Dear incoming PARC residents,
Welcome to your new home at Northwestern University! As the Faculty Chair of the Public Affairs Residential College at NMQ, we are excited for your arrival and look forward to meeting you in person soon! It goes without saying Northwestern has amazing students. What PARC offers is a cozy residential environment with many of our residents coming from across the US and the globe with broad interests ranging from communications to engineering to psychology. Our personal backgrounds academically are Religious Studies and Communication Studies.
PARC/NMQ has so much to offer including weekly munchies, cultural excursions, game/trivia nights, philanthropic events, and fireside chats with esteemed faculty members. We are fortunate to have several faculty members who serve as PARC Fellows, participating in the intellectual and social life of our residential college. Faculty Fellows give you the unique opportunity to get one-on-one time outside of the classroom through a bus trip to a play in Chicago, dining hall discussions on the news of the day, or just a sympathetic ear for complaining about midterms!
Our hope is that your time at PARC/NMQ will be filled with opportunities to learn about others—and yourselves—while at home in a residential college just moments from Lake Michigan and downtown Evanston. On behalf of all our returning students, Faculty Fellows, and College Staff, please accept our warm wishes for a great year ahead!
J. Michelle Molina, Interim Faculty Chair
Fall Quarter 2024
Aaron Shaw, Interim Faculty Chair
Winter/Spring Quarters 2025
Hi friends!
Congrats on getting into NU! You deserve to be here. I’m Evan Weitzman, president of PARC (The Public Affairs Residential College) at Northwestern. We’re one of 10 residential colleges on campus (more on that later), housed in a building known as North Mid-Quads (NMQ) in the Southwest residential area of campus. NMQ has a prime location (just minutes away from 2 dining halls, the arch, and of course, AMC Evanston), great vibes, and really nice amenities. NU alum Megan Markle herself actually lived in NMQ, proving that we’re good enough for a princess.
PARC, like most other res colleges, has a theme. Ours is public affairs. What this means for us, is we occasionally like to incorporate media, communication, and public outreach into our activities. That being said, if public affairs isn’t really your thing, you’ll fit in just fine. Most of our events are just activities and experiences aimed at fostering the dorm-life community that likely inspired you to apply to live in a res college. Events include weekly munchies, frequent programs with our fellows, and our annual PARCarnival!
To talk about myself a little, I’m a rising sophomore studying integrated science, biology, and Jewish studies on the pre-med track (although all of that is subject to change by the time you meet me). My passions include Taylor Swift, Wildcat Deli, botany, and (not-so-carefully) curating photo dumps on my instagram (@evantheeweitz). If I’m not grinding away you can find me writing an article for Flipside, goofing around at the ISP House (I’d love to give y’all a tour), or pretending to be in RTVF. You’ll get to meet me and the rest of our exec during Wildcat Welcome, but in the meantime don’t be afraid to reach out to me at 248-804-3970. I try to keep an open phone policy, so reach out to me (or your PA) with any questions or concerns as you make this big transition.
Here’s some insight on the rest of our board:
Vice President Sarah Carlson – You’ll hear more from her later so I’ll spare you the details but she’s a real one for sure.
Treasurer Isaiah Tatum – Easily the most important member of our team and King of Paperwork. He’s a journalism/poli sci major who makes sure the big plans the rest of the board dreams up are actually possible. He’s a cinephile who LOVES an early breakfast at Plex or Shakesmart, who often writes for the Daily Northwestern.
Social Chairs Sophia Zhang & Rose Bicas-Dolgen – Our social team keeps our community engaged, active, and well-fed! Rose is fluently trilingual and a big star on and off the stage, studying Theatre and Environmental Policy & Culture. Sophia is a Medill student with a second major in psych. She’s an Evanston cafe fanatic and an excellent writer-dancer, who got to meet Japanese Breakfast after winning the One Book One Northwestern essay contest this past year!
Academic Chairs Maddy Goldman & Mandy Bu – These two are our point of contact with PARC’s most valuable resource, our fellows. A group of enthusiastic professors and community members who offer their time, wisdom, and charm wherever they can. Maddy is a killer dancer in Graffiti studying poli-sci, history, and Spanish, and Mandy is a pre-med baddie with a passion for studying biology and also happens to be Sophia’s roommate!
Communication Chair Jasmin Behnam – She really puts Public Affairs in PARC. She’s responsible for running our lovely instagram (@northwestern_parc – check out my takeover) and keeping us connected amongst ourselves through our regular newsletter and with the community through social media. She’s the third pre-med, bio major member of our team and is also our third dancer as a drummer/dancer in Boomshaka. She’s taking Orgo 2 this fall quarter so wish her luck and treat her with kindness.
Assistant Chair Olabanke Goriola – Is our assistant chair, and one of the most beloved members of PARC. She’s a PHD student studying performance studies who helps advise us on all of our matters. She’s there to sign all of our receipts, submit monthly reports to RCB, and just be another friendly face for our residents to turn to. While she does not live in NMQ, she does hold weekly office hours and works very closely with us to help us carry out our duties.
Other cool people in our community include our non-res members, who pay a small fee to belong to PARC despite not living in NMQ, and Cindy Xue, a former non-res member who will be serving as the President of the Southwest Area Council this year. She’s not technically a member of our exec team, but she’s a very important part of our community and will be happily residing in NMQ this upcoming year.
That’s it for me! I am soooooooooo excited to meet you guys in the fall. We’re gonna have a great year (I can just feel it).
Hi Everyone!
My name is Sarah, and I am the Vice President of PARC. I am a rising sophomore at Northwestern, and I am majoring in Political Science and Economics, on the pre-law track. I am originally from Chicago, so if you ever need any fun recommendations for things to do or places to eat, feel free to reach out. Outside of school, I work as a middle school volleyball coach at my old club. I also love listening to music and doing fun things outside like hiking or going to the beach. My roommate is actually Maddy, one of our academic chairs!
As many of you probably know from the housing application process, PARC is a residential college. As a residential college, we are much more community oriented than a typical dorm. With this being said, throughout the year there will be numerous opportunities for you to get to know everyone living in the dorm and participate in fun activities. Some of the activities that we had this year included munchies (essentially free food and chatting), cross college trips to fun areas near Evanston or Chicago, ping pong tournaments, game nights, etc. These activities are also important to go to if you are looking to receive “Housing Points.” For each dorm event that you attend, you will receive 1-2 Housing Points. If you decide to live at North Mid Quads again for your sophomore year, the number of points you have will determine your spot in line for room selection. We also work with fellows who are professors who are currently teaching at Northwestern that are specifically designated to our specific college. As a member of PARC, you’ll have multiple opportunities to connect with these professors. You can join faculty lunches in the dining hall for informal conversations, or participate in FaculTEAS, special events on designated days that include complimentary snacks or activities with the faculty, hosted right in the dorm. Because PARC is a res college, we also work directly with the Residential College Board (RCB). This board hosts the bigger events that you will have an opportunity to participate in, such as RCB Formal and RCB Field Day. These are two very fun activities that I highly recommend going to! Evan is our representative to the RCB, who meets weekly to share ideas and updates between the colleges and RCB exec.
Upon move in date, all freshmen will participate in Wildcat Welcome. While you will get more information about this from your Peer Advisor (PA), I will give you a brief overview of what to expect. You will be assigned a group (if you haven’t already) and 1-2 PA(s) that will lead your group for WW and beyond. PAs, like the rest of exec, will be available to answer questions and concerns about anything Northwestern related. During this week, you will also be engaging in many fun activities such as First Night Northwestern, running across Ryan Field, club fairs, Norris at Night, etc. Wildcat Welcome is one of my fondest memories at Northwestern and I encourage all of you to really try to make the most of it!
I am super excited to meet all of you and I hope this was helpful. Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions; My email is sarahcarlson2027@u.northwestern.edu. Also please check out PARC’s instagram and website for more info about our dorm and upcoming and past activities.