<p>I know that a lot of really good schools attract amazing speakers/lecturers. Bill Clinton was at penn recently.
Does this happen at UofC as well?</p>
<p>A bit late, but I thought you deserved a reply. Yes, UChicago has a number of speakers come to campus regularly.</p>
<p>Bill Gates came in '10, Romney was here last Spring and so was Cornel West. There is the annual Kent Lecture which tends to bring a pretty big name. And then there are those that work here such as David Axelrod.</p>
<p>A big difference is that UChicago only has faculty speak at convocation which means one less high-profile speaker each year.</p>
<p>Rahm Emanuel was here a couple days ago talking about gun control. I was in line but there were too many and I wasn’t able to get in…and I was there an hour early too!</p>
<p>^ Yeah, Rahm Emmanuel and Tom Brokaw (who was acting as moderator) were here on Tuesday for a gun control panel hosted by David Axelrod’s Institute of Politics. I was lucky enough to get in (as in, literally one of the last), and I passed by Axelrod himself at the entrance. Those are probably the most high profile speakers we’ve had this year, but there’s always very interesting panels and talks being hosted. Also, while UChicago’s faculty as a whole is not as high profile as Harvard’s, Princeton’s, etc., you do get the chance to have people like David Bevington (one of world’s foremost experts on Shakespeare) stop by your humanities class informally and discuss Shakespearean plays over pizza.</p>
<p>Absolutely we do! Others have already posted the big campus events I was going to mention, but I’d like to point out that the quality of speakers we get probably has as much to do with being in a big city as it does with being a top university.</p>
<p>Williams, for example, is a fine educational institution, but probably doesn’t get nearly as many visitors as we do because it’s smaller and so out of the way.</p>
<p>Being in Chicago also means the opportunity to go to events downtown. For example, tomorrow I’m going to a talk by Robert Kagan (a pretty big name in foreign policy / think tank circles) hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The week after that Paul Krugman will be in town. The week after that, Al Gore is stopping by. I don’t mean to give the impression that EVERY week will have such big celebrities, but outside of New York, D.C., and (maybe) Los Angeles, Chicago gets the most attention.</p>
<p>Oh, and this also means that we get a lot of other types of events like concerts, political rallies, and so on. For example, the NATO summit was held here last year, and Obama celebrated re-election in the same exact conference center (no surprise, since it’s by far the largest conference center in the country). And Lollapalooza is held in Grant Park every year.</p>
<p>Some final observations: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>There are a lot of really brilliant, interesting speakers besides celebrities, so don’t limit your search to household names.</p></li>
<li><p>Events downtown are highly accessible by public transit, though repeated trips do add up, especially with the price of tickets. </p></li>
<li><p>It’s probably true everywhere, but perhaps nowhere more than UChicago: how many events, lectures, and panels you go to will depend more on your workload, time-management skills, and your willingness to “sacrifice” an afternoon or evening than availability, location, or price.</p></li>
</ol>