The Daily Northwestern — 2026 Graduation Issue

Class of 2026 Graduation Issue

Illustration

Letter from the Editors:Adapting amid challenges

We’ve sped out of our apartments, woken up disshort sleeps and canplans with friends at hands of breaking alerts. Whether it the $790 million federal funding freeze, the resignation of a si ing University president or Immigra-

timing is inconvenient, the issue is di cult to understand and the pressure from people and institutions is mounting.

e stories e Daily tells are important, so even when it’s hard, give it your all.

While pu ing together this year’s Graduation Issue, we were thrown right back into the cycle of scheduling stories, pestering writers and designing a paper worthy of the Class of 2026’s time at Northwestern. It’s given us a space to re ect on our experiences as student journalists over these last four years.

As we leave Northwestern and o cially say goodbye to e Daily, our biggest hope is that it will continue to grow and adapt. It is a joy to watch the paper you love — the place you dedicated years to — continue to evolve beyond the time you spent there.

We’ve adapted to changing landscapes in higher education and our communities here at home. We live in a time when groups like immigrants, international students and our fellow journalists have been made to live in fear, or worse. We’ve learned that our reporting has real impacts on real people. at’s a heavy responsibility.

Student journalists face the di cult task of reporting fairly and accurately while balancing classes, jobs, extracurriculars and social lives — with only a few years of experience, at most. Despite this challenge, we have tried our best to publish work that fairly records the major events and experiences of our community.

Emily Lichty Lily Ogburn David Samson

Our journeys at e Daily overlap in that we all faced a host of internal and external challenges while serving as reporters and editors. Some stories we published made readers on campus and in Evanston laugh, smile and celebrate. Other stories erred, failed to cover a community fairly or simply upset people. Again, we had to adapt, whether it was by correcting errors or meeting with a ected sources in order to foster truthful, empathetic journalism.

At e Daily, we o en remind ourselves that we are a “learning paper.”

As we work to thoughtfully and accurately cover our community, we are also training the next generation of journalists. rough learning how to adapt, we become be er at our jobs — not only improving the paper for years to come, but also gaining important skills before we step into the next phases of our lives.

We encourage the next generation of Daily reporters and editors to be ready to adapt to anything. You will face major challenges, but you will also have awesome victories. Remember that people do not owe us their time or their stories — being a student journalist is a privilege, not a right.

Emily Lichty, Lily Ogburn and David Samson

Editors

Lillian Ali, Paloma Leone-Ge en and Danny O’Grady

Contributors

Lillian Ali, Carlo a Angiolillo, Eugenia Cao, Luis Castañeda, Jake Epstein, Samanta Habashy, Yong-Yu Huang, Emily Lichty, Lily Ogburn, Danny O’Grady, Samantha Powers, David Samson, Micah Sandy, Leah Schroeder, Shreya Srinivasan, William Tong, Beatrice Villa or, Ziye Wang, Talia Winiarsky, Amy L. Wong

The long walk home

#501e4c: that’s the hex code for Daily Northwestern purple. It’s engrained in my memory. As a design editor, you need to know the brand.

Being on the design team entailed working late nights to assemble the print paper, finishing anywhere between midnight and 3:30 a.m.

I would walk home alone with nothing but the company of my favorite tracks from “SOUR” by Olivia Rodrigo. Escorted by songs like “good 4 u” or “deja vu,” I would often just pause midway home and stop no matter how I was feeling that night. Everything was too peaceful, too quiet to just brush past in a hurry to get home.

And one night in late February 2024, after working on our “Best of Evanston” issue, I put all the pieces together. It was almost eerie, no cars at all were about at this hour. Taking in the

A note to the future

My looming graduation caused me to revisit Joshua Rothman’s article in e New Yorker, “Are You the Same Person You Used to Be?” which posits that everyone is either a divider or a continuer. In other words, do you believe that I’ve signi cantly changed over the course of my life, or, do you believe that you’d be the same, no matter what life threw at you?

Because of the Internet, even if you are a divider and you’ve changed significantly, every version of you is fossilized in the form of tweets, Facebook posts and high school honor rolls. And, I am a remarkably adept Internet paleontologist. If you give me the first name of someone you want to know more about, I can find the specifics of their job, where their parents are from and if they won their eighth grade basketball tournament.

But when you’re a writer, like I am, the Internet not only contains detailed information about

peaceful quiet, I pondered for a minute on Sheridan, looking back at Deering Meadow.

I joined The Daily at the club fair a week into college because I needed an extracurricular, and I’d already worked on a newspaper in high school, so it was worth a shot. However, I am no journalism major, and when I started, I didn’t even know quotes go in their own paragraphs in reported stories.

But that didn’t really matter. I was welcomed by The Daily with open arms and proceeded to carve out my niche in print paper design. A place I would stay in for a long time. Over five quarters — almost half of my time in college.

Up to that point, whenever someone would ask why I stuck around so long I would usually respond with something surface level like “It’s really fun” or “I learn a lot.”

Those responses aren’t inaccurate, but they miss the big picture. In truth, I stuck around because The Daily was the first place in college where I felt I truly belonged. It made me feel like I mattered, like I could be more than I ever imagined.

Having come to this realization, I looked at

you, but an archive of your thoughts and beliefs. ey’re out there, forever, for anyone to see, even if they change over time. How scary.

In Rothman’s article, he meditates on a question that’s especially pertinent for non ction writers: Does it make sense to use the same name over a lifetime? If you’re going to constantly evolve, why does it make sense to use the same name to represent yourself?

This column, at least for a little while, will be the first result that pops up when you search my name. And because of the fixed nature of names, if you look up “Talia Winiarsky” in 50 years, you’ll still see exactly what I thought as a young woman. I can’t claim a new name — even if I grow into a totally different person with totally different ideas.

This is unique to today’s young writers. My favorite writers’ college musings aren’t on the Internet because it simply didn’t exist when they were students. Robert Caro’s college journalism works aren’t online. Neither are Ezra Klein’s college blogs. This is probably a good thing for them. is permanence deterred me from publicly writing for a while — obviously, I got over it.

But I worry about the fact that, because of

my watch. “S--t, I need to get to sleep,” I said as I restarted my long walk home for the night.

However, the walk home was not always straightforward. Sometimes there are obstacles in the path.

Almost exactly a month later, I was diagnosed with cancer. As you can tell, I survived. I faced the obstacle one step at a time and eventually made it back to the design room, my home on campus.

The path we take in life isn’t always going to be easy. I know that all too well. You might be sad, tired, angry and think that things can’t possibly get worse, but unfortunately, they just might.

In these times, all you can do is push forward, putting one foot in front of the other and trusting in your support system. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have the friends I made at The Daily to help me along the roughest sections of my journey.

So, what does The Daily mean to me? It means everything. It’s the reason I am still at this school. It’s the reason I didn’t go completely insane sophomore year. It’s the reason behind some of my highest highs and lowest

the Internet, you aren’t allowed to change your mind anymore. When you can pull up an old tweet or old article in a second, you can challenge a person’s current beliefs — you can confound personal growth with inconsistency. What does Kamala Harris really think about fracking? What do Democrats actually think about police reform?

I will be the rst to admit that the perspective I express in my writing is unique to being a college student. I’ve already changed my mind about some things I’ve wri en about. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

I am aware — sometimes crushingly so — that I have a tremendous amount to learn. For the rest of my life, each day I want to know more than I did the day before. I suspect that I will feel like this far beyond college — even my entire life.

Once, I was discussing the limits of language with my friend, Julia, whose senior thesis was on this very subject, including the xed nature of names. She was telling me about her project, which involved reading some big books, and the conclusions she reached. When I proposed some hasty solutions — Why should language be limited! –– Julia replied, “ ese are just observations,

lows, and I am grateful for all of it. Grateful for the smiles, the laughs, and the tears (yes, even the tears).

What started as a simple extracurricular freshman year became an integral part of my life. This may be the end of the road for me when it comes to journalism. Still, I’ll take these memories with me wherever I go.

Now, as a supposedly wise senior crafting this graduation issue, I’ll offer up some advice that I picked up along the way: take that leap of faith because you never know where you’ll land – you might just end up right where you belong.

And so when this graduation issue is all said and done, and the time comes to make the long walk home from the Daily for the last time, I know exactly what I’ll be listening to.

Danny O’Grady

Talia. Not everything is didactic.”

At my age, I want every moment to have a lesson. At some point, maybe, I’ll know enough about the world to merely observe. Twenty-two is not that age.

In the chance that you’ are looking me up for whatever reason in the future —– Hello!

I suspect I’m a relatively similar person, but I hope I’ve since become a better writer, and learned a whole lot more. I’ve probably changed my mind on lots of issues. Everyone should be allowed — even encouraged — to do so. If you don’t, you just haven’t thought enough.

As of June 14th, I may no longer have to sit in lecture halls, but I’ll still have a curriculum — that is, thinking in the real world. Going places! Meeting people! Reading and yes, still writing! And I hope to be a student for a long, long time.

Talia Winiarsky

Eugenia Cao/The Daily Northwestern

Knock on those doors, even if you’re late

is actually isn’t my rst time preparing to leave Northwestern.

ree Junes ago, I was so ready to transfer that I’d booked a U-Haul east, rmly convinced this school was not the place for me. Somehow, I decided at the last minute that I wasn’t quite done here. Now, it’s hard to believe I ever wanted to leave so badly. ese days, I keep noticing new doors on my well-worn trails around Evanston — jewel-toned and weathered, tucked behind chipped steps and iron gates. In my time here, I’ve passed some of them hundreds of times, o en with friends, but more o en than not,

alone with my thoughts. I arrived on campus with one foot out of the door already, stubborn enough to avoid many of the things that would have made me want to stay. Among the questionable choices I made that year was telling my friend Sco I would never join e Daily Northwestern. Like so many students, I signed up for the mailing list freshman fall, but I didn’t graduate from the training process until sophomore spring. In the fall, I ended up as the web developer, mostly by accident, and I kept that job for four quarters, writing very li le until last year.

I didn’t join e Daily to nd a community, though that somehow happened along the way. I joined because I wanted to work more directly with people and their stories, and I couldn’t seem to nd that elsewhere.

is year, I found myself spending all my free time reporting. I told everyone that e Daily was a side quest, so it sounded non-commi al and fun. Certainly, the term did some heavy li ing when my friends checked my location and found me si ing on a lacrosse eld in Ann Arbor ve days before my thesis deadline. But sometimes questions turn on you. As I spent

gets a say. at is something we need to yield well and carefully. We are watchdogs, but if we’re not careful, gatekeepers, too. What a shame it would be to spend years ghting to get into the room, only to turn around and close the door behind us. It’s this fear that pushed me to stop looking for spaces to be part of and start building something of our own.

hours asking other people what drew them to their work, the same uncertainty needled me. For every question I asked in an interview, e Daily seemed to be asking one back.

By labeling my Daily career as a side quest, I was avoiding the fact that I didn’t feel con dent enough in my reporting to admit I wanted to be there. But looking back, I can confess this was never just that.

It’s forced me to grapple with the ever-looming question: what do I want to do a er graduation?

I still don’t know the answer. But I know my experience at e Daily has brought me closer to it.

While I was job-hunting in the fall, I ended up also applying to journalism school. And although I won’t be going yet, even applying felt like a signi cant step in being more honest with myself.

I’ve loved every day, although maybe not every minute, of being here, even when my hands went numb photographing a snowy protest or when editors put their foot down about my triple-asterisk section headers.

My degree won’t say Medill, but I’ve received a journalism education here nonetheless — largely by asking Daily staffers, past and present, dumb questions. They’ve taught me to

up there?

e way to have an impact at e Daily, and beyond any newsroom, isn’t to race ahead, but to pick up where others le o and leave something sturdier behind for whoever comes up next. I now get to pass AMEJA on to student journalists who are my inspiration to keep climbing.

notice the little details about Evanston and beaten the Oxford comma out of the English major. I’m thankful for the friends I’ve found at The Daily, and my deepest gratitude goes to the people who have trusted me with their time and stories.

Over the last four years, I’ve learned that you may have to try a lot of doors before you nd the right one. You might watch your friends walk through rst and come back out. You might refuse to touch the handle for years.

Knock anyway, even if you think you’re late. Especially if you think you’re late.

As I prepare to leave NU — for real this time — I think about all the doors I’ve passed. I think about the one I finally opened, and all the people, stories and strange little rooms it’s led me to.

Yong-Yu Huang

Look down the ladder Samanta Habashy

When people ask if I’ll leave journalism, I wonder, instead, if journalism will leave me.

When I got to Northwestern, I climbed the “journalism ladder” in hopes of telling stories larger than life. I would talk to all kinds of people to understand and share all kinds of perspectives — and do it alongside the best of the best. As I climbed, though, I’d hear over and over that I need to “get out before it’s too late,” that this ladder wouldn’t lead anywhere. e industry is dying, they’d say. But I’m not scared that the ladder leads nowhere, I’m scared that it disappears beneath me while I’m still climbing.

As an Egyptian-American, I worry the ladder is disintegrating even faster for Arab and MENA journalists, students and professionals. Never was this more clear to me than during the Deering Meadow encampment my sophomore spring. Despite constant, round-the-clock coverage, there were stories about MENA students, but none by them. I sought to change that. ere is a lot of power in journalism. When you wear a press badge around your neck, you decide who

Starting the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists’ Association chapter at Northwestern was my way to try and keep the ladder from disappearing beneath us. At NU, a lot of time is spent scaling ladders with the ultimate goal of reaching this mountaintop that seems to get further and further away.

I used to see this only as another added pressure — climb or get le behind. But the thing about a ladder is that it has to exist in the rst place, and not everyone gets one.

When I was a freshman at e Daily, a space like AMEJA didn’t exist. Four years later, this spring, I received an email from a Medill freshman who’d been seeking a community for someone like her and had heard about AMEJA from her academic advisor.

She made me see the ladder di erently.

e whole time, it was a privilege to climb. e real pressure is making sure the ladder still exists.

Because, what’s the point of climbing if there’s no one le at the top and no one coming up to join you

To take from my favorite movie, “ e Lion King’s”

Illustration by Ziye Wang

FOUR YEARS OF HEADLINES

Sept. 12, 2022: Michael Schill starts Northwestern president role

University President Michael Schill stepped into his role as Northwestern’s 17th president, coming off a stint leading the University of Oregon.

Rebecca Blank, who the presidential search committee initially selected to succeed former University President Morton Schapiro, stepped down from her role as president-elect due to a cancer diagnosis. Schill was announced as her replacement in August — just weeks before Wildcat Welcome.

Jan. 12, 2023: NUGW union with United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America authorized following twoday election

A er years of grassroots organizing, a two-day election among Northwestern’s graduate students yielded more than 1,600 “yes” votes for unionization. With election assistance from the National Labor Relations Board, the union was o cially certi ed in January 2023 with the goal of ensuring competitive pay, a safe and professional work environment and comprehensive support for graduate workers.

April 12, 2023: One dead and two injured in Clark Street Beach shooting, questions raised about NU and Evanston emergency communication

ree Skokie residents, including two children, were shot at Clark Street Beach in April 2023. One 18-year-old, Jacquis Irby, died from his injuries. He is remembered for his commitment to his family and love of basketball, family and friends said.

e shooting raised questions about NU’s emergency response systems. It took University o cials more than 30 minutes to issue a shelter-in-place order — the rst communication related to the shooting of that night.

July 10, 2023: Northwestern parts ways with football coach Pat Fitzgerald

Northwestern parted ways with head football coach Pat Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was previously suspended for two weeks without pay a er the University announced on July 7, 2023 that an independent investigation into the team indicated hazing reports were “largely supported by evidence.”

Oct. 10, 2023: Northwestern Jewish community hosts vigil to honor lives lost in Israel-Hamas war

Close to 200 Northwestern community members prayed, cried and hugged one another in front of Deering Library on Oct. 9, 2023, honoring the lives lost and hostages taken during the October 7 a acks.

Oct. 26, 2023: NU Students for Justice in Palestine leads walkout, calls for University divestment and support for Palestinians

More than 150 students participated in a walkout Oct. 25, 2023 to demand Northwestern divest from organizations supporting Israel and protect members of the NU community advocating for Palestinian rights. e walkout — organized by NU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine — was one of dozens that took place that day on college campuses across North America.

Nov. 16, 2023: Northwestern Prison Education Program celebrates inaugural commencement

Northwestern Prison Education Program’s 2023 graduating class was the rst cohort to be conferred a bachelor’s degree from a top 10 university. e program, founded in 2018, provides incarcerated adults the opportunity to receive a college education while serving their prison sentence.

Nov. 20, 2023: City Council approves NU Ryan Field rebuild plan a er months of debate

A er months of debate, City Council approved Northwestern’s plans to rebuild Ryan Field and host concerts at the new stadium.

e council voted 6-2 to approve the rebuild of the stadium, but it split on two ordinances: one that would rezone the area and allow NU to hold concerts at the stadium, and another authorizing City Manager Luke Stowe to sign a community bene ts agreement between NU and Evanston. With councilmembers divided 4-4 on the ordinances, Mayor Daniel Biss voted in favor to break the tie and advance the University’s plans.:

Feb. 7, 2024: State’s a orney drops charges against students in fake newspaper case

Two NU students were charged in late 2023 with misdemeanors for allegedly wrapping imitation newspaper covers on print copies of e Daily Northwestern. e spoofed papers featured a photo of doctors surrounded by deceased civilians at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza and a headline that read “Northwestern complicit in genocide of Palestinians.”

Dozens of student organizations and faculty called on Students Publishing Company, e Daily’s parent company, to get the charges dropped. Editorial board members and alumni of e Daily also requested SPC ask the State’s A orney’s O ce to drop charges, which it did in February 2024.

Feb. 23, 2024: NUGW reaches tentative contract agreement with the University, awaits full-group vote on rati cation

Negotiators for the Northwestern University Graduate Workers union reached a tentative contract agreement with the University in February 2024 a er a 14-hour bargaining session. e agreement followed about nine months of negotiations, which came to a point in January 2024 when more than 2,000 union members threatened to strike.

April 10, 2024: Northwestern to play ‘majority’ of 2024, 2025 home football games at enhanced Martin Stadium

Northwestern football announced the team would play a “majority” of its 2024 and 2025 home games at a temporarily modified Martin Stadium. NU made the announcement nearly two weeks after requesting a city analysis to expand the lakefront stadium — which hosts the University’s lacrosse and soccer teams — to accommodate up to 15,000 spectators while construction continues on a new Ryan Field.

April 25, 2024: Northwestern student activists set up encampment on Deering Meadow

About two dozen student activists began setting up an encampment on Deering Meadow on April 25, 2024 to demand Northwestern divest from institutions connected to Israel and protect civil liberties for pro-Palestinian voices.

April 29, 2024: Administrators, student demonstrators reach agreement to end encampment on Deering Meadow

The University agreed to engage in a number of steps to support Palestinian students and protest on campus in exchange for an end to the Deering Meadow encampment, the University

announced. Student demonstrators wrapped up negotiations with the University on April 29, 2024.

May 23, 2024: University President Michael Schill testifies before House Committee on Education

University President Michael Schill doubled down on his commitment to combating antisemitism and engaging with pro-Palestinian student activists during his testimony in front of the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

Oct. 23, 2024: Highlights from The Daily’s Fall 2024 Campus Poll: Schill approval, voting and student sex habits

The Daily released results from its inaugural student poll in October 2024. The survey asked students about topics ranging from their views on University issues to drug habits. Notably, then University President Michael Schill held a -10% net approval rating among returning undergraduate students.

Nov. 6, 2024: Donald Trump wins presidential election

The Associated Press declared President Donald Trump the winner of the 2024 presidential election. Data from election night showed Trump significantly outpaced his 2020 performance, while former Vice President Kamala Harris underperformed with key voter demographics.

Nov. 13, 2024: Evanston ranked choice voting referendum struck down by county circuit court

The Cook County Circuit Court ruled to invalidate Evanston’s pilot ranked choice voting referendum, dismissing the action to implement RCV in the Evanston 2025 Consolidated Elections with prejudice.

Evanston voters initially approved the referendum in the 2022 midterm election, making it the first city in Illinois to adopt RCV.

Feb. 5, 2025: Students, faculty express concern surrounding inconsistent enforcement of university demonstration policies

Amid “vague” enforcement of University demonstration policies — which limited when, where and how protests could be held on campus — some students and faculty expressed concern over “exhausting” disciplinary hearings and infringements on academic freedom.

March 2, 2025: Northwestern’s lobbying spending balloons to more than $1 million in 2024

Northwestern’s lobbying spending swelled to more than $1 million in 2024, the most it spent in nearly three decades and a roughly 150% increase from the previous year. At the time, NU was embroiled in federal antisemitism investigations and making preparations for additional guardrails with President Donald Trump returning to the White House.

March 20, 2025: Medill denies tenure, intends to terminate Prof. Steven Thrasher next year

Northwestern denied tenure to Medill Prof. Steven Thrasher and planned to not renew his position in August 2026, Medill Dean Charles Whitaker informed Thrasher on March 12.

In a March 20 news release, Thrasher accused Medill of targeting him for his participation in the April 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment, at which Thrasher formed a line between police and protesters.

April 1, 2025: Three newcomers join Evanston City Council

With eight contested seats in last year’s City Council elections, Evanston’s main legislative body saw a shakeup in membership. With former alderpeople Melissa Wynne (3rd) and Eleanor Revelle (7th) retiring, Interfaith Action Overnight Shelter Director Ald. Shawn Iles (3rd) and software engineer Ald. Parielle Davis (7th) took office. Ald. Matt Rodgers (8th), former Land Use Commission Chair, beat out the incumbent, former Ald. Devon Reid (8th).

Daily file Illustration by Olivia Abeyta

April 8, 2025: Federal government freezes $790 million in funding for Northwestern

The Trump administration froze $790 million in federal funding for Northwestern, alleging violations of anti-discrimination laws. The freeze came amid similar attacks on some of the nation’s elite universities including Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Brown University.

April 26, 2025: Heated dispute at Table to Stix sparks community uproar

Downtown Evanston restaurant Table to Stix Ramen faced backlash after a video of a dispute over providing an additional tip between the owner and a patron went viral on social media April 19, 2025.

A week later, about 50 community members held a protest outside the restaurant, alleging the incident was racially motivated.

May 16, 2025: Northwestern dining workers sign fouryear contract with Compass Group, ending strike

Compass Group, Northwestern’s food service provider, agreed to a new contract with UNITE HERE Local 1, a union that represents roughly 500 contracted workers across dining, retail and hospitality locations on campus. The agreement is nine months in the making. Over that period, hundreds of workers picketed across campus, elicited support from students and local leaders and filed charges of alleged labor law violations with the National Labor Relations Board.

June 23, 2025: Family of late Feinberg professor sues NU for alleged discrimination, role in suicide

Prof. Jane Wu’s family alleged that NU took away research opportunities and resources from the accomplished neurology researcher on the basis of her national origin, as she was born in China.

Wu was investigated by the National Institutes of Health starting in 2019 based on her Chinese affiliations, according to the complaint. The agency ended the probe with no finding of wrongdoing on Wu’s part, though NU shut down her lab and rescinded her grant funding nonetheless, according to the complaint.

Aug. 21, 2025: Pat Fitzgerald reaches settlement in NU wrongful termination lawsuit

Former Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald reached a settlement with the University in a wrongful termination lawsuit for an unspecified sum after suing the University for $130 million in October 2023.

Sept. 4, 2025: University President Michael Schill resigns amid ‘painful’ challenges

University President Michael Schill announced his resignation in a Sept. 4 email to the Northwestern community following only three years in the role.

His tenure as president was marked by a series of events that drew national attention to the University, including the 2023 football hazing scandal, the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow and the 2025 federal funding freeze.

Sept. 9, 2025: Henry Bienen announced as interim president of Northwestern following Schill resignation

Northwestern announced former University President Henry Bienen would return to the role as the University’s interim president beginning Sept. 16, 2025, taking over for departing University President Michael Schill. Bienen served as NU’s president from 1995 until 2009. He also worked as a professor in the Kellogg School of Management, and in 2008, the Board of Trustees named the University’s School of Music after Bienen and his wife, Leigh.

Sept. 19, 2025: Biss, Abughazaleh, Amiwala confronted by agents at Broadview ICE protest

Congressional candidates Mayor Daniel Biss, Kat Abughazaleh and Bushra Amiwala were teargassed while protesting at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, in September 2025.

Nov. 28, 2025: Northwestern strikes deal with Trump administration to restore federal funding

Northwestern reached a deal with the Trump administration to restore at least $790 million in frozen funding Nov. 28.

The agreement obligates the University to pay the federal government $75 million and “adhere to federal anti-discrimination laws,” which the Trump administration has previously accused NU of violating. In exchange, the government closed all pending investigations into the University, in addition to restoring funding.

Feb. 3, 2026: Northwestern to start season at Martin Stadium, play Big Ten home opener at Ryan Field

Northwestern announced it will start the 2026 football season at Martin Stadium for its first two nonconference games against South Dakota State and Colorado. It won’t play at the new Ryan Field until Oct. 2 to host Penn State in its Big Ten home opener.

Feb. 10, 2026: Late Northwestern professor maintained long-term relationship with Epstein, released government files show

Late McCormick Prof. Roger Schank maintained close contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and was offered access to “a girl,” according to files released by the Department of Justice.

March 9, 2026: Northwestern announces new AI major beginning fall 2026

Northwestern announced it will offer an artificial intelligence major for undergraduate students beginning in the 2026-27 academic year.

Administered through the computer science department in the McCormick School of Engineering, the AI major will teach students “how intelligent systems are built, deployed, and used responsibly,” per the release.

March 17, 2026: Biss wins Democratic primary for congressional seat

Mayor Daniel Biss secured the Democratic nomination to

represent Illinois’ 9th Congressional District and appears poised to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston), marking the district’s first leadership change since 1999.

Throughout the campaign, Biss leaned on his record as Evanston’s mayor, highlighting his opposition to federal immigration enforcement and support of affordable housing.

May 18, 2026: Mung Chiang named 18th NU president

After a monthslong search, Purdue University President Mung Chiang was named the 18th president of Northwestern. He officially starts in the role July 1 and will succeed University President Michael Schill. Interim President Henry Bienen will remain in his role until June.

A first-generation immigrant from China, Chiang will be NU’s first Asian American president. During his time at Purdue, the school allegedly rescinded more than 100 acceptance offers made to Chinese international graduate students, Inside Higher Ed reported. Purdue denied having a ban on international graduate students from several countries, including China, according to The Purdue Exponent.

Daily file Illustration by Carly Schulman

Daily file Illustration by Nicole Cheah

Congratulations

Class of 2026

The Board of Trustees, President Bienen, Dean Marwan M. Kraidy, faculty, and staff of Northwestern University in Qatar wish the Class of 2026 success in their future endeavors.

Abdallah Haroun Sarhan

Abdulla Abdulaziz Al-Attiyah

Abdulla Rashid Al-Kuwari

Abdullatif Mashari Al-Mana

Ahmad Dafer Hallawa

Aisha Khaled Al-Remithi

Aizere Yessenkulova

Alanoud Abdulrahman Al-Shammari

Aldana Fahad Al-Thani

Aljazi Issa Al-Thani

Almayasa Fahad Al-Thani

Alreem Al-Mosallam

Amina Aktailakova

Amna Mohammed Alsahoti

Asmaa Hamad Al-Thani

Ayesha Salam Khan

Banna Khalifa Al-Dosari

Dana Abdulrazak Al-Meer

Dana Ahmad Al-Marzouqi

Dana Mabrouk Ziani

Dana Tarek Saber

Deema Faisal Al-Sulaiti

Dhabya Al-Suwaidi

Donya Mohammad Johari

Fahad Abdulrahman Al-Mana

Fajer Abdullah Al Ghufaili

Fajer Saad Alshahwani

Fan Wu

Fatima Ahmad Al-Hussaini

Fatima Fadalah Al-Fadalah

Fatima Rashid Al-Khater

Fayiqah Adel Bodai

Geer Chen

Ghada Khalid Al-Kaabi

Ghalya Mana Al-Hajri

Hala Yousef Al-Ansari

Hannah Ahmad AlMannai

Haya Abdulaziz Al-Thani

Haya Nasser Kano

Hiba Sobaii

Hissa Abdulrahman Al-Obaidan

Houra Hussain Haji

Iman Elmoctar

Isra Fejzullaj

Jana Basem Al-Otoum

Jannat Malik

Jasmina Bondare

Jassim Mohamed Al-Thani

Jawaher Mubarak Al-Ghanim

Julia Ayres Cabral

Juyoung Kim

Kaltham Jassim Al-Sayed

Khalid Zeyad Al-Jaidah

Lama Turki Al-Khater

Lolwa Mohammed Al-Misned

Malika Assanseitova

Manahil Naveed

Manal Mohammed Al-Kuwari

Mansoor Ahmed Al-Khater

Maryam Abdulhakeem Mostafawi

Maryam Abdulla Al-Thani

Maryam Abdulwahab Almusleh

Maryam Adel Al-Darbasti

Maryam Ibrahim Al-Mannai

Maryam Khalid Al-Hajri

Maryam Khalifa Al-Tamimi

Maryam Mohammed Al-Maadheed

Maryam Nasser Al-Mohannadi

Maryam Rubaih Al-Kubaisi

Meera Jamal Al-Jamal

Mehul Bhattacharya

Mohamed Abdelkreem

Mohammed Fahad Al-Emadi

Mohammed Khalid Almana

Mona Hammoudi

Moza Faysel Al-Harami

Mubarak Faisal Al-Thani

Mubarak Ghanim AlNaimi

Mubarak Mohammed AlNaimi

Mubashir Hanif

Mudawi Bader Al-Mana

Musaed Saad Al-Muhannadi

Najiya Mohammed Al-Kuwari

Najlaa Mohammed Al-Muhannadi

Nawaf Ahmed Al-Kubaisi

Neel Ujjaval Shelat

Noof Mohammed Al-Otaibi

Noor Khalid Al-Sulaiteen

Noor Mohamed Emara

Noora Abdulaziz Al-Bakri

Noora Abdulaziz Al-Thani

Noora Mohammed Al-Marri

Noora Mohammed Al-Otaibi

Noora Mohammed Shams

Noora Sultan Al-Marzouqi

Nuzah Mansoor

Nwair Ibrahim Al-Tamimi Olzhasbek Zhakenov

Omar Tamer Amin

Pinyi Zeng

Raghd Ibrahim Al-Suwaidi

Rahaf Khalid Al-Boinin

Ramazan Zhetpysbayev

Retag Sherif Moustafa

Rizwanul Islam

Roa'a Ahmad Nassif

Roudha Abdulla Al-Nuaimi

Saad Abdulaziz Al-Boinin

Sabrina Nisabwe

Sara Mohammed Al-Hajri

Sara Fahad Al-Thani

Sara Khamis Al-Muraikhi

Sara Qassim Al-Mahmoud

Shouq Mohammed Al-Ali

Shrijan Raj Pandey

Talyta Venancio Franca

Thaneesha Vashishta

Thani Feisal Al-Thani

Ting-Wei Wu

Umme Tasmeha

Wadha Ali Abaalzamat

Yousef Ahmed Al-Hammadi

Hissa Saleh Al-Mana

On the power of showing up

Like many college students, I am not a morning person. My brain doesn’t usually function before 1 p.m., or at least until I’ve had some caffeine. During my time at Northwestern, though, there was one thing I consistently woke up early for: Books & Breakfast.

B&B is a before-school program in some Evanston/Skokie School District 65 elementary schools, and it’s committed to achieving educational equity in Evanston. Its tutors — both Evanston residents and NU students — provide emotional, academic and social support alongside breakfast for the kids in the organization.

I joined B&B during my first quarter at NU. Throughout my three years as a tutor, I went

There are no answers, just more questions

“So, what are you doing after graduation?” Ensue the internal screaming. I spent most of this school year avoiding answering this question, wrestling with the uncomfortable feeling that comes with not knowing what comes next. Facing ambiguity was difficult as someone who spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about answers. Student journalists love a good answer. We are trained to ask people for their stories. We are taught to probe for “why” and try to recreate this amalgamation of research, reporting and experience in the

to Walker Elementary School a few times each week to read books, help out with homework assignments and play games with a small group of elementary students.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that most mornings, I rolled out of bed and ran out the door to get to Walker. B&B wasn’t always compatible with my late nights in The Daily’s newsroom or the long hours I spent studying at University Library. But when I struggled to get out of bed only a few hours after I’d just gotten in it, I remembered what B&B staff members would remind us of at our quarterly training sessions: the power of showing up.

B&B staff often told us that even when it doesn’t feel like we are making a difference, our presence alone is more than enough. The relationships we build with the students let them know that they have a community that cares about them and their academic success.

NU tutors also give the kids a glimpse of what their future in higher education could look like when they may not have daily interactions with college students otherwise.

As I’ve navigated life at NU, I learned that this lesson applies to the tutors just as much as

form of video, image and the written word. But this process can feel like a fragment of a much larger whole.

I often thought: “How do I frame this question? How do I elicit the answer closest to the truth? How do I write this so it makes sense to someone that hasn’t been there?” We’re expected to be objective in this relentless pursuit for answers, but I experienced many things that made maintaining that clear-eyed lens challenging.

Being hungry after hours of reporting or long stints of editing in the third floor of the Norris University Center. Receiving criticism for a decision others and I debated, examined and wrestled with. Navigating quasi workplace relationships with other journalists at The Daily.

These moments were inextricable from my identity as a reporter, but also affected my mindset as a student. I felt like there was more I could be doing as a reporter, especially during the times when I did not want to be one. Editing in Norris was not always my preferred plan for the evening, and I felt guilty for it.

it does to the kids.

It might seem like college students and kids in elementary school have little in common, but I found that many of the issues we face are more similar than you would imagine. We like to put labels on challenges that we think of as uniquely adult, such as saying we’re “independent” when we struggle to ask for help, or that we have “imposter syndrome” when we have a hard time believing in ourselves and our abilities. But really, we’re all just big kids, navigating the world one day at a time. No matter how old we get, we still need support, encouragement and people who believe in us.

At B&B, I saw that simply being there could lift a kid’s mood before the school day or help them find the confidence to take on complicated math problems. I saw how important it is for every kid to see their loved ones in the literal and figurative audience for their big moments, whether it be a fifth grade graduation or a breakthrough in their reading comprehension skills.

Kids thrive when people consistently show up for them. College students do, too. So show up for the people you care about, in

When I examined that feeling of inadequacy, I eventually saw that it did not stem from a lack of objectivity. Just the presence of humanity.

The thing is, there’s always going to be more between the lines. A quote from someone will never really capture their totality as a human being. Beyond that, stories are hardly ever just one-and-done. The sources and choices that we document persist. They live after the deadline and exist even after it’s edited by a peer or professor. That’s what makes storytelling equal parts fractional, beautiful and ephemeral.

All those truths are on the page for the people I spoke to in the approximately 108 stories I wrote for the paper since I was a first-year, and the many more I edited behind the scenes. But behind the stories I wrote, if you squint, there are other moments that live memorialized.

Shared laughter with my fellow editors when planning the print paper. The grease on the pizza from the last night of publication for the quarter. Frenzied typing in a backroom to meet a deadline. My excitement reporting on Capitol Hill, at Lollapalooza, in buildings across

both their moments of joy and their rough patches of life.

Bring flowers to your roommate’s a capella concert. Throw a small party after your friend finally finishes the academic requirement that’s been the bane of their existence. Bake delicious cookies for your friend when they break their foot in the most ridiculous way possible. Pick up the phone when a fellow student reporter gets their schedule mixed up and is having a crisis over whether to skip class or go to that event they told their editor they would write about.

The people you show up for might not say thank you. You may sometimes feel like your efforts aren’t appreciated, or that they don’t matter. Show up anyway. It goes a long way to be there, much more than you know. And, if you can, it doesn’t hurt to bring some breakfast along with you.

Carlo a Angiolillo

campus. I’m at the end of a story which I have written since the fall of 2022. I’m thankful for the time I spent at The Daily and the dozens of peers I worked with. I’m also beyond grateful to the people that trusted me to listen and tell their stories, if only for that moment in time.

Now, my “what are you doing after graduation?” does have an answer — one that only captures a slice of what’s coming. After graduation, I’m sure a myriad of changes will surprise and challenge me, and will morph the truth into something else entirely. In that sense, I still have a sea of unanswered queries that my curiosity hasn’t waded through yet.

But I know the pursuit of answers is going to make a good story to tell one day.

Beatrice Villa or

Wherever you go, go far

One late night in The Daily Northwestern newsroom, we decided — while goofing around as usual — that, hey, studying abroad sounds fun! We perused the Global Learning Office website and stumbled upon Copenhagen, Denmark: pretty canals, delicious pastries for cheap, classes in English. Easy enough, right?

It wasn’t until we arrived at our adjacent dorm buildings in Copenhagen, gigantic duffels in tow, that we began to realize the gravity of our situation.

“Wait, where are you?” Samantha said over the phone.

“Man I don’t know, the street starts with an A,” David responded, fresh off a 24-hour travel day.

“Well, can you pronounce it?”

“Nope. A-M-A-G-E-R-F-Æ-L-L-E-D-V-E-J.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“What the f--k are we doing here?” Samantha asked. “We don’t speak any Danish!”

“How much is a Danish krone in USD?” David

asked. “Why is everyone here blonde and hot?”

And in the back of our minds: “How are we supposed to make it four months here, 4,000 miles from everything we’ve ever known?”

But after a protracted battle with Google Maps, faulty SIM cards and some judgemental glares from locals, we eventually found each other.

Soon, we met our neighbors, learned our bus routes and began the humiliating process of learning to order coffee in Danish. “Jeg vil gerne have en stor kaffe latte med havremælk” doesn’t really roll off the tongue, but we kept at it.

David explored the self-driving metro, learned to cook (sort of) and interned at a Danish elementary school, where he told curious students about TikTokfamous American brands like Raising Cane’s and Crumbl Cookies. Samantha joined a yoga studio, started volunteering at a soup kitchen in her neighborhood and learned that La Fontaine had a live jazz show almost every night of the week.

We both fell in love with travel. David visited 12 countries, Samantha, 10. Together, we took the most

Embracing the landslide

Natural disasters are interesting phenomena. Most of the time, the world seems to collectively agree that they’re no one’s fault — just a fact of life.

The summer after my freshman year of college, I experienced a natural disaster of sorts. My family had a house in Michigan filled with memories of siblings, cousins, grandparents and friends, and in what felt like a split second, it burned to the ground with everything in it. After an already difficult freshman year at Northwestern, I was left to pick up the pieces of myself and try to rebuild.

It might sound ridiculous, but one of the ways I was able to survive sophomore year was by embracing journalism through The Daily Northwestern. What I first saw as a place to get journalism experience became the center of my social sphere.

I became The Daily’s editor in chief in my junior year, and it felt like my entire life was spent in a

windowless newsroom. Responding to Slack messages and watching social media like a hawk dominated my days. Editing in the newsroom took over my nights.

Oddly, I listened to “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac a lot during that time. The line that always gets me is “Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’ / ’Cause I’ve built my life around you.”

“Landslide” gets at something we all feel at some point in our lives. Change is difficult because it takes what we know and love away in exchange for something new. You never know if that new thing will be better than the last thing. Even if it is, chances are you’ll still miss earlier phases of your life at times.

When I packed up my bag after my last night as editor, I felt an overwhelming sadness take over me. What was I supposed to do from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. (or later) every night now? I felt what I’d built my life around slipping through my fingers. It was a natural ending

What whistling taught me

When the door slammed with a click, I knew something was wrong. A few futile jiggles of the door handle confirmed my fear: I was locked in an unknown hotel stairwell in the middle of Europe.

After the panic subsided, I messaged my friend with a rescue plan. I would whistle the first movement of Mahler’s 1st Symphony, and he just needed to walk toward the sound. Sounds like a long shot, doesn’t it?

Five minutes later, I was free. Turns out my pastoral chirping permeated walls, doors and elevators to enable my escape.

That happened the summer before my freshman year of college. After arriving at NU, I’ve continued to whistle around campus — from Tchaikovsky symphonies to K-pop group Twice’s greatest hits.

Whistling is fun. It’s expressive. With it, I can communicate with birds.

And funnily enough, it sets a guiding example for how I hope to report the news.

Just as my whistling cut through the hotel to help my friend find and free me, I want my stories and questions to pierce through the slop and noise of today’s media landscape — helping people locate the information they need.

That goal is still a work in progress, though I’ve hit the target a few times during college. During one town-gown meeting about rebuilding Ryan Field I covered for The Daily, my question about how the University would respond if Evanston didn’t approve of the project led to a walkout after NU officials

Specks in my phone gallery

I have over 115,000 photos on my phone. Most people, especially Mr. “manage storage” from my phone settings, tell me to delete some of them, but I can’t.

A screenshot of an old event flyer can go, but most of my shots represent moments I want to hold in my hand forever.

They include my first week on campus, where I took photos of buildings as if I were a tourist from Mars seeing concrete for the first time. Reporting ventures, from protests to sidelines. My beloved Shake Smart bowls next to a view of the lake. Walks back from The Daily, often taken while chatting with fellow North Campus staffers. My cat when he used to fit in my hand. Baby bunnies on campus.

I never thought I would be making those kinds of

manic weekend trip to Stockholm, Oslo and Bergen. Three days. Two overnight trains. One Airbnb on the side of a fjord so far from civilization that we had to roll our suitcases down a small mountain. Did we spend too much money? Probably. But some memories are so precious, they’re priceless.

Don’t get us wrong, we still called our parents — a lot. But day by day we found our stride in an environment that had been terrifyingly unfamiliar to us mere months before. We made incredible friendships with Americans and Danes alike. In between the crazy weekend getaways, meandering journal entries, and botched recipes, we met new versions of ourselves, and we really liked them.

What we learned after all that time away from home is that discomfort is a part of life, and all the best stuff is on the other side of that feeling.

The months we spent abroad are some of our best college memories. Both of us continue to tell the stories we collected there — we are yappers, in true journalistic fashion — as we reminisce on that brief moment in time when days felt like weeks and weeks felt like years.

We both still love journalism. After we got back to the U.S., Samantha got her first professional reporting

— a landslide.

But it wasn’t long before I realized that there are actually plenty of things to do from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. You can spontaneously hang out with friends rather than planning a week in advance. You can read, write and paint. You can play pickleball and intramural volleyball. You can write a history thesis. You can write the stories you want to write. You can even just sleep.

Right now, graduating college is feeling a little like a natural disaster. I’m proud of myself, but I’m scared of this time in my life ending. My relationships with the things I’ve built my life around this year — my family and friends, my studies, my hobbies — are all about to change. It’s all about to be swept away by a landslide, again.

The difference is that now I’ve proven to myself that I can, and will, rebuild.

It feels a bit poetic that just after I graduate, my family will finish rebuilding the home we lost in 2023. While it will never be the same as it was, it’s undeniable that the disaster that felt earth-shattering when I was 19 has also given us the chance to begin

refused to answer. In that case, I learned that even in the face of silence, the right questions can still tease out loud, striking answers.

I tried to keep the same principles in mind during my data reporting Journalism Residency Winter Quarter. A sidebar I wrote about H-1B visas in North Texas aimed to dispel misleading statistics about how many immigrant workers had actually been arriving in the region.

And I like to think that every so often, my whistling brings some whimsy to the people who happen to hear it (though admittedly, I know that’s not always the case).

My journalism, I hope, does the same through intricate, sometimes surprising observation. Perhaps the chocolate-truffle hoarding rats I wrote about last summer brought readers some laughs.

The thought of being a real reporter with my own little cubicle and laptop and plastic ID badge is a little terrifying, if I’m being honest. Factor in

there was a specialty dish, odds were that it was already in my camera roll.

gig at a policy magazine and David became the summer editor in chief of The Daily. But in the spirit of Danish hygge, we also found comfort in new passions. Samantha, inspired by her classes on refugee law and Nordic prisons, decided to go to law school for public interest. David, after teaching and studying in the Danish Socratic-style method, revitalized his love for learning. He decided to add an English Literature Minor to his studies at Northwestern — just in case he wants to be a teacher one day.

Both of us leave Northwestern with questions about the future. And while that can be scary, the post-abroad versions of us know that uncertainty is a strength, not a weakness.

Copenhagen taught us that a slow life built on balance can be both good and fulfilling. And, when we have no one to answer to but ourselves, the possibilities are limitless.

David Samson & Samantha Powers

anew, to make new memories. It gave way for the home my parents will retire in and my family will return to.

My advice to anyone reading this is to embrace the landslide. While I’m still young, my understanding of life is that these “natural disasters” can hit you at any time — you might move, get laid off or lose someone close to you. We have to learn to see the home built on the hillside disappear, whether you want it to or not.

I don’t pretend to think this is easy — every change I’ve gone through in my life has felt uncomfortable and even painful at times. But at the end of the day, you can rebuild your house on the hill — and it might just be better than before.

all the aspects of being an adult that have crashed into me these last few months, like taxes, insurance and medical bills — I’m even more scared of the road ahead.

And yet, I remind myself, I’ve spent the last 14 years whistling my heart out wherever and whenever, with all the awkward eye contact and occasional compliments that come with it. What more should there be to fear about being perceived? Whistling and reporting are both forms of storytelling, and I hope to only get better and better at both.

memories outside of my hometown or Evanston.

Yet somehow, my camera roll became filled with photos from multiple cities and more airports than I could count. From four quarters abroad, Medill on the Hill [cq][cq], two international Medill JOURneys, a domestic class reporting trip and an outside reporting trip abroad.

When I studied abroad, I found myself running quite a lot. Intentionally in the mornings when possible, but also when going from museum to museum before closing time, or catching the last train late at night. I would pretend I was on The Amazing Race, rotating between loved ones I imagined next to me as my teammates mid-run.

If there was an exhibit, I wanted to see it. If there was a distant neighborhood, I wanted to walk through it. If

My camera roll became flooded with breathtaking sights, yes, but also photos of simple streets that reminded me of other places and brought me new memories.

I will be very lucky if I can revisit the cities where I dropped my phone, got lost, or got food poisoning and laughed about it. Even luckier if I can go with the loved ones who got to know the cities through my photos.

I’m lucky I’ll always have them in the palm of my hand.

I imagined Phil Keoghan, host of The Amazing Race, announcing the legs of the race now that my undergraduate travels are done: “Greece, Colombia, Italy, Japan, Washington, China, Argentina, Iowa and Poland.”

After four years of detours and roadblocks, this race around the world has finally reached its finish line.

But wait — there’s Northwestern.

I walked out of my last lecture without

realizing it was my last one. I didn’t take a photo.

One professor told me he still remembered what the air around him felt like after his last class. I had nothing but the crinkly Peanut M&Ms wrapper in my hand and a photo of goslings by the lake from before I fully made the realization.

I thought I still had one more lecture, but maybe that’s why I spent four years taking so many photos: Because you never know when you’re living the end of a chapter until after it’s become a speck in your phone gallery.

Does everybody really want this?

For many staffers at The Daily Northwestern, the April release of “The Devil Wears Prada 2” felt like a holiday.

The Daily’s shoutout in the first movie solidified it as newsroom canon — so much so, that one of my favorite Daily memories was when a former managing editor surprised us by dressing up as Anna Wintour for Halloween. A recurring newsroom joke of mine was that the devil doesn’t wear Prada — she wears UGG boots. Who wants to wear uncomfortable shoes while writing and editing stories all night?

My artistic opinions on the second installment aside (that’s a Reel Thoughts for another day), certain elements of the film stick with

me as I prepare to graduate. As much fun as it was to see a glossy, larger-than-life depiction of the “modern” journalism world on screen, what lingers is how “The Devil Wears Prada 2” depicts a line of work that is far from perfect or, oftentimes, stable.

At the start of the sequel, our beloved fictional former Daily Editor in Chief Andy Sachs has the career many of us graduating seniors aspire to achieve. She’s an established journalist. She’s travelled the world. She’s received awards for her groundbreaking investigative journalism.

Yet, she still finds herself spit out by a broken industry, unmoored and unsure of where to go next.

If this is where all of the love and hard work

we pour into journalism might lead us, then why do we bother sticking with it?

This question is one each of us graduating seniors have likely asked, and been asked, throughout our time at The Daily.

To be honest, I don’t know the answer. Not only is it different for each of us, but, often, it changes by the day. We all share a common mission to be a voice for the public and we remain dedicated to transparency and accountability. But, it isn’t always easy. I’m not going to pretend that all of us, including myself, will be able to stick with it forever.

Personally, for the past four years, my response to this question has been to focus on the positives. Luckily, working at The Daily has made this easy to do. I am so grateful that I had the chance to be surrounded by a community of such smart and hard working student journalists, even if the time we’ve spent together feels fleeting.

the rest of my life. I, like Andy and countless real-life Daily alums, will continue to proudly share my involvement with this paper long into my career. But, now, as I prepare to enter the “real world,” I know it likely won’t be anything like the comfort movie that I turn to when I am feeling down. I also know it won’t always look like the endlessly supportive and creative environment we’ve built in The Daily newsroom — even if it is for the simple reason that I can’t wear my UGG slippers in most professional settings. Instead, all I can do is be grateful for the many wonderful experiences and difficult lessons I have gained so far, respecting that it’s the balance of highs and lows that makes the work worth doing.

I’ve always been fascinated by probabilities.

I grew up in the horse capital of the world, Ocala, Florida, and my family immigrated to the United States from Colombia because of horse racing.

I remember seeing numbers on the bottom of the screens — 5:1, 7:2, 10:1 — and asking my uncle, a retired jockey, what they meant. He told me those were the odds. Horses with higher odds pay out higher, and if you’re risk averse you can always play the favorite and win back a few bucks.

As I grew up, I remember catching the Hunger Games bug and hearing all my friends repeating the infamous line “May the odds be ever in your favor,” and whistling the theme before we entered the room for every AP exam.

One study I always think back to says there’s a 30% greater chance of a son being gay after each subsequent birth a mother has — the

The impossibility of human probability

data’s out on lesbians or bisexuals, unfortunately.

I also, for some reason, have a 66% chance of getting the same person every time I do the Marriage Pact.

To see the newsroom grow and evolve during my time here has been beyond inspiring. It is an experience I know I will carry with me for

Emily Lichty

And let’s not forget — we all had a 7% chance of getting into Northwestern.

gay wedding during the Chicago rat hole pandemonium.

the newsroom — after that same hectic quarter — would text me a few months later and let me know she was coming to Northwestern.

I would’ve never predicted in a million years that I’d run into a past lover on a random street in Berlin, or that I’d meet a professor’s past friend on the peak of a Patagonian mountain.

We’ve already beat the odds to get here — so why give up now? Why not continue making impossibilities more probable?

As we enter this new stage of life, I think the worst thing we can do is resign ourselves to the status quo — to subject ourselves to a reality where we never knew what was possible because we never pushed further.

ered up the courage to say hi thought it out

While improbable, I could’ve found myself on a random city corner and gathered up the courage to say hi to every single person I’ve met on this campus, but I doubt it. Instead, I also see the figure as the probability that I’d get to meet the people that mean so much to me now. I would’ve never bet that I would have the opportunity to cover a

I would’ve bet even less that I’d witness my colleagues stand up to our publishing company after the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office charged students for parodying our I would’ve thought it out of the realm of possibility that the undecided high school senior I met while packing my things on the last day in

Even when you think your odds are low, bet on yourself — Northwestern already has.

Luis Castañeda

Write it (for) yourself

ChatGPT can’t make you a crossword puzzle

I learned this the hard way when I signed up to be the Daily’s second-ever Crossword and Games editor. Notably, I took the position not knowing how to write a crossword.

“It’s ne,” I said. “I’ll have the positive spirit and can-do a itude to learn on the job. I am nobody if not a woman with gumption.”

Famous last words. Between accepting the role and publishing my rst crossword, I got terribly, horribly, awfully depressed. In lieu of details, I’ll tell you this much: when I moved into my apartment, the overhead light in my room didn’t work. It would illuminate my room for a few minutes and then start ickering madly. My roommates and I called it “rave light.” I could not scrape together enough willpower to change the light until the end of fall quarter. Until then, I sat around in the dark every evening, though my desk lamp helped as best it could.

Okay, I’m done being sad. Back to crosswords. Because I was too busy wallowing in shadow to learn how to write a crossword, I was rushing to write one the night it would be published. Uh oh! In a desperate, self-pitying haze, I turned to an “AI

Crossword Generator” I found, put in the theme, and hit “generate.” To its credit, it generated a le that included crossed words. But it made one of those weird, misshapen crosswords you might have go en to test vocab in high school Spanish. It has nothing that makes traditional American-style crosswords — the kind you see in e New York Times — special. No rotational symmetry, no fun clues, no wordplay.

In a real crossword, every single le er in every single square is there for a reason. If you remove one square, you have to remove another square, 180 degrees away, to maintain symmetry. A good puzzle takes ages to construct because everything must weave together perfectly. You can’t get too precious about any given word, because you might have to delete it to make other words work.

And sure, your computer might be able to suggest words that t with your crossword so far, but it can’t generate the whole thing outright. e constructor has to take the lead on creating the puzzle. I think it must feel like sculpting something out of clay: shedding and adding material until you end up with a cohesive work.

How much do you want this?

“How much do you want this?”

During a 1 hour and 40 minute train ride back from a 15-minute Daily Northwestern training, I repeated this question dozens of times. Cigarette smoke from a nearby stranger burned my lungs as I stared out a Purple Line train window.

Transferring over to the Red Line, I shivered and wrapped my jacket tighter around me. An hour passed, and eventually lights from surrounding o ce buildings lit up the dark Chicago night.

I was shocked to see so many people working past 7:45 p.m. en I realized that I wouldn’t be upset if I had to stay back an hour, or two, or more if it meant I had the opportunity to write as a journalist.

I knew I wanted this life. Working late into the night and early mornings was more than worth it if that meant I could report.

Ideally, I’d prefer I spent more of my time reporting and less time commuting, but if a long commute meant

I could report for e Daily, I would’ve commuted for 12 hours if that’s what it took.

“How much do you want this?”

e answer was “enough to stay still in transit for hours if that meant I could write for e Daily.”

Staying in place is not a practice I’m accustomed to.

I started college full-time at 14 years old at a local community college. I nished high school at 15, then graduated with seven associate degrees at 17.

A er graduating from UCLA at 19 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and History with a minor in Education Studies, I began my rst graduate program at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

I knew even before I matriculated that I wanted to report for e Daily Northwestern.

At e Daily, I fell in love with writing for Campus and Arts & Entertainment, and a er development,

That first puzzle, which I cobbled together after the whole AI plan failed, does not look like a cohesive work. It looks more like if you made a cupcake out of Play-Doh and then sat on it by accident. Please don’t go back and play it. It’s really, really bad. There’s too much negative space. I didn’t know how to write a crossword puzzle (I still barely do, but my new ones are better).

I still shudder to look at the rst puzzles I wrote, but I’m not angry at them. My rst, ugly grid is something only a person could make. ChatGPT couldn’t make that. It reminds me of many papers I submitted during my time at Northwestern, written in Celsius-fueled delirium the nights before they were due. Even if they’re not my nest work, I still get to call them my work. When I was too depressed to change a lightbulb (there’s a joke in there somewhere), making bad essays and bad crosswords all by myself helped keep me moving. It reminded me that my brain was capable of more

than generating sadness. I do not hate convenience, and I am certainly not a luddite. I have used generative AI before, and I recognize its utility in certain situations. But it makes me just a little bit sad to see people ask a language model to “create” something on their behalf. Creating something, including writing something, requires a willingness to sit with and evaluate your thoughts. A willingness to delete things that don’t work and try new things that might. Don’t offload that thinking to an algorithm that can’t wrap its code around a crossword. That includes your homework. We’re approaching a world where many of the things around us are generated. Why not create something instead?

explored my interest in local reporting through the City desk.

My dedication to e Daily and journalism served as a strong motivation for another of my intended career paths: law.

Preparing for law school applications while managing full-time graduate level coursework, while dra ing an 80,000-word novel, while studying for the LSAT sometimes six to eight hours a day was not easy.

Whenever I became tired, I thought about my love for journalism.

My transition into the legal eld isn’t because I’m no longer interested in journalism, or a decision I made on a whim.

It’s quite the opposite. I plan on becoming an attorney in large part because I want to defend journalists accused of defamation. I also want to prosecute other journalists who make egregious errors and who weaken public trust in news.

My career goal is to work as a full-time attorney and part-time legal and political reporter. Eventually, I also want to work as a policy

analyst, author and professor.

My time at the Daily has con rmed that I can envision a happy life as a reporter. I’m not choosing a path in law because I don’t love journalism. I’m choosing both because it’s painful to imagine my life without either.

“How much do you want this?”

So much so that I’m excited enough that I can wake up at 5:30 a.m. to read a 61-page congressional investigative report, and so grateful to say I reported for e Daily Northwestern.

My life has been endlessly full of want. A want to report as o en as I physically can, to write something — hopefully many things — people are eager to read.

At The Daily, I was able to turn that want into reality.

Amy L. Wong

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REVISITING NORTHWESTERN’S TOP SPORTS HEADLINES

Since Northwestern’s Class of 2026 arrived on campus in September 2022, the Wildcats have captured five national championships — the most in a four-year span in school history.

Beyond the status as the university’s winningest graduating class, this year’s seniors have experienced no shortage of sports headlines. Here are 10 of the most notable:

Men’s basketball returns to March Madness

Behind the playmaking prowess of Boo Buie, Northwestern’s eventual all-time scoring leader, the Wildcats secured their first NCAA Tournament bid since 2017 in an improbable 2022-23 campaign. NU downed Boise State 75-67 in Sacramento, California, on March 16, 2023, before falling 68-63 to UCLA two nights later.

A year later, the ’Cats secured a second March Madness selection in as many years — marking the program’s first-ever back-to-back bids. It was a homecoming for the New York native Buie in the Barclays Center. Northwestern defeated FAU 77-65 in an overtime thriller, but the injury-riddled ’Cats were no match for 2024 national champion UConn in a 75-58 defeat.

Lacrosse captures eighth national title

An 11-year national championship drought snapped in emphatic fashion on May 28,

2023, when Northwestern dismantled Boston College 18-6 in WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina. Izzy Scane and Madison Taylor combined for eight goals as the Wildcats completed a dominant run atop collegiate lacrosse.

In hindsight, NU’s 2023 attack — featuring Scane, Taylor, Erin Coykendall and Hailey Rhatigan — stacks up with the top offensive units ever assembled.

The Pat Fitzgerald saga

On July 7, 2023, then-University President Michael Schill suspended football coach Pat Fitzgerald for two weeks at the conclusion of a university hazing investigation. Then, The Daily published a former player’s detailed allegations on July 8.

That night, Schill wrote in an email to community members that he “may have erred” in his initial punishment of Fitzgerald. Schill proceeded to fire Fitzgerald on July 10, 2023, kicking off a multi-year legal battle. On August 21, 2025, Fitzgerald and the University settled his wrongful termination and defamation case for an unknown sum.

This past November, Fitzgerald claimed he was “100% vindicated.” Michigan State hired Fitzgerald as its football coach on Dec. 1, 2025. The Spartans and Wildcats will face off on Oct. 17 in Spartan Stadium.

Mark Jackson named athletic director

Questions

that come full circle

Amid a morning run into Winnetka, reality struck me. No, it wasn’t a red-winged blackbird — at least not this time. Note to readers, the area due north of the Bahá’í Temple ought to be labeled bird alley.

I’ve long been labeled crazy (among other things) for my habit of running with no music. It’s a fair criticism, but this practice affords me plenty of time in tune with my own thoughts.

Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve worked on several stories about seniors nearing the end of their

On August 28, 2024, NU hired Villanova Athletic Director Mark Jackson to fill the same role in Evanston. Jackson succeeded Derrick Gragg.

Since his hiring, Jackson has helped guide the ’Cats through the transition process into the new Ryan Field and successfully launched a bid to host the 2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Tournament’s Championship Weekend at Martin Stadium.

Field Hockey hoists second national championship

Northwestern captured its second national championship in emphatic fashion, defeating Saint Joseph’s 5-0 in the title game in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Nov. 24, 2024. Led by 2024 Paris Olympians Ashley Sessa and Maddie Zimmer, the ’Cats went 23-1 in a dominant campaign.

The result followed heartbreak in the previous two seasons, when NU dropped backto-back championships to North Carolina.

Women’s golf stuns Stanford for national championship

David Braun makes his imprint on NU football

Elevated from defensive coordinator to interim head coach in the wake of Fitzgerald’s firing, David Braun landed the permanent gig during a stunning 8-5 season in 2023 that culminated in a Las Vegas Bowl win. After a disappointing 4-8 season the following year, Braun guided NU back to bowl eligibility in 2025, winning the last-ever GameAbove Sports Bowl in Detroit against Central Michigan. The defensive-minded coach has since made a series of splash offseason moves, hiring Chip Kelly as NU’s offensive coordinator and bringing in former Michigan State and Oregon State quarterback Aidan Chiles as the presumptive QB1. As the ’Cats 2026 personnel took shape, the program boasted both continuity and dynamic new additions.

Carla Berube hired as women’s basketball coach

On March 25, Northwestern announced the hire of former Princeton coach Carla Berube to spearhead the next era of Wildcat

Northwestern women’s golf defeated No. 1 Stanford 3-2 in championship match play to secure the program’s first-ever national championship on May 21, 2025. Dianna Lee clinched the title with a clutch putt on the 18th green.

Lee, Lauryn Nguyen and Hsin Tai Lin all earned match victories to lead coach Emily Fletcher’s squad to the championship in Carlsbad, California. This was the program’s first championship match appearance since 2017.

Fuchs, field hockey repeat as national champs

Despite dropping just one defeat in regular-season play, Northwestern didn’t receive a top-four seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. This meant the ’Cats would be away from Lakeside Field for the duration of their postseason run.

It didn’t matter for a program that began the season with eight consecutive road victories. En route to its third-ever and second consecutive national title, Northwestern took down Miami (Ohio), UNC and Princeton in one-goal games. The ’Cats defeated the Tigers 2-1 in double overtime to secure the title.

women’s basketball. A 26-year coaching veteran, Berube boasted an 83.5% winning percentage with the Tigers. Berube replaced Joe McKeown, who held his role from 2008 to his retirement at the end of the 2025-26 campaign.

Lacrosse wins national title No. 9 on home soil

Northwestern bookended a magic season in storybook fashion, knocking off UNC 14-11 in the national championship on May 24 at Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium.Madison Taylor, who scored a game-high seven points, went on to win the 2026 Tewaaraton Award — the most coveted individual honor in college lacrosse.

The Wildcats began the year 5-3, falling to unranked Ohio State in their Big Ten opener. But Kelly Amonte Hiller, who surpassed her mentor Cindy Timchal with her ninth national title as a coach, helped forge a remarkable in-season turnaround.

NU defeated three IWLCA No. 1 ranked squads and became the first team to win a national championship on its home field since Maryland in 1986.

college athletic careers. It’s a scenario I’ve covered countless times since my freshman year, and one of my go-to questions in these interviews inquires about a sense of finality creeping in so close to the natural end.

But on this particular day, that same sense spiraled in my head. With Northwestern hosting the 2026 NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Championship, my final game coverage as a Northwestern student was less than a week away.

What dawned on me is that I’ve never truly defined “a sense of finality.” Sure, there are the immediate emotions that arrive alongside the final buzzer. As a washed-up former high school athlete, I’ve grappled with these firsthand. But my developing concept as graduation looms extends beyond that.

While I assume everyone has their own definition, I consider it a collection of memories that emerges toward the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new story. Like many at the sports desk, my chapter at The Daily closed well over a year ago, but

its impact on me has seldom wavered.

Joining the paper continues to prove one of the best decisions I’ve made at NU. I gained mentors whose guidance continues to stick with me, insights into the type of reporter I want to be and friendships that have helped define my Northwestern experience.

Perhaps the true beauty of sports is that no two stories are the same. The same applies to those fortunate enough to tell these tales.

From my first Daily byline — a single-source golf piece about a tournament that I followed way too closely on a live results link — to my last feature on men’s soccer coach Russell Payne, I learned countless lessons a classroom never could’ve taught me.

My time at The Daily afforded me a tour of Big Ten football stadiums and basketball arenas I dreamed of setting foot in as a kid. It brought me courtside at Target Center and the Barclays Center and to Championship Weekend in Cary, North Carolina.

The venues and events were unforgettable, but the relationships we forged in a truly eclectic newsroom will always stay with me.

To every player, coach and family that trusted me with their stories, I cannot thank you enough. I simply could not have done this work without you. To all who’ve taken the time to edit my — often overly verbose — work, thank you for putting up with me and helping me improve as a writer and reporter. And to everyone who’s helped make The Daily a welcoming and enriching experience for people like me to discover a love of storytelling, my deepest gratitude goes out to you. Alright. That’ll wrap us up.

Daily file photo by Angeli Mittal

The Wildcats returned to March Madness in 2023, their first appearance since 2017.

Daily file photo by Audrey Pachuta

Northwestern secured a ticket to the 2025 Field Hockey Championship with an overtime goal against UNC.

Daily file photo by Avantika Singh

Northwestern Lacrosse won their ninth national title with a home win against UNC.