The University, its real estate, and a vision for Hyde Park retail.
Features »
I Was Robbed
Reflections on landing a mugger in prison.
Remembering Doctor Liu
Donald Liu drowned last August after saving two children swept out into Lake Michigan. He was survived by a wife, three children, countless patients, and the next generation of pediatric surgeons at Comer’s Children’s Hospital.
We Have Met the Committee and It Is They
The Committee on Social Thought is one of UChicago’s signature programs. Its members you’ve probably read in your Core classes. Its students have likely been your professors. But it’s as hard to define as it is prestigious.
Grey City: What Lies in Store for Campus Activists?
The last protests of the “99 percent” have died down. What now?
Grey City: The New Career Prospects of a Gay M.B.A. Student
Corporate culture is warming up to the LGBTQ community. Is Booth keeping up with the times?
Grey City: What to do about Global Warming?
It just might be the Core’s most troublesome class. Is anyone to blame?
A matter of life and death
Investigating the ongoing protests for an adult level-one trauma center on the South Side.
Pot and prejudice
Marijuana arrests pressure racial tensions and city budget.
A brief history of the UCPD
“There are no firm records, it may surprise you, on the history of the Department.”
The Way Things Work »
The Way Things Work: “Sustainability” on Campus
The University’s Office of Sustainability was created in 2008. Since then, its staff have been fixing up the Quads’ oldest buildings, tracking greenhouse emissions, and changing lightbulbs all over campus. But how does it pick its projects—and how can we tell they’re doing any good?
The Way Things Work: University Lobbying
How Administration exerts influence on the hill.
Fast food (not that kind)
Chicagoans have been pushing for years for a vibrant food truck community similar to those in New York and L.A.
The Way Things Work: Opening a small business in Hyde Park
From documents like Chicago’s “3 Simple Steps to Obtain a Business License” (which actually lists 10 not-so-simple steps) to maneuvering through eight different city, state, and federal agencies, Grey City traces the paths of several successful small businesses in Hyde Park.
Graphic Sex
The odd saga of UChicago Hookups
The Way Things Work: Tuition Hikes
As competition for top faculty, staff, and students has increased, so has tuition.
The Way Things Work: Lab School admissions
A storied history and a reputation as a feeder for the nation’s top colleges make the Lab School a highly appealing choice for students and parents. Getting Lab to choose you, though, is another story.
The Way Things Work: Nuclear waste
The U of C’s nuclear experiments—as well as modern efforts to clean them up—trace their roots to a killjoy administrator, an Italian physicist, and a gang of singing teenagers.
Q & A »
New Kids on the Block
Grey City sat down with five new faculty members appointed within the last year and half: Kenneth Pomeranz (history), Amie Wilkinson (mathematics), Patrick Jagoda (English), Nicolas Brunel (statistics and neurobiology), and Paul Nealey (the new Institute for Molecular Engineering). You might not know their names yet. But you may well soon.
Q&A: Nicolas Brunel
“The idea is basically to use quantitative tools from applied mathematics, statistics, and physics to try to understand how the brain works.”
Q&A: Paul Nealey
“And then you get here and realize it may be one of the biggest initiatives the University has taken in maybe 50 or 80 years, and you go, ‘OK. This is serious.’”
Q&A: Patrick Jagoda
“Can a video game be as good as a novel in the ways that a novel is as good? No, of course not. But videogames can do things that other forms can’t.”
Q&A: Amie Wilkinson
“In the back of my mind I thought if I don’t get a job I could go work on Wall Street. A lot of people I know did that and got very rich and created the mess we had.”
Q&A: Ken Pomeranz
“There’s something heroic and gigantic about that age, but it’s heroic because it’s so terrifying.”
“And then he talked about human frailties”: Q&A with Richard M. Daley
Chicago’s longest-serving mayor needs little introduction. But what is he doing now?
Q & A with Marlon Lynch
The head of the University’s private police force talks about how U of C crime differs from other places and what it’s like to be in charge of the safety of others.
The economics of crime with Gary Becker
“To get people upset, I like to say there’s an optimal amount of crime.”
Food for thought with Betty Jo Nichols
The founder of the Homemaking Skills Institute talks origins, her partnership with the Pritzker School, and favorite recipes.
Building the future with Steve Wiesenthal
University Architect Steve Wiesenthal gives his say on the U of C’s Neo-Gothic foundations and his vision for its state of the art future.
The Study of Studying
Sociology professor Andrew Abbott sits down with Grey City.