In the News

Ted Cohen, Professor in Philosophy, was featured in a Chicago Tribune story in the Tuesday, Nov. 9 issue. Cohen, whose book Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters is now available, recently spoke about his book at 57th Street Books.

USA Today published a story Friday, Nov. 5, on the Hubble Space Telescope and its namesake Edwin Hubble, an astronomer who completed his Ph.D. at Chicago in 1917. Michael Turner, the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor and Chairman of Astronomy & Astrophysics, was quoted in the article about Hubble’s major discoveries about the universe. “He had a real sense of what the important problems in astronomy were and how to solve them,” Turner said.

The University’s “quirky questions” that appear on its College applications were included in stories published last week by the Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times and USA Today. Ted O’Neill, Dean of College Admissions, was interviewed for both the Christian Science Monitor and USA Today stories.

A research report titled “Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities” and written by Allen Sanderson, Senior Lecturer in Economics and Senior Research Scientist at the National Opinion Research Center at the University, was the subject of several news stories, including articles published by the San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters English News Service, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Robert Sampson, the Lucy Flower Professor in Sociology, was interviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times about new research on Chicago neighborhoods. The study, for which Sampson served as lead author, examined the behavior of adults and children within 342 neighborhood clusters across the city. It found that most adults will model other adults’ behaviors of watchfulness and intervention when neighborhood children are in trouble or causing trouble.

David Jablonski, Professor in Geophysical Sciences, was interviewed for an article published in the Oct. 23 New Scientist about the survival of living fossils that have not changed for millions of years.

An op-ed about two conferences that took place at the University the weekend of Friday, Nov. 12, The Legacy of Friedrich von Hayek and 1984: Orwell and Our Future, appeared in the Sunday, Nov. 7 Chicago Sun-Times. The piece, written by Richard Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School, elaborated on the writings of both men––von Hayek, an economist, and George Orwell, an author. Von Hayek warned that the centralized markets of socialism would bring economic failure and loss of political liberty. Orwell believed, wrote Epstein, that no group of individuals could be counted on to rule with the detached generosity needed for any just government to flourish.