Since long before I arrived here ten years ago, the Magazine has sponsored two College interns every summer, in recent years through the Metcalf Fellows Program. We enjoy mentoring and learning from the undergraduates. This year’s pair, Colin Bradley and Emily Wang, both ’14, are especially hardworking.  

Bradley and Wang, both Maroon staffers, have shown talent and intelligence as well as curiosity, range, and whimsy. They’ve done some mundane office tasks, yes, but they’ve also visited—and written about—art exhibits, farmers’ markets, and festivals. Bradley climbed Rockefeller’s 271 steps to tour the bells before a Sunday carillon concert, and Wang captured the lightness of a Hyde Park summer in her sketchbook (above). Bradley compared Z&H to the Med in a race for sandwich supremacy, while Wang scoped out students’ grocery carts at Treasure Island.

In her August web post “Journeys of the Mind,” Wang compared the first images of Curiosity’s Mars landing with George Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. Her essay began, “The moment the first grainy, black-and-white photo appeared on-screen, cheers and tears erupted from the crowd anticipating its arrival.” Bradley visited the University of Chicago Press Distribution Center on 110th Street, a “behemoth” warehouse and factory. He described it with reverence: “Colored glass windows gently diffuse the morning light, swathing the stacks of books in a muted green aura.”

Alumni hosting Metcalf interns can submit their stories to Alumni News.

Humble Brag

Bradley and Wang were here when we heard that for the first time since 1957, the University of Chicago Magazine had won the Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year Award. Given by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, the Sibley is the highest award given to a university magazine. Cheers to our colleagues and friends for working together to get us there.