CTA: Take it?

New details have emerged about how the dramatic changes to service and fares currently being considered by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) might affect U of C students and staff.

For those unfamiliar with the controversy, last spring CTA President (and U of C alum) Ron Huberman announced that the agency, which controls and operates most of the public transportation in the city, was facing dramatic budget shortfalls. According to Huberman, if the Illinois state legislature was not able to provide a substantial contribution to CTA funding, he predicted a "doomsday" scenario in which service would have to be slashed and the cost of riding CTA buses and trains would increase substantially (some predictions have fares more than doubling).

State legislators have still not agreed on a budget of any sort (and many proposals do not include increases in CTA funding - breaking details can be found at the Chicago Sun Times' blog on the looming transportation crisis), and it seems that Chicagoians are bracing for their first round of fare hikes and service losses.

According to the Chicagoist, here are the likely changes in fare prices:


What was still unclear was how exactly the route changes would affect Hyde Park and the University, both of which rely heavily on public transportation to move students and staff across campus and throughout the city. But, according to an e-mail sent across the Student Government (SG) listhost, riders might want to brace themselves for slower service and fewer rush hour options.

SG Class of 2010 representative Ben Esparza sent the following description of a meeting with Transportation Director Brian Shaw to members of their listhost:

CTA put their proposal for budget and the legislature is yet to give them
(or anybody) what they want. Now of course CTA is not going to be shut down,
but if the state legislature can't get things squared aways then what will
probably happen is that there will be services cut (the bus services in
Hyde Park that would be cut are the #2, X55, and X28), fares will be
increased (this is supposed to happen regardless) and no new bus routes
will be made.

What will happen with the 170 buses...

... not a whole lot.... the budget the school has given the
transportation office has not changed so the services from last year
will remain the same and that includes the 171, 172, 173, 174 and I
dunno if I'm missing one or two... but you get the gist... The reason
why the 170 bus routes won't change is because the University pays for
them, so it has little to do with the problems in Springfield. The only
thing the University is kind of worried about right now is if the #2 bus
gets cut. If it does that will cause a lot of problems on the
administrative side of things because a lot of people who work at the
University use #2.

As for the U-Pass... it really doesn't seem like it is going to happen
(that is just my take on it). Although the referendum  passed in the
college the school does not want to pay for the U-Pass and it seems that
students don't really want to either. Let's say hypothetically that
there was an overwhelming demand for the U-Pass in the College and
students were willing to pay, the school will not let the cost of
$200.00 be added to student's tuition because of financial aid reasons.
So unless someone has a rich uncle that wants to endow the
undergraduates with "the U-Pass" fund... It seems like there are too
many road blocks to make this a reality.

Shaw's comments reflect previous media reports and CTA announcements about plans for the budget crisis.

The potential changes would impact nearly every U of C student with the higher fares (which is likely to reignite the U-Pass debate that Esparza perceives as fruitless, a sentiment that Shaw has consistently expressed), but will likely have it's greatest impact on two groups of people:

- Students who live in dorms or apartments north of the quads, who use the X55 both as an alternative to taxi service to and from Midway Airport, and as an alternative to the 55 (which stops with greater frequency) or the 174 (which has limited hours of operation) when trying to connect to Green or Red Line trains into the city.

- Staff who commute from downtown Chicago to Hyde Park using the #2 bus, which provides direct rush hour service. While this bus is theoretically redundant, as there are alternative transportation options during rush hour to and from Hyde Park, it is unlikely that the commuters who use the #2 bus will appreciate the substantial increase to their commute time, a commute cost that will not only increase because of across-the-board rate hikes, but would now additionally include the cost of transfers to the train or another bus line, and new routes that take them through higher-crime areas.

It will be interesting to see how Shaw and the transportation department, already beleaguered by their bungling implementation of the new late night bus routes and consistently spotty Shoreland bus service, handles what seems to be another p.r. disaster on the horizon.

Honor Thy Forefather

There is a crisis on America's college campuses. Not anorexia. Not acquaintance rape. Not even Straight-Thuggin' parties.

No, the looming threat to college students is civic illiteracy. At least that's what the nonprofit conservative think tank Intercollegiate Studies Institute continued to say with its most recent report on the subject.

In its June 27th press release, provocatively titled "Thomas Jefferson Would Be So Disappointed," the ISI reported that 48 percent of surveyed college seniors knew that the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" is part of the Declaration of Independence.

"Forty-two percent of seniors incorrectly identified the Preamble to the Constitution as the source for the phrase. More than 400 of the college students surveyed said the phrase could be found in Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto," stated the press release.

The Maroon is all too familiar with the ISI and its role at the U of C. For one, the University is home to the Center for Study of the Principles of the American Founding, one of several campus civic-education centers that the ISI has established nationwide. In her May 15 article reflecting on the Center's first year at the University, news staffer Kate Shepherd wrote about the organization's focus "on the time period of the American founding," with aims to "illustrate implications reaching beyond that era."

And as to the motivation behind founding the Center at the U of C, its director, political science professor Nathan Tarcov, said in a press release: "Unfortunately…study [of the principles of the American founding] has of late been too often neglected. Our center attempts to offer a corrective to this general trend."

By the ISI's account, a highly publicized study it published in 2005 "reveals how much American colleges and universities—including some of our most elite schools—add to, or subtract from, their graduates' understanding of America's history and fundamental institutions." Apparently, the U of C is one of those schools that subtracts this kind of knowledge from its students. It's enough to make a former Maroon news editor feel violated.

Please, please, keep America's history beautiful.
Credit: Keep America Beautiful

But then again, there's plenty of criticism surrounding the ISI's findings and methods, as outlined in news writer Bourree Lam's October 6, 2006 article:

"Knowledge of civics and history are interpretative questions, not objective. I’m skeptical about this report and the nature of the questions [on this test]," said Amy Dru Stanley, associate professor in history and chair of the American Civilization Core sequence.
[...]
"The strengths of our offerings are that the Core and the concentrations enable students to think broadly about meaning and causality rather than facts that would enable one to play American trivial pursuit," Stanley said.

And John Seery, Huffington Post blogger and Professor of Politics at Pomona College, had this to say about the ISI's bleak assessment of civic education:

[S]ometimes [I] give my own students a pop quiz on American civics and American civic values, but my questions aren't about the particularities of the Civil War or Keynesian economics.

Remarkably in my experience, I've found that my students understand those questions very well and are in lock-step unanimity in endorsing those civic values. They're not the civic dummies that the National Literacy Board is trying to make them out to be.

So back to the most recent ISI report, the one about Thomas Jefferson being so disappointed. Maybe there is redemption for us "civic dummies" after all: Take this sample INS test, which Americans-to-be must pass to gain U.S. citizenship.

If you love your country, you already know how you'll do. Make Thomas Jefferson proud again.

Case Closed

Although the Crime Report is usually Hassan’s realm, there was some pretty substantial news breaking yesterday – Daniel Richmond, a 20-year old former convict, was charged in connection to an April 9 Hyde Park crime spree in which he robbed or tried to rob four people, raping one of them. According to the police, three of the four victims attended or were employed by the University, including a 19-year old woman who was robbed of $50 and then sexually assaulted in an alley or parking lot off the 5400 block of South Everett Avenue – just a couple blocks from Shoreland Hall.

From Rhema Hokama’s original account in the Maroon:

“Investigators from the Chicago Police Department announced Tuesday that they believe four robberies and assaults committed in Hyde Park on Monday night are related incidents.

The incidents occurred at 8:42 p.m., 9:15 p.m., 9:38 p.m., and 10 p.m. in the area bounded by 53rd and 56th streets and Dorchester and Woodlawn Avenues…

The four incidents were all robberies or attempted robberies in which the offender threatened his victims with a weapon, Richards said.

In the first incident, at 8:42 p.m., the offender implied that he had a weapon, Richards said. “At that time, the intended female victim screamed and, at that time, he fled,” he added. “In the second incident, a woman was walking, and the offender pushed a hard object into her back. He took some cash and then took her to a parking lot and assaulted her.”

The third and fourth incidents were also robberies in which the suspect fled.

Detectives believe that the offender does not have a prior criminal record within the neighborhood.”

Richmond had just been released from jail in January, after serving a three year conviction for a carjacking. According to the Tribune, “DNA recovered from the victim matched a sample taken from Richmond while he had been incarcerated, leading to Richmond's arrest.” Richmond had been charged earlier in two of the robberies; when prosecutors tacked on charges for the other robberies and sexual assault, his bail was raised from $150,000 to $400,000.

Word.

Every year there's somewhat geeky buzz over the new words dictionaries choose to add to their catalogs. Merriam-Webster announced Wednesday that "IED," "DVR," "telenovela," "smackdown," and "ginormous" are just some of the roughly 100 words to be included in its Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. (The fine editors also inducted "crunk" into linguistic legitimacy.)

Enamored by all things crunk-tacular is rapper Lil Jon.
Photo: Brian Appio/ MTV.com

The announcement reminded me of the U of C connection behind these kinds of popular decisions.

I took a lot of flak around the office for my coverage of a crossword puzzle competition accompanying The Meaning of Dictionaries, the Regenstein Library's most recent exhibit at the Special Collections Research Center. The exhibit, which chronicled the history and evolution of English-language dictionaries, ran from March 12 and ended last week on July 6.

While certainly not the sexiest story, it allowed me and news contributor Calvin Kim to get acquainted with some of the Library's more influential figures, among them being U of C alumna and lexicographer Erin McKean (A.B.'93), who provided the original idea for the exhibit.

As editor-in-chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary, McKean has the unique job of deciding which word candidates make the cut for new editions. Last summer, a University of Chicago Magazine profile detailed her selection process, which like other lexicographers involves finding new words that consistently crop up in mainstream media or pop culture.

And this week, New York Times blog The Lede commemorated the success of "ginormous" by looking at neologizing, or "the practice of coining new words," as NYT's Mike Nizza writes. The Lede reflects on the ways McKean has championed neologizing, from her 2002 column in The Times Magazine ("Neologizing 101") to leading a "word-making session" at a technology and publishing conference.

As for having these mash-ups pay off, McKean writes in her 2002 column: "You may not ever see your creation in a dictionary, especially if it was a word created for just one use or publication. The joy of having created a word of your very own should be enough."

With the Merriam-Webster announcements out, it'll be interesting to see what McKean has in mind for her own dictionary. "Neologizing" would be a good start. It's not yet officially defined.

Is the (ink) well drying up at the U of C Press?

The University announced last week the appointment of Garrett P. Kiely, who currently serves as the president of the American division of academic publisher Palgrave Macmillan, to head the U of C Press – an interesting development in light of recent struggles at the publishing house. Kiely replaces Paula Barker Duffy, who served as director of the Press since 2000.

The University Press is one of the U of C's most valued and storied divisions; in addition to publishing the ubiquitous Chicago Manual of Style, the Press publishes dozens of highly regarded academic journals and a diverse field of academic texts. The Press was founded in 1891, which places it among the nation's oldest continuously-operating university presses, and employs over 300 people.

Still, the Press had a tumultuous year in 2007, losing one of its' most prestigious journals. From Adrian's article in the Maroon spring quarter:

"The American Astronomical Society (AAS) will end its longtime publishing relationship with the University of Chicago Press, putting into question the fate of at least 40 employees of the nation's largest academic publisher. Beginning in January 2008, The Astronomical Journal, put out by the AAS, will be published by the England-based Institute of Physics (IOP), with The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Supplement poised to do the same in 2009…

The Astrophysical Journal has been published by the University since the publication's creation in 1895, and The Astronomical Journal since the 1990s.

The AAS's departure came as something of a surprise to the University Press, whose division dedicated to the publication of the astronomy journals employs at least 40 individuals."

While, as was noted in the Maroon article, the journals were actually losing the Press money, the loss of The Astrophysical Journal - and nearly 40 employees - was a hard p.r. blow at a time during which the publishing industry as a whole is struggling with threats from electronic media.

The University did little to acknowledge why the switch was made, and outgoing director Duffy was not mentioned until the final sentence of a press release issued last Tuesday. An article appearing in the Tribune similarly was devoid of details, although the press release notably mentioned that an interim director would be in place until Kiely took over in the fall - indicating that Duffy has likely already left - or been asked to leave - the position. Whether Duffy left the position voluntarily, or if the loss of the AAS journals contributed to her departure, is unclear. A request for more information from the University press office (which issued the announcement of Kiely's hiring) and a call to the Press have not yet been returned, although the University oftentimes declines to comment on personnel changes.

Fame-calling

One of the disadvantages of the Maroon's publishing schedule is the inability to cover spring quarter graduation ceremonies. With so much pomp surrounding high-profile commencement speakers such as Bill Gates at Harvard University, Oprah Winfrey at Howard University, and the presidential front runners at various schools across the country, I as a news editor and graduating senior had a particular interest in what the U of C had in mind.

Members of the Class of 2007, including one particularly handsome student (center), form the post-commencement procession through the quadrangles.

As other schools began announcing their graduation speakers early on, some members of the Class of 2007 voiced concerns over a potential repeat of someone like last year's U of C convocation speaker, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg. Viewpoints columnist and fellow fourth-year Tara Kadioglu wrote in the May 1 issue of the Maroon:

Bada bing! Bada boom! [Bloomberg] strutted to the podium! And that was it. Just like Goldilocks’s shock and dismay when the three bears woke her from her “just right” dream in Baby Bear’s “just right” bed, all those smiles and cheers turned into frowns and forced applause—and it wasn’t “just right,” but just wrong.

She called upon the University to court well-known alumni to speak rather than famous faces lacking that special U of C background. Tara also recounted the trauma she observed as a result of the Bloomberg experience. "To my left and right, the students who had been whispering jokes out of giddiness began whispering jokes out of irritation. Other graduating students looked confused, annoyed, and even offended," she wrote.

Those students may not have been more confused, annoyed, or offended as this year's class, which heard from commencement speaker and exiting Humanities dean Danielle Allen. Her speech, entitled "What's in a name?", reflected on the University's reputation as one of the last few institutions to read off each graduate's name when handing out diplomas (unless bad weather moves the ceremony indoors, in which case students graduate en masse). The University of Chicago Magazine's blog, UChiBlogo, summed up the speech:

Pronouncing each name, she said, "makes plain the fact of human equality." Our last names "sing tales of human conflict and collaboration" and "hold us accountable to tradition," while our first names are "given by someone only slightly older than us" who hopes we'll lead a full life. Despite the students' different intellectual abilities and GPAs, "everyone crosses that stage as equal participants in the drama of life." Arguing that "an acceptance of the proposition of human equality is fully compatible with a love of excellence."

It could have been the sinking realization that Barack Obama would not in fact be speaking, despite rampant rumors to the contrary — the presidential candidate, U of C Law School lecturer, and Hyde Parker was in town fund raising that weekend, and I guess it was no use trying to appeal to a crowd that had just spent serious buckage on a U of C education — but Allen's speech appeared to fall short on drumming up that graduation inspiration and excitement. As much as she was a University-connected figure, Allen essentially softened us up for the ensuing hour-and-a-half-long name-calling session. It's not exactly what one would call going out with a bada-bang.

Danielle Allen, exiting the University as dean of Humanities, addresses the Class of 2007. Photo Credit: Dan Dry

If there is a way to compromise on securing a University-affiliated speaker who is also a crowd pleaser, it could be through the wonders of the honorary doctorate degree.

Many already know that Knox College scored Stephen Colbert and Bill Clinton as their commencement speakers last year and this year, respectively, by issuing both of them honorary doctorates. Harvard made headlines with Bill Gates as its speaker, awarding him his long-awaited honorary degree. Perhaps less-publicized, sitcom star Julia Louis-Dreyfus spoke at Northwestern University, which presented her with an honorary doctorate. (Both Louis-Dreyfus and Gates attended but never graduated from their respective universities.)

But because the U of C is special like that, it adheres to a policy that awards honorary degrees exclusively based on scholarship and academic achievements. In a Chicago Chronicle article from November 2000, we learn that "the University does not honor actors, ambassadors, presidents or monarchs unless they meet stringent requirements for scholarship."

This spring, five academics in the science fields received honorary U of C doctorates. One recipient, Princeton University molecular biology professor John Hopfield, is described by the Chronicle as "an expert in the organized behavior of inanimate matter," and honorary degree recipient Pieter Tim de Zeeuw, a professor of Leiden Observatory in The Netherlands, is "a leading theorist in the study of the dynamics and structures of galaxies."

Princeton professor John Hopfield, one of this year's five U of C honorary doctorate recipients, could be coming to your graduation. Photo: Princeton University.

Indeed, these are no Elaine Beneses or saxophone-playing world leaders, but as U of C physics professor Henry Frisch told the Chronicle last November:

I would like to see our honorary-degree policy changed so that it is not just for scholarship, that it has a broader view of achievement. I would like to see our honorary degrees go to people whom we consider moral beacons, or humanitarian beacons or models beyond the narrow educational roles for which we give honorary degrees now. It used to be that way. If you go back through the honorary degrees, you see that they were given very broadly in the past, very early. It’s not true that it’s always been for scholarship.

When Phil Jackson coached the Bulls, I thought he was an ideal candidate, very much a scholar in some sense. You have to really be a student of the game and a student of people. Phil Jackson, if anybody, was a psychologist. Paul McCartney is another of my favorite choices. You can say, well, he doesn’t even read music. On the other hand, millions — maybe billions — of people love his music. Is he a scholar? I would say yes.

So when it comes to choosing that graduation speaker, maybe it's not the best idea to go with an honorary U of C degree recipient after all, unless your class is in to the organized behavior of inanimate matter. And as for what qualifies as a worthwhile honorary degree candidate, the likes of Professor Frisch are up against years of seemingly unbreakable tradition. But then again, that's what people said about the Uncommon Application.

Dr. Cosby, expect a phone call.

Investigation weighs foul play in U of C Hospitals patients' deaths, insulin overdoses

The University of Chicago Medical Center has found itself at the forefront of an investigation to determine whether five patients intentionally received massive doses of insulin that proved fatal for at least one of the patients.

First reported as the Chicago Tribune's lead story on July 3, the probe also involves a Chicago Police Department investigation that U of C Hospitals officials cited as an unusual step taken amidst equally unusual circumstances.

"This is a very rare event," Dr. Bruce Minsky, U of C Hospitals' chief quality officer, told USA Today's On Deadline blog Tuesday. "We could not come up with a clear medical explanation."

The first three reported incidents involved elderly women being treated in the same hospital ward between early May and early June, according to the Tribune. Media sources also reported that none of the afflicted patients had diabetes or were prescribed insulin, although U of C Hospitals' spokesman John Easton contested those claims with On Deadline.


Insulin, a naturally produced hormone that controls blood sugar levels, is also prescribed to treat diabetes and other disorders affecting blood sugar levels. Extremely low or high levels of blood sugar carry the risk of coma and death.

One of the patients, 82-year-old Ruthie Holloway of North Kenwood, died after receiving treatment at the U of C for a urinary tract infection, registering an insulin level of 2,680, or several thousand times the normal level, the Tribune reported.

A 68-year-old woman fell into a coma when, less than a week after being admitted in late May for a urinary tract infection, she began showing signs of "extremely high levels of insulin," according to the Tribune. Similar to Holloway, the comatose patient registered an insulin level of 2,670.

The third patient, 89-year-old Jessie Sherrod who died June 6, reportedly displayed signs of insulin overdose shortly after being admitted on April 28 for complications of Alzheimer's disease, but conclusive blood tests to measure Sherrod's insulin levels are still pending.

Two more incidents surfaced later on Tuesday—involving an 89-year-old man who is still alive and a 30-year-old woman who died in June—but Easton told the Tribune these were not as threatening as the first three incidents.


In an interview with the Tribune, Dr. Irl Hisch, medical director of the Diabetes Care Center at the University of Washington in Seattle, addressed the speculation head-on: "The only way I know to get insulin that high is to inject it from a bottle."

"At this point of the investigation, the cause for the insulin test results has not been identified," stated a U of C Hospitals' press release issued July 3. Although police are investigating the possibility of intentional insulin overdoses, Easton has not ruled out possible "medication error" or "laboratory error."

In light of the situation, the Hospitals have taken extra security measures aimed at strengthening the "storage, administration and documentation of insulin," according to the press release.

Minsky, the Hospitals' chief quality officer, also told On Deadline that administrators will review old patient records for similar insulin spikes in other patients.

In a statement, David S. Hefner, president of the University of Chicago Medical Center since December 2006, assured patrons and the University community that "we will do everything we can to discover the cause." He added, "Whatever the investigation concludes, our hearts go out to these patients and their families."

The Maroon will continue its coverage of this developing story, with updates here on the News Blog.