The Associated Student Government Senate unanimously passed legislation on underground campus tunnels for students Wednesday night. “Underground Tunnels?!??!,” a piece of legislation sponsored by Weinberg Senator and newly-appointed Chief of Staff Stephanie Shields, calls on Northwestern to investigate the potential use of existing campus tunnels for undergraduates. NU currently has an underground steam tunnel from.
Noam Chomsky, a founder of modern linguistics, spoke about the pandemic, labor rights and pressing political issues in a Thursday webinar co-hosted by Northwestern Political Union.
The event, arranged with political unions at Fordham University, the University of Chicago and Columbia University, drew about 600 attendees. Chomsky, one of the most cited scholars in modern history, identified a number of threats to society that he deemed existential: climate change, the increasing threat of nuclear war, pandemics and neoliberalism.
“There are urgent problems that cannot be overlooked,” Chomsky said. “Like it or not, your generation has to decide whether or not organized human society is going to persist.”
In its first Wednesday session of Spring Quarter, Associated Student Government elected Weinberg freshman Dylan Jost as speaker of the Senate and SESP freshman Leah Ryzenman as parliamentarian.
Jost won an uncontested race, replacing Weinberg sophomore Zack Lori. In his speech, Jost said he campaigned for the role because of how important ASG’s work is in making students’ voices heard. He added that he wanted to build a better sense of community among ASG senators.
“(The) community aspect where people feel encouraged to speak up can sometimes be lacking,” Jost said. “It’s definitely contributed to by the virtual aspect, but I feel like there’s also improvements to be made.”