091423 (O-Issue 2023)

To the Class of 2027,

Welcome home! While it may not feel like it yet, in a few months, campus and Hyde Park will begin feeling like a home away from home. New places you haven’t even seen yet will become your go-to areas to meet up with friends, cafés you don’t even know exist will become favorite places for studying or study breaks, and the strangers that surround you now will become the community that embraces you over the next four years. But all of that comes later; right now, you might be confused, tired, and nervous. All of those feelings are completely understandable. O-Week is a whirlwind. And while it may feel as though you have to go to all of the O-Week events and attend every RSO information session, our best advice to you

Editor’s Note

is to take time to get to know the people around you.

Community makes the college experience, and that is especially true here at UChicago. While you may not meet your closest friends during O-Week, or even during your first year, every person you do meet will in some way add to your experience as a member of the community—or communities—to which you belong on campus.

As is tradition in these letters, we will shamelessly plug The Maroon. Whether you wish to make an impact on the University or South Side community; develop your skills as a writer, editor, photographer, illustrator, designer, podcaster, coder, or financial analyst; or just join a great group of people to hang out with, we encourage you to consider joining us.

To the returning second-, third-, and fourth-years, welcome back. While returning to campus is a less daunting experience than first arriving, each class will face a new set of challenges. For second-years, these may be stepping into new roles in RSOs and communities, narrowing down your major, or reestablishing the connections you made last year. For third-years, many of you will be living off campus for the first time, and with that comes the challenges of maintaining your own space and yourself while staying connected to friends who have gone from living down the hall to living on the other side of Hyde Park. And to our fellow fourth-years, as we embrace our final year as undergraduates, dramatic changes loom on the horizon. Some of us will be writing theses, and many of us will be

preparing for what comes next, whether it be graduate school, fellowships, or fulltime jobs.

Through it all, we think about the stories we read in our very first O-Issue and the advice passed down from one generation of Maroon staff to another. This is our official welcome and gift to you. Let these pages serve as your guide to campus, a companion you can rely on as you navigate the challenges and celebrate the successes that inevitably await you. We’re so excited to tell your success stories—and to see you write your own— over your next four years.

Solana Adedokun and Nikhil Jaiswal, editors-in-chief Michael McClure, managing editor

The Mayor of Our Small Town: An Interview With Dean of the College Melina Hale

By AUSTIN ZEGLIS | Senior News Reporter

It is not uncommon for the University’s administration to undergo some reshuffling each summer, as evidenced by Melina E. Hale’s ascension to dean of the College on July 1. Hale spoke to The Maroon about her background, what she hopes to accomplish, and the pressure of living up to Boyer’s legacy.

After receiving her Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Duke University in 1992, Hale came to the University of Chicago for her Ph.D. in biomechanics.

“One of my college advisors knew the University of Chicago really well, so it was recommended to me. And then I met some of the faculty, and they were tremendous,” Hale said about choosing to attend the University.

Hale completed her Ph.D. in 1998, after which she became a postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook. In 2002, she returned once again to the University as a faculty member.

“I was very excited when the right job came up at the right time and gave me an opportunity to come back, bringing both

what I had learned as a graduate student and during my postdoc,” Hale said. “And I’ve been here my whole career since then.”

As well as being the William Rainey Harper Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology, Hale has served in numerous roles since returning to the University, including dean for faculty affairs of the Biological Sciences Division and as a vice provost of the University. She said the position of dean of the College appealed to her due to its opportunities for faculty collaboration and student-facing work.

“One of the things I really loved about the provost’s office was my ability to connect and work with colleagues across campus, and the dean role is also one of the areas where you’re doing that,” Hale said. “After working on very operational projects for a long time, the idea of getting back to academics and the students and that core mission of the institution was really appealing.”

In her first student-facing event as incoming dean of the College, Hale—along

with Provost Katherine Baicker and Dean of Students Michele Rasmussen—took part in a Sustainability Symposium in partnership with the Phoenix Sustainability Initiative (PSI), the Environmental Research Group, and the Committee on Campus Sustainability of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG).

“I find those engagements to be a wonderful time to connect, but I also always learn a lot from the students,” Hale said about the event. “It was just remarkable, both hearing how students were thinking about sustainability on campus and how we can do more and do better, but

Melina Hale. courtesy of melina hale

individual voices

also seeing how much they were doing already.”

Hale succeeds Boyer, who transitioned into the role of senior advisor to President Paul Alivisatos after a 31-year tenure as College dean. She considers Boyer a mentor, having worked with him throughout her career at the University.

“My first administrative activities when I came back as a faculty member were with the college council, which

was faculty governance. I had served on [Boyer’s] committee and done reports for him,” Hale said.

While succeeding Boyer may seem like a daunting task, Hale said she feels at ease because of his guidance.

“It is intimidating, but the engagements with him and how wonderful he is makes it feel a lot more doable,” Hale said. “One of the things that John said, which I found so true, is that being the dean of the College is like being the mayor of a small

town. There’s the operations side of keeping everything going. Then there are the aspirations we have and where we want to be next year and in five years. And then there are the day-to-day emergencies—a new thing pops up every single day. There are so many different perspectives to take in and understand, and as we’re making changes or doing new things, we have to understand how it impacts those groups.”

When asked what message she would want to send to the entire student body,

Hale emphasized collaboration throughout the entire University family.

“There’s so many things I’d like to say. The first thing that comes to mind is that their individual voices matter to me and that I want to learn from their experiences and their aspirations,” Hale said. “We have to work together as a community to keep this wonderful institution and even make it better in the ways we can for the future students coming through.”

Student Activism Organizations on Campus

By NAINA PURUSHOTHAMAN | Senior News Reporter

The Maroon has compiled a list of some of the major student activist organizations on campus. A full list of UChicago’s student organizations is available on Blueprint.

Active Minds at UChicago

Active Minds empowers students to speak openly about mental health to educate the community and encourage students to seek help. Active Minds connects students with resources that can help them manage the rigors of student life, such as information about how to access therapy both on and off-campus, wellness coaching, crisis hotlines, and more.

To get updates about Active Minds, join their listhost at active_minds@lists. uchicago.edu. Active Minds can be found on Instagram at @activemindsuchicago.

#CareNotCops

The #CareNotCops (#CNC) campaign, overseen by UChicago United, was founded in 2018 in response to the UCPD’s shooting of fourth-year student Charles Soji Thomas while he was experiencing a mental health crisis. #CNC is committed to abolishing the campus police force, UCPD, and creating alternatives. #CNC advocates for better mental health resources and argues for redirecting funds from policing to community services, such as mental health services, through rallies and other actions.

To learn more about the #CNC campaign, go to their website uchicagounited. org. #CareNotCops can be found on Instagram at @carenotcops.

Dear Asian Youth (DAY)

Dear Asian Youth (DAY) is a literary magazine focused on providing a platform for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) youth to increase awareness about APIDA culture and issues, as well as promote political engagement within and beyond the APIDA community on campus. DAY hosts events throughout the year, such as fundraisers to support the magazine, an annual policy competition where teams tackle important policy issues, and cultural celebrations, such as Diwali and Mid-Autumn Festival.

To learn more about DAY, go to their website at dearasianyouth.org.

Phoenix Sustainability Initiative (PSI)

The Phoenix Sustainability Initiative promotes environmentally sustainable policies and practices on campus and in the larger community. According to their website, PSI has eight ongoing projects: Campus Composting, Community Action, Environmental Education, Green Data, Green Partnerships, Campus Waste Reduction, Public Engagement, and Science, Arts, and Sustainability (SAS).

To get updates about PSI, join their listhost at psi@lists.uchicago.edu. PSI can be found on Instagram at @sustainableuchicago.

Environmental Justice Task Force (EJTF)

The Environmental Justice Task Force (EJTF) focuses on social and ecological justice. Throughout the year, the EJTF organizes campaigns to urge elected officials and the University to take action on climate and environmental injustice. Some of the EJTF’s past projects include the “Divestival,” which sought to pressure the University into divesting its endowment from fossil fuels, and a public campaign to ban toxic chemicals in Chicago. The EJTF also collaborates with organizations like Chicago Student Action to organize campaigns for issues such as police accountability, environmental justice education, and health and counseling services.

To get updates about the EJTF, join their listhost at uchicago-student-action@googlegroups.com. EJTF can be found on Instagram at @ej_taskforce.

Phoenix Survivors Alliance (PSA)

The Phoenix Survivors Alliance is a peer-led organization that provides information and peer support to survivors of sexual violence at UChicago. Their mission is to offer a safe space to survivors of all identities and in all stages of recovery to voice their stories and receive support.

They also inform survivors of their legal and medical rights and resources for recovery.

To learn more about PSA, visit their website at phoenixsurvivorsalliance. wordpress.com. PSA can be found on Instagram at @phoenixsurvivorsalliance.

Project Reproductive Freedom (PRF) Project Reproductive Freedom (PRF) advocates for reproductive freedom in the greater-Chicago area. PRF hosts events throughout the year, such as abortion access teach-ins, rallies, and fundraising. They also run The Jane Project, an initiative dedicated to filling the gap in university-provided information about reproductive health. The Jane Project includes a guide to obtaining contraception through UChicago Student Wellness and an anonymous call or text line staffed by trained volunteers.

PRF can be found on Instagram at @ uchicagoprf.

Students for Disability Justice (SDJ)

Students for Disability Justice (SDJ) brings disability activism to the UChicago community. In the past, SDJ has run a mentorship program for students with disabilities, hosted panel discussions about COVID safety for immunocompromised students, and partnered with Active Minds to hold Health Justice Weeks.

SDJ welcomes people with all kinds of disabilities and non-disabled allies. To

“[T]heir

matter to me and that I want to learn from their experiences and their aspirations.”

Since the 2023 municipal race elected a new mayor and 13 new aldermen to lead Chicago, the city’s political winds have shifted.

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get updates about SDJ, join their listhost at studentsfordisabilityjustice@lists. uchicago.edu.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Students for Justice in Palestine is a chapter of a larger national organization dedicated to raising awareness about the Palestinian cause and resistance to

Israeli government policies. SJP organizes protests on campus to advocate for justice, human rights, and self-determination for the Palestinian people.

SJP welcomes individuals of all backgrounds. To get updates about SJP, join their listhost at sjpalestine@lists.uchicago.edu. SJP can be found on Instagram at @sjpuchicago.

Students For Life (SFL)

Students for Life is a non-religious, student-led pro-life group on campus. Throughout the year, SFL hosts information sessions and speaker events. They also participate in rallies.

To learn more about SFL, visit their website at studentsforlife.org. SFL can be found on Instagram at @uchicago.sfl.

UChicago Against Displacement

UChicago Against Displacement fo -

cuses on the communities within Hyde Park, Woodlawn, and surrounding neighborhoods that are affected by displacement, redlining, and gentrification.

UCAD advocates for the University to recognize its history of negative impact on the community and to pay reparations to the South Side. UCAD works towards this goal through panels with the community, town halls, and protests. UCAD can be found on Instagram at @ucad.cba.

Chicago Politics in 2023: What You Need to Know

By SABRINA CHANG | Senior News Reporter

Since the 2023 municipal race elected a new mayor and 13 new alderpersons to lead Chicago, the city’s political winds have shifted. The main issues facing these new officials—crime and public safety, education, housing, and transportation— continue to occupy the forefront of their political agendas as the overall landscape moves further in the progressive direction.

The Key Players Brandon Johnson, Mayor Brandon Johnson was elected to serve as the 57th mayor of Chicago in April 2023, succeeding mayor Lori Lightfoot. He previously represented the Cook County Board of Commissioners 1st district. Johnson is also a former Chicago Public Schools teacher and Chicago Teachers Union organizer.

Johnson’s campaign was widely considered the progressive candidate in the runoff elections against Paul Vallas, focusing largely on public school funding, affordable housing, green jobs, and access to mental health support. Now approaching his 100th day in office, Johnson has already made his presence known by appearing at public events such as the back-to-school rally for Chicago Public Schools, Lollapalooza, Sueños music festival, and the Bud Billiken Day Parade, the largest African-American parade in the United States.

While Johnson’s outward optimism

has been met with open arms by Chicago communities, critics are starting to talk about his, as of yet, lack of tangible progress. On the legislative front, Johnson has yet to fulfill some of the 100-day promises he made on the campaign trail, including the reopening of mental health clinics and the affordable housing program Bring Chicago Home.

Aldermen

Chicago’s City Council consists of 50 aldermen who are responsible for writing and implementing city ordinances and representing the interests of their ward residents. The University of Chicago and its surrounding neighborhoods are spread across Chicago’s 4th, 5th, and 20th Wards.

Lamont Robinson, 4th Ward Robinson was elected alderman of the 4th Ward, which includes the area of Hyde Park north of campus. He defeated former Ald. Sophia King’s longtime chief of staff Prentice Butler in the April 4 runoff this year. Robinson was a former state representative in the Illinois General Assembly and made history as the first openly gay Black member of the Illinois House. During his time as a state legislator, Robinson helped increase access to jobs, housing, and other resources for the LGBTQ+ community. Now, he plans to address public safety, increase economic

development, make education in the 4th Ward more equitable, and meet demands for more affordable housing.

Desmon Yancy, 5th Ward Yancy was elected alderman of the 5th Ward, which encompasses the majority of the University campus, earlier this year, replacing retired Ald. Leslie Hairston. Yancy is a labor and community organizer who previously served as the director of community organizing for the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. Yancy, who was endorsed by Hairston, hopes to bring greater economic development to all areas of the 5th Ward, which has already been kickstarted by the new Obama Presidential Center being built in Jackson Park. On the city council, Yancy serves as vice chair of the Committee on Public Safety, where much of his work focuses on supporting the new Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability.

Jeanette Taylor, 20th Ward

Taylor serves as alderman of the 20th Ward, which includes the portion of campus south of the Midway. Taylor, who won reelection in the 2023 municipal elections, previously worked as an education organizer with the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization. Since taking office in 2019, she has focused her efforts on affordable housing and anti-displacement measures, notably introducing a Community Benefits Agreement ordinance in 2019 with former 5th Ward Ald.

Leslie Hairston and spearheading the 2020 Woodlawn Ordinance to protect affordable housing around the Obama Presidential Center. A vocal critic of the Lightfoot administration, Taylor endorsed now-mayor Brandon Johnson in the mayoral elections this year.

The Key Issues

It’s no secret that Chicago politics cannot be discussed without a debate on crime and public safety—specifically, gun violence and police reform. Continued protests to defund the police clash with efforts to increase police surveillance in many areas, including on the University campus. In his campaign, Johnson was the only leading candidate who did not call for increasing police forces, instead pledging to promote 200 current police officers to detectives to increase the rate at which crimes are solved. On the topic of safety in schools, Johnson believes that in-school support should come from the leadership of local school councils, not the police.

“If every single school had a baseline of support of social workers, counselors, therapists, psychiatrists, then you would not have to have a budgetary decision that limited the scope of what a fully funded supported school should look like,” Johnson said during a debate with his opponent Paul Vallas hosted by the Institute of Politics ahead of the mayoral runoff.

The public transportation system has also been a target of political debates for

Median home prices in the surrounding South Shore and Woodlawn neighborhoods have more than doubled since the OPC’s location was revealed.

CONTINUED FROM PG. 4 many years. Johnson believes that the inefficiency of the transit system is what has led to reduced safety.

“Public transport is unreliable. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so unsafe,” Johnson said during the debate. “When you leave it to chance, chaos occurs.… Expanding bus-only lanes, giving preferential signs to buses at stop lights, making sure that we have real leadership that will actually show up and come to work—all this plays a part in having a reliable transportation service.”

One of Chicago’s most pressing issues this summer has been the recent influx of migrants—an issue where the Lightfoot administration was widely criticized for their response. Last fall, some of the thousands of migrants who came to Chicago from Texas were housed in Wadsworth Elementary, a former elementary school eight blocks south of campus. The plan to shelter migrants at the school was made with little to no input from the community nor Ald. Jeanette Taylor and generated criticism from both. Though Mayor Johnson has not yet announced a long-

term plan for housing these migrants, it is sure to be a major topic of discussion during his time in office.

The construction of the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), a topic quite close to home for UChicago, has also sparked controversy among Chicagoans. The OPC will sit adjacent to the UChicago campus and offer opportunities for the University to collaborate with the Barack Obama Foundation on various community engagement efforts. While the OPC claims that it will increase economic development in the Hyde Park area, many argue

that it will exacerbate rising housing costs and mass displacement, which has already proved to be true. According to a recent article by The Washington Post, median home prices in the surrounding South Shore and Woodlawn neighborhoods have more than doubled since the OPC’s location was revealed. However, many officials, including Taylor, have made significant efforts to pass legislation, such as the 2020 Woodlawn Ordinance, to protect affordable housing in the area.

Getting to Know Your University Administrators

By AUSTIN ZEGLIS | Senior News Reporter

The University of Chicago community has seen some turnover in leadership over the past year. Before the school year starts, here’s a rundown of the University’s major administrative players.

Paul Alivisatos, President

Armand Paul Alivisatos became the 14th president of the University of Chicago on September 1, 2021, after former president Robert Zimmer stepped down due to health complications. Before joining the University of Chicago faculty, Alivisatos served as provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, where he also held numerous faculty appointments beginning in 1988.

As president, Alivisatos collaborates closely with the Board of Trustees, provost, deans, and other University administrators to develop comprehensive programs aligning with the University’s mission. He also oversees the University’s partnerships with businesses, government bodies, and the community at large.

A Chicago native, Alivisatos earned his A.B. with honors in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1981. His research accolades include a National Medal of Science in 2014 and a Priestley Medal in 2021. Alongside serving as

University president, Alivisatos holds a joint faculty position in the Department of Chemistry, the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and the College.

Katherine Baicker, Provost

Katherine Baicker became the 15th Provost of the University of Chicago on March 20, 2023, after former provost Ka Yee C. Lee transitioned into the newly created role of executive vice president for strategic initiatives. As provost, Baicker oversees the University’s academics and research programs.

Having previously held leadership roles at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Baicker’s expertise is firmly rooted in public policy. A graduate of Yale University, she earned her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1998 and has held notable positions at Dartmouth, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and in President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

As a leading researcher in the economics of health care policy, Baicker also serves as the Emmett Dedmon Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and serves as a board member at Eli Lilly

and the Mayo Clinic.

Melina Hale, Dean of the College

Melina Hale became dean of the College on July 1, 2023, after John Boyer stepped down from his decades-long career as College dean to become senior advisor to University President Paul Alivisatos. As dean, Hale is in charge of improving students’ experience in the College and upholding the University’s foundational values through collaboration with other administrators and students.

Before being named dean of the College, Hale served as vice provost. She is currently the William Rainey Harper Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy. Hale’s research focuses on the interaction between biomechanics and neurobiology.

Hale received her S.B. in zoology from Duke University in 1992 and her Ph.D. in organismal biology from the University of Chicago in 1998. Before joining the University faculty in 2002, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurobiology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Michele Rasmussen, Dean of Students

Michele Rasmussen is entering her 10th year as the dean of students at the University, a role that involves working

with administrators and other leaders across campus to provide support to students during their academic careers and in preparation for their postgraduate lives.

Among other campus services, Rasmussen holds direct responsibility for Student Wellness, Housing and Residence Life, Student Disability Services, and the offices of the University Registrar and the Bursar.

Rasmussen received a A.B. in history from UCLA in 1992 and a Ph.D. in biological anthropology and anatomy from Duke University in 1999. She served as an associate dean and adjunct professor at Duke from 2004 to 2010, after which she became the dean of Bryn Mawr College for three years before joining the University’s administrative team.

James Nondorf,

Vice President for Enrollment and Student Advancement and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid

James G. Nondorf has served as the University’s vice president for enrollment and student advancement and dean of College admissions and financial aid since 2009. Out of the 11 vice presidents that contribute to the University’s administrative team, Nondorf’s position has the most impact on day-to-day student life: His role entails oversight over

The University of Chicago community has seen some turnover in leadership over the past year.

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undergraduate admissions, financial aid, and the career advancement office. Nondorf came to the University of Chicago after serving as vice president for enrollment at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He was previously the director of student outreach and associate director of admissions at Yale

University. He received an A.B. in economics from Yale, along with a master’s in ethics from Valparaiso.

John Boyer, Senior Advisor to the President

Following a 31-year tenure as dean of the College, John W. Boyer assumed the role of senior advisor to the presi -

dent in June 2023. During his time as Dean, Boyer expanded the College’s curriculum to include new courses and programs of study. He was the longest-tenured dean in the College’s history.

A Chicago native, Boyer received his A.B. from Loyola University Chicago in 1968 and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1969 and 1975,

respectively. He studied European political and cultural history, with a special focus on Germany and the Habsburg monarchy.

Along with serving as senior advisor to the president, Boyer is the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor and teaches courses on European civilization, religion, and politics.

Finding Your Flock: Your Guide to Affinity Spaces and Cultural Organizations on Campus

By NAINA PURUSHOTHAMAN | Senior News Reporter

The Maroon has compiled a list of some of the University’s Affinity Spaces and Cultural organizations. A full list of UChicago’s registered student organizations are available on Blueprint.

African and Caribbean Student Association (ACSA)

The African and Caribbean Student Association (ACSA) seeks to foster a cultural community for African and Caribbean students on campus. ACSA spreads knowledge about historical and contemporary issues in the African diaspora through various programs like fundraisers, an Intercollegiate Black Cookout, and community service opportunities.

To get updates about ACSA, join their listhost at acsa@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about ACSA on their RSO website. ACSA can be found on Instagram at @acsa.uchicago.

Arab Student Association (ASA)

The Arab Student Association (ASA) is dedicated to cultivating an active community for Arab students as well as students interested in learning more about Arab culture and heritage. ASA hosts regular group events, such as study breaks and trivia nights, aimed at exploring the diverse forms of Arab culture. ASA also aims to create a platform for networking opportunities in

or related to the Middle East through career fairs and conferences.

To get updates about ASA, join their listhost at arabstudentassociation@ lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about ASA on their RSO website. ASA can be found on Instagram at @arabatuchicago.

Buddhist Association

The Buddhist Association is an umbrella organization for all Buddhist and meditation groups on campus. They organize speakers, events, and weekend meditation retreats.

To get updates about the Buddhist Association, join their listhost at buddhist@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about Buddhist Association on their RSO website.

Chabad

Chabad aims to create a welcoming environment for everyone on campus to celebrate Jewish festivities and expand their knowledge of Judaism. Chabad hosts a home-cooked Shabbat dinner nearly every Friday. Chabad has their own house on 5700 S Woodlawn Ave.

To get updates about Chabad, join their listhost at chabad@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about Chabad on their RSO website.

Chinese Undergraduate Students

Association (CUSA)

The Chinese Undergraduate Students Association (CUSA) is a cultural-interest community that spreads knowledge about Chinese culture through social events, shows, movie screenings, and food. Their membership includes International Chinese students, Chinese-American students, and anyone interested in learning more about Chinese culture.

To get updates about CUSA, join their listhost at cusa@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about CUSA on their RSO website.

Christians on Campus

Christians on Campus is a Christian RSO composed of both undergraduate and graduate students. Christians on Campus host weekly Bible studies and Friday night community gatherings in the Hyde Park area. They partner with other clubs in the Chicago and the larger Midwest area to host monthly, quarterly, and yearly events.

To get updates about Christians on Campus, join their listhost at christiansoncampus@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about Christians on Campus on their RSO website. Christians on Campus can be found on Instagram at @uchicago.christians.

Hillel

Hillel provides the opportunity for students and the larger UChicago com-

munity to participate in Jewish life and culture. Hillel seeks to build community through events such as study breaks, service opportunities, game nights, and literature reading circles. Hillel also provides a space for people to celebrate Shabbat, Passover, and more on campus.

To get updates about Hillel, visit their website. You can find more information about Hillel on their RSO website. Hillel can be found on Instagram at @hillelatuchicago.

Hong Kong Student Association

The Hong Kong Student Association promotes Hong Kong and its culture to all students through cultural activities, such as trips to local stores and study breaks. The Hong Kong Association also holds gatherings open to members and non-members for people to get together and share their experiences.

To get updates about the Hong Kong Student Association, join their listhost at hksa@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about the Hong Kong Student Association on their RSO website. The Hong Kong Student Association can be found on Instagram at @ hksa.uchicago.

Japanese Student Association (JSA)

Re-established in 2021, the Japanese Student Association’s (JSA) mission is to create a community for students to discuss Japanese culture and current

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Congrats!

You’re a Phoenix now, but how do you find those that are most like you? This guide is here to help.

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events. JSA holds cultural events, such as matsuri festivals and trips to local Japanese establishments, such as grocery stores and restaurants. JSA also provides support for incoming Japanese undergraduate students and Japanese high-school students interested in studying in the United States.

To get updates about JSA, join their listhost at jsa@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about JSA on their RSO website. JSA can be found on Instagram at @uchicago.jsa.

Korean Students Organization

The Korean Students Organization aims to represent the University’s Korean community and bring together students interested in Korean culture through social activities. KSO also fundraises for various charitable organizations like Korean American Women In Need (KANWIN) and Agglobe Services (North Korean food aid).

Their listhost at kso-temp-listhost@ lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about KSO on their RSO website. KSO can be found on Instagram at @uchicagokso.

Muslim Students Association (MSA)

The Muslim Students Association (MSA) aims to be the center of UChicago’s Muslim community and facilitate spiritual growth and knowledge on campus. MSA offers five daily prayers in congregation at the Muslim community space at Hyde Park Union Church, which is a short walk from campus. They also offer two Juma’a prayers, both on campus. One is located at Bond Chapel, and another is located at the University of Chicago Medicine. Everyone is welcome to attend either prayer.

To get more updates about MSA, join their listhost at msaforum@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about MSA on their RSO website. MSA can be found on Instagram at @uchicagomsa.

Nigerian Students Association

The Nigerian Students Association

strives to create a community for both Nigerian students and students who are interested in learning more about Nigerian culture through discussions, fundraisers, study breaks, and an annual gala.

To get more updates about the Nigerian Students Association, click here to join their listhost. You can find more information about NSA on their RSO website. NSA can be found on Instagram at @uchicagonsa.

Organization of Black Students (OBS)

The Organization of Black Students provides a forum to address issues of concern to the Black community and create a welcoming space dedicated to the continual growth of Black culture on campus and in the greater-Chicago area. They host events such as an annual Culture Show, study breaks, movie screenings, and other activities for members to gather.

To get more updates about OBS, join their listhost at grapevine@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about OBS on their RSO website. OBS can be found on Instagram at @ obs_uchicago.

Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS)

The Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS) aims to promote cultural, political, and social awareness within and beyond the Latinx community. OLAS focuses on both the college community and the greater-Chicago community. They host events such as an Annual Gala, picnics, game nights, and open mics.

To get more updates about OLAS, join their listhost at this link. You can find more information about OLAS on their RSO website. OLAS can be found on Instagram at @olasuchicago.

Organization of LGBTQ+ Students (OLS)

The Organization of LGBTQ+ Students (OLS) aims to create an accepting and inclusive environment for all

LGBTQ+ identifying students both at the university and in the greater Chicago area. OLS hosts events such as study breaks, discussions, town halls, and an annual OLS Gayla.

To get more updates about OLS, click here to join their listhost. You can find more information about OLS on their RSO website. OLS can be found on Instagram at @uchicago_ols.

South Asian Students Association (SASA)

The South Asian Students Association (SASA) is dedicated to educating students about South Asian culture, history, and current events. Throughout the year, SASA holds a Diwali puja and celebration in the fall, an annual culture show in the spring, and Holi celebrations. Their events are open to all members of the University community.

To get more updates about SASA, join their listhost at sasa@lists.uchicago.edu. You can find more information about SASA on their RSO website. SASA can be found on Instagram at @uchicagosasa.

Taiwanese American Student Association (TASA)

The Taiwanese American Student Association strives to spread awareness about Taiwanese culture throughout the greater University community. TASA also hosts events such as a spring formal, fundraisers, and Lunar New Year celebrations.

To get more updates about TASA, join their listhost at tasa@lists.uchicago.edu. Here is their RSO home page with more information and links. TASA can be found on Instagram at @uchicagotasa.

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How to Navigate Chicago’s Transit System

By BIANCA JORTNER | News Reporter

Rich in culture and history, Chicago’s 77 distinct community areas offer unique experiences. While Hyde Park is a beautiful neighborhood, leaving campus can also be an immersive and memorable experience, especially for those who are newcomers to the city. The University offers students a multitude of options for traversing campus and for exploring the rest of Chicago in safe and low-cost ways.

As the second largest public transportation system in the country, the Chicago CTA bus system comprises 128 routes, serving nearly 12,000 bus stops daily. Services typically depart every 20 minutes. To check bus routes, you can use the Bus Tracker by visiting ctabustracker.com/home, with an easy guide on how to track via text on this page: ctabustracker.com/trackbytext.

There are eight El train lines: Red, Blue, Orange, Brown, Pink, Green, Purple, and Yellow. The different lines cover different routes. The metro system is referred to as the El because its trains travel on elevated railroads.

The Green Line route runs from

Harlem in Forest Park, IL, to Oak Park, IL, to the South Side (63rd Street), as well as through downtown along Lake Street and Wabash Avenue in the Loop. The Pink Line operates its service from 54th/Cermak in Cicero, IL, to the downtown Chicago Loop and provides easy access to the West Loop. The Brown Line, which goes to neighborhoods northwest of downtown, operates weekdays and Saturdays between Kimball and the Loop.

The Blue Line and Red Line both operate 24/7 and are considered the busiest lines. The Blue Line connects Chicago O’Hare International Airport and downtown. The Red Line serves the North and South Sides via downtown.

UChicago students have unlimited access to the CTA bus and train systems during the academic year upon activating their Ventra U-Pass cards, which they receive during O-Week.

Students often choose to go downtown via either a single bus (#6 Jackson Park Express), bus and train, or subway. In general, the journey from Hyde Park to the Chicago Loop via public trans -

portation spans anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes, although this can vary significantly depending on delays, time of day, and route.

While the CTA’s El services mainly operate within the city of Chicago and its closest suburbs, the Metra system’s rail routes extend from downtown to Chicago’s more distant neighborhoods and towns. Each year, students are given 10 free Metra passes, which can be activated on their my.UChicago portal under the heading “Metra Ten Ride Pass.” Metra trains run at all hours and offer a relatively inexpensive and safe means to travel downtown or farther out of the city.

As of July 2023, the University offers each student seven Lyft passes per month. Rides discounted by 10 dollars are available from 5 p.m. to 4 a.m within the specified service area, which extends from 48th Street to 64th Street, bordered by Washington Park and South Lake Shore Drive (the exact area will appear on the app). A plan for the academic year has not yet been announced.

These passes renew monthly and can be activated with a link received via email from Lyft. More information

about the Lyft Ride Smart Program at UChicago can be found on UChicago’s Safety and Security website.

UChicago also operates its own shuttle bus service, known as the UGo Shuttle Program. Shuttles operate several routes and travel on campus as well as around the greater campus area. While route operation times vary, both Daytime and Nighttime shuttles are offered, typically running early morning to late evening.

UGo Shuttles run year-round, except on University-observed holidays. Download the TransLoc app to see detailed arrival times, stops, routes, and more. As of last spring, UChicago now offers a Downtown route on weekdays. Students show their University-issued ID to ride the shuttle for free.

Safety precautions are important to keep in mind when traveling, including on public transportation. Always be aware of your surroundings and be mindful when you are using public transportation, especially when it is late.

Everything You Need to Know about Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard

By SHINJINI CHAKRABORTY | Senior News Reporter

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action programs based on race are unconstitutional in their landmark decision on Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and its companion case Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina et al. Although the immediate impact of the decision on the University remains unclear, it is likely to have far-reaching consequences on college admissions across the country.

In previous decisions, the Supreme Court found that affirmative action programs were permissible and did not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment in some instances, meaning that uni-

versities—including UChicago—could consider race as a factor in admissions. This is separate from racial quota systems, which the Court ruled were unconstitutional in 1978.

However, the Court’s majority opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard states that prior decisions have “permitted race-based college admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions: such admissions programs…may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and must—at some point—end.” The Court found that current affirmative action programs have not met these requirements and are thus unconstitutional.

In its majority opinion, the Supreme Court sided with Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), citing arguments that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “should not permit any distinctions of law based on race or color.”

The majority claimed that the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education shows that “the right to a public education ‘must be made available to all on equal terms.’” The Court clarified that school admissions must be made “on a racially nondiscriminatory basis.”

SFFA is a nonprofit group that advocates against race-based admissions programs, which they contend are unfair and contrary to the ideals of the civil

rights movement.

The organization filed lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North California (UNC) in 2014, arguing that the universities’ admissions programs, which considered race, violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

Before the Court issued its decision, the University of Chicago and 15 other universities filed an amicus brief to demonstrate their support for affirmative action programs. The brief objected to SFFA’s claims that the universities’ “consideration of race and ethnicity reduces every applicant to a ‘crude stereotyp[e].” Instead, the universities argued

CONTINUED FROM PG. 8 that “it is impossible to fully appreciate every applicant’s experiences and perspectives while turning a blind eye to race and ethnicity.”

The universities further argued that the use of affirmative action is not unfair because “an admissions program that treated race or ethnicity as ‘automatically ensur[ing] a specific and identifiable contribution to a university’s diversity’ would fall outside the scope of permissible consideration of race in university admissions.” The universities claimed their admissions processes considered race as “one factor among many” used to advance diversity.

UChicago, along with the other universities included in the brief, outlined possible consequences of eliminating

enced a finding from a lower court’s ruling on SFFA v. Harvard to argue that “the race-neutral alternatives proposed by [SFFA] would lead to a near 33 [percent] reduction in the number of African American students admitted, absent other admissions policy changes that would ‘result in a significant decline in the strength of Harvard’s admitted classes across multiple dimensions, including its potential for academic and scholarly achievement.’”

The universities also claimed that ending affirmative action could harm underrepresented minority students. The brief cited a survey from the University of California, where affirmative action has been banned since 1996, that “showed that African-American and Latinx students at [its most selective]

students of their race are not respected’ at ‘substantially higher percentages’ than at UC’s most diverse campuses.”

Following the SFFA decision, President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Katherine Baicker affirmed the University’s commitment to upholding diversity in an email to the University community.

“We consider diversity to be a strength—and, indeed, foundational to our academic success. Advancing rigorous inquiry requires welcoming a diversity of perspectives and ideas, as well as a diversity of life experiences,” the email read. “Bringing together people from the broadest possible range of backgrounds is often the first step toward realizing field-defining scholarship and providing a transformative education for our students by fostering a culture that reveres open discourse and constant questioning.”

In a statement to The Maroon, University spokesperson Gerald McSwiggan said that “the University will comply with all applicable laws while continuing efforts to engage with applicants of high ability from all backgrounds in order to foster a diverse and welcoming environment.”

“We consider diversity to be a strength—and, indeed, foundational to our academic success.”

We are very proud of all you have accomplished, and we cannot wait to see your next steps. Now make the most of the fantastic opportunities UChicago has to offer. We love you! Have a great year Ari!

Giacomo Mevio

We wish you a fantastic start of a wonderful journey.

Mum and Dad

- Aba, Mom, Sophia, and Esther (Class of ‘25)

Ariel J. Goldberg Class of 2027

Brains Over Brawn: How Football Found Its Place at UChicago

By LEO VERNOR | Grey City Reporter

In the fall of 2022, I walked through the doors of the Ratner Athletics Center for the first time. Before entering the cramped breeding ground of gym bro–philosophy bro hybrids who work out with Kant in one hand and a dumbbell in the other (seriously, I have seen this on multiple occasions), I found myself in front of a shrine dedicated to collegiate athletic triumph.

I paced through the circular exhibit, examining the glass cases full of blackand-white images and awards. The first thing I noticed was that a significant portion of the encased items were dedicated to football: National Hall of Fame awards, pennants, jerseys, and commemorative footballs with astonishing scores embossed upon them. I had seen this sort of thing on visits to other schools like The University of Texas Austin or Northwestern, but it felt out

of place here.

Especially confusing to me was the ball with the score: “Chicago–15, Michigan–6.” The fact that we had played against, let alone beat, the University of Michigan, a school with one of the most notoriously dominant football programs in America, startled me.

The centerpiece of the installation was a bronze figurine of a man in a Discobolus-esque stance, with one arm holding a football, the other outstretched defensively: the Heisman Trophy.

The Heisman, the most highly sought-after individual award in collegiate football, was sitting in the lobby of the recreational gym at perhaps the most notoriously dorky school in the country. From that point on I was hooked, and instead of working out, I turned back to my dorm room and scoured the internet searching for answers.

skip a workout, but my curiosity quickly spiraled down a rabbit hole that seemingly had no end. I spent the following months in the Special Collections Research Center, digging through boxes of old newspapers, correspondences, and student dissertations. I quickly came to learn that UChicago’s relationship with football is convoluted and deeply intertwined with its campus culture, student life, and the University’s strict philosophy as an institution that prides itself on rigorous academic pursuit.

Harper’s University

UChicago’s relationship with football sprung out of the philosophy of the University’s first president, William Rainey

Harper. In 1891, determined to build a team that would dominate the gridiron, Harper hired Amos Alonzo Stagg to be the athletics director and head football coach for the Maroons. Hiring a coach in a tenured position was unprecedented, but it was the obvious move for Harper, who saw football as a key aspect of his uniquely American university. Harper aimed to build an institution that embodied the academic excellence of Oxford while remaining American in culture. Excelling at football, a sport synonymous with the American way of life, was the key to his vision.

Harper made his high expectations clear in his offer letter to Stagg for the coaching position, writing that he wanted a team that would “knock out”

CONTINUED ON PG. 12

Utter dominance, abolition, and the largest kazoo in the world: The story of the Chicago Maroons is a struggle between academic excellence and athletic prowess.

Jay Berwanger’s 1935 Heisman Trophy. courtesy of leo vernor .

1893 Football Team. courtesy of the hanna holborn gray special collections research center , the university of chicago library

CONTINUED FROM PG. 11

the competition. Stagg was a known wizard of the game and had received higher-paying offers from established programs like Yale. But Stagg wanted to build his own legacy from scratch, and that new school on the Midway was the perfect blank canvas.

Stagg pushed his team hard for the first three seasons, touring the country to play the most formidable opponents in the surrounding states. In 1896, after establishing some legitimacy, Chicago joined Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Purdue, and Northwestern to form the Western Intercollegiate Conference, more colloquially known as the “Big Ten.”

Football spilled over onto the quad and enveloped campus culture. Similar to the dominant schools of today, tickets to games were in high demand, and students even had to compete with the general public for a seat at Stagg Field. Business was booming, and the boys on the field were dominating a sport that was on the rise nationally. Bringing the stadium to full capacity each home

game, the rowdy fans would cheer along to the beat of Big Bertha, the world’s biggest bass drum.

In one instance, after an 1896 victory over Michigan, more than 200 students skipped classes and flooded the halls. When the cavalcade passed Harper’s office, he joined in, marching alongside the students whose school spirit had become a significant source of profit for the University.

As far as recruitment went, Stagg was in charge, and athletic ability came first and far above proficiency in the classroom. In certain cases, players were yanked out of high school for training before they finished their senior classes.

This kind of special treatment for the men of the football team carried on throughout their time on campus. They enjoyed access to specialized training facilities, country club retreats, and a far lighter workload than the average UChicagoan.

A 1902 Chicago Tribune article describes the players as “gridiron warriors [who] have not yet descended to the level

of ordinary students.” They possessed “distinctions shown to them to which the common ‘grinder’ cannot lay claim.” (Yes, even in 1902, UChicago students studied hard enough to earn the title of “grinder.”)

After all, it was necessary to keep these students on the field and to persuade a new recruitment class each year that would outplay opponents. The most effective way to do that was to advertise being on the football team as a privileged position among the student body.

Knowledge Above All

By 1920, the Maroons were two-time national champs, and Stagg had attained legendary status. But some on campus began to question whether the Maroons’ dominance was contradictory to one of the core values of the University: putting knowledge first.

Following America’s post-war economic boom, schools like Michigan, Harvard, and Notre Dame spent millions on grand new stadiums to ensure their place among the elite, while UChicago stood idly by. In 1923, Ernest Bur -

ton became president of the University. Burton placed less of an emphasis on athletics than his predecessors, Harper and Judson. Burton denied Stagg’s request to fund an entire new stadium, instead opting only to install two new grandstands. This decision marked the beginning of the end of Stagg’s reign on campus.

Burton and his successor, Max Mason, continued, with the support of trustees and other administrators, to place checks on Stagg’s power. The old coach was no longer able to recruit in the aggressive manner he once did, and player stipends were strictly off limits. Unable to compete with other universities in the recruitment process, the Maroons saw their losses begin to outnumber their wins, and the program collapsed.

Hutchins, the Executioner

Enter Robert Maynard Hutchins, a young scholar who intended to establish UChicago as an elite institution of higher education when he acceded to the office of the president in 1931. Hutchins inherited a dying football team: Coming off an 85–0 loss to their formal rivals,

CONTINUED ON PG. 13

Stagg Field, 1913. courtesy of the hanna holborn gray special collections research center , the university of chicago library.

Snippet of Robert Hutchins’s “Gate Receipts and Glory,” 1939. courtesy of the hanna holborn gray special collections research center , the university

“By 1920, the Maroons were two-time national champs, and Stagg had attained legendary status.”

the Michigan Wolverines, the Maroons were decrepit.

A Yale graduate and higher-education idealist, Hutchins saw football as an obstacle in his path to making UChicago a sacred space dedicated strictly to the pursuit of intellectual enlightenment.

Hutchins took Judson’s recruitment restrictions even further, essentially banning recruitment altogether, and stripped Stagg of whatever power the old man still had. As a result, attendance, victories, and interest amongst

the student body and faculty steeply descended.

In a 1931 “Open Letter to the ‘Old Man’,” The Daily Maroon called for the retirement of the almost 70-year-old head football coach. Two years later, Amos Alonzo Stagg coached his 42nd and final season at Chicago.

In the years following, under coach Clark Shaughnessy, the team saw little to no success on the field. Outside of the spectacular performance of Heisman award winner Jay Berwanger in 1935, the W-L column was dreary. It had be -

come clear that the University had made the decision to put athletics aside, and the football team was as good as gone.

The Abolition

CONTINUED FROM PG. 12 CONTINUED ON PG. 14

In December of 1938, Hutchins wrote an article—really, more of a rant—in The Saturday Evening Post, titled “Gate Receipts and Glory.” The piece is a striking, unfiltered account of Hutchins’s true opinion on the place of football, or lack thereof, in higher-education institutions. Voicing his disgust with the commercialization of intercollegiate

athletics, Hutchins tore apart the “athletic myths” that promoted football as the ultimate indicator of a successful university. Hutchins saw intercollegiate football as a “financial enterprise with the rosy glow of Health, Manhood, Public Spirit and Education.”

Such unethical practices did not belong at the prestigious safe haven of morality Hutchins aimed for UChicago to become. To him, UChicago was “a different kind of college,” one where students attracted by athleticism—stu-

1957 Organization Against Football RSO Registration Form. courtesy of the hanna holborn gray special collections research center, the university of chicago library

1964 Football Club RSO Registration Form. courtesy of the hanna holborn gray special collections research center , the university of chicago library

“To [Hutchins], UChicago was ‘a different kind of college,’ one where students attracted by athleticism—students who ‘come to college for fun’—did not belong.”

at UChicago basked

dents who “come to college for fun”—did not belong.

The same year he wrote his searing piece, Hutchins sent a letter to the Board of Trustees recommending the indefinite discontinuation of the “handicap to education” that was the football program. In its hopeless state, the team had two choices: to dismantle itself entirely or to return to aggressive recruitment and subsidization of high school players. To Hutchins, the latter was immoral and impossible to do “without departing from our principles and losing our self-respect.”

Shortly after receiving the letter from Hutchins, the board of trustees voted unanimously to abolish varsity football at the University of Chicago.

The decision was more of a relief than a tragedy for most students. In an op-ed titled “Delayed Obituary,” writers at The Daily Maroon expressed the relief that the abolition provided the student body. Football was long dead, the Maroons had no hope of competing with fellow Big Ten–ers, and its presence only threatened the preservation of the “intellectual ideals” of the University.

Equally important as academic rigor was the maintenance of a certain level of prestige at the University. Some advocated that the Maroons, rather than dissolve completely, just play smaller schools. This option was rejected because, according to Robin Lester’s 1974 Ph.D. dissertation on football history, Hutchins was “fearful that playing small schools would diminish Chicago’s status as a premier university.”

And so it was decided: The serious athlete and the serious student were separate entities, and the University of Chicago was only a place for the latter.

1963: The Return

The ol’ pigskin remained tucked away for 24 years following the abolition, and the bleachers of Stagg Field were converted into a quantum research

athletic failure. For some, the

lab where physicist Enrico Fermi created the world’s first sustained nuclear chain reaction. Football did not return as a topic of discussion amongst UChicagoans until 1956, when the Committee on Student Interests brought forth a petition to bring football back to campus,

“Organization Against Football” RSO serving to “keep football from returning” in the case of a future debate. But, in the years following, those who wanted to play football felt as if their rights were being restricted by the ghost of former president Hutchins. Seven years

turn. In a 1959 letter to former Pepperdine University president Norvel Young, Dean of the College John Netherton wrote, “We do now have tackle football classes in the Autumn quarter as part of our Physical Education program, and a very high proportion of our undergraduate men participate in intramural touch-ball.”

In the same letter, Netherton outlined the strict requirements necessary if football were to reemerge, stating, “There would be no buying of athletes. We would not lower our admissions standards to obtain football players, nor would we institute ‘snap’ courses to allow athletes to get by academically.”

Even the Undergraduate Student Government warmed up to the idea of a football team on campus, claiming that it would be a “violation of civil rights” for students to be denied the ability to participate in the sport.

“Students felt that they were here, in part, because it was a different kind of place,” former University president Hanna Holborn Gray told me. A place, they thought, that prioritized academics over football.

The return in 1963 was not the product of a spontaneous change in spirit amongst the students and faculty but simply “a football club that mustered enough players,” Gray said.

This was no attempt to resurrect the glory days, and if it was, the students who were against the return made sure their voice was heard at the first scrimmage. In a quite hilarious exhibition, student members of the “SNUB” organization, an offshoot of the Organization Against Football, held a sit-in on the 50-yard line at Stagg Field.

citing that “students do not have much fun at college.” The Board of Trustees struck the petition down unanimously.

The majority of the student body vehemently rejected the notion that football be brought back, and following the failed petition, some students formed an

after the 1956 petition, enough aspiring players gathered together to form their own “Football Club” RSO, and the sport returned to campus.

With the support of some alumni and faculty, ideas began to float around regarding the specifics of football’s re -

“So it was one of the more hilarious but appropriate episodes in our history that one of the first sit-ins to take place at the University would be on the 50yard line to guard against something like the restoration of football,” Gray recalled.

SNUB Sit-In Flyer. courtesy of the hanna holborn gray special collections research center , the university of chicago library

“Students

in their

comic incompetence of the team was a testament to their academic excellence; others just found joy in the humiliation.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 14

The demonstration was short-lived, and the season went on without any further interruption. The Maroons began on a path to redemption.

Division III: A New Era

Throughout the ’60s, UChicago football gradually progressed from a class to a club to a scrimmage team, and finally, in 1969, the program became a founding member of the NCAA Division III league.

In his short time as University pres -

ident between 1975 and 1978, John Wilson wanted to do something that many at UChicago and beyond had not considered a possibility: make football fun.

“He had a positive view of sports; he wanted to improve and widen the scope of student life,” Gray said of her predecessor.

Wilson, a former swimmer, supported the expansion of DIII athletics during his time as president, hoping to legitimize the barely funded football scrimmage squad.

“The idea was to have a league in

which institutions that are more or less similar in terms of their athletic resources and their philosophy about sports might enjoy playing each other and maybe have pizzas together after a game,” Gray said about the founding of the division.

DIII gave the Maroons a smidgen of credibility, and with that came some extra financial support. Players weren’t getting post-game ice baths and personal massages, but at least they had locker rooms to change in.

As an homage to the former coach,

the DIII football championship game was dubbed the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, though to this day, the Maroons have yet to compete in it.

Football for the Thinking Man

In 1957, Stagg Field was demolished, and construction began on the Regenstein Library. The massive brutalist structure took 13 years to finish and stands today as a monument to academic rigor. With the shadow of the old stadium having been erased, football at

CONTINUED ON PG. 16

“It’s fun; this is what college football was meant to be.”

Snippet from the Chicago Tribune, September 22, 1974. courtesy of the hanna holborn gray special collections research center , the university of chicago library

CONTINUED FROM PG. 15

UChicago entered a new age.

“Maroons: Football for the Thinking Man” was written in bold above the Sports section of the Chicago Tribune on September 22, 1974.

“The team plays a brand of football in which punts travel 20 yards, and 90 percent of the passes look like intentional grounding,” wrote the article’s author, Clifford Terry.

The sprawling piece focused not just on the team’s poor performance but on the absurd fanaticism of the student body. Bandana-sporting students would gather in the stands of the new Stagg Field—a meager 1,000-person-capacity field—and cheer on their team with the screeching of Big Ed, the world’s biggest kazoo.

“The students in the stands seem to be divided in half,” the quarterback at the time told the Tribune. “Some like to watch football, the rest like to smoke and drink wine.”

To cheer on the troupe, the article says, students shouted chants such as “Themistocles. Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, X square. Y square, H2SO4,” or my personal non-rhyming favorite, “One-two-three-four, Five-six-seveneight, Nine… Ten!”

Gray described the atmosphere as “good cheer and a little bit of Saturday Night Live.”

Just as they pioneered the creation of “big-time” football, the Maroons were helping to take the seriousness and commercialization out of the sport.

“Half the boys weigh less than their IQ, and most can’t make it to practice because they have a lab, or an essay to write,” the head coach at the time, Wally Hass, told the Chicago Tribune.

The team’s inability to compete was part of the attraction. Students at UChicago basked in their athletic failure. For some, the comic incompetence of the team was a testament to their academic excellence; others just found joy in the humiliation.

The players knew they weren’t good, but winning wasn’t necessarily the objective; they were just happy to be on the field at all.

“It’s fun; this is what college football was meant to be. We try hard to win, but if we don’t, nobody loses his scholarship,” defensive lineman Mike Krause (M.B.A. ’72) told The New York Times

From the 1970s forward, Division III grew, and so did the football program at Chicago. But the game-time atmosphere today is not what it was in the heyday of DIII football.

Football as It Stands

Having finished his first season with the Maroons, head coach Todd Gilcrist was eager to speak to me about the program. Gilcrist is no stranger to universities with academic reputations that far outshine their athletic programs, having previously held coaching positions at The College of the Holy Cross and at Columbia. To him, though, UChicago’s history with the sport makes it a unique place.

Before we began our conversation, Gilcrist reached into his bag and fished out a copy of Jeff Rasley’s Monsters of the Midway, a book that focuses on the strange counterculture atmosphere of 1970s UChicago football.

“It’s one of those things that I think when you hear about Alonzo Stagg, when you hear about the first Heisman Trophy, then you hear about the academics of this university and how that’s been able to kind of pair with athletics,” Gilcrist said. “Athletics are a part of this university.”

At the same time, though, Gilcrist still subscribes to the Hutchins spirit, putting academics first for his players.

“If [the players] need to go to office hours or have to come to practice a little bit later because of class, we allow for those things because we know how important that part of this experience is,” he told me.

With mostly empty stands (outside

of the annual homecoming game), the game-time atmosphere at Stagg Field today does not match the roaring energy of the ‘20s, or the eccentricity of the ‘70s; but, for the players, Gilcrist believes the program offers an opportunity “just to get to play the game that they love, go out there on Saturdays and play in front of however many fans.”

Fourth-year William Goodman, starting kicker for the Maroons, echoed that sentiment, telling me, “There are no scholarships. We aren’t getting paid. You’re there because you want to be.”

Goodman preached the personal benefits of being on the team—“It really bolsters you as a student and a professional”—and he credited that to UChicago’s position in Division III.

“If you gave me the chance to play in Division I, I wouldn’t take it,” Goodman said. “I prefer Division III because I care more about investing time into my career and fostering relationships with my friends than I do about being the best football player.”

Both Goodman and Gilcrist made it clear that for the player, the football team still offers the same sort of camaraderie it has since our university first joined Division III. But for the non-athlete, the football team really doesn’t intersect with life on campus at all.

“I think that everyone could do a better job about showing up to games and representing the school. there also needs to be more of an incentive from the athletic department,” Goodman told me.

I will admit, I have never really attended a single football game on campus, aside from a brief visit to the homecoming game last year. But that’s only because these games don’t offer much to students, and there is no connection with the team. The bleachers were mostly full of the parents of students or players, and I definitely didn’t notice any clever chanting. It would be easy to write it off as a symptom of our team’s size, but when I look back at the 1970s,

I see an even smaller team with more student engagement. Evidently, there’s something else afoot.

When asked about the possibility of reuniting the student and student athlete at future games, Goodman emphasized the notion that football players don’t lack any of the dorkiness and academic obsession of nonathletes: “The team is a bunch of nerds who like to play football,” he said.

Goodman points out something crucial that is missed by most students and student athletes on campus today: We are all still nerds in some capacity. What the Maroons of the 1970s did was embrace that fact and use it as motivation to bring students to the stands. Who’s to say that can’t be done again?

What Now?

Each time I enter the Ratner lobby, I can’t help but stop before the Heisman Trophy to pay my respects. Now, as I pass the plaques and pictures displayed around the lobby, I feel the phantom thumping of Big Bertha, and I envision the stern-faced Hutchins watching Stagg Field crumble to the ground. Mostly, I am reminded of how much the exhibit is missing: The abolition is barely mentioned, and there’s not a single kazoo in sight.

I definitely didn’t come here anticipating thrilling football games. In fact, I stood with Hutchins in his belief that athletic spirit had no place at this university. But here I am, arguing the opposite. If I knew nothing of the student sit-in or sarcastic chants, I wouldn’t think twice about our football team, and I surely wouldn’t possess such an interest in the future of the program. But something about our uniquely UChicago way of finding a place for athletics struck a chord with me. Perhaps it is in embracing our past that we students can establish a connectivity that transcends both athletics and academia, and bring football back into our future, this time for good.

We are all still nerds in some capacity. What the Maroons of the 1970s did was embrace that fact and use it as motivation to bring students to the stands. Who’s to say that can’t be done again?

The Masque of Youth

quintessential UChicago pastimes.

Three weeks later, with the onset of a new academic quarter, people were still whispering about the article in the audience of the theater. Their interest wasn’t even hindered by the need to stand. Half an hour into the talk, students who had entered the lecture hall at the beginning of the talk were still stationed at the door, jackets and backpacks on, in an almost perfect pyramid formation, enraptured and listening to Callard and

said, gesturing to a front space just below the stage. The students dispersed toward the front and the side walls, beginning to blend into the Elizabethan figures in “The Masque of Youth,” who were facing toward the stage and frozen in celebration of an invisible nobility. The real-life students stared in awe at Callard, who was still directing traffic from an armchair onstage.

In 2006, journalist Christopher Hayes wrote an In These Times article in

By ELENA EISENSTADT | Grey City Editor

“The Masque of Youth” is a 1918 mural by Chicago artist Jessie Arms Botke, located in the third-floor theater of Ida Noyes Hall. It depicts a ritual performance—a “masque”—common in 17th-century Europe in praise of a court or aristocrat. Botke was inspired by a ceremony performed two years earlier by 300 members of the University of Chicago community in honor of the opening of Ida Noyes Hall. According to a 1995 UChicago Magazine article, the murals “still gracefully convey the masque’s gentle hopefulness and its participants’ unquestioning belief in higher learning’s edifying powers.”

When I arrived at the third-floor theater to attend a March 28 Night Owls talk hosted by professor Agnes Callard, I, along with a room already full of students, was preparing to bear witness to those “edifying powers.”

Night Owls, starring Callard, is organized by the Department of Philosophy. A few times each academic quarter between 9 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., the department orchestrates a debate between Callard and another public intellectual over a philosophical question. The night I went, the guest speaker was Atlantic writer Elizabeth Bruenig, and the philosophical question was “Must we forgive those who have wronged us?” While the events are normally well attended, according to Callard, this one was by far the largest. This Night Owls was also the first to occur after journalist Rachel Aviv profiled Callard in her widely read New Yorker article, titled “Agnes Callard’s Marriage of the Minds.” The article, which was published on the stressful Monday of winter reading period, provided an amazing opportunity for distractions, gossip, and procrastination—

Bruenig talk on stage.

In the next few minutes, Callard addressed the pyramid formation, encouraging them to find places to sit in the already overcrowded walkways. “There are spots up here on the floor, if other people want to come sit on the floor,” she

which he recounted his experience and opinions on enrolling as a “student” in professor Allen Sanderson’s Principles of Macroeconomics course. “What We Learn When We Learn Economics” begins by describing a thought experiment

On the obsession around two of UChicago’s most notorious professors: Agnes Callard and Allen Sanderson.

annabel shen

annabel shen

overcrowded lecture halls and common rooms turned professorial

that Sanderson, a senior instructional professor in the Department of Economics, put forward for the students in his second lecture. Just as in Callard’s Night Owls, the room was overcrowded. Hayes wrote: “Noting that there are only 26 spots left in the class for the 52 students who would still like to enroll, [Sanderson] asked, ‘How should we figure out who gets to go into the class?’”

The answer Sanderson wanted was “auction by price,” which a student soon suggested. While Sanderson explained the economic reasoning behind this decision, Hayes remarked on his uneasiness at the answer: The idea seems obviously biased toward wealthier students who could afford the theoretical auction, and therefore this solution would be neither equitable nor true, since money is not an accurate measure of desire.

These overcrowded lecture halls and common rooms turned professorial palaces show students’ fascination with Callard and Sanderson. What these students want is to witness these professors in action. On the surface, Callard’s and Sanderson’s reactions to the overcrowding seem like opposites—Callard’s method of calling students in more inclusive, Sanderson’s idea to auction off seats to his class more exclusive. Yet both want to create a space where theory—economic or philosophical—is applied to real-life situations.

Outside of the overcrowded hall, Callard and Sanderson reside in offices that reflect their pedagogical methods. Callard’s office looks like an eight-year-old’s dream room—that is, if the eight-yearold in question also really liked Socrates. Her rainbow color scheme covers books, rugs, wallpaper, a journal (which Callard quickly flips through), and a letter-bead bracelet on her wrist that spells out “SOCRATES” in capital letters. In contrast, Sanderson’s office is slightly more conventional. It is filled with books and signed baseballs, with stacks of papers on the desk and one wall dedicated to a brass rubbing from Adam Smith’s grave in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Besides their offices, much more dif-

ferentiates Callard from Sanderson and Sanderson from Callard–namely, that they specialize in different social sciences—philosophy and economics—with different methods for understanding the world. Additionally, Sanderson joined the UChicago faculty in 1984, making him one of those professors who’s been an “institution” for decades, whereas Callard joined the faculty in 2008, making her renown on campus more recent.

At the University of Chicago, Callard and Sanderson thrive both as educators and as public personalities. Some students love them, while others are more critical of one or the other. Regardless of students’ relationships with these professors—whether they know them through the overcrowded lecture hall, through social media, or simply through gossip—people feel entitled to make moral and professorial judgments about both of them and have created semi-cults of personality around them. Yet Callard and Sanderson also contribute to their own fame (or infamy, depending on who you ask) by attracting a wider audience beyond their academic fields.

This self-creation, coupled with student cults, produces professorial images that eclipse the professors themselves. As Callard and Sanderson practice moving ideas from the theoretical to the practical, they become more theoretical to most students on campus. They become ideas, representatives for controversial views much larger than themselves. These professors’ on-campus relevance provides an opportunity for the campus to discuss certain questions that plague UChicago life: What is a professor’s responsibility in molding young, impressionable minds? How much should students follow the guidance of professors outside of the classroom? And how does one live that coveted life of the mind without sacrificing real life itself?

There are many other notable professors on our campus, but few are as easily accessible to underclassmen as Sanderson and Callard while still retaining their lore. Each teaches or organizes an introductory class in their field, which often attracts younger students with un-

decided majors looking to be inspired or convinced to follow a certain academic path. Both professors take pride in their fields and give public talks. Aside from hosting philosophical forums like Night Owls, Callard has, as the Director of Undergraduate Studies, created philosphy courses that give non-majors a taste of the field. Each fall and winter quarter, Sanderson teaches one of the courses in the Principles of Economics sequence, which introduces students to microeconomics and macroeconomics, and is designed for those with no prior exposure to the field. I can personally attest to the fact that Callard and Sanderson are even easily accessible to those underclassmen not enrolled in their courses: Sanderson answered my interview request email sent at 2 p.m. on April 16 a single minute later at 2:01 p.m., while Callard responded to the same request 16 minutes later.

A second factor that separates the fandom of Callard and Sanderson from other professorial admiration at UChicago is students’ particular obsession with these figures despite the fac that many have little contact with them.

Sanderson is often the first professor students hear about when arriving at UChicago, regardless of whether they plan to take his classes. “I heard about Sanderson when I first stepped on campus,” said Simone Harradence, a fourth-year economics and philosophy major who has now taken classes with both Sanderson and Callard. Sanderson began teaching courses on principles of micro- and macroeconomics a few years after coming to UChicago in 1984. As he explains, “I have ended up teaching more students than anybody in the history of the University of Chicago.” For the last two years alone, Sanderson has taught 900 students per year, and he reports that his classes for the 2023 fall quarter are already “sold out.”

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“I just joined the class and didn’t know what I was getting into,” said Luis Carrillo, a second-year student who took Principles of Microeconomics with Sanderson in the fall of his first year. Still, Carillo vividly remembers that upperclassmen seemed to react with in-

trigue and excitement whenever he told them he had signed up for the Sanderson class.

Callard also appears to be one of the first names people hear about when coming to UChicago. “If you’re interested in philosophy, she’s kind of a known name as soon as you enter the school,” said Ahan Raina, a fourth-year philosophy and Law, Letters, and Society major. Raina began attending Night Owls his first year and has continued since. In winter 2023, he finally took a class with Callard. “I would say,” Raina explained, “a big factor in me choosing to take that course was the fact that it was [with] her and I finally got to see what it’s like to be taught by her.”

Awareness of these professors also reaches outside the student body and may occur before students even set foot on campus. Callard and Sanderson have historically attracted this attention because of personal or political scandals that reach audiences outside of Hyde Park. In February 2022, a question Sanderson wrote for his Principles of Economics course midterm sparked a heated Twitter debate for its alleged disparaging of economists from other universities, as well as Vermont senator Bernie Sanders (A.B. ’64). This is how Michael Clancy, a second-year math and philosophy major, learned of Sanderson in the winter before starting college. Clancy is an example of the many students on UChicago’s campus who have no direct stake in this professorial fixation. He’s had very few interactions with each professor outside of hearing about them on Twitter, on Sidechat, and from other students. Yet Clancy feels keenly aware of them,

“I don’t have any direct exposure to these professors. But I have a lot of opinions about them, whereas I don’t about professors that I do have,” he said. This is the kind of attention that differentiates educators like Sanderson and Callard from their peers: They have managed to reach students beyond their respective fields.

Clancy’s consciousness of Callard

“These

palaces show students’ fascination with Callard and Sanderson.”

was a bit more gradual. After attending her 2022 Aims of Education address at the start of the school year, Clancy began hearing talk of Callard’s marriage to her former graduate student, professor Arnold Brooks, and divorce from a fellow philosophy department faculty member, professor Ben Callard. At this point in the year, students mainly knew about the topic through Callard herself, since she had philosophized it into a Night Owls event in 2018. A month into the school year, Clancy was amused once again by Callard’s takes after following a Twitter war over her publicized tradition of throwing out her children’s Halloween candy. The final “puzzle piece” that cemented Callard’s fame for Clancy was the March 2023 profile of Callard in The New Yorker. While Clancy expressed hesitancy to criticize without personally knowing Callard, his reaction to the article was that she had “applied this veneer of intellectuality to this thing that’s not that at all,” he said. Clancy was skeptical of how Callard had discussed her personal relationships as a philosophical statement about love. The article also sparked a new wave of Callard criticism off campus and on the Internet. In a single week, a profile of Callard’s unconventional personal life had inspired an impressive number of mini debates styled like “Night Owls”: impromptu conversations over marriage and Callard’s public persona.

The wide renown of Sanderson and Callard at UChicago is partially created by this outpouring of student conversation that has emerged around Sanderson and Callard not only as public intellectuals but also as private people. Morgan Brandmeyer (A.B. ’23), who majored in economics and psychology, thinks that one similarity between the two classes is that they often utilize audacious teaching methods. As a first year, Brandmeyer took Sanderson’s Principles of Economics sequence in the fall and winter quarters and began working as a teaching assistant for the same class that summer. She then took an introductory philosophy class with Callard in her

third year. With Callard and Sanderson, “it’s kind of like we get to exist in territory that other people maybe would be uncomfortable to exist in,” Brandmeyer said. Most students agreed that the “uncomfortability” of a Sanderson classroom often stemmed from his lack of political correctness, while in Callard, it stemmed from her willingness to discuss any topic, including her own love life. Yet it is precisely because of these taboo subjects that students are drawn to these educators.

While much of the public conversation around Sanderson and Callard has been propagated by students and the media, these professors also participate in their own mythologizing. As controversial public figures with unorthodox ways of applying their craft, they too foster a provocative environment.

Callard appears to be conscious of her public persona and how it has shaped her image. Moreover, she has theories that explain her relevance. As an undertaker of various public philosophy projects, Callard thinks she is better known than the average UChicago professor. In one of these projects, social media, Callard understands that she has become “someone that you have a take on…a little bit of a Rorschach test for other people,” as she put it.

“I think I’m just also weird,” Callard said, explaining that she speaks much more publicly in and out of the classroom about her own life experiences than most academics. Callard also notes her colorful clothing as a technical reason for garnering attention (making it apt that the UChicago admissions Instagram recently featured her “fit checks”).

On a more serious note, “I think something I’m good at is getting people who aren’t already interested in philosophy to be interested in philosophy,” she said. Callard embodies not only the mark of a passionate professor but also the mark of a smart self-promoter. For some, she appears as the butterfly on the Rorschach inkblot images; others project a completely different meaning onto her. Callard understands the inner workings of her personal brand, even as she is con-

stantly interpreted and reinterpreted by her public audience.

On the other hand, as Sanderson fosters his professorial image, he appears to be much less conscious of his brand. When I first asked Sanderson why he thought he appealed to students, he responded, “I have no idea why people sign up for my courses.” He then proceeded to offer that it was likely because he estimates that over half of undergraduates will take at least one economics course at UChicago, and likely one of his, as they serve as introductions to the field. Additionally, “I think I’m pretty good at what I do.”

Yet Sanderson, just like Callard, seems to be more of a conscious self-promoter than he lets on. One wall in his office is covered with 25 event posters, mostly from past UChicago Family Weekends advertising Sanderson’s public lecture and debates on topics such as “The Wealth Tax” or “Economics and November 3rd, 2020.” He also has a personal website that details his biography, course offerings, and a photo page filled with 61 images of himself lecturing or posing with students over a dinner, dressed in costumes, or attending his office hours. After I met with Sanderson for an interview, he gave me an extra copy of The Fatal Equilibrium by Marshall Jevons, an economic-themed mystery novel that he has students read in his Principles of Microeconomics course. I understood the novel as an appeal by Sanderson for me to register for his classes next fall and, more generally, as a plug for his teaching.

Sanderson and Callard seem to share a certain pedagogy. For both professors, the final goal is not to transform all UChicago students into economics majors or philosophy majors but instead to instill in them a certain intuition for the subjects. Students also acknowledged that a significant similarity between the two was their eagerness to explore and experiment in front of students with what it could mean to be guided personally by economic or philosophical thinking outside a purely academic setting.

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Callard believes that her work as a

public philosopher most directly supports this agenda. Through Night Owls, speaking at other universities, and journalistic writing, Callard does more than teach philosophy; she practices it. “I wanted it to be that we’re doing philosophy,” she said of her goal for Night Owls. For Callard, practicing philosophy means practicing inquiry. And this investigation is not simply asking questions of oneself but, as Callard believes, it is in the act of engaging and debating others. “I’m committed,” Callard said, “to the value of inquiry in the sense that I haven’t found any better way to live yet, but like Socrates, I would say I’m open to being refuted on that if somebody shows me a better way.” This practice is for her own amusement and interest, and it also serves as an introduction for curious students as to how they can “do” philosophy in their own lives, public or private.

As one of Callard’s former students, Raina is struck by just how rare it is to see modern philosophers who attempt to go beyond philosophy’s academic borders. “I think professor Callard is living that sort of [philosophical] life in the world, where for a lot of people, philosophy is their escape from the world. I don’t know if I’ve met a person yet who takes the notion of living a philosophical life to its fullest extent as she does,” Raina said. Maggie Sandholm, a philosophy Ph.D. student and former teaching assistant for Callard, agrees that in her brief time working with Callard, she doesn’t think she saw the “philosopher hat come off.” Instead, Sandholm felt that Callard’s methods were focused on “an ongoing project of philosophy.”

Back in her office, and outside of an overcrowded hall or Twitter page, Callard seemed less keen on living a purely philosophical life. “I think one of the things for me, one of the deep tensions about being a philosopher, is that sometimes you’re engaged in philosophy and asking yourself really important questions about how you should live your life. And then there’s other times when you’re not doing that,” she said. She has even polled people on Twitter about this

“This self-creation, coupled with student-cults, produces professorial images that eclipse the professors themselves.”

topic, asking professional philosophers, “When is your real life happening? Is it when you take off your philosophy hat or when you put your philosophy hat on?” According to Callard, the majority responded “both.” Ironically, Callard has also tweeted opinions like this one that Aviv included in her New Yorker article: “If you’re a real philosopher, you don’t need privacy, because you’re a living embodiment of your theory at every moment, even in your sleep, even in your dreams.”

Even a Socrates fanatic like Callard puts checks and balances on philosophical life. “You can’t be doing [philosophy] when a doctor is examining you, right? Or if you have a baby, and you’ve just got to change the baby’s diaper, that’s not philosophy. It’s just not true that everything’s philosophy,” Callard said. However, what Callard sees as fit for philosophical consideration does not seem fixed. For her, a medical examination or a baby’s hygiene may be beyond the scope of philosophy, but marriage and divorce are not. Someone else might draw the line at marriage and readily philosophize about the doctor or the baby. Although Callard still privately wrestles with how and when one does philosophy, her public persona continues to promote that living a philosophical life is always possible. Yet when and how to apply a philosophical flair to real life is debatable; what is under the purview of questioning is up to the individual. As Callard’s case shows, there are familial and material consequences to using philosophical thinking in our everyday lives; students should be aware of the costs of combining “philosophical life” with “real life.”

Sanderson, just like Callard, is more dedicated to instilling an economic way of thinking in his students than to ensuring each one pursues an economics major. If he had his way, Sanderson would make the Principles of Economics sequence and the Statistical Methods and Applications course graduation requirements (he would also make them requirements of U.S. presidential can-

didates). Sanderson instills his knowledge in students by teaching the legacy of Chicago economics and explaining the significance of learning economics at this school, as opposed to any other university. Much of this pride stems from Sanderson’s own history with the school. Although he did not attend UChicago for college, he was “fortunate enough to be able to take courses from Milton Friedman and remain friends with him over the rest of his life.”

The second implementation of Sanderson’s approach means showing students how to think economically about everyday life, such as politics, food consumption, or college demographics.

“Why doesn’t an economist like this particular candidate, or this particular senator?” Sanderson said. This is the type of question students in his classes should learn to ask and answer. “The vast majority of economists think the same way. And for the most part, a Yale economist or Harvard economist, or Princeton, or

Chicago, or Stanford economist…they’re going to line up together,” he said. “It’s economists versus non-economists.” Sanderson explains that if these answers seem more conservatively biased, that is only due to the fact that the field itself has always been more conservative, not because he is teaching with any sort of political bias in mind.

While Sanderson insists that his teaching is purely objective and rational, students have a different takeaway from his instruction. Whether they are an advocate for his teaching style or are more critical of it, students across the spectrum agreed that Sanderson’s class is about economics and it is about Chicago economics but that it is also about “Sanderson Economics,” a school heavily influenced by Sanderson’s personal economic intuition and bias.

Carrillo described Sanderson’s class as a “must-take” for all UChicago students. “To a certain point, you were learning Sanderson Economics instead

of Intro to Economics,” he said. When reflecting on the class, Carrillo thinks that Sanderson taught this way as an example for how students should form their own economic opinions and outlook on the world even if they contradict Sanderson’s own opinions. Sahil Najeeb, a second-year math and economics major who took Principles of Microeconomics with Sanderson the fall of his first year, was more ambivalent about this teaching style. According to Najeeb, Sanderson’s classroom goals were confusing and he said “there were times that I felt that his goal was to make us all think like him from an economic standpoint.” From the perspective of Erica Hogan (A.B. ’23), Sanderson’s classes felt more like his opinion applied to the world than empirically sourced economic learnings. Hogan was an economics and fundamentals major who served as a TA for a UChicago economics course for high school students last summer. The course included Sanderson as one of the professors. She believed that some students were drawn to Sanderson because “they feel like he’s transgressing against some sort of unfair norms around what sort of speech is acceptable,” Hogan said. She wished that students were exposed to more vibrant and diverse economic thought in Sanderson’s introductory courses.

To students who take issue with his way of teaching, Sanderson responds: “I’m sure there are some students [who do] not necessarily want to avoid me, but they just want to avoid economics.”

Still, there are flaws to Sanderson’s claims to objectivity in his teaching. In the same 2006 article on Sanderson’s Principles of Economics lecture, Christopher Hayes wrote: “The effect, intentional or not, is that Sanderson appears to represent the exact center of the political spectrum, and that can leave students with a strange perception of just where the center lies.” He then described an in-class discussion between Sanderson and his students on the flat tax, a model that requires all people to pay the same tax rate despite differences in taxpayer income. When a student inquired

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“The Masque of Youth” mural by Jessie Arms Botke. photo by andy brown courtesy of the university of chicago

“Awareness of these professors also reaches outside the student body and may occur before students even step foot on campus.”

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about the problems with the flat tax, Hayes quotes Sanderson as saying: “It’s not obvious that there’s that much wrong with it. There’s sort of a movement out there for a flat rate tax. Because it strikes some people: What could be fairer than that? It also doesn’t distort incentives. It has a lot going for it.” Hayes then went on to explain that “far-right Republicans” have promoted the flat tax rate, but it is not popularly associated with centrist ideas.

The experiences of those who take his classes contradict the idea that Sanderson is a bastion of neutrality. By never -

theless speaking to persuade students that he is politically neutral, Sanderson normalizes a more conservative framework.

Sanderson and Callard come into students’ lives at a critical time in their development as people and thinkers. UChicago students are constantly exposed to new ways of understanding the world and consequently to new ways of acting in the world. Of course, having enough intellectual space to think is an enormous privilege, and at UChicago, the public hunger for this type of thinking is palpable.

Sanderson’s and Callard’s willing -

ness to experiment with philosophy and economics as more than purely academic disciplines is what makes them so intriguing for the general student body. Each has a personal brand that accomplishes these daring feats: Sanderson attempts to advertise economics’s applications in real life, while Callard attempts to bring out the “inner Socrates” in us all.

Sanderson and Callard hold the serious responsibility and opportunity to mold the young, impressionable minds of their students. And this responsibility is not unique to Sanderson and Callard; it falls on all professors. More broadly, it is the work of our university community

to think deeply about who we make into our celebrated leaders and to question what gives them the power to produce standing-room-only events.

As is represented in “The Masque of Youth,” that mural of young adults honoring a supposedly wiser, royal nobility, UChicago students buy into the notion that education can be intellectually and morally uplifting. It is then up to our educators to guide us through it with caution, and it is up to us to no get too caught up in the masque itself.

An Incidental Goodness: In Search of a Third Place at UChicago

By JOSIE BARBORIAK | Grey City Reporter

The shouts of baristas and clinks of shaken ice fill the surgical, sterile expanse of Ex Libris Café. Ex Lib during a drink rush is a daunting sight—a line that stretches beyond its glass doors, a glossy menu advertising catchily named beverages, and a counter that sells everything from pop-tarts to, oddly, sushi. The baristas slide a barrage of powdery drinks across a speckled black countertop to patrons who often leave its location on the first floor of the Regenstein Library for a cubicle or a quiet spot in Mansueto. Those who stay sit down in groups to work on problem sets or nervously chatter about how much work they have to do. The air is practically sodden with productivity.

In contrast, to step into Hallowed Grounds, tucked away on the second floor of the Reynolds Club, is to forgo work for the next hour or two—at least provided that one exists within the space rather than disappearing into earbuds. Its cozy

Gothic arches, the loud and esoteric music, and the charming clack of pool balls are often enough to tempt one away from assignments and into pleasure reading or refining humorous couplets. The shop stays open into the night, even as coffee orders slow drastically. With only one barista staffing the coffee bar at a time, the others use their breaks to relax and play pool alongside patrons.

I spent much of my first year at Hallowed Grounds, often finding myself autopiloting like a homing pigeon to its entrance when I’d intended to navigate to a class or a dining hall, and I’m not alone in finding a sense of home in this type of environment. UChicago’s coffee scene is unique. A Grubhub study found that we order caffeinated beverages 138 percent more frequently than the average American, and we have one of the highest numbers of coffee shops per capita—at least 10 on campus, depending on how you count. Here, coffee shops create enclaves

of loyalty and labels by which people define themselves in a way that often goes beyond the sheer convenience of a preferred drink or an arbitrary location. They make us feel welcome by cultivating an atmosphere with decor and music, allowing us to build relationships with other students who frequent the space or work there, and serve as convenient spots for meetups, homework sessions, or just killing time between classes.

The ambience of a coffee shop can creates a socio-scientific phenomenon called the “third place”. Distinct from home, the first place, and work, the second place, it fosters community by giving people a space purely for hanging out. Here at UChicago, no two cafés are alike. Some cafés are more work oriented, while others are more relaxed; some are more open to the outside community while others are more student centered. I began an investigation into whether UChicago’s coffee shops serve as third places.

“Penny Universities”: Coffee Shops and the Third Place in History

There’s a science to creating community. In 1989, sociologist Ray Oldenburg proposed the concept of the “third place,” which describes a space whose main function is socialization and community building. A third place provides an escape from the pressures of both home and work, opening a space for conversation and interaction with strangers. An important facet of the third place is its socially leveling nature, one that brings together community members with little or no financial barrier to entry. A third place is an attempted escape from both status and the desire to constantly buy, sell, or make money, and it paves the way for the creation of value outside of capital.

There are many modern propositions for the third place. Walkable cities benefit from the presence of plazas and public parks, and public libraries provide a sanctuary for errant elementary school-

UChicago’s coffee shops are vital centers of social life. How can the social theory of the third place illuminate the roles various coffee shops play in our communities?

“Sanderson and Callard hold the serious responsibility and opportunity to mold the young, impressionable minds of their students.”

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ers and adults needing Wi-Fi alike. What seems most notable for modern-day college campuses, though, is the coffee shop. Oldenburg notes in The Great Good Place that “coffee spurs the intellect.… Those drinking coffee are content to listen contemplatively to music.… Reading material is widely digested in the world’s coffeehouses.” Beverages function as social lubricants, and coffee works especially well in the esoteric, bookish culture here at UChicago.

Indeed, the coffee shop has, historically, created a third place. After the first opened in late 15th century Turkey, Turkish coffee shops functioned as centers of community and socialization, with the coffee tradition itself being “a symbol of hospitality, friendship, delicacy, and entertainment.”

At the most fundamental level, British coffee shops addressed the need for a daytime gathering space less plagued by drunkenness than taverns. But characterized by a sense of equality, these establishments also provided escape from a highly stratified society. They were even called “penny universities” for allowing those who were poor and often illiterate to listen to both gossip and intellectual discussion.

Viennese coffee shops functioned as an “extended living room” in which intellectuals and artists such as Sigmund Freud, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele escaped their small and crowded apartments. These establishments allowed customers to mingle outside of their prescribed tracks of life, and the element of chance in these interactions brought novelty and intellectual excitement to the everyday. Even today, the intellectual draw of the coffee shop continues, especially for those wanting to pattern themselves after these individuals. There’s a romance in reading Freud while tasting the mature bite of caffeine that appeals to students hoping to be the next generation of great thinkers.

“The Antithesis of Just Hanging Out:” The Coffee Shop as Workplace

The coffee shop as a workplace is a

relatively new phenomenon, accelerated by the rise of remote work, and it complicates the time-honored use of coffee shops as third places. Coworking spaces, which allow employees from multiple companies to share a workspace, often feature amenities such as coffee, blurring the line between the café and the workspace.

Atlantic writer Allie Conti points out that in coworking spaces, “there is an expectation that all conversation will be centered on work. There is the underlying anxiety of being on the clock—the antithesis of just hanging out.”

As work seeps out of the office and into our coffee shops, the third place is evolving, perhaps unavoidably. There are certainly coffee shops at UChicago that feel like havens for the myth of productivity, places in which I feel a pressure to direct the jitter of caffeine into schoolwork or project an expression of laser focus.

Conti also highlights the exclusionary nature of coworking spaces: “The possibility of a wildly unexpected encounter is slim given that most people in attendance will be in roughly the same socioeconomic stratum because they work in similar jobs.” Whether you are there to work or to drink coffee, on-campus coffee shops could be seen as exclusionary in the same way that the University itself is.

Although the campus coffee shop could be a third place, I could see how the pressures of work or the difficulties of interacting with the wider community could limit the concept. At the outset of my investigation into third spaces, UChicago’s coffee shops seemed to exist in a gray area. I would need to learn more.

An Urban Community Phenomenon

Are the coffee shops at the University of Chicago truly third places? To find out, I spoke to Emily Talen, a professor of urbanism here. She specializes in the investigation of urban design as a creator of social equity.

I asked her which design choices were important for building a sense of community. “When building ages, types, and

uses are as diverse as possible in a given small area, there’s more activity and liveliness,” she said.

At first glance, I thought, UChicago seems like a great physical space for those interactions—most student-run coffee shops are located inside academic buildings, and their function of providing a more laid-back space in an environment geared toward learning does seem, anecdotally, to create community. Take Reynolds Club, for example—home to two coffee shops, multiple club meeting spaces, a performance space, and a food court, it serves as a hub through which students pass and run into one another daily. The presence of coffee shops in diverse spaces like these does often encourage me to visit, then stay for hours on end.

Talen agreed that a business can create an engagement between the public and private realms. “Inside of the space, you want people to feel welcome and comfortable when they walk in the door,” Talen told me.

Ex Libris: The Home of Hustle

With Talen’s words in mind, I visited Ex Libris. One rarely enters Ex Lib without the feeling of impending assignments soaking the air. As it stays open into the night, its patrons grow more and more haggard, and regulars eagerly await the quarterly instances of “Ex After Dark”— chances to buy limited-edition coffees past 9 p.m.

One early March afternoon, after waiting in a long line of student athletes and aspiring financiers, I approached the counter to speak with Jessica Stinson, the coffee shop’s manager. Four hat-wearing baristas bustled around behind her, mixing drinks and shouting orders. Jessica couldn’t step away to talk to me for long—she had seven hours left on her shift. She answered my questions later, through email.

“I would say that the concept of a ‘third place’ does not apply to Ex Libris,” Stinson told me.

This discrepancy with Oldenburg’s definition begins with the location of the coffee shop—behind the gates of the Re -

genstein Library, accessible only to those with a day pass or UCID.

“As a business, there will for sure be a financial barrier for some,” Stinson said. Just the prices of the drinks alone make Ex Lib an expensive habit.

When I asked Stinson how customers use the space, her response spoke mainly to the utility and convenience of its location. It seems to be, overall, quite difficult to categorize the patrons of Ex Libris, more than that of any other coffee shop. Unlike most, it plays no music, which can help a coffee shop cater to a distinct group of students.

“We do have regulars at Ex Libris,” Stinson told me. “We are in the busiest library on campus, so many choose to use us as a break from their studying.”

There are low tables for group work, and a cappella groups gather in the corners and laugh together while working on problem sets while other students camp out alone with headphones in the corner. Its convenient location does increase the probability of a random interaction with others, since an important part of the third place is feeling like a part of a community. However, it can be difficult to define Ex Lib as a community or a space to relax when one hasn’t even left the building or grim aesthetic of the most “brutal” library on campus.

Hallowed Grounds: The Comfort Cavern

In search of an alternative, I visited Hallowed Grounds on an April evening. Climbing up the stairs through the Reynolds Club building (the design of whichshifts from utilitarian to Gothic to whatever Pret A Manger is), I was reminded of Talen’s words on building diversity. The café was busy—all three pool tables occupied, hip-hop playing, filled with chatter—but the counter was not. I was able to speak with Samuel Klein, a barista there, about how Hallowed Grounds could be a third place.

“Hallowed is, first and foremost, a place to chill,” Klein told me, leaning over the counter. “Even for us, who are workers, it feels like such a fun place to

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“There’s a romance in reading Freud while tasting the mature bite of caffeine that appeals to students hoping to be the next generation of great thinkers.”

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come and relax. I especially like the low financial barrier aspect…You can just come here and have a lot of fun, and you don’t have to spend money.” Hallowed Grounds, unlike most coffee shops, offers more than one service, and playing a game of pool or dropping into a comedy show at the coffee shop is always free.

Hallowed Grounds seems to have legitimate credentials as a hangout spot. Even in March 2023, during a three-day stint that deprived the entirety of Reynolds Club of hot water, Hallowed Grounds opened so that people could play pool. People still came, even without the promise of coffee or a reason to spend money at all. This low-profit trend continues during the frequent nighttime events Hallowed hosts. I’ve attended literary magazine release parties, stand-up comedy shows, and music performances—an inspiring array of student creativity and community.

Attempting to quantify the use of a coffee shop as a workspace, I recorded on the same visit a two-to-one ratio of students relaxing to those working in Hallowed over an hour. For the purposes of this experiment, I defined “working” as either staring at a computer screen or reading a book that appeared distinctly course-related. (I found it difficult to determine where Marx and existentialist novels fell on this spectrum. “Coffee spurs the intellect,” indeed.) Nonetheless, this ratio has been generally consistent throughout my frequent visits.

At UChicago, this space for relaxation provides a gift that sticks with students even past their graduations. Klein told me that alumni frequently visit to check in on the coffee shop and that the space has even hosted a wedding. “It’s a unique and vibrant part of campus,” he said. “I think it always will be.”

Though a UCID isn’t required to enter Reynolds Club, Hallowed Grounds is tucked away and is obviously a student space. Klein told me it’s a common destination for prospective students and that members of the Hyde Park community from outside the University sometimes visit the shop. However, many students

here want to avoid the potential that on-campus spots have for becoming tourist destinations and losing their distinctive collegiate feel. An Instagram post from a Chicago influencer account recommending Hallowed Grounds as a hidden gem coffee shop was met with comments from UChicago students ranging from sincere pleas that outsiders leave the shop alone to joking threats (“as a uchicago student if u come here i will bite u”). Hallowed Grounds cultivates a thriving community within its space; as with any on-campus coffee shop, it can be difficult to embrace the community that exists outside of it.

Robust: The Off-Campus Exploration

I’d first thought the dichotomy between the transactional and the community-based coffee shop was exemplified through that between Ex Libris and Hallowed Grounds, but Talen urged me to look further afield. She emphasized the importance of a facet of the third place that I hadn’t fully considered: integration into the wider community.

“A campus is a bit of an enclave, since the university controls the public space,” she pointed out. There’s a value in interactions between students and the broader community, and these interactions don’t often occur on campus, where most buildings require a UCID to enter or are designated as student spaces by holding classes or collegiate events like RSO fundraisers.

I decided to investigate my favorite off-campus coffee shop—Robust Coffee Lounge. Located three blocks south of Woodlawn Residential Commons on 63rd Street, this Black-owned business is an underrated spot for smoothies, breakfast sandwiches, and lattes. It’s been a trusty option for the mornings in which I needed to get work done or wanted time to feel anonymous, since it’s underutilized by most students and a bit out of the way for those living north of the Midway. It feels the most like a community spot, one in which non-professor adults and young children from Hyde Park and Woodlawn frequently appear—a rare sight while

staying on campus. I visited Robust on a cloudy April morning and nursed one of their signature honey nut lattes while observing the steady stream of people flowing into the cozy front room.

“We put together a design, but the life of the café is what people make of it,” Jake Sapstein, the general manager, told me. Robust is a splendid example of building diversification. The decor is vintage and vaguely industrial, cloaked in warm browns and road signs. In the front room, loud music and the bustle of conversation provide an ambient environment for sipping a banana chai, while the tucked-away, darker back room is perfect for a quiet conversation with a friend or to hole up in a portable office.

Similarly, Sapstein emphasized the flexible utility of Robust as a coffee shop: “People see it as a socialization spot; people use it as their office for seven hours a day, are here for a meeting. There’s people who are studying. It’s a great alternative to being forced to go to a bar to socialize.”

I learned from Sapstein that 40 percent or so of the shop’s customers are regulars who return each day and that this community base is a trademark benefit of the coffee-shop business model. He agreed that Robust fits the definition of a third place and believed that the definition should apply, at least to an extent, to any coffee shop that’s more than a mere grab-and-go, strictly-for-convenience spot.

“When we first opened, the attempt was to blend the neighborhood we’re in and the University of Chicago community, and it’s been a huge success,” Sapstein added.

Robust’s location in particular appears to incorporate the academic environment of the nearby university—the windows are filled with a mix of flyers emblazoned with the UChicago crest and those advertising the Hyde Park farmers’ market or other local events. And though the café is a 20 minute walk from the main quad, it’s right next door for the growing number of upperclassmen living in apartments south of the Midway. As students age and move off campus, they

become members of the Hyde Park and Woodlawn communities; as these identities overlap, upperclassmen may more often demand third places that are removed from campus. The neighborhood of Hyde Park is filled with small businesses, and UChicago students would do well to look further afield when searching for a community hangout spot.

In Conclusion: Third Place Winners?

So which of the coffee shops I visited were actually third places? The answer goes beyond a simple box-checking exercise. Ex Libris seemed to focus more on work and Hallowed Grounds on community and relaxation, but as always, a space is what you make of it. Especially in places like UChicago, in which work assigned for classes often blurs into intellectual passions that connect one to others, there’s a continuum between purely grinding and purely enjoying oneself.

When I sat down in Hallowed to do Hum or Sosc readings, for example, the work often morphed into an excited discussion between friends. Perhaps on-campus coffee shops can be thought of as third places, but with a caveat: the exclusion of certain parts of a community. The true third place is the socially leveling third place, one that connects those who live, work, and study in one geographical area—a place more like Robust.

Regardless, these spaces aren’t appreciated enough, especially for their ability to foster connection.

“It’s been a pretty well-known problem for the past few decades that we have been slowly eating away at that culture of connection,” Talen said. “There is a crisis of social connection going on, so the more we can activate those third places, the better off we’ll be.”

So, as you return to campus this fall, consider the third place, and go find one of your own. You may enter a coffee shop with the intention of indulging in a caffeine fix or hunkering down for a work session, but you just might discover the incidental goodness of becoming part of the community.

“The true third place is the socially leveling third place, one that connects those who live, work, and study in one geographical area—a place more like Robust.”

By EDITORIAL BOARD

If there’s a maxim for the Core, it’s this: If you’re learning how to think, you’re not learning the subject. And if you’re only learning the subject, you’re not learning how to think.

Students entering the Core’s humanities and civilization sequences with disinterest will not leave with a newfound passion for The Odyssey or the Reformation. With any luck, they will grasp argumentation and research—they’ve learned “how to think,” as the Core’s webpage puts it—but no holistic appreciation for literature and history. The concept of the Core is noble, but if its goal is to embolden its students with robust interdisciplinary perspectives, subject knowledge is as important as appreciation. Even with several updates in the past century, the Core still remains a relic of the 1930s—hardly a reflection of the current academic zeitgeist.

We don’t think every course has to be backbreaking, especially when many students are not placed in classes they want, but it is time to create a Core that lives up to its professed ideals while reflecting the realities of the UChicago student of today.

One of the biggest issues surrounding the Core isn’t even within the courses themselves; it is how students pre-register for classes, which oftentimes causes headaches and anxieties for students long after they’ve completed their Core requirements. The system functions like this: Students usually register for three

VIEWPOINTS A Hollow Core

to five classes but place them in order of preference. The more they are interested in a class, the higher they place it. If students place a class high enough, they are able to enroll. However, this is not always the case. For instance, if students have several classes they need to take in a certain quarter, only one can be their number one choice, leading to placements in other classes they do not want or, in the worst case, not getting any of the classes they want.

These issues are completely divorced from the stark differences in the professors whom students taking the same course can get. Each teacher is their own individual, so differences between them are inevitable. However, these differences can lead to varying levels of difficulties and experiences that can color a student’s time in the Core, possibly even diminishing their interest in a subject toward which they might once have been neutral.

Humanities

In the summer, incoming first-years rank their preferred humanities (Hum) courses in a separate registration system and are then required to complete at least two quarters of the sequence in their first year. But how effective are the Hum sequences in giving students an idea of what purposes UChicago’s Core are meant to serve?

Several of the Hum sequences, along with some social science and civilization sequences, attempt to pursue the Core’s

goal through very outdated curricula. Firstly, the readings required in many of the classes fail to include significantly more contemporary works, featuring more from the early 20th century. Though there are centuries-old texts that are important to study and know to engage fully in academic life at the College, the curriculum being taught in 2023 must reflect our current world and social climate. In other words, what good is knowing how to think when a student is not given the breadth of perspectives from their current world in order to form original thought?

For example, on the syllabus for Human Being and the Citizen, some sections have no female authors in the first two quarters, boasting works exclusively from the Western canon. Diversity in college classrooms has skyrocketed over the past century, and these courses must change to reflect that shift. How can students, most of whom cannot identify or relate to most of the works they read in their required first-year Hum sequence, be expected to engage thoughtfully with the subject thereafter? Shouldn’t the newest students on campus be able to see themselves in the Core in order to be more engaged classroom participants?

Social Sciences

The social sciences (Sosc) and Hum Core courses have many of the same strengths and weaknesses. Both have discussion-based sequences geared toward developing one’s written and oral argumentation—

the stuff that a marginally less pretentious school would call an English gen ed. UChicago’s Sosc program tries to distinguish itself from peer schools’ general education requirements in its “commitment to approaching critically matters of social formation and change.” For the most part, it succeeds. Sosc sequences like Power, Identity, and Resistance and its inward-looking counterpart Self, Culture, and Society have long been considered among the most enriching academic experiences at the University.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of every sequence. Options more concerned with empirical methods, like Social Science Inquiry or Mind, receive the criticism that they “aren’t real Soscs” because they’re not comparably critical or conceptual. The development of social thought in economics or psychology is a valuable topic, but one could find an experience equivalent—or superior—to the cursory Sosc overview in departments related to those courses, for example statistics, economics, or HIPS. In remodeling existing sequences or introducing new ones, those designing the curricula ought to ask themselves what makes a Sosc sequence a necessary, unique experience that a student couldn’t find elsewhere.

Civilization and Arts

The civilization (Civ) and arts sequences face similar challenges: they fail to instil an appreciation for the subject at

hand. Unless students are majoring in something related to the topics discussed in Civ or arts courses, they often view these classes as the “easier part of the Core,” leading to less meaningful engagement since the knowledge barrier to entry is lower than, say, that of a biology course. For Civ, many students study or memorize historical events in order to synthesize them for essays, while arts courses focus on discussing and making art, both of which are experiences or skills most students have had and are thus more accessible. In turn, these factors lead to apathy and fewer fruitful discussions in the classroom. This sentiment represents shifting attitudes toward the value of a Core-centered education. As more and more American universities, including UChicago, tailor their academics to be more pre-professional, there is something remarkable about a curriculum that prizes learning for the sake of learning. The Core is supposed to teach and provide students with an appreciation for subjects and methodologies they wouldn’t study otherwise, but it also requires a buy-in from students to be enthusiastic learners in these endeavors.

Some of this attitude comes from the Core’s reputation as an almost Sisyphean task for students to complete—and some of it comes from the handful of Core professors who admit they want to be anywhere else besides engaging with the young scholars in front of them. Even the most enthusiastic students

As the new quarter approaches and students select classes, the Maroon Editorial Board asks how beneficial our Core classes are to the UChicago experience.

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stand to lose their passion for a course if their professor treats its material as disposable. Reading Dostoevsky may tell us about crime and punishment—but to construe reading his work as a punishment in itself is an even more insidious crime.

Natural and Mathematical Sciences

The natural sciences core, often called the biology core, teaches us that many present-day, life-saving antibiotics were discovered in bacteria. So too can we discover a solution to the problems in the natural and mathematical sciences Core sequences in a few unique classes that enable students to appreciate the scientific process and its generalizable lessons without sentencing them to a quarter of arduous memorization.

In Inquiry-based Exploration of Biology, for example, instructors have shifted from a grading system based on multiple papers or exams to a project-based approach. While readings, classroom discussions, and labs still exist—as they do in a majority of Core sequences—this course attaches the course grade to a quarter-long project, which students develop over time with the support of the instructor or teaching assistants.

We believe that this project-based approach offers powerful solutions to a number of present problems in the Core— particularly in the sciences. Instead of forcing students to drill ambiguous pathways or regurgitate highly specific enzymes for the sake of a single exam, the project-based approach encourages students to engage with the subject matter on their own terms—in accordance with their own interests—practically

begging for an increased appreciation for the material. Further, the greater instructor input makes it harder for students to fall behind while providing students with the encouragement and insights that actually support students in diving deeper. In fact, one could imagine a system in which final project grading is tied more closely to the instructor’s sense of how much effort and engagement the student has invested into their project, relative to their prior knowledge. This is fairness. It is at least certainly more fair, and more equitable, than expecting students with totally different backgrounds to perform the same way in the classroom.

Project-based learning in the sciences also speaks to the Core’s purported aim of endowing students with the skills found in specific disciplines that ultimately can be applied to any discipline. Students, through a single science project, learn how to answer their own questions, grapple with failure and the unexpected, collaborate with their peers in group projects to achieve a unified goal, and articulate their findings with confidence. These skills are valuable outside of research careers—and certainly more valuable than writing out the steps of glycolysis under time pressure.

Then again, some classes and learners are better suited to traditional pedagogical approaches. We believe that by the time they enter the College, students know what learning style works for them, so the Core should empower them to choose the education model tailored to their personal preferences. Once again, this comes down to enhanced transparency. As with Hum and Sosc syllabi, the curricula of all courses—including those for the

rest of the Core—should be made available so that prospective students can choose the courses that best match their personal goals and learning styles. Making students aware of the variety of paths on offer will in turn smooth their journeys of self-discovery—even for those with no destination in mind. Another solution would be an expansion or reinvestment in optional student support systems, like the Hum writing seminars, the math tutorials offered in the Math 130 sequence, and the CLiC/CLOC study groups organized for general chemistry and organic chemistry students, but they currently lack investment. In particular, CLiC/CLOC fosters group skills that not only capture the collaborative spirit of science but also are practical requisites for any workplace. We’re curious why these measures are so limited because expanding these support networks would allow students to help themselves even without the more radical curricular changes we propose.

Not only does increased student support in STEM courses help students succeed, but it also democratizes science itself, taking small steps toward dispelling harmful notions of its accessibility and creating generations of thinkers who naturally bring to the field much-needed diversity in perspectives. After all, math and science don’t have to seem as difficult as we make them out to be. While the detail-oriented nature of STEM classes perhaps expects a certain type of mastery of a subject not expected in some other classes, the notion that science and math are inherently more difficult is oftentimes a damaging one. It makes the field less accessible to many, and it protects the STEM depart-

ment from pushing for increased equity. The fact that this myth is propagated through the Core is problematic, so employing the variety of pedagogical approaches and support systems for which we’ve argued can help counter this misconception we’re so often fed.

Potential Solutions

The question that emerges after such a full, and perhaps tedious, walkthrough of the Core’s present failings is: How do we make the Core work for students? How do we restore the Core to its goals of teaching students how to think and bring an interdisciplinary perspective into further studies?

While each branch of the Core features its own sets of aforementioned problems, they all loosely fall under the category of the unstandardized grading system that feeds into the larger issue of picking Core classes based to some degree on perceived ease in attaining an A rather than genuine student interest. Remedying this problem of the culture of the Core has attainable solutions.

Core classes could be graded on a pass-fail scale, enabling students to read texts outside of their comfort zones without the pressure of receiving an A. It would even encourage students to choose courses that spark their interests, not just those with the most generous professors who will give out “easy As.”

Furthermore, the University can implement a class geared specifically towards teaching students how to think via a course that builds towards a final project similar to those students will encounter in major classes. Each step of the project would teach students “how to think” and offer in-depth feedback on

that specific part of the project in a way many higher-level classes will often gloss over in favor of surveying solely the end product. This research-oriented class could manifest into two options: one geared toward humanities-driven writing and the other toward important aspects of scientific writing. For the humanities research focus, stages could include how to pick a broadly specific research focus or effectively gather college-level sources, modeled in the vein of humanities seminars or tutorials. For a STEM research course, steps could be more formalized versions of how CLiC/CLOC study groups function.

Though its lofty ideals might claim otherwise, the Core doesn’t work for many students. It’s too hard to reliably get the classes you want in a certain quarter, and it’s too easy to become disinterested even if the class you really wanted doesn’t live up to your expectations. In each of these Core subjects, we see the specific pitfalls that prevent students from appreciating the holistic wonders of learning and academia. The unifying experience that we go through during the Core is a hallmark of one’s time at UChicago. Shouldn’t this process be remembered as an enriching adventure instead of a challenging ordeal? It’s time for a fix.

The Maroon Editorial Board consists of the editors-in-chief and select staff of The Maroon.

Members of The Maroon Editorial Board who contributed to this editorial: Solana Adedokun, Elena Eisenstadt, Cherie Fernandes, Michael McClure, Eva McCord, Naina Purushothaman, Kayla Rubenstein, Anu Vashist.

Even the most enthusiastic students stand to lose their passion for a course if their professor treats its material as disposable.

By LIZ GOETZ

Dear first-year self,

I’m coming to you from the future—nineteen years later, the oracle of 2023. Wanted to advise you so you don’t wander too far astray. Some spoilers: You’re gonna major in English, not anthro, and by the time you graduate, everyone will call it “majoring,” not “concentrating.” When you’re 37

Nineteen Years Later

years old, as I am now, you’ll live in a studio apartment in Brooklyn, where all your closest friends will be people you either knew in college or met through people you knew in college.

But let’s focus on my advice for the immediate future, because I’ve long thought that if I could enroll in college again in a parallel universe, I could do it better.

You need to stop worrying

about whether you’ve placed into the calculus class that’s most “appropriate” for your level and start worrying about how to start a proof. This means you need to actually go to problem sessions and office hours rather than put off your calc homework until 11 p.m. and assume someone in your dorm will be able to help you troubleshoot.

Do work in the library rather than dorms. Harper is nice

during the day. The first floor of the Reg is too chatty, but the fourth floor can be nice. The stacks can be good to study in with a friend, but it can get lonely alone there. Regardless, find a quiet corner of whatever library is nearest your dorm and work there. Kids in your dorm will be way too fun and distracting.

And it’s not like you need to carry your laptop around with you. Just use Google Docs in

computer labs and free printing in the MacLab. Google Drive is good for everything except footnotes, endnotes, and other formatting-intense endeavors, but you’ll have a thumb drive as backup. And back up everything! Your internal hard drive will crash when you’re temping, babysitting, and picking up shifts at the Sem Co-Op the fall after graduation, and you will be sad to

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You will cry when your wheel gets stolen, and you’ve gotta save your tears for

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lose it. Back that shit up to both the cloud and external drives.

Take advantage of campus AC in May and June! Campus libraries are great for curling up come late spring. My friends used to bring Gilmore Girls DVDs to study spaces in the Reg to savor the AC when our dorm got too hot, and you can do the same, but today, you’ll probably stream it.

Interlibrary Loan can get you access to any media you want to read or watch provided you give them enough lead time. Librarians are incredibly helpful—in person especially, though Ask-a-Librarian will save your life when you’re doing research after hours.

Speaking of libraries, just get a summer job on campus shelving books or otherwise working for the University libraries. Know that there are great ways to spend a summer besides internships and that there are internships other than Metcalfs.

Hyde Park is delightful in the summer, and there are terrific outdoor movie series and concerts in Grant Park and Millennium Park in the summertime.

You’ll live in a house, Tufts— in a dorm, Pierce Tower—that will be bulldozed five years after you graduate for reasons including tiny rooms and, so you hear, “exploding toilets,” to be replaced by some fancy-looking dorm you’ve never seen in person. (You’ll have a housemate in a couple years who tries to request a souvenir toilet from the demolition team, only to receive a commemorative brick instead because no one respects her inner Duchamp.) Speaking of restrooms, coed bathrooms are great! People are really friendly over toothbrushing and chatty in the shower. Everyone is shockingly respectful. But wear

flipflops to the shower because otherwise, you’re gonna get athlete’s foot.

Leave Hyde Park to explore other neighborhoods at least twice a month. Woodlawn has great barbecue! South Shore is beautiful to run through. Kenwood is gorgeous. You will also learn to love the photography galleries in the basement of the Art Institute, and Columbia College’s Museum of Contemporary Photography is an overlooked gem. The Hyde Park Art Center is great! Eat at the Ethiopian Diamond! Drink at the Map Room once you get an ID! You will love rice dumplings in Chinatown!

In general, Hyde Park is safe—no matter what your housemates may say—but keep your wits about you after dark. Take advantage of the drunk van and campus shuttles. Save those numbers and routes in your phone. Be especially aware in new neighborhoods. The fall after I graduated, I was mugged in Englewood at night on Thanksgiving weekend because I hopped on a 55 at Midway that wasn’t going all the way to Hyde Park. This was dumb of me. Don’t do your adventurous exploring alone late at night after dark when you’re tired and stuck in another time zone. But with a friend or in the daylight if you keep your eyes off your phone, you’ll be fine.

Use Midway Airport. It is so much more accessible to Hyde Park than O’Hare.

Don’t feel like you have to drink till you black out. If people offer you more to drink than you want and saying no feels hard, just keep a Solo cup or beer bottle in your hand; people will assume you’re still working on it. Apartment parties are cooler than frat parties, but it’s hard to get invited to them as a first-year, particularly during O-Week. Say no to

Everclear, especially undiluted. Go to some O-Week parties even if you might not think it’s your jam. Try everything at least once. Buy a secondhand bike! But don’t get it at Working Bikes because they’ll use tubes that are the wrong size. I recommend Blackstone Bicycle Works. Use your U-lock and have a bike shop use a chain to lock in the wheels and seat. You will cry when your wheel gets stolen, and you’ve gotta save your tears for more important things. And don’t ride your bike while wearing a longfringed scarf; it will get caught in your spokes, and you won’t look cool.

Make friends outside of your dorm, and in general, have friends from different sources. To that end, invite the cool kids in Hum to lunch. You can go to Bartlett, or you can go to the Classics Café, or you can go to Rajun Cajun.

Grab free leftovers from Cobb Café at 4:30. Don’t dismiss their vegan options. You might think you’re proudly omnivorous, but you need to try more cuisines. Get student tickets to Court Theatre. They are so cheap, and the theater is so good, and Court is so close.

Volunteer for Doc Films. It’s okay to fall asleep during a movie sometimes when it’s so cheap (or free if you’re volunteering), and it’s cool to learn a bit about projection. When movies are so cheap, you’ll realize it’s kind of cool to take yourself to a movie as a solo date.

Drink beer on the quads when it’s warm enough.

Buy cheap hockey skates; you can ice-skate on the Midway for free.

Take classes in things you genuinely want to learn how to read, navigate, and understand better.

Stay in Chicago after graduation. It will help you feel more rooted.

Buy groceries at Hyde Park Produce, Open Produce, and the 61st Street Farmers Market once you leave the dining halls, but avoid Whole Foods. Jeff Bezos is bad.

On that note, buy a membership to the Sem Co-Op. As a member, you can order books from them online at a discount even once you move away from Hyde Park.

Know that unpaid internships are rarely worth it.

Take Self for Sosc. Take gender studies and art history for electives. I don’t regret not taking econ in college, but I regret not taking these two. Take Readings in World Lit or Reading Cultures for Hum. Don’t be afraid of interviewing people for anthro classes or for The Maroon just because you think approaching people is scary. Instead, ask professors or editors for advice.

Talk to your adviser at least once a quarter.

Jimmy’s makes a good breakfast on weekends, but Valois makes a good breakfast all the time.

Go outdoors at least once a day, even in winter, and especially if your dorm is connected to a dining hall and study spaces.

Know that a walk in the snow can be pleasantly wakeful and worth ditching class for the first time it snows in November.

Call out heterosexist or racist bullshit when you see it.

Know that college degrees don’t map onto intelligence, but they do make you more employable.

Don’t shy away from interesting clubs just because it sounds tough to be somewhere regularly at 1 p.m. on Sundays.

Take classes in the creative

humanities, not just the critical ones.

Lots of doors and roofs are left unlocked on campus. These are worth exploring. You should be able to get to the roof of Harper. The pool that used to be in Ida Noyes is now a Booth School study space, but you should still be able to creep behind the screen in the Max P. (Doc) Cinema. Reading in Bond Chapel can be really peaceful, but it has poor lighting.

You can do short psych studies with the Decision Research Lab for extra cash.

Buy furniture and other supplies on Marketplace. Check their personals section too. No one ever declared their love for me there, but I did once find an anthro master’s student taking a documentary filmmaking class and looking for subjects to interview.

Wear sunscreen in winter for its optimistic smell. Spring will come, I promise. And the snow will be beautiful.

Try Scav and Kuvia, but it’s OK if they’re not your jam.

Save your books and notebooks for their annotations. Don’t let moving every year make you think you need to offload your Durkheim and Readings in Western Civilization.

Decorate your room with Doc posters. Everyone buys posters at the campus poster sale in Reynolds Club, so you should turn to Marketplace or art museum gift shops for more unique room decor. Houseplants can brighten a dorm without a view. Chicago has too many great secondhand shops (and restaurants) to shop (or dine) at chains. You don’t need Target or Trader Joe’s when you have Marketplace, Unique, and Open Produce.

Take notes by hand in class or

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more important things.

Know that people who drink neither coffee nor tea are staying up late by drinking Coke, not through some superpower.

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when you can’t concentrate.

Ask your TAs for help choosing majors, deciding whether to go to grad school, and figuring out what to read over break. Grad students ranked highly among my best teachers in college. The only downside is that their letters of recommendation, for some reason, count for less than professor recommendations in grad school applications.

Know that grad school likely won’t lead you to a job in your field. But that’s far down the line.

When your parents come to visit, show them the Smart Museum! Take them to the Renaissance Society and on a carillon tour at Rockefeller and on a tour of the Robie House. They might even like a UT play.

Use Student Wellness’s counseling service. Free therapy is so helpful and should be destigmatized. I suggest checking in with Student Wellness at least once a quarter just to think through where you’re at.

Register to vote at your campus address! Bring your friends

to the polls!

Think tactically about campus organizing, which can be tough because of a transient community. Ask older campus organizers for their advice to retain institutional memory.

Don’t live for social media or online games. I started college a couple months after Mark Zuckerberg first rolled out Facebook and discovered tabbed browsing during O-Week; the latter can be organizationally helpful, but both are distractions. I strongly recommend acting as a Luddite

outside of scholarly research. You can go on TikTok during winter break—for now, you should make friends with the kids who live upstairs in the dining hall rather than checking your high school crush’s Insta.

It’s OK to withdraw from your racquetball class if it makes you miserable, even if you need the PE credit. I recommend jogging and yoga to the uncoordinated.

Know that people who drink neither coffee nor tea are staying up late by drinking Coke, not through some superpower. Drink

your coffee free from the dining hall.

Listen to WHPK. Go to their parties. Go to Euphony readings and parties.

The astronomy department has a great telescope. Take advantage.

With love, your 37-year-old self, ever, lizgoetz

Moving in Place: A Letter to My First-Year Self

By AUDREY SCOTT

Hey Auj, I wish you would be vainer. There are so many things I could say about your first year. That Global Society is going to be a lot more boring after your first quarter and that you should take a classic Sosc instead. That you shouldn’t rush into the Math 180s sequence immediately because you went to an underfunded public high school that did not prepare you for that, and you have nothing to prove just yet. That you shouldn’t waste your time trying to rush social organizations you don’t truly care about. But God, more than anything, I wish you’d be vainer. When the left side of your face starts looking a little out of sorts, starts to swell, get weirded out. Throw a fit. Call your mom. When she tells you to get off the Nobel laureate Zoom webinar and to get into the health center, listen to her. When the doctor feels around your face and tells you it might be a salivary stone or it might be cancer, consider

telling your professors instead of numbly walking the 15 minutes home and taking your midterm.

When you find out it’s not a salivary stone, when you find out what it is—a largely antibiotic-resistant cousin of tuberculosis you should be cursing the gods for giving you and thanking them for not putting it in your bloodstream—don’t keep it in. Tell your professors something is wrong then, not after you limp through a final exam. Tell the people who matter to you; you look way more dramatic fretting about showing off the lump when you take off your mask to eat than you would telling them you’re genuinely sick.

You’ll be hospitalized during winter break. It’ll be hard because even though you’re freshly 18 and scared, you’re still an adult now, and any visitors, even family, violate COVID-19 policy. It’ll be hard, once you’re discharged with a fresh PICC line and a drug regimen costing insurance thousands of dollars a day (you’ll meet your yearly co-pay right on New Year’s), to come to terms with the fact

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Liz Goetz is an alum of the College (A.B. ‘08).

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that you aren’t going back to Hyde Park just yet. It feels gut-wrenching—to be in group chats, to be on social media, and to see how the world moves on without you. To be frozen, chained with a tether of plastic and pharmaceuticals, will be one of the hardest things you go through.

The silver lining of COVID-induced online education is that you don’t have to withdraw, no matter how much your parents or doctors urge you to. For a while, I couldn’t decide if I hated my choice to continue classes or not. I think I feel both ways, sometimes. On the

one hand, a noncompetitive GPA and rocky math-turned–quantum mechanics experience have been a shackle to certain dreams and ambitions. On the other, the release from high-school perfectionism has been one of the most freeing experiences of my education. You try, you grit your teeth and bear it as your body fights to heal. You’ll refuse to give up the one thing that kept you grounded and let you set sights on a future for yourself. I’m proud of you— proud of myself—for that.

It may feel like the end of the world as you go through it, but I promise you it’s impermanent.

The experience, the aftereffects, and the bad days will stay with you, but every day after you’re better will feel all the sweeter, a hard-won reward for pulling through.

And you will pull through. Rely on your family, who will have seen you at your best and worst and stuck with you through all of it. Trust in your friends, whose lives have kept moving but who are more than happy to take the time to catch you up. Find joy in reconnection and keep your heart open for new people to come into your life.

The resilience will stick with

ARTS

you—so will the grit and the desire to prove yourself. Be open to the path it takes you on. Run for the position in that nonprofit you think suits you. Pour your heart and soul into that fellowship application. This multiplicity of experience will speak louder than decimal metrics when it matters most: in finding new community and new opportunities beyond what you ever could have dreamed of.

There’s a finality to this coming year that feels nebulous. I’d wager the unease is common in the Class of 2024: my circumstances may have been specific,

but starting college in a pre-vaccine pandemic meant that it was never going to be all that idyllic. As I head off into the unknown of true adulthood, I’ll carry all that I learned and gained throughout my time as an undergraduate with me—from the classics of the Core to the wonders of humanity and the universe to the interminable will to carry on.

We’ll be okay.

All my love, Audrey Audrey Scott is a fourth-year in the College.

The “Write” Way to Get Involved on Campus

By NATALIE MANLEY | Head Arts Editor and ZACHARY LEITER | Deputy Arts Editor

This article has been adapted from Head Arts Editor Natalie Manley’s previous versions, published in 2021 and 2022.

Student publications at the University of Chicago are about as old as the University itself. What began with the creation of The Chicago Maroon in 1892 (the University was founded in 1890) has since ballooned into a long list of both archived and active publications on subjects ranging from music to politics to humor. Though not all great publications last— some honorable mentions from over the years include Whoopsilon (1921), a Delta Upsilon fraternity newsletter; Wild Onions (1974–75), a poetry magazine; and a collection of essays titled Man-Hater

(1897)—new publications are established every year and are eager for new writers and members. All history aside, whether you are looking for a creative outlet, an opportunity to write academically, or anything in between, here is a categorized list of the active student publications UChicago has to offer this fall.

Newspaper/Journalism Publications

The Chicago Maroon (what you’re reading right now!) is UChicago’s independent student-run newspaper and oldest publication. With articles published online daily and in print every other week, The Maroon is the University’s one-stop shop for campus and South Side news, student op-eds, long-form feature pieces, arts

reviews, and sports updates. Students interested in writing for The Maroon can contribute to any one (or more!) of the newspaper’s five written sections: News, Viewpoints (opinion pieces), Sports, Arts (the best section, in our not-so-humble opinion), and Grey City (long-form). Not so keen on writing? The Maroon also has its own production, business, copyediting, photo, video, podcast, and crossword teams.

Creative Writing Publications

Perhaps you’re less interested in breaking news and more interested in breaking boundaries and writing creatively. Fortunately, UChicago has several publications that feature students’ creative essays, stories, poetry, and more. Founded in 2007, Sliced Bread Magazine features “Paintings, poems, rants, short

stories, photos, collages, comics, fabulous one-liners, and so on, and on, and on”—in other words, visual art, photography, poetry, short fiction, and “all other forms of two-dimensional art.” Issues are published once per quarter, while individual pieces are released regularly online. Any student at the University of Chicago is welcome to submit work with the option of remaining anonymous.

Alternatively, UChicago’s Euphony Journal is a semiannual student-run literary journal that features the poetry and prose of University students and accomplished outside writers alike. Formal issues are released in the winter and spring, while online content is published all year round. Students are welcome to attend and contribute to Euphony ’s weekly content meetings.

Whether you’re a dedicated journalist, a zealous creative writer, or just anyone interested in writing about anything, UChicago has something for you.

It may feel like the end of the world as you go through it, but I promise you it’s impermanent.

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Last but not least, Memoryhouse is a student-run literary magazine that features first-person narratives in all forms from University undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and staff. The only requirement for submissions is that they are written in first-person voice and “present a concrete narrative”; all literary genres, as well as art and photography, are welcome. Memoryhouse releases two to three issues per academic year in addition to posting regular content on its website.

Arts Publications

If The Maroon Arts section piqued your interest, you might want to write or edit for the Arts section; it’s a great way to get free concert or theater tickets! Just email us at arts@chicagomaroon.com to get involved.

You might also want to check out UChicago’s more niche art publications. Interested in fashion? Recognized in 2013 by Teen Vogue as one of the best college fashion magazines in the country, MODA Magazine is a student-run, student-modeled, student-photographed, and student-written publication within the greater Registered Student Organization (RSO) MODA, which also boasts an online blog and a student-designed and student-modeled fashion show. Since its recent revamp, MODA Magazine has published one 60–70 page issue each quarter featuring articles and images that explore the world of fashion.

More into music than fashion? Launched in 2021, Firebird Magazine is an online publication that features all things music. From interviews to must-listen lists to album reviews, Firebird is for anyone with a fiery passion for music and an eagerness to write (or podcast) about it.

Finally, if you somehow miraculously don’t wear clothes or listen to music, you must eat in order to survive; therefore, you might be interested in Bite Bite is a quarterly-print culinary magazine and online blog that features recipes, cooking tips, food photography, local and on-campus restaurant reviews, student spotlights, and more!

Publications Uplifting Marginalized Voices

Although UChicago’s student publications are open to all students regardless of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity, traditionally marginalized students have been historically underrepresented. Exploring Race and Blacklight Magazine are two publications that aim to counter this underrepresentation by providing a media platform for UChicago students who have felt their voices have been overlooked by other publications or who wish to write explicitly about race or racial issues.

Exploring Race is an online publication that features personal accounts written by students of color about their experiences as members of marginalized groups on campus.

Blacklight Magazine is a literary and arts publication associated with the University’s Organization of Black Students (OBS) that spotlights the work of underrepresented student writers and artists as well as other minority voices in the broader Chicago area.

This past year, The Chicago Maroon also published its inaugural Black History Month issue on February 13, in conjunction with Blacklight Magazine, OBS, the African and Caribbean Students Association (ACSA), and the Georgiana Rose Organization (GRO).

Politics and Policy Publications

If you are interested in focusing on politics or policy, The Gate, The Chicago Journal of Foreign Policy, or the Paul Douglas Institute may be more your style.

Like The Maroon, The Gate is an undergraduate student-run news publication, albeit a University-affiliated one and one that specifically covers politics and policy on the local, national, and international level. In order to encourage individuals from all corners of the political spectrum to broaden their political knowledge and debate their opinions in an informed manner, The Gate publishes nonpartisan news articles as well as student-written opinion pieces. The Gate also runs a Cook County Jail Program, in which UChicago students run journalism

and creative writing workshops for local detainees.

Founded in 2012, The Chicago Journal of Foreign Policy aims to provide a forum for students to explore various perspectives and strategies surrounding U.S. external affairs by publishing articles that discuss “historical, economic, political, and cultural developments” in foreign nations. The Journal is printed biannually, but content is uploaded regularly online.

Lastly, though less of a formal publication, the Paul Douglas Institute (PDI) is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit student-run think tank that, in addition to offering research services for outside organizations, publishes student-written policy reports. In order to write for the PDI, you must apply to be a researcher in the spring or fall.

Other (Uncategorizable) Publications

Finally, in true UChicago “quirky” fashion, there are a few publications too unique to categorize:

The Intercollegiate Finance Journal is for those who find economics and finance to be more up their alley. Originally launched at Brown University in 2013, The Intercollegiate Finance Journal is now a multi-college publication run by students from Brown University; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Chicago; and the University of Pennsylvania. The publication features “fun” (for econ people, at least) articles meant to educate the undergraduate community on various topics related to economics, business, politics, and finance.

A new student publication, Expositions, was launched in 2021 by University of Chicago students studying urban journalism with Evan Carver, assistant instructional professor on the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU). The magazine, which aims to highlight environmental and urban issues in a creative way, accepts a wide variety of prose and visual art styles that fall under the genre of “creative nonfiction” and combine themes of “environment” and “city.”

For the philisophically inclined, check out the University of Chicago Philosophy Review (UCPR), which publishes biannu-

al collections of philosophically driven essays from undergraduates around the world. In addition to student work, UCPR also publishes interviews and lectures that feature famous professors and philosophical thinkers.

Looking for something even more “classic” (if that’s even possible)? Look no further than Animus, an undergraduate journal that publishes exceptional written work in the field of classics. In addition to academic papers, Animus also regularly shares translations, creative works, and visual art in its journal and on its online blog. The publication hopes to help “create a dialogue between traditional and reception-based approaches to scholarship on ancient cultures and the Classical world.”

Are philosophy and classics too abstract for you? The Chicago Journal of Sociology (CJS) highlights “excellent undergraduate work in sociology” while “giving student editors experience turning A.B. theses into published academic articles.” Housed in the oldest sociology department in the country (UChicago’s), CSJ is run “by and for sociology students.”

For those with a sense of humor (or rather, those who think they have a sense of humor), UChicago’s only intentionally humorous publication, The Chicago Shady Dealer, is for you. The Dealer puts out three issues per quarter (nine each year) filled to the brim with satire and social commentary. Sometimes, The Dealer will also release special projects, perform stunts, and publish online-only content.

CANA Journal is an interdenominational, student-run journal on campus that publishes works of student Christian thought and journalism.

Finally, The Triple Helix, UChicago’s science publication group, showcases student-written articles and research reports on interdisciplinary topics in the natural, physical, and social sciences. The Triple Helix publishes two print journals—the Science in Society Review and Scientia biannually, in addition to its quarterly online blog, The Spectrum

Interested in one or more of these publications? Visit their websites or find them on Blueprint to learn more about how you can get involved!

Last, but certainly not least, in true UChicago “quirky” fashion, there are a few publications too unique to categorize.

The Hunt for UChicago’s Superior Matcha

Just in time for fall quarter, Deputy Arts Editors Miki Mukawa and Lainey Gregory review UChicago’s iced matcha lattes.

By MIKI MUKAWA | Deputy Arts Editor and LAINEY GREGORY | Deputy Arts Editor

As the weather continues to be unbearably hot, there’s one drink that many campus caffeine (but non-coffee-drinking) lovers find themselves reaching for: an iced matcha latte. As matcha enthusiasts, we’ve come to wonder: Where can we find the best matcha on campus? We embarked on our quest to answer this very important question.

We judged all of UChicago’s available matcha lattes on four criteria, each on a scale of 1–10:

Mixability: How well is the matcha mixed with the milk?

Aesthetics: How pretty is the drink?

Flavor: How is the matcha-milk balance, and generally how “good” does the drink taste?

Smoothness: How smooth is the matcha? Is it grainy?

Fairgrounds Coffee

Miki’s Thoughts

Mixability: 4/10

Aesthetics: 8/10

Flavor: 3/10

Smoothness: 6/10

At this first stop, I decided to try a limited-edition strawberry cream matcha. While visually Instagram-worthy, the drink’s flavor was disappointing. The latte cream seemed to sit on top of the matcha and was difficult to stir in, leaving two different flavors and textures entirely separated in the cup. Rather than being sweet, the strawberry cream was sour and overpowered the flavor of the matcha (though the latter problem might have been because the matcha was made with water rather than milk).

Note: there is no option to make this drink dairy-free, as there are no alternatives for the strawberry cream.

Hallowed Grounds

Lainey’s Thoughts

Mixability: 8/10

Aesthetics: 9/10

Flavor: 9/10

Smoothness: 9/10

Hallowed has outdone itself! This drink managed to have a delectable green-to-white color gradient of matcha and milk while avoiding an overpowering matcha flavor at the bottom of the cup. The matcha taste was delicate and smooth, and the drink’s texture was perfect.

Miki’s Thoughts

Mixability: 9/10

Aesthetics: 9/10

Flavor: 8/10

Smoothness: 9/10

The matcha was less concentrated than I personally prefer. That being said, this matcha latte wasn’t too sweet, and it was very well mixed and smooth.

Ex Libris

Miki’s Thoughts

Mixability: 9/10

Aesthetics: 9/10

Flavor: 8/10

Smoothness: 7/10

Flavor-wise, Ex Libris’s matcha has always been my favorite. One thing I’ve noticed with Ex Libris, though, is that their matchas are a bit inconsistent. While my drink on this day was smooth and grainless, past matchas have not been the same.

Lainey’s Thoughts

Mixability: 3/10

Aesthetics: 9/10

Flavor: 5/10

Smoothness: 6/10

This matcha’s green-to-white color gradient was beautiful. Unfortunately, this drink’s beauty was its downfall, and the deep green-colored matcha at the bottom of the cup was so concentrated that I had to spit out my first sip. The drink was poorly mixed, and I was

met with chalky chunks of dry matcha while drinking. After mixing the drink myself, it tasted a bit better, but I had a hard time getting the bitter taste left over from my first sip out of my mouth. I agree with Miki; Ex Lib matchas are too inconsistent.

Starbucks

Miki’s Thoughts

Mixability: 9/10

Aesthetics: 9/10

Flavor: 7/10

Smoothness: 9/10

Starbucks’s strong matcha flavor is a flavor I thoroughly enjoyed, and this was a great post-class treat for myself. If you’re not a fan of sweet matcha, though, I wouldn’t recommend Starbucks—their premade matcha mix contains simple syrup, which you can’t request to take out.

Quantum Café

Lainey’s Thoughts

Mixability: 8/10

Aesthetics: 6/10

Flavor: 7/10

Smoothness: 9/10

Quantum serves pre-packaged drinks from Happy Lemon, a Taiwanese beverage chain, and I have generally found them to be too sweet. Compared to other Happy Lemon drinks, this particular matcha latte had an enjoyable mellow, lightly sweet matcha flavor. The drink’s pale green color is slightly off-putting and can likely be attributed to the matcha’s subpar quality or lack of freshness. The matcha mix tended to settle at the bottom after a short period of time, but the plastic seal over the cup made the drink easy to mix. This matcha is great if you need something quick and convenient!

Note: No dairy-free options available.

Grounds of Being

Lainey’s Thoughts

Mixability: 10/10

Aesthetics: 8/10

Flavor: 9/10

Smoothness: 10/10

Grounds of Being is the hidden gem of on-campus cafés. Tucked away in the basement of the Divinity School, GOB makes some heavenly matcha. The star of this matcha latte was the silkysmooth texture of the milk, completely eliminating the gritty texture that is common in cold matcha. This drink had an addicting earthy flavor with a touch of sweetness. While a pretty vibrant green, this matcha latte was not Instagram-worthy because it came premixed. Despite this minor detail, GOB matcha is fantastic and will undoubtedly be my first stop on campus this year.

Verdict

Our winner is… Grounds of Being ! Whether you’re looking for a mid-study kick or a post-exam treat, Grounds of Being’s matcha is your best bet to start your year off right.

courtesy of lainey gregory

Let’s Taco ’Bout Food Trucks

Deputy Arts Editor Lainey Gregory gives her takes on the best (and worst) food trucks that UChicago has to offer.

By LAINEY GREGORY | Deputy Arts Editor

All UChicago students know that feeling: the 12:30 p.m. indecision that strikes after the end of a long lecture. It’s time for lunch, and the biggest challenge is often figuring out where to go. If the dining halls or Hutch won’t satisfy your cravings, the food trucks on campus might just do the trick.

The army of trucks parked along Ellis Avenue serve a wide variety of food, but it is impossible to tell from first glance which trucks are the best. Lucky for you, I ate all the research so you don’t have to! Hopefully, this ranking will help you explore the best food trucks that Ellis has to offer.

The trucks are ranked according to the attributes deemed to be the most important for a mobile kitchen—taste, freshness, and value—and scored on a 1–10 scale. Taste characterizes the flavor and texture of the food. Freshness refers to the quality of the ingredients and their preparation. Finally, value accounts for portion size relative to cost.

It is important to note that not all trucks are on campus every day, and some trucks that visit infrequently may not be mentioned in this ranking.

9) El Buen Taco #3

cult to eat. The quesadilla had barely any cheese and was essentially inedible. I did not find this truck to be worth the hefty price, and I would certainly recommend that you visit a different truck if you are craving Mexican food.

8) El Buen Taco #2

Taste: 4

Freshness: 4

Value: 7

Overall: 15/30

Taste: 3

Freshness: 4

Value: 6

Overall: 13/30

El Buen Taco #3 is one of the many food trucks on campus that serve Mexican-style cuisine. I ordered the steak torta with rice and beans and a chicken quesadilla for a total of $26.93. This truck certainly delivers on the portion sizes. The torta was huge and filled to the brim with steak and veggies, and the chicken quesadilla had an almost overwhelming amount of chicken. Unfortunately, the flavor of the food was lacking compared to the other trucks. Both the chicken and steak were super dry and tasted like they were precooked and reheated. The torta was soggy and fell apart quickly, making it very diffi-

El Buen Taco #2 is another Mexican food truck that visits campus every weekday and is oddly parked right across the street from El Buen Taco #3. I was curious to see if there was any difference in quality between the two trucks, but I found that they were essentially the same. I ordered a steak taco, a chicken taco, and a steak quesadilla for $13.43. The tacos were both very dry, and the steak had an unpleasant charred flavor. The tacos were topped only with cilantro despite my having also ordered onions, which resulted in an unbalanced flavor profile. The quesadilla was topped with a generous portion of steak but again, did not have very much cheese. Both El Buen Taco trucks serve dry, charred meat that overpowers all the other flavors in their dishes. However, El Buen Taco #2 was slightly more reasonably priced than El Buen Taco #3, resulting in a better value score.

7) Reggie’s on Wheels

Taste: 8

Freshness: 7

Value: 4

Overall: 19/30

Serving Southern-style BBQ, Reggie’s on Wheels is relatively new to campus. I had the pulled pork sandwich with fried onions and a small mac and cheese for $23.47. The pork in the sandwich had a nice sweet and smoky flavor and was slathered in the appropriate amount of barbecue sauce. The mac and cheese was baked, with a nice cheesy crust on top, and had a

mild peppery flavor. Speaking as a native Texan, this truck reminded me of home! My main qualm was the pricing. While the portion sizes are decent, the prices are quite high. If you are missing Texas and in the mood to splurge on lunch, this truck is definitely for you.

6) The Fat Shallot

and spinach. I also appreciated that the sandwich was piping hot, which made for a picturesque cheese pull. The bread was difficult to bite into, as it was overcooked and slightly burnt. I don’t recommend ordering the fries with a sandwich because they were a little too greasy for lunch. Unfortunately, I felt that the pricing was a bit steep for just a grilled cheese sandwich.

Taste: 6

Freshness: 9

Value: 6

Overall: 21/30

The Fat Shallot has been serving classic American sandwiches on campus for a few years now, and the red truck has become a common sight on campus. On my most recent visit to this truck, I ordered the grilled cheese and the house fries for $14.22. The grilled cheese was greatly enhanced by the caramelized onions

Taste: 7

5) Chicago Lunchbox

Freshness: 9

Value: 7

Overall: 23/30

Lunchbox offers some of the best Vietnamese fusion to hit the streets of Chicago. They serve bánh mì sandwiches, rice boxes, and even tacos. I ordered the beefy Korean bánh mì, a sweet bulgogi-style

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courtesy of lainey gregory

The portions are quite big, and I even had some leftovers.

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beef sandwich piled with fresh veggies, which totaled to $13.95. The sandwich had a sweet flavor with savory notes like garlic and ginger, and it earned Lunchbox the honor of being the least greasy truck on this list. The portions are quite big, and I even had some leftovers. Most importantly, I felt energized after eating at Chicago Lunchbox and highly recommend this truck if you’ve got a long day of work ahead of you.

4) Cheesie’s

and chives for $15.50. Although it seems like a strange combination, the melty cheese, salty potatoes, and savory bacon constitute a great flavor profile and will satisfy any cheesy craving! The best part of the sandwich is buttery sourdough bread, which serves as the perfect base for greasy cheesy perfection.

3) Flash Hernandez Tacos

Taste: 8

Freshness: 7

Value: 10

Overall: 25/30

onions, and my favorite Chihuahua cheese. The tacos were very moist, and there was lots of steak complemented with the right amount of toppings. All of the ingredients were very fresh, overall making this truck great value for your money. You truly can’t go wrong at Flash Hernandez Tacos.

2) Da Pizza Dude

imported Italian prosciutto. If you are looking for Italian-style pizza, Da Dude is da real deal!

1) Tacos Cincuenta Arrobas

Taste: 9

Freshness: 10

Value: 8

Overall: 27/30

Taste: 8

Freshness: 9

Value: 7

Overall: 24/30

Cheesie’s is not on campus every day, but when it is, it causes quite a commotion. The Cheesie’s truck serves a variety of specialty grilled cheese sandwiches. My favorite is The Frenchie—a grilled cheese topped with American and mozzarella cheese, French fries, bacon, sour cream,

Flash Hernandez Tacos is another Mexican food truck that calls UChicago home. Every weekday at 12:30 p.m., a long line of students and staff can be found outside this truck, and for good reason! Flash Hernandez Tacos is known for their speedy service and consistently great food. I ordered three steak tacos with cheese which came out to a jaw-droppingly low total of $7.23. Two warm corn tortillas were piled with chopped steak, cilantro,

Taste: 7

Freshness: 10

Value: 9

Overall: 26/30

Da Pizza Dude dishes out Italian-style personal pizzas. Using fresh ingredients and an in-truck pizza oven, Da Dude serves some of the best pizza in Chicago.

I ordered the classic margarita pizza for $12.13, which I thought to be a very reasonable price for four medium slices of pizza. The mozzarella cheese was fresh and piping hot, and the sauce was perfectly sweet and tart. I also recommend their specialty “The Pros” pizza, which is topped with arugula, parmesan, and

Tacos Cincuenta Arrobas is perhaps the most underrated food truck on campus. The owner of the truck is very friendly and seems to genuinely care about the customer experience. I ordered a chicken taco and two steak tacos for $10.20, and my food was ready before I was finished paying. The chicken was sweet and a little spicy, and the steak was super tender. Most importantly, the food was hot and fresh. At about three dollars per taco, Tacos Cincuenta Arrobas is serving up one of the best deals on campus. This is my favorite truck on campus, and I highly recommend you go check it out.

Can Anything Stop Pickleball in Chicago?

By FINN HARTNETT | Sports Editor

The fastest-growing sport in the United States appears, at first glance, comically childish. It is played on a shrunken tennis court with a yellow wiffle ball. Serves are underhand, and the blocky, plastic rackets look more appropriate for flipping burgers than for competition.

Even in the wacky world of sports lexicon, this sport’s language stands out in its oddness. The region directly in front of the net is called the “kitchen.” If you hit a shot that lands there, it’s a “dink.” The name of the sport itself sums things up nicely. “It’s goofy,” Brandon Mackie, founder of the website Pickleheads, told The Maroon. “Pickleball, named after pickles.”

If you’re used to tennis—pickleball’s granddaddy, as well as a sport enshrined in centuries of tradition—the sight of people playing pickleball appears strange. It is reminiscent of a scene in a fantasy movie, where the giant picks up a regular-sized object and it appears laughably small in their hands.

But despite its odd look and language, pickleball is in vogue. Since the pandemic, the once-obscure sport has skyrocketed in popularity. The Sports Fitness and Industry Association ranked pickleball as the fastest-growing sport in the United States in 2021 and 2022. It now boasts almost five million players nationwide. “Pickleball was kind of the perfect thing for the COVID world. It wasn’t a contact sport. It was social,” Mackie explained. “And then what really made it take off was just how fun and easy the sport is to learn.”

Pickleball is also becoming economically notable. Real estate developers in Florida are currently spending $180 million to construct 15 private pickleball clubs. One such club, located in Sarasota, is expected to include 12 indoor courts, a club shop, and a café. In lieu of a club near them, pickleball enthusiasts with disposable income are now considering constructing private courts in their backyards.

In Chicago, new specialized pickleball courts are popping up from Ravenswood to Riverdale. A quick scan of Pickleheads, which functions primarily as a database for pickleball courts, reveals that Grant Park North Courts Tennis Center now has 14 courts, while Maggie Daley Park has 10. Predictably fewer permanent courts exist around Hyde Park, but Jackson Park Fieldhouse, Mandrake Park, and Gwendolyn Brooks Park—all within 10 blocks of campus—each have courts.

The crème de la crème of pickleball in Chicago, however, is out west in the suburbs. A massive 14,000-square-foot pickleball complex with the slightly eerie name of “Pickle Haus” is currently under construction and is set to open in Algonquin in November. The real estate group constructing the Haus calls it “an entertainment complex offering best-in-class pickleball, state-of-the-art golf simulators, a courtyard for enjoying lawn games and live music, and an award-winning-chef-driven food and beverage program.”

Like all great trends, the rise of pickleball has not come without some discontent. Much of the vitriol stems from tennis players who, as pickleball sweeps across the nation, have been forced to give up public court space. As Block Club Chicago reported last year, many of the 50 new pickleball courts the Chicago Park District plans to open by 2025 will be converted from already-existing tennis courts.

This necessary co-opting of tennis courts or concrete spaces sets pickleball apart from other recently popularized sports like Ultimate Frisbee and spikeball, which can be played on a wider variety of surfaces and as such are easier to find room for. “People don’t like to have to share their space with something that’s grown to become so large,” Mackie said.

In March, a feud between parents and pickleball players erupted in Old Town after parents alleged that the

courts installed in Bauler Park were taking space away from children and that players were behaving inappropriately in the park. The pickleball groups, in turn, accused parents of harassing them and sending their children onto the courts to break up play. Each side eventually created an online petition in an attempt to garner support for their cause.

Pickleball noise also presents an issue in residential areas. The distinct, discordant pop of pickleball on pickle-paddle has become nightmare fuel for those living next to courts. A recent New York Times article centered around the violent popping sounds pickleball matches generate and the discord they cause among homeowners. Oregon resident Dan Lavery is quoted in the Times article: “One of our neighbors who lived directly across from the courts and was dying from cancer noted the pickleball noise was worse than his cancer.”

There is also a more ideological distaste for the sport. Many across America seem not to dislike pickleball so much as the aesthetics of pickleball. The sport’s lighthearted, easy-going ethos, apparent in bright plastic paddles and a meandering playstyle, can appear synthetic, even a front for something sinister. Two Gawker pieces published last February posited that pickleball being featured on various Bravo shows and in various media outlets was a front by NBC Universal to profit from the sport. Club Leftist Tennis’s 2022 manifesto “Against Pickleball,” cites the hypocrisy of pickleball billing itself as a grassroots movement when the sport’s founder, a wealthy Republican senator, devised the game at his summer home. It also points to the high-profile celebrities and other members of the bourgeoisie who play in private clubs while pickleball developers launch a “parasitic attack on public tennis courts.” While the manifesto is only semi-serious (is tennis not as much as a country-club staple as pickleball?), the sentiment it expresses is real.

Mackie, for one, vehemently opposes the idea that pickleball is synthetic or

elitist. “I think that to tie the whole trajectory of sport to its origin is unfair,” he said. “I think in a lot of ways, pickleball has proven to transcend income levels, education levels, and demographics.”

Mackie had played tennis regularly for his whole life before picking up pickleball during the start of the pandemic. He now plays regularly—essentially every day during the summer. He spoke of the variety of people that he has met playing pickleball. “What’s interesting is there’s not a specific profile. You see men, women, young people, old people,” he said. “Obviously retirees are a huge participation source because it’s easier on the body [than tennis]…I see a huge diversity in players, and that’s one thing I really like about the sport.”

Brian Bock, the associate director of athletics at the University of Chicago and an avid pickleball fan, agreed. “I think it fits really well with what our vision and philosophy is from a recreational standpoint,” he told The Maroon.

Pickleball was relatively unknown at UChicago until May 2021, when Bock, together with Director of Intramurals Matthew Fox, hosted a small tournament at Stagg Field. In the fall of 2022, a graduate student named Henry Tran reached out to Bock about starting a pickleball club. The club continues to this day, meeting once a week for pickup matches. Universities with bigger pickleball scenes, such as UVA, UNC, and Wash U, have competed at championship events hosted by official pickleball organizations.

Mackie stated that the sport is growing quickly across college campuses, and he expects official sporting infrastructure to emerge around it in the near future. He estimates a three-year time frame for pickleball to be commonly recognized as a collegiate club sport, and five years for schools to develop varsity teams. When the 2028 Summer Olympics begin in Los Angeles, Mackie’s dream is for pickleball to be there. “That might be a little early, but we’ll see,” he

CONTINUED ON PG. 37

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Jacqueline,

We are so happy for you and excited to hear about your new adventures at the University of Chicago! You always have all our love, Mommy, Daddy, Alexandra, Mitchell, Marin, & Finn :)

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Killing

O-Week

ACROSS

CROSSWORDS

63. O-Week Themeless

By HENRY JOSEPHSON | Head Crossword Editor

1 Independent bookstore in 58-Across with the largest selection of academic books in the U.S.: Abbr.

Independent bookstore in 58-Across with largest selection of academic books

8 Filters

48 Maroon

13 Anthropocene, loosely translated

15 Military briefing, informally

16 Killing

17 St. Francis of ___

49 How a contentious issue might be debated

18 Word after prayer

19 Oval around Stagg Field

21 One of many in the tower of Rockefeller Chapel

22 Genre for King Von

U.S. Filters (through)

23 Waterway from the Hudson River to a Great Lake

25 Actress de Armas and others

51 First nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery

27 Manipulative type of person

Anthropocene, loosely translated Military briefing, informally

28 “What’re the ___?!”

29 Dark times

31 B.J., to name one

52 State with a beaver on its flag

33 Mountaintop abodes that sound like the Greek god of war

54 Give up

56 Bamboozle

35 Off-Off ___, improv troupe at 37-Down

39 Fund, as a chair

57 Prompt

Francis of ___ after prayer around Field of many in Genre for King

41 Political convention meeting 43 ___ language 45 The rat from Ratatouille 47 Agnes Callard’s dept. 48 Maroon, to name one example 49 How a contentious issue might be debated 51 First nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery

58 Where to find 37-Down

52 State with a beaver on its flag 54 Give up 56 Bamboozle 57 Prompt 58 Where to find 37-Down

Waterway from Hudson River

Great Lake

Actress de Armas, and others

60 "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals," "Darkness at Noon," and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

60 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 61 Ability to stand straight on a ship 62 Food for birds 63 Food service giant

Manipulative of person

"What're the times to name one Mountaintop

61 Ability to stand straight on a ship

42 Move furtively

43 Sanders who graduated from 37-Down