Arts News-UC section
Civic Knowledge and Southside Arts and Humanities Network
Community News
Education Resources and UC Schools Initiatives, charter schools
Historic Preservation in Depth
Neighborhood Development Policy
Public Safety on University Police, UCP expansion north and south, allegations of profiling and brutality
Less than stellar student controversies and engagement on race
Disabled Persons incl. on the UC federal settlement
Tracking Community Trends I-University of Chicago and U of C Hospitals.
Tracking Trends II-various incl. Good Town and Gown Relations

Campus tours and sites

Botanic Garden self-guided tour. Get it at Young 3rd fl., 5555 S. Ellis 773 834-1657.

Campus architecture guide. The Campus Guide: The University of Chicago, 2006.

Campus tours led by students. Weekdays from Office of College Admissions 573_ S. University Ave. 773 702-8650.

Robie House, Frank Lloyd Wright's. 11, 1, 3 weekdays, every half hour 11-3:30 weekends. m. Saturday. $10-$12. 5757 S. Woodlawn. 708 848-1976.
Historic Neighbors Walk and Wine Aug. 9, 4:30 pm, $25-$30

Historic Neighbors walking Tour (self-guided audio tour). 10 am-3:30 pm, Saturday guided. Both from Robie House.

Midway Plaisance stroll. Unguided. Don't miss Alison Davis Garden and Lorado Taft's Fountain of Time across Cottage Grove.

Rockefeller Chapel Tower Tours. 11:30 am weekdays when University in session, Sunday after service. . Exterior of tower, 5850 S. Woodlawn. 773 702-7059.

President Zimmer gives priorities, strategic investments in e-letter March 2008. Some think doesn't give direction on issues that divide.

Visit http://president.uchicago.edu/reports/letter_033108.shtml and
president@uchicago.edu.

Priorities include establishment of a Washington D.C. lobbying office, new hospital, enhancing scientific research including new science complex, arts complex and enhancement, academic programs, faculty and student support, community engagement including coordination to deal with Olympic impacts. Many of the programs and facilities supporting selected priority fields would take the University to the forefront of "complex, systems-level" and emerging science and studies. He spoke of enough support level for programmatic ambition so UC plays a leadership role. These include various physics and astro studies, nanoengineering, evolutionary biology, cancer biology, immunology, gastrointestinal disease, imaging technology and applications, fundamental research to illuminate the most important social and human issues of the times. A new institute for collaboration across economics, law, policy was one area. Others were tying more in, more intensively with education research and application, building upon Franke Institute of Humanities, Islamic studies, energy policy and analysis, international programs, arts integration. Other areas of focus include size of the faculty, student aid and housing and life, women and minority recruitment and diversity. Visibility in and contribution to surrounding communities will especially focus on health and education.

Hank Webber Leaves in March 2008: Played key role as VP for Community and Government Affairs, made a real difference.

From: Robert J. Zimmer [mailto:president@uchicago.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 10:28 AM
To: Faculty and Staff
Subject: Announcement

To: Faculty and Staff
From: Robert J. Zimmer, President
Re: Hank Webber Announcement
I am writing to inform you that Hank Webber, our Vice President for Community and Government Affairs, has accepted a position as Executive Vice Chancellor for Administration at Washington University in St. Louis, effective March 1, 2008. Hank has given extraordinary service to the University of Chicago during his 21 years as an administrator and instructor, and we will be sorry to lose him. But his new position at Washington University is a wonderful opportunity, and we wish him well in this new phase of his career.

The University of Chicago has a deep and longstanding connection to the City of Chicago and to our surrounding communities on the South Side. We embrace our role as citizens of the South Side community and our role in contributing to its development. A key feature of this citizenship is a rich engagement as partners with City and South Side community leaders and organizations. These partnerships have increased significantly in number and level of engagement over the past decade, and Hank’s leadership has provided an essential component of these efforts.

Hank will remain in his position at the University until mid-February, giving us time to implement a smooth transition and to launch a search for his replacement. Filling this position is a very high priority for the University. We plan to conduct that process thoroughly and expeditiously and hope to name a successor by the time he departs.

Hank joined the University in 1986 as the deputy director of financial planning and budget and as a lecturer in the School of Social Services Administration. He has held a number of administrative positions, most recently being appointed vice president for community affairs in 1997 and adding government affairs to his responsibilities in 2001. During that time, he has represented the University with great dedication in every facet of our interactions with the community and has overseen a wide array of functions including University Police, Real Estate Operations, Court Theatre, International House, and Government Relations.

Hank and his colleagues in Community and Government Affairs have built new and stronger relationships between the University and community, religious, and civic organizations and political leaders on the South Side of Chicago, contributing to community revitalization in North Kenwood, Oakland, and Woodlawn and a new spirit of partnership between the University and our surrounding communities.

Most notably, he was instrumental in the creation of what has grown into the Urban Education Initiative. He is the founding and current chair of the Governing Board of the University of Chicago Charter Schools Corporations and chairs the Administrative Oversight Board of the Consortium on Chicago School Research. In addition, he played an essential role in the development of the Collegiate Scholars Program.

He also led the steering committee and a joint effort by the University, community, and Chicago Park District to revitalize the Midway, including the development of a permanent skating rink, new gardens, and new playing fields. He was a key part of the University team that worked to secure the current contracts to manage Argonne and Fermi national laboratories.
Hank has made these and many other administrative contributions while teaching regularly in SSA and maintaining a research program.

In his new role at Washington University, Hank will be the university’s chief administrative officer and will oversee facilities, campus planning, capital projects, campus security, and off-campus real estate acquisition and development. Please join me in wishing him well in his new endeavors. Top

Herald: Hank Webber bids university farewell. November 7, 2007. By Sam Cholke

March 1 will mark the end of a 21-year engagement between Hank Webber and the University of Chicago. Webber has accepted a position as executive vice chancellor for administration at Washington University in St. Louis and will leave his post as vice president for community and government affairs at the University of Chicago (U. of C.)

"It's extraordinarily difficult to leave," Webber said. "This has our home, this has been where we raised our children, this h as been our set of networks--a set of extraordinarily confident, thoughtful, dedicated people who I've come to have great respect for. It's very hard."

Webber was a key player in Community and Development Affairs and worked with his colleagues and the community to build stronger relationships between the university and community, religious and civic organizations on the South Side of Chicago. "I think Hyde Park, South Kenwood and the mid-South Side is in the midst of one of the great stories of revitalization in the United States," Webber said. "I'm proud that I've played a role in making that happen, and I'm also very confident that it wil continue."

Webber said he looks forward to new challenges at Washington University. In his new position, Webber will be the chief administrative officer overseeing facilities, campus planning, capital projects, campus security and of-campus real estate acquisition and development. "I think the challenges of helping contribute to making Washington University--which is a first rate institution--an even stronger institution and help it work with the city of St. Louis and the St. Louis region --to make that an even stronger place to live are the challenges that I hope I can contribute to," Webber said.

The senior leadership at Washington University is excited to have Webber tackle these challenges. "Hank has been an impressive leader for more than two decades at the University of Chicago, one of America's premier research institutions," said Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton in a prepared statement. "He brings a wealth of knowledge to our community--knowledge about how great universities an have a positive impact in their local communities."

Webber said the opportunity to continue teaching was an important factor in is decision and said he would have been reluctant to consider a position that would not allow him to continue his research projects. "It is the opportunity for me to be both a practitioner but also to reflect on what I'm doing as a practitioner in a broader context," Webber said. "It's something I've found enormously appealing and want to continue."

The prospect of new challenges on the horizon has lured Webber to St. Louis, but h e hopes to carry the lesson instilled in him while serving the U. of C. and the South Side. "What I'm going to miss most about the University of Chicago is the relentless commitment to thinking hard about important issues--the commitment to reflection, but not reflection for reflection's sake," Webber said. "It's the extraordinary commitment to the notion that ideas matter and by thinking hard, by making the right initiatives, you can make a difference. It's not ideas just for ideas sake. It's ideas to change t he world."

Webber said he hopes to find a sense of civic responsibility similar to what he found in Hyde Park. "What I'll miss most about Hyde Park, South Kenwood is really two things: One is the extraordinary diversity of the community," Webber said, "and the second part of this... is the engagement, the level fo civic engagement, about the future of this neighborhood that people have." Webber said tha he hopes his work has left his neighborhood a better place. "I hope what I leave is a community that is stronger " Webber said. "And if I've left it even a very little bit stronger, I feel good about what I've done."

Maroon November 6 2007, Webber to leave U of C; VP built town-gown relations. By Rhema Hokama

In the past two decades he has spent living and working in Hyde Park, Hank webber has witnessed the transformation of the University from an isolated, inward looking institution into an active player in the development of surrounding neighborhoods. Last Thursday, Webber, vice president for community and government affairs at the University, announced his departure for Washington University in St. Louis...

Two overarching factors influenced Webber's decision during the long months of negotiation and soul-searching. "I have to say first that it's an extraordinarily attractive position in a very exciting city that's redeveloping. It's a chance to have a broader impact on [Washington] University an its community than at the institution I'm currently at. It's simply a terrific job as a job," he said..

Webber said that less concrete factors also influenced his decision to leave the University. "It did seem to me time. I've been here [at Chicago] for 21 years and I've had this [current] job for just about 11 years," he said. "I do believe that change can be really invigorating and it's not just good for the individual but also for the institution. I don't think it would be food for Chicago if I stayed with my job for another 15 years until I retired," he added.

"I feel like I've been enormously blessed to have been able to do this wok for the last 11 years. There were many times I said to myself, 'I can't believe they actually pay me to do this.' I love my job so much. If I've contributed, I've contributed, but I've probably taken so much more."

Webber added that the recent change in University administrations with the inauguration of President Robert Zimmer last summer was not a contributing factor to his departure for Washington University. "I think tha over the past 10 years and under the last three presidents of the University...ther's been a strong commitment by the University to redevelopment of the South Side of Chicago and the health of he city," he said. "If anything, I think Bob [Zimmer] is committed to increasing the depth of our involvement,"

Developments in improving public education on the South Side have been one of the University's central community concerns through the last three administrations, Webber said. Under President Hugo Sonnenschein, the University launched the Urban Education Initiative, which oversees Chicago-area charter school campuses. The program expanded to include the Urban Teachers Education masters program during President Don Michael Randel's administration and added its third charter school under President Zimmer.

"I definitely think there is continuity in terms of commitment to these issues," Webber said. Webber also identified community redevelopment and integration as other areas of focus during his time in Hyde Park. "In the 11 years I've had this job I think the challenge has been to support the redevelopment of the neighborhoods north and south of Hyde Park. When I first moved here 21 years ago, Hyde Park was very much an island. Very few faculty members went of 47th or south of 64th[Streets]," he said.

Webber added that as community-relations issues develop over time, he projects that affordable housing and gentrification will become key issues for the South Side, particularly in the Washington Park neighborhoods west of the University. Further development of public education, improvement in public safety, expanding commercial and retail options for consumers, and "finding out ways to make the University a bigger employer of South Side residents" are all issues that will continue to take center stage in Hyde Park town-gown negotiations, he said.

And although Webber envisions the University as an integral player in future campus-community dialogues, he also believes that the University must continue its open exchange with surrounding neighborhoods and residents. "I think one of my main responsibilities has been helping the University play a role in that redevelopment and helping the University recognize that we are a player and that we cannot nor should be a senior partner in [community] issues," he said. "We're one of the most important institutions in the city and it is my belief that institutions are most effective when they combine a sense of the right thing to do with their own interest." "I can't tell you that every bit of controversy is a good thing when you're the largest institution," he said.

Yet the good news, he added, is that Hyde Park is distinguished by its community and civic involvement. "People care about these issues. This is not a place of apathy. Chicago has a strong mayor, a strong non-profit sector, a set of great community leaders and political leaders. I think the challenge is to continue finding ways to work with these people productively and I have every confidence that the University will continue to do this," he said. "I have every confidence that he University will continue this work under President Zimmer, under the Provost...so I'm not leaving with worry.

Top

There is a wide range of views on the relationship of the University and surrounding communities, high praise, deep memories of hurt, and conflicted.

The University of Chicago has been praised for its diligence in helping squeezed businesses relocate but criticized for letting vacancies go on too long, an inconsistent or unclearly set forth set of goals, and its role in the Co-Op debacle-- too lenient, then pouncing (some say laying a trap) when its interests were hurt and pressuring the community for acceptance of its plan that is in some ways generous but also gets rid of a long-time community institution it did not control but had enticed onto its property nearly 50 years ago. See Co-Op home.

Much of the praise is included through this and other pages. And there is a summary in the Tracking Community Trends pages. Here is a synopsis of one of the negative views, by Jacky Grimshaw, lifelong area resident (current Hyde Parker) and activist on many fronts with community planning organizations on transportation, environment, development and schools.

Grimshaw's description of how so many communities have been negatively affected by the U of C was made in context of one of the candidates for 3rd Ward alderman working for the University. Examples cited:

• 1930s forward, U of C backed restrictive covenants and segregation, helping force overcrowding and deterioration in the "black belt" neighborhood such as Bronzeville.
• Urban Renewal: Razing of hundreds of buildings and removal of thousands of families and an entertainment strip in Hyde Park.
• 1960s, University grabs the blocks south of 60th, citing need to grow, and destroys perfectly viable, even grand houses--and lets the land lay vacant for decades.
• As a research institution, the University needs and will take lots of land. They are rich enough to take, but don't pay taxes.
• Their paradigm is market might--witness the Checker Board--an offer it couldn't refuse to located out of its historic neighborhood to where it was useful to the university.
• Argues that the University's needs will cause it to leapfrog into Bronzeville, where it seeks to have an ally and possibly dependant as alderman.

Is it a new fight, then? Author of "Who Owns Hyde Park" and commenter seem to think so.

http://gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/who_owns_hyde_park/
By Jacob Lesniewski

The University of Chicago proudly points to how its Office of Community
Affairs has forged a new relationship with surrounding neighborhoods.
Gone are the days of the University wielding the tools of urban renewal
and eminent domain to "build out" elements of Hyde Park the university,
its faculty, high-end staff or students found undesirable. The
university now speaks of forming partnerships and collaborating with
communities and neighborhood groups on issues of education, public
safety, urban planning and economic development. To the extent that the
university now mainly builds charter schools instead of condominium
towers, the relationship between the university and local neighborhoods
appears different. But beneath the surface of grins, handshakes and
photo ops lies the reality of an unchanged vision. The university still
largely sees neighborhood groups in Hyde Park and across the Mid-South
Side as impediments and roadblocks on the path to accomplishing its
underlying community relations goal: a stable, staid, homogenous and
easily categorizable upper middle class Hyde Park.

Hyde Park is a diverse community that confounds easy categorization.
Racial and socioeconomic patterns change block to block and sometimes
lot to lot. It is the whitest neighborhood for miles and yet only
around 44 percent of its residents are white. It is a neighborhood of
renters and condo-owners, of the wealthy living in huge mansions and
the poor living in Section 8 buildings. It is full of liberal activists
and economics professors, frat boys and math nerds, dusty bookstores
and rib joints.

The university has long desired a homogenous, predictable neighborhood
to sell to prospective students and faculty, and seems to believe that
through bricks and mortar construction and the expansion of the
university police force, it can accomplish its vision of Hyde Park. The
tragedy of Amadou Cisse's murder, steps from the sparkling new
undergraduate dorm under construction, lays bare the failure of this
strategy. But the university continues to pursue this strategy and
fundamentally unchanged relationship with its surrounding community.

Two recent dust-ups between the university and the community exemplify
this essentially unchanged relationship. The first issue is the
university's push to convert the Doctor's Hospital on Stony Island into
a hotel. Most of us who live in Hyde Park would heartily support a
non-shady hotel closer than the expensive Loop hotels that currently
"serve" our neighborhood. Had the university chosen to engage in a
dialogue or consult important community actors (such as the residents
of apartment and co-op buildings on Stony Island), they would have
found a questioning, yet overwhelmingly supportive community.

Instead, the university chose to attempt to ram through a plan based on
the needs of an important donor, the White family of White Lodging
Company. They held their first public meeting on the plan in the small
conference room of a neighboring cooperative and all non-Vista Homes
residents were shut out. When the Office of Community Affairs finally
presented the plan to the public, it was clear that the presentation
was a clumsily orchestrated attempt to equate opposition to this
particular plan and hotel operator with opposition to a hotel in Hyde
Park, economic development and, most heinously, the needs of the
families of cancer patients at the University of Chicago Hospitals. The
University's hand-picked "preservation expert," who droned on endlessly
about how the Doctor's Hospital building really isn't all that
historic, finished his speech before getting to a point the university
deemed important. So Hank Webber, vice-president for community affairs
at the university, yelled a reminder to him from the front row.

The second example is the recent demise of the Hyde Park Cooperative
Society. The coverage in the Sun-Times, Chicagoist and other media
outlets paints a picture of the university coming to the aid of a
failing grocery store by letting it die a dignified death. The reality
is that the university has cynically manipulated the process from the
start. The Co-Op's flagship store at 55th street is a highly profitable
full-service grocery store that has suffered from the attempted
expansion to stores at 53rd and 47th Streets. Service quality and
prices fluctuated over the last three years as the Co-Op sought a way
out of its obligations at the 47th Street store, to the frustration of
many residents. Some sort of solution was needed to restore high
quality, decently priced grocery service to the neighborhood.

Again, most residents of the neighborhood recognized the need for
change at the Co-Op. Again, the university, as lease-holder to the 55th
Street Co-Op, could have engaged in a dialogue with the Co-Op society,
its members and the wider community about the future of the Co-Op.
Instead, the university pushed through a vote requiring the Co-Op
Society to decide on its future. Again, instead of letting the process
play out naturally, the university hired a consultant to create a shell
community organization called Hungry for Change that took out full page
ads in the student newspaper, the Maroon, encouraging a vote for the
Co-op's demise, to be replaced by a Treasure Island or Dominick's at
55th Street. To make sure their message was clear, Hank Webber sent out
a mass email to all those with an uchicago.edu email address claiming
that "Option A" was the only viable option for Hyde Park, presumably to
avoid mass starvation.

The problem with the university's approach to the community is not
merely the attempt to ram through a hotel operator that has a federal
EEOC complaint against it for religious discrimination, disobeys city
laws on housekeeper breaks or is relentlessly anti-union. It is not
with pushing through the demise of a 75-year-old institution in favor
of a union-busting grocer (Treasure Island) or a faceless corporation
(Dominick's). The problem is that the university, having lost its blunt
tools of eminent domain and bulldozers, now uses cynical manipulation
to impose its vision of a healthy urban community on Hyde Park. It is a
similar strategy to the Daley administration, which uses its power and
resources to buy off opposition and force community groups to play the
game in return for whatever scraps the city (or university) deems
appropriate to bestow in return.

The counter-vision of Hyde Park is that it is and has the potential to
be the premier example of a diverse urban community that works, a
neighborhood that resists the homogenization of late stage capitalism,
a neighborhood where the poor and well heeled bump into each other on
the street. That counter-vision is not upheld by the sycophantic
student newspaper or by the new wealthier condo owners, but by the
group that the university has criticized as against progress and
development in Hyde Park: the long time "white liberal" residents who
man the community organizations, churches and synagogues. It is not the
university or the compromised commentariat — its key collaborators in
bemoaning that "things don't get done in Hyde Park" — who saved the
neighborhood from the twin specters of blight and flight in the 1960s
and 1970s. Despite the fact that the bulldozers of urban renewal often
receive credit for saving Hyde Park from the fate of other South Side
neighborhoods, the real "saviors" of Hyde Park are those now graying
men and women who stayed through the decline in the '60s through the
'80s. They maintained the vision of an economically and racially
diverse neighborhood by not relocating to the North Side or down the
Metra Electric Line to the south suburbs. It is because of them that
there remains a strong core of religious, social and other
organizations that serve the community so well.

The question of who owns Hyde Park remains a contested one. On the one
side are the members of the Older Women's League, the lay leaders of
the churches and synagogues, and the members of the community council
whose vision is of a diverse, heterogeneous community, and on the other
stands the vision of those within the gray fortress of the university
and their developer allies. It is a battle between Valois and Wendy's,
57th Street Books and Borders, Dr. Wax and Coconuts. It is between
those who see Hyde Park as nothing more than a template for Anywhere,
USA and those for whom Hyde Park is home and history. For the
university to truly have a new relationship with Hyde Park, it must
recognize this vision. It must recognize that it is not Hyde Park, and
despite the fact that it holds legal title to much of its real estate,
it does not own it. Until then, its new relationship will be nothing
more than consultant-driven manipulation and propaganda.

Jacob Lesniewski is a transplanted New Yorker and a graduate student at
the University of Chicago. While he loves Chicago, his biggest fear is
that his daughters will become Bulls fans.

1 comments  |  Add yours

Mateus (December 19, 2007 4:26 AM) said:

I was somewhat involved in the Co-Op debacle, and I have to say that I
think it was completely the fault of the Co-Op. Having perused its
books, it became clear that its governing council was completely
incompetent in accounting for its profits and losses and using data to
make sound decisions. So ironic, given that so much of the membership
came from U of C, which is globally recognized as a place that teaches
reasoned decision making using hard facts. If the Co-Op had voted to
try to hang on, it would surely have failed as no one in their right
mind would extend credit to the group after having seen their books. It
would be a loss for any creditor. Indeed, HP would have become a food
desert, as the liquidation process is a lengthy one. This on top of the
Cisse slaying and fairly regular flow of robberies committed against
students is completely untenable for the University if it is going to
continue attracting terrific academic minds. Why deal with no
groceries, little night life, bad public transportation and perceived
safety problems when you could just go to Harvard or Columbia, where
these issues are of little concern?
Top

Jack Spicer's comments on the University's commercial real estate holdings, different approaches to two developments in light of Dec. 2007 53rd Vision Workshop

(To the HPKCC Development Committee) The University of Chicago could help local development by selling all its commercial real estate. As a matter of self-defense it was understandable that the University would want to control the real estate market back when the neighborhood was dicey. But the neighborhood is fine now and ready to grow gracefully. The University's huge position in the commercial real estate business serves no legitimate self-interest today and disrupts the entire market. They are inept commercial developers and managers because, like government, they don't have to do it well enough to make a living at it; it's like a hobby. (Where's Milton Friedman when you really need him?) The University i8s very, very big and its sheer size distorts everything in the neighborhood. But it can't help being big if it wants to continue do9ing its job well, and we have to accept the effects of its size and learn to live with them. But its huge position in commercial real estate today is not part of its job and is a dis-service to itself and to the community, whatever the quality of its intentions.

The University's handling of the Harper Theater Building project was close to perfect. With thorough community input they created an excellent Request For Proposal and threw it into the free market ring for developers to wrestle with. Then they sold the property to the winner. The winning proposal is outstanding on every dimension, all the better for the competition and the lack of backroom interference.

Doctors Hospital, not so good. Instead of creating an RFP based on the recognized need for a hotel and the realities of the existing building, the site and the surrounding neighborhood, they started with a chosen developer. Bad process, bad result. The neighborhood needs a hotel, probably 2 or 3 of them, and the Doctors Hospital site would be just fine if it were a good hotel project being proposed. The White Lodging/HOK concept was too tall, too busy, too boring and demolishes the existing hospital building to absolutely no advantage. Landmarks Illinois has commissioned an award-winning hotel architecture firm to develop a plan that uses the existing building, has high-quality new construction added, is quiet on the street, and is shorter - all this using the White Lodging's own specifications and with up to 20% of the construction costs being offset by preservation credits. The University is reviewing the alternate proposal and other hotel developers have expressed interest in taking over the project using the preservation architects' approach. Top

Meetings and Updates, news and dates

Watch for the next quarterly University of Chicago Facilities and Government Affairs, with Ald. Troutman (20th), hold an update meeting on the South Campus Plan and construction. Schedule status, business diversity, construction job initiatives, logistics. The buildings covered are the 61st/Drexel Garage and Police, New Residence and Dining, Law School Tower renovation, South Campus Chiller Plant, and Utility Corridor. Contact Sonya Malunda, 773 702-4568. At Social Service Administration, 969 E. 60th St.

Doctors Hospital. Additional meetings will be scheduled on the hotel and conference center plan. See Doctors Hospital page.

President Zimmer is holding more regular meetings with staff and students. Applications in the college are at record levels. The University has committed and additional $50 million over 6 years to provide aid for the highly stable graduate students and their families. Students remain upset over decision not to divest from companies doing business with Sudan. Zimmer says the Core will continue to evolve, the university is looking at adding fields such as molecular engineering, more interdisciplinary approaches, and more building. He has been cautious about claiming how much the university can decide matters in surrounding communities.

It's Bob Zimmer

The University of Chicago Board of Trustees on March 10 2006 named Robert J. Zimmer its 13th president, replacing Don Michael Randel, who is leaving to head the Mellon Foundation. With Zimmer the University returns to a former pattern of appointing familiar old hands, but with a difference. Zimmer grew up, was educated, and began his career elsewhere, then served as a distinguished mathematician on the Chicago faculty 1977-91 then as a UC administrator, and went to Brown University (serving as Provost) in 2002. During the latter part of his administrative service, he played a major role in reinvigorating Argonne National Laboratory as director and its ties with the U of C and UC stewardship over the Lab as vice president for Argonne and scientific affairs. The latter may have played an important, or at least welcoming role in Zimmer's appointment at a time when the University seeks to retain and strengthen its management of Argonne, is still being cited rightly or wrongly for handling of materials in the 1990s, and is heavily fundraising for facilities and programs in the sciences. (Those recently unhappy at heavy donations and reinvigoration of science facilities while those of the arts seem to lag may be reassured by statements by Zimmer.)

Maybe some of the latter will be reassured by Zimmer's statement, quoted in the Tribune, "The University of Chicago has always been distinctive because of its singular commitment to inquiry on important scientific, cultural and societal issues, and a belief that education in that context prepares students to make extraordinary contributions in whatever path they pursue. I am honored to have this opportunity to work with the entire university community." Community activists and organizations in Hyde Park and its neighbors will certainly be pleased with this.

From the University's Press Office March 9 2006:

Robert J. Zimmer nominated to serve as President of the University of Chicago

The Presidential Search Committee is recommending to the Board of Trustees that Robert J. Zimmer, currently Provost of Brown University, be elected the 13th President of the University of Chicago.

Upon approval of the nomination expected at a special meeting of the Board on Friday, March 10, Zimmer will assume office on July 1, 2006. He will succeed Don Michael Randel, who has served as President of the University since 2000. Randel will become President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation this summer.

Zimmer is a mathematician who was a faculty member at the University of Chicago for more than two decades before leaving in 2002 to become Brown’s Provost. While at Chicago, Zimmer served in a number of administrative roles, including Deputy Provost and, beginning in 2001, as Vice President for Research and for Argonne National Laboratory. While Vice President, Zimmer helped usher in an era of greater collaboration between scientists at the University and Argonne National Laboratory, which the University has operated for the U.S. Department of Energy since the laboratory’s inception in 1946.

Further details will be announced at a press conference at 10:45 am CST tomorrow, and will be covered on the University of Chicago Magazine’s blog, http://uchiblogo.uchicago.edu at 3:00 pm CST. For more information, photos, and links to stories in the press, please visit the University’s home page (http://www.uchicago.edu).

Ronald J. Schiller
Vice President, Development and Alumni Relations

From the Tribune March 5 2006. By Jodi S. Cohen

U. of C. greets new leader. President-elect vows to be good neighbor, keep school strong

The University of Chicago's next president said he will work to make the campus more accessible to low-income students, continue to improve relationships with the surrounding communities and ensure the university is at the forefront of biomedical and other research.

After a seven-month search, the university's board of trustees on Friday unanimously elected mathematician and former longtime Chicago faculty member Robert Zimmer as the university's 13th president. Zimmer, provost at Brown University in Providence, R.I., for the last four years, will begin [his term] July 1. His salary has not yet been set, said spokesman Larry Arbeiter, but outgoing President Don Michael Randel receives about $560,000 annually.

Zimmer, 58, who was chosen from about 15 candidates interviewed, said his top priority will be staying true to the academic rigor and serious study that defines the university. Yet, he said, he also will try to improve student life at a campus not known for fun.

He said his leadership style will be "open, engaged, transparent and one of ideas." On his first day as president-elect, he lunched with administrators, attended a reception with faculty members and went to a pizza party with students.

"The University of Chicago is built around the importance of ideas , and I want this administration to reflect that central, enduring value of the university," Zimmer said. The challenge, he said, will be continuing that goal as the university strives to be a leader in the evolving fields of biology, information technology, materials science and other areas.

Zimmer also stressed his desire for the university to maintain management of Argonne National Laboratory, a relationship that the government has put in question for the first time in 60 years. Zimmer hopes to make that relationship even closer.

Zimmer also said, "We express our values when we engage the city.."

Students said they hope Zimmer is as warm to them as Randel, who had brown bag lunches with undergraduates and frequently attended their plays and concerts.

Gala introduces Zimmer to community Oct. 4, 2006. Herald Oct. 11, by Erin Meyer

The University of Chicago welcomed members of the Hyde Park community to the Quadrangle Club Oct. 4 to introduce Robert J. Zimmer as president. More than 300 Hyde Park notables packed the second floor dining room and solarium to form first impressions of the new president. Many of those in attendance--lawmakers, developers, educators, activists and artists--work with or for the University of Chicago in some capacity.

"The people of this community have a tremendous willingness to confront problems that are very difficult," said Zimmer during a brief speech. "It is a community that has a tremendous willingness to ban together in partnerships to make a difference in the lives of all its citizens."

The university's investment in public education, through the opening of charter schools, the Center for Urban School Improvement and other programs, is one of the partnerships Zimmer was referring to. The significance of that particular partnership was evident by the guest list. Bret Harte Principal Shennethe Parks, Kenwood Principal Carolyn Epps as well as CEO of Chicago Public Schools Arne Duncan mingled among area parents and students. Kenwood student Hamza Muhammad echoed the sentiments of most guests. "It's great that he is reaching out to the community," he said.

The new president also spoke recently at the opening celebration of the U. of C.'s first charter high school, located in Wadsworth Elementary, 6420 S. University Ave. "We all know that the university has not always been as engaged as it is now and it is something that I am not only committed to continuing but growing," Zimmer said. "I look forward to working with you."

Many Hyde Parkers already know Zimmer. He spent 25 years studying and working at U. of C. before accepting a position as provost of Brown University. "It has been wonderful to come back and to see how much the university has done in the last several years in terms of engaging the community," he said. [Zimmer also noted his work on the successful bid to keep the Argonne contract.]

Directions. Reports from the Board of Trustees and other Officers

In April 2006 a report on the spring suite of meetings by the Board of Trustees was given by the Maroon.
Returns on investments have been extraordinarily good. The Chicago Initiative is about at the 3/4 mark. The University now uses the Sarbannes-Oxley accounting rules. UC undergraduate tuition is 2nd highest of the top 10 universities.

The Board is initiating new programs to help students land the jobs they want, especially in business and finance. Advising earlier in most appropriate electives and extra curricular activity choices is part of the mix.

The University has recently increased through subsidy daycare options for faculty and staff and will study the same for student mothers.

A design competition will be held for the Center for Creative and Performing Arts, partly to increase interest in funding. Costs are considerably higher than anticipated for the Center for Biomedical Discovery at 57th and Drexel, started recently started. The firm of Helmut Jahn has not only won the award of the Library addition (concepts said to be very impressive) but also submitted very interesting plans for the chiller and hot water plants northwest of campus and in south campus. The south campus dorm will start in June, with the first students to move in in 2008. Searle Chemistry will be renovated thanks to a gift from the Searle family. Rockefeller Chapel will be renovated at $20 million cost. This source was informed that the University has been offered the option of in some manner associating with the Harper Court/City lot RFP but has not made a decision.

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Herald interview with President Zimmer, October 25, 2006

By Erin Meyer

The University of Chicago will inaugurate its 13th president Oct. 27 at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. The Herald sat down Monday to talk with Zimmer as he embarks on his new role as chief executive of he 116-year-old Hyde Park institution.

Herald: Does the University have any plans to expand or acquire property south of 61st Street?
Robert J. Zimmer: As you know the university has a long standing commitment not to expand south of 61st Street. We, of course, reaffirm and will honor that commitment. We do own quite a bit of land on the South Campus and south of the Midway. That is the area where the new dorm and the new arts building will go. We are also building more densely and better utilizing space particularly in the new science buildings.

Herald: The proposed particle accelerator for FermiLab in Batavia, together with the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN lab in Europe may lead to new understandings of what the universe is made of and how it works. How do you, as president, envision the role of the university in particle research on an international level?

Zimmer: The university won the Argonne contract and we expect to hear from the Department of Environment about the Fermi contract in early November. The two contracts overlap around accelerator science. The issue in particle physics is always, in essence, you want to take things apart so you can see their constituent components. And in a way you need higher and higher energy to do that. It is a really positive thing that the international community is coming together. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is the most important particle physics machine once it begins. The next conceived of machine and the next project for the particle physics community is the International Linear Collider, [a proposed electron/positron collider], at FermiLab. For the university, taking on the responsibility of FermiLab, with our partners, carries with it the responsibility for articulating the value of the ongoing research in particle physics nationally. Particle physics has inevitably yielded all sorts of technology. The work at Fermi has medical facilities connected to it for example.

Herald: What role, if any, will the university take in the Hyde Park housing market to counter the loss of rental units?
Zimmer: It is certainly important to us that there are students living near campus. For t he nature of a university community like this you want to ensure that there are opportunities to live close to campus. I wouldn't say right now that we view this housing situation as something that needs action. But we are constantly watching it.

Herald: What plans does the university have, as landlord to many retail and commercial entities in Hyde Park, to develop the neighborhood's business district?
Zimmer: I first moved to Hyde Park in 1977; in terms of retail it is much better. It really is still not what I would say is a place with adequate retail to serve the community. It is something that needs to be addressed by the university as a major player in the community.

Herald: U. of C. minority enrollment is up. How does this reflect the character/image of the community?
Zimmer: The university's foundation is in understanding things from the points of view of different perspectives. The diversity of the student population and the faculty is very important to that foundation.

Herald: Why is it important for the university to work with Chicago Public Schools through charter schools and scholarships:
Zimmer: The work the university does with Chicago Public Schools is two fold. It is connected directly to that larger academic purpose. Second, it provides a means of access to students who generally come from less affluent families. All universities play an important role in this country in terms of bringing families and bringing students from less financially advantaged situations into a more mainstream economic situation. That is a piece of and a positive goal of the university system in this country.

Herald: The university appears to be focusing more energy and money on the arts with the planned arts facility and expanded arts curriculum. What factors spurred the shift?
Zimmer: The arts expansion as been on the university's agenda for a long time. In fact it was being discussed before I left the university four years ago. This represents in large measure a very natural evolution of curricular work in the arts. The real key question is the relationship between production and critical analysis. The view within the faculty has been evolving over time to think more about how these are related. How do we incorporate curriculum with some of the other facilities like Court Theatre and the Smart Museum

Herald: What do you hope will be your legacy a president?
Zimmer: Internally to the University, [I hope] to continue to build the university's academic programs, and ensures the university is the most intellectually exciting, rigorous and intense environment that it is able to bring persons from different perspectives together to confront the most challenging problems. [I hope] to continue to expand the access we provide to a broad student body from diverse backgrounds, so persons of extraordinary merit may attend independent of financial situation.

Externally, [I hope] to continue to build an outward looking approach to the relationships and partnerships the university has and can develop, and in particular to continue to build on the relationships with the community and the city.

Herald: What are the three most important vehicles to keep U. of C. on the cutting edge of academics?
Zimmer: Academic programs and interactions of compelling excitement, to attract the best faculty; support for students at all levels, so we continue to attract outstanding students who can most benefit from and contribute to the special environment at Chicago; facilities to support our work.

Faculty survey results gives reason to think UC may move faster on community upgrade. Outgoing provost Richard Saller wrote to faculty in Nov. 2006:

The faculty climate survey will help the University’s leadership think about how to improve the attractiveness of the campus. We have not yet had a full discussion of the analysis, but several points are obvious. More than 80% of the faculty who completed surveys have had a broadly positive experience at the University. The strongest attractions of the University are its reputation and the quality of its students. The survey also identified areas of dissatisfaction that we need to address. One of the most interesting results is the polarized sentiments about “geographical location”­it is both the single most common source of dissatisfaction for a minority of the faculty and a cause of satisfaction for many others. It need hardly be said that the administration is constrained in how much it can change geographical location, though we certainly can work to improve the neighborhood in partnership with community leaders. The survey also identified childcare and employment for partners as sources of dissatisfaction. The administration has sought to address these challenges.

This year selected neighborhood child care providers will begin to offer infant and toddler care with University support. Next year the University will bring up an online network of job listings in collaboration with scores of universities, colleges, and other cultural institutions in the Chicago area. Associate Provost Mary Harvey deserves thanks for this initiative, earlier versions of which have produced positive results for universities in the Bay Area and Boston. In the near future the Provost’s Office will post the results of the faculty climate survey and will announce additional initiatives with a view to improvements. I thank those of you who took the time to fill out the survey.

In mid January 2007, President Zimmer held a town hall meeting. He outlined 11 areas of opportunity and concern. These ranged from the need for money to back student aid graduate and undergraduate to new facilities and need to look hard at programs so UC can be a leader and agenda setter both in fields and interdisciplinary questions and the larger polity and nor just a set of boutique departments. Administrative reforms will be necessary. He said we must compete with the best schools. Student life and recruitment is an area needing improvement. So is retail in the neighborhood, although this must be done in conjunction with the residents and other stakeholders. One question was bout the lab school. Zimmer said the school must first serve the UC and its personnel rather than be just another competing private school---53% of kids there are staff and faculty kids, up .

In the 1990s the university prepared a Quality of Student Experience report that led to new dormitories, athletic center, new facilities in Hutch and Bartlett (together a real center now) and plans for the Amandla Center . Now Kimberly Goff-Crews, new vp and dean of students, is thinking what more may be needed an how the experience can be revved up. In some matters there is better, but far from perfect student input. Dean of the College John Boyer would like to see a vibrant student hub in the new South Campus s it becomes a center of gravity for students and to increase the soon to be 60 percent of students in the housing system to as high as 80 percent. Boyer says something along that line wil be necessary as Hyde Park becomes more and more condominium and off-campus housing opportunities disappear. Funding for student job and internship opportunities is also necessary--within the next two years, Boyer says.

U of C solicits student input on campus retail. Chicago Maroon, March 30, 2007. By Sarah Hetherington

The University hosted a discussion on Hyde Park retail options for a group of undergraduate and graduate students Monday night. The discussion was led by Susan M. Campbell, associate vice president for community affairs, and Lisa Prasad, a business development consultant who formerly worked with the University of Pennsylvania.

Over pizza, students addressed problems they perceive with retail in Hyde Park and how retail fits into the quality of student life.

Daniel Kimerling, chair of the student government finance committee, called for improved grocery options, a request echoed by nearly every student in attendance. “The Co-op simply does not cut the mustard,” he said. Kimerling and other students said they frequent downtown grocery stores like Trader Joe’s and whole foods because of the Co-op’s high prices and lack of variety. Students without cars noted that traveling to buy groceries is inconvenient.

Many students also expressed a desire for greater access to grocery stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues late at night, decrying the lack of food and entertainment options available after 10 p.m. Graduate students in particular complained about the difficulty of finding places to eat that are open after long days in classes and labs.

Prasad described how retail acts as “a buffer that brings people together,” especially the university community and surrounding Hyde Park. Multiple students cited seven Ten Lanes and Bar Louie, both open late, as being successful in attracting students and members of the community.

Some students questioned why broader options do not already exist and why the Co-op has little competition other than Hyde Park Produce. Hyde Park’s perceived lack of available real estate for retail development, coupled with a student demographic with a low disposable income, does little to draw chains or even small businesses to open in Hyde Park, Prasad said.

Part of the University’s mission is to show retailers that census data about student income is actually “artificially low” and that there is, in fact, a meaningful demand for retail.

Students also described the distance between Hyde Park’s 53rd, 55th and 57th Street retail areas as inconvenient and off-putting, an issue that graduate students who live south of the Midway highlighted as particularly troublesome. Students voiced concerns that construction of the new south-campus dorm could exacerbate the lack of retail options.

Campbell said the new dorm—which will provide residence for over 700 students—currently includes plans for a small convenience store similar to Bart Mart. Some graduate students said they had never been to Bart Mart, and most students agreed that while Bart Mart’s location and hours make it a convenient option, it is both expensive and limited in its selection.

In response to Prasad’s question of whether “the library is the center of student life,” Kimerling joked that in fact, it is. Other students cited the local music scene, Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap, and Doc films as affordable and entertaining places to go, but otherwise said they found most entertainment elsewhere in Chicago.

Campbell explained the University’s retail development as a way to increase the quality of student life. This balance of “retention and attraction” helps motivate the University to continue looking into student preferences and opinions on Hyde Park retail, she said.
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UPASS approved in advisory referendum

UC Students in April 2007 voted 1,492-1,293 in an advisory referendum to approve joining the UPASS unlimited CTA boarding for students of participating schools (which can mean a UC Division as well as the whole institution). (It's really a bargain cost cost- sharing pre-pay, as it comes out of student fees.) Currently, the UC administration is not enthusiastic about this idea, in part because UC is much less a commuter school than the 42 schools now in the plan. But, if it happens, it has the potential to unravel the CTA/UC and Community route system.

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University fills Provost position and 3 key positions crucial to its future development and role in communities

In early autumn 2006 the University named Thomas Rosenbaum its next Provost, succeeding Richard Saller when he steps down at the end of 2006. Rosenbaum, like new president Zimmer , is a physicist, continuing shift in emphasis to the sciences, science funding and construction, and relationships with Argonne, Fermilab, and collaborative university initiatives in the sciences.

The University has named Wallace Goode Jr. Director of the Community Service Center. Already being put into place is a system to put volunteers directly into organizations and communities where they wish to volunteer, anywhere in the city. Goode comes from the Mayor's Offices of Workforce Development and Workforce Solutions and for Empowerment Zones--which gives him a large pool of nonprofit and community contacts. He grew up in and still lives in Woodlawn and worked on development in Central African Republic and the Solomon Islands with the Peace Corps, with which he still works, and as a dean in several colleges. He was himself tutored by University students in his youth. He hopes the programs of the Center will help students develop "cross-cultural dexterity" and share experiences with others. http://communityservice.uchicago.edu, 773 753-GIVE.

Kenneth Warren has been named to the newly created post, Deputy Provost for Research and Minority Issues. This part-time position was created at recommendation of Provost Sallers' Committee on Diversity Issues (PIMI). Purpose of the office is minority recruitment and improving the environment at the University for and better meet needs of persons of color (dovetailing with expanded and restructured staff and direct lines of communication) , but beyond that to weave diversity and diversity accountability into the fabric and functioning of the University.
Read University Diversity Statement: http://www.uchicago.edu/docs/education/diversity-statement.html.

The University of Chicago has named Brian Shaw its Transportation Manager. Shaw has been invited to the September 21 TIF Parking Committee meeting and may be asked to an idea-sharer with the HPKCC Transit Task Force. Shaw wants to cut through the gridlock and get people more efficiently to campus without the single occupancy car. See more in Parking.

Waldo E. Johnson, Jr. appointed in fall 2005 to head the UC Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture has big plans. In addition to weekly workshops it will facilitate meetings and initiatives re fallout from the "Thuggin' Party" incident and will sponsor as big symposium on Wal-Mart in January. He also hopes the Center's dialogue will go beyond the black-white paradigm while working to provide the "racial experience" shown last fall to have contributed to tensions and incidents on campus. It hopes to provide new resources in the dorms and promote within the Core a curricular addition in comparative culture.

Martha Ross is the new Dean of Humanities and Thomas Rosenbaum the new Provost.

In addition to new heads of energy and environment initiatives, the University has named a veteran journalist, steven Kloehn as director of an expanding news office. A press and lobby office has been added in Washington, D.C.

The Graduate School of Business Europe division has completed its move from Barcelona to London. Top

The University did not yield or compromise with student demands (STAND) that the University divest from companies that are shown to be underwriting what is generally agreed to be ongoing genocide in the Sudanese Darfur. President Zimmer and Trustee Chair Crown met with student reps to discuss conditions. President Zimmer told an alumni event and the Maroon the pros and cons being considered. Is this a situation to be governed by the Kalven Report--the university remaining an open place promoting dialogue but not taking positions-- or is this a trumping situation in which the University must take a stand to uphold its key values? Various groups are keeping up pressure.

Some other quick student concerns: lag in humanities, social sciences; military recruiting decision...

As expressed in student newspapers, there is concern that the big donations and new buildings for biomed and science move ahead quickly but those for humanities and social sciences (except the Law School) seem stalled in the "concept" stage. The projects for the sciences total $590 million. The unfunded Center for Creative and Performing Arts would cost c$100,000 (the building $62 m in 2003 dollars), and the funded Center for the Study of Languages $1.7 m according to the Maroon. As of March 2006 humanities projects have not yet been targeted toward general public and general donors. The Humanities Division portion of the Chicago Initiative is something over $100m or just 5% of which $43m has been raised (c. 43% as opposed to 75% for the whole initiative.)

Biological Sciences has surpassed its initial goal of $500m and now has an objective of $700 m according to the Maroon citing Dean Madara. Madara cites the much larger costs of biomed and hard science facilities and the perception of more and faster tangible benefits to both humanity and the economy. Biomed especially taps into the personal experience (everyone being acquainted with disease for example) and interests of donors as well as businesses and those successful in business. Others point to lower or slower returns on "investment" for the humanities and maybe bias against soft-culture.

On the other hand, a million goes a lot further for humanities than for the sciences, and more can be gotten from highlighting benefits from the humanities including languages. Ron Schiller, VP for development an alumni, calls humanities fundraising very successful. Dean Danielle Allen also says the humanities have had some large gifts, citing two donations over $5 million form the Neubauer and Franke families. Assoc. VP for development Noel Salinger and