Fear factor

By Kat Glass / June 3, 2008

When University officials called an open meeting on November 19, the afternoon after graduate student Amadou Cisse was killed, they were still piecing together a response plan. Administrators hauled in several rows of chairs and some tissue boxes, presumably anticipating that this would be a time to reflect on the tragedy—the first student murder in 30 years..

Full J. Z. Smith interview

By Supriya Sinhababu / June 2, 2008

J.Z. Smith refuses to use the Internet, but you can still read the full text of this two-hour interview here.

From the Grey City editors

By Tim Murphy / June 2, 2008

The U of C may look different now, but many of the forces that made it tick 40 years ago are still active today.

The Way Things Work: The endowment

By Michael Lipkin / June 2, 2008

As the University's endowment has reached record levels of growth, it has come under increased scrutiny from all directions. In Washington, the Senate has considered placing caps on endowment spending for the richest institutions, while closer to home, graduate students on campus have called for more endowment dollars to be spent on their financial aid. What is an endowment, and how does it work?.

More than a game

By Supriya Sinhababu / June 2, 2008

Sculptor Lorado Taft may have just been making a statement on human morality when he installed the Fountain of Time statue on the west end of the Midway in 1922. But as it towers over the rest of Washington Park, the wizened concrete form points just as well to various incarnations of the changing park over the past 86 years..

Interview with J. Z. Smith

By Supriya Sinhababu / June 2, 2008

A word of advice for anyone hoping to contact Jonathan Zittell Smith before he returns to campus next fall: Use the mail slot. The religious studies professor— better known as J.Z.—doesn't pick up the phone and has never "seen the Internet." In a two-hour interview, Smith weighed in on chain smoking, dead religions, and the Babylonian Talmud..

Grassroots: The next generation

By Tim Murphy / June 2, 2008

The road to the Democratic nomination has taken on a distinctly local flavor in 2008. The U of C can lay claim to both the presumptive nominee, Barack Obama, a former Law School professor, and also the man least likely to win the nomination: his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who holds an M.A. from the Divinity School..