Did you know President's Zimmer has a complex mathematical discipline named after him? Read about it in this issue of Grey City, the Maroon's quarterly magazine, available at in pdf here or at www.chicagomaroon.com/grey-city.

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The Maroon is live in the McCormick Tribune Lounge covering the open forum called in response to student concerns over the last week's A-level arrest. The forum is being held by Student Government and the Office of Campus and Student Life (CSL). In attendance will be Vice-President of Campus Life Kim Goff-Crews, UCPD Chief Marlon Lynch, assistant Library Director james Vaughn, and other adminstrators, University spokesman Steve Kloehn said.

You can read about the incident that precipitated this forum here, and the student response here.

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You might have gotten an A if you'd went to Harvard, but you'd also have to have been accepted.

First-year Emily Chen played on college admissions rebuffs last Thursday when she bought uchicagorejects.com and had it redirect to Northwestern's homepage. The site is part of a string of similar redirects for colleges across the country, including harvardrejects.org (Yale) mitrejects.com (California Instittue of Technology) and stanfordrejects.com (UC-Berkeley).

"It was completely spur of the moment," said Chen, who was inspired by the other reject pages.

She at first considered redirecting to the University of Illinois-Chicago or DePaul, but settled on Northwestern because its academic prestige was closer to the University's.

"I don't actually have an opinion about Northwestern. I'm pretty neutral," Chen said. "I was just recognizing a rivalry some U of C kids talk about. Northwestern's just as good as us."

By Monday, Northwestern students had retaliated, sending Chen hate mail. The domain name northwesternrejects.com was also purchased, and redirected to the University's homepage.

"A lot of people on the surface understand it as a joke, but still feel the need to make it know that they are proud Northwestern students, which is great," said Chen, who expected some nasty letters. "School pride is cool. I don't think they're actually bitter about being rejected from the U of C."

Chen's friends spread the link on their facebook and Gmail statuses over the weekend. "The rivalry is cute," first-year Eran Flicker said. "Yale does it to Harvard, Harvard does it to Yale. We're both two sets of good schools in the same areas."

Chen suggested that having ivyleaguerejects.com (already set to the University of Phoenix) redirect to the U of C's homepage would be a more accurate prank. "But it could redirect to any school website in the country," said Chen, who was rejected from Harvard and Columbia, but never applied to Northwestern. "It'd be pretty funny, but I'm not going to spend another $7. It's someone else's turn."

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Updated - Friday, February 26, 10:43 a.m.

Third-year history graduate student Toussaint Losier will attend next week's Student and Campus Life Trustee committee meeting after being appointed graduate liaison by a unanimous College Council (CC) vote, according to first-year CC representative Frank Alacron.

Losier's appointment passed Graduate Council Monday night.  Losier had been a member of that body before his appointment.

Losier said normal procedure was followed in his appointment. "I was the only candidate but I had to stand in front of graduate council and CC and expain why I was putting myself forward for the position, answer any questions they had, and step out of the room while they deliberated," he said.

Losier replaces fourth-year anthropolgy graduate student Joe Bonni as liaison; Bonni resigned last week after University Secretary David Fithian did not allow him to appoint Losier as a proxy for the March 4 meeting, which Bonni cannot attend because he will be conducting fieldwork in Syria. Losier said he had been in conversation with Bonni on what to expect from the meeting.

Fithian confirmed Losier will attend the meeting as liaison in an e-mail.

"With the action taken by Student Government yesterday I consider Toussaint Losier to be the graduate liaison to the Board. We will arrange an orientation session for him in advance of the next Student and Campus Life Committee meeting which we expect him to attend along with [third-year Greg] Nance, the undergraduate student liaison to the Board," Fithian said.

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President Robert Zimmer is dating classics professor Shadi Bartsch, Crain's Chicago Business reported today, after separating from his wife Terese in early September. He has also moved out of the presidental house on University Avenue and 59th Street. 

Zimmer, whose wife is the director of strategic initiatives at the Urban Education Institute, is dating a professor, University spokesman Steve Kloehn said. Crain's quoted "campus sources" naming Bartsch, but Kloehn did not identify the professor.

Kloehn added that Terese Zimmer will continue to live in the president's house in Zimmer's absence, though Zimmer would still "conduct presidential business and host University events" in the house. The house is provided by the University for the president and his family.

“President Zimmer has been separated from his wife since the beginning of September," Kloehn said. "This is a matter for the family, and we hope people will respect their privacy.”

Trustee memberss supported Zimmer, according to Crain's:

One university trustee calls the affair a personal matter and says he still has confidence in Mr. Zimmer.

"On this personal thing, that’s up to others to handle," says trustee George Ranney. "He’s doing a fine job."

Board of Trustees chair Andrew Alper released a similar statement. “President Zimmer has been forthcoming with me and with the board regarding his family situation. We see this as a personal matter, not an issue of university governance,” he said.

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At a January 23 stop on the Bold & Fresh Tour with Glenn Beck in Westbury, NY, Bill O'Reilly compared the South Side of Chicago to Haiti—albeit Haiti systematically, not directly after earthquake.

O'Reilly, speaking about President Obama and his commitment to government programs, criticized Obama's plan to help a recovering Haiti through the U.S. government. While his argument doesn't hold, it is interesting in that he thinks the South Side has similar infrastructure problems to the half-island nation in the Caribbean.

Transcript:

O'REILLY: I'm seeing a guy who's very, very committed to the government. To government, the government's going to solve the problems, and I'm going I don't know how that's possible. If you've ever been to the South Side of Chicago, I mean, it's a disaster, all right? It's like Haiti, it's like -- I've been to Haiti a couple of times. I support some charities there, but Haiti just never gets better, no matter how much money you put in there because they don't have a system. And I said the government can't do it but, Obama really believes the government can do it.

"Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty," according to the CIA Factbook. The 2000 Census placed 16.6 percent of Chicagoans below the poverty line (data for the South Side alone was not available), compared to a national average of 9.2 percent.

Clip and transcript from Media Matters.

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It's been five days of getting up before dawn, five days of mustering up the energy to shake my tush, and after this morning's walk to the Point, I felt so accomplished: I finished Kuvia/Kangeiko.

It’s amazing to think that I had done so much—and seen Hyde Park from one of its most scenic spots as the sun rose—all before 9 a.m. I contemplated the merits of making this a regular routine, but that's more the spirit and energizy of Kangeiko, not the reality of an overburdened student.

I am a part of Dodd-Mead House (in B-J), and it’s a sturdy tradition that fourth-year members of the house—residents and ex-pats alike—remove a piece of clothing after completing each Friday morning salutation. This year, three of our own were brave enough to keep the practice alive, one zealous house member triumphant in nothing but tiny boxer shorts (no socks, shoes, or gloves) doing push-ups in the snow. Cameras clicked and groaning filled the air as we all felt the pain of just watching what they went through. 

After buses took us back to Henry Crown, students swarmed around tables laden with  bagels, hot chocolate, and, most importantly, the prized Kuvia t-shirts, special because they can only be earned, not bought. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed that the shirts this year aren’t the long-sleeved kind characteristic of the past few years’ Kangeiko ware. But I’m still proud to have this year’s Kuvia shirt to show for my dedication, its fire-breathing polar bear printed on the front an awesome memory of Kangeiko to hold onto until next year.

For myself, my housemates, and the couple hundred others who have participated, the past week has been marked by self-discipline and a “we’re in this together” closeness. Right now, I know everyone is fatigued and grateful for the three-day weekend ahead, but I don’t think I just speak for myself when I say that it’s been a worthy, memorable experience.

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The Weekly has a great cover story on 4th Ward Alderman Toni Preckwinkle (A.B. ’69, M.A.T. ’77) today, profiling the Hyde Park politico's bid for Cook County Board President. Facing incumbent Todd Stroger in the Democratic primaries February 2, Preckwinkle outlines her four main reform goals: repeal Stroger's controversial one-percent sales tax hike, keep the healthcare system independent of the County Board, reduce the incarcerated population, and create more jobs, especially green ones. 

Much of the platform is in line with her opponents. Everyone besides Stroger vows to roll back the tax, and all candidates support keeping down the prison population (and job growth is a perpetual crowed pleaser). "It doesn’t seem like Preckwinkle has much clout by way of new and innovative political ideas," The Weekly wrote, but pointed to her "trustworthiness and her no-fear approach to Chicago machine politics" as key virtues.


“Preckwinkle reinforces this image when she notes that she is vocally calling for zero-based budgeting of the county’s finances, which she explains as an initiative that would scrap each existing budget within the county and rebuild it from the ground up, in order to weed out inefficient spending and demand transparency.”

Recent endorsements in both the Sun-Times and the Tribune agree, with the Sun-Times calling her "Chicago's brainy, no-nonsense alderman, known for coalition-building and standing up to the powers that be." They were also impressed with her pledge to keep the county's healtcare system "out of the mitts of County Board members," a promise not made by any of her opponents. 

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