I have been terribly busy this week, but I'm still writing; here's my latest UCSC article. Not the most hard-hitting piece of journalism, I know, but it's about an organization that's very dear to me: The Community Service Leadership Training Corps.
CSLTC: Training the Future Leaders
As an international student from Nepal, second-year Prakriti Mishra came to the University of Chicago wanting to understand American culture better while engaging in community service. Thankfully, she found a program at the University Community Service Center that accomplishes exactly that: The Community Service Leadership Training Corps.
The program, affectionately referred to as CSLTC, has an intensive, two-year curriculum designed to connect its members with community issues and teach them leadership skills that will serve them well in public service-related internships and jobs. Though CSLTC was founded eight years ago as a four-year program by Pamela Bozeman Evans, former director of the UCSC, the program has undergone a series of transformations in recent years that have molded this dual mission.
The program is structured to follow students through their first two years in the college, according to first-year coordinator Caroline Ouwerkerk, who has been a Corps member and program coordinator throughout her four years in the college, while at the same time encouraging them to branch out into the community and put their leadership skills into action.
During their first-year in the program, the twenty first-year students selected each year for the program attend weekly meetings on topics ranging from the problem of food deserts in Woodlawn to effective management and communication skills. Every other weekend the students travel to a different Chicago neighborhood to assist a public service organization with one of their projects.
In their second-year, students will use the UCSC’s resources to connect with an organization and construct a meaningful internship program around it.
“It’s a lot of fun; I really liked our second service project painting Sullivan House because it gave the group a chance to really bond,” said Mishra, who is now interning at La Rabida Hospital for CSLTC.
This quarter CSLTC’s focus is on civic engagement, according to Curriculum Development Coordinator Emma Scripps. “The people we bring to speak to the first-years during meetings often relate what they back to the whole issue of social justice.”
Last week, the first-years and second-years met with Susan Campbell, associate VP for civic engagement to discuss the role the University plays in the surrounding communities. This week students are focusing on the importance of communication in effective leadership.
“We want first-years to think about how being a good communicator has personal implication, and is critically important for a helping your group or civic organization communicate a single, unified goal,” said Scripps.
Scripps is a fourth-year, but this is her first year of involvement in the program. “I’m pretty impressed with the whole structure of CSLTC. It’s uniquely different from RSOs [Registered Student Organizations] because it is directly supported by the UCSC and shares that social network.”
According to third-year Leslie Farland, CSLTC’s second-year program coordinator, the next issue students will focus on his hunger. “We’re hoping to bring people from the Illinois Hunger Coalition and the Greater Chicago Food Depository to speak at a meeting.” This focus was meant to coincide with the upcoming UCSC-sponsored Day of Service, which will also address hunger in Chicago.
For Ouwerkerk, one of the program’s standout features is its student leadership. The program curriculum was designed and implemented by upperclassmen in the college, who played a crucial role in shaping the program two its current form. “I think it’s really cool that the program is so receptive to student involvement. If I come in today and say, “We should do this!” People will want to make it happen.”
“And when a student joins CSLTC, it’s more than just joining a group that does service,” Ouwerkerk added. “They join a network that will support them throughout their time [at the college], and beyond.”
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Shoreland residents revel in dorm's rough edges as closing nears
Here's my latest article in the Chicago Maroon:
By Rachel Cromidas
If you ask Resident Master Lawrence Rothfield, the Shoreland has been falling apart since the University converted it into a dormitory 30 years ago. The hallway and dorm room walls are plastered with student murals, one ballroom has a collapsed ceiling, and the elevators have been known to stop running when students are late for class.
“It looks like the set of A Nightmare Before Christmas,” Rothfield said of the ballroom.
Shoreland Hall, located on South Shore Drive, was built in 1926 as a luxury hotel but is now serving out its last year as a University dorm. In 2004, the University sold the property to Kenard Corporation for $6 million. This year, Antheus Capital, parent company of the real estate company Mac Property Management in Hyde Park, bought the building for $16 million.
Although MAC has not yet announced its plans for the Shoreland, company spokesperson Peter Cassel said earlier this month that MAC intends to maintain the building as an attractive housing option for University students.
But before the Shoreland can reopen its doors, the building will need to undergo significant renovation. According to some students, simply traveling from dorm to class has grown increasingly challenging for Shoreland residents in recent years.
“Last year, a few people in my house [Michelson] got stuck once between the sixth and the seventh floors [in the elevators],” said second-year Eliza Behlen, who now lives off campus.
“I lived on the sixth floor so I could hear them pounding on the doors,” she said.
Rothfield said that over the years, the University has neglected to maintain the aging dorm.
“The University kept [the Shoreland] going and never really bit the bullet and invested the amount of money it would take to fix it,” he said.
Although the University has been unable to maintain upkeep at the Shoreland, that hasn’t stopped residents from revitalizing the building in their own quirky ways.
“Every year, my house has a theme, and then they paint the walls,” said second-year Karl Shum, who lives in Filbey House.
“I think in previous years if you painted the walls, you’d have to repaint them white or pay a fine,” he said, explaining that those rules have loosened since the University sold the Shoreland.
“People put signs that say ’please don’t paint over my mural,’ so a lot of stuff has been preserved,” he added.
Behlen fondly remembers decorating her room last year.
“We had a series of painting parties. We’d have people over, get them drunk, and then let them do whatever they wanted on our walls. Some of it was nice. Some of it looked like Jackson Pollock,” she said.
Despite the Shoreland’s rough edges, Rothfield thinks it’s an ideal place for students.
“Shoreland has the largest rooms of probably any dorm in the country, billion-dollar views, a ballroom that holds up to 300 people and has allowed us to bring in Second City, the Dodos, and other rock bands,” he said. “When you live in a place that is both far away from campus and has much easier access to downtown…I think it helps our students develop a more self-reliant attitude.”
First-year Samira Patel agreed.
“I really feel independent living here. I’ll probably end up getting an apartment off-campus next year,” she said.
For Shum, the Shoreland’s location, about 20 minutes from campus on foot, holds particular appeal.
“You can leave the paradigm of just being a student on campus and what that entails when you come back here,” he said. “There’s a kitchen, and you can paint your walls or put up wallpaper—it’s more like a home than somewhere to sleep after class.”
Rothfield and his wife have their own plans to commemorate the Shoreland’s final year as an undergraduate dorm. On November 1, they will hold the “Shore-Olympics,” a day of athletic games that will include a contest to see who can throw Plato’s Republic the farthest.
The history department has also found a way to commemorate the Shoreland, offering a colloquium this fall that uses the building as a entry point for examining South Side and Chicago history. Student projects may include using video, photography, and audio to record student and alumni accounts of life at the Shoreland.
By Rachel Cromidas
A mural in the elevator bay of Fallers House in Shoreland Hall. The dorm, which is about a mile east of campus, has laxer decoration regulations than other campus housing and encourages returning students to muralize their floors for incoming first-years. (Photo by my good friend Kate Koster.)
If you ask Resident Master Lawrence Rothfield, the Shoreland has been falling apart since the University converted it into a dormitory 30 years ago. The hallway and dorm room walls are plastered with student murals, one ballroom has a collapsed ceiling, and the elevators have been known to stop running when students are late for class.
“It looks like the set of A Nightmare Before Christmas,” Rothfield said of the ballroom.
Shoreland Hall, located on South Shore Drive, was built in 1926 as a luxury hotel but is now serving out its last year as a University dorm. In 2004, the University sold the property to Kenard Corporation for $6 million. This year, Antheus Capital, parent company of the real estate company Mac Property Management in Hyde Park, bought the building for $16 million.
Although MAC has not yet announced its plans for the Shoreland, company spokesperson Peter Cassel said earlier this month that MAC intends to maintain the building as an attractive housing option for University students.
But before the Shoreland can reopen its doors, the building will need to undergo significant renovation. According to some students, simply traveling from dorm to class has grown increasingly challenging for Shoreland residents in recent years.
“Last year, a few people in my house [Michelson] got stuck once between the sixth and the seventh floors [in the elevators],” said second-year Eliza Behlen, who now lives off campus.
“I lived on the sixth floor so I could hear them pounding on the doors,” she said.
Rothfield said that over the years, the University has neglected to maintain the aging dorm.
“The University kept [the Shoreland] going and never really bit the bullet and invested the amount of money it would take to fix it,” he said.
Although the University has been unable to maintain upkeep at the Shoreland, that hasn’t stopped residents from revitalizing the building in their own quirky ways.
“Every year, my house has a theme, and then they paint the walls,” said second-year Karl Shum, who lives in Filbey House.
“I think in previous years if you painted the walls, you’d have to repaint them white or pay a fine,” he said, explaining that those rules have loosened since the University sold the Shoreland.
“People put signs that say ’please don’t paint over my mural,’ so a lot of stuff has been preserved,” he added.
Behlen fondly remembers decorating her room last year.
“We had a series of painting parties. We’d have people over, get them drunk, and then let them do whatever they wanted on our walls. Some of it was nice. Some of it looked like Jackson Pollock,” she said.
Despite the Shoreland’s rough edges, Rothfield thinks it’s an ideal place for students.
“Shoreland has the largest rooms of probably any dorm in the country, billion-dollar views, a ballroom that holds up to 300 people and has allowed us to bring in Second City, the Dodos, and other rock bands,” he said. “When you live in a place that is both far away from campus and has much easier access to downtown…I think it helps our students develop a more self-reliant attitude.”
First-year Samira Patel agreed.
“I really feel independent living here. I’ll probably end up getting an apartment off-campus next year,” she said.
For Shum, the Shoreland’s location, about 20 minutes from campus on foot, holds particular appeal.
“You can leave the paradigm of just being a student on campus and what that entails when you come back here,” he said. “There’s a kitchen, and you can paint your walls or put up wallpaper—it’s more like a home than somewhere to sleep after class.”
Rothfield and his wife have their own plans to commemorate the Shoreland’s final year as an undergraduate dorm. On November 1, they will hold the “Shore-Olympics,” a day of athletic games that will include a contest to see who can throw Plato’s Republic the farthest.
The history department has also found a way to commemorate the Shoreland, offering a colloquium this fall that uses the building as a entry point for examining South Side and Chicago history. Student projects may include using video, photography, and audio to record student and alumni accounts of life at the Shoreland.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Something "New"
This week has turned my journalism job-seeking world upside down, first with a New York Times article my mom e-mailed me about the trouble newspapers are having deriving ad revenue from their websites; second with some unexpected advice from a talk by Chicago Public Radio correspondent Natalie Moore; and third with the news that my top-choice internship site, the Chicago Tribune, might not have the money to hire interns this summer.
Sunday: according to the NYTimes, newspapers that have been experiencing small but steady growths in their online-revenue (money from selling-ad space) over the past five years are starting to see that growth taper. This might be old news for editors like the ones at my hometown paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, who held two meetings with their crop of college-aged interns this past summer to ask us how the paper could use the internet to make more money. As a reporter who’s job is to share interesting things with a wide audience, sometimes I forget that the chief job of a newspaper is to make money. And, somewhat paradoxically, it will have to resort to whatever non-news-related gimmicks necessary to attract readers in the twenty-first century.
Wednesday: I attended my second Divinity School Luncheon. If you're on campus and free Wednesdays between noon and 1:30, I strongly urge you to attend. Besides the gamut of speakers from around Chicago (last year I saw photographer, blogger and public school teacher Will Okun, whom you may remember from Nick Kristof's Win-a-Trip contest, speak about the challenges high school students in Chicago face) they serve a fabulous and reasonably priced, home-cooked vegetarian meal.
Natalie Moore, the one-woman wonder of Chicago Public Radio's South Side bureau spoke during the luncheon about the importance of covering local issues for the station.
“I grew up on the South Side, and I didn’t really feel like my community was represented [by the media],” she said. Most news stories were about crime.
“There’s Pilsen, Bronzeville, Beverly, all kinds of neighborhoods very rich in their stories. You just can’t lump the South Side into one category.”
“People would ask me,” She continued, “Why does Public Radio need a bureau on the South Side? No one asked me that question when I worked for a suburban bureau!”
Moore shared sound clips from some of her stories on South Side issues, such as the arrival of a Starbucks and other high-end retail to a neighborhood, the complications of affordable public housing, and unemployment.
The chance to bring a more complex perspective to South Side new coverage wasn’t Moore’s only reason for going on air. Before landing her first radio job with Chicago Public Radio, Moore worked for several newspapers and freelanced.
Her best advice to aspiring print journalists, she said, is to “be nimble,” even if that means writing on the Internet or for radio.
“You want to write? Think about what you want to do, not necessarily whom you want to do it for.”
As an antidote to the lack of jobs in newspapers, Moore thinks young journalists should look to radio. “NPR is hiring. It’s not that newspapers aren’t a good product, but the leadership of public radio in the past 10 years has really gone in a different direction. And at some point, you’re going to have to know how to gather audio for a newspaper’s website anyway.”
Thursday: To kick-off the University’s new Careers in Journalism program, Sheila Solomon, the Chicago Tribune job/intern recruiter, shared her advice on finding a summer internship in the changing media climate. The good news according to Sheila, is that “given what’s going on in the world, good journalism is more important than ever.” The bad news is, if I want to cut my teeth at a major daily newspaper in a large city, I should probably look further than Michigan Ave; the Chicago Tribune isn’t sure it will have the money to host paid interns next year.
Sheila’s advice was vague but uplifting. She didn’t want to get our hopes up or sound too pessimistic about the state of an industry we’re trying to jump headfirst into.
“The Tribune is looking for new,” she said. “We want to continually give readers something else to add more value: layers.”
Layering, Sheila explained, is what happens when a breaking story is posted online, but more information and a different spin on things is present in the paper the next day.
What attracts her most about a job candidate Sheila says, is ingenuity.
“You will have to shoot video and audio for [your paper’s] website. And some newspapers will need you to help them develop that site, if they don’t have much. ”
“Look beyond being a reporter; look beyond being a publisher; invent whatever the next medium is going to be.”
Sunday: according to the NYTimes, newspapers that have been experiencing small but steady growths in their online-revenue (money from selling-ad space) over the past five years are starting to see that growth taper. This might be old news for editors like the ones at my hometown paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, who held two meetings with their crop of college-aged interns this past summer to ask us how the paper could use the internet to make more money. As a reporter who’s job is to share interesting things with a wide audience, sometimes I forget that the chief job of a newspaper is to make money. And, somewhat paradoxically, it will have to resort to whatever non-news-related gimmicks necessary to attract readers in the twenty-first century.
Wednesday: I attended my second Divinity School Luncheon. If you're on campus and free Wednesdays between noon and 1:30, I strongly urge you to attend. Besides the gamut of speakers from around Chicago (last year I saw photographer, blogger and public school teacher Will Okun, whom you may remember from Nick Kristof's Win-a-Trip contest, speak about the challenges high school students in Chicago face) they serve a fabulous and reasonably priced, home-cooked vegetarian meal.
Natalie Moore, the one-woman wonder of Chicago Public Radio's South Side bureau spoke during the luncheon about the importance of covering local issues for the station.
“I grew up on the South Side, and I didn’t really feel like my community was represented [by the media],” she said. Most news stories were about crime.
“There’s Pilsen, Bronzeville, Beverly, all kinds of neighborhoods very rich in their stories. You just can’t lump the South Side into one category.”
“People would ask me,” She continued, “Why does Public Radio need a bureau on the South Side? No one asked me that question when I worked for a suburban bureau!”
Moore shared sound clips from some of her stories on South Side issues, such as the arrival of a Starbucks and other high-end retail to a neighborhood, the complications of affordable public housing, and unemployment.
The chance to bring a more complex perspective to South Side new coverage wasn’t Moore’s only reason for going on air. Before landing her first radio job with Chicago Public Radio, Moore worked for several newspapers and freelanced.
Her best advice to aspiring print journalists, she said, is to “be nimble,” even if that means writing on the Internet or for radio.
“You want to write? Think about what you want to do, not necessarily whom you want to do it for.”
As an antidote to the lack of jobs in newspapers, Moore thinks young journalists should look to radio. “NPR is hiring. It’s not that newspapers aren’t a good product, but the leadership of public radio in the past 10 years has really gone in a different direction. And at some point, you’re going to have to know how to gather audio for a newspaper’s website anyway.”
Thursday: To kick-off the University’s new Careers in Journalism program, Sheila Solomon, the Chicago Tribune job/intern recruiter, shared her advice on finding a summer internship in the changing media climate. The good news according to Sheila, is that “given what’s going on in the world, good journalism is more important than ever.” The bad news is, if I want to cut my teeth at a major daily newspaper in a large city, I should probably look further than Michigan Ave; the Chicago Tribune isn’t sure it will have the money to host paid interns next year.
Sheila’s advice was vague but uplifting. She didn’t want to get our hopes up or sound too pessimistic about the state of an industry we’re trying to jump headfirst into.
“The Tribune is looking for new,” she said. “We want to continually give readers something else to add more value: layers.”
Layering, Sheila explained, is what happens when a breaking story is posted online, but more information and a different spin on things is present in the paper the next day.
What attracts her most about a job candidate Sheila says, is ingenuity.
“You will have to shoot video and audio for [your paper’s] website. And some newspapers will need you to help them develop that site, if they don’t have much. ”
“Look beyond being a reporter; look beyond being a publisher; invent whatever the next medium is going to be.”
Thursday, October 9, 2008
CSRSOs Hit the Ground Running
Here's my first article for the University Community Service Center's newsletter:
Rachel Cromidas
When first-year Tiera Johnson attended the RSO Fair on Oct. 3, she was overwhelmed by the number of diverse community service organizations to chose from.
“I knew I wanted to do a volunteer program that had to with kids,” Johnson said.
In the end, she joined Friends of Washington Park, an after-school tutoring group that works with children in kindergarten through ninth grade at the School of Social Service Administration (SSA).
UCSC advises nearly 50 community service-related Registered Student Organizations (known as CSRSOs), and more than a dozen of them involve tutoring students from around Chicago. Johnson said she chose to join Friends of Washington Park because the program allows volunteers to work with students of many different ages.
Friends of Washington Park is run by Chicago Youth Programs, a non-profit organization serving at-risk youth in Cabrini Green, Washington Park and Uptown. The program pairs each tutor with one student for the entire year to foster a one-on-one learning environment and create lasting bonds between the programs participants. The program meets every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5 to 6:30 p.m., and often schedules weekend activities, such as a trip to the Midway ice skating rink, for tutors and their students.
For Andrew Seeder, a fourth-year and co-president of Friends of Washington Park Tutoring , the program has helped him stay in touch with the “real world” during his time at the college.
“There’s more to being 18 to 22 years old than studying for your next midterm,” Seeder said. “Even though this might not relate to my class on Nietszche, I still get an education here.”
Seeder, a Tutorial Studies major, joined the program as a first year and immediately developed a rapport with his tutee, Marquis. “He became a part of my life.”
Malika Krishna, also co-president, shares Seeder’s sentiment about the co-curricular value of their CSRSO.
“I’m an economics major, so a lot of stuff I do is quantitative. It’s nice to come here and get in touch with why we’re doing all that.”
Other mentoring CSRSOs include WYSE, a curriculum-based program that pairs female college students with girls in middle school from Little Village; South Side Scribblers, an organization that teaches creative writing to elementary school students in Hyde Park; Peer Health Exchange and Project Health—both of which are branches of national non-profits and mobilize Uchicago students to educate Chicago’s underserved populations about the health resources available to them.
UChicago students with an interest in policy-making and prevention also have a panoply of options, from environmental groups like Green Awareness in Action (GAIA), to the UChicago branch of Colleges against Cancer, which is planning to host the college’s first 24-hour Relay for Life fundraiser for cancer research this Spring.
One such CSRSO is the Partnership for the Advancement of Refugee Rights (PARR). This new student group, formed in winter of 2008, is engaging human rights issues by connecting UChicago students with Chicago’s refugee community.
According to Aruj Chaudhry, the founding chair and president, PARR is a great organization for students in “all facets of refugee rights work.” This is because PARR is organized into three committees: a Committee on Global Vigilance, a Committee on Community Service, and a Committee on Advocacy and Activism, all of which will work on different projects, Chaudhry, a fourth-year, said.
The Committee on Community Service, for example, is planning to partner students with World Relief, a refugee center offering resettlement aid and legal services, and lead visits to refugees’ homes.
“We will also go up north to do some ESL tutoring,” Chaudhry said. “We want to involve the University community in global and local issues.”
One important aspect of the program, she added, is shared leadership. “Everyone has a chance to lead the meetings. Our mission is mutual education.”
Rachel Cromidas
When first-year Tiera Johnson attended the RSO Fair on Oct. 3, she was overwhelmed by the number of diverse community service organizations to chose from.
“I knew I wanted to do a volunteer program that had to with kids,” Johnson said.
In the end, she joined Friends of Washington Park, an after-school tutoring group that works with children in kindergarten through ninth grade at the School of Social Service Administration (SSA).
UCSC advises nearly 50 community service-related Registered Student Organizations (known as CSRSOs), and more than a dozen of them involve tutoring students from around Chicago. Johnson said she chose to join Friends of Washington Park because the program allows volunteers to work with students of many different ages.
Friends of Washington Park is run by Chicago Youth Programs, a non-profit organization serving at-risk youth in Cabrini Green, Washington Park and Uptown. The program pairs each tutor with one student for the entire year to foster a one-on-one learning environment and create lasting bonds between the programs participants. The program meets every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5 to 6:30 p.m., and often schedules weekend activities, such as a trip to the Midway ice skating rink, for tutors and their students.
For Andrew Seeder, a fourth-year and co-president of Friends of Washington Park Tutoring , the program has helped him stay in touch with the “real world” during his time at the college.
“There’s more to being 18 to 22 years old than studying for your next midterm,” Seeder said. “Even though this might not relate to my class on Nietszche, I still get an education here.”
Seeder, a Tutorial Studies major, joined the program as a first year and immediately developed a rapport with his tutee, Marquis. “He became a part of my life.”
Malika Krishna, also co-president, shares Seeder’s sentiment about the co-curricular value of their CSRSO.
“I’m an economics major, so a lot of stuff I do is quantitative. It’s nice to come here and get in touch with why we’re doing all that.”
Other mentoring CSRSOs include WYSE, a curriculum-based program that pairs female college students with girls in middle school from Little Village; South Side Scribblers, an organization that teaches creative writing to elementary school students in Hyde Park; Peer Health Exchange and Project Health—both of which are branches of national non-profits and mobilize Uchicago students to educate Chicago’s underserved populations about the health resources available to them.
UChicago students with an interest in policy-making and prevention also have a panoply of options, from environmental groups like Green Awareness in Action (GAIA), to the UChicago branch of Colleges against Cancer, which is planning to host the college’s first 24-hour Relay for Life fundraiser for cancer research this Spring.
One such CSRSO is the Partnership for the Advancement of Refugee Rights (PARR). This new student group, formed in winter of 2008, is engaging human rights issues by connecting UChicago students with Chicago’s refugee community.
According to Aruj Chaudhry, the founding chair and president, PARR is a great organization for students in “all facets of refugee rights work.” This is because PARR is organized into three committees: a Committee on Global Vigilance, a Committee on Community Service, and a Committee on Advocacy and Activism, all of which will work on different projects, Chaudhry, a fourth-year, said.
The Committee on Community Service, for example, is planning to partner students with World Relief, a refugee center offering resettlement aid and legal services, and lead visits to refugees’ homes.
“We will also go up north to do some ESL tutoring,” Chaudhry said. “We want to involve the University community in global and local issues.”
One important aspect of the program, she added, is shared leadership. “Everyone has a chance to lead the meetings. Our mission is mutual education.”
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana...
The first thing you think of when you hear the sound of Gary, Indiana is probably the jocular song from the Music Man, but for the University of Chicago chapter of Students for Barack Obama, the phrase to come to mind is Yes We Can!
I and about 37 other students (including my boyfriend, who apparently can in fact get up by 9:15 on a Saturday) took the South Shore Metra down to Gary, Indiana to canvas for Barack Obama. We met volunteers from around northern Indiana at the campaign headquarters. We were trained to help residents fill out absentee ballot forms and to direct them to early-voting polls.
According to the coordinator, we knocked on 550 doors in Gary and distributed dozens of absentee ballot forms. SFBO will make more trips to Indiana on October 11th, 18th and 25th.
For someone like me who is excited by Barack Obama's policy ideas, charisma, and of course his hometown of Hyde Park, IL, the trip to Indiana was at times inspiring and disheartening;
I knocked on more than 40 doors, and almost everyone I spoke to was a strong Obama supporter. However, Gary's turn-out rate has historically been close to 15%. This rate is understandable; most residents commute to Chicag to work, and consequently have trouble making it to the polls between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. If you don't know about absentee or early-voting, you're out of luck come election day.
And suprisingly, at least to me, several of the people I spoke to are Jehovah's Witnesses, and therefore cannot participate in government or even vote. One man scanned over my list of households and said, "I don't vote. He don't vote. But Dwight votes. Talk to him."
The demographics of the neighborhood we hit were almost entirely black. The streets and houses, though suburban, looked quiet and rundown, and it was clear that many people didn't live in one place for long. There is probably some prejudice in this statement, but I cannot wondering how the future of my country could be decided behind these broken windows and rusty screen doors, where the complications of religion and jobs may keep residents from viewing voting as the de facto obligation it is for me. I am appalled but unsuprised that our country would make it harder for these working-class citizens to vote.
UPDATE: my Maroon article about University of Chicago students mobilizing to get out the vote is here.
I and about 37 other students (including my boyfriend, who apparently can in fact get up by 9:15 on a Saturday) took the South Shore Metra down to Gary, Indiana to canvas for Barack Obama. We met volunteers from around northern Indiana at the campaign headquarters. We were trained to help residents fill out absentee ballot forms and to direct them to early-voting polls.
According to the coordinator, we knocked on 550 doors in Gary and distributed dozens of absentee ballot forms. SFBO will make more trips to Indiana on October 11th, 18th and 25th.
For someone like me who is excited by Barack Obama's policy ideas, charisma, and of course his hometown of Hyde Park, IL, the trip to Indiana was at times inspiring and disheartening;
I knocked on more than 40 doors, and almost everyone I spoke to was a strong Obama supporter. However, Gary's turn-out rate has historically been close to 15%. This rate is understandable; most residents commute to Chicag to work, and consequently have trouble making it to the polls between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. If you don't know about absentee or early-voting, you're out of luck come election day.
And suprisingly, at least to me, several of the people I spoke to are Jehovah's Witnesses, and therefore cannot participate in government or even vote. One man scanned over my list of households and said, "I don't vote. He don't vote. But Dwight votes. Talk to him."
The demographics of the neighborhood we hit were almost entirely black. The streets and houses, though suburban, looked quiet and rundown, and it was clear that many people didn't live in one place for long. There is probably some prejudice in this statement, but I cannot wondering how the future of my country could be decided behind these broken windows and rusty screen doors, where the complications of religion and jobs may keep residents from viewing voting as the de facto obligation it is for me. I am appalled but unsuprised that our country would make it harder for these working-class citizens to vote.
UPDATE: my Maroon article about University of Chicago students mobilizing to get out the vote is here.
My Weekend in Photos
Friday: Whole Wheat Pasta with White Bean and Sausage Tomato Sauce
Saturday: One-Year Anniversary; roses, sunflowers, orchids, oh my.
Sunday: Clean-up in Washington Park
Saturday: One-Year Anniversary; roses, sunflowers, orchids, oh my.
Sunday: Clean-up in Washington Park
Saturday, October 4, 2008
As fundraising campaign wraps up, building projects accelerate
My first article of the quarter was printed in the Maroon yesterday. It's about the new building initiatives on campus:
By Rachel Cromidas
The University of Chicago may have wrapped up its $2 billion campaign this August, but the milestone marks only the beginning of a slew of building projects that the campaign will fund and that are poised to transform the University’s campus over the next five years.
In an e-mail sent to students over the summer, President Robert Zimmer announced that the money raised by the Chicago Initiative will supplement a variety of University programs including study abroad and financial aid, as well as the renovation and construction of campus facilities.
Over the next five years, the University plans to renovate Harper Memorial Library and the Searle Chemistry Laboratory, expand the Harris School of Public Policy, and create a new graduate-student residence.
The University also plans to complete the David Logan Arts Center by 2011, on 60th Street between Drexel and Ingleside Avenues. According to University architect Steve Wiesenthal, the Center will have a large auditorium, a black-box theater, and upgraded visual arts studios. This project will follow the construction of the new undergraduate residence hall south of the Midway, another effort that promises to enliven the South Campus.
Another building project in its early stages is a new institute for the physical sciences, which the Board of Trustees approved over the summer.
According to Wiesenthal, the goal of the institute will be to encourage collaboration among the chemical, biological, and physical sciences.
“We want to make new facilities that will meet the current 21st century functional requirements of the physical and computational sciences,” he said.
“More importantly, the center will facilitate cross-disciplinary research.”
Stuart Kurtz, chairman of the computer sciences department, said that the institute’s construction is long overdue. “Most computer science departments have buildings that went up in the ’90s, and ours did too—but it was the 1890s. We need to grow to be competitive, and there’s simply not enough room in Ryerson for us to grow.”
Kurtz added that the old facilities make it difficult for the department to attract post-doctoral candidates.
Rocky Kolb, chair of the department of astronomy and astrophysics and professor in the College, is also looking forward to the institute’s construction.
“We have on campus many people who do astronomy and astrophysics, and we are spread around several buildings on campus. We’re lacking a central location to bring everybody together and foster collaboration,” Kolb said.
The eight-story center will extend to the intersection of 56th Street and Ellis Avenue from the Enrico Fermi Institute.
According to Wiesenthal, the Accelerator Building will be torn down, and the Fermi Institute will be renovated and expanded to the spot where Fermi built his sub-atomic particle accelerator.
Wiesenthal is hoping that the construction of this new institute and the addition of the Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery will help define a new sciences quadrangle on campus.
The Knapp Center, a 330,000-square-foot, 10-story building that broke ground in the fall of 2005 on the northeast corner of Drexel Avenue and 57th Street, will house several research programs in pediatrics, genomics, and system biology. The building is slated for completion next year.
By Rachel Cromidas
The University of Chicago may have wrapped up its $2 billion campaign this August, but the milestone marks only the beginning of a slew of building projects that the campaign will fund and that are poised to transform the University’s campus over the next five years.
In an e-mail sent to students over the summer, President Robert Zimmer announced that the money raised by the Chicago Initiative will supplement a variety of University programs including study abroad and financial aid, as well as the renovation and construction of campus facilities.
Over the next five years, the University plans to renovate Harper Memorial Library and the Searle Chemistry Laboratory, expand the Harris School of Public Policy, and create a new graduate-student residence.
The University also plans to complete the David Logan Arts Center by 2011, on 60th Street between Drexel and Ingleside Avenues. According to University architect Steve Wiesenthal, the Center will have a large auditorium, a black-box theater, and upgraded visual arts studios. This project will follow the construction of the new undergraduate residence hall south of the Midway, another effort that promises to enliven the South Campus.
Another building project in its early stages is a new institute for the physical sciences, which the Board of Trustees approved over the summer.
According to Wiesenthal, the goal of the institute will be to encourage collaboration among the chemical, biological, and physical sciences.
“We want to make new facilities that will meet the current 21st century functional requirements of the physical and computational sciences,” he said.
“More importantly, the center will facilitate cross-disciplinary research.”
Stuart Kurtz, chairman of the computer sciences department, said that the institute’s construction is long overdue. “Most computer science departments have buildings that went up in the ’90s, and ours did too—but it was the 1890s. We need to grow to be competitive, and there’s simply not enough room in Ryerson for us to grow.”
Kurtz added that the old facilities make it difficult for the department to attract post-doctoral candidates.
Rocky Kolb, chair of the department of astronomy and astrophysics and professor in the College, is also looking forward to the institute’s construction.
“We have on campus many people who do astronomy and astrophysics, and we are spread around several buildings on campus. We’re lacking a central location to bring everybody together and foster collaboration,” Kolb said.
The eight-story center will extend to the intersection of 56th Street and Ellis Avenue from the Enrico Fermi Institute.
According to Wiesenthal, the Accelerator Building will be torn down, and the Fermi Institute will be renovated and expanded to the spot where Fermi built his sub-atomic particle accelerator.
Wiesenthal is hoping that the construction of this new institute and the addition of the Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery will help define a new sciences quadrangle on campus.
The Knapp Center, a 330,000-square-foot, 10-story building that broke ground in the fall of 2005 on the northeast corner of Drexel Avenue and 57th Street, will house several research programs in pediatrics, genomics, and system biology. The building is slated for completion next year.
Friday, October 3, 2008
You Are Still Here
Hyde Park, the community surrounding the University of Chicago, has a median household income of $44 thousand per year. This is unsurprising for a college town; the University has a history of supporting neighborhood growth and operates a private police force, and its students and staff constantly take advantage local businesses and real estate.
But compare Hyde Park to the surrounding neighborhoods: Woodlawn, whose borders begin where the south campus ends on 63rd street, has a median household income of $21 thousand; Washington Park, the neighborhood to the west of Cottage Grove, has a median household income of just over $15 thousand.
The University tries to remind entering first-year students of the mixed demographics of their new home the You Are Here documentary presentation and speech by Wallace Goode, college dean and head of the University Community Service Center. But few students have an incentive to travel south of 63rd Street, or west of Cottage Grove, especially when the festivities of the Chinatown, the Loop and the North Side beckon.
I have gotten to know Woodlawn by happy accidents: I covered a tour of Woodlawn by the South Side Solidarity Network student group for the Maroon last autumn, and in the spring my art class (Intervention and Public Practice with Theaster Gates) created an installation/performance piece in an empty lot on 63rd and Woodlawn, giving us the chance to collaborate with and learn from residents of Woodlawn, including the Apostolic Church of God, the wealthy mega church on 64th and Kimbark.
These experiences were worthwhile, first in helping get a sense of how Woodlawn came to look like a high-crime ghost-town when it had a bustling population of 80 thousand a century ago, and later to demonstrate just how difficult it is to connect to a community whose demographics are so different from any I have ever inhabited. Still, I don’t credit any specific University efforts for my accidental introduction to civic engagement.
So I was thrilled to bring five first-year students from my dorm to Washington Park last weekend for the University sponsored Experience Chicago Through Service Day. None of them knew that Washington Park (the neighborhood just beyond the expansive community park we spent the afternoon cleaning) was a food desert, with almost no sources of affordable produce within walking distance of its borders, or that half its residents live at or below the poverty level.
But they did learn that Washington Park is a beautiful, historic space with a large base of community supporters. One such group, the Washington Park Conservancy, supervised us in picking up trash and pruning and mulching trees. I will post some photos later.
While we worked we talked with other community members, including a man who works at the notorious Grove Parc Tenement. After or project was finished, a saxophonist and harmonica player from the annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival, serenaded us.
My first-years had a great time, and some might accompany me back to Washington Park this coming Sunday for another beautifying project with the Conservancy. I sincerely hope this isn’t their last introduction to the areas around the University that don’t look like 57th Street. But until the University finds more reasons for students to invest their time and knowledge into the community, they will have to take the initiative themselves.
But compare Hyde Park to the surrounding neighborhoods: Woodlawn, whose borders begin where the south campus ends on 63rd street, has a median household income of $21 thousand; Washington Park, the neighborhood to the west of Cottage Grove, has a median household income of just over $15 thousand.
The University tries to remind entering first-year students of the mixed demographics of their new home the You Are Here documentary presentation and speech by Wallace Goode, college dean and head of the University Community Service Center. But few students have an incentive to travel south of 63rd Street, or west of Cottage Grove, especially when the festivities of the Chinatown, the Loop and the North Side beckon.
I have gotten to know Woodlawn by happy accidents: I covered a tour of Woodlawn by the South Side Solidarity Network student group for the Maroon last autumn, and in the spring my art class (Intervention and Public Practice with Theaster Gates) created an installation/performance piece in an empty lot on 63rd and Woodlawn, giving us the chance to collaborate with and learn from residents of Woodlawn, including the Apostolic Church of God, the wealthy mega church on 64th and Kimbark.
These experiences were worthwhile, first in helping get a sense of how Woodlawn came to look like a high-crime ghost-town when it had a bustling population of 80 thousand a century ago, and later to demonstrate just how difficult it is to connect to a community whose demographics are so different from any I have ever inhabited. Still, I don’t credit any specific University efforts for my accidental introduction to civic engagement.
So I was thrilled to bring five first-year students from my dorm to Washington Park last weekend for the University sponsored Experience Chicago Through Service Day. None of them knew that Washington Park (the neighborhood just beyond the expansive community park we spent the afternoon cleaning) was a food desert, with almost no sources of affordable produce within walking distance of its borders, or that half its residents live at or below the poverty level.
But they did learn that Washington Park is a beautiful, historic space with a large base of community supporters. One such group, the Washington Park Conservancy, supervised us in picking up trash and pruning and mulching trees. I will post some photos later.
While we worked we talked with other community members, including a man who works at the notorious Grove Parc Tenement. After or project was finished, a saxophonist and harmonica player from the annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival, serenaded us.
My first-years had a great time, and some might accompany me back to Washington Park this coming Sunday for another beautifying project with the Conservancy. I sincerely hope this isn’t their last introduction to the areas around the University that don’t look like 57th Street. But until the University finds more reasons for students to invest their time and knowledge into the community, they will have to take the initiative themselves.
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