Four years ago, the short documentary above, “Rushed,” began to circulate at Northwestern, sending the Greek community into uproar. It follows a freshman girl, Allie, as she goes through sorority recruitment. As Allie goes from house to house, an anonymous rush chair, now known to be former Tridelt Alexandra Sinderbrand, divulges the secret rating system sororities use to evaluate potential new members. The rush chair claims that girls are cut from chapters if they’re unattractive, and that the chapters choreograph their members placement “on the floor” during rush such that quieter sisters serve food while more social sisters would speak with girls who are rushing. The accusations rocked the Northwestern community, and began heated debate on both sides of the issue. “Rushed” garnered more than 50,000 views on YouTube and later won Best Adult Documentary at the New Castle Community Television Film Festival. more

At ASG’s first meeting last fall, Tommy Smithburg, who played the Al Gore technocrat to then-President Mike McGee’s charismatic Bill Clinton, unveiled a small proposal that underscored a revolutionary idea. The senior wanted to hand control of ASG’s airport ride-sharing and shuttle services over to Northwestern Student Holdings, a private consortium that helps students develop enterprises using NU resources. Smithburg had pushed to create a taxi-sharing network in 2008, before his vice-presidential run. But after another member of Smithburg’s committee suggested adding shuttles on big travel weekends, the venture became too big for ASG, which lacks a bureacracy to implement services, to run. When the shuttles debuted, the senators charged with running them miscalculated demand, losing $250, and later said they were too swamped with other projects to focus on improving them.

Asked what ASG should be, one respondent wrote, “Useful. It’s not. Influential. It’s not. Appealing. It’s certainly not.”

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A week after John Park left the American Idol stage to come home to Evanston, he’s busy autographing 50 napkins for a throng of high school students passing through Norris University Center. “It’s flattering and stupid, is what I think,” he says matter-of-factly, flashing his boyish, wide-mouthed grin. “Like, I’m still like a college kid at this school, you know?”
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On a Monday night in February, David Lee was at work in the Chinoiserie kitchen preparing a shrimp and a chicken stir-fry. The 61-year-old Chinese man described his ability to cook quickly as being “like a monkey.”

In the dining room of his six-table restaurant at 822 Clark Street, a pair of dark-haired women walked past the dusty entryway and grabbed the sturdy, carved oak table closest to the kitchen. The restaurant’s nursery-blue walls were hard to see in the dim lighting. So was the cheap, painted plywood sheet that functioned as a wall, dividing the dining room and kitchen.
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Four weeks ago, for the first time, Northwestern University began submitting all potential employees to E-Verify, a government computer program designed to check if employees live here legally. Federal law requires NU to use the system on all employees whose work is funded in any way by federal grants, such as medical-research workers. But NU’s decision to verify its entire current workforce, as well as all new hires, emerges at a time of drastic change in immigration policy unfolding throughout Chicago and the nation. But NU is not legally required to implement the system on all its employees—and it refuses to say what prompted the upsurge in E-Verify use.
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It was that time of the month: Steve Osborne had no energy. So, like he always does, he waited until his wife and 5-year-old daughter Miranda were asleep, and called up his good friend Jenna. He snuck out his back door, and drove over to the beach near Jenna’s house where he was greeted with a scalpel—his tool of choice.

The pair tip-toed through the sand until they found the perfect spot. Steve slowly dug the scalpel into Jenna’s neck—deep enough to pierce her skin, but not enough to slit her vein. Then he placed his firm lips against her warm skin and began to suck her blood. He suddenly felt his energy return, like he drank a dozen energy drinks. This was, after all, their monthly ritual.

He realized there was only one logical explanation—she had turned him into a vampire.
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The email stood out. Mike’s new Northwestern e-mail account brimmed with formal messages beckoning the freshman-to-be to join Hillel, fill out surveys and turn in overdue paperwork. Maybe his interest reflected anxiety, preemptive worries about friends, sexiling, and meals served pig sty-style. Maybe it was just a great offer.

It’s only tear gas, but the freshmen, as ordered, call out their names, eyes searing.
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Last week, about 50 aging residents of Evanston’s Three Crowns Park retirement home wheeled and hobbled into a question-and-answer session with the five candidates vying to be the next representative of Illinois’ 18th legislative district. In a room full of grandparents, two of the candidates—NU alum Patrick Keenan-Devlin, 25, and Evanston-born Eamon Kelly, 29—are fresh-faced grandchildren begging for a seat at the adults’ table. And yet one of them will probably be Evanston’s next representative in the state legislature.
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Three winter quarters ago, the Daily Northwestern started a special series called “Untold Stories.” The project was exactly what it sounds like—according to an assignment memo, it sought to explore the experiences of “those who don’t fit the mold of the ‘typical’ Northwestern student: white, perfectly bright, and middle to upper-middle class.” “Outsiders,” the email called them. People with disabilities. Minorities in theater. International students. Many of these ideas never came to fruition, hidden in the Daily‘s archives now. But one that did is still remembered and talked about today. The drama it started caused even more drama. People got angry. Some felt hurt. Soon after publication, Kristin Maun, a girl prominently featured in the article, sent an email to the reporter, then-sophomore Jen Wieczner. “What the hell did you do?” Jen had set out to write a story about the small lesbian community on campus, but, as she said later, “nobody really came out looking good.”
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Let us never forget the fish bowls sorority girls went crazy over.

Political Science, BIP ’09

It is with my deepest sympathy that I send my regrets on the closing of one of Northwestern’s greatest institutions. After years of providing the hops to countless students, crazy locals, drunken frat boys, and the entire Northwestern football team, the famed 1800 Club has closed its doors.
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