Here is my latest Maroon article on the new director of Argonne Labs, Eric Isaacs. I had a lot of fun writing this piece, though it doesn't entirely show in the finished product, which reads more or less like a straight-up announcement of Isaacs's achievements and plans. Though not the most exciting pieces to actually sit down and write, I can't get enough of assignments like this one that put me in contact with fascinating, talk-your-ear-off experts in their fields.
In the span of twenty minutes Isaacs tried to explain the fine points of X-ray science, semiconductors and supercomputers to me (a student of the humanities who avoids academic physics like the plague). Did you know Argonne has a supercomputer than can calculate data close to a million times faster than the average laptop? I sure didn't. Take a look at what else stands out about Argonne, and how Isaacs plans to take the laboratory to the next level in these scientific fields:
By Rachel Cromidas
Published: April 3rd, 2009
Eric Isaacs will take the position of director of Argonne National Laboratory on May 1, President and Argonne Board of Directors Chairman Robert Zimmer announced last month. Isaacs, now a physicist at the University of Chicago and the deputy director of Argonne programs, plans to put Argonne, which oversees research on pressing energy and national security issues for the Department of Energy, at the cutting edge of research in X-ray science and energy development.
“I was honored and thrilled to be asked by the University to become the director,” Isaacs said. “Argonne is a leading U.S. Department of Energy lab focusing on fundamental science and applications of that to the big energy problems.”
Isaacs will be replacing current director Robert Rosner, who will return to teaching at the University as a professor of astronomy and astrophysics when his term concludes this spring, according to Argonne officials.
“[Isaacs] was out there as deputy of programs and leading the effort to create a strategic plan for the lab,” said Don Levy, chair of the selection committee. “We saw what he thought was important for the lab, and we liked his vision.”
Isaacs studied magnetic semiconductors at MIT and received his Ph.D. in 1988. Following his doctoral studies, he worked as a fellow at Bell Laboratories, studying X-ray science, a field widely researched at Argonne.
“I ended up at Chicago for a few reasons,” Isaacs said. “Of course, the physics department here is one of the best in the country, if not the world. It was really a great honor to come to Chicago and work with great people in the University.”
Isaacs also cited the University’s invitation to have him create and direct the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne.
“[Nanoscale science is] a very multidisciplinary science that includes chemistry, physics and biology to control materials only a little bigger than an atom,” Isaacs said. “We hired 60 people and built a $100 million facility.”
Since assuming his deputy position last May, Isaacs has worked to define Argonne’s strategic goals for research programs on alternative energy, X-ray science, and nanotechnology.
“What will the materials of the future be? We’re constantly looking at these horizons 15, 20 years out. Argonne’s is basic research, but it’s in the context of a mission and that mission is energy,” Isaacs said.
According to Isaacs, a main concern of Argonne’s is the development of alternative energy sources and storage methods.
“Illinois is just 60 percent nuclear,” Isaacs said. “Imagine [if] you added solar energy to that power source. You need much larger storage capacity to accommodate that need, and we are really not there yet. We at Argonne are thinking a lot about that, and the answer’s not obvious.”
Friday, April 3, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Class Time
I am enrolled in six classes this quarter. No, this is not an April Fools joke.
I can't make up my mind which classes to take for Spring Quarter, and the reason isn't just because they all look so good. After taking what I think are far too many disorganized, uninteresting and just plain difficult classes (and any rising third-year like myself will tell you, there are many out there), I want to pick my battles carefully. But this time I'm just stumped.
I attended three classes on Monday, and five on Tuesday. Below I will explain what I liked and didn't like about each class. But first, let me define what constitutes a "good class" from where I stand now: A good class will engage my mind, both in discussions/lectures and in the assigned readings. Papers and exams will challenge me, but reflect concrete material directly from the course. I should leave class each day feeling that thick, energizing, "I learned something today" feeling that I feed off of. And if it's no good, I want an easy A. (Though most students here will tell you that such grades for all intents and purposes don't exist.)
Is this the definition of a U of C-student pipe dream? Maybe. But here is a short list of my very best classes:
*Introduction to the Humanities with Larry McEnerney and Kathy Cochran, Autumn 2007-Spring, 2008
*20th Century Art with Christine Mehring, Winter 2009
*Intervention and Public Practice with Theaster Gates Spring, 2008
*Problems in the Study of Sexuality with Stuart Michaels and Anthony Todd, Autumn 2008
*Legal Reasoning with Dennis Hutchinson, Autumn 2008
*US-Mexico Borderlands with Gilberto Rosas, Winter 2009
*The Holocaust and the Visual Arts with Lawrence Michael Tymkiw, Winter 2009
It should be noted that only one of these is a core class. I probably should save elaboration for another post, but I have massive problems with the fantastical chimera known as the Core that is paraded around the University of Chicago by admissions reps and certain tenured professors like a carnival attraction. At its best, the core curriculum is something fun to look at; at worst, it's a rip off.
I am almost finished with the core curriculum, a heady mixture of Plato for Physicists and Science for Somnabulants (sorry social scientists). I didn't get into Global Warming this quarter, a 250-seat class in the Kent lecture hall into which more than fifty students tried to transfer on Monday. I also had little luck with Art of the East: China, too, a 50-seater survey course for my prospective Art History major. But the rest of my prospect look all too good:
Monday, 1:30 pm, I attend Writing Law. This course is a requirement for my other major, Law, Letters and Society, and it's taught by possibly my two favorite professors, Kathy and Larry. We will almost entirely be writing and workshopping briefs and memos, meaning the class has a distinctly "un-U of C" practical component to it (which I love). But the theoretical question that concerned and consumed my First-year Humanities class is still the same: How does language shape the way we think?
3:00 pm, I attend Legal History: Race, Sex and Sexuality. And am I ever intimidated. Co-taught by Amy Stanley from the History department and Mary Case from the Law School, this course interweaves primary sources and court cases to address the ways diversity has been addressed in society and the law. The class is roughly 1/3 law students, 1/3 LLSO majors like me, and 1/3 gender historians. We will be required to write one 20 page paper by 10th week. Oof.
Tuesday, noon, I attend the Politics of Mass Incarceration with Jessica Neptune. She informs me and at least ten other students at the start of class that the wait list is already fifteen students deep, basically nixing our chances of getting seats. I hop down the stairs of Cobb Hall to my scheduled noon class, America in World Civilizations with James Sparrow. I'm required to take this class for the Core, but I don't mind. After introductions, Sparrow spent the class leading us students through a close reading of Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" as an introduction to American attitudes toward 19th century imperialism. I hope the next classes will engage us with the material this thoroughly.
1:30 p.m. I sit in on Ralph Ubl's Theory of Collage, a three-hour seminar crammed to capacity with grad students and upperclassmen in the Art History major, for just long enough to snag a syllabus filled with Rosalind Krauss and Clemente Greenberg readings. Then I sneak across the hall to Art of the East: China, taught by Wu Hung, only to learn that I am competing against at least 15 other people for five open seats.
3:00 p.m. I am actually enrolled in this class—thank goodness. It's Masculinity in America, Past and Present with Anthony Todd, another favorite professor of mine from last Autumn.
This blog post reads like a mini-course catalogue, and I still have to choose between two Wednesday classes: Performance Installation or the Mexican and Argentinian Press.
I can't make up my mind which classes to take for Spring Quarter, and the reason isn't just because they all look so good. After taking what I think are far too many disorganized, uninteresting and just plain difficult classes (and any rising third-year like myself will tell you, there are many out there), I want to pick my battles carefully. But this time I'm just stumped.
I attended three classes on Monday, and five on Tuesday. Below I will explain what I liked and didn't like about each class. But first, let me define what constitutes a "good class" from where I stand now: A good class will engage my mind, both in discussions/lectures and in the assigned readings. Papers and exams will challenge me, but reflect concrete material directly from the course. I should leave class each day feeling that thick, energizing, "I learned something today" feeling that I feed off of. And if it's no good, I want an easy A. (Though most students here will tell you that such grades for all intents and purposes don't exist.)
Is this the definition of a U of C-student pipe dream? Maybe. But here is a short list of my very best classes:
*Introduction to the Humanities with Larry McEnerney and Kathy Cochran, Autumn 2007-Spring, 2008
*20th Century Art with Christine Mehring, Winter 2009
*Intervention and Public Practice with Theaster Gates Spring, 2008
*Problems in the Study of Sexuality with Stuart Michaels and Anthony Todd, Autumn 2008
*Legal Reasoning with Dennis Hutchinson, Autumn 2008
*US-Mexico Borderlands with Gilberto Rosas, Winter 2009
*The Holocaust and the Visual Arts with Lawrence Michael Tymkiw, Winter 2009
It should be noted that only one of these is a core class. I probably should save elaboration for another post, but I have massive problems with the fantastical chimera known as the Core that is paraded around the University of Chicago by admissions reps and certain tenured professors like a carnival attraction. At its best, the core curriculum is something fun to look at; at worst, it's a rip off.
I am almost finished with the core curriculum, a heady mixture of Plato for Physicists and Science for Somnabulants (sorry social scientists). I didn't get into Global Warming this quarter, a 250-seat class in the Kent lecture hall into which more than fifty students tried to transfer on Monday. I also had little luck with Art of the East: China, too, a 50-seater survey course for my prospective Art History major. But the rest of my prospect look all too good:
Monday, 1:30 pm, I attend Writing Law. This course is a requirement for my other major, Law, Letters and Society, and it's taught by possibly my two favorite professors, Kathy and Larry. We will almost entirely be writing and workshopping briefs and memos, meaning the class has a distinctly "un-U of C" practical component to it (which I love). But the theoretical question that concerned and consumed my First-year Humanities class is still the same: How does language shape the way we think?
3:00 pm, I attend Legal History: Race, Sex and Sexuality. And am I ever intimidated. Co-taught by Amy Stanley from the History department and Mary Case from the Law School, this course interweaves primary sources and court cases to address the ways diversity has been addressed in society and the law. The class is roughly 1/3 law students, 1/3 LLSO majors like me, and 1/3 gender historians. We will be required to write one 20 page paper by 10th week. Oof.
Tuesday, noon, I attend the Politics of Mass Incarceration with Jessica Neptune. She informs me and at least ten other students at the start of class that the wait list is already fifteen students deep, basically nixing our chances of getting seats. I hop down the stairs of Cobb Hall to my scheduled noon class, America in World Civilizations with James Sparrow. I'm required to take this class for the Core, but I don't mind. After introductions, Sparrow spent the class leading us students through a close reading of Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" as an introduction to American attitudes toward 19th century imperialism. I hope the next classes will engage us with the material this thoroughly.
1:30 p.m. I sit in on Ralph Ubl's Theory of Collage, a three-hour seminar crammed to capacity with grad students and upperclassmen in the Art History major, for just long enough to snag a syllabus filled with Rosalind Krauss and Clemente Greenberg readings. Then I sneak across the hall to Art of the East: China, taught by Wu Hung, only to learn that I am competing against at least 15 other people for five open seats.
3:00 p.m. I am actually enrolled in this class—thank goodness. It's Masculinity in America, Past and Present with Anthony Todd, another favorite professor of mine from last Autumn.
This blog post reads like a mini-course catalogue, and I still have to choose between two Wednesday classes: Performance Installation or the Mexican and Argentinian Press.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Everything but the kitchen garden
Imagine I am making a ricotta cheese omelet for lunch. I beat a couple of eggs in a bowl before pouring them into a pan already heating on the dorm kitchen's stove. And while scooping a chunk of ricotta, I realize I'm out of basil.
But I don't have to do without—I lower the heat on the stove, and pop upstairs; I'm back in a minute, fresh leaves in hand from the small herb and vegetable garden growing on the Snell-Hitchcock lawn.
These fresh ingredients and front-yard convenience are exactly what I and my friend Cameron envision for the Snell-Hitchcock Garden. Inspired by the locally-grown food movement and Michelle Obama's White House Garden, this communal garden would ideally keep the dorm's pantries stocked with basil, savory stalks, and maybe a pepper or two come Autumn.
It will be a lot of work, most of which I'm not entirely sure of (Cameron's the environmental sciences major), and I'm hoping the two houses will each contribute some money for soil and seeds so we can get started this season. If all goes well, next fall we can start making individual plots. My mouth is watering just reading about the possibilities: (from the New York Times article on the White House garden)
But I don't have to do without—I lower the heat on the stove, and pop upstairs; I'm back in a minute, fresh leaves in hand from the small herb and vegetable garden growing on the Snell-Hitchcock lawn.
These fresh ingredients and front-yard convenience are exactly what I and my friend Cameron envision for the Snell-Hitchcock Garden. Inspired by the locally-grown food movement and Michelle Obama's White House Garden, this communal garden would ideally keep the dorm's pantries stocked with basil, savory stalks, and maybe a pepper or two come Autumn.
It will be a lot of work, most of which I'm not entirely sure of (Cameron's the environmental sciences major), and I'm hoping the two houses will each contribute some money for soil and seeds so we can get started this season. If all goes well, next fall we can start making individual plots. My mouth is watering just reading about the possibilities: (from the New York Times article on the White House garden)
"The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatillos and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil. A White House carpenter, Charlie Brandts, who is a beekeeper, will tend two hives for honey.
The total cost of seeds, mulch and so forth is $200, said Sam Kass, an assistant White House chef, who prepared healthful meals for the Obama family in Chicago and is an advocate of local food. Mr. Kass will oversee the garden.
The plots will be in raised beds fertilized with White House compost, crab meal from the Chesapeake Bay, lime and green sand. Ladybugs and praying mantises will help control harmful bugs."
Friday, March 13, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Thank goodness David Brooks is not my editor...
The Maroon printed a trippy re-imagination of the University of Chicago undergraduate's trajectory yesterday in Grey City, the Maroon editors' pet "magazine" project. Books, gargoyles and diplomas taunt the wayward columnist as he describes his meanderings through a "pseudo-prestigious university"—UChicago, of course. Oh, and the columnist himself? Yeah, it was David Brooks, circa 1982.
The bloggers of Gawker think Brooks was on a lot of acid back then. But I'm more convinced this column was the product of one too many all-nighters in the Reg—he's just lucky he printed this piece in the Maroon instead of handing it to his Hum professor.
The bloggers of Gawker think Brooks was on a lot of acid back then. But I'm more convinced this column was the product of one too many all-nighters in the Reg—he's just lucky he printed this piece in the Maroon instead of handing it to his Hum professor.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Blogged down with work
Please pop over to the Chicago Studies' Blog that Works to see my first post, plus a link to my Maroon article on real estate in Woodlawn!
University holds discussion with Jewish students to address recent bias concerns
Here's the latest installment in a series of articles regarding the controversial Crisis in Gaza Panel--enjoy:
By Rachel Cromidas
Updated: March 3rd
U of C administrators clarified the University’s role in high-profile political events at a meeting with Jewish students on campus in response to charges of anti-Semitism stemming from a panel on Israel-Palestine relations last month.
The meeting was part of a series of smaller talks with Deans of Students Susan Art and Bill Michel, including a meeting with parents and alumni in New York City. “There’s a range of opinions on the topic of what’s been happening in the Middle East,” Michel said. “When talking on certain topics where there are such diverse opinions as there are on this campus, we need to work together to make sure everyone can express those opinions…and learn from each other.”
Chicago Friends of Israel (CFI) President and third-year Hila Mehr and other students voiced their concerns February 19 in an open forum with Deans Art, Martha Rothe, Mark Hansen, and Elizabeth Davenport; Director of the Hillel Center Dan Libenson; and Rabbi Yossi Brackman of the Chabad Center. About 40 students attended the event.
Mehr said the meeting addressed what some view as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel events on campus. She pointed in particular to a panel, “Crisis in Gaza,” featuring former DePaul professor Norman Finkelstein, writer Ali Abunimah, and professor John Mearsheimer, co-author of The Israel Lobby. The February 5 event was marred by an altercation between audience members and a flag decorated with the Star of David, crosses and a swastika that one attendee displayed before being escorted out of Mandel Hall.
CFI members took issue with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies’ decision to associate itself with a politically-charged event. Michel said that it’s not uncommon for an academic center to cosponsor an event with RSOs.
According to Mehr, administrators addressed event sponsorship at the meeting. “Does it mean endorsement, giving money, or putting your name on it but not supporting those views?” Mehr said, expressing her own views. “I think it’s an important debate that the whole community can have.” Though she understood the discussion to be primarily about Jewish life on campus, she said it was open to all students.
The purpose of the discussions, said Michel, was to create an environment where deans could hear directly from students and parents. Michel also said he is working with Roth, Davenport, and Hansen to rethink exactly what message event sponsorship sends.
To Davenport, when an academic center chooses to co-sponsor an event, it is simply a matter of giving money. “It doesn’t mean they endorse everything said at the event,” she explained, “though I do understand that it may feel to students as though the University itself [is facilitating the event].”
But according to Mehr, sponsorship wasn’t the only issue the group visited. “One concern was about anti-Israel and other sentiments [in the classroom] that may make students uncomfortable, and how the University plans to deal with this,” she said. Mehr cited Divinity School office 310B as an example of politics converging with academia; until recently its door was adorned with a poster of the Israel flag and the phrase, “Terrorist State Since 1948.”
“When addressing concerns like this one, we are guided by the principles highlighted in the policy on Civil Behavior in a University Setting,” Michel said. “As Elizabeth Davenport and I said…any students who have concerns about issues related to statements made by others on campus should either talk directly with that person…or con tact their area dean of students.”
Michel directed students at the meeting to the Kalven Report, a set of University guidelines on political action written to determine what action, if any, it should take in response to the Vietnam War. The report restricts the University from taking stances that could jeopardize its climate of free and balanced academic inquiry.
First-year Robert Henderson, who attended the meeting, was hoping for a more swift response from the administration regarding these issues, “given that the [Gaza event] took place five weeks ago,” he said.
“My biggest concern is an academic arm of the University endorsing events that suggest an Israel and Jewish conspiracy to commit genocide that evokes age-old anti-Semitic stereotypes,” Henderson said. “I think the issue is this is tarnishing the University’s reputation.”
Davenport echoed Henderson’s concerns. “We are a place that above all values free inquiry. And all sides of a contentious issue should be open to discussion in the classroom,” she said. “Sometimes a student may come with pre-formed opinions that they don’t want to revisit, and that might cause some discomfort there…That is not the same as being unable to express an opinion.”
By Rachel Cromidas
Updated: March 3rd
U of C administrators clarified the University’s role in high-profile political events at a meeting with Jewish students on campus in response to charges of anti-Semitism stemming from a panel on Israel-Palestine relations last month.
The meeting was part of a series of smaller talks with Deans of Students Susan Art and Bill Michel, including a meeting with parents and alumni in New York City. “There’s a range of opinions on the topic of what’s been happening in the Middle East,” Michel said. “When talking on certain topics where there are such diverse opinions as there are on this campus, we need to work together to make sure everyone can express those opinions…and learn from each other.”
Chicago Friends of Israel (CFI) President and third-year Hila Mehr and other students voiced their concerns February 19 in an open forum with Deans Art, Martha Rothe, Mark Hansen, and Elizabeth Davenport; Director of the Hillel Center Dan Libenson; and Rabbi Yossi Brackman of the Chabad Center. About 40 students attended the event.
Mehr said the meeting addressed what some view as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel events on campus. She pointed in particular to a panel, “Crisis in Gaza,” featuring former DePaul professor Norman Finkelstein, writer Ali Abunimah, and professor John Mearsheimer, co-author of The Israel Lobby. The February 5 event was marred by an altercation between audience members and a flag decorated with the Star of David, crosses and a swastika that one attendee displayed before being escorted out of Mandel Hall.
CFI members took issue with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies’ decision to associate itself with a politically-charged event. Michel said that it’s not uncommon for an academic center to cosponsor an event with RSOs.
According to Mehr, administrators addressed event sponsorship at the meeting. “Does it mean endorsement, giving money, or putting your name on it but not supporting those views?” Mehr said, expressing her own views. “I think it’s an important debate that the whole community can have.” Though she understood the discussion to be primarily about Jewish life on campus, she said it was open to all students.
The purpose of the discussions, said Michel, was to create an environment where deans could hear directly from students and parents. Michel also said he is working with Roth, Davenport, and Hansen to rethink exactly what message event sponsorship sends.
To Davenport, when an academic center chooses to co-sponsor an event, it is simply a matter of giving money. “It doesn’t mean they endorse everything said at the event,” she explained, “though I do understand that it may feel to students as though the University itself [is facilitating the event].”
But according to Mehr, sponsorship wasn’t the only issue the group visited. “One concern was about anti-Israel and other sentiments [in the classroom] that may make students uncomfortable, and how the University plans to deal with this,” she said. Mehr cited Divinity School office 310B as an example of politics converging with academia; until recently its door was adorned with a poster of the Israel flag and the phrase, “Terrorist State Since 1948.”
“When addressing concerns like this one, we are guided by the principles highlighted in the policy on Civil Behavior in a University Setting,” Michel said. “As Elizabeth Davenport and I said…any students who have concerns about issues related to statements made by others on campus should either talk directly with that person…or con tact their area dean of students.”
Michel directed students at the meeting to the Kalven Report, a set of University guidelines on political action written to determine what action, if any, it should take in response to the Vietnam War. The report restricts the University from taking stances that could jeopardize its climate of free and balanced academic inquiry.
First-year Robert Henderson, who attended the meeting, was hoping for a more swift response from the administration regarding these issues, “given that the [Gaza event] took place five weeks ago,” he said.
“My biggest concern is an academic arm of the University endorsing events that suggest an Israel and Jewish conspiracy to commit genocide that evokes age-old anti-Semitic stereotypes,” Henderson said. “I think the issue is this is tarnishing the University’s reputation.”
Davenport echoed Henderson’s concerns. “We are a place that above all values free inquiry. And all sides of a contentious issue should be open to discussion in the classroom,” she said. “Sometimes a student may come with pre-formed opinions that they don’t want to revisit, and that might cause some discomfort there…That is not the same as being unable to express an opinion.”
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