<p>JHS - I greatly respect the opinions you’ve offerred on various boards over the years, but I think you are overreacting here, and perhaps not giving your University the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>Two student editors declaring, “As distinct from other top-tier U.S. universities, UChicago’s sense of collective identity is dormant, if not completely stillborn: Because of this, at some point, each and every one of us has borne injury”, does not make it so. Read the responses to the editorial to get a better idea of what I’m saying. Perhaps these writers were having a day brought on by winter blues? They are certainly human and subject to having a bad day.</p>
<p>The question, “Do you really need the Maroon” is unfortunate and self-pitying in my opinion. Who needs the Maroon? Well to begin with, the people who produce it. They work on the publication because they get a kick out of journalism or perhaps for other reasons, but it serves them as much as anyone. I do not know to what extent UChicago stakeholders rely on the paper but, as the replies to the editorial suggest, the editors and writers and others on the Maroon can serve themselves, their predecessors, and the future of the paper and the University by striving to make it better and more credible and excellent and ready for the next generation to take over and do the same.</p>
<p>As you well know, the unifying principles of UChicago are “rigorous inquiry” and “the life of the mind”. Most informed observers (people like you who are insiders and people like me who are semi-outsiders) know this. As an outsider with a son who is now an insider, I think it’s pretty special and worth preserving as a unifying theme.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I’m with you on the house system. I think the basics are in place to make something pretty good, and as far as I know, many students approve of the houses. But I think you’re right that the houses are maybe too small and for that reason perhaps there are too many of them. Perhaps the completion of the new residential facility will be a good time to think about the next evolution of the house system. </p>