Quote of the quarter

“I was accepted at other [business] schools, but April 1960 came along and I didn’t hear from Chicago. I called and the dean of students, Jeff Metcalf, answered. They had no record of my application. But Jeff and I hit it off, and he asked about my grades. He said Chicago had a scholarship reserved for a qualified Tufts graduate. He asked if I wanted it. I accepted and, except for two great years teaching in Belgium, I have been at the University of Chicago since 1960.”—Economics professor Eugene Fama, MBA’63, PhD’64, in a 2010 blog post. This year Fama was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, along with UChicago professor Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller of Yale. More than 1,500 College students have won Metcalf Internships, named in honor of the late Harold R. “Jeff” Metcalf, AM’53.

Caption: Fama (foreground) as a grad student in 1961, along with wife Sallyann, daughter Mary (U-High’77, AB’83) and baby Gene Jr. (U-High’79, AB’84).

Ibidem: Burton-Judson Dining Commons, 1944

“The amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture. The paradox is my whole point. Hunters and gatherers have by force of circumstances an objectively low standard of living. But ... all the people’s material wants usually can be easily satisfied. ... The world’s most primitive people have few possessions, but they are not poor.”—UChicago anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, “The Original Affluent Society”
 

• Medium

  • Art and design:
    An evening at the cabaret
    No wine but lots of women and song.

    Books:
    The other Bevington
    Helen Smith Bevington, PhB’26, wrote light verse and heavy memoirs.

    Club news:
    Student aid
    Whether you’re playing sports, listening to blues while eating ribs, or graduating, UChicago Emergency Medical Services is there to keep you safe.

    Office hours:
    Ahmed El Shamsy
    An Islamic studies professor takes his students on a wild ride—sometimes via donkey.

    Science and technology:
    Scav Hunt, penis research, a parasite game
    What do they have in common? Diane Kelly, AB’90.

    That’s nice:
    Safety network
    With Purple Binder, social workers have one less reason to feel harried.

• Short
  • From the editor
    

    The food of the enemy.

    Short answer:
    A little bite of the fame machine
    This issue’s alumni question: What famous person did you meet while you were in the College?

    Top nine
    Food truck items.

    Administrivia
    If the United States looked like the Class of 2017.

    UChicago creatures
    Green flight.

• Et cetera

  • Seen and heard
    Non-crazy cat lady.

    Recipe
    Latkes v. hamantashen.

    Poem and Q&A:
    Campbell McGrath, AB’84
    Eliot v. Whitman: Who’s to blame?