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People & Profiles

“There’s a certain symmetry between law and history,” says Sam Kleiner ’09, a New York lawyer and author of The Flying Tigers: The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan. As a child, Kleiner had heard stories about World War II from his grandfather, who had been a navigator on a B-25.

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sam kleiner horiz
It’s August 1967. My father is home from a yearlong tour of duty in Vietnam.

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Eva Jefferson new
Get ready to clutch your pearls! Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications graduate Robin Thede’s late-night show, The Rundown with Robin Thede, with its mix of political commentary, black cultural observations and a body roll or two, is quite possibly the stuff Emmys are made of.

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robin thede
Stephen Colbert was hosting a live TV special on Nov. 8, 2016, armed with an arsenal of jokes reflecting what nearly all of America expected — the election of the country’s first female president.

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Northwestern Late Night Trio2

Knight Vision

Spring 2018
Last fall, when costume designer Sanja Manakoski was charged with creating a 21st-century version of Don Quixote’s suit of armor for the Glencoe, Ill.-based Writers Theatre’s production of Quixote: On the Conquest of Self, she turned to the knight errant himself for inspiration. “Our Don Quixote is no regular knight,” explains Manakoski ’17 MFA, who recently earned a master’s degree in stage costume design.

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Don Quixote
He gushed about how he had upgraded to a multi-CD stereo, how he diligently kept track of the mileage per gallon he averaged in a notebook that he stored in his glove compartment. I smiled dreamily.

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box house illo vert
Gerard Meagher clearly remembers one lesson from his time in the advertising program at Northwestern: be distinctive. Meagher continues to apply that advice as the marketing guru at the family-owned Old Town Bar in Manhattan.

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gerard meagher
Northwestern University alumna Maura Sullivan reflects on her 2004 visit to Iwo Jima, site of one of World War II’s bloodiest battles, for a U.S. Marine Corps re-enlistment ceremony atop Mount Suribachi, a tour of the east side of the island and a ceremony with both U.S.

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Maura Sullivan at Ryan Field

Coming Together

Spring 2018
In the early morning of May 3, 1968, approximately 100 African American students entered Northwestern’s business office, chained the doors and posted a sign on the revolving door: “Closed for business ’til racism at NU is ended.” Prepared to occupy the building at 619 Clark St. until the University met their demands, the students wanted an African American studies course, a black student union and other measures meant “to counteract the physical, emotional and spiritual strains we have been subjugated to,” as they had written in a petition to University administrators nearly two weeks earlier. Against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, student activism was spreading on college campuses across the country.

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Mark Vadik ’89, ’04 MA has proved you can balance creative talent with a practical, business-savvy approach to life. After graduating from Northwestern with a degree in performance studies, Vadik became a lawyer and started his own entertainment law firm in Chicago.

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mark vadik on set