Enduring priorities: Faculty Excellence

“Our goal is to support the scholars who are rigorous in their work, open-minded, shrewdly skeptical, demanding, and collaborative across domains of knowledge. Our expectations of them are rightly enormous. They should illuminate, not follow.”
—President Paul Alivisatos, AB’81

The University’s core missions of research and teaching come together in its faculty. These Chicago minds define the identity and greatness of UChicago. They are indispensable mentors to UChicago students, respected leaders in their fields, and contributors to the well-being and richness of human life everywhere.

Like every campaign in the University’s history, Chicago Minds seeks to ensure it can hire the best minds in every discipline and provide them with what they need to do their best work.

The campaign supports

• endowed full professorships;
• named associate and assistant professorships;
• seed funding for breakthrough research and innovation;
• curricular innovation and new academic programs.

NOTEWORTHY

Wallman Society of Fellows

In 2023 Amy Wallman, MBA’75, and Trustee Richard Wallman, MBA’74, made a $75 million commitment to faculty excellence and set a challenge for other donors to join them in funding 30 new endowed professorships across the University. That challenge was met in 2025, creating the Wallman Society of Fellows.

Enduring priorities: Student support

“Our second goal is to be purposeful in attracting the finest student minds to the University. Our duty is to awake in them a genuine love of knowledge and enable them with the mindset they will need for great achievements; to help them see that seeking knowledge is part of a lifelong journey of understanding oneself, one’s family, and finding one’s way to contribute meaningfully towards a thriving and good society.”
—President Alivisatos

The Chicago Minds campaign seeks to strengthen the University’s ability to draw undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students who will thrive in an environment of intellectual challenge, open-minded inquiry, and passion for learning. These ambitious beginning scholars shape the life of the mind on campus as meaningfully as they themselves are shaped by their experiences at UChicago.

Chicago Minds will help ensure that affordability is no barrier to any student with the potential and desire to become a Chicago mind.

The campaign supports

• undergraduate scholarships and financial aid;
• graduate and professional school student fellowships;
• public-interest, research, and leadership pathways;
• experiential learning, internships, and global study opportunities.

NOTEWORTHY

College affordability initiative

The University announced in May that it will guarantee free tuition for all students admitted to the College whose families have annual incomes less than $250,000 (with typical assets). Students from families with annual incomes less than $150,000 (with typical assets) will also receive free housing and meals and will have other fees waived.

Enduring priorities: Campus infrastructure

“The founding generation had a vision for how physical structures could promote the flourishing of the mind. They were inspired by the idea that all the fields of knowledge advance best when they are in dialogue with the others. Indeed, they embraced the idea that the tone and style of the neo-Gothic architecture and the complementary landscape of the quads could evoke strong expectations and aspirations of scholarly excellence.”
—President Alivisatos

From the grand neo-Gothic buildings on the historic quads to contemporary architectural marvels like the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library’s robotic retrieval system and the William Eckhardt Research Center’s specialized laboratories, Chicago minds rely on the built environment to do their best work. This extends to classrooms and other study spaces where discussion, debate, and collaboration thrive.

Chicago Minds aims to renew the quads to inspire future generations as so many have been inspired before. And it will make way for the facilities that tomorrow’s Chicago minds will need, beginning with projects like the AbbVie Foundation Cancer Pavilion, opening in Spring 2027, and the planned IonQ Center for Engineering and Science.

The campaign supports

• renovation and restoration of iconic academic and research buildings;
• translational research infrastructure;
• advanced scientific equipment and research technologies;
• collaborative spaces for interdisciplinary teaching and discovery.

NOTEWORTHY

A refresh of Ida Noyes

Since 1916 generations of students have gathered in Ida Noyes Hall for swimming, socializing, moviegoing, sharing a beer at the Pub, and more. With generous support from Board of Trustees Chair and Chicago Minds Cochair David M. Rubenstein, JD’73, this beloved building will become a dynamic campus hub and visitor center while retaining its historical character.

Campaign initiatives: Health and medicine

“It is clear that the next 20 years will be an age of extraordinary biological and biomedical discovery, especially when we forge ties with the physical sciences and molecular engineering. We now have more of the foundational knowledge at the molecular level to allow us to understand living systems in entirely new ways.”
—President Alivisatos

The campaign will enable advances in health and medicine and in medical education, empowering UChicago Medicine researchers and practitioners to illuminate medical mysteries, pioneer new fields, and elevate the standards of health care. The University has a long record of medical discovery by pioneers like James Bowman, EX’64, and Janet Rowley, LAB’42, PhB’45, SB’46, MD’48. As new technologies transform the way we think about medicine and the way we diagnose, prevent, and treat health conditions today, UChicago scientists are at the forefront.

With this legacy of scientific achievement, plus a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration; expertise in evolving fields, such as quantum medicine and artificial intelligence; and a network of world-class partner laboratories, UChicago offers leadership that the world needs.

The campaign supports

• interdisciplinary teams and University-wide collaborations;
• enhancement of clinical and research programs of prominence;
• recruitment of the best minds in science and medicine;
• increased aid for students and trainees in the Pritzker School of Medicine and the Biological Sciences Division (BSD);
• a state-of-the-art campus bioscience infrastructure including the AbbVie Foundation Cancer Pavilion, Hyde Park Labs, and BSD research space to propel discovery and enhance care.

NOTEWORTHY

New homes for cancer care and quantum medicine

A commitment from the AbbVie Foundation gave critical support to the construction of the AbbVie Foundation Cancer Pavilion, the first freestanding facility in Illinois dedicated to cancer research and care, scheduled to open in April 2027.

And thanks to a gift from philanthropist Thea Berggren, the University established the Berggren Center for Quantum Biology and Medicine, part of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. The center’s core objectives are to drive the development of quantum tools for biomedical application and to cultivate “bilingual” scholars who can translate quantum technology into clinical solutions.

Campaign initiatives: Computing and AI

“We will empower and challenge the finest minds in the world to learn to think with machines, as well as without them, and to approach these developments with a spirit that is at once ethical, skeptical,and ambitious.”
—President Alivisatos

As artificial intelligence becomes more powerful and more ubiquitous, scholars at the University of Chicago are asking, What if the question isn’t what AI can do, but what humans choose to do with it?

UChicago faculty and students today are thinking with machines, using AI to hunt undruggable cancer proteins and explore ancient civilizations through digital archives no human could survey alone. They are thinking about machines, asking whether AI can genuinely create, and whether it is quietly redrawing the boundary between governments and the people they govern. And they are thinking without machines, insisting that human judgment and inquiry are not optional. With support from Chicago Minds, scholars in every area of the University will explore what intelligent inquiry means in this age of AI—and will do so ethically, skeptically, and ambitiously.

The campaign supports

• endowed professorships to help recruit top scholars and practitioners;
• technical resources and computing infrastructure;
• flexible resources for collaborations, pilot studies, and exploratory, early-stage work;
• graduate student and postdoctoral fellowships;
• courses, programs, and pedagogical experiments.

NOTEWORTHY

Pioneering faculty and AI for social impact

In April Rika Mansueto, AB’91, trustee and Chicago Minds campaign cochair, and Joe Mansueto, AB’78, MBA’80, made a gift and set a challenge for other members of the UChicago community. The Mansueto Faculty of Mind and Machine Challenge seeks to inspire donors to support the recruitment of 20 leading scholars across multiple fields whose work uses the computational lens of thought.

A commitment in February from Thomas Francis Dunn, AB’81, MBA’86, and Susan Knapp Dunn, AB’82, established the BikeShop@UChicago. The new lab at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy aims to build and lead the emerging field of algorithmic public policy.

Campaign initiatives: Climate and energy

“We are alone amongst universities in opening a new field of climate systems engineering—others will follow. Future generations will see this as one of the great moves of the University to create new knowledge and benefit Americans and people everywhere.”
—President Alivisatos

What if we don’t have to choose between confronting climate change and advancing the prosperity and economic growth that fossil fuels can help power? The University of Chicago has a long tradition of using economics to solve key social problems like that posed by these seemingly conflicting imperatives.

Chicago Minds supports the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, where economists, scientists, public policy experts, and others are working together on this challenge. They are finding evidence-based market answers, working on breakthrough battery technologies, and investigating potential engineering solutions and stopgaps. Meanwhile, the institute’s first-of-its-kind curriculum on climate and sustainable growth is training the next generation to tackle the full complexity of this challenge.

The campaign supports

• endowed professorships to attract and retain the best climate researchers;
• a venture and seed fund program enabling researchers to pursue high-risk, high-reward ideas;
• outreach that translates frontier findings for public understanding and policy impact;
• development of a curriculum that gives students a 360-degree understanding of the challenge.

NOTEWORTHY

Inside the curriculum

Students in the College can now major or minor in climate and sustainable growth. Majors take a required set of foundational courses and choose one of four tracks for the rest of their coursework: science communication; climate science and technology; politics, economics, and society; or finance. In the fourth year, students from all four tracks come together for a capstone seminar and project.

Campaign initiatives: Thriving cities and institutions

“We can achieve much by enabling our faculty and students to build upon our well-established strengths in economics, law, history, sociology, and the full gamut of the social sciences to write a new chapter on the understanding of institutions that serve the cause of enhancing liberty and prosperity.”
—President Alivisatos

Thriving societies require confronting complex challenges with rigor and imagination. With a focus on the institutions that structure human lives and on the cities where populations are concentrated, Chicago Minds supports work across fields to deepen understanding of the many forces that shape prosperity, trust, and human flourishing. This work promises to strengthen civic life, expand economic opportunity, and improve public systems.

Robust interdisciplinary work at the University of Chicago is already forging a more nuanced approach to cities and institutions. The scholars engaged in these conversations are using varied entrance points, approaching the topic through history, economics, political science, policy, and other fields.

The campaign supports

• research on the systems that shape prosperity, liberty, and public trust;
• community partnerships focused on education, public health, economic opportunity, and civic life;
• evidence-based approaches to urban policy and social challenges;
• student research, experiential learning, and public engagement;
• public dialogue and global partnerships that strengthen democratic and civic institutions.

NOTEWORTHY

From institutions’ influence to how they are shaped

Over many years, Harris Public Policy’s James Robinson and coauthors built a persuasive case that the nature of a nation’s institutions are a key determinant of its citizens’ freedom and prosperity. That work earned them the 2024 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Now, using cultural analysis, large language models, and the tools of economics, Robinson is examining the forces that shape these institutions, particularly the power of ideas.

Campaign initiatives: Global communities

“The idea of the Chicago Mind represents something enduring about what it means to be a member of this community. ... Indeed, each individual who holds a deep connection to this special place has within themselves engaged in the good struggle to form their own Chicago minds.”
—President Alivisatos

The University of Chicago is stronger with you. The Chicago Minds campaign aspires to grow the global UChicago community and deepen its ties to the University.

As part of a worldwide community whose love of learning is strong and enduring, you have the power to enrich that collective while continuing your own intellectual journey.

There are many ways to partner with this incredible community of inquisitive Chicago minds who were, like you, shaped by the University of Chicago—and who, like you, continue to shape and sustain it.

Pique your curiosity: Discover and debate with Chicago minds at events that make you think, held around the world and virtually.

Give a little back: Be one of the more than 40,000 people and organizations who make an annual gift each year—a special community whose generosity adds up to make a real difference for students, faculty, and the University’s long future.

Keep learning from UChicago: Return to campus through The University of Chicago Magazine or another University publication—and share your favorite story with a friend.

Be an ambassador: Reinforce the University’s global reputation by spreading the word about UChicago’s role as a forward-looking leader in research, education, and impact.

Share your time and life experience: Bring the University mission to life by volunteering to support students and your UChicago community.

Use your imagination: This community is yours. Share your own ideas for drawing it closer together and magnifying its positive impact on the world.