Come now, @HydeSnark - you’re going fairly way back with alums in their 60s or 70s lamenting the state of their alma maters. If you keep to our ballpark of 25-30 years, you don’t think the seeds of what those at Princeton or Yale complain about now were sowed then?
Put another way, I don’t think you see many complaints from Brown Alums of 2005 complaining about what their school has now become. You do see that at Chicago because the admin shifts have been more significant over a shorter span of time.
Find me an article of a brown alum from 1998 or 2005 complaining about how the school has changed. Then we’ll be talking.
Until then, enjoy this: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/28/us/winds-of-academic-change-rustle-university-of-chicago.html?pagewanted=all
i don’t think there’s much debate that the pace and type of changes at Chicago have been fast and significant, perhaps more than any other school. The root of issues at some of her peers lay in admin decisions that go back decades. Some of chicagos big changes go back to admin changes from like 36 months ago.