

Tuesday will be the first day of classes for Northwestern’s Spring Quarter. (Jerry Wu / The Purple Wire)
Welcome back to The Purple Wire. This is your hosts, Lily Ogburn and Jerry Wu. We hope you had a restful spring break — we sure did. With spring just around the corner, we’re back up and running with some of the latest stories at Northwestern.
Let us know what you think at [email protected]. Share this newsletter with family and friends — they can subscribe today at https://thepurplewire.beehiiv.com/.
1. Iran threatens strikes on American universities across Middle East, including Northwestern’s Qatar campus

Northwestern’s Qatar campus leaders have announced it will continue remote operations and classes for the rest of the semester. (Northwestern University)
Iranian officials have threatened to strike American universities across the Middle East — including Northwestern’s Qatar campus — after accusing American and Israeli forces of attacking two of its universities.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Sunday that all employees, professors and students of American universities in the region should maintain a 1-kilometer distance from the universities. Iran said American universities will be legitimate targets going forward.
This comes after Iranian officials accused the U.S. and Israel of striking both Isfahan University of Technology and Tehran University of Science and Technology.
Northwestern’s Qatar campus leaders have already announced it will continue remote operations and classes for the rest of the semester.
Since the U.S.-Israel war on Iran broke out, community members at the Qatar campus have also navigated shelter-in-place orders amid ongoing strikes in Qatar and other Gulf states.
New York University, Georgetown University, Carnegie Mellon University and many other American schools also have campuses in regional countries such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
2. Northwestern maintains 7% admit rate

Students admitted in Northwestern’s Regular Decision round have until May 1 to accept their admissions offers. (Jerry Wu / The Purple Wire)
Thousands of prospective Wildcats finally received their admissions decisions this past week.
The university released Regular Decision admission letters for its Class of 2030 on Wednesday. Northwestern’s acceptance rate stayed around 7% this year — about 54,000 students applied, a slight increase from last year.
The incoming class will consist of about 2,100 students. More than half of the Class of 2030 was admitted in the university’s Early Decision round, which consisted of about 5,600 applicants.
Students admitted in the Regular Decision round have until May 1 to accept their admissions offers, giving them just over a month to decide if they want to be a Wildcat.
3. Princeton’s Carla Berube named women’s basketball coach
Berube spent the last seven years of her career coaching Princeton University’s women’s basketball team. (Lily Ogburn / The Purple Wire)
Northwestern has tapped Carla Berube to replace longtime women’s basketball coach Joe McKeown.
Berube spent the last seven years of her career coaching Princeton University’s women’s basketball team. Her program was dominant in the Ivy League, capturing five regular season titles. She also led the Tigers to five NCAA tournament appearances.
Before Princeton, Berube coached a successful program at Tufts University. She’s also a decorated basketball player — she won an NCAA National Championship as a student athlete at the University of Connecticut in 1995.
“Competing in the Big Ten Conference requires toughness, discipline, and a relentless commitment to growth,” Berube said in a Northwestern Athletics news release. “We are going to embrace that challenge and build a team that competes with pride and goes to battle for one another every night.”
Berube finished her time at Princeton with a stellar 147-29 record. Hopefully, she can bring that winning energy to a Northwestern program that has been in a slump.
~ Thanks for reading. See you next time!