:: Illustration by Bill Jaynes

Peer Review ::

From our pages

1910 Students called for a stricter University honor system. After administrators received complaints of “localized cheating,” occurring under the radar of “certain instructors” who were not “personally respected,” the Magazine surveyed both alumni and undergraduates to find out just how much flimflamming went on. Reflecting on their College days, 159 out of 198 alumni believed little to no cheating occurred. Of the 156 current students surveyed, 72 thought cheating occurred rarely if at all, and 84 regarded cheating as a fact of life at the University. The student response, the December Magazine reported, indicated that either dishonesty was “more prevalent now or else that the select group of alumni were less well informed than the group of undergraduates.” In either case, the survey presented a “certainly depressing” reality, which student councils demanded the University address.

1955 The December Magazine commemorated the first class to graduate from the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering at Argonne National Laboratory. Over a seven-month period, this group of 30 scientists learned the “design, construction and operation of reactors for nuclear research” as well as “other related peacetime applications of nuclear energy,” in line with President Eisenhower’s Atoms-For-Peace program.

1980 A faculty advisory committee released a report describing the recent decrease in graduate enrollment—a 37-percent decline since 1970—as “a threat to the existence of the University as we have known it.” The committee’s recommendations for reversing the trend, according to the Winter Magazine, included “increasing significantly the size of the College,” “increasing the sizes of the professional schools,” and “changing the orientation of graduate programs from doctoral programs to more career-oriented master’s programs.”

1995 Matthew Rettenmund, AB’91, had little choice, the Magazine reported, but to come clean about his Madonna obsession after writing Encyclopedia Madonnica. With a back cover boasting, “You’ll know more about Madonna than she knows about herself,” the book featured such delectable tidbits as the little-known fact that Madonna’s “central incisors are mismatched in length.” Encyclopedia Madonnica also discussed the Association to Save Madonna from Nuclear War, composed of Cincinnati fans lobbying for nuclear-free zones within a “50-mile radius of anywhere Madonna lives or socializes more than twenty days in an average year.”—M.M.