Smile Design Every Other Week
The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon
The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon
Smile Design Every Other Week
The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon
Stories and content by Kate Shepherd

U of C professor salaries rank fifth in the nation

By Kate Shepherd / June 3, 2008
University of Chicago professors earn higher salaries than most of their peers, according to a report released by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in April. The average salary for a full-time professor at the U of C during the 2007-08 academic year was $170,800—the fifth highest in the nation. Only professors at Rockefeller...

Zimmer announces new campus safety initiatives

By Kate Shepherd / May 30, 2008
President Zimmer announced new steps the University will take to improve campus safety in an e-mail to the University community Wednesday. The letter addressed the recommendations made by the Campus Safety and Security Committee, an ad-hoc group for following the shooting death of graduate student Amadou Cisse last November. 

The committee’s report, the result of...

New York changes before Sloan’s eyes

By Kate Shepherd / May 30, 2008
John French Sloan, who was an illustrator before beginning his career as a print maker and painter, spent several years painting and drawing two Manhattan neighborhoods and the people who inhabited them.

Doniger to deliver convocation speech

By Kate Shepherd / May 23, 2008
Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade distinguished service professor in the Divinity School, will deliver the commencement address to this year's graduating classes at the June 13 and 14 graduate and College convocation ceremonies.

Higher Education Act expires without renewal

By Kate Shepherd / May 9, 2008
The Higher Education Act (HEA), the piece of federal legislation that dictates higher education policy, including government financial aid programs, has expired as of April 30. Congress is extending the Act until its renewal is completed and passed, with lawmakers expecting to pass the rewritten bill before the July 4 recess. The HEA, which became...

Chicago colleges lobby for Metra line discounts

By Kate Shepherd / April 29, 2008
The Coalition of Chicago Colleges (CCC) is working to secure discounted fares on the Metra rail system for Chicago-area college students. Student representatives from CCC schools, which include the U of C, are traveling to Springfield on May 7 to lobby state legislators in support of the Metra Initiative Amendment, HB2144. If the State Senate...

Sunstein delivers Earth Week keynote address

By Kate Shepherd / April 25, 2008
Although the United States government has failed to address climate change head-on, it has still made considerable environmental progress since the first Earth Day in 1970, Law School professor Cass Sunstein said during his Earth Week keynote address Tuesday. Sunstein spoke about environmental law and discussed the politics behind the government’s treatment of the Montreal...

City Council to U of C: Divest now

By Kate Shepherd / April 11, 2008
The Chicago City Council unanimously approved a resolution denouncing the University for its refusal last year to divest from companies with business ventures in the Darfur region of Sudan during Wednesday’s full-council meeting at City Hall. Third-ward alderman and U of C School of Social Service Administration (SSA) alumna Pat Dowell spearheaded the resolution, which...

SG selects UnCommon fund recipients

By Kate Shepherd / April 3, 2008
[img id=”80441″ align=”alignleft”] A presentation on how to survive zombie attacks, a naked Halloween party, and a new student-run emergency response unit are among the student proposals that received grants from the UnCommon Fund, a program designed to distribute grant money to fund unique student projects. A reincarnation of last year’s New Initiatives Fund, the...

Breckinridge prevails in second Battle of the Bulbs

By Kate Shepherd / March 7, 2008
Breckinridge residents killed the lights for the month of February—and consequently won the Green Campus Initiative’s (GCI) second annual Battle of the Bulbs competition. GCI, a student environmental awareness group, created the month-long competition to encourage students in housing to reduce their energy consumption. Breckinridge reduced its energy consumption by 24 percent during the month...

Grants aid small business revitalization

By Kate Shepherd / February 29, 2008
A new city program targeted at small business owners is helping some 53rd-Street businesses, such as Kimbark Coin Laundry and the newly opened Asian fusion restaurant Chant, to improve their facilities and service options. The Small Business Improvement Fund (SBIF) reimburses owners up to $150,000 in permanent improvements they make to their businesses. “Basically, the...

Argonne holds hamburger machine contest

By Kate Shepherd / February 26, 2008
Hamburgers were bungled, assembled, and dissected at the Argonne National Laboratory’s Rube Goldberg Machine contest last Friday, as six teams of local high school students competed to build hamburgers using handmade machines at the Chicago Children’s Museum at Navy Pier. The contest is named after cartoonist Rube Goldberg, famous for his comics depicting complicated machines...

Ben Folds to headline MAB winter show

By Kate Shepherd / February 22, 2008
[img id=”80349″ align=”alignleft”] Rock pianist Ben Folds will headline the winter concert at Mandel Hall on March 1, the Major Activities Board (MAB) announced yesterday. Folds is renowned for his lyric-driven music and lists artists Billy Joel and Elton John as musical influences. Before establishing himself as a solo act in the early 2000s, Folds...

Frat brothers run marathon for charity

By Kate Shepherd / February 8, 2008
During the long months fourth-year Lee Solomon spent training for a half-marathon, he became frustrated, tired, and even started to doubt his ability to complete the 13.1-mile trek. But he didn’t give up. Solomon, senior executive officer of the U of C chapter of the international Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), traveled to Florida...

Second “Bulbs” contest to pit dorm against dorm

By Kate Shepherd / February 5, 2008
Last Friday night, students in the Snell House lounge strained their eyes while playing a game of chess in the dark to reduce their dorm’s energy use. They eventually turned on the lights so they could see the board—but their sacrifice reflects the spirit of the Battle of the Bulbs competition. The Green Campus Initiative...

Online student venture catalogs users’ libraries

By Kate Shepherd / February 1, 2008
A member of the multitasking generation, third-year economics major Guy Demeter has no difficulty balancing schoolwork and developing and launching online software. Demeter stumbled across programming in his sixth-grade algebra class, when he started programming his calculator out of boredom. He then developed a serious interest in application programming during his second year of high...

Model U.N. team takes top honors at Yale

By Kate Shepherd / November 2, 2007
Rebounding from a down year in 2006-07, the University’s Model United Nations team has returned to their traditional perch atop the simulated diplomacy circuit with a victory at last weekend’s Yale University Model U.N. conference. Seven students took home individual honors, including three who received the top recognition in their respective committees, and the U...

Property adjacent to Obama’s on market

By Kate Shepherd / October 26, 2007
Presidential hopeful and Kenwood resident Barack Obama may soon have new neighbors. An empty lot next to his Kenwood home is on the market for $1.5 million. According to George Rumsey, president of the Hyde Park–Kenwood Community Conference, development of the land is inevitable. “When the original owners decided to sell the property as two...

Nobel-winning physicist tied to Argonne

By Kate Shepherd / October 23, 2007
German scientist Peter Grünberg, who won a 2007 Nobel Prize in physics last week, performed some of the research that led to a breakthrough in nanotechnology at U of C–owned Argonne National Labs. Working previously as a research scientist at the Institute of Solid State Research in Jülich, Germany, Grünberg came to Argonne in the...

Looming primaries draw campus political activists

By Kate Shepherd / October 12, 2007
With “Google Ron Paul” slogans chalked on sidewalks across campus and fliers for Barack Obama student rallies slowly overtaking hallway corkboards, students at the U of C are beginning to show their political colors just in time for the oncoming presidential primaries. “It is certainly an interesting campus,” said third-year Eliot Weinstein, “but people here...

Redford to preview film at Doc

By Kate Shepherd / October 9, 2007
Actor and director Robert Redford will present his new film, Lions for Lambs, at a special screening tonight at 5 p.m., Doc Films announced last week. Following the film, author and journalist Rick Perlstein (AB ’92) will host a question and answer session with Redford and costars Andrew Garfield and Michael Peña. The film follows...

Students make most of time away

By Kate Shepherd / October 5, 2007
U of C undergraduate Joe Compratt said he wasn’t ready for college when he started his first year in 2002. After two nonconsecutive years off, Compratt returned last week to begin his fourth year at the University. The real-world experience he gleaned during his time away from the University of Chicago has made the University’s...

Computer network aids crucial drug research

By Kate Shepherd / October 2, 2007
The University of Chicago has joined forces with IBM, Argonne Labs, and the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) to develop drugs that will treat and cure deadly diseases such as dengue, West Nile virus, and Hepatitis C. The project will let researchers tap into massive amounts of computer processing power made available by computer...

Minorities report in record numbers

By Kate Shepherd / September 30, 2007
The College has boosted its minority and international student enrollment to an all-time high with the incoming first-year class. Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, multiracial, and international students make up 43 percent of the Class of 2011. Michael Behnke, vice president and dean of college enrollment, said he hopes the increase is related to changes...

Ragin’ Cajun entertains, challenges at Progressive Gala

By Kate Shepherd / June 1, 2007
In an address to a mostly student audience Saturday, well known political consultant, author, and lead strategist of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign James Carville lambasted the University of Chicago for what he said was “the havoc it has wreaked on the nation.” As the featured speaker of the second annual Progressive Gala, held at...

Duncan, psychology professor, dead at 71

By Kate Shepherd / June 1, 2007
University of Chicago psychology professor Starkey Duncan, Jr. passed away due to complications from heart surgery on May 15 at the University’s Bernard Mitchell Hospital on campus. He was 71. “I think, unquestionably, he will be remembered best for his work on sequences of events that occur during human social face-to-face interactions; these sequences, he...

New center examines U.S. history

By Kate Shepherd / May 15, 2007
Administrators at the Center for Study of the Principles of the American Founding are rounding out what they see as a first year marked by the successful integration of new programs into the University’s academic life. The Center is part of an initiative by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI) Jack Miller Center for Teaching the...

Admin taps new liaison to Board of Trustees

By Kate Shepherd / May 8, 2007
The U of C announced Friday that it has appointed David Fithian to the new position of secretary of the University. Fithian, currently secretary and associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard University, will serve as the primary liaison to the Board of Trustees and have a role in governing...

Students disrupt Hyde Park mugging of former Senator

By Kate Shepherd / May 1, 2007
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for U of C students Zachary Trayes-Gibson and Rachel McFadden as they walked to a party on South Woodlawn Avenue Friday evening. But before reaching their destination that night, the two students would chase a mugger away from a former U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate. According to third-year...

SG Election Guide: The Moose Party

By Kate Shepherd / April 24, 2007
Despite 12 consecutive years of losing the Student Government (SG) Executive Slate election, the Moose Party promises that its election this year could mean significant positive changes for the U of C campus—as a start, the Delta Upsilon (DU) brothers say a victory would ensure that Friday night’s annual election result party at their fraternity...

Slate candidates face off in SG Debate

By Kate Shepherd / April 20, 2007
[img id=”80213″ align=”alignleft”] Candidates running for Student Government (SG) Executive Slate, Graduate Student Liaison, and Undergraduate Student Liaison discussed their platforms in the annual election debate held Wednesday in the McCormick Tribune Lounge in the Reynolds Club. Three slates—Your-SG, Most Known Unknowns, and the Moose Party—are fielding candidates for Executive Slate, a three-person group comprising...

I-House hosts speaker double-header

By Kate Shepherd / April 17, 2007
International House played host to two prominent campus events, “The Current Security and Economic Situation on the Korean Peninsula” and a reading by the famous Soviet dissident poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, on Thursday. The first event, sponsored by the World Beyond the Headlines Program, featured speeches from Alexander Vershbow, the United States ambassador to the Republic...

GSB aims summer program at undergrads

By Kate Shepherd / April 13, 2007
The U of C Graduate School of Business (GSB) has launched the Summer Business Scholars Program, a new program to help college undergraduates transition from school to the workplace. The three-week-long program offers classes in marketing, accounting, finance, and competitive strategy, and features trips to companies as well as a lecture series, according to a...

ETS cancels revisions to GRE exam

By Kate Shepherd / April 10, 2007
Educational Testing Service (ETS) announced last week that it has canceled its plans to revise the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), the standardized test used in admissions decisions by most American graduate schools. The new GRE was scheduled to launch in September 2007 with extensive revisions, including new test content, a new scoring system, an Internet-based...

SG names recipients of $40k New Initiatives Fund

By Kate Shepherd / April 3, 2007
The Student Government (SG) New Initiatives Fund announced its first funding decision Sunday, allocating nearly all of the $40,000 set aside for independent projects. The pilot fund allotted $26,000 for Democratic operative James Carville to speak on campus, $6,800 for a dog park, $6,000 for a native plants garden, and $1,000 for a wind turbine....

Transportation Office tweaks bus routes

By Kate Shepherd / March 30, 2007
In response to student complaints, the CTA and the University Transportation and Parking Office have added a bus to the #170 route and readjusted the #171 route. An additional bus is running on the #170 route during morning and afternoon rush hours. The bus will now offer service from the 57th Street Metra stop to...

Dorms slash energy use for Battle of the Bulbs

By Kate Shepherd / March 6, 2007
[img id=”80173″ align=”alignleft”] The Battle of the Bulbs electricity-reduction competition ended last week, with Burton-Judson (B-J) emerging as the clear winner. B-J decreased its electricity usage by 20 percent during the month of February. Shoreland came in second with an overall reduction of 15 percent, followed by Blackstone at 11 percent. Pierce came in last...

House T-shirts: Where students come to buy

By Kate Shepherd / February 27, 2007
In a custom as unique as Scav Hunt or the Latke-Hammentashen Debate, U of C students have embraced a tradition of sardonic and self-deprecating T-shirts that both celebrate and bemoan some of the University’s shortcomings. For years, students have been proudly buying and selling shirts bearing these tongue-in-cheek phrases. The most famous phrase, “Where Fun...

Faulty rankings released to criticism

By Kate Shepherd / February 16, 2007
A recently released study of faculty productivity that ranks the U of C 33rd out of 166 large universities has generated a barrage of criticism and accusations of poor accounting. The ranking appears in the 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, which was released last month by Academic Analytics, LLC, a private firm that sells benchmark...

U of C takes steps toward sustainability amid criticism

By Kate Shepherd / February 2, 2007
[img id=”80147″ align=”alignleft”] The Sustainable Endowments Institute gave the University a grade of D+ in its first College Sustainability Report Card released last week. The Cambridge, MA–based Institute, which was founded in 2005, evaluated 100 different universities and colleges in administration, climate change and energy consumption, food and recycling, green building, endowment transparency, investment priorities,...

Professors tie disciplines into spirituality

By Kate Shepherd / February 2, 2007
The Divinity School hosted “Physics, Physiology, Philosophy: Three Paths, One Spirited Product,” a conference featuring three professors from Georgetown University, on January 26. Professors Karl Pribam, George Farre, and Patrick Heelan have been working together for several years to unify their various areas of study and combine their different disciplines. Pribam, a professor of psychology...

Work on new dorm kicks into high gear

By Kate Shepherd / January 23, 2007
Construction on the new south campus dormitory and dining hall is well underway and on schedule, according to Cheryl Gutman, deputy dean of students for Housing, Dining, and Transportation. The original schedule calls for the first phase of the 900-bed dorm to be completed by August 2008 with the rest of the dorm opening by...

New Year releases flood of “the resolved” upon U of C gyms

By Kate Shepherd / January 19, 2007
For U of C students trying to make good on their New Year’s resolutions, Ratner Athletic Center has become an all-too-popular place to do so. Since students started returning to campus, Ratner has seen a sizable increase in its number of patrons, a phenomenon referred to by some students as the “New Year’s Resolutions Rush.”...

Filmmaker opens herself up at open talk

By Kate Shepherd / November 21, 2006
Film buffs gathered at the Film Studies Center Friday night for the second part of the three-part city-wide series, Light Years: Films and Video by Gunvor Nelson. The program, which marked the 40th year of Nelson’s filmmaking, offered the rare opportunity to view and discuss Nelson’s films with the famous Swedish filmmaker herself. Nelson’s work...

SSA professor makes case for spirituality in mental health

By Kate Shepherd / November 14, 2006
Froma Walsh, a professor in the U of C School of Social Service Administration (SSA) and co-director of the Chicago Center for Family Health, argued that spirituality should have a larger role in the study of mental health in a talk at the SSA last Thursday. She noted the recent burgeoning interest of the mental...

Med Center income falls in fiscal ’06

By Kate Shepherd / November 7, 2006
The University of Chicago Medical Center took a hard hit in the 2006 fiscal year, falling $33 million short of its budgeted operating income due to rising expenses and lower than expected revenue. The Center had set a target operating income of $46 million but only earned $13 million, about $58 million less than the...

Medical Center taps new president

By Kate Shepherd / November 3, 2006
Former Hershey Medical Center director David Hefner was named the new president of the University of Chicago Medical Center Wednesday, succeeding former President Michael Riordan, who left in July of this year. Though Riordan was president of the U of C Hospitals—a branch of the medical center umbrella—Hefner will oversee the entire medical center in...

Nuclear pioneer dies at 91

By Kate Shepherd / October 31, 2006
Alvin M. Weinberg, a famous nuclear scientist, nuclear energy advocate, and U of C graduate, died October 18 in his Oak Ridge, Tenn. home. He was 91. Weinberg was born and raised in Chicago and received his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. A few years after graduation, he joined...

Writer Jared Diamond visits campus

By Kate Shepherd / October 24, 2006
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jared Diamond opened the School of Social Service Administration’s (SSA) 2006–07 Lecture Series on Thursday with a talk on his most recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Currently a geography professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, Diamond was awarded the National Medal of Science by...
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