Development key to safer Hyde Park

By Alec Brandon / November 27, 2007

In 1991, Yale University was stunned when an undergraduate was shot and killed on its campus. Christian Prince, a second-year, was walking home late one night when a car pulled up. The driver, a 16-year-old New Haven resident named James Fleming, jumped out of the car with a loaded gun and demanded that Prince hand...

Bored of trustees? Give us a vote

By Zack Hill / November 27, 2007

Earlier this month, the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), which comprises over 30 student groups, presented the administration with several proposals on improving the University of Chicago in areas such as financial aid and sustainability. (Apparently, the activists wanted a break from bragging about how little they understand economics.) The most substantial proposal would add two...

U.N. gets it right with new body

By Ryan Kaminski / November 27, 2007

The recent brutalization of Buddhist monks in Burma, the collapse of a cease-fire in Sudan, and the lashing of a rape victim in Saudi Arabia have intensified global calls for human rights improvements. Echoing the “Mearsheimer realism” of the U of C’s political science department, however, many human rights activists have seemingly decided that the...

Inferiority complex is so U of C

By Matt Barnum / November 27, 2007

This Thanksgiving, the only thing my see-once-a-year relatives wanted to hear about was the University of Chicago. I tried to say something that neatly and cleverly summed up my U of C experience. Needless to say, I failed. What is there to say? “My classes are hard.” (Boring.) “People here are kind of weird.” (Too...

The sky: Is it really falling?

By Maroon Staff / November 27, 2007

If you aren’t aware that the world is under imminent threat of destruction, you probably haven’t been following the news lately. The Bible Code—a New York Times bestseller—predicted the coming of a comet and the end of life as we know it in 2006. The end of the 13th B’ak’tun cycle in the long count...

How squirrels explain the world

By Charles Yarborough / November 27, 2007

Squirrels in Hyde Park are something of a cultural phenomenon. Aggressive, cute, and possibly radioactive, they bewilder pedestrians and drivers alike, and, for better or for worse, serve as de facto cultural ambassadors to visitors from around the world. Prospective students may not remember how many Nobel laureates taught at the U of C, but...

A safer campus

By Maroon Editorial Staff / November 20, 2007

The death of Ph.D. student Amadou Cisse early yesterday morning has shaken the University community. The Maroon commends the leadership of the administration in handling this tragedy. The e-mails from President Robert Zimmer and Vice President and Dean of Students Kim Goff-Crews provided detailed information about what happened and how students could take steps to...

Hillary in ’08 anything but inevitable

By Ethan Stanislawski / November 20, 2007

Sometimes the shortsightedness of American politics is baffling. Every four years, the election cycle repeats the same ups and downs, and every time we seem to forget it over the subsequent four years. One election staple that we’d all be better off without is the talk of “inevitability.” Hillary Clinton has dominated the polls for...

Apalling acts don’t justify executions

By Marshall Knudson / November 20, 2007

I was only six years old in the spring of 1994 when my parents first told me about the brutal slayings that had taken place just four years before in our hometown of Gainesville, Florida. Five college students were murdered, and, in a series of grisly scenes, their bodies were disfigured and theatrically arranged in...

Point–Counterpoint: Workers’ claims based on fuzzy math

By Andrew Fischer Lees / November 20, 2007

Regardless of whether it was ever desirable, it is no longer possible for anyone on campus to ignore the demands of campus workers. Since the quarter began, every awkward U of C student who looks at his feet while walking to the Reg has experienced a barrage of informative chalking on the wage contract negotiations....

Point–Counterpoint: Not all factors can be easily measured

By Aaron Goggans / November 20, 2007

Whether it is numbers on the quads, the chalking in front of the Reg, or the cries of workers and students in front of the administration building, the demand for a four-percent wage increase is not easily ignored. The relevant question is: Why are the workers asking for four percent? The answer is simple. Workers...

Ending the vicious cycle of violence

By Claire McNear / November 15, 2007

A danger abounds on campus. It speeds around in all directions, racing to and fro, hunting the weak, slow, and defenseless, and forever endangering the kindly bipedal community of the University. It stalks its unwitting prey, creeping behind and beside and pouncing when attack is least expected; it clacks its fierce metallic teeth and charges...