University Health Services, in conjunction with the Evanston Department of Health and Human Services, began providing free H1N1 vaccinations to students on Tuesday. The vaccinations, which health officials administered between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. at Patten Gymnasium and Norris Student Center, were reserved for “priority groups” on Tuesday, which includes anyone between the ages of six and 25, according to a university press release.

Some students checked their watches in line, anxious to get to their next class. Others felt uncomfortable from the side effects after receiving their vaccine. But most had no strong feelings about the vaccine or the process of receiving it, and said the whole experience was routine.

According to Dr. Donald Misch, Executive Director of University Health Services, roughly 1,750 people were vaccinated on Tuesday. The longest wait was 1 hour 50 minutes at Norris and negligible at Patten, he said.

A few students fainted, which Misch said is not an unusual side effect of the vaccine. An ambulance and fire truck pulled up outside Norris today at around 11:30, according to observers, and Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage said that they may have been related to the vaccinations, but that he was not sure.

After standing in lines in Norris and Patten, students and others were directed to several tables where they first signed a waiver and then received a vaccine. The vaccines came in two forms: an injection of an inactivated vaccine or a live attenuated intranasal vaccine, a nasal spray that came with more health restrictions than the injection.

Students and others just vaccinated were required to sit in a chair for 15 minutes to ensure no major side effects ensued.

“I hadn’t really heard about the vaccinations,” said Medill junior Bradley Akubuiro, “I just followed a friend to Norris when she was walking here. I feel like getting the vaccine today will not deter me from getting the swine flu.”

Kara McKenzie, a McCormick senior, felt similarly about the vaccine. “I wasn’t planning on getting it, but because of the availability and the apparent high risk factors of H1N1 among young people, I decided to come.”

Despite busy schedules and the reluctance of some students, Cubbage deemed Tuesday successful. “There was a good turnout from students, and we hope that they will continue to get vaccinated until Thursday.”

Updated 11/18: The photo of the vaccination line has been taken down in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Thanks to commenter Concerned for making us aware.

Photo by Katherine Tang / North by Northwestern.

Donald Kohn, the vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, discussed the factors that led to the current financial crisis and the role of the Fed in promoting financial stability in front of a few hundred people in Leverone Auditorium on Monday.

In his speech, which was also attended by Northwestern President Morton Schapiro and the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Charles Evans, Kohn focused on the role of monetary policy in maintaining financial stability but also pointed to other factors that contributed to the current financial crisis, including “inadequate risk assessment and management.” Citing the tightening policies in 1999 during the dot-com bubble and in 2004 during the housing bubble, Kohn said that the evidence is not encouraging for using monetary policy to ensure financial stability. Instead, he expressed “strong preference” for financial regulation and supervision.

Northwestern administrators are enlisting the help of students, faculty and all other community members to create a new strategic plan, which will lay out the goals and visions the university hopes to attain within the next 10 years.

The administration released a preliminary framework on Nov. 7, outlining goals and strategies, and proposing questions about priority areas for the university in the next decade. In an e-mailed statement, Provost Daniel Linzer encouraged the Northwestern community to give feedback to the draft, which the university expects to finalize by the beginning of 2011.

“We want input from everyone on this. We’re a family, all working together,” Linzer said. “The more you can involve the members of the community and listen to their ideas, the more informed you are about the choices that you’re making.”

The framework, which was discussed during the Associated Student Government meeting on Wednesday, emphasizes academic excellence and the improvement of the intellectual, civic and social experience outside the classroom for students, faculty and staff. It also highlights the continuing internationalization of Northwestern, as well as extending its affluence and influence across the world.

In these goals, the future strategic plan will build upon the legacy of its predecessor, the Highest Order of Excellence, which was in operation in 1996-2005, and was later revised and extended through 2010.

Under the plan, the university created International Studies and Global Health programs, Linzer said. He also pointed to energy and sustainability initiatives that make Northwestern a more progressive, forward-reaching institution.

The fellowships office was also created under the existing plan to encourage students to “tackle big international problems,” Linzer added. He attributed the boom in Northwestern Fulbright scholars in large to the university’s commitment to globalizing students’ experiences.

The next strategic plan will also seek to take full advantage of Northwestern’s location by offering students resources from major institutions and companies in the Chicago area. In the past 10 years, Northwestern has added free shuttles to Chicago and developed partnerships with the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Field Museum and the Art Institute, among others, to offer classes and work opportunities for students.

Marilyn McCoy, the university’s vice president for administration and planning, emphasized the importance of public feedback for creating an effective strategy.

“We did not have as open of a process last time around,” she said. “Basically, last time, a very high-level, largely faculty committee was put together that worked to come up with the Highest Order of Excellence.”

Moreover, according to Linzer, having a written plan is much more convincing to potential investors than just telling them the direction in which the university would like to go.

“We can’t achieve new initiatives without new resources,” he added. “In some cases, something may have just died out and we can redirect the resources, but that’s very hard, because there are still people working in that area.”

“It definitely is a more challenging environment this time,” said McCoy, who looks for funds from donors and investors as part of her job as a strategic planner. “But strategic planning is about working with the role you’re in, so you have to be very focused on the most important developments and what opportunities are created.”

The administrative team will meet with ASG on Friday to get a better understanding of how the student leaders and the student body in general envision the university’s future development. The administration will also meet with alumni groups, the Board of Trustees and the General Faculty Committee next month to discuss their personal and collective views for the school.

Meanwhile, in the most recent ASG Executive meeting on Wednesday, committee members made suggestions for the seven umbrella topics within the framework: Technology, Beyond the Classroom, Globalization, Diversity and Inclusion, Strategic Partnerships, Communication, and Purple Sky. Among the issues discussed were residential college experience, faculty diversity and the creation of more student centers on campus.

Lorraine K. Lee contributed reporting.

Northwestern University will represent the Chicago Federal Reserve district at the national college Fed Challenge competition in Washington, D.C., in December after clinching victory in the regional contest on Monday.

The Northwestern team of five undergraduates led by Mark Witte, team faculty adviser and distinguished senior lecturer in economics, beat contenders from 17 Midwestern universities to represent the Chicago Federal Reserve district at the national round for the sixth year in a row. The university has won the national competition three times so far.

The Northwestern team comprises Weinberg juniors Daniel Wolf, captain, and Lucas Zalduendo, Weinberg senior William Thompson, McCormick and Weinberg senior Ravi Umarji, and Weinberg sophomore Brian Levin. Witte described the group as a “nice mix of talent.”

“They’re competitive young people,” he said. “They like going at it and showing other people they’re smarter and better formed, and more driven.”

During the national competition on Dec. 1-2, the students will be challenged to apply macroeconomics and monetary policy theories to real-life economic situations. During the first round, teams propose solutions to the economic problems of today, such as unemployment, in front of a panel of judges from the Fed’s own economists.

The Northwestern group displays its data in a power point presentation and analyzes the Fed’s policy and functions. The Northwestern team simulates a Fed open market committee meeting during which economists debate what the U.S. monetary policy should be. Research assistants at Northwestern have helped put together the presentation, Witte said.

The second part of the contest is a question and answer session with the judges.

“We don’t know what questions will be,” said Brian Levin, who plays Donald Cohn, Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors. “You have to be spot on in order to win.”

Levin is the only sophomore in the group. With a strong incumbency advantage, openings on the team are rare. When there is an open spot, Witte said, it is advertised on listservs and people interview for it.

Northwestern’s participation in the Fed Challenge began six years ago, when Joshua Plabner, a student of Mark Witte’s, suggested that the university participate in a new national competition.

“We did, we won, we’ve been doing it ever since,” Witte said.

In the past five years at the national Fed Challenge, Northwestern has won three times and Harvard has won twice.

“We’re looking forward to beating Harvard this year,” Levin said.

The winning team shares a $50,000 scholarship sponsored by the Moody Foundation.

Lupe Fiasco and Michael Ealy. Photo by the author.

Rapper Lupe Fiasco and actor Michael Ealy (Barbershop) may have attracted students with their celebrity to come to Leverone Auditorium Wednesday night. The two were part of an event promoting the upcoming History Channel documentary The People Speak.

But when it came to the material they were discussing, the performers tried to let the words speak for themselves.

Reading a letter to Sarah Logue and a statement from Muhammad Ali about the Vietnam War to kick off the event, Ealy said, “I try to get out of the way of the words. I’ll perform a bit, but the words are key.”

Hosted by Nancy MacLean, professor of History and African American Studies at Northwestern, the event featured live readings, excerpts of the film and in-depth discussion between the panel and the audience. The film was produced by a team including Matt Damon and Howard Zinn; it is based on Zinn’s books that reveal history from the perspective of American people. The panel, featuring Ealy, Fiasco and the film’s co-executive producer and co-director Anthony Arnove, discussed the influence of grassroots history and the power of raw voices to expose common humanity.

The film excerpts gave the audience an idea of what to expect from the documentary.

“The film is driven by remarkable performers, artists and musicians giving voice to these stories,” Arnove said.

The evening concluded with a moderated discussion centered on the event’s tagline, “Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Ealy and Fiasco shared their reasons for getting involved with the documentary and what they have taken away from it — and what they hope college students will, too.

Ealy said the film’s idea of using contemporary voices to read history gave him a new way to connect with the past.

Professor Nancy MacLean. Photo by the author.

“There’s a certain version of history we’re taught, but another version we can learn,” he said. “Hearing the actual words makes you want to learn more. I feel like I can relate [better].”

Fiasco said the project rejuvenated his capacity to feel the “American spirit.” He classified both his parents as very radical, remarking that he was raised with a certain distance from the title of being “American.”

“[Being American] represented all the ills — imperialism, capitalism and overconsumption,” he said. “The film shows another side of what [that] means. After watching it, I came out feeling proud to be an American. We are a nation of struggles.”

Fiasco said he was able to identify most with the story of a homosexual. “After stripping away all the lifestyle choices, we’re left with humanity — a common factor,” he said. “To see that and how it resonates with you is really going to shock you.”

The decision to bring the film to colleges campuses first was consistent with the film’s philosophy that change is most possible in close and diverse communities, like those at colleges.

“It only takes two people to start a movement,” Ealy said. “If we can access you guys, you can spread the word like nobody’s business.”

Students said they learned from the event, whether or not they had a prior interest in history.

“I love the History Channel, so I knew it was going to be something educational and inspiring, but I didn’t know what,” said Weinberg freshman Monique Brown.

“I came for Lupe,” said Weinberg freshman Harsh Shah. “But the thing is, because of him, we paid attention the entire time.”

“His answers weren’t the bullshit scripted answers you expect celebs to have,” Shah said. “It’s not like he was just there for the name — he knew what he was talking about. And that’s why I loved it.”

Fiasco hoped The People Speak would be a catalyst for students to draw inspiration from history itself.

“You go out there, and you do something,” he said. “If someone’s yard is dirty, rake it, son!”

Individuals across Northwestern are coming together to further cancer research thanks to a five-year, $13.6 million grant awarded by the National Cancer Institute. The result of this interdisciplinary collaboration will be a Physical Sciences-Oncology center (PS-OC) that brings new models and perspectives to the study of cancer.

Northwestern, one of 12 institutions to receive a grant from the NCI, will focus its efforts on the specific goal of advancing understanding of the role of gene expression in cancer. But the grant also calls specifically for an interdisciplinary style of research in order to reach this goal, a type of research uniquely suited to Northwestern because of the its breadth and variety of undergraduate and graduate science studies. The university will call on professors, students and researchers in Weinberg, McCormick, Feinberg and several other programs to approach the research with their own unique lenses and to collaborate with people in other disciplines.

The center will especially aim to bring the methods and perspectives of physical science to the study of cancer.

“Building on stunning progress in the molecular sciences and advanced technologies, we envision the development of new fields of study based on the application of physical sciences approaches to address major questions and barriers in cancer research,” a statement on the NCI Web site.

Two research programs already in place, the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Institute will administer the PS-OC. But applied mathematicians, oncologists, physical scientists, molecular biologists, and even professors and students will all contribute.

The McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences currently has eight professors participating in research for the PS-OC. William Kath, a professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics, will be investigating different states of gene expression in DNA.

Thomas O’Halloran, a professor of chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology in the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences, will be conducting research about how normal cells condense chromatin in cell division, and how that affects cancer.

“It’s very cross-disciplinary. [...] In the long run, we may even be collaborating with people in the School of Education [and Social Policy],” said O’Halloran, also Associate Director for Basic Sciences at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center and director of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute.

The PS-OC will take the inclusion of disciplines and schools to a new level with an education and outreach program. Summer boot camps and workshops will bring medical students from Feinberg to the Evanston campus and graduate students and post-docs affiliated with the physical sciences to the medical campus.

“The education program focuses on exchanging tool sets and paradigms between oncologists, biologists and physical scientists so that they can learn from each other and encourage the next generation of researchers,” said Sheila Judge, the director of Operation and Outreach at the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute.

Northwestern’s ability to do cross-disciplinary research lies mostly in the variety of resources and programs already in place, Licht said.

“Northwestern has so many strengths in so many physical and biological sciences under one institution. Many other PS-OC institutions are collaborations, like Princeton and the California Institute of Technology, but ours is fully contained in Northwestern.”

The annual survey of the Chronicle of Higher Education showed that Former President Henry Bienen’s total compensation dropped by $438,835 in the 2008 fiscal year.

But the drop in payment may be deceiving because Bienen’s salary from the previous fiscal year, 2007, was inflated by payments that he had deferred from previous years, according to an e-mail from Bienen.

Bienen’s base pay in the 2007 fiscal year was $903,760, a decrease from the 2006 figure of $1,342,595. Benefits also decreased from $399,965 to $26,330, bringing his total compensation down to $930,090 from $1,742,560 in 2006-07. The comparative size of the fiscal year 2007 salary, though, is due not to a decrease from that year’s salary to the next year’s, but rather to payments tacked on to it that had been deferred from previous years.

“My pay stayed somewhat the same [from fiscal year '07 to fiscal year '08],” Bienen wrote. “It was bigger the year before because I took a significant deferred payment. You need to be very careful with these figures because often presidents have deferred compensation and that compensation triggers in according to preset timing.”

Bienen did institute other measures to cut costs during fiscal year ‘08, though, and said he was conscious not to increase his salary during tough fiscal times.

“I would not have wanted to take big pay increases during this difficult time,” Bienen added.

Vice President of University Relations Al Cubbage said that according to documents submitted to the IRS, a deferred payment of $375,000 was agreed upon on in 2006. The payment was contingent upon Bienen working for the university at least through August 31, 2008.

The bonuses and deferred payments serve as encouragements for Presidents to stay at universities. The board of trustees sets the compensation and bonus figures of the President based on performance and pays at other peer institutions, Cubbage said.

The bonuses that were deferred will again result in a significant increase in compensation for the fiscal year 2009.

“Next year my pay will look like it goes up because once again deferred payments were made,” Bienen said. “But my actual pay stays nearly the same.”

Soon to be 50-year-old Anthony McKinney will wait behind bars another two months as lawyers representing Northwestern’s Medill Innocence Project — which is attempting to exonerate McKinney for the 1978 murder of Donald Lundahl – prepare to respond to new evidence brought forth by the Cook County state attorney’s office to support its subpoena of documents including grades and course syllabi from the students and professor involved in the Innocence Project.

The state’s attorney office filed a new motion on Tuesday suggesting a private investigator working with the Medill Innocence Project may have paid off a witness to provide exculpatory evidence for McKinney’s case, who was convicted in 1978 of killing a security guard in the Chicago suburb of Harvey.

But the hearing to decide whether the school will be forced to submit the grades and course documents of students was postponed until January 11, 2010.

Medill Innocence Project professor David Protess outside of the Cook County Courthouse. / Photo by the author.

University attorney Dick O’Brien was given a postponement because he said he was not prepared to respond with oral argument or written response to the state’s brief. O’Brien said the state had said it would file the brief before the hearing to give his team time to prepare a response. Instead, prosecutors filed the motion 15 minutes into the scheduled hearing, attributing the delay to computer problems.

“As it turned out, events were such that it was not filed until today which, given the fact that it was 30 pages, made an oral argument today impractical,” said O’Brien, whom Cook County Judge Diane Cannon criticized at the beginning of the hearing for a formatting issue in his documents and for submitting a reply brief that was “dripping with sarcasm” and which Cannon characterized as editorial.

The state’s motion alleges that questions of credibility in the Project’s witness accounts bolster their case to have the court review students’ grades, notes, unpublished recordings of witness interviews, course syllabus, and e-mail exchanges between David Protess and his investigative journalism class on the Innocence Project case to check for signs of bias towards McKinney that might have skewed the evidence they “created.” Specifically, the motion claims that the way the students conducted their investigations and the fact that there were not any newspaper stories about their findings until two years later proves that they are not journalists, and therefore their materials are not protected by the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege.

Anthony Drakes, one of the Project’s witnesses and alternative suspects in McKinney’s case, was taped in an interview saying he was present during the murder and that McKinney is innocent. Drakes said to the camera at the end of the interview that he was not given any sort of compensation for making the statement. The state’s motion said Drakes claimed he asked the students for compensation before the interview and they denied his request, but one student “flashed a wad of cash toward” him.

Drakes recanted this video statement during an interview with the prosecutors and the new motion cites Drakes as saying a detective gave extra cash to the cab driver to give to Drakes, who told the state he bought crack with the money.

“In light of this record,” the motion states, “the State has a duty to determine whether the money given to the cab driver and then to Tony Drakes was given in exchange for Drakes’ affidavit.”

Protess and former student on the McKinney case, Evan Benn — who said he paid the cab driver to send Drake back to his home before curfew — described the motion’s claims as “absolutely false.”

The motion also contained an interview with Francis Drakes — nephew of Tony. In the interviews, Francis Drakes recanted an affidavit he had given to Medill students and signed in 2006 in which he stated that his uncle Tony and a friend Michael Lane came home on the night of the shooting and admitted their involvement. He was only eight at the time of the murder. Francis also claimed that the female Medill students who recorded his affidavit “flirted with him and flattered him,” and that “he made up the story for the female students from the school.”

“Basically I’m characterizing this brief as nothing more that the continuation of the state’s smear campaign against my student journalists, who work so hard on this case, with their only goal being to find the truth,” Protess said outside the courtroom.

But the state’s attorney office denies the presence of such motive, highlighting in the motion past cooperation with the Innocence Project on wrongful conviction in the post-conviction petition of Thaddeus Jimenez, who was exonerated in May.

Similar subpoenas have bugged the Innocence Institute at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. According to its director Bill Moushey, the judges in his cases have predominantly ruled the documents subpoenaed to be irrelevant to the cases.

“In all innocence projects, we have been the subject of situations where the government also has tried to attack the messenger,” Moushey said.

An alert on Northwestern University’s Web site stated that a female student was reportedly sexually abused Monday at around 9 p.m. in a hallway on the second floor of Tech.

According to the report, a male subject began to speak with the woman, and when she walked away the man grabbed her by the arm and below the waist. The woman then screamed and the man ran away. She was not hurt and refused medical attention.

The suspect was described as a 25-year-old, clean-shaven black male with shoulder-length braids, standing at about 5 feet 8 inches tall with a thin to medium build. He reportedly was wearing an oversized white T-shirt.

University Police was then contacted and officers searched the building and its surroundings without success.

If you have any information that might assist University Police, call them at 847-491-3456.

Updated 11/11

Northwestern has embarked on a new strategic planning process for the next 10 years with a framework that identifies priority areas of focus for the university. The outline, which is open for feedback by the Northwestern community, emphasizes strengthening Northwestern as a global leader in academia and improving intellectual, civic and social life, University Provost Daniel Linzer said in an e-mailed statement on Nov. 7.

The outline was drafted after meetings over the summer among the provost, school deans and vice presidents, and further refined by a group of senior leaders from across the university in October. Over the next year, workgroups will meet to complete the framework for the plan that will be launched in 2011.

In drafting the next 10-year strategy, the university has been guided by the planning frameworks in The Highest Order of Excellence (1997-2003), the prior strategic plan, and its companion piece for 2005-2010. The Highest Order of Excellence is the product of university-wide planning committees and, Linzer said, “outlined strategies for Northwestern to strengthen its interdisciplinary culture” and “also provided a vision for supporting faculty work and student learning through innovative programs and policies, and by creating a more robust institutional infrastructure.”

The newest draft of the next strategic plans to:

• Bring Northwestern to the forefront as a leading institute for scholarship, research and creative work by attracting and retaining the best faculty and students from across the world;
• Continue to improve the learning environment and teaching methods, and identify ways to assess their effectiveness
• Improve the intellectual, civic and social experience outside the classroom for students, faculty and staff
• Have a clear strategy to build relationships with other countries or universities abroad
• Recruit and retain diverse and talented students, faculty and staff and create an environment to nurture diversity
• More effectively communicate Northwestern’s identity and wide range of strengths to audiences.

Associated Student Government President Mike McGee called the plan “a chance for Northwestern to reevaluate what it’s been doing and look at the areas where we need work.” He believes students should have a role in the drafting of the framework, and said ASG plans to meet soon with Linzer to discuss it and offer feedback geared toward Northwestern students.

The provost encouraged students and faculty to review the framework (available at stratplan.northwestern.edu) and submit comments and suggestions to stratplan@northwestern.edu by Dec. 1.

Correction: The original version of this article stated that the “university has unveiled a new strategic plan for the next 20 years.” In fact, the university has embarked on a new planning process, and the document available for review at stratplan.northwestern.edu is still only a structure that outlines priority areas of focus. North by Northwestern regrets the error.

When two students used blackface as part of their Halloween costumes on Saturday, some members of the Northwestern community responded with outrage, but others remained confused as to why these actions were offensive at all.

President Schapiro looks on at Thursday’s forum. Photo by John Meguerian / North by Northwestern.

In light of the blackface incident and recent instances of racial profiling, Associated Student Government, Student Affairs and the Coalition of Colors united to put on a public forum Thursday evening to discuss blackface and other racial issues at Northwestern.

The forum, which packed the Louis Room at Norris, aimed to provide a safe, public place where community members could discuss issues of race and how individual students’ actions reflect the culture of Northwestern as a whole. The event, which University President Morton Schapiro attended, also anticipated a series of steps to deal with racism and prejudice at the university.

Sandra Richards, African-American studies and theatre professor, spoke about the history of blackface and explained why it is still considered offensive today. The practice dates back to the middle of the 19th century, she said, when white comedians and stage performers began painting their faces black to create a comical, stereotypically black character. Moreover, black actors were forced to paint their faces with burnt charcoal to find work since audiences wanted to see actual blackface.

“Blackface continues to wound,” Richards said. “It continues to say ‘you don’t belong.’”

Professor Barnor Hesse of the African-American studies department took the stage to facilitate the larger discussion of the evening.

“The question of race depends on your interest,” Hesse said. “The relationship of interest to race is crucial. It does not turn on how much you understand it — the commitment is to tackling the issues and then to engage with understanding.”

Blackface became a hot-button issue when the audience joined in to discuss their opinions. Some were applauded for insightful statements, while others received groans and boos from the rest of the crowd.

Some students at the forum suggested that blackface should be considered in terms of the perpetrators’ intent. If it wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t racist, some said.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a third-year graduate student in the African-American studies department, disagreed. “Looking at intent is the wrong way to focus on the issue,” she said. “That approach leaves it up to the perpetrators to decide whether something was racist, but we should look at how it affects life for black students.”

Taylor also cited the Northwestern police reports, which according to her stigmatize black males on campus by identifying suspects of sexual assault or theft as young black men without any other identifiers. She urged the administration to discontinue this practice on the part of the Northwestern police.

SESP freshman, Zoe Goodman spoke of her involvement in For Members Only, Northwestern’s black student alliance, and encouraged others to get involved in activities that take them out of their comfort zones.

“Before I moved to Evanston, I didn’t really know any black people,” Goodman said. “But FMO has been so friendly and welcoming to me, and I’m excited now.”

After hearing students’ opinions on the roots of racial profiling problems at Northwestern and suggestions for solutions, President Morton Schapiro addressed the audience and promised to work toward change.

“If you really love something, you’d better be critical of it,” Schapiro said. “I realize that there are a lot of things to work on. So when I hear stories of profiling, I know I’ve got to deal with that.”

He also stressed the role of the entire community in effecting change and added that the administration alone cannot solve the problems of racism for the whole university.

“Hold me accountable for a lot of things, but I’m holding you accountable as well,” he told the crowd. “If you love this community, or even if you’re just a part of it, you have as much responsibility as I do.”

In response to two e-mails from Northwestern Police last week — one to report that a Northwestern student had been sexually assaulted and another to report that the student’s claim was “not bona fide” — the Sexual Health and Assault Peer Education group organized a panel to provide “information and discussion about Sexual Assault at NU and on a broader scale,” according to an e-mail from the group.

More specifically, the forum, held in the conference room of the Black House at 7 p.m. on Tuesday evening, clarified in general terms the policy dictating “false report” of rape, and Northwestern’s interpretation of that policy. Attendees questioned the detailed nature of the e-mail’s descriptions of the victim and perpetrator, and the less-detailed nature of the second e-mail. They suggested that the way the e-mails are written reinforces dangerously over-simplified perceptions about sexual assault.

The panel members — guest Lisa Frohmann, University of Illinois at Chicago professor of criminology, law and justice; Don Misch, director of Searle student health services; Renee Redd, director of the women’s center; and Laura Stuart, coordinator of sexual health education and violence prevention — could only offer information about rape reporting practices in the abstract.

“None of us can say for sure what happened [in the case of the Northwestern student and e-mails],” said Stuart, coordinator of sexual health education and violence prevention. She said she knows as much as the students based on two e-mail alerts that were sent out to the Northwestern community last week. The first, from Oct. 27, notified students that a female Northwestern student (whose name has not been released) was sexually assaulted and the second, which appeared in many inboxes on Oct. 28, had a subject line that declared the first e-mail’s report “false.”

The second alert offered no explanation as to why the claim was dismissed, but said the decision was made after detectives interviewed the student.

Interim Dean of Students Burgwell Howard explained that NUPD is required to send the e-mails by the Clery Act, signed in 1990. The act calls for universities to “make timely reports to the campus community on crimes considered to be a threat to other students and employees.”

This year, NUPD has consistently sent out e-mail alerts right after the crimes as a way to carry out “timely alert” policy, Howard said. The potential problem with e-mails sent too hastily, though — brought to light by the case last week — is that these e-mails can broadcast a case without having all the facts. Howard said that universities are still interpreting the Clery Act, and looking for the correct way to inform students of crimes in a timely, accurate and lawful way.

While NUPD sent out e-mail alerts last year that appear on their Web site, Northwestern Deputy Chief Dan McAleer said more e-mails are being sent out this year.

“We have tried to implement more e-mails to inform our community as we see the necessity to make sure a broader notification takes place,” he said.

The panelists and students in the audience also noted the unusual detail of the e-mails, both in their description of the events that occurred on the night of the alleged sexual assault, in their specific physical and racial description of the attacker, and in their insistence that the report was false.

The specific language in these e-mails — in particular the word “bona fide” — stirred up strong opinions among students who spoke out. Some said the word automatically created the idea that the victim had lied.

Frohmann said the term, which is sometimes used interchangeably by police with the word “unfounded,” can have many different meanings behind it. Reasons for labeling a case “not bona fide” can range from victims’ stories changing to witnesses not choosing to testify because they are too embarrassed.

Weinberg senior Kirsten Powers said she was concerned about how the language of the e-mails encouraged other students to assume the student was a liar, question her choices on that night, and even wish her harm, all of which she saw in an online forum.

“I personally was enraged that [the way online commenters have portrayed the Northwestern student] is still the dominant way of thinking of assault,” Powers said.

The panelists also noted the unusual detail of the first e-mail, both in its description of the events that occurred on the night of the alleged sexual assault, and in its specific physical and racial description of the suspect. Panelists and students alike were concerned that this level of publicized detail about the events could discourage students from reporting sexual assault cases in the future.

The e-mail’s explicit description of the suspect also drew concern. The description, which portrayed the suspect as an “African American male, approximately 25 years old, 5-6 – 5-7 inches tall, with a thin but muscular build, wearing a black leather jacket and dark jeans,” provoked a discussion about race.

One student in the audience said when she first read the e-mail she was more concerned about how it might reinforce racial perceptions than how it would influence perception of gender. She said she was surprised by the specificity, when previous cases have had more blanket descriptions that could apply to people of any race.

Howard said he will meet with the chief of police to discuss issues like whether victims know that the university is required under the Cleary Act to report assault cases publicly as well as why the reports are so detailed.

“It’s always about improving the system,” Howard said.

Colorado State University professor Michele Betsill speaks on climate change. Photo by Kevin Short.

A sense of urgency about the hazards of climate change echoed through the McCormick Tribune Center today, as people gathered to discuss global warming at Northwestern’s first Climate Change Symposium. With just about a month left before the global climate conference Copenhagen, Denmark, a host of speakers from various universities gathered in Evanston to discuss how factors like the carbon cycle, the fossil record, renewable energy and public policy affect the Earth’s climate.

Sponsored by the Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, the Program in Environmental Policy Culture and One Book One Northwestern, the event signals a movement within the university to bring sustainability issues to campus and to communicate the best science and policy to the community.

“We only have three options: prevention, adaptation, or suffering,” keynote speaker Dr. Lonnie Thompson told the audience.

In a speech that set the tone of the event, Thompson, a distinguished professor and research scientist at Ohio State University, addressed global warming from a paleoclimatic perspective — that is, by looking at the Earth’s climate in past centuries and millennia.

Thompson ended his lecture with a quote from the eighteen century born German scientist Alexander Van Humboldt: “There are three stages of scientific discovery: first people deny it is true; then they deny it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.”

“I don’t think human behavior has changed that much since then,” Thompson added.

While the symposium coincides with growing worldwide interest in the climate change meeting in December, it is rather a part of a long-term initiative at Northwestern to introduce sustainability issues on campus.

As part of this project, ISEN was established in October 2008 under President Henry Bienen to add interdisciplinary curricula, fund research and host events related to sustainability and energy issues. Moreover, deans from Weinberg and McCormick have appointed a committee to look at the issue of bringing a more coherent experience in environmental studies at Northwestern.

“[Climate change] is in the news…How could Northwestern not be talking about this,” said Bridget E. Calendo, director of operations and outreach for ISEN.

Meanwhile, the symposium also offered perspectives on the upcoming climate change meeting in Denmark in December, when delegates from 192 countries will gather at the 2009 United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen (also referred to as COP15) to address climate change policies beyond 2012. The year marks the expiration of the carbon trade emission targets set by the Kyoto Protocol.

Climate is expected to become a hot-button issue at the negotiating table in Copenhagen, as the world’s developed and developing economies will seek to reconcile a series of policy decisions aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

Some speakers at the Northwestern symposium remained skeptical about the outcomes of the COP15 talks.

According to Brad Sageman, the department chair of the Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern, the COP15 “reflects the commitment of the European nations.” But the Obama administration has recently been criticized for not taking a firm stand on climate change.

“If the United States doesn’t become a leader in these issues, when are China and India going to follow suit?” Sageman said.

Kevin Short contributed reporting for this article.

The far walls of the second and third floors of the children’s section of the Evanston Public Library are filled with framed children’s book covers whose stories have not yet been written. Each of the 75 original paintings, drawings and sketches is accompanied by a description of what the illustrator envisioned for the story – but the story itself is left up to the imagination of the viewer.

These book covers comprise a new exhibit co-sponsored by the EPL and the Northwestern University Library called “An Imaginary Library,” open since October 9 for a three-month stay. The exhibit – visibly international, visually striking, and varied in style and content, presents children’s books in an exciting and open-ended way and is the first of its kind in the Evanston library.

The exhibit’s presence in Evanston is largely due to the efforts of Jeff Garrett, an Associate Librarian for Special Libraries at Northwestern. Garrett convinced the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany (the creator of the project) to send the exhibit to Northwestern and Evanston after it appeared in a four-day conference of the United States Board on Books for Young People in Saint Charles, IL. The exhibit has already appeared in Japan, Greece, and Iran, according to the EPL website.

The international character of the exhibit is apparent in the variety of styles and conceptions of “appropriateness” of the illustrators, said Jan Boyden, head of Children’s Services at the EPL.

On the third floor, some of the drawings are “pretty wild,” according to Brian Wilson, a librarian in the children’s section. The illustrations even created some confusion on the first day of the exhibit, when the Library did not yet have English translations for the explanations of the drawings.

“In some cases we had no idea what was going on,” Wilson said. “Some of the pictures on the third floor are pretty intense.”

The striking visuals and the variety of styles and content are at the heart of the exhibit and have attracted viewers both young and old, Wilson said.

Many children ‘take’ their parents to certain spots in the children’s area right away, he said.

Evanston resident Heather Wade took an opporunity to examine the exhibit while her sons Erick, 3, and Gavin, 1, played beneath it.

“I noticed it was up,” she said, but said that because she is usually chasing kids, she hadn’t had a chance to really look at it.

Wilson said that this is the first long-term, travelling exhibit that the EPL has hosted, but it is not the first collaboration between Northwestern and EPL, or Northwestern’s first large exhibit.

In 2000, Garrett brought an exhibit from the Bologna Children’s Book Fair to the University Library — it filled an entire floor of the library with over 450 works of art.

“That was national news,” Garrett said. “What we’ve done this time is not nearly as big as that.”

The Bologna exhibit is still at the University Library. It, along with “An Imaginary Library” was meant to be accessible in conjunction with the conference in St. Charles.

It is very cutting edge, provocative, some people have called it obscene, said Garrett. “If you’re over 18 you’re welcome to come see it.”

After “An Imaginary Library” ends its stay at the Evanston Library, there are no immediate plans to fill the spaces. The exhibit itself will travel to the University of San Francisco, Garrett said.

Following a loss to Penn State on Saturday, Northwestern football fans are not the only ones worried about the rest of the season. The peddlers at Ryan Field came close to losing their jobs last week, when the Northwestern University Police Department attempted to ban them from selling food, beverages and merchandise at Wildcat games for security reasons.

At a meeting on Oct. 26, the Evanston City Council tabled an ordinance brought by the Northwestern and Evanston Police Departments earlier in October that aimed to ban all peddlers, including those with permits, from Northwestern sporting events.

Although it has not registered any accidents, NUPD said that peddlers cause a safety hazard and that the ordinance is intended to prevent future problems. But according to Eric Palmer, community information coordinator of the Evanston City Council, the council decided that NUPD should resolve the safety issue within the current ordinances. The council added that that there was not enough concern or evidence at this point to make a decision.

The NUPD plans to pursue the issue and does not believe that the existing ordinance is sufficient, said Daniel McAleer, Deputy Chief of Police at Northwestern University.

“We need to do some more work to demonstrate the safety issue…we will continue to gather information to help the council make a decision one way or another,” McAleer said.

The ordinance was first discussed at the Evanston City Council meeting on Sept. 29 and then again on Oct. 12. In addition to safety, the ordinance also addresses the issue of ticket scalping that occurs outside the stadium. During the discussions, longtime peddlers pointed out that there was a difference between peddlers with permits and ticket scalpers, most of whom do not have licenses.

“To create the impression that it is a big problem, they tried to lump peddlers with ticket scalpers. It is not the same thing,” said Maurice Kelly, who said he has worked in the souvenir business for more than 15 years. He presented the peddlers’ concerns at a council meeting on Oct. 12.

Kelly added that the ordinance is not about safety, but rather a ploy by the official Northwestern concession stands to make more money.

“[They] had to create a reason to eliminate competition,” Kelly said. “[The peddlers] are a scapegoat, because the attendance to games has been worse than it has ever been.”

Daniel McAleer, Deputy Chief of Police at Northwestern, declined to comment on this issue, but said that the NUPD’s “main concern is the safety hazard.”

“We support the Northwestern and Evanston police to make it a safe environment,” said David Gaborek, the owner of “Let’s Tailgate,” a company that owns some of the official concession stands. He was unaware of the ordinance against peddlers until he was approached by the council to speak at the council meeting on Oct. 19.

To peddlers themselves, the outcome of the ordinance comes down to a matter of livelihood.

“We are independent small business persons who are honest,” said Paul White, a part-time CTA bus operator in Chicago who has been a peddler for 15 years. “We have children who are in college. At least mine are; I need to give them an education.”

Other peddlers are preparing for the worst. “We have a lot of inventory and merchandise, we are cutting down on buying in case [the ordinance] does go into effect,” said David Klemp, a peddler who also works for the local school district as support staff.