The Weekly: Week Four Recap
February 8, 2021
Chinese international students create a video about the importance and heritage of their names, and Evanston/Skokie School District 65 will reopen soon amid discussions of vaccinations and equity. The Weekly: Week Four Recap breaks down our top headlines with the reporters and editors who covered them.
JACOB FULTON: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Jacob Fulton.
HALEY FULLER: And I’m Haley Fuller. This is The Weekly, a podcast that breaks down our top headlines each week.
HALEY FULLER: Before we begin, a content warning: this episode has discussions of racist abuse and suicide and mentions of anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia and transphobia. If you would like to skip past that, start at two minutes.
JACOB FULTON: Here’s what’s been happening in the headlines. First up, on campus, reporter Alyssa Johnson did a deep dive into the racist behavior and abuse of NU’s former cheer coach Pamela Bonnevier — and the University’s negligence in responding to complaints. Bonnevier worked at NU for over 10 years but was fired in November, and now, a former student plans to sue the school over the racism and abuse she experienced. With multiple lawsuits looming on the horizon and a vacancy on the coaching front, NU cheer’s future is anything but certain.
HALEY FULLER: Meanwhile, in Evanston, an 8th Ward aldermanic campaign debate got heated on Tuesday. Current City Clerk Devon Reid and incumbent Alderman Ann Rainey sparred throughout the night. Reid called for change, especially in terms of the city budget, but Rainey said she doesn’t plan to change her priorities. Previously, she’s opposed reallocations Reid has supported, like reducing funding for the city’s police department. At the end of the debate, Rainey referred to Reid as a “very scary person.” After the debate, Reid told a Daily reporter Rainey’s comment was racist.
JACOB FULTON: Last Tuesday, postdoctoral fellow Bart van Alphen died by suicide, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. Van Alphen was a researcher in the department of neurobiology, where he studied and published research on the effects of sleep in fruit flies. Prior to his death were months of allegations that he was behind a Twitter account featuring anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, racist and transphobic remarks. One day before his death, in an email sent to colleagues, van Alphen took “full ownership” for the account.
HALEY FULLER: Those are some of our top stories. Now, we’re talking with Daily staffers to dive deeper into some of our biggest news. First up, a group of Chinese international students are working to celebrate their names in their native language and educate others on the importance of their meanings.
HALEY FULLER: And in Evanston news, assistant city editor Julia Richardson interviewed Superintendent Devon Horton about District 65’s plans for reopening and racial equity goals. Stay with us to hear directly from the reporters and editors who covered some of The Daily’s top stories.
JACOB FULTON: This year, Weinberg junior Yujia Huang brought together a group of 11 other Chinese international students to create a video where they explain the meanings of their names. At Northwestern, Huang said many people don’t know much about Chinese names — or the relationship between the characters that make up a name and its meaning.
HALEY FULLER: For Huang and many of the students who participated, this was a chance to connect with others by sharing their culture. Here to tell us more about this is assistant campus editor Waverly Long… Waverly, can you tell us a bit about the video?
WAVERLY LONG: They talked about how a lot of U.S. media features different parts of Chinese culture and doesn’t really highlight the really beautiful parts. They wanted to draw attention to that, and they also wanted to share some parts of their background with their American friends and kind of start these conversations that might not otherwise take place.
HALEY FULLER: A lot of the time, international students face a conflict when attending American schools. Some international students adopt English names. What did the students in the video have to say about that?
WAVERLY LONG: A lot of times in China and international schools, when students are studying English, English teachers will pull out a list of names, and there’ll be generally pretty generic English names such as Karen or Mark or John, and the kids will just pick one and then they’ll just go with it. And a lot of students will end up just having that be their English name. Some of the sources talked about how they felt like that wasn’t very special, and those names didn’t have a lot of meaning to them. And the two sources that talked to me about going by an English name picked their names themselves and names that they felt were really true to them, that they identified with, and one of them talked about choosing to go by that English name, because not only is it more convenient for her because she personally doesn’t like to have to explain the pronunciation all the time of her Chinese name, but she also felt like going by this new English name, at this certain time in her life, was a way for her to embrace this new chapter and this new beginning.
HALEY FULLER: And Huang did more than just making this video. In many East Asian countries, people use their family name ahead of their first name. After the video was shared, she asked the University to make this an option for NU students. Where’s that at right now?
WAVERLY LONG: Essentially, Yujia Huang emailed President Schapiro and basically told him that she feels like this should be an option at Northwestern. And he was really enthusiastic about it. He was like ‘sure I think that’s a great idea,’ and really embraced that suggestion. Then he passed it on to Provost Kathleen Hagerty, who said that she would start working with the IT department to implement that option. So far, we don’t know whether or not that’s a current option, but we definitely know that it’s in the works.
HALEY FULLER: Now, we didn’t include Huang as a source for this story because she’s previously written opinion articles for The Daily. But because she was the creator of this video, Waverly spoke to her to get some context for the story and make sure she was being thorough in her reporting. Waverly, were there any takeaways from that conversation?
WAVERLY LONG: Something Yujia was talking to me about was how this experience was a really important way for her to not only share about her culture, but also for her to realize the power that she has in her own voice. She was talking about how this one story is not going to end discrimination or end bias or anything like that. But she felt like she could take away from it this knowledge that when she sees things that aren’t right and that are unjust, she has the power to do something about it, and that was really valuable to her.
HALEY FULLER: That’s really powerful. Thank you so much for talking with us.
HALEY FULLER: Now, we’ve got assistant city editor Julia Richardson here to tell us more about her conversation with Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Superintendent Devon Horton.
JACOB FULTON: The two spoke just before the district’s reopening, which is scheduled for a week from tomorrow, on Feb. 16. He said students will now be in classrooms four days a week, with one virtual day to give teachers a break. Families get to choose whether they want to send their students in, but all elementary students who want to return will get to. For middle schoolers, it’s a little bit different. Horton created priority groups based on individual needs, and that influences whether a middle school student will get to return. Julia, can you tell us what he said the reaction has been like since the return was announced in late January?
JULIA RICHARDSON: There are some parents that are a little bit worried about it. But for the most part, they have the board’s support, and they’ve been working, Horton told me, since August to figure out a plan with the teachers unions to reopen. So it’s been a long time coming.
JACOB FULTON: One of the big questions on parents’ minds is vaccinations, right? What does the district’s vaccination plan look like?
JULIA RICHARDSON: They work with AMITA Health, and they got a message from AMITA Health saying, ‘Oh, we have vaccinations for your staff.’ I am not quite sure if all of the staff have been vaccinated, but I know a lot of them have. I talked to him last week, so the status might be different now. But he did say that they’re underway and people are getting vaccinated in these weeks, he was quite confident about that.
JACOB FULTON: So another one of Horton’s priorities since he became superintendent about a year ago has been racial equity within the district. In your interview, you talked about a program that’s building pathways for potential teachers with diverse backgrounds to join the district. Can you tell us a little bit about his other plans as well?
JULIA RICHARDSON: So basically, he said that teachers are going through equity assessments. And they’re using data to see, first of all, how much the teachers understand about the concept of equity and diversity, everything like that, and then how different demographics of students are impacted within the district. And so just he said a lot of data collection is going on there.
JACOB FULTON: Well, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with that data and how it impacts the new program. Julia, thanks so much for chatting with us today.
JACOB FULTON: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Jacob Fulton.
HALEY FULLER: And I’m Haley Fuller. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported on by Julia Richardson, Waverly Long, Jacob Fulton and myself. This episode was produced by both Jacob Fulton and myself. The audio editor of The Daily is Alex Chun. The digital managing editors are Molly Lubbers and Olivia Yarvis. The editor in chief is Sneha Dey.
Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
Twitter: @jacobnfulton and @haley_fuller
Stories Referenced:
— Marginalized on the Sidelines
— Rainey, Reid lead in charged 8th Ward debate
— Postdoctoral fellow Bart van Alphen dies
— Superintendent Devon Horton talks hybrid learning, racial equity goals
