TAARIQ AHMED: Last week, Evanston/Skokie School District 65 bought new iPads, the majority of the Northwestern men’s basketball team entered the transfer portal, and NU Director of Athletic Bands Dan Farris plans to retire after leading the Northwestern Marching Band for 26 years. 

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Taariq Ahmed. 

EMERSON LEGER: And I’m Emerson Leger. This is The Weekly, a breakdown of the top headlines from the past week. 

[music]

TAARIQ AHMED: I’m here with Assistant City Editor Allison Kuester to discuss how District 65 parents are reacting to the board’s decision to purchase more than 1,200 iPads for students across all grade levels. Allison, what was the decision, and what was the board’s rationale? 

ALLISON KUESTER: This is a conversation that the board has been having over the past two couple of meetings. They ended up deciding to purchase — I think the exact number was 1,231 iPads — to restart the system of iPads going into the schools. The original thing that was asked by people trying to get these iPads back in was to buy 1,300 iPads. So they brought down the number because a lot of parents and also the board members were concerned about the financial aspect of the purchase. 

TAARIQ AHMED: And what did some of the parents you spoke with think about the decision? 

ALLISON KUESTER: A lot of people are anti the idea of technology being in schools, especially right now, when the district is experiencing such a large deficit. A lot of people are trying to find ways to cut spending, and a lot of people are mad that we are spending in places like the iPads when school closures are also happening at the same time. 

TAARIQ AHMED: And tell me about Screen Sense Evanston and what they have been pushing for.

ALLISON KUESTER: Screen Sense Evanston is an organization of District 65 parents pushing to have iPads and technology taken out of the classrooms, especially for younger students. They have been circulating a petition that calls for a number of measures in restricting the usage of iPads, including maximum screen time limits and the removal of non-educational applications from the iPads. 

TAARIQ AHMED: And so, where does this debate go next, and what should we be watching for? 

ALLISON KUESTER: So this is an ongoing conversation, especially amongst board members who decided that they were going to revisit the conversation in the oncoming years. There are still a lot of parents pushing for kind of that cut on iPads, so it’ll be really interesting to see how the board chooses to move forward with the curriculum changes and if they want to cut iPads from the district overall. 

TAARIQ AHMED: Thank you, Allison, for joining me on The Weekly.

ALLISON KUESTER: Anytime, I love to do it.

[music]

EMERSON LEGER: I’m here with Newsletter Editor Yoni Zacks to discuss the future of men’s basketball as many players enter the transfer portal. Yoni, can you walk listeners through what happened on Monday, April 6, in regards to the men’s basketball team?

YONI ZACKS: Monday, April 6, was just really a chaotic day for NU basketball. Jordan Clayton announced he was transferring. He’s a junior. He announced later that he actually graduated in three years, so he’s transferring as a grad transfer, which is a lot more common, and something that’s been a commonplace for a while in the portal. But then two hours later, Jayden Reid announced that he was going to transfer, and that came as a little bit of a surprise. He started 28 games for the ’Cats. Then Tyler Kropp announced that he was going to transfer, and that really got the chaos going, because Tyler Kropp was someone that Northwestern was going to try and build around in the future. He was one of five freshmen in Chris Collins’ highest ranked recruiting class in the modern era, and now, after the transfer portal with Tre Singleton and Cade Bennerman already transferring, only two of them are left.

EMERSON LEGER: And how might losing a team captain like Clayton impact the team moving forward?

YONI ZACKS: A lot of the captains are older players because they tend to have that experience, and they tend to have that program mentality. Of the now four players left for NU, two of them are going to be juniors, and two of them will be sophomores. They’re also bringing in two freshmen. The six players are going to kind of have to figure out a new leadership structure. Someone that I’m really looking to lead is freshman guard, Jake West. 

West was a consistent starter late in the season last year, and you could really notice his impact off the court, especially in that Purdue game when he didn’t play. It’s going to be a different cast team next year, and we kind of knew that with no Nick Martinelli, but with the sheer quantity of players gone, it’s going to be a lot different. 

EMERSON LEGER: What do you think was the primary factor behind so many players entering the transfer portal in such a short time? 

YONI ZACKS: We’re never really going to know what happened unless the players come out themselves. There were some rumors floating around NU Twitter that it had something to do with (Name, Image, Likeness) money. When you’re a team that wins as few games as NU did in conference play, there’s going to be a lot of changes, both from the coaching side and the player side, and a lot of those were likely going to happen anyway.

Arrinten Page, he was a center. He was someone that I noticed, and a lot of other people noticed, was likely to transfer because he didn’t play as much, same with K.J. Windham. Eight is a lot of players to replace, and it’s going to be a lot of work for Chris Collins in the portal. 

EMERSON LEGER: With only four returning players, what are the biggest challenges that coach Chris Collins faces for the next season? 

YONI ZACKS: Something that NU struggled with a lot last year was finding a true center. Forward Tyler Kropp had to play the center a lot, and that’s not his true position, so he wasn’t very comfortable at times, and that was when Arrinten Page wasn’t playing, and Page had a very up-and-down season, and both of them transferred. Cade Bennerman, who redshirted last season, also transferred. And Nick Martinelli, as a forward, he has graduated, Tre Singleton, forward, he’s transferred. There’s very few big men left on this team. They have one coming in. It’s going to be a team that’s going to be very small if it stays as it is. So Collins needs to do a lot of work to get big men, get forwards, get centers in the portal, get guys who can not only play and score in the paint, but can stand out on defense, and get the ball to players like Jake West, so that they can swing up the court and turn the defense into points. 

EMERSON LEGER: And what is the 2026 to 2027 season looking like for our men’s basketball team?

YONI ZACKS: I don’t think anyone can really tell at this point, because there’s so many players in the portal. There’s over 1,700 players in the NCAA that are in the portal right now, and that’s just from Division I. That’s a lot of players that are gonna be moving around, so unless you’re a true blue blood team like Michigan or Duke or UConn, you don’t really know what your roster is gonna look like next season. 

I think that it’s going to be very different, like I’ve mentioned before, and we’ll have to see how Chris Collins can kind of adapt to a style of basketball where he only really played two of these guys that are returning regular minutes down the stretch last season, those being Angelo Ciaravino and Jake West. 

EMERSON LEGER: Thank you, Yoni, for joining me on The Weekly.

YONI ZACKS: Thank you for having me. 

[music]

TAARIQ AHMED: I’m with Assistant Campus Editor Summer Hu to talk about how Dan Farris, the director of athletic bands at NU, is retiring this June. Summer, can you walk us through his journey to the University?

SUMMER HU: He really got his start in high school his sophomore year when he joined the marching band. And he said that his mentors throughout his career, such as Mike Davis, his high school band director, really inspired him and propelled him into the college marching band space. He ended up at the University of Illinois as a grad student and really got that hands-on experience with conducting. It was there where he told me he caught “the college marching band bug.” And from there, he’s been at NU, at our program, for 26 years.

TAARIQ AHMED: Was there a particular moment or story that he highlighted?

SUMMER HU: One story that really stood out was the 2018 Big Ten Football Championship. Northwestern was facing against (The) Ohio State University, and there was a pep rally that was at the Indiana Convention Center, which is really close by to the stadium where they were playing. And Mr. Farris and the NU marching band were in the middle of it all. Something that really stood out was that when he was at that pep rally and he went to go conduct the Alma Mater, which is a big song, a big source of school spirit. He turned around and, “It was like a cathedral of purple.” And really that excitement is something he says that has drawn him and kept him in this profession for so long. 

TAARIQ: Who will be taking his place? 

SUMMER HU: The Bienen School of Music announced Wednesday that Michael Parker, a doctoral conducting assistant at Michigan State University, would be taking his place. We’ll probably get more details about that in the future, but that’s all we know for now. 

TAARIQ: What have students had to say about Farris? How will he be remembered on campus? 

SUMMER HU: I’ve talked to a few students on the marching band and who have had him as like a mentor and teacher. A big recurring theme is just Farris seems like someone who is just so full of school spirit. He’s so full of love for the University, and he really strives to convey that to the students that he mentors, especially the marching band. One of the sayings that they have is “Pride and Guts.” And in the band they talk about reinforcing that ideal and it means, basically, to always have pride in the University and always to have the guts to continue cheering for the teams no matter what. So, Farris says that you go beyond giving 100% to 110%. Those kinds of values, students have said, have really stuck with them, and he will be missed. 

[music]

TAARIQ AHMED: Thank you for joining me on The Weekly, Summer.

SUMMER HU: Thank you for having me.

EMERSON LEGER: Here are the other top headlines from the week: 

Wisconsin sheriff sues Skokie woman who claimed she was detained by ICE.

Anti-socialist group protests at Arch for third consecutive year.

Reel Thoughts: New ‘Love on the Spectrum’ promises heartwarming moments.

Men’s Basketball: Freshman duo commits to second year at Northwestern.

And Open Tab: New Yolktown barely cracks our egg-spectations.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Emerson Leger.  

TAARIQ AHMED: And I’m Taariq Ahmed. 

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported by Emerson Leger and Taariq Ahmed and produced by Emerson Leger. 

The audio editor is Wallis Rogin. The multimedia managing editors are Ruby Dowling, Izzie Jacob and Matt Wasilewski. The editor in chief is Anavi Prakash.

Follow us on X and Instagram @thedailynu. 

Email: [email protected]  

Email: [email protected]

Related Stories:
— Evanston parents share disappointment in D65’s new iPad purchase

— Men’s Basketball: Former 4-star recruit Tre Singleton plans to enter transfer portal

— ‘Face of our band’: Director of Athletic Bands Dan Farris to retire in June after 26 years