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Going the way of the dinosaurs is one way of describing what happens when your 15 minutes of fame gets used up. But in "Dinos R Us”, English professor W. J. T. Mitchell argues that while varieties of dinosaur images have waxed and waned in intellectual currency over the past 150 years, their power as the cultural symbol of modernity has remained constant.
To celebrate its 90th anniversary, the Magazine has changed its own image through a facelift introduced with this issue. Art director Allen Carroll has updated our vintage 1991 look. Like dinosaur images, we’ll continue to evolve, so please let us know what wins your vote for Darwinian survival.
For alumni magazines, survival of the fittest often depends upon the generosity of a publication’s readers. We’re fortunate to be among the nation’s top magazines when it comes to support from our readers. In response to our annual solicitation letter this fall, some 5,718 readers have so far contributed a total of $118,799.23. Thank you.
This year’s request for funds featured a fame-game contest, in which we asked readers to play "Six Degrees of Education," linking six Big Names or Big Ideas to six U of C alumni. We promised winners a Chicago T-shirt, with a U of C sweatshirt going to anyone who linked all six biggies in a single chain. Mitchell A. Pravatiner, Xí70, of Chicago won a T-shirt for coming up with the links: Jodie Foster starred in Contact, based on the novel by Carl Sagan, AB'54, SB'55, SM'56, PhD'60. Julian H. Levi, PhB'29, JDí31, once headed the company that first manufactured the ballpoint pen. Playing for Vince Lombardi on the Green Bay Packers was U of C trustee Willie Davis, MBA'68. Kathleen Turner starred in V. I. Warshawski, based on the detective-novel series by Sara Paretsky, AM'69, MBA'77, PhD'77. The catalyst for the 1960sí War on Poverty was The Other America by Michael Harrington, AM'49. And, like Kevin Bacon, actor Ed Asner, Xí48, appeared in JFK. A few months after his original submission, Pravatiner won a sweatshirt by proposing as a "common denominator" the ballpoint pen: Foster, Turner, Bacon, and the War on Poverty are
"linked to the U of C through books, movies, or both. The creators of these works most likely made some use of ballpoint pens in the process. And many of the autographs signed by Lombardi and his protégé Davis-undoubtedly were done by the ballpoint as well." A sweatshirt also goes to Greg Serbe, MBA'71, of New York City, for whimsically linking all the Big Names to an alumnus he knows quite well: himself.
Among the Small Names on our masthead are two we’re counting on to make big contributions. Cathy Mizgerd, AB'91, has been promoted from editorial assistant to assistant editor; she’ll continue to coordinate the class notes sections while starting to write more features. In December, Charlotte Snow, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, joined us as an associate editor. Charlotte-most recently a reporter at Modern Healthcare-has covered medical, tax, and legal issues.-M.R.Y.
Erratum: The December/97 "Chicago Journal" story on the U.S.-China Symposium on Chinese Herbal Medicine, held at the U of C Medical Center this fall, appeared in garbled form. The full story’s on the Web . Call or write us for a paper copy. |
