Why did students protest at The Arch Friday morning? What will happen following Evanston City Council’s vote to pass the “Envision Evanston” comprehensive plan? How did Northwestern dining halls respond to norovirus outbreaks on campus? The Daily answers these questions and recaps other top stories from the last week.
RUBY DOWLING: On today’s episode: Students protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence in Evanston, City Council passes Envision Evanston and Northwestern dining halls implement precautionary protocol following norovirus outbreaks on campus.
From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Ruby Dowling. This is The Weekly, a breakdown of the top headlines from the past week.
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RUBY DOWLING: First, I spoke with Daily Reporter Summer Hu about the “ICE OUT” protest Northwestern students held at The Arch on Friday morning from around 9 a.m. until noon.
Thanks for being here, Summer. “ICE OUT” was part of a larger nationwide strike protesting the presence of ICE in communities across the country. What can you tell us about the national shutdown and how it overlapped with the protests on Friday?
SUMMER HU: Yeah, so many protesters, as you mentioned, came out to protest ICE due to their actions in Minneapolis and other places. But this protest in particular was targeted towards defunding ICE through a national strike.
So this meant students or protesters economically protested by not using social media and not buying certain products from companies that supported the Trump administration and ICE. So by protesting, they were also striking and controlling their own actions in order to protest against ICE.
RUBY DOWLING: How did the protest on Northwestern’s campus come together, given that it was part of a larger movement originally organized on social media?
SUMMER HU: The Northwestern protest in particular was organized by — and awareness of it was spread by — the Instagram account @startswiththis, and so that’s how many people started to gain awareness that this was gonna happen. Many people started reposting that on their story — the original post — it basically just called for people to come out to the Arch at 9 a.m. on Friday to protest against ICE, and many did come out.
RUBY DOWLING: Friday in Evanston saw freezing temperatures, including snowfall during the protest. Can you describe the turnout despite the weather?
SUMMER HU: I would say there was a lot of turnout considering the temperatures. Like, I myself was freezing out there, but the protesters were definitely very enthusiastic.
There was a lot of energy, a lot of noise, and, when I talked to protesters, many said that the cold didn’t really bother them and that they were happy to be there to support their community.
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RUBY DOWLING: Summer, thanks for being here to talk about the protests.
SUMMER: Yes, thank you so much for having me.
RUBY DOWLING: Next, I spoke to Daily Reporter and Development and Recruitment Editor Sophie Baker about Evanston City Council’s decision to pass a comprehensive plan for the city. City Council voted 5-4 on Monday, January 26, to approve Envision Evanston after two years of debate.
Sophie, thanks for being here with me today for The Weekly.
SOPHIE BAKER: Thanks for having me.
RUBY DOWLING: Can you tell us what exactly a comprehensive plan is, and how this one in particular will affect Evanston residents?
SOPHIE BAKER: So, Evanston hasn’t had a comprehensive plan since 2000, and this comprehensive plan would basically lay out the future development prospects for the city up until 2045, so it’s planning out transit and housing and other development goals up until that point.
This is basically just a vision document for the city’s future. People are not going to see changes immediately. The zoning ordinance, or the zoning overhaul, which they will turn to next, will kind of be the enforcement mechanism for some of the ideas in the plan. So residents won’t really see concrete changes until actual zoning changes are implemented, which could be a long time.
RUBY DOWLING: Could you give us a quick review of Envision Evanston’s road to approval, from its introduction back in 2024 up until the present day?
SOPHIE BAKER: It was initially launched in February of 2024 when the mayor and city officials basically held an event in which they said, we want to make this comprehensive plan and pass these corresponding zoning measures to address key issues around housing in the city, and residents then were kind of able to give a little bit of feedback through like this process where they would stick Post-it notes to, like, initiatives that they were kind of in support of.
Over the course of the next year, it kind of progressed into this thing where residents believed that they weren’t given enough opportunities for feedback, and they kind of accused the mayor of pushing through this in order to kind of further his own political initiatives.
So, by January 2025, the comprehensive plan was split from the associating rezoning measures, which basically meant that the city was going to first start with the comprehensive plan before turning to zoning once they passed the plan.
So for a while after that, the comprehensive plan was stuck in the Land Use Commission where they kind of debated specific wording around housing. A lot of that was about whether they wanted to include this measure that basically said they wanted to increase the housing stock in many different neighborhoods throughout Evanston. They kind of wanted to narrow the focus around that, to tie that to more specific neighborhoods and corridors of development.
After it passed Land Use, it was stuck in City Council all summer. Councilmembers kind of debated specific wording choices throughout the plan and pushed back a recommendation several times. Eventually, they decided that they were going to adopt the plan, and that happened last week.
RUBY DOWLING: At the January 26th council meeting, what was community turnout like, and were most community members present in support of or opposed to the proposition?
SOPHIE BAKER: Yeah, so there were around 40 people that came and spoke in public comment at the meeting. I would say they were kind of split between opposition to the plan and support of it. There are people that have been there regularly in opposition to the plan, and they came out in full force to express their concern and lingering concern with the plan.
There was a group of, I think around maybe a dozen people that came up to the mic at one time to kind of show their support for the plan, and they all, I think, are part of some housing advocacy group in Evanston.
RUBY DOWLING: As you mentioned, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss has been a strong proponent of Envision Evanston since back in 2024, and this position has been met with some criticism. Why are some residents skeptical of his support for the comprehensive plan?
SOPHIE BAKER: Daniel Biss has made it pretty clear that he has larger political motives outside of Evanston. He’s running for Congress in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District right now, and he was kind of trying to pass the plan before the April consolidated municipal elections of last year.
He was kind of running for reelection as mayor, and there was a large contingent of opposition to him led by the mayoral challenger Jeff Boarini, who was basing his opposition to Biss off of his belief that Biss was pushing through the comprehensive plan and kind of decreasing transparency in city operations as a whole. So, that kind of contingent has basically said that Biss is using the comprehensive plan to advance his own political interests.
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RUBY DOWLING: Awesome. Sophie, thanks for taking the time to speak to me today.
SOPHIE BAKER: Yeah, thank you for having me.
RUBY DOWLING: Finally, I talked to Daily reporter and Assistant Campus Editor Lucas Kubovchik about precautionary measures taken by Northwestern’s dining halls to slow the spread of norovirus, a contagious virus known for explosive winter outbreaks.
RUBY DOWLING: Hi, Lucas, thanks for being here today for The Weekly.
LUCAS KUBOVCHIK: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
RUBY DOWLING: Lucas, to start off, what do we know about the spread of norovirus on campus this winter?
LUCAS KUBOVCHIK: From the sources that I’ve talked to, the spread has resulted in some pretty severe student illnesses and instances where students are vomiting in hallways or just otherwise being pretty much bed bound for, you know, an extended period of time, which is why a lot of the precautions taken by both students and dining halls have been, you know, very much expected just because of the impact that this disease has had on campus.
RUBY DOWLING: Why are dining halls in particular potential hotspots for the spread of the illness?
LUCAS KUBOVCHIK: I mean, you got food, you’ve got a ton of people in close quarters, and imagine if a student who had the virus were to serve themselves some food and then the next student uses that same — what are those clipper things called, like the…
RUBY DOWLING: tongs?
LUCAS KUBOVCHIK: Yes, yeah, another student uses those same tongs, and then, you know, like, eats a grape or whatever. And you know how contagious the norovirus is. So it can be something as simple as that, which is why the dining halls tried to limit the spread by taking control of who was serving students.
RUBY DOWLING: Dining hall operations are now back to standard protocol, but what changes did students see while the norovirus precautions were in place?
LUCAS KUBOVCHIK: Yeah, so, in the dining hall, if a student were to enter and get some food, they would basically, like point to which food they wanted, and they would be handed a plate with, you know, select food on it. And there were some students who I talked to that saw this as a very positive change. In fact, all of them did.
Everyone could appreciate how this mitigated the spread of norovirus, but there were a few drawbacks to this new change in that some students were unhappy with the portion size, be it too big or too small, and, you know, those are just the sort of things that come with a lack of autonomy when being able to serve yourself. But the general consensus was that this change was very much needed given the severity of the norovirus
RUBY DOWLING: In your reporting, you found that some staff members noticed a few changes as the dining halls returned to normal operations. What can you tell us about that?
LUCAS KUBOVCHIK: Yeah, so I was able to talk to an Allison staff member, Ms. Mary, who actually told me that this change had brought some students out of their shells. There were several students, who I’ve even just seen in going to the dining hall myself, feel more comfortable talking to staff members and making conversation, even if it’s just small talk. Because as a part of this new procedure, there’s a lot more, you know, verbal exchange that has to take place. And so when I talked to Ms. Mary, she told me a story about how there were a few students that came in, and when she was serving them, they told her how grateful they were for her greetings and kindness, and that’s something that likely wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for this change.
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RUBY DOWLING: Well, thanks for coming and talking on The Weekly about the norovirus.
LUCAS KUBOVCHIK: Yeah, thank you for having me.
RUBY DOWLING: Here are the other top headlines from the week:
Released text records show Northwestern trustee criticizing faculty over 2024 encampment
The Dolphin Show’s ‘Footloose’ production spotlights dancing and vocal talents
and
Six-time Ironman Taeyoung Lee talks breaking Guinness World Record
From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Ruby Dowling.
Thank you for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported by Ruby Dowling, Sophie Baker, Summer Hu and Lucas Kubovchik and produced by Ruby Dowling.
The Audio Editor is Ruby Dowling. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Femi Horrall, Yong-Yu Huang and Jonah McClure.The Editor in Chief is Emily Lichty.
Our theme music is “Night Owl” by Broke for Free, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License and provided by the Free Music Archive.
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