Chicago Journal

For the record

Rare words from Coetzee
J. M. Coetzee, 2003 literature Nobelist and professor in the Committee on Social Thought, defied his reputation for reclusion to address the Swedish Academy in Stockholm December 7. Coetzee attended the ceremony on the condition that there be no news conference, and he lectured in the persona of Robinson Crusoe.

Light lifting
Physics Professor David Grier is among the technology innovators named to the 2003 Scientific American 50, honored in the manufacturing category for designing optical tweezers—which suspend and manipulate microscopic objects with photons. He developed the tweezers with Eric Dufresne, SM’98, PhD’00.

Our harmonious president
The fourth edition of the Harvard Dictionary of Music, edited by President Don M. Randel since 1986, was published by Harvard University Press in November. The 1,000-page edition contains expanded entries on rock, hip-hop, and world music.

Rockefeller cellar sees the light
Next fall Rockefeller Chapel’s lower level will be home to a new Inter-religious Center. Renovations costing $650,000 will provide prayer and meeting rooms for Muslims, Hindus, and other religious groups.

UC scientists catch comet’s tail. . .
On January 2 Anthony Tuzzolino, SM’55, PhD’57, senior scientist at the Enrico Fermi Institute, watched from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as NASA’s spacecraft Stardust flew within 149 miles of the comet Wild 2, capturing dust particles—believed to contain some of the solar system’s most pristine organic compounds—from its head. Tuzzolino and the late John Simpson, the Arthur Holly Compton distinguished service professor in Physics, designed the dust detector.

. . . and tour Martian soil
A few days later at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Thanasis Economou, senior research associate in Astrophysics, watched NASA’s Spirit rover roll over the Gusev Crater. Spirit’s twin, the rover Opportunity, followed on January 25, landing halfway around the planet on the Meridiani Planum while software problems paralyzed Spirit. The rovers are collecting samples of the planet’s sticky soil, to be analyzed by on-board alpha particle X-ray spectrometers, which Economou helped develop. NASA hopes the data will reveal whether Mars’s surface was once able to sustain life.

Paleontology online
An average of 27,000 online visitors per week accompanied Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno on the recently concluded Dinosaur Expedition 2003, an Internet project sponsored by Project Exploration (www.projectexploration.org). Designed to let teachers and students follow Sereno’s Saharan voyage, the Web site hosted an image gallery, classroom activities, and message boards.

The Marshall winner’s plan
Margaret Hagan, AB’03, became the 17th Chicago student to win a British Marshall Scholarship since its 1953 founding. Provided full tuition and a living stipend for two years at any British university, Hagan plans to study political science and conflict resolution at either Queen’s University or the University of Ulster, both in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Another business school award
The University tied for fourth place in the Financial Times 2004 ranking of full-time MBA programs, published in its January 26 issue. Chicago ranked fifth last year.

Awards for alumni literati
Writers Jean Fritz, AM’46, and Joseph Epstein, AB’59, were two of ten recipients of the National Humanities Medal, presented November 14 by President Bush. Fritz has written numerous children’s books on the American revolution. Epstein is an essayist and fiction writer whose most recent books are Envy (Oxford University Press, 2003) and Fabulous Small Jews (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

Veteran of the stacks
Martin Runkle, AM’73, University Libraries director since 1980, will retire October 1. Runkle began his association with Chicago’s libraries in 1969, when he enrolled in the now defunct Graduate Library School. Anne Robertson, deputy provost for research and education and a professor of music, chairs the committee searching for Runkle’s successor.

Giant poem sighted over Chicago
Verse by former U.S. poet laureate and Committee on Social Thought professor Mark Strand now appears on a billboard above Chicago Ave. and Wells St., north of Chicago’s Loop. The lines from Strand’s “Five Dogs” were mounted by the Poetry Center of Chicago and billboard owner Lightology.

Surgeons remove huge tumor
U.S. surgeons and nurses led by McKay McKinnon, assistant professor of surgery, removed a 176-pound tumor from Lucica Bunghez, who suffers from Von Recklinghausen’s Disease, a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on her body. The doctors operated for free when the Romanian government was unable to pay the $300,000 required to send Bunghez to the U.S. for treatment.

Kudos for Studs
The National Book Critics Circle will award its Ivan Sandorf Lifetime Achievement Award March 4 to Studs Terkel, PhB’32, JD’34, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author, oral historian, and Chicago radio personality.

Law prof fights police abuses
The city of Chicago reached a settlement December 18 in a class-action suit filed by 300 South Side residents who alleged they had been illegally searched by police. Craig Futterman, associate professor in the University’s Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, won the $499,000 settlement.