<<

Aglow with color, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts was dedicated October 11. A three-day launch festival followed, with more than 50 performances and other events. Photography by Jason Smith.

wallpaper_final_v3.indd 1 10/25/12 6:02 PM

Any department which ran the spec- trum from Knight to Lange had to be LETTERS intellectually open.” Indeed, Milton Friedman, AM’33, himself said that when he arrived at the in the 1930s he encountered a “vibrant intellectual When I received the Sept–Oct/12 Magazine, I was quite pleased to see a photo by atmosphere of a kind that I had never Adam Nadel, AB’90, on the cover. When he was featured in the Sept–Oct/04 is- dreamed existed”; yet his supposed sue, I tore out his profile and saved it. Nadel was one of the reasons why I decided followers today rejoice in the destruc- to pursue a photojournalism career at the age of 32 with no background in pho - tion of that atmosphere. tography. I quit my job as a high-school Robert Michaelson, SB’66, AM’73 teacher and earned a master’s degree Evanston, Illinois The piece about Mr. Nadel in journalism from the University of in 2004 helped change my Missouri, where I have worked for five The feeling was mutual years as a university photographer. Thank you for including a snippet in life, and consequently the Although I haven’t completed work the Core (Editor’s Notes, “Wish You lives of my students, for at the level of Nadel, I nonetheless Were Here,” July–Aug/12) about Mi- love documentary photography and chael Jones, AM’83, PhD’88, AM’12, the better. integrate photojournalism into my who recently resigned as associate public-relations position whenever dean of the College. Some of my fond- possible. I also teach two classes in the Missouri School of Journalism, where I est memories at the University see encourage students to make good stories. me sitting opposite Jones in his office The piece about Nadel in 2004 helped change my life, and consequently the discussing, philosophizing, or sim- lives of my students, for the better. I have enormous respect for his work and ply chatting about the day’s events. hope he continues to make a difference in the world with his photos. Jones didn’t have any of the egotism Shane Epping (formerly Conterez), AB’95 or pomposity that one would expect Columbia, Missouri from a man in his position. Despite the demanding nature of his work, his door was always open to me, and he never failed to make me feel wel- War without tears depression, and indeed that the stimu- come, valued, equal. As his student, I The letter from Stephen J. Breckley, lus was if anything far too small—then had thought that something about his MBA’68, John R. Flanery, MBA’06, they were miseducated. distinguished demeanor demanded and William P. McCoach, MBA’75, in The paper “Beginnings” by the respect; in time I realized that it was your Sept–Oct/12 issue (in response distinguished late economist Hyman his respect of me as an individual that to a Jul–Aug/12 profile of economist Minsky, SB’41, may provide the best made him so worthy of my respect. Austan Goolsbee) demonstrates an insight into what happened to econom- My years at the University would not attitude that is distressingly com- ics at Chicago. He wrote, “Today, eco- have been the same without his sage mon among Chicago MBAs. If they nomics at the University of Chicago is guidance and genuine support. were taught that we should have done associated with a special methodologi- Elodie Guez, AB’01 the opposite of what the Obama ad- cal, ideological, and doctrinal position. Fort Myers, Florida ministration did, e.g., have no stimu- It was not true of Chicago during the lus—though all economic evidence years I was there. The department had Free-market morality demonstrates that without the stimu- room for radicals like [Oskar R.] Lange, Contrary to D. J. Brennan, AB’80, lus package we would now be in a major liberals like [Paul] Douglas, middle of MFA’02, (Letters, Sept–Oct/12), I the roaders like [Jacob] Viner as well as believe the American sense of free- the beginnings of a conservative group market capitalism does indeed have a in [Frank] Knight, [Henry] Simons, moral foundation, in that it inherently and [Lloyd] Mints. Furthermore, even respects and protects the personhood, those who were most clearly the intel- abilities, rights, contracts, and responsi- lectual ancestors of the present Chica- bilities of individuals. No other system go School—Frank Knight and Henry on the planet does, or ever has done, as Simons—were not, at least in the un- much or as well, morally or otherwise. derstanding of this young student, as American free-market capitalism’s

rigid and ideologically hard as today’s moral foundation is broad and deep. It whitehouse.gov ‘Chicago types.’ If we used Thatcherian assumes free and enforceable contracts language, the Chicago conservatives of within a framework of law that also the late 1930s would be ‘wets.’ Econom- limits and punishes the use of fraud and ics at Chicago in the late 1930s and early force in contracts. It assumes Declara- 1940s was open, rigorous, and serious. tion-declared, Constitution-protected

4 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

letters_v10.indd 4 10/26/12 9:45 AM

that the rule of law is no more and has Not that conscription was abolished LETTERS been replaced with a mere spectacle forever. It was reenacted in WW I and of the law—as various scholars and upheld in an atrocious Supreme Court thinkers have been pointing out for decision whose author, Edward Doug- some time now, and as Posner indi- lass White, has a classroom named for cates (though he seems more inter- him at the U of C Law School. ested in seeking ways to justify this There are other passages in the Fed- Eric Posner’s expression of faith in new state of affairs)—it might be ap- eralist papers that show the army was public opinion as a check on presidents propriate to rename the law school the to be composed of paid professionals, evinces no concern with the sources School of the History of Law so that it not conscripts. There is compulsory of that opinion. We find no echoes refocuses on the problem of just what military service, but under the militia of the views of Robert Hutchins and was the rule of law, and whether or not clauses, not the army clause. Learned Hand about concentrated anyone should care. There are a lot of tyrannophobes control of the media, perhaps because Magnus Fiskesjö, AM’94, PhD’00 who consider private firearms a check it is much easier for Mr. Posner to ac- Ithaca, New York on tyranny. Their notion is ably rebut- cess our few significant newspapers ted by a paragraph in Federalist No. than for other Chicagoans with less Are objections to violations of con- 28. A paragraph in Federalist No. 46 well-rewarded opinions. stitutional restrictions on presiden- shows what the security of a free state In the long run, there will be no tial power merely to be dismissed is, and it is not interaction between the “freedom from fear” or public opin- as “tyrannophobia,” as Eric Posner president and the people. The debate ion if the executive can detain or do does? Tyranny is in the eye of the on the Second Amendment says noth- violence at will; checks on the execu- beholder. A lot depends on which ing about private firearms, but rather tive, not electoral ceremonies, are the side of it you are on. Tyrannopho- anticipated a current tyrannophilia. distinguishing mark of free societies. bia from the sending end might seem Bill Wendt, MBA’76 This was once seen more clearly than like tyrannophilia on the receiving Long Beach, Indiana it is now. “Even in England,” Ambas - end. Is the interaction between sador Eric Phipps mused in the wake of president and public more effective Mink remembered the Night of the Long Knives, “death than a check and balance? It was good to be reminded of the re - may come on a summer day, but not dis- Before the U of C community dis- markable career in the US Congress of patched from Downing Street.” misses anything as tyrannophobia, it Patsy Takemoto Mink, JD’51, a Uni - Nor is it clear that most citizens be- would do well to read James Madison versity of Chicago Law School class- lieve “that they benefit from having in Federalist No. 37 on one class readily mate of ours from Hawaii (Legacy, most policy being made at the federal uniting and oppressing another, creat- Sept–Oct/12). Among her achieve- level.” The nationalization of moral ing a state of nature in which weaker in- ments was the development of much- and social issues, in which academic dividuals are not protected against the acclaimed Title IX programs that lawyers have played too great a part, stronger. And as stronger individuals opened up opportunities dramatically has produced a society, economy, and are induced by the insecurity of their for women in this country. polity that are neither functional nor positions to submit to a government Patsy’s service in the House of contented. that protects the weaker as well as the Representatives (beginning in 1964) George W. Liebmann, JD’63 stronger, so are more powerful classes. included placements in the Congres- Baltimore Yes, it is in the eye of the beholder. sional Record of various publications “Sic semper tyrannis,” shouted John of mine criticizing our State Depart- Dismissing concerns about US presi- Wilkes Booth as he leaped to the stage ment’s support of the colonels who dential law breaking as unjustified of Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln is not com- seized the Greek government in April “tyrannophobia,” Eric Posner does monly thought to be a tyrant, but he 1967. Almost a score of such articles

not discuss why anyone should care to did abolish habeas corpus, shut down were thus placed by, among others, Pat- 2.0 by cc passand, shakib shahab by illustration uphold the law if presidents can break newspapers, and enact conscription, sy and her colleague Abner J. Mikva, it with impunity. Here is an idea: now among other tyrannical acts. JD’51, another distinguished member of our Law School class. One conse- quence of all this was to make me seem far more influential in Washington BLAST FROM THE PAST than I have ever been, which earned me the distinction of being declared My old colleague Duke Frederick says that persona non grata by the colonels (the he finds it hard to believe that Charlie Parker only American thus honored by them, ever played at the Beehive, on 55th Street. so far as I know), thereby barring me I write to report that, on an unforgettable from Greece for almost a decade. night in the early 1950s, I heard Parker at that One serious consequence of our wonderful place. He was not billed but he was official folly in Greece (between very much there, and in rare form. 1967 and 1974) was that it allowed —Benjamin Lease, AM’43, PhD’48, February 1995 the colonels, who were remarkably

6 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

letters_v10.indd 6 10/26/12 9:46 AM alumniweekend June 6–June 9, 2013

Come home to uChiCago.

Mark your calendar now for Alumni Weekend 2013.

• Enjoy faculty lectures and discussions at an UnCommon Core session. • Get a behind-the-scenes look at the newest facilities on campus. • Reconnect and form new bonds with former classmates from the College, divisions, and professional schools. • Experience the University of Chicago all over again.

Questions? Call 800.955.0065, e-mail [email protected], or visit alumniandfriends.uchicago.edu.

Alumni Weekend ad_v8.indd 1 10/25/12 2:46 PM ative force behind the group. It pro- of Education a number of years later, LETTERS vided an avenue of relief from the his class was held in the auditorium. rigors of the Core curriculum through Students were willing to take a risk tongue-in-cheek counterpoints to the because he was so intensely interest- über-serious student political groups ing and they learned so much. like Students for Nonviolent Action As the first UChicago student to be inept and hence in need of a dramatic that were so prevalent on campus in hired after he took over the Orthogen- “victory,” to make a desperate ef- the late ’60s. SVNA’s inaugural event ic School in 1944, I still thank him for fort: to take over a then-independent was Bring Back Our Night, when we the good life I have led. Cyprus. The Turks moved at once to protested the switch of the streetlights Jean O’Leary Brown, PhB’45, X’52 take over a good part of that island for along 57th Street from cool, soothing West Frankfort, Illinois themselves, thereby poisoning Greek- blue-and-white mercury-vapor lamps Turkish and NATO relations for four to much brighter, orange sodium vapor. Tribute to a friend decades now. To read more, visit my We indeed did stage the Pike for Our dear friend Joe Walsh, AB’85, blog, anastaplo.wordpress.com. Peace on Hull Court gate, the Flush left this world on June 6, 2012. He George Anastaplo, AB’48, for Freedom, and the Nude Swim-in was very active on campus as presi- JD’51, PhD’64 at the Ida Noyes pool. The first annual dent of Student Government and Chicago Lascivious Costume Ball was also an also involved in Blackfriars, acting in SVNA-inspired event that became a various productions. Marcus Asner, Thank you for this fully realized por- campus tradition. The Flush for Free - AB’85; Doug Shapiro, AB’85; and I trait of Patsy Mink as a “tenacious and dom, held during the inauguration fol- are organizing an effort to honor Joe determined politician” by Richard lowing the 1968 presidential elections, with a gift that supports the arts at Mertens. Although our paths crossed was picked up by Jack Mabley at Chi- the University of Chicago. We plan a couple of times during our parallel cago’s American, who railed against the to use memorial gifts to name a seat activities in the women’s movement, commie kids who were supposedly try- or two in the Logan Center perfor- I did not know Patsy personally. I was ing to subvert the city’s water supply— mance hall. With a gift of $2,500 we extremely grateful for her awareness one of our proudest moments. The plan can dedicate one seat. These gifts of how important it was to lend her was for everyone to select a commode, are used to support UChicago’s en- strong voice to social issues such as transistor radio in hand, and to flush at dowed Student Performance Fund. the passage of Title IX. It was un- “so help me God” at the end of Nixon’s If you are interested in making a me- fortunate that this bill was renamed oath of office. Dutifully manning my morial gift, please call Josh Levine at the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in station on the 3rd floor of Hitchcock, I 773.702.0885 or mail a check made Education Act only after her death. But flushed on cue and heard a loud groan, out to the the University of Chicago to I especially appreciated her outspoken accompanied by an anemic swirl of wa- Josh at 401 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite (and, yes, “abrasive”) public stance on ter. In contrast, my dorm-mates on the 900, Chicago, IL, 60611. numerous civil-rights and women’s lower floors were surprised by a faux Joan Spoerl, AB’85 issues from the early 1960s, when Old Faithful shooting from the toilets, Cleveland Heights, Ohio Asian American women were not soaking anyone too slow to get out of even visible on the political horizon. the way. No doubt Tricky Dick had Furthermore, hundreds of women ap- conspired with the CIA and the Chica- Department of Corrections plauded her courage in her class-action go Public Works department to subvert In “For the Record” (Sept–Oct/12), suit against the University of Chicago our righteous protest. we misnamed University Professor Lying-In Hospital and the drug com- Bill King, AB’69 Son Thanh Dam. In “Notes,” we in- pany Eli Lilly. She was most effective Highland Park, Illinois correctly reported that the software just because she was not a “warm and startup of Jonathan Hirsch, AB’07, is fuzzy” “Japanese doll.” She was truly Bettelheim appreciated called Synapse. The company’s name one of a kind. When Bruno Bettelheim began is Syapse. We regret the errors. Mitsuye Yamada, AM’53 teaching at the University, his objec - Irvine, California tive was to help students understand themselves better by questioning why The University of Chicago Magazine Nonaction figure they answered his questions the way welcomes letters about its contents or about As founding vice president of Stu- they did. It is true, as Frances Barrish, the life of the University. Letters for pub- dents for Violent Nonaction (SVNA), PhB’48, said (Letters, Sept–Oct/12), lication must be signed and may be edited I read with great amusement the Web that many dropped out of his class— for space, clarity, and civility. To provide Exclusive by Katherine Muhlenkamp because this made some uncomfort- a range of views and voices, we encour- “Extra, Extra …,” (August 27, 2012). able. This was OK with him because age letter writers to limit themselves to SVNA was founded in 1966–67 in a he believed that no one should pre- 300 words or fewer. Write: Editor, The Hitchcock Hall dorm room by a small sume to affect the psyches of others University of Chicago Magazine, group led by my first-year roommate until they became acquainted with 401 North Michigan Avenue, Suite Steve Landsman, X’69, a.k.a. Frank their own unconscious motivations. 1000, Chicago, IL 60611. Or e-mail: Malbranche—undisputedly the cre- When I returned to the Department [email protected].

8 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

letters_v10.indd 8 10/26/12 9:46 AM on the agenda

Marty, Media,

and Religion need to create new structures and fo- By M a RgaR et M. Mitchell, a M’82, PhD’89, Dean of the rums. That work is already under way Divinity school an D s haileR Mathews PRofessoR of new at the Martin Marty Center for the testaMent anD eaRly chRistian liteRatuRe Advanced Study of Religion. Under the direction of William Schweiker, PhD’85, the Edward L. Ryerson dis- tinguished service professor of theo- logical ethics, the Marty Center aims hen I joined the Di - to further intelligent public conversa- vinity School fac- tion about the phenomena that com- ulty in 1998, my prise religion. The center carries out new office in Swift an ambitious schedule of conferences, Hall came with a online publications, and a dissertation phone number that seminar that helps advanced PhD stu- had once been as - dents to reflect on their scholarship, signed to Martin E. develop the capacities for broader Marty, PhD’56, the conversation beyond narrow subspe- Fairfax M. Cone dis- cialties, and work to answer the “so tinguished service what” question. professor of the history of modern The Marty Center is rooted in the WChristianity in the Divinity School. educational climate of the Divinity The phone rang at least twice a day School, a place well known for having with journalists from CNN, the Chi- an outstanding faculty who are lead- cago Tribune, NPR, and other major ers in their fields and train the next outlets anxiously seeking Marty’s generation of scholars who are deeply pithy insights into the ways religion informed, uncompromisingly rigor- informed events unfolding around us. ous, and honestly engaged. Each fall I Once the call was rerouted, Marty speak to our new master’s and doctoral obliged—and continues to oblige— Mitchell, who joined the faculty in students, who come to study all five of with his concise, informative, non- 1998 and has served as dean since the world’s major religious traditions ideological, nondenominational, 2010, studies the literary and cultural and many other topics in the study of nonpartisan commentary. history of ancient Christianity. religion. I tell them, “In the course of But even the legendarily prolific your research here you will continue Marty can satisfy only a fraction of the to find yourself thinking, ‘It is much demand. Worse still, many journalists, The University of Chicago Divin- more complex than I had thought.’ But politicians, pundits, and thought lead- ity School is uniquely positioned to don’t stop there; ask yourself, ‘Who ers fail even to realize they need a Mar- offer that insight. With an outstand- needs to know about this complexity, ty-like guide to make sense of the issues ing faculty of scholars of religion (56 and why?’” that shape our world. From the health- at this counting) and doctoral stu- In 2013 the Marty Center is launch- care debate to the Sikh temple shooting dents in 11 areas of study, as well as a ing a new initiative to make the Marty near Milwaukee—and far beyond, to network of alumni and friends across Center the go-to place for reliable in- seemingly secular issues such as taxa- the country and around the globe, we formation and learned commentary tion, the future of a united Europe, the offer a deep well of knowledge that about religion in American and global role of social media—our world has could inform our social, political, and public life. This can fill a real lacuna in been defined by religious values and moral dialogue. The global scope of the current media environment; it has expectations that often go unacknowl- world religions in all their multifac- the potential to make the highest level edged. Any hope of a thoughtful, ef- eted complexity, even within tradi- of scholarly knowledge and research fective response to the challenges we tions, demands that depth to support in religion available in accessible and face requires an understanding of the inquiry about religion that is accurate, interactive ways to wider interested history and philosophy that brought us nuanced, current, and intelligent. publics. In fact, we believe that it here, and that inevitably requires some In order to extend that knowledge must. It is at the heart of our respon-

photo courtesy margaret mitchell margaret courtesy photo sophistication about religion. beyond the walls of academia, we sibility as scholars and educators. ◆

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 9

UCH_On the Agenda_v5.indd 2 10/24/12 3:04 PM

nov–dec 2012 Original Source, 12 ...... Harper’s Index, 15 ...... For The Record, 16 ...... Citations, 19 ...... Fig. 1, 20 UChicago Journal

by artist Danh Vo. More than ten feet Art installation 26.05.2009, 8:43, for art wide and eight feet tall, the eye is part instance, is a disassembled chande- of Vo’s ongoing project, We the People. lier whose pieces, neatly arranged, Using copper the thickness of two fill most of a gallery. The chandelier Artistic pennies, Vo is recreating the Statue of came from the hotel ballroom where Liberty, piece by piece on a 1:1 scale, the Paris Peace Accord was signed and distributing the pieces around the in 1973, ending direct US military in - freedom world. Thanks to Ghez’s efforts, five of volvement in Vietnam, where Vo was them are exhibited on campus this fall: born. In 1979, when he was four, his As émigré artist Danh Vo sends the eye and a fragment of Lady Liberty’s family fled to Denmark. Liberty around the globe, Chicago gown in the Oriental Institute Museum Vo’s past works, notes the Re - embraces its share. and other fragments on the grounds of naissance Society’s Hamza Walker, Chicago Booth and the Law School. AB’88, “are very direct in relation to “I told him we wanted the eye,” says Much of Vo’s art involves repur- the sociopolitical circumstances” of director Susanne posing objects with historical reso- the artist’s background. So taking on Ghez, referring to a full-sized model nance that is personal or political—or an object as symbolically loaded as the

photography by anna r. ressman/orientalfragment institute museum of the Statue of Liberty’s face both. His 2009 Museum of Modern Statue of Liberty might seem to “signal

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 11

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 11 10/25/12 2:20 PM an equal investment.” Not so, insists still holds mysteries, even to the art- einstein Vo, who sees We the People as evoking ist himself, who sees the exhibit as a something universal that everybody has “learning process.” a relationship to, “something every- The exhibit’s eclectic collection of body thought they owned, such as a objects, which Walker likens to “a se - Creative symbol of freedom.” The trick, he says, ries of puzzle pieces ... from different is to “twist it a bit” into the unfamiliar. puzzles,” begins in the hallway out- Struck by Vo’s brand of visceral side the gallery with a display of letters energy commentary, Ghez partnered with from Henry Kissinger to Leonard Ly- A composer and an astrophysicist curator James Rondeau from the Art ons of the New York Post from the 1970s Institute of Chicago, which is display- when Kissinger was secretary of state. embrace feeling lost in space. ing five other sections from We the Inside the gallery, the viewer encoun- People, to bring Vo’s work to Chicago. ters disparate items, including a stack UChicago astrophysicist Michael Ghez and Rondeau, the Art Institute’s of copper ingots, melted down after a turner—who coined the term “dark chair of contemporary art, sit on the failed attempt at Liberty’s flame; 40 energy,” envisioned the accelerating purchasing committee for the Chicago fresh flowers, each marking a year of universe, and helped establish the new Booth art collection. During a 2009 Ghez’s tenure at the Renaissance So- field of particle astrophysics—was trip to Germany to secure a Vo piece ciety; and a photograph of Vo’s young explaining to composer Philip Glass, for Booth, Ghez and Rondeau talked cousin looking back over his shoulder AB’56, how scientists, unlike artists, about the possibility of hosting the blades, showing off his “wings.” are “just plumbers.” It’s one thing to artist for a lengthier project. In this image, Vo’s vision of the uni- discover how the pipes fit together, and Ghez also brought a second Vo ex- versal fluidity of ideas takes shape. another to forge them yourself. “There hibition, Uterus, to campus this fall. “Not only the fantasy of a little kid,” the really are laws of physics,” Turner On view at the Renaissance Society photo plays on the power of transforma- said, “and we plod along and we figure through December 16 and dedicated tion, the human need to “keep on believ- them out, and sometimes they’re really to Ghez, Uterus remained largely un- ing that things have the possibility to be complicated and it takes a long time, known to her until it was installed. It something else.”—Colin Bradley, ’14 but we’re not really creating anyth—”

original source storybook

“Getting academics to cooperate was drawn to De re militari because is like a military endeavor,” of its story. its military themes says Michael i. Allen, associate led the book to be shunned by the professor in classics and the Church until Frechulf of Lisieux, a College. Which is why he donated ninth-century Carolingian bishop a copy of De re militari, or On and historian, prepared his own Military Matters, to the special edition and exposed its relevance Collections Research Center in beyond warfare, to ethics. Frechulf honor of University Librarian pointed to maxims such as “A good Judith nadler, to acknowledge the leader doesn’t expose himself to Library director’s “leadership and danger,” and “if you want peace, careful guidance” for researchers. prepare for war.” the fifth-century text on editing the Plantin Press special collections research center research collections special military science by Late Roman edition, Godescalci stewechi writer Vegetius offers a 200-page doubled the length of Frechulf’s digest of tactical, technical, and manuscript, adding his own strategic knowledge collected commentary, including sketches over centuries. the edition Allen of military formations, woodcuts, a dozen copies exist in libraries donated was printed in 1585 by the and pull-out astrological charts. across north America and europe. famous Antwerp publishing house Allen notes an illustration of But what Allen likes best is that Plantin Press. Hannibal and his soldiers atop it is useful. Comparing it with “every book has a story, and the an elephant—strikingly accurate, other editions could help recreate older it is, the more stories it has to despite europeans’ limited Frechulf’s manuscript, destroyed tell,” says Allen, who studies Latin exposure to elephants. in the bombing of Dresden during

literature of the Middle Ages. He the book is rare; perhaps only World War ii.—Colin Bradley, ’14 photography by bill wadman

12 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 12 10/25/12 2:20 PM Turner, left, and Glass agreed during their discussion that, for both scientists and artists, too much knowledge can stifle new ideas.

“Are you having fun?” Glass inter - covery, thought and perception, art “discoverers.” Creative, sure, but rupted, a note of feigned worry in his and science. Glass recalled encounter- not creators. Glass kept trying to blur voice giving way to a teasing smile. It ing Einstein as a ten-year-old boy in those lines, insisting on the poetry in was hard to tell whether Glass meant Baltimore, an experience that affected science and the subjectivity in math, the pursuit of science or the conver- him deeply. “I belonged to a telescope the universal impulse to push oneself sation he and Turner were having, club when I was 11 years old,” he said. to the limit of what is known and then seated in matching wingback chairs He arrived at Chicago as an aspiring try to go beyond it. Sometimes he before a packed audience in a dark- scientist and mathematics major. Even seemed to literally be drawing him- ened Manhattan theater. The two had after reaching the “sad conclusion” self closer to Turner, inching forward come together on a rainy September that “I would not make a very good in his chair. “My basic feeling is that night for a University alumni event scientist” and turning instead to mu- we”—artists and scientists—“find ev- called “Einstein as a Cultural Figure”: sic, Glass remained captivated by the erything,” Glass said. the composer who wrote the ground- concepts that first exhilarated him; his “But what does that mean?” Turner breaking 1976 opera Einstein on the oeuvre includes operas about astrono- asked. Beach and the scientist whose work mers Johannes Kepler and Galileo “That it’s already there, just as you furthers the field that Albert Einstein Galilei. In 1987 he wrote The Light, a said. It’s not that we create it or dis- helped build. piece marking the 100th anniversary cover it; it’s that it stands revealed.” special collections research center research collections special “Yes, definitely,” Turner answered, of the Michelson-Morley experiment, He offered as an example Claude suddenly disarmed, easing into a smile. which demonstrated for the first time Monet, who produced many of his “So we’re both having fun, right?” that light waves travel on their own, famous paintings as his eyesight was The whole night was pretty much not, as long supposed, through a “lu- failing, the lily ponds and poppy like that. Over 90 minutes, while a miniferous aether” medium. fields and haystacks growing muddy moderator sat quietly off to the side, Turner, who directs the Univer- as cataracts closed in. “So, do we see Turner and Glass strolled through sity’s Kavli Institute for Cosmologi- more than he did with those paint- one digression after another—Men- cal Physics, kept trying to define the ings, or did he see more? Are they an del’s garden peas, Galileo’s telescopes, boundaries between art and science, imperfect version, or a super-perfect Beethoven’s ear trumpet, Pollock’s reluctant to overstep his territory, version?” said Glass, who also talked paint splatters—winding a loose orbit returning often to the notion of sci- about composing music now that his

photography by bill wadman around the ideas of creation and dis- entists as plumbers, workmen— own hearing has begun to falter.

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 13

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 13 10/25/12 2:19 PM At one point, the painter Chuck Close, a friend of Glass’s who was in the audience, took the microphone to say that artists don’t think of them- selves as creators, but as problem solv- ers. “I think, as a matter of fact,” he said, revising, “the better artist is not really a problem solver, because every- thing you can think of is what someone else has thought,” but instead a prob- lem creator. “How do you put your - self in a position where none of those answers work?” “I agree with him,” Glass said. Turner nodded too. “Every time sci- ence asks a question,” he said, the answer that comes back “creates two new questions.” There were times when one man’s words almost blended into the other’s, as when Glass and then Turner de- scribed the breakthrough that comes after weeks of staring at the same notes, the same data set, the same canvas. Or when Turner brought up the influence of ever more precise and powerful instruments. In many ways, modern science began when Galileo started building telescopes, Turner said—an idea that led Glass directly to Frédéric Chopin. In Poland some years ago, Glass visited the great com- poser’s piano. “It was a little bitty thing!” he said. “The music Chopin could visualize did not fit that piano.” Now, after a couple of centuries of piano evolution, musicians can play its own reward: rats will stick their necks out to set trapped cagemates free. Chopin in a way the composer himself never could. “The music,” Glass said, neuroscience his teeth against the restrainer, poking “seemed to demand the technology.” whiskers through its small openings. Finally, Glass and Turner wound For the past five days, it’s been the toward a discussion of time’s effects same routine for these cagemates: one on artists and scientists themselves. Emotional free, one captive, both stressed. But Growing older alters a scientist’s con- today is different. After hours of trial tributions, Turner said, noting, “I see and error of circling, biting, and digging it in myself—the more you know, it release into the restrainer, the free rat pushes its cramps your creativity. When I look Chicago empathy researchers door with his head—and just the right at my younger colleagues, they don’t amount of force. Suddenly, the plas- know enough to know when an idea’s test how far rats will go to rescue tic front falls away, as the researchers stupid. And sometimes an idea is just a cagemate in distress. watching have designed it to do. stupid and crazy enough to be right.” Both rats freeze, stunned. As the That’s a problem Glass knows well, Circling a strange contraption, the rat newly freed rat scurries out, the lib- he said. “When I’m writing a piece, if I gnaws at its edges, pressing his paws erator follows in quick pursuit, jump- know what I’m going to write, I know against the clear Plexiglass walls. ing on him and licking him. It’s an I don’t have much chance of writing Inside the tube-shaped restrainer, unusual burst of energy that suggests anything good. It’s only when I’m trapped, is the rat he’s shared a cage he’s done what he meant to do: release completely lost that I feel there’s a with for two weeks. his cagemate. chance that some sort of—” The prisoner can barely do a 360- “It looks like celebration,” says Chi-

“And the more you know, the less degree turn in his tight quarters and tiny cago neuroscientist Peggy Mason, who corbis lost you are,” Turner finished. squeaks betray his distress. Meanwhile, has observed the same interaction with “Exactly.”—Lydialyle Gibson the free rat circles and circles, scraping dozens of rat pairs. For the past three

14 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 14 10/25/12 2:19 PM years, Mason, psychology postdoctoral cagemate—and could have very easily fellow Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, AM’09, hogged the food for themselves—they william PhD’12, and empathy researcher Jean didn’t. Some even plucked the choco- Decety, also a neuroscientist, have late chips out of the restrainer and rainey been putting the rodents in these sticky dropped them near the newly freed rat. harper’s situations—and finding them more “This just blew us away,” Bartal index than willing to help each other out. says. “It was very obvious they were The scientific term is “prosocial be- purposefully leaving the chocolates.” food for havior,” which encompasses anything Although apes and other primates also done for another’s benefit. We see it exhibit this sort of sharing behavior, thought every day in the human world: a teen- she notes, “there is no such thing in the ager helping his grandmother across rat world.” Until now. Total number of UChicago the street, volunteers serving meals at When it comes to sharing the choco- Dining locations: a soup kitchen, human-rights advocates late, “we actually still can’t explain that,” speaking out against torture. For us, it’s says Mason, who has spent more than often motivated by empathy, that emo- two decades studying rats to investigate tional tug of someone else’s distress. pain processing and other concepts. 18 Rats may not be so different. “The The researchers are now running a trapped buddy is sending out signals of series of studies to better understand Locations renovated over distress that the other rat is picking up. the rodents’ motivations. What they the past two years: He’s catching the distress and feeling can explain in the meantime are some pretty distressed himself,” explains of the biological underpinnings that lead Bartal, lead author on a 2011 Science rats to free each other in the first place. paper detailing the researchers’ find- Rats, explains Bartal, “actually share a 12 ings. “When that rat aids in terminat- lot of the neuronal structures that per- ing that distress, he gets a …” She trails mit them to be attuned to the emotional Meals served during the off, searching for the right word. state of another.” Like human empathy, 2011–12 academic year: Mason comes to her rescue. the rat analogue takes place mainly in “A big ‘Yahoo!’” she chimes in. “It’s the brain’s subcortical region. “This ‘Yahoo for me!’” behavior,” says Bartal, “is not a very Bartal nods. Helping, in and of it- highly complex cognitive function.” 1,211,583 self, seems highly rewarding for the The process starts when the free rat rats. Once the free rats learn how to sees another in distress, then mimics some Visits to Pierce’s late-night open the restrainer door—on average of that affective state. This mirroring, or fourth meal in 2011–12: this happens on day six of the 12-day emotional contagion, then produces in experiment—they consistently repeat the animal a drive to do something. But the behavior. As a control, researchers first, the free rat has to get his own fear also tested free rats in a pen with empty under control, what’s known in empathy 35,472 restrainers and restrainers containing a research as downregulation. toy rat. Neither prompted them to open “The rat not only has to feel motivat- Percentage of food the door, suggesting their earlier actions ed but has to feel bold enough to act,” sourced within 150 miles: had been specifically motivated by the says Mason. That includes venturing presence of the trapped cagemate. out into the middle of the arena to reach But how far, the researchers won- the imprisoned cagemate. “A rat, giv- dered, would the rats really go for each en its druthers,” says Mason, “will be 47 other? plastered to the side” of the pen, where A second set of experiments upped it feels safer. But time and time again, Number of coffee brands the ante. This time, the free rat had three the animals overcome their own fear, served on campus: choices: liberate the cagemate, open moving forward to help out another. an identical restrainer containing five Such selflessness makes evolution- milk-chocolate chips, or both. Normal- ary sense for any mammal, rats includ- ly, Bartal explains, a rat left alone with ed. “You don’t get to live and reproduce 7 chocolate will gobble up the entire stash. if you can’t navigate the social world,” But that’s not what happened. The says Mason. By demonstrating rats’ Number of student free animals not only released their sense of empathy, their findings sug- organizations that received cagemates just as frequently as they gest that helping out those in distress funding from the 2011–12 opened the chocolate-filled restrain- is instinctual and when we fail to do RSO Catering Fund: er, but many left behind chips for the so, we are essentially going against a

corbis other rat to share. Even in instances “biological mandate.” In short, “we are where free rats pried open the choco- built to play well with others.” late restrainer before releasing their —Brooke E. O’Neill, AM’04 29

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 15

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 15 10/25/12 2:19 PM for the record

and Woodlawn. The student at a September meeting of the direction of Alex J. Lickerman, volunteers also met with National Academy of Sciences. AB’88, MD’92, assistant community leaders in an effort Larkin, a biochemistry vice president of campus and to develop connections that major, hailed the landing as “a student life; Kelly Hogan will last throughout their triumph of human intelligence, Stewart, director of health College careers. civilization, and cooperation.” promotion and wellness; and Mike Quinn, senior research more than a bit faster scientist in the department of The University and the State general medicine. The project of Illinois are leading a $9 offers workshops on topics such million effort to bring gigabit- as articulating a life mission, speed broadband to nine using distraction and avoidance South Side neighborhoods. rather than willpower to resist About 100 times faster than temptation, accepting pain standard high-speed cable or as a method for mitigating it, DSL, the broadband service, and managing expectations. honorary role becomes official which will be implemented (See Lickerman’s Alumni Raghuram Rajan, Chicago through a partnership with Essay, “How to Construct an Booth’s Eric J. Gleacher the Washington, DC–based Indestructible Self,” page 50.) distinguished service professor economic-development of finance, became the firm Gigabit Squared, will ludwig recognized as a healer Indian government’s chief reach nearly 5,000 homes, Jens Ludwig, a leader in economic adviser in August. businesses, schools, and health- applying scientific tools to the Rajan will remain affiliated care facilities by the end of from industry to the institute study of crime, poverty, and with the business school, 2013. In September Sharon Feng, health, has been elected to the rearranging his duties to meet previously vice president of National Academy of Science’s his responsibilities in India, business development for Institute of Medicine. Ludwig, where he has been an honorary Bayer MaterialScience LLC, the McCormick Foundation adviser to the prime minister became executive director of professor of social service since 2008. Author of the 2010 the Institute for Molecular administration, law, and public book Fault Lines: How Hidden Engineering. Feng, who has a policy and director of the Fractures Still Threaten the PhD in bioinorganic chemistry University of Chicago Crime World Economy (Princeton from MIT, will lead the Lab, focuses his research on the University Press), Rajan institute’s internal financial, prevention of violent crime and is well-known for his 2005 operational, and managerial the effects of urban poverty and speech warning about threats functions, while serving as a public policy on health. that would contribute to the liaison with industry partners. 2008 financial crisis. capital investment Hal Weitzman, an author and former Financial Times reporter, joined Chicago Booth in September as political appointments executive director of Jan Kostner, previously the intellectual capital. In the deputy director at the Illinois new position, Weitzman will Bureau of Tourism, and Steve promote research and program Edwards, a former Chicago information to alumni, the public-radio journalist, were media, and the business among five new appointees community. Previously the nimocks knows the way to the Institute of Politics Chicago and Midwest bureau Rudy and Joyce Nimocks announced in September. chief for the Financial Times, have been community Kostner is deputy director Weitzman, the author of fixtures in Woodlawn for bound and determined for events and marketing Latin Lessons: How South more than 50 years and now a office news chicago of university Incoming first-year and Edwards is director America Stopped Listening to stretch of South Greenwood undergraduates volunteered of programming. the United States and Started Avenue bears their names. throughout the city through Prospering (Wiley, 2012), also “Honorary Rudy & Joyce a new program, Chicago rave review for the mars rover led the newspaper’s Lima, Nimocks Way” recognizes Bound, complementing the Inspired by the rover Curiosity’s Peru, bureau. the couple’s commitment traditional day of service landing on Mars, Isaac Larkin, to the neighborhood. Rudy during Orientation Week. ’14, sent a congratulatory letter to survive and thrive Nimocks, 83, the University’s As part of the new initiative, to President Obama, which The Resilience Project, director of community 20 students worked in the administration shared with a program to help partnerships, was chief of the food pantries, community NASA officials—including undergraduates overcome UChicago police department centers, and clinics in Pilsen, the planetary-science division adversity and disappointment, for 23 years after 33 years on

Humboldt Park, Lakeview, director, who read the letter began this fall under the the city’s force. photography by jason smith

16 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 16 10/25/12 2:19 PM University president emeritus hanna h. Gray, right, and a panel of provosts discussed the peculiarities of academic leadership.

his appointment as the University’s The trustees had decided to estab- the academy first provost. Levi went on to become lish a new second-in-command posi- president of the University from 1968 tion and they wanted Levi to take it. to 1975 and US attorney general under When he demurred, according to a Following President Gerald R. Ford. story Levi told Boyer in 1993, “Glen A morning session featured four Lloyd leaned over the table to him speakers discussing Levi’s contribu- and said, ‘Ed, you were a member of Levi’s lead tions as a legal scholar, a teacher, an the search committee, you persuaded administrator, and a government of- George to take the job. You helped get A look back at the University’s ficial. An afternoon panel, moderated us into this mess, now you’re going to first provost and a look ahead to by Gray, included current provost help get us out.’” his successors’ challenges. thomas F. Rosenbaum and five of his Boyer described Levi as bringing predecessors discussing “the chang- almost instant direction to the Univer- “Welcome to a pride of provosts,” ing university,” a conversation that sity. As provost and as president, he hanna h. Gray said, gesturing to a touched on finances, technology, stu- led a rebuilding of the faculty and the panel of six seated to her right on stage dent life, and the challenges of main - physical plant, and guided “a stunning at the Logan Center. The University taining academic standards under intellectual and cultural recovery in of Chicago president emeritus intro- increasingly complex conditions. The the ’60s,” while navigating the student duced the panelists not by name, but peculiar aspects of university leader- protest movement on campus. “We by the etymology of the job title. ship were prevalent in each session. were deeply fortunate,” Boyer said, She noted that the ancient term Dean of the College John Boyer, “to have a scholar and an administra- “provost” has applied to a range of AM’69, PhD’75, outlined how Levi tive leader of Edward Levi’s insight, professions, from supervisors of assumed the newly created provost’s courage, and intellectual good taste in university of chicago news office news chicago of university monasteries or convents to prison post. A phone call from Levi, then the what were, in retrospect, quite peril- wardens, along with high-ranking Law School dean, had convinced his ous times in the 1960s and 1970s.” law enforcement and military offi- close friend, the Nobel Prize–winning Levi, who died in 2000 at age 88, cials. “You can see easily how it came geneticist George Beadle, to accept the resumed teaching at the Law School to be used for provosts of colleges and University presidency in 1961. Early after his stint as attorney general. universities, who combine all these in the new president’s tenure, Board Larry Kramer, JD’84, president of roles,” Gray said. of Trustees chair Glen Lloyd, JD’23, the William and Flora Hewlett Foun- The group gathered September 21 expressed concerns to Levi about “the dation, was a student in Levi’s ex- for a celebration of the career of Ed- drift in academic planning and the lack haustive first-year course Elements of ward H. Levi, U-High’28, PhB’32, of leadership that Beadle and his team Law. “The materials started with the

photography by jason smith JD’35, on the 50th anniversary of were demonstrating,” Boyer said. debate between Thrasymachus and

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 17

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v23.indd 17 10/26/12 9:15 AM Socrates from The Republic. It ended with Roe v. Wade, about 2,000 pages later,” Kramer said. “And it essen- tially covered literally everything in between those two.” The University’s reputation for such academic intensity “derives from Edward’s way of talking about the institution,” said former provost Geoffrey R. Stone, JD’71, the Edward H. Levi distinguished service profes- sor in the Law School. Levi, he said, strengthened the University’s distinc- tive identity in higher education. “One line I particularly liked from a faculty report about 20 years ago,” Stone said, “was that, at the University of Chica- go, the only appropriate response to even the most withering question was not resentment, but gratitude.” Banning burkas, nussbaum says, is a denial of muslims’ human dignity. Tending that academic atmosphere is the provost’s primary focus, and Rosenbaum, the John T. Wilson dis- humanitiES and political-science departments, and tinguished service professor in phys- in The New Religious Intolerance, she ics, the , and uses legal, philosophical, and literary the College, has occupied that office analysis to identify the roots of reli - since 2007. Gray asked what keeps Faith gious prejudice and suggest ways of him up at night: “It becomes very ex- overcoming it. pensive to compete in all areas and, In protecting religious minorities, in fact, you can’t lead in all areas,” healer Europe has seen more setbacks than the he said. “So, trying to think intelli- United States, Nussbaum says. Partly Philosopher Martha Nussbaum gently about which areas you put your that’s because support for measures like resources in so that you’re eminent advocates a return to America’s the burka ban cuts across political di- enough across areas to be a great uni- founding religious tolerance. vides, as secularists on the left find com- versity, but not frivolously spending mon cause with religious nationalists on money in one area where you don’t With legislatures throughout Europe the right. This convergence, along with have an advantage to be able to com- roiled by calls to outlaw burkas in pub- widespread fear of Islamic terrorism, pete on the worldwide stage. Getting lic, philosopher martha nussbaum, has provoked a dangerous atmosphere that balance right keeps me up quite usually an outspoken Europhile, finds of intolerance, Nussbaum argues, lead- late.” herself at odds with popular European ing not only to burka bans in France and An audience member asked wheth- attitudes toward religion. Everyday Belgium but also to incidents of extreme er increasing complexity in managing religious practices, from dress to diet, violence. In 2011 Norwegian fanatic An- budgets and bureaucracy will require Nussbaum says, reflect the search for ders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in university administrators with more ultimate meaning. And so the talk of Oslo while condemning multicultural- specialized training, as opposed to banning burkas—a garment worn by ism and what he called the Islamization leaders promoted from the ranks of some Muslim women to cover their of Europe. academia. The panel’s response was bodies and faces—represents some- There are troubling instances of anti- a resounding no. “You want leaders thing more insidious than an aversion Muslim hatred in this country—Nuss- who come from us, and who are us,” to social change: it is a denial of Mus- baum notes attempts to ban Sharia law said former provost Edward O. Lau- lims’ fundamental human dignity. in several states and the controversy mann, the George Herbert Mead Nussbaum’s belief that religious lib- over plans to build an Islamic cultural distinguished service professor of so- erty, especially for Muslims, is in cri- center in lower Manhattan —but few- ciology, noting that lawyers could read sis in the Western world led to a book, er than in Europe. Nothing here, she the fine print, but only an academic The New Religious Intolerance: Overcom- writes, “even remotely approaches could truly understand the impact of ing the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age the nationwide and regional bans on policies on a university environment. (Belknap Press of Harvard University Islamic dress in Europe, or the nation- “They once asked me what I was do- Press, 2012). It offers a protest against wide Swiss minaret referendum.” The

ing as a Renaissance historian in this revanchist anti-Muslim trends in Eu- majority of Americans believe that newscom business,” Gray said. “I could always rope and the United States. Nussbaum Muslims and other religious minori- point out that my major work was on teaches in the Law School, the Divini- ties should be allowed to practice their

Machiavelli.”—Jason Kelly ty School, and the classics, philosophy, faith. Her book emphasizes that even photo by erin fitzgerald; sculpting by tyler keillor

18 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 18 10/25/12 2:20 PM citations

no bootstraps Beilock describes as “a kind citations. (An h-index of 12 is africanus, one of the smallest The mid-1990s welfare reform of ‘mental scratchpad’ that normally sufficient for tenure.) dinosaurs that ever lived, may have left America’s poorest allows us to ‘work’ with Using the data, Allesina scurried through the forest 200 worse off than before. Marci whatever information is developed an algorithm to million years ago, devouring Ybarra, assistant professor at temporarily flowing through predict a scientist’s success ten fruits and slicing up leaves. the School of Social Service consciousness.” Students with years into the future. Among In an October report in the Administration, coauthored less working memory tend the findings, says Allesina, online journal ZooKeys, a study in the September to be less affected by anxiety were that “the things that paleontologist Paul Sereno Children and Youth Services because they have developed we value the most are in fact described the bizarre anatomy Review comparing the financial simpler ways to deal with math the things that matter the of the newfound species, well-being of the “deeply poor” problems, such as counting most,” like the number of whose fossils he unearthed (those with incomes of $11,500 on their fingers. Anxiety can published articles, the number from red rock excavated from or less for a family of four), begin as early as first grade, and of years since the first articles South Africa. Two feet long with the “near poor” (families it tends to snowball, leading were published, and the and weighing less than a house making between $23,000 and students to avoid math and number of articles in the most cat, Pegomastax —among “the $34,500). When the reforms ultimately be less competent. prestigious journals. Allesina most advanced plant eaters were enacted in 1996, millions The problem affects about believes better predictions of their day”—had big sharp of welfare recipients entered the half of high-performing can help channel funding to canines, rare for an herbivore. workforce. But the stipulation students, and the study suggests the scientists with the most Sereno concluded the teeth that recipients work to qualify solutions, including expressive potential, leading to more were most likely used to defend for cash assistance meant that drawing and tests posed as ambitious science. against predators. The animal’s those at the very bottom of challenges rather than as body was also covered in quills, the income pool—many of threats. prehistoric porcupine making it look, Sereno said, whom cannot work—saw a Fanged, but miniature, with like a “nimble, two-legged serious decline in aid. By 2005, ambitious predictions inch-long jaws and a parrot- porcupine.”—Colin Bradley, ’14, 88 percent of the heads of Decisions on hiring or tenure like beak, the Pegomastax and Lydialyle Gibson households in near-poor families can be almost as difficult for the reported working, while only committee as for the scientist 41 percent from deeply poor whose fate is in question, families could find jobs. says Stefano Allesina, an assistant professor of ecology math problems and evolution, in part because Anxiety about math predicting the future success performance affects many of a young scientist is anything young students, but a study but exact. But, Allesina by psychology professor Sian demonstrated in a September Beilock found that it is most Nature study, there are methods harmful to high-achieving to improve those predictions. students. Published in the Allesina and his collaborators April Journal of Cognition gathered data on some 34,000 and Development, the study neuroscientists, including examines the effects of math current and past h-index, a anxiety and its correlation widely accepted metric based to working memory, which on number of publications and All fangs and quills, this tiny herbivore roamed much of Earth.

many critics of the Manhattan Islamic US law. Many original settlers, says created a model for what Nussbaum center, Park51, acknowledged the de- Nussbaum, were “minorities and calls “civic friendship.” He wrote velopers’ constitutional right to build weirdos” who “got the idea that reli- about his “constant zealous desire to on private property. giously diverse people have to live to- dive into the native languages” and This points to one key difference gether.” One hero of her book is Roger published a phrase book on the lan- between this country and Europe: the Williams, Rhode Island’s founder, guage of the Narragansett Indians, United States has a strong legal tradi- who envisioned the colony as a haven and he urged other Englishmen to tion of protecting religious belief and for those escaping religious persecu- treat native tribes with openness and practice; Europe “hasn’t formalized tion. Nussbaum finds deep contem- respect. Despite his distaste for their those principles,” says Nussbaum. porary relevance in his 17th-century spiritual practices, Williams’s writ- The United States has no established writings. Williams believed, she says, ings on the Narragansett reflected church; much of Europe does. As a in the “idea that conscience is sacred what Nussbaum calls a “sympathetic result, state-sponsored religious dis- and that each individual has to be pro- imagination” that allowed him to see crimination has been less frequent tected in that search.” Native Americans as equally human to

newscom here, and disparate spiritual sects have He promoted an approach that al- Christian settlers. flourished, making this country one of lowed religious minorities certain The sympathetic imagination is con- the most religious in the world. legal exceptions on the basis of their stantly under threat—here as well as in

photo by erin fitzgerald; sculpting by tyler keillor In part, cultural history has shaped beliefs. At the same time, Williams Europe, Nussbaum says. Throughout

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 19

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 19 10/25/12 2:20 PM

interview Journey to the East Businessman John Kuhns turned his winding career path into a novel.

John Kuhns, MFA’75, who studied sculpture at UChicago, has had long, parallel careers in investment bank- ing and energy. He is chair and CEO of three companies: China Hydroelectric Corporation, investment bank Kuhns Brothers, and the private-equity orga- nization China Hand Fund. In 1984, Kuhns was the first Ameri- can to gamble on purchasing hydro- graphic courtesy set in stone: building america’s new generation of arts facilities, 1994–2008; adapted by joy olivia miller olivia joy by adapted 1994–2008; facilities, arts of generation new america’s building stone: in set courtesy graphic electric generating equipment from China. The purchase powered his company, Catalyst Energy, to its suc- cessful IPO and listing on the New York Stock Exchange. ing assistant. I taught undergrads draw- novelist The highs of Kuhns’s career have been ing and sculpture, and I worked for When I decided to write my first novel, matched with lows, which he recounts him in the summers. But I didn’t really I had a regime. I would sit down at 7 in the semiautobiographical novel China imagine a career as an artist. Other than a.m. and would not answer the phone Fortunes: A Tale of Business in the New playing professional football, I hadn’t or have any appointments until 10. That World (John Wiley and Sons, 2011). At thought about a career at all. way I could do 1,000 words a day, like one point, Kuhns’s alter ego, Jack Davis, Jack London says. It took me two years finds himself in the grocery store with Harvard MBA? to write it. maxed-out credit cards and no cash, un- I was the arts and culture critic for the Everything in the book is true, except able to buy food for his wife and family. Maroon. One Friday afternoon I was for the girlfriends. The women are actu- In a recent interview, adapted below, looking at the galleys and this little al characters, but Wiley [his publisher] Kuhns, whose second novel “South of two-inch ad caught my eye: “Harvard and my agents said it didn’t have enough the Clouds” is forthcoming, discussed MBA?” For some reason I was in- sizzle. So the girlfriend part is apocry- his real and fictional lives. trigued. The next day, I went to the ad- phal. Luckily, I had the first manuscript —Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93 missions event, still in my overalls from to show my wife the evidence. the studio. I applied and got in. Football player Seven jobs In college, I was absolutely sure I was Lawn mower Somebody with a humanities or lib - going to play football in the NFL. I I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life. eral arts background is going to do a lot played for Georgetown, where I gradu- At 12, my twin brother and I had 50 to better in business than somebody who ated with a degree in fine arts and soci- 75 lawns at $2 a pop. We installed ten- doesn’t have it, especially these days. ology. I had tryouts with the Cowboys nis courts and so forth. My senior year I read recently that the average person and the Redskins and I wasn’t good of college, I managed a restaurant while has seven jobs in three different indus- enough. I was extremely disappointed, going to school and playing football. So tries during their career. The idea that as you can imagine. I had some basic business knowledge. I you would get out of school with a prac- knew sales were important. tical education and have a job for life is Sculptor gone with the wind. At the U of C I studied sculpture with wall Street Virginio Ferrari, who was artist in When I first got to Harvard, I was think- Love or money residence. The University had piles of ing I might run an art gallery or some- Pursue a career in something that you’re unused Indiana limestone—just stacks thing like that. Then one day it dawned good at, and never make a career deci- of it, right outside of Taft Studios. They on me: my diploma is the same one every- sion based on the money. So many artists had built the buildings and had a bunch one else is getting. I didn’t have to make teach, but don’t become a teacher if you left over. So we were able to just use that. sense of the fact that I got here. And I don’t like teaching. If you do something

photography by jamie manley, ’14 I was also Virginio’s graduate teach- found myself drawn to Wall Street. you’re good at, the money will come.

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 21

UChicagoJournal_Nov-Dec_v22.indd 21 10/25/12 2:21 PM UCH_CVitaeIncandela_v4.indd 1 The of O The art of discovery art The c vitae 22 quark. top the ers discov that teams the of lab, Incandela leads one 1995 Frisch.Henry under physics in PhD Incandela completes his as an artist, aspiring him knew who friends 1986 It new phenomena—suchfor as the Higgs—search to collisions particle from data study who scientists of thousands leading experiment, (CMS) lenoid Large the So Muon Compact runs Collider’s Hadron PhD’86, SM’85, AB’81, wondered. just He physics. toward orientation mind’s his about ed indicat thoughts those what understand or not?” there something it Would was a pure vacuum. there be and out space, of that everything took you if happens what imagining was I and me of front in room the in space the about thinking was “I conjure: could mind ten-year-old Incandela’s back further in time, of much the greatest mystery another, to memory cent MILESTONES

is true It was a short journey from that re Now 56, he still does. Incandela, Incandela, does. still he 56, Now An aspiring artist as a child, he didn’t the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 2012 nov–dec | magazine chicago of university the

the fairest Working at Fermi To the surprise of of surprise To the

art

fundamental

and

thing Incandela neva in July, physicist physicist July, in neva Ge to Paris from train a n Higgs boson discovery. discovery. boson Higgs the documenting earlier weeks two presentation his to up leading rush the on reflecting backward, looking spent an afternoon he months, in time first the for And backward. facing

true

we

science.—Albert

can

emotion sat in first class, class, first in sat - -

experience at CERN in Geneva. Geneva. in CERN at begins Incandela work physics coordinator, experiment’s deputy 2007 remains a professor. where Barbara, he of Santa California, joins the University 2000

which Incandela Named the CMS

Joe Joe is

Einstein stands

the - - - -

mysterious. he had a technical knack too and repaired too repaired and knack he had a technical A collider. the houses that Geneva near lab particle-physics the CERN, tour visiting dignitaries for guide designated the also He’s hundreds. of team a management and board utive exec 40-member a leading mystery, to in addition diplomacy and bureaucracy with deals Incandela title, scientist’s universe. the about questions fundamental answer to then what the hell is it?” is hell the what then all, at empty not it’s realizing And, space? when empty the in what’s thing ten: was I that exactly thinking time experiment. of whole the the grasp to facet, any in experts broad with terms the est in physics discuss the to and luxury responsibility the has He says. of from where anyone I sit,” Incandela picture biggest the have “I career. his in had seldom he’s view a him offers position Incandela’s time, his cupy

at While politics and ceremony oc ceremony and politics While chief the spokesperson, CMS the As “Now,” he says, “I spend a lot of lot a spend “I says, he “Now,”

the

cradle ing, drawing, and sculpting. But But sculpting. and drawing, ing, paint at natural” real a just ist, art amazing “an was father his He says blood. is in Incandela’s rt

Higgs boson discovery. the of stages final the spokesperson, leading CMS as term two-year begins Incandela a post, the to elected ever 2012 spokesperson. deputy CMS a becomes 2010 The The firstAmerican Incandela - - - - - “We’re all idealists,” she said. she idealists,” all “We’re disciplines: the between a connection saw scientist, a was he that fascinated His teacher in a downtown art class,realized. he’d than common in more had art and science that discovered 1995. in it” discovered we when search top-quark the leading guys the of one being up ended and to went I it. find to wanted really I cided de I “Then says. Incandela it,” find couldn’t Europe; in it find to decades. for tried “We observation eluded that cle parti fundamental another quark, top the for search the toward gravitated experiment. CMS of the top the to Incandela led that things” of number unbelievable an of coincidence dental inacci “an the first pool accepted, and year’s next the in included matically polite a was auto off”—he way buzz of was saying that assumed late—“I was application his because down Turned fellowship. Europe, CERN a for for applied he affinity an and Italian, and doctorate. physics he got until ate and degree his staying undergradu his completing sobriety, at intellectual UChicago’s for mosphere party-school Colorado’s left he that hysterical.” was that thought just He time. longest the for laughing stop couldn’t “he physics, in a PhD get to he that had decided school from high told a friend Incandela When it. lieving be time hard a had Others monologue. inner his understand to framework a had he Now fascination. youthful his of stuff the found he classes physics chemistry. study to of Colorado sity rolled as an undergrad at the Univer en Incandela Inspired, colors.” own his glass, own his designing do, could else one no that things doing was he “so chemist, a was Labino, Dominick science. to him led In art says. pursuing he stead, artist,” great a be to wanted always “I of Chicago. Institute Art the of School the at classes in glass blow and paint to learned who son, his to starting company. use, an electrical-contracting to skill that put Incandela elder the service, from the Back War II. World during Navy the for airplanes While working at Fermilab, he also he also at Fermilab, working While focus his 1980s, late the in CERN At French of knowledge PhD, a With seriously so idea the took Incandela his in but him, bored subject The sculptor, glass favorite Incandela’s on ambitions artistic his passed He 10/25/12 11:54 AM ------

photos courtesy joe incandela; newscom

illustration by allan burch , ------10/26/12 9:54 AM (Ger . Let’s ,SM’07, PhD’11 Jessica Robinson Jessica MartinBaeumel thought experimentthought Britni Ratliff Britni hat afternoon, a smaller group of students cram into Stuart 101 for the session “Pedagogical Self-Assessment: How Do You It’s a simple idea, but “people just Doumont’s point is that teachers “The last time I taught—at another Ratliff is about to explain the ratio pretend.” With half the material, you you material, the half With pretend.” have twice the time, which things— could be interesting more do “to used if only checking that the students have understood.”result,Asa yieldthegoes up to 25 percent: “You have become two and a half times more efficient by droppinghalf theof material.” say ‘impossible,’” he says. If it were a financial investment, not teaching— ifcouldyou invest half yourof money more cleverly, and get back 2.5 times much—everyoneas wouldagree. “But teaching, for somehow, that justis not going to happen.” should focus on their students rather than obsessing over content—and whenever possible, let students learn by doing it themselves. Young chil dren, for example, plead to belowed to vacuum: al “‘Dad, Dad, can I do it? Please? And let me do it myself.’ That’s kids,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be dreama if your students would be like that? They would come into class and push you aside and ‘Please say, please, don’t say the answer, I’ll do it self!’” my With the right sort of teaching, “I there: still is potential that says, he strongly believe it’s still in us.” down. It’s a nale behind the session when she in terruptsherself: “Why here?”areyou she wants to know. “Why are you in terested in being able to self-assess courses?” your for frustrating really institution—was someoneme,”admits. like“Ilostfelt I communication with the class.really It was huge a class, 100 students.I teach again, I Beforewant to have a better idea of how I’m doing before the end theof course.” manic studies), and Know StudentsYour Are Learning?” taughtby AM’05 (anthropology). Experienced instructors,theyalso asteaching work consultantstheat Center Teaching for Learning. and T (chemistry), (chemistry), - -

Laughterspreads through Kent107, Doumont flips on a slide showing a “Instructors tend to focus on the So imagine if you covered only half We tend to do with our our with do to tend We our what students us. with professors did a a large lecture hall; several students look up self-consciously from their notes. “It’s just tradition,” Doumont says. “We tend to do with our studentswhatour professors did with us.” “instruc word the with line, straight tor” on the left, “students” on right, the and “material” in the middle. left part of the model,” he says. Most instructors will say a lecture was a success if they covered the material, which means “saying everything out loud, once. That’s their measure of success.” But the students assimilate justtenpercent what said—inisof en gineeringpercent.terms,tenyield of a thematerial.of “Whenever mentionI stoptofaculty, have group of this I a to talking, because there is an uproar in the room,” them Doumont calm to says, as have “I the laugh. students ------

M’93 a ’91, ab James Nondorf Nondorf James

On the first morning of the

intensive workshop organized by the Center for Teaching and instruc graduate the Learning, gins. More than 1,500 first-yearsare already on campus, being oriented, disoriented, or both. About 300 grad students are too,gettinghere two-day a crash course on College teaching.

t’s a week before fall quarter be

two-day workshop

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

Doumont has a PhD in applied phys Now, at 9 a.m.Now, on day two, pedago ics from Stanford and earned his un- dergraduate degree in engineering at Université Catholique de Louvain in Doumont Belgium, which later, was foundedbefore in 1425—the centuries invention of Six the printing press. says, universities are still engaged in “pre-Gutenberg teaching.” The pro fessor writes on the blackboard, the students write in their notebooks, “without the material really crossing the brain of either of them,” Doumont says. “Just monks, copyingsaid. what’s It’s got beento be the least effective photocopymachine in the world.” gy expert Jean-luc Doumont is ques tioningwhetheruniversities anyhave idea how to teach at all. tors learned a bit about College stu mightdentsgive(“Youthemtheir first B,” vice president for enrollment and advancement student 24 cipline. In the afternoon, they could choose from sessions on the role of the teaching assistant, teaching in the American classroom, and academic dishonesty,among others. advised. “Be gentle.”) and discussed authority and ethics in the classroom. Over boxed lunches, they attended one of 23 discussion groups led by a facultytheirmemberinparticular dis bycarrie golus, the other side of the desk. a helps grad students shift to COURSE WORK education I UCH_Coursework_v7.indd 1

UCH_Boyer_v4.indd 2 10/24/12 3:09 PM The long view: In two decades as dean, Boyer’s vision has made UChicago a “hot college.”

Ann Stern Berzin, AB’74, JD’77, the chair of the College (a cause of President Ernest DeWitt Burton’s in the 1920s) visiting committee, had a much different experience from the and establishing study-abroad programs (as Hutchins- one she sees Boyer instituting today. “Undergrad students era College dean F. Champion Ward wanted to do), have were fairly far down on the food pyramid. There wasn’t a lot evolved in part from his research. Knowing that his prede- done around quality of life for students,” she says. “We all had cessors pursued similar objectives gives Boyer rhetorical this fantastic educational experience, but beyond that, pfft.” ammunition in debates about whether a new initiative suits In Boyer’s mind, the quality of life improvements—new UChicago. “There’s a tremendous amount of mythology residence halls, dining facilities, cultural opportunities in that surrounds the University,” says College visiting com- the city—complement the academic character, creating an mittee member Ken Kaufman, X’69, MBA’76, and Boyer environment that attracts more, and more accomplished, knows precisely where myth and reality diverge. “There’s students. And he loves the students the College attracts. nobody who can compete with him on that.” Talking about them animates Boyer most. In May 1996, for example, then University president Berzin noticed Boyer’s enthusiasm during their first Hugo F. Sonnenschein called for an increase in College meeting more than a decade ago, when he invited her to enrollment. “We were too small for the faculty that we join the College visiting committee, one of 15 University had, so it was either enlarge the College or shrink the fac - oversight boards. His demeanor was at first so modest and ulty,” Boyer says. “A decision had to be made, and it was professorial that he didn’t seem like the dynamic admin- very controversial.” istrator of his reputation. “When he started to talk to me To admit more than the 3,400 undergraduates enrolled at about the students, and what he wanted to accomplish for the time, the argument against expansion went, would di - the students, and the direction in which the College was lute the College’s intellectual atmosphere and taint the Uni- moving for the students, then I could say, ‘Oh, now I get it,’ versity’s image. Boyer states the opposition’s case bluntly: why this guy was the dean.” “There were a lot of faculty who had an image of the Uni- Ever since, she has seen a similar change come over him versity as being a PhD factory and, for them, a larger Col- at visiting committee meetings. Amid the routine business, lege was threatening to their professional identity,” he says. there are occasional student speakers. When they address “[They] were also certain that the next 1,000 in would be a the group, Berzin says, “If you look at John Boyer, he islit up.” bunch of dummies who wouldn’t be fit to teach or wouldn’t His affinity spills into speeches as much as the Habsburgs be worthy of the University of Chicago.” do. Speaking at the Class of 1967’s Alumni Weekend dinner at Boyer believed otherwise. And he brought his historian’s the Logan Center for the Arts, Boyer characterized the new chops to bear in arguing that expanding the College would facility as a product of philanthropy worthy of the undergrad- not breach tradition, but instead begin to restore it, mov- uates who will use it, not the other way around: “If you’ve met ing enrollment back toward its pre–World War II highs. any of our current students, they’re vibrant, they’re humor- ous, they’re extremely bright, they’re very hardworking.” That same evening, thanking the Class of 1962 at its re- union gathering for a $650,000 gift, he waxed on: “The students are so good now, they’re so talented, they’re so cre- “there’s a ative, and they’re so hardworking, that they deserve the kind of support that you, the alumni, have bestowed on them.” Moments later, unfurling a banner that honored the class tremendous amount for its alumni-gift participation, he added, “I’m a historian of the Habsburg Empire, so I understand titles and awards of mythology very well …” that surrounds e’s no emperor, but Boyer does exude a sense of sov- the university,” and ereignty, and his academic—if not ancestral—roots extend to the origins of the College that he now Boyer knows precisely h benevolently rules. Criticize a proposal as untrue to that heritage and he’ll have facts at hand, probably from primary documents, proving its intellectual lineage. Then where myth and he’ll work to implement it for the benefit of posterity. Boyer’s priorities, such as strengthening residential life reality diverge.

28 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UCH_Boyer_v5.indd 3 10/25/12 11:55 AM “We had more undergraduates full time in our College in ing that the Core’s defining characteristic has always been 1939 than Yale or Princeton or Stanford or Rochester or change. “There was no one Core curriculum, there were Carnegie Mellon,” he says. like 17 different ones,” Boyer says. “And the faculty had To many alumni and faculty members, the mid-1990s many earnest and quite lively fights over them.” size—about 3,400 undergraduates, much smaller than The current generation of students, Boyer recognizes, most of its peers—made a statement about exclusivity and also have needs beyond the classroom. Rising costs—around the intensity of the curriculum that defined the College. $60,000 in tuition and fees to attend UChicago in 2012–13— So Boyer went to the archives to study the ebb and flow of make return on investment a more important component of enrollment over the years, ultimately publishing the first of higher education, one that the College long ignored. Boyer what would become 16 (and counting) monographs about led the development of the “Chicago Careers In …” series of various aspects of UChicago history. advising and mentoring programs to address those issues. He found that “every president basically since Ernest They span nine professions, broadly defined—business, Burton was trying to expand the College.” The restructur- arts, health care, education, journalism, law, public and ing of the College curriculum under President Robert May- social service, entrepreneurship, and science and technol- nard Hutchins and a deteriorating and dangerous Hyde ogy—connecting undergrads to internships, mentoring, ca- Park neighborhood sent enrollment plummeting from a reer counseling, and other professional guidance. Kaufman prewar peak of about 4,000 to 1,500 by 1955. remembers hearing that once, years ago, about 100 students If not for those circumstances, Boyer believes the Col- were interested in summer jobs on Wall Street and only lege today would have 6,500–7,000 undergraduates, com- three were hired. “That’s impossible,” he says. “You’ve got parable to Harvard. “This took some explaining,” he says. some of the brightest kids in the world here, so it’s not what “The faculty, they grasped it, they accepted it, they worked they’re doing, it must be what we’re doing.” with us. The success is their success. I think everybody is That disconnect prompted a call to action from Boyer to very proud now of what we’ve accomplished.” the visiting committee. The result was the Chicago Careers With about 5,400 students today, the College compares in Business program, which begat the eight others that now to Princeton and Yale, still at the smaller end of the so- seem like a long-standing component of the College experi- called Ivy-plus group of peer institutions, but no longer an ence. Boyer insists the practical spirit underlying the pro- outlier. Boyer doesn’t foresee the enrollment getting much grams always has been part of that experience. “In a way, larger—in part, he says, because campus housing is inad- these career advising programs are returning us to deep equate even for the current number. roots in our own history,” he says. “Because the people He believes two new residence halls, including one to re- who founded this university were ardent believers in what place Pierce Tower, are essential to the future of the College. we would call today the liberal arts, but they were also ar- He’s so strong an advocate that some considered Boyer a sus- dently pragmatic and practical people, good Midwestern pect in last winter’s Pierce plumbing problems that included Baptists, who believed that college education was prepar- water outages and exploding toilets. “I have been accused of ing you for a successful career, and there’s nothing wrong actually going over with a monkey wrench and causing it,” he with being successful in your career.” says with a smile. “I want to say: I officially deny that.” Kaufman attributes the success of the College in general, In the late 1990s, there were suggestions that he wanted and initiatives like the career programs in particular, to a to take a monkey wrench to the Core curriculum. Proposed rare executive quality he sees in Boyer: a combination of changes to the requirements caused a stir, sending Boyer vision and execution. Many people have one or the other, back to the archives to examine past academic restructur - says Kaufman, CEO of the health-care consulting firm ing. He wrote his second monograph on the subject, argu- Kaufman Hall, but few possess both. Boyer’s imaginative

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 29

UCH_Boyer_v4.indd 4 10/24/12 3:09 PM Ideal spokesman: Boyer’s quirks, reflecting the College he leads, have become the stuff of campus legend.

solutions and managerial acumen have led the College’s growth, all within the academic framework that defines the University. “He said, ‘We can have a College that attracts a broader spectrum of people without dumbing down,’” Kaufman says, “and he’s done that.” More than that, under Boyer the College has become a downright fashionable undergraduate destination, attract- ing a record 25,307 applications for the Class of 2016, which entered this fall. Because 47 percent of the admitted appli- cants chose to enroll, another all-time high for the College, it’s a class of 1,525 students, a one-time increase to accom- modate the interest. “We’ve become, in our own strange way,” Boyer says, “a hot college.” A 66-year-old historian has generated that heat, in his own strange way, retrofitting the University’s founding ideals to perpetuate a College renaissance.

n a chilly, gray September morning, Boyer pedaled along 60th Street, a canvas tote bag tucked into the basket on the back of his bike. Wearing a dark gray O suit with his right pant leg tied up, he rode toward the Logan Center to deliver a speech about Edward Levi’s legacy as University provost and president (see “Following Levi’s Lead,” page 17). Dean “from time immemorial,” as law professor Geof- frey R. Stone, JD’71, put it in his introduction that morn - ing, Boyer has been a University student or faculty member since he arrived for graduate school in 1968. Born in Wood- lawn, he grew up in the South Side community of Roseland and attended Chicago’s Loyola University as an undergrad. He met his wife, Barbara, in an English class they took to- gether. They have three children and seven grandchildren now, but Boyer’s critique of a book report she gave almost ended their romance before it began. “She said she would never have anything to do with that John Boyer again,” he says. “As these things go, we ended up dating, and then one thing led to another,” leading them to a life in Hyde Park. An Army reserve officer who would have gone to Viet- nam if not for a graduate-school deferment, Boyer enrolled at the U of C and discovered the Habsburgs. Except to do research and teach in Vienna, where he figures he has spent the equivalent of five years, Boyer has been here ever since, living four minutes from campus via Schwinn. A $250 tall man’s bike—which he rides “into the ground” and replaces about every five years—is his daily transporta- tion to, and weekend retreat from, the pressures of his job: “Some of my best ideas have come from riding up and down the lakeshore path in deepest November.” On campus, he often rides by in a blur, a sight at once com- monplace and iconic. A silhouette of Boyer on his bike, his trench coat billowing like a cape, would be to the College

30 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UCH_Boyer_v5.indd 5 10/25/12 5:33 PM what a spread-eagled Michael Jordan is to Nike. “If Dean Ferdinand managed to deflect it—Boyer raises his arm and Boyer were trying to brand himself, he could not do it any snaps his wrist, as if swatting a fly—but the explosion seri- better than he already has,” Chapin says. “He’s this nice ously injured two aides in the next car. guy, very intellectual, he’s as awkward as the rest of us.” Cabrinovic swallowed his capsule, which turned out to As playful too. Boyer’s historical perspective hardly be inert, then jumped into the river to discover it was just makes him hidebound or humorless. He loved it when, as inches deep. It appeared that the assassins had failed. part of a 2011 Scav Hunt challenge to affix huge googly eyes After deciding to proceed with his state visit, Ferdinand to campus buildings, students also added his meticulously went to see his aides in the hospital. On the way, the car trimmed moustache to the Harper Memorial Library façade. passed a delicatessen near where one of the plotters, Gavri- This past August, the admissions office generated some lo Princip, happened to be standing. “A fairly hapless and buzz with a letter to prospective students that included a not very lucky young terrorist,” Princip found himself in takeoff on lyrics from the summer hit “Call Me Maybe.” In what, for him, was a very fortunate position. He did not the Chicago Tribune, Boyer praised the idea as reflecting the waste the opportunity. From behind the museum rope, UChicago culture of “disdain for dogma and conventional- Boyer draws his finger and thumb into a pistol and aims at ity, a compulsion to play with ideas, and a high admiration the car, just as Princip did before firing twice and killing for the arts of self-expression.” both the archduke and his wife. Student dinners at Boyer’s house reveal his own sense The educational value of exploring the world in that way, of self-expression. For show-and-tell, he often brings out a Boyer insists, cannot be measured. Seeing the gun Princip marionette of Emperor Franz Joseph I, a gift from a gradu- used and Ferdinand’s bloody uniform—or the ruins outside ate student who came across it at a Vienna flea market. Oaxaca, or the Forbidden City in Beijing—creates a sense And when Boyer, the Martin A. Ryerson distinguished of immediacy that a Cobb Hall lecture cannot. service professor of history, teaches every other year in the “He’s almost the newscaster,” says Berzin, who wit- Western civilization program in Vienna, he puts on anoth- nessed Boyer’s live report on the assassination during a vis- er legendary lecture-cum-performance. It’s not a reenact- iting committee gathering in Vienna last fall. “He’s taking ment of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination that you through, minute by minute, what’s happening. You get precipitated World War I, but in its careful reconstruction to the end and you realize there were so many opportunities of events, it’s close. His wry delivery enlivens the story. for the result that happened not to happen.” Boyer stands in front of the car—on display at the History is like that. What seems inevitable in retrospect Heeresgeschichtliches Museum—in which Ferdinand and is the product of both calculation and accident, the fate of his wife, Sophie, were shot. Seven terrorists, armed with decisions, not the decisions of fate. pistols and bombs, waited along Ferdinand’s motorcade At the beginning of his fifth term as dean, Boyer is mak- route during a state visit to Sarajevo. The would-be assas- ing decisions beyond the scope of the next five years—at sins also had poison capsules, to be ingested by whoever least as far into the future, in fact, as his knowledge stretches succeeded in the killing, becoming a martyr for the cause. back. He wants to secure in perpetuity the programs that Nedeljko Cabrinovic made the first attempt, lobbing have sparked the College’s progress. what Boyer describes as a Keystone Cops bomb at the car. That means raising money to endow “Chicago Careers In …,” the Harper fellowships that support the Core fac - ulty, and student programs in the city and overseas. He also wants to build two new residence halls. It’s an ambitious agenda with a sticker price he puts at about $500 million. Some of my beSt Anyone who knows Boyer’s long, productive tenure in the dean’s office believes he could achieve all those priorities. He’s ideaS have come not just a scholar of the University’s past, but among the most prolific architects of its future. from riding up and In the introduction to his speech about Edward Levi, Stone called Boyer “the most influential dean in the history of the College.” He’s too soft-spoken to say that about down the lakeShore himself, deflecting credit to the “many grandfathers and grandmothers” of the contemporary success, predecessors path in deepeSt whose contributions he recounts in detail. It’s hard to argue with that, but at the same time, you don’t have to be a november. historian to recognize Boyer’s influence. ◆

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 31

UCH_Boyer_v4.indd 6 10/24/12 3:09 PM

10/25/12 5:48 PM UCH_Selz_v8.indd 2

photography © 2012 by edward caldwell rembrandt (harmensz. van rijn) (1606–1669), jugendliches selbstbildnis,1629, © bayerische staatsgemäldesammlungen, alte pinakothek münchen (left); akg-images/newscom akg-images/newscom (left); münchen pinakothek alte staatsgemäldesammlungen, bayerische © selbstbildnis,1629, jugendliches (1606–1669), rijn) van (harmensz. rembrandt

Old masters First mOderns

Growing up in Munich, Selz visited Anti-Semitic laws prohibited Selz museums with his grandfather, art from attending high school and univer- dealer Julius Drey. Around age 12, he sity in Germany. He continued his art remembers, “I decided to do my first education informally: in 1934 he and exhibition.” On his bedroom wall he another 15-year-old friend rode their arranged postcards of paintings by bicycles across the Alps to see art in Rembrandt and El Greco that he’d seen Venice and Verona. A year later, at a in the Alte Pinakothek museum, and a Munich police station, Selz viewed reproduction of Matthias Grünewald’s a collection of confiscated paintings Isenheim altarpiece. “I found they had by artists—Wassily Kandinsky, Paul a great deal of intimate soul,” he says of Klee, Max Beckmann—whom the Na- the three painters. “Basically, that was zis would condemn as “degenerate” in the kind of art that stayed with me as I the 1937 exhibition Entartete Kunst. “I moved into the modern period.” was certainly moved by what I saw and I thought this was pretty good art,” he recalls. It was Selz’s first exposure to German expressionism, a movement he would later describe as requiring “deep personal involvement on the part of both artist and viewer.” life pictures/getty images & time

34 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UCH_Selz_v8.indd 3 10/25/12 5:51 PM rembrandt (harmensz. van rijn) (1606–1669), jugendliches selbstbildnis,1629, © bayerische staatsgemäldesammlungen, alte pinakothek münchen (left); akg-images/newscom akg-images/newscom (left); münchen pinakothek alte staatsgemäldesammlungen, bayerische © selbstbildnis,1629, jugendliches (1606–1669), rijn) van (harmensz. rembrandt

Art in AmericA

At 17 Selz escaped Nazi Germany, The gallery had two rooms, Selz impressed me the most in those days, sailing from Bremen to New York recalls—an exhibition space and a which is no surprise, was Picasso’s City alone in 1936. His parents and bedroom. Stieglitz suffered from Guernica.” Selz got his first look at the brother joined him in America three heart disease and “was lying in bed dramatic, mural-sized canvas—which years later; meanwhile, he kept his all the time, under the sheets, fully depicts the bombing of a small Basque hopes for an art career alive while dressed. When somebody came in he town—in a private gallery. “You had working in a brewery owned by rela- would come out and talk about the to pay a small fee to see it, with the tives. When Selz learned that a dis- artist whom he was showing.” Stieg- money going to the Spanish Repub- tant cousin, the photographer Alfred litz became a mentor to Selz, opening lic.” Later, when Guernica moved to Stieglitz, had a gallery on Madison his eyes to Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur MoMA and Selz was a curator there, Avenue, he promptly went to intro- Dove, and the vivid watercolors of “every chance I had, I would walk duce himself. John Marin. But “the painting that down and see it in the gallery.” life pictures/getty images & time

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 35

UCH_Selz_v8.indd 4 10/25/12 5:49 PM ChiCago years

After the Second World War, Selz at- tended the University of Chicago on the GI Bill. He studied art history with professor Ulrich Middeldorf, who en- couraged him to write a dissertation on the German expressionist move-

ment, and Joshua C. Taylor. “Modern paris adagp, / york new (ars), society rights artists 2012 © art was something that wasn’t even taught,” says Selz. By 1954, he had satisfied the requirements for his PhD with a 600-page treatise—including scores of pictures carefully glued in the back—examining the ideas and work of Kandinsky (above), Beckmann, Emil Nolde, and other early 20th-century artists. Based partly on interviews with artists and critics, the study broke with formalism and situated art in a social, political, and theoretical framework—an unusual approach at the time. Selz’s dissertation became a field-defining book, German Expres- sionist Painting, which is still in print. digital image © the museum of modern art/licensed by scala / art resource, ny

36 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UCH_Selz_v9.indd 5 10/26/12 10:00 AM Quel homage

Selz took risks as a curator. In 1960 he The installation did not fully self-de- embraced Swiss artist Jean Tingue- struct, but viewers, including MoMA ly’s idea to create, for a MoMA show, directors René d’Harnoncourt and “a little machine … conceived, like Alfred Barr, reacted with shock and Chinese fireworks, in total anarchy disapproval. Selz feared for his job un- and freedom.” Tinguely (below) til the next day, when a New York Times built a towering mechanical sculpture reviewer praised the effort as bold and called Homage to New York that was philosophical: “Tinguely makes fools designed to burst into flames in the of machines, while the rest of mankind museum’s outdoor sculpture garden supinely permits machines to make while 250 invited guests looked on. fools of them.” © 2012 artists rights society (ars), new york / adagp, paris adagp, / york new (ars), society rights artists 2012 ©

The human figure

“I’ve always stayed away from art that Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Willem was fashionable, because that didn’t de Kooning, and other postwar artists interest me,” says Selz. While he ad - showing the human figure as solitary mired, lectured, and wrote about ab- and anxious. Selz asked theologian stract expressionism, “the first show Paul Tillich to write a preface for the I did at the Museum of Modern Art catalog. He invited three “outsider” was called New Images of Man—and artists whom he’d befriended in Chi- that was at a time when figurative cago—painter Leon Golub, AB’42, painting was almost taboo in Amer- and sculptors H. C. Westermann and ica.” The 1959 exhibition featured Cosmo Campoli—to contribute pieces works by Jean Dubuffet, Alberto to the show. digital image © the museum of modern art/licensed by scala / art resource, ny

the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012 37

UCH_Selz_v9.indd 6 10/26/12 10:00 AM bring on the funk

In the mid-1960s, Selz moved west to become a professor of art and founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum (BAM) at the University of Califor- nia. There, he helped build a collec- tion that reached across the centuries, from an oil sketch by Rubens to major abstract paintings by Hans Hofmann. He curated the nation’s first kinetic sculpture exhibition and a show by bo- hemian California artists called Funk. Pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol failed to impress Selz at the time. Good art, he told the Magazine in 1967, “has something new and important to say; it makes a new visual statement. I really don’t think that enlarging a comic strip or paint - ing a soup can accomplishes this.” From retirement in 2007, Selz helped BAM acquire Fernando Botero’s Abu Ghraib series (left), praising the overt- ly political paintings as the “Guernica of our time.”

Public witness

Selz served as project director for © felipe trueba/epa/corbis (top); © regis bossu/sygma/corbis bossu/sygma/corbis regis © (top); trueba/epa/corbis felipe © Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Running Fence, an outdoor installation that stretched an ephemeral fabric barrier across 24 miles of northern Califor- nia hills in 1976. “It was just marvel- ous working with them, [seeing] the energy they had, and how they real - ized exactly what they wanted to do,” says Selz, who befriended the artists and often visited them in New York. Public and environmental works such as their Wrapped Reichstag (right) in Berlin and The Gates in Central Park have “an enormous impact,” Selz be- lieves. “Millions of people witnessed © 2012 by edward caldwell the art.” photography

38 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UCH_Selz_v8.indd 7 10/25/12 5:54 PM

glimpses Women’s Work by lydialyle gibson photography by jason smith

everly Ryder, MBA’74, was among the education. Already, 247 portraits hang in the organiza- first critical mass of women to attend busi- tion’s gallery; a new class of inductees will be announced ness school and take up executive positions next year. At a September alumni event organized by in the corporate world. “It was an interest- the Chicago Women’s Alliance, Ryder shared the sto - ing time,” she says. “There were certain ries of a dozen or so hall of famers. Among them were doors that were not necessarily open.” Bessie Coleman, an African American who earned her Graduating less than a decade after Muriel pilot’s license in 1921, two years before Amelia Earhart; Siebert won her historic seat on the New Maria Tallchief, who was born on an Osage Indian res- York Stock Exchange in 1967, Ryder says ervation in Oklahoma and became a prima ballerina with “there were still what they called ‘the mus- George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet; and physicist cle industries’ where women couldn’t, for Maria Goeppert Mayer, who worked at Argonne and the instance, be account managers.” Even now, corporate boards University of Chicago and in 1963 won a Nobel Prize for are overwhelmingly white and male. her research in nuclear physics. Before her talk, Ryder BRyder took a job with Citibank in New York and spent spoke with the Magazine about her life and career. 16 years there, eventually rising to vice president in the corporate-banking division, where she helped structure Women’s history I went to college just before Title IX. financial transactions for Fortune 500 clients. In 1990 I’ve seen the impact of that law, and what it’s done for young she moved back to Los Angeles, her hometown, to be a women today. In the ’50s and ’60s, when I grew up, there senior manager at electric utility Edison International. were certain restrictions, some outright and some by cus- It was there that she began volunteering in the city’s tom. Women were required to play half-court basketball— public schools. Raised in a middle-class family in LA’s you had three dribbles, and then you had to pass. I guess they Baldwin Hills neighborhood, Ryder had grown up in the thought women were too fragile to play by the same rules public schools, and she returned to find many of those she’d as men. ... I can name the schools where I couldn’t apply as known as a child devastated by poverty and rising dropout an undergraduate because they didn’t admit women: Har- rates. While at Edison in the 1990s she began working to vard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Williams, others. They improve parent engagement in the schools. She spent one changed within probably three or four years; I was sort of on year at a high school in southwest Los Angeles, working the cusp. The University of Chicago admitted women in the to help establish connections with local communities and first class, as did Stanford, where I went. businesses. Retired since 2007, Ryder remains involved in the schools, volunteering with civic organizations and on nonprofit boards. “I’m not an educator or an administra- tor or an expert, but this is a passion, trying to help figure this out,” she says. “People outside education, if they roll Whether the door up their sleeves and help, they get an appreciation, not only for what has to be done, but for the true value of schools. stays open for the Schools do so much more than teach knowledge.” Ryder’s other consuming passion is the National Wom- people Who come en’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York, where she is president of the board. Founded in 1969 in the city Behind you—that’s where women’s rights pioneers Lucretia Mott and Eliza- beth Cady Stanton organized the first women’s conven- the discussion We tion in 1848, the hall of fame recognizes achievements in the arts, athletics, business, science, the humanities, and need to have.

40 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UCH_Glimpses_BeverlyRyder_v11.indd 62 10/26/12 10:22 AM

- ◆

Between , the ancient Egyptians agreed. “Stop looking at all this electronic stuff,” she urges. volunteered at raptor rehabilitation centers, drawn especially to the owls there. Her greatest hope for the exhibition is that visitors will ancientleave, like Egyptians,the alert tosurround thethem. chirps and rustles that always are “You’ll “Kinglets see little wrens, Chicago. and right now through kinglets are migrating” mission:a on They’re looking bugs. for They fromgo branch to branch But and further. ... go eventually and really,’ get closer you, to like you don’t ‘I say, and That nothing. no binos, no with them see to got you makes my day.” Behind the Museum of Science and Industry in Jackson Park, she says, 40 or 50 species are in residence this fall, including many warblers. Bailleul-LeSuer keeps track of her finds, but a isn’t competitive birder. “Anything I see, even a spar row, row, I’m excited. I’m not demanding when it comes to birds. Their of behavior, when you evidence pay attention, the On is bird.” wonderful—any Heaven and Earth The scribes who devised the Egyptianexhibition catalog notes, writing “drew their inspiration heavily system, the from their surroundings and from the natural world.” Sixty-five oft-used hieroglyphs represent birds, from falcons to quail chicks to owls. This three-dimensional limestone carving, which may have been a modela for sculptors’ workshop, depicts the hieroglyph representing the Egyptian head letterM (above). of the owl art shows most creatures, including humans, seen in characteristically profile, is owl the but says, Bailleul-LeSuer details identify intricate face forward. it The sculpture’s as a barn owl: the heart-shaped face,the delicateabove band speckled feathers and beak, and “nose” its around deeplycarved eyes. - - In Chicago, also built on wetlands and lying shown, as well as a few standout pieces loaned by the ArtInstitute Chicago,of theBrooklyn Museum, and the Field Museum of Natural History. The exhibit, which runs through July 28, 2013, concludes with a today’sstatetheavianof at look Egyptian population. Environmental changes—more cities, more people, dammingthe Nile—havethe of hospitablelessproven to some birds than others. Without quick interven tions, writes Field Museum researchBaha el-Din in the exhibition catalog, associate “the eco more Sherif logically sensitive and space demanding species … willjoin other memories from the past.” beneath a major migration path, Bailleul-LeSuer keeps arrived her eyes they’ve and know ears “you’ll open. says, “If she you pay attentionmovement,” to and are all around you.” Growing up in France,parentsherwhere bakers,Brittany,were exulted she in observing songbirds like farms. neighboring to robins, deliveries makingwhile bread blue tits, and finches In graduate school at the University of Vermont, she ------. The Rozenn Bailleul- Between Heaven and and Heaven Between Between Heaven and and Heaven Between AM’06, a doctoral stu doctoral a AM’06, , ou ou have desert, desert, desert— then the Nile Valley, which is very green,” says LeSuer dent in Near Eastern languages and civilizations and guest curator for the Oriental Institute Museum exhibition Earth:Birds inAncient Egypt lush, marshy Nile valley, she ex plains, plots out a path for droves displays thehundreds35of avianof artifacts in In a gallery filled with the recorded songs and Hunting, and fowling, breeding impor birds were Key figures in the Egyptian pantheon were tradi were pantheon Egyptian the in figures Key tant facets of the ancient Egyptian paint and economy. Artists carvings with tombs and temples covered ings of both indigenous species (hoopoes, kestrels, greyherons) and migratory ones (quail,martins, storks, lapwings). Bird house motifs graced household ordinary objects, too, such as the exhibition’s ladle and stool legs incorporating duck heads. calls of native Egyptian species, Earth the OI’s collection, many of which have never been tionally depicted as birds, notably the falcon-headed Horus and ibis-headed Thoth. Their worshippers mummified millions of the creatures as offerings,capturing and breeding thousands for the purpose each year, especially after the fall migration coincid ing with the Nile flood. Birds’ “ability to fly highin the sky led the ancients to believe thatthe gods,” they Bailleul-LeSuer could join writes in the exhibition catalog, “and thus act as divine messengers, if not as receptaclesdivinethe of themselves.” funerarySome texts claim that they represent the souls of the dead coming back to Earth, “so it’s actually a conquest of deathwhen the birds come” each migration season. of migrating birds each spring and fall. observ“Avid ers of nature,” the ancient Egyptians were deeply af fected these by “spectacular” visitations and showed it in their religious beliefs, philosophy, art, and crafts. Researchersprovisionallyhave identified some 211 dif bird species in represented ferent Egyptian artifacts fromabout 4000 BC through AD 395. Y

44 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

UCH_Thebirds_v7.indd 46 10/26/12 10:35 AM

alumni ESSaY

despairing; it’s one that continues How to construct an on in spite of it. Even when we can’t find a smile to save us, even when indestructible self we’re tired beyond all endurance, By Alex l ickermA n, A B’88, mD’92 possessing an undefeated mind means never forgetting that defeat comes not from failing but from giving up. Possessing an undefeated mind, we understand that there’s no obstacle from which we can’t create some kind of value. Victory may not be promised to any of us, but possessing an undefeated mind means behaving as though it is. ix months into my seem. Or rather, things are only as The kind of Buddhism I practice, second year of medical bleak as they seem, for the way events Nichiren Buddhism, is named after school, the first woman impact us depends far more on the lens its founder, Nichiren Daishonin. I ever loved brought through which we view them—our Currently, 12 million people all our year-and-a-half- inner life state—than on the events over the world practice Nichiren long relationship to themselves. Not that mustering up Buddhism. It doesn’t involve an end, causing me to courage, hope, and confidence in meditation, mindfulness, centering fall immediately into a the face of adversity is easy. Viktor oneself, or learning to live in the paralyzing depression. Frankl was only half right when he moment, as do most other forms of As a result, my ability argued in his book Man’s Search for Buddhism, but rather something even to study declined Meaning that we have control over more foreign and discomforting to dramatically—and as a result of that, how we respond to what happens to those of us raised in the traditions of Ssix months later I failed Part I of the us. In fact, often we don’t—at least, the West: chanting. Every morning National Board Exam. not how we respond emotionally to and every night I chant the phrase It was a devastating blow, not just what happens to us. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with a focused to my ego, but also to my potential But Frankl wasn’t entirely wrong, determination to challenge my future: if I couldn’t pass the Boards, either. Though absolute control negativity and bring forth wisdom. I wouldn’t be allowed to graduate over our response to adversity may And over 23 years of Buddhist medical school. I had no idea what to elude us, influence over it need not. practice, wisdom has indeed emerged do. My thinking spiraled in useless If we can’t change our emotional for me—and often in the most circles as I hunted for a solution, reactions by force of will, we can surprising ways. After spending my depression intensifying as none at least increase the likelihood that many months of such chanting to appeared, and soon I found myself our reactions are constructive by free myself from the anguish that crouching at the edge of despair. cultivating something psychologists the loss of my girlfriend had caused I didn’t consider it at the time, but call personality hardiness: the me, I realized one morning that I wasn’t alone in feeling this way. capacity to survive and even thrive my suffering wasn’t coming at all Even before the US economy nearly under difficult conditions. I’ve come from that loss, but rather from the collapsed in 2008, data from the to call this kind of hardiness an misguided belief that I needed her National Comorbidity Survey told undefeated mind. to love me to be happy. I’d always us that an astonishing 50 percent of What does it mean to possess an known intellectually this wasn’t Americans report having suffered undefeated mind? Not just that we true, but not until that moment in at some point in their lives from a rebound quickly from adversity psychiatric disorder, most commonly or face it calmly, even confidently, depression, alcohol dependence, without being pulled down by teekay credit photo social phobia, or simple phobia. In depression or anxiety, but also that Things aren’t as bleak fact, research shows that Americans we get up day after day and attack have only a 35 percent chance of the obstacles in front of us again as they seem. Or rating themselves “very happy” by and again and again until they fall, the time they reach their late 80s. or we do. An undefeated mind isn’t rather, things are only photo credit teekay But things aren’t as bleak as they one that never feels discouraged or as bleak as they seem. photos courtesy alex lickerman

6450 the university university of chicago of chicago magazine magazine |sept–oct | nov–dec 2011 2012

UCH_Lickerman_v6.indd 1 10/26/12 9:35 AM

Alumni News

Use your CNETID to read class news online.

itentiary in the 1960s. He then conducted Bernadette G. Callery, AM’71, died of 1980s demographic and criminological research ovarian cancer July 27 in Pittsburgh. She for universities and government agencies, was 64. Starting her career as an assistant Alice (Holly) Scott, PhD’83, died August retiring from the New York City Planning librarian at the Hunt Institute for Botani- 28 in Chicago. She was 77. In 1982 Scott be- Department in 1998. Kantrowitz pub - cal Documentation at Carnegie Mellon came assistant commissioner of the Chica- lished two books, including Close Control: University, in 1987 Callery became a re- go Public Library, where she worked until Managing a Maximum Security Prison—The search librarian at the New York Botanical 1998. Scott was honored in 2004 with the Story of Ragen’s Stateville Penitentiary (Har- Garden. In 1994 she returned to Pittsburgh library’s Trailblazer Award for her work row & Heston, 1996) and was working on as librarian at the Carnegie Museum of creating the African American Service a biography of Prohibition-era gangster Natural History. After earning a PhD from Commission of Chicago for Ethnic Cel- Jake “the Barber” Factor at the time of his the University of Pittsburgh School of In - ebrations. She is survived by her husband, death. He is survived by his wife, Joanne formation Science, she joined the school’s Alphonso; a daughter; son Christopher (Spencer) Kantrowitz, AM’57, PhD’67, faculty in 2008. She is survived by her hus- Scott, U-High’77, X’81; two brothers; and and two sons. band, Joseph, and a brother. three grandchildren. Ted S. Brown, MBA’67, died March 3 in A. G. G. Gingyera-Pinycwa , AM’64, George Meyer Ebert, PhD’84, MD’85, a Edmonds, WA. He was 77. An army vet- PhD’72, died March 19 in India. He was 74. radiologist, died of apparent heart failure eran, Brown was a real-estate appraiser for A political-science professor for 36 years at July 14 in Ames, IA. He was 59. Ebert prac- 38 years. He is survived by his wife, Mari- Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, ticed for almost a decade at Salem Radiology lyn; three daughters; two sons; a brother; he held administrative posts including dean before joining Fletcher Allen Health Care two sisters; and six grandchildren. of social sciences, executive director of the in Burlington, VT, where he was also an as- Ronald Hamowy, PhD’69, a libertarian Makerere Institute for Social Research, sistant professor of radiology at the Univer- historian, died September 8 in Baltimore. and the school’s first deputy vice chancel- sity of Vermont. He is survived by his wife, He was 75. After cofounding the New In - lor. In 1983 Gingyera-Pinycwa was elected Charlotte; three daughters; and a sister. dividualist Review at UChicago, Hamowy president of the newly established United Thomas Clinton Mullins III, SM’88, died joined the University of Alberta’s history Nations Association of Uganda. He re - of a heart attack July 28 in Fort Worth, TX. department in 1969, where he taught until tired from teaching in 20 03. He is survived He was 53. An oil and gas geologist in Fort his 1998 retirement. The author or editor by his wife, Sarah; seven children; and 11 Worth for 25 years, Mullins spent much of of books including Government and Public grandchildren. that time as a partner with Fred Reynolds Health in America (Edward Elgar, 2007) John Denison Hopkins, MBA’72, died and Associates. He is survived by his wife, and The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism September 3 in Charlotte, MI. He was 87. Denise; a daughter; a son; and three sisters. (SAGE Publications, 20 08), Hamowy also The WW II Navy veteran worked in man- edited the 2011 edition of The Constitution ufacturing and moved to Charlotte in 1974 1990s of Liberty (University of Chicago Press), as general manager of aluminum extrusions originally published in 1960 by Friedrich at Hoover Ball Bearing Company, retiring Patrick M. Krolak, AB’93, died August 25 Hayek, Hamowy’s UChicago adviser. He in 1986. The general chair of the Charlotte in a car accident with his father, Patrick D. is survived by his companion, Clement Ho. Library Project, Hopkins was president of Krolak, SB’62 (see page 76) , and mother in the Charlotte Rotary Club and received an Duane, NY. He was 42. Krolak started his 1970s Outstanding Citizenship Award in 1982. career as a high-energy physics research as- He is survived by his wife, Jean; a daugh - sistant at Fermilab, Argonne National Lab, Michael Moffatt, AM’69, PhD’76, an ter; a son; two grandchildren; and one and CERN. Joining the City of Pittsburgh’s anthropologist, died November 26, 2011, great-grandchild. pension advisers, Marquette Associates, in Chapel Hill, NC. He was 67. Moffatt Earl Carlson II , MBA’73, died August in 1995, Krolak was managing director at spent his academic career at Rutgers Uni - 17 in Williams Bay, WI. He was 78. An the time of his death. He is survived by his versity, rising from adjunct lecturer to pro- Army veteran, Carlson spent 22 years as wife, Elizabeth; a daughter; a son; brother fessor and serving as department chair and research director for Amsted Industries, Michael Krolak, SB’98; and a sister. undergraduate and graduate director. His later becoming corporate metallurgist ethnographic study of the social and sexual and lead ISO auditor at Hudapack Metal 2010s lives of undergraduates, Coming of Age in Treating. He performed in local choirs as a New Jersey: College and American Culture baritone. He is survived by his wife, Joyce; Joshua Casteel, a Divinity School stu - (Rutgers University Press) was published four sons; two stepsons; a sister; and six dent, died of lung cancer August 25 in in 1989. Retiring as professor emeritus in grandchildren. New York. He was 32. After enlisting in 20 07, he continued work on a long-term re- Joanne Donohue Curran, AM’76, died the Army, Casteel was an interrogator search project on Indian Americans in New March 12, 2011, in Palatine, IL. She was at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, but he Jersey. He is survived by his wife, Pamela; 74. A proponent of education and lifelong later applied for conscientious objector two sons; and a sister. (This notice corrects learning, she was a children’s librarian ear- status and was honorably discharged in information in the July–Aug/12 issue.—Ed.) ly in her career. At 60 she received her PhD, 2005. Returning to the United States, he Daniel Friedlander, AM’70, died July 9 in writing her dissertation about Leo Tolstoy. received his MFA at the Iowa Playwrights Boulder, CO. He was 67. After teaching at She enjoyed photography, traveling, gar- Workshop and wrote two plays about his a community college, Friedlander worked dening, and watercolor painting. She is sur- experiences in Iraq, as well as a collection at IBM, Datapoint, and Novell before vived by a daughter, two sons, a brother, of essays, Letters from Abu Ghraib (Essay founding high-tech start-ups such as Pal- and two grandchildren. Press, 20 08). He is survived by his mother indrome and Timespring (two went public Seth M. Rosen, AB’79, of Westlake, OH, and two sisters. and three were sold). He was a founding drowned July 20 in North Carolina. He was Eric Kerestes, a Chicago Booth student, member of the Colorado Cleantech In- 55. The vice president of Communications died August 14 after being hit by a taxicab dustry Association in 2000 and served on Workers of America District 4, Rosen co- in Chicago. He was 30. While earning his its board until his death. Friedlander was founded the local Jobs with Justice chapter MBA in the evening program, Kerestes also an artist and an activist, helping to and created labor-community coalition was a district business solutions manager establish Shanahan Neighbors for Climate Stand Up for Ohio. Rosen also played at Chicago infrastructure firm Kiewit. He Action. He is survived by his wife, Diane swing guitar and mandolin in local bands. is survived by his wife, Tatijana Stafets Rosenthal, U-High’64; two sons; a sister; He is survived by his wife, Kathleen Thom- Kerestes, MBA’12; his parents; a brother; and three grandchildren. as Rosen, AB’77; a daughter; and a son. and a grandmother.

78 the university of chicago magazine | nov–dec 2012

Deaths_v6.indd 78 10/25/12 12:54 PM