In the News

The Chronicle’s biweekly column “In the News” offers a digest of commentary and quotations by a few of the University faculty members, students and alumni who have been headlining the news in recent weeks.

Two stories about innovations taking place in the College core curriculum and enhancements being added to student life appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune Sunday, Jan. 31. The stories quoted President Sonnenschein, Dean of the College John Boyer, other administrators and faculty and students. Speaking about these changes in the Chicago Sun-Times article, Sonnenschein said the University “puts the life of the mind and intellectual seriousness first, but there are other activities in which intellectually serious people are engaged. And we want an academic community that is attractive to this broader type of individual.”

Professors in the Law School have been quoted and interviewed for media stories covering the impeachment trial of President Clinton, including Beth Garrett, Assistant Professor in the Law School, who is one of WMAQ’s regular experts on the Senate trial; Dennis Hutchinson, Senior Lecturer in the Law School, who was a guest on WBEZ’s Odyssey program on Jan. 12; and Cass Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, who has been frequently quoted in The New York Times and who appeared as a guest on the hour-long CNN program Burden of Proof. Joseph Isenbergh, the Seymour Logan Professor in the Law School, shared his interpretation of the impeachment clauses in Article II of the Constitution on Fox’s national evening news Thursday, Jan. 21, in the New York Times Monday, Jan. 25, and Tuesday, Jan. 26, and in USA Today on Monday, Jan. 25.

The Arts & Humanities in Public Life Conference, the first step in the development of a national public policy center dedicated to the research of arts and humanities culture, received coverage in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and on Chicago’s National Public Radio station, WBEZ, last week. Carroll Joynes, Associate Dean of Development and External Relations for the Humanities Division; Larry Rothfield, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Humanities; Arjun Appadurai, Professor in Anthropology; and Philip Gossett, Dean of the Humanities Division, were quoted. “Lawmaking bodies . . . make the final decisions but they still need information and policy recommendations about the best practices and they need input about what seems to work, what doesn’t,” said Joynes in the Tribune article.

John Boyer, Dean of the College, joined nearly 150 students at Promontory Point on Lake Michigan’s shore for the annual salute to the sun at kangeiko, part of the weeklong winter festival Kuviasungnerk. Boyer, who participated in the predawn yoga movements, commented on the activity for a story in the Thursday, Jan. 21 Chicago Sun-Times. “Anybody who can get up at 6:30 a.m. and come out here has a certain amount of health ambitiousness. It’s a time for feeling good.”

John Simpson, the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Physics, was interviewed by BBC Radio about his instruments that will ride into space on the Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite to measure the mass, speed and trajectory of dust particles in low-Earth orbit.

Daniel Fischel, Dean of the Law School, commented on his transition to the deanship, as former Dean Douglas Baird returned to teaching and research, in a Monday, Jan. 18 Chicago Tribune story.

Before Pope John Paul II arrived in St. Louis for a 30-hour visit, Tom Smith, Director of the National Opinion Research Center, was quoted in several newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Los Angeles Times, about the survey NORC conducted between 1972 and 1998 on American Catholics and their loyalty to their religion. “It’s clear people pay attention to the visit, and they like the pope, but his specific doctrinal announcements have a negligible effect,” said Smith in a Chicago Sun-Times article published Monday, Jan. 25.