What’s NU? And is it a viable alternative in terms of quality of education and promotion of free speech?
NU = Northwestern University. Academic peer, in Evanston, just north of Chicago, but a much different vibe.
University of Chicago is in a part of the city where there are nearby neighborhoods heavily populated by Black people. Perhaps racial stereotyping of that may be part of the reason why the perception of crime sticks there.
See the first few paragraphs of The Most Diverse Cities Are Often The Most Segregated | FiveThirtyEight where Nate Silver says “What usually wasn’t said — on a campus that brags about the diversity of its urban setting but where only about 5 percent of students are black — was that the neighborhoods beyond these boundaries were overwhelmingly black and poor. The U. of C. has, for many decades, treated Hyde Park as its “fortress on the South Side,” and its legacy of trying to keep its students within the neighborhood — and the black residents of surrounding communities out — has left its mark on Chicago.”
What is missing from Nate Silver’s observations is the fact that many U of C students have a lot of daily contact with black people. Two of those adjoining neighborhoods - Woodlawn and South Shore - were the only ones I lived in during my time at the University. I witnessed many stick ball games in the alley outside my rear window, and on Sunday mornings hymn-singing from a nearby church wafted through that window. I could go on. As a student I was not really integrated into the social life of these communities, but it was all around me every time I left my apartment. It constituted a real experience - not all of it as positive as the two instances just described - of life outside the bubble of the University. There are many reasons one might want to attend the U of C, but in my book this was one of them.
Hyde Park itself is hardly a lily white neighorhood. One summer I rented a room for a few weeks in an apartment occupied by a working class black lady; she was a cook in the BJ cafeteria. She was not untypical of the many black people living in the neighborhood and which one encountered as a fellow resident of it.
A more targeted form of interaction was very popular in my day: many U of C students did volunteer work tutoring neighborhood kids. I imagine this is still being done. If you seek such interactions you can find them.
None of this is meant to say that there isn’t a big difference between being a student and being a black resident of Hyde Park or of an adjoining neighborhood, just that the membrane is more permeable than Nate Silver suggests. He ought to know better. He’s an alum. Maybe he didn’t get out much when he was there. It’s certainly possible to cocoon oneself. However, that’s not truly the UChicago way, and in my book it would be a retreat from the full educational experience of the place.
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Marlowe, excellent point and frankly- applicable to most of the urban U’s in the US. If someone is afraid of folks who aren’t white and affluent, then take Northeastern, Yale, U Penn, Columbia, etc. off the list entirely. There are colleges surrounded by beautiful suburban neighborhoods and fancy places to eat and shop; a kid who doesn’t want to encounter “the other”- whether out of perceived danger or not- doesn’t have to.
Big country. My kids all chose urban schools (I don’t think it was intentional, it just ended up that way) and realized quickly that university safety protocols don’t work unless you use them. Take the van home from the library at midnight- that’s what it’s there for- and the driver will wait until you are in the lobby of your dorm before zooming off. Get a campus security escort to the lab at 6 am when it’s still dark-- that’s why they pay campus security escorts. Don’t prop open fire doors to make it easier for your friends to evade the sign in at the front desk. Etc.
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Sure, the actual experience of students differs from the stereotypes. However, prospective students and their parents, many of whom live in relatively segregated (by both SES and race) areas away from Chicago, may know Chicago mainly from news media and political opinion personalities talking about crime there and reinforcing stereotypes.
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My point would be that any prospective student who is serious about the place ought to dig a little deeper and have a keener mind than to accept the stereotypes. A proper analysis of the magnitude of the actual danger, coupled with the courage to deal with it, should frankly be expected of a kid who has the right stuff for a Chicago education. (And the kid should also be able, if necessary, to educate reluctant parents.) Still, it’s not for everyone.
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College is only an ivory tower if a kid makes it so.
There is no shortage of volunteer opportunities in New Haven, Philadelphia, Boston/Cambridge, NYC, Chicago, LA, etc. for kids who want to work in the school system, serve on civic boards and committees, run voter registration drives in neighborhoods with historically low turnouts, serve as translators in public libraries which run tutorials on “how to register your kids for kindergarten and Pre-K” and “these are landlords who accept housing vouchers and you don’t need a credit history”.
No shortage. And kids who don’t want to engage with the local community-- that’s possible as well.
I think the problem is a young college student is still really just an 18/19/20 year old kid. It is not terribly hard to make a mistake in judgement at that age. As Blossom points out, you need to actually use the prearranged campus security measures for them to work.
Here is the simplest violent crime map I could find online. It’s old but I suspect it hasn’t changed much. In the neighborhood west of the school, the violent crime rate is over 4% per year. South of campus it’s 2.5% per year. That is not an insignificant rate and it’ll actually feel like the rate 100% if you are the victim.
Is a sexual assault by another student (a sadly common occurrence EVERYWHERE- urban, suburban, rural) counted in these “violent crimes by neighborhood” statistics? If a student is sexually assaulted by another student- and then told/encouraged NOT to report it to law enforcement (as frequently happens-- the dialogue is “do you really want your next three years here spent being known as the girl who got raped at a frat party? Why not put it behind you?”-- are those statistics included in this map?
I have heard too many stories of “safe” campuses (i.e. in predominantly white/affluent suburban areas) which work aggressively to make sure that actual crimes don’t get reported, or get under-reported to believe that a 2005 Chicago police data map is an accurate record of violent crime AT U of C.
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@rightofreag , that map requires some analysis if your perspective is what it means for a student living in Hyde Park. First off, no student ever goes west into the Washington Park neighborhood. The crime statistics for it are completely irrelevant to the life of a U of C student. Woodlawn is a slightly different matter because of the creep of the University into that neighborhood in recent decades. It has somewhat elevated crime rates, but an infinitesimal amount is directed against students. Then there is the heartland - Hyde Park: its crime-rate is not very different from the middle-class neighborhoods north of the Loop. No, it’s not Evanston. But that’s what some of us like about it.
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The data is from 2005.
That’s not last year, five years ago, ten years ago despite the disclaimer “I suspect it hasn’t changed much”.
I don’t know the answer for UC, but they should be and hope they are. There are schools/communities where the campus crime does not make it into the local town’s crime data, Hamilton college and Clinton NY are one such example.
I also don’t know whether students are encouraged or discouraged about reporting sexual assaults at UChicago, and this can be difficult for potential students to suss out at any school.
In my first post on this thread, I linked to the UCPD daily crime log. I applaud them for making this an easy to find/understand resource because it’s a tool that can help students gauge whether UC is a good fit for them. Here’s the link again. https://incidentreports.uchicago.edu/
There are many websites where one can see more-current-than-2005 Chicago crime data by neighborhood. It’s fair for potential students (and their parents) to look at those data too.
Bottom line, urban campuses are desirable to some students and not to others, no surprise there. And sometimes the reasons for that interest/non-interest might not make logical sense but that’s ok too.
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Hamilton College resides entirely in the town of Kirkland. Kirkland (population: ~10,000) reported a violent crime rate of literally zero in a recent year.
Well then the Hamilton crimes reported on Clery aren’t making it into the Kirkland crime stats.
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My son studied at UC last summer and just this past summer. At no point when we visited or while he was there did he/we feel unsafe. We stayed in an airbnb blocks from Woodlawn and walked everywhere. I walked by myself to grab breakfast on a Sunday morning and not once did I even feel like I needed to be extra aware.
We live in a very white affluent suburb of Dallas. My kids have lived in a pretty small bubble. However I lived near downtown Dallas and have traveled so I understand that our area is not representative of the rest of the country.
We visited Berkeley this summer and I was actually surprised by the environment. I don’t know why - maybe it was because I had not been to the Bay in many years. The area around Berkeley felt more busy - Hyde Park seemed kind of quiet and sleepy. I felt like at Berkeley you were more apt to confront the difference in socio-economics as a daily occurrence. Not that we ever felt unsafe at Berkeley, I had just expected them to be more similar than they felt to me.
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So for those that don’t want to come here please stay away. Many have no clue… I live in the city not burbs and go to Chicago campus a good amount and a friend lives and teaches there
First off…
You probably don’t like high caliber theater right on campus.
Probably don’t like live fantastic music either. Arts, theater. Just saw a fantastic jazz band last week.
I won’t even go into the food since you probably wouldn’t eat around there anyway.
But… But… When you see the students there everyone is with everyone. We might see color but I really don’t think most of the students do.
I know of a few graduates the last few years. No problems with safety etc etc.
Not saying there couldn’t be… Sure somethings off campus. I live by safe Wrigley and someone just got carjacked on my block. Ugh… We are mostly houses with garages and families in the “safe” area in Chicago. Lol.
I work in a very nice suburb and there is like more drug issues and yes car jackings, then most places.
If you can afford the school and it’s what your kid wants, it’s a great school for the right fit kid.
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To answer my own question, I went there last week on the CTA Green Line and had no problems. The area around the school wasn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
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