Valois? That is on 53th Street near Harper Court. We used to go there every Friday in the 1980’s. Haven’t eaten there lately but the review is good:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/valois-chicago
It is not close to campus at all if your kid is staying at Campus South or BJ (1.5 mile or 30 minutes walk) but students can take UGo Shuttle there and back to campus…
That SNL skit is hilarious! Probably like eating in hole-in-the-walls in NY or in chinatown (cash only) where the waiters throw the plates at you, but the food is delicious!
Not sure where S will be living yet, but trying to get our bearings in Chicago, ie: the loop, Magnificent Mile, Hyde Park, etc. so looking around for food and restaurant establishments, and maybe a tourist destination.
Everyone’s eaten at Valois Do you still put your food on a cafeteria tray? Great burgers.
An improbable best-seller was written about the Valois (va-Loys, of course) and its clientele - “Slim’s Table”. Author was a U of C grad student in sociology, and the subject matter - a descriptive account of a small group, in this case older working class black men - was very much in the mode of the Chicago School of sociology. it was a Ph.D. dissertation, I believe, but written in very non-technical and intelligible language. A good read, especially if you’re an old Hyde Park hand. “See what you eat” or “eat what you see”?
Thanks for the reading suggestion @marlowe1, I’ll definitely add Slim’s Table to my reading list. Was also debating on whether or not to pick up John Boyer’s The University of Chicago book, I’m probably going to get it anyway, as I enjoy reading anything from or about the university, ie: loved Andrew Abbott’s 2002 Aims of Education address to first years.
@marlowe1 “See your Food” http://www.valoisrestaurant.com/
@85bears46 Maybe our S will continue your tradition and eat there every Friday too
@uofcparent: you should get the Boyer book. Personally speaking, I’ve always found his reflections on the university to be very thoughtful - you can find a few of them on the web. Boyer is a historian and has particular insight not just on UChicago’s own history (it does seem like he’s been there forever!) but on the history of the university experiment in America - its influences and inspirations.
I read his tome on freedom of speech - your family will receive a copy this spring or summer - and found it very insightful. You just chuckle at the current “controversies” when you understand what the university was embroiled in when much younger and in a more vulnerable position than today. Learning the history of the university is a wonderful and crucial exercise.
@uocparent In 1980’s there really weren’t many cheap choices for food for poor graduate students. Valois was our safe bet. Now I have to say the average college students seem to be much more well off and correspondingly there are far more choices for eating out in HP.
That is my guess: you child likely will eat in the dinning commons most of the time. If he/she wants to have culinary fun on Friday or Saturday night, he/she and friends would venture to go out together to the Loop or Lincoln Park. That is the beauty of an urban school.
Back in the early 80s, we had Thai 55, Salonica, Medici, Ribs n’ Bibs, Harolds, Morry’s, Mellow Yellow, White Castle (if you had a car) maybe a couple of others. It was definitely a food desert compared to now.
Grocery was horrible as well back then.
The Boyer book is valuable both as history and as a guide to the future. Those of you who have been paying attention for a while know that John Boyer is THE Man when it comes to the direction of the College, and his interpretation of the history of the University is also his road map for where the College should be going.
Eventually, he’s going to have to retire. He’s on his fourth university president – Hanna Gray first appointed him Dean of the College – and it’s probably unlikely that he will make it far into the term of a fifth. But he has absolutely been the architect of the renaissance of the College in this generation, and it will be a long time before anyone has the guts and the stature to question his legacy.
@JHS I agree. By the time Dean Boyer current term ends, he will be 75.
https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2017/03/15/john-w-boyer-appointed-sixth-term-dean-college
And Zimmer just turns 70. They both have made a huge impact at the University (whether good or bad will depend on your personal taste). But within 5 years a new leadership team is definitely needed.
I think Boyer’s been at UChicago since he entered the History grad program in the 60’s and has served in admin since the 80’s. Zimmer moved to UChicago in '77 and while he’s done stints elsewhere (Cal, Brown) most of his academic and administrative work has been at UChicago. So both have a pretty deep connection to the university. Zimmer was recently re-appointed to another five year term so his tenure will be up there with some of the long ones (Gray, Harper, Hutchins). Boyer’s tenure as Dean of the College is unprecedented.
I can speak regarding the Class of 1982. This was way back when Chicago really was self-selective. The admission rate hovered at the time around 40% but the students were still fiercely bright. The College had 2,500 students but College students did not feel forgotten. Rather they felt unique. You went to UC because it was a small college in a major research university. That’s what attracted students…they wanted to attend a graduate university.
Back then, too, ratings weren’t all the craze, the application was insanely long, and you felt that admissions really read your application and cared about you as an individual. UC then was famous for being different. I fear that today it may be losing something of that. And we also got zero mass mailings and the President (Hannah Gray) wasn’t worried whether we had more applications than Columbia! Hate to say it, but I feel we were more self-confident then, and didn’t need a low acceptance rate to convince us that UC was amongst the best colleges in the country.
@JBStillFlying Things must have changed a lot since the 1980s. Back then tenured faculty taught all classes and seemed to really enjoy it. I vividly recall some outstanding discussions in what was then called “Human Being and Citizen”. That’s what made Chicago special…that tenured faculty enjoyed teaching even Core classes.
Hanna Gray is coming out with a new book, looking forward to reading it:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/20/interview-hanna-holborn-gray-her-memoir
We’ll be purchasing that Hannah Gray memoir for sure. Totally admire her as a scholar and academic leader.
@exlibris97 Human Being and Citizen is still part of the Hum sequence. Hum and Civ. are now a two-part sequence minimum as opposed to three-part required like it used to be. Sosc. is still a 3-parter. It would be fantastic to get tenured/tenure-track faculty to teach these courses - guessing that doesn’t go on now. With an entering class of approximately 600 or so students, UChicago was so much more like a traditional LAC back then. However, the econ. major at that time did specifically use grad students to teach the intro courses. Today, you might not get a tenure-track prof. but I think you at least get someone who’s completed his/her PhD.
Hubby and I know many who attended around that time and had the same enriching experience as you. If one was searching for that intense intellectual and academic environment, that’s where you went. There was an article several years ago (IIRC around late '90’s so well before the Nondorf era) that detailed the admissions process at the College and pointed overwhelmingly to a thorough reading of all applications and a genuine interest in and familiarity with all who were applying. It would be wonderful to think they spend the same amount of time on each application now (and perhaps by the time it’s gone through the layers that’s exactly what’s happened) but the fact that they have opted for more efficient indicators such as binding admission tells us that the process has definitely been streamlined - or assembly-lined, maybe? - in order to accomodate a more sizable throughput. Such is the reality of college admissions in this new, and more frantic, age. 30 years ago, there were fewer apps. to read - and applicants applied to WAY fewer schools than is typical now.
When my kids were taking the Core, a decade ago now (yikes!), tenured faculty would still dip in, although usually only for one quarter. My son and daughter-in-law had a tenured anthropology professor for one quarter of the Sosc class (one of the biggies, Self Culture & Society), and it turned them both from STEM majors into social scientists. Neither had tenured (or tenure track) faculty for Hum, although others did. My second child’s Human Being & Citizen class was one of his absolute favorites in college, though. It was taught by someone who defended his English Literature dissertation during the year.
I think the way Hum/Civ/Arts works now is that you have to take six quarters total, and that has to include at least 2 quarters each of Hum and Civ and one of Arts. So you either do 2-2-2, 3-2-1, or 2-3-1. Child #1, a lit person through-and-through, expected to take 3 quarters of her Hum, but absolutely hated it and left after 2. Child #2, who thought of himself as a STEM person who hated academic literary study, happily took all 3 quarters of Hum because he thought it was so great.
Reading all these posts makes me feel like going to school. I think I’d make a better student today than I did when I went to college. Sort of envious of my S–going off to learn! Maybe I can read along with him on a couple of his assignments. I did that now and then once he started high school, and it was pretty fun discussing the books together.