<p>I must admit that these remarks at a weekend commencement address really surprised me -given that both she and Barack worked there. </p>
<p>"By using what you have learned here, you can shorten the path perhaps for kids who may not see a path at all. And I was once one of those kids. Most of you were once one of those kids. I grew up just a few miles from the University of Chicago in my hometown. The university, like most institutions, was a major cultural, economic institution in my neighborhood.</p>
<p>"My mother even worked as a secretary there for several years," said Mrs. Obama, highlighting a point of mother Marian Robinson's biography that is not well known.</p>
<p>"Yet that university never played a meaningful role in my academic development. The institution made no effort to reach out to me –- a bright and promising student in their midst –- and I had no reason to believe there was a place for me there. Therefore, when it came time for me to apply to college, I never for one second considered the university in my own backyard as a viable option."</p>
<p>Why should she have refrained? She was stating FACTS. She is the proof that being rejected from what is believed to be a “prestigious” school is not the end of the world. I believe it was the message she was sending.</p>
<p>Well, Michelle Obama (Princeton BA, Harvard JD) is hardly the person to preach that being rejected from prestigious schools is not the end of the world. She is also proof that great universities WERE reaching out to urban black women in the late 70s/early 80s. Just not necessarily the University of Chicago.</p>
<p>As I read it, she was calling on privileged students at prestigious universities to engage with the less privileged children in the communities around them. I think it’s true that when she was a child the University of Chicago did very little of that, and I also think it’s true that today it does a quite a bit – and its community relations have improved immensely in part as a result of those efforts.</p>
<p>If Chicago is in fact doing a better job in this regard it would have been nice to recognize that in her speech. I would conjecture that the general public, after hearing the speech (or it’s oft repeated excerpts on CNN), would not be left with that impression.</p>
<p>And that’s exactly what she did (with a little patting herself on the back):</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But what she was really doing was praising the students and faculty at UC Merced for the extensive community involvement THEY have – she followed this up with several paragraphs of singling out people at Merced for great things they were doing in the community, and then segued into great things people from Merced were doing in the larger world, and finished by exhorting them to continue to serve others and do great things.</p>
<p>Well, she may have been talking about U of C then and not now, or she may have been pointing out that college rejection is not the end of the world, or maybe that college students and staff should engage more in their communities, or maybe she was just praising UC Merced students. Who knows? But in print, at least, it sounded critical of the University and beyond tacky, considering that two top schools did reach out to her, that both she and her husband worked at the University and she sent her children to the University School.</p>
<p>The fact that Barack Obama was a professor at the U of C has nothing to do with the fact that the U of C did not reach out to people like her when she was a student. They lived in Chicago and the best option for them was to send their daughters to their school. I don’t understand how her opinion can be deemed tacky–this is how she felt, end of discussion.</p>
<p>To say that in the past the University had a less than stellar reputation in the surrounding community would be a vast understatement. It has worked hard to change that in the last twenty years and is making progress. It has its own public elementary schools helping to prepare kids for select universities, special tuition scholarships for City of Chicago students, a new Chicago Studies major, a full-time community relations group, and many many other community initiatives.</p>
<p>I think it is absurdly presumptive on her part to say that the University should have reached out to her. Why? Just because she got into Princeton? It’s fine to argue that the University should do more in the community. But that’s not the point Mrs. Obama made. She said, “the institution made no effort to reach out to ME, a bright and promising student in their midst.” Please, spare me.</p>
<p>I believe she was speaking of herself as a metaphor for the many promising kids in the community that were overlooked, of which she was but one.</p>
<p>LOL, people just love to bash on Michelle for no reason, let the woman express herself, she felt like U of C did not do its part in reaching out to poor black kids when she was growing up, was it true? I don’t know, but that’s how she perceives it and she’s entitled to her opinion whether it is founded or not. If it’s not her arms, it’s her outfits or her speeches…it really gets old after a while.</p>
<p>I thought from inception that Chicago was open to all minorities and women. Lot’s of firsts of all kinds to graduate?(Wasn’t this something Rockefeller demanded or at least dreamed of?) And seeing that Chicago is VERY into Hyde Park politics, wouldn’t the very brilliant daughter of a ward leader been more than welcomed? I think I smell a metaphor as well…and yet, am very pleased with the First Lady.</p>
<p>To me, this seems like another example of the lack of “love” between the Obamas and UofC, in spite of the fact that both lived nearby and worked at the U. I’ve made the following observations:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>During the campaign, far more was said, both by the candidate and the media, about his connections to Harvard and Columbia than to UofC. In fact, little was mentioned of the latter.</p></li>
<li><p>Since election, most key positions have gone to fellow Harvard students. Few have gone to UofC colleagues, although a few positions have gone to fellow Chicagoans. </p></li>
<li><p>I am not aware of any favorable comment from Michelle or Barack about UofC. Maybe others here are aware of something?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>None of this particularly concerns me. It just tells me that UofC needs the Obama connection far more than they need UofC. Such is life.</p>
<p>I would count Elena Kagan (Solicitor General), Cass Sunstein (White House Office of Regulatory Affairs), and Austan Goolsbee (Council of Economic Advisors), which ain’t too shabby. Kagan and Sunstein were both fixtures on the Chicago Law School faculty all the time Obama taught there. Sunstein left only after he was already engaged in Obama’s Presidential campaign. Sunstein’s departure from Chicago (where he retained a visiting appointment) for Harvard seemed like an obvious personal matter, since he left his partner of over a decade and married a Harvard professor/fellow campaign participant a few months later. Kagan was appointed the first female Dean of Harvard Law School during Obama’s Senate campaign. She also went to law school there, but did not overlap with Obama at all.</p>
<p>Many of the “fellow Chicagoans” have strong University ties. First Friend Valerie Jarrett, a lifelong Hyde Park resident and Lab School grad, was a trustee of the University of Chicago and, separately, chair of the board of trustees of its medical center. Her mother, Barbara Bowman, did her graduate work at Chicago, and seems to have an important behind-the-scenes role at the Department of Education. Arne Duncan, also a Lab Schooler, is the son of a long-term University of Chicago professor.</p>
<p>And then there’s former Chicago administrative employee Michelle Robinson Obama, who plays a pretty prominent role.</p>
<p>But no one (except you ) speaks of Kagan’s UofC connection, even though everyone knows of her Harvard connection.</p>
<p>Sunstein? He may have made his name at UofC, but every reference now is to Harvard. </p>
<p>It seems to me that if the UofC connection were relevant for either of these folks, someone would be managing the press buzz. But they aren’t, because it isn’t. </p>
<p>Regarding Jarrett et al, geesh, it would be hard to be a wealthy Hyde Park resident and not be courted by the University. </p>
<p>But back to my point - no one talks about the UofC connections. They talk about the Chicago city connections, they talk about the Harvard connections. It seems like the Obamas don’t care about the UofC connections, because their PR efforts don’t say anything about them (you think, perhaps that this stuff comes out of thin air? Original reporting by the press? )</p>
) speaks of Kagan’s UofC connection, even though everyone knows of her Harvard connection.</p>