the daily northwestern 10/28/09
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The Daily Northwestern 10/28/09TRANSCRIPT
By Ganesh Thippeswamythe daily northwestern
The National Cancer Institute has awarded Northwestern a 5-year, $13.6 million grant to set up a “virtual” interdisciplinary research center to shed light on the roles genes may play in the de-velopment of cancer.
The new Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, one of only 12 established by the NCI nationwide, is a joint effort between NU’s Chemistry of Life Processes Institute and the Robert H. Lurie Com-prehensive Cancer Center. While not a physical building, the center is more theoretical in nature and is comprised of a variety of cross-disciplinary science research teams.
Consisting of five long-term projects, the new center will focus on the storage and expression of genetic information involved in both normal cell biology and the progression of cancer cells.
“It’s a full-pronged attack on understanding the structures of the genome (of cancerous cells),” said Jonathan Licht, senior scientific investigator of NU’s PS-OC and a professor in Hematology/Oncology at the Feinberg School of Medicine.
The PS-OC looks to integrate perspectives on this theme by bringing in experts in the physical sciences along with cancer biologists and clini-cians from NU, the University of Chicago, Chil-dren’s Memorial Hospital and the California Insti-tute of Technology.
“We’re bringing together people in the physical science and biology to unravel the mysteries of how genes are expressed and how they...affect the behavior of cells,” said Steve Rosen, director of the
The Daily Northwesternwww.dailynorthwestern.com servingtheuniversityandevanstonsince1881 wednesday,october28,2009
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david mossA not-so-secret secret society
wednesdayhigh:60°low:46°
weatherforum page 4
Asian Americans speak out
NU takes on cancerwith grant
See CanCeR, page 6
Cash for profs: defenseindustrycontractorgiftsmillionstocommemorateformerceoPAGE 3
By LauRen KeLLeheRthe daily northwestern
About 20 students and adminis-trators gathered in the Multicul-tural Center on Tuesday night for a campus discrimination forum spon-sored by the Northwestern Asian Pacific American Coalition.
The forum has been in the works for close to a month as students in the NU Asian-American community have become increasingly aware of “systemic racism” t hey face on c a mp u s , Me d i l l j u n i o r To d d Kushigemachi said. The Sept. 10 paid suspension of Chinese-Ameri-can NUPD police officer Freddie Lee, who had complained of work-place harassment over his race, provided a springboard for Tues-day’s event.
On Sept. 25, a few weeks after he was put on paid suspension, Freddie Lee filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Oppor-tunity Commission, claiming he had suffered from racial harass-ment and discr iminat ion in the
workplace throughout his three years on the NU police force.
Freddie Lee’s wife, Jenny Lee, was one of four panelists to address the group. She told attendees she wished her husband could have been at the forum, but sa id he would face arrest if he set foot on NU property. Throughout this pro-cess, she said, her husband has been “treated like a criminal.” She also added, toward the end of the meet ing, t hat Freddie Lee was fired as of a week ago, though no NU official was available to con-firm.
Even NU human resources, Jenny Lee said, was not sympathetic to Freddie Lee’s discrimination com-plaints when he met with them.
“They just defended the univer-sity from him,” Jenny Lee said. “Anything Northwestern-related was not supportive of my husband.”
Lee said her husband is trying to correct the stereotype that the Asian-American community is pas-sive in the face of discrimination.
“We don’t have to eat these ste-
reotypes,” Jenny Lee said.Jenny Lee’s opening remarks
were followed by Marie Claire Tan, who works for the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Billy Yoshino of the Japanese Amer-ican Cit izens League and Diana Lin, who teaches an Asian-Ameri-can Civil Rights course at NU.
Lin also touched upon this stigma that she said is often attached to the A s i a n - A m e r i c a n c o m m u n i t y. Throughout history, she said, Asians have been labeled as the “model mi-nority.”
“They were quiet, studied hard, worked hard,” Lin said, adding that this “posit ive stereotype” played into a delusion of equal opportunity.
Tan said she has experienced some of this discrimination as well in her work as a female, Asian-American attorney: that people take her naturally quiet demeanor as a reinforcement of their ideas about Asian women as soft-spoken.
But Asian Americans are vocal
See RaCe, page 5
Police: Assault didn’t occurthe sexual assault of a northwestern stu-
dentreportedtuesdaywasdetermined“notabona fide incident,” said sargeant antoinetteursitti, chicago Police department spokes-woman.
the student reported she was followedonto thectaat theaddisonstopon theredlineandthenforcedoffthetrainattheJarvisstop,according toane-mail sent to studentsat about 3:40 p.m. she told police she wastakentoanapartmentandsexuallyassaulted.
after interviewing the student, detectivesdetermined the sexual assault did not occur,ursittisaid.
chicago Police contacted theuniversity at6 p.m. with the new information, universityspokesmanalcubbagesaid.hesaidtheuni-versity will take down breaking news alertsandsendanadditionale-mailtostudentswithanupdateonthesituation.
eliseFoleycontributedreporting.
— GrAce Johnson
crime
accident on sheridanRead the full stoRy on page 6
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THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN | NEWS2 | WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009
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The Daily NorThwesTerN is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, except vacation periods and two weeks preceding them and once during August, by Students Publishing Co., Inc. of Northwestern University, 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208; 847-491-7206.First copy of The Daily is free, additional copies are 50 cents. All material published herein, except advertising or where indicated otherwise, is Copyright 2009 The Daily NorThwesTerN and protected under the “work made for hire” and “periodical publication” clauses of copyright law.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Daily NorThwesTerN, 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208. Subscriptions are $175 for the academic year. The Daily NorThwesTerN is not responsible for more than one incorrect ad insertion. All display ad corrections must be received by 3 p.m. one day prior to when the ad is run.
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sEtting thE rEcord straight
An article in Tuesday’s edition included an incorrect version of a statement by Washington University in St. Louis Senior Class President Fernando Cutz.
The quotation was supposed to read as follows: “...I suggested to the manager that these six go back to the hotel, change, forget this whole thing happened and still the manager said, ‘No, I’ve made my decision for the night.’”
A photo caption in Monday's edition misidentified members of the Lady Cats dance team as cheerlead-ers.
The Daily regrets the errors.
Materials keep going digital at library By LiLia HargiS
the daily northwestern
The day may come when Northwestern undergraduates will no longer have to trudge across campus with heavy bags of borrowed library books to research and write their pa-pers.
University Librarian Sarah Pritchard said there is “definitely a big shift” occurring at university libraries from print to digitized resources. In the next 25 years, all of the books and resources in the NU library’s gen-eral stacks could be available electronically.
This process will not, however, make the role of the physical university library obso-lete, Pritchard said.
“The key thing that isn’t going to change is the service aspect of libraries,” Pritchard said. “A lot of what we do is service-ori-ented.”
The process of digitizing resources in universities began before the rise of the In-ternet, when schools could subscribe to elec-tronic versions of databases. Next came digi-tal subscriptions to academic journals, Prit-chard said. Since then, university libraries began housing their own digitizing equip-ment. At NU, this equipment belongs to the Digital Collections department of the li-
brary, which both digitizes library materials and helps the Northwestern community with other projects, said Claire Stewart, head of Digital Collections.
On a daily basis, Stewart said the depart-ment completes “drop-off” projects for pro-fessors and teaching assistants, such as streaming videos onto Blackboard pages. One project currently being considered in-volves the use of a “robotic book scanner” to digitize a professor’s collection of former students’ notebooks.
Digital Collections is also helping ASG compile its files into an online searchable database, said ASG Clerk Brooke Stanis-lawski. The files are currently housed in binders in the ASG office.
“Students will be able to search on past ASG legislation and find other activity on is-sues they are looking to pass,” the McCor-mick sophomore said.
Digital Collections also works on digitiz-ing the library’s in-house materials. Digital Projects Librarian Julie Patton said these materials are often rare materials or come from special collections.
“Things that we have that are unique are more widely available (as a result of digitiza-tion),” Patton said. “It also gives more people access to resources that can’t be handled ex-
tensively.”The Committee on Institutional Coopera-
tion, a consortium of all the Big Ten schools and the University of Chicago, has a contract with Google to complete a mass digitization of library materials. Google representatives will come to the campuses with a truck, fill it with books, take the books to a scanning facility and then return the materials to the university.
NU will likely have its materials digitized by Google in the next few years, Pritchard said. She said the project will likely focus on distinctive collections, such as the materials in the Africana and Transportation Librar-ies.
The future of digitized libraries is not to-tally clear, since copyright and cost issues still need to be determined. Libraries will also continue to collect books as “backup copies,” but digitized copies will mean that every library does not need to allocate the shelf space for print copies of every book.
Still, Stewart said digitization will not eliminate the need for library buildings.
“It is an important and valuable enhance-ment to research,” she said. “(But) it doesn’t replace libraries.”
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009 | 3NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN
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Evanston resident’s home damaged by suspected juveniles
An Evanston resident reported damage to her house and vehicle Monday, police said.
The woman heard a loud noise at 9 p.m. Sunday night and her dog started barking, but she did not in-vestigate further, Evanston Police Cmdr. Tom Guenther said .
Monday morning, the resident found glass on her living room sofa and f loor from a broken front win-dow. The object used to break the window was not found, police said.
The woman’s white Chevrolet van also had mud smeared on it, Guen-ther said.
The woman suspects the incident may be related to her daughter, po-lice said.
The case will likely be referred to the juvenile bureau, Guenther said.
Police have no leads in case of stolen U-Haul trailer on Monday
The manager of a U-Haul rental location in Evanston reported an in-cident of motor vehicle theft Mon-day, police said.
The manager at the facility, 130 Chicago Ave., told police a U-Haul t ra i ler wa s s tolen by un k now n means, Guenther said.
There are no leads in the case, police said.
—GRACE JOHNSON
POLICEBLOTTER
By REBECCA OLLES THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN
Northwestern’s Juris Doctor MBA pro-gram received a $3 million gift from Gen-eral Dynamics Corporation to commemo-rate Nicholas D. Chabraja (School of Law ’67) , the recently retired chief executive of-ficer of General Dynamics.
The donation will fund the University's first-ever joint JD-MBA professorship. The three-year JD-MBA program, which has been in existence since 1999, consists of a dual major in the School of Law and the Kellogg School of Ma nagement . The professorship will help unify the t wo schools , but w i l l e s s e nt i a l l y serve to fund in-terdisciplinary re-search.
D a v i d V a n Z a n dt , d e a n o f NU's School of Law, said the board of direc-tors of General Dynamics, a defense indus-try contractor, chose to honor Chabraja by creat ing the professorship in his name. Chabraja is a member of NU’s Board of Trustees , and became the CEO of General Dynamics in 1997.
Bernard Black, a leader in the fields of law and finance, was chosen to chair the Nicholas D. Chabraja Professorship . Previ-ously, Black had a joint position in law and finance at the University of Texas at Austin .
“I’m excited to be at NU,” Black said. “I’m in a field known as law and finance, so this position makes a lot of sense. There are lots of interesting people to work with.”
Kathleen Hagerty , a senior associate
dean for faculty and research at Kellogg, said the professorship wil l enhance the schools’ research of finance in corporate law.
“(Kel logg and Law sta f f ) have been wanting to strengthen the area of corporate law and its f inancial aspects,” she said. “Having someone of his caliber at NU is re-ally pushing that area forward.”
Black wil l begin his professorship in September 2010, combined with a joint po-sition in Kellogg’s finance department and the School of Law similar to his previous job at UT-Austin.
Van Zandt said the goal of the chair is to further solidify and unify the Kellogg and Law programs through the $3 million dona-tion.
“ W e ’ r e j u s t thrilled to have re-ceived the gift and put Black in as the f i r s t ho l de r,” he said.
T h e J D - M B A prog ra m w a s t he f irst of its kind in the nation, and in-tegrates managerial and law studies for about 25 students.
“The program is unique in that it ’s a fully integrated three-year program,” Van Zandt said. “It’s very hard to be a good law-yer without knowing about business and vice versa, and the idea is to produce peo-ple who are attractive to business jobs and law firms.”
Lydia Hill , a student in the JD-MBA pro-gram, said she isn't sure how the $3 million is going to benefit the program’s students directly, but looks forward to seeing how administrators use it to enhance collabora-tion between schools .
“I hope they wil l use (the money) to make sure the schools pay attention and take care of the students’ needs,” she said. “We’ve been going through a battle with
Kellogg making sure there’s appropriate staff paying attention to us. I’d rather see the money spent on an administrative per-son whose job it is to lecture us.”
Lizzie Rivard contributed reporting.
$3 million to benefit dual-degreeπ Law, finance professor from Texas will fill new position that honors former CEO, NU alum
Nicholas D Chabraja Professorship
“I'd rather see the money spent on an administrative person whose job it is to lecture us.”
Lydia HillStudent in joint JD-MBA program
at NU
$3 million donated to NU’s JD-MBA program
Donated by General Dynam-ics Corporation, a defense contractor
Bernard Black, a leader in law and fi nance, from the University of Texas - Austin will chair the professorship
The gift will be used for further research on law and fi nance
JD-MBA program is a joint degree between the Kellogg School of Management and the School of Law
SOURCE: KELLOGG
forum“We will have casual Fridays, making Friday the most uptight day of the week compared to Skimpy Saturdays, Thigh-high
Thursdays and Miley Cyrus Mondays.”
David Moss, Wednesday columnist
quote of the day
IntroducingNU’s newsecret society
The DraWing BoarD
jim an/the daily northwestern
The Daily NorthwesternEvanston, Ill. | Vol. 130, No. 28
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR may be sent to 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston, Ill. 60208; via fax at 847-491-9905; or via e-mail to [email protected] or drop a letter in the box outside The Daily off ice. Letters have the following requirements: Should be typed
Should be double-spaced Should include the author’s name, signature, school, class and phone number. Should be fewer than 300 wordsThey will be checked for authenticity and may be edited for length, clarity, style and grammar. Letters, columns and cartoons contain the opinion of
the authors, not Students Publishing Co. Inc. Submissions signed by more than three people must include at least one and no more than three names designated to represent the group. Editorials reflect the majority opinion of The Daily’s student editorial board and not the opinions of either Northwestern University or Students Publishing Co. Inc.
EdiTor in ChiEF | Emily GlazerManaGinG EdiTorS | Elise Foley
and Matt Spector
ForuM EdiTor | Stephanie Wang
I remember the first time I saw the movie The Skulls like it was yesterday (even though it was ac-tually 10 minutes ago) and be-
sides being the creative peak of Paul Walker’s career, it’s, of course, notable for depicting Yale’s fabled secret soci-ety, Skull and Bones. So to draw inspi-ration from the least inspirational of sources, I’m proud to announce I’m starting a secret society at Northwest-ern. Our school is perfect for such a group. We have tradition, ambition and most importantly: secrets. Like all things here, though, pulling this off is going to take some work.
First off, our society needs a name. I’m a big fan of the skeletal dread of “The Skulls,” but I’m less a fan of copy-right infringement so I’m going to sug-gest we go with “The Femurs.” Solid, firm, resolute; strong academics may be the backbone of NU, but we’ll be the ones who give it legs. The Femurs will not have an official uniform or cer-emonial dress. Members of groups with crazy outfits usually look like such tools the only thing they’ll ever arouse is suspicion, and we are going for se-crecy. (We’re talking Area 51 secrecy here.) That’s not to say we won’t ob-serve a weekly dress code. We will have casual Fridays, making Friday the most uptight day of the week com-pared to Skimpy Saturdays, Thigh-high Thursdays and Miley Cyrus Mon-days. We gotta have some decency.
To avoid detection, we’ll have to find the most secret place in Evanston to hold meetings. We could meet on boats in the middle of the Lagoon, but the water would get cold in the fall and is most likely radioactive. We could use Kresge if we wanted our meetings to stink like skunked beer and Tyler Perry movies (seriously, smelliest building on campus). But we’ll probably just end up meeting at the Keg on Tuesday nights since no one knows it’s still open then (we’re talking JFK assassi-nation secrecy here).
I’ve considered upgrading The Fe-murs from secret society to cult, par-tially for profit and partially because I really like Kool Aid, but I don’t want to bring religion into this. People of all creeds should join The Femurs, so for now we’ll just settle with praying five times a day toward McGee’s Tavern and Grille. Also, The Femurs will not advertise by taping flyers to NU side-walks. Not only will this reduce painful collisions among students who like to read, it will prevent mix-ups between us and other campus organizations. If half the people at our meetings were there for ASG elections, it would be more confusing than using “faster” as a safe word. So no advertising, period (we’re talking Andy Dick’s sex change secrecy here).
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I have (always wanted to be) a (mem-ber of The Femurs because they live the) dream.” And the best part is we will be super easy to join. All it takes to become a member is to know the password. And that, of course, is: “When we really try, our school can be as fun as any in the country.” That’s all it takes. Because after all, if you know the password you’re already in on Northwestern’s best-kept secret.
MOSSdavid
Party foul: A lack of pre-game logic
As a college freshman, I have learned that a party is not a party unless there is plenty of alcohol. But the al-cohol doesn’t just have to be at the
party — one must consume alcohol prior to the party — and in massive quantities. And it doesn’t stop there. Oh no, actually, it has only just be-gun. In fact, one must consume alcohol, also known as “pre-gaming,” before nearly every so-cial event at NU.
Why? What is the big deal? Why do we all feel the need to become intoxicated before we do ev-erything? I can perhaps understand pre-gaming a football game, or maybe even pre-gaming a dance. There won’t be any alcohol available for students under 21 to buy, so I guess drinking be-forehand might be the only way to get the job done. But when you pre-game the John Legend concert or the movie “Where the Wild Things Are,” I have to ask, what is the point? In my mind, I simply think I would want to enjoy mov-ies and concerts to the fullest extent possible, and not have my experience tainted by the mental impairment that comes with alcohol consump-tion. Also, pre-gaming parties makes absolutely no sense to me. “Hey, let’s drink alcohol here so that we can go to a party and drink more alco-hol!” I don’t understand that logic.
What is even more puzzling to me is this: Why do people feel the need to be drunk all the time? Isn’t being one’s self enough? I understand people drink at parties to be more gregarious and less self-conscious, but pre-gaming takes it to an-other level. People can continue to pre-game if they enjoy it, and I will continue to watch, com-pletely and utterly confused.
— eMiLia BarroSSeCity reporter; copy editor
Urban Outfitters exploits, misleads
I have been taken advantage of and so have many of you. And I don’t mean at the Keg on Monday. You see, Northwest-ern’s sizable pseudo-artsy community, to
which I openly admit to belonging, has been suckered into putting its liberal hipster dollars toward funding the election of conservative senators.
In fact, “suckered” is the wrong word. It is a well-known fact that Richard Hayne, president of Urban Outfitters, is a rather conservative guy who donates money to other conservative guys. Pretty tricky, since he peddled so many Obama bobbleheads. I have to hand it to him. I’m pretty impressed by his ability to capitalize on views that are not his own. Last December, Hayne pulled on a shirt that said “I support gay mar-riage” from shelves, citing bad press the shirt had garnered. That this news had barely any effect on the popularity of the company with its target au-dience disheartens me. I myself continued to scavenge those sale racks.
It was only upon seeing Urban’s new line of “Where the Wild Things Are” merchandise that I stopped to think. I guess I’m okay with being an ingenuine tool-face, but I don’t like seeing ingen-uine tool-faces wearing one of my childhood lit-erary heroes on their chests. I tried to justify it by saying that we’re all shopping there “ironically,” but I just couldn’t. Maybe we should all pay more attention to where our money goes and whose campaigns that money finances. And don’t worry; we’ll just stick to American Apparel and we won’t have to give up this fun matching out-fits thing we’ve got going on.
— aLi eLKinassistant city editor
firing SquaDS
Weinberg senior david Moss can be reached at
ThE daiLY norThWESTErn | forum4 | WEdnESdaY, oCToBEr 28, 2009
LeTTerS froM The archiveS
A SafeRide driver responds 2/2/09
Dear SafeRide Passenger,You confirm my stereotype that NU is
home to some of the dumbest smart people I know. I make some extra spending cash by helping you say safe (i.e. not walk home alone at night and risk mugging and rap-ing). In order to do this properly, I ask the following of you:
1. Pick up your cell phone and call us. I know you know how to use it, so why do you scream obscenities at me when I won’t pick you up as you stick your thumb out at me or occasionally (for me personally, twice) jump in front of my car in an effort to stop me and get a ride?
2. Come outside on time. I have 10 min-utes to get you, drop you off and arrive at my next passenger's location. If you are not there, I cannot do my job and must go a tad over the speed limit to be on time for the next person's ride (perhaps 40 mph on Sheridan Road - can a Toyota Prius even hit 60 mph!?). When you make me late, I am accused of keeping people waiting for a whole 45 minutes longer than they were told.
3. Tell my dispatcher where you are go-ing and how many people are with you. Don’t make me show up to get you at the li-brary when I have another passenger from Norris going the same place and you ask me, “can we take three of my friends?” Be-cause when I say no, you will get mad as you always do.
4. Do not throw up in my car — enough said.
When you do these things, I become a sad SafeRide driver and go home with a headache and aching muscles. This makes my desire to be careful at my job decrease severely when — even if I do as I am sup-posed to — I will get screamed at at least once a night. I thought this job would be fun, easy money. But the dumbest smart
people I know have made me regret it. I will continue to try and do my job as best I can and if what I do displeases you ... please, feel free to call a cab.
Much love, Amanda the SafeRide Driver.
— aManDa KingCommunication ’09
Former Saferide driver
NU squandered glory days, now puts students in danger 9/26/00
I am a 1999 alumnus of Northwestern, and I wholeheartedly agree with the letter submitted by Elliot Fladen and Brendan Rose. The social life at this school is a joke.
I went to NU in 1995 and 1996 — years when the social life was pretty good. There was a great deal of school spirit and enthu-siasm during that time because of the foot-ball team’s success. The university should have taken that school spirit and cultivated it. Instead they sprayed tear gas on it. I saw the administration take away one priv-ilege after another and saw the social scene deteriorate.
By cracking down on campus social life, NU is creating a more dangerous situation for students. Kids will find one way or an-other to have a social life. This forces them to go off campus to bars downtown or else-where, sometimes driving on slippery roads in the winter and getting into acci-dents. I was amazed at how many NU freshmen and sophomores I saw at The Keg the other night. I definitely can’t blame them. Why would good kids break the law and obtain a fake ID? The admin-istration is to blame.
— vijay phaTaKWeinberg ’99
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009 | 5NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN
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By NathaliE tadENa the daily northwestern
A week after visiting federal legislators in Washington, D.C., Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl and City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz plan to discuss community concerns with state legislators during a trip to Springfield on Wednesday.
The two trips, funded by taxpayer money, are meant to lobby for state and federal funds for low-income residents and environmental pro-grams, Tisdahl said.
“We are a unique community,” Tisdahl said. “Many people think Evanston is a rich commu-nity because they see an average income that is high, but they are not aware that we are a com-munity with pockets of poverty.”
While in the nation’s capital last Wednesday and Thursday, Tisdahl and Bobkiewicz met with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Sen. Dick Durbin
(D-Ill.) and Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.). During Monday evening’s City Council meet-
ing, Tisdahl said Evanston’s representatives in D.C. are “doing everything they can” to support the city’s application for a $40 million Neighbor-hood Stabilization Program Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Develop-ment. The grant would be used to purchase fore-closed and vacant properties that can be con-verted into affordable housing.
The two city officials also met with Environ-mental Protection Agency representatives to discuss concerns about Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification and funding the city’s water infrastructure projects. EPA representatives called LEED “the way of the future,” Tisdahl said to the City Council. The mayor also said she was interested in the prospect of training ex-offenders and others for green jobs through the EPA’s Brownfields pro-gram.
Bobkiewicz detailed the trip on the City of Evanston’s blog. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.
“Both Senators are interested in Evanston is-sues,” Bobkiewicz wrote in his blog. “We need to now cultivate this interest to our benefit.”
Evanston must also look to work with neigh-boring municipalities in requesting federal fund-ing, he wrote.
“We heard at every meeting the focus of the Obama Administration on giving money not to single jurisdictions, but to groups of cities/coun-ties,” he wrote.
Similarly, the mayor and city manager’s trip to Springfield will allow them to speak with state legislators about the city’s social service pro-grams.
“There are not a lot of stable integrated com-munities in this state,” Tisdahl said. “It’s impor-tant to describe Evanston, remembering that when state formulas are devised to distribute
money to communities, there are communities that don’t always fit the formula.”
Among the items to discuss in Springfield; the distribution of funds from the Illinois Home Weatherization Assistance Program, a program to help low-income residents make their homes more energy efficient and funding for police and firefighters’ pensions.
Trips to Springfield and Washington will be-come an annual responsibility for the city mayor, Tisdahl said, but time will tell as to whether or not the trips have produced concrete results.
“We won’t know if it’s a success or not for some time,” she said.
Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) said she hoped these trips will help the city secure more fund-ing.
“People need to know who we are and what our needs are,” she said.
Mayor, city manager travel to lobby DC, Springfield
Panel: ‘Model minority’ label hurts communitywhen it comes to issues of discrimination, Yoshino said, though the Asian-American community still struggles to form an iden-tity in terms of how it responds to harass-ment over race.
“What kind of community are we when it come to issues of discrimination?” he asked. “Do we walk away from it?”
Lin said accusations that Freddie Lee might “be playing the race card” to his benefit are indicative of a reluctance to admit the racism stil l exists, especially among law enforcement officials who are supposed to provide protection.
Wei nb er g s ophomore C a lv i n L e e echoed this sentiment during the ques-tion-and-answer session.
“These people are supposed to be pro-tecting our lives,” Lee said. “If the pervad-
ing notion among people on the North-western Police Department is that Asians are second class citizens, that is a problem that directly pertains to us.”
In response to these concerns and other instances of racial profiling on campus, the MCC will be working to establish a ra-cial advisory committee to deal with these kinds of discriminat ion issues as they come up.
APAC President Amy Zhu said the fo-rum accomplished its aim of furthering the discussion of campus discrimination beyond just the Freddie Lee instance.
“I’m glad students had the opportunity to talk about their own experiences,” she said “We have made (the MCC) a more im-portant venue for conversation on campus discrimination.”
Nicky NicholSoN-kliNgErmaN/thE daily NorthWEStErN
Jenny Lee, the wife of the suspended police office Freddie Lee, spoke at a panel that 20 students attended on Tuesday. She said her husband suffered from racial harassmen' on the job.
From racE, page 1
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Research to decrypt genetic codeLurie Cancer Center.
Tom O’Halloran, director of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, said understanding cell genes is very much like decrypting a secret language or fighting a military battle.
O’Halloran compared his strategy to World War II-era efforts to “crack” enemies’ secret codes. During WWII, German officers relied on Enigma machines to encrypt top-secret military orders, O’Halloran said. How-ever, they soon lost their ability to covertly coordinate troops on the battlefield once Al-lied forces secretly captured a German sub-marine, stole the encryption machine and cracked their secret code. By screening the Germans’ commands, the Allies stayed one step ahead of their enemies and were able to anticipate any planned attacks and react ac-cordingly.
Similarly, scientists can look to decode the fundamental signals that cells use to program when they should divide, expand and differ-entiate within the human body. By under-standing these signals, scientists could then anticipate when cancer cells begin to metas-tasize, or spread, throughout the human body.
“This kind of deep, fundamental knowl-
edge...could revolutionize the treatment and prevention of cancer,” O’Halloran said. “Not only could we (fight off) the cancer cells before they grow disproportionately, but we might be able to prevent a cancerous cell from getting there in the first place.”
The donation will also help create commu-nity outreach programs. O’Halloran said it will fund the education of students in Chicago Public Schools regarding the applications of physical science into cancer research, as well as other experts in the physical sciences with-out much background in biology about how to approach cancer-related issues.
The grant will also fund summer, work-study and course-based research opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students with professors currently involved in
the center’s research, O’Halloran said. “The professors that I’ve talked to are look-
ing forward to expanding the brainpower of their team,” he said. “This (research) is going to involve electron microscopy, material sci-ence and molecular biology ... and all students really need to do is talk to the professors that are involved in these projects.”
NU employeestruck by caron Sheridan
A female Northwestern employee in her 70s was injured Tuesday evening after be-ing struck by a vehicle on Sheridan Road.
Police responded to the call just after 7 p.m. when the woman was hit by a tan Mercedes heading south between Foster and Emerson streets, Evanston Police Chief Richard Eddington said.
The woman was taken to Evanston Hos-pital, 2650 Ridge Ave., but the extent of her injuries were unknown, he said.
Eddington said the driver of the vehicle stopped immediately and cooperated with police. Witnesses were taken to the station for further questioning.
“At this point, there is no indication that improper driving was a factor,” Ed-dington said.
Police blocked off both north and south-bound lanes of Sheridan Road while the station’s accident investigation team in-spected the scene. The woman’s bag and umbrella were left on the street and were being used by officers to determine what may have happened at the scene, Edding-ton said.
The investigation was ongoing Tuesday night while Northwestern University Po-lice contacted the woman’s family.
— AmAndA LuevAno
From CANCER, page 1
“This kind of deep, fundamental knowledge could revolutionize
the treatment of cancer.”
Tom O’HalloranDirector of Chemistry
of Life Processes Institute
“At this point, there is no indication that improper driving
was a factor.”
Richard EddingtonEvanston Police Chief
n One of 12 established by the National Cancer Institute nationwide
n $13.6 million grant to be used over the course of five years
n Consists of five long-term projects
n Joint effort between NU’s Chemis-try of Life Processes Institute and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center
Physical Sciences-oncology Center
SouRCE: NoRthWEStERN uNivERSity
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009 | 7SPORTS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN
By SaRah kuTathe daily northwestern
For 84-year-old Marcy Rothman, the world of journalism is practically unrecognizable.
As a “copy girl” and then-cub reporter for the New York Post, Rothman wrote scores for horse races on a giant chalk-board. Rothman has a hard time relating to media’s ever-changing landscape, as social media becomes more prominent.
While tweeting and blogging are becoming increasingly popular in news reporting, they are drastically changing the nature of sports journalism. Instead of waiting for the nightly news or the next day’s paper, fans can receive score updates as they happen. Helene Elliott, Medill ’79, a sports columnist for the Los Ange-les Times, said she wonders about the sustain-ability of these burgeoning outlets.
“Who’s to say that tweeting and blogging won’t be outdated in a year or two?” she said. “If I knew, I’d be a multimillion dollar consul-tant. It’s constantly evolving.”
But Christine Brennan, Medill ’80, was quick to point out as readers and consumers demand news more and faster than ever, newspapers are shutting down in lieu of In-ternet news services. For Brennan, the most concerning part of new journalism is whether consumers can differentiate between trained, unbiased journalists and amateurs.
“How do we transition from newspapers to giving this information to people on their cell phones?” she said. “Hopefully seriously good journalism will prevail, as opposed to someone in their basement in their pajamas.”
While Brennan is curious how people will get their news, Vicki Michaelis, Medill ’91, is concerned with who will provide it. Michaelis said she is worried consumers will stop reading or watching unbiased sports journalism, and will turn directly to the stakeholders for their information.
For example, a fan could turn to the Major League Baseball Web site instead of a publica-tion or news network. In turn, the audience will be getting their news from the provider of the entertainment or sponsor of the sport.
“I don’t think a lot of people can make that distinction and say, ‘Oh, well I may not be getting the whole story here, I may not be getting an objective view of the game. I may only be getting what Major League Baseball wants to put out,’” she said.
In a t ime where media out lets are scrambling to break even, Michaelis said she worries future journalists may have to contemplate their integrity and debate working for a stakeholder?”
Media outlets also have tough questions to answer. Rosewater cited the “Balloon Boy” story from this month as an example of how the need for rapid response can lead to misinformation. Had the incident occurred 20 years ago, Rosewater ex-plained, there wouldn’t have been an out-let for immediate coverage and online up-dates. In newsroom setting, the time be-tween the story being written and the pa-per going to print would have been enough for reporters to determine if the incident was a hoax.
“You would actually have had a minute to sit there and say, ‘Wait a minute, could that thing actually lift a young child?’ and think about it and say, ‘What’s the back-ground of these parents?’” she said. “Our appetite for immediacy is going to have to shake out so that people still want good journalism.”
games always topped city council meetings. “(Sports) really are a reflection of some
big-picture life things,” Michaelis said. “I realized people who devoted their lives to athletics were the kind of people I liked to be around and write about. They’re com-mitted, they’re dedicated, they’re passion-ate and they make great stories.”
That same exhilaration drew Helene El-liott to sports writing. Elliott was the first female journalist inducted into the hall of fame of a major professional sport. She was honored with the Elmer Ferguson Memo-rial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame for her coverage of the NHL.
“I’ve always enjoyed looking at what makes people have the performance or game of their lives at a time when their team needs it most,” Elliott said.
Full CirCleElliott was the sports editor of The
Daily when Brennan was a freshman. Though she wasn’t the first female sports editor, Elliott made an impression on Brennan.
“I never saw a woman’s byline in the sports section until I got to Northwestern,” Brennan said.
Elliott was able to land her first job at the Chicago Sun-Times by sending letters to all of the sports editors in the Chicago area. She worked for Newsday for 10 years before heading west, where she now works as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
Because Elliott was Brennan’s mentor in college, the two know firsthand the impor-tance of having female role models in sports journalism. Both carved out their own trails, and along the way helped women become more accepted in the profession.
“I would hope that women today would realize that it wasn’t always so easy to just walk into a press box and be accepted,” El-liott said. “We and our editors fought battles so that female sports writers and TV com-mentators can be where they are.”
Foot in the doorMarcy Rothman, University President
Morton O. Schapiro’s mother-in-law, worked as a “copy girl” for the New York Post in the early 1940s. Because many of the male copy editors for the sports department were drafted to World War II, the editor was looking for a knowledgeable replacement.
One day Rothman ran into the sports edi-tor, who asked her, “How many baseball leagues are there?”
Rothman was the only one to answer the question correctly. In her new posi-tion, Rothman wrote game scores on a chalkboard when newspaper type was still set by hand. Rothman said her editor was “half a bastard, half an angel” be-cause he would let her come in late when she had exams, but also had a terrible temper. After eight months as a copy edi-tor, Rothman became a cub reporter in the sports department.
Over the last 60 years, Rothman, now 84, has watched women gain prominence in sports media.
“It’s gone from nothing to something very important and distinguished,” she said. “It just warms my heart to turn on the television at night to see women commentating, and I would say that women are given greater re-spect because they earned it.”
opening doorsAmy Rosewater, Medill ’93, said she is
thankful Rothman, Elliott and Brennan opened doors for her. Rosewater met Brennan at a conference before her senior year at NU. She said Brennan took her under her wing. To this day, Rosewater looks to Brennan for guidance.
“I realized when I met her that this wasn’t such a weird thing,” Rosewater said. “There were lots of women getting involved in (sports).”
Rosewater first tasted sports writing at The Daily when she was asked to write a “puffy piece” on the rugby team. When Rosewater started calling for interviews, she uncovered a scandal involving the team drinking alcohol on a bus. At the end of the quarter, the sports editor asked Rosewater to join the desk.
Rosewater worked part-time at the Chicago Sun-Times during her senior year before work-ing as an intern at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. On the last day of Rosewater's internship, the beat writer for the Cleveland Browns announced his retirement, opening a position for Rosewater. She wrote for the Plain Dealer for eight years be-fore working as an editor and writer for the United States Olympic Committee.
Though Rosewater faced discrimination, she said women like Brennan and Elliott made athletes and coaches more accustomed to female reporters. Rosewater compared her experience as a reporer to that of a sub-stitute teacher: She could either lay down the law within the first few minutes of class or let her class run rampant.
“Over the years you just have to develop a thick skin,” she said. “You have to keep in mind that some of these people who you’re covering are not going to treat you the way you would expect. You just have to develop a confidence in yourself that you can do the job and not be rattled.”
people BusinessWhile thick skin is necessary, Brennan said
sports journalism is a “people business.” Good relations with co-workers, peers and sources are necessary, especially for females. Brennan said women have to work twice as hard to get on the good side of those around them.
“It’s all about how you treat people,” Bren-nan said. “It’s about thank you notes, yes ma’am and no sir. It’s old school.”
Though she was never the victim of blatant sexism, Michaelis said she had to work harder than her male counterparts to get the same amount of respect. She noticed differences in the way she was treated. For example, coaches oversimpli-f ied sports terminology and stat ist ics when she interviewed them.
The same hard work paid off for Brennan.
She was the first to break the story of the 2002 Winter Olympics pairs figure skating scandal. French judge Marie Reine Le Gougne was forced to incorrectly over-score the Russian pair over the Canadians, who were favored. Bren-nan worked with a member of the International Skating Union for nearly a decade on her skat-ing book “Inside Edge.” At 2 a.m., after the medal ceremony, that source called Brennan, allowing her to reveal one of the biggest sports stories of her career.
the Future Will this disparity ever go away? According
to Brennan, Michaelis, Elliott and Rosewater, the answer is yes.
Although equal treatment of women in sports is not evolving as rapidly as the rest of the journalism world, change is happening.
While Brennan’s generation may have ex-perienced differential or negative treatment, Rosewater said sexism is no longer an issue.
Still, future generations need to remove the label of “female” from sports reporter, the torch bearers said. To do so, Michaelis calls for over-preparation.
“Even now, after all these generations of women, people are going to look at you and look at the man standing next to you and think he knows more than you do,” she said. “You have to know your stuff cold be-cause any crack they find is going to be at-tributed to being a woman.”
When Elliott started writing, she said there was an immediate assumption she was the sports desks lone female. Hard work and pro-fessional behavior helped Elliott overcome her coworker’s misperceptions.
“(I just didn’t) give them any ammuni-t ion to use (against me),” Elliott said. “Once you prove that you’re there to work hard and you’re ethical and conscientious, that vanishes.”
Just ask Brennan. Prior to Saturday’s Homecoming football game against Indiana, Brennan commanded the respect and atten-tion of everyone around her. But really, noth-ing had changed. Former Daily editor-in-chief Rick Wamre said Brennan was the same way more than 30 years ago.
After more than three decades of spear-heading change for women in the world of sports, Brennan is still making waves.
Pioneering future of journalism
30 years later, still paving wayFrom BRENNaN, page 8
PhOTO cOuRTESy Of chRiSTiNE BRENNaN
Christine Brennan (center), Medill ‘80, sits in the stands at Northwestern’s 1979 Homecoming football game against Iowa with her sister, Amy (left), and her parents.
The Associated Press reports that there are only 25 women in U.S. sports departments and just five women in sports broadcasting
President Richard Nixon enacts Title IX, which mandates gender equality in every program that receives federal funding
Helene Elliott works as the sports editor for The Daily
Christine Brennan works as the managing editor of The Daily
Lesley Visser is the first woman to work as an on-air sideline reporter for “Monday Night Football”
Helene Elliott receives the Elmer Ferguson Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame and becomes the first woman to be honored
with a plaque in the hall of fame of a major professional sport
The John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State reports that women make up 12
percent of the sports media industry
The Association of Women in Sports Media awards six scholarships and internships for college women to work in newsrooms such
as ESPN, MLB.com and Sports Illustrated
1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s
Read tomorrow’s DAILY to see how the Wildcats are preparing for their fifth conference test of the season against Penn State.
www.dailynorthwestern.com/sports Send questions and comments to [email protected]
8
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
SPORTSThe Daily Northwestern TOMORROWINSPORTS
... Passionate Personality
WOMEN COMPRISE ROUGHLY 10 percent of the sports journalism work force. Northwestern alumna CHRISTINE BRENNAN, Medill ’80, has reached what many believe is the pinnacle of the profession, with a weekly column in USA Today. Brennan has twice been named one of the nation’s top 10 sports columnists by the Associated Press. She is also a commentator for ABC, ESPN and NPR. But what really sets Brennan apart is she has a...
But Brennan is just one example of the talented women with connections to NU who have thrived in the world of sports jour-nalism. Though the realms of organized ath-letics and sports journalism are still widely dominated by men, these women have helped make strides toward equality.
In the early 1970s, The Associated Press estimated only 25 women worked in U.S. newspaper sports departments, and just five worked in sports broadcasting. Now, roughly 10 percent of the sports media in-dustry is comprised of women. Though this increase is promising, Marie Hardin, asso-ciate director for research of the John Cur-ley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State, said she believes women still have “token status” in the workplace.
“I don’t know that women have really broken through yet,” Hardin said. “Collec-tively, we still have a long way to go.”
PAVING THE WAYFor a portion of her life, Brennan was
not called by her name.Instead, she was called “The Skirt.”
Her co-worker Gary Long often teased her about wearing a skirt, but Brennan would brush his comments off.
“I never took it personally, maybe I should have,” she said. “Absolutely noth-ing was going to get in my way.”
When Brennan was in eighth grade (1972), President Richard Nixon enacted Ti-tle IX, which mandated gender equality in every program receiving federal funding.
But even before Title IX passed, Brennan had her own outlet.
“Sports was a magical escape for me with my dad,” she said.
Brennan adopted her love of sports at an early age from her encouraging father, Jim. Brennan took full advantage of play-ing opportunities when they were given to her. Though there were no sports teams available before her freshman year of high school, Brennan became a six-sport ath-lete and senior athlete of the year at Ot-tawa Hills (Toledo, Ohio) High School.
During her time at Northwestern, Brennan covered politics forTHE DAILY, only writing for the sports section when
she covered softball for roughly a month during her sophomore year.
“I was never in the Northwestern football press box,” Brennan said. “But I just loved spending all the time in THE DAILY office.”
Brennan majored in journalism at Northwestern and became the manag-ing editor of THE DAILY during her se-nior year.
After completing her bachelor’s (1979) and master’s (1980) degrees at NU, she started her first job at the age of 23. Bren-nan said her path in journalism has been the “world’s greatest adventure.”
Even as a weekly columnist for USA Today, Brennan said she strives to up-hold the values of hard work she learned in the late 1970s at Medill.
“I hope that my best column that I’ve ever written is this week’s,” she said. “And then next week, I hope it’s the best.”
Though Brennan’s story is not an un-usual one for women in sports journalism, not every woman in the field got their start this way. Vicki Michaelis, currently the lead Olympics writer for USA Today, also began her career at Medill, but with the intentions of becoming a business reporter.
Michaelis found her calling in sports at the Palm Beach Post, writing first about high school sports, then about the Miami Hurri-canes and the Miami Heat. She moved back to her hometown to write for the Denver Post before settling in at USA Today.
During her time at the Palm Beach Post, Michaelis found the drama of basketball
RAY WHITEHOUSE/THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN
See BRENNAN, page 7
FAVORITE MOMENTS FOR NU FEMALE SPORTS JOURNALISTS
As an intern for the Chicago Sun-Times, Amy Rosewater had the chance to interview Michael Jordan after a Chicago Bulls game. Though it was late and one of Jordan’s friends tried to get him to leave, he stayed and told his friend he had to fi nish the interview.
Vicki Michaelis started interviewing Michael Phelps when he was 16. At the Beijing Olympics last year, she was able to cover every one of Phelps’ record-breaking eight gold medals.
Rachel Nichols watched LeBron James and Paul Pierce battle in game seven of the Eastern Conference fi nals in 2008, a game in which both players scored more than 40 points.
Helene Elliott attended the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., and covered the “Miracle on Ice.” The United States beat the heavily favored Soviet Union, before winning the gold.
Christine Brennan has always been first pick. In mid-dle school, all the neighborhood boys wanted the 6-foot-tall girl to play on their team. After college,
she became the first female sports writer at The Miami Herald, covering the Miami Hurricanes during their first national cham-pionship in 1984. Now, after 28 years of sports journalism, the sports world still turns to Brennan for sports commentary. As one of the pioneers in sports media, Brennan has helped pave the way for women in a male-dominated field.
By SARAH KUTA