Well the Alivisatos era has begun. For the first time since 2006, there is a new President at the helm of The University of Chicago.
Best of luck to President Alivisatos and Provost Lee.
As a parent of a student who attended during the latter third of the Zimmer era, I want to thank President Zimmer for all he accomplished on behalf of the University. I want also to wish him the best of health in the coming years as he transitions to his new role as Chancellor.
It was great to see the smiling faces of Dean Boyer and Jim Nondorf in the Convocation march through campus.
Finally had a chance to watch opening Convocation. Both Alivisatos and Boyer really pounded home the value of the Core Curriculum. It’s very heartening to hear their thoughts on this. Also, this is probably Boyer’s best opening talk IMO (and I’ve heard a few of them now).
Alivisatos brought up what he saw as two crucial characteristics of UChicago - a community deeply committed to academic freedom and freedom of expression, and a community that is both diverse and inclusive. He reaffirmed that UChicago is committed to the exchange of ideas, that nothing is off the table, that (he hopes) the debate will be fierce and that all will participate in those lively discussions. The diversity of ideas, perspectives and experiences present on campus are invaluable to enriching those conversations. The commitment on the part of all to create a community where everyone feels they belong (ie are treated with respect, friendship, civility, etc) is just as important as having those open, unrestricted conversations. My impressions of the place are pretty consistent with what Alivisatos is talking about. I don’t think he’s throwing around buzzwords. My kids have truly enjoyed their experience there - it’s definitely a place of intellectual growth and transformation - yet it’s also a place where students treat each other with kindness.
One interesting tidbit that Alivisatos shared: as an undergraduate at the College, he loved the liberal education so much that he took as few chem courses as he could get away with and still graduate in the major! When it came time to apply to PhD school, he was wondering whether he should attend a research-intense program with few preparatory courses beforehand, or one that provided a lot of initial classwork. I guess he was a bit worried that he might need to “catch up.” His chem faculty mentor at UChicago basically said “I don’t think you’ve completely understood yet what the University of Chicago has offered to you. You have actually learned not any specific subject; you have learned how to learn anything that human beings know. Any part of human knowledge is now accessible to you with what you have learned through your education here.” Alivisatos said that he found there was a kernel of truth to that, he has remembered it through his whole life and that it influenced him enormously in his endeavors after college. He concluded the story by saying: “that is the power of what you will get here.”
For a guy with his accomplishments Alivasatos is surprisingly youthful in demeanour. He seemed a little nervous and said he was excited about half a dozen times. I hope he will take to making impromptu appearances among students in their usual haunts around campus. Being a grad of the College himself may make this easier and more natural for him than it was for his predecessors.
I liked very much not only his stated devotion to the Core as one of the truly defining things about the College but the particular ways he characterized his two pillars of free speech and inclusiveness. They were free of cliche or the sense of an implied “but” putting those values in tension with one another. His remarks were aspirational and general, but they were strong.
Boyer made a couple of historical observations that I had not previously thought of. The first of these was in connection with the origin and purpose of the Core, which he said was specifically developed during the thirties as a response to the “big 'isms” then sweeping the world. Hutchins’s idea was that students should be given the tools to think about and critique those 'isms, not take them as gospel truths, not passively succumb to them. Resistance to Received Wisdoms is at the heart of the Chicago educational mission.
This objective is associated with the worldview and reforms of Robert Maynard Hutchins. But those reforms built on the initial commitment to undergraduate education made at the very founding of the University by its first great President, William Rainey Harper. The University of Chicago was conceived to be a great research university, but Harper believed that that mission was also wedded inextricably to its mission of undergraduate education.
As he made these remarks on the quad on a blustery Chicago day Boyer asked the new class to look around at the gray walls and spires rising on all sides and to think of the cathedral schools of the 12th century. You, he said, are part of a long tradition and are linked to all who have gone before you. That was a stirring thought.
The usual things were said by Nondorf and the alum representative. The students were congratulated, the parents were congratulated, the choir sang, the pipers piped, and all processed. The hard work of learning begins.
This is so key - it was one of the best tidbits of Boyer’s speech, IMO. This is why UChicago wanted the undergrads back last year rather than disinviting them (or a subset of them) from campus. UChicago takes its undergraduate education mission very seriously, and one who attends the College is treated with the same amount of respect for intellect, exposed to similar degrees of rigor (experience-adjusted of course), and expected to be as responsible about their scholarship, as those in the graduate divisions. I would hope that all great universities are this way; unfortunately, not all give off that particular vibe. It’s part of what makes UChicago distinct among its peers and it’s usually a reason why someone applies and ends up there.
@izzalu , you might also be interested in a discussion moderated by David Rubenstein among Alivasatos and the three living past presidents of the University - Don Randel, Hannah Gray and Robert Zimmer. It can be found on the UChicago website by going to “News” and then “Around Chicago” and “UChicago Presidents”.
I expect Alivasatos had wanted to consult with his predecessors in any event (and did so offscreen), but the ever-resourceful Rubenstein seized on the moment to capture some of their collective wisdom on camera, using his own patented half-jokey interviewer style. The ensuing discussion, including Rubenstein’s own heart-felt assessment of the University, was most stimulating and interesting. There was a common vision underlying the remarks of all the Presidents - and a conviction of the specialness of the University as each of them saw it. Satisfied as they all were with their prior institutions, each said something like, “Chicago was just the right place for me.” They all spoke with eloquence of the fundamental reasons why that was so, though each brought their distinct personalities to the discussion - Hannah very erudite; Randel rather breezy; Zimmer (showing the effects of his recent stroke) frail but impassioned. Alivasatos was soaking it up and contributing observations in his now familiar unpretentious style (revealing, for example, that he did not have very good marks in several of his chemistry courses at Chicago). I liked his explication of why he, a very distinguished chemist and potential Nobel Prize winner, would want to go into administration of a University. First, he said, he intended to continue to do his chemistry; but he had come to realize that making contributions to knowledge is a collaborative enterprise - he had realized in doing his own work the necessity of working with others. Being President of a great university is the just the best way of making that happen. Good stuff.
@izzalu , you may also want to view today’s (Friday, Oct 29th) inauguration ceremony, beginning at 10:00 CST. This is being streamed at the UChicago website.