Letter: Trauma Care Coalition’s Call for a Community Advisory Board Unanswered

By Letter to the Editor / May 30, 2016

We activists can seem impossible to please: We seek a goal—say, a U of C trauma center—and, after years of struggle, the institution gives in. But then we continue to advocate—say, for a U of C Medicine community advisory board—and the process begins again. When will we be satisfied? But of course, social justice is...

Letter: Student Loans Payment System Charges Unfair Fees; Administration Should Consider a Change

By Letter to the Editor / May 30, 2016

I want to make a request directly to the University of Chicago administration regarding its current student loans payment system, and in particular its use of www.mycampusloan.com. As a former student with my fair share of student loans, I have no qualms about the burden of paying off the loans that I agreed to. However,...

Letter: Administration Action Against Greek Life Unfairly Punishes Multicultural Greek Organizations

By Letter to the Editor / May 23, 2016

On March 2, 2016, the Center for Leadership and Involvement (CLI) advisors met with presidents of all fraternities and sororities to discuss changes to Greek life that will be effective in the 2016–2017 school year. Shortly after, changes were announced that prohibit Greek organizations from applying for Student Government Finance Committee and Annual Allocations funding,...

Letter: Nussbaum Ignores the Many Options Available for Survivors of Sexual Violence

By Letter to the Editor / May 19, 2016

In her talk, “Accountability for Sexual Violence,” for the Law School’s Domestic Violence Project on Wednesday, University of Chicago distinguished law professor Martha Nussbaum addressed legal precedents and university challenges but not her January Huffington Post blog post, “Why some men are above the law.” While the blog post was clearly on the table, it...

Letter: Faculty, Students, Alumni, and Others Condemn Divestment Resolution

By Letter to the Editor / May 12, 2016

As students, alumni, and faculty of the University of Chicago, we condemn the approval of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) resolution by the University of Chicago College Council on April 12, 2016, and are disappointed by their refusal to remove explicit references to the global BDS movement from the resolution. While many of us...

Letter: Student Center Would Facilitate Campus-Wide Student Culture

By Letter to the Editor / May 5, 2016

The University of Chicago has traditionally been known as the place “where fun goes to die.” This funny yet self-deprecating slogan has proven extraordinarily resilient over the years. Yet Jim Nondorf, Vice President and Dean of Admissions, says that perception is changing. In a 2013 Maroon Q&A, when asked about the humorous slogan, he responded,...

Letter: GSU Responds to Arguments Against Graduate Student Unionization

By Letter to the Editor / May 2, 2016

We are writing as the organizing committee of the graduate employee union Graduate Students United (AFT/AAUP), which currently has over 700 members across all the divisions of the University. A small but very vocal group of administrators has recently been scheduling closed-door meetings and town halls and writing emails and op-eds to sow doubts about...

Letter: College Council Candidate Explains China Divestment Resolution

By Letter to the Editor / May 2, 2016

Student Government listens to the student body’s concerns. As declared in its mission statement, it exists “to further the interests and promote the welfare” of the University’s students. If any student feels deeply about a certain issue that impacts campus, they have the right to be heard and taken seriously. The creators of the China...

Letter: College Council Representative Xu Speaks Out Against China Divestment Proposal

By Letter to the Editor / April 30, 2016

During the College Council meeting on April 26, three students presented a resolution that called on College Council to press for University divestment from China, a country that has committed various human rights violations in its decades-long occupation of Tibet. Taken together with the proposal directly preceding it, which called on Blue Chips to divest...

Letter: Outgoing United Progress Slate Weighs in on Current SG Election

By Letter to the Editor / April 27, 2016

When we reflect on our time participating in Student Government (SG), we find that much of our work leads back to the underlying principle that students should have a substantial role in the governance of their university. From leading the effort to enroll the College in the U-Pass program to fighting for more resources for...

Letter: Students Call For Program Changes to Prevent Lowered Financial Aid for Resident Assistants

By Letter to the Editor / April 21, 2016

For each of us, our houses—Talbot, Midway, and Breckinridge—played a significant role throughout college. We made our closest friends in our dorms, served on our House Councils, and volunteered as House O-Aides to facilitate the incoming first-years’ transition. It makes sense that we wanted to apply to be Resident Assistants (RAs) this year: we value...

Letter: UCAN Endorses United Progress for Student Government, Esquivel for Undergrad Liaison to the Board of Trustees

By Letter to the Editor / April 21, 2016

There are many changes that we, the UChicago Climate Action Network (UCAN), would like to see on our campus. We demand that UChicago be held accountable to the needs of people and the planet rather than the interests of big donors, and we call for increased transparency around financial and administrative decisions. More specifically, we...