Northwestern is tweaking its Chicago campus schedule in advance of next month’s NATO summit, which is expected to bring dozens of global leaders – and an influx of anti-war protesters – to the second city in the United States to hold the high-profile gathering.
The University will halt courses in the Kellogg School of Management surrounding the weekend of the NATO summit, May 18 through 21, at Wieboldt Hall, which is about four miles from the international forum at McCormick Place. Those classes will be relocated to several academic buildings, including the Allen and Jacobs centers, on the Evanston campus.
Wieboldt Hall will instead house School of Continuing Studies students, according to a news release from the University on Thursday. Law school students will have finished their academic term by mid-May.
In the news release, NU officials reiterated the Evanston campus will remain mostly unaffected by the NATO summit.
University spokesman Al Cubbage said the summit accommodations are the result of a special task force convened by University Police Cmdr. Shaun Johnson earlier this year. The emergency planning group meets on a biweekly basis and includes representatives from 16 NU offices, ranging from Risk Management to Information Technology, Johnson told The Daily on Monday.
“It’s really just a matter of precaution more than anything else,” Cubbage said. “What we’ve done is gathered the information that’s available and made the best possible decision.”
The University’s announcement comes as Chicago faces heightened scrutiny for playing temporary home to the 28 NATO heads of state. Until March, the city was slated to simultaneously host the G-8 summit, which has since been moved to the non-public Camp David in Maryland.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has authorized several city ordinances that widen police power starting next month, including the ability to deputize out-of-department officers and the purchase of surveillance cameras with little regulation.
Johnson said the special task force is remaining on high alert but is not currently tracking any threats that would “directly impact the University.” At this time, there’s a “fairly short list” of potentially disruptive activities of which the University is aware, he added.
“Those things we know we can plan for,” Johnson said. However, he said, “there’s a whole set of assumptions that are reasonable that we cannot take off the table until information is known.”
NU’s emergency planning group is monitoring the NATO situation along with the Chicago Police Department and federal authorities, according to the news release.
In the meantime, University officials said they are watching out for summit activities that could further affect the Chicago campus. NATO’s military operations have historically drawn fierce criticism from the anti-war movement.
Gay Liberation Network co-founder Andy Thayer – widely known as “Chicago’s Protest King” – dismissed the notion that college students should be routed away from the international convention as a precautionary measure.
Up until late last month, Thayer was locked in a public dispute with the city over where he could begin a protest march during the NATO summit.
“I frankly think it’s absurd,” Thayer said of Chicago-area schools shuffling their course schedules during the summit. “If these universities truly are in the business of higher education, they should seize the summit being here as a learning opportunity, a unique learning opportunity. Both in terms of what summiteers have to say and what protesters have to say.”
Second-year Kellogg student Prash Cherukuri predicted his full-time peers are unlikely to balk at skipping the shuttle ride to Chicago during the NATO summit. But some part-time students choose to live in Chicago and may bristle at the atypical commute to Evanston, he added.
“There’s obviously going to be some disruptions in terms of traffic and protesters,” he said. “So there’ll be road blocks, but nothing that’s going to be a huge concern.”
