O Week Sights and Sound

@“Kathy V” And I am quite sure that it is not just diversity for the sake of diversity. Dean Nondorf likely picks the best mind from each group to make the class of 2022.

Wonder what the kids made of this year’s “Aims of Education” talk. I watched the livestream and was a bit disappointed, not in the talk, but in not being able to see the audience.

The talk itself was rather crafty, I thought, winding its way and gathering strength from a funny sort of beginning to the usual inspiring and uplifting denouement. The beginning was in noticing the strangeness of the architecture of Rockefeller Chapel, which led to a consideration of the phenomenon of wonder (in both its guises as awe and skepticism, each of which has its place but needs the other) and then on to a higher unity in Plato’s notion of aporia (a contradiction in one’s thought that leads to a breakthrough to new thought). By this path she arrived sneakily at that sturdy U of C touchstone - “free speech”. But this was not the ringing and embattled pronouncement of a Geoffrey Stone (from two years ago). Professor Lear said simply that while she happens to believe in the University’s policy, which she stated briefly, she wanted to get to something beyond mere policy. She examined and rejected the two metaphors that one tends to associate with the harder statements of the policy - “the combat of ideas” and “the marketplace of ideas”. Speech is “conversation”. It is “cooperative”. It is two people “engaging sympathetically” - neither battling, nor buying and selling nor evaluating and consuming, but talking and listening.

Could be all those things, of course, but the softer take is O.K. in my book. What did the kids think, I wonder?

My S sent me a short text saying "Really interesting’` when i pinged 1him. he is supposed to call home later so will get e better readout then.

My son really appreciated the notion of ‘empathy’ in debating ideas. At his dorm later in the evening, the notion of giving up the cut and parry approach to combat ‘bad ideas’ was questioned, but it appears that the notion of’sympathetic’ engagement remained popular. great topic to ruminate on over the weekend before beginning class, i thought.

I’m glad they live streamed it and I was able to watch it along with the class of 2022.

Standing outside the dining hall before tonight’s Aims of Education dinner, I found myself a few feet away from Dean Ellison. We struck up a brief conversation, and at one point he mentioned that the Class of 2022 is now 1,808 students. Which answers one long-running question on these forums.

When is Dean Boyer going to stop expanding The College? At the end of spring quarter 2018 The College population is 5919. In 2009 it was only 4712.

https://uchicago.app.box.com/s/trkqpw1ztu0lc4niahgz0y7g6eyqt6z6

At what point is student enrollment expansion going to stop?

So the ‘+’ in 1800+ is 8 lol.

@85bears46 , perhaps the expansion will stop only when they can’t get another member of the entering class into Rockefeller Chapel in order to hear the annual “Aims of Education” address. Boyer alluded to the capacity of that great hall as being 1,700, and the principal speaker began by noticing that the place was packed. There must have been a few kids back at the dorms for one reason and another. Now, courtesy of @DunBoyer , we would be able to calculate their number by this simple formula:

N = E minus [C plus S]

where

N is no-shows; E is entering class; C is capacity of Rockefeller Chapel; and S is standees.

But a refinement of that simple but elegant formula might be necessary to take account of recently formed couples sitting a bit closer together than the norm and thereby increasing the hall’s capacity. Or is that factor nullified by an opposite and equal number of kids creating additional space around them through failure to do their morning ablutions?

If our DunBoyer were ever to find himself in conversation not merely with Dean Ellison but with his namesake Dean Boyer, what mighty convergences elsewhere in the universe might this portend? Has that ever happened, Dun?

According to the Maroon, the official number from Dean Boyer is 1814. Whether the final number being1808 or 1814 is of course the same for all practical purpose.

Here is the short feature article (to save you guys from clicking the link):

1,814 students enrolled as part of the College’s Class of 2022, an increase from the 1,740 students that enrolled in the Class of 2021.

Dean of the College John Boyer shared the figure with The Maroon at Sunday’s O-Week parents reception. He said that there was a bed for every first-year, but acknowledged that space was tight, saying he thinks there are only two open beds.

Dean of College Admissions and Financial Aid Jim Nondorf declined to confirm the enrollment figure at the reception, instead patting a Maroon reporter’s shoulder, smiling broadly, saying, “I don’t do interviews with The Maroon,” and walking briskly away.

Asked about the University’s letter to fraternities requesting they not host parties during Orientation Week, Boyer said he is supportive of the Greeks having a presence on campus, while suggesting there are lawyerly reasons why the administration may have sent the letter.

Per Ellison, the number was down from 1,810 in the not-so-distant past. I assume some summer melt has taken place, with people taking last-minute leaves of absence, gap years, etc.

That would portend human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and probably mass hysteria.

Give it time.

There were all those hospitalizations during O-week last year. Some of them must have derived from parties given by the Greeks (I mean Alcibiades of course, not Plato or Aristotle). Is that what’s behind this year’s prohibition of frat parties? Is that enough to do the trick? Will the prohibition be winked at? I assume there will be a plethora of impromptu informal partying in any event on this the the apogee of O-week activities. I hope so. But let’s also hope this year’s class is the wisest as well as the largest of all U of C classes.

How many hospitalizations last week? This week I count four through yesterday. Or at least that is who the UCPD has sighted as minor consumption and then transported to the ER.

The prohibition has had, and will have, zero effect on the frats’ behavior absent some action to enforce it. The university takes a hands-off approach to enforcement, because it wants frats to exist, but doesn’t want to be legally responsible for anything that happens to students.

These letters show for the record that the university is shocked - shocked - to find that parties are happening.

Just a quick note from the front lines. Moved my daughter into Burton Judson this morning. The place is looking great! New pavement and sod in the courtyards so that they are just beautifull. Wish I could stick around to see them illuminated with those cute ground lights. At least some of the community bathrooms have been totally redone. There are now individual thermostats in the rooms. No more cracking that window in the middle of winter! We passed the ice rink on the midway and noticed a new warming hut or skate rental facility. The University continues in a state of active building. Always a great sign!

By the way looks to me like they have broken ground on Woodlawn Commons. Something huge is going in that space.

Not sure how the University could “prohibit” frat parties. Aren’t they private organizations? But they could certainly send a nicely worded request. And it can be worded to convey the correct message.

@JBStillFlying I think that is all that it was.

Doesn’t the University have some means of controlling the activities of fraternities? Maybe it lies in the disciplinary rights it has over all its students, including those who belong to fraternities. How otherwise would any school have the ability to outright ban frats - as many have?

Private schools can always impose upon its students certain prohibitions on associations. for UChicago to do so would risk violating its free speech principles.

@JBStillFlying #54

My kid and her teenager friends skated in that ice rink last winter. It is a very nice rink and as Midway Plaisance is actually owned by City of Chicago and so the ice rink is operated by the Chicago Park District. If you bring your own skate, it is free to skate there. I would speculate that almost all the patrons of this ice rink are related to the University. I am quite sure people living in the Loop and Lincoln Park would not drive all the way down to Hyde Park to skate.