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NEWS: University Considers Replacing Lyft Program With New ‘Via’ Service PAGE 2

FEBRUARY 1, 2024 FIFTH WEEK VOL. 136, ISSUE 9

EVA McCORD

NEWS: UCUP Installs 23,000 Flags on Quad in Memory of Palestinians Killed PAGE 2

FGLI: Money Talks, Wealth Whispers PAGE 11

GREY CITY: The Obama Center: A Welcome Neighbor?

PAGE 14

VIEWPOINTS: West Virginia Chicago is Happening to You: The Fight for the Modern University.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON — FEBRUARY 1, 2024

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University Considers Replacing Lyft Program With New Service ‘Via’

By AMY MA | Senior News Reporter Over the past three months, members of the UChicago Undergraduate Student Government (USG) have engaged in discussions with University officials regarding the possible replacement of the Lyft Ride Smart Program with Via, a shared point-to-point car service. The initiative was first introduced during a Zoom webinar in late October 2023, prompting USG members to meet with UChicago Director for Transportation and Parking Services Beth Tindel to discuss the potential change.

Via, a company that provides digital infrastructure for shared point-to-point car services, has emerged as the most likely candidate to replace the existing Lyft program. According to Via’s website, “students can simply use their phone to book a ride.…

The app also displays real-time ride status, so riders are constantly updated on ETAs and relevant service changes.”

Negotiations with Via are reportedly still in the early stages of development, and the University has not yet formally committed to the switch. “This would be something they’ll be interested in doing as soon as the next [academic] year,” said USG President Jefferson Lind.

In the interim, the existing seven-freerides Lyft policy will remain for the rest of the academic year without any cuts or changes.

There are two major differences be-

tween Via and the existing Lyft program.

Firstly, Via would be a shared ride service, meaning that each vehicle would carry more than one rider at a time in a similar manner as a shuttle. Secondly, unlike shuttles or Lyfts, Via vehicles would have no fixed route. Instead, the route of each Via vehicle would be based on real-time student requests.

“Say you wanted to go back to your dorm from the library. You would open an app on your phone and say, ‘I need a ride from the ‘Regenstein Library’ back to Woodlawn.’

There may be someone on a similar route already, and that car will stop to pick you up and take you both to your respective locations,” Lind said.

Rather than relying on drivers who are employed by Lyft, Via eliminates Lyft as the third party and may allow the University to become more involved in the driver acquisition and management process. The increase in oversight would address concerns that University officials have raised about Lyft, namely “the influx of vehicles that [have] created a lot of challenges and concerns for our greater community.”

Additionally, Via could be integrated with UChicago’s existing transit system.

“When you sign into Via, the app will also be able to show you if there is a shuttle coming to your location,” Lind said. The prospect of an integrated transit interface

would advance the University’s goal of promoting usage of other campus transportation options.

Though still a small company, Via has established partnerships with several other colleges, including Northwestern, NYU, and Harvard University. When asked about the efficacy of their programs, students from all three institutions praised Via for its user-friendly interface but also noted the tardiness of the service. “For the most part people love it, but a big downside is that the cars are known to take 30–45 minutes to arrive,” Northwestern undergraduate Danielle Karr said in an interview with The Maroon.

Assuring the promptness of the ride share program is a major priority of USG’s advocacy. “A concern we brought up to Beth Tindel is that this needs to be a reliable service,” Lind said. “[She] told us that if they couldn’t find you a ride within five minutes, they would reroute you to a Lyft that [the University] would pay for. The idea that there is a Lyft backup baked in brought us some more comfort.”

While USG still prefers a return to the previous 10-free-rides Lyft policy, they maintain a “cautiously optimistic” stance towards Via. “[Via] would meet the same needs as the Lyft program, albeit slightly less convenient, but offer the same transit you can count on from point to point. When combined with the fact that there will be unlimited rides, it seemed like a worthwhile

trade-off and better than the [seven-ride] Lyft system we have now,” Lind said.

The University is also exploring alternative transportation options on campus, including improvements to the UGo shuttle system. “[University officials] have been adding more shuttles and more comprehensive shuttle routes for a long time…. However, supply chain issues have reportedly slowed progress,” Lind said. “While shuttle adoption is a good thing if it’s convenient for people, we don’t want it to be a reason why people aren’t able to Lyft anymore.”

Combining stagnation in shuttle improvements with downgrades in Lyft rides, Lind believes that “[the 2023–24 academic year] may be the most inconvenient year for UChicago students in terms of transport.

Next year, we may see more convenient shuttle routes and a more reliable pointto-point service.”

USG continues to prioritize communication with both the student body and administrative officials. “The issue of Lyfts has been the primary focus of USG’s advocacy for the past six months,” Lind said. “We will continue to get these meetings and updates about shuttle developments and how negotiations about Via/Lyft alternatives are going. Knowing that this is where their enthusiasm is… we want to make sure that if the transition were to happen, those assurances they made to us would be realized: flexibility, unlimited rides, and free Lyfts after five minutes.”

UCUP Installs 23,000 Flags on Quad in Memory of Palestinians Killed

By KATHERINE WEAVER | Deputy News Editor UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP) set up an art installation on the quad over the weekend consisting of 23,000 small flags arranged in the shape and colors of the Palestinian flag. UCUP members spent Sunday afternoon and evening as well as Monday morning drilling and hammering flags into the frozen ground.

A sign titled “Honor the Martyrs” posted in front of the flags explains the purpose of the installation. “The 23,000 flags each honor a life lost,” the sign reads. “6,747 of

the flags have names, reflecting the identified Palestinians as of October 26, 2023.

The remaining 16,253 names have yet to be reported. Many more remain buried under the rubble. As of January 21, 2024 [the date of the installation], 25,474 Palestinians and counting have been killed.”

The installation is on the portion of the quad in front of Eckhart Hall.

Katja Stroke-Adolphe, a student at the Law School and one of the installation’s organizers, cited the University’s

response to the conflict and the impact of it on Gazan students as motivators for the installation.

“One of the things that’s really important about this installation and honoring the martyrs in this way is it being held here on this university’s campus,” Stroke-Adolphe said.

“Students in Gaza are not able to go to school. Students in the West Bank have been mass arrested. Students have called for academic boycotts of Israeli institutions. UChicago claims neutrality but then maintains its ties with the Israeli institu-

tions, sponsors them on campus, sponsors classes associated with them on campus, and invests in genocide, while claiming neutrality and ignoring the voices of the academics and institutions in Palestine.”

Yousef Casewit, an associate professor of Qur’anic studies at the Divinity School, spoke about his motivation for volunteering at the construction.

“In the Islamic tradition, there’s a beautiful saying by the prophet that says ‘If you see something really unjust, then you stop it with your hand,’” Casewit said.

CONTINUED ON PG. 3

THE CHICAGO MAROON — FEBRUARY 1, 2024

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“It’s not just the right thing to do—it’s the wholesome thing to do, it’s the healthy thing to do.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 2

“And if you can’t, with your tongue. And if you can’t, with your heart. It has many meanings, one of them being if you don’t speak out when you see injustice, you inflict moral injury upon yourself. So it’s healing. It’s not just the right thing to do—it’s the wholesome thing to do, it’s the healthy thing to do.”

“The University is supposed to be a haven for the mind, and it’s supposed to be a place where we can think through complicated narratives and intricately complex geopolitical situations and propaganda structures and so on,” Casewit continued. “So speaking out with your tongue, drilling holes with your hand, disavowing what’s going on with your heart, I think, is part of being someone seeking knowledge and seeking an integral life of basic human decency.”

UCUP art installation on the Quad. nathaniel rodwell-simon.

Navigating the Maze: A Guide to Off-Campus Housing

By VERNON LI | News Reporter Looking for the perfect off-campus spot but not sure where to begin? The Maroon has your back. From cozy co-living spaces to sprawling studio apartments, we present to you a comprehensive guide to Hyde Park student housing!

We break down the essential considerations behind choosing an apartment and ways of navigating the trade-offs. Throughout the guide, we also delve into the experiences of four undergraduate students living near campus: Sophie Bauer, Abigail Ng, Ikenna Okpukpara, and AJ Bradshaw.

To move or not to move The first consideration is deciding whether to move off-campus. In an interview with The Maroon, third-year Bradshaw, who lives off-campus, said, “the freedom of living off-campus is a huge plus.”

“It is nice sometimes not to have RAs and RHs breathing down your neck,” Bradshaw said.

Additionally, students often cite the cost of living on-campus as a concern: $4,019 per quarter for a single-occupancy room

in 2023–24 averages out to approximately $1,600 per month for returning students without financial aid. In an interview with The Maroon, Ng also mentioned the difficulties of communal laundry, as well as “having to move my things in and out of dorms over break.”

In his interview, third-year Okpukpara discussed the benefits of remaining on-campus as an upperclassman. “Lounges are always fun; our lounge has a Nintendo Switch with lots of games, and you get to meet a whole bunch of great people each year.”

He also addressed the concerns with privacy inherent in dorm living: “It took me a while to get used to communal bathrooms, but now I’m fine with it. Single-user bathrooms are also available if you prefer that. I’m lucky that my house has been pretty respectful of public spaces.”

When factoring in the proximity to classes, perception of safety, convenient food, and instant community, the benefits of dorm living could potentially offset the high financial cost. Moreover, “as you move

up in years, it gets much easier to get your preferred on-campus room,” Okpukpara said.

Taking the leap “Apartment hunting is about being realistic and weighing what you value the most,” Bradshaw said. Below is a list of considerations, grouped under five categories.

Every apartment candidate will meet some

but not all of these requirements, and it’s up to you to choose which qualities you value the most.

Here is some guiding advice for the categories.

1. Price Whether you’re looking for your own place or planning to live with roommates, CONTINUED ON PG. 4

Price

Location

Apartment Amenities

Apartment Qualities

Building Amenities

Application cost

Proximity to campus (library/quad)

In-unit washer/ dryer

Amount of space

Building security

Base monthly rent

Proximity to campus transportation

Dishwasher

Amount of sunlight

Mailroom

Amenities included in base rent

Proximity to stores

Private bathroom

Water pressure

Gym

Other (electricity, gas, Wi-Fi, etc.)

Proximity to downtown transportation

Already furnished

Wear and tear

Common areas

THE CHICAGO MAROON — FEBRUARY 1, 2024

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“It is nice sometimes not to have RAs and RHs breathing down your neck.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 3

set a clear upper bound for price. According to the data below from Zumper, a rental listing site, these are the average rental prices per person by number of bedrooms in Hyde Park: • Studio: $1,119 • 1 bedroom: $1,555 • 2 bedroom: $1, 095 • 3 bedroom: $853 • 4 bedroom: $660 Price will invariably be correlated with the apartment qualities mentioned above.

Here we examine how location (such as proximity to campus) affects price.

These are the rental prices of available Mac Properties apartments with three or more bedrooms as of January 9. There are slightly lower rent prices west of South Drexel Avenue, with units priced at roughly $2000–$2500 for three or more bedrooms.

Apartments south of East 55th Street also

2. Location All the students we interviewed considered location as well. Bauer, an exchange student from Vienna who took up a threemonth lease in the fall, mentioned in our interview that she prioritized a “maximum 10-minute walk to campus.” Bradshaw also said that “location was something I particularly valued.”

Constraints such as walking distance may help you narrow your search, but also consider how accessible your apartment may be in terms of campus shuttles, Lyft rides, and public transportation. The UGo NightRide shuttles help cut travel time at the expense of waiting time, and students often use bikes (or make use of the Divvy bike system), scooters, and skateboards to get around. However, the latter may not be as practical during the winter months.

There are also slightly farther apartments such as Regents Park, which are

Mac properties apartment prices in Hyde Park. appear to be all greater than $3000, with the exception of one unit, The Pepperland.

On apartments.com, there also appears to be fewer available apartments between East 55th Street and East 60th Street, which may be the reason why prices are higher. However, there will still be availability as landlords begin finding new tenants to sign leases in the winter months.

Move-in discount specials are more common during the winter months when fewer people are moving.

popular among law students and have the 172 bus route two minutes away from the building entrance. A good tip when touring an apartment is to see how long it takes you to get from campus to the apartment using a bus or shuttle without looking at bus timetables in advance.

Finally, consider not only proximity to campus but also to transportation options to downtown and grocery stores such as Hyde Park Produce, Target, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, or Open Produce.

2(a). Safety One factor heavily tied to location is that of safety. Okpukpara mentioned that safety was an important factor in choosing to remain on campus, and according to Bradshaw, “you can’t get much safer than living on campus.” Ng mentioned that some areas she considered safer were the intersections of 54th and Woodlawn or University Ave, the east side of Hyde Park, and the streets between East 56th Street and East 58th Street. No matter where you choose to live, however it’s always best practice to follow UChicago safety guidelines.

3. Apartment amenities In-unit laundry: This was a heavily discussed topic among our student interviews.

Bradshaw said, “There were two most important things for me: location and in-unit laundry. I had to sacrifice some apartment space for that.” On the other hand, Ng prioritized price and location over having in-unit laundry, while Bauer also preferred a closer location to amenities like in-unit laundry.

Dishwasher: This seemed to be less of a concern for students but could be useful if you plan to cook the majority of meals inside your apartment.

Furnishings: A furnished apartment can provide less of a headache than having to source new furniture. However, such apartments often come at a premium, such as Vue 53, which provides apartment furnishings such as a bed and desk, along with in-unit laundry, but costs more than other apartments (a 1 bed/1 bath apartment at Vue53 comes in above $2,000 per month.)

On the other hand, property management agencies such as Mac Properties work with furniture rental companies such as Cort to handle apartment furnishings. The most basic student furniture rental package starts at $129 per month.

The most common way for students to avoid the hassle of buying furniture is to inherit a pass-down apartment, which often allows students to inherit furniture at a discounted price from its previous owners.

However you acquire your furniture, consider exploring UChicago Free and For Sale or Facebook Marketplace to discover second-hand home accessories from fellow students at budget-friendly prices.

4. Other apartment qualities Other considerations for an apartment

include the total amount of living space, access to direct sunlight (south-facing windows tend to be brightest), noise level, water pressure, reports of pests in the building, and general wear and tear such as creaky floors or peeling paint.

Assemble your roommates So, you’ve gotten a group of roommates together (or perhaps you’re going at it alone).

You all have thought carefully about which qualities you truly value in your apartment and what things you can sacrifice. Communication is key, and so is compromise.

Make sure your roommates are on the same page as you about hygiene, boundaries, sleep schedules, and noise. This is particularly key if you are sharing a wall or bathroom. Ideally, you will have done this by early winter quarter, but if not, get it done soon!

Cast a wide net If you’re operating on a restricted budget, you will likely need to look a bit harder to find the right place. The more avenues you consider, the more opportunities you will have. Here are some common places to find an apartment.

Online resources You can check Facebook groups such as UChicago Marketplace: Housing Roommates Apartments 4 Sale Jobs, University of Chicago Apartments and Housing (this one does have some spam, so be careful), Free and For Sale, and Maroon Marketplace, which includes listings from verified UChicago email addresses, run by The Maroon.

It is also useful to check building-specific websites. Below is a list of popular buildings put together by UChicago’s Law School. (Note: this list is not all-inclusive or an endorsement of any building.)

• 5252: One of the newest apartment buildings in Hyde Park • Algonquin Apartments • City Hyde Park and Hyde Lofts: Modern furnished housing across from the Law School • Hyde Park Luxury apartments (located just across the street from the Law School) • Hyde Park Property Management (now Ivy Residences) manages 30 buildings CONTINUED ON PG. 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON — FEBRUARY 1, 2024

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“Be absolutely sure to check everything before signing, and ask a ton of questions!”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 4

in Hyde Park. They offer $300 off the first month’s rent for all UChicago law students, as well as Lyft credits.

• Hyde Park Tower • Mac Properties manages most of the apartment buildings near campus ranging from affordable Chicago-style walk-up buildings to luxury modern buildings. Some of its buildings are Regents Park, Shoreland Apartments, and Solstice on the Park.

• Regents Park (a full amenity building where you will find the largest concentration of law students, only a short bus ride from the Law School) • Shoreland Apartments • Solstice on the Park • Twin Towers • Vue 53 Some students also use rental listing sites such as Apartments.com, Zillow, and StudentSpace.

Bradshaw said that the best options he found were on the UChicago-specific Facebook groups. He also mentioned using Zillow and apartments.com but “didn’t really like the choices.” Bradshaw says that he did not lock in on an apartment until the end of winter quarter.

Many students have had the best luck apartment hunting by speaking to graduating upperclassmen in their classes, RSOs, fraternities, or sororities.

Ng herself relied more on connections within her sorority. She mentioned trying to find a pass-down apartment with furniture included to avoid the hassle of buying furniture. She added that contacting Mac Properties and Peak Properties did not yield much success, as “the options weren’t super ideal” at the time of our interview in November. She added that she “was definitely pretty surprised by the high prices out there.”

Finally, Bauer mentioned that the search was “a frustrating process. I looked on Maroon Marketplace and Facebook Marketplace in March, but many people didn’t text me back.” Ultimately, she managed to find a sublet on Maroon Marketplace and confirmed an apartment by May 2023.

Narrow down your choices Make a list of five to six apartments you and your roommates really like and orga-

nize a time to visit. Some tips for apartment hunting from The Maroon are to take it slow: Take a video of the space so you can evaluate it more easily; pictures don’t often give you the best perspective of an apartment.

Check the operation of the sinks, toilets, windows, stoves, and ventilation. One good test: turn the bathroom tap on high, and then flush the toilet. If you see the water pressure in the sink go down, this could be a sign of poor water pressure.

Have rough measurements in mind of where you intend for your furniture to go (bed, couch, table).

Stand in complete silence in the unit for several minutes. Is it quiet? Do you hear footsteps from the unit above you?

How bright is the sunlight? How is the view?

See if you can find current tenants to speak to. Do they have any specific complaints?

Alternatives to an apartment in Hyde Park The most common practice for off-campus students is to sign a one-year (or longer) lease for an apartment in Hyde Park. However, there are other options which may be better suited if you have other preferences: Sublets: particularly if you are graduating in fall (or winter) of next year, consider finding a shorter-term sublet instead.

Sublets can be less of a hassle, as you don’t have to deal with signing the lease or finding furniture. Sublets are available on a caseby-case basis throughout the year. If you are vigilant, you can even find sublets for fall quarter later on in the year. However, Bauer warns about the pitfalls of subletting: “Sometimes the sublet description doesn’t fully match the reality of the apartment. Be absolutely sure to check everything before signing, and ask a ton of questions!”

Nevertheless, the drawback of subletting lies in the lack of stability. Your sublet roommates may not be a good fit, there may not be sublets available during a particular period, or you may find yourself living out of your suitcase instead of enjoying the freedom to spread your belongings.

Shorter leases: most larger property management companies offer the possibility of shorter leases (6–11 months) at the cost of higher monthly rents. This may be a good option if you are graduating before

your lease expires and don’t want to deal with the hassle of subletting when you don’t need to be on campus.

Co-living spaces: companies such as 3L Living offer more budget-friendly apartment options for those who want their own space but do not intend to cook often. Their location at 5748 South Blackstone Avenue offers “Jack and Jill” style rooms, where renters have their own bed and desk and share a bathroom with one other person.

These spaces also have communal kitchens and lounges. However, these spaces are smaller than what you would get in a more traditional apartment, more akin to a single-style room in on-campus dorms.

If you prefer living in the city, there are sublets or units available in the South Loop or downtown area, which are now much more accessible given the introduction of the Downtown Connector shuttle.

Graduate students often choose this option, preferring the variety of activities available downtown as opposed to Hyde Park.

However, keep in mind the commute: even with the Downtown Connector shuttles or a private car, the journey to campus will still be more inconvenient than living in Hyde Park.

Final advice In your quest for your off-campus apartment, Ng suggests that you make use of your network, communicate clearly about standards, and most importantly, not stress.

Bradshaw advises future off-campus dwellers to be patient and temper their expectations. “It really is a push and pull,” he said.

Bauer recommends asking countless questions and scrutinizing locations carefully before signing that lease. “All in all though, it has been great to experience a true university community in Hyde Park,” she remarked. Finally, before you move off campus, heed Okpukpara’s words: “Enjoy the perks being on campus has to offer, and make the most out of house culture!”

Solana Adedokun & Nikhil Jaiswal, Co-Editors-in-Chief Michael McClure, Managing Editor Allison Ho, Chief Production Officer Astrid Weinberg & Dylan Zhang, Chief Financial Officers The Maroon Editorial Board consists of the editors-in-chief and select staff of The Maroon.

NEWS

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THE CHICAGO MAROON — FEBRUARY 1, 2024

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Shipping Containers Transformed Into Hub for Small Businesses

By DEREK HSU | Senior News Reporter A growing hub of Bronzeville small businesses thrives on an unorthodox retail model: shipping containers. Located off the CTA Green Line station on East 51st Street, Boxville has provided entrepreneurs with space and community support to help cultivate their businesses.

Seventeen shipping containers, which hold enough space to host 20 small businesses, are currently available for commercial use at Boxville.

The utility of shipping containers as a retail space was realized in 2014 with the opening of a bike sales and repair shop, Bronzeville Bike Box, which operated out of a single shipping container. Success quickly followed, and there was a community outpour for more shipping container businesses. In 2017, Boxville was officially born, with four shipping containers

and 15 recruited local businesses. While Bronzeville Bike Box no longer provides services, there is a diverse array of stores, ranging from Little Squeeze Lemonade, which sells freshly squeezed bottled lemonade, to Da Book Joint, a book store spotlighting Black authors.

Will Jamison is the founder and co-owner of The Work Spot, which sells custom print apparel, where they use various methods to print logos and designs on premium cotton and polyester t-shirts. As a founding business of Boxville, Jamison’s enterprise opened as part of a “makerspace” for creators to collaborate and hold workshops.

“Prior to working [at Boxville], I was printing out of the basement of my house,” Jamison said. “I was able to fulfill the needs of the makerspace but also start

my own business of printing apparel.”

Working from a shipping container is only the beginning for Jamison’s printing business. He seeks to move into a 2000-square-foot warehouse and expand into other locations in the city.

Aside from the creative and financial opportunities of the container lot, Boxville seeks to revitalize the legacy of Bronzeville by uplifting and supporting Black-owned businesses. Resulting from an influx of Black Americans to Chicago during the Great Migration in the early 20th century, Bronzeville has represented the intellectual and artistic contributions of the Chicago Black community.

Boxville is part of the recent initiative “Build Bronzeville,” a five-pronged approach to reinvigorating the community. Other initiatives in place include turning Bronzeville Cookin’, a culinary launchpad, and The Forum, a historic re-

tail complex, into permanent brick-andmortar stores.

“The Work Spot” hopes to similarly contribute to revitalization by opening a school for those interested in creative design. Consistent with his original goal, Jamison hopes to build a creative hub for students to learn printing, designing, branding, and synthesizing these skills towards entrepreneurship. Using the momentum gained from face-to-face interactions with the community, Jamison is optimistic for both his company and the community.

As a longtime resident, Jamison saw firsthand the transformation of Bronzeville. “Businesses like us are able to thrive off the new neighborhoods, and small businesses taking their work seriously can really benefit from what’s happening now.”

Study Abroad Introduces Seven Programs, Renews Two

By GABRIEL KRAEMER | Senior News Reporter UChicago is expanding its global presence with nine new and renewed study abroad programs starting in the next academic year. These include two new civilizations programs in Dakar and Vienna, two renewed civilizations programs in Beijing and Pune, and five new thematic programs in Hong Kong, London, and Paris.

A new global studies thematic program in Hong Kong, starting next winter, will satisfy three major requirements and include the option to study either Cantonese or Mandarin. “We cannot think of a better place for a global studies sequence,” staff at the Study Abroad Office wrote in an email to The Maroon.

“The city’s history (and its present!) offers countless opportunities to engage with ideas and concepts ranging from colonialism to globalization, to nationalism, to transnational capitalism.”

It will be the first study abroad opportunity at UChicago’s Yuen Campus in Hong Kong since fall 2019, when escalating protests in the city forced the University to cancel or relocate programs it had previously hosted there.

In their email, the Study Abroad Office said the University felt the campus was now safe for students, though it would “continue to monitor the situation closely with our colleagues at the Campus in Hong Kong in the months leading up to the program.”

Two study abroad opportunities previously based in London—an economics program and the Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations sequence—are moving to the newly expanded Center in Paris, almost triple the size of the University’s existing facility there, when it opens next year.

“With the new center set to open, we will have significantly more space to accommodate additional programs,” the Study Abroad Office said. “Faculty initiated the move from London, which makes sense at this time, given the University of Chicago’s expansion of the Center in Paris as an intellectual destination for faculty, students, and alumni worldwide, and an important convening point for the University’s collaboration with universities and research institutions across Europe, the Middle East,

and Africa.”

The Democracy sequence will replace those relocated opportunities in London starting next winter. The program includes both the primary sequence, which surveys the ideas behind democratic society, its history, and its future, and a quarter-long archival research independent study.

In addition to the programs moving from London, three entirely new opportunities will come to the Center in Paris next year: department-based programs in psychology and philosophy and an interdisciplinary option led by the University’s Institute for the Formation of Knowledge. The latter program includes courses on language’s role in knowledge formation, the interplay between the sciences and the humanities, and intellectualism in Paris in a single decade in the 17th century, as well as a French language course.

The University will also offer two new ways to satisfy the civilization studies requirement abroad next spring. The Colonizations program, which focuses on the history and continuing implications of colonialism worldwide, will take place in Dakar, a Senegalese city that was

once colonized by France. Students in the program will study either French or Wolof, the most widely spoken language in Senegal, in addition to Colonizations courses. The sequence is also offered every other year at the Center in Paris.

The new Music in Western Civilization program will complement the University’s existing Civilizations options in Vienna. Students will take the equivalent of a two-quarter sequence examining the past 1,000 years of Austrian and Western music, a course on historical Viennese culture that satisfies the arts Core requirement, and a German language course.

Two civilizations options in Asia that the University offered in the past, the East Asian Civilization program in Beijing and Civilizations of South Asia program in Pune, near Mumbai, will also return this fall for the first time since before the pandemic. The programs survey the history and culture of East Asian and South Asian societies, respectively, and require study of a local language. The Pune program offers a choice of several South Asian languages, including Hindi and Marathi.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — FEBRUARY 1, 2024

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First-Generation, Low-Income Student Special Insert Letter from the Editor When I arrived to UChicago in fall of 2021, I left behind a hushed upbringing.

I went to school in a high-income suburb of Detroit, but myself lived in what neighbors and classmates referred to as “The Cabbage Patch”—a collection of single-family homes and apartments occupied by low-income residents.

There, my mother raised my brothers and me largely independently, with the support of my immigrant grandmother, who learned how to speak English by watching television.

The two of them only ever wanted me to feel included. This meant doing their best to attend school events— where my classmates would mimic my grandmother’s accent and adults would approach my mother, asking where my father was—staying up into the late hours to support my scholarship applications to expensive summer programs, and encouraging me to never speak

about the money I did not have.

In middle school, I was at risk of becoming homeless. I didn’t tell anyone.

A classmate saw the foreclosure sign in my front yard and told my entire grade.

As a college student, I wanted nothing more than to talk about being a low-income student. As an Odyssey Scholar, I felt like my experiences were not only meaningful, or deserving to be heard, but were worth something.

When I wrote “The Sum of Everything Left Unfinished” at the end of my first year, I described myself—if you will excuse unintentional money pun—as an investment. I had barely been living in Hyde Park for a year, barely knew this campus, barely knew who I was, and yet I was consumed with proving that, whoever I was, I was worth the effort and time others had invested in me to get me to UChicago.

Looking back on that piece almost two years later, I am disappointed with how little credit I gave myself.

My income status is precisely why I am here—because of what it has trained me to be. My income status has trained me in sinking my teeth in and not letting go. My income status has trained me to make the first impression, to be the first hand raised, to be the first voice echoing within the lecture hall. I am grateful, so immensely grateful, for the family members, friends, professors, and mentors who have been my support system— but they were my support as I created opportunity for myself.

This is what the First-Generation, Low-Income Student Special Insert serves to illustrate. This insert aims to highlight the voices of just a handful of first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students, to call to light their unique college experiences, successes,

and struggles, and to bring FGLI voices to the forefront of conversations at an elite, private academic institution.

This collection of pieces—most of which are self-reflective, personal narratives—is the product of the cumulative efforts of a small but mighty team of four guest writers, two content editors, Maroon data analysts and social media editors, and a myriad of supporters from within the paper and beyond.

It has been a sincere privilege to work with and read the stories of these exceptional individuals, and I could not be more excited for you all to learn from their experiences.

Thank you all, and welcome to the first Chicago Maroon First-Generation, Low-Income Student Special Insert.

Eva McCord

The College Experience of First-Generation Black Students

By MARTY COWHERD | Contributing Writer On June 29, 2023, the United States Supreme Court overturned more than 40 years of legal precedent when it struck down affirmative action policies through a lawsuit involving both Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For those not acquainted with affirmative action, it was essentially a legal guideline empowering colleges and universities to grant preferential admissions to historically underrepresented groups in the American education system. This aimed to provide opportunities for individuals from minorities and low-income backgrounds to attend universities that had a history of exclusion. The fact is that the challenges faced by first-generation, low-income African American students in navigating higher education in this country are fundamentally distinct from those encountered by other racialized groups. This is partly because

many minority students, upon gaining admission to prestigious colleges and universities, encounter not only academic hurdles but also socioeconomic challenges, requiring them to navigate substantial wealth disparities throughout their college experience. The issue is complex and stems from the inherently unequal structure of the American education system.

The education system in this country has proved to be ineffective in getting low-income, Black students to the level that allows us to even be considered for Ivy League admissions. In fact, using “merit” alone is not sufficient to assist Black students in getting accepted into top institutions like Harvard, Yale, and UChicago. This is because public schools around the country have been stripped of the means to provide low-income students with the tools needed to perform well on standardized exams.

In fact, since most local school districts depend on property taxes as a source of revenue, schools situated in communities with higher wealth concentrations can allocate more resources to enhance facility conditions, implement advanced programs, and provide SAT and ACT preparation. The allocation of resources to students in more generously funded school districts significantly influences the accessibility of higher education for individuals from backgrounds of generational wealth in this country.

In his concurring opinion on the June 29 ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “I continue to strongly believe…that ‘blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators.’… Meritocratic systems, with objective grading scales, are critical to that belief. Such scales have always been a great equalizer—offering a metric for achievement that bigotry could not alter.” From Thomas’s concurrence,

it would seem as if the American education system has equipped all students, regardless of race and class, with the skills necessary to meet the bare minimum standards for admission into Ivy League universities. But unfortunately, this hasn’t been the reality for most low-income, African American students aspiring to attend esteemed institutions but lacking the resources to compete with their counterparts from private high schools.

The University of Chicago is one of the most intellectually challenging institutions in the world. As a result, most UChicago students have felt intellectually inadequate at certain times.

However, African American students and alumni face a certain unique form of imposter syndrome and rhetoric regarding our intellectual inadequacies that other students do not have to face.

The idea that I “got in” because I’m Black implies one of two things. One, that the CONTINUED ON PG. 8

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“It is important that universities continue to find creative solutions to address the lack of racial diversity on college campuses.”

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significance placed on my race during the admissions process overshadowed all of my intellectual accomplishments.

The other, that I am only deserving of my spot at this university simply because I “fulfill a status quo,” which implies that I have no intellectual capacity to exist within this environment.

I consider the latter more offensive simply because implying that someone earned their position solely to fulfill specific racial quotas, without recognizing pre-existing systemic barriers, completely contradicts the underlying goals of policies such as affirmative action or initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Regardless, both scenarios demand that we justify or explain our worthiness for a place in this university, but, given that many of us do not have the mental stamina to debate our intellectual capabilities, this issue is usually left unaddressed. Regardless, it is important that universities continue to find creative solutions to address the lack of racial diversity on college campuses if we truly want to encourage intellectual growth through the power of diversity in perspective.

Instead of just critiquing for the sake of criticism, I’d like to offer a few recommendations on how universities should go about “achieving” diversity in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling. First, an institution should ask themselves, do we really want racial diversity? If so, I fundamentally believe that there are several ways that universities can discover the most academically driven minority students, especially those from communities with very few resources.

For example, a university could connect with undergraduate students involved in programs that serve high school students in the community. Additionally, universities should try their best to increase pre-admissions access to their academic environments. For instance, universities should provide not-forcredit, college-level courses, allowing high school students to briefly experience campus life during the summer before their senior year. This approach seeks to increase their familiarity with

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both the anticipated academic rigor and the college lifestyle, ultimately aiming to inspire them to contemplate returning to that college or attending elsewhere.

Access simply refers to the ability of one to be exposed to all aspects of higher education in America. Access is one of the most powerful things—continual exposure increases one’s sense of confidence to navigate the college admissions process. However, regardless of one’s level of confidence, if a university is not committed to fostering racial “di-

versity” among its student and faculty populations, this student is likely to be deterred from choosing that particular institution. For example, having a professor who looks like you makes a world of difference for Black students who attend predominantly white institutions.

While there exists a longing for access to the opportunities and advantages associated with attending a prestigious institution, nobody wants to consistently be seen as an outsider in every class, do they?

Despite the reversal of affirmative

action, colleges and universities still possess the capacity to preserve racial diversity within their student body.

The fundamental challenge now revolves around their willingness to do so. Nevertheless, universities can implement various strategies to reassure both current and prospective minority students of their commitment towards promoting equity and fairness, taking into consideration the inherently unequal structure of the American education system.

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Mental Wealth Navigating life at the University of Chicago manifests a distinct psychological state for First-Generation and Low-Income students that goes beyond typical imposter syndrome.

By MAELYN MCKAY | Contributing Writer While excitedly waiting for an IOP event to begin, I unfortunately overheard someone say amidst the chatty crowd, “Well, I pay $30,000 a quarter, so you can probably see why I don’t have any sympathy for you.” Although I obviously will never know the true context of this conversation, as a low-income student, the comment felt like a slap in the face.

It was immediately confirmed that my college experience is marked by unique challenges and mental strain, and my fellow peers might not know, or worse, might not care.

In conversations concerning mental health on campus, the concept of imposter syndrome often takes center stage. Virtually every student at any point in their academic career can face a struggle with self-doubt in their intelligence and capabilities, especially when surrounded by extremely talented and ambitious peers. Yet, the particular challenges faced by First-Generation and Low-Income (FGLI) students unravel an account of student life that extends far beyond the confines of conventional imposter syndrome.

When conventional imposter syndrome is compounded by a lack of a sense of belonging and the relentless pressure to succeed despite daunting financial and social hurdles, FGLI students can suffer amplified mental health concerns.

Accompanying this amplification is the stigmatization and costs associated with mental healthcare, leaving FGLI students exceedingly vulnerable. While admitting FGLI students and providing us with a life-changing education is generous, it is paramount that the University become aware of what it is actually like when we get here in order to further improve mental health resources.

A Sense of Belonging Something largely overlooked is that FGLI students come from communities with much more collectivist cultures than the stark individualism they are

confronted with on campus. This difference, called a cultural mismatch by social psychologists, has the ability to impair one’s sense of belonging as well as one’s academic achievement. When an FGLI student—accustomed to the “it takes a village” mindset—is thrusted into a community that values those who have distinguished themselves through their exceptionality, it can be extremely difficult to grasp that they are now an independent individual. Many FGLI students’ families have made hefty sacrifices, and their communities have provided support in unimaginable ways in order for them to succeed; being far away from this essential support system can take its toll.

Cultural mismatches also emerge as FGLI students interact with peers that are not of low socioeconomic status.

Perhaps not out of malice but ignorance, non-FGLI students can frequently bring up what they consider “normal” life experiences, while FGLI students wrestle with knowing these experiences are thought of as luxuries in their own lives.

Among friends, FGLI students who have never left the country can only listen quietly while conversations about grand international travel experiences and plans occur. Thus, FGLI students can feel as though they are “behind” or missing out on rich cultural experiences that are shared as a form of social currency.

Alongside this inability to relate to their peers’ lifestyles, FGLI students must also grapple with affording social activities to build relationships. Going out to eat on weekends or attending a concert might be simple expenses for some, but for low-income students, they are mental receipts on which they are racking up unnecessary costs. What appears to be a lowkey trip into Chinatown quickly unfolds to include a Lyft ride, a restaurant bill, a 20 percent tip, and an overpriced boba drink for dessert.

Beyond these weekend plans, FGLI students who are interested in Greek life

must contemplate how quarterly dues, themed events, and banquets will affect their finances. Some students may feel as though these activities are not worth their costs, no matter how interested they are in participating. This disengagement can further isolate them from a sense of belonging, especially in experiencing exciting activities that are not school-related.

The Pressure to Succeed Although it is true that FGLI students can come from tight-knit communities, these communities do not offer the same networking circles that certain non-FGLI students have been cultivating for years. It is an open secret that the most sought-after jobs are acquired through networking rather than applications, and this is not lost on FGLI students. The difference is many FGLI students are behind the curve, while other students are significantly ahead of them in establishing their career network. Thus, being an alum of certain private high schools already offers significant advantages that the majority of FGLI students cannot boast.

It can be argued that being an alum of UChicago will help to elevate the careers of FGLI students dramatically. While this is true, the pressure felt in attending an elite university can be extremely detrimental to the well-being of these students. The fear of failure is different for FGLI students; while non-FGLI students have a good chance of “bouncing back,” FGLI students are burdened with knowing their attendance at UChicago might be their one shot in improving their circumstances, and it is not promised. FGLI students cannot afford to make big mistakes here—or throughout their professional careers—for there isn’t much of a safety net to catch them if they fall.

Additionally, many FGLI students are confronted with the intersections of their identity which also put pressure on their success. Being LGBTQ+, BIPOC, or a woman while also FGLI puts one at an even greater risk of experiencing micro-

aggressions, stereotyping, and discrimination throughout college and in the workplace. Predicting these experiences and eventually encountering them is both discouraging and dangerous for students’ mental health. No matter how much an FGLI student overcomes their initial imposter syndrome and fear of failure, there is always a strong chance that other factors they cannot control will also inhibit their success.

Mental Healthcare Considering the mental health strains associated with being first generation or low-income, the stigmatization of mental illness advances problems for these students even further. The communities they come from often have a “get over it and move on” attitude towards mental health concerns, making FGLI students reluctant to reach out when they need help. Furthermore, mental health resources can overestimate thelikelihood that people will ask for help, a troubling finding established in social psychology research.

Moreover, FGLI students themselves may overestimate the cost of mental healthcare. If this type of care is perceived to be financially burdensome as well as a “shameful” experience, FGLI students are at higher risk of experiencing a severe mental health crisis while attending college without ever receiving treatment.

It is important that all students on campus, especially FGLI students, are aware of the no-cost resources UChicago has available. For starters, the Student Wellness Center needs more visibility.

Although it is nice to see Student Wellness information scrolling on the campus televisions, it may be more useful to distribute physical pamphlets in the dorm rooms before move-in or during an Orientation Week event Having a tangible copy of resources in a safe place, rather than a public bulletin board, will better motivate students to reach out for help without fear of stigmatization.

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“Cultural mismatches also emerge as FGLI students interact with peers.”

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In helping students battle their pressure to succeed, career workshops tailored specifically to FGLI students could also be beneficial. While many workshops explain how to apply to internships, write a cover letter, and network,

many of us are left to answer questions about future goals, such as graduate school, investing, and financial literacy, on our own—goals that non-FGLI students are usually familiar with already.

Breaking down nebulous terminology is one simple action that has the potential

to make large differences for FGLI students.

Being FGLI does not mean that one must forever endure all of the societal and self-imposed pressures the identity entails. UChicago has made great strides in helping FGLI students, but the mod-

ification of current resources may increasingly help students overcome these challenges—without causing further financial stress.

As for fellow non-FGLI peers, perhaps the extension of a little consideration might do some good.

This Isn’t Normal: An Odyssey Scholar on Wealth at UChicago

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By NEIVE RODRIGUEZ | Contributing Writer The University of Chicago was my dream school, and I was beyond elated to be accepted as a member of the Class of 2025 back in December 2020. I was nervous to start school, knowing I would have to start all of my friendships from scratch. Luckily, I was able to quickly find a warm and loving group of friends, and I can say confidently that UChicago feels like home. Yet, while I have never felt socially isolated at UChicago, during my freshman year I quickly began to notice a few things about my peers which distinguished me from them. To put it bluntly,

the majority of them were wealthy, and a startling amount of them were extremely well-connected. Suddenly, I was in a group of people for whom European vacations, private schooling, and family members with advanced careers in law, finance, and higher education is the norm.

I discovered that many of my peers were from the wealthiest pockets of the East and West Coasts. Many of my peers’ parents had attended an Ivy Plus university.

I found that I was (and still am) often the only person in the room who receives financial aid and attended a public high

school. While I dearly love UChicago, I cannot deny that being among such privileged students has been somewhat frustrating when considering how unusual their socioeconomic status is in comparison to the majority of Americans.

I’d like to take some time to explore the gap between the atmosphere of excessive privilege at UChicago and the realities of the rest of the country.

The sudden shift in the makeup of my peers’ socioeconomic status was especially jarring considering that 47.7 percent of students in my hometown school district qualify for free and reduced lunch, meaning that nearly half of my fellow students

were considered to be in poverty. 70 percent of students at my high school qualified for free and reduced lunch, and only 51 percent of my graduating class planned to attend university. Considering these statistics, and the fact that my family is nowhere near qualifying as low-income by the “free and reduced” metric, I felt enormously privileged in high school. I was fortunate to have access to the International Baccalaureate program at my school, which attracted students of disproportionate wealth demographics from across the city, meaning many of my classmates were generally more privCONTINUED ON PG. 11

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ileged than the rest of the student body (though this level of privilege pales in comparison to what I have encountered at UChicago). At my high school, students from middle-income families such as myself typically did not have to face the burden of working, freeing up time to focus on school, extracurricular activities, and eventually college applications.

Curiously, while my experiences in high school only reinforced to me just how fortunate I was, the Odyssey scholarship I receive at UChicago is designated for low-income students. How is “low-income” defined? If “low-income” indicates an inability to pay $84,819 in full to the University, then certainly I would have to define myself as such. But the median household income of the United States is $74,580, far from being considered in poverty, yet warranting a large financial aid package, meaning that paying tuition in full is unrealistic for the majority of Americans. The University reports that approximately 60 percent of its undergraduates receive financial aid. It is wonderful that the school gives out so much financial support to its students. Yet, this estimate has about 3,000 of the 7,500 students paying full tuition. There is no data on the general cutoff for receiving financial aid; families who make approximately $125,000 a year or below do not pay tuition, but there are still families who make above this amount who receive aid.

I imagine that a family that could afford to pay tuition in full would be making far, far above the median household income, meaning there is a disproportionate percentage of high-income students at the

University compared to the country as a whole. This became clear to me as I compared my peers’ socioeconomic statuses with those from my high school.

According to a survey of UChicago’s Class of 2021, 13.9 percent of respondents came from a family making over $500,000 a year, and 40 percent attended a private high school. A whopping 18.2 percent of respondents reported having the assistance of an admissions counselor. Further emphasizing these numbers is an October study from Harvard which found that one-percenters were twice as likely to send their children to an elite school compared to middle class families, even when their children had similar standardized test scores. The study attributes this to three factors. First, elite schools’ preference for legacy admits.

Second, the fact that wealthier students often have access to more extracurriculars, and third, schools’ preference for recruiting athletes, which the study argues often come from wealthy families. These factors should surprise no one—students who attend a well-funded private high school will of course have greater access to extracurricular activities and will have fewer burdens (such as part-time employment) preventing them from pursuing these activities, not to mention the access to hired admissions counselors and tutoring. Wealthy students can navigate the world of the Ivy Plus with greater ease than low- and-middle income families.

The one percent being so prominent in elite education is very significant: the study asserts that 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, 25 percent of US senators, 50 percent of all Rhodes Scholars, and 75

percent of Supreme Court justices graduated from 12 Ivy Plus schools. At UChicago, I am brushing shoulders with the elite and people who will be in very prestigious leadership positions post-grad.

There is clear matriculation of students from wealthy families who will find work in highly prestigious positions. This trend is happening at the same time as wealth inequality in the United States increases: according to Pew Research Center, the median family wealth of high-income families increased by 85 percent between 2001 and 2016, while the wealth held by middle-income families has shrunk by 20 percent during the same years. Wealth and power tend to remain in the hands of the upper class, a dynamic fostered by elite schools.

As UChicago has become increasingly more selective—the Class of 2027 boasts a 4.7 percent acceptance rate—are students from wealth generally the ones to emerge with the competitive advantage? There is no data currently available to support or reject this claim specific to UChicago, but my experiences say yes. In high school, I saw how middle-income, as opposed to low-income, students were more likely to pursue academically rigorous programs.

Now, I can see with clarity how advantages like these and many more facilitate the movement of students from wealth to elite schools and onward to careers in powerful leadership positions.

If wealthy students—whether they are part of the one percent or the five—simply have more resources and opportunities for admission to an elite university, is it possible for more students from middle- and low-income backgrounds to be

admitted? Some suggest ending the practice of legacy admissions, which favors high-income students. While I am sure that eliminating legacy consideration would create more income diversity, as the study from Harvard suggests, it is in the nature of elite colleges to source a larger percentage of their student body from wealthy families. I don’t imagine this will ever change unless there are massive changes to income distribution in the United States, and that certainly will not take place any time soon. The often-insular world of the Ivy Plus is not as much of a problem as it is a mostly unchangeable fact.

Attending UChicago has introduced me into a bubble of extreme wealth and connections that I otherwise would have not encountered. While I am eternally grateful to have the opportunity to attend such a wonderful school, it has been a somewhat disorienting experience, considering how incongruous the socioeconomic makeup of UChicago is with the rest of the nation. It has been frustrating to feel out of place among my peers who are representative of an elite minority. I often feel that my fellow students do not really understand how our situations differ, but, more importantly, that my family’s socioeconomic background is actually much more common among the general population. I also understand that no one wants to be identified as wealthy and that recognizing one’s own privilege can be a difficult thing. However, I would also like to remind my especially well-off peers that there is no use hiding it. Wealth does not whisper at UChicago but speaks very loudly.

Money Talks, Wealth Whispers

By NATALIE GEIGER | Contributing Writer You leave home expecting to find your place. Years of growing up, boxed in, waiting for the chance to prove yourself and now, almost suddenly, there’s a chance to follow through on the belief that, if you could just make it out, you’d be boundless.

Leaving was never inevitable; it was something that happened against all the odds.

So when you show up during COVID-19 in 2020 to a dorm room that will house only you, your Zoom classes, calls home, and maybe one new friend sitting six feet

away, you suddenly find yourself inarticulate. Words are what got you into this school. Not the rigor and renown of your high school, not your recommendations and a family name associated with the world’s top companies, not even the accomplishments that now seem so small outside of your hometown context. And

yet, conversely, you also know your place here is almost entirely based on chance.

You are simply the one girl from upstate South Carolina they were bound to admit.

A dot on a map and public school accomplishments.

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“Your spot here depended on an admissions essay that revealed the magnitude of what this opportunity would do for you.”

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tainty, but there are still new worries and insecurities that can only emerge in the constant face of wealth. A kind of wealth that moves people through the world in ways you can’t anticipate. People used to constant access to whatever knowledge and material means they desire. The dollars dripping out of them so casually that the tears you’ve shed over those same amounts mean nothing. Once you leave home, you’ll arrive not to settle neatly into college life but to grapple with the nuances of your new life. Your peers carry on, unaware of the grip wealth has on the ways they live life. In that first year, you’ll see them order bottled water to their dorm rooms because the University tap water isn’t good enough. In the second, they’ll take their first post-COVID-19 trips across the globe while you’re just

excited to return to the mountains back home. In the third, they’ll tell you they’re moving off campus in an effort to test out adulthood, try responsibility on to see what it’s like, and for the first time temper the habits of a grown-up into their daily routine.

By this point, your ways of relating to people have shifted. The things you can do with them to get closer are limited when every activity entails Ubers and tickets and expensive meals. Automatically replying that that sweater you were complimented on was bought on sale now makes people uncomfortable. Being careful about money is no longer a social fact and neither are the niceties that once built friendships but now maintain divides.

This discomfort is only heightened inside the classroom. Feeling incredibly behind when you haven’t already read Rousseau,

digested it, and produced an original take ready to be critiqued against decades of analysis you were unaware existed. Getting used to the right words evading you, like you’re not sure if any of what you’re doing is what you set out for now that the standard of success is so upended.

Your spot here depended on an admissions essay that revealed the magnitude of what this opportunity would do for you, but, now that you’re here, those words suddenly wobble in your mouth. They seem less clear and less true. And yet they move your tongue in new ways so that even calls home start to seem less and less recognizable. Now your check-ins with your mom and high school friends reveal the rigidity that’s ebbed its way into your voice. Friends say all you can talk about is school, the life you live in the city. You can hear the resentment creep into their tone.

They see you as different now, and yet you don’t even feel sufficiently changed to make a way for yourself in this space. You can return to the community back home, but now you’re “the one who left.” The one who has strengthened new muscles and bent them only to prove you could.

One day, back in that first year, you’ll go to office hours when you’re simply at a loss. You’ll tell a professor that you feel so out of place, so inadequate, and she’ll tell you that you’ve bought into a lie. With your limited means, you have exchanged some of what you have for the false belief that people here are smarter, more interesting, more everything. You are not dumb, she says, not less. You’ll soon realize that their aesthetics are not inherently more dynamic than yours, just dependent on the money there to follow their whims.

She knows you found this school not because you were bound for an elite institution from birth but because you were drawn in by the promise that you could fulfill your potential in some way distinct to this place. So now, in this environment in which you feel less than and made to adapt to its ways in order to amount to more, do not, she says, give in so easily.

As you enter your fourth year, you’ll remember these words. As much as you’ve learned the dialect of wealth, you haven’t been swallowed by it. You’ll see tulips like the ones in your front yard and think to call your mom. You’ll pick up your phone and wonder aloud to her if you’re becoming everything you both hoped you could be. There’s so much stretching you’ve done to the fabric of yourself, so many ways you’ve told your limbs and mind to move in unnatural forms in order to conform to the expectations set out for you. Even so, all of this conforming hasn’t dissolved the core that brought you here.

Now that your range of motion has expanded, you can form the words to ask questions you could not have known you’d need to ask. What is your place here? You may not have the language to answer, but you can wonder, is it that you’ve distanced yourself from home simply because you sought the unknown, or that you’ve grown into what years of hoping have formed you to be?

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A Brief Look at Student Hometowns by FGLI Identity

By FGLI ISSUE STAFF The Chicago Maroon data team plotted the hometowns of University students across a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. The 33 students sur veyed hailed from 22 different cities in 13

states, ranging from Florida to California, as well as the District of Columbia.

To acquire the data, The Maroon published a Google Form asking students across the College to share wheth-

er they identify as FGLI or non-FGLI. The survey asked students to share where they are from.

By putting together this map, the team sought to demonstrate geographic distributions—ranging from the East Coast to West Coast,

north and south—between non-FGLI-identifying and FGLI-identifying students.

This project serves as a starting point for future research.

If you are a College student and would like to share where you are from, scan the QR code.

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The Obama Center: A Welcome Neighbor?

“The Obama Foundation–University of Chicago partnership marks a long-awaited homecoming for the former president. What will it signify for the South Side?”

By CELESTE ALCALAY | Grey City Reporter Barack Obama’s own words will be etched into the Obama Presidential Center’s 235-foot flagship museum’s facade. A portion of the chosen text, taken from his speech marking the 50th anniversary of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, reads: “America is not the project of any one person.” The same holds true for the envisioned center. The museum’s design draws inspiration from “movement upwards” and mimics four hands working together to make the walls of a structure; grassroots movements gave the former president his start and catapulted him into the spotlight. Now, higher into the sky the building rises, along with concerns that its completion may come at the expense of the South Side community it intends to honor.

A little over nine years ago, the Obama Foundation, the Chicago-based nonprofit founded by the Obamas, put out a call for proposals in search of a partner to host the newest presidential library. Of the four final contenders, UChicago won the bid.

The arrival, slated for late 2025, is drawing near. What location more fitting than Jackson Park? Obama—“Professor” for 12 years to his UChicago Law School students—and his formidable partner, South Shore native and former UChicago Medical Center administrator Michelle Obama, have strong ties to the South Side and the University.

But the civic-minded venture paid for and managed by the Obama Foundation is also a new development. Its arrival, University constituents and community members worry, will leave residents vulnerable to predatory real estate practices.

A Hub of Synergy In an interview with The Maroon, Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff and UChicago’s current Senior Advisor to the President Susan Sher provided insight into how the center will function.

Research already in motion on the future of the American political, economic, and ideological landscape will take place through events, talks, and other academic partnerships. Barack Obama, Sher explained, has been focused on what he calls “inclusive capitalism,” a system in which everyone benefits from economic growth, in which private and public entities in power use their position for combating income and wealth inequality. (This was a central topic of discussion at a summit UChicago cohosted with Columbia University earlier this year on the preservation of democratic institutions).

Now, as University liaison to the Obama Foundation, Sher, who played an integral role in placing the winning bid, finds campus faculty with the expertise to aid in the Foundation’s intellectual queries. She recalled, for example, that she has been asked: “Do you have anyone who’s interested in artificial intelligence in the future of work?” Her enthusiasm was palpable despite the Zoom format of the interview.

For its initial proposal, the University collected hundreds of statements of intent and support to encourage collaborative civic engagement and address social issues, many from academic institutions.

Northwestern, for instance, proposed a “newsroom location at the center where students could spend a quarter reporting on South Side communities.”

The museum building at the Obama Presidential Center. courtesy of the obama foundation.

Organizations in tune with community needs will also contribute. Torrey L. Barrett, executive director of the Keep Loving Each Other (KLEO) Center, hoped to host joint events with the Obama Library that “could allow his group to expand its programming for grandparents raising grandchildren [with] parents [who] were victims of violence.”

Educational and recreational programs which will be open to the public are still in their infancy, but work done behind the scenes will ensure that the Center “[hits] the ground running in October of 2025,” Sher said.

“A Labor of Love” Helping to realize the Obama vision has been “a labor of love,” Sher said. She has a longstanding relationship with the Obamas, and she learned a lot from the former first lady when the two became acquainted in Chicago early in their careers.

“She had what she would call an asset-based view of the community,” said-

Sher, who remembers that at a city board meeting, Michelle Obama showed a picture of a building next to undeveloped land, explaining “that you can look at [the building] as [the] vacant land next to it or this beautiful, enriched asset.”

Obama explained the approach herself in a 2009 D.C. conference. “We can’t do well serving these communities… if we believe that we, the givers, are the only ones that are half-full and that everybody we’re serving is half-empty.” Members of the community become collaborators in change rather than recipients of aid. She gave the example of graduates of elite institutions and ex-convicts working together to address a local issue.

Commenting on the South Side, Sher emphasized “the kind of richness even in the face of a lot of challenges.” As the neighborhood that sowed the seeds for Obama’s presidential success, it also lays claim to many creatives, activists, and multi-hyphenates. A prideful South Side CONTINUED ON PG. 15

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“It’s unclear whether South Shore, Hyde Park, and Woodlawn residents near the Center will reap the benefits.”

CONTINUED FROM PG 14

demonstrated support for the center in its early days of planning, including with a music video, a spirited call by families, teachers, and others for the former president to “Bring It On Home!”

Both of the Obama initiatives—inclusive capitalism and asset-based community development—are optimistic about the trust that can form between community members and those in power when they have a defined common goal. When it comes to the center, some University constituents would find more reassurance in concrete commitments.

The Design Approach Certain predicaments, anticipated in the 2018 open letter signed by more than 150 University of Chicago professors and faculty, have been addressed—protests from the wider South Side community led the Center to convert a planned aboveground garage into a belowground one, infringing less on cherished Jackson Park space.

A 2019 study by the city said the center would alter and have “adverse effects” on the once entirely public parkland even though beautification of Jackson Park was one of its main selling points.

The architects, Tsien and Williams, a well-known husband-and-wife duo who designers of the Logan Center, envisioned a community-minded space. Breaking with tradition, the Obama Center will not include a true research library. Instead, a new branch of the Chicago Public Library, a sledding hill, and a garden modeled after the one Michelle Obama kept at the White House will be attractions.

Still unaddressed is the lack of available land for the establishment of new local businesses. The Museum of Science and Industry, the University, and private residential properties surround the center, raising the question of where economic growth will come from and to whom the profit will go.

Traffic is also a concern. “Looking at the renderings and the elevations of the site plan, it just looks like it’s kind of an anti-pedestrian situation getting from campus to the center,” said Emily Talen,

director of UChicago’s Urbanism Lab. Talen has doubts about the convenience and safety of the route for pedestrians.

Lanes added to Stony Island Avenue will compensate for a portion of the lanes closed on Cornell Drive, reconfigured for park use. The change will make for a more dangerous trip for pedestrians crossing over and bikers riding along the thoroughfare and will also complicate the commute from the North to the South Side. From a bird’s eye view, the sprawling construction site consists of little more than piping and cranes, the steel and concrete framing delineating the museum, forum, library, and athletic buildings. It is easy to pick out the museum, clad in granite and with six of its eight floors already completed.

Economic Boom for Whom?

The development promises to usher in a new season of economic growth, but it’s unclear whether South Shore, Hyde Park, and Woodlawn residents near the center will reap the benefits. Student organization University of Chicago Against Displacement (UCAD) is working to remind the University of the obligation it has to

ensure that current residents are protected against displacement. Such fears have been well documented, most recently by The New York Times.

The University’s donations to the Center pale in comparison to the $482 million price tag. Its most sizable contribution was just $200,000, according to Jeremy Manier, associate vice president of communications and public affairs.

But minimal direct financial involvement does not lessen an ethical responsibility to the surrounding neighborhoods.

As UCAD spokesperson Aiyana Leigh explained, a fraught town-and-gown relationship has always existed. “UChicago has a history of displacing families [on the South Side], going back to the ’60s and ’70s.”

Leigh detailed a recent battle to assist a resident whose mortgage rate more than quadrupled. “Her family was the second Black family to move into Woodlawn, and she is currently being displaced because her [monthly bills] went up suddenly.”

A soon-to-be destination for flocks of tourists who have previously never set foot in Chicago, the South Side is also part of an identity. “She lived somewhere that

she’s been in for generations,” Leigh emphasized.

In a study commissioned by UChicago, an outside surveyor estimated that the center would create a spate of permanent new jobs, many in the construction sector, and bring $220 million in economic impact to the city and 800,000 visitors to the South Side annually.

Development without displacement is possible, but it’s important to be conscious that “people have this kind of negative institutional memory around these types of projects,” said UChicago alum Juliet Eldred (A.B. ’17), who wrote her thesis on the University’s property acquisition throughout time, which was harmful to the survival of surrounding residential neighborhoods.

Ordinances, Orders, and Organizations, but No CBA “How do you encourage investment so that the community members still benefit and also don’t get disenfranchised or gentrified out?”

This was a question that Sher, along with others, set out to answer through an CONTINUED ON PG. 16

A map detailing closures and modifications due to construction. courtesy of the obama foundation.

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“In an ideal world, what you would have is all the community interests and stakeholders in that area come together and form a plan.”

CONTINUED FROM PG 15

organization called the Emerald South Side Community Collaborative, dedicated to generating community wealth.

The organization was formed during Rahm Emanuel’s mayorship, born out of discussions between the University, the Foundation, and various faith and community leaders about how best to serve the South Side.

For residents, the solution is a community benefits agreement (CBA). A CBA is a contract signed between a private developer and community coalitions that outlines commitments to which the developer will agree, such as affordable housing, in return for community support.

Obama himself rejected the signing of a CBA during a 2017 community meeting.

He explained that unlike a for-profit enterprise created by a developer, the center is nonprofit. And in a CBA, once sides are defined, the risk becomes that certain voices get drowned out while others dominate. The problem, Sher reiterated, is in having an intermediary. “Who is the community who is signing this agreement?”

“Emerald South is community led,”

Sher said. “It’s not encumbered by ‘you promised to do X percent of this or Y percent of that, but let’s talk to the community.’” The approach doesn’t require written contractual commitments and fixed signers.

South Shore activists are still advocating a true CBA, unconvinced as rent and housing prices continue to rise and skeptical of resistance to a written agreement. Property value in South Shore had already increased by 48 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to the CBA coalition website. A 2019 investigative study found that rent prices within a two-mile radius of the Center were rising at a faster rate compared with the rest of Chicago.

Talen said the City of Chicago also has tools at its disposal to stave off gentrification. She underscored rent control, inclusionary zoning policies, and anti-deconversion ordinances. The Chicago City Council has passed various housing ordinances, including the 2020 Woodlawn Preservation Housing Ordinance, which secures funding for rehabilitation of vacant lots and ensures that on 25 percent of city-owned vacant land, 30 percent of units in each project must be affordable.

Layout of the Obama Center campus. courtesy of the obama foundation.

“In an ideal world, what you would have is all the community interests and stakeholders in that area come together and form a plan,” Talen said.

The overall excitement in early stages reflected eagerness to believe that, planned well, the center would be a community asset. A sense of weariness took over as conflicting priorities in each phase of planning left the concerns of certain players unheeded. The Obama Foundation is proceeding full steam ahead as groups such as the CBA Coalition and Protect Our Parks—still calling for more environmentally conscious use of the Jackson Park land—try to go through the City to have demands met.

The Obamas (Still) Call This Home “If you walk around 53rd Street and ask, you’ll find people who will say, ‘I signed petitions when Obama was first running for state senate,’” Sher said. Pride for the neighborhood and its significance as a historic landmark runs deep.

She recounted an anecdote of Michelle Obama and the late Timuel Black, a wellknown Chicago historian and prominent local civil rights activist: Obama had new

UChicago Medical Center board members, executives, and employees take a bus ride around the areas of the Mid South Side to learn about its history. Black led these tours.

Accounts such as this one recall a less frenzied and publicized time for the Obamas, in which they inhabited the neighborhood and could devote themselves to local-level work.

Black staunchly supported the University-Foundation partnership. “Their story is our story,” Black wrote in an article of support for the center. He detached the couple from their presence as largerthan-life public figures and change-makers, declaring them definitively representatives of the South Side. The South Side is home to America’s first Black woman U.S. Senator, Carol Braun, and boasts entertainers such as Sam Cooke. Carter G. Woodson launched Black History Month there. Its struggles are intertwined with its successes.

Former president Obama, no longer “Professor,” “Senator,” or simply “Barack,” has two presidential terms under his belt and millions of dollars to his name. Whether he can act in the best interest of the neighborhood that shaped him from his vantage point remains to be seen.

Within the next two years, the center’s edifices will loom over Jackson Park— something tangible to gaze at. Leigh, who is herself from Chicago, said, “You can follow racial disparities in Chicago through the quality of buildings.” Lavish apartment complexes sit beside vacant lots.

Talen usually criticizes monoculture in urban planning. Domination by private developers is not conducive to housing diversity. “We urban planners often make fun of ‘starchitecture’”—a portmanteau used to describe the iconic works of architects with celebrity and critical acclaim.

But a presidential center is the exception. Here, she said, “starchitecture is needed.”

There will only ever be one presidential center that reflects the Obama vision.

The jury is still out on what kind of neighbor it will be.

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VIEWPOINTS

West Virginia Chicago Is Happening to You: The Fight for the Modern University

By CLIFFORD ANDO Last summer, the provost of the University of Chicago announced that, because “we are operating in a challenging fiscal environment,” her office would be imposing a variety of controls on spending in the current fiscal year (the email was sent on July 12, 2023; some of those controls were later withdrawn or revised). The announcement had an eerie familiarity. I have lived through financial crises at the University before. But I also understood that whatever I thought I knew, I did not have substantial and detailed knowledge of the nature or magnitude of the current crisis, or of its connection to earlier ones. This spurred me to investigate a set of intuitions I had long had and that I have since learned was widely shared about the trajectory of the University as a whole and, indeed, many of its peers.

What I discovered, based on facts that the University itself provides, was that an institution that made itself look rich had also forced itself, in particular situations and for the purposes of specific policies, to act poor. The result of this imbricated set of choices, of overspending and underspending, has been the hollowing out of much of the arts and sciences at the University, with predictable consequences for the strength of its undergraduate College. But more is at issue than undergraduate instruction. At stake, I urge, is nothing less than the idea itself of the university.

What is needed in this moment, both locally and national-

ly, is clear-eyed analyses of the ideology driving these changes, of the culture of leadership and structures of governance that elevate these to institutional priorities, and of the mechanisms by which they are implemented and the costs they impose. In addition, we require a conversation about the gaps in oversight and public reporting that allow universities in particular to fail so often to live up to their own ideals.

Some aspects of what is occurring may be described in terms that reveal the extent to which universities now participate in pathologies of leadership in contemporary politics and corporate governance. “Leadership” consists of “innovation”— meaning leveraged investments in new endeavors—and is measured by the willingness to take risks. Risk is most easily quantified in terms of debt. On July 1, 2006, the University of Chicago’s liabilities were $2.236 billion. By June 30, 2022, they amounted to $5.809 billion, meaning the University’s debt grew by 260 percent over this period and now amounts to a startling 68 percent of the University’s total assets. No, that’s not normal: no school in the Ivy League has a ratio of debt to assets higher than 30 percent.

But it is “leadership”: in a recent letter to The Maroon, John Boyer, the former dean of the College, praised the “courage” of the University’s leadership in having “[taken] formidable risks to achieve success.” It was presumably on the basis of a similar assessment that, over the course of this period, the

base compensation of the University’s president grew by 285 percent. By comparison, a faculty member earning the standard merit raise each year would have seen an increase of around 60 percent in their salary.

To put the matter another way, in fiscal year (FY) 2006 the University reported cash paid for interest—the cost of servicing its debt—in the amount of $45.7 million. In 2021 and 2022, that number averaged $200 million. Neither is the totality of the University’s revenue available to pay these sums. Generally, it will have to come from tuition and assets without restrictions, not income from restricted gifts (which account for 86 percent of the University’s endowment, exclusive of the Medical Center and Marine Biological Laboratory), nor from grants. In consequence, in the fiscal year that ended on 30 June 2022, the University paid out $355.8 million more in cash than it took in.

To grasp the scale of the problem, for FY 2021, the University reported to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) a net tuition revenue from each student of $31,500; as a result, the tuition of approximately 6,350 undergraduates, around 85 percent of the student body, is needed merely to service the University’s debt. What is more, some portion of the University’s debt was assumed after the 2007-08 financial crisis, when interest rates were low. As these bonds come due—and principal payments totaling nearly $900 million are coming due over the next five years—the University

will need to refinance at much higher rates. The same is naturally true of the new debt the University will have to assume to finance projects to which it has already committed, of which my own estimate with respect to the two largest building projects alone is $1.2 billion in additional borrowing.

What is striking about this situation is that UChicago is fundamentally rich, and yet its leadership—including, emphatically, its trustees, who must approve the issuing of bonds—seems to have elected to put itself in the situation of less well-resourced universities. The University has also not managed its finances well enough to escape the consequences of borrowing at this scale. On the contrary, as I have stressed, this year’s implosion is not UChicago’s first crisis in the modern era. Over the last decade, minor fluctuations in any one or more of several variables have produced repeated panics over liquidity, with the result that policy at every level and a great number of consequential day-to-day decisions are driven in those moments by a desperate need for cash. This was not necessary.

But University leadership— perhaps partly because universities are nonprofit and their efficiencies are hard to assess—is rewarded even more than corporate titans for socializing the costs of their own risk-taking or, one might say, for inflicting harm on their own organizations. In FY 2016, as reported

by Inside Higher Ed and Crain’s Chicago Business, the Universi-

ty reacted to a liquidity crisis by slashing the budgets of academic divisions by 8 percent, cutting large numbers of staff, and selling a large number of University buildings. Perversely, but also in reward, the president’s base compensation was increased from $1.056 to $1.090 million.

(That these sales of University buildings were driven by shortterm panic would seem to be confirmed by the fact that, in selling dormitories, the University gave up future revenue, just as its lack of liquidity has caused it in subsequent years to contract with external parties to build and manage new dormitories. Those contracts provide a lower return per person per room to the University than direct management of dormitories would have done.)

Compounding these factors are tendencies universities shares with (poor) leadership in contemporary government, including a propensity to defer maintenance and kick costs to the next generation, and a penchant for encouraging boutique interests that are parasitic on public goods. The overall result has been a broad degradation in the ability of core units of the University to perform their basic functions.

But it is not sufficient to ascribe the actions of the University to a panic over finances, as though these were merely lamentable accidents. For one thing, the University’s leadership has repeatedly elected the same cluster of cost-saving measures in iterative crises, knowingly compounding harms that CONTINUED ON PG. 18

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“It is not sufficient to ascribe the actions of the University to a panic over finances, as though these were merely lamentable accidents.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 17

might at the first instance have been unforeseen. More seriously, the broad pattern of favor and disfavor in large-scale resource allocation reflects an ideological shift visible not simply at UChicago but across the nation, a revolution in the notion of the university from ideal to instrument and of knowledge from end to means.

Trustees and officers of the University are enabled to undertake this revolution in what

marco verch.

seems to me a tragic program of self-harm, by a general lack of transparency and the reliance of the University at large on extraordinarily poor systems of public assessment.

To grasp the nature and scale of the assault on the liberal arts at UChicago, we cannot focus solely on current events. Their story is simple enough. As noted above, in July 2023, responding to budget deficits (elective ones, of course), the University announced a range of constraints

on research spending, a staff hiring freeze, and budget cuts nearly across the board. (I say “nearly” because I am told that the University has spent more than $3 million to renovate the president’s residence; this sum is greater than the aggregate research allowances of more than 250 faculty in the Divinity School and Division of the Humanities. To be fair, $3 million is not a meaningful amount for an institution with more than $4 billion in expenses; but in those

terms, humanistic research is not meaningfully funded, either.)

But this year’s crisis is simply the latest in a sequence that stretches back at least 18 years.

To understand properly the way in which the harms of this year’s cuts compound those of earlier years, it is essential to take the long view, so that the asymmetric effects of the cuts on units of the University are made clear.

(The asymmetric effects of the cuts are, of course, in many re-

spects the inverse of the asymmetric benefits that have flowed from the University’s leveraged investments.)

Apart from dormitories, the leveraged capital investments of the last 15 years have focused overwhelmingly on fields outside the historic divisions of the University (bracketing computer science), above all in areas of applied science, in molecular engineering in particular, as well as medicine.

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“How shall we measure the effects of imposing multiple rounds of budget cuts on units that did not contribute to the crisis?”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 18

Take, for example, the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). The University acquired the MBL on July 1, 2013. It was promised that this would not only bring massive benefits to research through synergies with the emergent Institute (later Pritzker School) of Molecular Engineering, but that it would have substantial pedagogical benefits at both the undergraduate and graduate level. The Council of the University Senate was also told that, after an initial investment by the University in renovations, cost reductions through shared management and enhanced fundraising would reduce the need for subsidies from the University to a negligible sum. The trend has, in fact, gone in the opposite direction. The University’s transfers to the MBL totaled $7.8 million in that first year; by 2016, the figure was $9.6 million; and in 2021, it was $13.9 million. I have been told by someone in a position to know that its Form 990 for 2022 will report a figure of $20 million. For what it’s worth, by my estimate, the figure for 2021 is already greater than the aggregated individual research accounts of all faculty engaged in interpretive scholarship in the Divinity School, Humanities Division, and Division of the Social Sciences combined— perhaps 330 people or more.

The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering is, in academic terms, a remarkable success, and in a day-to-day way, UChicago Medicine generates enough income to subsidize the basic science departments of the Biological Sciences Division. But, as I have emphasized, the extraordinary scale of the University’s borrowing has repeatedly left it vulnera-

ble to fiscal crises—of liquidity, of rising interest rates, of the downgrading of its bonds—that it has only been able to meet through programs of cost-cutting and at least one fire sale of University assets, which affect every branch of the University.

For units that were not favored when times were flush, this has had devastating effects. Crucially, these harms are known to the University’s leadership, for it is on the basis of their own data that I discuss this problem.

How shall we measure the effects of imposing multiple rounds of budget cuts on units that did not contribute to the crisis?

The Humanities Division at the University of Chicago spends just shy of 95 percent of its budget on salary and benefits.

It is impossible to cut the budget, again and again, without cutting people—but since its budget, in a world of revenue-centered management, depends crucially on aggregate undergraduate enrollment, cutting people strikes at its ability to sustain and, indeed, justify itself down the line.

So the Division has been doing more and more of its teaching not by means of “expensive” research faculty, but rather via instructional staff whose cost per course is much less and who are not required to perform research. The human costs and the challenges to the community of such moves are well known to everyone in the University; the costs are also epistemic, because the total coverage of areas of inquiry by research faculty is notably reduced.

The effects of this change are also visible in the College, whose own censuses of instruction— the so-called annual Johnson Reports—reveal that research faculty account for less and

less of the instruction of undergraduates (from 2006 to 2020, the decline of undergraduate instruction by tenure-stream faculty was from 45 percent to 38 percent) while non-tenurestream instructors account for more and more (over the same period, an increase from 22 percent to 38 percent). I am not claiming that the total number of tenure-stream faculty has not grown. Tenure-stream faculty in the Division of Humanities increased by something like 10 percent over that period. But the undergraduate population increased by nearly 50 percent over that time (from 4,703 to 7,011; it is now 7,540). That is the context in which an increase in the number of research faculty can nevertheless result in a greater percentage of instruction being performed by nontenure-stream faculty.

The importance of this change can be judged by its relationship to University policy over the long haul. A major ambition of the College in the 1980s and beyond had been greater involvement of research faculty in undergraduate instruction, especially in UChicago’s Core Curriculum, and this was to a remarkable extent achieved.

Needless to say, a massive increase in the size of the undergraduate population, absent a commensurate increase in tenure-stream faculty, was going to require the abandonment of this earlier policy and a recourse to non-research faculty for College instruction—the dismantling, in other words, of a great achievement of prior years. Does this accord with the promises we make to undergraduates? Is this in keeping with some of the highest tuition in the land?

A similar dynamic is visible over at the library. The Asso-

ciation of Research Libraries offers rankings, according to self-reported data, of “library investment” overall but also more narrowly of “materials expenditures”: essentially, acquisitions, i.e., total spending on the products of culture and research that the library makes available for study and teaching. Using three-year averages to iron out year-to-year fluctuations, in 2006 the University of Chicago’s library ranked perhaps in the mid-teens of American universities in acquisition budget. By 2016, UChicago had fallen 10 places. In 2022, UChicago ranked around number 30. For a university that boasts a commitment to excellence in both pedagogy and scholarship, the library’s drop in rankings suggests, rather, a willingness to settle for mediocrity.

In short, the socializing of the costs of elective risk and targeted expenditure has struck at core functions of what one would have thought were essential units of the University.

But to get the full measure of the transformation underway, and of the decline of support for the liberal arts, one needs to account for two additional factors: UChicago’s particular implementation of revenue-centered management, and the effects of deferred maintenance.

At UChicago, the implementation not quite 10 years ago of a system of revenue-centered management—allocating income from tuition according to aggregate undergraduate enrollment—immediately spurred many of the University’s professional schools to start offering undergraduate majors in business, public policy, and so forth.

But these units do not contribute to the teaching of the general education curriculum (locally,

“the Core”), which is required of the tenure-stream faculty in the Divisions of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, as well as the Physical Sciences Division. A result is that the teaching energies of faculty in the arts and sciences are more diffused because they must sustain this basic curriculum, even as the institutional homes of those boutique majors draw funds out of the arts and sciences.

Allocating revenue based on undergraduate enrollment does more than encourage a kind of parasitism on the labor that others devote to basic instruction.

It also effects a kind of strategic ambiguation about the actual volume of revenue flows and cross-divisional subsidies.

For one thing, the delivery of instruction has very different costs from field to field, so that no “formula” for the allocation of net tuition revenue could possibly account for costs in the same way from unit to unit. For another, in FY 2022, net tuition accounted for only 21.4 percent of the University’s revenue. In consequence, discrepant preferences on the part of leadership in the form of vast financial subsidies flow around the University and particularly to the physical sciences, entirely outside the visible and public logic of tuition allocation. This is perhaps the most essential policy issue lying wholly at the discretion of university leadership but with ramifications for every aspect of what we are and do.

The fact that the staggering majority of investment in buildings at the University has taken place outside the traditional arts and sciences (bracketing computer science and economics) only compounds this problem.

A little over a decade ago, the CONTINUED ON PG. 20

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“Financial difficulty is the context, and not the cause, of this transformation. We should dissent from this vision and this process.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 19

University Architect informed a branch of the University Senate that the main university quadrangle faced $1.25 billion in deferred maintenance. This is precisely the order of magnitude of what the University is poised to spend on the Chicago Quantum Exchange and new Cancer Center, whose combined cost as announced is $1.415 billion (with $175 million pledged). It goes without saying that the quad houses most departments in the arts and sciences; the professional schools and new endeavors in the applied sciences exist in newer buildings outside this space. A further, related metric is supplied a census of faculty offices at the University in the period we might call “late COVID”: non-ventilated offices in which it was inadvisable to meet with students were, by an overwhelming majority, concentrated in the humanities, the Divinity School, and the interpretive social sciences. I would expect a similar result if one were to survey the availability of ADA-compliant bathrooms, or windows that can open or, indeed, close.

To a startling degree, the University of Chicago has steadily moved to a regime of asymmetrical dignity and, indeed, asymmetrical public health in its basic conditions of work and learning.

This observation returns me to this year’s liquidity crisis and the budgetary issues of which it is an expression. IPEDS data suggest that the University has among the highest standard deviations in salary at rank in North America. For example, as best as I can tell, the annualized starting salary of assistant professors in the Booth School of Business is approximately 350

percent that of assistant professors in the humanities, a gap of nearly $250,000 (exclusive of research support, which would magnify the gap, and noting that junior faculty in Booth teach half the load of junior faculty in the humanities). More importantly, women earn less than men at every rank at UChicago: the gap is $21,000 at the assistant professor level and more than doubles—to $44,000—at the rank of full professor. This is known to University leadership. It is a feature and not a flaw of the current operation that the comfort of some is financed by the discomfort of the disfavored. But these gaps are elective, and we need not accept the claim that we pay some so little because of market forces or self-inflicted financial exigency, nor permit the austerity measures that will be necessary to address the current crisis to exacerbate these iniquities.

All of this deserves public airing by insiders because these transformations and self-harms to core functions and core units of the University are extraordinarily difficult to perceive from the outside. The problems are essentially masked to important audiences, including, and perhaps especially, undergraduate applicants and their parents.

In short, a lack of consensus on how to assess actual learning and instruction has resulted, where undergraduate instruction is concerned, in a system of ranking by parties external to the sector itself—most famously, US News & World Report—that relies more on inputs than outputs: selectivity of admissions, GPA of admitted students, and so on. This also means that our metrics for judging whether we are managing well the very difficult task of being a university

are poor. In combination with the systems of governance and oversight that are present in American private universities, the outcome is little awareness, and virtually no means, to call ourselves to account if we fail.

Where UChicago is concerned, the situation should be analyzed on at least two planes.

As a financial matter, the trustees have failed in their most basic function of guiding the University’s health qua corporation so that it is in a position to flourish as an academic enterprise.

On the level of academics, the degradation of the Humanities and Social Sciences Divisions is short-sighted even on narrowly strategic grounds. Historically, they are the only units in the arts and sciences to score highly in international rankings.

Treating one’s best and cheapest units as an ATM is an unforced error of such magnitude that it must be deliberate, the result of a fundamentally different view of what the University should be.

The goal at UChicago appears to be the transformation of the University into a gleaming network of professional schools with a disfavored and somewhat shabby teaching unit at its heart: the abandonment, in other words, of the idea of the research university that was current at its foundation and that UChicago itself did so much to cement in the national consciousness. That universities are moving in large numbers in the same dismal direction reflects the ideologically constrained worldviews that propel University leaders, presidents, and trustees alike, to the choices they are making. Financial difficulty is the context, and not the cause, of this transformation.

We should dissent from this vi-

sion and this process.

In closing, I want to insist that my ambition is not to take issue with any given discipline or endeavor, nor with the need to subsidize some units. I have no quarrel with an expansive view of what we should teach, and the fields in which we should work. But we have gone far down a road in which both research and teaching are assessed according to their susceptibility to be instrumentalized in pursuit of narrowly economic, possessive, and individualist ends.

We have gone far down a road in which the only fields that matter are ones that are essentially isomorphic with particular occupations.

This is the ideological superstructure that is invited by the logic of tuition allocation. It is the point where the principles that govern the University on the inside—in how we self-regulate—converge with the view propounded by politicians on the outside who want universities to cease their function of critique and instead train workers. It is the outcome of the application to universities of economic arguments that first gained ascendance under Ronald Reagan, in the dual and related endeavors to classify education as a merely private good and transform the funding of basic science into a means for private wealth creation.

That is foolish as a philosophy of pedagogy, and it is insane as a model of research. The silence of academic leadership on the idea and ideal of the University is incredible.

A note on sources Both by way of making public the sources of my information, and to encourage others to undertake assessments of their

own institutions, I offer here a note on the work that lies behind this article.

The leadership of UChicago has a pathology for secrecy. This article was made possible by two facts. First, a variety of financial documents of nonprofits and issuers of bonds are required to be public. Second, the University seeks, to a notably high degree, to make high-level decisions based on data—data that it often does not make public and frequently does not share internally, even with persons who might do their jobs better if they had access to information that the institution already collects.

I take these categories in turn.

For public data, I draw in particular on the University’s Form 990s, which are available in ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer. By relying on tax documents for all comparative claims, I seek to draw on data that all universities report according to the same standard.

Universities are required to report compensation of “officers, directors, trustees, key employees, highest compensated employees” on those same forms; this is the source of my information on both base and gross compensation. Similarly, universities are required to identify “related tax-exempt organizations” and transactions with those organizations. The MBL is one such organization. But one needs to be careful. The data reported under this rubric are not remotely a guide to cross-subsidies within the institution since it only includes organizations with a particular legal relationship to the center. For example, some, but not all, of the University’s overseas centers appear in these tables.

Other financial information CONTINUED ON PG. 21

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“The silence of academic leadership on the idea and ideal of the University is incredible.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 20

is drawn from the University’s Consolidated Financial Statements, which are issued late in the calendar year for the prior fiscal year. Figures for faculty salaries according to gender and net tuition revenue are drawn from the Department of Education’s IPEDS database, which, as I understand the matter, aggregates information that every institution that receives federal support of any kind must self-report. For claims about enrollment, I rely on the University Registrar’s website (which offers a summary graphic rep-

resentation of the information) as well as the so-called “Census Reports” that the registrar issues every quarter, which break down data along multiple axes.

In order to track the University’s large-scale capital projects, I examined multiple sources of information. I looked first to news releases on the University’s website. I also fed the address of every new construction and significant renovation known to me into both the Cook County Assessor’s database and the City of Chicago’s database of building permits. In some cases where, as far as I could tell, the

University has announced only the sum it has raised and not the total cost of a given project, I have sometimes learned more from the websites of architectural firms, who are often keen to announce the scale of the projects they have under contract. But, in the end, I shied away from using and publicizing this information both because the public records sometimes make ownership hard to determine and because it seemed to me likely that the multiple figures from different sources were constructed according to different standards and priori-

ties, and this rendered aggregation difficult.

Regarding data that the University gathers and analyzes but does not make public, the University as a whole undertook a quintile analysis of salaries across the disciplines more than a decade ago, and the exercise was repeated in the Division of the Social Sciences in 2014. Every year the College produces a statistical study of instruction called the Johnson Report; it includes annual data regarding things such as per capita instruction of undergraduates by department and division; it

also includes charts that track, over periods of 10 years or longer, figures such as the number of such as undergraduate courses taught by different classes of instructor.

Clifford Ando, David B. and Clara E. Stern Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Classics, History and the College, University of Chicago.

Email: cando@uchicago.edu

ARTS Married Professors Talk “May December” at Sold-Out Screening Laughter and love were up for discussion at a screening of “May December” co-hosted by Night Owls and Doc Films on Saturday, January 13.

By ELIZABETH ECK | Arts Reporter On Saturday, January 13, hundreds of people flooded into the Max Palevsky Theater in Ida Noyes for the latest event cosponsored by Doc Films and the philosophy club Night Owls: a viewing and discussion of the film May December (2023), hosted by married philosophy professors Agnes Callard and Arnold Brooks. The tension was palpable in the room, maybe because of the taboo subject matter of the film, maybe because of the fact it was the first Night Owls hosted by the married professors since Callard’s blockbuster profile in The New Yorker. Either way, the room was packed.

May December, directed by Todd Haynes, follows actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) as she prepares for her fictional portrayal of the tabloid fixture

Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), who was caught raping her 13-year-old employee Joe Yoo (Charles Melton) in the stock room of a pet shop in Georgia. Gracie was sentenced to prison and gave birth to Joe’s children while serving her sentence. At the end of her sentence, she and Joe were married. Now, as they prepare to send their children to college, the couple seems to have overcome their rocky beginning. However, the introduction of Elizabeth throws a wrench into their lives. As Elizabeth studies Gracie’s actions and learns more about the couple’s past, she becomes oddly titillated by the experience of becoming someone else, as the marriage she scrutinizes starts to unravel. The crowd at Night Owls was almost constantly laughing, even at lines

that Haynes probably intended to be serious. Mundane moments like Moore’s “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs” were often punctuated by the film’s harsh and booming main theme, composed by Michel Legrand, which made the film feel darkly comic. The emotional core of the film was Melton’s performance, which held up against the laughter. It certainly must have been a challenge for Melton, large and hulking, to create the visual impression that he has never grown out of his 13-year-old self, frozen at the age he was abused. But he does so convincingly.

Portman, consummate actress, shines in the moments that the film becomes self-referential; Moore is disquieting as the sociopathic Gracie.

After an intermission of cookies and pizza, Callard and Brooks began the discussion. Callard posed the questions,

“Why is this movie so dark, and what is this film the answer to?” Brooks posited that perhaps this film tries to answer the question: which will triumph, the universal or the particular? There are grand questions (the universal) that Gracie and Joe have about the trauma that defined their family and how they can possibly justify their lives in the shadow of this “shocking, illegal thing.” But there is also the particular. In one of the film’s final scenes, Joe releases a butterfly into the air as his daughter comes down the stairs in her graduation dress. This scene temporarily blurs the tragedy and violence at the heart of Joe’s marriage, Brooks argued. In that moment, nothing else mattered.

Callard’s interest in the film lay in Elizabeth’s rejection of the moral conCONTINUED ON PG. 22

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“This kind of impassive, purely interpretive, almost scientific approach to a personality wouldn’t be what you want in the person close to you.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 21

demnation Gracie faces in the media.

Throughout the film, Elizabeth promises Gracie and her family that she is interested in telling a nuanced, human story, not a crude and moralizing one.

“Elizabeth is like, ‘I’m much more sophisticated.’ There’s something savage about that. There’s something savage about the non-moralistic response,” Callard said.

According to Callard, Elizabeth’s sinister nature stems from her detached analysis of the moral gray areas of Gracie’s character. Brooks added, “You really wouldn’t want a friend who responded to you that way. This kind of impassive, purely interpretive, almost scientific approach to

a personality wouldn’t be what you want in the person close to you.”

Brooks and Callard also examined the cause of the audience’s frequent laughter. Brooks commented, “It’s interesting watching this movie with you guys because you laugh more readily, and you find stuff funny that I didn’t find funny upon first watch.” Callard posited a potential explanation: “My feeling was with this group, there was a nervous tension in the room the whole time, and that nervous tension was needing to release itself in the form of laughter so you would repeatedly find things funny that were not that funny.” She then clarified, “This is not a funny movie.”

The plush red chairs in Doc Films’s Max Palevsky Theater.

Preview: The University Folk Fest Returns to Mandel Hall What festival organizer Nick Rommel calls a “64-year-old jubilee of song and dance and stories that come out of the sometimes decaying, sometimes beautifully aged woodwork of this nation” returns February 9 and 10.

By NOAH GLASGOW | Head Arts Editor Do you have a hankering for harmonica? A fancy for the fiddle? A burning for some bluegrass?

Then make sure you join the University of Chicago Folklore Society for the 64th annual Folk Festival, February 9 and 10 at Mandel Hall, which brings together a fierce and varied crew of traditional musicians for a weekend of fiddle and banjo–scored celebration.

In the ecstatic words of Folklore Society Co-President Nick Rommel, the folk

festival “is a 64-year-old jubilee of song and dance and stories that come out of the sometimes decaying, sometimes beautifully aged woodwork of this nation.”

This year’s star acts include The Price Sisters, harmony-singing twins from the Midwest; Brian Conway, the preeminent fiddler in the little-known “Sligo style”; and Ruby John, a fiddler of the Odawa Nation of Michigan who blends traditional Native American fiddling with the bluegrass tradition of trans-Appalachian

Scenes from last year’s folk festival, which returns to Mandel Hall next weekend. courtesy of university of chicago folklore society.

autoworkers. One of last year’s greatest hits—Jerron Paxton, dean of Black folk music, “a vessel for echoes of the past” in Rommel’s words—is back this year for a two-night engagement.

In its pursuit of artists, the festival’s most important goal is authenticity, Rommel said. In early years, the festival famously turned down Bob Dylan—he was hardly a folk singer, organizers argued, since he wrote his own music.

At the Folklore Society’s weekly meetings, members of the group survey a wide range of folk music, Rommel said. But the same key questions always wind up animating their discussions: what makes something traditional? What are the qualifications of authenticity?

“I think the Folk Fest is a platform for experimenting with different answers to those questions,” Rommel said.

And the exploration of authenticity doesn’t end with the Friday and Saturday night concerts. All day Saturday, Ida Noyes will come alive with free workshops, dances, and jam sessions, Rommel said.

“We’re gonna have a Scottish dance and a klezmer dance, a barn dance, a Scandinavian dance, and a Balkan dance,” Rommel said, with fresh-faced enthusiasm. Other activities include “many concerts and lessons from our musicians” as well as crafting classes like quilting and crocheting.

As always, the Folk Festival is looking for volunteers to make sure that its concerts and events move swiftly. Volunteers receive free concert tickets and an invitation to the Folk Festival’s Saturday night closing party, which sees touring musicians and student volunteers twostep together into the wee hours of Sunday morning.

The festival concerts begin at 8 p.m. on Friday, February 9, and at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 10. Tickets are $5 for students, $20 for seniors, and $30 for the general public. The lineup can be found at www.uofcfolk.org or on the University of Chicago Folk Festival Facebook page.

Those interested in volunteering are encouraged to email uofcfolk@gmail.com.

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SPORTS Hyde Park Bar Hosts Chess Night, Remembers Late Bartender

By DEREK HSU | Sports Reporter Avid chess players gathered at Cove Lounge on the evening of January 19 for the bar’s second chess night, following the original chess night in November.

Twenty-five chess boards and timers adorned the Cove’s wooden picnic tables, transforming the bar into a destination for chess enthusiasts. Some people brought their own sets, including a custom four-player chess board. With nearly every board occupied, a potpourri of Cove regulars, UChicago students, and chess meetup attendees played throughout the night.

Organized by fourth-years and roommates Ross Shapiro and Dylan Sunjic, this event marked the second chess night hosted by the Cove. Both events served as a celebration of the Cove’s well-respected late bartender and gifted chess player Diego Damis, who was tragically killed during a robbery on February 25, 2022. Rife with chess matches and shared memories, the January 19 event brought together chess aficionados and those commemorating Damis.

A Strategy for Success Sunjic, who is studying economics and statistics, learned how to play chess at the age of five from his grandfather, who sparked in him a lifelong drive to win. He attended tournaments in elementary, middle, and high school. His competitive career is decorated with achievements such as four Florida Junior State championships (2011, 2013, 2014, 2018) and two runner-up placements in the Junior National State Championship in his age group (2013, 2017).

Sunjic appreciated the game’s skyrocketing popularity over the pandemic but was worried about the lack of in-person interaction fostered by online chess platforms like Chess.com. “People felt more alone because they’d be sitting in their rooms between classes and not seeing who they were playing against.”

Wanting to find a solution local to the University, Sunjic worked with his roommate, Ross Shapiro, to find an in-person

venue to serve students and community members enthusiastic about chess.

Shapiro, a philosophy and statistics double major, helps produce comedy shows in his hometown, New York City.

Both Sunjic and Shapiro are active on campus, pursuing their interests in chess and event production respectively. Sunjic competes on the University’s chess team, and Shapiro hosts the Night of Ideas, a forum for students to express ideas such as “Sports Are Theatre” and “Storytelling Is Rhetoric Is Storytelling.”

They began reaching out to local bars last fall to propose the idea, and the owner of Cove Lounge, Sonnie Kireta, quickly responded. In preparation, Sunjic and Shapiro posted the event on the UChicago Chess Club, Chicago Area Chess, and UChicago Class of 2024 Facebook pages. Shapiro also attended several chess meet-ups to advertise the event, and Kireta publicized it to the Cove’s patrons.

Diego Damis: Always One Move Ahead Kireta worked with Damis and under-

derek hsu.

stood his unbridled love for chess. Prior to working there, Damis was a staple at the Cove Lounge. A couple chess sets were always sprawled along the edge of the bar, and regulars would look forward to playing against Damis as a litmus test of their own skill. One regular recalled that during his single game with Damis, Damis had less than a minute left on his timer but was unfazed, outmatching his competitor and cruising to a win.

Damis’s influence on the culture of chess at Cove Lounge was absolute. One Chess Night attendee who learned from Damis brought the set that Damis had gifted him. However, those closest to him knew that Damis’s passion continued off the board as well.

Temi Bankole, a close friend of Damis, reminisced on how instrumental chess was to the start of the friendship.

Damis later helped Bankole land a job and supported him through hardship.

“He would invite me over to his place. He would make homemade ravioli, play the saxophone, and, of course, play chess.”

When Damis first passed, Bankole was part of a collective that would play chess in memoriam at least once a week.

Evan Beverly, another close friend of Damis, described him as “a passionate person, period.”

“If he met you once, he had a plan for you, like a mode of attack for whatever ails you,” Beverly said. “He respected you at your position in life and gave advice on what people should be. He was a master of the board in that sense.”

As this marked Beverly’s first time at the Cove’s chess night, seeing the turnout was to him a testament to Damis’s influence on his community. “If he were here, he would absolutely love this…because it’s an idea he would’ve had. It’s something that he would have loved to participate in, and it keeps him fresh here.”

Similarly, Sunjic expresses the strength of community that is built from these events. “The fact that once you finish a game and shake hands with a person—even afterwards, you analyze the game and talk with them about it.

You learn where both of you went right and wrong because, at the end of the day, you’re both trying to solve this puzzle.”

For Sunjic, Shapiro, and Cove Lounge, the pieces fit perfectly together.

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CROSSWORDS 71. Charging Up

By KENT SMITH | Guest Constructor ACROSS 1 Representative Ilhan 5 Ought to 11 Untrustworthy, like an impostor in Among Us 14 Reuben joint 15 White terrier, informally 16 Russian Revolution mo.

17 Tuna certification 19 Feathery accessory 20 Fox in a kids’ cartoon 21 Disregard the red one 23 Super-G, eg.

26 Lords over 27 Observed, in kinderspeak 29 “We got a ___ over here!” (patronizing cry of astonishment) 31 Out of the wind, at sea 32 What fonts like Arial are “sans” 33 Does the work of a Zamboni 37 Club game 38 Event for loving sneakers?

39 Beignet city, briefly 40 Starter starter?

41 Candies shaped like bed risers 42 Powerful rush 43 Up until this point, to Shakespeare 45 Shopper’s indulgence 46 “UChicago looks like Hogwarts,” e.g.

49 Not injured 51 Ancient empire known for skill with chariots and ironwork 53 Like the juice of a bitter orange 56 Did something impressive, slangily 57 Kentucky natural wonder 60 “Losing My Religion” band 61 Fur on one’s crown?

62 Footnote includer Want to solve more puzzles or submit your own? Visit chicagomaroon.com/crosswords.

63 Miss after a wedding 64 Said out loud 65 Launched 8 State that has a 600-pound 18 Privy to naval intelligence? 32 Murals, e.g. are played without them DOWN raptor named for it 22 Consumer concern, or what 34 Time to take a stand?

50 Deeply unpopular 1 They’re bad in the lottery 9 Inflatable settings for some are hiding in the starred en- 35 Common threat terminus 52 Titular Austen heroine 2 Heathcliff’s noise editorial cartoons tries 36 Fill up 54 Ghostbusters and Space Jam 3 “Nothing to worry about!”

10 Some green combines 24 “A Midsummer Night’s 44 Bridgerton creator director Reitman 4 Description of the spread- 11 Edna Ferber’s 1924 Pulitzer Dream” fairy 45 “___ is life” (Ned Kelly’s last 55 The NBA’s Jayson Tatum or ing consequences of a single winner 25 Five-time Olympic medalist words) Jaylen Brown e.g., familiarly event 12 School with 11 NCAA WomRetton 46 One of several “lucky” puffed 58 School which calls its pranks 5 Eddy en’s Div. I basketball cham- 27 Droops treats in a popular cereal “Hacks”: Abbr.

6 Female lobster pionships 28 Soothing gel 47 About 0.26 gallons 59 How many remain at the end 7 Onetime spy grp.

13 Certain antlered mammals 30 Expel from the family 48 Some Smash Bros. matches of a round of “Fall Guys”