The Daily Northwestern -- October 19, 2018

6 NEWS | THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018

OPAL

DEAR

something that I think will have larger ripples across the board.”

Roger Williams, OPAL’s president, emphasized the proposed department reorganization of the Youth and Young Adult Department, which serves clients that are majority black and low-income or have criminal records. In a priority-based budgeting survey of Evanston residents earlier this year, this program was ranked second-most valuable out of more than 50 city services, he said.

Williams also addressed the possible cancellation of city activity at the GibbsMorrison Cultural Center, which offers programs in the arts and fitness, in the 5th Ward, which has historically had challenges with city resources, he said, and is the only ward without a school.

“The main point is that both of these programs they cut, the Gibbs-Morrison and the reorganization of the youth and young adult program, those are affecting the most vulnerable people in this city,” Williams said.

“When you cut these programs you are cutting some people right down and their safety net is gone.”

Ariel Jackson, who is a victim advocate with the Evanston Police Department, said one of the biggest issues in the budget is the reorganizing of the Youth and Young Adult Department.

Jackson’s own position is also threatened by the possible budget cuts because of the proposed plan to contract out her job to other agencies in Evanston. She said she has collaborated with the department to work with crime victims and respects their work.

“Vulnerable populations are always the first ones recommended (to be cut),” Jackson said. “I think that is done strategically because nobody wants to talk about those problems.”

website on her own — a challenge for the selfdescribed “technologically incompetent” social media organizer.

She grew her network by interviewing people and telling their stories in new ways, giving them a platform to share them on their own terms.

“My passion is people and their stories, and compelling people to action through emotion,” Kavin said. “I think that that’s what people maybe get from Dear Evanston is that they feel my passion about the people in Evanston and about the issues in Evanston. It’s sort of like ‘I’m not a reporter, I’m just a person reporting what I feel and the people that I’ve met.’”

From page 1

madisondaum2022@u.northwestern.edu

LAW

From page 1 more investments — and all of those things require lawyers.

By the same token, in the absence of economic growth, the law profession has historically suffered, Friedman said. During the lead-up to the recession, banks and mortgage companies rushed to proliferate shaky financial packages known as mortgage-backed securities. Friedman said producing those financial packages took a lot of legal work — lawyers had to write up tons of contracts and memos for each security; when the recession hit, that source of demand for lawyers suddenly shrunk. Add to that a new wave of layoffs as law firms scrambled to compete and the automation of discovery work, and it made for a grim portrait for lawyers of the time, Friedman said.

However, Testy said she views the current influx of applications as more than a temporary spike in line with the business cycle. She said the Trump administration has inspired more people to become lawyers, structurally changing the profession.

“We saw law become very visible in the public eye, and we saw young people really clamoring away to make the world a better place and to make change for law,” Testy said. “If you think back to when President Trump took office, almost immediately we had the immigration ban. And, for the first time in a long time, we saw lawyers on the front page of the newspaper in very positive lights. We saw chants at airports: ‘Let the lawyers in.’”

While Waghorne had already decided she would apply to law school by the time Trump took office, she said the administration further encouraged her to put herself out there.

“It definitely emboldened me, made me angrier, and more passionate,” Waghorne said. “People see what’s happening on the news and they want to do something about it” Testy said she is hopeful that the gains law has seen this past year are part of a more permanent expansion of the legal sector.

“Our research shows that, overwhelmingly, it’s the passion for the common good and the passion for service that inspires people to pursue legal education,” Testy said. “Worries about climate justice, racial justice and economic justice are really at the forefront of our world right now — and those are all things that law has a very big role to play in.”

Danny Vesurai contributed reporting. pranavbaskar2022@u.northwestern.edu

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‘A real truth teller’

While Dear Evanston began as a platform to share stories about gun violence and provide actionable steps to combat it, Kavin said its scope widened organically when she realized she also needed to talk about the issues that were the underlying causes of the violence. As she listened to people tell their stories, she learned a lot about the history of injustice and inequity in Evanston and was motivated to become more of an activist in the community.

Though Kavin is not the first to tell these stories in Evanston, she is one of the first to have social media at her disposal and be able to share them with a broader audience.

She said Shorefront Legacy Center — an Evanston organization founded by Dino Robinson which focuses on preserving the North Shore’s black history — is one of the first places to gather similar stories from the community, and that she wants to help spotlight the work they and other organizations do.

Kevin Brown, the city’s community service manager, has worked with Kavin while managing Evanston’s Youth and Young Adult Division.

He said Kavin is highly intelligent, thoughtful and passionate. Brown praised Kavin for being a “real truth teller in the community” and for highlighting that everybody — regardless of background

ALCOHOL From page 1

to a high-risk drinking level is typically in the low 30 percent range. However, data from the Core Institute’s 2016 survey indicates that as students move beyond their first year, they drink less.

Various initiatives to lower the conversion rate such as increased late-night programming, have been unsuccessful. Meier hopes the addition to the survey of two questions asking if students believe their behavior

— deserves an opportunity to succeed.

“She is really a community leader of a movement, she is very progressive in her thinking, she believes that people deserve an opportunity,” Brown said. “She is a stalwart fighting against injustice, highlighting examples of racism, sexism, I guess all of the isms that are out there. I think her platform is utilized to really try to bring people together, and that’s what I really love about what she does.”

Taking action for change

Dear Evanston has brought people together in big ways over the past few years. Kavin has helped organize groups to attend major events like the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, a gun control advocacy event with the state legislature and a rally at Fountain Square to celebrate the lives of those killed by gun violence.

Kavin, who hails from Johannesburg, South Africa, said the United States’ history with gun violence and its passion for guns is incomprehensible to her, and that she doesn’t want to let it continue as the status quo. Because of this, she feels compelled to fight against the “epidemic” in every way she can.

“Whether it’s street violence, or mass shootings at schools and mass shooting at churches, and police shooting young black men, it’s just something that you don’t see anywhere else,” she said. “There are a lot of people in Evanston who struggle silently, (and) I think youth gun violence in Evanston is very much tied to… historical inequity in Evanston and in the country.”

Brown said Kavin has always had an interest in the development of young people, and praised Dear Evanston for providing a “sincere portrait” of those who are striving to be productive community members.

“I think that she has belief in her own heart that she’s called to this work and she’s called to sort of be a voice for those people who might be voiceless,” Brown said. “She’s been great at vocalizing for young people their needs, their desires, their wants, and I think that’s given people information that maybe they wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere.”

influences NU’s culture around substance use will encourage freshmen to take responsibility in shifting the school’s culture.

Meier said the results from those questions weren’t included in the norms campaign, but they were shared with program assistants during Wildcat Welcome.

“There needs to be some onus within the community to say ‘No, we’re not going to allow this to be the norm anymore. We don’t want this to be what people think of us, or how we’re perceived even,’” Meier said.

Bienen first-year Jamie Eder said he is unsure how

‘Old school values’

Pamela Cytrynbaum (Medill ’88) first became acquainted with Kavin on Facebook long before the two met in person. Cytrynbaum, a restorative justice coordinator for the James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy, said she began to see Kavin’s posts as a playbook for what she needed to keep track of in Evanston.

Cytrynbaum finally met Kavin at a march for gun reform in July that shut down the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago. Since then, they’ve run into one another frequently at community events.

The more Cytrynbaum has interacted with Kavin, the more she’s thought of her as someone who is really plugged into parts of Evanston, has accurate information and responds quickly.

“If I couldn’t trust her, then it wouldn’t have worked, even though it’s new-fangled social media,” Cytrynbaum said. “She has old school values which are: She wants to get it right, she wants to be accurate and she’s trying to tell the truth as she sees it…. That connected me and helped me trust her.”

Just as important, Cytrynbaum said, is that Kavin is active in the community; she isn’t just posting outrage on Facebook from her basement.

Over two years in, and hundreds of Facebook posts later, Kavin finds herself at a crossroads.

She is still unsure of whether she wants to find more people to help her grow the organization and keep up with the widening range of issues it covers, or if she will scale the group’s focus back down to create a more manageable workload for her one-woman crew.

She said it’s easy to lose the nuance among posts, shares and likes.

“The conversations you have on Facebook are so much more powerful and so much more meaningful and so much more authentic when you’re sitting face to face with people,” Kavin said. “So my dream for Dear Evanston would be to do less of it on the computer and more of it in the community.”

For Kavin and her computer full of interviews, there are never enough hours in the day. ryanw@u.northwestern.edu accurately the data from the survey represents NU students’ drinking habits. Eder said people act differently once they get to college, and the answers seemed to come from targeted questions.

“I think people answered generally honestly, but it was probably biased in the way they worded the questions, and some people might have lied,” Eder said. susannakemp2022@u.northwestern.edu alexiswhite2021@u.northwestern.edu

VOLLEYBALL

NU looking for first Big Ten victory

By ANDY MARQUARDT

the daily northwestern @andy_marquardt

Northwestern will return home this weekend to face off against Michigan State and No. 13 Michigan as they look to enter the win column in Big Ten play.

Following three straight road sweeps at the hands of against No. 7 Illinois, No. 9 Wisconsin and No. 3 Minnesota, the Wildcats are looking forward to facing a Spartans team fresh off a loss to Ohio State, and a Wolverines team that first has to face the Fighting Illini on Friday.

While Michigan State (15-6, 3-5 Big Ten) and Michigan (17-2, 6-2) present difficult challenges for NU (10-10, 0-8), freshman outside hitter Abryanna Cannon says the team’s last few tough matches will help the Cats’ pursuit of victory over the Spartans and Wolverines.

“We are coming off a stretch of playing a lot of top ranked opponents, and going into a stretch of opponents with lesser rankings,” Cannon said. “We’re going to look to capitalize on our experience and come out with some wins.”

Last year, NU traveled to Ann Arbor late in the season and came away with an upset win against the Wolverines. With 11 returning players from last year’s team, the Cats are looking to build on the momentum from last year’s victory as they look to once again come out on top against Michigan.

Sophomore middle hitter Alana Walker says that last year’s victory will be fresh on NU’s mind when they square off against the Wolverines on Saturday.

“This season is progressively getting better game by game,” Walker said. “We beat Michigan last year, so beating them again will prove to us that we are still improving.”

Prior to Saturday’s matchup against Michigan, however, the Cats will play host Friday to Michigan State. While no team in the Big Ten — college volleyball’s best conference — is to be taken lightly, the Spartans are the just the second Big Ten team NU has faced this season whose conference record is below .500.

Michigan State vs. Northwestern

No. 13 Michigan vs. Northwestern

Evanston, Illinois 7 p.m. Friday

Evanston, Illinois 7 p.m. Saturday

“Michigan State is a beatable team with a lot of freshman like us,” Walker said. “We match up against them well.”

Walker leads NU in blocks this season, and is third in kills behind sophomore outside hitter Nia Robinson and Cannon.

The Cats are home in Evanston this weekend for the first time since October 3. In all, NU has played 17 of their 20 matches on the road or at neutral sites.

Coach Shane Davis said he is excited for his team to get the extra rest and comfort playing at home provides.

“It’s going to be nice to be able to get back into our

routines, sleep in our own beds, and change the pace a bit for this group,” Davis said. “I feel good about our team and what we’ve been doing in practice this week.”

Both Cannon and Walker echoed this sentiment, with each mentioning their excitement to play in front of their families and to get a few more hours of rest to prepare.

Five of the next six matches for the Cats are against unranked opponents. Cannon says she is ready to see the work the team has put in show up in the win column.

“We deserve this,” Cannon said. andrewmarquardt2021@u.northwestern.edu

Daily file photo by Katie Pach

Northwestern huddles after a point. The Wildcats are looking for their first Big Ten win this year.