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.

David Bevington, the Phyllis Fay Horton Professor in the Humanities, wrote an op-ed published in the Tuesday, March 23 Chicago Sun-Times about two Elizabethan-period, best-picture Academy Award nominees––the eventual winner, Shakespeare in Love, and Elizabeth. Bevington, an expert on Shakespeare, gives a thumbs-up to the winner: “This perfectly marvelous movie has the genius to weave significant historical facts into its delicious confection of a seeming biography.” His opinion of Elizabeth is one example of what separates the competition from the winner. “Elizabeth loses its way as genre: a seeming historical pageant with no regard for the truth.”

Homi Bhabha, the Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities, was recently interviewed by the Australian Broadcast Company for a radio documentary about the history of racism.

James Cronin, Professor Emeritus in Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics; and Edward Blucher, Assistant Professor in Physics, were guests on WBEZ’s 848 program to discuss Chicago’s recent definitive measurement of matter-antimatter asymmetry at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Mike Foote, Associate Professor in Geophysical Sciences, was a guest on WBEZ’s Odyssey program Wednesday, March 24. Foote discussed findings of his research reported in the Feb. 26 issue of the journal Science about the mammalian fossil record.

Eric Hamp, the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Linguistics, Slavic Languages & Literatures and Psychology, commented on the Kosovo crisis on the WFLD-TV Fox newscast at

9 p.m. Wednesday, March 24. Marvin Zonis, Professor in the Graduate School of Business, appeared on the 6 p.m. newscast on WFLD-TV Fox Channel 32 to provide commentary on the conflict.

The work of Susan Lindquist, Professor in Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology, was profiled in an article in the March 15 issue of Business Week magazine. According to the article, Lindquist’s theories and research on proteins and heredity have many biologists hailing her as a leader in the field of genetics––a leader whose ideas could help develop new treatments for ailments such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and mad cow disease. Lindquist also was a guest on WBEZ’s Odyssey program Tuesday, March 16.

The March 29 issue of Newsweek magazine quotes three Divinity School professors, Martin Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus; Bernard McGinn, the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor; and David Tracy, the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Distinguished Service Professor. The three men were interviewed for a story about how the life of Jesus of Nazareth has influenced Western culture.

John Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science, was a guest of John Callaway Wednesday, March 24, on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program. Mearsheimer and other panel members discussed NATO’s recent airstrikes in Yugoslavia and the continuing civil war between Serbians and Albanians in Kosovo.

In an effort to save the life of an extremely premature infant with liver failure, doctors at the University’s Hospitals infused more than a billion working liver cells into 7-week-old Mujahid Musa of Washington, D.C. Dr. Michael Millis, Assistant Professor in Surgery and Director of Liver Transplantation, led the team that performed the experimental procedure. A front-page story about the procedure was published in the Saturday, March 13 Chicago Sun-Times. Although the liver-cell infusion was able to restore the infant’s liver function, the 3-pound infant, born 13 weeks premature, died 12 days later from other complications related to his premature birth.

Dr. Michael Roizen, Professor and Chairman of Anesthesiology & Critical Care, continues to appear in the media following the release of his book RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?, which was on the New York Times bestseller list during the last two weeks. Roizen also was a guest on CBS Saturday Morning and was interviewed for stories in the Tuesday, March 16 Dallas Morning News; the Monday, March 22 Sacramento Bee; and the Saturday, March 20 Portland Orgonian.

Allen Sanderson, Senior Lecturer in Economics and the College, analyzed the brouhaha over Dayton Hudson’s decision to move its Frango mint operations out of Chicago in an op-ed that appeared in the Tuesday, March 16 issue of the Chicago Tribune.

Cosmologist Michael Turner, the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics and Chairman of Astronomy & Astrophysics, was interviewed for a story in USA Today Tuesday, March 16, about the significant leaps researchers have made in solving some of the mysteries of the universe.