Building Bridges (From the College Site)

My latest story up on the College site:

Second-year Caitlyn Kearney knows the challenges of town-gown relations firsthand. As one of the founding administrative coordinators for the Woodlawn Collaborative (WLC), a burgeoning community center located inside Woodlawn’s First Presbyterian Church, Kearney works to expand University of Chicago students’ roles in neighboring communities.

This is the mission of WLC, a center where activist and public service groups from inside and outside the University community can come together. The organization is three years in the making, according to Wallace Goode, director of the University Community Service Center.

“WLC has brought the church a whole new level of life and energy because it fills a space that used to be fairly empty,” Goode said. The church’s building “was sorely under-used. They once had a food pantry and a pre-school with over a hundred kids enrolled in it.”

Goode expects the student leaders behind Woodlawn Collaborative to help restore that vitality to a neighborhood that suffers from a lack of retail outlets and community spaces.

“Imagine Art in Action on steroids,” said Goode, referring to the annual spring block party run by members of the South Side Solidarity Network. “That’s what WLC could be, but it is much more challenging to sustain activity in that space year-round.”

So far, WLC hosts an Open Mic Series that runs on the third Friday of every month, a Print Studio, and several youth programs, including a free music school led by second-year Noah Moskowitz. In addition to planning regular events and classes in the church, WLC’s student leaders are in charge of the minutiae of running a community center, from securing funding and insurance to ensuring safety in the space.

“This is a project that really represents students trying to be truly appreciative of our neighboring communities,” Kearney said. “We don’t have all the answers, but there’s a lot that both [the University and Woodlawn residents] can bring to the table.”

On a more personal level, “this is the most educational, real-world experience I’ve received [at the University],” she added. “It gives me so much confidence to work on this project and see things start to come together. And at the same time I’m getting out of the U. of C. bubble.”

Kearney has been tutoring elementary school students in the Woodlawn community since her first year. She joined WLC out of a desire to make her relationship with the neighborhood more than a string of one-time commitments.

Third-year Cat Greim echoed Kearney’s enthusiasm about branching out from typical on-campus activities, especially in the face of historic University-Woodlawn tensions.
“I love getting to work with some people who live in Woodlawn in a really collaborative way. I think WLC has been different because it is in our mission and goal to be that way.”

Maya Elliott, a member of WLC and a Woodlawn resident for the past four years, says that getting to know the University students has been one of the highlights of working with WLC. Elliott said students bring a fresh eye to community issues, but that there is still much to learn about what is important to the neighborhood.
“We all come from such different backgrounds and different perspectives on things, so it’s always good to get their perspective, and for them to hear ours, too,” she said.

Collegiate Scholars provides ‘college inspiration’

Another article of mine, this time from the University of Chicago News Office:

When first-year Fabiola Salazar started classes at the University of Chicago, she had already attended Humanities classes in Cobb Hall and science labs in the Biological Sciences Learning Center—and she knew her way around her dormitory like a returning student.

In a sense, she already was one; Salazar’s introduction to the campus came four years ago, when she enrolled in Collegiate Scholars—a University program that places high-achieving Chicago Public School students in summer classes with University professors on subjects ranging from hip-hop music to the Illinois political system, in addition to internships and college application workshops.

Inspired by College Life

Salazar said being exposed to college life as a sophomore in high school, while spending part of the summer in the Max Palevsky dormitory alongside college students, inspired her to make ambitious goals for her college career, including applying to the University. Now she is an economics major, and plans to pursue an MBA.

Salazar also arrived on campus with a friend: fourth-year Roderick Baker, who also graduated from the Collegiate Scholars Program.

“Being on campus and away from home is overwhelming,” Salazar said, “So for me Roderick was the helping hand that guided me through the ins and outs of the University. He’s teaching me what he wishes someone had told him as a first-year.”

Mentoring Relationships

Collegiate Scholars prides itself on the mentoring relationships that develop between alumni at colleges around the country, according to Kim Ransom, the program’s founding director.

“We’re able to create a community of diverse students who love learning that crosses racial, social, and economical lines.”

Ransom said the program, which fields nearly 700 applicants for 45 spots each year, is unique in its ability to connect these students with distinguished University professors like Paul Sally Jr. and Herman Sinaiko.

Top-College Bound

Collegiate Scholars “really gets students thinking, I’m not just going to a college, but to a top college, because I’m a top student,” Baker, a political sciences major, said.

Omar Mesina, a senior at Whitney Young Magnet High School, said he made sure to take as many science classes as possible while on campus.

“I want to go to medical school in the future, or pursue bio-chemistry—Collegiate Scholars as definitely allowed me to expand on that,” he said. Mesina took summer courses in chemistry and biology, and last summer studied Nutritional Science alongside University students in summer school.

“Collegiate Scholars really allowed me to take sciences beyond the scope of what was offered to me at my school,” he added. He expects this preparation will serve him well when he begins attending Harvard University in the fall.

David Williams, a senior at the University of Chicago Charter School in Woodlawn, said the value of the program extends far beyond campus, from an East Coast college tour to cultural outings to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He plans to study Philosophy and Psychology at Carleton College.

Williams, who attended the programs first-ever college tour, said the experience was unmatchable. “We went to New York and saw Hairspray [the musical]. We went to Time Square. It was ridiculous.”

Troll 2, Mr. Vampire bring students together Sunday nights

My latest article is up on the University of Chicago Arts Page:

Residents of Snell-Hitchcock take part in a decade-long tradition called Bad Movie Night.

Among the residents of Snell-Hitchcock Hall, third-year Mandy Stafford is the girl with the endless mental catalogue of some of the worst movies ever produced. She uses this knowledge to preside over a decade-old tradition known as Bad Movie Night.

Stafford screens a film every Sunday night in Snell-Hitchcock’s Rec Room; though they are no cinematic masterpieces, for her and the 10 to 20 students who gather for the event, they are far from a waste of time.

“The point is once a week everyone can just do something stupid,” says Stafford. “I don’t think that’s something people get to do enough at this school.”

First-year Jen Woolley agrees. “They’re so bad that they’re good to watch,” she says. “Some people bring schoolwork; I knit.”

Stafford’s choices range from the fantastical to the truly absurd. Upcoming screenings include Troll 2 and Mr. Vampire.

Second-year Levi Foster, who stopped by for the showing of High School Musical, 2, quips in here: “Wait a minute, Mr. Vampire is a legitimately good movie. It’s campy as hell, but a legitimately good movie.”

One subject of debate among the group of regular viewers is what makes a movie “bad.” Twilight and High School Musical, for example, were box-office hits; but neither escaped Stafford’s bad movie line-up. “They’re both bad enough to be funny, and that’s important for bad movie night. Some movies are literally unwatchably bad, and we don’t screen those. The favorites year after year are the ones that people find quirky and ridiculous.”

Clearer rules govern the movie selection-process, which Stafford inherited from Margot Spellman, AB ’08: The movies should be “earnestly bad,” she explains, unless “you can tell the film knows it’s bad, and yet still comes out even worse than [the directors] intended—like Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.”

In contrast, “there’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. The director thinks it was the greatest thing ever committed to film, but it was just awful.”

There’s also Wild Zero, a film Stafford struggles to summarize concisely: “Aliens turn everyone in the world into zombies. The protagonist is the biggest fan of the band Guitar Wolf. Does that make sense?”

The answer doesn’t matter, as long as the film has achieved a necessary combination of unintentional humor and notoriety. But Stafford does have her limits:

“One movie I refused to play this [school] year was the Star Wars Holiday Special. People always come out to it en masse, but it is just an abomination. Truly the most horrifying thing ever committed to film.”

Stafford speculates that Bad Movie Night has remained a dorm tradition because it is low-commitment, and convenient. “You just come to a movie at 10 p.m. on Sunday in the Rec Room, and it’s been like that since the beginning. Week nights are hard nights to hold events because people are actually doing homework, and on Friday and Saturday people want to go out in the city.”

Pilsen Railroad Strike Will Be Re-Enacted

By RACHEL CROMIDAS
Published: May 2, 2010 in the New York Times

Paul Durica wears many guises as a historical tour guide to such places as Haymarket Square and the Kenwood haunts of the 1924 thrill killers Leopold and Loeb. On Sunday he and a group of historians-turned-artists will re-enact the 1877 scene of a Pilsen railroad strike and a clash between laborers and the Chicago police.
Related

A staging of the Battle of the Halsted Viaduct will take place at 3 p.m. on the corner of South Halsted and West 16th Streets. Attendees will be invited to participate as mobsters and policemen, said Mr. Durica, the founder of the irreverent Pocket Guide to Hell Tours and a graduate student at the University of Chicago.

Period dress is encouraged, and a horse-drawn carriage, live music and foam bricks - in case the audience gets rowdy - will be provided, Mr. Durica said. The free event concludes the Version Festival, a springtime convergence of local artists and musicians that is in its 10th year.

Student bassist discovers a new world of music

The broad musical perspective that third-year Kirsten Paige gained from her orchestra’s winter tour of China began with her fellow musicians in the bass section.

Seated around Paige in the double bass section of the World Orchestra were students from Belgium, Colombia, Brazil, Spain, Slovenia, and Italy. Together they puzzled over musical scores, managed their way through an eight-city tour, and even found time for a New Year’s Eve jazz jam with other musicians in a hotel lobby.

Their success in melding diverse voices should serve Paige well as she pursues her BA in Music History and Theory. After three fast-paced weeks of touring, including stops at the Great Wall and a performance for the Chinese prime minister, Paige found lessons to apply in the classroom as well as the recital hall.

“The group taught me that there is really an infinite number of ways of approaching musical problems, both performance-oriented and theoretical,” Paige says.

At UChicago, Paige is combining her interest in music theory and history—especially opera—with a passion for music performance that started at age 10, when she began playing bass. She auditioned in January 2009 for the World Orchestra, a group of 75 musicians aged 18 to 28. Less than a year later, the students met and rehearsed for a week before embarking on their tour along China’s coast, including stops in Shanghai and Beijing.
Lessons From All Over the Globe

As one of five American students in the group, Paige learned the universality of music, whether during rehearsal, concerts, or the group’s impromptu jam sessions.
Become of a fan of UChicago Arts on FacebookBecome a fan of UChicago Arts on Facebook

“It is unlike any other orchestra that you could find anywhere,” Paige says. “Professional musicians have been playing for decades and already have their individual styles. But everybody in the World Orchestra is a student, and still developing in this way.”

While touring through the winter holidays, the orchestra’s revelry always led to music.

“A couple of students were really good at jazz, so for our New Year’s party they smuggled instruments into the hotel restaurant—we basically took over. While they were playing, everyone started dancing,” she says of the students who danced in the styles from their native Latin American countries.

Between visits to national museums and the Great Wall, the group learned it would be playing for China’s prime minister while in Guangzhou. That evening, they performed for him and an audience of more than 2,000.

For the musicians and many audience members, the orchestra bore an uplifting message about the ability of diverse cultures to connect and build something new together, Paige says. When conductor Josep Vicent needed his worldly crew to change their tone, he described the image of a candle flickering to represent the warmth he wanted their music to convey.

“Once, somebody had a question about phrasing, and everybody had a different idea about how to answer it,” she says. “The product that resulted from all these different approaches was really colorful and varied, in terms of textures and emotions.”
Musical Love Turns to Opera

Paige started playing bass in grade school after her parents encouraged her to pick up an instrument. She studied at the Juilliard School of Music and became enthralled with opera when her bass professor, Tim Cobb of the Metropolitan Opera, suggested she attend a performance at the Met.

“Opera immediately excited my interest. It just grabs me,” Paige says. “I’ve only played a couple of operas. I get distracted when I play opera—I want to pay attention to what’s going on on the stage.”

Opera immediately excited my interest. It just grabs me.”
—third-year Kirsten Paige

The strength of UChicago’s program in music history and theory drew Paige to the University, she says.

“We basically have an all-star faculty in the Music Department. Whenever I tell anyone I go to UChicago, everybody knows our department.” She says the department has a small number of undergraduate majors, making it easier for students to seek out professors, including her BA advisor—Philip Gossett, the Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor in Music, and one of the foremost experts on Italian opera.

Paige is currently working on a BA paper about several of Giuseppe Verdi’s later works. On the performance side, she recently played in the University Symphony Orchestra’s production of Peter Tchaikovsky’s works on Jan. 30.

She still plans to pursue a graduate degree in musicology, though Paige says the China experience left her somewhat torn between her interest in opera and the excitement of playing for new audiences.

“Playing in the World Orchestra is incredibly inspiring,” Paige says. “Regardless of what I decide to pursue as a career, music is going to be the focus of my life.”

By Rachel Cromidas, third-year in the College

Gardening for Peace

New story about two awesome UChicago alumns and their aid work in Africa—they helped farmers build a sustainable vegetable garden in a village with limited fresh food access:


Rebecca Thal began gardening in a small herb patch in the backyard of her childhood home. But she never imagined that her hobby would help improve the lives of villagers in South Africa’s Limpopo province.

Thal and Aliza Levine, both AB ’09, headed to South Africa in the summer of 2009 to create a sustainable community garden for the residents of the Hamakuya village as winners of the Davis Projects for Peace prize.

Davis Projects for Peace was started three years ago by philanthropist Kathryn Davis, who provides $10,000 each for 100 projects devised by U.S. college students. The University of Chicago is one of 90 colleges and universities to participate in the program, according to Jen Bess, a college adviser. Applications for the 2010 program are due January 8, 2010 at noon.

“The goal of our project is to increase food security in the region,” Levine said. “Part of the reason food security is so important is because of HIV rates. It’s important that people who are taking antiretrovirals or have symptoms get adequate nutrition.”

Levine and Thal partnered with David Bunn, a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, whom they met while studying abroad in Cape Town in winter 2008. Bunn is the co-founder of Tshulu Trust, a non-profit organization that studies ecological resources in communities surrounding Kruger National Park, like Hamakuya.

Though the trust had been working to set up small businesses and create jobs in ecotourism for the community, it did not have the resources to create a much-needed indigenous plant garden. “We just asked them how we could help,” Thal said.
Cape Town study abroad

Levine and Thal received their first introduction to Hamakuya when they stayed in a village compound during the Cape Town study abroad program, where they studied anthropology and African civilizations.

“I think a lot of anthropology [views the world] through a distancing mechanism. One of the reasons the Cape Town program was so great…was that just being in the new environment prevented that from happening,” Levine said.

For Thal, the quarter abroad not only exposed her to a different part of the world, it helped her define her studies back on campus as well.

“The Cape Town trip was the most intense and the most rewarding part of my time [at the University],” she said. “It changed my intellectual engagement with the world.”

The Davis Project caught Thal’s eye when she returned. “I was looking for any way I could get back to South Africa,” she said.

The committee from the College that selected the nominees for the Davis Projects for Peace prize was particularly impressed with Levine and Thal’s proposal.

“We wanted to see that students had been thoughtful about how their proposal connected to the idea of peace, and [Levine and Thal] did a nice job of tying that to the issue of food security,” Bess said. “It’s hard to have a life of peace when you are desperate for basic necessities like food.”
Unfinished business

After her first experience in South Africa, “I wanted to see more, not just of the political life but the day-to-day life in the rural parts,” Thal said.

The pair wanted to experience more of village life in Limpopo. But they also felt they had unfinished business with the community and the Tshulu Trust, which hadn’t been able to start up a food security program by the time they left.

“We saw firsthand how food was integrated into everyday life, and the lack of diversity of food sources,” Levine said.

To address these problems of public health and food access in South Africa, Thal and Levine spent 6 weeks in Hamakuya in July and August. For their primary project, they helped four farmers construct a vegetable garden with a sustainable irrigation system called circle farming.

Thal and Levine found the support of community members invaluable to the success of their project.

“We thought we would get over jet lag on day one and then start the project on day two,” Thal said. “But it took something like three weeks for us to build relationships and get a strong foothold in the community.”

The nearest village had only a dozen households, and Thal and Levine were among the few residents with a car. “We kind of became a taxi service, giving people rides when they asked,” Thal said.

Other locals gravitated to them out of curiosity, or a desire to help.

“One older man took on this informal advisory role for us. He would come by with his dogs and say hello; [he] told us what he’d seen and heard and taught us some of the language. Just hearing what [neighbors] wanted to get out of it helped us refine our approach. We didn’t put shovels in the ground until much later.”

Levine believes their work could have a lasting impact on the community. “There is very little rainfall, so their growing season is very short, and that makes it difficult to have long-term food security,” Levine said. “But the farmers were excited, and the best thing is this [method] is easy to replicate—the farmers have already made a commitment to show others in the community.”

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.”

"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."

"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.”

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.

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.”

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.”

Make No Small Plans

School's been out for a week and I haven't so much as touched this blog—but don't think I'm lying on a beach somewhere.

Nope, I've been working on a grant project; I'll be reporting on Chicago's 2016 Olympic Bid for the South Side and the University. I want to keep people up-to-date on what Mayor Daley and Chicago 2016 are up to, and do some original reporting on how community members, local organizations, and academics are responding to the prospect of this city getting the Games.

I'll eventually be collaborating with the Chicago Studies Program (In the vein of my coverage of the Obama Inauguration). Until then, you can follow my reporting at No Small Plans: Coverage of Chicago's 2016 Olympic Bid.

Bear with me please; I'm just getting started and not entirely confident how this will work out.



Bus stop at the corner of 57th and Cottage Grove in Washington Park, proposed site of the 2016 Olympic Stadium.

Blogging Fail

I have finals!
Good luck everyone. Talk to you in a week.

The Spring Quarter Midway Review is Out!

The quarterly magazine I edit, the Midway Review, is out this week. Please pick one up on campus or take a look at the online version.

Below are a couple of engravings illustrating this quarter's issue (the hare is called "How to Skin a Hare" from the Joy of Cooking). Enjoy!