Dear reader,
The start of the academic year is creeping closer. While you enjoy the last five weeks of summer, here are some stories you might have missed during your time away from campus.
News
The Arts & Humanities Division is preparing to reorganize, with the aim of cutting administration costs. That may include consolidating the division’s 15 departments into eight, reducing language instruction, and establishing minimum class and program sizes.
The division will also suspend Ph.D. admissions to eight of its departments and accept smaller cohorts to the remaining seven for the 2026–27 academic year. Similar pauses will be taking place in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice and the Harris School of Public Policy.
The percentage of incoming students identifying as Black and Hispanic decreased between the 2023–24 and 2024–25 academic years, according to the University’s Common Data Set (CDS) which tracks demographic data for newly-enrolled students. The report marks the first detailed enrollment data since the Supreme Court ruled affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional in 2023.
UChicago Medicine announced in July that it would discontinue all gender-affirming pediatric care, after the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from hospitals that provide it.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a federal spending package signed by President Donald Trump in July, includes major changes to higher education financing. Although the University’s endowment tax rate is unlikely to increase, changes to Pell grant eligibility and the reduction of several graduate student loan programs will increase costs for some students.
Grey City
The introduction of Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV came as a surprise for the students in UChicago history professor Ada Palmer’s popular “pope class,” in which students don cardinals’ robes, pen letters, and cast votes to simulate the conclave of 1492.
Viewpoints
“[N]o one even wanted PhoenixAI in the first place,” writes columnist Kaci Sziraki about the University’s official AI service. Sziraki put the model to the test, even asking who the current president is (spoiler alert: PhoenixAI did NOT say Donald Trump).
Columnist Adam Zaidi’s takedown of UChicago’s “caffeine culture” may have you reconsidering your can of Celsius.
Have we traded face-to-face interaction for the virtual world’s “instant access to information and connection”? Ibrahim Shaheen reflects on the hidden costs of technology’s convenience.
As the Division of the Arts & Humanities begins to reorganize, professor Clifford Ando argues that the move is a “plan in search of a rationale,” saying “we’re going to disrupt and see what happens; we don’t even know whether we will achieve the efficiencies that are the reform’s stated goals, let alone what their effects on academic excellence and institutional reputation will be.”
Sports
After a “just average” 2024–25 season, can the Chicago Bulls make a fresh start? “[T]here’s still hope,” says sports writer John Mo.
Arts
“What’s in a festival performance?” asks head Arts editor Nolan Shaffer in his review of this year’s Lollapalooza. From Sabrina Carpenter to Tyler, the Creator, this year’s headliners showed that “it’s not the stage that makes the artist, but the artist that must make the stage.”
The Den Theatre’s Evanston Salt Costs Climbing “stumbles despite an engaging script and strong acting performances,” writes Arts reporter Zachary Leiter. The play, which follows three Evanstonians over the course of three brutal winters, is “muddled,” taking on so many topics that, ultimately, “it isn’t really about anything.”
Black Country, New Road’s Forever Howlong is the “album of the summer,” according to arts reporters Josie Barboriak and Sofia Hrycyszyn. Read their dispatch from the concert pit and decide for yourself, before the summer ends.