As the first week of the Medill cherub program came to a close, cherubs clicked through slideshows about themselves and their instructors as slides projected onto a wall. The Great Room lit up with laughs as cherubs got a chance to learn more about one another.
Niche Presentation Night marked the first Mandatory Fun, in which cherubs get a required break from their work to grow closer together.
The night included both lighthearted and intense presentations. Some cherubs took the wholesome route and did such presentations as matching cherub instructors to different topics.
Nate Seibert of Long Island, New York, wanted his fellow cherubs to know about everything he despises, such as people saying he looks like actor Noah Schnapp.
“I felt like it would be a good way for the cherubs to get to know me by telling them what exactly makes me mad, so that they would know to try to tread lightly around me,” Seibert said. “It was important for people to understand that even if I portray a loving exterior, I still get mad about stuff. If Nate gets mad, you can be mad too.”
Ryder Bingaman of Evanston and his friends wanted to teach cherubs about their favorite Norwegian soccer player, Erling Haaland. They dedicated their presentation to highlighting what makes him special.
“There’s a tradition that the Norwegians do called the viking row,” Bingaman said, “so we got everybody to do it.”
Alexander Ngo of Davie, Florida, wanted to showcase the various wildlife on campus, including a warning to his peers about some of their violent tendencies.
“I was walking down the path by the Lakefill and I felt something nip my head, and I saw this red-winged blackbird,” Ngo said. “I showed it on the slideshow and I cursed at it. I invited cherubs to cheer whenever I switched slides. I just thought that was a funny thing to ask.”
Liam McCall of Reno, Nevada and his friends were inspired by seeing people on Instagram make long sandwiches, and they decided to bring that over to Niche Presentation Night.
“We went to Target and bought two baguettes, prosciutto and cheese and we wanted to break the world record for the longest sandwich ever made in Evanston,” McCall said. “I was wearing cargo pants, so I very dramatically pulled the meat and cheese out of my pockets in order to create comedy.”
While some cherubs made presentations about their interests, Amalia Rosen of Highland Park, Illinois and her friends wanted to investigate the lives of the four Northwestern Medill undergraduates who help run the program, known as community and academic associates.
“We thought the perfect thing to do was doxing the CAAs,” Rosen said. “None of the things we found were negative at all. We tried to convince everyone that it was just a history of investigative journalism presentation at first. And then we put our sunglasses down, and the crowd went wild.”
CAA Taariq Ahmed said it was amusing to see what Rosen and her friends were able to find.
“It was really funny to see how they framed a lot of the things that we post online, or that’s available about us on the internet,” Ahmed said. “We all keep very clean online presences, so it wasn’t too surprising to see Instagram photos of myself and LinkedIn posts.”
Ahmed said the event offered “a window into each cherub’s world” as cherubs bonded over the wacky presentations that consumed the night.
“The night made everyone feel like a closer community by laughing together,” Rosen said.
