TUESDAY • NOVEMBER 22, 2011
ISSUE 16 • VOLUME 123
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892
CHICAGOMAROON.COM
Graduate students start national petition in push for union Harunobu Coryne News Editor
Tackling Intramurals Intramural teams NWA and Violence Solves Everything compete during the men’s undergraduate independent flag football final game on Sunday. Violence Solves Everything won the championship (27–12). Check out the MAROON’S full coverage on page 11. AUMER SHUGHOURY | THE CHICAGO MAROON
Two years after a record-high number of first-year admissions to the ER prompted administrators to institute an alcohol education program, the incident rate for the Class of 2015 has so far matched the low levels of last year’s incoming class. First-years were involved in five of seven total alcohol-related trips to the ER this quarter, compared with three of eight visits by this time last
GSU continued on page 2
University remembers Herman Sinaiko
First-year alcohol-related ER visits remain low Madhu Srikantha News Contributor
U of C graduate students launched a nationwide petition yesterday to pressure the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on a case that may have broad implications for teacher’s assistants and other student employees here, ostensibly bypassing the administration in their push for union recognition. The petition urges the NLRB, a panel of five presidential appointees that hears complaints of unfair working conditions, to decide on the case of NYU graduate students whose bid for unionization has been at the heart of a contentious debate for several years over the status of partially employed students at private universities. Graduate Students United
(GSU), the organization circulating the petition, considers the NYU bid to be a barometer of students’ labor rights at the U of C. In 2002 NYU became the first private university in America to allow its TAs and research aides to unionize, but that decision was overturned in 2004 in a similar case involving students at Brown University. The status of graduate student unions has been uncertain since then. “The biggest factor going into this decision has been the NLRB’s inaction so far,” said Madeline Elfenbein, a GSU member and third-year Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations graduate student. While the NYU students are not seeking their own union—they want to be represented by United Auto Workers—the GSU anticipates that
Bond Chapel ceremony honors the life and career of former Dean of Students
year, according to Associate Dean of Students Marianne West. The increased number of firstyear visits is not high enough to draw concern, West said. She added that the U of C’s peer institutions generally have a significantly higher number of alcohol-related ER visits. Assistant Vice President for Student Health and Counseling Alex Lickerman (M.D. ’92), who oversees the AlcoholEdu program, said that it is difficult to determine ALCOHOL continued on page 2
Marina Fang News Contributor Family, friends, former students, and colleagues gathered at Bond Chapel on Friday to celebrate the life of Humanities professor Herman Sinaiko (A.B. ’45, Ph.D. ’61). Sinaiko, who taught in the College for 57 years and also served as Dean of Students from 1982 to 1986, died of lung cancer on October 5 at the age of 82. Throughout the service, the speakers noted Sinaiko’s diverse
contributions to the U of C community. A self-proclaimed “Hutchins Baby,” Sinaiko strived to make argument an integral part of the U of C education, his son Jesse said. “If he disagreed, he was more than willing to argue about itpassionately,” Jesse Sinaiko said. Herman Sinaiko’s former student and colleague Arthur Devenport (A.B. ’68, A.M. ’76) praised Sinaiko’s signature teaching style, which earned him the 1964 Quantrell Award
for Undergraduate Teaching. Devenport read from letters submitted by other former students, which highlighted Sinaiko’s devotion to intellectual inquiry. “Herman didn’t push. He pulled. He would question you, pull you forward from initial judgments,” one student wrote. Sinaiko, who taught the Core classes Greek Thought and Literature and Human Being and Citizen, won the Amoco Award in 1994 and the Norman Maclean Faculty award in 2003. He was SINAIKO continued on page 2
Graduate student found hanged in Hinds laboratory building Rebecca Guterman Associate News Editor A graduate student was found dead late Sunday night in the Henry Hinds Laboratory for Geophysical Sciences. A witness discovered third-year graduate student John Adams at 7:42 p.m. on Sunday night, having hanged himself in a second-floor room of the building. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the incident was ruled a suicide by the medical examiner’s office last night, CBS Chicago reported. He was 26. Adams was studying paleontology in the geophysical sciences department and was about to advance to Ph.D. candidacy, according to his colleagues.
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Friend, fellow TA, and geophysical sciences graduate student Samuel Miller said that Adams was studying the effects of climate change on ancient marine animals and applying them to today’s ecological issues. Adams worked at Clean Water Action improving water quality in Michigan after graduating from Albion College in 2008. “He both cared about the way nature operates and how we could use lessons we’ve learned from paleontology in conservation today and in predicting how people will respond to climate change,” Miller said. David Jablonski, a professor in the geophysical sciences department, worked with Adams on his
Temperatures in Fahrenheit - Courtesy of The Weather Channel
ADAMS continued on page 2
Herman Sinaiko’s son, Jesse Sinaiko, reminisces about childhood memories with his father during a memorial service on Friday afternoon in Bond Chapel. JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON
IN ARTS
IN VIEWPOINTS
A single Iliad launches a thousand stories
Reasons for living
Student composer sets Sandburg to music
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A short, incomplete list of things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving .