Cover Story
Making The Scene
Meet Joanna Bush ’99, the Hollywood concept artist behind several Oscar-winning films.
Spring 2023
Features
As President Michael Schill wrapped up his first few months in office, Northwestern Magazine talked with him about higher education’s role in creating a compassionate community, his favorite books and what he values most in his human — and canine — companions.
Voices
Literature can help us make sense of life’s biggest questions. And no one did that better than the great Russian novelists, says professor Gary Saul Morson.
Members of the Northwestern community share the works of art — from classic American theater to a hit rock song — that have changed their outlook on life.
In May 2022 Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History renovated its outdated Native North America exhibit hall and opened Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories, a permanent exhibition. Doug Kiel, assistant professor of history at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a citizen of the Oneida Nation, served on the Native American advisory committee that spent 4 ½ years setting the agenda for the renovation and bringing it to life.
Discovery
Based on decades of research, professor Viorica Marian shares remarkable benefits of knowing more than one language, from delaying Alzheimer’s disease to improving cognitive performance. Marian’s 2023 book, The Power of Language, will be translated from English to 10 other languages.
News
Undergraduate students participated in the first Farley Bay Area Quarter, a new program offered by Northwestern’s Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation that provides classes in tech ethics, product management and venture fundraising, as well as an experiential seminar that includes externships at a range of tech companies.
Northwestern students find their groove by embracing regional moves from across the globe.
Softball stars Danielle Williams, Jordyn Rudd, Skyler Shellmyer, Maeve Nelson and Nikki Cuchran return to lead Wildcats’ bid for another trip to the Women’s College World Series.
Looking for a place to pitch a story about Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters in December 2020, journalism student Dan Hu discovered The Yappie, a digital news publication focused on activism and policies affecting the AAPI community. Soon after that initial pitch, Hu joined The Yappie as a writer and is now its executive director.
Now in its 50th year, the Norris Mini Courses program offers noncredit courses such as sewing, photography, and American Sign Language. These fun courses are open to both Northwestern students and the general public alike.
Alumni
Annie Krall became co-president of the Northwestern Club of Chicago in 2021. A third-generation Wildcat, Krall shares what she loves about her Northwestern bonds.
As members of the Northwestern University Black Alumni Association (NUBAA) mingled at the Black House during Homecoming and Reunion Weekend in 2022, Charla Wilson hoped the alumni would find some familiar faces in her photo display of Black student life at the University. Wilson, who is Northwestern’s archivist for the Black experience, had recently launched a crowdsourcing campaign called “I know them!” to learn more about 1,400 images from the past six that depict Black student life on campus.
My Northwestern Direction
Danielle Cadet wasn’t supposed to go to Northwestern, and she wasn’t supposed to become a journalist. But Cadet ’10, ’11 MS followed her own path, and now, as executive editor and and vice president of content at Essence, she’s on a mission to tell the full breadth of Black stories.
Impact
What does it mean to leave a legacy? For Rosemary Bruzek Schnell ’54, it meant creating ways for Northwestern researchers to push the frontiers of science and technology, and for businessman Stan Gradowski ’60, ’62 MBA, it meant investing in programs across the University to benefit future students and faculty.
Northwestern alumni and friends who want to make a lasting impact on students for years to come direct their philanthropy toward endowed scholarships.
An anonymous gift will honor an educator who was also the star of an award-winning TV series.
As a dentist and an educator, Juliann Bluitt Foster blazed a trail. First, she earned a degree from Howard University College of Dentistry in 1962, when a tiny fraction of U.S.
People
Using fresh produce and pantry staples, Harley Langberg ’10 recreates beloved Disney characters and more.
After a decade researching the role of liver health, Justin Kim ’15 and his brother, Ray, launched The Plug Drink, an herbal beverage backed by athletes and celebrities.
Released this spring, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life provides the most complete account to date of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, his relationships, his brilliantly strategic mind and his flaws. Eig’s biography draws on hundreds of interviews with King’s family, close friends and others who knew him; thousands of FBI documents that have been declassified in recent years — White House phone recordings, personal letters, unaired TV footage; and other previously unpublished materials.
Growing up in the Bay Area, Nicholas Koo ’18 MMus, ’22 DMA sang in choirs and played guitar, clarinet, saxophone and piano, but he studied molecular cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, with the goal of becoming a doctor. But after seeing the university’s orchestra perform during his senior year, he decided to reignite a lifelong passion and enrolled for a fifth year to pursue what he’d wanted to do all along.
On her final day at WBZ-TV in Boston in July 1965, reporter Joanne Desmond ’58 heard that the old news reels were going to be destroyed, so she asked her news director if she could take a roll of film from her reporting on the Boston Strangler. Her news director obliged, and that film clip was restored and featured in Hulu’s 2023 film Boston Strangler, which stars Keira Knightley as Desmond’s real-life news counterpart Loretta McLaughlin.
During a freezing winter quarter in 1988, most of Jarrett Kerbel’s Northwestern peers likely dreamed of spending spring break on sunny beaches. But Kerbel made plans to visit Holy Cross Monastery, an Anglican Benedictine community in West Park, N.Y., and he has devoted his life to the Christian faith ever since.
Pulitzer Prize–finalist playwright discusses his Evanston-inspired off-Broadway play and what it’s like to write for the hit HBO show ‘Succession.’
Bicycle sales in the U.S. skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers avoided public transit and indoor gyms. Cycling, however, can be risky in urban settings.
After years of study and training — including four years in Northwestern’s celebrated theater program — Mark Hoebee finally danced on the Great White Way, appearing in a production of Jerome Robbins’ Broadway. After “about 10 Broadway shows and national tours, he enjoyed a successful career as a choreographer and director of musicals before joining the Tony Award–winning Paper Mill Playhouse, where he is producing artistic director.
