GREY CITY » ChicagoMaroon.com/Grey-City
FRIDAY MARCH 5, 2010
CHICAGO
AROON
VOLUME 121
Read about secret tunnels, President Zimmer’s mathematics, how tuition hikes work, and a hip-hip odyssey in the latest Grey City.
ISSUE 32
CHICAGOMAROON.COM
The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892
CAMPUS LIFE
GRADUATE AID
Arrest uproar prompts forum, answers from admins
Graduate students rally for advanced residency tuition cuts
Fourth-year Mauriece Dawson speaks about racial profiling at an open forum Tuesday in the Reynolds Club. UCPD officers responding to a complaint about unruly behavior arrested Dawson in the A-level last Wednesday. DARREN LEOW/MAROON
By Asher Klein News Editor Administrators outlined preliminary steps yesterday to remedy percieved racial profiling within the University police department (UCPD) after issues were raised at a contentious Tuesday open forum. They will also consider revising Library behavior
policy and protocol for how staff ask for ID. Over 200 people attended the forum, which was convened to address a powerful student response to last Wednesday’s arrest of fourthyear Mauriece Dawson in the A-level. Many at the meeting said the arrest part of a larger culture of racial profiling on the part of UCPD.
A Regenstein clerk called the UCPD last Wednesday night to report an “unruly” group of students, including Dawson, although witnesses said they were not unusually loud for the popular study area. When told to leave the building by a UCPD officer, Dawson repeatedly asked why he had to leave; the officer placed him in a
FORUM continued on page 3
By Al Gaspari News Staff Wearing cardboard mouse ears and holding mousetraps, about 50 members of Graduate Students United (GSU) yesterday said they had fallen into the advanced residency (AR) “trap,” weeks after the Provost did not recommend a cut in AR tuition. Graduate students receive full funding in their first four years; AR tuition begins in graduate students’ fifth year, meaning many must find a job or additional sources of funding to pay their bills. The AR trap, GSU said, causes students to take longer to complete their degrees because they have to work to pay tuition. Many wrote personal messages on the bottom of the traps, which were not activated. “We want [a] commitment to reducing AR tuition to a level that would allow students to work on their dissertations,” said Duff Morton, a fourth-year graduate student and GSU member. Provost Thomas Rosenbaum recommended keeping AR tuition at its current level for the next two years, which has been frozen since 2008. Given the historical five percent annual increase, Rosenbaum’s February 25 report said, many graduate students will save $1,350 over those four years. AR can be up to $5,300 per quarter in some departments. Cathy Cohen, deputy provost for graduate education, stressed the University is addressing AR tuition positively. “If you look at most universi-
ties, they are considering an increase in tuition,” she said. Cohen acknowledged that AR tuition can place a burden on students, but said the University can only meet so many needs with the resources it has. As they marched from Ida Noyes behind a pied piper, the students chanted, “AR tuition is a trap. Students get a bum rap.” After leaving the provost’s office, they gathered on the steps of the administration building where the crowd rallied around a few speakers. “The provost did not address the two main sources of student grievances that the committee recognized as valid,” said fourth-year Divinity school student Dave Mihalyfy in reference to adjusting AR tuition and restructuring teaching aid. Mihalyfy was part of last year’s Provost’s Committee that recommended “making every attempt to reduce” AR, and was disappointed the provost did not follow the report’s recommendations. Cohen understood the Committee’s role differently. “I was part of the Committee, and we were clear that the Provost might listen to other parts of the community as well,” she said. The GSU wants to end AR tuition but will accept reform, where graduate students can qualify for financial aid packages similar to ones for undergraduates. AR tuition does not treat all graduate students fairly, they said. “It privileges students who are single and from wealthy backgrounds. And when our graduate programs look like that, our professors look like that,” Morton said.
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
STUDENT LIFE
Liasons’ role is sufficient, Alper argues
Out of the limelight, a cappella groups work in harmony
By Michael Lipkin News Editor University students have fundamental misconceptions about the Board of Trustees’ role in University governance, Board Chairman Andrew Alper (A.B. ’80, M.B.A. ’81) said in an interview Tuesday. “People assume we pull all the strings,” Alper said. “But flat out: We don’t get involved in day-to-day management.” Alper was responding to last month’s resignation of Joe Bonni as graduate liaison to the Board. Bonni’s resignation rekindled arguments for increased student representation and voting rights on the Board. “Increasing student influence is a necessary first step to earn a voting position for the student liaisons, to increase student access to Board committees, and to have a greater role in setting the meeting agenda,” undergraduate liaison and third-year Greg Nance wrote in a Maroon letter to the editor last week. Alper said many of those arguments assume the Board exerts direct control over University policy. Trustees often report that their quarterly luncheons with students are dominated with issues they have no control over, like campus
parking or CAPS. Students will never have voting rights on the Board, Alper said, because it would violate the Board’s commitment to objective discussions. “We need trustees who are disinterested with respect to any one issue,” Alper said. “And issues students care about almost by definition create an interested party.... They can’t have a vote at the table.” Liaisons only sit on one of 12 trustee committees—Student and Campus Life— but Alper said issues from other committees, like Campus Planning, are often brought to liaisons to get student input. “Hearing students is very important to this board,” Alper said, adding that trustees also get student feedback from quarterly lunches and Vice President for Campus Life Kim Goff-Crews. While the Board approves the administration’s budget and weighs in on projects like the China center and the Milton Friedman Institute, it mainly considers decades-long investment strategies and merely advises the president on specific initiatives. “We care about eminence, but not how we get there,” Alper said. “The Board can’t front-run the faculty...We can’t do that and never will.” Student Government President
ALPER continued on page 2
By Dani Brecher MAROON Staff The U of C’s a cappella groups have historically been overshadowed by their east coast counterparts, but after forming the A Cappella Council (AC), the singers and beat boxers are finally poised to take center stage. Compared to a cappella groups at universities like Yale or Brown, the U of C a cappella scene is relatively young, and it’s still forming. Only about 100 students sing in the seven a cappella groups on campus, about one-fifth the number of students who are involved with University Theater, according to the UT website. “At other universities, a cappella dominates campus social life,” said Jessie Reuteler, a fourth-year and musical director of Men in Drag. “We want to improve the face of a cappella on campus.” The seven groups formed AC at the end of 2008. Previously, each of the seven a cappella groups on campus individually held auditions, scheduled concerts, and purchased equipment. A grant from the Uncommon Fund for the purchase of
wireless microphones served as the catalyst for a cooperative effort. “We needed to formalize a group to use the money,” Reuteler said. “Technically only one group could use the money, and since several individual people from several groups were award-
ed the grant, that was a problem.” The solution was the brainchild of M.D./Ph.D. student Chris Rishel, a member of Voices in Your Head. He proposed forming a consortium that would control the use of the new micro-
COUNCIL continued on page 2
Second-year Amanda Jacobson (left), graduate student Chris Rishel (center), and fourth-year Jessie Reuteler (right) are members of the A Cappella Council, bent on improving the voice of a cappella on campus. CAMILLE VAN HORNE/MAROON