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COVID-19 … BRENT STAPLES … RECESSION LIT … IMPROVING MEDICAL IMAGING … COACH OF COACHES SPRING 2020 1/30/20 8:54 AM1/30/20 8:54 AM

you visit a place? visit you Is it possible to feel to Is possible it nostalgic the first time first the nostalgic in the Heart of the South Carolina Lowcountry. KIAWAH GETS YOU GETS KIAWAH A Curated Collection of Homes and Homesites with Club Memberships kiawahisland.com/ivyleague | 866.312.1791 | kiawahisland.com/ivyleague Obtain the Property Report required by Federal Law and read it before signing anything.an No offer Federal or State to sell agency nor has a solicitation endorsed or judged the merits of offer of value, to if buy of any, this real property. estate This inAssociations is any not intended jurisdictionMinimisDe to with bea Cooperative Interest where (CPS-7). CPS-7 prohibitedTheapplication (FileHO16-0007)No. by law. Thisrelatedand offer documents obtained isbemay made fromsponsor.the pursuant Jersey Thisproject registeredDepartment is to thewithStateNewthe of NewofBanking York Stateand Insurance DepartmentReal Estate Commission. of Law’sObtain Simplifiedand read the NJ Public ProcedureOffering Statement for Homeownersbefore signing anything (NJ Reg#16-15-0011 and 0012). An affiliate of Kiawah Partners. UCH_Spring2020 cover and spine_v1.indd 1UCH_Spring2020 cover and spine_v1.indd 1 200319_Kiawah_Chicago.indd 1200319_Kiawah_Chicago.indd 1 UCH_ADS_v1.indd 2 5/13/20 1:16 PM EDITORˆS NOTES

VOLUME 112, NUMBER 3, SPRING 2020

EDITOR Laura Demanski, AM’94 SENIOR EDITOR Mary Ruth Yoe FROM A DISTANCE ASSOCIATE EDITOR Susie Allen, AB’09 MANAGING EDITOR Rhonda L. Smith ART DIRECTOR Guido Mendez ALUMNI NEWS EDITOR Andrew Peart, AM’16, PHD’18 BY LAURA DEMANSKI, AM’94 GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Laura Lorenz; Chloe Reibold CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Jeanie Chung; John Easton, AM’77; Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93; Lucas McGranahan; Brooke E. O’Neill, AM’04

Editorial Office The University of Chicago Magazine, 5235 South Harper Court, Chicago, IL 60615 rom the kitchen in my home, which now doubles as my office TELEPHONE 773.702.2163 and my everywhere else, I can look west at the peaks of the EMAIL [email protected] south end of campus—Rockefeller Chapel’s bell tower rising The University of Chicago Alumni Association has its offices at 5235 South Harper Court, above the rooftops, the light towers illuminating the bridges Chicago, IL 60615 that cross the Midway by night, the blocky silo of the Logan TELEPHONE 773.702.2150 ADDRESS CHANGES 800.955.0065 or Center beyond. It’s a lovely vista, especially when the sun [email protected] is setting. But I’m sure I’ve never stared at it like I have this WEB mag.uchicago.edu spring—not for as long, nor the same way. The University of Chicago Magazine The sight is freighted with melancholy now, with everything emptied (ISSN-0041-9508) is published quarterly (Fall, Fout while the life of the campus is on pause. But there’s reassurance in Winter, Spring, Summer) by the University of Chicago in cooperation with the Alumni the view as well. As a colleague put it to me after he’d visited the quads Association, 5235 South Harper Court, one evening before the stay-at-home order, even with campus at its Chicago, IL 60615, and sent to all University of quietest, the lights of UChicago are being kept on for us. Chicago alumni. Published continuously since 1907. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago and A few words about this issue, which we finished in early May from additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER Send several locations around Chicago, with understanding of COVID-19 address changes to The University of Chicago Magazine, Alumni Records, 5235 South changing daily. It reaches you right around the time that, under normal Harper Court, Chicago, IL 60615. © 2020 circumstances, we’d see many of you on the quads for Alumni Week- University of Chicago end. That event is now being planned as a virtual one, Alumni Weekend Advertising Contact uchicago-magazine at Home. Until you and your classmates can come together in person @uchicago.edu or visit mag.uchicago.edu/ again, I hope you’ll look to the Magazine to stay in touch. Let your fellow advertising. The Magazine is a member of the Ivy League Magazine Network, whose clients Maroons know how you are by writing to your class correspondent or to include other colleges and universities. These us directly at [email protected]. At the moment we’re advertisements help the Magazine continue to deliver news of the University of Chicago and getting our snail mail irregularly, so email is the best bet for reaching us its alumni to readers. Please contact the editor with your news or letter to the editor. with any questions. In the meantime we’ll plan future issues to bring you the usual stories IVY LEAGUE MAGAZINE NETWORK Heather Wedlake, Director of Operations about faculty, alumni, and more, alongside news of how the University TELEPHONE 617.319.0995 WEB ivymags.com community is responding to the pandemic. In the COVID-19 section in EMAIL [email protected] this issue, “Together in Spirit” (page 26), we offer a bird’s-eye view of The University does not discriminate on some aspects of that response: the most critical institutional decisions; the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual how the University is helping its neighbors on the South Side; what’s orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a happening at UChicago Medicine; how faculty and students are adapt- disability, protected veteran status, genetic ing to remote education; and a glance at some of the earliest ideas and information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information, please see research of faculty who have shifted their thinking to the pandemic equalopportunity.uchicago.edu. and its consequences. In the Summer/20 issue and beyond we’ll cover many of these subjects in greater depth. Every one of us at the Magazine wishes every one of you safety and ©istock.com/blindspot Photography by John Zich good health in the months before we next show up in your mailbox. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 1

UCM_Ednotes_Spring20_v1.indd 1 5/15/20 3:48 PM Vol. 112 / No. 3 SPRING 2020 mag.uchicago.edu

Hyde Park on hold Spring Quarter was a quieter one on much of campus as the community took protective measures against the COVID-19 outbreak. For more on the

University’s response to the pandemic, see “Together in Spirit,” page 26. Zich John by Photography On the cover: In his first official University address, President William Rainey Harper called for an intellectual community united in spirit. We take heart in the values that hold UChicagoans together not only across differences of opinion but across physical distances too. Illustration by Elvis Swift.

Spring 2020 TOC_v2.indd 2 5/15/20 4:57 PM 1 Editor’s Notes 4 Letters 9 On the Agenda

Features

Crash course By Sean Carr, AB’90 22 College students examine ideas and stories of the 2008 Great Recession.

A coach’s coach By Jeanie Chung Soccer player Len Oliver, PhD’70, put his own spin on teaching the sport and 24 training its leaders.

Together in spirit By Magazine staff 26 How the University is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

28 Ready, set, go 30 Learning curve 32 Quick thinking 33 Beautiful somethings 34 Gallery view 36 Into the woods 37 A community together

Image of health By Maureen Searcy Professor and entrepreneur Maryellen Giger, PhD’85, brings computer- 38 aided breast cancer detection and diagnosis from bench to bedside.

Between the lines By Laura Demanski, AM’94 Brent Staples, AM’76, PhD’82, goes behind the work that earned him one 46 of journalism’s highest honors. Plus: One of Staples’s Pulitzer-winning columns, “The Legacy of Monticello’s Black First Family.” Photography by John Zich John by Photography 11 51 UChicago Journal Peer Review Research and What alumni are news in brief thinking and doing

Spring 2020 TOC_v2.indd 3 5/15/20 6:50 PM The University of Chicago Magazine welcomes letters about its contents or about the life of the University. Letters for publication must be signed and may be edited for space, clarity, Seeking leaders who and civility. To provide a range of views and voices, we encourage letter writers to limit LETTERS themselves to 300 words or fewer. While the Magazine staff works remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, please send letters via email: [email protected]. want to change the world.

technical feat. After the mov- Oh, and my favorite film? 2001: A Space ie, we’d trek to Jimmy’s and Odyssey. And yes, I saw it at Quantrell. chew over what we’d seen, Ted Dupont, AB’77 washed down by pitchers MONTCLAIR, NEW JERSEY of beer and that trademark Jimmy’s popcorn designed to make you drink even The Winter/20 issue was one of the more beer. most varied and enjoyable in some One Quantrell moment time. I particularly liked “Poster stands out: after a feature Perfect,” on Dwight M. Cleveland’s (can’t remember which), (MBA’87) collection of film posters. Doc showed a short film, Introducing the collection, Andrew obviously homemade, of Peart, AM’16, PhD’18, writes about a cars barreling down Hyde rare poster for the silent picture Men Park streets, accompanied of Steel, starring Milton Sills, AB 1903, by the screeching violin EX 1904, and Doris Kenyon, actress crescendo from Psycho. daughter of a Methodist minister. It No further information. surprises me that the Magazine did Keay Nathan by Photography Library. Chicago of University Center, Research Collections Special Records, Group, Film Documentary I wonder if anyone else not pick up on Sills’s close relationship Kate Coleman remembers that. with the University of Chicago. In 1978 I was in the A local boy from a wealthy back- audience when Frank ground, he attended and graduated MBA, UChicago Capra appeared at the from the U of C in the late 1890s/ Law School for a screening of It’s a early 1900s and even taught philoso- ALI, Harvard Deeper into movies Wonderful Life. I was surprised to phy at the school for a while. Visit- The Winter/20 issue’s focus on cinema learn from him that this classic was ing the University as a lecturer, actor was more than welcome—and made initially a box-office dud. Donald Robertson convinced Sills me realize anew how my Hyde Park In the spring of 1973, the big windup to to give up teaching and join his the- years (1973–78) were shaped by the the very limited social calendar at Lower ater company. Success on the stage, movies I saw there. Flint in Woodward Court was a dorm- including Broadway, spawned a still First, thanks are in order to Doc sponsored trip to the big fancy McClurg more successful film career. Accord- Films, the pioneering student orga- Court Cinema in the North Loop to see ing to Jeanine Basinger in Silent Stars nization that brought the world’s cin- Last Tango in Paris. This was a road (Knopf, 1999), Sills was “the strong ema treasures to campus. As winter show 70 mm screening, with reserved- silent type” and ranked with the arrived, the wind whipped and the seat tickets purchased in advance. Hard likes of John Barrymore and Thomas Chicago campus turned shades of to imagine any of this happening now. Meighan as “a major star.” Sills wrote gray, the coziest and most exciting The U of C bookstore was also an the screenplay for Men of Steel as well place to be on a Friday or Saturday important resource for cineastes. I as starring in it. night was Cobb Hall’s Quantrell Audi- bought my first Pauline Kael review The year the picture debuted, Sills The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative aims to deploy a new force of experienced torium. Straw Dogs, The Story of Adèle collection, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Little, divorced English actress Gladys Edith leaders tackling the world’s most challenging social and environmental problems. H., Out of the Past, A Clockwork Or- Brown, 1968), in its well-stocked film Wynne and married Men of Steel costar ange, Blow-Up … I remember each of section. The bookstore also had a small Kenyon. Their son was born soon after. Learn more at advancedleadership.harvard.edu or 617-496-5479. them vividly. Doc had a knack for pro- camera shop, where I bought a Kodak In 1930 Sills, then 48, died suddenly gramming classics with recent com- Super-8 Ektasound movie camera. I of a heart attack playing tennis with mercial films (before indie cinema was soon filming classmates in the Kenyon at their Los Angeles home. A and at a time when Hollywood was Woodward courtyard. true Hollywood tale to be sure: plus ça at its artistic high point). And while My obsession with film has contin- change, plus c’est la même chose! Doc showed only 16 mm films, many ued my whole life, but it was fueled Jamie S. Scott, PhD’90 were in wide-screen—an impressive during those formative years. TORONTO

4 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

2019.11.15_ALI_Ivy_Ad_Chicago.indd 1 11/15/19 11:41 AM UCH_SpringLetters_v4.indd 4 5/14/20 6:46 PM 200110_ALI_Chicago.indd 1 11/19/19 10:31 AM Seeking leaders who want to change the world. Documentary Film Group, Records, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Photography by Nathan Keay Nathan by Photography Library. Chicago of University Center, Research Collections Special Records, Group, Film Documentary Kate Coleman MBA, UChicago ALI, Harvard

The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative aims to deploy a new force of experienced leaders tackling the world’s most challenging social and environmental problems.

Learn more at advancedleadership.harvard.edu or 617-496-5479.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 5

2019.11.15_ALI_Ivy_Ad_Chicago.indd 1 11/15/19 11:41 AM UCH_SpringLetters_v4.indd 5 5/14/20 6:46 PM 200110_ALI_Chicago.indd 1 11/19/19 10:31 AM Photography by Gavin Clarke (CC BY-NC 2.0) BY-NC (CC Clarke Gavin by Photography

Copyright: Deep in the Pocket, 2018 . ------5/14/20 6:49 PM5/14/20 6:49 PM con : ‘She seemed . Moreover, it was it my . Moreover, Fred Hahn Fred Hilleman’s gift Hilleman’s WINNETKA, ILLINOIS WINNETKA, while staying to due home in two1999 (and years be SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA James P. Stewart,James P. MBA’89 ’s editor at the editor time.’s —Ed. I amI sure not what can to be done may alsoYou be interested that the The facts The are thatthe editor Triof fore) was my wife,fore) Susan Firestone Hahn, Reginald not Gibbons, had who been the editor time at one was but er roneously referred to as editor in the Times New York wifeobtained who the novella through personal her relationship with How land, and there was reluctance no at all the on part Howland of to have it published. cajolingNo was necessary by reason their of relationship and the high praise my wife had the for piece. correct the improper claim credit of for the publication the of novella by Gib is it importantbons. However, to my wife, and to me, that the record be clear. particular issue TriQuarterly of sisted fourof novellaswrit by women ers, something which, to the best our of knowledge, had been not before. done Quarterly theliterary magazine TriQuarterly The editorThe had into her to cajole it, he Times thetold New York doubtful the of worth what of hadshe anddone what was of she doing, and wasshe reluctant to be published.’” We have updated the storyWe online to clarify that Gibbons was not TriQuar terly Catching recent on issues up the of Magazine the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized “Byhow the Dozens” was (Fall/19) published slightly ahead time. of This article should be republished to remind vaccinespeople how mitigate help pan- demics. Most interesting to me: “The pandemic flu 1957–58 killed as many as two million people worldwide, about 70,000 in the United States.” We haven’t heard about much that one, and soonhow forget. we would be nice It to know Reed if Walter Army Institute is taking Mauriceon Hilleman’s (PhD’44) tradition vaccine. a to develop Thank you for your writing. ------CHICAGO PORTAGE, MICHIGAN PORTAGE, Michael Krischer, AM’72Michael Blue in ChicagoBlue in (Harper & Row, ; “In 1999 [Howland] published her She loved theShe mental challenge greatestHer desire was to become wasI distraught after learning of uniqueHer stylewas exhibited in Remembering Bette Howland Bette Remembering Jeffrey Steinberg,(Jay) AB’55, AB’56 would be a disaster. Is this what the writer meantby “income”? There isThere falsea statement in yourrecent article “Howland’s Gift” that has been circulating years for and needs to be cor rected. statement The reads as follows: finalpieceof creativework, novella the ‘Calm Sea and Prosperous in Voyage,’ 1978); and other1978); writings—but, alas, not as many as she, and we, hoped to see. Unfortunately, the $2,300 was not the film’s profit but itsrevenue. Nelam reportedHill this as “income” vari in ous correspondence. appreciate We Krischer’s bringing the ambiguity to our attention.—Ed. “Howland’s Gift” was (Fall/19) a sen- timentally nostalgic tribute to Bette Howland,AB’55, a wonderful person, wonderful writer, and wonderful friend. Bette Lee Sotonoff and- I en tered the College was in She 1952. an early entrant three years younger than peers,her more socially but and intel lectually mature than most. the Collegeof old Core subjects and displayed early signs unique her of writingstyle in fervently her written essays. became We study friends and would struggle together through the mounds reading of materials to pre pare quarterly for exams comps. or anaccomplished, acclaimed author of, hopefully, Prize–quality Nobel novels. nearher death and was relieved when calledshe to invite to me As visit her. recountsshe in the latter part W-3 of my wife(Viking, and I joined 1974), the multitude friends old of at who tempted to reassure ability her of her to reenter the writing and world real ize goals. her W-3

SPRING 2020 SPRING | - - - - Magazine

with its risqué Hedy (Banyan Tree Books, Hedy days Hedy Profit or loss? or Profit LETTERS Ecstasy BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA BERKELEY, Donald R. Anderson, AB’57 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE My best friend, Ernest Hartman, Ernest friend, best My 6 I enjoyed HannahI enjoyed Edgar’s (AB’18) as Cri“Jazz Coeur” de (Winter/20) because the writer clearly explained a point one complicated issue. However, clarificationof regarding the film’s financial results: a profit $2,300 of wouldn’t $8,600 of expenses against be toobad, total but $2,300 of revenue The cover of the of cover The Winter/20 reminds my days of me in the 1950s in Doc Films with Fred C. Smith, AB’54, AB’55, visited who me when I was a grad student at the Univer sity Vienna of and later became an Armyand officer, Ernest Callenbach, AM’53, later who wrotePhB’49, Eco topia: The Notebooks and Reports of Weston William Our1975). pattern at Doc was to run our budget down showing great films and then to build our treasury by up showing Lamarr appearance, which the Ameri can Legion would picket, drawing re audiences.cord AB’52,was roommatea Marcus of Raskin, AB’54, gave who piano JD’57, lessonsto Philip Glass, AB’56, and to on cofoundwent the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. I’m in retirement near the University of California, where I volunteer Berkeley, and audit classes. UCH_SpringLetters_v4.indd 6UCH_SpringLetters_v4.indd 6 Local fiddle player, All-Ireland win- Donald J. Bingle, AB’76, JD’79, Former ON THE AGENDA ner, and celebrated composer Liz Car- Keeper of The World’s Largest Kazoo), roll has her recordings available online about the size of a canoe, plus anyone INVESTING IN INQUIRY AND IMPACT at lizcarroll.com. They are all great. I in the audience who had his or her own BY ROBERT J. ZIMMER PRESIDENT genuinely couldn’t pick one, though I actual kazoo and decided to walk onto e launched the Universi- pectations for them or their families. ty of Chicago Campaign: We have also received many gifts that have written about Lost in the Loop the field—and probably even anyone Inquiry and Impact— have dramatically increased our ca- the most ambitious and pacity to offer financial aid to interna- and Lake Effect as being particularly who didn’t have a kazoo but wanted to comprehensive cam- tional College students. Professional paign in University his- student scholarships and significantly tory—with the goal of expanded funding for doctoral stu- of Chicago in terms of performing place participate. (I forget, but perhaps a few engaging our full com- dents have supported the University’s munity in support of effort to bring the highest caliber of and identity. Clare fiddle player Martin actual kazoos were handed out.) The the University’s aspirations, built upon students to campus independent of Wthe foundation of our distinctive and background and need, and to support enduring values. their work. About $800 million was Hayes lived in Chicago for a number of announcer, or maybe the bandleader, Thanks to the dedication of that raised to support these enhancements community, I am pleased to announce to financial support for our students. years and started up a musical friend- then said that the “band” should il- that the campaign exceeded our am- The campaign has also enabled us bitious goals and helped lay a strong law, business, policy, education, and to dramatically expand careers pro- foundation for the University’s future. study of and impact on urban environ- grams that allow the University to ship with Chicagoan and guitarist Denis lustrate Brownian motion, and the Through the end of 2019, the campaign ments; or through analyzing cultures provide a broad array of experiences raised $5.43 billion, surpassing both and the creation of meaning through and opportunities that help students Cahill. The Lonesome Touch is a beau- band members tooted their kazoos and our original target of $4.5 billion and the humanities, arts, and the academic connect their distinctive University of our expanded $5 billion goal. study of religion. Importantly, facul- Chicago education to their future life. The University also announced a ty are also pursuing understanding Likewise, support for facilities tiful album and is full of what James milled around in random directions, as public goal to engage 125,000 of our across these traditional boundaries. and activities of global engagement, alumni by 2019. During the campaign At the same time, working together particularly through our centers and Cowdery referred to as the neaaa in did The World’s Largest Kazoo. over 134,000—more than 70 percent— with students, they provide a trans- campuses in Beijing, Hong Kong, Del- of our 182,000 alumni engaged withIt’s formative a trad,education, one trad,that devel- hi,trad, Paris, and London trad and in programsworld Irish music, that sense of longing. Chi- the University. ops in students the intellectual skills across the world; for our commitment Paul R. Birnberg, AB’72 Today and throughout its history, and habits of mind to enable them to to the city of Chicago and the South the University of Chicago has benThank- confront complex you problems for across the the articleSide; and for the about enhancement differ of the - cago band Bohola (named after a vil- MINNEAPOLIS efited from committed volunteers range of human endeavor. University as an intellectual destina- and generous philanthropic supportent- Criticalcultures to this campaign of has Irish been tion music has been critical throughout as a foundation lage in County Mayo) is really good and ers. Their investments in research, a focus on expanded financial support for the University’s expanding reach in education, and impact reflect a shared for students. The basis for this focus education, research, and impact. commitment to the University and theits was world a deep commitment (“Reel to making Culture,” There is of course Winter/20). much more to do has numerous recordings under its belt. enduring values of intellectual chal- the University’s education available to in the future. But the results of this lenge, diversity of background and perI- havethose who couldplayed most benefit infrom andIrish campaign trad make evident sessions the enthusi- in And if you want to connect with a highly Rah to the nth! spectives, and freedom of expression. contribute to our singularly rigorous astic support of the University of Chi- I want to express my deep apprecia- intellectual environment independent cago community. I am deeply grateful tion to our faculty, students, alumni,different of their family’s financialplaces situation. in thefor your generosityUnited and commitment.States, but skilled musician and local instrumental “Tales of Good Cheer” reminded me of parents, friends, staff, and trustees. Central to this effort was the Universi- Your collective investment in the Uni- Your investment supports scholarsI havety’s flagship never Odyssey Program, played which aversity session lays the foundation in Ireland. for sup- teacher, fiddle player Sean Cleland is a song we performed in the 1950s at one who challenge assumptions, continu- started with an anonymous gift and porting our highest aspirations now ally push boundaries, define new fields which we were able to systematically and in the coming decades—in trans- of study, and have profound impact—Peopleincrease in scopehave thanks totold sustained me formative that, discoveries while and approaches, many well worth listening to. of the annual beer parties organized whether in understanding the natural philanthropy for its goals. Because of a deeply empowering education, and world through science, engineering,Irish this cascade sessions of gifts, we are nowin able the impact United on enriching humanStates life—in are Here in Ireland, I’d recommend any- by Saunders Mac Lane, AM’31, chair and medicine; our social structures to meet domestic College students’ Chicago, across the nation, and around Photography by Jason Smith Jason by Photography through the social science disciplines,sticklers full financial need for with ano debthighly ex- the world. “traditional” Thank you. ◆ ap- thing from Raelach Records, including of the graduate math department: proach to the musicTHE UNIVERSITY OFand CHICAGO MAGAZINEresist | WINTER less 2020 15tra- Ensemble Eirú, the band featuring the ditional instruments or styles, sessions label owner and brilliant concertina C stands for C-star Algebra; UCM_OntheAgenda_Winter20_v1.indd 15 in Ireland tend to be more accepting2/26/20 8:49 of AM player, Jack Talty. Also check out The H stands for Hilbert Space; diverse instruments and styles in in- Gloaming for their compelling band ar- I stands for Integration, a course terpreting the tunes. If this is so, it pre- rangements and This Is How We Fly for that we cannot face; sents an interesting perspective on the their innovative use of percussive dance C stands for Category; question of Irish identity forged around as part of their contemporary folk music A for Associative Law; trad music, in Ireland and abroad. Full soundscape. All-female band The Henry G but we’re weary of Galois Theory; disclosure: My favorite session is in Girls offer beautiful subtle arrangements O, orthonormal; oh, we’re Burlington, Vermont, where we are and lifting sets. Finally, as an example of Conformal; very open to diverse instruments and traditional musicians for these unprec- Oh, what a school we’re in! styles. Also, I’m neither Irish nor Irish edented times that is edgy and impas- American myself. sioned, Lankum will rock your world. The mathematical terms can be found Deborah Cafiero, AB’89 For more online resources, check out on Wikipedia. BURLINGTON, VERMONT the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Morris “Moe” Hirsch, SM’54, PhD’58 Dublin and the podcasts from Templebar CROSS PLAINS, WISCONSIN Tradfest, which I’m currently research- I thoroughly enjoyed “Reel Culture.” ing for a three-year project. Finally, in My request: please ask Aileen Dillane, the spirit of your namesake, the Ward Bring it on PhD’09, to recommend her favorite CD Archives in Milwaukee has a wonder- Since thorough research and factual of traditional Irish music—something ful online collection of music connecting accuracy are among the hallmarks of that may be easily available. Irish and Irish American heritages. a U of C education, I feel compelled Robert M. Ward to belabor discussion of a topic (one MANCHESTER, MICHIGAN that has already garnered more than Copyright: Deep in the Pocket, 2018 Pocket, the in Deep Copyright: The great kazoo enough coverage) with a firsthand ac- I have an addition to the letters about count—namely, the “alleged” Themis- Aileen Dillane responds the Themistocles, Thucydides cheer tocles, Thucydides cheer. Thank you for your query, impossible and the kazoo band (“Tales of Good Coming from a woefully traditional as it is (like asking me to name my fa- Cheer,” the Core, Winter/20). I recall environment in the western suburbs vorite child)! One of the best ways I can the halftime of one football game I at- of Chicago, I was the first graduate of think about limiting my answer to a few tended. The marching kazoo band took my high school to attend the College CDs is by focusing on Chicago. So here the field. The “band” was a big wooden (1959–63) in many years. Finding the

Photography by Gavin Clarke BY-NC (CC 2.0) it goes. model of a kazoo (the one mentioned by campus culture stimulating but rather

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 7

UCH_SpringLetters_v4.indd 7 5/14/20 6:50 PM UCH_SpringLetters_v4.indd 8 yell for? yell who you to going for, for,Who why / H2Y2 H2SO4 / War Peloponnesian Thermopylae, Themistocles, ’60s, as opposed to later in the decade. decade. the in later to opposed as ’60s, early the in appearance its made tually ac chant erudite suitably this record, the War.” correct to just So, ponnesian Pelo the Thucydides, “Themistocles, including sidelines, on the cheered and bounded squad height-challenged our seasons, successful wildly enjoyed its 4'11" 5'2".) to from height in ranged squad of our members half-dozen the since though, reused, were ever forms uni these whether (It’s questionable skirts! maroon-and-white pleated and logo “C” the with emblazoned sweaters white uniforms: cheerleader fide for bona funds authorized versity Uni the more astonishing, even haps Per chosen. was competition) little relatively (with out and order,in Itried was squad of acheerleading formation someone decided When quarterfinals. national Division College 1961 NCAA the it to make would that team ketball abas assembled AB’41, had Stampf, Joseph but Coach era, Hutchins post- the during downplayed being tracurricular activities. ex mundane more and familiar in ing engag by I compensated intimidating, 8 com placement and our BA: Hutchins or 1957–58. 1956–57 in College at Shimer student second-year or first- a as for?” for, yell to who you going for, /Who whyWar H2SO4 /H2Y2 Peloponnesian Thermopylae, tocles, “Themis chanted and learned I first Nevertheless, as the basketball team team basketball the as Nevertheless, were still sports Intercollegiate At that time, Shimer offered the the offered Shimer time, that At THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE MAGAZINE CHICAGO OF UNIVERSITY THE Barbara Yerges Wilson, AB’63 Yerges Wilson, Barbara LETTERS ST. LOUIS ST. ------| SPRING 2020 ego marches on.” marches ego forever/ The /Sensuality forever ogy /Anthropol forever “Sociology was, id.” The of chorus the triumph of the glory the seen have eyes “Mine gan, be and Republic” of the Hymn Battle of “The tune the to sung was One C. Uof atthe originated have might and curriculum Core Hutchins the to tied were closely that at Shimer learned ’50s. late the in Chicago at chant the used students the whether Idon’t ,so know events sports no year. Iattended 1958–59 academic other. one or the it was but I’m guessing institution, mother the infiltrated that chant or aShimer dents, stu Shimer by adapted chant UChicago a was chant the whether I don’t know elsewhere. applying before centration con- complete or to aUChicago school for graduate or went there UChicago to transferred entrants) early the ticularly (par students Shimer many because too, institutions the between contact alot of informal There was setting. asmall-college in workability its test initiate the Hutchins curriculum and to Illinois, Carroll, Mt. to sent been had faculty Shimer of some the and office; admissions UChicago the with coordinated were admissions Shimer atUChicago; set was curriculum the go; UChica at were read exams prehensive pictures in the Core the in pictures Core the with gether Winter/20 the receive to delighted Iwas demic, - pan the home at during Quarantined 1947 and 1951. 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The articles in the mail to mail the in ------/philosophybowl. mag.uchicago.edu in 1949,place visit took notes, he as which, Bowl, Philosophy the of account Wax’sFor full Bernard time. that at Iplayed which on team of the amember EX’48, was Asner, Ed actor the that fact the tion - atten your to I’d bring to like enough, Interestingly Library. Historical State linois History 1961 in for Il this about astory wrote I of time. period for abrief only if ball, foot back bringing in were interested who schools undergraduate of the bers mem it comprised And game. Bowl 1949,ber when we held a Philosophy Novem in time, the at were students of people who agroup by University the to back sport the bring to attempt of of an mention absence aglaring be to seems there and teams, football cago’s of Chi University the regarding story the received just I’ve All the best through these trying days! trying these through best the All interviewers. and writers talented your Uof C. play it the at to person last the been have Imay so Bowl, Philosophy the after sold shortly it was Ithink occasion. for the it down and we brought field house, the cony in on abal for years storage in been had The drum on Big Bertha. beat to got sweater) “C” and Maroon and pants (white cheerleader afootball as served but I team, track for me?) on the Iwas Thanks for the memories and for and memories for the Thanks Bernard Wax, AB’50, AM’55 AB’50, Wax, Bernard Hugh Brodkey, AB’51, JD’54 AB’51, Brodkey, Hugh BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS EVANSTON, ILLINOIS , published by the Illinois Illinois the by , published —Ed. Core with its its with 5/14/20 6:50 PM

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UChicago Photographic Archive, apf4-01701, University of Chicago Library Chicago of University apf4-01701, Archive, Photographic UChicago

Illustration by Drone Media Chicago; UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-05339, University of Chicago Library ON THE AGENDA

A MESSAGE TO OUR COMMUNITY

BY ROBERT J. ZIMMER PRESIDENT

he University of Chicago’s is showing similar resilience, serious- eminence and distinctiveness ness of purpose, and commitment to are rooted in our commit- having a positive impact on society and ment to providing our stu- the world. To one extent or another, all dents with the most rigorous of you have been affected by, and are and empowering education responding to, the COVID-19 pandem- and to providing our faculty ic in your lives and work: as health care with the research environ- professionals, as educators, as leaders ment that will support their in the public and private sectors, and most original and impactful work. as informed and engaged citizens. All TThis has always been realized through of us on campus take pride in your col- key values that inform every aspect of lective contributions as the world faces our education and research activities: this pandemic. freedom of inquiry and expression, Finally, I am deeply grateful for the engagement of diverse backgrounds generosity and solidarity that have and perspectives, constant intellec- marked the University community’s tual challenge, rigor of analysis, and the health and safety of students, fac- response to this crisis. Many of you seriousness of intellectual purpose. ulty, and staff, and acting responsibly have supported the efforts of the Uni- Over the past 130 years our University in the face of the public health chal- versity’s frontline health care work- has faced numerous challenges, and lenge our societies confront. ers, both financially and by providing through them all the University’s com- Using a range of technologies, fac- medical equipment and supplies; you mitment to these values has endured. ulty and students have found new have contributed to our new Partner- The COVID-19 pandemic, with its ways to cultivate and sustain vigorous ing for Community Impact initiative, far-reaching societal impact around argumentation and debate. Teams at enabling us to do more to support our the globe, poses significant challenges the University of Chicago Medicine South Side neighbors; and you have in- for the University through its direct and in other areas of the University vested in the Odyssey Scholarship Pro- impact on the collaborative and en- have played critical roles in combat- gram and other aid initiatives, helping gaged teaching, study, scholarship, and ing the pandemic at the local, state, address the increased needs of current investigation at the heart of our work. national, and global levels. The Uni- and incoming students. The work that traditionally takes place versity has launched programs to Your dedication to the University in our classrooms, libraries, and labo- support our neighbors on the South of Chicago and to the ongoing task of ratories has been temporarily replaced Side of Chicago, whose lives have been preserving and realizing its mission by remote work and learning. This deeply affected by the pandemic and through our enduring values has long has been a difficult transition for our its economic and social consequences. been essential to this institution’s schol- students and their families, as well as We have reaffirmed our deep commit- arship, students, and impact on the for our faculty and staff. Nevertheless, ment to making our transformative, world. Today, that commitment means members of the University community empowering education accessible to more than ever as we work to meet the —on campus and around the world— the most talented students indepen- challenges confronting all of us. I thank have responded swiftly and creatively dent of their financial need. you for your continued engagement and to ensure that the University continues Around the world, the community of support, and hope you and your fami-

Photography by Jason Smith Jason by Photography to fulfill its mission while protecting UChicago alumni, parents, and friends lies are well and stay safe. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 9

UCM_OntheAgenda_Spring20_v2.indd 9 5/15/20 2:29 PM

Seattle Art Museum, and Peabody Essex Museum. Detail of installation view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA. Museum © Photo: Art. of Museum County Angeles Los the at view installation of Detail Museum. Essex Peabody and Museum, Art Seattle

united nations: american code american nations: united , 2019, human and synthetic hair. Commissioned by the Smart Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art, of Museum County Angeles Los Art, of Museum Smart the by Commissioned hair. synthetic and human 2019, , wenda, gu

Credit 5/14/20 5:46 PM5/14/20 5:46 PM SPRING 2020 SPRING | THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE 10 UCJ Spring 2020 V11.indd 10UCJ Spring 2020 V11.indd 10 11 5/13/20 3:27 PM5/13/20 3:27 PM SPRING 2020 SPRING | at the at 21 Valentine Broadway using hair collected from ART MATTERS ART Artist gu wenda created united nations: code american States. United the around barbershops The piece was featured in of Allure The China from Art Material Matter: Smart Museum. A companion website behind- includes (theallureofmatter.org) the-scenes images and interviews with the artists. For more ways to connect with UChicago from afar, see page 18. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE 16 wheels Sociology on 14 for non-for A church church A

RESEARCH AND NEWS IN BRIEF churchgoers

12 action Ethics in

UCHICAGO JOURNAL UCHICAGO

Seattle Art Museum, and Peabody Essex Museum. Detail of installation view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA. Museum © Photo: Art. of Museum County Angeles Los the at view installation of Detail Museum. Essex Peabody and Museum, Art Seattle

united nations: american code american nations: united gu wenda, wenda, gu , 2019, human and synthetic hair. Commissioned by the Smart Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art, of Museum County Angeles Los Art, of Museum Smart the by Commissioned hair. synthetic and human 2019, , UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 11UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 11

Credit

for parents for Monthly suggestions, Monthly suggestions, strategies, and stories and stories strategies, Parental Guidance Parental each month A small selection μChicago of science stories stories of science Sign up today for one, two, or all three. two, one, for Sign up today lumni.uchicago.edu/signup a straight to your in-box. your to straight issues with our free newsletters. with our free Magazine issues between in the know Stay Get the best of UChicago, UChicago, of best the Get Short List Research you can you Research use, UChicagoans in use, every other Tuesday every the news, and more— and more— the news, PHILOSOPHY Held on the Saturday before the Super lar plantation never had slaves, or does Bowl, the event is about scoring points the broader legacy of the plantation sys- through feats of intellect and persuasion tem spoil the idea inherently? Should The rather than physical prowess. the couple consider how the choice of The team from Walter Payton Col- venue affects their family members and examined life lege Preparatory High School has al- other guests? ready won the coin toss and opted to Later, in a round of questions from Winning Words prepares go first. After rereading the case (the judges, UChicago philosophy PhD teams have seen it before in practice) student Kévin Irakóze pushes further: high schoolers for an epic and discussing it among themselves “Should the houses be abandoned, ethics competition. for the allotted two minutes, the three should they be burned?” team members advance their position: Not necessarily: the plantation could BY LUCAS MCGRANAHAN the wedding plan is unethical, espe- be converted into a museum, akin to a cially since the case specifies that the Holocaust museum, the Walter Payton “Is it disrespectful to the victims of couple is aware of having family who team suggests. slavery to celebrate a wedding on a for- benefited from the plantation’s history Ethics bowl is not a debate. Teams mer slave plantation?” asks Jacob Blitz, of slavery. do not start with a conclusion and Class of 2020, in a Cobb Hall classroom. In a response period, the oppos- work backward to justify it at all costs. He’s not posing the question to class- ing team from Daniel Hale Williams They formulate a position in real time, mates or a professor. He’s addressing Preparatory School of Medicine—a refining their viewpoint by consid- two teams of high schoolers at the fifth Bronzeville public school—pushes ering challenges from the opposing annual Chicago Regional High School them to clarify their view. Would the team and from a panel of judges. The Ethics Bowl competition. wedding be acceptable if this particu- opposing teams need not have oppos- Photography by Bart Schultz, PhD’87

Students face off at the fifth annual Chicago Regional High School Ethics Bowl. Unlike debate, teams don’t take opposing stances on issues. In fact, they can score points by helping to clarify and deepen their opponents’ arguments.

12 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 12 5/13/20 3:28 PM QUICK STUDY

ing arguments; they can gain points by teams, the Winning Words interns are helping add nuance and depth to each a critical resource. COMPUTER SCIENCE other’s views. As the scoring guide- Ira Abrams, AB’90, an English teacher lines state, “Listening to the other at Daniel Hale Williams, praises intern team with an aim to affirm, supple- Gabriel Sánchez Ainsa, Class of 2022, for Read now ment, or build on their argument is a his work supporting a group of engaged prudent approach.” students who formed a team this year: In other words, functional civil society. “Rain, snow, or shine he bused it out to —before High school ethics bowls are rela- 49th and Wabash to meet with us ev- tively new: intercollegiate competi- ery week, … and miraculously, all seven it’s gone! tions came first, in the 1990s, with students stuck with this weird activity high school contests following in 2012. all the way through the regionals at the More than one in Today the National High School Eth- beginning of February.” 10 retail websites ics Bowl championship, held annually Senior Takeisha Washington appre- use aggressive and at the University of North Carolina at ciated the effort and her ethics bowl sometimes deceptive Chapel Hill, draws teams from 39 re- experience: “It gave me more insight tactics to get you to gional competitions around the coun- into what it means to be in a competi- buy more, according try, including the one in Chicago. tive academic environment.” to a study from Ethics Bowl was the brainchild of For a handful of teams, the road to researchers including Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) regionals included a practice round computer scientist philosophy professor Robert Ladenson. hosted on South Campus the previous Marshini Chetty. But the current vibrant high school week by UChicago’s Office of Special These so-called dark ethics bowl scene in Chicago can be Programs–College Prep. After an over- patterns include traced largely to the work of one UChi- view of college readiness resources by such ploys as false cago faculty member: Bart Schultz, OSP–CP director Dovetta McKee, the countdown clocks on PhD’87, senior lecturer in philosophy teams sharpened their skills in some a particular deal and and director of the Civic Knowledge scrimmages: Is it disrespectful to signing you up for Project (CKP). Schultz leads CKP’s walk a dog in a cemetery where no one recurring payments Winning Words program, which pre- has been buried for decades? Should pares students for ethics bowl competi- the state impose chemotherapy on a under the pretense tions, in collaboration with Kelly Laas, 17-year-old patient who refuses treat- of a free trial. The librarian/information researcher at ment? They’ll face some of these ques- research, published IIT’s Center for the Study of Ethics. tions in the real competition, but they in the November Winning Words mobilizes its in- don’t know which ones. 2019 Proceedings terns, mostly College students, to fos- When it came to regionals, only one of the ACM on ter philosophical conversation among team could emerge victorious: after sev- Human-Computer students as young as second graders, eral rounds full of note-taking, huddled Interaction, used a with a focus on underserved commu- discussion, and sallies of dialogue—plus new web-crawling nities on the South Side. Instruction a lunch break for pizza—Walter Payton tool to analyze more sites include public schools, as well as College Prep had broken away from the than 50,000 product the Laboratory Schools and XS Tennis, pack. They went on to best the winner pages from 11,000 a mission-driven sports facility located of the Indiana regional competition and shopping sites. a few blocks west of Washington Park. would have headed for nationals in the It’s the first time Socratic in outlook, Schultz enjoys spring, had the event not been canceled computer scientists bringing philosophy to the people. due to COVID-19. have estimated “The marketplace, the tennis court,” Schultz is now working to develop Photography by Bart Schultz, PhD’87 the scale of the he says with a laugh, “there are all sorts smaller, more experimental ethics phenomenon, and of opportunities.” bowl events (XBowls) that would help Schultz says that in the 2019–20 aca- prepare students for the regional con- they hope it will demic year more than 100 high school tests, while also recruiting students to help government students participated in ethics bowls in perform at an international philosophy regulators crack Chicago, representing a dozen schools. conference in summer 2021. Mean- down on the Some teams are seeded by the Winning while, teams around Chicago are re- most egregious Words program and then run more visiting their playbooks and hoping to abuses.—S. A. ◆ or less independently. But for many kick off next year with new recruits. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 13

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 13 5/13/20 3:28 PM RELIGION dramatic writing at New York Uni- was already five years into a pastor role versity before pivoting into the clergy, in Florida, but he nonetheless felt that while Anderson spent much of her 20s the out-there idea could work. A balm rebelling—through stand-up comedy, “I needed a challenge, and I wanted to mostly—against the environment she’d try and do something that I wasn’t sure been raised in as the child of an evan- that I could do,” Amlin says. “Something in Gilead gelical pastor. Growing up, she says, she like 85 percent of new churches fail in, Two Divinity School graduates was taught that religion meant “you’re like, a very short amount of time, … so in or you’re out.” Since she took issue the odds are very against us. But that lead an unorthodox Chicago with her denomination’s treatment of made it attractive.” church that aims to heal women and its punitive theology, she The fledgling co-pastors also agreed spiritual wounds. assumed she wasn’t welcome. about the mission of their new endeavor. When she learned that the church “Very early on, we came up with a BY SARAH CAHALAN down the street had an out, married version of the statement, ‘We want to lesbian behind the pulpit, Ander- be church for and with people who Onstage at the Chicago nightclub son realized that the family business have been told or made to feel that Mary’s Attic, Rebecca Anderson and might have room for her after all. She church isn’t for them,’” Anderson re- Vince Amlin stand side by side at a pair enrolled at the Divinity School, hoping calls. Initially, that meant LGBTQ of microphones. As a keyboard intro- to one day start a church like the one people, a group that both founders duction begins, they take a breath, that brought her back into the fold. Un- feel has been historically wronged by look out at the few dozen people scat- beknownst to her, her classmate Amlin Christian churches. “And then, not tered between them and the rainbow- was planning the same thing. very long into it, [we realized], oh, tons flag-draped bar on the back wall, and of people are told or made to feel that launch into Cher’s “Believe.” church isn’t for them.” It’s not a lip-synch show or a kara- Our tagline is, “We’re Committed to reaching out to those oke night, though both happen often at not for everyone, but alienated groups, Anderson and Am- what Out magazine has called one of lin set plans in motion to establish a the greatest gay bars in the world. It’s we might be for you.” church on Chicago’s North Side. For church—and they’re the pastors. And we mean it. him, that meant a move back to the “Our tagline is, ‘We’re not for every- city with his wife and newborn. For one, but we might be for you,’” Ander- her, it meant securing the duo a day son, MDiv’10, says of Gilead Church, the “My classmates have reflected back to job—which came courtesy of Ravens­ community she and Amlin, MDiv’09, me,” Amlin says, “that apparently, when wood’s Bethany United Church of cofounded in 2017. “And we mean it.” we were starting div school, I would go Christ, one of the two denominations Like a growing number of ortho- around saying I was just going to have a that supports Gilead. The other is doxy-shattering religious efforts na- church of 12 people. Like Jesus.” the Christian Church (Disciples of tionwide—Denver’s House for All Though he cringes at the apostles Christ). Anderson and Amlin serve as Sinners and Saints, the DignityUSA comparison now, he admits that he the more established congregation’s movement in the Catholic Church— clearly always had what Anderson calls co-pastors and are allowed to use Gilead is a nontraditional church for a the “new stuff gene.” The two crossed Bethany as office space for the no- not traditionally churchgoing crowd. paths only casually at school, but when madic Gilead community they lead. “There’s this cultural lie,” Anderson they joined the same small group of By January 2017, Gilead Church was says, “that if you’re urbane or smart or UChicago divinity grads for a series of ready for its first service. educated or a Democrat or a socialist annual retreats, their shared interests The liturgies have changed a bit in or a feminist or sexual or pro sex,” reli- were revealed. the years since—pop songs came into gion isn’t for you. That attitude, the co- They formed a “summer-camp, play in 2017; an early interest in home- pastors believe, hurts people—which is magical kind of relationship,” Amlin brewing Gilead beer shifted from why Gilead, named for the biblical land says, “where you’re really only seeing central focus to intermittent parish known for its miraculous healing pow- the person once a year, maybe twice a hobby—but today they follow a decep- ers, serves as a balm for those who’ve year, but the time that you’re spend- tively traditional playbook. Each Sun- felt excluded. ing together, you’re spending on the day night meeting begins with a song, Despite the church-running creden- deepest parts of yourself.” followed by a welcome, a sermon from tials Anderson and Amlin have today, Over coffee on one of those retreat one of the pastors, and the Gilead spin they, like their parishioners, aren’t ste- weekends, Anderson suggested that the on “the word of God for the people of

reotypically religious. Amlin studied two of them cofound a church. Amlin God”: parishioner-led storytelling on Doyel Jordan by Photography

14 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 14 5/13/20 3:29 PM Quirky services are the norm at Chicago’s Gilead Church, whose founders sought to create a new kind of spiritual community.

spiritual awakenings as diverse as a empty Bud Light pitcher—and gathers out there, the pastors recognize—but nonbinary twentysomething finding for a communion of homemade bread. that’s OK. a new name or a congregant’s first re- A closing song, like “Proud Mary,” or She recalls a conservative member lationship postdivorce. (In the time of Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten,” of her family asking if she would be COVID-19, these stories have become wraps things up. welcome at Gilead. the core of Gilead’s work, through Gilead’s work, as Anderson is fond “You’re totally welcome!” Anderson video posts on the church’s social of saying, represents not a new gos- replied. At the same time, she pointed media.) The congregation shares in- pel but a new translation of the gos- out, “you can go into any church.” tentions, passes around a collection pel that Christians already know. It Gilead was created for the people plate—or, depending on the week, an won’t resonate with every Christian who can’t. ◆

MEDICINE Medical researchers have an important new tool for the study and treatment of celiac disease. A team, including Bana Jabri of UChicago Medicine, succeeded in breeding mice with the same genetic and immune system characteristics as humans who develop celiac after eating gluten. The Bread- study appeared February 12 in Nature. It’s taken researchers more than two decades to develop a mouse model that exhibits all the complex aspects of

winners human celiac disease; now that they have one, they can use it to develop new

QUICK STUDY treatments for the gastrointestinal ailment, which affects about 1 percent of the US population.—S. A. ◆ Photography by Jordan Doyel Jordan by Photography

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 15

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 15 5/13/20 3:29 PM URBANISM conceptual distinction between public But this wasn’t the type of commu- space—which is designed, managed, nity or caretaking that the city valued. and surveilled—and common space— The old LOVE Park didn’t fit their vi- Skateboard which is flexible, spontaneous, and self- sion for a rebranded downtown. “It was managed by its users. a beacon of deviance set right across sociology Both public and common spaces from city hall,” Cianciotto says. can be putatively open to all, but users Rather than intense use by a small, What the fight over an iconic experience them very differently. The devoted group, city leaders imagined boundary between public and com- casual use by a broader public. They Philadelphia skate spot means mon is porous, as when a spontaneous proposed a more tourist-friendly of- for cities everywhere. neighborhood block party spills out fering, with a beer garden, food trucks, into a city street. concerts, and cafés. It was, Cianciotto BY SUSIE ALLEN, AB’09 The distinction between public feels, not only a shift from commonness and common space is “a brilliant to publicness, but also a transformation In the late 1980s, a group of skateboard- distinction and a very useful one,” of the irreplaceable into the banal.

ers discovered an underused square says Marco Garrido, an assistant pro- To Cianciotto, this debate—intense Photography by Melody Joy Kramer BY-NC-ND (CC 2.0) in downtown Philadelphia and made fessor of sociology and Cianciotto’s it their own. To them, John F. Ken- adviser. “We’re seeing a trend … of nedy Plaza (known to most as LOVE spaces being sanitized and becoming Park, thanks to Robert Indiana’s iconic increasingly anti-common, despite sculpture) was a granite paradise. Be- their publicness”—think, he says, fore long, professionals and amateurs of Chicago’s Millennium Park. The from around the world began making advent of so-called hostile architec- pilgrimages there. ture, designed to discourage loitering, But Philadelphia’s leaders took a sleeping, and skateboarding, troubles dim view of the park. It had become critics who feel such measures are a hangout for drug dealers and the not only unnecessary but also unfair. homeless, alongside skaters. In 2012, Public spaces, they argue, should not the city announced plans for a major discourage public use. redevelopment, sparking a debate that One perhaps surprising proponent lingers even today. Skaters and sup- of that view was the John F. Kennedy porters felt the community they’d cre- Plaza architect, Edmund Bacon, who ated at LOVE Park was a distinctive, in 2002, at the age of 92, rode a skate- authentic Philadelphia treasure. board across the park to protest the In the fight over LOVE Park’s future, city’s skateboarding ban. “Skateboard- PhD student Luke Cianciotto, AM’18, ing at JFK is wonderful,” he said. “It saw a distillation of what he’d been does no harm to anyone.” studying in urban sociology—and what Central to the skateboarding com- he’d experienced as a skateboarder. munity’s claim over LOVE Park was Here were two groups, the city and sweat equity: they took care of the the skateboarders, each asserting a dif- space, even removing snow in winter. ferent type of ownership over a public As one former LOVE Park skater told space. These fraught claims were the Cianciotto, “We really considered it subject of Cianciotto’s master’s thesis, ours. … I don’t know of any other citi- which became an article in the journal zen who would just willingly shovel a City & Community. city property for free.” Often, conflicts over urban prop- erty center on the privatization of pub- lic land. Yet this public-private binary We’re seeing a trend … “leaves a lot out,” Cianciotto says. The of spaces being dispute over LOVE Park was just as sanitized and becoming complex as any dispute over a pri- increasingly anti- vate space. But his field didn’t have a good way to talk about it. So he pro- common, despite posed a new framework, arguing for a their publicness.

16 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 16 5/13/20 3:30 PM W. R. HARPER’S INDEX use and caretaking by a dedicated ues to intersect with—and traces back group versus more circumscribed use to—his own skateboarding. After years by a broader public—is a hallmark of spent scouting for skateable features and the public/common dilemma. He’s surfaces, skaters develop “a unique sen- HOT DATA particularly interested in homeless- sitivity to space,” he says. “Skateboard- ness in public spaces, which raises ing really shapes the way you think and Launch date of the Parker Solar many of the same questions as skate- look at the world around you.” Probe, named for UChicago boarding in LOVE Park: Who do we And he’s continuing to watch how physicist Eugene Parker include and exclude from the category LOVE Park evolves. The rebranded plaza of “the public”? What makes one type is working much as city planners envi- of use more valid than another? sioned it, with downtown workers eating He’s currently researching a long- lunch and tourists taking photos with the 8.12.18 standing tent city in Chicago’s Uptown LOVE sculpture. But the old LOVE Park neighborhood, near the entrance to hasn’t been fully erased: enforcement is Year Parker predicted the a city-sanctioned skate park he visits much stronger now, but the occasional existence of solar wind Photography by Melody Joy Kramer BY-NC-ND (CC 2.0) often. His interest in sociology contin- skater still pushes along, undaunted. ◆ 1958

Perihelia (close approaches in orbit) completed so far 4

Speed of the solar wind rotating around the sun, in kilometers per second, as measured by the probe 35–50

Closest the probe will get to the sun, in millions of miles 3.8

Distance, in millions of miles, at which dust around the sun thins (theorized but not observed until now) 7

Scientific papers resulting from mission data as of 2.3.20

Despite a city ban, skaters flocked to LOVE Park for decades. 59

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 17

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 17 5/13/20 3:31 PM CAMPUS LIFE 1 UChicago at your fingertips We know it may be a little while before you can get back to campus. Here are a few ways 2 to experience UChicago from wherever you are. For links, visit mag.uchicago.edu/uchicago -your-fingertips.—S. A. Browse the Seminary Co-op’s front table without leaving home.

While you’re there, check out the bookstore’s podcast, Open Stacks, for conversations with writers and 3 scholars from around the world. Explore UChicago’s public art collection.

Did you know there’s a 1957 Cadillac encased in concrete parked on campus? Clockwise from top left: photography by Anne Ryan; photography by Eddie Quinones; photography by Rob Kozloff; Learn where it is and why German artist 4 Wolf Vostell created it.

Get theatrical.

Stream Theater and Performance Studies lecturer Seth Bockley’s theatrical photo courtesy Oriental Institute; photo courtesy Goodman Theater adaptation of 2666, a novel by Chilean 5 writer Roberto Bolaño. The story follows a group of academics trying to learn more about a mysterious German writer.

Take an online tour of the Oriental Institute.

Dig into exhibits on hieroglyphics, Persepolis, and business in the ancient world.

Connect with nature.

Say hello to the ducks via the newly

installed Botany Pond livestream. Wang Sihong courtesy Photo

18 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 18 5/13/20 3:32 PM BREAKTHROUGHS QUICK STUDY

PATCH WORK CLIMATE High- pressure endeavor Scientists know that a large amount of carbon is buried in Earth’s interior, but extreme conditions in the mantle make measuring the precise quantity almost impossible. Knowing the amount of carbon in deep water reservoirs is essential, because it can affect how carbon on Earth’s surface behaves— and that, in turn, affects the climate. Now researchers, Clockwise from top left: photography by Anne Ryan; photography by Eddie Quinones; photography by Rob Kozloff; including Giulia Galli of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, have gotten closer to solving the puzzle by developing a novel computer simulation. The team’s approach, published January 21 in Nature Communications,

photo courtesy Oriental Institute; photo courtesy Goodman Theater harnesses quantum mechanics and spectroscopic measurements of ions o know whether a drug effectively treats a disease, you need a way to measure in water to estimate its effects. That challenge has long frustrated efforts to combat amyotrophic the concentration of T lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. In its early stages, ions and molecules the motor neuron disease is tricky to diagnose. In 2016 a UChicago team, including in water at the neurologists Naoum Issa and Kourosh Rezania, identified an important ALS hallmark: mantle’s ultrahigh reduced intermuscular coherence, the difference in how two muscles respond when temperatures and stimulated by a shared nerve. Now molecular engineer Sihong Wang has taken that pressures. Early results finding and created a skin-like tool with highly sensitive electronic circuits. suggest that existing Wang’s wearable device, shown above, measures electrical activity in the muscles models of how carbon in real time, giving doctors and patients data they can use to diagnose and monitor dioxide dissolves in ALS. The researchers were able to create prototypes of the tool with the help of water at high pressure may need to be Argonne National Laboratory. Wang is continuing to investigate new ways to aid ALS revised.—S. A. ◆ sufferers, including collaborating with neurologistNicholas Hatsopoulos on a skin-

Photo courtesy Sihong Wang Sihong courtesy Photo like exoskeleton that could help patients maintain effective motor control.—S.A. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 19

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 19 5/13/20 3:32 PM UCJ Spring 2020 V12.indd 20 chairs Graham’s faculty board. Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, for Award Quantrell the of recipient 2016 a and Studies African on Committee the of acodirector Osborn, April. in University campus community,campus President the to 5message April an In format. avirtual to shifted been have Convocation remotely and milestone events including taught being are classes Quarter Spring pandemic, COVID-19 the to response In CHALLENGE A HISTORIC For the record Vennela Mannava College third-years SCHOLARSHIPS STEM TRANSITION criminal justice and judicial behavior. Walter Mander Research Scholar, studies and Economics and Law of Professor Musser R. Clifton the Miles, rights. immigration on federal appellate and cases, focuses another litigators to work on US Supreme Court and with students pairs Block, & Jenner firm the with apartnership clinics—one, new two up set also School Law The finance. economics to corporate governance and makers interested in applying behavioral fellowship for aspiring academicsand policy “Together in Spirit,” page 26. 26. page Spirit,” in “Together see pandemic, the to response UChicago’s on more For realized.” be can meaning and values enduring our which in ways new find also but Chicago, of University the about distinctive so is what preserve only not 20 20 Zimmer THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE MAGAZINE CHICAGO OF UNIVERSITY THE

wrote, “I am confident that we will will we that confident am “I wrote, Stuart Flack, who left the the left who Flack, Stuart Emily Lynn Osborn Lynn Emily year JD/MBA program and a a and program JD/MBA year , and , and UChicago. She succeeds AT GRAHAM associate professor in

Miles launched athree- launched Miles Spencer Dembner LEGAL LEGAL of lifelong learning at history, will serve as as serve will history, July 1. In his first term term first his In 1. July Studies, the center Thomas J. Miles J. Thomas interim dean of the and Professional Continuing Liberal of School Graham School, beginning Thomas Propson AM’96, PhD’00, has has PhD’00, AM’96, as dean of the Law Law the of dean as term asecond to been appointed LEADER

Robert J. J. Robert , , ,

are are | SPRING 2020 Bradley International History; Distinguished Service Professor of Arabic literature; and literature; Arabic human gut; the to oceans from habitats in studies microbial lifestyles English; English; Guggenheim Fellowships: 2020 received scholars UChicago Five GUGGENHEIM FELLOWS Sebastian Hurtado-Salazar and disease; human in intervening toward eye an with cells, between and within information is communicated by proteins technologies to understand how molecular and tools chemical develops (chemistry) fields: substantial contributions to their scientists’ potential to make which recognize early-career earned Sloan Research Fellowships, Three UChicago assistant professors have EARLY CONTRIBUTIONS Rodrigo Estrada College third-years SERVICE LEARNING pursue graduate degrees. to plan All science. computer and physics in Propson and chemistry, in Mannava study. Dembner is majoring in mathematics, during their final year of undergraduate students fund $7,500 to up of scholarships engineering, and the natural sciences. The honor for undergraduates in mathematics, 2020 Barry Goldwater Scholarships, a top receive to nationally students 396 among Linguistics; of Professor Werkman K. Mary the PhD’90, international relations. and economics in students BA/MA joint are Both border. US-Mexico the along an advocate for communities underserved become to hopes and aJD/PhD seek will technology, and disability policy; Estrada economic, study and JD/MPP ajoint pursue to plans Busch service. public in careers to $30,000 for students embarking on Truman Scholarships, which provide up fellowships in 2020. research two-year the of recipients 126 the among are They spaces. and shapes of study the topology, of area the in works and exceptional promise,” the John Simon achievement prior of basis the “on selected were They arts. visual of professor associate A. Murat Eren Murat A. , the Bernadotte E. Schmitt Schmitt E. Bernadotte , the Tahera Qutbuddin

Raymond Moellering Patrick Jagoda

received Harry S. S. Harry received

Kristen Busch (medicine)

Catherine Sullivan Diane Brentari Mark Philip Philip Mark , professor of of , professor , professor of of , professor

(mathematics) and and , , (see Notes, page 52). page Notes, (see fiction for Award Whiting the received also about a fictional pandemic, for whichshe Severance novel Prize–winning Kirkus the of author the is Ma accident. Island Mile Three 1979 the on centered anovel on and and the 175 fellows this year. year. this fellows 175 among are and 8announcement, April its Guggenheim Memorial Foundation said in Short Fiction Short American in appeared have stories short whose Hoffman, Arts. Endowment for the from the National creative writing fellowships received arts, the in practice and and Ben Hoffman WRITERLY recipient campuses. meetings and conferences among the four engagement partnerships and annual public new fund also will grant The scholars. students; and offer fellowships for visiting graduate and postdocs, faculty, for grants expand programming; new create to CSRPC allow will It Universities. Stanford and Brown, Yale, at counterparts and CSRPC between work collaborative support will grant four-year The Foundation. Mellon W. Andrew the from grant million $4 a share will that ethnicity and race of centers four of one is (CSRPC) Culture and Politics, Race, of Study the for Center The COMMON PURPOSE DISTINGUISHED CAREER affect,and trauma. sexuality, and gender of studies the to English, is also known for her contributions Pullman Distinguished Service Professor in M. George the Berlant, field. the advanced Missouri ReviewMissouri Zoetrope Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), At the Modern Language Language Modern the At , AB’05, assistant professor of of professor assistant , AB’05, whose work has significantly , , lecturer in creative writing, writing, creative in , lecturer , is at work work at , is Granta Association conference in HONOR Section to a scholar ascholar to Section January, American Literature received the 2019 2019 the received , annually by the MLA’s MLA’s the by annually The medal is presented Lifetime Achievement. Hubbell Medal for , Lauren Berlant

5/15/20 5:24 PM

Anjali Pinto; photography by Nathan Keay; photography by Jean Lachat Jean by photography Keay; Nathan by photography Pinto; Anjali Clockwise from top left: photo courtesy University of Chicago Law School; photography by by photography School; Law Chicago of University courtesy photo left: top from Clockwise

Illustration by John Jay Cabuay every possible aspect was so much harder than the previous two itera- tions. Trying to stay ahead of your own inevitable exhaustion and injury, in itself, kept things fresh by necessity. Like, if I’m not on my game, I could step the wrong way, roll my ankle, and be out of the show. But the audiences were such a gift. They just loved the show so much and no matter how exhausted you were, it was impossible to not feel that energy and love radiating back at you. It was INTERVIEW like falling back in love with the char- acter and the show, every night.

Chill factor Did you ever consider going to an acting conservatory? Actor Katlyn Carlson’s (AB’05) journey to Broadway. I had totally fallen in love with theater BY SUSIE ALLEN, AB’09 in high school, but I knew I wanted a liberal arts education. The U of C felt In 2015 actor Katlyn Carlson, AB’05, who you are is enough, and that out- like a perfect fit for my academic goals, got an email from her agent about an side influences, and sometimes the and I admired the student-run theater audition for a new musical. The mes- voices in your own head, are not steer- program. It didn’t feel right at that sage described high school queen bee ing you in the right direction. You have point to abandon everything else and Chloe Valentine as “self-absorbed, to love yourself. do a conservatory program. crass, sexy, manipulative, and hilari- I think that people, especially teen- I felt like I had found a good balance ous in her disregard for others.” Carl- agers, were able to see a lot of them- at school, and I was able to start do- son’s reaction? “Sign me up.” selves in any number of the characters. ing theater professionally by the time She didn’t know she was embarking I graduated, so it all worked out. Clockwise from top left: photo courtesy University of Chicago Law School; photography by by photography School; Law Chicago of University courtesy photo left: top from Clockwise on a project that would make her (as How did it feel to be the subject best she knows) the first person from of a such an intense fandom? Have you had any weird day jobs her hometown of Eureka, Missouri, to alongside acting? perform on Broadway. Be More Chill We were not ready for the insanity

Anjali Pinto; photography by Nathan Keay; photography by Jean Lachat follows a teenager who implants a su- that crashed over us. We had a few I worked at one of the last manual- percomputer in his brain to gain popu- fans who were asking for autographs set bowling alleys in Chicago, scoring larity. It went from a small New Jersey in the original production, but then off games by hand because people don’t production to an off-Broadway run and Broadway, it was absolute pandemo- know how to do that anymore. I was a then a Broadway production that closed nium. We felt like the Beatles. terrible waitress a few times. in August 2019. Along the way, the orig- It escalated when we went to Broad- When I got to New York, I fell into inal cast album became a surprise hit, way. We had to move the stage door a godsend of a day job—definitely one attracting a passionate online fan base. from the back of the theater to the of the weirdest things I’ve ever done, Carlson, who played the lead in the front, because the backstage door was which was fit modeling. I was a hu- film Holly Star (2018), told the Maga- on a narrower street, and there wasn’t man mannequin. I would just try on zine about life on Broadway. Her com- enough room for cars when hundreds clothes for designers, for hours. They ments have been edited and condensed. of people were waiting. and the design technicians would come in and make corrections to the Why were audiences so How did you keep things fresh garments. At different stages of pro- passionate about Be More Chill? for yourself on Broadway? duction, I would give input on how the clothes fit. So I was a mannequin It has a pretty simple message about The Broadway experience was so chal- who could talk. That paid well and

Illustration by John Jay Cabuay being true to yourself, recognizing that lenging. Physically, mentally, vocally— was very, very strange. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 21

UCJ Spring 2020 V10.indd 21 5/13/20 3:33 PM COURSE WORK

CRASH COURSE

College students examine ideas and stories of the 2008 Great Recession.

BY SEAN CARR, AB’90

n a Sunday evening in late Jan- For those who missed it or need a uary, students in Cobb 301 are refresher, The Big Short follows four pushing tables around, trans- people—a doctor turned investment forming the standard con- fund manager (Christian Bale), an an- versation-promoting square gry-at-the-world Wall Streeter (Steve into rows angled to face a flat- Carell), and two guys (non-marquee screen TV in the corner of the actors) running a hedge fund out of classroom. Just before 5:30, their garage—who each anticipated Jaap Buitendijk/©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection; illustration by Daniel Hertzberg Kenneth Warren, the Fairfax M. Cone the subprime mortgage collapse and ODistinguished Service Professor in Eng- bet against, or shorted, the US housing lish, arrives with a helper and a dozen or market. This potentially dry procedural so Giordano’s pizza boxes, salad contain- is juiced up with a restless camera and ers, Pepsi and ginger ale two liters, and a staccato editing, every scene crammed Blu-ray of director Adam McKay’s 2015 with cutaways to hip-hop videos, info- filmThe Big Short. mercials, news footage (stock tickers, It’s movie night for English 26249: Lit- foreclosure signs), even The Wealth of erature and the Financial Crisis of 2008. Are there heroes, Nations—like a 50-browser-tabs-open Once the 30 or so students are settled are there villains ... “what caused housing crisis” Google in with pizza and pop, Warren, leaning search. Characters address the audi- against a wall, provides some food for or are we looking at ence directly and celebrities are de- thought as they watch the movie. He something systemic? ployed to clarify complicated financial asks the class to think back to the texts instruments, as when singer-actress on neoliberalism that comprise most of Selena Gomez shows up playing black- the readings thus far. (They also have be more timely or more insightful”— jack and talking synthetic collateral- Aravind Adiga’s 2008 The White Tiger thus preventing or ameliorating what ized debt obligations with the “father [Free Press] under their belts, the first happened in 2008—“or are we looking of behavioral economics,” Chicago of four novels they’ll discuss this quar- at something systemic, and what view Booth’s Richard Thaler. ter.) Specifically, Warren prompts, “Are that has on how we might see the film?” So it’s no surprise, after the movie there heroes, are there villains within With that, it’s Warren’s turn to grab ends, that Warren wants to spend a lit- the system whose actions either could some pizza. And roll film. tle time discussing “the narrative deci-

22 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_coursework_Warren_v2.indd 22 5/15/20 2:35 PM In twice-weekly lectures for Literature and the Financial Crisis of 2008, Warren could be found mashing up disquisitions on poststructuralism and median home prices.

sions that the film makes,” noting, “I with the fantasy of wealth,” a Philip “It’s because even though they’re bet- get to talk to you all the time”—during Seymour Hoffman doppelgänger says ting against, sort of, the corruption in the the week, it’s a maxed-out 40-person about the celebrity cameos. “It’s An- system, they’re still going to profit based lecture class—“I don’t get to hear you thony Bourdain in this luxury restau- on how the system works,” she explains. talk as much as I might like.” rant, … Margot Robbie in her luxury “To win in this instance depends ul- A guy in the back is the first to chime apartment. … It feels like there’s a set timately on these mortgages failing,” in: “There’s a lot of visual juxtaposi- of stakes to what they’re talking about Warren says, asking how viewers are tion, as the financial language starts in this fantasy that is achievable if you supposed to feel about their emotional to become too convoluted and special- play this game of money.” investment in the movie’s main char- ized, with images of what’s happening Warren wants to make sure the class acters—who, after all, are just “trying to people who are getting their homes doesn’t miss a particular bit of “heavy to make money.” Are there heroes? Are foreclosed upon.” It’s a reminder, he imagery,” when Carell’s character and there villains? says, “that the thing they’re explain- one of his partners go to Standard & A woman, breaking the tacit dress ing trickles down to that.” Poor’s to ask why they’re still giving code in a maroon sweatshirt, brings up “Juxtaposition in some sense has to mortgage bonds solid ratings while the the moments in which the film creates be a kind of strategy for the film alto- mortgages within them are defaulting sympathy for its characters. She points gether, in part because you have mul- en masse. The woman they talk to, ap- to Carell’s stick-it-to-the-stock-market tiple stories,” Warren agrees, while parently fresh from an appointment character at the end of the film, when noting that the technique isn’t new. with her eye doctor, is wearing huge the economy is in freefall, “looking like A young woman in a gray sweater— dark glasses—the “film obviously play- he’s about to have a breakdown instead one of many students opting for that ing with blindness, over the refusal of of cheering that he’s just made a billion. shade this chilly evening—suggests the system to see what it’s doing,” War- The actual outcome is still the same,” that when the characters break the ren says. Yet, “at a crucial moment when she says, “it’s just how he feels about it fourth wall to comment on whether they’re getting self-righteous with her, that’s different.” a particular incident happened the she takes off the glasses. What does she Warren, looking to sum things up, way it’s depicted, it’s to “remind you say at that moment?” asks the class how much the invest- that this is a real story,” even though “She says that they’re hypocrites,” ment fund of Christian Bale’s foot- Jaap Buitendijk/©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection; illustration by Daniel Hertzberg “there’s a lot of it that seems really ab- answers a woman in a (gray) UChi- wear-averse Dr. Michael Burry made surd and hard to believe.” cago sweatshirt. Warren prods: “Why from its shorts. The class tosses several “I was intrigued by the way it plays is that?” figures back and forth before arriving at the correct amount: $2.69 billion. “I just made a lot of money for a lot SYLLABUS of very wealthy people,” Warren says from inside Bale’s head. “I don’t feel An undergraduate course, History of Neoliberalism Rachel Cusk, Capital (W. good about it. I want to tell everybody. English 26249 had several (Oxford University Press, W. Norton, 2012) by John I want to tell the government after- goals: “to understand the 2005) and a selection Lanchester, and 10:04 ward what went wrong.” Then, as him- challenges that repre- of critical and historical (Faber and Faber, 2014) self, “He did make a lot of money. But senting the 2008 crisis essays, including “Neo- by Ben Lerner. is making a lot of money a bad thing?” posed to novelists; to try liberal Aesthetics: Fried, In addition to watching That’s a question that will have to to understand the social Rancière, and the Form of The Big Short, students wait for that week’s lectures. In the and ideological location of the Photograph” (2011) by were asked to listen to meantime, as they begin moving tables literature in relation to that Walter Benn Michaels. a 2008 episode of This back into a square, one of the course crisis; and more generally The three novels that American Life dedicated assistants notes that half a dozen un- to try to understand neo- took up the bulk of the to the financial crisis, “The opened pizza boxes remain up for liberalism as a theory and course, along with Adiga’s Giant Pool of Money,” grabs. There’s little question that the a politics.” The White Tiger, were which was co-reported by students who seize this opportunity Readings started with Kudos (Farrar, Straus, Adam Davidson, AB’92. will return to their dorms or apart- David Harvey’s A Brief and Giroux, 2018) by —S. C. ments as heroes. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 23

UCH_coursework_Warren_v2.indd 23 5/15/20 2:35 PM C VITAE

A COACH’S COACH

Soccer player Len Oliver, PhD’70, put his own spin on teaching the sport and training its leaders.

BY JEANIE CHUNG

y the time he arrived at thing: let your players learn by doing. Twellman, a former most valuable UChicago for graduate “One of the great characters in player in Major League Soccer. Oliver work in adult education, American soccer” according to Wash- is now 86, so his decision is likely to Len Oliver, PhD’70, had ington Post sports writer Steven Goff, come into play much sooner. hung up his cleats. But he Oliver “has seen it all.” In addition Sons of a Scottish immigrant, Oli- brought his soccer philoso- to his legacy as a player, coach, and ver and his twin brother, Jim, fol- phy with him: stick with it coaches’ mentor, Oliver will make lowed in their father’s footsteps and no matter the score. another enduring contribution to the grew up playing soccer—then largely “Do your best,” says sport—and to athletes everywhere—by considered an immigrants’ game—in Oliver, a National Soccer donating his brain after his death to a Philadelphia. A midfielder, Len was Hall of Fame member. research foundation associated with an alternate for the 1952 Olympics in “Don’t worry about awards. Get some- Boston University. Helsinki and hoped to make the 1956 thing out of every experience.” Oliver estimates he suffered six team. To keep his skills sharp, he

B PhD’70 Oliver, Len courtesy Photo Later, as a coach and a trainer of concussions as a player, though at the played in a semipro league for a team coaches, he took a leadership approach time they were not diagnosed as such. called Uhrik Truckers. Before tryouts based on principles he’d learned in grad- As more and more research points to in the fall of 1955, an opposing player uate school. “I don’t lecture to them,” the dangers of traumatic brain injuries slide tackled him, breaking his fibula. he says. “I get them involved and make in sports, a number of notable athletes Then, when it came time to try out for them feel part of the game. Let them have chosen to donate their brains the 1960 team, he had mononucleosis. ask their questions early and get them posthumously for medical research. “I was told that adversity builds talking.” He’s told the more than 5,000 Among them are Women’s World Cup character,” he has written. “I had my youth coaches he has trained the same veteran Brandi Chastain and Taylor share of it.”

24 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_CVitae_Oliver_v2.indd 24 5/15/20 2:56 PM Len Oliver, PhD’70, was part of the 1963 US national soccer team (he is second from right in the back row). The team is shown here at the Pan American Games in São Paulo, Brazil.

Finally, in 1964, at the age of 30, Abner Mikva, JD’51, and former civil States, and he played a role in the found- he made the team and played in pre- rights advocate Al Raby, EX’69. His ing of the Study Circle Resource Center, Olympic qualifiers. Although the Unit- path toward a career in politics turned, now known as Everyday Democracy. ed States didn’t go to the Olympics in however, when the National Endow- Founded in 1989, the organization 1960, 1964, or 1968, Oliver is proud to ment for the Humanities invited him to initially focused on building commu- be part of the foundation for a team interview. He got the job and, drawing nity dialogue as an end in itself. It now that has grown into a frequent if not on his dissertation research on com- works more specifically on finding solu- perennial international competitor. munity education, set up local NEH tions to pressing social problems. “The game is coming along,” he says, programs in all 50 states and every US Meanwhile, Oliver never strayed far spurred in part by the women’s nation- territory. After 11 years he left to form from soccer. As his daughters, Erika al team and its World Cup wins in 1991, his own public policy consulting firm, and Britt-Karin, grew up, he coached 1999, 2015, and 2019. Oliver Associates. The firm’s work in their teams and found that his coun- In between Olympic tryouts, Oliver public education programs is ground- terparts could use some coaching served in the Army, where he stayed ed in a concept Oliver discovered late in themselves. So, on top of his day job active in the game alongside his other his NEH career: study circles. at his consulting firm, Oliver started commitments. Stationed at Fort Devens These small discussion groups—no training soccer coaches. in Massachusetts, he played semipro. fewer than five people, no more than Traditional instruction involved a Later, while learning Romanian at a 20—meet regularly, like a book club, lot of lecturing and PowerPoint pre- Monterey, California, language school, for three to six sessions of two to three sentations—methods they brought he commuted to San Francisco to play hours, often to explore a critical so- back to leading their teams. But Oli- soccer on weekends. And he was on an cial issue. The idea is that people can ver preferred to have his trainees get armed forces all-star team while sta- overcome their lack of information involved: to ask questions, participate tioned in Germany. and feelings of inadequacy in the face in drills, keep moving. In turn, he ex- After a brief stint in the CIA, Oliver of complex problems by formulating pected them to do the same with their got a master’s degree in labor econom- their own ideas and sharing them with players. “That’s an adult education ics from the University of Maryland. others. There are more than 300,000 principle,” he says. “Involve the stu- Staying on at the school to work at its study circles in Sweden, where Oliver dent in his or her own learning.” conference center, he crossed paths first encountered them on a trip for the He eventually became director of with Cyril Houle, PhD’40, a UChicago Kettering Foundation. He subsequently coaching for the DC Stoddert Soccer faculty expert in adult education. The visited the country 12 times, enjoying organization, which has more than connection led to his enrollment in the both the soccer and the circles. 5,000 youth players. University’s doctoral program in edu- Oliver’s 1987 book, Study Circles: Oliver is now retired from that post. cation in 1967. Coming Together for Personal Growth Neither age nor his concussions have While in graduate school Oliver and Social Change (Seven Locks Press), affected his mental sharpness. He worked on political campaigns for helped introduce the idea in the United holds season tickets for DC United games, where he’s always running into former students and players. His two MILESTONES grandchildren play soccer and call him Coach. “I just melt,” he says. “I’d rather 1951, 1953 Wins national cation from the University for Personal Growth and be called Coach than Dr.”

Photo courtesy Len Oliver, PhD’70 Oliver, Len courtesy Photo championships in soccer of Chicago Social Change And he’s taken up writing—about with Temple University 1971 Joins the 1996 Inducted into the coaching techniques as well as his 1964 Earns a spot on the National Endowment National Soccer Hall own long soccer story—for the Society US Olympic team, though for the Humanities of Fame for American Soccer History. It’s one the United States does not 1983 Forms Oliver Associ- 2016 Announces he more thread leading back to his UChi- end up qualifying for the ates, a consulting firm will donate his brain cago days. “I’ll tell you,” he says, in games in Tokyo 1987 Publishes Study posthumously for concus- “everything I’ve done since … I’ve ap- 1970 Earns his PhD in edu- Circles: Coming Together sion research plied concepts that I learned out there in graduate school.” ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 25

UCH_CVitae_Oliver_v2.indd 25 5/15/20 2:57 PM UCHICAGO

TOGETHER IN SPIRIT How the University is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

BY LAURA DEMANSKI, AM’94

s a novel coronavirus online. The University will confer de- fanned out around grees at the virtual event and celebrate the world this past the achievements of the Class of 2020. winter, life changed Graduates will receive their diplomas quickly everywhere it by mail, and everyone in this year’s touched. The Univer- class will be invited to participate fully sity of Chicago com- in the 534th Convocation, planned for munity worked fast June 2021 on campus. to adapt its work to As the University of Chicago Medi- a new world and affirm the institu- cine prepared for COVID-19 patients, Ation’s mission—unchanged in past it quickly got several coronavirus world crises, and so too in the face of studies off the ground. Across the dis- this pandemic. ciplines, faculty members shifted re- March and April, when this issue search agendas to better understand was being prepared, saw the earliest the social, economic, psychological, of the adjustments. On March 12 the environmental, and other dimensions president and provost announced that of the pandemic—and one also worked Spring Quarter classes would be held to beautify Twitter. Classes carried on remotely. (A decision about Autumn remotely, with teachers and students Quarter classes will be announced by alike finding creative ways to forge an the end of June.) intellectual community from their far- For Spring Quarter, students with flung locations. travel restrictions or other extenuat- Turn the page for more on these in- ing circumstances had the option to stitutional and individual responses to remain in University housing. About an extraordinary challenge to higher 125 students stayed on campus, living education and all of us. In upcoming in Max Palevsky Residential Com- issues, we’ll delve deeper into some of mons and getting take-out meals from the ways members of the UChicago Baker Dining Commons and the Ma- community—faculty, students, alumni, roon Market. Others departed the and friends around the globe—are con- Zich John by Photography residence halls by March 22, to meet tributing to helping end the pandemic again when the new quarter began in and address its repercussions. ◆ hundreds of Zoom rooms.

In April the University announced FOR THE LATEST UCHICAGO COVID-19 that the 533rd Convocation ceremo- NEWS, VISIT CORONAVIRUSUPDATES nies, scheduled for June 13, will be held .UCHICAGO.EDU.

26 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 26 5/15/20 4:48 PM THETHE UNIVERSITYUNIVERSITY OFOF CHICAGOCHICAGO MAGAZINEMAGAZINE || SPRINGSUMMER 2020 2019 2741

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 27 5/15/20 4:49 PM MEDICINE

READY, SET, GO Inside a February planning meeting for COVID-19 and the early days of UChicago Medicine’s response.

BY SUSIE ALLEN, AB’09, AND LAURA DEMANSKI, AM’94

n February 3, weeks protective equipment (PPE), such as erating pandemic. They’ve heard from before COVID-19 be- gowns and face shields. their Chinese counterparts that CT gan to dominate US Curell starts the agenda with Landon, scans may be especially useful in diag- headlines, leaders at who runs down the latest updates nosing the new respiratory illness. UChicago Medicine from the Centers for Disease Control With the hospital’s CT scanners were preparing for the and Prevention on testing and travel working nearly at capacity already, the battle ahead. Seated restrictions. (She will later make na- representative from radiology wonders around a large board- tional news for her persuasive way of aloud whether it would be possible to room table in the Cen- explaining the need for social distanc- set up a mobile CT scanner in a trailer. ter for Care and Discovery were more ing at a March press conference called Curell says it’s something to think about. Othan 20 representatives from across the by Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker: “It’s They’ll have to figure out where to place medical center. Doctors with different really hard to feel like you’re saving the trailer—and where to plug it in. specialties sat alongside delegates from the world when you’re watching Net- The rest of the meeting is taken up legal, communications, and logistics. flix from your couch. But if we do this with miscellaneous questions: Will pa- The meetings are one component right—nothing happens.”) Curell then tients be referred to UChicago Medicine of HICS, the Hospital Incident Com- continues around the table, stopping at from other hospitals? (Hospital leaders mand System, an emergency response legal, human resources, supply chain, will take guidance from the Chicago protocol used by many American hos- clinical operations, and communica- Department of Public Health on that, pitals. Krista Curell, vice president of tions leaders for updates. Landon replies.) Are the cough-and- risk management and the medical cen- Curell and Landon linger on logistics. sneeze stations throughout the medi- ter’s designated incident commander One update prompts a cheer: they’ve cal campus well stocked with tissues, for COVID-19, is heading up UChicago tested the emergency department’s hand sanitizer, and masks? (Yes.) With a Medicine’s response to the outbreak, ventilation system and it’s working nasty flu season already underway, does along with the hospital’s chief epide- beautifully. Right now, logistics reps say, anyone need Tamiflu? (Chuckles.) miologist, Emily Landon. Even on this they’ve got an adequate supply of PPE Today’s session—they’ll reconvene

Monday morning, with confirmed US and the Chinese-produced medications next week and later switch to daily cases still under a dozen, they know they need. They might need to seek new meetings as the pandemic worsens— there is little time to waste. suppliers, “if this has a long tail.” concludes with a discussion of staff, and The medical center has updated “This will have a long tail,” Landon how best to keep them safe. Landon of- its computerized medical record sys- says quietly. fers an impromptu call to arms: “It may tem, prompting doctors and nurses Thanks to a long-standing partner- feel new and feel scary but is no scarier to ask patients about their travel his- ship between the Pritzker School of than the things we see every day. Ev- tory. Medical staff have also received Medicine and Wuhan University School eryone is trained. They are experts in a refresher on how to correctly “don” of Medicine, Landon and her colleagues how to do this already. They just need

and “doff,” in hospital lingo, personal have firsthand insights into the accel- the courage and confidence to do it.” Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images

28 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 28 5/15/20 4:59 PM a National Institutes of Health study showing the devices reduced time in in- tensive care and increased survival. Another noninvasive tactic that was proving effective was the use of high- flow nasal cannulas, which sit below the nose and deliver a large dose of warm, humidified oxygen to the nose and lungs, but without stretching the lungs like mechanical ventilation, said Michael O’Connor, AB’83, MD’87, director of criti- cal care medicine. In April the cannulas became another cornerstone of the med- ical center’s COVID-19 treatment, keep- Ventilation helmets, like the one shown here, are among the tools UChicago Medicine ing many patients in respiratory distress doctors use to keep as many COVID-19 patients as possible off mechanical ventilators. off ventilators. In a group of dozens of emergency department patients given cannulas—many also positioned on their stomachs to aid breathing—only one welve weeks later, the hypotheti- virus and other units for those with eventually required intubation. cals discussed in February had suspected infections. While UChicago Medicine’s clini- T turned into real life at UChicago Meanwhile, additional spaces within cians were identifying ways to better Medicine. Cook County was nearing the hospital were identified for backup treat the sickest patients on the ground, 30,000 COVID-19 cases and had ex- beds, and the hospital worked to ensure numerous studies to help understand ceeded 1,200 deaths from the virus. needed infrastructure such as suffi- the novel coronavirus were underway. Thanks to the ongoing planning in cient electrical power and the ability Faculty from many specializations HICS meetings, the breadth of experts to pump in enough oxygen. The supply were able to use samples from UChi- and resources available at a major re- chain team worked around the clock cago Medicine patients for research search university and its hospital, and to get shipments of masks, gloves, and to identify promising antivirals, anti- a number of strategic innovations by gowns—even partnering with local bodies and vaccines, and ways to com- researchers and health care providers, 3D printers to make hard-to-find face bat the hyperimmune response that UChicago Medicine was weathering shields. The medical center began curb- endangers some patients. One widely the storm. Doctors were able to treat side testing clinics, working with com- reported trial was identifying blood and discharge hundreds of patients munity partners to test hundreds of donors among recovered patients in with severe cases of COVID-19, and in people a day for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Chicago to study whether their plasma many instances avoid the most invasive “Prevent the vent” became the watch- could help treat hospitalized ones. Still and potentially harmful measures. word for the health system’s clinicians, in its earliest phase at press time, the After hearing reports from Wuhan, who took a number of measures to keep study focused on establishing safe and China, and Italy early in 2020, UChi- their most critically ill patients off me- feasible ways to identify donors, collect cago Medicine personnel thought of chanical ventilators as early studies donations, and administer transfu- Jaws, said Thomas Spiegel, medical linked the devices’ use in COVID-19 sions. Additional trials will be needed director of the emergency depart- care to high mortality. UChicago Medi- to see if such treatments are effective. ment, in an April 23 Facebook live cine was among few US institutions in As May approached, understanding chat: “We’re going to need a bigger the pandemic’s early stages to use ven- of the virus was still in its infancy and

boat.” They designated two floors of tilation helmets. These fit comfortably the questions facing researchers—in the Center for Care and Discovery as over a patient’s head, have an airtight Hyde Park and the world over—were COVID-19 only and converted a large seal around the neck, and help patients countless. But early planning and wide- space near the emergency department, breathe without the need for a mask, spread social distancing measures had adding 80 chairs there to see patients breathing tube, or sedation. The hel- helped fend off a debilitating crush of with less-serious medical needs. The mets, more commonly used in other cases at UChicago Medicine, bettered hospital also flipped its ambulance bay countries including Italy, were already the outcomes for many patients, and into another treatment area and devel- familiar to some UChicago Medicine provided a measure of time and space oped special “cohort” units to cluster doctors; back in 2016 pulmonologists for clinicians and researchers to tackle

Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images patients with confirmed cases of the John P. Kress and Bhakti Patel published COVID-19’s mysteries. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 29

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 29 5/15/20 5:27 PM EDUCATION

LEARNING CURVE

Pritzker School of Medicine students add COVID-19 to their studies.

BY SUSIE ALLEN, AB’09

ince December, when a myste- The three-week elective was aimed at giving rious disease began circulating third- and fourth-year students—many of whom through China’s Hubei prov- will soon be caring for COVID-19 patients them- ince, doctors around the world selves—an overview of the disease. have received a crash course The speakers were experts in areas includ- in preventing and treating the ing ethics, epidemiology, virology, medical his- new virus. In March and April tory, and public health, but all acknowledged that UChicago Medicine physicians where this virus is concerned, no one is an expert on the front line began sharing yet. The list of what we don’t know, they told stu- what they’d learned about COVID-19 with some dents, is long: the fatality rate of COVID-19 Sof their students and soon-to-be colleagues. (Maggie Collison, infectious diseases fellow); how Lesson one: uncertainty is the only constant. many people may have died at home from the dis- “This thing is changing by the week, and could ease (Katherine Thompson, MD’05, geriatrics); how change 48 hours from now,” infectious diseases to approach conversations about do-not-resusci- fellow Greg Olson told 110 or so Pritzker School of tate orders (Will Parker, MD’12, SM’18, pulmonol- Medicine students assembled via Zoom. On his ogy); if and for how long you have immunity after shared computer screen was a flowchart of UChi- being infected (Stephen Weber, epidemiology); and cago Medicine’s treatment protocol for COVID-19 how to reduce disparities in who gets sick (Harold

patients—very much, he emphasized, a work in Pollack, School of Social Service Administration). Photography by Nancy Wong progress. Within and across hospitals, “there is Yet even in a situation where so much is up in no standard regimen” for treating the disease. the air, the fundamentals of caring for patients Olson was a guest speaker for MEDC 30450, haven’t changed. Thompson reminded students The COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from of all the small ways they can help their older pa- the Forefront. The course was spearheaded by tients stay healthy. Help keep them supplied with Jeanne Farnan, AB’98, MD’02, a hospitalist and 90 days’ worth of needed medications. Simplify director of clinical skills education at Pritzker. dosing regimens where you can. Teach easy at-

30 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 30 5/15/20 6:24 PM When they spoke to Pritzker School of Medicine students in April, physicians on the front lines noted that testing was central to their efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. UChicago Medicine worked quickly to create curbside testing operations, like the one in Hyde Park shown here, at several of its locations.

home exercises that reduce their risk of falling. public. For areas of the country that didn’t take these When communicating with patients and families, measures, there were grim consequences. Philadel- don’t overload them with information. “It’s a lot of phia, which held a large parade at the height of the getting creative about making things as simple as outbreak, had a much higher death rate than St. possible,” she said. Louis, which took swifter and more stringent action. Fortunately the medical community is con- Whether the United States as a whole will look stantly discovering more about the virus. “We’re more like Philadelphia or St. Louis is still unknown. at a steep part of our learning curve,” Weber said. But inside UChicago Medicine, it’s St. Louis. “Very “In the next six to eight weeks we may know twice early on it became clear that social distancing was as much.” Collison told the students she’d been going to become necessary for this pandemic,” said relying on medical librarians for help in keeping Weber, chief medical officer and an infectious dis- track of all the new COVID-19 journal articles. eases doctor. The medical center took action before “There’s so much coming out every day,” she said. the US outbreak to reduce disease transmission “It feels like every hour.” When it comes to treat- among health care workers: changing the layout of ments, she noted that findings are preliminary work areas, eliminating large in-person team meet- and studies hastily designed, but the insights are ings, limiting the number of providers in patient nonetheless significant: at the time she spoke to rooms, shifting to televisits when possible. the students, the AIDS drug lopinavir and the ma- Some decisions long predated the current crisis. laria drug hydroxychloroquine didn’t seem to be At the Center for Care and Discovery, entire floors having much effect, but the antiviral remdesivir can be transformed into negative-pressure areas, was showing promise. which limit germs’ ability to escape patient rooms. These were features Weber and his colleagues asked for more than a decade ago, during the hospi- tal’s design phase, hoping they’d never need them. WE HAVE THE These measures have kept UChicago Medi- PARTICULAR cine’s health care workers comparatively safe— benefiting both them and the people they care PRIVILEGE, I THINK, for. “You have to think about your next patient,” OF BEING THE CLASS course organizer Farnan chimed in. THAT GRADUATED “Or the next 10, or the next 15,” Olson agreed. It’s those next patients that Pritzker students AMIDST THIS are preparing for. “We have the particular privi- STRUGGLE. A LOT OF lege, I think, of being the class that graduated amidst this struggle,” says Ty Johnson, a fourth- PEOPLE ARE GOING year. “A lot of people are going to be looking to us TO BE LOOKING to be the reinforcements.” TO US TO BE THE There’s plenty that can’t be foreseen with certainty in the pandemic, but the students feel REINFORCEMENTS. they’re getting the skills to face the unknown. “Even though the situation is unprecedented, Pritzker does a good job incorporating critical

Photography by Nancy Wong Mindy Schwartz, an internist and medical histo- thinking and on-the-go decision-making, and rian, used her session to remind students that the that will really help us as we enter the work- past holds lessons too. In an overview of the 1918 flu force,” says fourth-year Lucy Xu. pandemic, she highlighted the importance of non- “It’s definitely daunting to think about start- pharmaceutical interventions, which made “a huge ing residency in the middle of a pandemic,” adds difference” in that pandemic’s trajectory. Some are fourth-year Kathryn Nutting. “But I became a doc- familiar to us today: closing schools, banning large tor to help people when they needed help, and gatherings, and requiring cloth face coverings in that’s what they need right now." ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 31

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 31 5/15/20 6:24 PM RESEARCH

The challenge now is to identify measures that could provide as good or better protection, with less social cost.—Sarah Cobey, Department of Ecology and Evolution

In an era of pandemics, everyone’s access to health care very much affects everyone else. Someone getting sick increases the possibility of other people getting sick—and one’s use of health care resources may reduce the resources available for other people.—Katherine Baicker, Harris Public Policy Associate professor I think that the government’s challenges are going to become Sarah Cobey more acute as we turn towards not just the efforts to shutter at work. an economy, but to responsibly open it up.—William Howell, Department of Political Science

People are so cooped up inside, getting the mental break outside is going to be important. But we have to maintain distancing. Are QUICK there organized ways we could do that?—Marc Berman, Depart- ment of Psychology THINKING By using machine learning and artificial intelligence methods to screen for drugs across multiple target proteins in the virus, we may Researchers across UChicago were fast out of have a better pathway to an antiviral drug.—Arvind Ramanathan, the gate this spring with data, ideas, and guid- Argonne National Laboratory ance for a COVID-19 world.

Learn more about their views at What every natural disaster does, like Katrina, what every eco- mag.uchicago.edu/quickthinking. nomic downturn does, what every emergent situation does is dis- proportionately impact the most vulnerable among us who are just scraping by day to day.—Monica Peek, SM’15, UChicago Medicine

Think about the people in your building. Do you know all their general age ranges? If not, who might know? And not just age, but other factors that might make them vulnerable. Are there ways to develop mechanisms to stay connected?—Kathleen Cagney,

AM’90, Department of Sociology Photography by James Lindley Wilson

The attempt is to keep the economy in a kind of coma—in sus- pended animation—so it can be woken up as soon as the pandemic is behind us.—Raghuram Rajan, Chicago Booth Photography by Ada Palmer Ada by Photography

32 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 32 5/15/20 4:52 PM DIVERSIONS BEAUTIFUL SOMETHINGS

On Twitter, a historian interrupts bad news with beauty.

BY LAURA DEMANSKI, AM’94

n anxious times, social media might be the last place you look for comfort and joy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ada Palmer, associate I professor of history, has changed that with her #SomethingBeautiful campaign on Twitter. She launched it on March 12 with this tweet: “Twitter is a valuable crisis news source, but the stream of terribleness is hard on morale, and keep- ing up our energy is vital too. So every hour on the hour I’m going to post #SomethingBeautiful to break up the stream w/ moments of rest & recov- ery. (Others, please join me!)” Inspired by an account that tweeted a bird every hour without further elaboration, Palmer’s was a simple concept: invite people to tweet standouts from their photo files, and in this way populate our feeds with beauty—however one defines that. The project, Palmer said at an April online event, uncovered “a diasporic yet interconnected com- munity of people eager to take delight in things.” The hundreds of images now circulating under her hashtag find beauty in many things—gardens, clouds, goslings, graffiti, chipping paint—but Palmer herself has largely drawn on her collection of photos from museums, archives, and histori- cal sites where her research on the Renaissance is focused. Here we share a few of her images, or beauty in the eye of the historian. ◆

Photography by James Lindley Wilson Clockwise from top left: History PhD student Alexandra Peters, AB’14, AM’16, spots a giraffe in the background of a 1575 engraving in the Smart Museum of Art. Spoils from a farmer’s market trip with students studying abroad in Florence, Italy. Giant riding fish in the Marine World Carousel in Nantes, France. Imagined portrait of Cicero in a Renaissance manuscript, c. 1400, in UChica- go’s Special Collections Research Center. The Avenue of One Hundred Fountains, gravity-powered Renaissance

Photography by Ada Palmer Ada by Photography waterworks at the Villa d’Este in Tivoli, Italy.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 33

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 33 5/15/20 4:53 PM

TEACHING

GALLERY VIEW

Faculty reflect on teaching remotely.

BY SUSIE ALLEN, AB’09, AND CARRIE GOLUS, AB’91, AM’93

ow do you deliver a Univer- was to ensure we didn’t have to extend Ram Shivakumar, SM’97 (Chicago Booth) sity of Chicago education anyone’s medical education. There was a fair amount of trepidation remotely? Faculty members because I have thrived in classrooms had little time to contemplate Marco Garrido (Department of Sociol- where I see people. I can change what the question as they pre- ogy) I was dismayed. My teaching I say and how I act and react, based on pared for a socially distanced style relies heavily on face-to-face in- my reading of people and their body Spring Quarter. Some were classroom dynamics. language. I’m sure students have their already familiar with the own fears and concerns. They signed University’s videoconferencing soft- Joel Isaac (John U. Nef Committee on So- up for A, but they’re getting B. Hware, Zoom, and its features: break- cial Thought) Disappointment! I was out rooms for small group discussion, regretful that the form of teaching I Did you have Zoom training? a chat sidebar, virtual hand raising, cherish, which makes UChicago so screen sharing, goofy backgrounds. special—intensive face-to-face semi- Garrido I attended a Zoom training Others found themselves learning nars in one of the University’s charac- session and read the literature put out new skills. terful gothic buildings—would not be by the administration. Biggest sur- These interviews, conducted by phone, possible. But we have no choice. I am prise? It’s not so hard. After my second email, or Zoom throughout March and trying to be a happy warrior. class, a student emailed to congratu- April, have been edited and condensed. late me for “Zooming like a pro.” Joan Neal (Law School) I was both sad- dened and felt a bit of panic. How did you react when you How are you feeling now that Illustration by Brian Stauffer heard classes would be remote? classes have started? Robert Shimer (Griffin Department of Eco- Jeanne Farnan, AB’98, MD’02 (Pritzker nomics) I was clued into this a bit ear- Garrido The students aren’t laughing School of Medicine) I was on service see- lier than many people, having decided at my jokes as much, but maybe that’s ing patients in the hospital while trying to hold off on a planned trip to China. because they’re on mute. to plan for curriculum changes that had Moving to online seemed likely from the In any case, it feels good to be teach- to happen. One of our guiding principles beginning of March, maybe February. ing. There’s something therapeutic

34 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 34 5/15/20 4:53 PM about taking an hour and a half to re- Are there any advantages to Ada Palmer (Department of History) I can ally dig into ideas. It feels a bit like a remote teaching? say there will be a live class discussion at break from, and maybe also a protest a certain time. And if you can’t make the against, being in crisis mode. Vineet Arora, AM’03 (Pritzker School of Zoom meeting, the written discussion Medicine) In a Zoom with our biomedi- board is fine. That way, the student who Shimer We have two different challeng- cal librarians, I noticed more interac- finds the video hard to use can use text, es. One is online learning. The other is tion since the chat function lowered the student who finds text hard can all the distractions students face. the bar to ask questions. use video. The student whose family’s internet package isn’t robust enough Shivakumar If there has been a sur- Fred Donner (Department of Near East- has a backup plan. It’s predesigned to prise, it is that students have been very ern Languages and Civilizations) I think have flexibility. engaged. During case study discus- about what it would have been like if Something I’ve always done in my sions, I let students talk one at a time. this had happened 20 years ago, when classes is to structure the class par- I had 37 different people talk last week. we didn’t have Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, ticipation component so if you didn’t WhatsApp. We’re very lucky in the sense talk in class, but before the next class What has been the hardest thing that we have this technological capacity. you email me a paragraph of what to adapt? you were thinking, then I’ll give you Shimer When you’re forced to rethink full credit. Farnan The big challenge is third-year everything, you start experimenting. A student who has an anxiety dis- medical students, who would typically Zoom has a “share screen” feature. order or is on the autism spectrum be doing clerkships. In March we re- Imagine you’re doing something that can use this accommodation. But so moved them from the clinical wards involves coding. It would be easy for can the student who had a sore throat. because of concerns about COVID-19 any student to display their solution The student who pulled an all-nighter. exposure. Now it’s going to be a matter and talk through the argument about The students who were talked over by of figuring out when we can safely re- their solution. It might be that the stu- someone who was hyperexcited and turn them to the clinical environment. dents are reluctant to do that—being wouldn’t let anybody else talk. Every called out. It might be a disaster, but it student benefits from having multiple Neal I teach small classes. I worry could be really good. options. That’s even more important as about whether we’ll be able to build we transition to remote learning. the same sense of community. Some Shivakumar It’s possible now to have things—namely relationships—are just expert practitioners who are not in Will there be any lasting better in person. Chicago share their views with stu- changes to teaching, at dents. You can bring in people who UChicago or elsewhere? Shivakumar In the evening program have something of real value to say, I teach in, the students are working and have them speak for 20 minutes. Donner A lot depends on the nature professionals. They come to class at 6 You may not want to ask a CEO for an of the university. For the University p.m., and here they are for three hours. hour, but maybe they’ll have 20 min- of Chicago, the classroom experience They’re tired, so you’ve got to work utes. I have several people in mind. and the sense of being a part of a co- hard to keep them interested. Let’s see what they say. hort is invaluable. My wife teaches at San Francisco Has the pandemic affected your What are you doing that other State University. A great number of course content? faculty should know about? their students are older, they’re work- ing, they have families. To attend Farnan Third- and fourth-year medi- Arora If at all possible, consider hav- classes, they have to commute from cal students are going to participate in ing a second person (a TA or another sometimes an hour and a half away. a three-week COVID-19 learning mod- faculty member) monitoring the chat For them, distance learning is great. ule going through the virology, clinical and helping field questions, so you can On the other hand, they miss seeing presentation, treatment, ethics, and continue to lecture and then pause to the other students. I don’t think any- Illustration by Brian Stauffer policy implications of the disease (see see how the chat is going. thing will replace in-person teaching, “Learning Curve,” page 30). but distance learning may partially re- Isaac I’m combining synchronous and place it for some places. ◆ Shimer Dynamic Economic Modeling asynchronous teaching. I want to con- is concerned with both long-run growth vene the class weekly, but expecting a FOR MORE REFLECTIONS FROM THE and business cycle issues. I can’t teach three-hour seminar on Zoom to go off FACULTY IN THIS STORY, VISIT that class and pretend we live in 2019. without a hitch is unrealistic. MAG.UCHICAGO.EDU/GALLERYVIEW.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 35

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 35 5/15/20 6:44 PM SPOTLIGHT

INTO THE WOODS How Randy Picker, AB’80, AM’82, JD’85, is Zooming his way through Spring Quarter.

BY SUSIE ALLEN, AB’09

andy Picker is no stranger to on-cam- The first week has gone unbelievably well. It era teaching. In 2015 Picker, AB’80, was fabulous to be with the students. They were AM’82, JD’85, the James Parker Hall engaged. I’m lucky—I only have 32 students and Distinguished Service Professor of we can have a conversation. Law, became the first professor at the I’m still learning about how to use the technol- Law School to teach a massive open ogy. Yesterday in class—and I hadn’t done this online course, or MOOC. It took him before—I toggled between the Brady Bunch gal- about a year to prepare—and 40 hours lery view and the active speaker view. When I’m to film—Internet Giants: The Law and Economics talking, I use the gallery view and when I call on Rof Media Platforms. students, I put the screen in speaker view. He didn’t have the same luxury of time when the University shifted to remote instruction for Spring It sounds like a number of colleagues Quarter, so he threw himself into learning Zoom in turned to you for advice. preparation for his Network Industries class. After the Law School’s first week of classes, Picker told Honestly, I was thrilled with how my classes the Magazine how things were going so far. His went this week, but I was more thrilled with comments have been edited and condensed. how classes went for two of my senior col- leagues, who I was playing IT guy for—those How did you feel about the first week? classes went off well. One student said, “Yeah, that class was seamless.” I was so nervous about Monday. I haven’t been You try to figure out, what’s the least you can

that nervous since I started teaching. learn to run this system, and for lots of people, Photo courtesy Randy Picker We have worked like hell at the Law School in the they don’t need a lot of stuff. last two weeks to try to get ready for this. My pri- vate goal last week was to do seven Zoom calls. I did Any hiccups? 25 to 30. I organized what I was calling a “teaching barhop,” where we would jump from 10-minute call A student was asking a question, and I started to to 10-minute call and see what it was like to be the drink out of a Diet Coke can, and I held it while he host and what it was like to be the student. was asking the question. He thought I had frozen.

36 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 36 5/15/20 6:35 PM SUPPORT

That could be the new prank of the Zoom age—pretending to freeze. That’s true!

How is teaching through Zoom different from a prerecorded MOOC? With a MOOC, it’s like being on stage. You’ve got all the bright lights. You can’t really see what’s going on. You’ve got four production people in the room. You have no sense of what’s going on A COMMUNITY with the viewers. Here, I can see the room. We’re doing it togeth- er. When I say something funny, I can see them TOGETHER laugh. I can’t hear them laugh—they’re on mute— but I can see them laugh. I can see exactly what The University reaches out to help the they’re getting and what they’re not getting. This proverbial thing that happens in a physi- surrounding neighborhoods. cal classroom where you can really see the light bulb go off, that really does happen. You can see BY LAURA DEMANSKI, AM’94 someone transform from not understanding to understanding.

Have you used any Zoom backgrounds? n the largely African American communities neighbor- ing the University, the COVID-19 pandemic is taking an On Wednesday we had “coffee mess,” which is a especially high toll. The disease is disproportionately morning get-together with students and faculty. affecting urban minority populations, and so are the Last week a few people used some doughnut economic repercussions. On March 30 the University backgrounds. Those were great. I went with an Ilaunched three initiatives to extend quick support at a time Eggo background. of distress in these neighborhoods. Wednesday was also the 44th anniversary To help ensure food security on the South Side, the Universi- of the founding of Apple Computers, and so in ty partnered with the Greater Chicago Food Depository to pre- class I popped up the original Apple partnership pare meals in its unused dining facilities, making an average of agreement as my Zoom background initially. 3,000 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners per day for distribution I’m very much into the historical part of my at more than a dozen sites across the area through mid-June. course where we talk about the post office. The A second initiative is helping small businesses on the other day I used a photo of a horse and carriage South Side, providing more than $800,000 in emergency from the start of parcel post in 1913 as my back- bridge grants, as well as rent relief and operating grants ground at the beginning of class. I’m using those to businesses that are University tenants. As of late April, as a fun “let’s get started” kind of thing. 182 bridge grants had been given in collaboration with the Chicago Bears and Bears Care, the football team’s If you were to give a pep talk to a charitable arm, to help local businesses of all kinds with colleague about to start their first general operating expenses and direct support for affect- online course, what would you say? ed employees. Eighteen tenant businesses had received

Photo courtesy Randy Picker rent relief and additional aid from the University. Take a breath. We’re all going to make some ad- Third, UChicago awarded $400,000 in grants to 79 com- justments, so let’s not sweat the small stuff. We munity-based nonprofits to cover general operating costs or need to deliver a University of Chicago education, expenses associated with moving their programming online. and I think we can do that using these technolo- The Office of Civic Engagement’s Community Programs -Ac gies. It will not be exactly the same thing as being celerator is also providing its nonprofit partners with online together, and we should miss that every day, but meetings, one-on-one consulting, and advice on local and

we can do our jobs here. ◆ Lachat Jean by Photography federal resources from which they can seek additional help. ◆

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 37

UCH_COVID19_v2.indd 37 5/15/20 4:54 PM Illustration by Brian Stauffer/Theispot

38 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_Giger_v2.indd 38 5/15/20 3:58 PM MEDICAL PHYSICS

IMAGE OF HEALTH Professor and entrepreneur Maryellen Giger, PhD’85, brings computer-aided breast cancer detection and diagnosis from bench to bedside.

BY MAUREEN SEARCY

nyone who has undergone can- ing might be used to evaluate the extent of the cer screening knows the uncer- cancer, plan treatment, or assess response to tainty and difficulty—financial, treatment in lieu of repeated biopsies. With bet- logistical, and emotional—of the ter breast imaging, radiologists could find, clas- process. Every year, I spend an sify, or rule out cancer sooner—reducing anxiety, anxious week repeatedly log- medical risk, and costs for millions of patients. ging into a patient portal looking This is the goal that drives the work of medical for test results from my routine physicist Maryellen Giger, PhD’85. Giger, the A. N. mammograms. Decades ago, Pritzker Professor of Radiology, the Committee when I had a diagnostic mammogram for an ul- on Medical Physics, and the College, is a pioneer Atimately benign lump, negative results came as a of artificial intelligence (AI) in cancer imaging. nondescript postcard in the mail. Yet both portal For decades she and her fellow medical physi- and postcard are preferable to the dreaded phone cists have been developing artificial neural net- call—what many patients receive when the scan works to join forces with old-fashioned human isn’t definitively negative, intelligence in the cause of and they have to come back. revolutionizing radiological Definitive can be hard to IMAGING IS imaging and analysis. come by. Sometimes dense Imaging is crucial—first to tissue makes it difficult to CRUCIAL—FIRST screen for potential cancer see the entire breast. Some- TO SCREEN FOR and then to help diagnose times the mammogram re- what’s found. Each of these veals a suspicious area that POTENTIAL steps depends on a different warrants a closer look. In CANCER AND type of radiological picture,

Illustration by Brian Stauffer/Theispot these cases, the physician and each is only as good as will order additional test- THEN TO HELP those pictures. How clear ing, to get a clearer image DIAGNOSE and complete are they? How or to diagnose what the first WHAT’S FOUND. noticeable do they render ab- test detected—more mam- normal areas? The technol- mograms, an ultrasound, ogy is continually advancing, or an MRI. The extra imaging helps figure out from the earliest X-rays—created accidentally by if there are hidden masses and whether they’re shooting electricity through a vacuum inside a likely to be cancerous. A patient might then un- glass tube—to ultradetailed MRIs that require no dergo a biopsy. If it confirms cancer, more imag- contrast agents in development here at UChicago.

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UCH_Giger_v2.indd 39 5/15/20 12:06 PM Once the images have been captured, they iger sketches out her research plans on a need to be interpreted. This is where Giger’s work notepad at her desk in the radiology de- comes in. Right now, medical images are mainly G partment at UChicago Medicine, during read by radiologists, whose work is as much art one of her respites from traveling this past win- as science. Over their careers, they learn that this ter. She has just returned from San Francisco, kind of spot is usually a cyst, while that kind of after being in Washington, DC, the week prior, spot is often a tumor. And they learn that a tumor and will be heading to Houston the week after that looks like this usually ends up being benign, for conferences in medical imaging and optics. while one that looks like that is probably malig- She starts at the beginning, explaining the dif- nant. These are qualitative judgments. ference between detection (screening) and diag- But a digital image holds more information nosis using the Where’s Waldo? books. “Detection than even the most experienced human eye can is finding things red-and-white striped. Diagnosis appreciate. Exactly how irregular—quantita- is saying the red-and-white thing is Waldo.” Now tively—are the margins of that tumor? What’s imagine a thousand-page book—each page an X-ray, the actual volume of that mass? A human radi- ultrasound, or MRI—and Waldo’s cancerous pres- ologist can estimate, but a computer can calcu- ence is on only four pages. The American Cancer Photo courtesy Maryellen Giger, PhD’85 late. Artificial intelligence algorithms can reveal Society estimates 279,100 new cases of breast can- and analyze such hidden data, supporting the cer will be found in 2020, so that’s like searching 70 radiologist’s initial evaluation and helping the million pages for the concealed character. clinician make decisions. This assistance could But if a computer, through artificial intel- do wonders, potentially reducing the number ligence, can be trained both to spot stripes and of false negatives (missed signs of cancer), false then to decide if they’re an umbrella, a beach positives (harmless areas deemed suspicious), towel, or in fact Waldo, radiologists can catch and and unnecessary biopsies. But someone needs to clinicians can treat disease earlier. This is what teach the AI how to see and what to look for. Giger has been working on for over 30 years.

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UCH_Giger_v2.indd 40 5/15/20 12:07 PM Since the beginning of her career, Maryellen Giger, PhD’85, has worked to use artificial intelligence for more accurate interpretation of medical images.

Giger’s research is built on computer vision, a decisions with minimal human intervention. field of AI that trains computers to “see”—to iden- To train such systems, scientists must use tify, interpret, classify, and then react to visual medical images that are already confirmed by images. That includes photographs and videos, pathology to be cancerous or not. These are con- and in Giger’s case, radiographs and other medi- verted into minable data: calculations of features cal images such as MRIs and CTs. like size, shape, or texture. Such metrics are cor- Studying physics, math, and health science as related with cancer presence and progression, an undergraduate at Benedictine University, Giger determined through clinical documentation or spent summers at Fermi National Accelerator Lab- molecular and genomic testing. The study of oratory. She was drawn to the relationship between medical physics, which uses these computer-extracted physics and math to under- features (i.e., radiomics) and stand biomedical processes GIGER’S the diseases they signify can and diagnose and treat dis- be used in cancer discov- eases. A career in medical RESEARCH ery—adding to the founda- physics, she thought, had the IS BUILT ON tional knowledge needed to potential to affect society in COMPUTER advance cancer diagnosis, her lifetime. treatment, and prevention. Medical physicists usu- VISION, A The machine learns from ally pursue either imaging FIELD OF AI these relationships the way science or radiation therapy. radiologists learn their craft: Giger chose imaging because THAT TRAINS for instance, a digital image she’s always relished ana- COMPUTERS that shows a smooth oval lytical challenges. When she TO “SEE” — lump is usually benign, and was a medical physics grad- two successive images that uate student at UChicago in TO IDENTIFY, show a measurable decrease the early 1980s, radiology INTERPRET, in tumor size may mean a was transitioning from X- treatment is working. ray screen-film radiography CLASSIFY, AND CAD can be developed for (similar to photographic THEN REACT use on X-ray, magnetic reso- film) to digital imaging. She nance, and ultrasound im- worked on basic properties TO VISUAL ages, and not necessarily just in digital radiography, like IMAGES. for breast cancer. Giger has pixel size, resolution, and spent most of her research image noise. This work is the time on breast cancer imag- basis of quantitative imaging: extracting quantifi- ing, but her projects have involved other types of able characteristics from images to help assess the cancer, including lung, prostate, and thyroid. nature of what’s being shown. In the 1980s and ’90s, Giger collaborated with Photo courtesy Maryellen Giger, PhD’85 other radiologists and imaging scientists in the reast cancer will cause an estimated Department of Radiology to establish the field of 42,690 deaths in 2020 according to the computer-aided detection. CAD is AI that uses B American Cancer Society. That’s not a computer vision to review medical images, pro- trivial number, but with earlier detection and viding a second set of “eyes”—a second opinion as better treatment options the mortality rate has an aid to the radiologist. Giger’s team formulated declined over the past 30 years. For women, who concepts and designed algorithms using machine have 99 percent of the cases, deaths are down learning, which includes systems that learn from 40 percent. (Lacking sufficient data on trans in- data (large, anonymized sets of tumor images from dividuals, the ACS reports statistics and issues diverse populations), identify patterns, and make guidelines in terms of men and women.)

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UCH_Giger_v2.indd 41 5/15/20 12:08 PM Deep learning networks are part of the story more patents followed, and soon the patents and of that decline. Emerging in the early 1990s, they software were licensed by a company named R2 enabled computers to learn directly from image Technologies, which translated the research into data without human direction. At the time, Giger a commercial product. and colleagues were using the early technology It took a few years of further development for to develop the first version of computer-aided R2 to create the first FDA-approved CADe system, detection (now called CADe to distinguish from called ImageChecker, to assist in the detection of computer-aided diagnosis, CADx, which came breast cancer on digitized mammograms. By 2016 later). The system was initially developed for about 92 percent of breast cancer screening facili- breast and lung images. ties were using a computer-aided detection system But searching detection mammograms for like this for mammogram second reads. cancer isn’t as simple as scanning a picture for CADe is run on mammograms after the radi- red-and-white stripes. X-rays are gray scale, ologist’s initial read, like a spellchecker. Having after all. And of the nearly 40 million mammo- a second human radiologist do a double read, a grams performed in the United States each year, common practice in Europe, has been shown to about half show dense breast tissue, which can decrease the rate of false negatives, but at a high both increase breast cost in money and la- cancer risk and ob- bor. Computer-aided scure small masses, detection acts as that making them harder COMMERCIALIZATION second reader; in to see with the na- MOVES RESEARCH fact, this is where R2 ked eye. got its name. If the Giger’s lab de- FROM BENCH TO system misses a sus- velops pattern-rec- BEDSIDE, MAKING pect region that the ognition software IT POSSIBLE FOR radiologist already that looks for visu- noted, the human’s als associated with A SCIENTIST’S IDEAS judgment overrides cancer: lighter gray AND DEVELOPMENTS the computer’s. But dense areas, possibly the computer some- with radiating tissue TO EVENTUALLY times flags a region patterns that suggest HELP PATIENTS. that the radiologist cancerous masses, might have over- and bright white looked. In these spots that may be microcalcifications, small calci- cases, it’s up to the radiologist to decide whether um deposits that indicate some underlying process that region should get further attention. CADe is happening in the breast. It’s sometimes harmless, meant to aid human evaluation, not supersede it. but sometimes dangerous, like ductal carcinoma Early in the development of the CADe algo- in situ, an early-stage cancer that may or may rithm, Giger thought, “We should give this away not become invasive. If the algorithm finds these so that all could benefit.” But if scientists made ba- patterns, it can flag questionable regions the sic research widely available, it might, paradoxi- radiologist might have missed. cally, be less useful. “There would be no economic In 1990 Giger, along with two other Univer- incentive for a company to make it into a prod- sity of Chicago medical physicists, Kunio Doi, uct,” she says, to “handle the expense of taking it the Ralph W. Gerard Professor Emeritus of Bio- through FDA and then making it clinically viable.” logical Sciences, and Heang-Ping Chan, PhD’81, Commercialization moves research from bench to now a professor of radiology at the University bedside, making it possible for a scientist’s ideas of Michigan, patented their CADe method and and developments to eventually help patients. system to detect and classify abnormal areas in When a product that was initially developed by

mammograms and chest radiographs. Several a UChicago faculty member is licensed, some of PhD’85 Giger, Maryellen courtesy Photo

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UCH_Giger_v2.indd 42 5/15/20 12:09 PM the funds from royalties and other payments are she says, “and then developed our own recom- funneled back to the lab to continue the underly- mendations to create UChicagoTech,” which ul- ing basic research, and some goes to the inventors, timately became part of the Polsky Center. the departments, the division, and then to the Uni- versity’s technology transfer enterprise. In 1980, the year after Giger came to UChi- ast December TIME magazine published cago, a new law changed how patentable inven- its list of the 100 best inventions of 2019. tions emerging from universities were handled. L One of the 10 selections in health care The Bayh-Dole Act made universities, rather was a product called QuantX, the first machine- than the federal governmental agencies that learning-driven system cleared by the FDA that funded the work, “the default owner” of those aids in breast cancer diagnosis. QuantX uses inventions, writes Eric Ginsburg in a brief history CADx to analyze diagnostic breast MRIs and of- of tech transfer at UChicago. Ginsburg, the in- fer radiologists a score related to the likelihood terim director of technology commercialization that a tumor is benign or malignant, using AI al- at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and gorithms developed in Giger’s lab. The magazine Innovation, notes that the act also encouraged cover sits on a bookshelf in Giger’s office. universities to commercialize and required them It was cleared for market in 2017, when a clini- to share revenue with the inventors. In the fol- cal reader study—a kind of study designed to test lowing decade, the number of patents filed by the performances of two technologies against universities quadrupled. each other—showed a 39 percent decrease in When UChicago created an internal office in missed cancer and a 20 percent improvement in 2001 to manage intellectual property and start- accuracy. ups, Giger chaired the university committee that QuantX makes a determination by “extract- proposed its structure, scope, and policies. “We ing” features of tumors revealed by diagnostic looked at what our peer institutions were doing,” MRIs. A radiologist first manually marks the

Giger presented at the 2019 meeting of the Radiological Society of North America and is serving on the organi-

Photo courtesy Maryellen Giger, PhD’85 Giger, Maryellen courtesy Photo zation’s recently formed COVID-19 task force.

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UCH_Giger_v2.indd 43 5/15/20 5:57 PM center of a tumor, telling the system precisely About 10 percent of women who undergo where to look. QuantX then automatically gen- screening mammography may go on to have di- erates a 3D outline of the lesion, providing vol- agnostic imaging, but only a few will actually ume, diameter, and surface area measurements. have cancer. QuantX aims to help radiologists The machine learning component of QuantX was find cancerous lesions while identifying women trained to recognize the relationship between whose tumors are most likely benign, saving certain features and whether the lesion is can- some of those women from invasive biopsies. cerous or noncancerous. It looks at lesion size, In Giger’s UChicago lab, the prototype work- shape, and other morphology, like whether it has station that led to QuantX is being investigated to an irregular margin. It also looks at character- help patients who have been diagnosed with can- istics enhanced by contrast agents used during cer. During treatment, they may receive periodic MRI exams, which reveal information about MRIs that are then run through the workstation texture and changes over time. The higher the as a “virtual biopsy,” to evaluate the treatment’s score, the higher the probability that the tumor progress without needing repeated physical bi- is malignant. opsies. When asked whether such a workstation Back in her office, Giger starts up an earlier will replace traditional biopsies, Giger says no. version of QuantX to show it in action. It takes “We aim to use a virtual biopsy when an actual fast computers to train the kind of algorithms biopsy is not practical.” within QuantX, but the system itself can run on Currently UChicago Medicine and the Universi- an ordinary laptop. Magnetic resonance breast ty of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are evalu- images occupy part of the screen; she demon- ating QuantX for use in radiology and radiomics strates how a radiologist can use crosshairs to research. The automatic segmentation saves time designate the center of the mass. The system then and the system’s ability to quantify so many tumor automatically outputs volume, diameter, and sur- characteristics and output a likelihood score pro- face area. “See how fast?” Giger notes. “This was vides useful data for future projects. run in real time.” QuantX took the first step in its journey from

To the right of the image section is a histo- lab to market in the 2009–10 academic year in Photography by Nancy Wong gram, showing the distribution of tumor types collaboration with the Polsky Center, UChica- in similar cases to the one being investigated, go’s innovation hub. One of Polsky’s accelerator like an online atlas. Each benign growth is in a programs is the Edward L. Kaplan, MBA’71, New green square and each cancer in a red square. She Venture Challenge—a competition to help start- points to a pink arrow showing where the mass in up businesses get off the ground. question falls in comparison to the known data- After hearing Giger present her work at a base. “Computer’s suggesting: probably benign.” Polsky Ideation Workshop in November 2009,

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UCH_Giger_v2.indd 44 5/15/20 12:10 PM The AI-powered medical imaging Giger works on is used as a second set of “eyes,” supplementing rather than replacing the judgment of radiologists.

Brian Luerssen, MBA’11, and James Krocak, MBA’11, make QuantX work with diagnostic ultrasounds. teamed up with Giger and Gillian Newstead, former While the companies built on Giger’s work chief of breast imaging at UChicago. They formed continue product development, she pushes her a company named Quantitative Insights, which research in more directions. QuantX is designed was a finalist in the 2010 New Venture Challenge. to generate a benign-malignant signature, but the (Giger notes that she first entered the competition “guts” of Giger’s technology can do more. For in- back in 2004, but during one presentation round stance, if different tumor features were weighted everyone was so excited about the science that differently, that signature might be used to pre- they ran out of time before discussing the business dict risk of recurrence, says Giger. And the im- plan. She didn’t make that mistake again.) aging big data that underpins CAD can also be After Quantitative Insights placed in the NVC, it applied to develop predictive models, for use in joined the Polsky Incubator, which provides space, prognosis and therapeutic response. mentorship, and sup- Currently Giger port for growing a is looking at several sustainable business. lung diseases using E. J. Reedy, senior di- WHILE THE low dose CT scans. rector of the Polsky COMPANIES BUILT (Breast cancer is the Exchange, explains second-highest cause that while the New ON GIGER’S WORK of cancer death in Venture Challenge CONTINUE PRODUCT women; lung cancer is a sprint, the incu- is the first.) She also bator is a marathon, DEVELOPMENT, received a shared in- with residency usu- SHE PUSHES HER strument grant at the ally lasting a couple RESEARCH IN MORE end of 2018 for an ex- of years. Quantita- tremely fast high-per- tive Insights had “a DIRECTIONS. formance computer longer cycle than the system, required to typical company,” handle large datasets says Reedy. It “tends to take a little bit longer for and train deep learning networks. “It can poten- some of the particularly science-based companies tially go up to 1.9 petaflops,” she says. That’s 1.9 to find their footing in the market.” quadrillion operations per second. While in the incubator, Quantitative Insights In April her team was also awarded one of three developed QuantX, took it through clinical reader inaugural seed grants from the C3.ai Digital Trans- studies, and gained clearance through the FDA’s formation Institute, a consortium “dedicated to ac- de novo process for first-time technologies with celerating the socioeconomic benefits of artificial “no legally marketed predicate device.” It “gradu- intelligence.” The grants support the use of AI to ated” out of Polsky last year when Paragon Biosci- mitigate COVID-19 and future pandemics; Giger’s ences acquired it and created the company Qlarity team aims to develop machine intelligence meth- (pronounced as “clarity”) Imaging to continue the ods to help interpret chest X-rays and CTs, which commercialization of QuantX. can aid in the triaging of COVID-19 patients. The FDA approves products for a narrow scope An overarching goal for Giger, one she shares

Photography by Nancy Wong of uses. QuantX was cleared to evaluate MRIs for with the UChicago radiology department, is to a tumor’s likelihood of being benign or malignant. use radiomics from digital imaging to advance Qlarity’s Meg Harrison, the chief operating officer precision medicine. In her vision, data from and head of product, says the company wants to millions of anonymous patients will be used to develop QuantX to support all types of breast im- customize health care to each individual person: aging: MRI, ultrasound, mammography, and to- detecting and diagnosing disease early and giv- mosynthesis. Each of those applications will need ing the right patient the right treatment at the its own FDA clearance. The next step will be to right time. ◆

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UCH_Giger_v2.indd 45 5/15/20 12:12 PM GLIMPSES

BETWEEN THE LINES

Brent Staples, AM’76, PhD’82, goes behind the work that earned him one of journalism’s highest honors.

BY LAURA DEMANSKI, AM’94

n April 2019 the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing nity known as Greenwood. For 50 years afterward, the blood- was awarded to New York Times essayist and edito- drenched event that troubled the city’s sleep and defined its rial board member Brent Staples, AM’76, PhD’82. history was banished to the very margins of public awareness. In his 10 prize-winning pieces, Staples delved into White families whose fathers, uncles, and sons had par- the pervasive history of racism in the United States, ticipated in the carnage enforced a civic silence. African bringing readers face to face with disturbing, largely American parents and grandparents kept quiet out of fear overlooked chapters of black American experience— that speaking of the great evil might resurrect it. The white whose legacy, he contends, we’re far from overcom- Tulsan who finally published a detailed account of the epi- ing. The editorials, the Pulitzer board said, were “written sode in 1971—enduring death threats along the way—was Iwith extraordinary moral clarity.” still living in the city when I stepped off the plane in 1999. They were also painstakingly researched. Staples brings He said something during one of our interviews—“History a historian’s chops to his work, writing opinion pieces an- is the only education. Everything else is just training.”— chored in facts that might otherwise have gone forgotten that resonated with my inclinations as a writer and left a except by historians. At UChicago he studied psychology, deep impression. The story of race and racism in the United teaching for a few years before joining the New York Times States is obscured by layer upon layer of willful forgetting. Book Review as an editor in 1985. Five years later he was Writing about this problem is by definition a forensic act. named to the paper’s editorial board. His columns have been nationally syndicated, and Staples’s 1994 autobiog- How have your readers reacted? raphy, Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black and White (Pan- theon), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. In April he was Readers are hungry for historically grounded explanation. named a fellow of the Society of American Historians. They cannot get enough of it. Since receiving the Pulitzer, Staples has continued to pub- lish columns that bring to light lesser known stories of racial A piece you wrote last October drew the most injustice in this country. His conversation with the Magazine responses of anything you’ve written. What did has been edited and condensed. readers say about it?

Your approach to newspaper column writing is My essay “How Italians Became ‘White’” showed how the distinct and powerful. How do these pieces fit into United States racialized southern Italians during the late the larger arc of your career? Do you see a greater 19th and early 20th centuries for being darker skinned, and need for people to remember such history in the they were ridiculed in white supremacist terms in the New current political moment? York Times itself. The essay attracted a strikingly diverse readership, reaching somewhere between two and three I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, two decades ago to report on the million people. College-educated Americans who had no state-sponsored commission that was investigating the most idea of the role racism plays in American immigration poli- destructive episode of racial terrorism in US history. The cy were surprised by the historical references—particularly bloody conflagration now known as the 1921 Tulsa Race Massa- the examples of anti-Italian and anti-black racism culled cre unfolded when the city empowered a mob of white vigilan- from the pages of the Times. Neighbors in the historically tes who murdered black citizens at will while reducing to ashes Italian section of Brooklyn where I have lived for more than

38 square blocks of the prosperous African American commu- 30 years stopped me on the street to discuss it. Photography by Celeste Sloman for the New York Times

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UCH_Glimpses_Staples_v4.indd 46 5/15/20 5:52 PM One of the striking things about the Pulitzer and post-Pulitzer pieces as a set is the extent to which they reflect and recommend reading deeply and widely. Why is that important to you? Journalists often write swiftly under constraints that limit them to few if any citations. I get the time and space I need when working on major essays. I make full use of hyper- links. I see citations as public service; they allow readers to find original source materials and make up their own minds about my arguments.

Are there ways in which your PhD work in psychology at the University has influenced your work as a journalist? My reading in the philosophy of science—and the works of philosophers like Edmund Husserl, Michael Polanyi, and Paul Ricoeur—has shaped my ability to see beyond the sur- face of the world. Here and elsewhere these columns tell uncomfortable truths about the history of the Which writers and journalists influenced your newspaper in which they’re published. Did you work the most, early in your career and now? have full support to talk about that? In stylistic terms, I was heavily influenced by the novelist There are no comfortable truths about the pervasiveness Saul Bellow, EX’39, who was situated on the Committee on of racism in the United States. As the great-grandson of a Social Thought when I was in my 20s. (I remember seeing black Virginian who narrowly missed being born a slave— him on campus soon after he was awarded the 1976 Nobel and who died only a decade before I was born—I am irre- Prize.) I was fascinated by the way he grafted familiar peo- vocably committed to speaking truth on matters of racial ple and news events into his novels, particularly Humboldt’s justice. Many years ago, during an argument with an edi- Gift (Viking, 1975), The Dean’s December (Harper & Row, tor, I enunciated what turned out to be a guiding personal 1982), and a few others. principle. Before I dishonor the memory of my great-grand- father and my enslaved forebears, I said, I will quit this job Is there anything you’ve been reading lately that and go wash cars. you would recommend?

Your essays bring to life figures like Frazier Not long ago, I published a Times essay about Seneca Vil- Baker and Madison Hemings (see “The Legacy lage, the 19th-century African American settlement that of Monticello’s Black First Family,” page 49), to was destroyed to build Central Park. This essay is of a piece name just two, and transport us to their worlds with articles I have written over the last two decades il- for a time. Can you reflect on the importance to luminating the largely forgotten story of African Ameri- your work of bringing individual human beings cans who lived, worked, and died in early New York City. and past moments to life in this way? Twentieth-century Manhattanites who grew up thinking of New York as a “free” state were stunned when construc- I take particular joy in helping to restore the dignity of tion workers unearthed the African Burial Ground in 1991. figures like Madison Hemings, who was reviled by histo- The event forced people to reckon with the fact that Goth- rians for saying what he knew from firsthand experience: am was an epicenter of the slave trade in the United States that Thomas Jefferson was his father and the lover of his and a hostile environment for free black New Yorkers who mother, Sally Hemings. The work of the historian Annette saw it as a duty to assist fugitives from slavery like Frederick

Photography by Celeste Sloman for the New York Times Gordon-Reed is inspiring in this way. Douglass, who touched down briefly in Manhattan before

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UCH_Glimpses_Staples_v4.indd 47 5/15/20 9:21 AM fleeing into New England. The black Manhattanites who es- white editors who changed the wording in my essay were tablished Seneca Village in the 1820s were fleeing the mur- operating under the familiar presumption that the term derous hostility they experienced in Lower Manhattan. I am “racist” should be reserved for sheet-wearing Klansmen. reading deeply into their lives to get a sense of their fears and I countered that, in terms of effect, there is no discernible aspirations. Leslie M. Alexander’s African or American? Black difference between the conduct of a self-declared white su- Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784–1861 premacist who deliberately sets out to crush a black child’s (University of Illinois Press, 2008) is a good place to start. life and the behavior of a self-declared liberal who achieves the same crushing effect while subscribing “unconsciously” How did you react when you found out you had to racist views of blackness. won the Pulitzer Prize? As we complete this interview, the COVID-19 With disbelief. pandemic is taking a sharply greater toll on African Americans and Latinos than whites in the How have you changed as a writer and journalist United States. What light does your work shed on from the beginning of your career to today? this inequity? I am more concise—sentence by sentence and in composi- Inequality is the defining feature of life in the United States. tional terms. As the Princeton University professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor wrote recently in the New Yorker, the pandemic has What advice can you offer aspiring journalists? given a murderous twist to the old African American apho- rism “When white America catches a cold, black America Read as much as you can. Write as much as you can. gets pneumonia.” The disastrous COVID-19 death rate among black Americans reflects the structural racism that You’ve written that the only real hope of getting disproportionately confines them to the lowest rungs of so- beyond racism in the United States is to talk ciety. They are more likely to experience joblessness, hun- about it, particularly about subtler forms of ger, and life in crowded substandard housing—making them discrimination that persist today and that are the more susceptible to infection. most deniable as innocent or accidental. How do It is widely understood that racist stereotypes inform you think we’re doing in that regard? medical education, medical treatment, and public health policy itself. As I pointed out in my essay “Slandering the The country is in denial about the pervasiveness of racism. Unborn”—part of my Pulitzer nomination—racist stereo- That denial is reflected in the way the traditional news me- types dominated the public discourse during the crack epi- dia speaks of obviously racist behaviors euphemistically, us- demic of the 1980s and ’90s. News organizations embraced ing phrases like “racially charged,” “racially insensitive,” or the fallacious view that mothers addicted to a cheap, smok- “racially inflammatory.” Several years ago, I wrote an essay able form of cocaine were giving birth to a generation of based on federal data showing that black preschoolers were children who would be less than fully human. These women far more likely to be suspended than their were thus deemed criminals from whom white counterparts for essentially the same the unborn were said to need protection. behaviors. I concluded the piece by writing As I say in the essay, “The myth of the something like, “This is how racism works The country is ‘crack baby’—crafted from equal parts at school.” I stepped out of the office for a in denial about bad science and racist stereotypes—was moment and returned to find that white debunked by the turn of the 2000s.” By editors had changed “racism” to “race.” the pervasiveness then, however, the discredited notion This sanitized formulation implied that of racism. that cocaine was uniquely and perma- the crushing mistreatment visited upon nently damaging to the unborn had been African American schoolchildren had de- written into the legal code and used to scended from the heavens and fixed itself in place without advance the view that the fetus was a person with rights human complicity. The sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva superseding those of the mother. In other words, a racist critiques this kind of thinking in his widely cited book Rac- idea first brought to bear against African American mothers

ism without Racists (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). The had been generalized and applied to women as a whole. ◆ Photography by Damon Winters © 2020 The New York Times Company

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UCH_Glimpses_Staples_v4.indd 48 5/15/20 9:22 AM THE LEGACY OF MONTICELLO’S BLACK FIRST FAMILY

A July 4, 2018, New York Times essay reflects on a recently opened exhibit at Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia estate that gives new recognition to Sally Hemings and the role of slavery in the home—and his family.

BY BRENT STAPLES, AM’76, PHD’82

lantation wives in the slave-era South resorted to The foundation that owns Monticello, Jefferson’s moun- willful blindness when their husbands conscript- taintop home near Charlottesville, Virginia, broke with this ed black women as sexual servants and filled the long-running deception last month when it unveiled sev- household with mixed-race children who inevita- eral new exhibits that underscore the centrality of slavery bly resembled the master. Thomas Jefferson’s wife, on the founder’s estate. The most important—in the South Martha, was several years dead when he set off on Wing, where Sally Hemings once lived—explores the legacy Pthis path, fathering at least six children with Martha’s of the enslaved woman whom some historians view as the enslaved black half sister, Sally Hemings. The task of dis- president’s second wife and who skillfully prevailed on him sembling fell to the remaining white Jeffersons, who aided to free from slavery the four Jefferson-Hemings children in a cover-up that held sway for two centuries and feigned who lived into adulthood. The exhibit underscores the fact ignorance of a relationship between Jefferson and Hemings that the Jefferson estate was an epicenter of racial mixing

Photography by Damon Winters © 2020 The New York Times Company that lasted nearly four decades. in early Virginia, making it impossible to draw clear lines

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 49

UCH_Glimpses_Staples_v4.indd 49 5/15/20 9:22 AM between black and white. It reminds contemporary Ameri- narrowed the social distance between them. Sally Hemings cans that slave owners like the Jeffersons often held their would have been keenly aware of this. own black children, aunts, uncles, and cousins in bondage. Madison refers to Jefferson affectionately as “father” And it illustrates how enslaved near-white relations used throughout his memoir, noting that he was “uniformly kind proximity to privilege to demystify whiteness while taking to all about him,” but as the historian Jan Ellen Lewis has critical measure of the relatives who owned them. written, “The Hemings children knew … that they were the Masters who maintained black “second families” are disfavored children of a loving and powerful man.” Indeed, a familiar presence in the chronicles of the slave trade. Madison depicts his family at Monticello as lying beyond Madison Hemings, the third of the Jefferson-Hemings the reach of the warmth and congeniality that Jefferson re- children who survived into adulthood, offered his account flexively extended to his white grandchildren. of second-family life at Monticello in a poignant, strikingly Madison seemed genuinely and affectionately interest- detailed memoir published in an Ohio newspaper in 1873. ed in his white relatives—who never acknowledged their He explains that his mother was born black relations and referred to them of a union between Martha’s widowed as slaves, “these parties,” or “the yel- father, John Wayles, and his enslaved low children.” He cast a gimlet eye on lover, Elizabeth Hemings, and was This negotiation James Madison’s wife, Dolley, who was conveyed to Jefferson as property suggests that visiting Monticello when he was born when Wayles died. It is widely known the 16-year-old and promised Sally Hemings a gift in that Sally Hemings traveled to France exchange for naming him Madison: in 1787—Jefferson was serving as a Sally Hemings “But like many promises of white folks diplomat there—and learned French had considerable to the slaves,” he said dryly, “she never while serving in the family’s house- gave my mother anything.” hold on the eve of the revolution. insight into The interracial tableau that played We learn from Madison’s account Jefferson’s mind out at Monticello was familiar in the that during that time in France, Sally plantation South. The 19th-century Hemings became pregnant with Jef- and some sense diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut, for ex- ferson’s child and considered remain- of what he could ample, likened plantation husbands ing in the country, where she would be to “the patriarchs of old’’ who lived a free woman, instead of returning to be obligated openly in one household with their slavery in Virginia. She agreed to re- to do. wives and their concubines, noting turn only after Jefferson promised her bitterly that “the mulattoes one sees in “extraordinary privileges’’ and gave a every family partly resemble the white “solemn pledge” to free any children the two might have children.” White widowers like John Wayles and Thomas once they reached adulthood. Jefferson kept his pledge, Jefferson who forged relationships with black women they making Sally Hemings the only enslaved parent at Monti- owned were less controversial but equally common. Nev- cello to see all of her children freed. ertheless, historians ridiculed Madison’s story, dismissing This negotiation suggests that the 16-year-old Sally him as a social-climbing fabulist. Hemings had considerable insight into Jefferson’s mind and His credibility was gradually restored during the late some sense of what he could be obligated to do. She saw her 20th century, after historians like Fawn Brodie [AM’36], surviving children—Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston— Winthrop Jordan, and Gordon-Reed reevaluated this issue reap what the historian Annette Gordon-Reed describes as “an in light of corroborating evidence that forced Monticello to almost 50-year head start on emancipation, escaping the sys- ratify Jefferson’s paternity. Fittingly, the new exhibit tells tem that had engulfed their ancestors and millions of others.” the Sally Hemings story through Madison’s testimony. That Jefferson conceded to Sally Hemings suggests that This places Sally Hemings at the center of plantation life, he did not view her through the abjectly racist lens he de- where she clearly belongs. It also shows that Jefferson’s ploys against African Americans in his infamous book Notes baronial mountaintop estate was just like any other planta- on the State of Virginia. Musing on this subject two decades tion when it came to matters of sexual conduct. ◆ ago, the historian Winthrop Jordan suggested that her training as a lady’s maid, lightly colored skin, and diction This essay originally appeared in the New York Times. Brent Staples that probably matched Jefferson’s—if not his late wife’s— © 2020 The New York Times Company

50 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_Glimpses_Staples_v4.indd 50 5/15/20 9:23 AM PEER REVIEW WHAT ALUMNI ARE THINKING AND DOING

HOIST YOUR SAILS The University Yacht Club began assembling a dinghy fleet in 1940. Launching the fleet’s first vessel are (clockwise from far left) Betty Wetzel, AB’40; Esther Miller Morris, EX’43; Marietta Moore O’Hara, EX’43; Kay Chittenden Hollis, EX’43; Jane Moran Gruys, EX’43; Mary Jane (Greening) Rathje, EX’42; Genevieve Hackett Jones, SB’43; and Ruth (Steel) Wilson, SB’41.

52 56 73 76 Notes and Alumni News Advanced Deaths Releases Degrees UChicago Photographic Archive, apf4-02786, University of Chicago Library Chicago of University apf4-02786, Archive, UChicago Photographic

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 51

Spring 2020 Peer Review Opener V4.indd 51 5/15/20 12:59 PM NOTES A SELECTION OF ALUMNI WHOSE NAMES ARE IN THE NEWS

BLACK BUSINESS MILESTONE This year marks the 50th anniversary of the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA), an organization with roots at the University of Chicago. In April 1970 a group of black UChicago busi- ness school students—led by the late George Bradshaw, MBA’71; Alexander Gabbin, MBA’70; and the late Anthony Jackson, MBA’70—convened a two-day conference of their peers from nearly 30 MBA programs across the country. The first of its kind for an emerging genera- tion of MBA holders, the gathering grew into the NBMBAA with its mission to develop partnerships that create intel- lectual and economic wealth in the black community. This April Gabbin and three ARTISTIC EVOLUTION other participants in the original confer- The work of JoAnne Carson, MFA’79, was showcased in a 25-year retrospective at ence—Gene Armstrong, MBA’69; James the Opalka Gallery of the Sage Colleges this past winter. JoAnne Carson: Rise Up Hill Jr., MBA’67; and Clyde Proctor, and Shine! included sculptures, paintings, and drawings by the artist and University MBA’69—hosted a virtual reunion com- at Albany studio art professor, highlighting her distinctive style of representing na- memorating the role of their UChicago ture through fanciful combinations. The 2017 sculpture Chlorophylia (For a World cohort in founding an organization that Without Color) (above) transmutes a tree’s natural form into an artificial one—a now comprises 39 local chapters. bouquet—to produce a bit of visual wordplay. All but drained of the chlorophyll that gives it color, Chlorophylia sprouts otherworldly flowers to feed the viewer’s A NOVEL OF ITS TIME love of green. Carson’s work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Mu- Ling Ma, AB’05, an assistant professor seum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and UChicago’s Smart Museum of Art. of practice in the arts in UChicago’s English department and creative writing program, has received a Whiting Award Chicago’s bricks-and-mortar Dusty level and stays with students through for fiction. The Whiting Foundation’s Groove—and follows him into the world high school, offering tuition-free classes $50,000 award recognizes early literary of acquiring records from their collectors in math, reading, art, and other subjects. achievement and the promise of great and keepers. Viewers learn the stories of future work. Ma’s debut novel Severance enthusiasts like Dusty Groove cofounder BEST FIRST BOOK (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), at and former WHPK hip-hop DJ John In January Tim Cassedy, AM’05, an asso- once “a zombie novel, a road movie, an Schauer, AB’86, and celebrated Chicago ciate professor of English at Southern immigrant novel, a mordant satire, a jazz saxophonist Grady Johnson. “I’ve Methodist University, received the Modern novel of first love,” wrote the selection always been as fascinated with the peo- Language Association’s Prize for a First committee, is “a marvel of form” that ple who listen to music as I am with the Book. In Figures of Speech: Six Histories considers “the troubled American pres- music itself,” Wojcik says in the film. of Language and Identity in the Age of ent, including end-stage capitalism and Revolutions (University of Iowa Press, especially cultural nostalgia, brilliantly ADVOCATE FOR STUDENT SUCCESS 2018), Cassedy examines a cultural mo-

conceived here as a fatal epidemic.” Rosa Hyun Perkins, AB’94, MBA’00, re- ment at the turn of the 19th century when MFA’79 Carson, JoAnne copyright Image ceived the 2020 Horizons Hero Award for language itself gained prominence as A LIFE IN VINYL her work as the founder and board chair a category of identity for people in the Record shop owner Rick Wojcik, AB’88, of Horizons National Chicago, a summer- English-speaking world. His focus on six is the subject of the documentary Dusty time academic enrichment program for characters from the era who illustrate its Groove: The Sound of Transition (Petunia underprivileged students in the city. With ideas about language and selfhood earned Productions, 2019), which had its Chi- a professional background in finance, him praise from the MLA judges. “It is a cago premiere in February. Directed by Perkins partnered with the University of rare and wonderful gift,” they wrote, “to be Danielle Beverly, the film shares its name Chicago Charter School to help launch the able to craft a scholarly argument that also with the store Wojcik cofounded in 1996 program on the South Side. Now in its tells page-turning stories.” as an e-commerce site—later to become third year, the program starts at the pre-K —Andrew Peart, AM’16, PhD’18

52 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

Notes and Releases_Layout_Spring 20_v5.indd 52 5/14/20 2:37 PM

- - - - 5/14/20 2:45 PM5/14/20 2:45 PM 53 .

SPRING 2020 SPRING | .) To read aboutTo Bland’s —Andrew Peart, AM’16, PhD’18 . Not long after the 1876 invention As population growth everywhere levels off, pressures on the environment, the ease, will space living and supply, food putting more economic resources within reach of greater numbers of people. Sie gel acknowledges that progress will face but challenges other and environmental and innovation, technology, that contends economic growth will provide solutions. peared in the 1920s, Galili shows, avant- garde artists like Dziga Vertov were ready explore to the medium’s potential perception. human expand to GREENER: RICHER, FEWER, PROSPECTS FOR HUMANITY IN AN AGE OF ABUNDANCE By Laurence B. Siegel, AB’75, MBA’77; John Wiley & Sons, 2019 Our imminent future will see the centuries long trend in the developed world toward to spread well-being and wealth greater and finance argues globe, the of rest the economics expert Laurence B. Siegel in the 1990s interpret to these pieces, he described the latter as “[Charles] Ives meets Charles.” Ray Each track here reflects Bland’s aimto unite black with experimentation modernist ( style. vernacular work“Jazz as a filmmaker, as Cri see Di Winter/20 Coeur,” SEEINGELECTRICITY: BY THE 1878–1939 TELEVISION, OF EMERGENCE By Doron Galili, PhD’11; Duke University Press, 2020 The form of broadcast television that emerged in the 1930s had its origins Seer, Distant the Phantoscope, the in and other speculative 19th-century moving transmitting for technologies and archaeologist media argues images, Doron researcher University Stockholm Galili com and technicians telephone, the of mentators alike began imagining the use of wires and electric signals send to and receive pictures as well as sound. When television’s first practical prototypes ap

- - ’s THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE , Byron’s fictional ’s Goodreads bookshelf at mag.uchicago.edu/alumni-books. at bookshelf Goodreads ’s RELEASES URBAN COUNTERPOINT: THE PIANO MUSIC OF ED BLAND Music composed Ed by Bland, EX’50; 2020 Recordings, Master Cambria one and arranger, composer, late The latest young adult novel is the story of American Muslim a Maquet, Khayyam teen and aspiring art historian on a trip Paristo with her family. Khayyam is researching a series of Eugène Delacroix paintings based on an 1813 epic poem by the “mad, bad, and dangerous know” to Lord Byron. In Giaour The narrative of military a Turkish leader, his the lover, Venetian her and concubine, woman iskilled for her affair love without protagonist Ahmed’s line. a speaking ever helps uncover this forgotten heroine’s side of the story as she navigates her identity. multihyphenate own a produced Bland Ed filmmaker time body of solo piano works that combine Western classical music with African traditions. African West and American Performed pianist by and Bland col selections the Olson, Judith laborator on this album include the jazzy “Heat Blue,” “Zone bluesy the Missile,” Seeking gospel-inspiredand the “Classical Soul.” When Olson began working with Bland diplomat who worked at the embassy the at worked who diplomat in Moscow, describes Prigov as a major like artists dissident Russian on influence Pussy Riot and the group. Voina MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO KNOW By Samira Ahmed, AB’93, MAT’93; Soho 2020 Teen, Best-selling author Ahmed Samira

- - ALUMNI BOOKS, FILMS, AND RECORDINGS -

, a retired US 2020 Simon Schuchat Simon of Prigov’s generation, such as such generation, Prigov’s of SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT FOOD, For additional alumni book releases, usethe link to the Magazine FAST CARBS, SLOW CARBS: CARBS: SLOW CARBS, FAST THE WEIGHT, AND DISEASE By David A. Kessler,JD’78; TEXTS SOVIET Translated Simon by Schuchat, AB’75, with 2020 Presse, Duckling Ugly Morse; Ainsley Writer and visual artist Dmitri Alexandrovich important an was (1940–2007) Prigov figure in Soviet and post-Soviet culture founder a as avant-garde global the in and of the movement known as Moscow collection, This conceptualism. described representa first the as publisher the by selectiontive in English of Prigov’s prose about stories short includes poetry, and heroes of Russia’s revolutionary period cult as regarded sequences poetic and classics “Image of Reagan in Soviet Literature.” Translator HarperWave, has agricultural economy America’s produced a national diet built largely on what former US Food and Drug Admin istration commissioner Davidistration A. Kessler calls fast carbs—the rapidly digestible starches and sugars in processed foods. Kessler explains the science of fast carbs, arguing that they drive up appetites, dis contribute and metabolism, normal rupt highto rates of obesity, diabetes, and diets healthier Proposing heart disease. based on what he terms slow carbs, Kessler and nonstarchy legumes, recommends grains. certain and vegetables, cruciferous Notes and Releases_Layout_Spring 20_v5.indd 53Notes and Releases_Layout_Spring 20_v5.indd 53

Image copyright JoAnne Carson, MFA’79 ALUMNI ESSAY

I TINKER, THEREFORE I AM How an activist and technician found himself at the Mission Science Workshop.

BY DAN SUDRAN, AB’66

ake a shy, somewhat bright yer helping migrant farmworkers, and garage moved to a public space, cre- but neurotic, Jewish teen- four years as an organizer under Cesar ating something new in the world: a ager, with left-leaning Chavez. Then, in an unexpected excur- community science workshop. iconoclastic UChicago sion to the engineering department of It wasn’t all electronics. In the early alumni social worker par- City College of San Francisco, I learned days of the workshop, animal bones ents who lived through the to use my hands and mind in new ways helped build the concept of active Red scare in Kansas City, and—perhaps in unconscious defiance neighborhood-based science. Rather Missouri. Add the soul- of my father’s intellectual, hands-off ap- than holding out for full skeletons, I crushing years of the mid- proach to life—undertook a 10-year ca- collected partials from roadkill out in 1960s, when young men reer as an electronics technician. the country. Regardless of condition, his age were being sent to In 1990, after repairing and calibrat- almost every spine was pretty sure to the killing fields of Vietnam while he ing my 50th Telequipment vacuum yield either a complete cervical, tho- Twended his way through the Univer- tube–based oscilloscope, it was time racic, lumbar, or caudal sequence of sity, majoring in modern European so- for a change. I opened the door of bones. Legs could be assembled from cial history, hopeful for a life living up my home garage in the inner Mission incomplete remains of horses, cows, to the world-repairing vision he was District. Neighborhood kids (mostly deer, elk, and antelope. raised with. Combine with the father’s Spanish speaking) came in to play Now summer vacations had a new successful project of raising his son to with microscopes, oscilloscopes, and purpose: scouring the California land- be fluent in Spanish. You get a recipe more. In six months, with the support scapes for bones—rocks and fossils, for a life full of surprising possibilities. of the chancellor of City College, that too, to share the story of animal struc- Fast forward to 2020, and you will tures, evolution, an ancient Earth, and find that teenager (me) at 76 years of its artifacts. Whale bones from nearby age hunched over a workbench in the beaches were packed into a donated converted old auto shop at San Fran- Now summer truck and shared with schools, where cisco’s Mission High School, desolder- vacations had a new children could themselves help assem- ing the speaker wires of a Panasonic purpose: scouring ble a 30-foot-long skeleton. model 2400D AM/FM radio. Tinker- Geology, which had always seemed ing with this ancient device provides the California the dismal science to me, came to life an opening for my students at the Mis- landscapes for as well with the help of local geologists sion Science Workshop to explore the who shared my dismay at the gap be- wonderful three-dimensional world of bones—rocks and tween public understanding of Earth electromagnetism, sound, and light. fossils, too, to share and its history and the specialized, often How did I get here? It took three years inscrutable vocabulary their profession as a law student, two years as a VISTA the story of ... an has developed. The sea cliff at Mussel

(Volunteers in Service to America) law- ancient Earth. Rock became my local Grand Canyon. Leddy Vincent by Photography

54 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

UCH_Sudran AE_v2.indd 54 5/14/20 11:07 AM Sudran leads one of the workshop’s “take-it-apart, put-it-together, figure-it-out, do-it- yourself tinkering adventures.”

Its abundant fossils and virtually con- the magnet of a very small speaker, tomed to having machines take care of tinuous exposure of shallow to deep wa- leaving the voice coil attached. Then everything that we’re in danger of los- ter sedimentation provided evidence of I disconnected an old radio’s output ing any understanding of how and why three million years of sea level fluctua- wires from its own speaker and con- things work as they do. When Ernest tions along the San Andreas Fault. nected them to the isolated voice coil Rutherford was asked how it was that so Further afield, sites in Utah, Idaho, of the small speaker. While bringing many Nobel Prize winners had worked and Wyoming opened a window into either pole of the separated magnet in his lab in Cambridge, he said, “We “deep time” that had been enshrouded back up to the coil, I was amazed to were just like children taking a watch in jargon for me. Southeastern Idaho hear sound. At a good inch distant apart to see how it worked.” Except, of provided beautiful Paleozoic horn corals from the magnet, the coil and its at- course, their watch was the atom. (300 million years old); Utah’s Cambrian tached speaker cone began to vibrate When I see kids with their comput- trilobites (500 million) were available in and transmit a radio station signal, ers, tablets, and cell phones, I fear they amazing abundance in the House Range; with my favorite raucous norteña mu- have little notion of why their move- and Wyoming’s Green River Formation sic, right to my ears. ments are producing the desired re- held the largest deposit of freshwater We can read about Michael Faraday’s sults—that is, of the workings of the fish fossils in the world. The friendly discovery of the electromagnetic force, real three-dimensional world they’re manager of a private quarry there was or see James Clerk Maxwell’s elegant part of. That understanding is impor- excited to provide his partials in limey field equations setting out the variables tant, not only to keep things working, shale. Back home, with small dollar- and how they relate. But producing that but also for our very souls. Rachel store wood chisels, students themselves force with one’s own hand is an incom- Carson had the soul in mind when she uncover the 50-million-year-old fish parably deeper experience for body and said this: “If I had influence with the from these partials. soul. I want to bring that kind of experi- good fairy ... I should ask that her gift Only three years ago did I begin to ence to as many people as I can. to each child in the world would be a look at all those years of hands-on cu- So today I’m still whacking away at sense of wonder so indestructible that riosity, discovery, and sharing in a new all sizes and styles of speakers—and so it would last throughout life as an un- light: as tinkering. It happened when a are the children, parents, and teachers failing antidote against the boredom friend donated some discarded speak- who visit Mission Science Workshop. and disenchantments of later years, ers to the workshop. We do every manner of take-it-apart, the sterile preoccupation with things Every speaker has a magnet sur- put-it-together, figure-it-out, do-it- that are artificial, the alienation from rounding the copper windings of the yourself tinkering adventures. We may the sources of our strength.” voice coil. The magnet pushes and even be rescuing ourselves from the Tinkering is a powerful antidote. ◆ pulls on the coil as electrical oscilla- increasingly addictive and abstracted tions cycle through from a radio or digital world. Dan Sudran, AB’66, is the founder of San other sound source. In my first self- Tim Wu has called it “the tyranny of Francisco’s Mission Science Workshop. Vis-

Photography by Vincent Leddy Vincent by Photography conscious act of tinkering, I pried away convenience”—when we are so accus- it online at missionscienceworkshop.org.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 55

UCH_Sudran AE_v3.indd 55 5/14/20 1:50 PM ALUMNI NEWS FROM THE CLASSES, SCHOOLS, AND DIVISIONS

To protect the privacy of our alumni, we have removed the class notes from this section. If you are an alumnus of the University and would like class notes from our archives, please email [email protected].

Line of defense: Jean Roff Smith, EX’44, receives a trial influenza vaccine in January 1941. The vaccine, administered here by nurse Martha Cooley, was developed by Rockefeller Foundation scientists Frank Horsfall and Edwin Lennette, SB’31, PhD’35, MD’36. Despite hopes that the so-called complex vaccine would defend against flu epidemics at home and abroad during World War II, its performance in human trials proved inconclusive,

UChicago Photographic Archive, apf4-01517, University of Chicago Library Chicago of University apf4-01517, Archive, UChicago Photographic and the scientists kept searching.

What’s new? We are always eager to receive your news, care of the Alumni News Editor, The University of Chicago Maga­zine. While the Magazine staff works remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, please send news via email: uchicago​-magazine@uchicago​.edu. No engagements, please. Items may be edited for space. As news is published in the order in which it arrives, it may not appear immediately. We list news from all former undergraduates (including those with UChicago graduate degrees) by the year of their

undergraduate affiliation. All former students who received only graduate degrees are listed in the advanced degrees section. Library Chicago of University apf4-01517, Archive, UChicago Photographic

56 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

Spring 2020 BOB Alumni News V13.indd 56 5/15/20 12:01 PM “Keep on Pushing”: The title of the Impressions’ 1964 hit, a civil rights anthem, provides words of encouragement in the Ida Noyes Hall office of the Student Woodlawn Area Project (SWAP). Led by Ann F. Cook, AM’66, and Herbert L. Mack, AB’59, MAT’66, SWAP recruited UChicago student volunteers to tutor underserved South Side high school students. True to its name, SWAP approached tutoring as a two-way process and governed itself democratically: a 10-member tutee advisory committee helped steer programming. Photography by V. Weissman. Copyright 2020, The C hicago M aroon . All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Off-Broadway meets cabaret: In December 1969 the Music Theater of Hyde Park put on a production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel at the Harper Theater and Coffee House on 53rd Street and Harper Avenue. Built as a vaudeville house in 1914, the Harper was converted to a modern cinema in 1935 and became a venue for live theater, music, and dance in 1961, when it was bought by Hyde Park Herald publisher Bruce Sagan, EX’49. After experiencing several more sales, closures, and reopenings through the years, the University bought the theater in 2002. With extensive renovations, the building now houses a four-screen neighborhood movie

Copyright 20 20, The C hicago M aroon . All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. theater and the Polsky Exchange start-up hub.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 57

Spring 2020 BOB Alumni News V13.indd 57 5/15/20 12:02 PM IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO BECOME A DOCTOR • Intensive, full-time preparation for medical school in one year • Early acceptance programs at select medical schools—more than any other postbac program • Supportive, individual academic and premedical advising VISIT US AT WWW.BRYNMAWR.EDU/POSTBAC [email protected] 610-526-7350

BRYN MAWR COLLEGE

INCREASE AFFECTION Reform minded: University of Chicago Women’s Union founding member Lauren Furst, Created by AB’79 (left), with fellow members Judith Sedaitis, AB’79, AM’82 (middle), and Sharon Winnifred Cutler, Pollack, AB’94 (Class of 1979), in 1979. Founded three years earlier, the Women’s Union Ph.D. in biology (not to be confused with the former social club founded in 1901) was an organization from U. Penn, of student activists focused on gender equality and such causes as improving health postdoc Stanford. care services, providing access to sexual assault counseling and self-defense training, In 1986 co- and increasing female representation in the curriculum. The Women’s Union, wrote the discovered human Maroon in 1979, saw itself “as a catalyst for making the University and Hyde Park more pheromones

Photography b y C arol S tudenmund, A B’79. opyright 2 020, The hicago M aroon. ll rights reserved. Reprinted with permission comfortable and equitable places for women to live and work.” Effective for 74% in two 8-week studies and 68% in a 3rd study. PROVEN EFFECTIVE IN 3 DOUBLE-BLIND STUDIES INCREASES YOUR ATTRACTIVENES Vial of 1/6oz. lasts 4-6 months Unscented Athena 10X tm For Men $99.50 Fragrance 10:13 tm For Women $98.50 Additives Cosmetics Free U.S. Shipping ♥ Sara, Ph.D. (CO) “It has major positive ef- fects on my work in my contacts with people. It’s like the Red Sea parts! I don't think it’s all my charm! This product is shocking!” . All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. ♥ Don (CA) “I know the Athena pheromones are based on substantial science. At parties, I’ll invariably end up surrounded by women.” Not in stores 610-827-2200 Athenainstitute.com Athena Inst. Braefield Rd Chester Spgs, PA 19425 UCM

Where are the shops of yesteryear? In May 2000 these were the businesses that graced the south side of 53rd Street between Dorchester and Kenwood Avenues. Do you have memories of Ribs ’n’ Bibs, Scholars’ Books, 2nd Hand Tunes, or Flower Bucket? Write to us at [email protected]. Let us know if there are other now-gone Hyde

Photography by Wes Pope. Comer Archive of Chicago in the Year 2000 (University of Illinois at Chicago) Park establishments you miss. Photography Weissman. by V. Copyright 2020, Maroon Chicago The

58 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

Spring 2020 BOB Alumni News V13.indd 58 5/15/20 12:03 PM DEATHS

TRUSTEES died March 7 in Chicago. He was 93. After rocks, Anderson joined the UChicago fac- attending the College for one year, Miller ulty in 1968, retiring in 2005. He pioneered Robert G. Schloerb, JD’51, trustee emeritus, served in the Navy during World War II and a method of analyzing melt inclusions, glass died December 19 in Chicago. He was 95. A earned a bachelor’s degree through the V-12 droplets inside volcanic rock samples, to World War II veteran and Purple Heart re- Navy College Training Program. Returning determine how past volcanic eruptions cipient, Schloerb was a senior partner at the to Chicago, he joined Enrico Fermi’s cyclo- unfolded. His approach became a standard law firm Peterson, Ross, Schloerb & Seidel, tron program, earned his PhD in physics, means of reconstructing eruptions, includ- where he represented insurance companies. and began a nearly 40-year teaching career ing those distant in history; Anderson and After retiring from full-time work, he re- at UChicago. A pioneer in computational as- his team reconstructed the 760,000-year- mained of counsel with the firm, renamed trophysics, he contributed to the first major old Bishop Tuff eruption near today’s Peterson & Ross, for more than a decade. uses of large-scale computing in astronomy. Yellowstone National Park. A longtime Snell- Elected to the UChicago Board of Trustees In 1965 he became founding chair of the Hitchcock resident master with his wife, in 1983, he became a life trustee in 1994 and University’s Committee on Information Sci- Caroline (Jones) Anderson, AM’63, PhD’66, trustee emeritus in 2007. A life member of ences, and in the late 1970s he programmed he gave tours of downtown Chicago focus- the UChicago Medical Center’s board of a computer at NASA’s Ames Research Center ing on the petrology of stones used in build- trustees, he also served on the advisory that allowed astronomers to simulate evolu- ings. He is survived by his wife; two sons, councils of the Law School, the Library, the tion in the structure of the universe. A phe- including Eric E. Anderson, LAB’85; a sister; Oriental Institute, and the Divinity School. nomenon he discovered in his computations, and four grandchildren. He is survived by his wife, Mary; sons named Miller’s instability, remains funda- Lanny D. Bell, AB’63, associate professor Peter Schloerb, LAB’69, David W. Schloerb, mental in the field of galactic dynamics. His emeritus of Egyptology, died August 26 LAB’72, John M. Schloerb, LAB’80; three wife, Mary Funk Miller, AM’56, died in 2016. in Old Saybrook, CT. He was 78. A lead- grandchildren, including Anna Schloerb, Nancy D. Munn, professor emerita in the ing Egyptologist who spent years heading LAB’19, and current Laboratory Schools stu- Department of Anthropology and the Col- archaeological fieldwork expeditions, Bell dent Jonah Schloerb; and a great-grandchild. lege, died January 20 in Chicago. She was earned his doctorate from the University of Willie D. Davis, MBA’68, trustee emeritus, 88. Munn, a native New Yorker who earned Pennsylvania while serving as field director died April 15 in Santa Monica, CA. He was her PhD at Australian National University, of the Penn Museum’s Theban tomb project 85. A Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive taught at the University of Massachusetts at Dra Abu el-Naga. From 1977 to 1989 he led lineman who launched a second career as a Amherst before joining the UChicago facul- the Oriental Institute’s Epigraphic Survey at business leader, Davis played 12 seasons in ty in 1976 as the anthropology department’s Chicago House in Luxor. He also taught in the National Football League, studying for first female full professor. Her extensive the Department of Near Eastern Languages his MBA in the off-seasons and never miss- fieldwork in Australia and Papua New and Civilizations, retiring in 1996. Bell lec- ing a game. After a stint with the Cleveland Guinea focused on the cultural symbolism tured widely with the Archaeological Insti- Browns, he joined the Green Bay Packers in of indigenous societies and on the cultural tute of America and served as a consultant 1960 and helped the team win five league construction of place, space, and time, re- for National Geographic. In retirement he championships, including the first two Super sulting in such works as The Fame of Gawa: was a visiting researcher in Egyptology at Bowls. Retiring from football in 1969, he be- A Symbolic Study of Value Transformation Brown University and led OI tours to Egypt. came the owner of a beer distributorship in in a Massim Society (1986). A Guggenheim Christopher M. Freeman, AB’85, MAT’95, Los Angeles and later bought a radio station Fellow, Munn retired in 1997 but remained of Chicago, a mathematics teacher at the that he turned into the All-Pro Broadcasting an active scholar in the anthropology de- Laboratory Schools, died February 7 after an radio network. Elected a University trustee partment, lecturing and working on a book extended illness. He was 58. Freeman joined in 1983, he became a life trustee in 1999 and a about place in antebellum New York City. Lab’s faculty in 1994 and most recently trustee emeritus in 2007, and also served on Raymond D. Fogelson, professor emeritus taught mathematics at the middle school the boards of many corporations, including of anthropology, comparative human de- level. In addition to coaching the middle the Packers. He is survived by his wife, Carol; velopment, psychology, and in the College, school math team, he led students in after- a daughter; a son; and four grandchildren. died January 20 in Blairsville, GA. He was school and summer enrichment activities. 86. A leading expert on Native American He also taught math to gifted Chicago-area FACULTY AND STAFF ethnology, Fogelson joined UChicago’s an- students in programs administered by the thropology department in 1965 and taught Center for Gifted at National Louis Univer- William D. Grampp, AM’42, PhD’44, of Chi- on the faculty for more than 45 years. His sity. Drawing from curricula he developed cago, died August 30. He was 105. Grampp research encompassed the study of hunt- there and at Lab, Freeman wrote several was professor emeritus of economics at the ing and gathering societies and the com- books of instruction in math activities. He University of Illinois at Chicago, where he parative study of religion, among other is survived by his wife, Maria K. Freeman, taught for more than three decades. In retire- fields, and involved fieldwork with east- AB’88, AM’90, PhD’05; a daughter, Clara ment he taught in UChicago’s Social Sciences ern Cherokee, Oklahoma Cherokee and Freeman, LAB’10, AM’16; and two sons, Collegiate Division and in the Law School’s Creek, and Shuswap peoples. He served Edward Freeman, LAB’15, and current Lab- law and economics program. An expert in as president of the American Society for oratory Schools student John Freeman. the history of economic ideas, he wrote The Ethnohistory, dedicated to a field he helped Manchester School of Economics (1960) and found, and edited Southeast (2004), vol- 1930s the two-volume textbook Economic Liber- ume 14 of the Smithsonian Institution’s alism (1965). His research on the microeco- Handbook of North American Indians. He Marilee K. Scaff, AM’38, died March 8, 2019, nomics of the visual arts resulted in Pricing is survived by his wife, Karen Luckritz, in Claremont, CA. She was 103. A Christian the Priceless: Art, Artists, and Economics MLA’00; a stepdaughter; a stepson; and missionary in the Philippines during World (1989). He is survived by his partner, Annette two step-grandchildren. War II, Scaff was imprisoned by Japanese Giganti; two daughters; a son; four grandchil- Alfred “Fred” T. Anderson Jr., professor forces with her husband and young son for dren; and four great-grandchildren. emeritus in the Department of Geophysical more than a year before they were liberated Richard H. Miller, PhD’58, associate profes- Sciences, of Chicago, died January 15. He in the raid on Los Baños. When her husband sor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics, was 82. A geologist who studied volcanic joined the Pomona College sociology faculty,

76 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020

Layout_Deaths_Spring20_v7.indd 76 5/15/20 1:12 PM she took a prominent role in Claremont civic Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Stephen P. Cohen, AB’57, AB’58, AM’59, of life and education. She later earned a doctor- Affairs until his retirement. As an economist, Raleigh, NC, died October 27. He was 83. A ate in educational psychology and taught at he aimed to develop a unifying language and pioneering scholar in South Asian security several universities, concluding her career in analytical structure for the social sciences. In studies, Cohen taught history and political the Philippines at De La Salle University and retirement he resumed studying physics. His science for more than 30 years at the Uni- Silliman University. In retirement she was a wife, Betty (Bunes) Wolfson, PhB’45, died in versity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, well-known community activist in Clare- 2018. He is survived by two daughters; a son, where he cofounded and directed the Pro- mont. She is survived by three children, five Paul J. Wolfson, AB’78; three grandchildren; gram in Arms Control, Disarmament, and grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. and three great-grandchildren. International Security. He served on the US Charles F. Custer, AB’48, JD’58, died Janu- State Department’s policy planning staff 1940s ary 21 in Chicago. He was 91. Custer, whose under President Ronald Reagan and later first job was unloading coal in his native became a senior fellow at the Brookings Mildred Lois Roff Waller, SB’42, died Feb- Kansas, became a leader in the mutual Institution. Survivors include his wife, Ro- ruary 19 in North Little Rock, AR. She was fund industry. He was running small busi- berta (Brosilow) Cohen, AB’59; two daugh- 98. Waller and her husband, Tom W. Waller, nesses in photography and television with ters; four sons, including Jeffrey A. Cohen, EX’40, married in Bond Chapel in 1943, when his wife, Irene Custer, AB’48, when he de- AB’86, MBA’01; and several grandchildren. he was on leave from the US Marine Corps. cided to attend the Law School to sharpen Laurence J. Victor, SM’57, of Tucson, AZ, She later earned a private pilot’s license with his business skills. He went on to head the died July 6, 2019. He was 84. Victor, who had a solo flight in a Piper Cub aircraft. A life- investment services group of the Chicago- doctorates in physics and educational psy- long member of the Episcopal Church, she based law firm now known as Vedder Price. chology, developed innovative curricula for directed St. Francis House, a social services His wife died in 2011. He is survived by two students in grades K–6. For nearly 25 years ministry in Little Rock, for nearly a decade. daughters, including Shannon C. Nelson, he taught psychology at Pima Community Her husband died in 1989. She is survived by LAB’70; a son, Charles F. Custer Jr., EX’75; College, where he chaired the department. two daughters, three sons, 10 grandchildren, three sisters; four grandchildren; and two Active in movements to improve education, and three great-grandchildren. great-grandchildren. Victor did research on human learning and Dorothy Hager Ross, AB’45, died April 13 in Harriet Alta Pierce Winsor, AB’49, died promoted cooperative learning. Survivors Buffalo Grove, IL. She was 97. She and her November 4 in Lynnfield, MA. She was 91. include his wife, Elizabeth. husband, Maurice L. Ross Jr., AB’38, married Winsor and her husband raised their family in Bond Chapel in 1945 and were a devoted in Wakefield, MA, where she volunteered for 1960s couple for 58 years. In the 1970s she became community service organizations. After her an elementary school teacher in Chicago’s husband’s death, she embarked on a career in Edward T. O’Dell Jr., JD’60, of Westwood, northern suburbs. She also served on the her 50s as a social worker with a local senior MA, died October 7. He was 83. O’Dell boards of Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL, and care agency. She is survived by four daugh- worked for the US Securities and Exchange the North Shore Senior Center. Her husband ters, one son, five siblings, 10 grandchildren, Commission before joining the law firm died in 2003. She is survived by two daughters, and a great-grandchild. Goodwin Procter. As a partner in the Boston two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. firm, he established its investment manage- Roselle (Hermann) Foster, SB’47, died No- 1950s ment practice. In retirement he mentored vember 17 in Miami. She was 93. Foster was young entrepreneurs as a volunteer with a teacher at St. Andrew’s Priory School in Carol Drath Lerner, AB’50, AM’54, died SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Execu- Honolulu before moving to Miami to raise January 28, 2019, in Chicago. She was 91. tives). He is survived by a daughter, a son, her family. Resuming her career, she taught Elected to Phi Beta Kappa during her years and six grandchildren. upper-level high school mathematics and in the Hutchins College, Lerner later took J. Rogers Hollingsworth, PhD’60, died Octo- science for 40 years. In retirement she de- informal courses in botany, ornithology, ber 23 in La Jolla, CA. He was 87. Professor voted her time to volunteering, traveling, and botanical illustration at the Morton Ar- emeritus of history and sociology at the Uni- and gardening. She is survived by two sons boretum and launched a 30-year career as versity of Wisconsin–Madison and a former and two grandchildren. an award-winning author and illustrator of president of the Society for the Advance- Allison Cate Hartman, LAB’47, of Chicago, natural history books for elementary school ment of Socio-Economics, Hollingsworth died November 13. She was 88. A sports car students. An accomplished photographer, was an expert on US and European political and motorcycle racer, Hartman ran Hyde birder, and gardener, Lerner was devoted economy, the study of institutions and orga- Park Auto Service for more than 30 years. to preserving the rapidly vanishing natural nizations, and comparative health services. After closing the shop, she earned a criminal areas of the Midwest, especially prairies and In retirement he studied biomedical science justice degree from Chicago State Univer- wetlands. Much of her artwork is archived organizations and researchers and the fac- sity and two postgraduate degrees from the in the rare print collection at the Morton tors that foster excellence, with visiting ap- UIC John Marshall Law School, practicing Arboretum’s Sterling Morton Library. She pointments at the University of California, elder and real estate law until her death. is survived by her husband, Ralph M. Lerner, San Diego, and the Neurosciences Institute. Hartman also restored homes with her son, AB’47, AM’49, PhD’53, the Benjamin Franklin He is survived by his wife, Ellen Jane; a James Russell Clowes, LAB’69, who died in Professor Emeritus of Social Thought and in daughter; and a grandchild. June 2019 (see page 78). She is survived by the College; two sons, Josh Lerner, LAB’78, Roy G. Benedict, AB’63, died July 1 in Chi- her partner, John Millington; a son, Daniel and Jesse Lerner, LAB’80; and a grandchild. cago. He was 78. A mathematics teacher at Clowes, LAB’79; a brother, James L. Cate Jr., Dick H. Fredericksen, AB’51, SM’68, died Chicago’s South Shore High School, Bene- LAB’53; and a grandson. November 19 in Tucson, AZ. He was 88. An dict was second in length of employment Robert J. Wolfson, SB’47, AM’50, PhD’56, economics major at UChicago, Fredericksen there when he retired. Formerly the editor died April 4 in Riverdale, NY. He was 95. worked in sales for IBM before returning to of the Shore Line Interurban Historical Wolfson returned to the College after serv- earn a master’s in computer science. He then Society quarterly First & Fastest, he re- ing in the US Navy during World War II, rejoined IBM as a computer programmer at searched and wrote about land mass-trans- changing his major from physics to math- their main research laboratory in Yorktown portation systems such as the South Shore ematics. He began his academic career as a Heights, NY, where he worked until his re- Line, bequeathing his collection to the Illi- UChicago economics lecturer, later serving tirement. Moving to Tucson, he volunteered nois Railways Museum’s Strahorn Library. on the faculties of Michigan State University; as the webmaster for the Sonoran Arthropod Carol D. Brightman, AM’63, died November the University of California, Los Angeles; and Studies Institute. He is survived by three 11 in Damariscotta, ME. She was 80. In 1965 Syracuse University, where he taught at the daughters, a son, and seven grandchildren. Brightman founded Viet Report, a newsletter

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MAGAZINE | SPRING 2020 77

Layout_Deaths_Spring20_v7.indd 77 5/15/20 1:15 PM about the Vietnam War, and in 1969 she many honors included the National Council Cleveland-based automotive and aerospace cofounded the underground newspaper on Family Relations’ Ernest W. Burgess (PhD corporation TRW, where he became vice Leviathan. During this period, she traveled to 1913) Award for career achievement. He is president and assistant general counsel. He North Vietnam to participate in the so-called survived by his wife, Hannah Gruhn-Bengt- later served as general counsel of Jo-Ann Russell Tribunal and to Cuba as a leader of the son; two daughters; and four grandchildren. Stores, from which he had recently retired Venceremos Brigade. Brightman later wrote a James Russell “J. R.” Clowes, LAB’69, died at the time of his death. He is survived by National Book Critics Circle Award–winning June 17, 2019, in Chicago. He was 67. Raised his wife, Bonnie Borman; a daughter; three biography of novelist Mary McCarthy, edited in Hyde Park, Clowes moved to Sausalito, sons; a sister; a brother; and a grandchild. a collection of McCarthy’s correspondence CA, after high school, living on a houseboat Douglas F. Rutledge, AM’79, PhD’87, died with philosopher Hannah Arendt, and wrote and operating a pirate radio station. Skilled from complications of multiple myeloma a social history of the Grateful Dead and its in woodworking and cabinetry design, he September 1 in Columbus, OH. He was 68. fans. She is survived by a daughter, a son, a returned to Hyde Park in the late 1980s and A writer and scholar whose dissertation fo- sister, a brother, and three grandchildren. restored houses with his mother, Allison cused on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Ellen M. Sutor Ginsberg, PhD’63, died Janu- Cate Hartman, LAB’47, who died in Novem- Rutledge taught college-level English and ary 29 in Silver Spring, MD. She was 84. A ber (see page 77). He is survived by a brother, edited Ceremony and Text in the Renaissance scholar of French Renaissance theater and Daniel Clowes, LAB’79. (1996). Dedicated to humanitarian issues, he poetry, Ginsberg taught at Bryn Mawr Col- Michael D. Sorkin, AB’69, died March 26 in wrote for several projects about refugees, lege, the University of Maryland, and for New York City. He was 71. An architect and including The Somali Diaspora: A Journey nearly three decades at the Catholic Uni- critic who advocated for social justice in ur- Away (2008), a book of essays and photo- versity of America, where she chaired the ban planning, Sorkin wrote provocatively graphs. Earning an MFA in creative writ- modern languages and literatures depart- about architecture for the Village Voice in the ing in his 60s, he published poetry widely ment. She lectured and held teaching posts 1980s while teaching at several universities. and edited a 2019 sourcebook on poet Angie in France, Japan, and many other countries. He later ran his own architecture firm and Estes, his mentor. He is survived by his wife, With her husband, Robert E. Ginsberg, directed the graduate urban design program Rebecca, and a brother. AB’55, AM’58, she founded the Internation- at the City College of New York’s architec- al Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Val- ture school. In 2005 he founded the Terre- 1980s ue Inquiry. She is survived by her husband. form Center for Advanced Urban Research, Jeanne Weinhold Klems, AM’64, of Berkeley, a nonprofit studio focused on equity and Lawrence A. Mishlove, MD’88, of Olym- CA, died May 7, 2019. She was 85. As a psy- sustainability in cities. A Guggenheim Fel- pia, WA, died March 7, 2019. He was 56. chiatric social worker, Klems was director of low, he wrote numerous books and proposed Mishlove did his medical internship in intake for an outpatient program at Chicago’s large-scale urban designs that promoted his general surgery at Tulane Medical Center Michael Reese Hospital. She then worked at ideals and influenced other architects. He is and then completed two residencies, one family service and mental health agencies survived by his wife, Joan Copjec. in general surgery at Phoenix’s Maricopa in California and New York. Changing her Medical Center and the other in diagnostic focus to geriatric care, she later set up her 1970s radiology at Chicago’s Michael Reese Hos- own business as a care manager in Berkeley. pital. A board-certified radiologist who held An accomplished amateur soprano, she sang Joanna E. Frueh, AM’71, PhD’81, died Feb- medical licenses in Louisiana, California, with the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the ruary 20 in Tucson, AZ. She was 72. An art and Florida, Mishlove presented and pub- Bach-Verein in Heidelberg, Germany, and co- historian and performance artist, Frueh lished research in his field of expertise. He founded the Berkeley Cantata Group. She is directed Artemesia Gallery, a feminist art is survived by two children; his mother and survived by her ex-husband, Joseph H. Klems, cooperative in Chicago, during the 1970s. stepmother; and three sisters. SB’64, SM’65, PhD’70; a daughter; and a son. She went on to teach at Oberlin College, the Joel L. Shatzky, AM’65, died April 3 in New University of Arizona, and the University of 1990s York City. He was 76. A playwright, writer, Nevada, Reno, where she became professor and editor, Shatzky was professor emeritus emerita of art history in 2007. Through her David L. Kessenich, MBA’96, of Denver, died at the State University of New York College writing and such performance works as The January 22. He was 52. Raised on a third- at Cortland, where he taught drama and Aesthetics of Orgasm (2002), she sought to generation Iowa farm, Kessenich worked writing for more than 35 years. His schol- unite the erotic and the rational as forms in investment banking and private equity arship included a coedited two-volume of knowledge. The recipient of a lifetime before cofounding Excellere Partners, an reference work on contemporary Jewish achievement award from the Women’s Cau- investment firm focused on entrepreneurs. American authors. He also edited memoirs cus for Art, she is survived by her spouse, A member of Chicago Booth’s Private by Holocaust survivors Norbert Troller and Kathleen Williamson, and a sister. Equity Council, he also remained involved Susan Cernyak-Spatz. His last play, A Day in Barton J. Ellis, AM’72, died January 17 in in operations on his family’s farm. His phi- the Life, Parkinson’s, was performed in Long Long Beach, CA. He was 81. An SSA gradu- lanthropy supported the Polsky Center for Island City, NY, in 2019. He is survived by ate, Ellis provided in-office therapy to adults Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is his wife, Ilana Abramovitch; a daughter; a with mental disorders. He and the therapists survived by his wife, Colleen; a daughter; son; and two grandchildren. he trained taught their clients independent two sons; his mother and father; a sister; Vern Bengtson, AM’66, PhD’67, of Santa living skills (ILS), including social skills. El- and three brothers. Barbara, CA, died November 8. He was 78. lis later ran a business staffed by therapists A social psychologist who studied intergen- who taught children with autism an ap- 2010s erational relations, Bengtson taught for more plied behavioral analysis technique known than 40 years at the University of Southern as discrete trial training. Based in part on Henry Calderón, AB’11, died of cancer No- California. He joined USC’s newly estab- his work in ILS, he wrote The Date Doctor’s vember 24 in Sacramento, CA. He was 30. lished Andrus Gerontology Center in 1967 Guide to Dating: How to Get from First Date An English major and a crew team member, and later held appointments in the school to Perfect Mate (1998). He is survived by his Calderón dedicated time at UChicago to of gerontology, the school of social work, wife, Susan, and a daughter. working with elementary school children, the sociology department, and the Roybal David B. Goldston, AB’73, of Bentleyville, helping them nurture a passion for reading. Institute on Aging. He initiated the Longi- OH, died June 22, 2019. He was 67. With a After graduating, he returned to his home tudinal Study of Generations, a survey of law degree from George Washington Uni- state of California to care for his young interactions, relationships, and values in versity, Goldston worked at the firm Arent daughter, Mariana Rose. He is survived by four generations of California families. His Fox in Washington, DC, before joining the his daughter, his parents, and a sister.

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Classifieds_Spring-20_v5.indd 79 5/15/20 1:27 PM What surprising job have you had in the past? I have had many jobs, ranging from janitor to electrical engineer. My family can’t quite THE UCHICAGOAN believe that I keynoted a personal finance conference in Vegas last year.

Harold Pollack What do you hate that everyone else loves? Fine dining and vacations. If you asked how Questions for the SSA professor, health much I would be willing to pay for the absolute finest meal of my life, I might say $30. The policy expert, and prolific tweeter. whole concept bores me. And I want other people to take vacations and to leave me alone.

What do you love that everyone else hates? Cheap hotel rooms along the highway. They have free Wi-Fi and decent breakfast. What book changed your life? Theodore White, In Search of History: A Personal Adventure. A memoir by a political journalist. The first book I bought with my own money. This was quite brave, since I had a serious crush on the bookstore cashier in my small town.

Tell us the best piece of advice you’ve received—or the worst. When I was a struggling assistant professor, a colleague reminded me of the fundamental equation: (Words per minute) x (Minutes spent writing) = Words on the page.

Who was your best teacher, and why? I have been blessed to have many fine teachers who respected and pushed me. But I’d have to say that my best teacher was my dad. I was struggling as a teenager to grasp the basic theorems of multivariable calculus. So my dad grabbed a balloon and filled our bathtub with water. He then provided a virtuoso impromptu explanation in terms of the currents swirling around the incompressible water, and how this differed from the way air squished inside a balloon passes through a hole in the side. He had the engineer’s physical intuition for what the theorems meant for his work. He’s always communicated that there was nothing he’d Csuth Péter by Illustration rather do, no more enjoyable use of his time, than to share these insights with me.

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UCH_ADS_v1.indd 3 5/15/20 3:24 PM 5/15/20 11:46 AM5/15/20 11:46 AM SPRING 2020, VOLUME 112, NUMBER 3

COVID-19 … BRENT STAPLES … RECESSION LIT … IMPROVING MEDICAL IMAGING … COACH OF COACHES SPRING 2020 1/30/20 8:54 AM1/30/20 8:54 AM

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