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In this Issue:

- Upcoming CGSA Event
- Upcoming Student Events & Updates
- Chicago Activities: Featuring Black Owned Businesses & Restaurants
- Pet Corner: Meet KitKat
- Celebrating Black History Month: Read with Us!

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Upcoming CGSA Event: Behavioral Interview Practice Workshop

By CGSA Academic & Professional Development Committee

CGSA will be hosting a Behavioral Interview Practice Workshop on Monday, March 28th, 10AM-11AM. Students will have the opportunity to practice answering common behavioral interview questions in a partner-based interactive workshop and receive feedback on their performance. We hope to hold this session in-person on the Chicago NU campus (with refreshments!).

If you are interested in participating:
Please first attend the seminar “How to Prepare for a Behavioral Interview as a PhD Student” that will be held virtually by NCA on March 16th, 12PM CST. This is the last session in the 4-part Winter NCA career series. We also always encourage attendance at the other sessions.
Please RSVP here  so we can plan accordingly! We will send more information about the location closer to the event.

COVID-19 note: We will be monitoring the COVID-19 situation in Chicago and on the Feinberg campus closely and will adjust to a virtual interactive session if the need arises. In held in-person, we may require participants to have a negative antigen test the night before, be fully vaccinated unless they have a health/religious-exception, be symptom-free, and be masked when not actively drinking or eating. Please stay tuned for more updates.

Upcoming Student Events & Updates

By Tanvi Potluri

NU Grad Workers Forum on Northwestern Finances
The NUGW research committee recently completed its annual analysis of university's finances, and will be hosting a virtual forum on Tuesday, February 15th at 6 PM to present the findings and brainstorm ways that the university might better use its money to support workers on campus. The event will be hosted in collaboration with allies from Northwestern's chapter of the AAUP and the recently formed NU Library Workers Union! RSVP here.

Box Migration: Some tips to ease the transition
Learn more about your NUBox migration and access to your files here. You can also contact the IT Service Desk at if you have questions or need assistance. Recorded and upcoming webinars by Microsoft Store Teams can be found here.

Illuminating Blackness: Black History Through Art
The Graduate School Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Black Graduate Student Association invites you to Illuminating Blackness: Black History Through Art for our Black History Month Celebration on Wednesday, February 16th, 5:00–6:30 PM. Webinar Registration.

Tax Workshops for International Students & Scholars
The OISS will offer tax workshops with general tax information for international students and scholars. These workshops will be led by Alejandro Young of Young & Associates Tax and Accounting Services. The virtual workshops will be offered via Zoom. Zoom links will be posted on website. The dates and times are:
Thursday, February 24, 12:00 PM
Tuesday, March 8 , 6:00 PM
Friday, March 25 , 12:00 PM
Wednesday, April 6, 6:00 PM

TGS Virtual Healthcare Panel Discussion
Join The Graduate School for a virtual healthcare panel discussion on Thursday, February 17 from 4:00 PM via Zoom. This is an opportunity for TGS students to ask questions and discuss topics related to University healthcare benefits. This discussion will be moderated by TGS Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion Damon Williams and include the following panelists:
Anne Fish, Executive Director, Benefits
Adam Doyle, Associate Director, Benefits
Garrett Gilmer, Executive Director of CAPS
Luke Figora, Vice President for Operations

Annual Health Equity Week
The McGaw Medical Center is conducting their 2nd Annual Health Equity Week to share insights into the roots of healthcare disparities and facilitate discussions that inform and inspire innovative solutions. Featuring speakers from cardiology, mental health, women's health, pediatrics health equity, the event will take place on April 25- April 29, 2022. Register online.

Northwestern Medical Orchestra Chamber Music Concert 2022
An evening of chamber music played by Northwestern medical students, physicians, staff, and alums on Friday, February 25th, at 7 PM. Link here.

Money On Your Mind: Financial Planning for Grad Students
Join Graduate Women Across Northwestern (GWAN) on Thursday, February 24th, 4 PM for a financial planning seminar tailored specifically for graduate students! It's never too late to start the year with a money-minded attitude or to invest time in planning for your future. RSVP here.

In honor of Black History Month, we wanted to highlight some of our favorite Black-owned businesses in Chicago!

Semicolon Book Store
Chicago’s only Black woman-owned bookstore, which recently moved from River West to a bigger storefront in Wicker Park, is a community space dedicated to both literature and artwork from female, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ creatives. Owner Danielle Mullen and her team work to provide a safe space for customers to relax and release—all while addressing the ongoing challenges of low-literacy skills that are commonly seen in low-income communities of color. In 2021, they decided to take it a step further and create a ‘holiday’ around the necessity of increasing literacy rates in Black communities. They petitioned for it’s existence, got a mayoral proclamation, and they were off! Celebrate National Black Literacy Day with Semicolon on February 14th!

Kiwi’s Boutique

Located near UIC, Kiwi’s carries the latest trends and chic wear complimented with a comfortable, cozy environment, which creates a unique shopping experience. When you enter Kiwi’s Boutique, it feels like you’re walking into a luxurious closet with endless styling options for professional and outerwear! The prices here are very reasonable too!

Bettye O Day Spa
Offering everything from massages to facials to manicure/pedicures, Bettye O Day Spa specializes in first-class treatments that heal and relax guests with a variety of innovative therapeutic techniques. Check out their website to book an appointment and treat yourself at their downtown Hyde Park location today!

Forty Acres Fresh Market
Back in 2018, Liz Abunaw founded Forty Acres Fresh Market with the goal to provide high-quality produce to Chicago’s West Side food deserts. The organization tackles food insecurity by providing pop-up markets and delivery in underserved communities. Visitors can shop farm-fresh fruits and vegetables on-site or sign up for a subscription box for as little as $10 a month. Abunaw is now turning her attention to setting down roots, with a brick-and-mortar retail space to come in the Austin neighborhood.

Urban Grower’s Collective
Urban Growers Collective is a Black- and women-led non-profit farm in Chicago, Illinois working to build a more just and equitable local food system. They aim to address the inequities and structural racism that exist in the food system and in communities of color. Their produce is available at farmers’ markets, in our Collective Supported Agriculture program, and at the Fresh Moves Mobile Market.

Kilwin’s
African American owned and operated, Kilwins in Hyde Park is the destination for those who want to treat themselves with high-quality confections. They handcraft their chocolate treats, waffle cones, corns and brittles, fudge, and delicious homemade caramel in-store for customers to see. Also, they have a selection of delectable ice cream flavors! Located in the University of Chicago campus, Kilwins provides a very friendly and diversified environment. You may also find them on online delivery through GrubHub, UberEats, and DoorDash!

Chicago Black Restaurant Week
Now in its sixth year, Chicago Black Restaurant Week is a delicious celebration of Black-owned food and beverage businesses in and around Chicago. Founded in 2015 by Lauran Smith, the mission of CBRW is to increase the visibility of Black-owned businesses that haven’t always gotten time in the spotlight. To drum up even more support in 2021, Chicago Black Restaurant Week has been extended to two weeks (February 7–21) with over 60 restaurants participating. Smith’s mission doesn’t stop once the event is over: She recently launched a virtual Kwanzaa Krawl in December to further bolster support for Black-owned eateries.

The Field Museum
The Field Museum is celebrating this month with online events about African American's contributions to science. Learn more about their programming here!

Pet Corner: Meet Kit Kat
By Sara Radecki

Hi, I’m Kit Kat! I just turned 8 (Happy Birthday To Me!) 
I love sleeping and napping with my mom Wendy, as well as hanging out with my mom’s girl friends when they come over to visit. My favorite hobbies are watching birds, eating Turkey and playing with my mouse toys. I have a lot to say, so I’m always meowing. I’m very photogenic so I enjoy posing for pictures in between my cat naps!

Want to feature your pet in our newsletter and share your joy with other graduate students? Just fill out this form!

Celebrating Black History Month: Read with Us!

By Carla Patricia Reyes Flores

February has been popularly known as the month to celebrate the many shapes and forms love has. Beyond this and most importantly, February also marks Black History Month – a month where we hold an observance to recognize, honor, celebrate and remember the contributions, achievements, and on-going history of the United States’ black population. In 1915, historian Carter G. Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A couple of years later, in 1926, the group proclaimed the second week of February as “Negro History Week”. The week was chosen due to it including the birthday of both the abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. It was not until 1976 that U.S. president Gerald Ford decided to extend this week-long event to a month-long observance officially named Black History Month.

African Americans have played an essential role in the establishment and betterment of our society and the nation, while daily contributing to its on-going transformation. They have had long lasting and essential impacts in many aspects of our society, including the scientific field. Starting with Dr. Daniel Hale William, a Northwestern alumni who became the first person to successfully perform the first open heart surgery in the United States and also founded the first black-owned hospital in the United States – Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses. Followed by Dr. Patricia Bath, whose research on cataracts led to the invention of the laserphaco probe, a worldwide used device to remove cataracts. Joined by Dr. Alice Augusta Ball, who developed a successful treatment for leprosy and Gladys West, a key contributor for the development of the GPS technology. Finally, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cancer cells became the first immortalized human cell line, and one of the most important and widely use cell line in biomedical research – HeLa cells. Her cells were taken without her knowledge and consent, which initiated legal and ethical debates over the rights people have over their genetic material. These are just some examples of the quasi-infinite list of African Americans who crucially contributed to contemporary society but are unnoted and still impacted by the Eurocentric cultural focus of our society.

If you want to learn more about the contributions of African Americans history, here are some books to add to your reading list:

• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and The Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped With the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
• Making Black Scientists: A Call to Action by Marybeth Gasman and Nguyen Thai-Huy
• Black man in a White Coat : A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy
• The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones