Features

Debating society

The University’s focus on the aims and methods of education has led to discussion, experiment, and innovation. Our time line notes a few milestones.

Earn as you learn

An ambitious economic field experiment studies how financial incentives for students, teachers, and parents affect academic performance. Plus: "Failed Tests" looks at the link between teacher merit pay and standardized-test scores.

Peer groups

Students often continue to collaborate with professors after earning their degrees. Sometimes, as in these four examples, those relationships move beyond collegial to true professional and personal friendships.

Principal reach

For the leaders of the University of Chicago Charter School, being in charge means being in the thick of change.

These walls can talk

The murals decorating the University of Chicago Charter School campuses tell stories of success.

Play ground

Retired Laboratory Schools teacher Vivian Gussin Paley, PhB’47, writes about the importance of play in early schooling.

Editor’s Notes

So much to learn

If putting together an issue on education taught us one thing, it’s that we have much yet to learn.

Letters

Readers sound off

Alumni and friends write on Freudian scholarship and microfinance tactics, and continue debates on global warming and UFO research.

On the Agenda

Why be hopeful?

Urban Education Institute director Timothy Knowles explains why there’s reason for hope in Chicago Public Schools.

Marketplace of Ideas

The future of PhDs

How can we better prepare PhD students for nonacademic careers?

Course Work

Follow the music

In India, College students find the artistic roots of a modern nation.

Alumni Essay

Stretch yourself

Harriet Heyman, AM’72, finds herself in acrobatics.

UChicago Journal

Planetary mission

UChicago scientists are looking above and beyond to determine our place in the universe.

Stop gap

More than overt discrimination, what now drives America’s achievement gap between blacks and whites.

Dissenting opinions

A former Supreme Court justice’s memoir inspires praise and criticism.

Well done

Lauren Shockey burned out on restaurant life, but not before a global exploration of cuisines.

Dancing with films

Chicago film scholar Yuri Tsivian’s database charts movies’ tempos shot by shot.

History retreating

Teaching African American students, a Chicago scholar says, means asking tough questions.

Finding her fate

Hannah Pittard, AB’01, turns suburban childhoods into haunting fiction.

Injurious behavior

Deviance researchers Patricia and Peter Adler, both AM’74, study the social side of self-injury.

A taste for beer

Pat Conway’s (AM’78) fresh approach to craft brewing brings a European sensibility to Cleveland.

Man of action

This fall fourth-year Kelvin Ho spent his days not in class but on Occupy Chicago’s front lines.

University news

Gift for economic research, diversity awards, and developments in the 53rd Street development.

Citations

Chicago researchers find empathy in rats, the positive effect of negative criticism, the cancer risk of a big belly, and the importance of language to young children’s identity.

Peer Review

University obituaries

Recent faculty, staff, board, and alumni obituaries.

Lite of the Mind

Collective intellect

The greatest show on Earth: UChicago’s interdisciplinary circus.