How to Hack Christmas

Creative solutions for a girl who doesn't quite get into the Christmas cheer

Christmas is a cultural script we know well, from the mall Santa's red cap and beard right down to the toasty roasted chestnuts and fuzzy stockings hanging on the mantel. Picturing it could just send shivers through my snow-boots ... except I'm in Southern California.

1. Food and Drink

For many, Christmas is a time for the tacit celebration of overabundance—and a reprieve of Thanksgiving—or the supermarket's second chance to sell off the last of its frozen turkeys and pies. Not for Tristam Stuart. Stuart has long decried food waste in the U.K. and internationally, and as the Financial Times reported today, last week this self-professed freegan fed 5,000 people in Trafalgar Square to demonstrate just how far food can stretch and still satisfy.

As it turns out, the answer is quite a lot: "people were queuing up [on December 16, at the Square] and taking away bagfuls of free groceries. And when they got to the front of the line – it’s just a joyous sight – people were saying, ‘What’s wrong with this? Why was this going to be wasted?’ I didn’t need to say any more. Exactly.”

How does Stuart's theory bear on your Christmas holiday or mine? It's fundamentally about rejecting the notion that we must consume or purchase more than we need in the spirit of the season. And if you really must have that whole, roasted turkey (like my mom did) then make sure it doesn't go to waste—I can promise you there's going to be a lot of turkey broth, turkey lasagna, and turkey enchiladas from now through New Years'. That's the price you pay.

And ethical consumption is not just about reducing food waste. It also means laying off the eggnog, or else taking yourself off the roads entirely on Christmas Eve, when drunk driving accidents and rates soar.


2. Company

The holidays are about family, love, joy, and togetherness. This is a beautiful farce that leads plenty of otherwise functional people (like yours truly) to contemplate sitting in bed with a bowl of popcorn watching a celebrity match-maker show. But not you.

As Dan Savage so brilliantly points out in his podcast this week, "I guarantee you that bars and nightclubs in the town on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are packed with other people who ...needed to get away and are also single, like you! So put the iPod down, put the cookies down, go to a bar, have a drink, flirt, and get yourself some Christmas fucking." Thank you always, Dan, for your unflinching lucidity.

And not me, either. I am spending my Christmas weekend with other Jews, heretics, and maybe a couple of Christians who have fallen off their parents' church-going bandwagon. We're cooking and watching movies together (tonight was the Matrix, hence allusions to hacking a system built on comfortable lies)

3. Gifts
And speaking of comfortable lies, I give you gift-giving! I'm a college student, who works 15-hours a week and dreams of working in a bankcrupt industry, so obviously I enjoy what financial help I can get. But I don't think Christmas is an appropriate occasion for anyone to help me get one step closer to financial independence from my parents.

But with money tight for everyone these days, I more than appreciate NY Times columnist Nick Kristof's take on the adage, "it's the thought that counts." Yeah, why not put that cashmere scarf back on its shelf and send a little something the way of Deworm the World, or the World Wide Fistula Fund?


4. Family, hope, and all the trappings of the season

It would be wrong to leave out any mention of my family from a post on how to fix Jesus' birthday for non-believers, as though after all this talk of charities and slow-cooked tomato broths, a reader could only picture my family gathered around a fireplace, holiday-sweater-clad, arm in arm. In truth, Christmas has not been much of a family affair since before I was a teenager, and it's even less so this year.

My parents' house (my house? This I've been less sure of for more than a year now) is full of unease this year. It's usually filled with the busy hum of people whole-heartedly committed to their individual routines: my dad in the backyard watering the plants, my mom folding laundry, my brother in his room slouching over his laptop. the devotion to efficiency.

But today is different, because my 16 year-old brother spent the past year battling colon disease. He missed out on most of his sophomore year of high school and a period that is by many accounts the capstone of the teenage years, and we're still waiting to learn whether or not he has really beat it. Some bad symptoms resurfaced yesterday, sending both our parents into all their rituals of worrying.

I want to be supportive, but there are so many limitations. Chief among them is a year-long conflict between my parents and me that I only I am now beginning to overcome. It's about my identity and my ability to make decisions as an adult, 20 years old, and how at this age their so-called protection could be hurting me. It's tough stuff for a parent to stomach, I'm told, but it isn't easy for me, either, to think that even though I have achieved personal successes and dreamed dreams that make me the happiest I've been in my life, I'm a disappointment to them.

But it's Christmas, a holiday so glittery and cheery that it could make anyone without a turkey drenched in cranberry sauce on their table feel a little lonely, so here I am; making soup that maybe nobody will want to eat, renting DVDs and hoping that this house will allow itself some happiness—and feeling more than a little guilty that I get to leave for my home again in just another week.

Hitting the Books in Harper

I tried to make finals week in Harper Memorial Library into an interesting story. Hey, news is slow in December, okay?

When Alex Gleckman really wants to focus on his schoolwork, he paces up and down the center of the Harper Library reading room.

"I think he looks ridiculous," his friend Jean-Michel Hoffman teased, as the two spread out their notebooks beneath one of the many desk lamps illuminating the room.

Since the University of Chicago renovated Harper Memorial Library, it has become an increasingly popular study spot for students like Gleckman and Hoffman, both first-years, who want to bury themselves in their readings or problem sets. The University closed Harper Library over the summer to begin its transformation into a 24-hour study space and café. When it reopened in September, the worn carpeting and threadbare chairs were gone, replaced by plush seating and improved lighting.

Four months later, at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday of finals week—with just 20 hours left until the end of exams—the new study space is humming with activity.

Gleckman and Hoffman are hard at work, studying for a morning calculus exam. "I'll be here for a while," Gleckman speculated. "Probably until 9:30 a.m."

"That's just him; I can't do that," said Hoffman, a first-year who has pulled "some pretty late ones" for his Human Being and Citizen class, but no all-nighters to date. They both turn back to their textbooks with grim determination.

The mood is livelier (and more caffeinated) in Common Knowledge, a new student-run coffee shop next to the library's reading room. The dozen students who populate the cavernous vestibule-turned-café have their books and laptops open. A graduate student is conducting office hours at a corner table. All have coffee. Two friends greet each other with a quick embrace in front of the bar. "Hey! I haven't seen you...or any other humans, really."

That sentiment may be common among the library denizens four and a half days into their final exams, but third-year Matthew Carville, his finals long completed, is going home to play video games after his shift at the café is over.

Carville, assistant manager of Common Knowledge, says Harper's atmosphere—with its gothic architecture and a pastry selection that evokes afternoon tea more than late-night cram sessions—is the reason he forgoes other student-run coffee shops like Cobb and Hallowed Grounds.

"This is such a beautiful place," he said. "I think students come here to get a break from going at it in the main room."

Carville says the library is now his first choice for "going at it." "[T]he new reading room is really wonderful," he said.

And he isn't the only student to add Harper to his routine.

"We can see by our returns that [the café] gradually got more and more popular, and more and more people bought stuff as the quarter went on," he said. "And the fact that we were one of the only coffee shops open during reading period meant a huge boost in sales."

These days, the library and café are frequented by a combination of undergraduates with morning classes in the classrooms below, College advisors with offices throughout the building, and graduate students, who third-year Liz Kerr claims are infamous for their coffee habits.

"All the graduate students come up at the same time in the afternoon. They ask us what time we're open until"—1:00 a.m.—"and they say 'Great, I'll get three shots of espresso,'" said Kerr, another café barista.

But fourth-year Emily Chase doesn't come to Harper for the coffee.

"All through college, I spent pretty much every night in the Reg," the political science major explained, reluctantly pulling herself away from a research paper on the evolution of the United States' wilderness policies. "But now I spend maybe 80% of my time in Harper. This is my last year here, so I really thought I should enjoy the architecture of this great space while I still can."

The City is a Laboratory: Chicago Studies Winter Courses

What I like best about Winter Break is the three weeks of joy I can experience over choosing my classes, unadulterated by the notion that once the quarter gets underway I will be too busy/stressed/freezing cold to tell the difference between Phy-Sci Core and Spanish Literature anyway. So on that note, let's get excited about the new crop of Chicago Studies courses being offered this Winter:

This winter, UChicago students will advise local non-profits, drive along 100 miles of the Michigan-Illinois Canal, and study the community organizing tactics of Saul Alinsky.

These are just a few of the topics covered in next quarter’s Chicago Studies courses. The classes will allow students to engage with the city of Chicago through everything from geography to philosophy.

According to Bart Schultz, the director of the Civic Knowledge Project and the teacher of next quarter’s “What is Civic Knowledge?” and “The Chicago School of Philosophy” the city of Chicago is a critical resource for students of political and social movements.

Schultz is team-teaching “What is Civic Knowledge?” a special course in the Big Problems department, with Margot Browning, Assoc. Dir. of the Franke Institute for the Humanities.

“We’re not interested in teaching ‘here are the three branches of government.’ [“Civic Knowledge”] is about the actual basis for community organizing, civic friendship, a healthier and more participatory democracy,” Schultz says.

“We really range across the history of Chicago and the history of the University of Chicago from the original settlements in the Pottawattamie to looking at future plans for 2020 and 2040,” he explains. “We read a lot of absolutely wonderful material, everything from [President Barack] Obama’s Dreams From My Father, to classic Chicago authors with an emphasis on political mobilization.”

In Debra Schwartz’s class, “The Business of Non-Profits,” students will do more than study community activism. They will consult with and advise local non-profits, then present their work to the rest of the class, she said. Schwartz will also bring local non-profit leaders to speak to the class, which is limited to members of the RSO-branch of the non-profit consulting group Campus Catalyst.

Like Schultz, Schwartz links her course material to Chicago’s rich history of public service work and University research.

“Some of the most influential leaders were Jane Addams and her colleagues, some of whom were on our faculty. One of the great insights they had at the time was that Chicago was tremendous urban laboratory. [This city] gives us the opportunity to really see upfront the kinds of problems we’re trying to address through social policy,” Schwartz explains.

“I don’t think you can get quite the depth of experience without this hands-on piece, if you want to really understand the role that a nonprofit plays and how difficult it is to do nonprofit work well,” she adds.

The non-profits range from the Hyde Park Art Center to tutoring and childcare organizations. Because of this diversity, Schwartz said the class attracted a broad range of students, including Economics majors, as well as Public Policy, Art History, and Physics students. “I think it’s great, because the kind of organizations we work with have diverse [services and goals],” she says.

Judy Hoffman is also bringing inspiration from the city to her Documentary Film Production class. As part of this two-quarter-long sequence, students will work in groups to document either a portrait of a Chicagoan, a social issue, or an historical narrative.

“This is a cinematic social inquiry, using the city as a laboratory for investigation,” Hoffman says. “I try to encourage [my students] to get off campus and look at the city and its people, to figure out what really needs to be said.”

Past projects have ranged from profiles of Chicago political figures to more experimental meditations on the city’s landscape. Hoffman considers her students fortunate to have the entire city as inspiration and stomping-grounds for their documentary shooting.

“Chicago has I don’t-know-how-many ethnic groups, around 140; so it’s an opportunity to clearly to explore the landscape of the city and how a built environment informs how people live. Ranging from Mies Van der Rohe to the Chicago Housing Authority, there’s a lot of different ways to look at the city,” Hoffman says.

Chicago’s diverse landscapes also inform Michael Conzen’s upper-division class, “Urban Geography.”

According to Conzen, the course will examine the role cities play in national and regional urban networks. He will lead students to the Regenstein library to view its collection of historical Chicago maps and documents, and on a hundred-mile field trip along the historical Illinois-Michigan Canal.

Why make Chicago a focal point of the course? Conzen says the benefits are clear.

“Being a geographer, I believe very strongly that the visual landscapes around us [help students] put their book learning on the line; they see what works terms of the consequential landscapes and environments that have been created as a result of the forces that they’re reading about.”

Martha Nussbaum talks marriage, revulsion, and wearing leather

Professor Nussbaum (of the Law School, the Philosophy Department... anywhere in the University that can get its hands on her) has an interview with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times this week.

It looks like she has a book coming out in February about sexuality, disgust, and the opposition to same-sex marriage!

Your inquiries have lately revolved around the politics of physical revulsion, which you see as the subtext for opposition to same-sex marriage.

What is it that makes people think that a same-sex couple living next door would defile or taint their own marriage when they don’t think that, let’s say, some flaky heterosexual living next door would taint their marriage? At some level, disgust is still operating.

In your book “From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law,” which will be out in February, you draw a distinction between primary disgust and projective disgust.

What becomes really bad is the projective kind, meaning projecting smelliness, sliminess and stickiness ontoa group of people who are then stigmatized and regarded as inferior.

I don't have a lot to say right now about her theories on the relationship between revulsion and bigotry, but I am really excited to get this book because I think it could help me flesh out my B.A. topic. Currently, I'm planning on writing an extension of that research paper I wrote last Spring on the VA court case Bottoms v. Bottoms—a custody battle between a lesbian and her mother. What fascinated me about this case was how the courts conflated sexuality with one's ability to parent a child—when one would logically seem to me to have nothing to do with the other. Likewise, a certain negative association against any non-normative sexuality can lead people to demonstrate prejudice in the working world, the family/legal arena, and virtually all walks of life.

Earth Gaze

According to some historians, the publication of the first image of from outer space transformed the way Americans viewed their place on our planet. Once we could gaze back on the Earth from the moon, Earth no longer seemed like a place of abundant resources, but a small and finite dot suspended in a vast emptiness, entirely responsible for its own continuation.

That shift, according to "Earth Days," a documentary currently screening at the Siskel Film Center in the Loop, spurred the modern environmental movement that has been questioning how, and at what cost, we fuel our cars, heat our homes and feed our families, since the 1970s. Weighing the short term gains and long term consequences of everything from spraying DDT and other pesticides to placing solar panels on the roof of the White House, has led to some amazing innovations, and understandably, the sobering realization that "healing" the planet will take a lot more work still.

The environmental movement was one strong voice among the readings I was assigned in Losing the Farm: the Globalization of Food Production in the 20th century, and will inform my final paper for that class.


A photo I took of farmer Steve Tiwald, founder of the Green Earth Institute, with a row of dino-kale, while on a Losing the Farm field-trip. I love kale!

Are we chemists, taming the natural world with new technologies like genetic modification that can increase yields and farm efficiency and cheapen the cost of mono-cropping, or is it time to "make peace with nature," as President Richard Nixon (who surprisingly signed the Clean Air Act into law) advocated in early 1970s?

Is a new era of innovation just around the corner, promising to increase the urban standard of living by exponential degrees, or is the future of a prosperous and healthy human race actually tied up in the trope of the New England village, where everyone knows their neighbors, has a real stake in community affairs, and strives for communal sufficiency?

These are a couple of the very difficult conceptual questions this movie and my class are concerned with. Answering them is a tall order (made taller still by the pressing issue of over-consumption--Uh, can I super-size that conceptual question?) I'm writing my final paper about the farmers' market as a tool to reconcile the community, environmental and personal health benefits of receiving locally-produced goods with the autonomy of the urban sprawl. To have your city, and eat your farm too, so to speak. I'll post my findings later.

Regardless, I took away from this movie that it's time to change the rhetoric of sustainability from "Stop what you're doing, you bad person, you!" to one that is constantly and non-judgmentally suggesting alternatives, suggesting that yes, you really can drive an electric car around the world; yes, we really can reduce air and water pollution without sacrificing our quality of life.

It amazes me how much I am, especially at the University of Chicago, limited by institutional imagination, or lack thereof; there are so many aspects of life directly tied to mental and physical well-being here I would change if I could, but how often do I question that they don't necessarily have to be so? For example, I have a lot of criticism about the Core curriculum, which I hope to write about after finals week. Well, Femmaj, one of the RSOs in which I'm involved, is starting a campaign to change diversity in the Core, which we believe is riddled with tokenism and unimaginative curricula for engaging with big picture concepts like "Power, Identity and Resistance." What made me think I couldn't criticize this before now? What makes me think there are other parts of this University that are immutable, like the almost-universally decried dining hall food?

A University with this kind of intellectual clout, money and resources should not be stuck with archaic practices, like the mass-waste generated by 3 inefficient dining halls that serve low-quality, conventional produce and over-processed frozen foods. Could change really be as simple as standing up and suggesting an alternative?

"Arrr, Matey!" Cascade students dive in

Cascade program offers public school students quirky classes on everything from Batman to pirates.

Submitted by Rachel Cromidas, Class of 2011 | New Media Editor

"Today we are gonna go a'pirating, and you are all sea dogs," second-year Amy Woodruff said to her classroom of 30 high school students. The kids took turns applying temporary tattoos of skull and crossbones while she explained their plan to raid another classroom.

The "sea dogs" were enrolled in Woodruff and second-year Brooke Slawinski's class on "Pirate Culture and Democracy" for Cascade, a seven-week program in which University of Chicago students teach ninth through twelfth graders.

Cascade is run by an RSO called Splash!, based on an MIT program of the same name. The one-day Splash! program was so successful that the organizers decided to create the seven-week Cascade program. The majority of Cascade's roughly 60 students are enrolled in public schools in Kenwood, Hyde Park and Woodlawn. Cascade's eclectic courses have ranged from an introduction to neuroscience to a class on Batman called "The Dark Knight Abides."
That 'wow' experience in the classroom

Slawinski and Woodruff say their class was inspired by Asst. Prof. Shannon Lee Dawdy's course on pirates last spring. Their offshoot class explores how pirates across history have organized their crews and communicated with each other.

Though the high schoolers were batting each other playfully with foam swords, the scene wasn't too foreign from a University of Chicago seminar class. "We're not going to just tell you where the treasure's at," Woodruff and Slawinski insisted, sounding like professors who probe their students with questions rather than simply giving them answers. "You're going to have to find it yourselves."

After a pop quiz on the Golden Age of piracy, Slawinski led her students out of the classroom and toward the lecture hall that harbored fourth-year Amy Estersohn's journalism class. "Ahoy! Avast!" they chanted.

The pirates burst through the doors, cheering. Estersohn, ready to make the outburst into a learning experience, calmed them down. "We ask that in return for disrupting the journalism class, we get to interview you about your pirate practices."

The journalism class immediately began to lob questions at the pirate crew—Why did you become a pirate? Why are you wearing an eyepatch? The classroom material regularly becomes a backdrop for these kinds of hands-on experiences, according to Estersohn, and that's what keeps the students engaged.

She said Cascade owes its success to passionate teachers and volunteers who prefer to teach with projects rather than lectures. "We've all had that 'wow' experience in the classroom, we've all had that teacher who inspired us. We love learning, and want to share that with others," Estersohn said.
An introduction to college life

The proof of Cascade's success is its ability to bring enrolled students back for classes week after week, even though no one is taking attendance or handing out grades. "We get emails from parents thanking us, because they see the long-term investment we've made here," Estersohn said. Parents know that Cascade is more than an after-school activity—it's an introduction to college life.

"A lot of these students might not be familiar with [the University of Chicago], but this is a terrific opportunity for them to feel less intimidated by the idea of college," Estersohn explained. "They walk through our hallways, they have pizza with us, and they get to know who we are."

The University has supported Cascade in many ways, according to Estersohn. In addition to providing equipment and meals for Cascade students, the University has opened up classrooms for Cascade. "We've used Ryerson for an astronomy class, we've used the [Biological Sciences Learning Center]. It's so terrific that the University's resources are open to students," she said.

Thanks to this support, Estersohn added, Splash! and Cascade can provide programming to high school students at no cost. "Whenever I talk to guidance counselors, their jaws drop. They ask, 'Where's the application, what's the cost?' I tell them there is no application, no cost, and they almost can't believe the University of Chicago and its students do this."

Autumn 2009 Midway Review, with my article about the Olympics

The 2009 Midway Review is out, but unfortunately not up on our website yet. Here's a photo of the cover for now, and a re-posting of my article on the aftermath of Chicago's Olympic bid:


NO LITTLE PLANS: CHICAGO’S NEXT OLYMPIC MARATHON WILL BE REVITALIZING THE SOUTH SIDE

I.

It was humid, the first Tuesday of July, and President Zimmer was sharing his lunch break with a bullhorn and a crowd of protesters.

A handful of South Side residents, University of Chicago students, and representatives from the Illinois Single-Payer were marching against the closing of a University of Chicago Medical Center Clinic on 47th St. The protest, led by South Side Together Organizing for Power on the corner of 58th and Ellis Ave, was typical: The marchers chanted, "health care is a human right!” and circled the Administration Building while University employees darted in and out of the front entrance.

But one set of small, black and white posters carried a slightly different message: “Better clinics—No Olympics Games.” This slogan became incorporated into another chant as the group continued to pace along the street.

The protest was primarily about criticizing the Medical Center for disregarding poor people—this much was clear. But less obviously, it also implicated the city's Olympic bid—and the bid's potential cost for taxpayers—as a big part of the problem of Chicago’s health care disparities.

The protestors won’t be using this argument anymore; Chicago lost the Olympic bid last month with a surprisingly low number of votes from the International Olympic Committee, and the city has not indicated that it will pursue another after garnering last place against Madrid, Rio de Janeiro (the winner) and Tokyo.

But for those who opposed the Olympic bid this summer, the Games became a proxy for all of Chicago’s public works ills: the failing school system, the broken transit model, gang violence, health care disparities. The colorful Chicago 2016 banners adorning Washington Park loomed over these South Side community issues leading up to the Oct. 2 bid decision, and continued to hang somberly for sometime after the city’s loss, begging the questions, When will the park district take them down? And What will the city do next in this beautiful park, and the dismally low-income neighborhoods at its borders?

In Chicago’s failed quest for the Olympic bid (a loss Mayor Daley blames partly on “dart-throwing” nay-sayers), the opponents asked, “how can we fund an Olympics when our public schools are failing? How can we send thousands upon thousands of tourists into South Side communities that we’re afraid to enter ourselves?” while supporters championed the injection of private money into the veins of the city’s transit map and business corridors. With the Games behind them, I want to see these two groups come together, because they have a lot in common. Both want Chicago to prosper and be worthy of global acclaim, and both understand that this won’t happen until we reverse the trends of heightened gun violence, failed schools, crowded clinics that unfortunately under girded the city’s aspirations.

II.

For Tom Tresser, the No Games Chicago member who brought the "Better Clinics..." posters to the July 2 protest, the issue of poor medical services and the 2016 Olympics were inextricable.

Tresser has been a community activist and “angry tax-payer” for the past decade, first as the founder of Protect our Parks, and now with No Games. When he learned of the city’s plans to place major Olympics venues in public parks, he said his background fighting for public land compelled him to get involved in the anti-Games efforts.

"We have the same goals," he said of his organization and the amalgam of South Side and healthcare activists and Hyde Park residents gathering outside of the University bookstore. "We're trying to make the city better from a grassroots level, and one of the things [No Games] has been saying all along is that we want better trains, better schools, better clinics—and not the Games."

But if you ask many disappointed supporters of the city’s bid, the Olympic Games would have been exactly the financial stimulus to make those improvements—and revitalize the South Side communities that have historically been forsaken by public programs in particular—far more than Chicago could have on its own.

In fact, without the promise of international tourism, private donations, and the millions of dollars in federal spending to improve the city’s security and transit systems past Olympics host cities received, Chicago seems to be back at the starting line, with little more than a bruised ego to show of it, or so one would think. But it is wrong to assume that the Olympics would necessarily have brought to the city, along with inspiration and global notoriety, the impetus for sweeping social improvements. One obvious reason is that the money raised to fund and insure Chicago’s bid came from a different pool—one of private businesses, zealous citizens, and friends of Mayor Daley—than the money that the University of Chicago Medical Center or the Chicago Transit Authority are likely to receive.

But the Olympics have already forced Chicagoans to see the South Side in a different light, even as the IOC plots the path of the Olympic torch through Rio de Janeiro. Indeed, as disappointed or celebratory as we may be over the outcome, we must not forget that Chicago’s near South Side exists; it is a cluster of low-income, high-crime neighborhoods surrounding one of the city’s largest greenscapes, a gorgeous park designed by urban planning legend Fredrick Law Olmsted, and caught in a century-long economic decline. If citizens on both sides of the bid are serious about making Chicago an even safer and more prosperous place to live, and a hot-spot for international tourism, they won’t take down their 2016 banners or protest fliers, but remember what they stand for—and what communities they effected most.

III.

Take Washington Park, the small neighborhood of roughly 13,000 residents and a median household income of $15,000 according to the U.S. census, located just west of the proposed sites of the Olympic Stadium and Aquatic Center.

If you talk to Brandon Johnson, his neighborhood has forgotten how beautiful it is. With its 372 acres of park land and 20 minute train ride from the Loop, it’s little surprise to community leaders like Johnson, executive director of the Washington Park Consortium, that the neighborhood attracted international attention as the proposed site of the 2016 Olympic stadium in Chicago’s bid.

“Now that we’re getting attention from some famous people,” Johnson said in an interview in June, “the neighborhood is remembering it’s attractive again.” Johnson was not just talking about members of the IOC. He expected Mayor Daley and other North Side-dwellers to recognize Washington Park’s potential as more than a blighted neighborhood; more than a wilderness dotted with vacant lots dividing Hyde Park and the El Trains.

True, the bid committee had serious improvement plans for Washington Park tied to the Olympic bid, including an 80,000-seat stadium, that now must be discarded. And the city would probably have pumped thousands of public dollars into a redevelopment of 55th street between State St. and Cottage Grove, the thoroughfare that thousands of spectators would have taken on their way to the stadium.

But Washington Park has plans of its own, drawn up over the summer by community activists and Alderman Willie Cochran’s office, and dubbed the Quality of Life Plan. This proposal details on how community members want to see their home develop over the next decade, and was created in partnership with the non-profit community development organization Local Initiatives Support Coalition (LISC) and a steering committee of neighborhood volunteers that began brainstorming back in the late 1990s. It was quietly unveiled last May, while debates over how the Olympics would be funded began heating up in City Hall.

The plan has little to say about the spectacle of the Olympics, besides expressing hope that the Games would bring skilled jobs and visibility to the community. Instead, it stresses after-school programming for neighborhood youth, bringing businesses to Washington Park’s main streets, and planting community vegetable gardens in now- empty lots.

If Chicago’s businessmen, cultural leaders and Mayor Daley can get behind vegetable gardens the way they got behind gymnastics, the Olympics may yet leave a legacy in Washington Park. And Woodlawn, Bronzeville, South Chicago, Grand Crossing—not to mention other pockets of urban poverty that were counting on the Olympics to remind Chicago that it has more to offer than the glistening Lake and bustling Loop.

They asked for affordable housing in Woodlawn and Bronzeville, where gentrification slowly threatens to push poor people out of their homes; more-widely accessible transportation to connect the city’s north and south; stronger clinics to support residents who can’t afford primary care. We couldn’t bring the Games to Chicago for all our banners or the support of President Obama, but this city has an Olympic-sized task ahead of itself still. Community revitalization is more of a marathon than the sprint and stumble Chicago took toward Oct. 2, but I don’t think there is anyone in this city who wouldn’t benefit if Chicago actively played that game, starting with the near west and south sides.

The bid committee often invoked a famous phrase, uttered by Chicago’s urban-planning legend Daniel Burnham, to demonstrate that Olympian aspirations were in the city’s history: “Make no little plans…make big plans, aim high in hope and work.” Why shouldn’t this advice still ring true?

Sex: Old News and Youthful Problems

What is who supposed to want when? That's the convoluted question the two subjects of this post are trying to answer. This holiday weekend I was [too lazy] too busy, to get much studying done, but I did read an excellent NY Times article by Daniel Bergner, author of The Other Side of Desire, and watch a video posted by Maymay, who is among other things a sex-positive activist doing a lot of good, interesting work.

In "When Desire Fades," Bergner discusses the pathology and treatment of low sex-drive in middle-aged women. As sexologist Lori Brotto demonstrates how increased mindfulness can help women feel more sexual, Bergner's intimate writing-style meanders between the growth of Brotto's own interest in sex research to the unique and often discomfiting cases of her patients. I read Bergner's book on sexuality over the summer, and likewise found the sympathy and candor with which he treated each case-study, which included a pedophile and a foot-fetishist, as much dangerous and off-putting as the stories were enlightening. Likewise in this article, I first wonder, with a little bit of embarrassment and prudishness, why he must mention a patient "who lost her virginity in her 50s" or an artist who becomes aroused from painting, before I am grateful that he takes those risks. Addressing desire is dangerous enough in an academic or journalistic setting (see this eye-opening interview with Benoit Denizet-Lewis for more on the stigma surrounding such endeavors); addressing lack of desire, and "what women want to want" should be all the more difficult, but Bergner does it with finesse.

On a different note, in the video posted below, maymay addresses the fear of youth sexuality at KinkForAll Washington DC. Though the demographic at issue for him is a far cry from the middle-aged women Bergner and Brotto interview, maymay hits upon several common themes surrounding the damaging way society presents sexuality information:

Sexual Adultism - KinkForAll Washington DC from maymay on Vimeo.

I'm interested in the ways both of these news items highlight the precarious position the idea of sex holds in today's popular imagination. Bergner's essay notes that the DSM's description of hypoactive sexual desire disorder fails to "reckon with women as complex sexual beings,"—instead using false and limiting assumptions about how women should be sexual to judge disorder—and maymay's lecture demonstrates how youth are denied access to positive cultural assumptions about sex and sexuality solely because of age and a strong culture of sexual protectionism.

Though the dichotomy between the desired and the taboo is old news, sex has only recently (slowly, over the last 40 years) become something that people young and old are expected to be having, and expected to want to be having— but not talking or thinking too hard about. We all know the script; it's supposed to be charming, breathy, seamless, steamy, and, if you talk to a rapper or the writers of Gossip Girl, there's supposed to be a lot of it. And though maymay's points are prescient, youth are not altogether restrained from information about sex. In fact, information is everywhere; it's just that the only message being consistently conveyed is, to paraphrase one particularly inappropriate grandfather of popular culture, who embodies enough social stigma against desire and age on his own: "Fuck a lot of women."

So why is it that only now (and with a lot of push-back from conservative opponents of everything from comprehensive sex-education to erotica and non-normative sexuality), that we are beginning to talk about the spectrum of issues that can constitute or deny satisfaction? Possibly because we now know that the script breaks down, and as Bergner and maymay both argue, it breaks down in the predictable places where we have a gap in collective knowledge about what we want and why. It's gap stretched even further by the willful denial that variety exists, that people's wants and needs can and should vary, and the tendency to pathologize what we are afraid to accept, and medicate what we are afraid to explain.

Cheers to the journalists and activists who want to change this culture.


UPDATE: The solutions to these problems might just be in the kitchen! ...Probably not, but just in case, here's the cover of the cutest holiday gift I bought yesterday for someone special when he gets back to the States (Shh, don't tell!)

"Yes, I'm writing this all down..." I interview Allan Sekula and the Renaissance Society's Hamza Walker on new photography exhibit

Renaissance Society introduces Sekula to Chicago arts scene

Photographer Allan Sekula struggles to document a place that doesn’t exist. In his new series, “Polonia and other Fables”, on display at the Renaissance Society, Sekula travels from the University of Chicago’s Pick Hall to a Polish pig farm to trace the co-mingling of national identities, capitalism, labor, and globalization in America and beyond.

Hamza Walker, director of the Renaissance Society, says that Sekula and his challenging social photography make him a perfect candidate to exhibit at this contemporary art museum space.

“Allan Sekula is one of the foremost photographers working in a social documentary vein,” says Walker. “But he’s very under-represented in the United States [and] he’s never had a show in Chicago.”
Renaissance Society: ‘An artist’s museum’

Though the Renaissance Society does not have a permanent collection, Walker says the Society’s chief role in the contemporary art world is to contextualize the works of living artists about art historical-movements the way a museum might; this distinguishes the Society from other galleries. “Our exhibitions represent a critical first-response to these works.”

But Walker is wont to share the Society’s methods for selecting artists: “It’s a secret process that involves incense, oddly weighted bronze coins, very thin leather straps, and a little bit of rice. Those things are deciphered on a platypus pelt, but the freshness of the pelt is also very important… are you writing this down?”

Platypus pelt or not, Sekula rose to the challenge of exhibiting in the Renaissance Society’s unique gallery space. “Because [the gallery] is free, people can come back if they’re on campus, and you can expect that people will spend time in your exhibit maybe not during a continuous period, he says. “I think of the whole installation as a work in itself, so I’m always thinking about the specific quality of the space. The hallways and entry way are really key to me.”
‘Discourse on the value of a humanities degree’

When visitors enter the gallery, they are met with the photo of a young woman—an art student—on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. According to Sekula, wrapped up in this single image, the exhibit’s opener, is a discourse on the value of a humanities degree, the intersection of the art world and finance, and the state of capitalism in the wake of the recession. “She spoke to me because she had some background in photography. She could have been one of my students, working to make a living here…”

Other works in the exhibit more opaquely address the other keystone of Sekula’s series—“Polonia.” Polonia, says Sekula, describes both the locations where Polish immigrants settle outside of Poland and the imaginary embodiment of their country. Because Poland wasn’t recognized as an independent nation until 1918, and suffered colonial domination throughout its history, Polonia has arguably existed for much longer as the locus of Polish national identity.

“Poland hasn’t had its own history—there are these blanks, periods where the language was outlawed,” and episodes of Polish diaspora during the nation’s communist and post-war periods, Sekula said.

But in addition to documenting “Polonia” in and out of the United States, Sekula’s photos speak to the universality of the immigrant experience. “Part of American history is the history of immigration, especially in the Midwest and Chicago. Today you have people coming to work in the industrial jobs that the Poles worked in. I wanted to show who is falling into the roles once occupied by the Poles, and playing them today.”

To do this, Sekula sought inspiration in Chicago—and on campus.
Sekula’s Chicago inspirations

One photo in the Eastern corner of the gallery depicts what Sekula and Walker both call a peculiar campus ritual—University students and staff gather around to watch the high-noon shadow of Dialogo, the bronze sculpture by Virginio Ferrari in front of Pick Hall on May 1, which is rumored to form the shape of a hammer and sickle.

“That event with the shadow is just ready-made irony,” Sekula said. “People come to see that rumored apparition of the hammer and sickle at noon on May Day. Some look to be more conservative, some to be more hip, young, politically liberal or left. I like to look at it as a physiognomy of the University community,” he said; in that sense, the piece puts the University’s conservative and liberal personas in tension, and suggests its role in global economic affairs.

The statue may not cast the exact shadow of a hammer and sickle, Walker adds, “But it’s near enough to activate wishful thinking, which can’t be discredited. Who would show up for this rumored event?” On the opposite wall is a photo of the 2009 May Day Parade in downtown Chicago. “You’ve got this working-class protest going on at exactly the same time—and you can see that the issues of immigration and labor rights are hopelessly intertwined.”

“Documentary is often equated with the quest for social justice. But is that idea that you can point a finger at a very clear wrongdoing even possible anymore?” In Walker’s interpretation, Sekula’s images suggest that, thanks to globalization, no one can view injustices with the distance of a photographer anymore.

“Sekula’s work is also an indictment of that ethical lens,” he says. “That’s what makes Sekula extremely important—his reflection on the genre.”

By Rachel Cromidas, third-year in the College

Welcome to the College[.uchicago.edu]

Baby needs a brand new website.



I've signed on with Susie, my awesome co-worker from the News Office, and one other student journalist to bring the College of the University of Chicago a re-vamped homepage with regularly updated articles and profiles about student life. Like the story that's up now—my article on the recent, student-driven campaign to invite Michelle Obama to campus. I've copied the text below. We're looking for more student contributors (and I'm looking for ways around the limit on how many hours a student may be employed... let you know how that works out!), so please contact me for information. As you may see from my unfortunate little foray into photography on the College site, we are particularly in need of students who are skilled behind the camera.

--

Dear Mrs. Obama...

Organization of Black Students and Student Government hope video-letter campaign will bring Michelle Obama back to Hyde Park.

When second-year Edward James met Michelle Obama, he was struck by how tall she was. They took a photo together at a campaign event in his hometown of Sarasota, FL, in 2008, and "she towered over me."

Last Wednesday, James got the chance to record a personal video to the First Lady, inviting her back to Hyde Park, her former home. "I told her that I’ve grown since that time," he said, "and it would be really nice to stand next to her again."

James is just one of several dozen students who issued Michelle Obama a personal invitation to speak on campus as part of a video-letter campaign they dubbed "Ask Michelle Obama out to Homecoming!"

The Organization of Black Students (OBS) and Student Government (SG) sponsored the event, held Oct. 29 in the Reynolds Club. OBS hopes the video messages will convince Mrs. Obama to deliver the 2010 George E. Kent Lecture.

The Kent Lecture is named for the late George E. Kent, a professor of English Language and Literature. The annual lecture has featured many African-American luminaries, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Angela Davis, Cornel West, and, most recently, sociologist William Julius Wilson.

According to James, the OBS political chair, Susan Sher, the First Lady’s chief of staff, told the organizers that it would take an invitation of epic proportions for Mrs. Obama to visit. OBS began its efforts last spring, when organizers sent Mrs. Obama a letter. Sher, a former administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center, responded, suggesting that the group share more of "what students have to say."

"It became clear that sending a letter was not enough," said fourth-year Chris Williams, the SG vice president for student affairs. "We needed a unique and loud message from the University community." Williams cited the 1,000 Valentine's Day letters that University of California, Merced students wrote to invite the First Lady to speak at their commencement last year as evidence that the campaign would work.

Michelle Obama was a natural choice to deliver the lecture, according to James. James said OBS is inspired by her work to connect the University to the South Side community as founding director of the University Community Service Center.

"Michelle Obama is big on community service, big on giving back, whether that’s going to public schools in D.C. and reading to children, or planting an organic garden in the White House," he said. "Now it’s not uncommon to see [college] kids mentoring in the Kenwood, Bronzeville, and Woodlawn areas. These are neighborhoods that have in the past had an antagonistic relationship with the University, but through her help and her great work we are becoming better stewards of our community…[Mrs. Obama] is a beacon of hope for a lot of people, including this community."

Though the Kent Lectures are facilitated by University students, James added that the event is always open to the public, and usually packs Rockefeller Chapel with students and people from all over Chicago. Besides exposing the student body to influential public figures, the Kent Lecture series has often brought together the University and its South Side community—a goal Michelle Obama pursued during her time in Hyde Park, James is quick to point out.

He said one video message to Mrs. Obama stood out in particular because it was made by a student who grew up on the South Side. "She said Mrs. Obama had been a role model to her. I think that’s great, to have somebody [like Michelle Obama] whom you can relate to, somebody who can see the world from your vantage point."

Students build repertoire of theater skills

News Office article:

Building on his theater experience in this year’s Summer Incubator program could help second-year William Bishop land his summer dream job next year at Scotland’s largest theater festival, Fringe.

Bishop is one of five College students who got a two-week crash course in theater management and production during this summer’s Theater and Performance Studies/University Theater residency program. It provides select students with hands-on theater experience, while sharing University resources with local emerging theater and dance companies.

Students acquire skills that can lead to future opportunities, said Heidi Coleman, Director of University Theater. “Students help with drafts, they hang lights, they do everything,” said Coleman. “We’ve built destructible pianos and chairs that are really trampolines,” she added.

Bishop now has a growing repertoire of theater skills—building stages and sets, working on lights and sound, and being a general go-to man. He often spent his days hanging lights and cleaning UT’s three theater spaces in the Reynolds Club and Bartlett Dining Commons, but in the evenings, Bishop would work with the directors and actors, supplying them with anything from a half-dozen sofas to an elaborate banquet of fake food.

In total, six Chicago-based companies inhabited the University’s theater spaces, workshopping their latest pieces with the help of UT senior staff and student interns. This year, Summer Incubator welcomed Teatro Americano, Vintage Theater Collective, Caffeine Theatre, Cabaret Vagabond, Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, and Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre.

A ‘Place to Create, Perform, & Brainstorm’

Bishop said Summer Incubator is all about giving local artists a place to create, perform, and brainstorm to further develop their ideas.

“They’re using the same theater spaces where we put on UT shows, and that’s what makes it so exciting. The night is the most exciting part for me because that’s when the actual theater goes on,” Bishop said. “I get to see the dynamics of how professional theater works. Now I know that I want to go into theater professionally.”

And thanks to Summer Incubator, Bishop believes he has a good chance of getting that coveted position at the Fringe festival next summer.

“Summer Inc is a good introduction into the ABCs of being a theater tech, from opening and closing a show to knowing the lighting and creative aspects of producing one,” added Alicia Graf, a third-year in the College and a program staff member.

Alumna Evelyn DeHais (AB’09) agreed. DeHais was an intern in 2008, and said the Summer Incubator experience informed her acting and directing as a member of TAPS/UT this year.

Director 101: Learning How Things Work

“A lot of people who are in the arts and want to be directors or actors don’t necessarily know how things work,” she said. Through Summer Incubator, “I basically came to really understand the spaces I wanted to do my art in, and understand their limits.”

DeHais has directed several shows for TAPS/UT, including the quirky “rock opera,” Prozak and the Platypus. “I directed two very big shows that had to be lit very strangely, and I was able to speak intelligently to my designers about what I wanted. I knew my technical details, and that’s unusual for a director.”

Another student intern Ben Schapiro also has been called upon to set up lighting for a photo-shoot and work a soundboard. But he particularly values the chance to watch the theater groups rehearse.

“The scene was five people in an apartment after a funeral,” Schapiro said, describing one rehearsal that stands out in his mind. As the actors ran through their lines, which described their relationship with a recently deceased friend, he paid attention to the director’s notes. “The director would say, ‘why did you do this?’ And the actors would say, ‘well, my character really wants to do this.’ They speak in terms you don’t really hear college students use. It was a great way to learn how director’s think.”

Schapiro, a College third-year, has orchestrated lighting and sound for various TAPS/UT productions and even gave a tap-dancing performance during his first-year. Like his co-interns, Schapiro embodies the diversity of personas UT students must take on when they create a production.

And Coleman knows the learning process won’t end with Summer Incubator: “After college, a lot of people think, ‘I’ve got these friends—let’s start a theater group.’ [Summer Inc] is demonstrating the logistics behind the romance of that. For students, the program fits into the whole of the year.”

...And sometimes a journalism student really can't have hope

The New York Times will Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs at the end of this year.

45 reporters will receive buy-out offers later this week, according to the company.

At least the newsroom wasn't the first place to face cuts, Richard Perez-Pena reports:

The paper has made much deeper reductions in other, non-newsroom departments, where layoffs have occurred several times. But the advertising drop that has pummeled the industry has forced cuts in the news operation as well. The newsroom already has lowered its budgets for freelancers and trimmed other expenses, and employees took a 5 percent pay cut for most of this year ... The Times’s news department peaked at more than 1,330 employees before the last round of cuts. The current headcount is about 1,250; no other American newspaper has more than about 750.

It's a small consolation to an aspiring journalist who all but idolized the NYTimes's institutional model a few years ago.

I witnessed newspaper buyouts first-hand as an editorial intern with the San Diego Union-Tribune last summer. The paper was on the verge of going up for sale, and offered buy-outs to close to 30 staff members—mostly older reporters and editors with long careers at the paper. My editor proudly declared, "I will go down with this ship!" posted lyrics to a Titanic song in his cubical, and hunkered down to weather the "economic thunderstorms" (as Bill Keller called the staff cuts in his open letter to NYTimes staffers) by starting a blog with the bleak name "threatened journalist"; one columnist took the buy-out and left without another word, refusing to finish out his month. The already somber newsroom was awash in whispers. Small, impromptu gatherings around the water-cooler turned into long-winded musings on the downfall of the newspaper industry, and more than one stranger walked by my desk to say "get out while you can, kid—it's not too late to change majors."

If they took the buyout offer, the U-T reporters' reasoned,they would be leaving familiar jobs where they have established reputations and credibility; but a buy-out is in many ways more attractive than the possibility of staying only to face lay-offs further down the line. Younger reporters who recently started at the U-T had no option, but became aware of their more-seasoned colleagues dilemma, and we all wondered if the U-T had reached a dead end.

The New York Times does amazing work, and I wish the reporters a lot of luck making this decision.

What old media can learn about doing good journalism in the twenty-first century from Voice of San Diego

An alternate title to this post could be: Why Emily Alpert rocks.

Alpert, a UChicago alumn, shared stories from her recent days reporting in Oregon, Gilroy, CA and now in San Diego at a revolutionary local non-profit, with students in the Chicago Careers in Journalism Program yesterday afternoon.

Here are some of the thoughts she left me with on the benefits of a non-profit, investigative journalism model like Voice of San Diego, the web-publication where she serves as the education reporter. I'm excited.

*Problem with the old media model: Daily beat reporters are pressured to produce copy every day, and as a consequence have less time for deeper, long-term projects.

Solution at Voice of San Diego: What's different about this web-only publication from a paper like the San Diego Union-Tribune (where I interned last year) is not content per se, but the method of delivery. With the internet, Voice can break news immediately, rather than waiting for publication.

*Problem: How to find new and unlikely sources and story ideas in a mid-sized community like San Diego?

Solution: Reporter Blogs. With her Voice of San Diego blog, Alpert said, in addition to breaking news quickly to her audience of parents, teachers and school administrators, she can have ongoing conversations about education issues via the readers' comments. She told one story about the photo editor, who snapped a photo of a weird, blackened object on the beach and posted it to his blog, asking readers, "What is it?" The mystery brought dedicated readers back to the blog as people offered suggestions and asked the photographer for more information. Eventually he learned that it was a dead sea urchin—and that environmental scientists in San Diego are trying to figure out why many are dying on the coast. This little blog post led to a
feature interview with a scientist about the topic, and people came back to read it.

Alpert also holds contests to illustrate a particular issue around education in the city; recently, she asked readers to submit the best, and worst, classroom worksheets in the school district.

*Problem: A paper like the Chicago Tribune is trying to cover the whole world, but no one is covering everything in Chicago.

Solution: "If we can't do it better than anyone else, we won't cover it," Alpert says of Voice, which has a handful of staff members, but no pressure to be every paper for everybody in the city. Rather than cove the same story everyone else is doing, try to add value to the cache of stories on a topic. She keeps a rolodex of people she's met, with notes like "parent who was angry about such and such."

InQue(e)ry: So, we queered Ida Noyes and tied people up; Now what?

I would not have attended Que(e)ry two years ago.

In fact, I probably would not have taken one iota of interest in the "radical, queer, arts convergence"- radical-anarchist-radical-takeover of Ida Noyes Hall that took place in all its glittery, gender binary-shattering (did I mention radical?) glory last Saturday. I just didn't care what anyone had to say about gender and sexuality—These categories just exist, okay? I get it, enough!—And especially not someone with a pink mohawk. Also, I hate wearing make-up and glitter. But that's just me.

But a lot has changed for me since high school, when I was embarrassed to admit I was studying "Gender and Sexuality in Latin American Literature" at UC San Diego; when less than a year ago a certain sociology professor prodded me to justify why I thought "Problems in the Study of Sexuality" would be a useful addition to my Autumn Quarter course schedule, and I lied to my parents that I was actually taking "just an introductory English course" to fill my fourth slot and prevent more awkward conversations.

Now I conspire to get people tied up in the Third Floor Theater and eat vegan food with my hands on occasion. Go figure.

The thing is, I've thought about this a lot, the "where do desires come from?" question, and "why do I expect people to relate to each other in cerain ways?" and "what in me wants to be normal?" I don't have any good answers of course; but since I landed here as a freshman, many personal events, friendships and other experiences outside of academia have led me to appreciate these questions and recognize that the many possible answers are far from obvious—no where near as simple as we might have them be.

I think gender and sexuality are enormous, and enormously important, concepts that we should all pay more attention to. I am dying to hear more people my age talk about the assumptions that we all make about the way men and women should appear, behave, dress, make love to each other—assumptions about sexuality that go beyond what is heterosexual and what is homosexual to include a clusterfuck of kinks, fetishes and preferences.

We don't spend enough time acknowledging that desire exists, power exists, relationship categories are varied and changing, "normal" is a fallacy... If you have to stage an impromptu performance or sit people in a make-up chair and paint their faces to examine gender, to examine behavior, then please do it.

I'm not saying my peers need to drop their Adam Smiths and their Platos and take up reading Gail Rubin and Michael Warner, though these are theorists I have come to love by happy accident. They can just hang out with me and my queer, kinky friends sometime...

But much about Que(e)ry would put off the average UChicago student (let's face it, guys, it takes a lot of dessert food to get us out of our study caves on a given night). First of all, it was an all-day event conceived of, produced, organized and unorganized by a small group of campus activists who emphasized anarchy, art-making, veganism, and using the adjective "radical" every other sentence, as forms of resistance. This broad take on how to resist norms was its strength, but also made the party inaccessible to the people I most want to talk to, who don't already believe these concepts are discussion worthy.

With workshops on "BDSM as Bio-political Resistance" (I didn't attend, but I heard the presenter read a little Foucault out loud, and screamed a lot) and "Radical Cheerleading," the event was like a big inside joke; a ritualistic prank against all sorts of social conventions just a few steps above TP-ing the president's house, that only the iniated could understand. In fact, if you weren't laughing and screaming along, you might develop the uncomfortable feeling that you just don't get the punch-line.

Some workshops were more productive than this (and by productive, I mean accessible to a wide audience not already versed in the ethos of sex positive, queer and kink communities. Other attendees probably had different definitions of productive, or didn't make being "productive" a priority at all): "Practical Non-Monogamy," by Scathe, a presenter I really respect, was one of them. My boyfriend's praise sums it up: "He didn't assume that we all wanted to be polyamorous... he didn't try to convince us that open relationships are great for everybody, if we would only get rid of our hang-ups, which is an argument I've heard. They're not!" it was practical. It didn't make any assumptions.

I wanted people to stop assuming things because I'm a girl; dating a boy; really bossy; don't wear makeup; etc. etc. But this means I, and the sex positive communities around me, need to stop assuming that people share in common the same social leanings and political agenda, or would if only they spent the afternoon with us, some pot and some Judith Butler. If I want everyone to take gender fluidity and alternate sexuality seriously, then I'm going to have to start explaining this stuff to them where their understanding stops, rather than ask them to make the mental leap all the way to an anarchist arts convergence, and what it takes to feel comfortable in such a space.

The workshop I organized with two lovely, lovely people, Vincenza and Wren, possibly had one of the tamer titles descriptions: you can look it up, it was called "Intro to Bondage." What we like about rope, what you might like about rope. Some practical, hands on demonstrations. Hopefully some fun. I didn't ask anyone to hog-tie the patriarchy or wrap their heads around Foucault's biopower or Agamben, and I'd like to think that's why we had close to 30 attendees.

I'd also like to think that this practical ethos will serve future sex positive, kink positive events on campus well, if we can get some started.

Thanks, Que(e)ry, for making me feel more supported than ever before on this campus; now, any suggestions to keep the inquiries going?

Convocation ceremony stresses substance over pomp and circumstance

Another News Office article by me is up! Here it is.

“Today you must face the fact that you are not educated people.”

When Cyril Orvin Houle, Professor in Education, began his convocation address with these words to the Winter Quarter graduating class of 1948, he paid homage to the academic notion that one’s education is never complete, and the University of Chicago tradition of educating its community through the graduation ceremony.

Since the University first celebrated its accomplishments under founding president William Rainey Harper in January 1893, 499 convocations have taken place. Though past speakers have ranged from Professor Janet Rowley and legendary chemist Robert A. Millikan, to President Bill Clinton and a student who made a hastily arranged address against the Vietnam War, convocations all share a common purpose: to foster academic inquiry, stir up debate around pressing social and political issues, and, above all, honor the intellectual clout of the University’s faculty.

Martin Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Divinity School, will deliver the 500th convocation address on Friday, Oct. 9 in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel―in fewer than 15 minutes, he is quick to point out. “At many universities’ commencements, it takes 45 minutes just to get through the introduction. At UChicago, you have to say it briefly, or it doesn’t get said.”

Marty’s speech, titled “Laying Siege to Problems,” will celebrate the University’s propensity to make discoveries and its intellectual spirit. “Discovery is our business at this University, and I always have been impressed by the way our faculty always talk about how interesting something is,” regardless of their academic field.

In the past, the convocation speaker has alternated between foreign dignitaries, professors and University presidents (in fact, during his tenure, President Robert Maynard Hutchins insisted on giving an address at least once a year). The convocation speeches thus have a tradition of discussing anything but the graduation itself―with subjects ranging from the state of the University to contemporary political issues.

Another hallmark of the convocation is the bagpipe procession, a trail of graduating students, bagpipers and the University Marshal that wends across the Main Quadrangle toward Rockefeller Memorial Chapel or Harper Court.

“There’s a certain sort of old-style, Oxford attractiveness to the convocations in Rockefeller Chapel,” recalls Lisbeth Redfield, AB’09, who was a Student Marshal as a College third-year and earned the honor of ushering graduates and attendees at two ceremonies. The combination of marching across the Quad in a long stream of robed students, and the sound of bagpipes playing ‘Scotland the Brave,’ she said, “makes it feel like a special ceremony to me.”

According to University archivist Dan Meyer, Harper wanted to establish the convocation as a special ritual for graduating students, distinguished faculty and visiting speakers and recipients of honorary degrees.

“Most universities refer to their graduation as a commencement,” explained Meyer, “but Harper chose ‘convocation’ to indicate that this wasn’t just a routine ceremony. It means a gathering together; a coming together to share an event.”

Although convocation typically employs a faculty speaker, one graduating student was asked to speak in place of a professor in June 1969―the only time a student has given the address.

On the heels of a massive student protest against the Vietnam War, Paul Brown, AB’69, MD’75, PhD’75, was given four minutes to address the controversy and reflect on his time at the University. Though he was not a leader of the protest, he had some harsh words for the University administration.

“It was a pretty radical address,” said Brown, who is now a physician. “We got a standing ovation from the students, but I don’t think the parents cared for it very much.”

What Brown would say if he could address the University again?

“I would want to talk about the life of the mind, the importance of a liberal education. Those are the kinds of things the University has always stressed, and have always appealed to me.”

“I had a great time at UChicago,” he said. “If I hadn’t gone there, I wouldn’t have all these multiple interests; I wouldn’t be reading everything in sight.”

―Rachel Cromidas

Project Exploration mentors CPS students, teaching value of science

New article of mine up on UChicago's webpage:



When Sara ElShafie was asked to explain “scientific method” to a classroom of teenagers, she started talking about Supercrocs. They’re the prehistoric crocodiles whose fossil remains were discovered by University of Chicago professor Paul Sereno on an expedition to Niger in 2000.

“You’ve seen the Supercroc skull—it’s 6 feet long,” she said. “We don’t have the entire animal, but Dr. Sereno was able to say that it was probably 40 feet long. How did he do that?”

The group of 14 Chicago Public Schools students receiving a crash course in paleontology as part of Project Exploration’s Junior Paleontologists field program was silent. “Sereno studied measurements of living crocodiles,” ElShafie said, and he found a ratio between head size and body length that he was able to apply to the Supercroc. “You have to have solid evidence like this. And only then can you present your data to other scientists,” she explained. “I love that fact.”

According to ElShafie, a third-year in the College studying biology, students first must learn the importance of scientific assumptions before getting their hands dirty as part of the nonprofit science program called Project Exploration.

Project Exploration programs for middle and high school Chicago Public Schools students met on the University campus throughout the summer. The Junior Paleontologists is a three-week program that starts in Chicago and culminates with a weeklong expedition with researchers at the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, S.D. After the summer portion of the program, Junior Paleontologists participate in Project Exploration science programs and mentoring—and stay in touch with budding scientists like ElShafie—year round.

Sereno, Professor in Organismal Biology and Anatomy, co-founded Project Exploration in 1999, with his wife, Gabrielle Lyon, AB,’94, AM,’94, after realizing the science announcements that were traveling around the world were barely reaching students at area elementary schools like Fiske Elementary, where Lyon was teaching.

Since 1999, Project Exploration has brought nearly 1,000 Chicago minority youth and girls together with scientists from around the country in after-school, summer and weekend programs. Many of those programs have launched from the University of Chicago campus.
Learning by Doing

Sereno and Lyon share a passion for teaching unconventionally. Lyon credits her years as a teaching assistant in the University’s Neighborhood Schools Program for showing her the value of “learning by doing.”

“I was personally interested in public education, school reform, social justice, and equity. My work-study job [at NSP],” she said, “gave me hands-on, real-life experience working alongside real teachers in a school.”

To the teaching duo, the hallmark of Project Exploration is its ability to inspire teenagers with hands-on experiences alongside caring adults, many of whom are scientists.

“A lot of these kids will travel outside of Chicago or Illinois for the first time through our programs. In the Junior Paleontologist program, students actually excavate and study real fossils, basically participating in a formal dig program as guest interns,” Sereno said.

ElShafie said volunteering for Project Exploration has helped her realize her love for teaching, and she wants to pursue academia after graduation.

She said the program’s hands-on activities and mentorship make the program effective. “I have no idea where these kids are coming from or what their grades were before this program, but it doesn’t matter: When they come back [from South Dakota], I know they will see the world differently and have a sense of purpose in their lives.”

ElShafie is one of dozens of enthusiastic undergraduates, graduates and faculty scientists who have participated in Project Exploration programs, trainings and outreach efforts in the past nine years. Many of them get connected with Project Exploration through Sereno’s Fossil Lab and the University Community Service Center.
Journaling the Fossil Hunt

Though Rey Alcala had only been on campus one week, his field journal already held pages of notes about the mammoth site, where he and his peers would later be digging for bones.

“We put a big emphasis on journaling,” said Kristin Atman, Project Exploration program director. “These kids will only have five days at the site to record in their journals what they see. We want them to build skills like reading, writing and sharing what they observe.”

Sereno and Lyon are sketching out larger plans to expand the program and establish a permanent community center, where local youths, families and University faculty can come together to make discoveries.

“It would be like a community center focused on science and science activities,” Sereno said. “As the South Side continues to develop, Project Exploration can be a real bridge between the students, their communities and the University community. It’s so clear that this personalized approach has a huge impact, and this kind of model doesn’t yet exist anywhere else in the country.”

By Rachel Cromidas, third-year in the College

UChicago in the news: some tidbits from my job

One part of my summer internship in the University of Chicago News Office that I have been loath to mention here (it's mostly grunt work) is the Daily Clips Blast. Basically, I or my awesome co-worker Susie will take a couple hours each day to search for all the recent news articles that substantively mention the University of Chicago or quote a professor or administrator, archive them, and mail out the top 7-12 stories to about 200 University personnel.

Lucky for me, this means I get paid to read the news, and today's clips blast was chock-full of cool stories. Here are a few that I enjoyed:


*Dr. Stefano Allesina discusses the algorithm he devised to study food webs, based on an algorithm Google uses to order pages in its search engine.

*Former Dean of Admissions Ted O'Neill answers questions about applying to college. I couldn't get enough of articles like this one when I was applying to College three years ago, and I wish I had known that it was okay, even expected of me, not to have a major! I arrived on campus 2 years ago—minus a week or two—the quintessential type-A kid, with everything in its right place from my resume to my course-schedule, and it stressed me out to no end that I was missing The Perfect Double-Major program. Since then, I've obviously bounced from Spanish Lang. and Lit. to Art History to Law, Letters and Society and Gender Studies, and I don't think I'm too worse for wear, do you?

*Prof. Jens Ludwig examines Chicago Public School plan to combat youth violence. 320 CPS students were shot last year—that's a huge figure. This plan is definitely worth keeping an eye on, since it would identify at-risk kids and give them more attention, in the form of job-training and mentoring.

*Sr. Lecturer Allen Sanderson criticizes a recent survey on the economic impact of Chicago's Olympic bid. When I interviewed Allen Sanderson for my other blog, No Small Plans, he said he was incredulous about the economic impact survey and was certain that the consultants Chicago 2016 hired were the only people who would have produced such a stellar prognosis. I wish I could talk to consultants at other firms to create a comparison.

Heirloom tomato soup and roasted chili-lime acorn squash

It's true. I haven't done anything this summer except work, work some more, and cook vegan food that can make even the most dedicated carnivore (namely, my boyfriend), ask for seconds. Just doing my part to make Mr. Mark Bittman and Mr. Michael Pollan proud.



Heirloom Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped sweet onion
4 medium heirloom tomatoes, peeled
1-2 large peeled cucumbers
1 large, Sweet Banana pepper (they're white and long; if you can't find one, red, orange and yellow work about as well), peeled
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon white vinegar
juice of 1/2 a lime
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil to taste
optional: 1/2 cup stale bread, crumbled; Gives this otherwise deliciously light soup a heartier, creamy texture

How to make it: Combine all the ingredients in a pot and blend until smooth. Makes 4-6 generous servings.



(Alternatively, you can just pepper the squash with loads of cinnamon, as shown above)

Roasted Chili-Lime Acorn Squash

This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite blogs, and arguably your best shot at finding truly appetite-stimulating food porn short of kidnapping Rachael Ray, Smitten Kitchen.

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 limes, juiced
1 medium-sized acorn squash
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

How to make it: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Slice the acorn squash into fourths with a strong, sharp vegetable knife. Continue slicing into 1/4-inch-thick slices, following the arc of the squash. Remove seeds; wash and set them aside. Combine chili powder, salt, pepper and lime-juice in a shallow bowl. soak each slice in the mixture thoroughly, then spread them out evenly on an olive oil-greased baking sheet. Soak the acorn squash seeds in the remaining chili-lime mixture, then spread those out on a greased baking sheet as well. Bake for 20-30 minutes, switching your pan(s) between the top and bottom racks half-way through cooking. squash should be tender but not burnt; likewise, seeds should not be burnt, but should be crispy enough to bite through with ease.

I made this side dish for my boyfriend's family when I visited his grandmother's summer house in Michigan last week. Now isn't that darling?

Oh, Hyde Park, or "FML!"

Someone


Stole


My


Bike

Chicago cops mentor teenage boys who lack male role models

My latest article out of the news office:

Cordell Taylor was ready to speak. Cordell, 14, an incoming freshman at Chicago’s Dunbar High School, recited his name for the 30 boys and seven police officers gathered in Stuart Hall, with plenty of enthusiasm for someone who had been awake since 6 a.m.

His less-alert neighbor was drooped over his desk until a policeman’s stern voice brought the teenage boy’s attention back to the meeting. Instead of the economics and linguistics classes usually taking place in Stuart classrooms, this was a meeting of the Chicago Youth Leadership Academy, a flagship program for local teenagers that the Chicago Police Department administers in collaboration with the University of Chicago and the New Communities Program in Woodlawn.

For one week, the teenage boys —all Chicago Public Schools students and residents of Woodlawn or neighboring South Side communities—experienced college life first-hand and got to know 3rd District police officers as mentors, not rivals.

Temporarily living in the Max Palevsky residence hall and eating their meals in Bartlett dining hall, the boys were challenged both physically and mentally with training exercises in the morning and leadership seminars in the afternoons. The activities made for an exhausting and an enriching week.

“Are you tired?” Lt. Bennie Bowers, a Michigan state police officer and the program’s creator, bellowed at his students during a group reflection. “How you feel right now is how I felt several times in college. I was tired, 700 miles away from my home, away from my mom and dad, and just 17 years old. And I didn’t go to class because anybody told me to get out of bed. Not like you the other day,” he said pointing at the front row. “You had me banging on the door telling you to get up.”

Bowers, who brought the academy to Chicago for the first time this summer, doesn’t mind the mundane parts of his job, waking up the boys and reminding them to brush their teeth. In fact, he says the chance for Chicago police officers to support and bond with local youth outside their normal roles as law enforcers is exactly the point.

“The intimacy of the residential stay helps provide a bond that goes beyond the classroom setting,” Bowers explained—something particularly important for the students, most of whom do not have fathers in their lives. “It allows us to say to them, ‘we’re adult men, professional men, and we’re concerned about your well-being.’ These boys are 13, 14, 16 years old, and half of them are the oldest man in their homes.”

Besides chaperoning the students on campus, the police officers led day trips to the lakefront and to visit Michael Jackson’s birth home and memorial in Gary, Ind. They met the CPD’s mounted and canine units, and the officers also provided the boys with an opportunity to talk with Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis.

“I told their parents, for one week you don’t have to worry about your kid being shot, shooting someone, or getting harmed,” said Chicago Police Officer Charles O’Connor, the program’s team leader. “And that’s a real concern for those parents … some were actually crying because they were so happy for their child.”

Deonte Lemons, 16, a junior at Dunbar, couldn’t believe how quickly he grew close to the officers. “I thought I didn’t like police officers,” he said over a lunch of chicken nuggets and fruit in Bartlett dining hall. “But these guys have really influenced my life in this one week’s time,” says Lemons. The officers fostered those bonds by encouraging long discussions about school and home over meals and in the classrooms, and by sharing the struggles they faced growing up.

O’Connor knows it can seem unusual to see police officers eating lunch with teenagers who aren’t getting in trouble. He recalls a woman and her young daughter walking by the line-up of boys on 56th Street earlier in the week. “She said: ‘Those kids are bad, so they have to clean up out here.’ And I said, ‘that is not true.’”

Once O’Connor described the academy program to the residents passing by, they were enthusiastic. But he wishes the program were better recognized for its positive influence on the teens, who do not necessarily have other activities to keep them busy in the summer months.

He and Bowers are hoping that in coming years the CPD will be able to fund similar academies in other neighborhoods, for girls and boys.

The Chicago Youth Leadership Academy “gives the students something to aspire to; it shows them that there is another life besides gangs, drugs and violence [on the South Side],” said Rudy Nimocks, the University’s Director of Community Partnerships.

“In that sense, it is the perfect opportunity for the University to reach out to and share its resources with Woodlawn.”

Bigger plans for "No Small Plans"

Just a reminder, you can visit my other blog, No Small Plans, for original reporting on South Side community issues and the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid. The latest story is about a planning meeting in Washington Park, the neighborhood just west of the University of Chicago.




Blow-up advertisement for the 2016 Olympics in Washington Park, proposed site for a stadium and aquatic center

Finally, a clip! Or, Rudy Nimocks brings deep local knowledge to new job

Here's my first clip as an intern with the University's News Office: Enjoy, and please visit the original site to watch the former chief of UCPD give a video tour of Woodlawn!

Watching Rudy Nimocks drive his bright-red Mini Cooper to a recent neighborhood redevelopment meeting, you could trace the arc of his career from policeman to the University’s Director of Community Partnerships.

Nimocks once helped provide security at the meeting place, the Gary Comer Youth Center in Grand Crossing, when the Comer Foundation first broke ground on the building. Now he is a leader in the University’s efforts to help grassroots groups revitalize neighboring communities.

The transition to neighborhood ambassador seems natural for Nimocks, who says outreach was always part of his police jobs, first with the Chicago Police Department, where he retired as a deputy superintendent, and then as chief of the University of Chicago Police Department.

“Part of being a police chief means you can hardly separate yourself from the community you serve,” Nimocks says. “You have to be innovative and try to discover ways you can be helpful and increase the public safety.”


Photo by Jason Smith, for the University News Office

One thing that hasn’t changed is Nimocks’ restless energy. The Grand Crossing meeting begins at 8:30 a.m. By lunch, he will have met with the director of the Woodlawn New Communities Program and the organizers of two on-campus summer programs for high school students, and helped coordinate Mayor Richard Daley’s visit to Woodlawn for an anti-violence rally.

But a slower pace wouldn’t suit Nimocks, who sets his watch 35 minutes fast and “relaxes” by driving a motorcycle every summerto Fairbanks, Alaska, playing Louis Armstrong or Antonin Dvorak on the bike’s radio.

“I’ve been getting by on five, six hours of sleep for a long time,” Nimocks says. “When I was a homicide detective [with the CPD], I’d just climb up on a table and sleep for a little while, then get up and get back to work. And that was for three or four days at a time.”

Unique Perspective on Local Development

A resident of the nearby Woodlawn neighborhood for more than a half-century, Nimocks seems to know a story for every building he passes on his frequent drives through the community. One new apartment building summons memories of his days with the CPD, when he worked with local residents to drive drug dealers from that spot. Driving down 63rd Street, he describes how the area has changed for the better since the city tore down the El tracks that used to hang over the strip.

Such street-by-street knowledge of local neighborhoods gives Nimocks a unique perspective, says Ann Marie Lipinski, Vice President for Civic Engagement.

“Rudy is both a community and University treasure,” Lipinski says. “He has an enthusiasm for his work that is contagious, and he is tireless in looking for ways to connect the University with its neighbors. I've learned a lot from Rudy and feel very fortunate to have him working in this new role.”

His background also helps Nimocks understand how South Side communities view the University—an interaction that has been difficult at times. Nimocks says the relationship has changed for the better since his days as a homicide detective in the CPD, when Woodlawn, Grand Crossing, and Washington Park faced worsening local economies and rising crime rates.

A key lesson of that time is that a lack of engagement hurts both the University and nearby communities, Nimocks says.

“In the ’50s and ’60s, these were very desirable, stable neighborhoods,” Nimocks says. “But with riots going on all over the city, violence and drugs were able to degrade them,” and the University withdrew more from its neighbors.

Part of Nimocks’ current job is rebuilding the trust that was damaged in those previous decades. He says there’s a special value in programs that take College students into the community or bring local students to the campus for learning opportunities.

“I think the greatest asset the University has is worldwide expertise—bright students and programs that can reach into neighborhood communities,” Nimocks says. He cites the University’s Collegiate Scholars program, which offers summer enrichment classes to Chicago Public School students, as one example of how the University is extending its resources to local youth.

A Community Ambassador

The role of ambassador suits Nimocks well as he greets familiar faces at the Gary Comer Youth Center in Grand Crossing, southwest of campus. He and close to 50 community members have assembled to hear the findings of 12 researchers from the Urban Land Institute, who spent the week in Grand Crossing observing the neighborhood and writing recommendations for a community revitalization proposal.

The team of urban planners and academics recommended that Grand Crossing redevelop local parklands into a vibrant community center, and find other ways to increase community spirit in the small neighborhood through community gardening and educational youth programs.

After the researchers finished their presentation, Nimocks stood up and offered the group a word of advice:

“Based on my experience as Chief of Police for UCPD, I can tell you that when you see a neighborhood start to redevelop along the lines that you have outlined here, you will see public safety increase dramatically. The two go hand in hand.”

Nimocks has tried to live his own advice in his off-duty life by joining the boards of community organizations like Blue Gargoyle and the Woodlawn New Communities Program.

Arvin K. Strange, director of WNCP, noted Nimocks’ dedication in their late-morning meeting. “Rudy is really an unsung hero here in Woodlawn … and I’m very sure Washington Park and Kenwood feel that way as well.”

Soon Nimocks was off to Grove Park Plaza, a housing development where he is working to bring children to campus for another summer program. In the long run, he believes, such efforts can help local kids view the University not only with trust, but with hope.

“That’s what a university can do in a neighborhood—get its kids to think differently about their future.”