Low-profile fund manager Booth makes historic donation
Chicago Tribune Nov 7, 08 5:46 AM CST
(Newser)
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An alumnus of the University of Chicago who made a fortune from principles he learned at its graduate business school has donated a no-strings-attached $300 million to the school, reports the Chicago Tribune . The donation, by Dimensional Fund Advisors founder David G. Booth, is the largest ever to a business school anywhere in the world. The school will be renamed in Booth’s honor.
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Anonymous smear letters on the rise, say admissions officers
Chicago Tribune Oct 20, 08 12:15 PM CDT
(Newser)
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With competition for college admissions ever rising, some students are aiming to get ahead by trashing their rivals. Admission officials around the US have reported receiving newspaper clippings, references to Facebook pages, and, in one case, a letter written in crayon pointing out other applicants' false claims or unseemly behavior. Schools tend to react in one of three ways, reports the Chicago Tribune .
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Harvard beats out Columbia for most internet references
Global Language Monitor Sep 30, 08 3:51 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Institutions of higher learning care about their brand as much as any business, so the Global Language Monitor has ranked universities and colleges for the amount of buzz they command on the internet. The winners: Harvard University Columbia University University of Michigan, Ann Arbor University of California, Berkeley Stanford University
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OPINION
Advocate (and Dem) Tsing Loh disturbed to see candidates' offspring in private education
New York Times Sep 10, 08 4:32 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Sandra Tsing Loh likes Barack and Michelle Obama’s politics, but, as a proud PTA mom, wonders why they couldn’t send their kids to a public school in their native Chicago, she writes in the New York Times . The inclusion of middle-class or affluent children, especially from families who value education, has been shown to benefit poor children immensely.
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Dem hid his notions, but unpacked complex issues
New York Times Jul 30, 08 1:46 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Barack Obama stood out as a University of Chicago law professor in the 1990s: He didn't publish, he turned down tenure, he ran for office, and he collected a coterie of adoring liberal students at a largely conservative school. Yet he provoked them to take sides more than he revealed his own ideas. Looking back, former students see what he was doing—preparing for a career in politics, the New York Times reports.
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6.4M unmarried hetero couples live together
USA Today Jul 29, 08 7:23 AM CDT
(Newser)
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The number of unmarried heterosexual couples living together reached a record 6.4 million in 2007, or 10% of all hetero couples who share a home, according to the Census Bureau. It's a snapshot of the changing American family. Some 2.5 million of the couples—45.5%—are raising at least one biological child of either partner, and 1.3 million—21%—have a child together, reports USA Today.
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University of Chicago courted him despite liberal leanings
New Republic Jul 23, 08 4:23 PM CDT
(Newser)
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The University of Chicago Law School—an institution noted for its conservative leanings—tried hard to recruit part-time lecturer Barack Obama into academia when his early political career was foundering, the New Republic reports. Some of the school's conservative scholars say they disagreed with Obama's political bent but were impressed with his willingness to hear opposing views—and may even cross over to vote for him.
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Capitalists latch on to search for inner peace
BusinessWeek Jul 20, 08 7:37 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Inner peace through capitalism? Americans spend $5.7 billion a year on yoga classes and products, and now, BusinessWeek reports, yoga clubs are cropping up in some of the country's most high-pressured institutions: top business schools. "Having a yoga practice helped sort through the white noise," one MIT student said.
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OPINION
Hyde Park is maverick—and conservative
Wall Street Journal Jun 11, 08 1:23 PM CDT
(Newser)
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With the right cranking up to use Obama's Chicago neighborhood as a weapon against him—the Weekly Standard depicting it in a long piece as an liberal elitist bastion —Wall Street Journal columnist (and former Barack neighbor) Thomas Frank says it’s complete bunk. Not only do Hyde Park-ers have a median income below the national and Chicago medians, but if the college town has a political legacy, it’s a conservative one!
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opinion
Lefty enclave is racially mixed, but lofty
Weekly Standard Jun 9, 08 7:37 PM CDT
(Newser)
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"It is the most racially integrated neighborhood in the nation's most racially segregated city," Andrew Ferguson writes in the Weekly Standard of the area in south Chicago Barack Obama calls home. It's a college town, a lefty enclave where the moneyed mix with boho bookworms, and "NPR announcer" types walk the streets wearing wire rims and backpacks. But Hyde Park isn't an ordinary college town, it's an unusually isolated one—an island in the middle of a slum.
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OPINION
Barack needs a cigarette to get his cool back, scribe pleads with Mrs. O
The Root Apr 29, 08 3:08 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Please, Michelle Obama, can’t Barack have just one cigarette? Your husband “looks tired, and he’s been awful on TV,” declares Paul Devlin at The Root. The “future of the free world depends on” a puff or two, as the Democratic front-runner needs to regain his cool—and quick. Devlin even notes a few side benefits in his open letter to the candidate’s better half.
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U of Chicago refutes Clinton claim; liberal blog backs off McCain plagiarism allegation
Politico Mar 28, 08 4:28 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Barack Obama was indeed a professor at the University of Chicago's law school, the school said today. The Clinton campaign and the Sun-Times have said otherwise, but academic semantics back the onetime senior lecturer. The university said that title did qualify Obama as a professor—and the law school had even offered him a tenure-track position.
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Team of behavioral economists bucks convention, ideology
New Republic Feb 29, 08 9:38 AM CST
(Newser)
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Barack Obama’s brain trust leans heavily on behavioral economics, the New Republic reports, with academics who start small in their analyses—looking at everyday anomalies—and are relatively ideology-free pragmatists. From his top economic adviser to his health-care and Social Security aides, Obama is surrounded not by "big-think public intellectuals," but rather experts motivated by policy that better accounts for human behavior.
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