Hey, I don’t see it working in this generation. It was, as I said, mostly a joke. We as a society are in a conflict with the far right vs. the far left. Us poor saps in the middle are the ones who are getting hurt in it. Whether he wants to believe it or not, he is lumped into the far left. I’m fairly certain that the security detail itself would be unmanageable for him to be able to serve as needed.
It was a thought experiment. I threw out a thought. But, if he would be ideal, are there others that get you the same benefit without the baggage? Condoleezza Rice? Politically a moderate, history as an educator? Well spoken and would be able to raise money. Generally liked by all who have worked for/with her.
@Mwfan1921 and @BrianBoiler no affiliation with UChicago. IMO that alone might tank Condeleeza Rice.
Not sure this is an issue of political rancor as much as it’s the realization that for a university to thrive, benefactors of all stripes and ideas have to be on board. You want a unifier not someone who is even inadvertently divisive.
44 becoming President of U of C is in so many ways unrealistic. U of C is proud of its tradition of shunning celebrity. In the 1990's it famously declined to award an honorary degree to Queen Elizabeth for her lack of scholarly achievement. Having a celebrity as figure head President just goes against every U of C tradition.
As far as I know Obama has not come back to his Kenwood mansion to live there for a long while. Maybe a couple of nights here or there. But he is certainly not living in that house on 50th and Greenwood.
Many candidates that are mentioned in this thread are in their 60’s already. If anyone of them becomes President, his job will likely be just a caretaker until the Board finds a younger replacement.
@JBStillFlying The guy who preceded Zimmer is Don Michael Randal, a complete outsider to U of C. His very short term obviously is indicative of some major issues then.
I don’t think the Board will purposely look for a minority or woman as President. After all Hanna Gray was President well before a woman candidate as university president was even a popular rallying cry.
Fantastic fund raising skills, working around many different internal and external political landlines, maintaining the U of C academic research core: now these are not easy attributes to be found in one person. If I have to bet, I think the next President is likely to be a mediocre one as compared to Zimmer. I am not pessimistic about the University future at all. Indeed I think the future of U of C is bright as ever. It is just after a luminous 13th Act, the 14th Act will be hard to top it. “Tough compare”
BSM needs money, lots, lots of money. Probably billions. OTOH, Humanities is a low budget affair. To have a top notch English or Classic Departments (which U of C has), you don’t need a $600 million research lab.
So it boils down to fund raising as well as vision. The next President needs to find a leader at BSM to have the grand vision that huge donors are willing to pay for. Easier said than done.
ALL bio and med. divisions believe it’s a “simple” matter of raising outside money. But that’s not the entire story. The new president would need to make substantive changes to leadership, as mentioned, but also re-align pecuniary resources among divisions within the university so that Bio, and other divisions, are operating productively. That means possibly taking money from the Humanities and perhaps even some of the Social Sciences to re-allocate to BSD w/o compromising either division in terms of prestige. Easier said than done, because cutting a department’s internal funding always causes problems.
Neither Humanities nor SS requires a lot of plant or equipment other than a few blackboards and computers. But that’s not new information. Nor is the temptation just to throw money at a problem to make it go away. Most humanities departments, along with the history department I’ve noticed, seem to attract a very large number of faculty (both tenure-track and non). Fewer faculty/better pay? Oh to be a fly on the wall during THOSE conversations. But you hardly want History (considered one of the best in the world) to be compromised. Personally, I love that my history-major daughter has access to amazing resources with only a fraction of the number of majors as Econ. (which has to make due with a lot less full-time faculty). It’s a luxurious circumstance for her. Of course, body count isn’t the full story since Econ. is likely to be paid significantly more. Nevertheless, if I were pres. and looking to supplement all those outside dollars with some re-aligned internal funding, I would definitely look at the History Dept. And English Lit.
@JBStillFlying - how much money exists in SS and Humanities that could be diverted to Bio and Med? As a thought experiment, let’s say you get rid of SS and Humanities ENTIRELY. How much money would that open up per year for Bio and Med - $200M? $250M? A nice amount - but, in the world of big science, even deleting other departments won’t move the needle enough.
Big science is extremely money-hungry, and also hyper-competitive. As an example, UPenn is building a $1.5 BILLION dollar hospital. Hopkins just raised $3 BILLION for medical research. Harvard recently raised $1 billion for its medical school alone.
Even in Chicago’s backyard, Northwestern has grown increasingly aggressive and has poached key faculty.
In terms of closing the gap, the only way forward I see is to condense the periods in between fundraising campaigns. Penn has done this to tremendous effect - they finished their last campaign in 2013 (which raised $4.3B), and, just 2.5 years later, started the quiet campaign for their current effort (poised to raise $5B).
The end date of 2022 for Zimmer is strategic. The current campaign concludes in 2020. This should give enough time for a quiet campaign to start (probably about 2022) - right when the new leader (hopefully a powerful leader) is installed. I don’t know, however, if Chicago is the same sort of juggernaut in fundraising as Penn or Hopkins, to say nothing of Harvard or Stanford. I’m not sure they can pull off two campaigns in such a short period of time. Further, if there’s another recession…
Yes, getting the right leaders is key. But, there’s an operational deficiency here - and I’m not sure how the ground can be made up.
@Cue7 - don’t look at things in a vacuum. The primary concern with expanding the College 20 years ago was that resources - monetary and otherwise - would be taken away from the graduate departments. Whenever one division comes into focus, all divisions are affected. And BTW it’s amazing how far $250 will go if spent properly.
@JBStillFlying - wasn’t Chicago’s financial position actually better in 1999 as opposed to 2019? It was definitely less leveraged, its Moody’s ratings were probably higher, and it certainly had a better endowment position. The endowment then was ahead of Penn, Northwestern, Hopkins, and much closer to Columbia’s. Also, revitalizing a college can lead to some tuition generation - wealthy students can fill coffers (there is evidence of that happening now at Chicago).
On the other hand, revitalizing a research base is maybe even more money intensive, and still can be a money drain. Chicago is probably less well positioned to try and handle another renaissance now. It’s taken on a lot of debt.
Also, sure, a drastic cut to other depts could bring more money in for biosci - but even with $250M coming in (an arbitrary number on my front) the competition is still fierce. And that’s if chicago sacrificed virtually everything for the name of big science.
Personally, I think Chicago has given up this fight - and is poised to focus more resources on areas where you get more bang for your buck (like comp sci). Staying in the top 30 in the natural sciences is probably more the goal.
And, frankly, as I’ve said before, I think Chicago is better served piggybacking its stature by forming associations with other top schools (e.g., making the ivy plus more of a thing, or banding together with stanford hopkins etc.).
@JBStillFlying Yes and students don’t like him for that - but that really wasn’t known until the whole free speech shtick and even now it’s unclear how much is sincere or personal politics. It’s enough of an unknown for the Maroon to run a tabloid-esque article on him voting in the Republican primaries like it was interesting news.
If Condoleezza Rice was appointed University President there would be riots on the quad. That would ruin UChicago’s carefully curated image as the school without those types of liberals (?) and would hurt their donor base. So it ain’t happening.
@cue7 - while it’s obviously disappointing that the administration has yet to take your sage advice, IMO an aa2 credit rating is really no cause for concern LOL.
@JBStillFlying - shocking they never asked, but seem to be following suit! Look at the developments in comp sci, the influx of wealthy students, the creep of pre-professionalism, the subtle shift away from any bold pronunciations about biomed (even in a campaign year)!
You don’t have to believe me but the University is tried their hardest not to poke the hornets nest of student activists. I’ll be convinced I’m wrong if they let Luigi Zingales actually bring Bannon in to speak and not just pretend to. I’ll also be very entertained reading David Brooks’ column the next day when there are inevitably protests: “No, UChicago! I thought you were the chosen one!”
