Latest news with #U.ofC
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
U. of C. students protest trustees' ties to Israel as war in Gaza continues
The morning after the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington on Wednesday night, university protests in Chicago against the Israel-Hamas war continued. Wednesday's attack was a marked display of antisemitism as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip. Federal authorities told police that the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, shouted 'Free, free Palestine' when he was taken into custody. Demonstrations have bubbled up locally in Chicago since Oct. 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas came out of Gaza to kill 1,200 people and take some 250 hostages. Last spring, University of Chicago students set up an encampment to protest Israel's bombardment of Gaza and call on the university to end its partnerships with Israel. Thursday morning, the familiar chants of 'Free, free Palestine' could be heard from a group of student protesters gathered at a protest outside the Rubenstein Forum at the U. of C. The board of trustees met in the building that morning and protesters, wearing keffiyehs and all black, swarmed the administrators as they entered the building in order to symbolically push members of the board to fully disclose any ties to Israel. University police kept the protesters away from the front and back entrances. 'Shame on you!' the protesters shouted back. Nearly 600 days into the war in Gaza, Eman Abdelhadi, assistant professor in the department of comparative human development, claimed the majority of the university's board of trustees have some kind of personal investment in Israel. 'This is not a neutral stance,' Abdelhadi said. 'This university claims institutional neutrality, but it is actively on one side of the conflict.' Abdelhadi referenced the encampments that popped up at universities across the country, including in Chicago, this time last year. 'This movement is not going away,' Abdelhadi said. 'People are going to persist in their protests.' Students declined to comment about the Washington shooting. The protest slowly died down over the course of the morning.
Chicago Tribune
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
U. of C. students protest trustees' ties to Israel as war in Gaza continues
The morning after the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington on Wednesday night, university protests in Chicago against the Israel-Hamas war continued. Wednesday's attack was a marked display of antisemitism as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip. Federal authorities told police that the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, shouted 'Free, free Palestine' when he was taken into custody. Demonstrations have bubbled up locally in Chicago since Oct. 7, 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas came out of Gaza to kill 1,200 people and take some 250 hostages. Last spring, University of Chicago students set up an encampment to protest Israel's bombardment of Gaza and call on the university to end its partnerships with Israel. Thursday morning, the familiar chants of 'Free, free Palestine' could be heard from a group of student protesters gathered at a protest outside the Rubenstein Forum at the U. of C. The board of trustees met in the building that morning and protesters, wearing keffiyehs and all black, swarmed the administrators as they entered the building in order to symbolically push members of the board to fully disclose any ties to Israel. University police kept the protesters away from the front and back entrances. 'Shame on you!' the protesters shouted back. Nearly 600 days into the war in Gaza, Eman Abdelhadi, assistant professor in the department of comparative human development, claimed the majority of the university's board of trustees have some kind of personal investment in Israel. 'This is not a neutral stance,' Abdelhadi said. 'This university claims institutional neutrality, but it is actively on one side of the conflict.' Abdelhadi referenced the encampments that popped up at universities across the country, including in Chicago, this time last year. 'This movement is not going away,' Abdelhadi said. 'People are going to persist in their protests.' Students declined to comment about the Washington shooting. The protest slowly died down over the course of the morning.
Chicago Tribune
25-02-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Allen Sanderson, U. of C. economics professor who was skeptical of public subsides for sports stadiums, dies at 81
Allen Sanderson was a University of Chicago economics professor who built a national reputation for his knowledge about sports economics and in particular, his view that government-funded stadiums offer little benefit to the cities and regions where they are built. Sanderson was a professor for large undergraduate economics courses and claimed to have taught more students than anyone in the history of the university. 'Allen loved his students and loved the classroom, and he was a very strong believer in the power of economics — and more precisely, in the power of … economics to do a lot of good in the world, not just that it would position students for success in the world but that it would make them successful citizens,' said Victor Lima, a senior instructional professor in economics at the U. of C. Sanderson, 81, died after a brief illness Jan. 23 at the Montgomery Place senior living community in Hyde Park, where he had been undergoing rehabilitation, said his daughter, Catherine. He was a Hyde Park resident. Born in California, Sanderson grew up in Idaho and after high school went on a Mormon mission in the south of France for two years before getting a bachelor's degree in economics from Brigham Young University. Sanderson picked up a master's degree in economics from the U. of C. in 1970 and taught economics for one year at Georgia State University before returning to the U. of C. to continue graduate studies. He taught at the College of William and Mary in Virginia and was an assistant dean at Princeton University in New Jersey before returning to the U. of C. in 1984 as its associate provost. He held that role for eight years before working for several years at the university's National Opinion Research Center. In 1994, Sanderson joined the U. of C.'s economics faculty. He estimated that he had taught more than 15,000 students in his career. Despite teaching sections of 250 students, twice each quarter and three quarters per year, Sanderson built a rapport with students. 'Yes, he taught economics, and economics is the study of how you make decisions under scarcity and uncertainty, but what Allen Sanderson taught me was the science of common sense,' said Aaron Schur, a 2021 U. of C. graduate. 'Professor Sanderson so often tried to show how your gut instinct or conventional wisdom or maybe your first go at something is not really the right answer or solution — you need to think a bit deeper about something.' Roger G. Clark, who worked with Sanderson while leading the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, said Sanderson had a 'wry wit, wide interests and an almost endless supply of new ideas, together with a genuine concern for his friends and a talent for staying in touch with a large number of them, including former students.' Sanderson was known for taking on tasks beyond the scope of his job, such as leading discussions with incoming first-year students, meeting with foreign visitors to the university and teaching classes arranged by the university's alumni association. Larry Wimmer, a retired Brigham Young University economics professor who taught Sanderson during college and hired him as a teaching assistant. said that Sanderson participated in 'the governance not only of his department but also the undergraduate college,' while also 'contributing to the national debate involving his research specialty,' writing op-eds and 'publishing more book reviews than many have read books.' 'Almost anytime the university wanted to ensure that they were well represented, they called upon Allen for his participation. He never seemed to say no,' Wimmer said. In 1998, Sanderson received the university's Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Sanderson was a go-to source on sports economics for many reporters, providing sometimes-blunt assessments about teams seeking public subsidies for stadiums, or on the economic impact of events such as the NASCAR Chicago Street Race. Sanderson's conclusions were grounded in the Chicago School of Economics' pragmatism. 'Usually when you hear the figure someone gives you on a project's economic impact, it's best to take the decimal point and move it one spot to the left, so you end up at about 10% of the original estimate. That's probably what's going to happen,' Sanderson told the Tribune last year regarding a developer's projections that a new Chicago White Sox stadium in the South Loop would generate $4 billion in annual economic impact. He was equally skeptical of the Bears' requests for help from the city and state for a new stadium, telling the Tribune last year that 'from the city's point of view, this would be one of the worst decisions they could make.' Spending public money on the project, he said, would be akin to the team using its No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft not on USC quarterback Caleb Williams but 'to draft (Mayor) Brandon Johnson.' 'We have too much evidence that sports stadiums don't pay for themselves, and do not come anywhere close to it,' he said. I'm not anti-sports, I'm a sports fan, but I am also an economist, and anti-wasting money. I'd rather the city spend money on things that don't cost as much or on things it needs.' Sanderson's op-ed pieces for the Tribune over more than two decades covered a wide range of economic and public policy issues. In a 2013 piece, Sanderson offered an unpopular take on professional football, writing that the game 'in its utter lack of modesty and self-restraint, puts a warped mirror to American values and highlights the least flattering facets of the American heart and mind.' 'Given the macho nature of the game, beer addictions of fans and the iconic nature of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, harassment of female reporters in the locker room is, to borrow language from another sports, about par for the course,' Sanderson wrote. 'At almost every turn we seem to have carved out a different set of rules for football and a level of tolerance that is unacceptable elsewhere.' In that same piece, Sanderson lamented that football stadiums 'in many cases are now wholly owned subsidiaries (and) have the lowest rates of use for any structures we have ever built in this country. For all practical purposes, these monuments come with 'Closed' signs on them.' Sanderson also wrote bimonthly articles for Chicago Life magazine. Sanderson was sometimes a paid consultant for cities facing demands for new stadiums, and with his son, he consulted for the Chicago Cubs in helping them move to their dynamic pricing scheme. Despite his criticisms, Sanderson was an enthusiastic fan of the Bears, Bulls and White Sox. The S. Joel Schur Family Economics Prize, given each year to U. of C. students for the quality of their work in principles of microeconomics and principles of macroeconomics courses, will be renamed the Allen R. Sanderson Economics Prizes at the Schur family's request. Sanderson himself last fall established a new fund aimed at enhancing undergraduate economics students' experiences. Sanderson, who never retired, ran the Chicago Marathon three times, enjoyed playing basketball, bicycling and travel, including hiking trips to Utah, his daughter said. Two marriages ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter, Sanderson is survived by a son, Matthew; and five grandchildren. A memorial service is being planned on the U. of C. campus for this fall.
