Those words, spoken by Pam during the series finale of “The Office,” are probably the most accurate description of my feelings about the show and its ending. Although the two seasons after Steve Carell left were not as good as the previous seven, I was pleased just to be able to continue watching the amazing cast of characters I’d developed an unhealthy attachment to.

Over the course of the series I fell in love with Jim, wanted to be Pam’s best friend, found myself liking Angela, wished I had boss like Michael and later Andy, recognized quite a bit of myself in Erin and dreamed of pranking Dwight. The development of these characters and their relationships with one another is what made the show so popular, and focusing on that made the finale extremely satisfying.

“Finale” takes place one year after the documentary, which has been filmed over the course of the series, aired. Almost the entire cast comes back for a panel arranged by PBS to discuss their lives after the documentary and to attend the wedding of Dwight and Angela.

The finale was essentially a victory lap for the series, showing every regular character ending up content with his or her life (except for Toby) and wrapping up all the major plot points. Rather than trying to be some momentous episode with a big plot twist, “Finale” was simple and provided viewers a sense of closure.

Characters reflected the sense of nostalgia that many dedicated fans have been feeling. “I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them,” Andy said during the warehouse party. One of the more touching moments is when the characters deliver their final interviews and reflect on how grateful they are to have been followed by a documentary crew for nine years, capturing the moments they had forgotten and providing a perspective of their lives they wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Arguably the best moment was the return of Michael Scott to be Dwight’s best man. Fittingly, his first line is “That’s what she said” after Dwight tells him, “I’m glad you came.” Michael’s return was endearing, revealing a greyer, more mature Michael, who is such a proud father he needs two cellphones for all the photos he takes. As he watches Dwight, Angela, Jim and Pam celebrate at the wedding, he delivers the best line of the night: “I feel like all my kids grew up, and then they married each other. It's every parent's dream.”

When the credits rolled at the end, I felt satisfied knowing that every character ended up OK. Erin finally met her parents, Stanley lives happily in Florida, Oscar is running for office and Ryan and Kelly run off into the sunset.

“I’ve finally mastered commitment,” Ryan proclaims as he and Kelly ditch the reception, leaving behind the baby he is responsible for.

In a moment I’ve been wishing would happen, Pam finally took an “Athleap” of faith (couldn’t resist the pun) and sold her and Jim's house, agreeing to move to Austin so Jim could follow his dream of being a sports agent. She also completed her mural.

Overall, the finale was a sweet, heartwarming completion to the story. For other shows, it might have seemed like a cop-out ending with everything going perfectly, but for coworkers I’ve grown to love, it’s what they deserved. For a musical version of my feelings on the finale, listen to the song Creed sang before his arrest.

Firefighters responded to the fire at about 4:15 p.m. in the 1400 block of Fowler Avenue, according to the Evanston fire department. The first responders found the teen, who was taken to Evanston Hospital.

Albert Frazier, who lives on Fowler Avenue and reported the fire, said he first noticed the smell of smoke at about 4 p.m. He went to the back of his home and saw smoke coming from a house two doors down, he said.

"I could just tell by the smell it was wood, plaster burning," Frazier recalled.

Firefighters put out the fire on both the first floor and a second-floor bedroom in less than an hour, the fire department said.

Where and how the fire started remain under investigation.

The family living in the house recently moved in, neighbor Valencia Frazier said.

— Edward Cox

The theme of Homecoming 2013 will be “NU ‘Cats on the block,” the organization announced tonight. Homecoming co-chair Kate Geraghty said the organization’s executive board hopes the throwback to the 1990s, a play on the popular band New Kids on the Block, will appeal to both young alumni and current students who grew up in the heyday of boy bands and Nickelodeon.

“We were paring down and we were looking at what we could do with the themes that we had and 'NU ‘Cats on the block' just seemed like such a fun thing,” the Weinberg junior said. “We were all born in the ‘90s. Everyone’s obsessed with it, so we’re really excited. One of the great things is that we really think that especially younger alumni, alumni who were here in the ‘90s or were teenagers in the ‘90s, they’re really going to appreciate it.”

Homecoming is partnering with NU Nights for a kickoff karaoke event Friday. The first hour will be music from the decade, Geraghty said.

The organization also announced the 12-student Homecoming Court. After Homecoming received about 70 nominations, this will be the second straight year that the court consists of 12 students. The organization raised the number last year due to an increase in applications. Geraghty said even narrowing the selection down to 12 was a challenge.

“We look for diversity in schools and in activities, in what people represent and what they’re really involved in," Geraghty said. "What I think is great about this court is it was so hard to pick because there were so many people in so many different groups on campus. We just felt like we couldn’t have cut down any more people."

The six candidates for Homecoming King are Weinberg juniors Alex Matelski, Demetri Elias, Will Ritter and Gaurav Kikani, McCormick junior Tim Smith and Communication junior Ryan Bernsten. The candidates for Homecoming Queen are Weinberg juniors Katie Funderburg, Roopali Kulkarni and Tori Zuzelo, along with SESP junior Kiley Naas, Communication junior Isa Pasbakhsh and McCormick junior Savannah Enders.

The candidates will compete throughout Homecoming Week, which begins Sept. 28. The winners will be announced at Ryan Field during the Oct. 5 football game against Ohio State.

— Joseph Diebold

The Evanston Police Department would have few issues enforcing the legislation, which passed the Illinois Senate on Friday, Cmdr. Jay Parrott said.

The bill would create a four year pilot program, during which medical marijuana users could legally use the drug with a photo ID and proof of a prescription. After the pilot program ends, the bill would have to undergo a renewal.

Gov. Pat Quinn will have to sign the bill into law before the state opens 60 medical marijuana dispensaries, which will likely be located in light industrial zones, said state Sen. William Haine (D-Alton), the bill's sponsor in the Illinois Senate. Haine said he heard the governor is “open-minded” to the bill.

“He has a passion for people in difficult circumstances, and I believe this bill will appeal to that side of him,” Haine said.

The bill, if signed by Quinn, would make Illinois home to one of the most strictly regulated medical marijuana laws among 19 other states that legalize the Schedule I drug for medicinal purposes. It would authorize medical marijuana only to people diagnosed with one or more of about 30 serious illnesses, such as HIV and multiple sclerosis.

More stringent regulations were introduced to the bill after an earlier version that included a provision allowing people to grow their own medical marijuana failed to garner support years ago, Haine said.

Should Quinn sign the bill, residents would have to carry the marijuana in a container and could be subject to a $250 ticket for violating rules of possession, Parrott said.

“There are still parameters that people have to follow,” Parrott said. “The idea is to assist people with feeling better.”

Some organizations argue the bill would make medical marijuana easily accessible and lead to potential abuse. Andy Duran, executive director of Linking Efforts Against Drugs, said labeling the drug as medicine would mislead youth about its serious effects.

“It’s a harmful thing for youth,” Duran said. “We don’t want it in our communities because we know of the harm that is associated with it.”

State Sen. William Delgado (D-Chicago) said, however, that the side effects of medical marijuana compared to opiates and other hospital “pill mill” drugs are minimal. Delgado is leading legislation to curb what he sees as a widespread distribution of more harmful drugs in hospitals.

“You will never hear about an overdose of medical marijuana, the only thing is they’re going to wake up sleepy and hungry,” Delgado said.

Delgado said he knows a friend living with prostate cancer who has to travel out of state to receive medical marijuana in liquid form.

“It was so hard not to cry to know how he helped the community," Delgado said. "Medical marijuana is not immoral.”

Amanda Gilbert contributed reporting.

With favorable reviews from publications like Chicago Magazine and The New York Times, Found defined itself as a culinary destination in a city heavy on dining options. But despite the bustle created by Found, three empty spaces sit idly nearby on Chicago Avenue.

Not every restaurant stays long in Evanston, and unlike Gio, some businesses are not easily replaced. Some spaces remain empty for more than a year before being filled, often by another restaurant that might not last for more than a few years — a cycle frequently repeated in the downtown area.

However, downtown Evanston’s success cannot be measured by popular restaurants or vacant storefronts alone. Economic development depends on careful attention to the entire city, and a thriving food scene is useless without additional retail and office space.

At Downtown Evanston's annual meeting Thursday, the nonprofit organization that maintains and markets the downtown district announced nine new businesses are arriving in the coming months — seven of which are restaurants. The news came as the city works within new guidelines that prioritize attracting businesses of all types to Evanston and filling dozens of vacant storefronts.

“We’ve got all of the pieces in place to really have an excellent future, but we’ve got to keep focusing on that balance,” said Ald. Judy Fiske (1st), whose ward includes much of downtown Evanston.

But beyond rhetoric and strategic planning by city officials, obstacles specific to Evanston make breaking out of its food-focused market especially difficult.

“We need the balance in downtown,” Fiske said. “If we overbuild restaurants, that’s not good for us. If we overbuild residences, that’s not good for us.”

A holistic approach

In Evanston’s 2013 economic development work plan, the city outlines goals to maintain its economic assets, including industries involving water and the arts. The plan includes new targets, such as retaining retail attractions and workforce development. But unlike past plans, it also considers how the city’s economic goals work together.

With this new mindset, Evanston officials hope to tackle visible problems like empty storefronts while addressing more imperative issues, such as bringing more variety to downtown.

“The City Council has always focused on those components,” Fiske said. “What we’re doing now is looking at them in a holistic manner. That’s really important because you can’t take one part of it and not expect the other parts to be unaffected.”

Although the economic development plan includes standard targets for bringing business to downtown, Fiske says the city is taking these principles to all parts of the city for an all-encompassing strategy 

A number of factors unique to Evanston could work in the city’s favor. Its lakefront location on the outskirts of Chicago and along Metra and Chicago Transit Authority lines — along with an eclectic food scene — give the suburb what officials call an excellent “quality of place.” The phrase refers to the benefits of aesthetic infrastructure, diverse communities and a vibrant city culture.

However, Evanston’s proximity to other shopping hubs counteracts some of those advantages. The city strives to bring in a mix of independent businesses and national chains, but downtown often competes with shopping centers like Westfield Old Orchard Mall in nearby Skokie and retail in Chicago. Many chains will not venture into Evanston if they already have a store only a few miles away, said Carolyn Dellutri, executive director of Downtown Evanston.

Fiske said downtown used to be home to several large department stores but lost many of them to Old Orchard. She noted the Evanston location for Marshall Field and Co. stuck around for many years before the defunct company was bought by Macy’s.

“Downtowns often have to reinvent themselves,” she said. “When the liquor laws changed in the ’70s, we were able to bring in more restaurants.”

A vision for downtown

Evanston is often cited as “the restaurant capital of Chicago’s North Shore.” Restaurants tend to do very well downtown, Dellutri said, particularly noting the recent success of Found.

Found owner Amy Morton said she has been blown away by positive press and the number of customers she receives on a daily basis. Although the number of repeat customers and Evanston residents makes Morton happy, she is also surprised by the number of people who come from outside the city.

Working with the city allowed the business to thrive, Morton said.

“It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” she said. “They simply have decided to be the sort of city that makes it easy for business owners. … They genuinely want people who come to Evanston to succeed.”

However, a heavy emphasis on dining interferes with the city’s goals of bringing national retail in and creating local shops downtown. From a city perspective, Fiske said she would like to see more tax revenue-generating businesses, but adding retail proves to be more complicated than simply attracting them to the area.

The size of downtown retail spaces makes it difficult for businesses to relocate, Fiske said. Even for retailers who create small boutique-sized shops designed for urban spaces, buildings in downtown tend to be too small for retail space. Some of the buildings formerly used by department stores in Evanston were demolished long ago, Fiske said.

Some retail still exists in downtown, including Williams Shoes on Church Street. The store has been in business for almost 60 years, and in that time it has expanded three times, owner Mike Lembeck said.

Lembeck said the expansion occurred naturally: He and his father, who passed the store onto him, never felt the space was too small. Rather, the store outlived nearby businesses and took their spaces, he said, allowing the business to utilize the available space downtown to the best of its ability. The most recent expansion, Williams Next Door, occupies a storefront across the hall from the original store.

Although he likes the restaurant scene, Lembeck said he wants more retail in downtown Evanston.

“At the moment, there’s not a lot of competition,” he said. “Over the years, there has been. We’ve just outlived everyone else.”

In lieu of national retailers, Fiske said she wants to dedicate some funds used by the economic development committee to help local retailers establish a name in downtown to “give them a leg up and see if that helps them." Downtown also needs office spaces so workers can feed into the restaurants and retail.

“You’ve got a captive market, so they really do stay and spend a lot of money in the community they’re in,” she said. “We’re looking hard on how to market to offices and startups.”

Evanston has hosted several events to promote discussion on how to attract businesses to relocate their offices here, including a talk in early May by William Testa, vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

"Evanston is a very special place," Testa said during the event. “It’s a place where you can have the opportunity to be a job center … where people want to live at the same time.”

Because of Evanston’s unique location and quality of place, the city is looking to cater to businesses, said Paul Zalmezak, the city’s economic development committee coordinator.

“We have this sense that this is our niche to support those companies,” he said.

Creating downtown

In the late 1980s, the city conducted research to determine how to effectively develop downtown, Zalmezak said. Around this time, the city also created two tax-increment financing districts in downtown Evanston. TIF districts allow Evanston to use future tax revenue from those sections of the city to boost economic development over a 23-year period. After this time, funding for the areas is cut off.

The Downtown II TIF district, which expired in 2009, covered a large area west of Benson Avenue. The Washington National TIF district, effective until 2017, covers the area between Church and Davis streets, with Benson and Chicago avenues serving as its boundaries.

Using Evanston as a case study, four students from the Kellogg School of Management conducted research last year assessing the effectiveness of TIF districts.

The special tax districts can create lively areas of economic development, said second-year Kellogg student Seth Capron, who worked on the study. However, he said they can also be risky due to uncertainties in how local economies evolve. Some TIF districts receive money without clear goals, while others receive funds to boost an economy that is already beginning to recover, Capron said.

“A lot of risk involved for putting significant subsidies behind this is you don’t know what you’re achieving,” he said. “In some cases you might ask, ‘Would this have happened anyway?’”

The study found TIF districts work best when they align with a city’s goals because their outcomes may be uncertain on their own.

Compared to other similar districts across the country, both of Evanston’s downtown TIFs have been incredibly successful, Capron said. Downtown II created the Evanston Research Park, while Washington National allowed for significant building growth, he said.

Over time, the city has realized its economic strengths, like water industries, and weaknesses, like the need for greater workforce development, Zalmezak said.

“It’s different now,” he said. “We’ve identified important aspects of what makes Evanston unique in a very competitive marketplace.”

Bringing in business

When the TIF districts were formed in the heart of the city, Downtown Evanston was also putting down its roots. Since its establishment in 1987, the organization has become an integral part of economic development, linking the city, business owners and other stakeholders involved in creating businesses in Evanston.

“It really takes teamwork because when a business is looking to relocate, they may come in through different avenues,” Dellutri said.

The organization receives funds through a tax placed in what is known as Special Service Area No. 4, which covers the majority of downtown. In 2012, Downtown Evanston received almost $400,000 in revenue, which it uses to advertise downtown businesses and the area itself to potential businesses looking to set up shop.

The city approved an ordinance in 2007 to spread the boundaries of the tax area. The resulting increase in revenue allowed Downtown Evanston to become a full-time organization. Dellutri became its executive director the following year.

As the national economy recovers from the Great Recession, Dellutri said Evanston has been faring better, with 26 new businesses opening downtown in 2012.

“It’s helping establish a name for downtown Evanston,” she said.

Evanston has attracted popular Chicago restaurants to expand in the city. Establishments like Farmhouse, a midwestern tavern, and Lao Sze Chuan, a Chinese restaurant, are among the new businesses coming soon to the downtown district.

Partnerships with Northwestern also create prospects for economic opportunity. The Evanston Research Park, a joint project, includes a mix of University and city offices and helps promote business expansion.

Filling in the gaps

Despite the city’s notable efforts to bring in business, a noticeable number of empty storefronts remain. The current market is ultimately what influences which businesses want to find space in downtown Evanston, Dellutri said, but other factors are also at play.

Downtown Evanston’s site lists more than 100 office and retail spaces available for lease downtown. Some spaces have remained empty for more than two years, including the former Borders location on Orrington Avenue. However, Fiske said empty storefronts downtown do not reflect a poor economy. Rather, they can be attributed to conflicting interests between building owners and businesses, which prevent some spaces from being filled immediately, she said.

“A lot of these buildings are owned by local proprietors who have a specific vision for their buildings, and they’ll hold out until they get that,” Fiske said. “It’s not for a lack of people coming in.”

Vacancy rates were higher in 2008 during the economic downturn, but as the national economy recovers, many business owners are close to signing leases, Dellutri said.

One example of this is Naf Naf Grill, a Naperville-based Mediterranean chain. It will move into 1629 Orrington Ave., which has been vacant for more than two years. Business owners are also signing leases for the former spaces of STA Travel and Gamestop, two shops on Church Street that closed this year.

Dellutri announced several of these changes at the Downtown Evanston annual meeting last week. Other city officials announced projects that would also aid in economic development and in the creation of quality of place. Assistant city manager Marty Lyons presented plans to overhaul parking systems downtown, demonstrating a solar-powered, user-friendly pay box in lieu of a parking meter.

The city also approved plans to renovate Davis Street, including the creation of bike paths, sewer replacement, parking space realignment and street resurfacing.

“Although the project will create some disturbance, at the end of the day it will be a much better space like Church Street," public works director Suzette Robinson said. 

A plan with potential

Because it has been so highly developed, officials say downtown Evanston serves as a laboratory for economic development for the rest of the city. Within downtown, it is easier to see how each component works together and can be helpful when expanding the scope to include the rest of the city, Fiske said.

Capron said newer TIF districts near the intersections of Main and Chicago and Dodge and Dempster will address these blighted areas in a similar fashion to the downtown TIF districts.

Development initiatives on Howard Street and the construction of Trader Joe’s on Chicago Avenue will bring attention to areas outside downtown, Zalmezak said. In addition, Evanston is looking at how to fill vacant retail spaces beyond downtown and how to successfully bring in startups, he said.

Although Evanston’s holistic approach shows promise, it will take time before the plan becomes fully realized.

“We’ve finally hit our stride,” Fiske said. “(The work plan) understands that there’s a sense of place in Evanston that we have to market that’s unique from Chicago and other suburbs.”

The New Student Center Initiative first formed in 2010 when Associated Student Government attempted to garner grassroots support from students and administrators for a new building. Following successful meetings with NU trustees, the group fizzled out formally because the necessary stakeholders supported its cause. Now that ASG has released renderings of the proposed student center, the group has resurged to gain support and feedback as the University prepares to fundraise, said NSCI spokesman Brad Stewart.

"It really comes down to prioritization and fundraising at this point," said Stewart, the former ASG executive vice president. "We need to show the University the students really do want this."

The Medill senior said momentum for a better student union began as early as two years after Norris was completed and have periodically resurfaced since then, but this new push will bring NU closer to realizing a new student center than ever before.

The new renderings feature a center with more open spaces for student group collaboration. Situated in Norris's current location, the new center plans feature more outdoor space, student entertainment options, food vendors and centralization of student resources, ranging from University Career Services to the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. Amalia Namath, director of the New Student Center Initiative, spent hours in Norris working with various student groups, most notably as co-chair of Northwestern Community Development Corps.

"I've been living in Norris practically, at least for the past two years, and we just realized it needs to change," the Weinberg senior said. "A lot of the colleges that are comparable to Northwestern just have a better student union and a more centralized student union."

The group has launched a website where students can view the current plans, share their feedback and sign a petition calling for the center. A week after its launch, the petition had gained more than 200 signatures.

Although seniors currently spearhead the initiative, both Stewart and Namath said there are many qualified sophomores and juniors ready to take on more responsibility when they graduate in several weeks. They said the push for a new student center was a way they could leave their mark on NU.

"We're trying to set the way for future generations of Wildcats to have an even better experience from what we've had," Stewart said.

Though we talk about the inevitable fact that we must cope with stress, the average student’s conception of what amount of stress is “inevitable” is distorted beyond reason. Despite the numerous workshops, initiatives and campus-wide discussions about dealing with stress, what we have in actuality is a “stress culture,” which exacerbates the problem.

Think about what we hear on a regular basis. “I was up until 4 a.m. studying for a midterm because I had so much other homework that I couldn’t do because I was busy with my (insert club, research project and/or alcohol here).” When was the last time somebody said, “Well, I did the homework at a reasonable pace through the course, studied for a few hours, then got up in the morning and made a healthy breakfast after a full night’s sleep?" Even if you did do that, you don’t say it, because we all know everybody’s competing for the best I-pulled-off-a-ridiculous-cram-sesh-at-the-last-possible-minute-and-still-got-an-A-#yolo story so they can sound cool (and yours truly is no exception).

The fact that being sleep-deprived is considered “cool” should make us reconsider what we’re doing with ourselves. Maybe the fact that you’re chewing your fingernails at an ungodly hour cramming for organic chemistry so you can get a GPA high enough to get into med school doesn’t mean that you need to build up the Olympian willpower required to make it through. Maybe it means that med school, or research, or banking or whatever you have in mind isn’t worth it.

I do not criticize as an outsider. By this time last year, I was disheartened, depressed and absolutely miserable. I slogged onward, draining my last reserves just to get to the end of the year. But then, halfway through my very last final exam, something amazing happened. I was done. I got up, turned the exam in half blank, walked out, and got my first C. I had gotten straight A’s from eighth grade up until Spring Quarter last year – making it through all of organic chemistry, differential equations, quantum mechanics, the list goes on – but of all my academic achievements, that C is the one I am most proud of. After that, I quit my internship in a research lab, went home and rethought my life. I have never been happier.

If I ran into the freshman version of myself, he would have — as some of you undoubtedly are doing as you read this — clasped his ears in agony as he listened to this unthinkable blasphemy. But this is what stress culture is. We deprive ourselves of sleep, we lose contact with old friends, we fulfill never-ending “have-tos” and neglect our “want-tos” – and to question all of this is heresy. We may talk about dealing with stress, but in reality, all we’re really talking about is dealing with its superficial effects. Dealing with stress requires you to dare to step out of line, to dare to just stop, and above all else, to dare to question everything you have been taught about what “success” is.

We’ve been raised to be go-getters, to strive for high-powered careers, to excel academically, to be involved as widely as possible, and to never turn down a step “upward” in life. This certainly did bring us to the top echelon of universities — we have kept our foot on the accelerator and have traveled far — but we are approaching a time that if we don’t slow down and take a break, what we have left behind will have receded into the distance and what we have passed by will be nothing but a blur. And years on the infinite interstate of stress will have worn us down. For many of us, it’s already starting to.

In the wise words of the twentieth-century suburban philosopher Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look once in a while, you could miss it.”

Julian Caracotsios is a Weinberg junior. He can be reached at juliancaracotsios2014@u.northwestern.edu. If you want to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com.

D'Souza addressed more than 80 people in Technological Institute's Ryan Auditorium before answering about a dozen questions almost equally divided between the friendly and the not-so-friendly.

The "2016: Obama's America" filmmaker earned a sharp rebuke from Associated Student Government president Ani Ajith, who participated in a silent protest outside the auditorium and later described D’Souza’s commentary as “hate speech and bigotry,” as well as “pseudo-intellectual babble.”

During his prepared remarks, D'Souza argued places like NU create a "suffocating atmosphere" that intimidates students into learning "what you should and shouldn't say" about racially charged issues like affirmative action.

"Ultimately, all of it is lies, but it is lies with muscle," he said. "It's lies that come along with threats so you can't say what's clearly not true about it because if you do, you'll be stepping out of bounds."

NU College Republicans organized D'Souza's visit, which came amid heightened tensions over race relations on campus. A nomination for a diversity-related position in ASG was blocked earlier this month over questions of whether the student could connect with multicultural groups, while Alianza representatives took heat for a letter co-written with Ajith about Cinco de Mayo.

"We recognize diversity is a kind of hot topic on campus, and we definitely wanted to contribute to that conversation," said Rebecca Schieber, president of College Republicans. "That was our main motive."

D'Souza acknowledged he had "heard about the rumblings" at NU and was candid about his own role in the diversity discussion.

"On the campus, the conservatives aren't powerful enough to be part of the debate, so just once a year you have to have a gadfly like me come and sort of torment the campus a little bit and get the protesters to spread their wings, and that's it," D'Souza said.

Schieber, a Weinberg sophomore, said she was pleased to see a nearly even split between audience members who agreed with D'Souza and those who did not. D'Souza found allies in mostly older, non-student audience members who thanked him for bringing an underrepresented perspective to NU, while some students were more skeptical.

“I know you completely hate facts and history, but how do you explain institutional racism and how it’s impacted blacks over the past 100 years?” Weinberg junior Ferila Maatulimanu-Mae Sausi asked.

After a heated back-and-forth over the premise of her question, D’Souza replied he does not believe institutional racism exists, calling it a “nonsense term.”

Ajith, who did not attend D'Souza's talk and remained outside the auditorium, said he recently became aware of D'Souza's work and was specifically offended by his attitudes toward the LGBT community and Muslims.

"It's pretty simple," Ajith said. "What he believes in is categorically rejected by the Northwestern community."

At one point, as many as 20 students sat quietly in front of the auditorium doors, Ajith said. Inside, D'Souza mocked the apparent protesters in a whining voice.

"Let's block the entrance so no one can get in," he said. "He's against diversity!"

“He did a good job,” she said laughing.

Miles said her younger brother, 20, was a great uncle who treated her daughters like they were his own.

The Evanston native's young life was cut short when he was fatally shot May 12 on the South Side of Chicago. In an interview with The Daily on Monday, his sister recalled a caring uncle who loved to sing and dance.

Ross’ grandmother declined to comment on his death Monday but expressed frustration over the lack of information her family has received from the Chicago Police Department.

The slain Evanston man has been connected to an ongoing city conflict that has claimed four young lives since 2005, including two last year. He also has a history of run-ins with the law: He was arrested in a 2010 undercover Evanston police operation by the Neighborhood Enforcement Team. Ross was one of 29 people arrested in connection with operating an open air drug market.

Ross was also likely involved with the May 7 shooting near the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center, 1655 Foster St., according to Evanston police.

“Police have reason to believe that he was a possible intended target in the shooting at Fleetwood,” Evanston Police Cmdr. Jay Parrott said Wednesday.

Ross’ death and recent gun violence in Evanston have sparked community concern, which was voiced during a heated 5th Ward meeting last week. In response to the outbreak of incidents, police have increased their presence in the ward and will partner with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office to deal with Evanston’s gangs.

Despite the difficulty Ross faced during recent years, his sister remembered a brother who loved to have fun and perform. She said Ross dreamed of performing professionally, and that he even met with a music producer two years ago.

Miles said she would most remember Ross’s love of music — especially the work of Michael Jackson.

“Any song that comes on is probably going to remind me of him,” she said.

As the new council prepares to move forward after last month’s elections, aldermen discussed the strengths, weaknesses and goals of the community to be targeted during the coming term at their meeting Monday night at the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center. City manager Wally Bobkiewicz prepared a presentation for aldermen about city staff’s assessment of opportunities, threats and plans.

“I’m here tonight really to challenge you to make the most of these four years as you can,” Bobkiewicz told the council.

Crime and safety concerns topped the list of weaknesses and threats to the city. City staff applauded community outreach efforts taken by the council in the wake of gun violence last year, particularly in response to two shooting deaths near Evanston Township High School.

Bobkiewicz named Northwestern among the city’s strengths. He said “lively discussion” occurred among the staff about its inclusion, and the University was almost removed from the list. Recently, some residents clashed with NU over its plans to build a new visitors center on the lakefront. And despite aldermen’s stated intentions to tackle the city’s contentious over-occupancy rule, the so-called "brothel law" remains on the books.

“While it’s a great strength on many levels, it remains one of our great challenges,” Bobkiewicz said of NU.

The city staff’s recommendations included establishing a stronger bond with the University and utilizing more of NU’s resources to tackle community problems.

Other community goals included prioritizing economic development, increasing sustainability and streamlining communication among city departments and Evanston community groups.

“You can do anything,” Bobkiewicz said. “Your staff is anxious and ready and feels that this will be a great opportunity for the city.”

The council plans to meet for a more detailed discussion on planning in the coming weeks.

Aldermen also approved an increase in the budget for fiscal year 2013 by unanimous vote. Budgeting changes included funding for sewer repair, sidewalk replacement and bike lane construction on Davis Street.

An additional $2.2 million to expand Piven Theatre was taken out of the budget for further discussion.