What's it all about?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

During the time of covid a certain kind of big-picture discussion has been missing from our UChicago forum. If I launch an arrow in the air now with that aspiration will it bring rain?

Just before the virus struck I read a book by Daniel Markovits called “The Meritocracy Trap”. There were many facets to Markovits’s critique, but the one that particularly struck me came out of his observations as a prof at Yale, depicting a certain joyless rat-race culture characteristic of elite youth. In his telling today’s kids born into this elite demographic are focussed from an early age on getting in to one of a handful of prestigious schools and thereafter of using that credential as a springboard to a remunerative but tedious and unloved job. Status and material benefits come from this process, but an “impoverishment of the soul” (per Allan Bloom), thereby results. Education has not led these kids to a disinterested understanding of the world or themselves, and thus they are hollow at the core, having nothing to sustain them when material rewards falter (or even when they don’t).

Could our present moment, which is putting into question secular meritocratic culture as so described, bring a beneficial reappraisal of the aims of education? A columnist in today’s NYTimes wonders whether “the stress and unhappiness felt by today’s strivers” may make them “open to a revolution that seems to promise more stability and less exhaustion.” To the extent that any such revolution were to de-emphasize the material benefits of an elite education and return the focus to learning as an end in itself that would be a good thing. But if it led to a slackening of effort in general, a lapsing into apathy, a retreat from active life, that would be less good. We don’t know the outcome of our present moment, but perhaps a tipping point is at hand. Let us hope the prospect is not quite so stark as that depicted in Yeats’s “The Second Coming.”

Perhaps we are on the brink of a revaluation that is important and beneficial but less apocalyptic than that. No one would say that a bright, talented, ambitious kid must choose between useful knowledge, and thereby lose his soul, and knowledge for its own sake, and thereby save it. The problem at present is imbalance as between those goals in the predominant culture. On the other hand the educational culture of the U of C, I suggest, could be a light and a beacon in a time of turbulence. True disinterested intellectual attainment has always been honored here as an ideal, and every Chicago undergrad to some degree participates in it by virtue of its enshrinement in the Core. If it is true that the souls of youth have been impoverished in our secular age, a rediscovery of the wisdom of the past has got to be part of the remedy. So said Allan Bloom, writing as a Prof at the University of Chicago in the 1980’s but stating a truth he first glimpsed as an undergrad years before he wrote that famous book in the wake of the turbulences of the sixties.

Aristotle got it right. He told us several very important things about knowledge; firstly, that we all by our natures as human beings desire it; secondly, that it is through acquiring it that we most fully exercise our human faculties; and, lastly, that in so doing we thereby achieve happiness.

And didn’t he also tell us it’s a shame to let a crisis go to waste?

2

IMO, it’s all about how one thinks about the pandemic. Life throws curveballs. They are not an option but exogenous events that impact plans and wishes. How one deals with those curveballs can reveal their level of thoughtfulness, creativity, positivity, energy and, of course, priorities. It’s very easy to do nothing or very little; much harder to figure out how to work with and around Covid to get done what needs to get done, including - and especially - research and scholarship.

I’ve noticed some differences in the messaging among the colleges in announcing their plans for Fall 2020. By no means an exhaustive list, it seems that a few outliers such as Cornell, UChicago Duke, JHU and Vandy have made a point to welcome all back and have publicly based their decisions on research and findings from their own in-house experts. That seems appropriate for a research university with a top medical school. Penn and NU also seem to be welcoming everyone back and, while I can’t find specific reference to their medical experts’ input, it’s no doubt been present given the caliber of those experts.

However, many other top research universities are opting for staggered or alternating residency throughout the year and haven’t referenced any sort of dialogue with their own infectious diseases people (although surely such has taken place). Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia and Stanford - among others - all have top medical schools. Stanford even has Dr. Ionnes who is so maverick that he’s practically been blacklisted by others in the field for his bold questioning of economic lockdowns despite a complete lack of data this past spring. No doubt Covid has afforded many opportunities for interesting research by these institutions across many fields - medical, economic, educational, social, legal, etc. I wonder how much of that research is has been deemed applicable for resuming some sort of normal on-campus life this fall for the undergraduates? Those opting not to re-open their doors to everyone don’t seem to answer that. They don’t even provide studies or research justifying their decisions to keep half or more of their undergrads at home. I’m not even sure they have responded to the Cornell study.*

IMO, this latter group - which includes some of the best academic institutions in the world - is signaling a few things, but a devotion to undergraduate scholarship isn’t necessarily one of them. I wonder, then, how these institutions can lead the way to any sort of positive educational revolution. For that they would need a spirit of adventure or an energetic determination to carry on the mission despite the difficulty. Or at least the willingness to experiment a bit with their particular model of education. It seems that won’t be happening. The revolution must be left to others. Perhaps to those who were confident enough to rely on their own research and expertise.

*Cornell’s research shows that welcoming everyone back and testing aggressively will result in a lower incidence of Covid infection among their student population than keeping them home.

3

Marlowe1 writes (with customary eloquence):

“the educational culture of the U of C, I suggest, could be a light and a beacon in a time of turbulence. True disinterested intellectual attainment has always been honored here as an ideal, and every Chicago undergrad to some degree participates in it by virtue of its enshrinement in the Core.”

I certainly hope that so! I’m somewhat pessimistic, however. The wider culture seems little interested in “true disinterested intellectual attainment,” and I’m somewhat worried that the influences of that wider culture have fatally infected the U of C. The basic question that keeps arising on this forum is whether, for better or worse, Chicago remains a singular educational institution. Responding to the societal and market forces Markovits analyzes, the University has sought to become “one of a handful of prestigious schools” attractive to the credential-seeking “meritocrats.” That effort, itself, reflects apparently unstoppable forces. And it seems to me that Chicago’s new project fundamentally works against its old ideal of “disinterested intellectual attainment.” I do not want to be right about this.

4

IMO, UC instructors still expect their students to be engaged and interested in the subject matter. My own two are not “meritocrats” and they really enjoy the intellectual experience and the company of similarly-engaged friends and housemates. No doubt there are a greater number who view the education at UC to be but a stepping-stone to top jobs and grad programs. That’s probably inevitable now. But it’s not like those guys didn’t exist back in the days when you had no choice but to attend due to “true disinterested intellectual attainment” (because career placement was really sucky) - they were on campus all right. Complaining that they didn’t get into Harvard or Princeton. Edit to add: up to a third of the undergraduate population consisted of these types around the '80’s or '90’s.

5

I have to imagine that is down to less than 10% now.

6

As is often the case, marlowe1’s post seems very reductive to me, in all sorts of dimensions. The difference between the student bodies and educational philosophies of the University of Chicago and many of its peers are of degree at most (and not so many degrees), not kind.

They all have a diverse range of students who, like intelligent people since the dawn of time, are balancing intellectual curiosity and development, non-intellectual personal ambitions, and survival needs. They all have faculty and administrators who believe in liberal arts education, shared intellectual culture, critical thinking, and the Life of the Mind.

None of them – not the students, the faculty, the bureaucrats, or the personified institutions – is unaware that those intellectual and educational values have historically proven to have monetary value in society outside the university. Or that such correspondence is largely responsible for the survival (and much more than survival, thriving) of their universities over the past century.

Markovits has spent a lot more time at Yale recently than I have, but what he describes sounds nothing like the experience and outlook of the kids I know well who have studied there in the past decade. What he describes sounds a lot more like Harvard or Wharton, but I know that even in those hotbeds of careerism there is at the very least a sizable subculture of Life-of-the-Mind types. And Chicago is hardly free of careerists. Last fall, over 1/3 of undergraduates with a declared major were majoring in Economics or Computer Science. I am certain that some of them were in those fields purely out of intellectual interest, but I’m not willing to believe that those subjects are so intellectually interesting as to crowd out everything else without a peek at postgraduate employment outcomes. (Add in Biology and Biochem, which must have a pre-med or two hundred, and you are looking at about 45% of students .)

By the way, I don’t think anything Markovits writes about Yale, or anyone writes about Chicago, has much of anything to do with what marlowe1 calls “the dominant culture.” There isn’t one dominant culture these days, but the variety of cultures vying for dominance pretty much boxes out the culture of elitist liberal arts education entirely. As far as I can tell, outside of College Confidential no one is clamoring for more Mandarins.

As for next fall – Chicago may be welcoming back everyone, but it is only housing about 33%. Harvard will be housing 40%. Chicago says that about 10% of classes will have a completely optional in-person component; Harvard says that everything will be remote. The big difference between the two, as far as I can tell, is that Chicago only ever housed about 50% of its undergraduates, while Harvard housed about 98%. Despite Boyer’s long-term goal to increase on-campus housing, the actual number of official housing slots at Chicago has barely kept up with the increase in enrollment (if that). There is still a substantial supply of off-campus student-appropriate housing within walking distance of the Reg (which of course isn’t open). The same just isn’t true of Harvard. Cambridge can’t possibly absorb additional thousands of Harvard undergraduates at reasonable prices in safe conditions.

In other words, it’s not so much that Harvard cares less about its undergraduates than Chicago. It’s more like two of the main factors which have unquestionably given Harvard a recruiting advantage over Chicago – the vastly greater commitment of resources it made to undergraduate quality of life over the past century, and its ritzier home community – turn out to be millstones around its neck in the Year of the Plague. So be it. I think both are acknowledging that they will not be providing the undergraduate experience they aspire to provide this fall. Neither is offering any price cuts because of that. Harvard is a bit more effusive than Chicago in promising financial aid adjustments and helping students use leaves and summer terms to restructure/rescue some of the college experience everyone hoped they would have.

All of that said (and at unnecessary length) . . . I agree with marlowe1 that one hopeful aspect of this situation may be to flatten young people’s career curves a bit, and possibly even to decrease the differences in compensation and time demands. Which will largely be financed by smooshing whatever remains of we boomers’ careers. Whether that translates into re-ascendance of liberal arts education or not . . . that’s harder to predict comfortably, although I certainly hope so.

7

Clarification in order: Harvard will be housing “up to” 40%. Also, undergraduates not living on-campus, even if they happen to live nearby, are not allowed access to campus facilities (including the library). So a bit different from UC. @MohnGedachtnis, who told you that Regenstein will be closed this fall? The communications have been that the campus is opening up; buildings are currently in various stages of preparation but no one’s said that the library will be shut.

Harvard will actually be offering free summer school next year to those who end up not invited to campus for the entire year, and that number might be sizable as it could include anyone who isn’t a freshman or senior. Perhaps they feel that they need to help make up at the very least the academic portion of that “lost college experience.”

Regarding the proportion of classes as an in-person this fall, it’s important to realize some things. First of all, unlike at Harvard, instructors at UC actually have a choice of format. Second, P/F wasn’t mandated at UC last spring as it was elsewhere among the elite schools, who will only now have to deal with administering quality grades in a strictly-remote environment. It’s my belief that quality and rigor will be compromised unless they have some prior experience there. Third, a part of Harvard’s decision to restrict the number of undergraduates to no more than 40% has to do with their “intergenerational residential communities” - translation: they are prioritizing older faculty and other residents over adding more students. Finally, Harvard’s decision to go remote applies to the full academic year; UChicago has the option to offer more in-person classes as the academic year progresses.

Perusing some of UChicago’s fall course schedule, it appears possible to replicate @MohnGedachtnis’s 10% figure; but I believe it’s a tad low. Not sure where he got 10% - or maybe I’m looking more at what is remote vs. non (where “non” will include in-person or blended options, as well as independent study and so forth). Approximately 35% of the College majors in Bio or Physical Sciences, and those courses are likely to be practically all remote (including labs). Based on a quick perusal of various other majors, it appears that non-STEM might be about 70-75% remote on average. So that probably turns out to be something like 80% remote, 20% non-remote overall. YMMV - actually, will definitely vary - by major and by year in school.

Looking at just a couple of seminar-intensive majors anecdotally, it appears that 2/3 to 70% are remote courses. Econ, however, is a different story; practically all are remote this fall.

Turning to those crucial Core courses, Bio and Phy Sci are practically all remote, including labs; however, one or two physical science courses may have in-person discussion sections. Civ and Sosc will be 80% remote; Hum will be 2/3’rds remote. Math will be about 63% remote. F/L might vary by specific language. French was about 70% remote, Spanish about 85%.

In thinking “why bother returning to campus when I might have 80% - or even 100% - of my courses delivered remotely?” It’s important to consider what Dean Boyer has actually said to address that question:
“Our former president, Robert Hutchins once said what education can do, and perhaps all that can do, is produce a trained mind.
 Getting a trained mind is hard work.
 The best practical education is in some ways the most theoretical one. Yet a trained mind comes from many public and collective practices between students and between students and faculty.
 Communication and collaboration are thus key features of our institutional culture.
 Such training comes in the interactions among and between us as much as by individual study.
 Indeed, the very nature of our communities is inherently collaborative and not isolated and insular.
 That is why we decided with great deliberation that we should open the college to all students who wish to return to Hyde Park rather than to exclude some in favor of others.”

This is a very different message from the one put out by Harvard. Indeed, we know a Harvard family who has opted to skip this year because their kid is likely to be kept home from campus for the entire academic year.

8

With the new dorm, UC was planning to house about 60% of the (expanded) undergraduate population on-campus; clearly that can’t happen for the time being. It’s always something. :wink: However, another way to look at it would be that UChicago is actually able to house 100% of all first years and 2nd years who asked for housing, and probably housed a decent number of third years as well (perhaps even a few fourth years). All returning students requesting housing who were given a spot in the lottery must return to their last winter quarter house or can reside anywhere there is room in WRC. So those houses with singles-only (in BJ, I-House and Snitch) will have room for upper-level students, but those with a large number of doubles (North, South, Max) will very likely not. However, even the singles-only houses will typically see a lot of third years moving off campus, and that would have happened this year even without a pandemic shrinking the housing pool. It takes time to build up a residential community.

In contrast, Harvard is able to house only up to 40% of those who were expecting to return to dorms.

Actually, here is what UChicago has said about the undergraduate experience this fall:

Boyer: “We acknowledge that some students may decide to remain or may have to remain in their home communities for a variety of reasons.
 And most of our courses will have remote capabilities through enabled students to enjoy a rich and stimulating experience in that mode.
 But we also think that the return to Chicago is to return to a host of community resources and stimulating and intellectual friendships in support of magnificent level of education.
 It is to return to a community in which, as Hutchins once put it, the air is electric that and introduces students in powerful ways to the challenges of intellectual partnerships and gives them a common and shared vocabulary of ideas and ideals. It was an ancient Greek ideal that the city - the polis - and only the city can educate women and men to live full and enriching lives, lives defined by excellence and intellectual independence.
 Our university is such a polis, a formative intellectual community of friends set up in the home of the metropolis of the city of Chicago itself.
 We very much hope to welcome as many as of you as possible home, home to Chicago in the coming academic year.
”

Dr. Emily Landon, University of Chicago Epidemiologist: “We’ve been working together from the very beginning with both the university, the schools, the K through 12 schools, the hospital, and a number of other parts of our community and the state to help create safe places for people to be able to get on with their lives and coexist with COVID.
 Not just stay at home.
”

Jay Ellison, Dean of Students: “If you were thinking about taking a leave of absence or a gap year, I encourage you to reconsider and consider continuing to work on your degree progress and towards graduation.
 We are planning a number of exciting opportunities, and we just think it will be a great time to be here.

”

Prof. Christopher Wild, Master of the Humanities Division: “Unlike at most other schools, my colleagues had three weeks between the winter and spring quarters to redesign and move their courses on line, and they did a marvelous job. Sure, there were some glitches here and there, but my colleagues brought their enormous pedagogical passion and ingenuity to bear and create challenging and stimulating learning experiences for their students.
 As soon as the quarter ended, we got right to work to learn from the spring in order to apply the lessons learned to next year.
Thus we have three months now to ensure that the students next year will experience the academic rigor and critical inquiry for which the University of Chicago is known. . . The current crisis has given rise to a host of new ideas and curricular initiatives that may come to transform education at the University of Chicago’s for years to come
.”

Dean Nondorf: “Many other universities are cutting back in their career supports.
 And in some ways some of them are frozen.
 Our team has been engaging employers throughout the spring.
I’m pleased to say that well over 90% percent of our seniors had jobs or graduate schools, many of them actually attending graduate programs here at the university. . . . Despite COVID and quarantine this spring, we still ended up with over 3,000 Metcalfs this year, which is incredible.
 Where many schools and quite honestly many students had their offers taken away or rescinded, that didn’t happen at the university. And in the few cases that it did, we were able to engage employers, engage faculty, and make sure that we could continue to do research opportunities and job opportunities, internships, virtually.”

Boyer: “I would just add that I believe that there is no contradiction between liberal education and professional success.
 We’ve been working very hard over the last 20 years to prove exactly that test.
”

Michelle Rasmussen, Ass’t Dean of Students in Charge of Student Life: “While this decision (UAA cancelling conference games) affects scheduled UAA contests, it does not affect non-conference competitions. UChicago’s working group is using guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, Illinois and Chicago public health agencies, the NCAA’s Sports Science Institute, and specialists from UChicago Medicine to develop a plan for returning athletes to practice and compete against non-conference opponents this fall. Athletes must also be prepared for the possibility that some seasons may have to end early or be canceled altogether.”

To me this sounds like Full Steam Ahead to the extent such is possible. Much will depend on factors outside UChicago’s control, but they seem to have embraced the harder task of actually attempting to replicate to the fullest extent possible a genuine “undergraduate experience.” For everyone.

Crises tend to widen opportunity curves, not flatten them.

9

Mohn, let me be more explicit about a couple of aspects of my speculations…

Like Markovits and the columnist in the Times I was considering the “predominant culture” not of the big baggy monster known as the U.S. of A. but of that subset of American Youth who comprise “the elite.” I know, I know, I dislike them too, we all dislike them, but if they exist, and if they are going to be running things some day, we ought to think a bit about what makes them tick and what kind of educations they get. Perhaps we ought to think even of whether this “predominant culture” of theirs is rendering them successful and fulfilled as human beings.

Lately I seem to be reading an awfully lot of critiques of the meritocratic rat race, not to mention the world that the victors in that race are making for all the rest of us. Some of these critiques - perhaps most of them - are focussed on social justice. Well and good, but I wanted to suggest that there might be another way of looking at this problem - the old-fashioned consideration of what an elite education is really for. If - a big “if” admittedly - we are entering a time in which the material rewards of such an education and even its moral legitimacy have become compromised, I wondered whether that might signal a turn back to older ideas of the purpose of education, ideas that I believe the U of C has especially espoused over the course of its history and which were the magnet that drew me and many another to it once upon a time.

You and I will always disagree as to the matter of the U of C’s uniqueness. We agree, however, that an educational ideal of the sort I ascribe to it need not be inconsistent with achieving a good life in material as well as spiritual terms. This is what John Boyer is saying. You can thrive with a Chicago education, but that is in large part because that education puts the focus on the act of learning. The material rewards lie in the future. Perhaps they can be assumed, perhaps only hoped for. But they are not the main event, and your education, if it is a good one, will carry you through it all.