THE UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO 9 EECORKSeptember 21, 1975 An Official Publication Volume IX, Number 4CONTENTS121 THE UNIVERSITY BUDGET, 1975-76130 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE THEUNIVERSITY'S RESOURCES AND FUTURE COMMITMENTSIN EDUCATION134 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES: A. LEO OPPENHEIM136 TRADITION, verb (rare)138 STUDENT CONVOCATION ADDRESSES142 SUMMARY OF THE 354TH CONVOCATION142 QUANTRELL AWARDS143 REPORT OF THE STUDENT OMBUDSMAN, SPRINGQUARTER, 1975THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGOFOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER©Copyright 1975 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO RECORDTHE UNIVERSITY BUDGET, 1975-76To: The Faculty, The University of ChicagoFrom: John T. Wilson, Provost and ActingPresidentSeptember 1, 1975BackgroundThis is the seventh in a series of annualmemoranda on the University's budget.1 Theirpurpose is to inform the faculty regarding the general characteristics of the budget and, in any givenyear, to point out particular aspects of specialconcern.The budget for academic year 1970-71 was thefirst in what has become an extended series ofrelatively difficult budgets. In the prior five-yearperiod, largely as a result of the success of the firstphase of the Campaign for Chicago, the University had experienced expansion in faculty, inacademic programs, and in physical facilities. Inthe five years since 1970-71, a combination ofeconomic factors reversed this trend and dictatedpolicies directed toward slowing the University'srate of growth and bringing the budget into balance.The major steps to control expenditures include: the adoption of a policy of controlledgrowth of faculties; systematic reviews ofacademic programs that might be reduced oreliminated without significant harm to the qualityof the University; increased surveillance of expenditures in auxiliary activities; improved controls on the budget of the Hospitals and Clinics;and a curtailed program relating to expansion ofphysical plant.Measures to enhance income in effect since the1970-71 budget include: a policy of annual in-1. For prior memoranda see: The University of ChicagoRecord for December 1, 1969; August 31, 1970; October11, 1971; October 31, 1972; November 1, 1973; and December 20, 1974. creases in tuition, accompanied by the introduction of differential tuition in selected academicareas; improved efforts to recruit students, especially in the College and in the Summer Quarter;and, a greatly increased emphasis on the use ofrestricted funds to support the academic budget.This effort has been especially directed towardthe endowment of faculty chairs in the variousacademic areas.From June of 1970 until last year, the steps thathad been taken to increase income and to improvecontrol of expenditures, viewed collectively,comprise what we have previously characterizedas a ". . . policy of careful constraints . . . without dramatic gestures . . . aimed at meeting theUniversity's economic problems." A somewhatmore dramatic gesture was introduced in 1974-75,necessitated by the continuing troublesome andseemingly irreducible gap between revenues andexpenditures in the unrestricted funds budget.In a memorandum to the faculty written December 7, 1973, following the receipt and study ofrecommendations from the Deans' Budget Committee, Mr. Levi announced the University'scommitment to a policy of "closing the gap'*within three years. The method for eliminating theshortfall was devised from a combination of: (1)continued efforts to enhance income; (2) continued restraints on expenditures; and (3) utilization in the operating budget of expendable fundsin closely controlled amounts, to be raised in"Phase Two" of the Campaign for Chicago, thenin the final planning stage. The plan called for: (1)the excess of expenditures over income of unrestricted funds to be limited to $4 million in the1974-75 budget, with no application of funds fromthe fund drive; (2) a shortfall limited to $2 millionin the budget for 1975-76, with $1.5 million incometo be derived from Campaign Phase Two funds;and (3) a zero shortfall in the 1976-77 budget, witha $2 million contribution from Campaign PhaseTwo.121As budgeted, the estimated underwriting in1974-75 was $3.9 million (compared to $5.9 millionin the budget for 1973-74). In January this estimate was revised downward to $2.8 million. It is apleasure to report that a combination of actualincome in excess of estimates in the budget, andactual expenditures within very close limits of estimates in the budget, resulted in an underwritingof approximately $2.1 million at the time lastyear's books were closed.Assumptions in the 1975-76 BudgetThe overriding policy in the development of the1975-76 budget was the continued reduction of theshortfall between income and expenditures in unrestricted funds, the limiting figure being a maximum of $2 million. Second was the application toestimated income of an amount, not to exceed$1.5 million, from expendable funds derived fromCampaign Phase Two. This, in addition to "ordinary income" from tuition, endowment, and annual gifts and grants to be expected regardless ofCampaign Phase Two, was to be sufficient to limitthe amount to be withdrawn from funds functioning as endowment, necessary to balance thebudget, to the $2 million figure mentioned above.Over and above these conditions, recommendations for 1975-76, made by the Deans' BudgetCommittee, included: *1 . An increase in budgeted unrestricted expenditures of 5 percent over 1974-75 levels, for bothacademic expenditures and support services,other than for utilities, for which an increase of 22percent was thought to be a minimum.2. General economies in services, such as heating, cooling, and lighting, as a means of helping tooffset higher utility costs.3. Tuition increases of at least $70 per quarterabove 1974-75 levels.4. An Autumn Quarter Quadrangles enrollment of 7,950, based upon a continuation ofintensified student recruitment efforts.5. Continuation of the policy of limitation onoverall size of the faculty.In the discussion which accompanied theDeans' recommendations, the Committeepointed out that, even with the recommended increase of 5 percent in nominal dollar level expenditures, the erosion in real level of expenditure-— actual expenditures deflated by changes in pricelevels over time — for the academic programs ofthe University had declined by approximately 20percent during the past five years. It was also theCommittee's observation (with which we are in agreement) that, although economies have beenachieved with relatively little trauma within theUniversity, further economies (assuming constantprogram activities) would be difficult to achievewithout threatening a significant diminution in thestrength of the University. In making the recommendation regarding faculty size, the Committeeurged that special attention be given to maintaining a reasonable proportion of non-tenured faculty, in order to insure the future vitality of theUniversity.The development of the 1975-76 budget followed essentially the recommendations of theDeans' Budget Committee. Tuition levels for anormal three-quarter academic year were established as follows:CollegeGraduate DivisionsPritzker School ofMedicineLaw SchoolGraduate School ofBusinessSchools of Divinity,Education, LibraryScience, and SocialService Administration $3,210 ($3,000 in 1974-75)3,420 ($3,210 in 1974-75)3,420 ($3,210 in 1974-75)3,690 ($3,300 in 1974-75)3,750 ($3,450 in 1974-75)3,360 ($3,150 in 1974-75)A Quadrangles enrollment of 7,950 students in theAutumn Quarter was assumed, with approximately 2,350 students in the College, 2,750 in thegraduate divisions, 2,500 in the ProfessionalSchools, and with 350 students-at-large.Summer Quarter was given special consideration. In an attempt to continue the growth ofSummer Quarter, a tuition reduction of 30 percentfor undergraduate students was initiated andcourse offerings were broadened. We are happyto report an increase in undergraduate enrollmentthis Summer Quarter to a level of over 400 ascompared to some 200 last summer.The 1975-76 BudgetGeneral. The University's 1975-76 operatingbudget as adopted by the Board of Trustees at itsApril meeting is shown in detail in AttachmentA.2 The total expenditure budget of $209,728,7002. The budget for Argonne National Laboratory is notincluded in Attachment A.122is $18,474,101 (9.6 percent) greater than last year.This increase is divided among the four-sub-budgets, as follows:General Funds(Unrestricted) $ 3,505,000 ( 6.4%)Restricted Funds 4,565,000 ( 7.8%)Academic AuxiliaryEnterprises 8,058,881 (13.8%)Auxiliary Enterprises 2,345,220 (11.7%)$18,474,101 ( 9.6%)As experienced readers of this annual document are aware, all four major categories of fundsare important to the operations of the University,but its basic functions depend upon GeneralFunds (Unrestricted), supplemented by thoseRestricted Funds which are available to supportessentially these same functions. The vulnerability of the Unrestricted budget to fluctuations inunrealized Restricted income has been a primaryconcern with which we have been confronted during the past five years.A brief comment on Auxiliary Enterprisesbefore noting some of the more important aspectsof the Unrestricted and Restricted budgets:Academic Auxiliary Enterprises include the University Hospitals and Clinics, the Franklin Mac-Lean Memorial Research Institute, The Laboratory Schools, the Sonia Shankman OrthogenicSchool, and the Industrial Relations Center. Allare budgeted to break even with reference to income and expenditures and have consistentlydone so over the past five years. The mostthreatening of these is the Hospitals and Clinics,largely because of the continuing sharp increasesin costs and the vulnerability of University fundsto cover these costs, if income to the Hospitalsand Clinics should significantly deteriorate. Aswe pointed out in last year's memorandum, a continuing review of this budget has been established,monitored by the Trustee Committee on Hospitals and Clinics. The most critical aspects of thisbudget, to be resolved in the immediate future,have to do with: (1) prompt and accurate billingfor services rendered; and (2) the mounting dollars tied up in accounts receivable.With reference to general Auxiliary Enterprises, readers with a sharp eye for comparingincome and expenditures will note a subsidy of$650,000 from unrestricted funds of the University. This is a reduction of $100,000 from thebudgeted subsidy last year, and continues the trend which has been experienced since improvedexpenditure controls were established for theseactivities. The budgeted figure of $650,000 for1975-76 compares to actual subsidies of $1.06million in 1972-73 and $769,000 in 1973-74. Withinthe total expenditures for Auxiliary Enterprises,are debt service payments (principal and interest)of about $1,205 million on various Universitybuildings.General Funds (Unrestricted). Budgeted expenditures for all activities supported by unrestrictedfunds are about 6.4 percent greater than budgetedfor last year, and are about 8.4 percent overactual expenditures in 1973-74. For academic activities (instruction and research, the library, student activities and aid, general administration) theincrease is about 5.7 percent. (The increase ingeneral administration is essentially accountedfor by the costs of administering equal opportunity programs, including litigation, and by a largercontingency fund for the Provost and Acting President.) Support services are budgeted for an overall increase of about 10 percent (there are essentially no restricted funds to help with these), withthe Utilities budget getting the lion's share (27.4percent) and with Security expenditures going upsome 14.3 percent. All other support serviceswere originally held to a tight 4.8 percent increase. A correction since the approval of thefinal budget has been necessary in this area, toavoid further reductions in custodial servicesbeing rendered throughout the University. Theresulting increase probably will be in the neighborhood of 5.6 percent.The estimate of unrestricted income shown forstudent fees reflects the increase in tuition and theassumed Autumn Quarter Quadrangles enrollment of 7,950 students. Endowment income isbased upon the "total return" formula as adoptedby the Board of Trustees — 5.5 percent of the average market value of endowment fund investments for the twelve quarter period ending December 31, 1974. The decrease compared to lastyear is, of course, a reflection of the decline in themarket value of the endowment. I regret to pointout that this element of unrestricted income willnot improve in 1976-77, as the market experienceof 1974 continues to affect adversely the formulaaverage. Thus, improved market conditions,should they continue, will not be reflected in theunrestricted endowment income until the budgetof 1977-78.Indirect cost estimates are based upon the assumption that federal government research funds123will hold their own or will increase slightly (as hasbeen our experience in the past two years) andthat the ratio of direct to indirect costs will notchange significantly. Included in this total is the$1.2 million management fee for the ArgonneLaboratory contract, which now runs throughSeptember of 1977. Income from temporary investments is primarily earnings on general cashfloat and miscellaneous interest from non-endowment sources.The $nal element in the unrestricted income estimates, Gifts and balance required from endowment funds or other sources, is, as always, ofprimary concern. To achieve the policy objectiveof no more than $2.0 million underwriting fromfunds functioning as endowment, plus the limitation of $1.5 million income contribution fromCampaign Phase Two, it will be necessary to receive at least $3.83 million in unrestricted giftsindependent of the campaign effort in 1975-76.Restricted Funds. Expenditures for activities to besupported by restricted funds are estimated to increase 7.8 percent in 1975-76. Such expendituresare limited by the amounts of funds coming infrom restricted endowments, from federal andstate grants and contracts, and from restrictedgifts. Thus, they are assumed to be self-balancing.But, since programs cannot be reduced at comparable rates when restricted income is suddenlyreduced, this is a source of continuing concern.Restricted income estimates are made withconsiderable difficulty, and the potential for erroris far greater than with reference to estimates ofunrestricted income. Several thousand individualgifts, grants, and contracts of varying duration areinvolved, in addition to the various restricted endowments, which vary in substance and in theways in which the income may be utilized. Income from restricted endowments is expected tobe essentially the same in 1975-76 as last year,reflecting the decline in market value, offset bynew funds and the use of prior year balances. Theincrease in federal and state government funds isbased on our present level of activity, with anticipated increases in some academic areas and decreases in others. This estimate is perhaps themost difficult one to make and is inherently themost unreliable, adding to other governmentallyinduced discomforts in the life of the University."Other" restricted income from non-governmentgifts and grants is projected to increase as a resultof improved proposal activities throughout theUniversity and from Campaign Phase Two efforts. DiscussionWe have at various times in this series ofmemoranda discussed the mixture of funds (asdefined, for example, by source or by the restrictive characteristics of the money) that support thefunctions of the University. We have emphasizedparticularly the relationship between unrestrictedand restricted funds, especially with reference torestricted monies that are fungible, insofar as theirapplication to basic University needs (endowmentof chairs, for example) is possible. We havestressed the need to increase restricted endowment funds and "other" restricted gifts and grantsfrom private donors and from private foundations.At the same time, it has been our hope that restricted funds from federal government sourceswould remain relatively stable or, at worst, erodeat a rate that would permit orderly reduction ofprograms, thus avoiding significant inroads intounrestricted University funds. Finally, we havepointed out the difficulties and the steps that havebeen taken to maintain a flow of unrestrictedfunds sufficient to sustain the academic programsof the University.Total unrestricted expenditures for all purposes(academic programs and "institutional support"functions) during the period 1970-71 through1975-76 rose from $54.7 million to $58.2million — 6.35 percent, or a rate of a little over onepercent per year. In deflated dollars (applyingGross National Product Implicit Price Deflator,1969-70 = l),3 this converts to a decrease of some23.46 percent, or almost 5 percent per year. Because of the limited availability of restricted fundsthat may be applied to support functions, theacademic programs suffer differentially in this decrease, thus making the effort to raise fungiblerestricted funds (or new unrestricted funds) forthese programs doubly important.Total expenditures (unrestricted and restricted)for academic programs during the 1970-71through 1975-76 period, rose from $76.3 million to$90.2 million — some 18.25 percent, or 3.65 percent per year. In deflated dollars, this converts toa decrease of 15 percent, or 3 percent per year.The change, over time, in terms of the percentage3. My economic advisors indicate that the use of theGross National Product Implicit Price Deflator may notaccurately measure (i.e., may overestimate) the declinein the real or deflated value of the University's expenditures since the University does not utilize the same mixof resources as the economy as a whole. One has suggested that the paragraph should say that "our expenditures failed to keep pace with inflation but that this wasnot translated into a reduction in activity because thereal cost of faculty fell."124of the total academic effort being supported byvarious types of funds, in relation to the strategydiscussed above, is as follows:Percent of Total Expenditures for AcademicPrograms4 by Types of Funds,1970-71 and 1975-767970-77 1975-76($ = 76.3 ($ = 90.2million) million -(budget))Unrestricted 41.5% 34.6%Restricted Endowment 4.2% 6.0%Federal Government 40.0% 41.0%Other Restricted 14.3% 18.4%Student aid expenditures have not been included because the substitution of loan funds fordirect dollar aid during the period complicates thecomparisons. If one considers only direct dollarsupport, total expenditures for student aid (including unrestricted and restricted funds) havedropped about 21.6 percent, or an average ofsome 4.32 percent per year. In deflated dollars thedecrease is 43.6 percent over the five years, some8.7 percent per year. Loan programs havecushioned this reduction.In last year's memorandum we stated that1973-74 seemed to us to have been the mostdifficult budget year since, and including, 1970-71.The trend data, from which the above were extracted, indicate that despite the additional year ofreduced unrestricted endowment income that weanticipate, the low point on the deflated dollar expenditure curve for unrestricted funds may havebeen reached in 1974-75. With any kind of luck,the curve should show a small positive value in1976-77. I hesitate to guess at the size of the increment over 1975-76, but regardless of size, theencouraging thing is that the curve, at long last,may be headed in the right direction.As various measures have been applied to enhance income and control expenditures, we havebeen concerned especially about the reduced flowof young faculty into the University. Numerousideas have been discussed with the Deans as tohow this problem might be alleviated, while at thesame time not increasing the overall size of the4. Does not include expenditures for Deans' Salaries,President's Office, Student Aid and Student Services,and Sundry. faculty. Three years ago a plan involving restricted funds to supplement the budget was successfully presented to the Spencer Foundation.The basic purpose of the plan was to initiate aflow of new young faculty in disciplines related tohuman behavior and education, at a rate related tothe outflow of senior faculty. We have been pursuing with other prospective donors essentiallythe same idea, our hope being to develop an analogous flow of young faculty in all academic units.Last year the University enjoyed its second important success in this endeavor. It came in theform of a gift of $1 .4 million from the Andrew W.Mellon Foundation, for the purpose of ". . . increasing opportunities for post-doctoral appointments and to encourage the growth of young non-tenured scholars in the humanities." The milliondollars is in the form of restricted endowment,and the $400,000 is expendable over a period up tofive years. The Humanities Division is using thefunds in a manner somewhat analogous to that ofthe use of the Spencer grant. In addition, part ofthe cost of the Harper Post-Doctoral TeachingFellow program in the College will be met withMellon money.Making last year something of a "HumanitiesYear" was a grant of $2.76 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), forthe purpose of developing a National HumanitiesInstitute, revolving around the theme: Technology and the Humanities. The Institute is intendedto enrich the teaching of Humanities in collegesand universities throughout the country, especially in the Midwest. After a planning year, it isanticipated that in each of three following years,20 Institute Fellows will participate in the program. Although not of the order of the Mellon giftin terms of its fungibility, the NEH grant containsfunds for support of the Library, for thestrengthening of collections of other teachingmaterials in areas of interest to faculty membersinvolved in the Institute, and, most importantly,for 60 Fellows over the life of the Institute. Theconsequent heightened activities in the form ofseminars, lectures, and research and teaching willadd to the vigor of the Humanities Division.Three other major gifts from private sourceswere received last year: a two-year grant in theamount of $1.04 million from the Robert WoodJohnson Foundation to support the programs ofthe Center for Health Administration Studies inthe Graduate School of Business; and a $2 milliongrant from the Joseph and Helen RegensteinFoundation, for the purpose of physical maintenance of Regenstein Library. 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Anderson. This is the first funds challengeever directed to the Alumni of the University.The condition of the gift is that the money may beused to match each increase in an Alumni gift in1975 over 1974, up to a maximum of $25,000 perindividual. Alumni gifts from those who did notcontribute in 1974 will be matched in their entiretyup to the same level.There were also a variety of grants at levelsranging from $200,000 to $500,000 from the Sloan,the Kellogg, the Lilly, and the Scholl Foundationsand from the Council on Library Resources.These support a wide range of activities, including: faculty and student research in economics;the Health Executive Program; orthopedicsurgery; the Library Data Management project;the Chicago Humanities project in Extension; andthe Harper Teaching Fellows program. Sevenchairs were established— the Edward CarsonWaller Distinguished Service Professorship; theLowell T. Coggeshall Professorship in MedicalScience; the Otho S. A. Sprague Professorship inMedical Science; the John Nuveen Professorshipin Divinity; the Wilson-Dickinson Professorshipin Law; the Chester D. Tripp Professorship inHumanities; and, the Andrew E. and G. NormanWigeland Professorship in Norwegian Studies.With reference to federal government funds,overall, the level of funds committed to the University rose to $48.8 million as compared to $44.5million last year. Within this total, however, therewas a very serious erosion of support for SocialSciences, particularly from the Office of Education and the National Institute of Education. TheGraduate School of Business also experienced aslight reduction, but the Physical Sciences Division regained some lost ground, and the specialconsolidated grant in support of the GraduateSchool of Social Service Administration was extended. The Biological Sciences and The PritzkerSchool of Medicine continued to receive strongsupport, including significantly large grants for avariety of Specialized Centers of Research, forthe Cancer program, and for research in the areaof neurochemistry of brain functions. This Division also has enjoyed rather good success with thenew NIH and NIMH National Research ServiceAwards Institutional Programs.In another respect, the relationship betweenThe Pritzker Medical School and the federal government became increasingly worrisome. Although not directly related to the budget per se, but certainly related to long-range financing, theNational Health Planning and Resources Act of1974, and further pending federal legislation relating to health insurance and to medical manpower,could have threatening implications for the futureof The Pritzker School of Medicine. These developments are too complicated in detail to discuss in a memorandum on the budget. However,such concepts as health service areas, designatedthrough the Governor's Office within each state,with all of the paraphernalia of planning, development, cost-benefit analyses, and the channeling of funds on the basis of goveramentally established criteria, makes the future of the medicalenterprise in the United States appear to take onmany of the characteristics of a public utility.At the level of state government, the PritzkerSchool, despite some small progress, continued to have difficulties in the collection of professional fees for medical services rendered tohospitalized indigent patients. The State proposedand began implementing a program for payment offaculty physicians, on what is called a"modified-fee-for service" basis, for service rendered since July 1, 1973. The basis for paymentis an approximate 30 percent discount otherwisepaid for similar services outside the full-timeteaching hospital setting. The Divisional Professional Services Office reports that the yield fromsuch services under ordinary circumstanceswould be at least $2.5 million at of June 30,1975. Invoicing to the State on this program,under protest, has been progressing since February 1975. By year end, approximately $75,000 incash had been received, with the expectation thatadditional payments under the formula would beforthcoming as procedures are refined with theState. The claims against the State for servicesrendered prior to July 1, 1973, remain the subjectof a law suit filed in December 1973. Negotiationsare continuing to resolve these claims and to enhance the level of payment now being made on acurrent basis.In the area of student recruitment, you will recall that a Faculty Committee on Student Enrollment issued a report in the Spring of 1974. Thereport pointed to a Quadrangles enrollment of lessthan 7,500 for the 1973-74 academic year and recommended a series of steps to be taken to increase enrollment. The Committee set as a target7,600 students in the Autumn of 1974, 7,800 students in the Autumn of 1975, and 8,000 students inthe Autumn of 1976.These targets have been met thus far and evensurpassed. Instead of 7,600 students in the Au-127tumn of 1974, the University enrolled 7,792 students on the Quadrangles, and it appears as of thiswriting that there will be close to 8,000 studentson the Quadrangles this Autumn, one year aheadof the Committee's timetable. Certainly, the enrollment should meet the 1975-76 budgeted figureof 7,950. College enrollment should reach 2,400students, an increase of almost 300 from its Autumn 1973 level of 2,115. As compared to theplanned class of 600 to 620, some 750 freshmenaccepted offers of admission. For the first time inrecent history, the class was oversubscribed bythe candidates' reply date of May 1st, with noneed to turn to the Waiting List.The transfer competition has also gone well.Following the recommendations of the Committee, the College last year began accepting transferstudents at the beginning of each academic quarter: 26 entered the College in the Winter, Spring,and Summer Quarters, and another 125 are expected to begin their work in the College this Autumn. For those who may think the acceptance ofstudents at the beginning of any of the four quarters runs counter to the traditions of the College,Mr. Harper, in his Decennial Report of 1 July1902, pointed out with pride that the four-quartersystem ". . . looked at from the students' point ofview, permits students to enter the Universityfour times a year instead of once, the adjustmentof courses to this end having been found entirelyfeasible."Despite a continuing decline in federal studentaid at the graduate level, the Divisions have managed through imaginative recruiting and thoughtful combinations of scholarships and loans to doreasonably well in enrollment levels. Indeed,thanks to such programs as the McCormick Fellowships, the Division of the Physical Sciencesfor the first time since the late 1960s may arrest itsdeclining enrollment and register more studentsthis Autumn than last. The salutary effect of sucha program as the McCormick Fellowships, aimedat attracting the strongest graduate students in thenation to the Division of the Physical Sciences,cannot be overestimated. Nothing would be ofgreater help in maintaining the quality of the University than a series of such privately sponsoredFellowship programs throughout the GraduateDivisions. The Professional Schools, especiallythe Graduate School of Business, have contributed in an extraordinarily helpful way to theUniversity's enrollment efforts.Each year the task of attracting and sustaining afirst-rate student of sufficient size presentsnew challenges. Thus far, increased recruiting ef forts have been successful in meeting them. Butthis year, the University's student loan program,one of the chief instruments through which students have been able to finance their education, isthreatened. In 1974-75, the University, acting as adirect lender under the Federally Insured StudentLoan program, and using the National DirectStudent Loan program, the Health ProfessionsStudent Loan program, and its own funds, haslent in the the neighborhood of $6 million to itsstudents. This Spring the University was notifiedthat its status as a direct lender under the federallyinsured program was in question — not becausethe program had not been well administered orbecause our graduates were not repaying theirloans in timely fashion, but because the law underwhich the program operates had been reinterpreted in Washington so as to exclude educationalinstitutions in states where a state guaranteeagency was willing to guarantee loans for out-of-state students. This is the case in Illinois. Unfortunately, the State's willingness to guarantee student loans does not in itself make loan funds available through banks and commercial agencies inthe State, and the University's inability itself tomake loans to its students under this program maymean they will have increasing difficulty securingthe funds they need. The University is seekingauthority to lend funds under the State's guarantee agency. If that authority is not granted, it willappeal the federal decision. The University will,of course, meet its loan commitments to studentsfor the coming academic year.In previous memoranda we have discussed thereview of ongoing academic programs with reference to adjustments that might be made thatwould relieve the budget, without significantly reducing the quality of the University. Last year wereported, as a result of such a review, a decisionto close the Extension Division's DowntownCenter. Inasmuch as the Downtown Center wasthe location of essentially all the diverse programsof non-credit adult education conducted by Extension, the closing of this facility confronted theUniversity with a clear choice: either to terminatethe adult programs along with the Center, or tofind some other way of conducting at least someof the programs without a Downtown Center.The former alternative offered the most certainfinancial savings, but also meant the abandonmentby the University of a commitment to the pursuitof learning by adult members of the Chicagocommunity. The choice of the second alternativedepended upon devising ways to conduct a program at minimal overhead cost, so that its direct128operating expenses could be covered by tuitionfees, without a net subsidy from the University'sunrestricted funds. To this end, Extension wasprovided with a "revolving fund" of $30,000 tounderwrite start-up costs, with the understandingthat earnings from the operation of the programwould essentially replenish the fund at the end ofeach fiscal year. Arrangements were made withseveral other institutions, including New TrierHigh School, the Evanston Art Center, RosaryCollege, and the Beverly art Center to conductclasses on their premises; additional space tomeet classes was borrowed from the GraduateSchool of Business and the Graduate LibrarySchool. Borg-Warner International lent unusedoffice space in a downtown building to provideanother site. In the end, University Extensionconducted classes throughout the academic yearat seven locations. Over 1,500 registrations ofstudents resulted in a net deficit of approximately$1,500 for the year, to be met from the revolvingfund. Thus the 1975-76 year starts with a balancein the fund of $28,500 to cover start-up costs. Theexperience of the first year under these new andexperimental arrangements has suggested anumber of ways in which costs can be reduced,and there is reason for confidence that a postivienet balance can be achieved henceforth. In short,the Extension's new approach to providing educational opportunities of a special kind to adults hassurvived a year of transition and appears to beentering quite strongly into a new era, with a netsaving of some $300,000 to the University.Another area of difficulty that has been experienced by the University is the Graduate School ofEducation. The difficulty results from a combination of a precipitous decrease in the availability offunds (and a consequent drop in enrollment) inprograms which have been supported by both thefederal government and by private sources,whose interests now lie elsewhere than in theprograms which they, in fact, stimulated. In February, the faculty of the Graduate School of Education requested that a committee be appointed toexamine the mission of the School and the adequacy of its resources to carry out its mission inthe light of the University's commitment toteacher education. In March, the Provost appointed a faculty committee with a broader mandate: to examine the University's resources andfuture commitments in the field of education, including teacher education.After detailed study, the Committee concludedthat in view of the limited resources currently andpotentially available to the field of education, the University's commitments in this area, and especially its commitment to teacher education, couldbest be accomplished by merging the GraduateSchool of Education and the Department of Education into a new organization which would haveresponsibility both for scholarly study and professional training in education. The Committee report recommended that this reorganized unitshould be a new academic Department within theDivision of the Social Sciences. Decisions as tothe appropriate form of organization and the nature and extent of programs in teacher educationare to be recommended by the faculty of the newDepartment.The Committee's recommendations subsequently were unanimously approved by the faculty of the Graduate School of Education and theDepartment of Education. In addition, the facultyof the Division of the Social Sciences endorsedthe Committee report without dissent and urgedthat the reorganized unit be authorized to recommend the MAT and MST degrees (as well as theM.A. and PhD) and that the reorganization becompleted to permit students to matriculate in thereorganized Department in the Autumn Quarter1976. The Committee of the Council, followed bythe Council, endorsed this recommendation andfurther recommended that implementation beunder the supervision of the Dean of the Divisionof the Social Sciences. The Board of Trustees approved the proposed action in July and discussions are now under way to work out the details ofthe reorganization by the two faculty groups.As we have indicated above, the 1975-76 budgetcontinues the policy of limitation on the overallsize of the faculty, the policy as originally statedbeing that the total size should not exceed that ofJune 30, 1970. In fact, the total size has been reduced by approximately 11 positions per yearsince 1970. The Deans' Budget Committee yearbefore last recommended that it be reduced bybetween 25 and 50 per year, until it reached about1,000 in overall size. As of June 1975, the totalreduction from the June 1970 base was 54, ascompared to a reduction of 68 reported in lastyear's memorandum. The need to increase facultyin certain areas of the University has created thenecessity for review of the approach to controllingfaculty size. It is our intention to establish a faculty committee this Autumn to study the problemof total faculty size and to make recommendationsregarding future directions.In each of the last two years, I have closedthese memoranda by pointing to "encouragingsigns," both external and internal to the Univer-129sity. I continue to believe that the "signs" areencouraging and that we are on course and aremaking headway. The most obvious continuingproblem is the need for increased and stabilizedannual giving to the University, especially unrestricted gifts. Looking to the near future, a mostimportant factor in this problem is, of course, theimpact of the Campaign for Chicago, Phase Two.The importance lies not only in its immediate effect over the period of the drive, but in its continuing effect in the years beyond. The drive will beless than successful, even if it meets its goal in theshorter term, if it ends without the creation ofmechanisms with sufficient thrust to sustain, inThe Trustees of the University approved on July 7,1975, the following recommendations of the Provost and Acting President:1. That the Graduate School of Education andthe Department of Education be merged into anew academic Department within the Division ofthe Social Sciences.2. That the new unit be authorized to recommend the MAT and MST degrees (as well as theM.A. and PhD).3. That the recommendations of the HarrisCommittee report be implemented under thesupervision of the Dean of the Division of theSocial Sciences.This action was initiated by a request in February 1975 by the faculty of the Graduate School ofEducation that a University committee be appointed to examine the mission of the School andthe adequacy of its resources to carry out its mission in light of the University's commitment toteacher education. In March 1975, the Provostappointed a University committee, chaired byChauncy D. Harris, with a broad mandate to examine the University's resources available to and subsequent years, annual giving at levels commensurate with prospective budgetary requirements.With reference to restricted funds, illustratedby the magnificent Mellon gift received for theHumanities last year, we must make clearly visible in all academic areas programs and activitiesthat can appeal to external sources of funds, including those academic areas whose appeal is notnow obvious to prospective donors. We all sharethese responsibilities, just as we all share in thesuccesses that go to make this University a goodplace to be.future commitments in the scholarly study of thefield of education, as well as teacher education. Acopy of the Harris Committee report follows.The recommendations contained in the reportand now approved by the Trustees were unanimously approved by the faculty of the GraduateSchool of Education and the Department of Education. In addition, the faculty of the Division ofthe Social Sciences endorsed the Harris Committee report without dissent and urged that the reorganized unit be authorized to recommend the MA Tand MST degrees (as well as the M.A. and PhD)and that the reorganization be completed to permitstudents to matriculate in the reorganized Department in the Autumn Quarter 1976.The Committee of the Council and the Councilof the University Senate subsequently acceptedand endorsed the Harris Committee report and theCouncil recommended that the implementation ofthe recommendations be under the supervision ofthe Dean of the Division of the Social Sciences.D. Gale JohnsonVice-President and Dean of FacultiesREPORT OF THE COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE THEUNIVERSITY'S RESOURCES AND FUTURE COMMITMENTS INEDUCATION130THE COMMITTEE REPORTMay 16, 1975The Committee was appointed by John T. Wilson, March 5, 1975, to review the general area ofeducation and the University's future commitment to it, especially to teacher education. Theappointment was in part in response to a requestfrom the faculty of the Graduate School of Education dated February 5, 1975, for a Universitycommittee to examine the mission of the Schooland the appropriateness and adequacy of its resources to carry out its mission in the light of theUniversity's commitment to teacher education.The University of Chicago has always had acommitment to the training of teachers at alllevels. Over the course of its history, the University has devised many different organizationalforms to fulfill this commitment. As an expressionof University-wide responsibility in this area,there was for many years a Committee on theTraining of Teachers. Furthermore, teacherseducated at The University of Chicago haveplayed an important role in encouraging their beststudents to enroll in the College, the divisions,and the professional schools, or to accept positions here.The Committee has examined an extensivebody of materials including a very detailed "Report to the National Council for Accreditation ofTeacher Education" made by the GraduateSchool of Education, November 1974, 201 pages;the report of the NCATE Team Visitation of ninemembers, November 10-13, 1974, of 42 pages;and the response by the faculty of the GraduateSchool of Education to the report of the TeamVisitation. The existence of this body of detailedand up-to-date material on the teacher educationprogram of the Graduate School of Education bythe faculty of the School and by a national external review body lightened the task of the Committee and relieved it of the duty independently togather much information on the Graduate Schooland the program of teacher education. The Committee reviewed the record of the discussions andexpectations at the time of the establishment ofthe Graduate School of Education in 1958, andthe Report of the Committee on the Departmentof Education and the Graduate School of Education of The University of Chicago, dated May 10,1973 (Arthur E. Wise, Chairman, Max Bell,Charles Bidwell, R. Darrell Bock, Edgar Epps,Mark M. Krug, William Page, and SusanStodolsky), with a dissenting report by Mr. Bell. The Committee also had interviews with the faculty of the Graduate School of Education as agroup, individually with each member of the faculty requesting a separate interview, with thedean and the past dean of the School, and withother persons informed about its history,achievements, programs, resources, and problems. The Committee also received written communications from George Hillocks, Jr., Mark M.Krug, William D. Page, Zalman Usiskin, andRobert T. Ward of the Graduate School of Education and from John Hope Franklin, Arthur Mann,and Karl Morrison of the Department of Historythat elucidated in some detail individual viewpoints on the nature of perceived problems in theSchool. Members of the Committee consulted individually with many colleagues, including theAssociated Faculty of the School and others whohave knowledge of and have been involved in itsprogram.Although some problems discussed were quitecomplex and in some cases not capable of fullysatisfactory resolutions, the Committee came to aclear consensus on the essential nature of theproblem and on recommendations it wishes tomake.The Graduate School of Education at the timeof its establishment in 1958 was expected to havemainly a co-ordinating role among other departments of the University for an MAT program inteacher education and to have few or no faculty ofits own. With adequate resources for a number ofyears and with normal difficulties in securing suitable supporting work in departments, a separatefaculty was built up in the Graduate School ofEducation, particularly of subject matterspecialists, who have performed roles of nationalleadership in their respective fields. New facultywere added who envisaged the Graduate Schoolof Education as a full-fledged professional schoolwith diverse programs beyond those initially anticipated. Expectations developed for an enlargedfaculty and expanded professional programs andrelations. Later, as resources and enrollmentsdropped substantially, the size of the faculty suffered attrition with negative effects on morale.Still further downward movements in resources,students, and faculty may occur. Separation fromthe Department of Education heightened a senseof isolation and of nonrecognition. The statutoryrequirement that there be a single administrativeofficer who is both chairman of the Department ofEducation and Dean of the Graduate School ofEducation, plus the circumstances of the appointment of a Dean of the School in whose131choice many members of the School felt they hadnot been adequately consulted, led to numerousmisunderstandings and tensions. Much time hasbeen expended in largely unproductive internaldiscussions. Proposals for new activities or programs have not been supported or implemented.The faculty of the School feel under- appreciated,under-supported, and under-represented and suspect a lack of sympathy for the professional orientation of the School.The Committee makes four recommendations.1 . As recommended by the joint committee ofthe Department of Education and the GraduateSchool of Education, the Wise Committee, May10, 1973, the Department of Education and theGraduate School of Education should be combined into a new organization for scholarly studyof and professional training in education. Thejustifications for such a recommendation arenumerous: co-ordination of education activitiesand programs within a single recommending andimplementing unit; undivided responsibility forgiving consideration to diverse claims for limitedresources; a united faculty to judge the promiseand appropriateness for this University of currentor proposed appointments, fields, or programs ineducation; avoidance of confusion both within theUniversity and without; elimination of duplication; increase of collaboration; elimination of perceived differences in status or recognition; andbetter review of the budget.It should not be expected that such an administrative combination will in itself solve some of thekey problems since the difference in viewpointbetween the scholarly study of education and professional training in education can be sharp. Theproper relationship of these two aspects of education has been a matter of continuing considerationand debate throughout the history of the University and will doubtless continue to be a matter ofconcern in the years ahead, regardless of organizational structure. Other professional schools inthe University and many departments face similarissues of emphasis and orientation.The Committee is of the view that consideration of such questions is better carried out withina unified forum of informed, concerned, and responsible scholars and teachers than through twoseparate bodies isolated from one another.2. The combined unit to be formed from thepresent Graduate School of Education and Department of Education should be a new department in the Division of the Social Sciences. Consideration was given also to a professional Schoolof Education with a dean and to the structure sug gested by the Wise Committee of a School ofEducation attached to the Division of the SocialSciences.Any of these structures could have theflexibility to encourage close contacts or joint appointments with other departments in the Division of the Social Sciences, such as the Department of Behavioral Sciences, or collaborativeprograms in teacher education with departmentsthroughout the University, such as the Department of English, the Department of History, orthe Department of Mathematics. The typical organizational pattern in other universities is a professional School of Education. The Committeeconcluded, however, that in view of the history ofeducation in The University of Chicago over thelast 45 years, the nature of the University as ascholarly institution of the first rank, the primaryresearch orientation of a majority of the faculty ineducation, the existence of strong professionalschools of education in other universities in theregion, and the limited resources of the University, the organizational form most appropriate tothis group and this University at this time is adepartment in the Division of the Social Sciences.3. Decisions as to the appropriate form of organization within the new department should bemade by the faculty of the new department itself.Units concerned with educational design and implementation, curriculum, and language and reading instruction might be particularly appropriatehomes for the present faculty of the GraduateSchool of Education. Diverse units now attachedadministratively to the Graduate School of Education presumably would become attached to thenew department.4. Decisions about the nature and extent ofprograms in teacher education should be madeprimarily by the faculty in the new department.At the time of the establishment of theGraduate School of Education in 1958, an acuteshortage of teachers existed and abundant fundsfrom foundations and the government were available for support of scholarships, faculty, andprograms of teacher education. These conditionshave changed dramatically. Teacher shortageshave been replaced by teacher surpluses (thoughsuperior teachers are always in short supply). Enrollments in secondary schools, which were risingsharply 17 years ago, are not declining and willcontinue to decline over the next decade with arelated drop in the number of new teachers required. External funds for training of teachershave dried, up. Some of the existing programs arevirtually without students. Only three of the132MAT programs appear to have at this time a bodyof students and departmental commitmentssufficient to justify their continuation: English,history, and mathematics. For these, the presentcoordinating committees provide an effectivemeans of marshalling University resources in appropriate departments.It might be noted that the wave of MAT programs launched in the 1950s and 1960s has subsided and that some institutions, such as Harvardand Yale, have dropped these programs, that currently there are programs similar to that ofChicago at some other independent universitiessuch as Brown, Northwestern, Duke, and Van-derbilt, but that the Chicago program is distinguished nationally by the strong component ofsubject-matter specialists and by close ties withthe corresponding academic departments.With the drop in enrollment in the full-timeMAT programs for pre-service training ofteachers, some programs for the in-service training of teachers already in school systems havebeen developed. A shift of emphasis from pre-service to in-service training of teachers wouldappear to be a logical adjustment, yet the Committee received from several members of the faculty of the Graduate School of Education warnings about the problems of developing such programs as well as doubts about their promise orsuitability for this University and its faculty.The Committee is of the view that the trainingof precollegiate teachers, limited in number andsuperior in quality, has been and should continueto be a commitment of the University but thatthere need not be a continuing commitment to anyparticular form or organization of teacher education.Other functions and contributions performedby the present Graduate School of Educationshould be reviewed and appraised. Judgmentsabout relative priorities for the continuance or development of programs should be made by thefaculty of the new department and its committeesand by appropriate administrative officers withinthe context of the whole educational enterprise asa unit and in view of the constraints of limitedbudgets. Such activities include, among others,curriculum development, work directly withschools, contributions to subject-matter educa tion, and reading. The question of subject-matterspecialists is of concern also to the departmentsconcerned with the corresponding disciplines.The field of reading has a long history at the University both in the Department and in the School.The faculty of the present Graduate School ofEducation is currently examining its own programs: the master of arts in teaching program, themaster of science in teaching program for elementary school teachers, the master of arts programfor experienced teachers, a reading program, anearly childhood education program, and, jointlywith the Department of Education, a PhD program in the study of teacher education. Each ofthese programs may need additional faculty andother resources if it is to flourish, yet resourcesare limited and choices will have to be made as tothe relative promise among these programs and ofeach of them in relation to other activities withinthe education complex. In evaluation of possibleorganizational recommendations, the Committeegave serious consideration to continuance of aseparate School of Education with expansion andmodification of existing programs and possible inauguration of new ones but reached the judgmentthat such programs should be assessed within theperspective of a new unified department by thefaculty of that department.With realistic and informed decisions about theopportunities for the scholarly study of educationand for professional training in the field of education most appropriate and promising to this University at this time, the resources of funds, faculty, facilities, and students can be more productively realized. To achieve its greatest contribution, the new department, like all other parts ofthe University, must be highly selective in developing those types of scholarship, teaching, orprofessional training which will utilize and emphasize the special resources and qualities of thisUniversity.Gary S. BeckerChauncy D. Harris, ChairmanIrving Kaplan skyBarry D. KarlHarry V. RobertsStuart M. TaveWarner A . Wick133MEMORIAL TRIBUTESA. LEO OPPENHEIM, 1904-1974The style of Leo Oppenheim's intellectual lifewas to remain almost uniquely productive andpoised amid a shifting, closely intertwined set ofdivergent or even contradictory goals and approaches. In a way, perhaps, this is already evident in his contributions all along the continuumbetween supposed polar abstractions like divination and astrology, on the one hand, and technology and statecraft, on the other. But a deepertension is found between, for example, his indefatigable return to statements of commandingoverview and his frequently expressed pessimismabout the prospects for a cumulative advance toward any lasting synthesis. "The battle for synthesis is the battle to be fought," he once wrote,only to add that it should be considered theAssyriologist's "raison d'etre, even though it is abattle that can know no victorious outcome"(p. 418, " Assyriology — Why and How?," CurrentAnthropology 1, 1960).Somewhat similar were the tensions he repeatedly sought out and exploited between thespecific practice or uniquely well-documentedcase and the larger cultural pattern within which itpresumably was embedded. His was a characteristic capacity to illuminate a larger problemfrom a minute, enigmatic, and somehow discordant bit of evidence that jarred his inner sense ofcoherence and symmetry into a quest for explanation (cf., e.g., "On an Operational Device inMesopotamian Bureaucracy," Journal of NearEastern Studies 18, 1959, pp. 121-28).At still a different level, I have always beenstruck by the firmness of his insistence, in thesubtitle of Ancient Mesopotamia (The Universityof Chicago Press, 1964) and elsewhere, that hissubject was a "dead" civilization. Surely, onewanted to respond, all human societies andachievements have had issue in which they remain in a sense living — and Mesopotamian civilization far more than most. Only gradually did Icome to understand that, for him, the death of hissubject matter was somehow a precondition forits productive study, which then had to involve itspainstaking, conscious re-creation as a formedthing of the mind. The separation of the scholarfrom the object of his study, across an immensegulf of time, circumstance, and cognitive differences that was not to be bridged, was a part of the lonely and yet also necessarily collaborative andinterdependent grandeur of scholarship itself.Perhaps the connecting link among these dissonances was an underlying insistence on the autonomy and inviolability of the creative process.One of the last, most learned, and most eloquentof the true cultural relativists, he once wrote mewith his usual incisiveness that "what 'makes'Greece, or Mesopotamia, or the Mayan and allother civilizations is the creation of those wholive as 'elite in cities.' " And that corpus of whatwere primarily literary creations in theMesopotamian case, he elsewhere proposed,"has to be understood, appreciated, and utilizedsolely in terms of what it was meant to representfor those who created, maintained, and used it"(1960, p. 413). Yet equally misleading for him wasthe pursuit of some spurious unity of conceptionthat suppressed diverse regional, social, and culticstrands by seeking to weave them all into a single,fully integrated fabric. It follows — or at any rate,it followed in Leo Oppenheim's case — that thescholar, in assimilating and communicating thesemanifestations, could be no less a creative artistthan their originators.The impact of Leo Oppenheim's contributionsis obviously broader than his discipline and subject matter; their ramifications into anthropologyand the other social sciences are generally acknowledged. I suppose there must be other individuals with comparable range and versatility, butcertainly no one is known to me who combineshis full measure of these capacities with hisequivalent penetration into, and uncompromisingfidelity toward, a vast and complex corpus ofwritten records, informal and ponderous, briefand discursive, unique and repetitive, incidentaland fundamental. To an unparalleled degree,therefore, his work persuasively outlines for thespecialist in other fields the complexity and contingent quality of Assyriological knowledge, andat the same time its relevance for wider themes ofsocial, cultural, scientific, and technological history. He never arrogated to himself a special rightor obligation to represent his discipline in thesewider (or at least different) spheres, but in largemeasure his own literary corpus has rightly andinevitably assumed this function.Robert McC. Adams is a Professor in the Oriental Institute and in the Departments of An-134thropology and Near Eastern Languages andCivilizations.The burden of this occasion is to remember LeoOppenheim and to reaffirm the values that hestood for. Words, says T. S. Eliot, "slip, slither,decay with imprecision." Their imprecision mustbe sharpened by your recollections of Leo Oppenheim. You, his colleagues, his students, hisfriends, knew him best. Some others in this University community knew of him as the Director ofthe Assyrian Dictionary Project, or as the authorof the prize- winning Ancient Mesopotamia. Fewknew the great distinction he brought the University, not only through these achievements, but byembodying the excellence for which we all strive.This was no one's fault but Oppenheim's. Hestayed out of the limelight; he shunned committees and wanted no part of administrative dutiesuntil he became Director of the Assyrian Dictionary Project. Even that office he relinquished before his final retirement, with great foresight andwisdom, in order to ease his successor into theresponsibilities while he could look over hershoulder. . . .The project was conceived and fostered by distinguished scholars of a previous generation . . .with Leo Oppenheim it became the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.He realized, and was not afraid to say it, that itwas essential to publish even if the Dictionarywould not, and could not, be perfect. He had thewisdom to see not only that perfectionism issterile, but also that Assyriology would grow withand through the Dictionary. He also realized thatit was a road that he could not go alone. So heproceeded to convince everyone of the viabilityof the publication plan, from the greatest As-syriologist of the century, Benno Landsberger,then on the staff of the CAD [Chicago AssyrianDictionary], to the youngest Research Associate.But foremost, he drew everyone along by his ownexample.He often said that he could not expect his collaborators to work hard, and he could not command their respect, unless he worked even harder. And so he did. He was at his office every day,Saturdays and often Sundays too; no matter howearly he arrived, he was usually the last to leave.And his working day was entirely given to writingthe manuscript of the CAD. His books and arti cles were written in his spare time, evenings,Sundays, and on vacation. Some Saturdays hecame in and apologized to me that he was going tocheck some references for an article instead ofgoing on with the word he had been working on.And he was usually working on the most complexand difficult words, volume after volume. With aknack for selecting and organizing the thousandsof references to such words as "to do" and "togo," he reduced the unmanageable to manageableproportions. But even to the most colorless, themost trivial word, he brought a new idea, a newtwist, and therefore a new light. He did so, he hadto do it, because otherwise the work would havebeen too boring for him. His interest was not inthe typical — also duly noted — but in the atypical,because he perceived the civilization of AncientMesopotamia as the interplay of forces and tensions that could be glimpsed best in the deviationsfrom the ordinary. Each new insight contributed alittle toward the understanding he was seeking,but which, he said, would always elude him, anobserver from another civilization.He was such a great scholar because he againand again pursued this elusive understanding; hecared not so much to teach others, as to know forhimself. In the Oriental Institute, he sought toachieve this knowledge by the minute analysis ofthe building blocks of this civilization, the wordsthat made up the Assyrian Dictionary . . . .It is impossible for me to evaluate the impact ofLeo Oppenheim's thought, involved as I was withhim in a day-by-day, inextricable sharing of ideas.I will not try to do it; there is too great a distancein stature, and not enough in time, to quell thesurge of emotion.His personal influence was felt by several generations of scholars. . . . They were exposed tohis tremendous drive, his uncompromising integrity in the search for truth, to his breadth — he wasalways contemptuous of the pinpoint horizon—and not least, to his human warmth. How muchmore did he shape us who have spent many happyand fruitful years with him, and who remain,committed to continue and finish the work that heconsidered of paramount importance. . . .Erica Reiner is the John A. Wilson Professor inthe Oriental Institute, in the Departments ofNear Eastern Languages and Civilizations andLinguistics, and Editor-in-Charge of theAssyrian Dictionary. Her remarks are excerptedfrom her tribute to Leo Oppenheim given duringmemorial services which were held in BondChapel on January 22, 1975.135THE 354TH CONVOCATION ADDRESS:TRADITION, verb (rare)BY MARTIN E. MARTYJune 13-14, 1975Traditionally, academic ceremonies inspire talkabout tradition. My talk is about the verb, whichmeans "to transmit by tradition," and which theOxford English Dictionary has to label rare, forgood measure it also includes two small-printverbs that I hope will eventually become obsolete: "traditionize" and "traditionalize." Letthem disappear, after today's brief comment oneach, with the many jerry-built verbs that end in"-ize": "finalize," "Vietnamize," "cosmetize,"and the like.I. The Uncritical Traditions"To transmit by tradition" can be a lively act. Onthe other hand, to traditionize is "to deal in orgive vogue to traditions." Today, such dealing isbig business, a probably harmless catering to escapist instincts. It is easy to parody the peddlers.Be the first kid on your block to get a new tradition. Buy instant Bicentennial antiques. Send$2.00 and we will invent your authentic ancestralcoat of arms. Purchase a paperback cookbookand express your ethnic heritage. Wear the latest,the traditional wedding gown. Motel-builders:page through our catalog and pick a traditionaldecor, from late King Arthurian to early OldHeidelbergian.To tradition is not to traditionalize, whichanother dictionary defines: "to imbue withtraditionalism." Traditionalism can be born ofmere practice. A sanctuary banner reads: "TheSeven Last Words of the Church: We Never DidIt That Way Before." The academy can be evenmore traditionalist in practice. A Roman Catholicuniversity president once complained to me: "Itwas easier for Pope John to reform a 500 million-member church than for me to reform afive-person sociology department."Worse than the practical form is ideologicaltraditionalism, which "is literally the opposite oflife as tradition; ... it is the least traditional thing in the world, for it is precisely what appears whentradition no longer exists, when it is not possible"(Julian Marias). Such traditionalism negates thepresent and looks back to golden ages. "Any timegone by was better" (Jorge Manrique). "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." Fatalism afflictsthought about the future just as idolatry colorsrecall of a lost past. Thus Paul Tillich once notedof the revolutionary tradition that "in Americagroups representing a most radical absolutism oftradition call themselves 'Daughters' or 'Sons' ofthe American Revolution," but resist all revolution or change in their nation.Traditionalism often eventually evokes radicalprotest. "The authority of the eternal yesterday"(Max Weber) must be broken. Artists sometimesexpress this impulse. Willem de Kooning hasboasted: "The past does not influence me; Iinfluence it." Political rebels welcome what LeonTrotsky called "the privilege of historical backwardness."Protestors not long ago attacked what they considered to be both practical and ideologicaltraditionalism of the academy. Their banners,slogans, tracts, and acts, suggested that theythought higher education could live without a pastor traditions, that education could "start fromscratch" and be directed wholly to the present.They soon learned that, as Alain Touraine hasreminded us, "universities, to a much greater extent than business enterprises and to almost thesame extent as churches, are organizations possessing a vast memory. With all their modernism,they never completely escape from their task oftransmitting their cultural heritage." The protestors soon fell back in frustration. Some came toquote Dwight Eisenhower: "Things are more likethey are now than they have ever been before."Grumbled the Southern California Oracle: "Justbecause everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed." Some ex-protestors haveeven joined the peddlers; traditionalism is as marketable in today's avant-garde as relevance was inyesterday's.136II. The Critical TraditionOver against uncritical traditionalism we pose aliving critical tradition. To tradition in this sensebegins with humane acts of memory. "Forgetting," says Theodor Adorno, "is inhuman because man's accumulated suffering is forgotten-— the historical trace of things, words, colours,and sounds is always the trace of past suffering."He then points to the difficulty in traditioning."This is why tradition is nowadays confrontedwith an insoluble contradiction. It is not presentand cannot be evoked, but as soon as all traditionis extinguished, inhumanity begins."From a beginning in recall of the past, traditioning proceeds to the present, to people's need foridentity. The decade's leaders in movements ofnationhood and peoplehood, of race and religionand ethnicity, have been attentive to the story andhistory of their followers.But tradition is not life's automatic pilot. It hasto be attended to today.Robert Jay Lifton is often quoted about theproblem that results because of thebreak in the sense of connection men have long feltwith vital and nourishing symbols of their culturaltraditions — symbols revolving around family, ideasystems, religions, and the life cycle in general. Inour contemporary world, one perceives these traditional symbols as irrelevant, burdensome, or eveninactivating, and yet one cannot avoid carryingthem within, or having one's self-process profoundly affected by them.Traditionalists cannot minister satisfyingly tothis problem. When people realize this, they oftenseek first to retreat even from living traditions, toinnocence and primitivism and the sense of aclean start.Being a historian in a school of divinity, I amparticularly pleased with the two traditions Dr.Eugene Goodheart chose for illustrating a point inhis Culture and the Radical Conscience. I recognize that other traditions also might have beenconsidered. Goodheart argues that rejection ofthemis not the result of genuine discovery . . . that theChristian and classical traditions are no longer partof us. The enactments of our personality andcharacter are involuntary, often compulsive. Weare not free to choose what we are or even what wewill do. We cannot simply wish away traditionsthat we have grown to dislike. The very dislikemay be conditioned by the fact that they still possess us, if we do not possess them. If Judeo-Christian and classical traditions are still alive in allof us (as I suspect they are), despite attempts todeny them, then an education that fails to address itself to these traditions (I do not speak of arguingfor or against them) would fail according to theideal of relevance. The mere repudiation of thesetraditions does not have the effect of exorcism.To keep the traditional culture alive in us is notnecessarily to affirm or celebrate it. Nor is it necessarily an act of pious pedantry. If the tradition contains within itself permanent human possibilities,then it is necessary to keep it alive as a kind ofrepository of options. Indeed, it may be especiallynecessary to do so at a moment when men feelsecure in nothing, for they may be able to keep thelife possibility going simply by worrying about thereality of lives lived in the past.A university that embodies or pursues the critical tradition goes about the task of traditioning ina special way. Its constituents must ask whetherthe tradition "contains within itself permanenthuman possibilities." Nothing escapes scrutiny;the scientific, revolutionary, Eastern, African,modern, classical, Jewish, Christian, enlightened,or radical traditions are all examined. Respectfulas we may be of the possessions within auniversity's "vast memory," the central or critical tradition works its effects on most thoughtfulpeople.Graduates are not left undisturbed, to exist likeEvans-Pritchard's Zande people in Africa, "inwhose web of belief every strand depends uponevery other strand," so that one "cannot get outof its meshes because it is the only world heknows. The web is not an external structure inwhich he is enclosed. It is the texture of histhought and he cannot think that his thought iswrong." They become aware of new options andcannot uncritically readopt old ones. Centuriesago al-Ghazall had already observed that there isin one sense "no hope of returning to a traditionalfaith after it has been abandoned, since the essential condition in the holder of a traditional faith isthat he should not know he is a traditionalist."This does not mean that every one in the criticaltradition is abandoned or adrift. Most cannot return to a past tradition, but a living tradition insome senses may still be ahead of those who arepatient with it. For many of us Paul Ricoeur hascreatively addressed this issue by reference towhat he calls a second naivete. "If we can nolonger live the great symbolisms of the sacred inaccordance with the original belief in them, wecan, we modern men, aim at a second naivete inand through criticism. In short, it is byinterpreting that we can hear again. . . . We canbelieve only by interpreting. It is the 'modern'mode of belief in symbols, an expression of thedistress of modernity and a remedy for that distress."137This University has never been content simplyto "transmit by tradition." A recent facultycommittee reached into Chicago's "vast memory" to remind us that "the accomplishment ofThe University of Chicago, at its foundation . . .consisted ... in the perception and formulation ofproblems which had not been recognized before,and in the willingness to follow with persistent,informed curiosity where its inquiries led — even ifonly to other problems." Traditioning on thesepremises, whether in the College, the divisions, orthe professional schools, regularly includes the attempt to develop "the student's critical, analytical, problem-solving, and decision-makingcapabilities" (the Graduate School of BusinessAnnouncements).Notice that when Chicagoans seek to discernthis University's genius and its critical character,they appeal to the tradition and to the founding.Traditioning invites people to employ tradition toeffect change. Michael Hill's words about religious tradition and change apply here. In "revolution by tradition," leaders reach to "a period inthe early history . . . which can be seen as particularly authentic" so that tradition becomes "theleverage for social change." Long ago have I herelearned that when people invoke the authenticspirit of our founding president, William RaineyHarper, one had better watch out. The invokersintend to bring about change !The critical traditioner knows the limits of tradition. "Theatrically revived" traditions that serveonly as "antiquarian conceptual furnishing" (Ernest Gellner) cannot meet every human need.Their employment is not a substitute for reasonedargument, nor is recourse to them satisfying indebate or in research. That is why this Universityand its alumni — including the newest ones— choose so often to make a problem of traditionbefore it can begin to be a solution. Such peoplecan never be comfortable but they will be neededin a world that so often either dismisses or idolizestradition.The critical tradition can be nurtured and sheltered in an academic cocoon, where its devoteeslive far from what is often called "the real world"and become ill-prepared to live away from universities. This stereotype formed the background forwhat may have been the shortest commencementaddress known. Its deliverer was a man who hasmore experience than I at such addresses, for he,Dr. Bob Hope, has had to speak each time hereceived one of his 27 honorary degrees. We aretold that on one occasion he simply strode to therostrum and said: "Now as you leave these ivory towers to go out into the real world, I have onlyone word of advice for you. Don't!" But if youcombine patience with the cultural heritageexemplified in this University's "vast memory"with the critical temper that is so cherished here, Ihave other advice for you as you leave. Do! Andhelp remove the adjective "rare" from the verb"tradition."Martin E. Marty is Professor and Associate Deanof the Divinity School.354TH CONVOCATIONSTUDENT ADDRESSBY JAMES N. HEFTYMr. President, friends, fellow graduates, guests,well . . . , we made it! And now I'm faced withthe problem of producing a convocation addressfor a huge crowd of jaded University of Chicagograduates without sounding cliched or trite. Heregoes.I'd like to begin my little exposition today witha quote from that patron saint of the pedanticUniversity of Chicago undergraduate, Aristotle.Reading now from the Politics, Book VIII, Chapter 6."The rattle is a toy suited to the infant mind,and education is a rattle or toy for children of alarger growth."Here we are, about to leave the playpen andtake our first toddling steps, either to the sandboxof graduate or professional school, or out into the"real world." The dichotomy between The University of Chicago and the real world is, ofcourse, something of a strange one since for thefaculty at least, this is the real world. There's ashocking thought for you. Maybe there is someconnection between that observation and onemade by Wayne Booth, that popular pundit of theP.E.R.L. Program, that the faculty here has a lotmore fun than the students. There are probablymany reasons for this odd state of affairs, whichwe really have neither the time nor the inclinationto examine here. But one of the possible explanations is the need to preserve a facade of intellectual excellence through the technique of cynicism,often prevalent among undergraduates at U. of C.138By maintaining that one is "above all that," onemay assume an air of superiority. Cynicism soonbecomes the chic way to deal with the world, andwe have a crowd of dessicated intellectual stuffedshirts at age 20, who carefully defend their egosby pooh-poohing anything they don't know muchabout. Religion and science fiction, for example,to name a couple of my own recent experiences.This cynical outlook is like the use of the word" obviously." Think about it. Obviously is usuallyused in connection with an assertion that its author doesn't want to defend. It's much better ifthe first syllable is pronounced like "a-w-b" andstretched out for five seconds. Its obviously aneat play to take off the pressure by making itsound as if anyone who could possibly questionthe assertion at hand is at best an idiot and shouldbe boiled in oil, burned at the stake, or worse,forced to take the common core over again. Butcynicism, while often an effective defense, is ahuge impediment to learning and enjoying life.I'm urging you, or rather us, to throw off ourcynical facades, now that we're no longer undergraduates and the necessity for appearing intelligent is somewhat diminished.Think of one of your pet prejudices — math,philosophy, religions, science, psychology,sports, a piece of light fiction (preferably a bestseller), anything you've cynically rejected duringyour undergraduate career — and when you'vethought of one — try it out. Don't let your prejudice stand in the way of your life. Try out something new, something you don't know inside andout, something you've always maintained is beneath your dignity. Pick up a copy of Reader'sDigest. Anything. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you give yourself a chance.The faculty, those of whom Mr. Booth wasspeaking, are no longer in need of their defensivecynicism, and hence they can afford to have funbecause their dignity is not so tenuous a thread asours has been. Now we aren't in need of thatcynicism either. Let's make the most of it. Thelife of the mind is not a hollow phrase to justifypedantic ego trips, it is a life of living to the utmostthe talents you have.We've been educated in what is probably thebest college the country has to offer, a placeWhitehead called the modern Athens, and manyof us will be going on to gather more and moreletters on the eastern end of our surnames. Is thatit? As has been said at probably every graduationor convocation ceremony since Adam and Evegraduated from the Garden, we're now going onto the ' ' school of life . ' ' But what about this learning stuff? A closefriend and teacher, Dr. Lawrence Z. Freedman,has found, in a long-term study of creativity, thatthe clear, wide eyes of a child are the best ones touse in examining a problem. Drop a few of yourpreconceptions. Live life, each day as it comes,through the wondering, innocent eyes of a child,and learn something new each day.Now let's take a look at the context of thatinitial quote from Aristotle. The quote about therattle is placed in a discussion of the value of theteaching of music to children. "It is difficult, if notimpossible," says Aristotle, "for those who havenever joined in a performance to become goodjudges of others." I hope our beloved Greek willnot make too many revolutions in his grave if Iuse his words metaphorically. Don't be too busyexamining life to live it because for the sake of theexamination as well as the life, you can never be adecent critic without knowing the score.James N. Hefty received a Bachelor of Arts' degree during the convocation; his major area ofstudy was philosophical psychgology.354TH CONVOCATIONSTUDENT ADDRESSBY JOHN MACHULAKMr. President, fellow graduates, friends, andguests: Over the past several months I've goneout of my way to pass by newsstands, always withthe hope of seeing a headline such as:"CIA Discloses Use of Newspaper Heiress to Uncover Conspiracy""Arabs Plot to Seize San Clemente for VietnameseRefuges"This hopeless search does not come from any particular malice for the parties that the story wouldhave to involve, but to me it would be refreshingto find all the complications of at least the newsworld wrapped up in one neat package. Unfortunately, even the National Enquirer has failed toprovide.In the past week I've also gone out of my wayto find as simple an explanation of four years atChicago, some way to tie together everything139from, as my roomate suggested, the meaning ofrational discourse among irrational men, to theday they cleaned the coffeemaker at WoodwardCourt. A coffeemaker may seem to be a trivialthing to bother with at convocation, but eventhree years later, I haven't gotten over theamazement of drawing a cup of coffee with asudsy head on it.I didn't actually believe that after four years ofsporadic, but diligent, attempts to explain my ownbeing here, that even a week of concentrated effort and the fear of an embarrassing situationtoday would lead me to an explanation ofeveryone's being here. Sheer frustration and ingrained habit brought me to the stacks of Regenstein Library, looking for what other people havesaid about the University.I got as far as 1904 with a speech of WilliamRainey Harper for the fiftieth University convocation. President Harper had just called the University "the priest of democracy," alluding to thisUniversity that "separated from all the world . . .puts itself in touch with all the world, and no gateor portal fails to greet its entrance." This was allvery beautiful, but I thought that through no faultof Mr. Harper, none of this would do for thisgraduating class. Idealism has seen its betterdays, and these days you can't even impress people by calling the University "wizard of the jobmarket."That's not unbearably disappointing, becausewho deep down, after reading the catalogue,could come here because they wanted to get a job.Personally, I was obsessed with the idea of getting a general education, and the real disappointment came when after four years, I didn't knoweverything. Even after two years, after a peculiarcar ride from Milwaukee, the idea of a broad education was something vague in my memory. Twofriends of mine, one from USC and the other fromNorthwestern, offered me a ride to Chicago in a1963 Fiat. I should have suspected somethingwhen I saw the friend from California start thecar, light his cigarette off the burning ignitionwires, which for that purpose were wrappedaround the steering column, and shift into gear."Don't have a lighter," he explained. (The carowner later transferred to Chicago.) The car had acomplete breakdown on some back road, mileseven from Kenosha. It being Sunday night, therewas no chance of finding an open gas station, andit being February in Wisconsin, the weather wasnot very encouraging. Three students, all in hotpursuit of the general education which did includesciences, had somewhere overlooked car repair. That's understandable. The strange thing was thatback in Chicago the next day, with my spine, stillshaped like a Fiat's rear window, reminding me ofhow little I knew about car repair, I still thought itmore important to delve further into Russian history and finish my degree with a paper on thereligious practices of the Siberian Buryats. And ifthis is my general education, I'm sure that thereare at least 300 varieties represented here today.Far be it for me to say that catalogues lie. Allalong I've realized that I had overlooked anotherpossibility, that the University offers not someextensive body of knowledge, but a way of thinking, a rationality that can be abstracted from anysubject matter and turned to solving the problemsof man and his environment. Actually, I stillhaven't gotten over Mr. Harper's idealism, andparticularly his role for the University in democracy. For a few days I even tried to imagine myself as an altarboy of democracy, my more practical sensibilities wanting to know how his idealismwould work in reality.Anyone here can do the same. I mean, picturesome future American legislature packed with recent Chicago graduates, all characterized by someChicago way of thinking. If the first thing thatcomes to your mind is senior citizens lobbying foreuthanasia, start over. Some of the guests heretoday may have no way of imagining what such aregime would be like, so I thought I could be ofsome modest assistance.Picture your congressman, kicking and screaming, being dragged from some dark recess of theCongressional Library to meet his constituency.Picture the same congressman, endlessly andblushingly qualifying how he believes in suchideals as patriotism and democracy. Think of howcomforting it would be to know that your Congress is at work studying problems that no Congress ever before, even in its dullest moments,thought of as being problems. Then imagine somead hoc committee on the state of the governmenttracing the government's problems to the congressional cafeteria, where a sudsy substance wasfound in the coffeemaker.Well, sometimes I tend to exaggerate. As amatter of fact, this last panorama is as weak as theother generalizations I managed to come up with,but with it as well as the others, I only hoped tomake more credible a brief statement of what Isincerely believe to be true. Underneath thesecaps and gowns are mutant snowflakes. Bysnowflakes I don't only mean that no two of suchas these are alike, but from my probably odd pointof view, four years here have been like watching a140blizzard: all this human energy coming fromGod-knows-where scattering people about in allpossible directions. I only added the mutant toaccount for the affect of the University, which hascaused this energy to take courses more strangethan it might have elsewhere. I don't knowwhether this has thrilled my more practical sensibilities, but it is good to know that at a timewhen it comes almost a game to watch for newextravaganzas in Washington, when the thingsthat people used to draw on for inspiration andmotivation seem to have all but gone bankrupt,there still remains something that insures that ifthings need to be done, they'll get done. So Ididn't mean to call people I've come to respect infour years "mutants." To me you'll always behybrids.John Machulak received a Bachelor of Art's degree during the convocation; his major area ofstudy was history.354TH CONVOCATIONSTUDENT ADDRESSBY ROBIN B. PRINCEMr. President, friends and guests, and fellowgraduates:A week ago, as I watched (and listened to) the"Honorable Alumni Parade," it suddenly occurred to me that I was practically one of the"Honorable Alumni" myself. All that I lackedwas that final thing, the diploma.This realization came as a bit of a shock. Aboutfour years ago I had been starting my collegecareer, and now I was ending it. In that time, Ihad changed, the world had changed, and TheUniversity of Chicago had changed, too.Instead of being just a campus, a set of buildings of a certain color and style, it has become fullof personal associations. Looking around theplace, I think of how many classes I had in onebuilding, how many hours of pre-finals weekstudy I spent in another, how many dormitorymeals I ate in a third.I suppose that each of us has different ways ofcounting up the past four years or so — in terms ofclasses attended or missed, books read, footballgames played, papers written, minibus rides, orwhatever. However measured, it still comes out to a substantial amount of time spent at one place.A lot of us can't wait to leave. Some will bearound for a while longer, in professional orgraduate school. Some of us will never comeback.And some of us will return for our own Honorable Alumni Parade. Like an older relative to ayounger, we will be able to look at the CummingsLife Science Center, and the Cochrane- WoodsArt Center, and whatever other buildings willhave arisen by then, and say, "I can rememberthe time when you weren't even born yet. Timehas really passed."But saying all of this is really jumping aheadquite a bit. We are graduating now, June 14, 1975,the year before the nation's bicentennial, a timewhen some people are saying that a college diploma isn't worth much.Assessing a diploma's value, like counting upthe years, depends upon the individual. Maybefor some of us here today it isn't worth too much.But I really don't think too many think thatway, sitting here in Rockefeller, beneath the highceilings and the hanging banners, surrounded byvarious relatives, friends, and professors.Each of us has to admit that more than fouryears ago, whether by studied intention, or underpain of coercion, or by freak of fate, we decided toenter the College of The University of Chicago.We could have left at any time. Some did.Those of us who stayed were sticking aroundfor something, and I think that part of it wastoday, this convocation.The question "Was it all worth it?" will have tobe answered on an individual basis. So will thequestion, "What does it all mean?" I'm glad thatI'm not one of those people who writes up theCollege catalogue and has to come up with acatchy label to describe what it means to go tocollege here."The Life of the Mind" just doesn't say it all.And "The Chicago Experience" is far too vague.A different meaning goes with each diploma. Adifferent set of memories goes with each, somebitter, some very satisfying.The quality of those memories will change asthe years pass, and the recollections themselveswill too. But no one will forget this particularevent, Convocation. We will all have it in common, even if none of our other memories of theCollege are shared ones.Robin B. Prince received a Bachelor of Arts' degree during the convocation, her major area ofstudy was political science.141SUMMARY OF THE 354THCONVOCATIONThe 354th Convocation was held on Friday andSaturday, June 13 and 14, 1975, in RockefellerMemorial Chapel. John T. Wilson, Provost andActing President of the University, presided.A total of 1,475 degrees were awarded: 312Bachelor of Arts, 8 Bachelor of Science, 113 Master of Arts in the Division of the Humanities, 3Master of Fine Arts, 99 Master of Arts in theDivision of the Social Sciences, 3 Master of Artsin Teaching, 12 Master of Science in Teaching, 6Master of Science in the Division of the Biological Sciences and The Pritzker School ofMedicine, 29 Master of Science in the Division ofthe Physical Sciences, 26 Master of Arts in theDivinity School, 11 Master of Arts in theGraduate Library School, 167 Master of Arts inthe School of Social Service Administration, 311Master of Business Administration, 153 Doctor ofLaw, 3 Master of Laws, 1 Master of ComparativeLaw, 103 Doctor of Medicine, and 119 Doctor ofPhilosophy.Six honorary degrees and four Llewellyn Johnand Harriet Manchester Quantrell Awards wereawarded.Recipients of Doctor of Humane Letters degrees were Sir Ernst Gombrich, Professor andDirector of the Warburg Institute of the University of London; Frank Kermode, King EdwardVII Professor of English Literature at CambridgeUniversity; Edward Hirsch Levi, Attorney General of the United States, President Emeritus ofThe University of Chicago, and the Karl N.Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor ofJurisprudence in the Law School (on leave of absence); and Nino Pirrotta, Professor of Music atThe University of Rome. Doctor of Science degrees were awarded to Herman Moritz Kalckar, Professor of Biological Chemistry at HarvardMedical School and Chief of the BiochemistryResearch Laboratory of Massachusetts GeneralHospital, and to Matthew Stanley Meselson,Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry andMolecular Biology at Harvard University.Martin E. Marty, Professor and AssociateDean of the Divinity School, delivered the principal Convocation Address, entitled "Tradition,verb (rare)."At the undergraduate session, three membersof the graduating class also spoke. They wereJames N. Hefty, John Machulak, and Robin B.Prince.QUANTRELL AWARDSThe University's 1975-76 Llewellyn John andHarriet Manchester Quantrell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching were presentedduring the 354th Convocation, June 13-14, 1975.Upon the recommendation of Charles E. Ox-nard, Dean of the College, John T. Wilson, Provost and Acting President, designated the following four winners.Bertram Cohler, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Behavioral Sciences (Human Development) and Education and in the College.Beatrice Garber, Associate Professor in theDepartments of Biology and Anatomy, in theCommittee on Developmental Biology, and in theCollege.Paul B. Moore, Professor in the Department ofthe Geophysical Sciences and in the College.William Veeder, Associate Professor in theDepartment of English and in the College.A total of 140 Quantrell Awards have beenmade since the program was established in 1938.142REPORT OF THE STUDENT OMBUDSMAN,SPRING QUARTER, 1975July 15, 1975During Spring Quarter 1975, I investigated over90 complaints and referred about half again thatnumber to offices where the student could be directly helped. Of the students whose complaints Iinvestigated, approximately 75 were satisfied withthe results. A total of 283 complaints werebrought to my office during Autumn, Winter, andSpring Quarters, with undergraduates comprisingabout 45 percent of this total.More students have used the Ombudsman'soffice this year than in any of the previous sixyears of the office. This was due to the greatervisibility of the office, I suspect, rather than toany increase in dissatisfaction around campus.The function of my office is to resolve specificgrievances, and one important result of such effort, when it is successful, is to prevent a specificproblem or a series of specific problems fromcausing the student to lapse into general dissatisfaction. This effort, in turn, can help ease similardifficulties encountered by other students, faculty, and administration.Most problems brought to my attention can besuccessfully resolved simply by explaining thepertinent policy or procedure carefully and givingits background. Less frequently, problems occurwhere rules or procedure are not followed carefully or where an exception to the norm seems tobe justified. And in still other cases the only remedy for a recurring problem is to suggest a changein policy.The first group of complainants are those whocome to my office because they have not beengiven an adequate explanation of policy, or because they have not understood the policy of aparticular area. In some cases, a student simplyhas no idea to whom to turn to solve a particularproblem: a medical student, for example, with avery busy schedule repeatedly found some teampracticing on the tennis courts whenever hewanted to play. After a few quick phone calls, Iwas able to tell him the exact schedules of all theteams which used the courts and he was able toschedule his play accordingly.In a few areas, administrative policies are notclear to students. Many students who must makeemergency visits to Billings Hospital, for instance, are subsequently billed even though in surance is supposed to have covered the expenses. One student, after he had received billsunder such circumstances, went into StudentHealth just before vacation to complain. When hereturned from vacation, he found yet another bill!The difficulty in such cases is that the billing department of the Hospital has no idea who is andwho is not a student unless that information isconveyed to them somewhere along the line. Butif this information is overlooked upon admissionto the Hospital, there should still be somemechanism to make it clear to students that Student Health administrators can stop the bills oncethey are informed of the problem.Another area where the reasons for policy arenot clearly stated to students is Married StudentHousing, particularly the policy of that office withrespect to apartment transfers. In my last report Imentioned a student who wished to move from hissecond-floor apartment upstairs to a similarapartment. When a Married Student Housing administrator told him that horizontal moves werenot permitted, he retorted that he wished to movevertically. The fact is that Married Student Housing does discourage students from transferringfrom one apartment to another because the expense of such a move for the University can runto several hundred dollars. While the MarriedStudent Housing office does allow some studentsto transfer, each transfer adds to the expensewhich all students in Married Student Housing inthe end must pay in the form of higher rents. Ithink that if the students realized the expense involved in their transferring apartments, theywould better understand the general policy of discouraging transfers.In one case this quarter, Married StudentHousing responded favorably to an unusual student request. In the early part of the year, Married Student Housing had sent a notice to a student to vacate his apartment after it was discovered that he was not married, but single. He feltthat special circumstances warranted making anexception for him so that he could remain until theend of the lease. After considering the appeal,Married Student Housing granted the exception.In some cases brought to my attention it is notpossible, with the information readily available tostudents, for them to know what procedure to follow in a given circumstance. Several School of143Education students came to me, for example, saying that they were planning to apply to as many as40 or 50 schools for employment. Apparently applying to such a large number of schools is notuncommon, and, in fact, many students are advised to apply to that number. When these students received application forms from the schoolsto which they were applying, however, theynoticed that in almost all cases transcripts wererequested. Sending so many transcripts would require a great expenditure by each student and thevisit to me was to suggest that there be a reductionin cost per transcript when large numbers of themwere ordered. As it turned out, the problem wasnot as serious as the students thought: the Director of Career Counseling and Placement called anumber of the schools to which the students wereapplying and found that only the student's finaltranscript from the University was required andthen only if a place was open and the student wasbeing seriously considered. Otherwise, the student needed only to supply a list of courses taken,with the grade in each. This action by the Placement Office saved the students money and considerable worry.In some cases a policy is explained to studentsbut is either hard to believe or not stated clearlyenough. An example of the first: two studentscomplained that they wanted summer jobs, butwhen they went to the Placement Office theycould not schedule an interview with a counseloruntil some weeks later which, in this instance,would have been June. Actually, as I found out,the date of the interview has no bearing onwhether the students are considered for or receivesummer jobs; for this they need only fill out a jobapplication.A policy not stated clearly enough is that students lose their Blue Cross/Blue Shield insuranceif they drop out of school. On the forms whichstudents sign for insurance it is stated clearly, although not emphasized, that the student's insurance is discontinued when he drops out; undersuch circumstances a student is expected to request a refund. For one student who had droppedout and was about to enter the hospital, her failureto understand the policy could have been disastrous. Fortunately, Student Health was able toarrange for the insurance to be continued, sincethe refund had not yet been requested. One wayin which this situation could be improved is togive notices to students who drop registration thattheir Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance is to bediscontinued. If this notice were part of the regular withdrawal mechanism, such problems couldbe avoided. In many cases, however, it is not a question ofthe student's understanding about the administration or policy or procedure, but rather a questionof getting the right information to the appropriateadministrator. Several students who worked inBoucher Hall, for example, complained that therewas no working phone inside and, should anemergency arise, they would have no way of calling for assistance. It turned out that there wasalready a phone where they worked; it simplyneeded to be connected. The job was done at oncewhen the appropriate administrators werenotified.Another area where student concern has helpedand where only specific complaints can really effect changes is the minibus system. When severalpeople complained to me that the railing in aspecific minibus was broken, I relayed the complaint to the responsible administrator. Henotified me soon that the railing had been fixedand that a broken railing in another bus had beenfound and also fixed. Some students made specificcomplaints about trouble in the system, especiallythe prolonged waiting periods for minibuses.Many students suggested that the minibuses runon some kind of careful schedule even if thismeant fewer runs per hour. Others pointed to therecent decline in the use of the minibus as evidence that the vagaries of scheduling and thechances of a long wait for students were turningstudents away from the service. All of these complaints were forwarded to the proper people forreview and correction. Where there are specificcomplaints, students should know that it is important to speak up and let someone know aboutthem, particularly when they affect other peopleand can be solved.One serious problem which has affected manypeople this spring is that of dogs on campus. Inone two-week period I received no fewer thanseven complaints about unfriendly dogs on campus and one complaint from a person who had notwatched where he was stepping. Finally, I received a complaint from a student who had beenattacked and bitten by a dog. As most peopleknow, there is a prohibition against unleasheddogs on the campus, but they also know that thepolicy has not been enforced. One student suggested that the University simply call the dogpound and ask it to put away all dogs on campus.The problem with this is that the Police Department Animal Care Unit is in heavy demand andoften dogs are gone by the time the Unit arrives.A more practical (or at least more merciful) suggestion was to find some way of making dog owners realize what an inconvenience and sometimes144even a menace their dogs were. Perhaps most dogowners, the suggestion went, would then leavetheir dogs at home and the campus would becomeless attractive to stray dogs. This suggestion wasfollowed by the University and for a few daysseemed to be successful. But, alas, strongermeasures had to be adopted after several peoplewere attacked and even bitten by loose dogs oncampus.The second group of problems are those wherepolicies define clearly what action should be takenin a given circumstance, but where it seems betterto make an exception when the rule, while good,does not seem to give the proper answer to a particular problem. I have tried to help several times,for example, when a student wishes to leave thehousing system for extenuating circumstances butis far down the waiting list of students who wish todo so. In some cases, while the rules may beclear, they are not adequately or logically followed. One student was permitted to break hercontract and leave student housing last winter, forexample, and was told that she would even receive her deposit back. She failed to remove allher belongings by December 15, the last day inthe University's official Autumn Quarter, thinking that she had until the end of the month to takecare of such matters. Her lease, it seemed to me,was not adequately clear on this point. Later shereceived a substantial bill for the additional time.When she complained, a housing administratorwaived the bill for the additional time, but reim-posed the housing deposit fee that he had earlieragreed to return. The student was not happy withthis resolution; through my intervention, on thegrounds that the deposit fee had already beenwaived once, all bills were dropped. It is not improper for students to lose their deposits whenthey leave student housing early, I think, but itseems inconsistent to authorize the return of adeposit and then later to reverse that decision.Another occasion where a clear rule is not wellfollowed is parking on campus. There are clearlyposted "no parking" signs throughout the mainQuadrangles. Quite apart from the esthetics of the matter, there is good reason for this: should therebe a fire on campus, it would be imperative thatthe lanes be clear to provide access for firefightingequipment. But on some days there are so manycars parked in the Circle that it is difficult for a carto get through, let alone a fire truck. The University does give out parking tickets to offenders, butit enforces collection only against students. It ultimately has recourse to barring their registration.The point is not that students should be allowed topark on campus, but that no one should park oncampus, and that rule should be taken seriouslyand enforced equitably.Finally, I should like to mention once again theproblem of the athletic facilities on campus. As Iindicated in my last report, improvements in thewomen's athletic facilities in Bartlett are in process, including the addition of new lockers,benches, scales, and hair dryers, and the tiling ofthe locker room floor. These improvements, Ihave been told, will be completed over the summer.Similar small-scale improvements can undoubtedly be made in other athletic facilities. But thebasic problem remains — the total inadequacy ofcurrent athletic facilities for a university of thissize and quality. Certainly, there is great interestin athletics and recreation: the use of athleticfacilities is increasing each year and the recentswim marathon, where students swam over 400miles, 100 more than projected, demonstrates thehigh level of student support for improvedfacilities. During the current Campaign forChicago, the University hopes to raise over $10million for the double decking of the Field House,a new Olympic-sized swimming pool, a remodeled Bartlett Gymnasium, a facilities building forStagg Field, and other improvements. Thismoney simply must be found so that the University can give the students — and the faculty andstaff, as well — the athletic and recreationalfacilities and programs that they deserve.Joseph P. KiernanTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO RECORDOFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRSRoom 200, Administration Building145o.E92.Io zm rsr c o?33 O " T>l& ¦< 3H0 >o oz i_ — CO 2Orr" 05J 0)32z o s-* o m g;^ — OCO 3