From our pages
1912 The Magazine reported on student performance in English I. Calculating the 16 students who placed out of the required first-year course as having ranked above a C and the 45 students who failed to place into the course as ranking below a C, the overall performance of the Class of 1916 showed 175 first-years ranking above a C; 132 students ranked exactly a C; and 157 ranked below a C. Interestingly, women performed better than their male counterparts. Of the 403 students in the course, 30.2 percent of the men ranked above a C, 29.5 percent earned Cs, and 40.3 percent failed to make the grade. Of the coeds, 45.7 percent ranked above a C, 27.3 percent ranked a C, and 27 percent ranked below a C. Noted the Magazine, "Whatever the ultimate achievement of the men may be, their sisters far outshine them in their first appearance on the University stage."

1952 In the article "One-Fifth of 1952's 'Most Outstanding' are from the University" the Magazine announced that two of America's Ten Outstanding Young Men as chosen by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce had Chicago connections. The Jaycees selected 34-year-old John H. Johnson, X'42, president of the Johnson Publishing Company, who had recently funded a U of C scholarship to be awarded annually to an outstanding black student. The other U of C selection was Andrew W. Lawson, chair of the physics department, also 34. Lawson had developed a "noise thermometer" that indicated high temperatures by measuring static from the Brownian movement of molecules. "According to the laws of chance alone," the Magazine proclaimed, "one Chicago man might be named to the Outstanding Ten once in a century."

1976 The University's Office of Radio and Television began producing Context, a 30-minute television show designed to tap faculty expertise on a variety of current news stories, providing additional information and often a different angle on news presented in the national media. The first show aired October 3 at 7:30 a.m. on WAIT. Among the inaugural faculty were political-science professor Aristide Zolberg on Rhodesia and assistant professor of microbiology James Shapiro on the controversy over genetic research.

1992 Citing the failing national economy, the change in the method by which the University was reimbursed for research overhead costs, and the increasing prices of library books and serials, research equipment, and capital needs, President Hanna Gray and Provost Gerhard Casper voiced concern in a December 9 memo to the University community that "the University's financial situation may worsen" and laid out a plan to avoid a future crisis. The plan called for forming a budgetary and planning task force as well as a temporary hiring suspension. Despite the cautionary note from the president and provost, the Campaign for the Next Century was going well. In its first two months the University had already reached $151.5 million or 30 percent of its five-year, $500 million goal. By campaign's end in 1996, $676 million had been raised.
-Q.J.

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