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CGE REPORT SHOWS DISSATISFACTION AMONG GRAD STUDENTS

APRIL 24, 2019 FOURTH WEEK VOL. 131, ISSUE 36

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CARE and Reform Slates Face Off to Lead SG

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jeremy lindenfeld

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An Echoing Rhythm: Tracing Jazz on the South Side

For a Successful B.A. Thesis Show, sear pork shoulder

Schulz, Midfielder for the Lacrosse Team, Seeks Challengers

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THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 24, 2019

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Underclassmen Reform Slate Runs on Student Gov Accountability

Kyle Shishkin. Jeremy Lindenfeld.

By MATTHEW LEE Senior News Reporter The Reform slate comprises second-year presidential candidate Kyle Shishkin, first-year Vice President of Student Administration candidate David Liang, and first-year Vice President of Student Affairs candidate Anya Wang. The slate, which will campaign and serve as a group if elected, is running on a platform of Student Government (SG) reform. The Maroon spoke on Saturday to all three members of the Reform slate.

On safety: Reform has prioritized improving campus security, which they have characterized as ineffective and opaque. “A student was hurt and robbed, and completely assaulted of his sense of safety. It’s terrible, but what’s even worse is that he was never contacted,” Shishkin said. “We want to change that. We want to change the experience of students and to hold hearings with UCPD [University of Chicago Police Department] to reform the way they serve our community and empower them to do it well, but also [to act] in alignment with what students need.”

The Reform candidates also want to continue work they already started as class representatives and liaisons to overhaul UChicago’s emergency alert system. Liang said that last quarter’s campus-wide lockdown changed his opinions on campus safety: “I was inside Saieh Hall when robbers broke in. This

whole situation unfolded right in front of my eyes, and I had no idea what was going on until 20 minutes later—when the building was already pronounced secure—and then I received a security alert telling me to shelter in place…. A lot of students did not receive that e-mail or that alert at all, others received it 30 minutes later.”

Liang drafted a policy, the Security and Response resolution, which was passed by the College Council (CC), that called for the school to review both its emergency alert program and emergency event policies. The resolution was introduced on February 19; four out of five clauses were passed. Still, the Reform slate stressed that further work is needed. According to Liang, the passed resolution “is a great starting point that SG should use in a lot of other problems we face.”

On mental health: If elected, the Reform slate also hopes to change how the University allocates funding to mental health initiatives, giving about $20,000 to a mental health–focused committee that would work with RSOs. Vice President of Student Affairs candidate Anya Wang said, “In the past we’ve had mental health days [College Break], but I feel as if the school hasn’t done enough…. We would love to enforce a committee that’s focused mainly on mental health, the Committee on Campus Mental Health, which would be really similar to SAP, the Sexual Awareness Prevention committee.”

Liang referred to UChicago SMILE, a mental health–focused RSO, as an example: “They came to the Student Government Financial Committee (SGFC) to ask for money, and I was a member of SGFC. As a member of SGFC, I know how much money they got—a couple hundred dollars. We want to have resources pooled.”

On student government reform: The Reform slate’s platform also includes overhauling the functioning of SG itself.

“There are two things that I really want to change,” Liang said. “Transpar-

ency and accountability.”

The Reform slate specifically objected to pay for student government representatives. “Thrice, Student Government has proposed to pay themselves and thrice it was rejected vehemently by the students,” Liang said. Executive slate pay has come before the Student Government in 2014, 2016, and 2018.

Liang also accused the CARE slate’s president of pushing for payment of student government representatives: “Last year, when a bill regarding payment of SG officials was passed, [behind] closed doors in the last meeting, our current College Council chair [Jahne Brown], who is the leader of the CARE slate, voted for it.” Last year, The Maroon reported that student government voted to approve a bill to pay SG’s president $4,500 a year and its vice presidents $2,250 a year, passing 15–4 with six abstentions.

The initiative was overturned in a repeal referendum last June by a margin of 1,138 to 531.

Shishkin added that the problem with payment wasn’t the money itself, but how representatives decided to implement it.

According to Shishkin, “The problem with actual payment is a huge one, but what’s even more important is that this was done behind closed doors and nobody was asked. If the student community wants to allocates funds, OK—but the fact that it was done behind closed doors was a big violation of trust.” Liang added that the student body rejected the decision two weeks later in a referendum.

In a message to the maroon Brown contested that the meeting was closeddoor and said that she stands by her affirmative vote.

“Many people I know, including myself, could have ran for slate earlier if we could’ve afforded to hold the position.

It’s an incredibly inaccessible position for people of working-class backgrounds like myself,” she said.

However, Brown continued, she respects the opinion of the student body on the bill.

“I do however support the referendum that happened, and because it was deemed vastly unpopular I will not be pushing for it while in office,” she said.

On housing:

When asked about Dean Boyer’s November 2018 announcement that all students in the class of 2023 and above would be required to remain in on-campus housing for at least two years, Reform stressed the need for administration to better consult with students.

“I am concerned with the Dean Boyer decision,” Shishkin said. “I’m worried that Dean Boyer met with whoever he needed to meet with and just sent the student body an e-mail stating his decision. It’s an increased burden on students with financial aid,” Shishkin continued.

“It’s important for people to stay on campus, but only if they want to…. People shouldn’t feel forced to stay on campus for two years,” Wang said. “[On-campus housing] is a financial burden on us and our parents, so the College taking that option away from us is something we need to voice [concerns] about.”

On Greek life: Reform emphasized a need to facilitate communication with campus sororities and fraternities. Wang said that Reform is eager to engage with Greek organizations as colleagues, not as adversaries, and was optimistic about the organizations’ good faith going forward.

“We don’t see Greek life as our enemies. We see them as more people that want to work with us,” Wang said. “I think there’s a stigma against frats— that they’re all sexual predators—which is definitely not true.... Our slate would create a committee of the heads of the presidents of each frat and RSOs like Phoenix Survivors Alliance and have a conversation, not a debate, about how to go about this on campus.”

According to Shishkin, the proposed Greek Life council would be organized similarly to the Panhellenic Council, an organization of sororities on campus. “What sororities are really good at is keeping up their standards through the really rigorous Panhellenic Council system, with leaders coming from every single sorority to talk about how they can improve,” Shishkin said.

A longer version of this article is available at The Maroon’s website online.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 24, 2019

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Third-Year CARE Slate Runs on Reforming University Policing, Greek Life throughout the administration and student body.

Achife believes “there is more to ‘the UCPD issue’ than the UCPD itself,” citing a community-level safety problem as opposed to a police–residents binary, and plans on working to solve issues with the UCPD first on a community-wide level. “Once there is an established communal sense of safety, we can evaluate what role, if any, UCPD should have on our campus,” Achife said.

On mental health: Jahne Brown. Jeremy Lindenfeld

By JUSTIN SMITH Senior News Reporter The CARE (Community, Amplify, Represent, Empower) slate comprises third-years Jahne Brown, Kosi Achife, and Brittney Dorton, running for President, Vice President of Student Affairs, and Vice President of Student Administration, respectively. The slate’s platform focuses on support for students in areas ranging from campus safety to mental health. The three candidates will run as a group, per Student Government (SG) protocol for executive slates.

On safety: CARE said that it believes that students define safety on campus, and that it plans on working to transform the attitudes and perspectives students have toward safety on campus, though actual policy proposals played second fiddle to ideas.

“We want to transform the attitude of safety from ‘[the UChicago Police Department (UCPD)] are people who can shoot you’ to the belief that there is a community of fellow students and community members who can help you,” Achife said. All three slate members said that they are committed to changing the attitude that the University has toward the South Side

The slate is in favor of significantly expanding mental health resources and funding on campus. Dorton said that all members of the CARE slate “have either gone through mental health issues or helped friends overcome their mental health issues, so [they] understand how difficult it is to suffer from poor mental health.”

In pursuit of this goal, CARE plans to advocate for student input on the upcoming new student wellness center, which will open in 2021, and plans to advocate for the University to bring in therapists who understand what challenges LGBTQ+, nonwhite, low-income, and disabled students face in regards to mental health.

CARE also plans on expanding support for students who choose to take leaves of absence for mental health reasons. According to Dorton, “CARE will make sure students who take mental health absences are supported in returning to campus, by making sure they are able to return to housing and by making them feel like they are welcome here on campus.” The slate also plans on expanding required mental health training for students and faculty so that students can better help each other with mental health issues.

On communication with the administration: One of CARE’s key priorities is improving communication between

the student body and the University’s administration. According to Dorton, CARE plans on implementing procedures in all SG meetings to gather student input on relevant issues prior to discussion, and to make minutes of all meetings more accessible to the student body.

Achife said that CARE also plans on increasing the number of public meetings administrators such as Provost Daniel Diermeier and President Robert Zimmer have with students, and plans on encouraging members of the administration to attend RSOs to “help [them] understand how different groups and communities operate on campus.”

On Greek life: CARE wants the University to recognize fraternities and sororities, and will encourage Greek life recognition so that the University will “regulate some of the not-so-great things that fraternities do on this campus,” according to Achife.

While Brown believes that there is “not much [they] can do right now” with regards to holding fraternities accountable to SG, she still maintains that the University should focus on helping victims of sexual assault and focus on sexual assault prevention. “It is really important that we support [sexual assault] survivors of all genders,” Brown said.

On Graduate Students United (GSU): CARE is “pro-GSU, pro-unions, and pro-workers in general,” Brown said.

All three members of CARE feel that they can relate to GSU’s issues because they are current student workers.

If elected, Achife plans on expanding the already-existing relationship between GSU, the Organization for Students with Disabilities (OSD), and UChicago United, taking GSU’s input into account, and getting SG to assist GSU “in any way possible.” The slate

did not elaborate on the ways it could assist GSU. On the payment of SG representatives: Regarding the payment of SG officials, the slate said that it would follow the lead of the student body. SG officials voted to pay executive slate members last spring in a bill that the student body rejected via referendum.

“We believe listening to student input is the most important thing for a slate to do, so we plan on honoring the decision of the student referendum,” Brown said. Were they to disagree with the referendum’s outcome, the elected slate would be able to pass another bill.

On low-income and minority students: Dorton plans on assisting marginalized groups on campus, especially in working to secure cultural centers on campus. She also plans to support initiatives addressing food security on campus, as well as creating a fund similar to those at other peer institutions where students who need emergency medical or housing assistance can request help from SG. The slate also plans on using SG’s power to support organizations that support students requiring assistance, like UChicago United, the Emergency Fund, and OSD, organizations that members of CARE are already extremely active in.

CARE also plans on promoting the work of minority students by encouraging underrepresented groups to take leadership positions within SG and in RSOs, and plans on creating an archive in the Reg’s special collections to honor the work of students of color on campus. According to Achife, this archive is already in progress.

The slate also wants to honor student activists on campus by starting a similar archive to honor their work as well.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 24, 2019

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CGE Report Shows Broad Dissatisfaction Among Grad Students

By VICTOR YANG Senior News Reporter Half of University graduate students are not satisfied with teaching training, a new report by the Committee on Graduate Education (CGE) shows. The report also touches on additional concerns regarding academics and student support.

The CGE report was released by Daniel Diermeier, provost of the University, through an e-mail to the University community on April 10. Diermeier charged the CGE with “a thorough and comprehensive assessment of the present state of PhD education at the University.”

The 108-page report, which is accompanied by over 400 pages of appendices, includes evaluations and recommendations regarding several issues with the University’s graduate education programs, such as campus climate, academic concerns, administrative issues, and student support.

The report documents a 49 percent increase from 2001 to 2016 in the number of doctoral degrees awarded, including degrees in health professions and legal studies. The report associates this increase with growth in the number of fields in which doctorates are awarded and with increases in funding in science and engineering.

The report also highlights the issues that graduate students face both before and after finishing their programs. “[The] crisis in doctoral education takes the form of multiple linked crises: changing job markets, increasing costs to both universities and students, increasing mental health issues in the student population, and ongoing lack of diversity in the student (and faculty) population,” the report says.

The committee highlights the need for the University to periodically review the Ph.D. programs it offers, as well as the need for divisions to conduct self-assessments with input from both students and faculty members. The report recommends University-run reviews every 10 years and self-assessments every five years, which could include program completion rates, attrition rates, and career outcomes for degree

applicants.

CGE student survey findings featured in the report include a trend of decreasing overall student satisfaction over the past 10 years. For both “satisfied” and “dissatisfied” students, the greatest obstacle internal to the University was reported to be the lack of faculty helpfulness, reported by 17 percent of “satisfied” students and 54 percent of “dissatisfied” students. Other internal factors that were one of the top 10 obstacles for both groups alike were “lack of faculty availability and negative department or research group culture.”

The report also acknowledges the importance of student insights for the complex system of graduate education, recommending that students be offered and be remunerated for roles on advisory boards that “pertain to the intellectual, professional, and material lives of graduate students” and “the growth of graduate student representation at the highest levels of University affairs.”

Lack of space is associated with decreased graduate housing and a growing undergraduate population. The report states that “graduate student social life is now more narrowly constrained to institutional and departmental spaces.” To address the lack of communication and inability to connect students to resources and programs, the report proposes the establishment of a graduate student center for individual study, group collaborations, office hours, and socializing.

Campus climate views from graduate students were discussed in the context of the CGE Student Survey and student focus groups, resulting in a recommendation to establish a University-wide grievance mechanism to help graduate students seek recourse beyond individual divisions of the University. The committee also suggests for future surveys and research on campus climate to include more comprehensive analysis of the ways in which campus climate affects specific student populations.

With regard to academic issues, time-to-degree concerns were mentioned, with specific reference to the Humanities and Social Sciences division and the Divinity School, where 24

percent of faculty in the latter reported feeling the time necessary to earn a degree was “much too long” in the CGE Faculty Survey. The report encourages an evaluation for all coursework, exams, and requirements to ensure they are appropriate for inclusion. The committee “uncovered an acute and widespread need for improved advising,” reporting that students often complain about the lack of clarity regarding program expectations. The report recommends access to accurate information about requirements, expectations, and resources for students.

The CGE Student Survey uncovered that only around 50 percent of Ph.D. students were very or mostly satisfied with training for graduate teaching, noting a specific lack of mentorship in training. The report suggests an evaluation of teaching requirements for Ph.D. programs to ensure requisites are not excessive. It additionally highlights the need for student teachers to be provided with adequate office and classroom spaces to meet their students.

In other aspects of graduate education, the report featured an analysis of the housing situation for graduate students. A majority of students reported being “mostly satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their housing situation on the CGE Student survey, but 12 percent reported that housing issues were an obstacle to their academic success. This is linked to the reclassification of International House as undergraduate-only and the sale of graduate student housing previously owned by the University. University-managed housing units declined from 1,466 to 262 units from 2015 to 2019. The committee urges the University to invest in graduate housing support and to conduct regular reviews of graduate housing experiences and needs. Some suggestions include providing temporary living space for students searching for housing and additional help with moving expenses. The report further advocates for an assessment of aid for student parents, urging the University to provide new student parents with paid leave and for the “PhD Child Care Grant budget to increase the $2,000 child care subsidy to a level that makes a bigger impact on student par-

ents’ child care costs.”

Professor Victoria E. Prince, faculty co-chair of the CGE, did not respond to requests for comment.

The report did briefly acknowledge Graduate Students United’s (GSU) recent efforts in unionizing, stating in the introduction that “the Committee takes no position on whether collective bargaining is the appropriate mechanism for discussing these issues going forward, nor is the report intended to deflect, circumvent, or reinforce the efforts of graduate students to be recognized as employees of institutions of higher education.” However, the report did advocate for “formal mechanisms to represent graduate student viewpoints and interests in matters of concern to graduate students at the University.”

When asked for comment, GSU stated that “we are still reviewing the full CGE report, which clearly reflects many days of graduate and faculty labor. One of the most striking parts is the recommendation to establish formal mechanisms to represent graduate students: a precise description of the role of a union.”

“We voted by an overwhelming margin a year and a half ago to establish an independent, democratic organization to represent our concerns as grad student employees. Had the university begun bargaining with us, instead of calling on members of this committee to document issues that we have been raising for years, we could have made substantial progress toward fixing those issues. If the administration is serious about improving graduate education and working conditions, we remain as ready to meet with them as we were in October 2017,” the GSU further elaborated in an e-mail to The Maroon.

University graduate students voted 1,103 to 479 in favor of unionization in fall of 2017. Since then GSU’s efforts to bargain have been refused by the University administration. University leadership states that it has no intention to formally recognize GSU and that their stance has not changed at the time of writing.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 24, 2019

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Uncommon Interview: Professor Daniel Holz (Ph.D. ’98), Astrophysicist and Black Hole Whisperer ,

By CHARLIE KOLODZIEJ Senior News Reporter Daniel Holz (Ph.D. ’98), astrophysicist and professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute, tackles the big questions: How large is the universe? What is it made of?

What did it look like hundreds of billions of years ago? Holz’s new work in calculating distances across space holds promising new clues that may help answer some of the universe’s most complex quandaries.

The Maroon sat down with Holz to discuss his research on gravitational waves, the recent black hole photo, and what these new discoveries mean for our understanding of the universe.

Chicago Maroon: So, your work focuses on the use of gravitational waves in measuring distances. How would you explain that process to someone who doesn’t have a physics degree?

Daniel Holz: So to step back and get the biggest picture, one of the things we’re interested in, at least in cosmology, is measuring the history of the universe.

In particular, we think the universe has dark matter and dark energy in it, and exactly how much of those [exist] and what they’re like is related to the expansion history of the universe. And so the way that works is you measure two things, [red shift and time].

We need the size of the universe as a function of time, and to get time what we really need to know is the distance to that object. Measuring distance is really hard, and you have to remember these things are really far. You can’t just run your tape measure out there, you gotta find some other way. Because light from that object travels at the speed of light, if we know the distance we can figure out how much time it took the light to get to us. And so, distance is key.

The big thing with gravitational wave sources is that when you look at two black holes or two neutron stars, they’re going around each other, and they make gravitational waves, and that causes them to kind of fall closer and closer to each other as they emit the waves. Then if you can listen to the gravitational waves with something like LIGO [Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory], with our detector—by listening to how loud the gravitational waves are—we measure the distance directly.”

CM: A lot of your work deals with this thing called a standard siren, could you maybe elaborate a little more on what that is?

DH: The term is an analogy to standard candles. The idea is if you know how bright something is you can figure out how far away it is. You do this with your eyes. If someone has a lightbulb

and they walk away, it gets dimmer; you can actually figure out how far away it is, roughly speaking, by how bright it appears to be. We do the exact same thing with gravitational waves. Here, we’re listening to these neutron stars crashing into each other, and we listen to that for gravitational waves. And by using how loud they are, we figure out how far away they are. And so we just coined this term, standard siren, as an analogy.”

CM: So the big news right now, at least for those of us outside the scientific community, is the black hole photo.

DH: That was pretty exciting!

CM: What did seeing that image mean to you?

DH: Seeing the image was incredible. I mean, I’ve worked on black holes for a long time, over a decade, written all these papers about it, and with LIGO we’ve now listened to them, so I’m convinced that they exist in some sense.

With LIGO we’re listening to these two black holes kinda distort each other and distort space and time and we hear the waves, but you know, we’re humans. You can listen to stuff, but seeing something, it’s a different experience. It was super cool. I mean, it’s so great. [The black hole] could have been something totally wacky, and that maybe would have meant our theories are wrong and that would have been really exciting.

CM: Like you could have found out it looks like a smiley face?

DH: Yeah! Who knows, right? It really could have been anything. But with this kind of arrangement of what you would expect with stuff falling into a black hole, this is the image you should have seen. It’s pretty neat.

CM: What do you think it is about black holes that are so fascinating to people even outside the scientific community?

DH: It’s one of those weird times where within the physics community and outside, the fascinations align.

Usually physicists are interested in some tiny little particle somewhere; it’s very abstract. Black holes are one of these things where, from the physics perspective, they’re fundamental, they’re really profoundly interesting. Thinking about black holes is what made Stephen Hawking famous. It’s just one of the most fascinating objects in physics. But also outside [the physics community], people are just also completely captivated by them. And I’m not sure why. I mean, I think part of it is they’re such extreme objects—they’re so extreme that physics as we know it breaks down right at the center of them. There’s this singularity where we just don’t know what happens.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Faculty Forward Files Grievance for Denial of Quantrell Eligibility

By ELAINE CHEN Deputy Editor-in-Chief Faculty Forward, the union consisting of non-tenure-track faculty members, filed a formal grievance with the University in early April, claiming that the University has violated their contract by denying union members eligibility for the prominent Quantrell teaching award.

The Quantrell, one of the country’s oldest undergraduate teaching awards, is a student-nominated prize granted to three to six faculty members each

year. The award has often gone to faculty nationally renowned in their fields, including philosophy professor Agnes Callard and sociology professor Andrew Abbott.

Before the union’s contract was ratified, most non-tenure-track faculty members were not eligible for the award. After the union repeatedly asked for eligibility in the face of University pushback, the two parties agreed on a finalized contract, which reads, “Nothing in this Agreement precludes a [nontenure-track] Lecturer from being nominated for and receiving any teaching

awards for which they are eligible, including the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award, as those awards exist from time to time.”

Despite the contract, the University’s online description of the award currently lists the only eligible faculty members as “long-term, full-time UChicago faculty members who are tenured, on the tenure-track, or serve as Senior Lecturers.”

University spokesperson Jeremy Manier confirmed that non-tenuretrack faculty members continue to be ineligible, saying in a statement, “The

2018 contract with lecturers did not change eligibility standards for this or any other award.” Asked about the language in the contract, Manier did not address the apparent discrepancy.

Manier noted that there is a Mueller teaching award for which only non-tenure-track lecturers and senior lecturers who teach humanities courses are eligible.

For union members, the University’s continuing to bar non-tenure-track faculty members from being eligible for the Quantrell Award represents a big blow.

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Union Members Long Pushed for Eligibility for the Prestigious Award CONTINUED FROM PG. 5

According to union estimates, non-tenure-track faculty teach 40 percent of undergraduate courses. As such, they believe the University should consider them on equal footing with tenured faculty members in the area of undergraduate teaching.

“We do do different jobs than tenure-track faculty and tenured faculty, but the one thing that we do in common is that we teach,” Faculty Forward member and humanities lecturer Geoffrey Rees said.

“If we really value teaching and all care about teaching, then the one thing that we all do in common should all be acknowledged in common on a level playing field, and that’s fundamentally what the issue is about for us.”

The union first became aware of its members’ continued ineligibility when one of Rees’s students tried nominating him for the award in March and was notified that Rees was

not eglibile. Rees said he then asked the union representative to tell the University that it has made a mistake, and the University’s labor lawyer replied that Rees is not actually eligible for the award.

“I was surprised to find out that what I thought had been a settled issue...was not settled from their side and in fact it was actively disputed,” Rees said.

The student, first-year Andrew Bacotti, felt frustrated with the outcome, telling The Maroon, “In the nature of the school’s freedom of academic thought, this award should award the best teacher, not the best full-time [tenure-track] professor.”

The union published a letter in The Maroon at the end of March claiming that the University has violated their contract, and then filed a formal grievance with the University shortly after. The University has until May 1 to respond to the grievance. If the grievance

is not resolved, then the issue will be put up for arbitration, according to Faculty Forward’s contract.

The University has long contested the inclusion of nontenure-track faculty members in Quantrell eligibility, according to Jason Grunebaum, a member of Faculty Forward’s bargaining committee and a lecturer in the South Asian languages and civilizations department.

Grunebaum said that in the beginning of bargaining when the union brought up adding Quantrell eligibility, one administrator questioned the move, noting that the Quantrell is a “very prestigious” award.

Grunebaum added that in past versions of the contract, the University had attempted to entirely cross out the section that mentions teaching awards or cross out the specific mention of the Quantrell Award. In the version closest to the final contract, University representatives qualified language that

union members are definitively eligible for the award, he said.

In his statement, Manier said, “The award’s original intent, which carries on to this day, was to encourage faculty members to excel in teaching as well as research.” Non-tenure-track lecturers are not expected to conduct independent research on top of their teaching obligations.

The mention of research in Manier’s statement does not appear in online descriptions of the award. One University webpage quotes Ernest Quantrell when he was asked decades ago to describe the motivation behind his donation to establish the award, named after his parents: “The success of a university depends on its product, and its product consists of students trained to lead happy, proficient, useful and unselfish lives. To obtain this product, a good faculty is essential and constitutes the most important part of a university. We have had, and still

have, great teachers, but we will have still greater ones.”

Rees noted that job titles and teaching responsibilities in academia have shifted since the award was established in 1938, indicating, in his view, that “the present exclusive criteria for eligibility are contingent and as such open to revision.”

According to Rees, when the award was established, it did not designate eligibility only for tenure-track faculty members because there was no distinction between tenure-track and non-tenure-track at the time. Only in the 1970s did the University begin hiring nontenure-track faculty to take on teaching responsibilities when there was a shortage of teaching staff.

“We think that basing eligibility for this award on a hierarchy of job titles, and not on the actual work of teaching, misses both the spirit of the award and the history of teaching in the college,” Rees said.

Break the Silence Covers Mental Health for Asian Students

By DARCY KUANG News Reporter A coalition of four Asian-interest and mental health–focused RSOs hosted Break the Silence, an Asian and Asian-American mental health conference, on Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13.

The conference was organized by the Taiwanese American Student Association, the South Asian Students Association, Active Minds, and the PanAsia Solidarity Coalition.

The conference featured a panel of five Asian-American graduate students discussing the effects of Asian cultures on their personal struggles with

mental health.

James Zhang said that the stereotype of Asian Americans as a “model minority” induced a tremendous amount of stress for him. “Among Asian Americans, there is such a pressure to always be productive and studious,” Zhang said, “and I have such a guilt complex when I am not studying.”

The panelists said that many Asian Americans are reluctant to seek help for mental illness since it has been a taboo subject in Asian-American communities. Aaditi Naik recounted the difficulties she encountered when discussing mental health issues with her parents.

“At first my mom would always say that I am just stressed out and upset…or that these feelings are only temporary and will disappear in a couple of months,” Naik said.

According to Naik, however, her mother has since changed her perception of mental illness. “Now she is at a point where she recognizes that this is a lifelong thing I will struggle with…and she encourages me to seek professional help when needed,” Naik said.

The panelists also offered advice on how to build support systems that can help Asian Americans struggling with mental illness get through difficult times.

Po-Chieh Ting, a chemistry graduate student at UChicago, said that his relationship with like-minded peers was essential in building supportive relationships. “I find that people within my faith group really help…because you share the same beliefs and it is easier to talk about difficult things,” Ting said. “And even if you are not religious, it is still easier to communicate with like-minded peers.”

Rida Shahzad recommended students with similar struggles to communicate with their parents, even if mental illness remains a taboo in Asian cultures. “I would not put out the expectation that if you talk to

your parents [about mental health] then everything will be fine,” Shahzad said, “but it is a challenge I think a lot of families need to face together.”

Following the panel, professor Mimi Khúc presented on her work with the Open in Emergency Initiative, a multiyear project that raises awareness of Asian-American mental health on college campuses and community spaces through presentations and interactive workshops.

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lege students have the highest rate of suicide in this country among all college students,” professor Khúc said.

“My project is born out of the need for new languages to

discuss Asian-American mental health,” professor Khúc told the audience. In order to discuss mental health in the context of the daily experiences of Asian Americans, professor Khúc designed 23 Asian-Amer-

ican tarot cards.

The cards feature various identities and concepts common to Asian-American cultures. According to professor Khúc, these cards give the Asian-American students the

necessary framework to see their lives in the current moment.

“We read [the tarot cards] together, we talk, we share, and we create shared vulnerability and intimacy,” said professor

Khúc. “And we create a structure of care, for the duration of the reading but possibly stretching out into the future.”

Presidential Candidate Julián Castro Speaks at IOP; Signals Support for Legal Pot, Expunging Criminal Records

By ZEFF WORLEY News Reporter Julián Castro, Democratic candidate for president and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under President Obama, spoke at an Institute of Politics (IOP) event Tuesday evening, addressing his views on health care, immigration, and education.

Castro, a second-generation American, was born in San Antonio and served as its mayor from 2009 until 2014 when he was nominated for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Currently, Castro is the only Latino presidential candidate; if elected, he would become the United States’ first Latino president.

During his talk in the thirdf loor theater of Ida Noyes, Castro joked with the crowd and moderator David A xelrod, director of the IOP and a fellow veteran of the Obama Administration. He also spoke about problems that he sees as important for the future of the United States, as well as issues he addressed while working under Obama.

It’s not the first time that the campus has hosted prospective Democratic presidential candidates—Mayor Pete Buttigieg spoke at the Quadrangle Club in February and

Representative Eric Swalwell, who only recently announced his candidacy, spoke in March.

Castro pointed out that while he was HUD Secretary, the department helped to cut veteran homelessness by almost 50 percent. He addressed the fact that veteran homelessness was not ended entirely by 2015 as the administration had planned, but stressed the importance of still trying to “be bold and work toward” lofty goals, even if they may come up short.

Much of the evening was dedicated to Castro’s opposition to President Donald Trump and his policies, similar to Castro’s CNN town hall just five days earlier.

“I think the theory of a lot of people about this race is what people are looking for is the opposite of Donald Trump,” Castro said, characterizing himself as completely different in temperament from the man he called “hyper-emotional and irrational, and half the time out of control.”

Castro stated that his very first move once assuming office would be to issue an executive order realigning the United States with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement—a sentiment Castro has advocated before. Trump withdrew the United States from the accord in 2017.

Julián Castro speaks with IOP director David Axelrod at an event in Ida Noyes Hall. Zeff Worley Branding Trump as “cruel enough to separate little children from their mothers,” Castro promised a reversal of the president’s border policies that would be based on compassion while still maintaining a secure border—treating border-crossing as a civil, rather than criminal, issue.

“I take a smart, strategic, and compassionate approach to immigration,” he said.

Castro signaled his support

for legalizing marijuana and expunging criminal records associated with it, as well as reshaping the criminal justice system as a whole. He also discussed prioritizing the public education system, increasing affordable housing, and raising the minimum wage—issues he sees as “fundamentally connected” to the plight of incarcerated persons.

Castro cited his experience as mayor of a large and diverse

city as an aspect that sets him apart from the already-crowded set of Democratic nominees, many of whom have no executive experience.

“I think the reason you’re seeing people gravitate towards mayors is because being mayor is all about cutting through the crap and getting things done, and that you’re measured on your ability to get things done,” Castro said.

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VIEWPOINTS

The Flight of the Canada Goose Is UChicago’s new quirkiness defined by expensive attire?

BRINDA RAO

On no distinct occasion, UChicago students once paraded the quad in unique costumes and capes. A quirky mind was complemented by a quirky wardrobe. The norm was to embrace the avant-garde.

Today, flocks of Canada Goose coats storm our campus.

Gucci sneakers add to the wear and tear of our staircases and

Moncler beanies drape the sea of heads around us. The new norm is to embrace these brands that command exclusivity by selling $1000 coats and sneakers.

This new era of fashion elitism mimics trends in other private universities. As UChicago’s administration strives to match the Ivy League, its students are contributing to the transition

by dressing to match Harvard’s Cambridge color schemes and Dartmouth’s Hanover storms.

What we wear is a reflection of ourselves. Through our wardrobes, we can create an identity for ourselves without directly engaging with others.

We can convey political views, socioeconomic status, and personality without opening our mouths. Wearing extravagantly expensive garments is a clear expression of socioeconomic class. Given that money is often a taboo subject in polite company, why is it that wearing your wealth is not similarly frowned upon?

Money is not a personality trait. Wearing your wealth does not tell people anything about

you other than the fact that you possess money. There’s a stereotype of college students attending lectures while dressed in monochrome gray sweats.

However, at UChicago you’re more likely to find your seminars and lectures filled with the latest J.Crew or Vineyard Vines catalogs, ensembles that can cost thousands of dollars. Walking to class on a mildly cold day, you’ll probably see enough expensive coats to equal the cost of our annual tuition. While some of these pricey products help students combat the extreme weather of Chicago, others are frivolous. No one, especially a college student, can justify a beanie that costs $350.

These trends are a reflection

of the demographic changes in UChicago’s student body. Efforts in the past decade to bring more “normies” to campus, notably the University’s switch to the Common App and construction of megadorms, also have the side effect of bringing mainstream culture to a once proudly unconventional campus. As our institution seeks academic clout, our student body becomes more imbued in mainstream consumer culture.

Our society values exclusivity, and brands like Givenchy and Supreme command a great deal of social clout. As these brand names find their way to our campus, they showcase our student body and university’s transition CONTINUED ON PG. 9

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NEWS

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“Walking to class on a mildly cold day, you’ll probably see enough expensive coats to equal the cost of our annual tuition.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 8

in tastes from the unique to the mainstream.

Displays of wealth are not benign. They reinforce a culture of valuing what we see before what we know. The first things we learn about our classmates come from their appearances in real

life and on social media. Seeing classmates wearing expensive designer products sets our expectations of the student body.

Furthermore, it feeds a growing divide in our student body based on the value we place on socioeconomic status. Conversation topics stray from passions and

future plans to connections and shared tastes. These forms of social engagement creep into our classrooms, RSOs, and recruiting events, establishing a new way to keep students from lower-income backgrounds out of the know. Surrounded by a sea of expensive garments, most stu-

dents are more socially isolated than ever.

The rise of mainstream culture has generated a new tension on our campus. Strutting along cobblestone walkways, students wear high-end brands like uniforms. At the same time, we live in an environment that has cel-

ebrated history of rejecting fads and norms. As a student body, we must find a way to balance our desire to meet dominating trends with UChicago’s historically quirky sense of fashion.

Brinda Rao is a first-year in the College.

The Grave Responsibility of U.S. News and World Report U.S. News and World Report must reformulate its college rankings to account for privilege and economic inequality—especially in the wake of scandal.

RUBY RORTY

There are few groups who wield as much power within the system of higher education as U.S. News and World Report.

The publication’s annual college rankings, which include lists containing the top public schools, liberal arts colleges, and national universities, hold an odd authority in the twisted world of competitive college admissions.

The lists are quoted by everyone from helicopter parents on College Confidential to private admissions counselors as the last word on school quality, and U.S. News itself has acknowledged that its rankings are seen as “the 800-pound gorilla of American higher education.”

Of particular sway are the national universities rankings, charting the Ivy League and similar schools like Stanford, MIT, and UChicago. Even those parents, educators, and students who realize that the quality of the nation’s schools can’t possibly be neatly boiled down to an ordered list might find themselves rattling off the rankings in comments like: “Not that it matters,

but UChicago is tied for third….” or “She got into Johns Hopkins?

That’s so exciting—what is it, No. 10?”

The leverage held by the U.S. News rankings is hard to deny, but the rankings themselves and the role they play in higher education are far from perfect. Many within the world of admissions have accused the publication of operating off of bad data (as The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss memorably puts it, “junk in, junk out”) and of propagating economic unfairness in its rankings system. These critiques have persisted through multiple reformulations of the rankings in recent years. The metric used by U.S. News, some say, actively encourages schools to admit greater numbers of wealthy students, and this is in part because of its outsize influence in the world of college admissions.

Considering the tumultuous but undeniably impactful role U.S. News rankings play in higher education sheds light on the recent high-profile admissions scandal. Increased focus on eco-

nomic injustice at schools is an opportunity for the publication to reformulate its rankings— meaningfully, this time.

This would be an opportunity for U.S. News to discourage elitism and economic inequality while simultaneously challenging critics. Because of the influence of U.S. News rankings, the addition of even a lightly weighted “fairness factor” to their national universities rankings would go a long way in creating real consequences for those institutions engaging in egregious corruption. Wealthy schools can afford lawsuits, but a drop in ranking has real implications for public image and, by extension, acceptance and yield rates.

A fairness factor would take into account public scandals but would also rely on assessment by experts on financial (in) equality and student experience.

Such a factor might also look at the presence of programs available to low-income students on campus, and how well those programs actually serve the students for whom they are intended, thus discouraging the practices on display in UChicago’s recent Career Advancement scandal.

Clearly, there would be real questions about how to pragmatically institute such a “fairness

factor” within the rankings. How much weight should it have? How do you even go about quantifying relative fairness?

In response to that, I’ll point to the fact that the rankings have long incorporated unquantifiable factors in their formulation. Up to 22.5 percent (the 2018 number, as of 2019 the portion is 20 percent) of a school’s ranking is determined by “academic reputation” as reported by consultation of “expert academics” like provosts and deans of colleges and high school counselors. Surely, if Princeton’s provost can be considered an unbiased judge of

Dartmouth’s academic prowess, the magazine should feel comfortable turning to, say, researchers on economic inequality in higher education, monetary aid advisors, economists, and so on, to determine the relative fairness of national schools.

Even more significantly, incorporation of economic fair-mindedness beyond the typical measures of financial diversity would help fashion a norm that the magazine is already trying to cultivate: fairness as a virtue of educational institutions. This newfound moral compass is eviCONTINUED ON PG. 10

alvin shi

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“The leverage held by the U.S. News rankings is hard to deny, but the rankings...are far from perfect.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 9

dent in the 2019 inclusion of “social mobility” factors, in lieu of acceptance rates, within the ranking formula. That’s a great start, but the factor is based solely on the proportion of low-income students at a given school and represents a relatively minor part of the rubric, leading discerning readers to wonder whether this change is only for show. U.S. News’s own statement does little to alleviate those worries; as they put it, “as a result of adding indicators for social mobility into the 2019 Best Colleges rankings, when combined with the graduation rate performance, U.S. News takes economic diversity into account.” That reads like an attempt to wave off criticism, rather than a good-faith effort to incorpo-

rate economic justice into their rankings.

The addition of a fairness factor would go a long way in establishing U.S. News as taking a genuine interest in economic equality, as opposed to offering halfhearted attempts to address critics’ complaints, and their power as an actor in the education system means this effort would likely have far-reaching impact. The fairness factor would not only quantify the presence of poorer students, but recognize corruption, legal and illegal, and the many ways in which wealthy students are allowed through the back doors and side doors of our nation’s most prestigious universities.

Ruby Rorty is a first-year in the College.

ARTS

For a Successful B.A. Thesis Show, sear pork shoulder

By AMELIA FRANK Arts Reporter

The title of this year’s B.A. exhibition, for an easier recipe, sear pork shoulder, is an excerpt from an elaborate recipe sent to the exhibition group chat in error. The message implores the usage of “marinara (high quality)” and advocates for a specific type of saltwater duck. The show’s artwork, like its title, displays a similar mixture of meticulous attention to detail as well as a surreal sense of humor—“^sorry guys wrong chat,” reads the exhibition program.

Every detail in Michael Zhu’s works, for example, seems to carry symbolic significance, from the backward lettering scattered throughout his works to the subtle staircase that appears in the background of two of his paintings. Jeffrey Hsu’s “Digital Humors in sRGB” inspires similarly serious contemplation

through the serenity of his minimalist videos, which are partially cocooned in a horizontal canopy that seamlessly protrudes from the wall.

Meanwhile, adjacent to Hsu’s calm haven, Juhi Gupta’s “e-worm.club” includes a website dedicated to Fortnite pornography and a rough approximation of a Minion painted directly on the wall. Her work is a colorful explosion of popular culture references and interactive technology, including facial recognition, that speaks to her desire to operate outside of the conventions of the White Cube art world.

Some artists’ projects straddle this divide, pairing serious formal qualities with tongue-in-cheek elements. For instance, Alek Binion’s large-scale sculptures of pipes, which he calls “air ducts,” betray an extraordinary level of care, while photographs of the artist yelling at, chatting with, and tenderly CONTINUED ON PG. 11

Viewers consider Kira Leadholm’s large canvases at the B.A. thesis show. logan center exhibitions. photos taken by mike grittani.

courtesy of

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“The show’s artwork, like its title, displays a similar mixture of meticulous attention to detail as well as a surreal sense of humor.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 10

embracing large metal vents are more lighthearted, even humorous. Tyler Logan’s “Presentation Notes” features expert garment work and photography paired with sassy commentary written directly on the images. Kira Leadholm’s oil painting “Apocalypse: The Catharsis of Subject/Object Tension” depicts the fiery end-of-days, with a looming avocado-headed nude woman.

Despite its success, the installation of the show was no walk in the park.

Multiple artists slept in their studios during the nights leading up to the gallery opening, working every waking hour on their installations. But even gaining access to the gallery at all is a testing trial.

Visual arts majors must apply to the studio track in the spring of their third year. This competitive application determines who will have access to a studio, be assigned a Department of Visuals Arts faculty mentor, and eventually participate in the B.A. show. The cap on

the number of visual arts majors on the studio track is often explained by the limited availability of studio space at the Logan Center. There are only eight undergraduate studios available, two of which are large enough to accommodate two artists each. This makes for a total of 10 spaces for artists to occupy in the months leading up to the show. Although the Department of Visual Arts may have alternative explanations for the cap—such as a desire to maintain the high quality of the B.A. show—the spatial constraints are frustrating to many who get rejected from the studio track.

For all these reasons and more, for an easier recipe, sear pork shoulder is truly a labor of love. With works in an impressively broad range of media, the interplay among the 10 artists’ unique voices makes the show feel both diverse and cohesive; the combination of technical excellence with self-aware lightheartedness within each work inspires a sense of tender empathy.

Find the work of Michael Zhu, along with fellow B.A. students, on display at the Logan Center until April 28.

Ramy Youssef Does Ramy Like Only Ramy Can

By ZEFF WORLEY Arts Reporter

It seems Ramy Youssef finally caught his big break.

Produced by A24 (the company behind Moonlight, Lady Bird, and Eighth Grade), web series Ramy follows the Egyptian-American comedian as he plays a fictional version of himself—also named Ramy—who navigates the complexities of millennial existence and how his Muslim faith affects his dating life, everyday relationships, and place in society.

28-year-old Youssef has previously acted in small roles in the sitcom See Dad Run and the critically-acclaimed Mr. Robot, but Ramy is his biggest venture yet.

On the surface, Ramy’s family might seem like a collection of overused stereotypes: the rebellious younger sister, the traditional parents, and the strange, racist uncle. But their vibrant cultural

life and interactions are anything but tired—Ramy depicts Muslim Americans in a refreshing light that is (unfortunately) all too absent in today’s media and entertainment landscape.

The comedy-drama highlights the difficulty of adhering to one’s faith in a culture that is increasingly alienated from it.

In the first episode, Ramy and his white girlfriend break up after he clarifies his faith during an argument with her, after which she says, “I didn’t know you were Muslim Muslim.” Ramy then asks his parents to set him up with a Muslim girl. While at first his date goes well, with the two bonding over Arab culture and Ramy’s joke about actually having a pretty good day when Trump’s Muslim ban was signed, things quickly go south.

When his date suggests they have sex in the backseat of her car, Ramy tries to emphasize how he’s not comfortable moving so quickly and that it conflicts

with his faith, and another argument ensues. The next shot shows Ramy standing alone in the parking lot as the car pulls away.

Sitting at the intersection between moral problems and millennial problems, Ramy confronts both head-on, showing how one might invariably lead to the other.

Of course, being a millennial, Ramy works at a startup. But when it goes belly-up in the second episode—partnered with an uncomfortable exchange in which Ramy’s former boss voices how glad he was for some diversity in the workplace—Ramy must choose between working for his misogynistic, anti-Semitic uncle or living in penury. In a situation familiar to many of us, Ramy asks himself if he truly needs money, before his friends convince him that he does.

Ramy does more than provide just an uncommon perspective. It is also gorgeously shot, packed with lovely, bursting colors, intriguing shots, and

all-around vibrant cinematography.

Lingering on its characters’ expressive faces or placing special emphasis on the mise en scène of an awkward, drug-addled talk about tiny coffins, Ramy proves that it is just as much a joy to mindlessly watch as it is to deeply contemplate.

In a post-screening Q&A session, Ghenwa Hayek, assistant professor of modern Arabic literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations voiced her support for Ramy’s “normalization” of the minutiae of everyday religious life. She added that it was enjoyable to see a show that doesn’t paint Muslims with broad brushstrokes and has characters that actually speak Arabic.

Ramy premiered April 19 on Hulu.

If its first three episodes say anything about the rest of the show, Ramy is definitely not worth missing.

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An Echoing Rhythm tracing jazz’s roots , rise, and decline on the south side

By OLIVIA CHILKOTI Grey City Reporter

Walk down South State Street today and you won’t notice much special—a 7-Eleven, a Starbucks, the Illinois Institute of Technology—but that was not always the case. Described by The Chicago Defender as the “Bohemia of the Colored Folks” and “a Mecca for Pleasure,” it earned the South Side comparisons to Rome and Athens as a cultural center for African Americans. Primary accounts of The Stroll, as the street was called, describe a vibrant scene. “At night the crowded sidewalks rang with music and laughter, the cabarets, vaudeville and movie theaters interspersed with gaudy chile, chop suey, and ice cream parlors,” William Howland Kenney writes in Chicago Jazz. This stretch from 31st to 35th Street was the crux of the jazz scene and where most jazz clubs could be found; northward there were limited venues, and clubs downtown tended to hire white bands anyway, explains Charles Sengstock in Jazz Music in Chicago’s Early South Side.

In addition to over 70 jazz clubs, there were 15 vaudeville and movie theaters like the Vendome and the Grand.

But you probably didn’t know that. I certainly didn’t. Mike Allemana, a graduate student specializing in Chicago jazz, says that most people don’t. The narrative that jazz was ferried up the Mississippi River to Chicago, and then to New York City, where it

metamorphosed into America’s greatest musical export, is deeply embedded in America’s social imagination. But this is a gross oversimplification. Chicago isn’t even on the Mississippi River!

While jazz is thought to have originated in New Orleans, and a comparable scene developed in New York, Chicago was far more than a pit stop.

In his book Jazz: The Basics, Christopher Meeder writes, “It is notable that in most accounts of the beginnings of jazz, the crucible was the city of New Orleans.”

He continues, “Jazz resulted from the synthesis of many predecessors of various origin—some African, some Latin American, some European.” Crucially, the status of New Orleans as a hub of the American slave trade brought all of these cultures together.

Jazz scholar William Howland Kenney says, “Jazz legend has focused on the U.S. Navy Department’s November 12, 1917 closing of ‘Storyville,’ New Orleans’s celebrated red-light district, as the fundamental impetus to the emigration of jazz musicians from the Crescent City.”

Seeking employment, throngs of musicians made their way to Chicago, where a musical scene was already established. This occurred at the same time as the Great Migration, in which “Chicago attracted slightly more than 500,000 of the approximately 7 million African Americans who left the South,” according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago. Improvisation arrived with these mu-

sicians and reshaped jazz into the form we know today; prior to this point, the jazz being played in the North was far more classical. Early advances in jazz were captured on phonograph records in 1920s Chicago, thanks to legends like Louis Armstrong and King Oliver. These recordings went on to influence the direction of jazz music for years to come, says Kenney.

Dismissing Chicago’s jazz history is an easy mistake to make, not least of all because of the lack of historical record.

While nationwide newspaper archives from the ’20s to ’50s are full of stories of east coast jazz, Chicago is conspicuously

absent from discussions of jazz’s proliferation. Even in Chicago’s own print publications, jazz is glossed over. Claudia Cassidy, the music critic for the Chicago Tribune from 1942 to 1965, wrote chiefly on classical music, despite the fact that there was a documented phenomenon of white Chicagoans frequenting Blackowned jazz clubs. In his article, Chicago’s Jazz Trail, Dempsey J. Travis states that large numbers of white university students in particular would visit the South Side as patrons of “black and tan” cabaret clubs, as they were called due to their mixed patronage. It’s unlikely that the Tribune took jazz seriously, as Maureen An-

derson of Illinois State University explains that “white critics often hid behind black stereotypes in order to explain the increased fascination the world had with jazz. Some, in utter contempt, wrote that jazz plagiarized and then mutilated the works of classical, white composers. Still other critics maintained that jazz was dangerous, unhealthy, or, even worse, a form of bayou voodoo.”

The hotbed of creativity on Chicago’s South Side was a significant pull for musicians from around the country according to Kenney. He writes that the “institutional roots of Chicago jazz reached back to a turn-of-theCONTINUED ON PG. 13

Erskine Tate’s Vendome Orchestra. Courtesy of Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature.

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“...Chicago was far more than a pit stop. ” CONTINUED FROM PG. 12

century nightclub, gambling hall, and political hot spot called the Pekin Inn, at 2700 South State Street.” Founded as a beer garden serving an integrated clientele, it reopened in 1904 as a music hall. The 1,200-seat theater, owned by Black entrepreneur Robert Motts, was known for productions written, produced, and performed by Black artists.

Featuring a 120-piece orchestra, the theater put on over 100 musicals and comedies. It was this community and infrastructure that welcomed new musicians to Chicago. The Pekin and similar establishments were key to the development of jazz in two ways: According to Sengstock, Jazz bands often played in theaters as well as clubs, helping them to reach wider audiences, and they undoubtedly served as an inspiration for the clubs that would populate The Stroll starting in 1910.

31st and 35th Streets were the two main arteries that branched off of The Stroll, and had healthy club populations themselves.

East 35th Street boasted the Entertainers Club, the Sunset Cafe (now an Ace Hardware store), Plantation Cafe, not to mention the black and tan cabarets. The Stroll was not just important as a “bright lights district” or a watering hole; the work of its musicians furthered the development of the genre in profound ways. Kenney comments that “regular employment in Chicago’s cabarets helped to shape the evolution of instrumental techniques, solo flamboyance, skills in accompaniment, jazz band repertoires, and new concepts in composing and arranging.”

As the South Side was the heart of Chicago’s jazz scene, the West Side was mostly populated by blues clubs, noted Allemana.

According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, the clubs that populated the South Side up to the 1940s were chiefly jazz clubs. Allemana

said that archival interviews with jazz musicians share stories of playing West Side gigs where audiences grew impatient, asking when they would start playing blues music instead. It’s important to note that they are fundamentally two different genres— blues is a far more static style, typically emphasizing the lyrical content and featuring a singular singer and guitar player. Jazz, on the other hand, made its name for playing with dynamics and improvisation. This boundary, while permeable, was observed clearly by both musicians and patrons. “These musics were all around each other and probably cross-pollinated each other, but there was still a distinction that musicians make even now,” Allemana concluded.

With the passage of time, changing tastes in music were inevitable. Less apparent but equally relevant to the decline of jazz in Chicago was the development of the South Side. The city’s mid-century urban renewal programs destroyed swaths of the city that were densely populated with theaters and clubs.

The neighborhoods surrounding Hyde Park had been home to a vibrant club scene and a burgeoning Black middle class.

The growth of the University displaced many of the clubs bordering Washington Park, below Garfield Boulevard. One example that stands out is Club DeLisa, home to drummer Red Saunders’s band for many years, and a mainstay of Chicago jazz according to Allemana. The Encyclopedia of Chicago reports that the South Side Planning Board was, critically, charged with developing a seven-square-mile tract of land from Cermak Road south to 47th Street, spanning from Michigan Avenue to the Pennsylvania Railroad. This included Douglas and Bronzeville, where almost 70 clubs lined The Stroll. According to the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, a Chicago based al-

Red Saunders and his band at the Club DeLisa, Chicago, Illinois. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. liance of libraries, universities, and archives, “The Mecca Flats, located between State and Dearborn on 34th Street, had a significant role in Black culture in Chicago during the first half of the 20th century. Residents organized to protect their home, but could not succeed. The building was razed for Illinois Institute of Technology expansion in 1951.”

Commenting on the disproportionate destruction of the South Side, they continue: “It was easy for an area to fail standards: Chicago had only started a system of zoning in 1923, and many older neighborhoods would not meet new requirements without significant financial investment.

Many of these razed neighborhoods were replaced by high-rise public housing projects.”

As a result of urban renewal, clubs simply couldn’t find the space or the money to move or reopen, suggests Allemana. The South Side jazz scene continued into the ’90s, but it presented a stark contrast to the heyday that reigned through the ’60s. He shared an anecdote of former jazz

musician Teddy Thomas, who had so many gigs he barely slept.

Thomas worked at The Archway club from nine in the evening until four in the morning, all while maintaining a day job as a park supervisor for the City park district. Clubs like the Other Place and the New Apartment Lounge on East 75th, where Allemana himself played, closed in the ’90s after several decades of successful business, while clubs on the North Side could afford to stay open.

One only needs to look at headlines from the first few decades of the 20th century to understand that jazz is tightly intertwined with the racial and sociopolitical dynamics of the nation: Anderson’s article shares such gems as, “Why ‘Jazz’ Sends Us Back to the Jungle” and “Official declares the ‘Jazz Age’ Has Increased the Use of Drugs” all appeared in newspapers in the early part of the century. But more than indicating the tastes of white America, the trajectory of jazz in Chicago showcases the symbiosis between its Black

and white populations. Corralled in the South Side with no other venue, jazz became a force of nature. When it was no longer considered a moral danger, and white America embraced it, patrons from around the city flocked to the South Side clubs.

The disproportionate allocation of resources to the North Side has helped to maintain a visible connection there to the blues, like the House of Blues and Kingston Mines. Meanwhile, jazz on the South Side is kept alive only by older generations, or those who care to dig deep enough into this history, like the South Side Jazz Coalition and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. Jazz left its traces: the bus station at 61st and King, where The Archway used to be; Mandel Hall, where the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians played its first jazz concert in 1965; in the Ace Hardware on 35th Street that hides the Jazz Age murals of the Sunset Cafe. Fading though it may be, it is still all around us.

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SPORTS Maroons Succeed at Wheaton Despite Absences

By DANIEL ZEA Sports Reporter

Adapting to the ever-temperamental Chicago weather, the track and field teams packed up two days early last week to participate on Tuesday in the Wheaton Don Church Twilight Meet.

Initially set for Thursday, thunderstorms forced the Maroons to compete ahead of schedule, and shorthanded at that, as the change in date presented conflicts for a number of athletes.

Despite these unanticipated obstacles, both the men and women battled valiantly, enjoying a number of top finishes and two top-five team finishes overall, with the men coming in fourth and the women coming in second. Pleased with his athletes’ performances, Head Coach Chris Hall stated he felt the final results, while not fully indicative of the team’s high level performance, exhibited how well the team could compete despite the

difficulty of critical absences.

Between the two teams, the Maroons captured seven event titles on Tuesday, in addition to a number of other topthree finishes. Led by Laura Darcey, who secured a convincing victory in the Heptathlon, sweeping every event and outscoring the rest of the competition by nearly 500 points with 2,904, the women put forth a strong showing in their third outdoor meet of the year. Building off their previous meets, the women excelled in middle to long distance events, with fourth-year Nicole VacaGuzman taking first in the 800-meters, while Sarika Temme-Bapat captured second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Most impressively, however, the women dominated the 3,000-meter, with third-year Claire Brockway and second-years Abigail Shoemaker and Zoe Smith sweeping the top three spots in order.

The men also seized a number to victories to propel them to their fourth-

place team finish, prevailing in multiple middle- and long-distance events.

First-year Henry Myers took home first place in the 1,500-meter, with three other Chicago runners finishing in the top seven. Speaking about the meet later in the week, Myers said, “I think Tuesday was a breakthrough meet for most of the distance team, with almost everyone in the 1,500 improving.” As for his own performance, Myers remarked, “I’m trying to focus on winning races, and not worrying so much about time.”

Keeping with the theme of winning races, second-year Jack Barbour captured first in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, with first-year Valentin Figueira taking third. In field events, first-year John McCormick won first in the triple jump with 13.76 meters.

Both Myers and Coach Hall seemed happy with the strong performances on Tuesday, which marks the third and final meet before the team travels to At-

lanta for the University Athletic Association (UAA) Outdoor Championships later this week. Discussing the upcoming competition, Myers said, “Right now we have a week and a half to prepare for UAAs, where hopefully we’ll make another jump in performance.” Also hoping for success at the UAA Championships, Coach Hall acknowledged the impact of scheduling setbacks on the outdoor season, comparing the Maroons’ somewhat abbreviated schedule to the more robust ones of some of their competitors. Despite the difficulties that have hindered the season so far, Hall expressed confidence going into Atlanta, stating that they’d been there before and done well. Myers, Darcey, and the rest of the Maroons will look to build off their performance last week and take home a pair of titles on April 27th and 28th.

Grand Slam Opens Exciting Series Against Hope

By SHANYU HOU Sports Reporter

The University of Chicago softball team split their doubleheader with Hope College on Tuesday, April 16. The Maroons won the first game 6–5 with a home run from first-year Katie O’Donnell. The team lost the second game 4–9, although it was off to a great start with three straight singles as fourth-year Maeve Garvey plated the first run.

For the first game, the Flying Dutch started off strong and took control in the first half, leading 4–0 by the end of the third inning with two singles, an error, and a sacrifice fly. But the Maroons did not back down. When fourth-year Colleen Bennett scored the first run for the Maroons in the fifth inning, she gave the Maroons back their momentum. The bases filled up with third-year Emma Nelson on third, first-year Samantha Lauro on second, and first-year Savannah Pinedo on first. O’Donnell was the

next batter and she homered to the left field, putting the Maroons in the lead by pushing the score up to 5–4. Nelson recounted, “The first game, we were down 4–1 and first-year Katie O’Donnell hit a grand slam that got us back in the game.”

The Maroons remained in the lead for the rest of the first game as Bennett scored again in the sixth inning and encountered a close call when the Flying Dutch scored on a wild pitch in the seventh inning. The Maroons won the game with a final score of 6–5.

In the second game, the Maroons made the first score with Garvey plating the run. The Flying Dutch came back strong by putting up five runs by the end of the first inning. In the second inning, the Maroons tried to take back the lead as Bennett and Nelson scored one after another, bringing the score to 6–3. The strong defense on both teams ended the next three innings without a score.

The Flying Dutch continued to take control by scoring three more runs in

the sixth inning. Though the Maroons fought back, they were only able to score one. The Maroons lost with a final score of 4–9. Nelson commented, “Both of the Hope games were kind of crazy because we had to face six different pitchers.

It was fun to watch our batters figure out what each one was throwing. The second game, we fought against three pitchers yet again, but couldn’t quite

push enough runs across to get the second win.”

The Maroons ran their record to 11– 15, after splitting a pair with Lawrence University over the weekend. They look to improve as they take on four teams this week: North Park on Tuesday, April 23; Aurora on Wednesday, April 24; Roosevelt on Friday, April 26; and Wheaton (Ill.) on Saturday, April 27.

SCOREBOARD SPORT

W/L

OPPONENT

SCORE

Baseball

W

Lawrence

16–1

Softball

W

Lawrence

11–7

Women’s Lacrosse

L

Women’s Tennis

W

Illinois Wesleyan Augustana

7–8 9–0

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 24, 2019

15

Chicago Maroons Get Revenge Over Ripon in Routs

By MATTHEW LEHMAN Sports Reporter

The University of Chicago baseball team showed great resilience in Saturday’s set of home games against the visiting Ripon Red Hawks, sweeping the doubleheader by scores of 11–5 and 10–0 and snapping Ripon’s eight-game winning streak. After two tightly-contested losses at Ripon on Friday, the Maroons bounced back to split the four-game season series with their divisional rival. Chicago now sits in second place in the Midwest Conference North Division at 6–2 (.750), with an overall record of 17–6 over the 2019 campaign.

Saturday afternoon’s first game started with two quick frames on the mound from first-year ace Sam Bennett, who struck out four of the seven batters he faced without allowing a hit. In the bottom of the second, Chicago gave Bennett the run support he deserved, as the Maroons rode a proces-

sion of five hits and two walks to an early 5–0 lead. Although Ripon battled back over the next two innings, Bennett relied on his commanding curveball to limit the damage, and fourth-year reliever (and winning pitcher) Joe Liberman successfully extricated the Maroons from the top of the fourth with a two-run advantage still intact. However, the game would not stay close for long, as the Maroons capitalized on a pivotal Ripon error in the bottom of the fifth to rally for three unearned runs with two outs. After first-year Carson Weekley reached base on a booted grounder, fourth-year Connor Hickey blasted a pitch over the right field fence for a tworun homer, one of his three hits in the game. A subsequent double by third-year Payton Jancsy—one of his three hits in the game—and an RBI single by second-year Brian Lyle restored the Maroons’ previous five-run lead. After a scoreless sixth, the Maroons broke away in the bottom of the

SPORT

THE FIRST THURSDAY OF EVERY MONTH!

MAY 2ND

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PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS AND STORES

BE THERE!

53RD / 55TH / 57TH STREETS

over the minimum (a sixth-inning walk) and striking out five to earn his first win of the season. Last, but certainly not least, third-year Patrick Rogers shut the door in the seventh, utilizing his overpowering fastball and wipeout curve to strike out the side in order. Chicago’s offense did their part too, compiling 14 hits (each player had at least one) and scoring in six of the seven innings to secure the sweep. While it was a true team win for the Maroons, highlights included another three-hit effort by Hickey, as well as an outstanding game by Lyle, who scored three runs and reached base in each of his plate appearances.

The Maroons hope to keep their momentum rolling into the upcoming week with two more crucial series on their calendar. Chicago’s next games come against Illinois Tech on Thursday at Guaranteed Rate Field, and a pivotal weekend set of four home games against North Division leader St. Norbert College.

UPCOMING GAMES

DOWNLOA THE NEW AP D P!

JUNE 6 JULY 4 AUG 1 SEPT 5 OCT 3 NOV 7

seventh, adding three more runs on three hits and two more Red Hawks errors. Ripon’s comeback attempts were thwarted by two dominant innings from fourth-year Ravi Bakhai, as well as a hitless ninth inning from second-year Scott Rothschild, which sealed an 11–5 Chicago victory.

Maroon pitching was even more masterful in game two, as three Chicago arms combined to throw a one-hitter in the seventh-inning, score-shortened shutout. Third-year starting pitcher Nate Hendley was electric on the mound. With help from first-year batterymate Brett Riegler—who gunned down a runner at second base—Ripon never reached scoring position through the first two frames.

With Ripon threatening in the third, second-year reliever Zach Morochnik took over and instantly induced a clutch double play to keep the Red Hawks off the board.

Morochnik went on to hurl three more spotless innings, facing only one batter

Lacrosse Baseball

Softball

Tennis Track and Field Lacrosse Softball

OPPONENT Carroll (WI)

IL Tech Aurora UAA Championships UAA Championships Carthage

Lake Forest

DAY April 24 April 24 April 24 April 25 April 26 April 27 April 29

TIME 7 p.m.

6 p.m.

3:30 p.m.

TBA TBA 12 p.m.

3 p.m.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 24, 2019

16

Schulze Seeks Challenges

By MIRA MEHTA Sports Reporter

A UChicago athlete is one that excels both on and off the field. Karina Schulze, a midfielder for the UChicago women’s lacrosse team, has already made a name for herself through her killer moves on the lacrosse field as well as finishing the Chicago marathon within the first week of school.

Schulze was first introduced to lacrosse by her mom, who had played lacrosse in college. Before she was even eight, she was given her first lacrosse stick and fell in love with the sport. She grew up learning the ropes of lacrosse with her sister as her first teammate. Managing school and sports comes naturally to Schulze. Throughout all four years of high school, Schulze was a three-season athlete. This lifestyle taught Schulze important life lessons like time management. Schulze explained, “[Sport practices were a] perfect time to take a break from school and get [my] mind off of the work waiting for [me] after.”

Since then, Schulze has blossomed into a powerhouse on the field. She is a valuable asset for UChicago’s women’s lacrosse team. She was named the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin’s (CCIW) Women’s Lacrosse Defensive Player of the Week in March and has helped the Maroons to a 12–2 record. With wins over Elmhurst College (20–1), North Central College (19–9), and St. Mary’s College

(16–10), Schulze scored 11 goals, made four assists, nine ground balls, and 34 draw controls in just one week. Schulze has already been off to a strong start and has achieved something most seasoned players don’t get to until their second or third years: passing 100 draw controls in only 11 games.

Her favorite memory of the season was the challenge of the team’s inaugural game in February. While bad weather heralded the start of their program, her team managed to dominate their opponents through their excellent chemistry. Reflecting on the future of UChicago women’s lacrosse, Schulze noted that the team has the potential to “eventually become a strong competitor in the NCAAs” given their already-successful first-year program.

Some of the aspects of lacrosse Schulze enjoys are the “[c]ompetitive aspect of it as well as the friendships that are made because of the team.”

First-year Kathleen Harrigan, Schulze’s teammate, explained, “[Karina is the] ideal teammate, mainly because of her tendency to consistently get the job done. Whether it be on the draw circle or in the classroom, she always holds herself accountable for her responsibilities and exceeds expectations. Karina is fun to watch and somehow can make snatching a lacrosse ball out of the air with one hand look easy. Although I’ve only been her teammate for a little over half of a season, I can definitely say Karina is one of the best

Schulze races past opponents on the field. courtesy of University of Chicago Athletics

leaders on our team, on and off the field.

She is someone you look to for motivation, as she is always full of positive energy, even when the whole team is feeling down. In the classroom Karina holds herself to a similar high standard, exceling in all of her studies. I can’t wait to see what is in store for her in the coming years of this program. There is no one who deserves this recognition more than Karina!”

Outside of the lacrosse field, Schulze ran the Chicago Marathon this past fall.

Even though she is not currently preparing for an upcoming marathon, Schulze described the marathon as “one of the most amazing experiences along with the people who were there supporting and cheering the runners on every mile.” She was able to accomplish it through her dedication and hard work, as she trained throughout the

summer. Schulze also shared, “It was definitely hard at some points to keep running, but after passing mile 20 there was a huge crowd and with that support there was only the last six-mile push.” Running 26.2 miles is no joke, and only a true athlete has the mental toughness and athleticism to push herself through every mile.

Schulze exemplifies athletic determination. Her experiences, on and off the field, have shaped her into an individual that looks to challenge herself in all aspects of life. Moreover, Schulze’s passion for her team and desire to dedicate both her mind and heart to lacrosse serve as a reminder to athletes that community defines any athletic experience. While her time at UChicago has just begun, Schulze has already begun to cement herself as a student and athlete to be reckoned with.

Schulze after completing the 2018 Chicago Marathon courtesy of K arina Schulze