Not since Cato the Elder ended every speech with “Cartago delenda est” and Nietzsche developed the catchy slogan that “God is dead” has the world seen such monomaniacal repetition as Cue’s “Chicago must become an ivy or die.”
Thanks for the link, Cue. Yes, Zimmer made that cryptic reference to telling stories that were not true. That was in the context of his observation that before his advent the University had become discouraged and “resigned”. Those stories might have been paraphrased as, “This University in this decaying neighborhood has run out of energy and belief in its mission.” Zimmer is claiming to have turned this around. Sounds like he’s working on his own legacy story. Maybe some of it is true.
Yes, the rankings were referenced, but he was at pains to say that they aren’t important in themselves as opposed to some of the underlying factors reflected in them, and he also spoke rather passionately about Chicago’s having always offered a unique education very different from that of its peers. In his remarks about I.M.E. he made the point that Chicago had not set out to copy M.I.T. but to develop something quite different and special.
He is there in Davos to raise money, and he and Rubenstein both made explicit pitches on the basis that Chicago’s endowment is lower than that of its peers. Good for them. I hope some of the people in that room wrote some checks. It was, however, interesting to me that the President of L.S.E., sitting on the stage with them, said that its endowment was miniscule in comparison to Chicago’s - something like one-twentieth, I believe she said. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison, given the state funding of universities in the U.K., but still.