One of my betes noir is statements like this. Chicago was always and remains very plugged in to the WASPy New England elite academic norms. It had (and still has) a somewhat different take, but so does every individual great university.
The founding faculty at Chicago were almost all associated with Yale. And let’s just take a peek at the presidents of the University of Chicago over the past 50 years:
Ed Levi – Completely a Chicago product, probably the single person other than Hutchins most completely embodied the intellectual tradition of the University. Yet that hardly prevented him from becoming U.S. Attorney General. I am reasonably certain that Levi did not ignore or flat out reject anything Ivy-ish. His son (an erstwhile friend of mine) was a Harvard AB and PhD, and a Stanford JD, and just stepped down after 11 years as dean of the law school at Duke.
John Wilson – Who cares?
Hanna Grey – Bryn Mawr BA, Harvard PhD, Yale Provost.
Hugo Sonnenschine – Dean of Arts and Sciences at Penn, Princeton Provost
Don Randel – Princeton BA and PhD, Dean of Arts and Letters and Provost at Cornell
Robert Zimmer – Brandeis BA, Harvard PhD, longtime Chicago faculty member but also Brown Provost
^ Well, what about the WASP’y elite academic norm to curtail the number of Jewish intellectuals on campus once upon a time? There UChicago has been very different. My parents commented a few decades ago that Hyde Park was one of the few top research communities where they noticed that those of the Jewish faith wore their yamulkes. Not sure that’s entirely true - then or now - but both parents grew up amongst the WASP’y elite academic communities of yester-year and had other children at those communities so would know more than I.
and don’t forget Nondorf, a Yalie who is in charge of admissions. Perhaps he’d been able to become acquainted with many of the students from schools such as Stuyvesant, Horace Mann, etc. when he was an undergrad there.
@ccdad99 - in this case yes, since academics did and do make hiring decisions
Also - and keep in mind that this is anecdotal and may not exist to the same extent now - but those I know who did their academic work in Hyde Park - even if they grew up back East - said there is a notable difference, in their field anyway, in academic cultures. For instance, someone I know who gave his job talk at Princeton said that he noticed how his prospective future colleagues - some of them quite renowned in their field - showed more interest in the wine at dinner than issues involving their specific academic area. The impression was that they lived comfortable lives at a nice Ivy-league university that picked up the tab on their very fine meal whenever a PhD candidate rolled into town. UChicago was just different - as anyone who has spent time around JJ Heckman at dinner will attest. I can’t tell you how many nice dinners have been ruined because UChicago academics are at the table ignoring everything but whatever issue they happen to be discussing. And those who are out on job talks are not given a break during the fine dining. Still.
@uofcparent - could be misremembering or mixing up the President’s Circle members, but isn’t Nondorf from IN? And it’s Zimmer who attended Stuvesant, right?
Yes, a quick google (Wikipedia, lol) and I did find that Zimmer graduated from Stuyvesant. No, I did not mean to say that Nondorf went to Stuyvesant, because I know he didn’t. I’m not entirely sure where Nondorf is from, but according to UChicago’s bio page, he got his undergrad degree from Yale. Many of my friends from Stuyvesant went to Yale, and other ivies, so I figured he might have gotten to know some of those students while he was at Yale. But, it just seemed that when Nondorf took the helm at Chicago, many more Stuyvesant kids became interested UChicago, and not only fixated on east coast schools. I’m a big Nondorf fan, btw.
edit: unrelated, but David Axelrod also went to Stuyvesant.
When you go from one place to another place you don’t simply transplant everything you got from the first place to the new place and remain unchanged - at least you don’t if you are a sentient human being: You get shaped by the history and culture of the new place. And one of your reasons for moving might have been an inclination to the culture of the new place - or your idea of it: an impulse to start up anew somewhere closer to your heart. That may be in part an illusion, but illusions, as Shakespeare knew, are powerful shapers of the actual.
The final and formal causes of any phenomenon have more explanatory power than the efficient and material ones: so saith Aristotle. From that perspective I say that the educational objectives of the College of the University of Chicago are significantly different from those of its otherwise peer schools. Yes, one can argue about the extent of the differences and whether they have narrowed over time. Generally there is agreement on this board when the discussion turns on that sort of specificity. It’s really a matter of emphasis and perhaps even personality - whether you are temperamentally a Lumper or a Distinguisher. Both those perspectives are partly right. To my mind (an unabashed Distinguisher) there’s more understanding of a thing - whether a University or a book or a small animal - to be had in noting its unique or differing qualities from other things of the same genus. Some would call this the “narcissism of small differences”, but I call it aliveness to the qualities that give meaning.
^^I actually think Shakespeare is enlightened, lol. (Although I do not enjoy listening to the way they speak, I have to admit.) His ideas and concepts are way out there, and I love that.
Also, please take my post #26 and #23 as anecdotal and conjecture, as I can only piece together what I see from my limited view, and cannot see the big picture from the school’s point of view, and have no idea what their plans were.
Yes, Nondorf was a Wiffenpoof. But he doesn’t remind me at all of those anecdotal academics drinking the fine wine on the Princeton dime. Someone told us that in quizzing him about a well known restaurant not far from where he lives (in South Loop? Can’t recall . . . ) he had no clue. They were surprised. The guy works constantly. During our admitted student event a couple years ago a black limo was waiting for him . . . so he could get to the airport and off to yet another student event. No time for fine dining, although I’m sure he’s compensated well for what he does.
It’s not unreasonable for UChicago’s faculty to be educated at other institutions . Zimmer and Gray may have gotten their executive experience elsewhere before returning to UChicago to take the helm, but they were Chicago faculty first. Sonnenschein was basically the first true outsider in a long time and that might have contributed to his shorter tenure. Despite his apparent wisdom in putting the wheels in motion to expand and improve the College, there were definitely conflicts with the faculty - and not just over the College.
More anecdotal evidence re the differing cultures of Princeton and Chicago - in this case the respective Departments of Mathematics.
An old Chicago undergrad friend of mine, who went on to do his Ph.D. at Princeton and thereafter to have a distinguished career in Mathematics at another fine university, was fond of quoting his Princeton mentor, John Milnor, as saying that “We at Princeton value elegance and a light touch in a mathematical proof, whereas at Chicago they favor toilsomeness and hardness.” My friend, having studied mathematics at both institutions, agreed with that assessment. He said he started as a mathematical grinder at Chicago but Princeton made him graceful. And he was talking about more than mathematics: He thought that that qualitative distinction carried through the whole of the differing gestalts of the two schools and that this might have something to do with the culture of the gritty city of Chicago as against that of a place with southern aristocratic inflections.
I say vive le difference. Let Princeton be Princeton. Let Chicago be Chicago.
Nondorf wasn’t only a Whiffenpoof. He was (is) also a member of Skull & Bones. You simply can’t get more East Coast WASPy elite than that, even if you grew up in Indiana. (His older brother also went to Yale, and was a football star, and was in some secret society, not Bones though.) But Nondorf is a red herring. Chicago has always been connected to the Ivy League.
No. Historically, there was a connection to Yale, in that most of the initial faculty came from there. But in the past X years it has always been part of the club of elite universities. That was true in 1900 when it was one of the five convening members of what became the Association of American Universities, it was true in the 1970s, and it’s still true now. Its faculty and administration generally has the same kind of provenance as the faculties and administrations of its peers. Andrew Abbott – @marlowe1 's favorite educational marksman, the super-eloquent expositor of the University of Chicago’s mission – is a Harvard man through and through. He represents both the academic and the social norms of the coastal elite.
Abbott is more than just Harvard right? Didn’t he also go to Andover, and is part of the delano family (connected to the mayflower and one of the original MA settlers)?
