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 Supriya Sinhababu

1,300 attend TNS

By Supriya Sinhababu / January 27, 2009
A marketer for the iPhone, a consultant for the World Bank, and a CIA intelligence analyst were among over 300 alumni at Taking the Next Step.

The sit-in: 40 years later

By Supriya Sinhababu / December 2, 2008
The two-week takeover of the Administration Building in 1969 is nearly absent from the collective memories passed down to each new generation of students, leaving a vacant seat next to tales of Leopold and Loeb, urban renewal, and Hyde Park homicides..

The sit-in: 40 years later

By Supriya Sinhababu / December 2, 2008
The two-week takeover of the Administration Building in 1969 is nearly absent from the collective memories passed down to each new generation of students, leaving a vacant seat next to tales of Leopold and Loeb, urban renewal, and Hyde Park homicides..

SSA looks toward next century of social outreach challenges

By Supriya Sinhababu / November 18, 2008
For Chicago Sun-Times editorial page editor Thomas McNamee (A.M. ’82), the School of Social Service Administration (SSA) remains familiar 26 years after he earned his degree there. “I don’t think I’ve been back to the SSA since 1982, and it still looks like an auto showroom,” he said, drawing laughs from the.

Students hope to foster safer Hyde Park

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 24, 2008
Students nervous about getting from Burton-Judson to Regents Park after dark would most likely turn to SafeRide, not the University’s Marketplace website. On Sunday night, however, between listings for ride-sharing and babysitting, was a post titled “Are you tired of being afraid to go out at night in Hyde Park?”

With Corso, Reininger doesn’t miss a beat

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 21, 2008
In many ways, Gregory Corso’s late adolescence mirrors that of the typical University of Chicago student. Unfortunately for Corso, the backdrop for his learning and growing experiences was not the U of C, but Clinton Correctional Facility, New York State’s maximum-security prison.

Despite challenges, some undergrads make marriage work

By Supriya Sinhababu / June 3, 2008
Most U of C undergraduates who list themselves as married on their Facebook profiles do so in jest. But for a small handful of students, opting for the “married” or “engaged” relationship status online isn’t a joke—it’s the real thing. Third-year Tori Neal was married in April after a three-month engagement to her long-time friend...

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..

Trivia snuffs out character development

By Supriya Sinhababu / May 20, 2008
[img id=”80630″ align=”alignleft”] To date, Chuck Palahniuk has made 73 people faint just by reading them his short story “Guts,” a tale of worst-case masturbation scenarios. On the book tour for his new novel Snuff, the Fight Club author might just break his own record. In fact, record-breaking is something of a theme in Snuff....

Embattled #171 bus stop will stay intact

By Supriya Sinhababu / April 11, 2008
[img id=”80473″ align=”alignleft”] After month-long negotiations, Facebook protests, and squabbles over parking shortages, the future of the #171 bus stop is safe for now. Fifth-ward Alderman Leslie Hairston announced her decision to keep the stop to an audience of about 40 University and community members in a meeting in Hutchinson Commons on Wednesday. Students, staff,...

City Council panel chides Darfur stance

By Supriya Sinhababu / April 3, 2008
Citing the Sudanese government’s involvement with militias that have carried out genocide, the Chicago City Council Committee on Human Relations voted to recommend a resolution denouncing the University for its refusal to divest from companies doing business in the Darfur region at a hearing on March 20. “At this point, things have gotten worse in...

Storm clouds brew behind the badge

By Supriya Sinhababu / March 10, 2008
Blindfold half the audience of A Steady Rain, and its reaction to the play probably wouldn’t be too different from that of the other half. Other than the trembling lower lip of Joey (Peter DeFaria) as he relates each new tragedy and the foot-long string of drool that hangs from the mouth of Denny (Randy...

Future of #171 stop uncertain

By Supriya Sinhababu / March 10, 2008
[img id=”80434″ align=”alignleft”] Alderman Leslie Hairston has agreed in a letter to President Robert Zimmer to delay her final decision on the removal of the #171 bus stop at South University Avenue and East 57th Street until she has held a meeting to gauge community opinion, University administration said on Friday in a discussion about...

U of C joins Chicago colleges in conservation effort

By Supriya Sinhababu / March 10, 2008
Student Government (SG) voted to support the global conservation effort known as Earth Hour at a meeting of the Coalition of Chicago Colleges (CCC) last Thursday. Earth Hour challenges participants to refrain from using electric lights for one hour and will occur worldwide on March 29 from 8 -9 p.m. Eight of the nine CCC...

Alderman alters bus stop rationale

By Supriya Sinhababu / March 7, 2008
Fifth-ward Alderman Leslie Hairston said in an interview Tuesday that she chose to eliminate the popular #171 bus stop on the southeast corner of South University Avenue and East 57th Street primarily because she objects to how the University handled the stop’s relocation. The stop was moved to its current spot from the intersection’s northeast...

Alderman to cut #171 stop on 57th Street

By Supriya Sinhababu / March 4, 2008
[img id=”80404″ align=”alignleft”] In order to create space for four parking spots, Chicago Fifth Ward alderman Leslie Hairston asked the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) last Friday to remove the #171 bus stop at East 57th Street and South University Avenue. Though CTA officials, University administration, and University students oppose the stop’s elimination, Hairston has the...

Uematsu brings Fantasy scores to life

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 29, 2008
[img id=”80382″ align=”alignleft”] The nerdiest concert event of the year rolls into town tomorrow night. No, it isn’t a Harry and the Potters show. No, it’s not the Harvard marching band. What fanboys and fangirls the nation over will flock to the second city for is the only U.S. performance of Distant Worlds: Music from...

St. Vincent sings praises of Cub scouts, post-punk

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 22, 2008
[img id=”80341″ align=”alignleft”] Singer-songwriter is a pretty damning term. For many, it conjures the image of bedroom strummers believing their heart-on-sleeve delivery will compensate for lacking lyrics and chops. But every once in a while someone like St. Vincent’s Annie Clark comes along and breaks the mold. Her vocal and instrumental powers crystallize into whimsical...

New coalition seeks to unite Chicago student campuses

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 19, 2008
Hoping to organize and unite student bodies from universities and colleges across the city, the Coalition of Chicago Colleges (CCC), a new group founded by U of C second-year and College Council representative Jarrod Wolf, will meet for the first time on February 21. The organization, made up of representatives from area student governments, hopes...

K Records founder sings for Olympia, Japan, Lumpen

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 11, 2008
[img id=”80297″ align=”alignleft”] In the early ’80s Calvin Johnson blazed a trail through hardcore and hair metal, making way for more lo-fi, gosh darn cute indie rock than the average record collecting cynic could handle. Everyone from Japanese girl bands to Kurt Cobain took cues from Johnson, and after years of performing behind big names...

U of C moves to end commuter program

By Supriya Sinhababu / January 18, 2008
When third-year Lima Lawrence sat down at last quarter’s commuter students’ luncheon, she anticipated some changes. She hoped that Dean of Students Susan Art and Associate Dean Bill Michel were attending the luncheon to announce plans for renovating the commuter students’ lounge, now in the basement of Cobb Hall. Instead, the deans announced that beginning...

Some students find their calling in armed forces

By Supriya Sinhababu / January 15, 2008
During his second year in the College, Rosendo Garza saw something on a crowded campus bulletin board that would change his life: a poster for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Platoon Leader’s Class (PLC). “I saw the flyer, I spoke to a captain, and I thought it would be a really cool experience to do leadership...

Top Five Music Videos of 2007—Supriya Sinhababu

By Supriya Sinhababu / January 11, 2008
Spoon, “Don’t You Evah” Before 2007, the dancing, snowman-shaped robot known as Keepon was just another one of YouTube’s best-kept secrets. “Don’t You Evah” gives the little guy his four minutes and five seconds of fame, following him through all-robot dance parties and encounters with Japanese people. If you’re still searching for all the entertainment...

Early applications to University jump by nearly one-half

By Supriya Sinhababu / November 20, 2007
The University of Chicago’s Early Action program has received a record number of 4,329 applications to the College, representing a 42-percent increase from last year’s 3,041 early applications. Other universities with early action programs have experienced similar increases in the number of applicants. Yale University dean of undergraduate admission Jeff Brenzel told the Yale Daily...

Bad Brains share deep thoughts on punk today

By Supriya Sinhababu / November 16, 2007
Bad Brains’ career has been as volatile as their music. Over the last 30 years they’ve found Rastafarianism, split up and regrouped too many times to count, and fused jazz, reggae, funk, and heavy metal with hundred-mile-per-hour hardcore punk. I caught up with bassist Darryl Jenifer to find out what the punk-rock godfathers Bad Brains...

Good day, sunshine: List host brings early risers together

By Supriya Sinhababu / November 9, 2007
For most people, taking the time to watch the sun rise is a rare and poignant act, recalling romantic moments or exotic vacations. But for fourth-year Elliott Brannon, watching sunrises is no extraordinary affair. Throughout his college years, a period when some people rarely see morning, Brannon has made several hundred treks to see the...

Grant seeks “wisdom” scholars for U of C

By Supriya Sinhababu / November 2, 2007
Defining Wisdom, a project sponsored by the University’s Arete Initiative and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, is now accepting letters of intent from scholars seeking grants to study “wisdom.” “One of the goals of this enterprise is to try to establish a field of wisdom research,” said Howard Nusbaum, a professor of psychology, who...

Jerry! Jerry! Sensationalism springs eternal

By Supriya Sinhababu / November 1, 2007
Tuesday afternoon, I paid a visit to the NBC Tower downtown with three fellow students in tow to meet our favorite former Cincinnati mayor and news anchor; now he hosts a sensationalist talk show of which you may have heard. Since anyone within the area of this newspaper’s circulation can easily experience the madness for...

Admin mulls findings of engineering report

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 29, 2007
A report developed by a University faculty committee in February that discussed the possibility of launching a molecular engineering program at the U of C is currently under review by University administrators. Appointed last year by President Robert Zimmer and Provost Thomas Rosenbaum, the Ad Hoc Faculty Committee on Molecular Engineering was tasked to gather...

Battles conquer definite articles, LPs, world

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 29, 2007
Against a backdrop of same-old same-old independent rock and barely experimental DJ wankery, the mathlete rockers of Battles put their instruments and laptops to the task of busting out tunes you can shake a fist to. The band will play Metro November 8, hitting Chicago for the third time this year in support of their...

Real estate blogger earns local fame

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 19, 2007
Lyletta Robinson is not the first condominium owner to take issue with her real estate developer. More unique than the Woodlawn resident’s real estate predicament is her blog, titled I Hate My Developer, which has gained moderate fame by chronicling the struggles of her fledgling condo association. “It started as therapy,” Robinson said of her...

Redford reaches out to younger generations

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 11, 2007
Half an hour before Robert Redford’s new film Lions and Lambs previewed at Doc Films, a queue of hundreds beginning in front of Palevsky Cinema stretched outside and ended on the last squares of sidewalk before the Midway. Maybe the turnout wasn’t a surprise, considering all the advantages of the event. Not only was the...

Students fast for charity

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 9, 2007
Nearly 200 students broke a 13-hour fast in the Ida Noyes Cloister Club on Friday, concluding the Muslim Student Association’s (MSA) third annual Ramadan Fast-a-thon. The Fast-a-thon, which invites Muslims and non-Muslims to take part, asks participants to pledge contributions to the Chicago Food Depository. Observed at over 250 college campuses, the event first took...

First-time music festival jazzes up Hyde Park

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 2, 2007
Unlike most percussionists, Jumaane Taylor doesn’t use sticks—or even his hands for that matter. So it showed a good deal of skill when he managed to keep perfect time with his backing jazz band for several minutes before going solo, at which point he drummed deftly away with his feet at a heavily miked square...

Roots groovy, Spoon gloomy at Summer Breeze

By Supriya Sinhababu / May 22, 2007
The Roots beat Spoon. Whether the latter were owned by the former or were within sight of first place is difficult to pontificate on with any shred of objectivity. Spoon were severely outnumbered—11 to 4 if you count The Roots’ brass band and special guest Lupe Fiasco—and outgunned: If you were to place them side...

Looptopia letdown due to lack of late-night activities

By Supriya Sinhababu / May 15, 2007
“Go Looptopia!” was the cry of many a college student indulging in either alcohol or mockery during the wee hours of Chicago’s first, and possibly last, “White Night.” The idea of a city-wide dawn-to-dusk celebration including various cultural institutions is a universally appealing idea. This year, a group of businesses and cultural organizations in the...

OLAS busts some moves at Mandel

By Supriya Sinhababu / April 24, 2007
“I’m on Latina time,” the character Reina said, explaining her tardiness during Saturday’s Entre el Amor y el Dinero: Between Love and Money. Presented by the Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS), the show itself seemed to be running on Latina time—the performance started 20 minutes late. This did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of...

Rubber Tit a hands-on experience

By Supriya Sinhababu / April 6, 2007
Like a punctured hot air balloon, it began its performance lying shriveled and orange at the bottom of a modified wooden crate with edges but no sides. With the aid of a portable air blower and the sounds of a jazz saxophone for inspiration, the thing slowly took shape, spiting the efforts of the small...

USO up to the challenge of Mahler’s 9th Symphony

By Supriya Sinhababu / March 6, 2007
The Department of Music’s University Symphony Orchestra aptly finished off the winter season with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, a work steeped in life-and-death themes. Under the baton of Conductor and Music Director Barbara Schubert, the University Symphony gave their end-of-quarter performance on the evening of Saturday, March 3 to a nearly full Mandel Hall....

Silk Road spans eclectic musical terrain

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 27, 2007
If Lego were asked to design a horn, they might come up with something like the sheng. Akin to a small toy castle, the pieced-together arrangement of 21 thin pipes delivers clear, sustained single notes, reedy warbling, and earsplitting power chords. The sheng shook the Iinternational House to its foundations during Friday night’s performance by...

Ordinary political satire falls flat in The Strangerer

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 27, 2007
In the first 10 minutes of Theater Oobleck’s new production, The Strangerer, George W. Bush makes three attempts on Jim Lehrer’s life. The play, a Camus-infused adaptation of the first 2004 presidential debate, juggles literary allusions, political analysis, meta-criticism of the theater experience, and mock-assassination attempts to keep the audience on its toes. Unfortunately, the...

Shortcuts—Black Lips’s Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 27, 2007
It’s true that any idiot can be a rock star so long as that idiot makes up in showmanship what he lacks in chops. This theory holds true for the Black Lips, who on their best day sound like a brain-damaged version of the Exploding Hearts. Cutting their teeth at the age of 15 on...

Thriller plays spy game for snoozes

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 16, 2007
It’s hard to go wrong making a spy movie—double agents and government secrets always make for interesting content. Once you’ve got that, just plunk a strapping lad or lass in the lead role, add a villain of equal or greater strapping-ness, throw in some gadgets and a pink wig, and at the very least you...

Strings and singers rock out in winter concert

By Supriya Sinhababu / February 6, 2007
No Chicagoan who left the house this weekend needed a groundhog to know that winter will have its way with the Windy City for as many more weeks as it damn well pleases. Nonetheless, a sizeable audience braved the subzero temperatures and wind chill advisory, filing into the vestibule of Rockefeller Chapel on Saturday to...

Mixed bag with Simone, Malajube releases

By Supriya Sinhababu / November 3, 2006
Halloween marked the release of both Remixed and Re-Imagined, a compilation of Nina Simone songs, and Malajube’s Trompe-L’oeil. While the former album chronicles the costume changes of 13 choice Simone tracks engineered by producers of varying talent, Malajube goes for a more come-as-you-are approach, in spite of how critics have attempted to hype the band....

Comer, U of C Hospitals donor, dies at 78

By Supriya Sinhababu / October 13, 2006
Gary Comer, founder of the Lands’ End clothing company and major philanthropist for Chicago’s South Side, died from cancer October 5 in his Chicago home. He was 78 years old. Born in 1927 and raised on the South Side, Comer received his high school diploma from the Paul Revere School in 1942. He worked as...
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