Warning: I have found that some of these sights, sounds, and smells (“Visceral UChicago,” Mar–Apr/12) may be time and person specific, but to me they are reminders of my four years (1956–60) at U of C.

1. The night in 1959 the White Sox defeated the Cleveland Indians 3–2 to win their first American League pennant since the Black Sox scandal. To celebrate the event Mayor Daley (a White Sox fan) set off all the city’s air-raid sirens, undoubtedly scaring Chicagoans who were not White Sox fans and causing some survivalists to head to their air-raid shelters.
2. Standing around the piano with classmates, singing Black Friar songs and other Chicago favorites, most notably “C Stands for Cherry Cordial” and “Gaudeamus Igitur.”
3. Listening to Mike Nichols, X’53, and Elaine May do improv at the old Compass Tavern, before they moved their act to Second City on the North Side and altered American comedy history.
4. The monochromatic contrast of the City Gray under a blanket of new-fallen winter snow, watched by gargoyles on Cobb Gate. 
5. The smell of books under lock and key in the caged pornography section of Harper Library.
6. And who can forget the savory crunch of a Vienna red hot dog nestled in a sesame seed bun, topped with mustard (never ketchup!), bright green relish, pickle slices, tomato slices, two sport peppers, and celery salt, accompanied by a clear cream soda and a rainbow cone (available at the Rainbow Cone Store at 92nd and Western) for dessert.
7. The smell of sweat and chlorine in Bartlett Gym where we sat for our six-hour final exams in Common Core courses every spring.
8. The sound of applause when a play I had worked on was a success.

Jim Best, AB’60
Kent, Ohio

 

Dan Dry returns

The Mar–Apr/12 Magazine is fantastic. I am enjoying the new format. Especially pleased to see the return of Dan Dry, if only for one article (“One Door Closes”). His photography was the greatest asset of the Magazine for years.

Richard A. Sachs, AB’70
Granthan, New Hamphsire

Former Magazine staff photographer Dan Dry also shot the Mar–Apr/12 cover and the portrait of Dario Maestripieri in “Bobo Soprano.”—Ed.

 

We’re blushing, thanks

Please let me congratulate you on a splendid issue (Mar–Apr/12). The Maestripieri article on nepotism (“Bobo Soprano”) was a particular gem. I read the Harvard, McGill, Oxford, and Chicago alumni magazines regularly, so I have some basis for comparison. I am not myself a Chicago graduate (my wife and daughter share that distinction), but I know good writing and good editorial work when I see it.

Irving Massey
Buffalo, New York

 

Easy on the eyes

Thank you for preserving the readability of the magazine. My 78-year-old eyes do not do well with medium-gray type on a slightly lighter gray background. I know everyone can count, but I have some navigation problems when only one of every four or five pages is numbered. And some of these graphic experiments are more appropriate in an art gallery than in a magazine.

So thank you, your staff, and your designers for avoiding all that and producing a magazine that is both elegant and professional. Elegant yet professional is not an easy target to hit, so again congratulations.

Richard A. Karlin, AB’55, SB’57
Pittsburgh

 

Humble souls

Thank you for your wonderful feature of Professor George Anastaplo, AB’48, JD’51, PhD’64 (“One Door Closes,” Mar–Apr/12). When I graduated from Chicago and attended Loyola Law School, I experienced a little culture shock in being outside of the Hyde Park cocoon of intellectual intensity.

Then I took constitutional law with Professor Anastaplo. He took us through fascinating dissections of preconstitutional documents and side-by-side comparisons of them, opening my eyes to the impact a single word or phrase could have on the intent of a document, and the resulting basis for a nation. I felt I was home again in his classes, where he encouraged us to think beyond accepted interpretations and to explore literature and philosphy’s impact on law. In him, there was no grandiosity, no arrogance, just a pure love of teaching. He might have teased or pushed for better answers, but never belittled a student the way many others might.

One of my favorite memories is of driving with him to the U of C campus to hear Fred Korematsu speak at the Law School about his internment camp experience and the resulting Supreme Court case. Seeing these two men meet for a photo, I realized I was witnessing two of the same: humble, strong individuals who would not let the force of popular thought sway their steadfast beliefs in constitutional protections.

I am so pleased Professor Anastaplo has continued to engage, challenge, and energize more generations of law students. I trust he has no idea how significant his contributions as an educator of lawyers have been, because he’s simply too busy going about the business of living and learning.

Jessie Wang-Grimm, AB’90
Western Springs, Illinois

 

Principled facilitator

Congratulations on printing the article about George Anastaplo. It was a long overdue tribute to a man who lived and worked his entire life always remaining true to his principles, no matter what.

I first met George in 1951, when he joined our staff at the University’s Industrial Relations Center, headed by Professor Robert K. Burns, PhD’42. I was working there as a project director developing a supervisory training program to be used by a number of industries. We worked under the direct supervision of Howard Johnson, AM’47, who later in his career served as president of MIT.

Our first project was to develop a training program for the New York Central Railroad consisting of 13 hourly sessions wherein foremen could lead a discussion examining the free enterprise system. We had an eclectic group of economists, social scientists, and writers. We needed skilled writers who could break down complex economics and put together discussion materials in everyday language. We also had to train the foremen on how to lead discussion groups.

When George joined our group, he immediately went to work, polishing the language of our texts and taking on whatever other duties he was assigned. We later developed similar programs for other companies such as Corn Products and the J. L. Hudson Company.

I left the center in 1955, but George stayed on some time until moving to teaching. We stayed in touch through the years. I followed his career with interest, and, to paraphrase Sinatra, George “did it his way,” positively influencing the lives of many hundreds of young people. As I look back on his life and career, it is fitting to say, “a life well lived.”

Nicholas J. Melas, PhB’46, SB’48, MBA’50
Chicago

 

Brennan: not chief justice

Outstanding article about a very exceptional man, whom I know slightly and should have known better. However, there’s an error in the article: William Brennan was never the chief justice of the United States.

Alan L. Seltzer, PhD’72
Beltsville, Maryland

The delightful paean to the irascible octogenarian George Anastaplo contained an editing error. Justice Black may have spoken to his colleague Justice Brennan about Anastaplo. However, William Brennan was never chief justice.

Seymour J. Adler, AM’58
Twin Lakes, Wisconsin

 

That’s P-R-I-T-C-H-E-T-T

I found the piece by Richard Mertens on George Anastaplo to be both well balanced and well written. However, I did want to point out that Mr. Mertens misspelled the name of C. Hermann Pritchett, PhD’37, as “C. Hermann Pritchard.” A small thing but still off-putting. Professor Pritchett, who died in 1995, was a former chair of the political-science department and a distinguished member of the profession who served a term as president of the American Political Science Association, facts that could have been found (along with the correct spelling) by checking his University obituary on Google (under the right spelling, of course).

Donald B. Rosenthal, AM’60, PhD’64
Charlotte, North Carolina

Excellent issue (Mar–Apr/12.) However, I found an unusual occurrence: a misspelling of the name of one of my favorite professors: C. Hermann Pritchett.

Pritchett was an astute analyst of the record of the US Supreme Court and of the way that the mindsets of the individual justices influenced its decisions. I hope that, somewhere in eternity, Pritchett reads this article (I am sure he would forgive your mispelling his name).

Craig Leman, AB’46
Corvallis, Oregon

Besides misspelling C. Hermann Pritchett’s name and calling William Brennan a former chief justice, we also gave the wrong publication date of Andrew Patner’s (X’81) Chicago magazine article about George Anastaplo. The correct issue date is December 1982. We regret the errors.—Ed.

 

Mystery cover ...

The Mar–Apr/12 issue is great, and the packet of letters on the front cover is handsome and intriguing. Who is Vir­­­ginia Darrow? I read the article on Anastaplo twice to try to make the connection.

Diantha Horton
Roswell, Georgia

Ms. Horton and other readers intrigued by our cover can learn more about Mrs. Darrow in the letter below.—Ed.

 

... Explained

I was pleased and surprised to see my mother’s name (Virginia Darrow [Oggins]) on the Mar–Apr/12 cover. But I was also surprised that, apart from a caption on the contents page identifying her as U-High’44, AB’48, AM’55, there was no further mention of her in the story on George Anastaplo, who wrote her the 1948 letter shown on the cover. I am therefore writing with a brief résumé of her subsequent life to, in a sense, round out the picture.

Eight years after the letter’s postmark, my mother married my father, Robin Oggins, AB’52, AB’58, AM’59, PhD’67. My two sisters and I were born while my parents lived in married-student housing. In 1962 my father was hired to teach medieval history at Harpur College, subsequently the State University of New York, Binghamton, and we moved to Vestal, New York, where, except for two years when we lived in London, my parents have lived ever since.

My mother taught nursery school for a time; edited issues of the journals Mediaevalia and Acta; coedited, with Paul Szarmach, Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture; published four scholarly articles of her own; and contributed greatly, both in research and in editing, to my father’s work. She has always been a dedicated and passionate lover of the environment, serving for two decades on the Vestal Conservation Advisory Commission and the Broome County Environmental Management Council. In 2009 the Susquehanna Group of the Sierra Club presented her with its fifth Lynda Spickard Environmental Award for her environmental contributions.

As is true for her friend George Anastaplo, she has lived “a life of principle as far as [she] understood it.” She, and my father, can be reached at roqqins@binqhamton.edu.

Cy R. Oggins, AB’82
Sacramento, California

In addition to Mr. Oggins’s update on his mother’s life and work, Mr. Anastaplo notes that Virginia Oggins was cleaning out her home and offered to return his long-ago correspondence, which explains why the packet of letters was on his desk when our photographer visited.—Ed.

 

Sharp memory

Re: “One Door Closes,” your profile of George Anastaplo. I was surprised to see no mention of his mentor and defender, U of C Law School professor Malcolm Sharp. A previous article about Anastaplo (Chicago magazine 1982, by Andrew Patner, X’81) notes that among the very few of the Law School’s faculty to support him, “Malcolm P. Sharp was to become his strongest advocate and the two formed a close friendship that lasted until Sharp’s death at 83 in 1980.” It was Professor Sharp who assisted Anastaplo to file his noted appeal in 1953. Sharp was remembered by his colleagues in tributes after his retirement for his long years of “deep concern” with Anastap­lo’s case (see Harry Kalven, AB’35, JD’38, University of Chicago Law Review, Winter 1966).

I became acquainted with Professor Sharp’s history and accomplishments when I was researching my father’s tribulations as a graduate student at the U of C. A young Army Air Corps veteran, he was trying to support his family by working at the Argonne National Laboratory. When, in 1947, President Truman’s Loyalty and Security Program was implemented, my father was charged by the Atomic Energy Commission with being “an ideological communist,” though never a Communist Party member. Because of his local union leadership, my father was also charged of associating with people who were reputed to be communists, employed by the union at the national level. These charges (of thinking and of indirect association) threatened not only to end his employment at Argonne but also his and his family’s reputation and future livelihood. It was Professor Sharp who defended him (successfully) in a dramatic but secret hearing in June 1948. Were it not for its “classified” status, the case would have been a landmark in the history of US civil rights struggles (as was Anastaplo’s).

My father, Robert B. Lees, AM’50, received his master’s in linguistics from the U of C and later a PhD from MIT. He went on to a successful career as a linguist, heading academic departments and teaching internationally. How many others owed a profound debt for their professional careers, like Anastaplo, to Professor Malcolm Sharp’s courageous support, remains unknown. Surely he deserves remembrance and recognition.

Susan Lees, AB’65
New York

 

Anastaplo responds

I appreciate the generosity of your Mar–Apr/12 article about my career, “One Door Closes.” One could not have reasonably anticipated, more than a half century ago when University of Chicago authorities proved so dubious about my bar-admission stance, that there would ever be, in a University publication, this kind of recognition.

It is noticed in your article that our then new Law School dean [Edward H. Levi, U-High’28, PhB’32, JD’35], when my troubles with the Illinois Bar began, proved to be (because of his understandable concern for the Law School’s reputation) quite critical of what I was doing. But there should also be said about him what I said in a May 2011 interview posted on the Chicago Bar Association website: “This man had a career in which the more powerful he got, the better he was. He ended up in a very high position in government [attorney general]—and he was very good at it.”

I found most intriguing the report in your article that an imminent appointment of me to a post in our College, ever so many years ago, was stymied because I was considered by some University faculty to be too much of a disciple of Leo Strauss. What makes this particularly curious is that I have always seemed to have been suspected, by some “official” Straussians, of not being “Straussian” enough.

Even so, my own Leo Strauss credentials do include a two-sentence letter (of June 22, 1961) I received from him after I sent him my Petition for Rehearing to the United States Supreme Court (see anastaplo.wordpress.com). This supposed “neocon” could write me on that Cold War occasion: “This is only to pay you my respects for your brave and just action. If the American Bench and Bar have any sense of shame they must come on their knees to apologize to you.” (An article by me, about Mr. Strauss, appeared in the Winter 1974 issue of your magazine.)

Your article has been, during the past year, one of several gratifying recognitions of my career. These have included, besides the Chicago Bar Association interview already referred to, a Graham School celebration of my 55 years of service with the University’s Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults, a panel in March 2012 at the John Jay College in New York City about my bar-admission case, and a Midwest Political Science Association Convention panel in April 2012 about my scholarship.

The only lamentable aspect of all this has been that my wife, Sara Prince Anastaplo, AM’49, has, because of the traumatic side effects of a heart-valve operation in January 2011, been unable to appreciate what has recently been said in public about the husband she had so gallantly put up with for six decades.

George Anastaplo, AB’48, JD’51, PhD’64
Chicago

 

You too can learn from Anastaplo

Readers who enjoyed your excellent story on George Anastaplo (“One Door Closes,” Mar–Apr/12) may be inspired to take a course with George or any of the other fine instructors who staff the Basic Program.

To that end, I’d like to clarify that the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults is offered by the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies. Classes are held either mornings or evenings at the downtown Chicago Gleacher Center as well as in Hyde Park throughout the year. This unique program has engaged adults in the core questions and texts of our civilization for more than 60 years, or, in other words, slightly longer than George has been teaching for us! Full information on the Basic Program can be found at http://grahamschool.uchicago.edu/basicprogram.

Cary Nathenson
Associate Dean for Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, and Summer Session
The University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies

 

Surprisingly honest

Great article (“One Door Closes”). Surprisingly honest for an alumni mag. Makes me more likely to read all the articles from now on.

Ellwood Carter, AM’72, PhD’03
Evanston, Illinois

 

Remarkably honest

The article “Bobo Soprano” is remarkably honest; surprising that the nepotistic professors at the campus didn’t organize to censor it: “At the University of Chicago, many students supervised by well-established professors happen to also be the sons and daughters of other well-established professors.”

Michael R. Watson, AB’98
Cottage Grove, Wisconsin

 

All faculty are mafioso?

Great article. I have certainly known U of C department chairs worthy of the comparison to Tony Soprano. And sometimes even to Al Swearengen of Deadwood.

Jesse Jensen, AB’00
Chicago

 

From merits to money

[Nepotism] could affect American education quite deeply in a different way. Because the United States has been relatively meritocratic, wealthy and middle-class parents alike who want to give their children better odds at succeeding have poured whatever resources necessary into getting their children a better (or at least an elite) education—including sending their progeny to institutions like the University of Chicago. Once nepotism holds sway, what’s the point? The focus will move away (even more) from learning advanced disciplines to glomming onto wealthy friends and hoping their fathers will vouch for you.

Daniel Niland, AB’91
Seattle

 

Who gets credit for REM?

I received my PhD in physiology at the time that Dr. Eugene Aserinsky, PhD’53, wrote his thesis on rapid eye movement and its relationship to dreaming in sleep (“Night Shift,” Mar–Apr/12). Dr. Aserinsky was my friend until his death. I served unsuccessfully as a subject for his thesis study. I never fell asleep.

I recall that Aserinsky was assigned by Dr. [Nathaniel] Kleitman [PhD’23] to study the effect of a meat diet on the sleep pattern of infants. While at work on this project, Dr. Aserinsky noted movements under the closed eyelids of the children. All of the immense body of work on sleep and dreaming flows from this observation.

This discovery was Aserinsky’s alone. Dr. Kleitman deserves credit for supporting the continuation of the project. Mysteries surrounded the work as it evolved. ... The myth continues, but the facts support Aserinsky as the sole discoverer of the pattern of eye movement during sleep.

Paul Nathan, PhB’46, PhD’53
Boynton Beach, Florida

 

Let’s move to Mexico

I read your article “Salud” on the Mexican equivalent of our future national health care called Seguro Popular (UChicago Journal, Mar–Apr/12). If I read the article correctly, it had a budget last year of $12 billion to cover about 52 million Mexican citizens. That equates to a per capita expenditure of $240 for a year of medical care. If Obamacare could help our citizens at the same per capita expense, I am sure it would be welcomed here in the United States. I believe we are trying to cover 36 million Americans, so our budget ought to be about $8.5 billion for the program. Yet I understand it will start at approximately $70 billion and escalate from there.

Can anyone wonder why there is such strenuous objections to this US program and its potential to waste even more taxpayer dollars? Let’s nominate David Garcia-Junco Machado, AM’95, to run our program and see how that works.

Gary von Behren, MBA’72
Lawrenceville, Georgia

 

Right

It was with dismay and disappointment that I read Paul Gierosky’s (MBA’75) letter in your last issue. Mr. Gierosky objects that the University would hire presidential adviser and strategist David Axelrod, AB’76, to direct its Institute of Politics (“Left, Right, Left, Right,” UChicago Journal, Mar–Apr/12). It would be one thing if Mr. Gierosky argued that Mr. Axelrod is unqualified for this post; but he does not. After all, who could be better qualified to teach about American politics than the man who masterminded Barack Obama’s historic 2008 presidential campaign? Instead, Mr. Gierosky objects to Axelrod’s “support of the policies of” Presidents Clinton and Obama. But supporting the policies of a president—any president—does not disqualify anyone from teaching at a university. If it did, the candidates for faculty positions at the University would be few indeed.

One of the most important lessons I learned at the University of Chicago was tolerance for all opinions, even—especially—those with which I disagreed. It is a shame that Mr. Gierosky has never learned this.

Ezra Deutsch-Feldman, AB’09
Bethesda, Maryland

 

Wrong

The University’s new Institute of Politics claims to be “nonpartisan,” yet it is anything but that. Its first featured event on January 19 included an array of pundits—David Axelrod; David Brooks, AB’83; Rachel Maddow; George Stephanopoulos; Rahm Emanuel; and Alex Castellanos—all of whom are international interventionists for one reason or another. I believe I am correct in asserting that all the participants have supported, in the past or currently, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US overthrow of the Libyan government, US intervention in Syria, and a possible military option against Iran. If one believes, as I do, that America’s decline over the past ten years is inextricably linked to the reckless neo-imperialist policies that have driven budget deficits, global instability, and the persistence of terrorism, then it would have been refreshingly “nonpartisan” to hear someone who actually represents an alternative point of view.

Philip M. Giraldi, AB’68
Purcellville, Virginia

 

Right

Expressions of dismay about David Axelrod’s appointment to lead the new Institute of Politics are laughable. Unlike Lee Atwater acolytes such as Larry McCarthy (see Jane Mayer’s fine article in the New Yorker), Axelrod has actively promoted and defended candidates with intelligence and dignity during a period when sharp polarization has made that more difficult than any time in memory. Even Republicans like Bruce Bartlett and Norm Ornstein have berated their own (now former) party for reducing the current political discourse to new depths of silliness, prevarications, and bullying, but Axelrod managed to avoid responding in kind. He is a great choice.

Sam Wilen, AM’80
Durham, North Carolina

 

Wrong

The good news: the new format of the Magazine is great. For whatever reason, I pick it up and read it, as I did with the Mar–Apr/12 issue.

The bad news: as a graduate of Chicago Booth, I was stunned to see the left-leaning nature of the magazine (and the University).

Seriously, David Axelrod is committed to keeping the institute nonpartisan? The evidence thus far is to the contrary. Not only is it laughable with Axelrod as the leader, but if the January 19 panel is representative of what’s to come, then there is little hope for a “fair and balanced” dialogue and students would be better served elsewhere.

Poor Thomas Frank, AM’89, PhD’94 (“Voice of Descent,” UChicago Journal, Mar–Apr/12). Is he exasperated because his views and those of the majority of America have been steadily losing, even if admittedly facing a bump in the road with Obama? He traces the financial crisis to free-market philosophy? I guess he’s never heard of the Community Reinvestment Act, originally passed during Carter’s administration and expanded during Clinton’s. Perhaps he needs to be schooled at Booth to grasp the unintended consequences of this foolish legislation. His read on the tea party agenda plays to his leftist audience but fails to accept its prime focus: retaining liberty and fiscal sanity. It is simply factual that trillion-dollar deficits are unsustainable and tax increases are simply not a solution.

“Salud”: a nice story but with a yet-to-be-written tragic ending. Why would Chicago fail to caution of the certain ending? This “system” cannot and will not work. Not there. Not here.

All this said, I look forward to the next issue.

Robert W. Gray, MBA’90
Alpharetta, Georgia

 

Wrong

I am amazed that the University that I went to during the 1960s is touting the arch conservative justice Scalia for his “original ideas” (UChicago News for Alumni and Friends e-newsletter, February 28, 2012 [See “Scalia’s an Original,”—Ed.]). As far as I can tell, the only ideas he has are stripping the people of the United States of any and all protections of our liberty, and making it possible for corporations to desecrate the planet at will. These are hardly “original” ideas. I am offended at the title of your piece, especially when I have received so many requests for donations from you.

Clearly, the University has changed since I went there. You used to be a staunch bastion of progressive thought. Now you seem to be quite conservative.

James Kenney, AB’68
Kensington, California

 

Chicago school contributions

To impress upon the distinguished audience attending the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics about the significant contributions to world order made by the Chicago school, particularly Professor Milton Friedman, AM’33, quoting George Will on the fall of communism was both inadequate and inappropriate (“Policy Matters,” UChicago Journal, Mar–Apr/12). Soviet communism fell for several reasons unrelated to free market and private property economics—its resource inability to match the increase of Reagan’s defense expenditures, the realization that its technological innovation program had fallen far behind when 80 of its MIGs supplied to Syria were downed by Israeli fighters without a single loss in the 1982 Lebanon war, among others. Indeed, the period following the downfall is best described as a grab for monopoly power by a new Mafia.

President Zimmer should have quoted premier and general secretary of the Communist Party of China Zhao Ziyang who, even more than Deng Xiaoping, initiated an economic revolution by introducing Chicago-based economic reforms, which significantly changed the pattern of trade and raised standards of living throughout the world. In Zhao’s book Prisoner of the State (Simon and Schuster, 2009), he notes that: “Friedman’s ideas and advice played an important role in shaping economic policies in post-Mao China.” Thirty years ago China was truly backward; now it is testing the United States in both economic growth and size. In 1988 China was on the path to hyperinflation and once again Premier Zhao consulted with the most prominent monetarist and the leading authority on the causes and cures of inflation. “Socialism with Chicago characteristics” would be more apt than the current popular description.

Bertrand Horwitz, AB’49, AM’51
Asheville, North Carolina

 

Fuller picture of self-injury

“Injurious Behavior” (UChicago Journal, Jan–Feb/2012) seems to imply that there is one unified “psychological model of self-injury,” and that this model “ignores the cultural and social forces surrounding the practice.” The field of psychology is actually much more complex, nuanced, and interwoven with “cultural and social forces” than the author makes it appear. Of its many often competing philosophies, the medical model is just one. Additionally, I cannot fathom that the psychotherapists and psychologists who are my supervisors and professors would ignore a client’s cultural and social context. (I am a first-year master’s student in counseling psychology at Northwestern, and I work with severely mentally ill clients, some of whom engage in suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injury.) In sum, generalizations are nearly always false and are made at the expense of critical discourse, so please keep them out of your stories.

Victoria You Moore, AB’07
Chicago

 

Yes, Michigan

Thank you for your story about author Bonnie Jo Campbell, AB’84 (“Freedom Writer,” UChicago Journal, Jan–Feb/12).  One of the lasting benefits I value from getting a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the College is a love for reading, particularly fiction. 

I fell in love with Michigan’s natural beauty (and my wife, Odette) while earning graduate degrees in chemistry from Michigan State University, and even worked in the Kalamazoo area at the Upjohn Company in between getting MS and PhD degrees at MSU. When I read that Ms. Campbell’s book was set in the Kalamazoo area, where she grew up, and that her writing has been compared to that of Mark Twain and John Steinbeck, I knew I had to get Once Upon A River. It’s a powerful piece of fiction from an author who truly wraps Michigan’s natural attributes into her work, much like Jim Harrison often does in his Michigan-set novels and novellas. I highly recommend her book, and I look forward to reading more from Ms. Campbell. Thanks too for your efforts to highlight alumni fiction writers.

Tim Rydel, AB’81
St. Charles, Missouri

 

Co-op memories

After 50 years, the Seminary Co-op Bookstore will be moving out of its original space, its cherished home in the basement of the Chicago Theology Seminary. As UChicago alumni who recognize the importance and uniqueness of the Co-op, we will be documenting it before its imminent move late this summer. We will miss the sense of intimacy created by low ceilings and unbroken walls of books, as well as the sense of physical discovery experienced as you walk through the labyrinth of its current space. It’s become clear that a serious attempt to capture the inimitable atmosphere and character of the Co-op must include not only photographs but also stories and videos. We invite you to participate in this project in any way—to have your portrait taken in the bookstore, share your favorite Co-op memory (written or via audio interview), submit any artifacts or memorabilia you have from the Co-op for exhibition/archival in Special Collections, or to submit old photographs that include the Co-op. Please contact Jasmine and Megan at sem.coop.project@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Jasmine Kwong, AB’06, and Megan E. Doherty, AM’05, PhD’10
Chicago

 

Ad placement

The back cover of the Jan–Feb/12 issue consisted of an advertisement for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. How can you accept advertising from this group, which has turned from its original purpose into a monstrous regiment in war against women? I don’t care how many resignations and clarifications they make: they should be off the list of acceptable advertisers.

Ellen Karnofsky Hubbard, AB’65, AM’67
Oxford, United Kingdom

 

Department of corrections 

In “Night Shift” (Mar–Apr/12), we mistakenly attached the Chicago degrees of sleep expert Gerry Vogel, SB’51, MD’54, to Allan Recht­schaffen, professor emeritus in psychiatry, psychology, and the College. Rechtschaffen earned his doctorate in psychology from Northwestern University in 1956. We regret the error.

The University of Chicago Magazine welcomes letters about its contents or about the life of the University. Letters for publication must be signed and may be edited for space, clarity, and civility. To provide a range of views and voices, we encourage letter writers to limit themselves to 300 words or fewer.

Write: Editor, The University of Chicago Magazine, 401 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1000, Chicago, IL 60611. Or e-mail: uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu.