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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.

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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."

On campus, inauguration is must-see TV

Staffers take break from daily routines to watch ‘history in the making’

By Rachel Cromidas

CHICAGO — “I’ve got to go—I’ll call you later,” Stella Manns said, hanging up the phone at the front desk of Snell-Hitchcock Hall.

“That was another desk clerk, from Maclean. We didn’t want to talk too much, we don’t want to even take our eyes off it for a minute.”

Like students, faculty, and staff all over campus, Manns and dozens of other housing and dining staff members took a few moments Tuesday morning from their jobs checking ID cards, preparing food, and keeping house. Whatever attention could be spared went to dormitory televisions and desk computers showing the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

“I’m speechless,” Manns said, splitting her attention between the Channel 9 news and the students running through the dormitory front door. “I knew one day this would happen, but I never thought I would live to see it.”

Manns, a resident of the Chatham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, has been working for the University for 31 years. She started out as a cashier in Hutchinson Commons, and later at International House, before joining the housing staff.

“They just went to church,” she said, tracking the Obamas on television. “There goes Al Gore, and his wife, and [George] Herbert Walker Bush. Did you know he walked with a cane? Barbara looks good.”

“I’m going to watch the inauguration the whole time,” she added. “And it won’t interfere with my work. It’s history in the making.”


Chicago Studies is a project of the College in partnership with the University Community Service Center. Chicago Studies is funded in part by the Women's Board. © 2008 The University of Chicago

Will Safire's Office Pool, 2009

Will Safire has released his annual office pool in which he invites readers to predict how some of the year's biggest news stories will play out in 2009.

Here are my picks:

1. In Demo-dominated D.C., post-postpartisan tension will pit:

(a) lame-duck Fed chairman Ben Bernanke against Fed chairman-in-waiting Larry Summers and Fed chairman-of-Christmas-past Paul Volcker (a k a “The G.D.P. Deflator”) over an “imperial Fed”

2. Springtime for G.M. will lead to:

(b) a “pre-pack bankruptcy” auto rescue sweetened by federal pension protection and guarantee of new-car warranties

3. Toughest foreign affairs challenge will come if:

(a) Afghanistan becomes “Obama’s War” or “Obama’s Retreat,” and

(b) Iraq backslides into chaos after too-early U.S. withdrawal

4. Oil selling below $50 a barrel will:

(c) be the equivalent of a huge U.S. tax-cut stimulus

5. Best-picture Oscar goes to:

(b) “Slumdog Millionaire”

6. The non-fiction sleeper will be:

(d) “Losing the News,” by Alex Jones, and

(e) “Ponzi Shmonzi: The Bernie Madoff Story,” crash-published by a dozen houses

7. The don’t-ask deficit at year’s end will be:

(c) $1,393,665,042,198 and no cents. (Why so specific? A billion is a thousand million, and a trillion is a thousand billion. That’s 10 to the 12th power, or 1 followed by 12 zeroes). I'm kidding about this pick, I would much rather (a) "under $1 trillion, thanks to the new administration’s cutting of waste, fraud and abuse, as well as tax-soaking of the remaining rich" be the case. —Rachel

8. In Congress:

(c) among Senate Democrats, Judiciary chairman Pat Leahy’s influence will rise because Supreme Court nominations will take center stage, while Harry Reid’s clout dissipates because of home-state weakness

9. Post-honeymoon journalists and bloody-minded bloggers will dig into:

(b) suspicion by conspiracy theorists about the unremarked lobbying that led to the expensive renaming, after 72 years, of the Triborough Bridge to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge just in time for Caroline Kennedy’s campaign for anointment to an open Senate seat

10. The Supreme Court will decide:

(e) that in al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, a legal U.S. resident cannot be held indefinitely at Guantánamo

11. Obama philosophy will be regarded as:

(a) proudly liberal on environment and regulation and

(b) determinedly centrist on health care, immigration and protectionism.

12. Year-end presidential approval rating will be:

(c) sinking but 30 points higher than that of Congress and the news media

Visit http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/opinion/29safire.html to see the options, and Safire's picks.

My New President

I remember when President Bush, the second, won for the first time in 2000. I was in sixth grade, taking American history at a liberal school in conservative San Diego, and I obnoxiously proclaimed every chance I got, "He's not my president."

When Bush won a second time in 2004, I couldn't believe, "my country has done it again. How could we have fallen for that bullshit again?" By then, several of my friends were self-important Republicans short on policy-insight, but high on pomp and pluck. I thought it was all over for the democrats, that thanks to the Electoral College or the Religious Right or someone's fucked up sense of humor, the country was rolling down the face of a cliff, and picking up speed.

Last night, I think the United States proved me wrong. I watched the returns come in on CNN, in the Rec Room of my dorm with 20–30 other students. Many students left to bike to Grant Park, site of the official election night celebration, where Obama was slated to speak, but we were huddled at the University of Chicago, in a corner of Hyde Park where you could sentimentally say it all began. We jumped and cheered and hugged each other when the West Coast came in; CNN and MSNBC declared victory for Obama that minute.

I have a lot of homework (this is the U of C) to worry about today, among other preoccupations, but I stayed in the basement to hear Obama speak. Like always his speech was reserved but inspiring, I'd like to think emblematic of the forethought and care he puts into his words and actions. It showed his commitment to the clarity America needs, and the home-grown diversity America encompasses.

As he said in his victory speech, "That's the true genius of America, that America can change. That our union can be perfected." This statement has been demonstrated in the past, and was equally true today.

Finally, from the New York Times (it gives me chills): This is one of those moments in history when it is worth pausing to reflect on the basic facts:

"An American with the name Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a white woman and a black man he barely knew, raised by his grandparents far outside the stream of American power and wealth, has been elected the 44th president of the United States."


Come back later for a rant about California's Prop. 8, the gay marriage ban.