“Chicago minds over and over again surprise, amaze, and reveal.”
—President Paul Alivisatos, AB’81

Over more than 135 years the University of Chicago has built a special place in higher education and the world of ideas. With its commitment to free and rigorous inquiry that welcomes challenge and critique, William Rainey Harper’s university—“bran’ splinter new, and yet as solid as the ancient hills,” he called it when he became its first president—has been home to multiple Chicago schools of thought and to world-changing idea after world-changing idea.

Here the life of the mind is paramount, and the world knows it. UChicago’s reputation is distinctive and draws extraordinary people from around the globe. When these curious minds come together to think and work in a setting of rare freedom and intellectual ferment, new ground is broken and mysteries are untangled.

This spring the University of Chicago embarked on a comprehensive campaign named for the remarkable thinkers who study and work here: Chicago Minds.

So what is a Chicago mind?

It is the University’s first leader, William Rainey Harper, a wunderkind of Hebrew studies not yet 40 when he accepted the founding presidency and went to work building the University from the ground up. Chicago minds are visionary.

It’s Edith Abbott, PhD 1905, and Sophonisba Breckinridge, PhM 1897, PhD 1901, JD 1904, who created what is now the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice—transforming social work into a research-based discipline and shaping social welfare policy in the United States. Chicago minds are empathetic and analytic.

It’s Nathaniel Kleitman, PhD 1923, who created the first sleep laboratory in 1925, and his student Eugene Aserinsky, PhD’53, who later discovered REM sleep. Chicago minds play the long game.

It’s Janet Rowley, LAB’42, PhB’45, SB’46, MD’48, who worked for years—in the lab and, famously, at her kitchen table—to identify and prove a link between a specific gene translocation and acute promyelocytic leukemia, changing the way we understand cancer and its causes. Chicago minds are tenacious.

It’s Martin E. Marty, PhD’56, whose thinking about the history of Protestantism and the role of faith in American society reached audiences far beyond the academy, including readers of Ann Landers’s advice column. Chicago minds are inclusive.

It’s Susan Sontag, AB’51, whose provocative philosophical examinations of contemporary culture continue to captivate readers. Chicago minds see the world afresh.

It’s Eugene Fama, MBA’63, PhD’64, dubbed the “father of modern finance” for his work on market efficiency, which has shaped the way people invest now. Chicago minds are consequential.

It’s Andrea Ghez, LAB’83, who proved the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Chicago minds think big.

And it’s Michael Kremer, a pioneer of development economics, which takes the tools of economic research and uses them to study causes of human suffering around the world. Chicago minds reimagine what’s possible.

I could go on.

I could name scores of extraordinary thinkers, researchers, artists, and activists like these, past and present, and a different adjective might come to mind every time. Each has their own style, singular as a fingerprint, yet they share a quality that eludes any one descriptor. They boldly ask questions, tirelessly follow ideas wherever they lead, test and scrutinize conclusions, invite challenge and counterargument. They are at home in uncertainty and alert for the next insight. They are filled with passion. Even the most practical are not without a sense of wonder. They are Chicago minds.

What, then, is the Chicago Minds campaign?

Chicago Minds aims to focus the collective power of the worldwide UChicago community on the most fundamental, enduring priorities of the University: faculty, students, and the campus where they think and work. And it aims to focus that power on the promise of Chicago minds to confront some of the most critical challenges faced by human beings and societies in the 21st century through four campaign fundraising initiatives.

Finally, Chicago Minds seeks to inspire your redoubled engagement and advocacy—to inspire a broader and more deeply connected global UChicago community. Together, we are mighty.

This campaign promises to empower the minds that call Chicago home, to build inspiring spaces that foster inquiry, and to fuel new breakthroughs as critical as those that happened here before. With your partnership, Chicago Minds will succeed—and so Chicago minds will flourish.