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TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2011 • VOLUME 122, ISSUE 32 • CHICAGOMAROON.COM
DISCOURSE
CRIME
All that jazz Saxophonist Von Freeman shakes up Mandel Hall
After shootings, students turn to safe transportation By Sam Levine News Staff
Jazz legend and Rosenberger Medal recipient Von Freeman broke it down last Thursday in Mandel Hall. JAMIE MANLEY/MAROON
By Jonathan Lai Senior News Staff The audience at Mandel Hall erupted into a standing ovation as Von Freeman walked down the aisle and onto the stage with his saxophone. Members of the audience shouted out “Vonski,” the jazz artist’s childhood nickname, above the applause, eager to hear the legend
play music and talk about his work Thursday evening. Freeman, a founder of the Chicago School of jazz tenorists, gave the 2010-11 Rosenberger Interview and Performance as a follow-up to his reception of the Rosenberger Medal, a University award honoring achievement in the creative and performing arts, last June. Before sitting down for an inter-
STUDENT LIFE
view with Chicago Tribune arts critic Howard Reich, Freeman played music he described as coming from previous “scribblings” with the other members of the Von Freeman Quartet. Before beginning to play, Freeman slowly introduced each member of his band, explaining that he never wanted his band members to feel
FREEMAN continued on page 2
Two men were fatally shot in Woodlawn in separate incidents o n We d n e s d a y a n d Th u r s d a y last week, prompting the second campus-wide security alert in two weeks from the University of Chicago Police Department (UC P D) and increased security efforts on campus. At 4:20 p.m. on Wednesday, a man was fatally shot on South 63rd Street between South Cottage Grove and Drexel Avenues. Less than 24 hours later, a man sitting in a parked car on Cottage Grove between East 61st and 62nd Streets was shot and pronounced dead after being transported to Stroger Hospital. In the security alert, U C P D Chief Marlon Lynch informed students that the incidents were part of a string of recent shootings that had occurred in Woodlawn over the past week. Lynch also wrote that police suspected gang activity was involved in the shootings, and urged students to use Safe Ride and the University’s shuttle services, as well as UCPD’s umbrella service. Students heeded Lynch’s warning over the weekend, as UCPD received 29 requests for umbrella coverage compared to the previous weekend, when they received 16
requests—an 81 percent increase. There was also an increase in the number of Safe Ride calls this weekend, University spokesman Steve Kloehn wrote in an e-mail mess age, although he s aid he could not speculate as to the reason for the increase. UCPD spokesman Bob Mason said that there would also be increased U C P D and Chicago Police Department patrols in the off-campus area where the shootings occurred. Officer Daryl Baety, a C P D spokesperson, would not comment on whether or not gang violence was involved because the investigation into both shootings was ongoing. Both attacks are part of a series of violent incidents that have taken place south of East 61st Street this month. At 3:29 p.m. on Thursday, nearly six hours before the second shooting, an armed man stole a cell phone from a man walking on East 63rd Street and South Ellis Avenue. Lynch sent out the first security alert of the quarter on February 14, after a University student was robbed at gunpoint. The ongoing investigation is being conducted by CPD because both shootings were homicides. Baety said that no arrests had been made in either case.
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Dorm monopoly: Alums on games, theory SG van project inches forward By Linda Qiu News Staff Although economics at the U of C today is all about models and regressions, it used to be all in the roll of the dice. In a recent New York Times article, technology editor Damon Darlin (A.B. ’79) mourned the new electronic version of Monopoly and advocated for the Monopoly he used to play. For
Darlin, Monopoly wasn’t just about learning to make correct change. It was a game of strategy and rule-bending, a case study in free-market capitalism at the height of Milton Friedman’s tenure. In the ’70s, in fact, Monopoly seized the residents of Shorey House, who lived on the ninth and tenth floors of Pierce Tower. Darlin, an American history concentrator, remembers U of
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By Sean Graf News Staff Student Government (SG) is in the final stages of purchasing passenger vans for R S Os and athletic clubs to use, according to SG leaders. The initiative is one of the more challenging goals of the Next Generation slate, and as smaller-scale projects get checked off the list and the most ambitious are rendered unfea-
sible, SG is hoping to make the vans a reality. The van acquisition, scheduled for completion at the end of October, has been delayed by a series of setbacks, said SG president and fourth-year Greg Nance. Last quarter, SG had allocated funds and planned to meet with the Procurement Office. But a miscommunication delayed the process by weeks. “Our contact in the Procurement
Office left the University during fall quarter and did not inform us of his departure,” Nance wrote in an e-mail. “Only six weeks later did we learn he had left.” Still, SG has moved forward, receiving clearance from the University’s Risk Management Department, ensuring that the vans fall under the University’s insurance umbrella, and working out the program’s financial archi-
SG continued on page 3
ADMINISTRATION
Inspired by Brown, activists push for HEI non-investment By Crystal Tsoi News Staff
By Ella Christoph
Monopoly reformist Mike Zelenty (A.B. '77) holds a "Hotels without Houses" sign. Elliot Schwartz, (A.B. '76, M.B.A. '77), in the basketball jersey on the left, saved this photo of his fellow Shorey House enthusiasts from the mid-70s. COURTESY OF ELLIOT SCHWARTZ
Student activists are pressuring the University to pull all its investments from HEI Hotels & Resorts, encouraged by the success of activists at Brown University to convince the school to divest from the company because of its anti-union practices. The U of C’s assets include a $50 million investment in HEI, which accounts for 10 percent of the most recent acqui-
sition fund. Students at the U of C first began campaigning against the company in 2008, when Students Organized and United with Labor (SOUL) wrote a letter to President Richard Zimmer and Provost Thomas Rosenbaum encouraging them to reconsider the University’s investments. Complaints against HEI include a drastic staff reduction and threatening termination to employees who intend to unionize. As one of the largest hotel management companies in the nation,
HEI is known for managing hotel chains like Marriott, Westin, Embassy Suites, and Hilton. But unlike Brown, which has an Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policy, the Kalven Report dictates that the U of C remain neutral on social and political issues, which extends to University investments. “Where Brown has a responsible investment committee, we have
HEI continued on page 4