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Part 1

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"This is not financially driven," says U. of C.president Hugo Sonnenschein. "It's not the first reason for concentrating our efforts in this direction." He also believes that students are entitled to a life of more than just unremitting academia. When the president of the University of Chicago announced plans to increase the undergraduate population, some faculty, students, and alumni saw the move as a threat to the school's rigorous, rarefied style The letter landed like a bombshell in faculty offices all over the University of Chicago. The school's president, Hugo Sonnenschein, an Easterner who already had aroused suspicions because of his Princeton roots, wanted to increase the undergraduate population by 1,000 students, raising the total to 4,500. Suddenly, undergraduates would hold sway at a school that had long been famous for its graduate programs. Worse, some critics argued, the move threatened to destroy the school's intellectually serious tone and character. Why would the president of one of the nation's most exclusive universities, a bastion of academic rigor and home to dozens of Nobel Prize winners, take such a risk? In a word, money. In the letter, dated April 30, 1996, Sonnenschein warned that the university was on a financial course that "[would] not sustain excellence." He proposed a plan that recognized an economic fact of academic life: Undergraduates are the cash cows of universities. Moreover, other elite American schools do far better at bringing in revenue from their undergraduates than does the U. of C. Hence, Sonnenschein proposed increasing the student body while reducing the faculty and downsizing the Common Core, the series of prescribed courses that had been traditional at the university since the 1930s. Sonnenschein's letter ignited an extraordinary debate among faculty, students, and alumni of the school. Though the Council of the University Senate, the school's governing body, voted overwhelmingly last March to adopt a modified version of the president's plan, the dispute isn't going away. Indeed, it has raised basic questions about the university, which has been a maverick in higher education since its founding by John D. Rockefeller in Hyde Park 106 years ago. "Sonnenschein envisions a university fundamentally different from the university we came to and sacrifice for," says Andrew Abbott, a U. of C. sociology professor. "The college is different," says Susan Diamond, a management consultant who graduated in 1970. "It was meant to be a much more challenging educational experience than virtually any other undergraduate program. Those of us who have gone through it don't want to see this become like a lot of Ivy League schools-if you show up and pay your tuition, yeah, you'll get your B." The president's critics argue that what he really wants to do is reshape the University of Chicago into the mold of more financially successful elite schools-places like Harvard, Brown, Stanford, and Princeton, colleges that get many more undergraduate applications than Chicago does. Sonnenschein denies that is what he has in mind. "It's not something that I want," he insists. "It's not something that I've ever said." Yet some faculty, students, and alumni worry that he is ready to jeopardize the school's greatest strength-its rigor and scholarship-in favor of boosting the bottom line. There is no question that the University of Chicago ranks among the best schools in the country, for both graduate students and undergraduates. A peer review survey conducted by the National Research Council in 1995 ranked five of Chicago's departments number one in the country in faculty quality; only Harvard and Yale surpassed it, with six each. The 1998 edition of The Princeton Review: The Best 311 Colleges gave the U. of C. an academic rating of 93 on a scale of 100-a figure matched or exceeded by only Harvard and Princeton among the research universities with which it compares itself. Still, the University of Chicago has always been different. Though much younger than its peers-Harvard, for example, was founded in 1636, and Yale, Princeton, Brown, and Columbia in the 1700s-Chicago climbed into the top tier in an astonishingly short time. The school had an uncompromising vision of advanced learning and, compared with its competitors, a disproportionately large graduate program. The college, the smallest in its circle, was heavily influenced by the university's strong research ideals and the idea of learning for its own sake. Often referred to as the "teacher of teachers," the U. of C. is said to have cranked out more scholars pursuing academic careers than any other school. And it was scholarship that counted, not connections. Chicago opened its doors to Jews, immigrants, and women when its Eastern counterparts would not. The school always had a reputation for innovation, and perhaps the most extreme period was in the 1940s, when Robert Maynard Hutchins, the university's most legendary president, undertook a radical approach to undergraduate education. While other schools focused on specialized study and elective choices, Hutchins embarked on an almost totally prescribed program devoted to general education. Classes were taught in small discussion groups by a separate faculty, and the curriculum stressed the reading of original texts and "great books." Fearing that the U. of C.'s Big 10 football team would detract from the school's intellectual life, Hutchins did away with the original "monsters of the Midway." Before long, the college had earned the reputation of being a demanding, intense place filled with geeks and nerds.

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Part 2

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By 1950, Hutchins's costly college experiment had fizzled. Enrollment was sinking and the university had accumulated a whopping $1.2-million budget deficit. A few years later, a new administration restructured the college, and the general education curriculum was cut in half. But Hutchins's spirit endured. "He had a real vision," says Amy Kass, a senior humanities lecturer in the college, "and we're still living on that kind of intellectual capital." Perhaps nowhere is this more visible than in the classroom, where Chicago remains distinct. Most undergraduates attend classes of fewer than 20. The student-to-faculty ratio is six to one, the lowest of the elite schools. Unlike at Harvard, where big-name professors lecture to hundreds and graduate students teach discussion groups, most of the U. of C.'s small classes are taught by a distinguished faculty, some of whom are Nobel laureates. But it's expensive, especially at a time when federal funding for research is declining. Budget problems are heightened by the fact that Chicago's ratio of undergraduates to graduate students-about one to one-is much lower than that of the other top schools. Princeton, for example, has more than three undergraduates for every graduate student. And since graduate students typically receive free tuition plus stipends, Chicago's tuition revenue is lagging, as Sonnenschein hammered home to the faculty in his letter. "We are the only university in our peer group in which the divisional and college faculty wage base . . . exceeds net undergraduate tuition," he wrote. What's more, in the long term, fewer undergraduates mean fewer alumni donors and fewer dollars for the endowment. Indeed, the U. of C.'s $2.2-billion endowment seems paltry compared with Harvard's ($11 billion), Yale's ($5.8 billion), and Princeton's ($4.8 billion). Yet it is the U. of C.'s dedication to teaching and learning that has attracted and retained its greatest resource, its brilliant academic stars. "I had offers throughout my time here," says Wayne Booth, a professor emeritus of English and a former dean of the college. "I just turned them all down flat." That academic rigor is also what has given Chicago its cachet. "If you have a choice between the University of Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, or Princeton and they're basically indistinguishable as intellectual experiences, why in the holy name of God are you going to go to Hyde Park?" asks Andrew Abbott, the sociology professor. "This is a niche institution and the only thing that keeps it going is the niche." In 1997, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton each received more than 13,000 undergraduate applications. Chicago got 5,468. Some attribute the trailing numbers to a lack of public awareness. "In Europe, wherever you go, people often say, 'Oh, I think the University of Chicago is the best university in America,''' says Booth. "In America, you don't hear that. Instead, they list all of these other places-Harvard, Yale, Stanford." The trouble, according to most, stems from poor marketing, an area in which Chicago has been notoriously weak. "We've always had this kind of aloofness which keeps us from promoting ourselves," says English professor James Chandler. "It's this very introspective character that we have." Sonnenschein is determined to entice more applicants. His strategy includes making the campus more attractive-renovating the student union, for example, and constructing a $30-million athletic facility. But when these social improvements are combined with his plans to reduce faculty and trim requirements, Chicago loyalists began to see their school turning into a pale duplicate of its rivals. "'Let's make ourselves more and more like the other places, and then we'll be able to compete better,'" says Booth. "I think we compete better by having a unique offering." Abbott agrees, arguing that there is no use pretending that the U. of C. is something that it isn't. "Harvard is an institution about power and connections," he says. "Chicago is about the life of the mind." Before he became the president of the University of Chicago in 1993, Hugo Sonnenschein was the provost of Princeton and a respected economist. He hadn't studied or taught at Chicago, and on his arrival he was pegged as an outsider. "One of the prevailing attitudes on campus was that he really wanted to be president of Princeton," says Jennifer Parry, who was a first-year student then and later became the editor in chief of theChicago Maroon, the school's oldest student newspaper. "He didn't get the job there, so now he was going to turn us into Princeton instead." The new president discovered that the university had a deficit of $22.7 million, with larger deficits on the horizon. Some belt tightening and revenue from enrollment increases rather remarkably resolved the problem, and by 1996 Chicago's operating budget had a $2.4-million surplus. The relief didn't last long, however. That same year, Sonnenschein sent his letter to the faculty, exposing the school's long-term financial crisis. His objectives, he wrote, were twofold: "improving the quality of education" and "making the College more frequently the school of choice for the most talented and committed students." But the faculty was wary about how this could be accomplished, especially when Sonnenschein noted in his letter that he was "concerned that the sum total of our academic requirements . . . , compounded by the pace of our academic calendar, is too often unmanageable, even for our best students." Sonnenschein proposed his plan without first getting the faculty's blessing-a strategic blunder, since the U. of C. prides itself on being faculty-run. His predecessor, Hanna Gray, had met with resistance when she increased the college's enrollment by 1,000 students ten years earlier, but she did so based on the recommendation of a faculty committee. "That's not what happened in this case," says James Chandler, who served on committees for both presidents. A task force established by Sonnenschein had failed to recommend expansion, but he proposed the change anyway. College Stats* * Stats for class of 2001; costs for class of 2002

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Part 3

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Sonnenschein lobbied hard for his plan. He hosted a series of faculty breakfasts at his home. He drew comparisons with Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, and Columbia to illustrate where the U. of C. was falling short. Indeed, the economic rhetoric disturbed some faculty members. "He gave us no intellectual plan for the university," says Marshall Sahlins, a distinguished professor emeritus of anthropology, who instigated a faculty protest. "He only spoke about making money." The school quietly assembled a faculty committee to reflect on the matter throughout the coming year. "We were getting a lot of trickle-down information, and we got the party line [from the administration]," says Jennifer Parry. "A lot of 'We can make it work,' but not really telling us how they planned to do it." Some alumni felt alienated, too. "I wouldn't say that Chicago has done a stellar job of keeping its alumni informed," says Irwin Schulman, a 1951 graduate and a retired dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Still, the administration deemed various alumni to be "opinion leaders" and invited them in for a special briefing. In at least one case, it had a disastrous effect. After spending the weekend hearing about the college's problems and the reforms the administration wanted to make, a recent graduate was turned off. "I'm not sure that Hugo Sonnenschein is the right person for the University of Chicago," says the alum, who requested anonymity. "Chicago is a unique institution in America in the sense that it takes undergraduate education very seriously and it devotes as much resource to it as other schools devote to their graduate students. He thinks that's a mistake, a bad thing. In that respect, he's philosophically different from everybody who has run the university in the past." Hugo Sonnenschein is a gentle, soft-spoken man and a consummate politician. Sitting in his modestly appointed office overlooking the gothic grandeur of the campus quadrangle, he tells me that, despite all I have heard and read, money isn't the motivating factor here. "This is not financially driven," he says. "It's not the first reason for concentrating our efforts in this direction." Rather, he explains, the U. of C. "is an extraordinary place, known for its commitment to core educational values. I believe that kind of mission should be shared with more of the outstanding college students in the country." No one else quite sees it that way. "The whole thing was a financial consideration," says Howard Krane, a partner in the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, who is chairman of the board of trustees of the school and a 1957 law school graduate. "If you want to continue to support the kind of university that really deals in academic and scholarly excellence, you've got to figure out a way to generate the capital." The faculty committee assigned to reflect on the matter also evaluated the students in terms of finances. Quoting the illustrious Hutchins, the committee pointed out in its January 1998 report: "It is sad but true that when an institution determines to do something in order to get money it must lose its soul, and frequently does not get the money." Still, after much deliberation, most of the committee members were convinced that the university could not survive without the additional income generated by the extra students. They agreed that in two years the school should begin to increase undergraduate enrollment, but only if certain conditions were met. A plan had to be developed to maintain the U. of C.'s traditional strengths and quality. More tenure-track faculty had to be hired and the new students had to measure up to the U. of C.'s strict standards. "It's going to be very tough to pull off, but I don't see a choice at the moment," says committee member James Chandler. Sahlins, one of the committee's co-chairs, refused to endorse the report and drafted his own, arguing that the administration's financial justifications "don't hold water." In his dissenting report, Sahlins argued that adding 1,000 undergraduates would bring in $14 million annually in tuition revenue-a drop in the bucket compared with the university's $750-million total operating revenues and the growth rate of the U. of C.'s assets, which increased by $370 million last year alone. What's more, Sahlins claims, the 1,000 students won't even begin to pay off for at least ten years. "We're talking piddly dink from 1,000 students," says Sahlins. "And for that the administration wants to alter the structure of the university in a way that gravely imperils its distinction and character." In backing the committee's report, Sonnenschein promised to follow its prescription, even adding more faculty. As for the new dorms and other physical improvements-Sonnenschein argues that the campus needs them anyway. "People who have a choice of going to the best universities in the country want a dorm life and a student activity life that's really outstanding," he says. "Students want to have time to go out and do things without feeling like they're going to fall off the edge in terms of their academic work. Those things are part of growing, too."

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Part 4

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Even some alumni recognize that the school has an image problem. "There's a nerdy feeling at U. of C. that's a matter of pride," says Michael Weinberg, Jr., a 1947 graduate. "I was not like that, and I would like Chicago to be known for more than being a grind." Students such as 1998 graduate Jessica Grannis agree. "This school could use a bit of a social aspect to it," she says. "I don't think complete academia is a good thing." Despite the heated dispute, the Council of the University Senate voted 32-1 last March to accept the recommendations of the faculty committee's report. In the next two years, the U. of C. will prepare to increase its undergraduate population by 20 percent within ten years. In a separate vote, the Core Curriculum was reduced from 21 required courses to 15. Chicago will still have more general-education requirements than its peer group, but now only a third of the curriculum will be devoted to the traditional Core. "People see it as the first nail in the coffin," says Renato Mariotti, editor in chief of the Chicago Maroon when the vote went down. Meanwhile, the undergraduate population has already risen to nearly 3,800 even without the faculty decisions in place. The president's plan is in motion, but the debate over the school's future continues. "For the rank and file faculty, we haven't been presented with a clear case as to what direction the university is moving," says Bill Novak, an associate professor of history. "So there are suspicions." A few alumni have already dropped their contributions. "I have not sent in a check this year," says 1970 graduate Susan Diamond. "That's the only way you get people's attention in a situation like this." And even those who support the change do so with guarded optimism. "We're going to try this, but we want to see how it goes," says Chandler. "If people don't like it, they'll vote with their feet and leave." Still, most people hope that the school's character won't change-and that there will continue to be a role for a university with Chicago's commitment to intellectualism. "We're at a period in history where there's a great deal of malaise, anxiety, worry," says Irwin Schulman. "What does it all mean? What's life about? A university like Chicago, dedicated to the thoughtful examination of these issues, I would think would have its appeal." Mariotti, the Maroon editor who is now off to Yale Law School, puts it this way: "I don't want my generation to be the last to have the experience that I had here."

NOTE by Kins Collins:This Chicago Magazine article was originally in four installments, which I have merely combined.

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