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The Daily Northwestern DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM
Friday, October 24, 2014
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Students create Big Ten green initiative By Emily Chin
the daily northwestern
Christine Farolan/Daily Senior Staffer
BEHIND THE FOOD Carlos Romero, an organizer with the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Chicago, speaks at a panel discussion Thursday. NU Real Food, a group that advocates for fair, sustainable food sourcing, hosted the event.
Panelists talk workers’ rights By Christine Farolan
daily senior staffer @crfarolan
Food service workers and community organizers spoke Thursday about fighting for workers’ rights to create a fairer, more sustainable food industry. The panel, “Who’s Behind Your Food: A Food Chain Worker’s Panel,” allowed workers to share their stories from the workplace and answer questions from students. Hosted by NU Real Food, Northwestern
University Community for Human Rights and NU Political Union, the panel featured six speakers. Carlos Romero, an organizer with the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Chicago, explained that environmentally friendly food requires addressing unfair labor practices first. “Food sustainability is not possible without labor sustainability,” Romero said. Educating people about this dynamic is what NU Real Food aims to do. Cofounded last spring by Weinberg senior Colleen Fitzgerrell, the group is NU’s chapter of the national Real Food Challenge,
which uses four components — humane, fair, local or community-based and ecologically sound — to define “real food.” People are often unconscious about the background behind their food, viewing food as simply materializing on their plate, Fitzgerrell said. “This alienation of people from their food leads to this ultimately unsustainable system,” Fitzgerrell said. “It’s controlled by this market that seeks to maximize profit at the cost of things like labor, humane care for animals, community-based » See food, page 9
Representatives from seven of the 14 Big Ten schools are collaborating to create the Big Ten Students Sustainability Association, a group to promote sustainability initiatives across the Big Ten campuses. “There’s so much communication between the Big Ten schools,” said Christina Cilento, Associated Student Government vice president of sustainability. “It really makes sense to have a source of communication that’s solely based around sustainability so we can really support each other in our projects and find out what other schools are doing that we might want to implement.” Cilento, a Medill sophomore, was contacted in September by University of Maryland student Ori Gutin, who emailed 160 student groups from all 14 Big Ten campuses with the idea. “I was really impressed. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought of doing this before,” Cilento said. Gutin, who serves as the director of sustainability at Maryland’s Student Government Association, got the idea by talking to staff at Maryland’s Office of Sustainability, who told him they were collaborating with other staff at Big Ten schools to promote green initiatives. He decided to create something similar among students. “On your campus you have your student organization, and when you’re brainstorming to do something on campus, you have
those minds thinking of an idea,” he said. “But beyond that, there are students all across the Big Ten working in different sustainability organizations that are all thinking ideas like this. And whether they’re looking through a different lens, they’re looking at entirely different issues and solutions to those issues.” Because the Big Ten is an athletic association, it mostly deals with sustainability issues related to athletics, such as air travel emissions from sports travel. Gutin said he also wants the Big Ten to try to become a carbon neutral athletic program. The association is still in its beginning stages. Organizers are looking at what initiatives other schools have in place, which they call a “sustainability snapshot.” The snapshots ask questions such as what the schools are doing about greenhouse gases, water, food and transportation, said University of Michigan student Angela Yang. “It’s another chance for schools to collaborate so we can see what other schools are doing, particularly with the Climate Action Plan that Illinois is doing,” she said. Cilento found many schools had similar programs in place, but there were also initiatives that were unique to certain schools, and initiatives that are unique to Northwestern, such as the ongoing push to ban plastic water bottles on campus. “I think there are some unique and creative solutions that » See sustainability, page 9
Central Street residents learn about master plan By Hal Jin
the daily northwestern @apricityhal
The Central Street Neighbors Association hosted a presentation Thursday that aimed to educate Central Street residents on the master plan that regulates the layout of the street. CSNA, a nonprofit organization that represents the interests of residents of Central Street, laid out the specifics of the Central Street Master Plan. Jim Hughes, one of CSNA’s directors, and Jeff Smith, attorney and CSNA vice president, presented the history, objective and specifics of the plan to an audience of around 30 at the Evanston Ecology Center, 2024 McCormick Blvd. The American Planning Association named Central Street as a “Top 10 Great Neighborhood” in 2013. Central Street was chosen for its history of planning
Humanities festival to come through Evanston
A humanities festival featuring several different speakers and events will be coming to Evanston on Saturday
and design, active and engaged citizens and prime location, according to the APA’s website. Members of the organization began meeting in 2006, when development in the Central Street area was booming and the city had no clear laws on building requirements, Hughes said. The city hired a consultant and, throughout 2007, residents collaborated with city officials to create a plan that would be adopted as city zoning on Jan. 28, 2008. The plan regulates various aspects of Central Street, including the dimensions of buildings and the streetscape. In an opinion article published on Evanston RoundTable on Sept. 10 that was printed out for audience members, CSNA president John Walsh stressed the importance of bringing attention to the master plan now. “Unfortunately, the guidance that the Plan was intended to give future developers has not had much chance to blossom. The collapse of the real estate
mastering the plan Jim Hughes, vice president of Central Street Neighbors Association, describes the proposal for a project on Central Street. The CSNA held a meeting Thursday night to educate residents on regulations of the street’s infrastructure.
before continuing in Chicago until Nov. 9. The annual Chicago Humanities Festival presents events that focus on the humanities and brings novelists, scholars, musicians, archaeologists and other professions together, according to the festival’s website. The goals of the festival include bringing together a
variety of audiences, presenting different cultures of the world and emphasizing the importance of the study of the humanities, the site says. The first CHF was held in 1990 for 3,500 people at the Art Institute of Chicago and Orchestra Hall, according to the website. On Saturday, the festival will have
Serving the University and Evanston since 1881
Source: David K. Staub
its Morris and Dolores Kohl Kaplan Northwestern Day in Evanston. The day is named after a couple who wanted to bring the CHF to the North Shore. Events on Saturday include “Roger Ebert: Life Itself,” “Eula Biss: Where We Are From” and a conversation with writer and actor Wallace Shawn. The festival’s events are discounted for both
bubble … blunted most development of any kind,” the essay reads. “Now … we can expect to see renewed interest in developing underused properties. Unfortunately, nearly all of the City staff … have departed those positions, and are unfamiliar with the details of the plan and zoning, let alone their history and purpose.” Walsh’s letter mentions a proposal for the development of a 47-foot building at 1620 Central Street, which contains “over a dozen deviations from what the law allows.” Hughes said that he has been trying to work with the developers of the project on coming to an agreement. The proposal violates the master plan in being too tall, taking up too much sidewalk space and filling up a large portion of a nearby parking lot, he said. Such acts would block sunlight and cause privacy issues for nearby » See Central, page 9 members and students, and some of the events are free for students, according to the site. The festival will move to Hyde Park and other areas of Chicago after coming to Evanston, according to the site. — Stephanie Kelly
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