hotspot Carolines on Broadway.

The stand-up scene has been kind to Eisenberg, especially the embrace at Ambrosia. “It wasn’t one of those mortifying first times,” Eisenberg says. “That was probably one of my most tranquil and most respectful audiences that I’ll ever have.”

Eisenberg delivers well-rehearsed material with a quirky and awkward but conversational delivery, a la recent television shows Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office. His series of non sequiturs ranges from SkyMall to how fruit sounds like sexually-transmitted diseases. One setup goes, “I’m contemplating if you can be a triple threat if you can sing, dance, and have a gun…For me, little is more threatening than that—somebody that holds a pistol to your face and starts tapping ‘Hello Dolly!’”

While his friends were Facebooking, Eisenberg researched local open mic nights. Unable to juggle the Chicago scene with campus commitments, Eisenberg started looking closer to his hometown of Westfield, New Jersey. He contacted Carolines “on a whim,” and they agreed to give him six minutes of stage time at one of their well-known New Talent nights.

The 300-seat comedy club Carolines evokes “dimunitive Vegas grandeur,” according to New York Magazine, and has featured performances from the likes of Jon Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld. “It’s a big jump,” Eisenberg says.

But Eisenberg isn’t going to let the experience go to his head; His toughest audience is still in his living room. “I always love being able to make my parents laugh,” he says, “because then I really know that I’ve done something well. If I’ve made my parents laugh, that’s the real test for me.”

Does a cold sore really mean I have herpes?

Yes. According to the American Social Health Association, Herpes Simplex 1 (HSV-1), or oral herpes, usually presents itself as cold sores around the mouth or face. Because of its similarity to HSV-2, genital herpes, the two types can appear in either location, so avoid the oral sex if you’ve got a cold sore. Neither form likes being away from its preferred location, though, so outbreaks tend to be milder and less frequent.

“If somebody has HSV-1 and they have oral sex with someone, they can transmit HSV-1 to that person’s genitals,” according to Kathryn Guilfoyle, director of Sexual Health and Assault Peer Educators and a health-services administrator at Searle. “The thing is, HSV-1 doesn’t grow and flourish in the genital region … it isn’t the same as HSV-2.”

Herpes is also transmitted through the skin, so don’t think you’re safe just because you avoid sexual fluids. There’s also something called “asymptomatic viral shedding, where your skin fluffs off the virus even if you don’t have any symptoms of an outbreak,” Guilfoyle said. But as long as you’re not using your herpes-infected friends’ Chapstick or freshly used towels, you’ll be okay. Washed towels and water bottles are safe.

Should that blowjob come with nutrition facts?

You’re not going to find a black-and-white label on your partner’s penis, but don’t worry: You won’t get fat from too much swallowing. According to Columbia University’s health services Q&A Web site, one teaspoon of ejaculate has about 5 to 7 calories. In addition to sperm content, it also contains fructose sugar, vitamin C, protein and other compounds used to give sperm energy to swim. But it’s certainly not going to fulfill your percent daily value for any of those.

Are flavored condoms and lube just more harmful than non-flavored?

One of the favorite phrases of the Howard Brown Broadway Youth Center is, “Flavors are for sucking, not for fucking.” In case that isn’t self-explanatory, you should only use flavored condoms or lube for oral sex, because the sugar and flavoring can set girls up for nasty yeast infections.

Since other causes of yeast infections include tight clothing, thong underwear and not changing out of damp clothing immediately, you’re probably at risk enough.

Is there any kind of “suction effect” that can happen if you have sex in water?

“I’ve never heard of a suction effect,” Guilfoyle said. “The only thing that I can think of is a suction effect inside the vaginal canal where water would be sucked up.”

And that isn’t completely harmless, since the water could contain salt, chlorine or bacteria that would get forced into the vagina and could lead to infection. There also hasn’t been research on condom effectiveness in water. “Unless the water was extremely hot or really acidic, I can’t imagine it would really affect the performance of the condom,” Guilfoyle said, but cautioned that it could make it easier for the condom to slip off.

If you still want to get it on in next year’s Ski Trip hot tub, be warned: sex in water means that any water-based lubricants, as well as natural vaginal lubricant, will be washed away — ironically enough, your sex could actually feel drier. Use a silicon-based lubricant to avoid this one. And definitely not an oil-based lubricant: Those are usually massage oil or something else not intended to be used as sexual lubricant, and the oil breaks down the latex in condoms.

What are all of these infections I keep hearing about? And does peeing after sex mean I won’t get them?

Three main things can go wrong with your genitals if you’re female. If you think you have any of them, get checked out by a doctor. No, your hallmate who insists he knows all about this stuff because he’s totally into WebMD doesn’t count.

Urinary tract infections are the ones that people think peeing after sex will prevent. These happen when bacteria get into the urinary tract through the urethra — which, problematically for members of the fairer sex, is very short in women. “Anything you can do to flush out foreign bacteria is a good thing,” Guilfoyle said, and this includes peeing after sex.

Bacterial vaginosis is the same basic concept, only instead of getting into the urinary tract, bacteria get in your vagina.

Yeast infections are similar in that they occur in the vagina, but happen when normal yeast levels in the vagina get out of control. While physically incredibly durable, vaginas are chemically incredibly delicate. When the natural chemical balance gets upset, infections happen. Some lucky people are more naturally prone to them, while others need to have seriously aggravated circumstances. According to Guilfoyle, sex can contribute to yeast infections because you’re “getting foreign material into the vagina.”

Other strategies, to sum up previous points, include not douching because it removes normal yeast and bacteria, avoiding things that are scented or flavored, wearing breathable fabrics like cotton, avoiding tight clothing and thongs, and changing your underwear regularly, especially if you’ve been working out. Don’t use your lack of desire to do laundry as an excuse to not change your clothes – damp environments are like bacterial breeding grounds.

And for the exhibitionists among us: “Any times that you can go without underwear, do so,” Guilfoyle said.

Can you still get pregnant if…

…you’re on top? Yes. Assuming you’re not on birth control and not using a condom, your odds are equal to what they would be in missionary. Sperm are determined and travel in large groups. Just because a few of them might not make it up there, some will.

…he pulls out? Also yes. Pre-ejaculate, commonly known as pre-come, can still contain sperm. The risk is even higher if your boy hasn’t peed since he last ejaculated, since sperm from his last orgasm could be lingering inside the urinary tract.

…he eats or drinks something specific? Sorry, but they haven’t invented a magic vasectomy food yet, and sugary drinks won’t decrease your sperm count. They are developing a male birth control pill, so rejoice, girls: Soon your boyfriends will be the ones who get fat and break out.

…you douche after sex? Yes. And not only are you not even remotely preventing pregnancy, you’re also altering the pH levels of the delicately balanced systems of your vagina, which can cause yeast infections. If anything, you might push sperm farther up into your vagina.

…you do jumping jacks after sex? Yes. And you don’t even need the exercise.

…it’s your first time? Yes. By the time you’re having sex I sincerely hope you’ve had your period for at least a few years, so you are physically capable of getting knocked up. Your ovaries aren’t just going to say to themselves, “Nope, can’t release an egg this month, she’s going to lose her v-card to that cute boy from Calculus.”

…you’re having anal sex? There’s no way for sperm to travel from the rectum to the vagina: the two passages aren’t connected. If, however, semen were ejaculated near the vagina during anal sex and managed to somehow make it in, then there would be some potential pregnancy risk, Guilfoyle said.

“While not impossible, it is really very unlikely,” Guilfoyle said. “But anal sex has plenty of risks associated with sexually transmitted diseases, so it’s not the option with no risks.”

Basically, if you are having unprotected vaginal sex sans birth control, you could get pregnant. If you’re a girl who hates condoms so much that you refuse to use them, get yourself on some form of hormonal birth control and be prepared to risk STIs. If you’re among the male condom-hating masses, the STI thing still applies. And nothing kills the afterglow like oozing genital sores or monthly child-support payments.

Is using Plan B ever going to make my ovaries shrivel up and die?

No. Plan B is just a higher dose of the hormones that are found in regular birth control, which are synthetic versions of natural female hormones. “The worst side effects are cramping or nausea, things like that,” Guilfoyle said. “[Plan B] works to prevent pregnancy the same way regular birth control does, it just does it later.”

It also isn’t an abortion pill and won’t do anything to an established pregnancy. It works by preventing your ovaries from releasing an egg if they haven’t already for the month. If ovulation has already occurred, it alters the lining of the uterus so that even if an egg comes into contact with sperm, it won’t implant. However, after 72 hours, its effectiveness is greatly decreased, so if you think the condom might have broken, get thee to a drugstore.

But if you’ve had to make seven trips to Searle or CVS for Plan B in the past month, you might want to investigate regular hormonal birth control. Considering that Plan B costs around $40 at CVS and the care and feeding of a child costs around $120,000 just for one of them, it’s probably cheaper in the long run.

So I heard this one story about maggots…

No.

In another adventure in the saga of the Dean Lavine quote scandal, the dean held an open forum discussion with students Wednesday in the McCormick Tribune Center.

Read our liveblog of the heated discussion:

The forum opened with students associated with Journalists Speak, the blog that has been tracing coverage of the controversy, introducing themselves and possible themes for discussion.

5:36 p.m.: Discussion of the relationship between journalism and advertising is introduced as topic one for discussion. This will be followed by “anonymous sources,” “trust in media” (since apparently Congress is the only institution that people trust less than journalists – ouch), and “journalism ethics in the digital world.” Plus student brainstorming, and an offer for making money if we want to hang out in Evanston and research over spring break.

5:39 p.m.: Dean Lavine takes the stage! To awkward, stilted applause. He thinks it’s “terrific” that everyone came tonight, and I think he just tried to make a joke about how he made some notes, but I’m not totally sure. He launches into his speech, refusing to take questions until he’s said his piece.

5:41 p.m.: Lavine says he “sure didn’t” lie about the quote, and the student was real. “There are some people who would like you to think I did lie,” he says, before beginning a walk-through of the situation. He attended a class winter quarter last year with his reporter’s notebook, talked with students before and after the class and asked “fairly pushy questions” during presentations. IMC303, the class in question, isn’t a new addition to the Medill curriculum, and Lavine requested e-mails from students to learn more about how they felt about the class. When alumni magazine letter-writing time came around, he went back to the notes and e-mails. “I cannot tell you 12 months later whether it was the emails or the notes I took, and I don’t have them,” Lavine says, but the quote was representative of the student opinions. Main idea: “The quote was real.”

5:45 p.m.: Twelve months later, our mail servers can’t be brought back. Switch to Gmail so your emails are recoverable. “You’re either going to believe me or you’re not going to believe me, and I don’t have anything more to add,” he says.

Now Lavine has questions for us: Why in 12 months did no one raise any questions about the letter? Or about the three previous deans who ran letters with unnamed quoted students? If someone came up to you and asked you what you wrote in your winter quarter CTECs last year, or before, during, and after your final class period a year ago, how good would your memory be?

Pre-Lavinehood, the year before he become the dean, the accrediting council and Northwestern program review came to look at Medill in the same month, and they apparently were not happy. They found “a fine, regular, 20th century journalism school” but not one ready for the 21st century, according to Lavine. But don’t worry, we aren’t alone: It happens to lots of schools. This made the president, provost, board of trustees, etc. quite displeased.

“Faculty governance had failed Medill,” Lavine says. “There was no way to make the changes that Medill needed to have made with the system that was in place that had gotten us there.” And thus Lavine was appointed dean, which he says he did not look for or anticipate. We can’t walk away from the fact that journalism is “at a crossroads,” we need to “move rapidly and get it done.”

5:54 p.m.: Are some people making an issue of the alumni letter for another purpose? The changes at Medill are “bumpy, but huge,” and some faculty don’t like them. “We have no choice,” Lavine says, and we have to learn writing and new multimedia tools. “The good old days will never come back.” Some faculty say, according to Lavine, “if we can just topple the dean, then all of this will stop.” And there is a decision to be made.

“We can either engage these changes, have differences, but work through them and move forward, or not,” Lavine says. “I promise you that whatever happens from now on…if people try to attack me, and through me attack the progress we’re making, it won’t work. We are going to move forward. We have made huge progress.”

Also, The Houston Chronicle wants to learn what Medill students are learning, they told Lavine after he visited and showed a presentation of students’ work, and we should just stop being so judgmental.

“If you want to judge me, judge me and judge Medill by what we accomplish this year, and what we will accomplish next year, and what we will accomplish thereafter,” Lavine says.

5:58p.m.: Open forum Q&A begins.

Question 1: Advises Lavine to switch to Gmail, and says people are “pissed off” because Lavine was quoted as saying, “I’m not about to defend my veracity.” Student sounds angry that Lavine is on a “high horse” and hasn’t apologized, and says his response delay made the situation spin grow bigger than it should have. (Full disclosure: student works for NBN.)

Lavine doesn’t really answer her at all, but says he’s usually criticized for being too candid.

Question 2: Emphasis of Medill 2020 on knowing the audience – what’s the difference between journalism and marketing and where does Lavine see the line drawn?

“If anyone in this school panders to the audience ever, you’re doing just the opposite of what matters,” says Lavine. Also “quality media is being drowned in garbage.” Emphasis here is on the difference between marketing and pandering; there’s marketing that makes you pay attention, and there’s marketing with spin, which is the bad kind. “In a world with so much choice, we simply must understand the audience. And I cannot apologize for that, and I hope you don’t.”

Question 3: The student questions Lavine’s assertion that the forces that are “going after” him are against progress. Student raises the point that since both Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn and NBN do new media, neither would be resisting progress and change at Medill. So why does Lavine think that those “forces” are going after him?

“People like Eric Zorn have contaminated the history of this story,” says Lavine, going on to say that it’s not fair to call a student in the midst of this controversy and ask them about the quote because it puts them in a very precarious position. “It has nothing to do with what media you’re with,” he says, it’s just that some people don’t like the direction that Medill is going. But the Houston Chronicle loves us, and application numbers are up. Lavine doesn’t know Eric Zorn at all, just reads his blog.

Question 4: Asks for update on the name change. She heard the meetings were “closed.”

Lavine “hasn’t heard much.” All faculty at Medill can go to all committee meetings, and the committee doesn’t want to share before they have things ready. Other than that, nothing seems to be public knowledge. “When they have something to say and a plan to say it” is when we’ll know, though Lavine suspects we won’t have update in spring quarter.

Question 5: Sorry that Lavine feels attacked, but thinks the faculty members represent us, especially the ones on the list. She says they represent some of the “best faculty members at Medill” and Lavine should listen to them, because they had to speak for the students. Feels like there’s a discrepancy between the standards Lavine holds himself and the standards students are held to.

“We will ensure that won’t happen going forward,” Lavine says, and he should have seen the difference in the standard, but it will be dealt with. Lavine says everyone uses anonymous sources, but he shouldn’t have and “it won’t happen again…but it’s a big deal.” Of the faculty that signed the letter, some of them are “the people [he] respects the most,” and this was an honest disagreement. The reason this forum didn’t happen until now is because Lavine agreed not to talk as requested by the provost.

Question 6: If a student turned in work without any clearly verifiable sources but claimed she heard them and you were the professor, how would the dean respond?

“I would be as critical of that work as I am, and you are, of what I did. I blew it, I’m quite clear about that.”

Question 7: How do we get Medill back on track as a cohesive school?

“That’s up to each of us,” Lavine says. We can look backwards or we can look forwards. Also Medill wants our ideas, and tomorrow afternoon the president and provost are meeting with the faculty, presumably these issues will be discussed. “We can’t go back, so let’s make the most out of it.”

Question 8, from an IMC grad student: The common threads between journalism and marketing are truth and accuracy. Is the context of a marketing piece (such as the letter in the alumni magazine) different from a piece on the front page of a daily newspaper?

Lavine thought of the letter as a marketing piece, not a news story. “But that’s not good enough. I’m the dean of a journalism school,” Lavine says. “It is not okay to not set a standard for everything Medill does that meets journalism’s highest standards.”

Question 9: Thanks for meeting, “better late than never,” wants a job with the Houston Chronicle, ha ha, “troubled” by attacks on David Spett. Displeased by Professor Hayden’s letter, Professor Weldon’s criticism, doesn’t think that when a student “goes out on a limb, does what we are supposed to do” it’s fair for him to be criticized. Doesn’t see how people’s dislike of Medill is relevant – motives of critics are irrelevant, what’s important is Lavine’s actions.

“We’ve always learned from criticism,” Lavine says. “It’s a process, not a set of answers.” But he disagrees with student’s approach. “I didn’t lie,” Lavine says, “And I think people that keep picking at this…have another agenda. …Let’s not connect the dots to all the problems of the media, because that’s not okay.”

Question 10: No one doubts the sentiment expressed in the quote Lavine used, but students are confused – why didn’t Lavine just use the student’s name?

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” Lavine says. He would have used the name if he had one, but he doesn’t always get names when he takes notes at a class presentation and can’t say for sure whether it was a junior or whether he had the name. Is it important to always have names in a story? When do we use unnamed people, not quotes? We’ll have to address this spring quarter. “I’ll ask people their name and I’ll use it,” Lavine says. “That’s only a tiny part of what this is about.”

Also, he’s not going to comment on the professors’ criticism of David Spett.

Question 11: Wants to speak “for the students who are not outraged.” Thanks Lavine for being gracious and wants to let him know “not everyone is as angry or pissed off as it seems.”

Lavine says thank you, followed by awkward laughter from the audience. Lavine says Medill is expanding, and in the past two years we’ve seen “some of the biggest changes in the history of this school. They’re not me. They’re every faculty member in this room, and they’re every one of you.”

We’re all in this together. Cue High School Musical. “This is one of the most exciting times in journalism history. Judge us by that.” Not our synchronized dance moves?

Question 12: Says Lavine sounds like he’s defending himself, and not everyone is against the changes, the topic is “the quote thing” and the fact that Lavine is defensive makes people more likely to “do the attack thing.” Also thinks Lavine sounds defensive when he speaks and should tone that down and be proud of what he’s doing.

Lavine says “okay.”

Question 13: Student reads from the NU Principles of Academic Integrity and is reading the section on fabrication. Literally word-for-word. And now the standards for faculty and how they are held to all the same standards as students. Audience gapes.

“I think that if someone lies we deal with those policies. I didn’t lie,” Lavine says. “Don’t go there. We can have this conversation, but let’s have it on a reasonable ground. There is a reason that I brought up that this thing is being kept going. … For some people, they’re going to be against me, because I’m a reasonable target, but to say to me that we’re now going to have a standard for notes and process in the alumni magazine that never existed before…you cannot hold somebody accountable for something after years and years of that not being the standard a year after the fact. I made a mistake…I was wrong and I’ll apologize, and I’ll learn from it.”

“This isn’t an academic paper” Lavine says, it was a letter on the cover of the alumni magazine. “We’re all wrong and we should’ve done it differently, but that’s as far as you can go.”

Question 14: Says faculty aren’t afraid of progress, they’re afraid of journalism being diluted by marketing, and Lavine is talking to them but not listening.

Lavine says most faculty are great, but some disagree and want to get rid of him because they think if he’s gone the changes he’s making will be gone. “For most of this faculty, they have no bigger fan than me.” Also journalism should call out marketers when necessary, and marketers try to sell things, and that’s “totally different than journalism.”

He says that Medill understands journalism, and “this dean understands journalism and its role,” but we shouldn’t shun marketing, because “under the flag of saying ‘it’s marketing,’ we’ll turn away the part of marketing that helps us learn.” Understanding marketing is the same as understanding economics and psychology, and we should celebrate audience understanding.

Question 15: From a grad student who left a job in marketing to come be a journalism graduate student, in what may or may not have been a poor life choice. He thinks there are plenty of people who love Medill. In the real world you can carry anger, but eventually you have to let it go, and we have so much energy that we should use it to find catharsis and then get our cohesion back because Medill’s only going to be what we want it to be. Inspirational, really.

Lavine wisely doesn’t say anything, as it’s almost 6:30 and college students get cranky when deprived their promised free food. On April 14, Laura Washington and Jack Fuller will be here talking about ethics, and we should work over spring break. Now for the “come for the free pizza” half of the evening.

In sum: Dean Lavine thinks we need to move on, stop calling him a liar, put this all behind us and stop fearing progress. Students still don’t seem to have closure, still making angry-looking faces. Medill, much to student chagrin, didn’t order Giordano’s and gave us Domino’s instead.

Though they aren’t quite swimming around in pools of gold coins, the finance team lurks behind the scenes of DM in the Norris Scholars Room with stacks of money, counting the night away as donations keep piling up. Like the dancers, they too are kept in suspense about the grand total.

“It gets counted and recounted and recounted again,” said Medill junior Jessica Brady, a second-year committee member. “We are constantly getting numbers all night, they constantly change, and we don’t actually know what the [final] number is until right before we actually reveal it to everyone else.”

The final total is expected to be in line with past years’ totals, if it doesn’t exceed them.

“All the participants have really stepped up and raised money like I’ve never seen before,” Brady said.

Pre-DM, committee members act as individual finance liaisons for dancers and pester them with e-mails. Part of the job is getting – and keeping – the dancers financially on track.

“You truly get to see the profits of your hard work when you see your dancers at check-in and they’re excited and then you sit in there and you count how much money everyone brought it,” Brady said. “It’s just an incredible feeling to be in that room.”

Committee members aren’t exclusively hermits, though.

“It’s not just about work,” Brady said. “You need to go have fun and dance with your friends and really experience what it is, not sit in a room and count money all night.”

And while Dance Marathon is all about altruism and loving the kids and dancing until you want to collapse, DM wouldn’t be getting anywhere if it weren’t for the money.

“Tomorrow when DM’s over, the success of DM is going to be measured by how much money we raise, and we get to see that, we get to help that process along,” Brady said.

In the ‘dorms without food service’ category, Shepard was declared the winner, while Willard won for dorms with food service for the second year in a row. Slivka, which has historically been known for its intensity over the Green Cup, didn’t manage to place this year.

For the full list of winners and all the exciting data about just how much electricity and water was saved, go to SEED’s Green Cup 2008 page.

Now, seriously, go shower.

What to do:

1. Work on getting famous: Maybe you didn’t learn anything from the dean of Kellogg, but fear not: STITCH is hosting American Rag’s open casting call for Ragged Road in the Cafe Ambrosia basement. Audition for the opportunity to go on a road trip across the United States meeting “music innovators.” You get to be in a documentary, and it would probably be more fun than ringing up groceries all summer.
2. Jews on stage: Jewish Theatre Ensemble’s production of David Mamet’s Romance opens in Shanley. They describe it as an “uproarious, take-no-prisoners courtroom farce.”
3. Be serious: Or at least think about it. Go to University Hall at 7 p.m. and watch a screening of Sometime in April, an HBO film about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, part of the African Students Association Film and Lecture Series, followed by a discussion.

What to know:

1. Carbs are your friends: Take that, Dr. Atkins: On your diet, no one would survive DM.
2. Make sure you’re doing your workout right: Check these common workout mistakes to make sure you aren’t beginning to slide down the slope toward K-Fed status.
3. High fashion is still weird: Just in case Project Runway hadn’t already alerted you to the fact that price isn’t the only thing keeping couture off the streets. The sky is also still blue.
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