Ad Infinitum

Construction season begins No sooner had the campus master plan been approved ("Completion of campus master plan leads to building boom," October/99) than it began materializing. In December, workers broke ground on the new parking structure on 55th Street between Ellis and Greenwood Avenues. Designed by New Haven, Connecticut, architect Cesar Pelli, the five-story building (one story is underground) will offer 1,080 spaces, for a net gain of about 700 campus parking spaces. The ground floor will hold a combination of recreational, entertainment, and eating facilities--possibly a bowling alley, billiards parlor, and a restaurant and bar. The building should open in late autumn.

On other building fronts, Bruner/Cott & Associates Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been chosen to design Bartlett Gymnasium's renovation, while Sasaki Associates Inc., based in Massachusetts and San Francisco, has been chosen to develop a campus-wide landscape plan to strengthen the sense of community. Bruner/Cott will convert Bartlett to a dining hall and construct a one-story addition for food storage and a loading dock. According to Steve Klass, deputy dean of student services, the new 550-seat dining facility will be nearly twice the size of any dining room on campus. Serving more than 1,000 students, the dining room will be on the second floor--where the basketball courts now are. The track that runs above the courts will not be torn down but may be closed if it can't be brought up to code. No decision has been made yet regarding the future of the basement pool.

Whither Jimmy's? Fans of Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap are crying in their beers--but not at Jimmy's. In May 1999, three months after the death of owner Jimmy Wilson ("Jimmy of Jimmy's dies at age 86," April/99), the fabled watering hole at 55th Street and Woodlawn Avenue closed when Wilson's liquor license expired. Wilson's heirs sold the bar to longtime Jimmy's manager Bill Callahan and his brother, Jim Callahan, who planned to apply for a new city liquor license and quickly reopen the bar for business.

Instead, the Callahans and the University of Chicago--which owns the Woodlawn Tap building--discovered that a number of renovations were needed before the bar could pass inspection. After repairing the roof, replacing the wiring, installing new fixtures, and enlarging the bathrooms, the Callahan brothers applied for a Chicago liquor license late last year.

And the city rejected it. The reason: the bar's proximity to St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church and School. A state statute prohibits the sale of liquor within 100 feet of a church or school entrance. Jimmy's is more than 100 feet from the school entrance, but only 89 feet away from the parking lot, often used as a playground. The Callahans have hired a lawyer to contest the decision.

Film program expands Film emerged as a doctoral-degree-granting program ("Reel Scholarship," April/1997) at the U of C this past fall when the Committee on Cinema & Media Studies admitted four graduate students to its inaugural class. U of C undergraduates had been able to concentrate in cinema and media studies for several years; already the committee has had several hundred requests for information on graduate studies.

The doctoral program focuses on the history, theory, and criticism of film and related media. Students must complete 16 quarter-long courses, three required and the rest elective. At least eight of those courses must be listed among the committee's offerings. The required classes are Methods and Issues in Cinema Studies and Film History, a two-quarter survey course for beginning graduate students or advanced undergraduates. Students also must demonstrate proficiency in two modern foreign languages.

Echoing the program's international, interdisciplinary nature, the committee's faculty comes from a variety of departments. Members are: committee chair James Lastra, associate professor in English; art history professors Tom Gunning, Joel M. Snyder, SB'61, and Yuri Tsivian; Miriam Hansen and Jacqueline Stewart, AM'93, PhD'99, of the English department; Laura Letinsky of the Committee on the Visual Arts; David J. Levin and Katie Trumpener, associate professors in Germanic Studies; and Rebecca West, professor in Romance languages and literatures. Students can also draw upon two dozen resource faculty members.

"The committee is extremely fortunate to have such an incredible faculty," says Lastra. "Some of the film scholars currently at the University--people like Miriam Hansen and Tom Gunning--are really the people who've helped to redefine the field as a whole."

Economic abundance Sherwin Rosen, AM'62, PhD'66, the Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman distinguished service professor in economics, will become president of the American Economics Association (AEA) in 2001. Rosen, editor of the Journal of Political Economy and a microeconomist with expertise in labor economics and industrial organization, will be the fourth U of C economist in five years to hold the post. Economics professor emeritus D. Gale Johnson ("Gale Force," December/97) was the AEA's 1999 president; Nobelist and GSB professor Robert Fogel was president in 1998; and economics professor emeritus Arnold Harberger, AM'47, PhD'50, headed the group in 1997.

During the coming year, Rosen will oversee the budget and coordinate preparations for the 2001 meeting, which should draw nearly 7,000 people.--K.S.