For the past year, graduate students have met with University administrators to demand Northwestern prioritize students with marginalized identities. The administration has largely responded with hesitancy, according to some students.
Sarah Peko-Spicer, an organizer of CoalitionNU and Ph.D. candidate, said the collective has demanded inclusive healthcare, increased funding for affinity spaces and other support systems after a year of pandemic mobilization and appeals to the University.
“I personally am rethinking if this is an effective pathway to be working down,” she said. “Are we just wasting everyone’s time sitting in these meetings?”
Still, Peko-Spicer said she hopes a projected return to campus may rejuvenate organizers after a difficult year where the graduate students’ academic and life responsibilities were exacerbated, particularly for caregiving students and those of marginalized identities.
After several months of continuous pressure on Northwestern administration to abolish University Police and divest from policing and other militarized entities, NUCNC is continuing their work into the new quarter.
Since their campaign of more than 30 days of consecutive actions, the group has not held any mass protests or demonstrations, but they continue to pressure the University and practice mutual aid a core tenet of prison-industrial complex abolition.
Gonring stationed outside Foster Walker Complex on Sunday, collecting donated winter gear to distribute. (Binah Schatsky/The Daily Northwestern)
“Prisons are the biggest social service we have,” NUCNC member Eliza Gonring said. “So poor people, homeless people, Black people are just getting funneled into prisons and if we want that to stop, if we don’t want people to get preyed upon, we’re going to need to start supporting people.”
Student group NUCNC meets publicly with central administration to address unmet demands and District 219 community members demand reforms to address racism. The Weekly: Week One Recap breaks down The Daily’s top headlines with the reporters and editors who covered those stories.
ALEX CHUN: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Alex Chun.
JORDAN MANGI: And I’m Jordan Mangi. This is The Weekly: a podcast that breaks down our top headlines each week.
ALEX CHUN: Here’s what’s been happening in the headlines. On campus, Northwestern has opened more dorms and on-campus housing this winter quarter.
JORDAN MANGI: With the return of most freshmen and sophomores, the University has also announced that Compass group is rehiring 97 percent of workers laid off last spring.
In their first public interaction with University President Morton Schapiro and other members of the central administration, NU Community Not Cops organizers expressed their disapproval of the University’s response to police abolition demands on Tuesday.
Five members of NUCNC met with Schapiro, Provost Kathleen Hagerty, Vice President of Student Affairs Julie Payne-Kirchmeier, Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Craig Johnson and Community Safety Advisory Board chair Clyde Yancy. The students steered the meeting, asking administration to respond to a series of questions, including several prompts they said they sent to administration in advance.
“We understand that you would like for this meeting to be a dialogue,” organizer Liz Curtis said. “However we would like for all of you to understand that you lost that privilege months ago. You had ample time to reach out to us since we sent our petition letter to you 223 days ago. None of you have done so.”