Chicago Journal ::

Searle Gift sparks research
The Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust has given $5 million to the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC), a collaboration of Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The grant, the first of five planned gifts, will support both multi-institutional research and education.

Library gets expansion architect
The University’s trustees have approved Helmut Jahn of Murphy/Jahn as the architect for the $42 million Regenstein Library expansion. The addition, expected to break ground on the Reg’s west side in 2007, will increase the library’s capacity by about 3.5 million volumes and provide shelf space for 22 years of new print acquisitions.

Hospitals CEO resigns
Michael C. Riordan announced he will step down as Hospitals CEO and president July 1, after a five-year stint. “Just as we worked to map out a long-range plan for the hospital,” Riordan told the Maroon, “I have long-term goals for my own career path.... I felt that the five-year mark, and where we are as an institution, was the right time to put my next steps into place.” The board of trustees has formed a search committee to find a successor.

Federal money man
The U.S. Senate quickly approved George W. Bush’s pick of GSB professor Randall Kroszner, 43, to the Federal Reserve Board. At his February 14 Senate Banking Committee hearing, Kroszner—who edits the Journal of Law & Economics, directs the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, and was on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers in 2001–03—cited his Chicago experience as a job qualification: At the U of C, he said, “Regardless of who is giving the presentation or paper...those ideas are debated on merit. ... At the Federal Reserve Board...I can assure you that’s the approach I’d take.” Kroszner will take a two-year leave to fill the seat, which expires in 2008.

Law firm gives record gift
Chicago-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP and its alumni partners have pledged more than $7 million to the Law School to fund intellectual programs. The gift is the largest known amount by a firm to a law school. In recognition, the top five percent of Chicago law students will be honored as Kirkland & Ellis scholars.

Fight for Fermilab
The U of C has joined with Universities Research Association, Inc. (URA), to bid for the Department of Energy contract to manage Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, home of the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator. A nonprofit consortium of 90 research universities, including Chicago, the URA has run Fermilab since 1967. The University, whose faculty and grad students have done research at the lab since its initial post–WWII days, is also competing to retain the Argonne National Lab contract.

End of a bibliophilic era
Joseph O’Gara, who co-owned Hyde Park’s O’Gara and Wilson Booksellers, Ltd., died January 10 at age 91. In the 1960s O’Gara opened his Kimbark Avenue and 57th Street shop, which held more than 20,000 rare and used books and was home to lively debates between Saul Bellow, X’39, and other U of C luminaries. O’Gara mentored Michael Powell, X’68, who went on to open Powell’s Books, and later made Doug Wilson his partner, retiring in 1996 after he and Wilson moved the store eastward on 57th Street near Harper.