In many ways I do enjoy the 1980’s way of U of C. Oh, I don’t miss the crime in HP or older campus buildings. It was the self selected intellectual pursuit that was endearing to me.
Back then you did not go to U of C for prestige. My mom and dad had never heard of U of C and thought I went to a city community school. After one year at GSB I stopped explaining the difference between U of C and UIC to relatives. If you didn’t know us, I did not and still do not care to explain the difference.
Basically then you went to U of C in the discipline that was world famous among the people who knew. We joked about “blackened shoal” and openly disparaged case method. We knew our professors were in the forth front of the research and many had made systemic breakthroughs in their specialties. .
When I was in undergrad years, my main stream Ivy Keynesian professors harshly criticized the U of C Econ professors as lunatic ideologues and fire breathing purists. But when I finally sat in their classes, I found my U of C professors reasonable, persuasive and open to opposite opinion. They were not saints of course but they firmly believed in what they were teaching. That is what sold me to be a lifetime member of U of C fan club. The school believes in its methodology and is willing to pursue it regardless of sniping and snickering from the academic establishment.