@uocparent I listened to it too. I was surprised at how many times she mentioned free inquiry, freedom of speech etc. This I kind of liked. I also listened to the address during orientation, because I was there to drop a friend off. I loved Dean Boyer’s historical perspective on Europe and Zimmer’s pedantic lecture on why UChicago is different. Paint me a “nerd”. All of them took pains to emphasize, freedom of speech, free inquiry, challenging ideas etc. Very different from a similar event, I attended with another friend at one of the HYPS schools.
Wrt the Aims of Education speech, for a while I squirmed uneasily as she kept going with the “Rah rah” on the founding women of the SSA. Even though I am a woman, I find this kind of women are the best propaganda quite discomforting, although I understand why she did it. I have plenty of strong male role models including my Dad (my Mom too) that I look up to and have learned things from. I don’t need exclusive “women role models” to feel a sense of self worth. Having said that, she brought it all together in the end pretty nicely. Not an A, but a solid B in my books