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The Daily Northwestern Thursday, January 19, 2023 8 SPORTS/Basketball
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4 OPINION/Ahn
Iowa game postponed due to COVID-19
Ava Earl performs in first installment of concert series
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Evanston, NU pilot guaranteed income New program sees two cycles since its December launch By WILLIAM TONG
the daily northwestern @william2tong
In December, Evanston began giving $500 each month to 150 residents as part of the city’s guaranteed income one-year pilot program. The city launched applications for the program in August, selected a cohort of recipients and has sent out two rounds of payments so far. Evanston is running the pilot in conjunction with Northwestern, which is researching how the money impacts residents’ quality of living and the community as a whole. The program follows an already circulating body of research that shows guaranteed income has benefits, research project manager Jeff Thomas said. “In recent history, the city that put it on the map was Stockton, California,” he said. “(Martin Luther King Jr.) even spoke about universal basic income back then. It’s not a new concept by any means. Once people started getting stimulus checks, it’s not a huge leap.” The financial toll of the
COVID-19 pandemic helped push Evanston toward offering residents guaranteed income, Thomas said. That pressure, combined with research, created both a national and local need for guaranteed income, according to Mayor Daniel Biss. “It’s an important transformation occurring in the way that public benefits are distributed,” Biss said. “There’s robust data coming back from across the country, and it’s working. It’s important for us to be a part of that effort.” The project costs around $1.1 million, $900,000 of which will go directly to participants. The remaining funds finance research and administrative needs. Evanston invested $700,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds into the project, and NU $400,000 from its budget. The city sent its first payment in the form of city-issued debit cards to 150 low-income residents Dec. 1 and will load additional funds every month, Biss said. To qualify for the program, residents needed to make at or below 250% of the federal poverty line and be between 18-24 years old, 62 and older or an undocumented community
» See INCOME, page 6
Lexi Goldstein/The Daily Northwestern
Evanston’s poor street lighting, large student population and affluent demographic make it more susceptible to bike theft.
Bicycle thefts shift into high gear Two-wheeled robbery on the rise, more students report stolen rides By LEXI GOLDSTEIN
the daily northwestern @lexipgoldstein
It took just more than an hour for Weinberg freshman Adam Valiji’s new bike to disappear from the bike racks outside the Norris University Center. “I looked everywhere,” he said. “I thought maybe I just parked it somewhere else, and then I found a bike lock, so I knew that it got stolen.” Valiji is one of many Evanston
community members affected by bike theft. Some students and residents returned to Evanston following Thanksgiving and Winter breaks to find their bikes missing from the racks they had locked them at. Charlie Swain, sales manager at Evanston’s Wheel & Sprocket, said bike theft is widespread on NU’s campus and the broader Evanston community. “Right after Thanksgiving, multiple people a day were coming in saying that their bike had been
stolen over break, whether they had left it inside a garage, or on a porch or at a bike rack on campus,” Swain said. There were about 209 bike theft incidents in 2022, which was an increase from about 176 in 2021, according to figures provided by Evanston Police Department Cmdr. Ryan Glew. However, he said the number of stolen bikes is likely higher, since the provided data may not account for instances when more than one bike was stolen.
Evanston resident Brian Solmos (McCormick ’23) had two of his bikes stolen from his off-campus apartment complex’s bike room. He reported the second theft to Evanston Police Department officers for insurance purposes, he said, and informed his landlord of both incidents. “I don’t think anyone’s bike has ever been recovered by the police,” Solmos said. “So it’s kind of like a formality to report it.”
» See STOLEN, page 6
Ryan Field plans cause city tension Long lab hours fill Evanston residents voice concerns about noise, safety and traffic By EMILY LICHTY
the daily northwestern @emilymlichty
Northwestern announced plans Sept. 28 for a complete renovation of Ryan Field. The school would revamp the stadium, limiting seat capacity but adding concerts and alcohol sales. But for residents of the 7th Ward, where Ryan Field is located, the renovation raises a number of concerns: noise and traffic during summer concerts, limited parking capacity, safety risks surrounding alcohol sales and tensions around NU’s relationship with Evanston. The University must now apply for several permits from the city for the rebuild, concerts and alcohol sales. City Council will issue or deny final approval. So the Most Livable City Association — a group of Evanston residents focused on raising awareness around issues presented by the Ryan Field rebuild — released a petition asking the city to limit events at the field and for an independent study of the stadium’s expected impact on nearby residents and businesses. It’s reached nearly 700 signatures so far.
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As debates around the stadium continue, Ald. Eleanor Revelle (7th) said she sees this discussion as a chapter in a longer discussion about the town-gown relationship. “There’s definitely a lot of talk about a general feeling in the community, whether you’re talking about the stadium or not, that Northwestern could and should do more for the community,” Revelle told The Daily. “So this concert stadium proposal seems to be an opportunity to have conversations with the University about what we’re going to do.”
Stadium rebuild sparks tensions The University’s proposal includes the addition of 10 concerts a year at the renovated Ryan Field, which has prompted concerns about noise and traffic The school responded to earlier concerns about noise and traffic by reducing the capacity in the stadium by 15,000 seats, adding noise and visual controls and conducting a “comprehensive parking plan.” However, Aaron Cohen, a member of the Most Livable City Association and 40-year resident of Evanston, said he’s still worried
student schedules STEM community survives by working ‘smarter, not harder’ By SAMANTHA POWERS
the daily northwestern Seeger Gray/Daily Senior Staffer
concertgoers will park on the street. According to a zoning analysis application by the City of Evanston, a minimum of 4,202 parking spaces are required for Ryan Field and Welsh-Ryan Arena, but only 1,365 have been proposed. Cohen also expressed reservations about where the Ryan Field changes fit in with the University’s educational mission. “Why does the University need to sell alcohol?” he said. “Why does it need the whole concert with 35,000 people as if it were a major entertainment venue?” As an educational institution with nonprofit status, the University does not pay property taxes — nor does it make payments in lieu of taxes, as some universities do. It has, however, contributed to
the Good Neighbor Fund, which has granted $1 million annually to the city since 2015. But, similar to Cohen, resident and petitioner Andrew Berman said the planned concerts at NU seem intended to draw in profit. “It’s the audacity of trying to run a for-profit business when you’re technically a not for-profit institution,” Berman said. “You don’t pay taxes on the building and property that you’re running the business on. That really grates on me.” Nevertheless, the University does pay a variety of local, state and federal taxes. A study by consulting firm Tripp Umbach predicted the stadium construction will bring
» See RYAN FIELD, page 6
The workload can be overwhelming for some students taking classes with four- to eight-hour labs. Whether they spend hours poring over their textbooks or just show up to class without any preparation, each student has a unique approach to managing their time in these courses. McCormick freshman Mark Wang, who is in his second quarter of organic chemistry, attends lecture five times each week — in addition to his four-hour lab. He said he spends about 10 to 15 hours per week on work outside of class. “It’s essentially like taking five classes because I would consider lab to be as much work as another class,” Wang said. “Sometimes it feels weird to put so many hours into a lab class when it’s only worth like one-third the credit of the normal lecture class. It rubs me the wrong way, but I think lab
is necessary.” Wang isn’t the only student who views the lab component as equivalent to a one-unit class. Weinberg sophomore Farley Wall was enrolled in two different four-hour lab sessions Fall Quarter, so he decided to take three classes instead of four. He said the decision was necessary because of substantial time spent on his labs, in addition to prep work and lab reports. “It’s very easy to look at that and get intimidated by it, just because it’s like, ‘That’s eight hours of my week,’” Wall said of the lab sessions. “The way I (managed) it is just kind of treating it as a normal class.” Organic chemistry, a multiquarter sequence, is a requirement for many chemistry majors, pre-med students and engineering students. Chemistry Prof. Derek Nelson, who is teaching Chem 235-2 this quarter, said the course’s workload is demanding but that faculty have taken steps to make the process easier. This school year marks the first full academic year of a newlyrevised sequence that condenses organic chemistry into two
» See LABS, page 6
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