University of Chicago projects- updates
Presented by Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and its website hydepark.org.
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University of Chicago projects- updates Presented by Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and its website hydepark.org. |
Home: University and Community, including Master Plan. Visit also: Doctors Hospital. Harper Theater 53rd "Heart of Hyde Park." South Campus Plan.
Projects coordinator is Derrick Bailey.
Note that there is a new University architect and overall planner, Steve Wiesenthal.
Updates occur quarterly on South Campus. Coverage ranges from the scheduling for project street closures, parking and opening of new sidewalks to progress (some have said lack of it) on minority and neighbor participation opportunities, to the new high school and UC education involvements.
Career Pathways with CARA will be opening in 950 E. 61st St. mskinner@careerpathwayschicago.org.
Gifts large and small put UC over its $2 billion capital goal in October 2007.
Two new projects
winning Board of Trustee approval in fall 2007: A new science quadrangle anchored
by a replacement physics research building at the site of the accelerator building
at 56th and Ellis and to extend westward, and to include renovation o the Research
Institutes.
The other is a replacement for the Harris School of Public Policy (the present
reported to be too small and in impractical condition), to be located east of
the Law School. (No word as to whether the Trustees have given final approval
to the Library addition--maybe in November?)
The following first report is from the Chicago Maroon September 15, 2007 issue, "University sells bond to finance construction," by Andrew Alexander.
The U. of C. sold nearly $250 million in bonds this June [2007] in an effort to finance new construction projects on campus that should bring nearly 2.3 million square feet of new building space to the University by 2020. According to the U of C's Master Plan, the bonds are expected to finance a number of structural upgrades, in addition to the construction of new buildings that could reshape the landscape of the University and Hyde Park.
"It's kind of hard to get donations to build a steam plant," said University comptroller John Knoll, referring to the two utility plants currently being constructed. Furthermore, big ticket naming donations are rarely sufficient to cover the entire cost of building projects.
The sale came on the heels of a report by Moody's Investor Services rating the bonds as grade Aa1, the second-highest rating available. The 35-year bonds will bring the University's total debt load to $1.35 billion, covered by $3.8 billion, or about 2.8 times as much, in expendable resources. Peer institutions typically have about four times the amount of expendable resources as debt, according to the Moody's report, although typically only universities with substantially larger endowments than the U of C, such as Harvard University, are given the highest AAA rating.
Construction on the long-planned expansion to the Regenstein Library is scheduled to begin next spring, with the Board of Trustees approving the final design this December. The expansion, in which 3.1 million books will be retrieved on demand by an automated, robotic crane, will make Regenstein the largest library under one roof in North America.
According to Facilities Services, the addition, designed by Helmut John, will be a 30-foot high, 165 by 310 foot elliptical glass dome directly west of the current library . Book storage will be underground, with a reading room on the ground floor, and the addition will also house space for book preservation and conservation. The 52,800-squasre foot addition is expected to open in the summer of 2010.
Four blocks south, construction crews are working to finish the concrete skeleton of th new dorm at East 61st Street and South Ellis Avenue and enclose it before winter. The dorm, which was reduced in height from 14 to nine stories because of budget cuts, features two courtyards--similar to neighboring Burton-Judson--and nine houses. When the 811-bed building opens its doors in the fall of 2009, it will share a 530-seat dining hall with B-J and will feature a convenience store on Ellis Avenue.
B-J, meanwhile, has been undergoing a replacement of its roof during the summer. Work began last summer to replace the almost 80-year-old clay tile roof and parts of the facade, and will continue while students are out of residence during the summers until 2011.
Across from B-J and the Law School, work has begun on a winter garden on the south strip of the Midway to supplement the winter garden directly south of Harper Library. Sidewalks and planting beds are expected to be installed this fall, with completion of the garden by next summer. The project is being financed jointly by the U of C and the Chicago Park District.
Rehabilitation of the Law School tower is also expected to be completed to open this fall, after a major overhaul of the building's infrastructure that began last summer. The reflecting pool in front of the tower, designed by Eero Saarinen, is being replaced by a zeno-depth pool that will double as a plaza during the many months of the year that the water is drained. That work, which includes building permanent wheelchair access ramps to the plaza, is also expected to be completed this fall.
An 11-story parking structure at 3ast 61st street and South Drexel avenue is expected to open in November. It wil hold the cars of 1,000 U o C Hospitals employees. A four-story office building that surrounds the parking will open next summer and will house the UCPD, among other tenants. A second mixed-use building, to house retail, offices, and parking at East 61st Street and South Woodlawn Avenue, is also being designed.
Renovation also began this summer on the former Illinois Bell building at 6045 South Kenwood Avenue. The 90,000-square-foot building wil house University offices and the Toyota Technical Institute when it opens next fall.
The South Campus Utility Corridor, a system of buried utility pipes and data cables alongside 61st street, is nearly completed, and afterwards wil be re-landscaped with 81 new trees and 230 shrubs. One of the main functions of the new utility corridor will be to transport chilled water from the new South Campus Chiller Plant at East 62st Street and Dorchester Avenue. concrete is currently being laid for the foundation of the building, which will house five 2,100-ton water chillers. It is expected to open next summer.
Concrete is also being poured for the West Campus Utility Plant at East 56th Street and South Maryland Avenue. That building, which is expected to open in November 2008, will house five 2,500-ton water chillers and two 250,00 pound/hour steam boilers, providing water and steam tot e west campus through 1200 feel of buried piping and 700 feet of walkable tunnel currently being built beneath East 56th Street. Both the utility corridor and plant were designed by Helmut Jahn and his firm Murphy/Jahn.
Directly west of the Biological Sciences Learning Center, the 12-story center for Biomedical Discovery wil overshadow its neighbor when completed in March 2009. The building wil provided 330,000 square feet of space for clinical labs and will be connected by a skywalk to the Center for Integrative Science.
Renovation is also underway on the Searle Chemistry Laboratory, which is in the process of being completely gutted and rebuilt to provide upgraded lab and office space for synthetic chemistry. The renovation will be the first at the U of C compliant with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), a standard for environmentally friendly buildings.
Other construction project being considered include a dormitory for Graduate School of Business at East 60th Street and South Woodlawn Avenue, a combined hotel and conference center on the site of th former Doctor's Hospital of Hyde Park, and a second mixed-use building to house retail offices and parking at East 61st Street and South Woodlawn Avenue.
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Despite -or complementing- its deep involvement in computer science/intelligent machines studies and technical application, digital archiving, mammoth website server, and computer training for school children, the University is as committed to written resources as ever, in contrast to some other institutions almost stopping book purchases and putting all their eggs into "digital resources". Having deferred in 1999 a major initiative involving expansion until it completed a huge compact-storage and phase I of Regenstein Library renovation, the University has now rolled out a comprehensive plan for library resources costing $42 million and including a new west wing for the Library. Room will be provided for an additional 3.5 million volumes for a total of over 11 million, giving the University's Hyde Park campus one of the country's biggest collection of materials under one roof.
The west wing will cost nearly $36 m of the $43. While the wing is being prepared, reorganization of the whole library and its programs will be decided and planned. Regenstein will be increased by 40,000 square feet. A key component is new and better book preservation and tracking facilities and technologies including automatic shelving. There will also be more reading and consulting space. Much to most--and almost all of the monograph collection will remain open to browsing. Selected architect is modernist/postmodernist Helmut Jahn.
The original structure, designed by Walter Netsch, started in 1965 after a gift by Helen Regenstein in honor of her husband Joseph, and opened in 1970, was designed with an addition in mind. Yet, keeping full open browsing would have required a $70 million plus building according to Provost Richard Sallers as quoted in the University of Chicago Chronicle. The compromise is made possible by high-density automated shelving and rapid- retrieval. This needs only 1/7th the space. And by moving most journals to the addition, the monograph sections can be left close to as-is.
A stellar faculty committee is considering best ways to use the expanded space and maximize library usefulness and impact, from the perspective of how we think about knowledge in the early 21st century. Surveys have already been sent out. These (answered in full by a huge 5,700 students) reveal that the University community is as much into physical books as ever (except for journals), the need to virtually double volume capacity is justified, and those who use the internet heavily for research are the same people who use books heavily.
The Library holds a conference November 17, "Space and Knowledge" with international experts. Five architectural firms are competing for design rights.
Facts: current
space 600,00 sf on 12 acres, new 38,000 sf.
Current volumes 4.5 million- the addition will make space for 3.5 million more
in high density shelving yet close and accessible.
Architect selection is down to 5
Construction start August 2007; opening estimated July 2009.
Will be the largest academic library (in terms of ____).
This second article describes the renovation of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, which followed upon creation of an Interfaith Center in the undercroft.
opened: a state-of-the-art true interfaith center for campus religious groups in 2006. In July, the 1928 organ went to Shantz Organ Company of Orrville, Ohio (yes, where t hey make Smuckers) for refurbishment. A gift in honor of President Randel will refurbish the organ and carillon. The organ, which will now be the largest in Chicago at 8,600 pipes ranging from 2 inches to 32 feet, will be a balanced romantic organ reflecting but improving upon the original (especially in brightness) and presenting the sound of a full orchestra. Many previous changes have to be undone, including a 1970s attempt to replace English Romantic with Baroque-style pipes. It will have to be tested out and voiced pipe by pipe, range by range, so it won't be ready until the end of 2007. Total cost is $2.2 million ($1.6 million as a birthday tribute to Don Randel). In 2001, it was the 12th largest in the country.
Other Rockefeller upgrades include restoration of the large, stained-glass windows--which will start in November 2007 and take three years. Electrical and plumbing work is also slated. We have not heard work on the very needy Laura Spellman Rockefeller Carillon. Plaster models for the Chapel's sculptures are being conserved and are on display in the interfaith center on a rotating basis.
September5, 2007 update on Rockefeller restoration: Hyde Park Herald by Georgia Geis
church that was the dream of University of Chicago's baptist founder John Rockefeller is entering the most important phase of a complete facelift--from its roof to its basement. Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave., is undergoing an estimated $25 million restoration, which will take more than 3 years to complete.
The painstaking restoration also includes the chapel's premier musical instruments, the E.M. Skinner Organ and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Carillon. From the bells' removal and repair to the massive scaffolding wrapped around the exterior, the building is in the midst of the most dramatic aspects of its repair.
"We want to be good stewards of this building," said Lorraine Brochu, assistant to the dean for external affairs at Rockefeller. Brochu said work was being done in virtually every nook of the chapel. Contractors trained in historic restoration began work last month on the roof and masonry structure. Brochu said this work, which necessitates the use of scaffolding, is being done in conjunction with the restoration of the church's enormous stain glass windows, as well as complete restoration and repair of the organ and carillon.
"Considering the scale of the building, co0ordinating the scaffolding is a giant logistical thing," said artisan and chapel contractor Kevin Grabowsk. Grabowsk, who works for the 117-year-old Conrad Schmitt studio, located in New Berlin, Wisconsin, is overseeing the removal, restoration and return of all the chapel's windows. Grabowsk said the window project will take four to six artists working exclusively for three years on the project. Before any of the ornate windows are removed, photographic documentation records every crack and change in coloration. "Documentation is insane for this project. Every detail is recorded," said Grabowsk.
Conrad Schmitt Studio, which has done restoration work for Notre Dame and Union Square, first did work for the Rockefeller Chapel restoring an early scale plaster model of the church. The model shows great detail and includes rooms that never ended up being built.
Brochu said Don Randel, the former president of the University of Chicago, was instrumental in the restoration of the Chapel. During his tenure at the university, Randel planned for work to begin. "[M]any of the buildings of that age on campus need work," said Randel from his office in New York City where he now heads the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. "The need was clear when I got to Chicago."
Randel said as a musician he had a great appreciation for the organ. This appreciation translated into more than $2.5 million being donated to the chapel. To mark his 65th birthday in 2005, trustees, deans and officers of the university gave generously to the restoration effort. "I was deeply moved to find out [that] without my knowledge.. people were giving gifts for my 65th birthday toward restoration of the organ," said Randel. "It's a great thing the organ and carillon will be put back to their wonderful splendor."
By 2001, the organ was unusable due to uneven maintenance efforts, including removal of some of the original pipes during the 1970s. A temporary electric organ was brought in for services. The organ has been completely restored by the Ohio-based Schantz Organ company. The organ will be returned to the building after restoration of the organ's location in the chapel is complete. "The organ had fallen in[to] terrible disrepair. Its restoration is a great asset to the Chicago community and the organ community nationally," Randel said.
The money raised for Randel's birthday is also helping fund the restoration of the second largest carillon in the world. The carillon consists of 72 bells made of copper and bronze and weighing more than 100 tons. The bells will be removed Sept. 25 and taken to Koninklijk (Royal) Eijsbouts Bell foundry in the Netherlands. Josep van Brussel of the bell foundry said it will take a year to refurbish the bells. The mechanical action, as well as many steel parts of the bell frame that are severely corroded, need to be replaced," said van Brussel. Van Brussel said the Rockefeller carillon is the largest in the world that still has all its original bells. "The company that cast the bells for this instrument, Gillet & Johnston, doesn't exist anymore, but we have access to data like the original tuning figures, which enables us to renovate the instrument the best possible way, van Brussel said.
Another aspect of the massive repair project is a complete renovation of the lights. Brochu said with a laugh that now churchgoers should be able to see their programs. "We have to consider the needs of the modern community while keeping the historical integrity of the building," said Brochu.
The great effort taken to restore the landmark to its grandeur will ensure its longevity, according to Grabowsk. "The Rockefeller Chapel is in good condition, considering its age. The project will make the building very tight so it can be around another 75 years," said Grabowsk.
Planned Creative and Performing Arts Center
Reva and David Logan family gift of $35 million sets the Logan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts development in motion. The architect selected in late May is the husband and wife team of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of New York, known for art centers and work on university campuses. It looks like the structure will be built in one phase, with hopes it will not have to be scaled back. It have a horizontal component visually open to the Midway, a raised courtyard and a 160-foot green stone clad tower including a protruding glass-faced cafe with retractable roof, yoga and napping room. The building is to expose the messiness of art to the outside while avoiding separated- off floors, so that the different departments can mingle.
Herald, October 11, 2006. By Daniel J. Yovich
The University of Chicago is planning to build a $100 million arts complex and has impaneled a handful of the world's most renowned architects to compete for the contract to design the facility. The 180,000-square-foot complex is slated to be built near the intersection of 61st Street and Ingleside Avenue, and will include three black-box theaters, music practice rooms, a recording studio and a 350-seat performance hall. [ed- more below.] Danielle Allen, dean of the university's division of the humanities, said the complex will incorporate but leave untouched the university's Midway Studios. The studios are housed in the former mansion landmarked by the city in 1993. The studios are the former home and workspace of Lorado Taft, one of the early 20th Century's most famous artists.
"This project will create a new synergy for the arts at the university," Allen said, noting that the university's many art courses, studios, and performance and rehearsal spaces are currently sited in several different buildings throughout the campus.
The university has raised about $1 million for the project, said Tom Wick, the senior director of development. And the university's target of $14 million must be met before an architect will be hired. Those vying to design the complex are Daniel Libeskind, the planner for reconstruction of New York City's World Trade Center, New York architects Ted Williams and Bilie Tsien, and three former Pritzker Architecture Prize winners: Hans Hollien of Austria, Fumihiko Maki of Japan and Thom Mayne of Santa Monica, Calif.
The architects will submit their proposals for the project by the end of November, Wick said. A panel of faculty and students will jury them in early 2007 before a winner is selected.
Fund-raising for the project will continue through 2006. Though Wick declined to say how much of the estimated $100,000 must be raised before ground is broken, the university has previously sought 80 percent of the required funding for major construction projects before it begins building.
ed. Additional facilities according to the October 10 2006 U of C Maroon, include a climate-controlled film storage vault, as well as renovation/reuse of non-protected parts of Midway Studios. Previously announced are art fabrication studios and manufactories.
And the layout is planned to create new collaborations and cross-influences. Bill Michael, vp for student life, is cited in the Maroon as drawing parallels to the Gordon Center fo Integrative Science: "Having the music practice rooms and things intertwined in these spaces provides a real opportunity for people to interact with each other. This building is going to be... a space where our students can come together, whether they're making films or doing a capella or if they just want to experience the art." Allen added, "If you look at what's happening in the world of contemporary art right now, you'll see a remarkable fusion of media land genre, and that's happening on our campus too. We have people who blend different kinds of art-visual with digital, art with science." Michael also thought the CCPA will "energize the south side of campus" and engage communities while not replacing existing art and music facilities.
Re: architects, they were chosen from a pool of 60, similarly to the GSB competition. Allen was quoted in the Maroon, "We want this building to symbolize the creativity at the highest level, so we thought the activities of the building would themselves well represented by top-flight architects. We thought the best way of engaging them in the most energetic forms of creativity would be a competition." This is also expected to jump-start the fundraising general and specific campaign--donors care who the architect is. Currently, many potential donors are being contacted or given attention.CCCP grew out of a provost report on arts facilities in 2001.
More: see in Arts News page.
Where we stand and the next phase in March 2007. $35 million gift to Creative and Performing arts center. Jazz Archive moving to Special Collections. FOTA mostly indoors 2007.From the Chicago Weekly News, by Juan Velez.
You might've heard of some of the changes, and if you're enough of a doctorate student you might have seen them. All the glossier and certainly the most utility-oriented spaces on the University of Chicago campus are from the last six years: Max Palevsky Commons, Ratner Gymnasium, the Graduate School of Business (GSB), the Gordon Center for the Integrated Science, the guts of the Reynolds Club. So now we have a crayon box in which to stick all the normal-ish kids (Max Palevsky Commons), a gym that isn't a Soviet silo, and a frigid birdcage of steel and glass where business students can evolve in their natural habitat. What more amenities does this modern institution need? Readers of this humble publication ought to know: a spot where artists can congregate, create, disseminate, and replicate.
The administration often refers to a nebulous "vibrant legacy" of arts at Chicago. What ground hath this platitude? If claims on human capital stand for anything, Susan Sontag, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Glass, and David Auburn al went here, and must've been to some degree shaped inside these walls. Doc Films has been around since the birth of silent film, and has hosted everyone form Hitchcock to Stan Brahkage to Fritz Lang; we birthed improv/sketch comedy and The Second City troupe; University Theatre has staged hundreds of productions; Fire Escape Films has matured to the point of producing feature-length films; the Renaissance Society exhibited Picasso and Kandinsky back in the time of the avant-gardes and is still a vital force in contemporary art; and WHPK has been singularly crucial to the development of Chicago hip-hop. So the trace is conspicuously there, and the administration has finally gotten around to giving the arts the formal glorification and aggressive support they deserve.
The University's informal arts initiative has its roots in the "Future of the Arts Report," a status assessment developed by an appointed committee in 2001 that called for the increased support of the various arts institutions on campus. This foundational idea has congealed into a number of distinct, agglomerated efforts in the last three years, starting with the formation of the Art Planning Council, which gives circa $50,000 in grants every year to student and professional arts groups, as well as to individuals. It has a particular emphasis on collaborative projects, which reflects a wider push towards collaboration in the initiative. The initiative draws from the university's long-standing interdisciplinary culture and aims to do something rather novel: the creation and proliferation of spaces where theory and (artistic ) practice can substantially merge, where different media can mix, and where faculty, students, professional artists, and the public can interact.
The main mechanism of this integrative approach is the furthering of collaborations between all the arts entities on campus--between professional arts organizations (such as Court Theatre), graduate and undergraduate academic programs and departments, the research enterprise of the Humanities division, and the student arts groups. The Arts Clarity group was created last year for this explicit purpose, to aggressively sustain and expand these collaborations, and to make the case for a projected expansion of both Court Theatre and the Smart Museum. Another related effort, coordinated by Mary Harvey, the chair of t he Arts Planning Council, brings together the heads of arts organizations in Hyde Park and on the South Side, with the objective of creating a compelling identity for the South Side arts scene, to increase its visibility, and to make it a necessary destination for North Siders and outsiders alike. While these associated efforts of the arts initiative are not entirely centrally organized, they can be understood as a single movement towards the enhancement of the arts at the U of C and on the south Side. Minds and means are being mobilized, and the future is pregnant with promise.
You've likely heard about the most exciting, integral, and emblematic project of the initiative: the (insert biggest donor name here) Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. This ambitious, landmark building will anchor the new South Campus and will be built around Midway Studios, the charmingly dilapidated home of the visual arts you've never been to, which is situated at 60th and Drexel. The CCPA will increase the University's capacity to deliver "high quality arts instruction and support high level para-curricular arts activity," and will allow for increased recruitment of talented, arts-oriented students, and of the highest possible caliber arts faculty. This move could very well change the composition of the study body at the UofC C, and possibly expand it, though it is doubtful that the University would create a full-fledged art school. Instead, the building might help widen the applicant pool and lower the admissions rate, which would certainly be a cause for polemic as well as interesting growth, and would be in tune with the administration's overall project.
The design requirements call for shared functional spaces that flow together, reflecting the fluid relationships between the arts programs, and actively encouraging collaboration between the visual arts, film, music, and theater. Midway Studios, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is to be renovated, and will likely be incorporated in some of the potential designs. The building design has to be sustainable, expandable, and present an appealing facade for the South.
Confirmed facilities:
Three new black box theaters (like the first Floor Theatre in Reynolds Club), performance classrooms, rehearsal rooms, shops and theater offices.
Increase the number of music practice rooms form nine to twenty and provide a new recording studio and additional ensemble rehearsal space.
A new 150-seat film screening facility and a film vault (something like the film studies center in Cobb).
A 350-seat multipurpose theater that will provide a much needed new performance space and allow for better use to be made of Mandel Hall.
State of the art visual arts teaching spaces, forty student studios and gallery areas for students to display their work.
Digital media lab and smart classrooms.
Cafe (which guarantees decades of employment for future generations of hipsters) and lounge areas where the arts will intersect.
Office space for faculty-in-residence working on arts-related projects.
The building will enable faculty to create new art, as well as new courses that mix media. It'll allow for the expansion of the University's artist-in-residence program, by giving a wider range of artist more opportunities to spend a longer period of time on campus, thereby allowing them to work meaningfully with students, faculty, and professional arts organizations and to perform or exhibit for the benefit of the campus, the South Side, and the city.
There are still plenty of bureaucratic mazes and fiscal hurdles to overcome. Last year, five architectural firms were invited to compete for the design of the CCPA. They presented to a jury on November 20, whose charge was to recommend an architect to the Campus Planning and Facilities Committee of the Board of Trustees, at their March 1, 2007 meeting. The jury's recommendation will remain confidential until the Board authorizes an announcement, which won't happen until the committee has had a chance to talk to the recommended firm about next steps, and circles back to the board - hopefully sometime in the Spring. The scale models of the winning design are bound to be displayed publicly at that time. Money, as always, is the other buzzkill. The CCPA will carry a heavy price tag of $100 million, and the University will tactically withhold a public fundraising campaign until the competition winner is announced. They are currently engaged in a "quiet" outreach to secure leading donations, the kind that get projects off the ground. Heartbreakingly, undergraduates probably won't be around for the opening ceremony..but their children undoubtedly will, and their future alumni donations will be spent on its upkeep.
More on the Arts Clarity Group
February 20, 2007 Maroon, by Justin Sink
The arts programs at the U of C are in the midst of a widespread and extensive restructuring process that is intended to transform disciplines traditionally underemphasized at the University. In recent talks, President Robert Zimmer has stressed the need for greater collaboration with city and neighborhood organizations and museums, the creation of a Center for Performing Arts, and the integration of artistic resource such as Court theatre and the Smart Museum into undergraduate studies.
"It's a really important part of our broader strategy to improve the University," Assistant Vice President for Student Life Bill Michael said. "We're working toward some programs that are really going to increase and improve the opportunities on campus for the study and appreciation of the arts."
The Arts Clarity Group (ACG), a board consisting of the directors of campus professional arts organizations, chairs of arts-related academic units, and the deans and deputy deans of the College and Humanities division, has taken the lead in strengthening the arts at the University. The board was created in response to a 2001 report that found "the absence of a clear sense of how [the arts] fit into the University's larger mission."
Other reforms being considered by the ACG include adding more arts residencies and fellowships, a renovation of Mandel Hall, expansions of the Smart Museum and Court Theatre, the purchase of permanent student gallery space, and the creation of new full-time faculty positions within the Humanities division.
Dawn Helsing, executive director of Court Theatre and cochair of the ACG, recognized the need for a University-led drive to support the arts. "The Hyde Park area is a hub of diverse and rich arts activity in this city. There's so much that we need to do to raise our profile and engage more visitors and residents," she said. "The University plays a central role, in no small measure because of the distinctive interdisciplinary arts scholarship and creativity being generated throughout campus."
Larry Norman, deputy dean of the Humanities Division and cochair of the ACG, wrote in an e-mail that ACG reforms are actionable proposals that are intended to increase the influence of arts on campus. "The University's commitment to the arts is best witnessed by the fact that the Arts Clarity Group's catalog of ongoing initiatives represents not a fanciful wish list for the future, but instead the reality of recent advances by our arts programs and of their collaborative work together," he said. "Much remains to be done, but progress in recent years has been great."
Although those involved in the process heralded the progress already made, pointing to recent guest artist prog drams, new hires, and curriculum development, many arts students expressed the opinion that their discipline is underappreciated at the U of C.
"I came to the U of C because I wanted a good liberal arts reduction, and being well rounded is important to me and will surely make me a better artist, but I don't think arts are taken seriously enough at the U of C," second-year Theater and Performance studies major Victoria Bartley said. "The thought of new spaces in which various artists of all types could collaborate and facilitate their work is fantastic. The arts programs here are growing, and the need for space is growing, and in a number of years, the University will no longer be able to ignore the problem."
Humanities faculty and students emphasized that new facilities are necessary if the U of C intends to avoid serious problems with overcrowding and insufficient resources in its art programs. Michael said the development office created a new position substantially devoted to arts fundraising, and the administration has stressed the importance of arts donations.
"There remains much to be done, and our physical facilities clearly are not adequate for the vitality of the current programming, little less its future growth," Norman said. "That is one of the great challenges that faces us now."
Ronald McDonald house reopens in splendid, friendly new quarters north of 55th. December 13, 2007
Hyde Park Herald, December 19, 2997. By Georgia Geis
A large crowd braved the brisk wind last Thursday to witness the ribbon cutting at t he new 30,000-square-feet, Victorian-styled Ronald mcDonald House at 5444 S. Drexel Ave. The 22-bedroom house has amenities that would rival any luxury hotel.
Architects George Pappageorge and David Haymes with their colleagues designed the house with an elaborate turret, oversized windows and a wrap-around veranda to fit in with the turn of the century row houses on Drexel Avenue. "We pride ourselves in being a god neighbor," said Doug Porter, Chief Executive Officer of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana. "We strive to fit in with a neighborhood."
The house was designed with a "Growing Tree" theme based on the popular children's book and is double the size of the original Ronald McDonald House that opened in Hyde Park in 1986 and that will make the work of volunteers like longtime Hyde Parker Noel Brusman easier.
Brusman has volunteered for the Ronald McDonald House for twelve years and has met countless families dealing with a child's serious illness. Brusman said one man's story stands out. A young man from the east cost whose twins were just born was flown here with his one baby who was born with cancer. The man, whose baby dies without ever seeing his mother, was a resident a the home for ten days. "He said eh felt very supported during this terribly sad time. He has come back to visit," said Brusman. In lieu of sympathy gifts, he asked that his friends make donations to the Ronald McDonald House in Hyde Park, brusman said.
Brusman said this story is typical for those staying at the house and this is why she volunteers eight hours a week, doing everything from admitting new guests to loading the dishwasher. "I have never stopped being touched by it," said Brusman, who stated volunteering after she retired from high school teaching. "My eyes tear up along with theirs."
According to Porter, many Hyde Parkers have been involved with the house, for example one generous Hyde Park resident who wishes to remain anonymous donated a million dollars for the project. Porter said he wants the neighborhood to feel welcome at the house and said there is a conference room for meetings and get-togethers.
"It is a big day, it has been a lot of work," said House Manager Mardelle Grundlach, who started herself as a volunteer 20 years ago. Grundlach said a lot of Hyde Park people volunteer at the house. She said there are many volunteer opportunities and "everyone is welcome." Grundlach said she is especially happy about the private bathrooms, which wil make a big difference for the families.
Besides the private bathrooms the house has age-appropriate play rooms from the toddler room, which can be seen from the kitchen, and a family room to a teen room equipped with video games. The house also boasts a computer room, a state of te h art kitchen with five fully equipped work stations and a chapel that will provide a place for reflection where the families can see the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital through the huge picture window.
Brusman said one thing people could do is make dinner for the families. Many school, church and work groups come in to make dinner for what typically is 25 people. Brusman said working at the house give her a sense of being blessed. "I just say thank you, God. I have five healthy children and 11 healthy grandchildren," said Brusman.
For more information about volunteer opportunities, call Grundlach at 773 324-5437.