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The Daily Northwestern Tuesday, October 20, 2015
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Fountain Square to be rebuilt By JULIA JACOBS
daily senior staffer @juliarebeccaj
Daily file photo by Daniel Tian
PARK PRESERVED Ald. Jane Grover (7th) said the new plan to rehabilitate rather than demolish Penny Park presents a good balance between maintaining the park’s safety and the community’s desire for preservation. Aldermen voted Monday to terminate its contract with the current contractor.
Penny Park decision affirmed By JULIA JACOBS
daily senior staffer @juliarebeccaj
Aldermen approved Monday a plan to renovate rather than demolish Penny Park, ending the city’s contract with the current developers and affirming community inclusion in the park’s future design. City Council voted to terminate its contract with Leathers & Associates
— paying the firm $40,000 for completed work — and to open applications for contractors to rehabilitate the park with wooden materials. The move requires that applications include options for both traditional contractors as well as community organizations with an additional line ensuring involvement of interested residents in the planning process. The renovations are estimated to cost $500,000. The unanimous decision — about nine months in the making — prompted
applause and cheers from audience members who spoke to aldermen before the vote about the success of the plan after the community became involved. “It has been inspiring — not just to me, but to residents of all ages and backgrounds,” said Lauren Barski, who founded Preserve Penny Park, an organization advocating for keeping the park’s original layout. In January, City Council requested » See PENNY PARK, page 6
Aldermen Monday approved initial plans to renovate Evanston’s Fountain Square at an estimated cost of nearly $5 million and a completion deadline slated for the end of 2018. City Council voted unanimously to approve the project’s parameters and direct city staff to open an application for a firm to design the new plaza and likely renovate surrounding streets. The bulk of the cost, $3 million, would fund construction of the fountain area while $1.7 million would go toward street work. The project should be complete by the end of 2018 because funding will likely come from a federal bond fund that expires on that date, said Dave Stoneback, director of the city’s new Public Works Agency. The construction project — slated to start in 2017 — would fully renovate the deteriorating fountain and plaza, which includes Sherman Avenue between Church and Davis streets as well as the surrounding landscape areas. The first year of construction would be reserved for construction of the plaza and second year dedicated to street construction if funding is available, Stoneback said.
The city is considering installing a new fountain, a Veteran’s Memorial and planting a permanent holiday tree, he said. Renovations on the street level may include replacing the century-old water main, widen sidewalks on the east side of the street and resurface the road between Church and Davis. Last year the city hired an initial consulting firm to work with the public to begin redesigning the deteriorating square. Four plans presented to the community in July ranged in cost from $2.1 million to about $5.5 million and eliminated up to 45 parking spaces. The city found residents did not favor a plan that eliminated parking spaces, Stoneback said. However, he said members of the community did support a plaza with a fountain with a flexible design that could be used year-round. “A lot of their feedback is represented in this criteria,” Ald. Judy Fiske (1st) told The Daily. “People really care about the quality of life — they see a lot from their windows.” Fiske, who helped facilitate the community meeting in July, said the community also largely vetoed an idea for a restroom in the square. Ald. Donald Wilson (4th) added that residents mostly agreed that they wanted to preserve some sort of water » See FOUNTAIN SQUARE, page 6
Students analyze solutions to climate-related issues By RISHIKA DUGYALA
the daily northwestern @rdugyala822
Students will analyze solutions to “impossible” climate-related global issues under the Northwestern Impossible Challenge, which groups students into multidisciplinary teams to explore these problems. The Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern University, the Buffett Institute for Global Studies and the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation are partnering on the new project, which will run from November to early May, said Jeffrey Strauss, NIC project manager and director of industry programs at the Buffett Institute. Strauss and David Paul, author of
Medill on the Hill students to cover 2016 campaign
Medill on the Hill is moving to Fall Quarter for the next academic year to trail the 2016 presidential campaign. The quarter-long program, which traditionally brings students to Medill’s Washington D.C. bureau during Winter Quarter, will now move from Winter 2017 to Fall 2016. The change applies to the 2016-2017 academic year, as that fall is election season. This is the first time the program has moved to accommodate the election, said Ellen Shearer, interim director of Medill’s Washington program. Students will report on the campaign
“Standards that Measure Solutions: A Guide to Solving 21st Century Problems,” developed the program based on the methodology of Paul’s book, which argues that people might go about solving complex global problems by breaking them down into phases. At NIC, students will pick one of the four projects’ target solutions, or pitch their own for this year’s chosen problem — climate change — and explore a solution that could work at a global scale, Paul said. Under the guidance of faculty and outside advisers, their job is to apply the methodology from Paul’s book to discern if their chosen solution is a good one. Monica Wnuk, ISEN’s integrated marketing and communications manager, said people have been focusing on climate change in a very isolated
manner. In reality, it is a deeply rooted, interconnected problem that requires many people with very diverse backgrounds to work together. For the pilot year, Wnuk said there will be six to eight teams with five students each from different fields of expertise. Students can apply in groups of no more than three people and once accepted, will choose the rest of the members of their team at the first training session, Wnuk said. Students will also work with NU faculty and outside mentors from different fields. The idea is to apply categories to a problem like climate change so people develop a standard way of talking about it, Wnuk said. This application gives people a sense of the intensity of the problem and motivates a reaction or action from them, she said.
and results of the presidential race and the congressional race throughout the duration of the program, according to the email announcing the change. The program, which traditionally gives students standard press credentials, will also allow students to join professional political reporters in covering events such as presidential debates, campaign speeches and election night at campaign headquarters, the email said. The program will focus on issues, including health care, immigration, climate change, the Middle East and the economy, the announcement listed. The email also said the updated Medill on the Hill quarter is scheduled to begin on Sept. 20, 2016. Applications will be due earlier that year on March 4, instead of on the 2015-2016 year’s Jun. 5 deadline. The program will still enroll
its Medill students in two journalism classes and one political science course, for a total of four units. An informational session will be held next Winter quarter for more details, said Beth Bennett, Medill’s director of undergraduate journalism. The move is part of Medill’s push to expand its breadth in reporting opportunities for its students, Bennett said. “As we expand in San Francisco and other sites, including globally, we will continue to seek out unique opportunities for our students,” Bennett told The Daily in an email. “We will consider offering more quarter-based or short-term programs in the future for domestic and global sites, depending on undergraduate student demand.”
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
— Alice Yin
Students will look at their solutions from six different dimensions: political feasibility, economic impact, business case, technological feasibility, social feasibility and net beneficial effect. For each dimension, they will produce a score from zero to five, with zero standing for very negative probability and five for very high positive probability, Paul said. “The public doesn’t have the time to understand the details of an argument,” Paul said. “But they can understand a classification, a grade. So it’s important to have something simple that everybody can understand if it’s done in a way that is unbiased and relatively accurate.” Each team will receive a stipend, paid in three installments, to compensate for their time commitment
to the program and to help launch their ideas in the world following the program, Wnuk said. “This should be a multiyear program,” Paul said. “This is just the first year, and we’re refining it, working on the rough edges. But hopefully this will lead to an incredible amount of spin-off projects and work over time at the University.” Strauss said the first information session on Oct. 8 generated a good response to the program, but hopefully the one on Tuesday, Oct. 20, will bring in even more people. “We immediately had folks submitting applications,” Wnuk said. “Students at the University are looking for opportunities like this to really make an impact on the world.” rishikadugyala2019@u.northwestern.edu
Tyler Pager/Daily Senior Staffer
CAMPAIGN CENTRAL President Barack Obama speaks in February to a room of reporters at a White House press conference, which Medill on the Hill students covered. Next year, the Washington, D.C., program will move to Fall Quarter to allow students to cover the 2016 presidential elections.
INSIDE Around Town 2 | On Campus 3 | Opinion 4 | Classifieds & Puzzles 6 | Sports 8