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1909 Chicago sculptor Lorado Taft was appointed by the governor of Illinois to the new State Art Commission, reported the December issue of the Magazine. Taft had just given a series of lectures at the University on the ideals and techniques of his own art, and was "engaged on proposed plans for the beautifying of the Midway Plaisance." A decade later, Taft completed his most famous sculpture, The Fountain of Time, at the west end of the Midway.

1949 The entering College class numbered 850 students and contained only one 13--year--old and only 24 14--year--olds, despite rumors that the College was now filled with young quiz kids who were pushed to work too hard and given too much freedom. The December Magazine, noting that first-- and second--year students had a median age of 15, emphasized that "these students are intelligent, but not uniquely brilliant." The average student devoted 40 hours each week to studies, including 20 hours in classrooms, laboratories, and gymnasiums.

1974 The Winter issue of the Magazine contained a foot(ball) note to history, noting that Don Kirkman of Scripps--Howard Newspapers had reported that a scar beneath President Gerald Ford's left eye had been acquired in the early 1930s while making a flying tackle on the U of C's Jay Berwanger in a Michigan--Maroons game. In 1935, Berwanger was named the first Heisman Trophy winner. Berwanger, AB'36, told the Magazine that he didn't remember the tackle, but recalled that Mr. Ford, "who obviously saw the play from a different angle," had attributed the scar to him when they met at a dinner in the 1960s.

1989 The December Magazine carried an account of the first living--donor liver transplant operation in the U.S. On November 27, Alyssa Smith, a 21--month--old girl born with biliary atresia, received a section of her mother's liver at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The surgical team, led by Christoph Broelsch, then chief of the U of C's liver transplant service, spent eight hours in adjoining operating rooms to perform the surgery. While promising to "save many lives," the procedure also raised some ethical questions, including whether it's "ethical to jeopardize the well--being of a healthy adult to try to save a gravely ill infant." --E.C.