Yale/Columbia (presumably P as well?) don’t have an undergrad degree program in musical performance. However, the graduate performance program is so renowned at least at Yale that the resources are presumably there to attract top undergrads who are musically gifted. YSO is the top non-conservatory university orchestra in the country, per my son. It’s the reason he applied to Yale early. Fortunately, in his instrument the top musician pretty much in the world plays for CSO so the resources are there, they just may not be on campus since UChicago does not have a performance degree program (either grad or undergrad). This sort of decision, similar to the IME, would need to be a comprehensive joint decision between university and faculty leadership. It simply may not be something that Chicago would do well, especially considering the number of other renowned conservatories in the city and in the region.
Cue7, I understand your concerns about cost and risk in moving to D1 sports, but let me try to address these concerns.
Regarding cost, no doubt there would be large upfront capital expenses required in building out more facilities as well as ongoing operational expenses in the form of travel, coach salaries, scholarships. However, do you realize how much money a Power 5 conference school gets from media-related revenues each year? The Big Ten has the most lucrative deal with its networks and each school receives $54 million/yr: https://www.btpowerhouse.com/2019/5/31/18646305/the-big-ten-conference-basketball-payout-contract-fox-tv-deal-is-rolling-in-the-dough. Furthermore, I am willing to bet that if Zimmer tells the alumni base in Chicago’s next $10 billion capital campaign that the school would like to raise $1 billion to support moving into D1 sports that he will have no shortage of millionaire or even billionaire alums fighting each other to have their names tied to that effort. Yes, some students, alums and faculty would hate the idea, but enough big dog money alums would love to see Chicago on TV against Michigan and Ohio State and their names on new athletic building.
Regarding risk, there is no need for Chicago to move into D1 for all sports at the same time., this can be done gradually in stages. Football is the 800 lb gorilla but there is no reason that Chicago couldn’t move more quickly to D1 in basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, swimming, track, tennis, wrestling from either a competitive or risk concern.
After all, Hopkins and MIT are both D3 schools for all their sports except lacrosse and crew respectively where they compete in D1. Chicago could also easily go D1 in a few sports to start and gradually go from there.
Mom2Meics, it’s wonderful that some kids love music just like others love sports, debate, robotics, or whatever else motivates them to do something besides play video games all day. However, I don’t think offering D1 sports vs music is a mutually exclusive choice that a university must make. All the Ivy schools you cited have D1 sports so they are not choosing between one thing or the other. Also, didn’t UChicago just recently expand its creative arts programs with the Logan Center? https://arts.uchicago.edu/logan-center/about-logan-center. I’m not an expert on classical music by any means but doesn’t UChicago have a en esteemed music department? I know that the city of Chicago’s symphony orchestra is usually regarded as one of the Top 3 in the nation: and the world so I would think a classical music kid would be thrilled to attend school in Chicago vs New Haven or Princeton.
“Furthermore, I am willing to bet that if Zimmer tells the alumni base in Chicago’s next $10 billion capital campaign that the school would like to raise $1 billion to support moving into D1 sports that he will have no shortage of millionaire or even billionaire alums fighting each other to have their names tied to that effort. Yes, some students, alums and faculty would hate the idea, but enough big dog money alums would love to see Chicago on TV against Michigan and Ohio State and their names on new athletic building.” - Again, @Zoom10, where are you getting this? “I’m willing to bet” isn’t research.
With all the enthusiastic suggestions to “increase brand identity” - perhaps it hasn’t occurred to certain posters that UChicago has ZERO brand identity in D1/equivalent. Zero. It’s not a sports school.
It’s fun to speculate, but building on what the university already does well should be the best way to increase “brand awareness.” After all, they are in this for the long haul.
A varsity squash program would be an easy and important ad. Compete with the top D1 programs instantly (Harvard, Yale, UVa, Princeton, etc) as well as top D3’s like Williams, Amherst and power Trinity.
Top students play plus diverse urban squash programs.
Could create a top 10 national program quite easily while not deviating from regular academic standards.
It would also draw top students to the school. Much publicity. Just as Trinity did.
An easy sport to compete and beat most Ivy’s. Forget Harvard.
“I’m not an expert on classical music by any means but doesn’t UChicago have a en esteemed music department? I know that the city of Chicago’s symphony orchestra is usually regarded as one of the Top 3 in the nation: and the world so I would think a classical music kid would be thrilled to attend school in Chicago vs New Haven or Princeton.”
- @Zoom10, UChicago doesn't have a performance degree program, as explained a few posts ago. Their music program is more focused on composition, theory, history, etc. However, like all universities, UChicago has a variety of ensembles, including the University Orchestra which is seriously good. There must be gifted musicians in residence or who can visit campus for lessons, etc. and you are correct, CSO is one of the top SO's in the world (lessons can run a tad expensive with one of those professionals!).
Having known a few who have performed in ensembles at UChicago and a couple more who were in YSO, I can tell you that the biggest obstacle to a full commitment is simply the academic workload at UChicago. My son’s ensemble group saw a few kids having to skip practice due to their academic commitments. One concert (which my husband says sounded great) had a remarkably poor participation in the rehearsals immediately prior. This wasn’t U Orchestra (which has an even more significant commitment required) so maybe things are different there. YSO will have students opting to take a year off or not continuing but I don’t know if they skip rehearsal barring an emergency of some sort. It’s kind of a disconcerting reality at UChi (and it’s an EC - you aren’t required to be there for your major, the way you would be if you were in a B.Mus program). Just one of the many fallouts from having a heavy emphasis on academics. UChicago faculty won’t be compromising academics in order to build their athletics or arts program. Of that you can be assured. Heck, they wouldn’t compromise on academic rigor when the college doubled in size so they aren’t about to in order to accommodate what are essentially extra-curriculars. Many will point out that there are plenty of other schools to attend if you prefer that sort of trade-off.
MIT’s women’s crew is D1. It’s the only D1 sport at MIT.
Looks like squash at least got a strong start as a club sport and came up against some national rivals. Also, according to wiki, both UChi and NU are clubs that compete against varsity teams:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2015/3/6/squash-makes-vast-strides-in-second-year-as-a-club/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_college_squash_schools
JBStillFlying, let me try to address your points.
- Chicago has no (current) D1 brand identity in sports (and therefore never can or will).
I added the part in the parentheses but your argument fails to acknowledge (1) that Chicago DID in fact have an illustrious sports brand at the highest levels until Hutchins’ horrible mistake in the 1940s, and (2) that such a brand can be built over time even if it doesn’t currently exist. What was Stanford’s academic brand like until the latter half of 20th Century and the rise of Silicon Valley/technology? What sports brand do you associate with Hopkins and MIT for their D1 sports? Do you not realize that Hopkins lacrosse has been a national powerhouse even though the rest of its sports are D3? Are you saying that Chicago couldn’t become nationally recognized in a short amount of time in sports like soccer, tennis, softball if it committed the resources to that effort? What is YOUR evidence for implying that Chicago can never be good at D1 sports in the future if it chose to do so?
- Chicago has no alums interested in contributing millions/billions to a D1 sports program, nor is anyone in Chicago's administration interested in doing so even if they could raise the money.
Yes, I admit I haven’t done any formal research on this topic by sending out a survey or interviewing any rich alums. On the other hand, neither have YOU, yet you have no problems asserting complete lack of interest in D1 sports among all Chicago stakeholders as a fact,. I suppose you might have asserted the same thing about creating an Engineering major or Business Econ major if these ideas were posed to you 10 years ago. Of course, many alums, faculty, and members of the administration were outraged at the notion that Chicago would even think about offering such pre-professional rubbish as these fields. But fortunately, other faculty and administrators rocked the boat, defied the naysayers, and made these programs a reality. Thank God. for that, and I’m not even an alum of Chicago, just an interested parent of a future student. Now’s who’s to say that this could never happen with D1 sports? What’s your evidence? I admitted my bias for this change, perhaos you could admit you have a different bias for the status quo instead of claiming it will never happen as a certainty.
Yes, JBS, I am familiar with crew as it was my college sport. Crew is ncaa for women not for men. It’s another logical sport. Access to rowable water is an issue. Travel to compete to. Wisco once won the national championship though. MIT men’s are good in men’s lightweight but rarely see them in heavyweight though that may have changed
- Why was Hutchins' decision a "horrible mistake", in your view, especially as the trustees were the ones to vote?
- Stanford's academic brand was excellent in the latter half of the 20th century (says someone who lived in the area :wink: ). It has only increased due to SV/tech but it had a stellar rep. as a great university pretty much from its founding.
- MIT doesn't have D1 sports in anything but women's crew. Not sure about JHU but I thought they were D3 as well? Do they have some D1 sports?
- For softball, tennis, soccer, etc. see my question below about working in study time.
- There might be limited opportunities for the Maroons to enter some D1 areas but generally, it's not something in keeping with the school's philosophy, mission and purpose. My evidence hinges on comments from the university leadership, among other resources.
- You are erroneously equating academic and athletic content. Probably not a good idea at U of C.
Zoom you seem to know a lot about D1, so it would be helpful to understand the following: UChicago’s academic requirements are about 1-3 hours per hour of class per week. That means that the typical UChicago student who spends 12 hours of class per week (and a few spend 15) will have up to another 36-45 hours of study time. YMMV based on major but 50-60 hours per week is not out of the norm in the least, especially around 4th week, 7th week and 10th week. Begininning in Fall 2021, 10th week will become 9th week as the quarters shrink in order to accommodate a June 1 end date. Which D1 sport, including practice, game time, workout, etc., can the school successfully compete in given those constraints?
The university has always changed up its academic content and will continue to do so to meet the needs of students, employers and graduate institutions. So offering new majors isn’t unusual in the least, and they are all offered within the context of a liberal arts curriculum. The university has also had a history of protest greeting pretty much every decision it’s ever made, so the brou-ha-ha over Bus Econ wasn’t unusual in the least. While there may have been protests surrounding the decisions to build up the athletic program, I’m not aware of any.
Yeah, I don’t think UChi can compete effectively in rowing. Lake Michigan is a tad rough, and the Calumet River . . . well, never mind. It works for MIT due to access to the Charles and the strong presence of the sport in the area. I’ve seen pics of the women and they are giants!! (we knew one of them who has since gone on for her PhD at Cal and she was recruited during freshman orientation!).
JBS, I love UChicago’s academic rigor and it’s one of the key reasons my son chose Chicago over other options (he had over 20 offers as a recruited athlete at high academic schools). However, I assume you are not saying that other academically minded D1 schools like the Ivys, Stanford, Duke, Berkeley, Michigan, Vanderbilt, Rice, etc. are incompatible with balancing time commitments to D1 sports and academics? Many schools such as Stanford, Dartmouth, UCLA are also on a quarter system. Yes, the reality for many student athletes at D1 level is their sport is a full-time job which is why most of them aren’t majoring in Molecular Engineering or Physics or other STEM subjects. In fact, you will typically see many of these athletes clustering in a small number of majors such as Poly Sci, Econ, Psychology, Sociology, etc. The most common majors among Stanford athletes are Human Biology (not real Biology), Science Technology and Society (an interdisciplinary gut just like it sounds), and Psychology. I highly doubt that all majors at UChicago require the same amount of study time and I know plenty of non-athlete students with “hard” majors at UChicago also find the time to spend 20-30 hours a week on their RSOs and other EC interests. Does Chicago not offer certain majors like Law Letters and Society, Fundamentals (what the heck is that?), Global Studies, Health and Society, and all sorts of “X” Studies such as Gender Studies? Not that I would recommend anyone pursue one of these majors, but there seems to plenty of options at UChicago for athletes and non-athletes alike to spend far less time studying if that is what they choose.
JBS, you asked, "Why was Hutchins’ decision (to drop out of Big 10) a “horrible mistake”
Well, given that this whole thread started as a discussion/exploration why UChicago’s universal recognition/prestige lags behind some of its peers, particularly H and S, then I can confidently claim that Hutchins’ decision was one of the major contributing factors to that if not the key contributor. What do you think UChicago’s prestige and standing among current high school students, parents, and the lay public would be like today if UChiacgo was on ESPN every week for the past 30 years, along with having the same number of Nobel Prize winners and all its other markers of academic excellence? My answer: Chicago today would be like Duke on mega steroids and its prestige would be greater than H and perhaps only comparable to S with its Pac-12 sports and Silicon Valley prominence in technology. Hutchins’ decision to drop from Big Ten was a voluntarily-inflicted disaster not just because of its effects on Maroon sports but also because it was reflective of his misguided philosophy and mismanagement that led to all the other negative and nearly disastrous changes at Chicago during his tenure such as reduction in the size of the College relative to its peers, a unbalanced emphasis on graduate schools vs the College, and recruitment of solitary monkish students instead of well rounded leaders prolific in the mind AND the body, which has always been the target students of the Ivy’s. These terrible decisions by Hutchins led to 70% admit rates in the 1970s-1980s, an endowment that greatly lagged its peers despite Chicago having the largest endowment in the early 1900s, and its overall meme as “the place where fun goes to die.” Fortunately, that meme is more of a self-deprecating joke than reality today but positive reputations take time to build while creating a negative reputation can be done quickly as Hutchins did. These details are all laid out in Dean Boyer’s book on the history of UChicago and thankfully Chicago has managed to overcome much but not all of Hutchins’ mistakes under Zimmer and Nondorf. I am optimistic that Chicago’s trajectory going forward is very bright so long as current and future administrations do exactly the opposite of what Hutchins did. I agree with the NYT article that Zimmer is the best university President in the country and I hope he stays on for at least the next 4 years my son is there. And I hope he hires an aggressive athletic director who will push the faculty and alums towards bold changes even it rankles them just like he did in hiring Nondorf.
- @Zoom10, you are correct that not all majors require the same amount of time. But each UChicago student is required to spend 3800 credits on campus (4200 to graduate) and many of them wish to spend additional credits over and above. Students actually flock to campus for the academic opportunities and like taking large set of courses. You can still get a lot done even with that demanding academic schedule.
UChicago doesn’t have any special majors or courses for athletes a la Duke and I’m not sure even the Ivy’s have either (though I don’t know). Compromising academic choices in order to reach higher on the athletics seems very contrary to UChicago’s mission and certainly contrary to the purpose of a university in general. UChicago specifically has been able to increase both academic talent and athletic talent concurrently so I doubt they want to risk messing that up. As obvious as a strong division I team might seem in order to make alumni and other stakeholders happy or to be an easy money-maker, that conflicts with the goals of a university as a top-notch place of academic talent who come together to help provide break-through research and ideas. Hutchins and the trustees clearly recognized the conflict way back in 1939 so they shut it all down. As we’ve seen lately, top research universities today are no less tempted to compromise their standards of academic excellence for athletics as they were back then.
We already know from the periodical that H/S kids perceive UChicago to be a harder climate intellecually. So I think it would be difficult to layer in a D1 program w/o sacrificing some of that intellectual quality, and perhaps some of that academic strength that UChicago is so famous for recruiting. If some of it can be done and it helps bring in smarter and higher quality kids, by all means they should do so. The entire reason UChi improved its athletic program in the first place was to attract more accomplished scholars, many of whom were good at other things such as athletics, arts, etc. UChicago should continue to improve the athletic program along these lines, as long as those improvements don’t conflict with the institution’s high standards for intellectual excellence.
LLS is a competitive-entry major so takes in maybe 25 or so every year (or less), and Fundamentals (ie Committee on Social Thought) is probably the last major, next to ME, that a dedicated D1 athlete will want to mess with. Sure, there are less time consuming majors which can be easier (not sure Econ at UC is one of them . . ). One thing that’s really cool at UChicago currently is that D3 athletes are not compromised in their academic pursuits. You can fit in a double major, train for your sport, do an RSO and even hold down a part time job. It would be a shame if a smart soccer or football or track and field star couldn’t pursue as fulfilling a set of experiences because the division requires a level of commitment that conflicts with it. I’m guessing that they would end up losing some talented admits as a result.
- Yay - you are reading the book! Good choice!
They are not going to do the opposite of what Hutchins did unless it’s better financial management (then one can only hope!). Hutchins was both flawed and brilliant and there was a dearth of leadership after his time (he’s partly to blame for that as well, IMO). Boyer has good commentary on him from recently and Marlowe summarizes here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/2186304-john-boyers-zoom-talk.html#latest
You still notice Hutchins’ imprint on the College today - not to mention the university’s divisional structure! the College today is a marvelous blend of Harper/Hutchins with some tough-love direction from Sonnenschein. Not sure I would attribute the difficult decades, filled as they were with divisional infighting and other matters, to pulling out of the Big 10. No doubt athletics can generate some “easy money” but you forget that it’s impossible for these things to work in a vacuum. UChicago would simply have been incapable of maintaining a D1 program - they were struggling as it was in 1939 to do so! Pulling the plug had the singular advantage of allowing them to re-boot the athletic program on their own terms. That a proper D3 program was so long in coming (they joined the division, after all, back in '69!) had a lot more to do with attitudes towards the College more than anything else, I think.
UChicago is still young. When Harvard was UChicago’s current age, the American Revolution was still 12 years away!
My husband would be horrified to read what you stated about UC being Duke on steroids. He attended Duke and wished that he had gone to Chicago instead 
Unfortunately for your concerns about the image of the College, it will probably never be considered as “prestigious” as H and S and will probably always have its reputation as the place where fun goes to die. Those perceptions stem not from the “bad years” as you and Cue keep insisting but from the relatively rigorous reputation of the place compared to many of its peers. Then. and. Now.
As told by William H. McNeill in “Hutchins’ University” the early U of C dominance in football and other sports occurred at a time when, “except for Michigan, midwestern state universities were slow to go in for big-time football.” This was in part because the parents of kids who went to those schools were very often farmers, and “encouraging young men to bump into one another on a grassy field looked like an extreme case of urban frivolity to farmers, who got more exercise than they wanted by working in their fields.” As well, these state universities were generally located in small towns, where it was hard to assemble large football crowds at a time when car ownership was novel and roads poor. Thus the gate receipts necessary to sustain an athletic program were limited at these universities, unlike at the University of Chicago. In those days the city of Chicago and the new university on the south side had all the advantages, and Chicago’s athletic budget was greater than that of other schools. The faculty begrudged this and begrudged the big presence of sports on campus, but Harper was willing to permit it because it helped him recruit funds from the millionaires in the Loop.
All this began to change as transportation improved and the attitudes at the state universities changed. Attitudes also changed at the University of Chicago. Even in its heyday in the oughts and the teens there had been grumbling about the incompatibility of big time sports at a serious university: Yes, even at the University of Chicago there were once pampered athletes and there were even profs (one of whom McNeill names, Teddy Linn), who were “notorious for giving passing grades to football players, whom they rewarded more for their feats on Saturday afternoons than anything done in class.” The problem here was that these quasi-professional athletes couldn’t get by entirely on taking Teddy Linn’s courses. They began to decamp for the schools in which the living was easier and where sports programs had become more than quasi-professionalized. Other schools got into the game big-time, pouring funds into scholarships and recruitment and facilities and building big stadiums. They all developed Phys. Ed. departments which permitted their athletes to concentrate their whole efforts on sports. Jay Berwanger, the first winner of the Heisman Trophy, was the last gasp at Chicago of a storied program but one that had been passed by time and events. After he left the end was in sight. There were losses to Harvard (61-0), Michigan (85-0), Virginia (47-0) and Ohio State (47-0). There were even losses to Beloit and Oberlin. At that point, believe it or not, there was talk about an association with George Halas and his own emerging professional team. (Ultimately, of course, Halas appropriated the “C” logo and the sobriquet “Monsters of the Midway”, after football had passed from the U of C.) That was the reductio ad absurdum of the reality of the professionalization of sports at American universities. The structural events had been inexorable, yes, but taking that or the other possible bridges that would have preserved competitiveness at the University of Chicago was seen to be unacceptable not simply by Hutchins but by almost everyone. Only one trustee voted, privately, against Hutchins’ resolution to end the agony.
All that is history. With enough money and commitment one supposes that the whole thing could be reverse-engineered. Special programs could be set up for athletes, standards could be let down in their recruitment, sports teams could rise to prominence and become the public face of the University. Sorry, Zoom, I like your spirit and many of your ideas, but this one repulses me, not merely because it couldn’t happen financially and operationally but because if it happened the U of C would cease to be the U of C. Some would like to see that, of course, but not me. I like NU well enough, but I don’t want to see the University of Chicago become Nothwestern anymore than I want to see it become Harvard or Stanford. Let all those places do what they do, by all means, and let their student bodies enjoy their bread and circuses on Saturday afternoons. Let their professional athletes swagger around campus all through the week. The U of C is cut from different cloth. If it ceased to be itself there would be many, like me, who would no longer care about it. For every kid who was fired up by the new model how many would there be for whom there would no longer be a place anywhere free from the tyranny and fatuity of the Sportocracy?
A less polemical question: Wouldn’t Div I sports have the effect not only of bringing to campus this new class of professional-in-all-but-name athletes but inevitably of squeezing out all the many less overdetermined athletes now flourishing in Chicago’s programs? Once upon a time I myself played baseball at the U of C. That would not happen if Chicago had become, say, Rice and if a kid of my modest abilities was trying to find a position in an infield that contained Anthony Rendon.
@Zoom10 - I, too, love your zeal about this. And, as a sports fan, I’d love to watch Chicago take on Duke for a basketball championship, or play D1 soccer.
But, the data we have doesn’t support trying this endeavor. The start-up costs would be huge (even for sports like Squash or crew, b/c of venue construction costs), and the results for other Us that have tried have been middling.
Look at Penn State. A rich donor spent $100-$150M to start a D1 hockey program there. 8 years into the project, the men’s team is mediocre (.500-.600) and the women’s team is poor. That money would have been much better spent on educational affordability at Penn State.
Look at U. of Rochester. They have D1 squash - but does anyone really care? It’s a middling squash program. Yes they play the Harvard and Yales of the world, but it hasn’t really helped the school in any way.
And look even at Hopkins lacrosse. The women’s team has been awful for years, and the men’s team has been mediocre for a decade.
And these are in sports less competitive than basketball and football!
In contrast, look at sports at the D3 level. Chicago just started a D3 w lax program in 2018. Two years into the program, they are one of the best teams around (they had a .800 winning percentage last year), and they will compete for nat’l championships in the future. Men’s and women’s soccer, swimming, tennis, etc. - Chicago is starting to dominate some D3 sports. This is a much, much better platform for the school.
Building sports from the ground up is a super-expensive, risky, and unpredictable investment. For the seasoned investment bankers on Chicago’s board, why would they ever take this gamble? It’s less like an investment, and more like a lottery.
Focus, again, on leveraging Chicago’s strengths in areas of mass appeal. It’d be great of we had UChicago Crime Labs in every major city. Chicago Institute of Politics throughout the nation. Sports analytics thinktanks powering all the major sports programs. More investment in movies and media.
Think of the impact if the NFL Draft was powered by the University of Chicago. Same with the NBA draft. ESPN analysis the same. Major movies embossed with the Chicago brand. (A 3 min montage in every Marvel movie, with Iron Man developing his latest technologies at UChicago.) Community centers drawing people together, in every major area where Chicago recruits.
At every community center in an impoverished area, Chicago could offer free test prep classes, math and language arts classes, basic intros to economics. Also, sports, arts, meals, etc. Let these centers be beacons in tough areas. Fuel these centers with Chicago grads - who can come coach, teach, etc.
Also, here’s an idea - at these centers in tough areas, support development into niche sports. Word would spread, and good would be done.
The positive possibilities are endless, and so much more promising.
If I was a rich, altruistic donor, I’d salivate at the thought of spending $200M to open 10 UChicago center across the nation, to offer teaching and learning opportunities to those who need it most.
You know what? Why not partner the UChicago centers with Lebron James, who has already started his own new school? How much great publicity would THAT be?
Right now, the legacy of John Dewey is stronger than the legacy of Amos Alonzo Stagg at Chicago. Accept that reality, and leverage it.
The battle for king of Chicagoland in college football is already scheduled for September 25, 2021. It is Wisconsin vs. Notre Dame. The problem with the fantasy about UChicago rejoining the B1G is that the B1G would never want them. They don’t bring a local market that they don’t already have.
What UChicago really needs is Hollywood. Could you imagine if Sheldon: The College Years was him doing his undergrad at UChicago? Him talking down the academic rigor at HYPS would be hilarious.
I just discovered this thread.
What JB quoted above about MIT was near-verbatim to what my STEM son said when deciding between Harvard and MIT. Places like MIT and UChicago require a great deal of hard work. This can be the ideal place for some students (like my daughter, who learned what she is capable of at UChicago), and not for others.
Clearly a high-workload environment is not ideal for academically marginal students. Both MIT and UChicago have a small fraction of students that fit that category, and it’s not pretty to see those students flounder. There is no place for them to hide.
But I also contend that a high workload environment is not ideal for competitive type-A kids. They will certainly succeed academically at MIT and UChicago, but their presence will increase the stress of everyone, including themselves and particularly the academically marginal students.
So this may mean that places like UChicago and MIT fulfill important niches among the elite schools. And that’s actually ok.
Cue7, like I said, I love all of your creative marketing ideas, hope someone in the admin reads your threads and considers them. Some of your ideas tie into Eeyore’s suggested ties to Hollywood which would be great to see (BTW, I love Eeyore, best Pooh character of all). However, I do disagree that the Big Ten would not want UChicago back assuming Chicago were willing to make a commitment to D1 athletics. The Big Ten cares deeply about the academic standing of its member universities, all of them except Nebraska are R1 research universities and members of the prestigious AAU with the exception of Nebraska, which is why many were opposed to inviting Nebraska to join the Big Ten. No other Power 5 conference has this distinction where all of its members except 1 are members of the AAU. UChicago is a founding member of the AAU and would instantly become the Big Ten’s most prestigious academic institution, and the addition of Chicago and Notre Dame in the next wave of expansion would cement the Big Ten as the nation’s premier academic and athletic conference, and its most lucrative. Don’t get started on Notre Dame though, that’s a whole other thread.
Perhaps we can all agree on one thing that must never change at UChicago, and which must not be perceived as a marketing gimmick. That one thing is Chicago’s distinctive insistence on freedom of expression and ideas. Although one would think that this value should be obvious and fiercely protected at any institution that claims to be a place of higher learning, sadly that is not the case. To me, this is what most distinguishes Chicago amongst its peers, not Chicago’s perception as a place of intellectual rigor because the latter is simply a byproduct of the former. In the age of snowflakes at our elite schools, may Chicago never waver from this principle lest it become like all the rest.