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Social Issues

A Safe Haven

Winter 2022
In 1983 Nedda Jefferson Simon opened Freedom House, a walk-in domestic and sexual violence shelter in Wyanet, Ill., a village two hours west of Chicago. Serving more than 30,000 survivors to date, the shelter has moved three times to expand its services.

Read about Nedda Jefferson Simon

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What are the reasons people choose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and what are parents’ top concerns about vaccinating their children? Since its inception in March 2020, the COVID States Project has answered these questions and more, surveying adults across all 50 states and making that data freely available on the project’s website.

Read the story

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Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Michael Paul Williams pushed Richmond to topple its Confederate statues.

Get to know the Richmond Times-Dispatch writer

Michael Paul Williams
Gabriel Neely-Streit ’16 is co-owner of Colores Mexicanos, an importer of handmade art, clothing and accessories from Indigenous communities across Mexico. By working directly with dozens of artisans and artisan cooperatives across 11 Mexican states, Colores Mexicanos aims to help preserve the cultural diversity of Mexico, which is home to more than 60 living Indigenous languages and a wide variety of folk art.

Learn about the business

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Northwestern President and Professor Morton Schapiro marks the conclusion of a historic fundraising campaign with celebration and appreciation for the University community.

Learn more about We Will

Morty President Letter
As the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications celebrates its centennial, Charles Whitaker is incredibly bullish about the future of media and the school’s role in shaping that future.

Read more from Charles Whitaker

Charles Whitaker Hero
Institute for Policy Research Director and professor Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach reflects on her Northwestern direction — and the value of interdisciplinary research.

Read more from Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

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Communication studies senior Anna Lise Ericson founded Cerer, an e-commerce platform that offers women’s clothing and accessories from brands committed to ethical and eco-minded practices.

Learn about the platform

Cerer Hero
Blip energy CEO Sophia Wennstedt, a second-year student in the University’s MBA and design innovation dual-degree program, and her team of Northwestern entrepreneurs created blipOne, a device that allows users to store electricity when it is cheap and discharge power when it is expensive. Launched through the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation’s NUvention: Energy course, blip energy is working with an engineering services firm to build a mass-manufacturable prototype of blipOne before launching a preorder initiative.

See how the device works

Blip Hero
We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern, which was publicly announced in 2014, set out to amplify the University’s local and global impact and to elevate its status as a leading teaching and research institution.

Celebrate the campaign

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