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The Daily Northwestern Friday, March 8, 2013
DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM
CAs contest changes
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In Focus
Reading Period not priority for some profs
By ALLY MUTNICK
By ALLY MUTNICK
Residential Services is working to finalize several new policies for next school year. But although the goal is to improve residential life for students, the changes have been met with resistance from many Community Assistants. On-campus housing for international students during breaks and the addition of three new 24-hour residential service desks are among some of the planned changes, Residential Services director Paul Riel said. “It’s just in line with what we’re moving towards, which is trying to push out more services to residential students,” he said. However, the new policies would require changes in CA duties. Some CAs would be expected to stay for breaks, and ResLife will let students choose which break they want to stay for. All CAs may have to commit four to six hours a week to run afternoon shifts of the service desk. Along with the new policies, CAs will also find out their dorm placement in July instead of in February, Riel said. The new policy was communicated to CAs during Fall Quarter. A second-year CA, who asked to remain anonymous because speaking to the media violates his contract with ResLife, said many CAs are frustrated with some of the changes. “There are definitely some good CAs that are very up in arms about this stuff,” he said. “You would be hard pressed to find someone that wasn’t upset.”
On Wednesday, Weinberg sophomore Maraika Robinson will take an exam and hand in a 15-page paper for her psychology class — even though both are prohibited during the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Reading Period. She said her professor was aware of the conflict. “Someone on the second day of class said, ‘Didn’t you know that this is during Reading Week?’” Robinson recalled. “She kind of said, ‘Yeah,’ and blew it off.” Mary Finn, associate dean for undergraduate academic affairs, said the faculty voted Reading Period into place in the 1970s. The period is supposed to allow students taking Weinberg classes to have a chance to prepare papers and study for exams without any looming due dates, she said. Multiple students said their professors had required tests or projects to be completed during the reading period either this quarter or in the fall. Finn said she knows it is not entirely uncommon for professors to assign reading week deadlines but that, on a policy level, it is not allowed. “It’s a hard-and-fast rule that you can’t have tests or new work due during Reading Period if you are in Weinberg,” she said. Robinson said she did not mind having this one early deadline because it kept her from procrastinating, but usually she dislikes having work due during reading week. She noted there was one student in her class who had to get an extension on the exam because he would be away during the Reading Period. “I am a huge proponent of reading week,” Robinson said. “Normally, I think I would be really unhappy that I had stuff due during reading week because I normally spend reading week preparing for my other classes.” Finn said if she hears of any Reading Period violations, she works with the department chair to resolve the situation. She said it usually occurs because there was a misunderstanding by a new faculty member or because a professor was trying to accommodate a student’s schedule. Some professors offer an earlier exam during Reading Period for students who want to leave campus sooner during finals week, Finn said. However, this is against the Weinberg teaching guidelines. “Faculty members would have to create a whole different exam,” she said. “It creates a great deal of unfairness, and it does threaten academic integrity.” Weinberg sophomore Evie Atwater said her history professor is allowing students to take the test on Wednesday of Reading Period instead of their assigned time slot Friday of finals week. She said her professor offered it as an option for students without being prompted. “It’s nice that he did,” Atwater said. “It sucks to have to stay all the way through.” Finn stressed that when two different versions of the final are given, it is hard to make them exactly comparable and that if the same final is given twice it is not fair
daily senior staffer
SERVING THE STUDENTS Riel said housing during breaks is something ResLife had been looking into for a while. International students will indicate if they want to stay for Winter and Spring Breaks in their housing application. If they choose to do so, they would have to live all year in a designated section of Foster-Walker Complex. ResLife is still deciding logistics, Riel said, but the new option will launch Fall Quarter. Non-international students who want to stay during breaks may also be able to apply for break housing in the future. “We just heard pretty loud from our international population that Winter Break is pretty difficult for them to find places to stay,” Riel said. Krish Suresh, social co-chair for Residential Hall Association, said break housing would make staying in Evanston through breaks more convenient for students. “I know some of my international friends have to go to relatives’ houses in the U.S. or stay in a hotel over breaks,” said Suresh, a Weinberg sophomore. “This option would help them out.” The new residential service desks would also be implemented for Fall Quarter. Located in three different dorms, they would serve as information centers for residents where staff can assist with lockouts and other services. “The desks are a good idea because they will be a centralized resource for the small housing questions that no one knows where to go for,” Suresh said.
daily senior staffer
‘SILENT PACTS’ Students, administrators look to reform a drinking culture short on communication By SAMANTHA CAIOLA and JOSEPH DIEBOLD daily senior staffers
We’ll never know exactly what happened to Harsha Maddula. The McCormick sophomore’s disappearance from an off-campus party Sept. 22 stunned a community returning to campus for a new school year. Evanston police concluded their investigation into Maddula’s death last week, determining alcohol played at least a contributing role. Cmdr. Jay Parrott, EPD’s spokesman, said the death was “accidental in nature with ... a contributing factor of alcohol,” citing a urinalysis test and data from the Cook County medical examiner’s office indicating Maddula’s blood alcohol level was about 0.12 at the time of his drowning. What made Maddula’s death particularly jarring was how normal the events of his night played out: He attended several parties a few blocks off campus, traveled primarily in a group with his friends and seemed coherent, according to a student who saw him that night. He disappeared the night of Sept. 22, two days after the class of 2016 arrived in Evanston. Now, following the second alcohol-related death of a student in four years, administrators and student
» See RESLIFE, page 13
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leaders are looking beyond policy changes — and toward educational improvements and a new “party monitor initiative” — in their quest to make drinking at Northwestern safer. HOSPITALIZATIONS COME WITH A COST Associated Student Government formed a fivemember working group on alcohol policy and culture in spring 2012 with the goal of comparing NU’s policy to those of peer institutions. Though full amnesty — the waiving of all sanctions for students transported to the hospital because of alcohol and students who make the call for help — was initially a goal of the ASG working group, group chair Alex Van Atta wrote in an email to The Daily that it was abandoned to focus on more realistic goals rather than risk opening a chasm with the administration. But between students and administrators, everyone shares the goal of reducing dangerous drinking. Lisa Currie, NU’s director of health promotion and wellness, said a “ballpark figure” of about 100 students are transported to the hospital each year. That number spiked in the first month of the 2011 academic year to 21 — up from 13 and nine in the same time period the previous two years. » See ALCOHOL, page 8
» See READING PERIOD, page 13
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