University News

Summer/23

Earth’s mantle, sleep apnea, smart buildings, and more.

Viscous cycle

Between Earth’s crust and its core lies the mantle. Although this rocky layer forms 84 percent of our planet’s total volume, much about it—including its viscosity—is unknown. A February Nature study, led by geophysicist Sunyoung “Sunny” Park, tackles that mystery using measurements of deep earthquakes to infer the mantle’s fluidity. These quakes, which occur hundreds of miles beneath Earth’s surface, seldom affect people or property, but they do have subtle geologic effects; the 2018 event Park studied has been causing the island of Tonga to sink about one centimeter per year. The researchers used that information to develop a model of how viscous the mantle must be to cause the observed changes in data. They now believe there is a slow-flowing layer—about 50 miles thick—at the bottom of the upper mantle that extends around the globe. This sheds light on how heat and geological materials mix and move through Earth.

Sleep on it

Millions of Americans experience obstructive sleep apnea—a condition characterized by interrupted breathing during sleep—and can awaken up to 30 times an hour. The crux of the problem is tongue position: sleep apnea sufferers’ tongues fall back in their mouths, whereas in people without the condition, the brain tells the tongue’s motor neurons to stay contracted and forward in the mouth to keep the airway open. But how does the brain know when to activate those motor neurons, and why does the system stop working for some people? New research from UChicago Medicine’s Alfredo Garcia and colleagues, published in eLife in January, shows that a system of gases acts as a signal in the region of the brain responsible for tongue position. When the system is unbalanced, the signal is interrupted and the tongue slides back, constricting the pharynx. By understanding the molecular underpinnings of sleep apnea, researchers hope to improve treatments and give patients the relief they need.

Emissions control

Keeping a comfortable indoor temperature comes at a serious cost: the energy expended to heat and cool buildings is both expensive and a major contributor to climate change. In a study published online January 26 in Nature Sustainability, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering’s Po-Chun Hsu and colleagues developed a new smart building material that can address the problem by changing how much heat it absorbs or emits based on the outside temperature. The material includes a layer that, using a small amount of electricity, shifts between a heat-absorbing solid on cold days and a heat-emitting liquid on hot ones. According to the researchers’ models, the electricity required to power the changes in the material would be less than 0.2 percent of that used for a typical commercial building—and the material could reduce the energy consumption of the building’s climate control system by 8.4 percent each year.

Risk assessment

Between 2000 and 2020, suicide rates increased 30 percent, making suicide the 12th leading cause of death in the United States in 2020. Multiple studies have linked suicide rates to social and environmental factors such as exposure to violence, crime, and air pollution. A new study led by Robert Gibbons, PhD’81, and published April 26 in JAMA Network Open, has found stronger evidence for these links. The researchers measured the relationship between social vulnerability and suicide rates using the Social Vulnerability Metric. The SVM draws over 200 variables from 17 nationally representative databases focusing on factors such as age, education, employment, housing, transportation, and health insurance. The authors found that in 2016–20, the suicide rate in the most socially vulnerable communities was 82 percent higher than that in the least vulnerable communities. This suggests that interventions that decrease social vulnerability may also decrease suicide rates.

Faculty research

Quick Study

Snapshots

admin — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 09:40:18 +0000

admin Fri, 09/08/2023 - 04:40

Summer/23

Photos from the archives and readers like you.

Avant-Garden

Visitors enjoy a sunny day at Mill Road Farm in 1941. Advertising executive and University trustee Albert D. Lasker donated the Lake Forest, IL, estate to UChicago in 1940, but the University owned it for only a few years, soon dividing and selling the property. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-05216, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Mildly and soft the western breeze just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees

Visitors to Jackson Park enjoy the view over Lake Michigan at the turn of the 20th century. Originally called Lake Park, the area was transformed into the “White City” for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, filled as it was with whitewashed plaster beaux arts–style buildings. Though most of the fair’s original structures burned down, the buildings that now house the Museum of Science and Industry and the Art Institute of Chicago remain. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-04495, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

From the steep promontory gazed the stranger, raptured and amazed

A midcentury crowd enjoys the lakefront between 57th Street Beach and Promontory Point. What did you pack for a day at the Point? Share your picnic essentials with us at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-09866, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Rubbernecking

Alumni return to Hyde Park for the 1968 reunion weekend. The program included a bus tour of the neighborhood, with a stop at Harper Court, a recent addition (completed in 1965) to the Hyde Park neighborhood. Built to house art studios and artisans’ shops relocated from the 57th Street Art Colony after its 1962 demolition, Harper Court expanded to include cultural institutions, shops, and restaurants. The bus returned everyone to campus for a reception, hosted by the outgoing president, George W. Beadle, at the newly renovated Cobb Hall. Did you visit the 57th Street Art Colony or the old Harper Court shops? Let us know at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Uosis Juodvalkis, EX’68; UChicago Photographic Archive, apf3-02048, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Oars of yore

Crew team alumni march in the 1976 reunion parade. Though there was no parade this year, Alumni Weekend 2023 featured a Viennese salon tent in honor of College dean John W. Boyer, AM’69, PhD’75; an expansive beer garden; a food truck festival; pub trivia; and a mini Scav. Read all about it in “Time after Time,” and share your stories of reunion reconnections with your class correspondents or with us at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu.(UChicago Photographic Archive, apf3-02077, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

Show; don’t tell

Mime Marcel Marceau was a busy man. Performing an average of 200 shows per year, in addition to appearing on talk shows (where, yes, he talked) and in films (Barbarella, Silent Movie, and others), Marceau rarely had the chance to interact with students at the Marcel Marceau International School of Mimodrama in Paris. Noticing that Marceau was scheduled to be in Chicago for a three-week stint in May 1984, the French government subsidized travel for 65 of the school’s students and teachers to join him and put them up at International House. Here students learn from the master in a workshop. Shhh … Say, what was the quietest thing you did on campus? We’re all ears: uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Arthur U. Ellis, AB’87, AM’88; Copyright 2023, The Chicago Maroon. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.)

Making the rounds

On a rainy day in April 1991, members of the University of Chicago Vélo Club participate in the first annual Monsters of the Midway Criterium. Nearly 150 collegiate and amateur cyclists competed in races ranging from 10 to 30 laps around the Midway. Though the Big Ten schools were hard to beat, UChicago first-year Renee Richer, AB’94, won bronze in the 15-lap women’s race, and staff member Craig Gartland took first in the 20-lap US Cycling Federation amateur race. Did you ever ride with the cycling club? Did you set a personal best pedaling around the Midway? Share your cycling stories at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Kris Patton, AB’91; Copyright 2023, The Chicago Maroon. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.)

A deal with the devil

Students at the Graduate School of Business (now Chicago Booth) Nils Ahbel, MBA’82; Shipley Munson, MBA’82; and Laurie Dunn, MBA’83, rehearse for their upcoming performance of GSB Follies, Life in the Faust Lane. Fifty students and six professors were involved in writing, performing, and, of course, financing and marketing the May 1982 production. (The show was funded through an interest-free loan from student government combined with the sale of stock in the Follies.) Those involved hoped to show the University community that they were more than just conservative suits and white button-downs. Did you attend the GSB Follies? Or were you busy living out your own Faustian drama? We’ll make you a deal: if you give us a good story, we’ll give you a great Fall/23 issue. Write us at uchicago-magazine@uchicago.edu. (Photography by Bill Mudge, AB’83; Copyright 2023, The Chicago Maroon. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.)

Photography

Snapshots

So you think you can comp?

rsmith — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 02:51:32 +0000

rsmith Wed, 08/16/2023 - 21:51

Summer/23

From 1931 to the early 1960s, students in the College had to make the grade.

The year is 1937. You’ve just completed courses in the biological sciences, humanities, economics, and philosophy. You studied anatomy and botany; read the Odyssey, Oedipus, Medea, the Bible, Herodotus, Aristotle, Plato, and Lucretius; you sharpened your statistical skills and pondered the gold standard; you compared Enlightenment philosophies.

Now you’re ready to take on the comprehensive examinations that will solely determine your grade in each class. Some tests might last up to eight hours. You might be asked to recall details from readings, discuss a quote, or defend a position (how are the mores related to the laws?).

From the rustling stacks of department records that the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center has preserved, we bring you a selection of exam questions from 1937. And a reminder from your economics professor: “If you have lots of facts in your mind, confine yourself to the important ones; and do not exceed the time limit specified above.”

University history

“Oh, it was a lovely place”

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rsmith Tue, 08/08/2023 - 21:52

Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93

Summer/23

Marjorie Sullivan Lee, AB’43, lived in Foster Hall, roller skated in Ida Noyes, and watched Robert Maynard Hutchins go to work.

Early this year the University of Chicago Magazine received a rare bit of snail mail—a little green note card with a bird wreathed in flowers. In elegant cursive, Marjorie Sullivan Lee, AB’43, updated us on her lifetime of activism for people with Down syndrome. She also encouraged other graduates from the 1940s to send in their news.

The Core spoke with Lee, now 101 years old, about her memories of the College, her work at the Federal Reserve, and her activism. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Did you live on campus?

In Foster Hall. It had a beautiful tower. The tower room was very expensive, but there were two little rooms adjoining it, and they were less expensive. I had one and oh, it was a lovely place.

They locked the front doors of the building at ten or eleven o’clock at night. If we were out on a date, we had to come through a back doorway that served the four women’s dormitories—Foster, Green, Kelly, and Beecher. An older lady was in charge of this entrance overnight. We had to sign in, then we walked underground to our own dormitory. So we were protected, I guess you might say.

Foster Hall was about a block away from Rockefeller Chapel and right across the street from the home of the president, Robert Maynard Hutchins. I used to watch him walk out his front door.

Fashions of the time included “Christopher Robin” boots and saddle shoes. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf4-01366, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

What activities were you involved in?

One of the things I remember most is we had a big gym in Ida Noyes with a wooden floor that we could roller skate on.

We didn’t have sororities; we had clubs. I was president of a women’s club called Wyvern. My senior year I was in the senior women’s honor society, Nu Pi Sigma, which was linked to the men’s honor society, Owl and Serpent.

After our meetings we would all go to the C Bench and sing. We sang something called the Maroon songs. But I guess we sang just about anything.

Army cadets march past International House. (Chicago Photographic Archive, apf3-02878, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

What was campus like during World War II?

There was a minimum of men on campus. The ones who were there were part of a meteorology group. They marched in uniform from their living quarters to their classes every day.

Many of us women considered going into the service—with the WAC [Women’s Army Corps] or the Red Cross. I considered both. I was talked out of it by my family. They were hoping that I would graduate and get myself married and have a family.

One of my friends, Mary Hammel [AB’41], became very much involved. She had a pilot’s license and spent almost every weekend practicing at an airport nearby. During the war she became an instructor for Army pilots.

UChicago women helped the war effort by selling bonds. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf3-03141, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)

What made you choose economics as a major?

As a student I had a job in the economics department doing secretarial work. I just kind of floated into it.

Right out of college I got a job at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. They had this good economics department. Not all banks had such a department. I started out as a secretary. It was hard to jump over the typewriter—it took a while to get respect for my abilities in economic research.

They began little by little to let me do some independent work, like looking up statistics on a certain topic. I have always felt I do some rather good writing and so I pushed for the opportunity on that. I was very pleased when I finally had one of my articles in the bank’s magazine. I enjoyed it for five years. The only reason I left was I got married and I wanted to have children.

Students get ready to roller skate in Ida Noyes. (UChicago Cap and Gown, 1940)

How have you kept in touch with other alumni?

We developed a round-robin letter system. There were seven of us from Wyvern club. I’d write my letter, send it to number two on the list, then she’d write her letter and send both to number three. When it came back to me, I’d take out my old letter and attach a new one. It kept going for about 50 years. How about that?

You received a UChicago Alumni Association Public Service Award in 1993 for your Down syndrome activism. How did you get involved?

My son Kevin was born with Down syndrome. There were a lot of difficulties in fighting for inclusion. I got very busy.

Among other things, I developed a parents’ alliance for special education while our kids were in school, fighting for the chance for them to be in regular school classrooms. And then we developed the Parents Alliance Employment Project, where we helped these young folks find jobs. I never insulted anybody who didn’t agree with me, but I always tried to share my views.

What are you most proud of?

I’m proudest of my son Kevin.

What’s new in the College

rsmith — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 02:51:32 +0000

rsmith Tue, 08/08/2023 - 21:51

The new Center in Paris will nearly triple the current capacity, allowing 100 more undergraduates to study abroad each year. (Rendering courtesy of Studio Gang)

Summer/23

A soupçon of College news.

New Paris Center named for John Boyer

UChicago alumni and parents have contributed $27 million to rename the University’s new Center in Paris and establish a new professorship in honor of John W. Boyer, AM’69, PhD’75, senior advisor to the president and the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of History. Boyer served as dean of the College for 31 years and was instrumental in conceptualizing the first Center in Paris in 2003. The new Center, designed by Jeanne Gang, is scheduled to open in 2024.

2023 Quantrell winners announced

Five faculty members have been recognized with the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, which is based on letters of nomination from students. This year’s recipients are Leora Auslander, the Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity and History; Michael Gladders, professor of astronomy and astrophysics; Robert L. Kendrick, the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor of Music and Romance Languages and Literatures; Phoebe Rice, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; and James Sparrow, associate professor of history. Established in 1938, the Quantrell is believed to be the nation’s oldest prize for undergraduate teaching.

Inaugural Sonnenschein award given to Ricky Holder, AB’23

During the Class Day ceremonies (see remarks from Class Day speaker Bret Stephens, AB’95), Ricky Holder, AB’23, was presented with the inaugural Hugo F. Sonnenschein Award of Excellence, the highest honor to be bestowed upon undergraduates in the College. Holder, a Navy veteran who spent nine years in foster care, will be a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford next year. He was one of three student speakers at Class Day, along with fellow graduates Daphne de Beistegui, AB’23, and Jeremy Huang, AB’23. Read more at mag.uchicago.edu/holder.

You talking to me?

rsmith — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 02:51:32 +0000

rsmith Tue, 08/08/2023 - 21:51

Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936). (Courtesy Everett Collection)

Summer/23

Well I’m the only one here.

In the Q&A section of the College Review, the Core’s email newsletter, we asked alumni to share their memories of Doc Films, which celebrated its 90th anniversary last year.

Caught

One night I was in the balcony of Cobb Hall running the projectors, with a friend keeping me company and a full house below. Because each reel held only 30 minutes of film, the projectionist had to manually switch projectors, starting the second machine before the end of the reel on the first. Ideally, the process would be imperceptible to the audience.

When I leaned over to do the switch, my long red hair got caught in the take-up reel, like a scene from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. Luckily, my friend jumped up, turned off the projectors, and turned on the lights. By then my head was craned back towards the take-up reel. He meticulously disentangled the long strands from the reel. It took him about 15 minutes. Then on with the show!—Abby Freedman, AB’71

Night deposit

After the audience went home and we counted our proceeds, one of us had to take the money to the bank for a night deposit. Weekend showings sometimes meant a couple thousand dollars. One Saturday night, it was my turn to take the cash to the bank, riding in the back seat of a campus squad car. You can’t get out unless someone opens the door from the outside. We had just arrived at the bank as an APB came out that someone was slashing tires along the street. Both policemen jumped out. While I sat in the back seat with this bag full of cash, a guy yanked my door open and yelled, “Run!”—Paul Preston, AB’72, AM’73

Hitmen

In 2012 at Doc, I saw an action thriller called Looper about time-traveling hitmen. The protagonist studies French in hopes of retiring to France, to which his boss says—I’ll never forget this—“I’m from the future. Go to China.” The studio actually subtly developed the film with lines like that to appeal to Chinese officials and audiences. I learned that recently because I happen to work with one of the film’s producers (and possibly the most interesting person in the world).—Michael Sexton, AB’13

Film noir

I don’t remember a single screening that was resplendent among others, but Doc Films was a great education in the history of film. I attended two or three showings a month max, but I always read the short paragraphs about what was showing (how else do you decide what you want to see?) and through this absorbed a lot about directors, genres, periods, and stars. These days I watch a lot of classic films from the 1940s and 1950s, especially film noir, and I find that what I bring to my viewing experience is likely to be something that I learned from Doc Films. So thanks, all these many years later!—Orin Hargraves, AB’77

“Values”

The first date my wife, Patricia Schafer, SB’68, and I had was at Doc Films. After the outer doors were closed, one of the Doc members introduced the film. He said it was unusual, even for Doc, and gave us the opportunity to have our money refunded. No one took him up on the offer, being good, curious U of C students. The film: Flaming Creatures, showing various sexual inclinations and activities, with almost amateurish film production “values.” We still occasionally remind each other about the somewhat funny, somewhat embarrassing experience, almost six decades later.—Sam C. Masarachia, SB’67

Burned

Sean Carr, AB’90, author of “Once Upon a Time at Doc” in the Winter/23 Core, responds: Flaming Creatures is one of those movies I know of but haven’t seen. My last quarter in the College, I took a class on avant-garde film, and we watched Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising, which features a leatherman orgy set to Elvis’s “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise.” So that’s burned into my memory. Never told my parents part of their tuition payments subsidized that.

Next question: What was your experience of time in the College? Did you turn in your work months—or years—late? Did you routinely pull all-nighters or rise with the sun? Did College seem to last forever, or was it over in the blink of an eye? Send your theories on the meaning of time to collegereview@uchicago.edu.

Doc Films

Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93

Scientific thinking

rsmith — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 02:51:32 +0000

rsmith Tue, 08/08/2023 - 21:51

Melina Hale, PhD’98, came to UChicago as a graduate student in 1992. She’s now an alum, a College parent, a named professor, and, as of July, dean of the College. (Photography by Jason Smith)

Summer/23

Meet Melina Hale, PhD’98, the College’s new dean.

Melina Hale, PhD’98, the William Rainey Harper Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, became dean of the College on July 1. Hale, who previously served as a vice provost of the University, succeeds John W. Boyer, AM’69, PhD’75, the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of History. The Core spoke with Hale in late June, as she was preparing to step into her new position.

What was your first impression of UChicago when you came here as a graduate student?

How passionate everyone was about their research—that was both exciting and intimidating. And I loved how we were all appreciated for being our own quirky selves.

What were the first classes you taught?

I had the good fortune of being a teaching assistant for Lorna Straus [LAB’49, X’53, SM’60, PhD’62, now professor emerita of organismal biology and anatomy] and Jim Hopson [PhD’65, now professor emeritus of organismal biology and anatomy], both such great role models.

At the time, Lorna was the only woman faculty member in my department. She asked me to teach Multicellular Organisms with her but ended up leading a trip to Antarctica during the quarter, leaving me with the class for a while. Being thrown in the deep end was scary, but that happens over and over again in academia. I had to learn quickly and develop my own teaching style and approach. The students were so great and taught me a lot about how to teach that year. [Hale received the Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 1994.]

In Jim’s course, Chordate Biology, my favorite memory is from when we were dissecting sharks. The night before an exam a student wrote a long—very long, and pretty good—“Ode to the Shark” on the chalkboard in the dissection room. Humanities in the anatomy lab is so UChicago. And I was impressed that the student had time for poetry before an exam.

Will you teach as dean?

I hope so. I want to teach something interdisciplinary. My research is on the neurobiology and biomechanics of movement. I was thinking about something bridging science and art, such as dance or animation of movement. Or perhaps an interdisciplinary course related to scientific communications or a Big Problems course. I’d love to coteach with a colleague. I always learn so much when coteaching.

How would you describe your teaching style?

I love engaging with students in the classroom. But I will say, some of my favorite teaching moments are from my lab, working with undergrads on research projects. That’s been a very meaningful part of my career.

Working in research labs can be such a wonderful opportunity for the students, because they can be involved in a project from an early stage—developing experiments—through doing the experiments, analyzing them, and, in some cases, writing them up and having them published. Students learn how to think like a scientist, and of course they learn the subject matter deeply.

An important part of the experience is when things don’t go as planned. Maybe the results aren’t as straightforward as hypothesized or the experimental design or methods don’t work as planned. I’m excited that some of the Core Bio sections now incorporate projects with new research.

Do you have a favorite UChicago tradition?

Scav is so great. I am proud to be friends with a Scav cofounder, Diane Kelly [AB’90]. I am curious about Kuvia. We’ll see this winter …

I’ve really enjoyed going to College games and cheering on the Maroons. When my kids were little, they were so in awe of the players—for them it was better than the Bears or Bulls. Sometimes players would even take a picture with them or give them a high five. Family Weekend and Alumni Weekend are also really fun—I’ve met such interesting fellow alums.

How are you preparing for your new job?

There is a lot to do to prepare! The staff in the College are amazing, and I’ve loved learning about the work of the different offices. One little thing I did was to borrow my son’s Hum books to have as my summer reading. I’ve started out with St. Augustine’s Confessions. Wish me luck, because this summer has been pretty busy learning the ropes of the deanship.

You’ve mentioned a couple different Core sequences—a fan?

Absolutely. The Core is foundational to the UChicago experience. We often talk about students not learning “what to think” but “how to think,” and that happens in the Core. The depth of exposure to ideas across disciplines is important no matter what career path someone ends up taking. I’ve seen that directly with our students going into biosciences.

It is also important to study the humanities and other Core subjects to foster our own humanity. To equip ourselves to live in a community with other human beings, to be citizens.

Besides doing Hum Core readings, do you have any hobbies?

I love bouldering. I like that it combines movement with problem solving. I am always terrified on high walls at the bouldering gym but then can’t wait to climb again.

Are there any lessons from bouldering that might come in useful as dean?

So many. There are different ways to complete a “problem,” or climb a route. Different climbers have different strengths and are successful with different approaches. And rather than just attempting a climb over and over, spending time to think about it—and talk through it with others—is often more effective.

The good life and the gridiron

rsmith — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 02:51:32 +0000

rsmith Tue, 08/08/2023 - 21:51

At the 2022 Homecoming game, the Maroons defeated Cornell College 47–6. But Maroons of Character teaches players that their time at UChicago “isn’t just about football and school.” (Photography by Jason Smith)

Benjamin Recchie, AB’03

Summer/23

Maroons of Character teaches football players how to live virtuously.

Some collegiate football programs encourage players to watch game film on their own time. Most require players to lift weights. But at UChicago, players grapple together with a different challenge: how to grow in personal virtue and live a fulfilled life.

That is the mission of Maroons of Character, a yearlong program offered to UChicago football players by the Hyde Park Institute. (Although not formally affiliated with the University, the institute counts a number of faculty members among its collaborators, including Agnes Callard, associate professor in philosophy; Daniel Morgan, cinema and media studies chair; and Tahera Qutbuddin, professor of Arabic literature.)

Twice a quarter, the participants, all football players, gather to discuss a virtue—such as gratitude, humility, or temperance—that’s been chosen in consultation with Coach Todd Gilcrist Jr. and his staff. The goal, says Zack Loveless, AM’14, PhD’18, the institute’s director of programming and operations, is to get student-athletes to look beyond their day-to-day classwork and take the long view: “Your time here isn’t just about football and school—it’s about the rest of your life.”

The program’s roots lie in pre-pandemic 2020. The Hyde Park Institute already offered a yearlong program on medical ethics and character, codirected by Michael Hawking, affiliate faculty at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at UChicago Medicine, which aimed to help students cultivate the virtues necessary to navigate the stresses of a career in medicine. Gus Springmann, AB’13, now the volunteer director of Maroons of Character, imagined a similar program to help football players deal with the pressures of school and competition.

“Being a football player myself,” Springmann says—he was an offensive lineman for the Maroons from 2009 to 2012 and twice named to the University Athletic Association’s All-Academic Team—“I thought some of those same characteristics really resonated.” The Hyde Park Institute got the football coaches’ blessing, as well as their input on which virtues would be most useful for their players. It’s a bit of a return to the Maroons’ golden age, too: Loveless roots the discussion of virtues such as temperance in the writings of Aristotle, but moral character was also an important emphasis for the team under Amos Alonzo Stagg. Since the NCAA limits the number of hours athletes can be required to spend on their sport, participation in Maroons of Character is entirely optional.

“We start with some reading and reflection questions to get them thinking,” says Loveless. (The session on humility, for example, featured selections from an academic publication on psychology, the Harvard Business Review, and the Tao Te Ching). “What is this virtue? How do we understand it?” asks Loveless, whose degrees are in philosophy. “What are the contexts in which it applies? How is it important?”

After the discussion, a featured alumnus speaker talks about how that virtue impacted his own life. The students also spend time with an alumnus mentor who’s chosen on the basis of some alignment with his mentee, whether it be hometown or position played. They’re generally three to 12 years out of the College—old enough to have some perspective, but young enough to have experiences in common with the students.

At a panel discussion with alumni mentors, students asked how to build a new routine to replace the cycle of classes-practice-homework they’d followed continuously since their freshman year of high school; how to stay connected with friends when they move away; and whether they’d grow out of emotional ups and downs post-college. (“That doesn’t end,” said one of the alums. “You get better at handling it,” reassured another.) It’s Springmann’s hope that after a few years, the young men in the audience will swap places with the panelists, coming back to campus to mentor a new crop of football players in living virtuously.

“The joy of argument”

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rsmith Tue, 08/08/2023 - 21:51

Bret Stephens, AB’95, a New York Times columnist, received the UChicago Alumni Association’s Professional Achievement Award in 2014. (Photography by Meiling Jin)

Bret Stephens, AB’95

Watch the video of Stephens’s Class Day speech.

Summer/23

An excerpt from a speech to the Class of 2023.

This is a speech about speaking your mind when other people don’t want you to.

To those who just walked out, I thank them for not seriously disrupting my speech. And while I’m sorry they won’t hear me out, I completely respect their right to protest any speaker they dislike, including me, so long as they honor the Chicago Principles. It is one of the core liberties that all of us have a responsibility to uphold, protect, and honor.

To those of you who have chosen to stay, I thank you for honoring another Chicago principle, one that was dear to my dear friend, Bob Zimmer: Namely, that a serious education is impossible except in an environment of unfettered intellectual challenge—an environment that, in turn, isn’t possible without the opportunity to encounter people and entertain views with whom and with which you might profoundly disagree.

Decades ago, the art critic Harold Rosenberg coined the phrase “the herd of independent minds.” It’s a lineI think about often.

The herd of independent minds are the people who say they make up their own minds when it comes to politics, and yet somehow, and generally without exception, arrive at precisely the same long list of political conclusions as millions of others.

The point is: There are very few people who don’t see themselves as independent thinkers. There are even fewer people who are.

This is true wherever you go, in most walks of life. But it seems to be especially true in places and institutions heavily populated by people with elite educations—the kinds of places and institutions that many of you will soon be a part of. Groupthink is the affliction of those who ought to be—and often think of themselves as—the least vulnerable to it.

Some people are inveterate truth-seekers. They are almost congenitally willing to risk rejection, ostracism, even hatred for the sake of being right. But most people just want to belong, and the most essential elements of belonging are agreeing and conforming. They engage in what’s known as “preference falsification,” pretending to enjoy things they don’t, or subscribe to ideas they secretly reject. They go along to get along, because the usual emotional companion to intellectual independence isn’t pride or self-confidence. It’s loneliness and sometimes crippling self-doubt.

Is that a price you are willing to pay?

Institutions and their leaders invariably say they support independent thinking and free speech—but only when that support is easy and costs them nothing, not when it’s hard and requires them to take a stand. They want provocative thinking—provided it isn’t too pointed and only offends the people who don’t count in their social network. They want to foster a culture of argument and intellectual challenge—so long as nobody ever says the wrong thing and feelings don’t get hurt.

But this doesn’t always have to be the case. Institutions can, in fact, practice what they preach.

It’s called leadership. You have one magnificent example of it right on this stage, in the person of John Boyer [AM’69, PhD’75]. And you have had a historic example of it in the person of Bob Zimmer.

In its obituary for President Zimmer, the New York Times mentioned that, in his career as a distinguished mathematician, his main interests lay in “ergodic theory” and something called “Lie groups.” I don’t know what those are, either.

But I think it’s notable that a man whose academic career was probably the most insulated from any kind of political pressure so profoundly and intuitively understood the importance of protecting intellectual freedom throughout the whole academy. To adapt Martin Luther King Jr.’s line about injustice, Bob knew that a threat to independent thinking anywhere was a threat to independent thinking everywhere, including in abstruse mathematics and the hard sciences.

In short, Bob created an institutional culture that, as Salman Rushdie once said, serves as a safe space for thought, not a safe space from thought. And my question to you, both in the audience and on this stage, is whether you will take inspiration from it in your own lives and careers.

I hope you do, whether you choose to lead a private or a public life. And I hope you do so by writing your own version of the Joy of Argument—which is like a similarly titled book from 50 years ago, updated for an era that has become curiously and depressingly afraid of both. The joy of argument is not about “owning” or “destroying” or otherwise trying to disparage, caricature, or humiliate your opponent. On the contrary, it should be about opposition and mutuality, friction and delight, the loosening of inhibitions and the heightening of concentration, playfulness and seriousness, and sometimes even a truly generative act.

Yes: I am comparing great arguments to great sex.

These things you’ve all been doing at the University of Chicago for the past few years—discussing and debating and interrogating and doubting and laughing and thinking harder and better than you ever did before—isn’t the antithesis of fun. It’s the essence of it. It’s the uniquely joyful experience of being authentically and expressively and unashamedly yourself and, at the same time, having a form of honest and intimate contact with others who, in their own ways, are being authentically and expressively and unashamedly themselves.

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Expression

Class Day

Good sport

rsmith — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 02:51:32 +0000

rsmith Tue, 08/08/2023 - 21:51

(Illustration by John Jay Cabuay)

Summer/23

Angie Torain helps undergrads balance academics and athletics.

From her three-sport days in high school to balancing track and field with basketball at DePauw University, Angie Torain understands what it means to be both athlete and student. As UChicago’s director of athletics and recreation, helping students master that same balance is her full-time job. Torain came to UChicago in 2021 from the University of Notre Dame, where she served as senior associate athletics director of culture, diversity, and engagement. Since she became athletics director at UChicago, the Maroons have brought home four conference championships and two national titles. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Did you always know you wanted to be an athletics director?

I went to college planning to pursue a degree in education and become a middle school teacher, but once I graduated, I decided to go to law school [at Indiana University Bloomington], thinking I might become a sports agent or work at a sports and entertainment law firm.

I ended up falling into collegiate athletics through a job in NCAA compliance. If you think about compliance, it’s writing, interpreting, and applying rules, which definitely correlates with my legal background. Since my first job in collegiate athletics, I never looked back.

What does a normal day look like for you?

There’s no normal day. However, most of the time, I’m here in my office working on budgets, NCAA matters, and facility issues, or connecting with a campus partner, staff member, or coach. I also spend my days cheering on our wonderful athletes. If our athletes are competing on campus, I try to be there to support them.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I love to watch our athletes compete and meet the goals they set, either as a team or as individuals. It’s also great to see the pride they take in being athletes and students at the University of Chicago—the relationship building that I get to do with them is probably my favorite part.

What makes the Division III experience different for students and administrators?

Division III focuses on the student-athlete experience being the same as that of their peers and integrated into the academic experience. For example, our seasons end earlier than Division I and Division II. Division III athletes have more opportunities to do internships and study abroad because of the shortened seasons.

Resources are different too. Everyone pitches in and helps in different areas. It’s known across the division that aside from coaching, you might have an additional duty such as being the compliance coordinator, event manager, or a faculty member.

Staffing is different, rules are different, but I don’t think the athletes are different. They all want to do well academically and compete at a high level.

Why did you want to work at a school like UChicago?

I knew that if I was going to be an athletics director, I wanted to be at an institution where the athletes were there for the academics, with sports as an added bonus—basically, a place where the athletes didn’t feel like they had to choose between the two.

This year the UChicago athletics department had two women in positions typically held by men. How does it feel to be a female leader, and a Black female leader, in a very public role?

Hopefully I show other women that it is possible for them to lead in places where women are not normally seen—which reminds me of Nelson Mandela’s quote, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

I feel blessed to be in this role, but more than anything, I hope that it opens doors, so that in the future, other women can step into these roles without questions. I hope it encourages women to stay in athletics, especially on the coaching side. Young girls and boys need to see more women and women of color as coaches and administrators.

What are you looking forward to most as you spend more time here?

I look forward to us winning more championships!