SEPT–OCT 2011, VOLUME 104, NUMBER 1 BOOST YOUR BOARD'S PERFORMANCE ARCHAEOLOGY ON THE GROUND … ART OF GETTING LOST … COLORFUL THINKER … BRINGING UP BABY … SUSAN KIDWELL LEARN FROM EXPERT FACULTY AT DIRECTORS’ CONSORTIUM Two world-renowned universities have come together to provide PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS a dynamic, cross-disciplinary executive education program to Exclusively for public board members, members of companies that may help directors drive corporate success. be taken public shortly, and foreign corporations listed on the US exchanges. By attending, you will… Gleacher Center, Chicago • Learn research-based, comprehensive insights into the September 25–28, 2018 fiduciary, legal, and ethical challenges Application deadline: August 10 • Identify key questions to ask management and outside Optional Finance and experts regarding governance Accounting Day: September 24 • Acquire frameworks for prudent legal strategies For more information, visit ChicagoBooth.edu/2018-DIRC or call +1 312.464.8732 to apply. SPRING 2018 SPRING 2018, VOLUME 110, NUMBER 3 UCH_Spring2018 cover and spine_v1.indd 1 4/25/18 10:26 AM Seeking great leaders. The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative off ers a calendar year of rigorous education and refl ection for highly accomplished leaders in business, government, law, medicine, and other sectors who are transitioning from their primary careers to their next years of service. Led by award-winning faculty members from across Harvard, the program aims to deploy a new leadership force tackling the world’s most challenging social and environmental problems. be inspired at +1-617-496-5479 UCH_ADS_v1.indd 2 4/26/18 4:25 PM 2017.11.17_ALI_Ivy_Ad_Chicago.indd 1 11/17/17 11:15 AM 180108_ALI_Chicago.indd 1 11/17/17 1:11 PM Features SPRING 2018 VOLUME 110, NUMBER 3 24 GROUND TRUTH Chris Begley, AM’92, PhD’99, is an archaeologist with a taste for adventure. Just don’t call him Indiana Jones. By Susie Allen, AB’09 32 LET’S GET LOST Finding our way in the age of GPS doesn’t have to mean sacrificing serendipity. By Edward Tenner, AM’67, PhD’72 38 SHADES OF MEANING Twenty-nine years after his death, the work of Faber Birren, EX’23, still colors the world around us. By Christopher Good, Class of 2019 Plus: “Faber Birren’s Bright Ideas.” Infographic by Chloe Reibold 42 BABYOGRAPHY Since 1928, families have documented childhood landmarks in a book rich with history. By Susie Allen, AB’09 48 PAST AND PRESENT Questions for geologist Susan Kidwell on her work in the emerging discipline of conservation paleobiology, teaching students out in the field, and what artists and scientists share. By Laura Demanski, AM’94 Departments 3 EDITOR’S NOTES The air we breathe: Handing down stories. By Laura Demanski, AM’94 4 LETTERS Readers remember Jonathan Z. Smith, Robert Maynard Hutchins, and other campus figures; reflect on growing older; seek ice-skaters; debate a speaking invitation; and more. 9 ON THE AGENDA Deepening Chicago Booth’s ties to the wider University. By Madhav Rajan 11 UCHICAGO JOURNAL Alison L. LaCroix on a quiet period in the Constitution’s history; creative In “Let’s Get Lost” (page writing becomes a College major; Hanna Holborn Gray looks back on an 32), Edward Tenner, academic life; making the moon; and more. AM’67, PhD’72, argues 51 PEER REVIEW against overrelying on In the alumni essay, yoga and meditation lend new perspective to a judge’s work. GPS technology in our Plus: Alumni News, Deaths, and Classifieds. navigations of the world. Illustration by Maria 80 LITE OF THE MIND Corte. Remember road trip bingo? Play our version on the quadrangles. See the print issue of the University of Chicago Magazine, web-exclusive content, and links to our Facebook and Twitter accounts at mag.uchicago.edu. the university of chicago magazine | spring 2018 1 Contents_Spring18_v1.indd 2 4/27/18 3:38 PM igh tunes: The Laura Spelman Rockefeller H Memorial Carillon fills the campus air with sweet melodies each weekday at noon and 5 p.m. while classes are in session, and for special events. During Alumni Weekend, University carillonneur Joey Brink will give tours of the bell tower (as in 2017, shown here). For more about the instrument and its main musician, see “Heavy Metal,” page 23. photography by john zich UCH_Wallpaper_v2.indd 2 4/26/18 4:20 PM EDITORˆS NOTES Volume 110, Number 3, Spring 2018 editor Laura Demanski, AM’94 senior editor Mary Ruth Yoe associate editor Susie Allen, AB’09 The air we breathe managing editor Rhonda L. Smith BY LAURA DEMANSKI, AM’94 art director Guido Mendez alumni news editor Andrew Peart, AM’16 graphic designer Laura Lorenz contributing editors John Easton, AM’77; Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93; Brooke E. O’Neill, AM’04; Amy Braverman Puma Editorial Office The University of Chicago Magazine, 5235 South Harper Court, Suite 500, Chicago, IL 60615. telephone 773.702.2163; fax 773.702.8836; hat’s the last book ston through a chain of family mem- email [email protected]. you read by an alum? bers who’d carefully tended the stories The University of Chicago Alumni Was it by someone handed down to them, so the UChicago Association has its offices at you knew, or are writers’ community Lewis belonged 5235 South Harper Court, 7th Floor, Chicago, IL 60615. telephone 773.702.2150; only one or two de- to is connected from the institution’s fax 773.702.2166. address changes grees of separation beginnings to today. Classmates of 800.955.0065 or [email protected]. from? The book on mine studied fiction writing with the web mag.uchicago.edu my nightstand now, late Richard Stern, who in 1991 drove The University of Chicago Magazine and the one queued from San Francisco to Los Altos, Cali- (ISSN-0041-9508) is published quarterly up after it, are by fornia, to visit Lewis, then 91. He spent (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer) by the alumna Janet Lewis, a whole day at her home hearing about University of Chicago in cooperation PhB’20. She’s not too well remem- UChicago in the 1910s, her Poetry Club with the Alumni Association, 5235 South Harper Court, 7th Floor, Chicago, IL Wbered today, and even I first learned of friends there, and the rest of her life, 60615, and sent to all University of Chicago her as the wife of Yvor Winters, EX’21, and recorded it all in a 2003 Virginia alumni. Published continuously since 1907. the poet and critic who became best Quarterly Review essay. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago and How sharply happy I was to find additional mailing offices.postmaster known as a teacher of poets. Send address changes to The University of Lewis herself began as a poet be- Stern’s essay online. It wouldn’t have Chicago Magazine, Alumni Records, 5235 fore turning to historical fiction, existed but for him having run across a South Harper Court, Chicago, IL 60615. which she wrote while raising chil- book in the Regenstein poetry stacks, © 2018 University of Chicago. dren and keeping a household that and but for Lewis’s long life and long Advertising Contact uchicago-magazine@ served as a sometime home to many memory—a lucky thing it was. uchicago.edu or visit mag.uchicago.edu of Winters’s students. She wanted Much of the joy of editing the Mag- /advertising. The Magazine is a member to take up fiction but felt she lacked a azine is in helping hand down what of the Ivy League Magazine Network, whose clients include other colleges and story to tell, so she turned to histori- UChicagoans remember. This issue universities. These advertisements help cal figures including Martin Guerre is no exception. Former president the Magazine continue to deliver news and John Johnston. Hanna Holborn Gray’s new memoir of the University of Chicago and its alumni The Irish Johnston, whose life An Academic Life, the subject of “The to readers. Please contact the editor with any questions. events sparked her 1932 novel The In- Long View” (page 20), deepens the vasion: A Narrative of Events Concern- well of stories that make up our his- ivy league magazine network ing the Johnston Family of St. Mary’s, tory as a University. One letter writer Heather Wedlake, Director of Operations web ivymags.com came to Lake Superior in 1790 to shares a melancholy story about En- email [email protected] make his fortune and married into an rico Fermi, vouchsafed to him by his telephone 617.319.0995 Ojibwa chief’s family. Lewis, who alumnus father, Fermi’s physician grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, spent (page 6); another relates his own tale The University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual long summers in northern Michigan of being gently hazed by Robert May- orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic and heard stories of Johnston and his nard Hutchins himself (page 8). origin, age, status as an individual with a wife, the Woman of the Glade, from We at the Magazine, and your fel- disability, protected veteran status, genetic their descendants, to whom she dedi- low readers, treasure your stories and information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information, please see cated the book. need them like air. Please keep send- photography by laura demanski, am’94 equalopportunity.uchicago.edu. Much as Lewis learned about John- ing them. ◆ the university of chicago magazine | spring 2018 3 Ed Notes_Spring2018_v1.indd 3 4/27/18 12:24 PM Essay appreciation “A Chaplain’s Compassion” (Win- LETTERS ter/18) by Bailey Pickens, AB’10, is the best article you’ve ever published.