Mandel Hall (University of Chicago News Office)
A new rep in DC, hospital protests prompt dialogue, Mandel Hall gets a makeover, and a College student’s foresight is rewarded.
Trudy Vincent, a longtime congressional aide, is the University’s new associate vice president for federal relations. In 26 years on Capitol Hill, Vincent served as legislative director for Senators Bill Bradley, Barbara Mikulski, and Jeff Bingaman. As head of the Washington-based Office of Federal Relations, Vincent represents the University in policy discussions on topics such as research funding, student aid, and health care. She succeeds Scott Sudduth, who held the position until December 2011. Matthew Greenwald, the acting head of the office since Sudduth’s departure, remains as senior director.
Protests prompt dialogue
After four protesters were arrested during a January 27 demonstration at the new Center for Care and Discovery, Provost Thomas F. Rosenbaum set up three faculty-led groups, beginning February 28, to discuss campus dissent and the role of the police, health care, and the University’s relationship to the community. About 50 protesters entered the hospital without permission, weeks before its February 23 opening, calling for an adult trauma center on the South Side. The medical center, which closed its adult trauma unit in 1988, currently operates a level 1 trauma center for patients up to age 16.
Six Chicago Booth faculty members received research awards from the American Finance Association—the most winners ever from one institution in a single year. Since the association began presenting the awards in 1989, 36 Chicago Booth faculty members have been honored, more than any other business school. Marianne Bertrand, Adair Morse, Zhiguo He, Stavros Panageas, Lubos Pastor, and Pietro Veronesi were this year’s winners. In addition, Luigi Zingales became the association’s president-elect and 2014 program chair.
A renovation project completed in January updated Mandel Hall while preserving the grandeur of the 109-year-old music venue. Upgrades include new fire alarm and sprinkler systems, improved aisle lighting, and wider seats. Photos from Mandel Hall’s earliest days informed the renovation, the first in 30 years, which included replicating the hall’s original paint colors and schemes.
The Illinois State Board of Education has adopted a University-created survey as part of a plan to boost student performance. The Urban Education Institute’s Illinois 5Essentials Survey is based on 20 years of research by the University’s Consortium on Chicago School Research that identified five factors common to strong schools—effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, a supportive school environment, and ambitious instruction. More than 4,000 Illinois schools will use the survey, which generates data to help administrators allocate resources and target decision making to improve learning and test scores.
Richard Sandor, chair and CEO of Environmental Financial Products LLC, and his wife, Ellen, are the principal donors to a $10 million endowment in law and economics. The Sandors made the gift in honor of Nobel laureate Ronald Coase, Clifton R. Musser professor emeritus of economics at the Law School. To recognize Coase’s work and Sandor’s innovations in finance and the environment, the Institute for Law and Economics will be renamed the Coase-Sandor Institute of Law and Economics.
John Edwardson’s $5 million gift to Chicago Booth establishes the business school’s Social Enterprise Initiative. Supporting student, faculty, and alumni interest in the social sector, the initiative will help students launch businesses and pursue careers, match alumni with opportunities for nonprofit board service, and fund faculty research. Edwardson, MBA’72, the retired chair and chief executive of CDW, serves on the University’s board of trustees and chairs the Council on Chicago Booth. Professors Marianne Bertrand and Robert Gertner will codirect the Social Enterprise Initiative.
Janice Guzon, ’14, won $1,500 in a Glamour magazine readers’ choice contest. Guzon, a public policy and sociology major, received almost 37 percent of the vote, the most among seven “so-impressive-you’ll-hardly-believe-it college women” that the magazine selected. Cofounder at age 15 of EYEsee, Guzon has helped provide more than 31,000 donated eyeglasses to people in Haiti, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Uganda. Guzon says she will put her prize money into EYEsee.
A $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation will help establish the Urban Center for Computation and Data. An initiative of the Computation Institute, the center will focus on data-driven urban research, planning, and design. University and Argonne National Laboratory scientists will work with educators, architects, and government officials to analyze data and create computer models to anticipate the impact of policy decisions, investments, and urban development.