Friday, January 14, 2005

Happiness is a warm cappuccino

Harvard now has a "fun czar" and the Harvard blogosphere is on the case. Here at Chicago, we're supposed to assume that everyone--including, no, especially, Harvard students--is having more fun than we are, though personally, I'm skeptical.

Our administration tried to bring us some fun a few years back, before I came here, though, so I can't say whether things are more fun here now than they once were. But I do know that attempts to make this place more fun tend to get folks pretty angry--the addition of a Starbucks to our campus bookstore caused one alum to write a letter to the U of C Magazine, saying, "Starbucks' foamy milk and fancy flavors are simply clutter that, I suspect, interfere with the kind of sharp-minded analysis for which U of C denizens are justly famed." I can see complaining about Ratner (huge new gym), or even Bartlett (huge new dining hall), but foamy milk? It's not as if drinking cappuccinos and thinking critically are mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe I've had assignments that could only be completed with the aid of an espresso-based beverage of one kind or another...

3 comments:

Daniel said...

I was at Chicago when the administration (Hugo Sonnenschein was president then) tried to bring in more fun (1999-2000 I think) and I had many friends that were involved with the protests against the proposed core changes and the other changes (like increasing class sizes for core classes, etc.). We had "fun-ins" and all of that sort of stuff and even helped set up the RealUofC.org I'm not sure the university got a whole lot more 'fun' after the core changes went through (as I remember the other major changes didn't occur) because when they would cut a quarter off of a core sequence, the department would just cram three quarters worth of work into two quarters (thereby lessening the fun).

But I always thought that Chicago was a reasonably fun place to be. It may be trite, but it is certainly true, Chicago is for a very specific type of student... Really, Phoebe, all things being equal given the choice between Starbuck's and Div School Coffee which would you choose?

(sorry this was kind of a rambling and pointless comment, my head is elsewhere).

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Div School over Starbucks, but just about anything over Cobb.

Daniel said...

Whew! I was worried that Starbucks would start being defended by a U of C student...

I never saw the appeal of Cobb and spent a large portion of my time in the Div school coffee shop. I still have my Div school shirt (though it only comes out at some alumni events).