What makes U of C so 'unique'?

[tk89]

<p>maverick1978:</p>

<p>lol…I had a similar response when I started grad school at Columbia. I looked around campus to find libraries to work in and found that they all closed around 11 pm. I was like, don’t kids ever STUDY here??? </p>

<p>I remember at Chicago, there was a group of ppl who would leave the Reg at midnight to grab the choice seats at Crerar, which would stay open a couple of hours later. Now THAT was studying. </p>

<p>And don’t get me started on the lack of bookstores in upper Manhattan…</p>

<p>Not to badmouth Columbia, but there is no comparison in my mind between the intense academic environment nurtured at Chicago and the much more pre-professional vibe at CU. </p>

<p>If you’re interested in UChicago, you’ve probably read about the traditional 'Aims of Education" address given to each year’s entering first year class. The President of Claremont Graduate University, Steadman Upham, presented a speech several years back commenting on this tradition and the particular nature of UChicago’s ideas and methods:</p>

<p>

Three or four times each academic year I find in my mail an important, but flimsy piece of newsprint from the University of Chicago. It is the Record, an unpretentious but marvelously rich publication recounting issues in the intellectual life of that venerable institution. Generally, the October issue of the Record contains, among other things, a reprinting of the “Aims of Education” address to the incoming class. The ritual of this speech, practiced now for more than 38 years, is to inform first-year Chicago students about the values underpinning their liberal arts education and the traditions embedded in the university in which they have chosen to enroll. The most recent address was given by Robert Pippen, a professor in the Committee on Social Thought, and follows in a long line of eloquent statements that begins a four-year process of socializing new students at Chicago to the liberal arts tradition.</p>

<p>I begin my remarks to you today in this way because I believe in the power, if not the accuracy, of archetypes. In this case, the “Aims of Education” address at the University of Chicago is a powerful archetype of the conceptual framework that guides instruction today at most of the 3,000 or so liberal arts colleges and universities in the country. It also provides a useful point of entry for my comments to you this morning because the University of Chicago is an institution that is known for its unique intellectual style—that distinctive way of thinking and acting that comes from exposure to ideas anchored in purposeful analytical frameworks. The “Aims of Education” address is part of that framework, and its delivery to beginning first-year students instigates a process of inculcating the “Chicago style” that continues as long as students and alumni remain in contact with the institution.</p>

<p>I am not an alumnus of the University of Chicago. My academic background is more blue-collar: B.A. in English and Spanish from the University of Redlands, and M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology and archaeology from Arizona State University. Yet I have felt the power of the “Chicago style” in perhaps an even more important way. My doctoral advisor and major professor, the late Fred Plog, received his Ph.D. from Chicago. Moreover, Plog’s major professor, Robert McCormick Adams, was also Chicago-educated. Adams received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from that institution and served for nearly 30 years on the Chicago faculty. Importantly, Adams’ major professor was Robert J. Braidwood who also was educated at the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1943), and remained there to teach for more than 40 years. Twenty-five years ago, the transgenerational influence of these scholars transformed my approach to science and my view of the world. As a result, I am acutely aware of how a powerful and compelling intellectual style from afar can be transmitted to students at any university. This is, of course, the transcendent influence of a teacher.

</p>