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.