We are working within WCAS through an ad hoc committee to create a minor in Islamic Studies.

We are working with deans and through an ad hoc committee to improve the university’s environmental curriculum.

We are evaluating ways peer institutions allow student input into faculty hiring to see if any of these measures can be implemented here.

We are comprehensively evaluating all aspects of the tuition process from the student perspective.

We are meeting with the student advisory boards of all of the schools that have them in order to gauge their priorities and to collaborate where effective.

We are working to find a department and funds to host chairs and a table for use at the Rock so that students stop borrowing them from classrooms.

The Academic Committee will work with NUIT to allow faculty to upload documents (such as syllabi) at their discretion in the course description.

The Academic Committee, through an ad hoc committee, will work to offer ASL classes at NU beyond the student organized seminar that currently exists.

The Academic Committee and RCB will collaborate to bring alumni to the residential colleges in which they used to live in order to talk about past experiences and career paths.

We want preferred names on CAESAR for use on class rosters.

Your one stop shop for internship advice from UCS and the Academic Committee at the Louis Room in Norris at the beginning of winter quarter.

The Academic Committee is working to address a host of minor issues with CAESAR, including problems with pop up windows and the “Communication Grad Student flaw.” We are compiling a long list and committee and are in consultation with NUIT about fixing these issues.

The ability for students to review previous lectures is something that many of our peer institutions (Stanford, Duke, Princeton, MIT, etc.) have had for a few years now.

NUIT has implemented this technology down on NU’s Chicago Campus with amazing results. It is now time for undergraduate students to have this resource at their disposal.

Here’s the good news! With the inception of iTunesU, we now have an easy – and familiar – tool to distribute academic content to students for free.

There are also a few classes on the Evanston campus that have experimented with video lecture capture.

Next Steps

• The Academic Committee will continue to work with NUIT (Bob Davis and Bob Taylor), the Classroom Committee, and other administrators to get the funds to implement video capture technology in seven classrooms per year over the next three years.
• ASG will also work with UBPC to put regular proposal requests to receive funding for video lecture capture in the future.

Since Fall Quarter, the Academic Committee has been working on getting more professors to provide alternatives to hardcover books and paper course packets.

In Winter Quarter, we passed a bill through Senate to lobby the administration and professors to provide digital textbook options and upload course readings to Blackboard.

We have learned through this process that many professors upload course readings to Blackboard, and some professors have begun to use digital textbooks (or e-books) as options in their classes.

We have also learned that the Norris bookstore sells digital textbooks through their website (http://bn.digitaltextbooks.com/)

Next Steps

• The Library e-reserve department works with professors and staff to upload course readings to Blackboard, so we will follow-up with Beth Clausen to see about how many professors used their services Spring Quarter.
• The Library is also looking to update their scanning technology (by Fall 2009) so they can handle larger requests from professors.
• The Academic Committee will work with professors, department chairs, and deans to provide alternative methods for students to receive class content.

The Student Life Committee is committed to a sustainable Northwestern, and together, we’re determined to find ways that students can contribute to make this goal possible.

Perhaps the most obvious area we can tackle is dining halls. By making trays less accessible and adopting more eco-friendly practices, we can move NU in the right direction. The committee is currently amassing ideas to improve the “eco-friendliness” of our dining facilities.

Called Redboxes, these DVD rental stations allow students to check out DVDs in the style of a vending machine at locations throughout campus on a daily basis. These stations exist on other college campuses and the Student Life Committee will explore the costs of brining these stations to Northwestern.

The Student Life Committee is exploring the costs and benefits of installing printers in all on-campus residences, including the possibility of having a number of free pages before costs kick in.

The Student Life Committee is exlporing options to improve Northwestern’s gym facilities - both at SPAC and Blomquist.

Specifically, the Student Life Committee is investigating the possibility of having towels put into Blomquist and improved work-out facilities in SPAC.

As a large component of the Unofficial Student Guide, this guide to incoming freshmen seeks to make sense of the wide array of information that hits new freshmen each year. Essentially, we seek to create a straightforward guide that will give incoming freshmen a good sense of what they need to know before coming to Northwestern.

This freshmen guide will become a component of the Unofficial Student Guide and the Student Life Committee - in conjuction with the Public Relations Committee - will work to publicize the guide to all incoming freshmen.

ASG’s core belief is that students matter in building a better Northwestern. In order for students to fully satisfy their role in building Northwestern’s future, ASG believes that students should play a greater role in overseeing contracts which directly affect student life.

This project seeks to give  students a greater ability to review contracts and submit comments to administrators before the contract is signed and approved.

Our next steps include identifying which contracts and areas we’d like to address, research the processes already in place at NU, and research the processes in place at other universities.

ASG’s number one priority is to help students realize the benefits of Northwestern… to help students find the beauty behind each corner. As students, we’re the ones who are best able to define the Northwestern experience.

The Unofficial Student Guide seeks to combine all of the ‘Northwestern experience’ into one comprehensive and user-friendly website. Where should we eat on the weekends? Where should we live next year? What’s the best dining food to eat? What classes should we absolutely take? All of these questions and more will be answered in the Unofficial Student Guide.

ASG has compiled the Guide’s initial content and is currently constructing the structure of a website. The Guide is set to launch during Winter Quarter 2010.

Meal Plans and Dining Issues are by far the most pertinent issues to Northwestern students, and ASG’s priority will be to pursue improvements that reflect the quality food and service that students deserve. This project is certainly wide in scope, which means that each step will be pursued diligently to ensure the best progress. We will review the quality of food that students receive, as well as the price of meal plans that students choose from. Our goal is to ensure that students realize the full benefits of Northwestern’s food services.

Our goal is two-fold:

1. To help students understand Northwestern’s dining system through an interactive meal-plan guide. Students lose a considerable amount of money each year because they don’t choose the meal plan that best fits their dining needs. The ASG meal-plan guide will help students select a plan that doesn’t cost more money than necessary.

2. To improve the dining system at its roots to ensure that the meal plan and dining options are better in the first place. This includes investigating prices of meal plans and methods of voicing feedback on food quality.

We are also investigating dining hall hours and how we might modify the hours to reflect students’ needs.

NUTV is a highly underutilized university service, caused undoubtedly by NUTV’s incredibly low quality. The Student Life Committee is investigating a multitude of ways in which we might improve NUTV as a service, including an expansion in the number of movie channels. ASG seeks to improve NUTV to reflect the desires of students.

The Student Life Committee is investigating Mailroom improvements, such as online notifications and mailroom evaluations. We recently met with Ryan Reinhart from University Residential Life to determine ASG’s involvement in the process. We discovered that University Res Life is already pursuing these measures and will continue to do so for the following year. Therefore, ASG will explore our options and locate which areas we may be of best service. According to Ryan Reinhart, NUIT is currently investigating the feasibility of implementing such an online service. Our role would be to voice students’ concerns and emphasize student desire for efficient mail services.

Through various means, the Student Life Committee is exploring ways to bridge the gap between North and South Campus residences through activities beginning Fall Quarter. We seek to initiate bonds between residents in North and South Campus dorms, and hope to continue activity throughout the year to maintain those connections.

Milestones

• Initial research completed (10%)
• Brainstorming of ideas for activities (20%)
• Initial meetings with admin for new student week, student life, etc. (35%)
• Loose planning for timeline of implementing events during ’09-’10 school year (40%)

This project is based on a service offered by our laundry vendor, MacGray, which allows students to see a live status of the laundry machines and receive messages when their laundry is finished.  In addition to offering this service we are also researching more easily implemented and less expensive options, which still have an impact.  Such options include laundry baskets for unclaimed loads of laundry occupying machines and whiteboards communicating where clothes from vacated machines have been placed.

Milestones:

• Initial research completed (10%)
• Initial meeting with admin to discuss Laundry View Service (25%)
• Brainstorming alternative options (40%)
• Research/data collection for implementing laundry bins/whiteboards (55%)
• Investigated potential sources of funding (60%)
• Cost estimate and ordering information for laundry bins/whiteboards (75%)

The committee will be developing a proposal for a University Off Campus Housing Office as a resource for the off campus community.

Partnership with Athletics and downtown Evanston to increase our Purple Pride in Evanston on gamedays!

ASG Restaurant Guide is getting a facelift! As a part of the development of the off campus website, the new Restaurant Guide will include updated information and features for optimizing the Evanston dining experience!

Partnership with Student Affairs to communicate important messages and news from various areas of the university, city and community. Newsletter is sent out biweekly -weekly through the off campus listserv.

Opportunity for students to meet the candidates, get to know the issues and register to vote in time for the primary in January!

A collaborative effort between ER, SL and PR to promote safety awareness to students. The week will be focused on informing students on how to stay safe, safety information keychain card giveaways, possible self defense course training and the top ten ways to stay safe at NU. 

The goal is to start a conversation about safety on and off campus as well as evaluate the safety programs NU has in place.

Working with Student Affairs and University Community Relations to see what this would look like. The orientation would be mandatory for anyone moving out of university housing. The goal is to give students an opportunity to receive the information and resources they need when moving off campus as well as to welcome them into their new community. 

Agenda and details will be posted before the end of the month.

Launch set for January 4, 2010

 This will be a comprehensive off-campus website to make all the relevant information and resources available for the next cycle of off-campus students. We hope that this serves as an interim solution while we lobby for the much needed Off Campus Housing Office. 

A very loose outline includes:

-Housing Information

 (Housing Timelines, Housing Evaluations, Roommate/Subletter Marketplace, Tenant Rights, Cost Estimates, Move-In/out Checklists, Being a Good Neighbor,

-City Information

-Communication

-Getting Involved

-Evanston and Community News

Tuesday November 10, 7pm

The Lightwalk participants will observe the lighting in the 1st and 5th wards where off campus students reside. Notes will be taken as to where more lights are needed and ER will use those observations to lobby the city for more to be installed. 

City and university officials are scheduled to participate.

The pilot program for SafeWalk was conducted during Reading Week of Spring Quarter 2009. Students could call into the ASG phoneline to request a walk home anywhere on campus or off-campus (western border was Ridge, northern border was Lincoln, Southern border was Davis). Escorts, volunteers from ROTC and NU Jiujitsu Club, were paired when walking a student home and went through a defense training program with University Police. There were calls every night totaling to approximately 10-15. When asked about SafeWalk, students and administrators were in support of the program as a good resource for students to use. 

Next Steps:

We will be working with Student Affairs, UP and SafeRide to discuss the future of the program.

As the effective voice of Northwestern students, the Associated Student Government (ASG) has identified the shuttle system as one of the most pressing priorities for students. Shuttles are a necessary resource for providing efficiency, convenience, and safety in students’ lives. However, current use of the shuttle system is not optimized. The most recent ridership statistics reveal a dramatic decrease in student ridership over the past four years.

To address this significant lack of utilization, we took steps as ASG to first explore the underlying causes of the problem. We implemented a campus-wide student survey, which revealed that the low ridership was attributed to an unreliable and scattered shuttle system.

As a result, we proposed an improved shuttle system, and University Services has since implemented our suggestions. The new system strategically consolidates and streamlines the existing routes of the Intercampus, Ryan Field, Evanston Loop and Campus Loop. Specifically, we have eliminated redundant stops, decreased the total number of stops within the route to make lap times shorter, and identified the popular streets that all of the popular shuttles now serve. Moreover, we have renamed the routes to be intuitive and conducive to student use. This way, the efficiency and convenience of the shuttle system is maximized.

Communiversity Day was a great success! Thanks to all those that came out and supported the community!

If you are interested in getting involved next year, please email jilianlopez2007@u.northwestern.edu

The Coalition of Chicago Colleges is a group made up of representatives from all the Chicago area universities. The goal of this organization is to increase collaboration and discussion between the schools and work on initiatives that are mutually beneficial. Through the CCC and other similar coalition efforts, we are working to forage and maintain relationships with neighboring schools.

NU Decides was a nonpartisan coalition made up of student groups, Student Affairs and MCC that worked to engage students in the 2008 presidential election.  The efforts included three weeks of voter registration and absentee ballot processing, a series of political and educational programming during the four weeks leading up to the election, and large scale efforts to remind students to go to the polls:

• Oct 6-Oct 11 Our World Today Abroad and At Home: Foreign Policy
• Oct 12-Oct 18 Money In Whose Pocket?: The Economy
• Oct 19-Oct 25 Now Paging the Government: Health Care & Social Welfare
• Oct 26-Nov 1 The Convenient Truth: Energy and the Environment.

NU Decides registered over  1,063 students and was also able to organizing a viewing party for Election Night.

The Community Picnic is an annual event held at the beginning of the school year in Fireman’s Park in Evanston. The event was planned as a casual forum for Evanston residents and off-campus students to meet as neighbors, and discuss the expectations they have for one another. Members of the Evanston city council, police department, fire department, Community Relations and Student Affairs were present. Everyone was able to enjoy free food donated by Sodexho and had a chance to win several prizes donated by the Norris Bookstore. The event overall was a great success.

This year’s annual event was on Sunday October 4th from 4-5:30pm. Close to 30 restaurants gave out free ‘bites’ to approximately 2000 students including new additions like Blu Sushi, Red Mango and Cozi Noodles. By showing their Wildcard NU students received the BBN booklets with the map of participating restaurants and coupons included. In addition, they were able to sign up to win one of ten $100 gift packages to restaurants in downtown Evanston. Overall the event was a huge success and we’d like to send a huge thanks out to Laura and Carolyn from EVMark and Dan Kelch from Lulu’s for helping to coordinate.

Each year, students vote for their favorite professors and administrators at Northwestern. The Academic Committee holds a reception each year where these professors and administrators receive their awards.

In Fall 2008, we awarded 75 professors and administrators with this honor.

Next Steps

We plan to hold voting later this quarter (on NU Link) and hold the reception in the last week of May.

The main goal of ASGPAL is to get a student’s perspective on what your years in a particular major could look like. By creating student major profiles, ASGPAL looks to aid students when deciding what major they want to pursue or if they want to just learn from an upperclassmen who is in their current major.

ASGPAL features 80 student profiles representing over 40 majors covering all six undergraduate schools.

Next Steps

• There are a lot of majors at Northwestern, so we need more student profiles.
• The Academic Committee will continue to work with students and academic departments to get more student profiles.

Starting last Spring Quarter, the Academic Committee lobbied for a center for civic engagement at Northwestern.

This fall, Northwestern implemented a center for civic engagement, with the goal of centralizing all the major resources and engagement initiatives in one place.

Next Steps

ASG will continue to work with the center to make it the success that we intend it to be. We will make sure that students are involved in the leadership of the center in everyway possible.

The Academic Committee passed a bill through Senate in Fall Quarter lobbying Northwestern to join iTunesU, a free service provided by Apple to that delivers academic, special event, and other student-focused content to laptops and mobile devices.

In February 2009, Northwestern officially partnered with Apple to create an iTunesU site (itunes.northwestern.edu) providing thousands of hours of content for students and the university community as a whole.

Next Steps

ASG will work with University Relations, NUIT, and CSI to expand the iTunesU service to get more faculty and student content available for Northwestern.

Last winter, the Academic Committee passed in a bill in Senate to organize an academic advising fair with WCAS advisers in Norris. However, the next quarter we decided to expand the fair to include all six undergraduate schools, Office of Fellowships, the University Academic Advising Center, and Study Abroad. This event was a major success in Fall Quarter 2008.

Next steps

The second annual ASG Academic Advising Fair will be held in October 2009 in the Louis Room of Norris University Center.

This undergraduate research database (http://asg.northwestern.edu/nurd/) was launched at the beginning of Winter Quarter with the goal of centralizing undergraduate research opportunities in one place.

NURD provides information on research opportunities in all six undergraduate schools as well as:

• Undergraduate Research Grants
• Study Abroad
• Work-Study
• Office of Fellowships

Next steps:

We are creating a blog (asgnurd.wordpress.com) that will give students up-to-date information on new undergraduate research opportunities.

Currently, the Academic Committee is working with McCormick to expand their research database with the ultimate goal of scaling this model to the other undergraduate schools.

NU PIC(K)S, an ASG ad-hoc committee, registered a number of students to vote in Evanston for the Aldermanic and Mayoral Elections this April 7th. We also successfully hosted an Aldermanic Forum where all the Aldermanic candidates came to debate in front of students and take their questions. Make sure you vote on April 7th!

This project is aimed at implementing a shuttle tracking service for students to always know where on campus shuttles are via a live, GPS-based map.  This service is already offered at many schools such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.  In addition, the scope of this project encompasses overhauling the shuttle system in general from more intuitive names to better stops and more useful (read: simple) information.

Milestones:

• Initial research completed (100%)
• Initial meeting with admin to assess current system and shortfalls (100%)
• Polling Data compiled (100%)
• Follow-up meeting with commitment to implementing GPS (100%)
• High-level admin meeting to secure project deadlines (100%)

At the end of May, CoachUSA will start implementing the Shuttle GPS package into their shuttles, with a completion date of September 1st.

The light walk is an annual walk with relevant administrators in the evening to identify dark and dangerous spots on campus in need of additional lighting.

The light walk was very successful this year with a number of recommendations, which will soon be addressed by facilities management.  We passed legislation to ensure follow through and facilities management is currently working on adding the lighting.

After looking over the 50-year plan, we found a few areas needing more student input, namely: north- and south-campus housing, a student center, parking, and proposed demolitions.  Housing on south campus was pushed to far to the extremities of campus and mid-campus space was underutilized.  No student center location was proposed in the report, either, and the committee had significant opposition to some of the demolitions.

After meeting with members of the committee and the Vice President of Student Affairs our main recommendation of building a student center in the location overlapping the Garrett Evangelical Parking Lot and Lunt Hall was included in a revised version of the report.  While this project is completed, we will continue to pursue the Student Center Recommendation and check on the status of our other recommendations.