More than 100 academic faculty members have united in protest over the University’s soon-to-be established Milton Friedman Institute, sending a letter to President Robert Zimmer in which they take issue with the economics research institute’s name and its foundational precepts, and requesting a meeting of the complete faculty to discuss their concerns.

The Institute, which was announced in May, is slated to conduct economic and public-policy research across several disciplines. Set to open in time for the fall quarter, the Institute was created at the request of members of the economics department and the Graduate School of Business (GSB).

Its namesake, Milton Friedman, was a longtime member of the University community. Friedman, who died in 2006, was a professor for more than 30 years in the economics department and is credited for his role in creating the Chicago school of economics and his well known support of free markets.

But approximately eight percent of the University’s faculty members were concerned enough over what they believe to be the Institute’s potential biases that they formally expressed their concerns to Zimmer and Provost Thomas Rosenbaum.

“It was a heterogeneous group,” said Bruce Lincoln, a professor at the Divinity School. “But we all felt a reason to discuss this.”

Lincoln, who helped draft the letter, said that some of the issues raised by the faculty were a perceived ideological bias for the Institute toward a conservative agenda, disciplinary narrowness, and the amount of money being spent. The University plans to invest $200 million in the project.

“This endeavor could reinforce among the public a perception that the University’s faculty lacks intellectual and ideological diversity,” the faculty wrote.

The claims have taken some members of the economics department by surprise, including Lars Hansen, a distinguished service professor in the economics department and chair of the committee that recommended the Institute’s creation.

“Some of the [concern] is due to emotional responses to what Milton Friedman stands for,” Hansen said. “But we’re not about espousing political views. The Institute was designed to further economic analysis. We’re very happy to embrace him.”

Hansen took particular umbrage at the notion that the Milton Friedman Society, a membership of Institute donors who contribute $1 million or more, might exert an influence on the policies of the foundation.

“It would be a mistake to have no input from anyone outside the University, but there’s no notion that they’re buying research,” Hansen said. “That was made clear.”

Other members of the committee were more blunt in their criticism of the letter. GSB professor and committee member John Cochrane was quoted in a recent New York Times article about the dispute as calling the petition “drivel.”

Soon after Lincoln and 100 others submitted their letter, Zimmer and Rosenbaum agreed to meet with representatives of the group in late June. However, Lincoln said none of the faculty was satisfied with the meeting’s results, which were a reiteration of the University’s support for the Institute.

“[Zimmer] told us that it’s not the administration’s role to decide what kinds of projects and research may go on. It’s up to the department and that they had the administration’s support,” Lincoln said.

Neither Zimmer nor Rosenbaum could be reached for this article, but a spokesperson for the University maintained the administration’s support for the project and echoed Lincoln’s statements.

“The administration takes these proposals very seriously. If another group of faculty felt that they wanted to recommend another foundation, that would be taken just as seriously,” said Associate Vice President for Public Affairs Communication Robert Rosenberg.

Disappointed with the meeting, Lincoln and about 20 other professors who signed the letter decided to petition Zimmer to call a Faculty Senate meeting.

The entire University faculty comprises the Senate. The original proposal for the Institute was presented before the Council of the Faculty Senate, which is a representative body. According to Lincoln, the last time the entire Senate convened was in 1986 to discuss divestment from South Africa.

“We want a campus-wide discussion,” Lincoln said. “I hope it will be in the best spirit of the University: serious, principled, challenging, impassioned at moments,” Lincoln said.

Lincoln said he hopes that with more faculty awareness, more professors will support the effort to effect change in the Institute’s conception.

Hansen said he didn’t expect any delays in the opening of the Institute, including any stemming from a Senate meeting, if one occurs.

“The President, the Provost, the Board of Trustees and the [Council of the] Faculty Senate approved this,” he said. “I wouldn’t understand the reason for the Senate to delay this.”

Rising College third-year David Stein was found dead by apparent suicide in his Hyde Park studio apartment Friday, June 27. It was his 20th birthday.

Stein, a neurobiology concentrator from the northern Chicago suburb of Glencoe, was remembered Monday as a studious and inquiring lover of science whose quirky sense of humor found a perfect match when he matriculated at the University of Chicago in the autumn of 2006. He was subletting an apartment in Hyde Park this summer while he took a course in organic chemistry.

Family, friends, and acquaintances said they were shocked to learn of his death over the weekend. Although the official cause of death is yet to be determined, Dean of Students in the College Susan Art said that it appeared to be “self-inflicted.”

According to Seth Stein, David’s father, his son’s body was found in his apartment by officers Friday night after his family called the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) when he did not arrive home as scheduled that evening. He typically rode the train when making trips home, his father said.

“He was due home for dinner and birthday cake,” said Stein, a professor of geology at Northwestern University, from his Glencoe home. “We contacted the University police. They went to his apartment. They together with the Chicago Police told us that he was dead.”

UCPD officials offered no comment Monday.

Seth Stein said that he last saw David Sunday, June 22, and that he had spoken with him by telephone the following Wednesday. It is not yet clear how long he had been dead when his body was discovered.

Stein is the second University affiliate to die by suicide in recent months. In December, College graduate Alexander Bethurem (A.B. ’07), a fixture of the Regenstein Library’s Ex Libris coffee shop, was found dead in his Chicago home.

Statistics on the University of Chicago’s student suicide history were not immediately available. According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide is the third-leading cause of death among youth aged 20 to 24, behind accidents and homicides. But many suicide experts believe that among college students, suicide may be the second-leading cause because of the lesser prevalence of homicide among that group compared with the general population of the same age bracket.

A 2002 National Mental Health Association study estimated that more than 1,000 suicides occur on college campuses each year.

Seth Stein said that he was willing to talk about his son’s death because the rate of suicide on college campuses “is a huge, huge problem.”

“I’m shattered by the whole thing. It’s like someone ripped a part of your heart out,” he said.

“He was our ‘that kid’’’

Although Stein had suffered episodes of depression while a student at New Trier High School in Winnetka, after he arrived at the University and settled into his Snell-Hitchcock dorm his family believed that he had overcome most of his personal troubles, Seth Stein said.

“He was getting As in his classes, he was active in the house government, and a variety of things like that,” he said.

While living in Snell-Hitchcock last year, Stein, the nephew of Oriental Institute director Gil Stein, had served as house secretary of Hitchcock House.

“He wrote very funny minutes for our dorm that everyone really appreciated. He was one of the few secretaries who was regular about that,” said Jenny Sax, Stein’s resident head.

An e-mail sent out to members of the Snell-Hitchcock community by Resident Master Kit Chaskin Saturday informed students of Stein’s death and invited them to an informal remembrance gathering.

“By all accounts, David was a kind and thoughtful guy who made strong connections to this community during his two years here,” she wrote.

Seth Stein said that his son had relished his time at Snell-Hitchcock.

“Snell-Hitchcock is sort of a zany kind of place, and he liked that part about it. He said that so much about it was like [the Harry Potter book series’] Hogwarts,” Seth Stein said. “He loved it there, he loved it there. [The U of C] was his first choice and he planned on staying there…. He basically found a community of kids that he liked.”

He was an active participant in this year’s Scav Hunt, and had aided his house to victory for the second straight year.

Aside from that, as a budding scientist, “he liked the cachet of living in a building that Enrico Fermi lived in,” Stein said.

Reached by telephone Monday, some of Stein’s closest friends were not yet ready to speak about their friend's passing.

But Anna McGeachy, a friend and fellow Snell-Hitchcock resident who lived down the hall from Stein, said that Stein was “for the most part quiet and pretty studious…. We mostly talked about science together.”

Still, McGeachy recalled one instance when Stein had asked to borrow her cat-ears headband “and anything else that resulted in him looking like a mouse of some sort,” she said.

According to Seth Stein, as part of an assignment for his Hebrew class, David had decided to wax creative by using stuffed animals to demonstrate the array of creatures represented in a biblical passage.

His enthusiasm for his religion also manifested itself in his regular visits to the Newberger Hillel Center, where, according to center executive director Daniel Libenson, “he was somebody that was thinking a lot about his own Jewish identity and was always interested in what was going on at Hillel.”

“He was somebody who was always involved in various impromptu conversations. He also wasn’t tremendously outgoing…but I didn’t perceive him as a shy person,” Libenson said.

Stein spent last summer participating in a study abroad program in Israel, where he learned Hebrew and traveled extensively.

Even at Hillel, Stein found opportunities to express his quirky humor. While reading a passage from the Book of Esther during the festive Jewish holiday of Purim, Stein used comical voices to represent each of the characters in the story.

“Most of the time students are concerned that they aren’t going to read the Hebrew correctly,” Libenson said.

In a June 21 birthday greeting written to friend and fellow third-year Jory Harris and posted on Harris’s Facebook page, Stein wrote, "Sing and rejoice! For many aeons ago today, Jory Harris was born [tho' he is yet young]! I hope you're having an awesome birthday.”

“He was kind of an off-the-beaten path kind of person,” McGeachy said. “He was a ‘that kid,’ but he was our ‘that kid.’”

“He loved serious ideas”

A National Merit scholar and an avid cyclist, Stein also excelled on his high school’s debate team and was a voracious reader of science, science fiction, mysteries, as well as social science and humanities texts. He was named one of his high school’s best history students, and he found a way to join his passions by exploring the relationship between history and science.

When filling out the University’s UnCommon Application as a high school senior, he named Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species as his favorite book. “And he had actually read it,” Seth Stein said.

“He was a very bright, articulate, very verbal sort of kid,” he said. “When they assigned Thucydides in class, David was one of the ones who actually read it. He loved serious ideas, science fiction, Sherlock Holmes. He had a very broad range of interests.”

Once at the University of Chicago, Stein discovered his interest in neurobiology and decided to major in the subject. He adorned his bedroom with posters depicting the human brain, his father said.

Stein had worked in the laboratory of neurobiology professor Kamal Sharma, whose research emphasis is on the effect of neurodegenerative diseases on spinal motor circuits. “He was really excited about the opportunities in the field,” Seth Stein said.

Stein’s family has asked that contributions be made to the Friends of the Glencoe Public Library.

According to an e-mail sent to members of the College by Dean of Students Art on July 1, the University will organize a public memorial service for Stein in the fall.

In her e-mail to Snell-Hitchcock residents, Resident Master Chaskin reminded students that personal counseling services are available through the University’s Student Counseling and Resource Service at (773) 702-9800.

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The Chicago Maroon will be on summer hiatus until September 19, when our Orientation Issue comes out in print and online. Continuing coverage of U of C and Hyde Park news will be available on our blogs, which can be found on the right side of the website. Major breaking news will be posted on chicagomaroon.com.

This final installment of our series on transgender campus trends explores campus health care options for the transgender community.

For many transgender students, the quest for campus health care that fits their particular needs and concerns is a daunting one. In recent years, members of the LGBTQ community frequently cited health care reform at the Student Care Center (SCC) as one of the key campus issues for the University’s queer community.

In 2005, a group of students and staff representing the University’s LGBTQ community released a set of recommendations for the future of LGBTQ support at the University.

In particular, the recommendations stressed the need for better HIV/AIDS screening procedures at the SCC. At the time, the SCC offered confidential HIV screening, which limited access to testing results to the patient and the doctor. However, the SCC did not offer anonymous testing, which does not associate the patient’s name with the results.

“Our colleagues in the SCC worked very closely with various students and administrators to develop a mechanism to be able to do that,” said Bill Michel, assistant vice president for student life and associate dean of the College.

But some transgender students on campus believe that the SCC still struggles to cater to some transgender needs.

Luka Carfagna, a graduate student in a one-year master’s program, is a female-to-male transgender student who identifies as genderqueer. Carfagna said that the SCC has garnered an unwelcoming reputation among the University’s trans community, adding that the wording in the SCC’s Womancare service is alienating for many trans students who are transitioning from female to male.

A first-year trans student, who requested anonymity, echoed Carfagna’s concerns, and said that she was dissuaded from using the SCC services after hearing about the experiences of other trans students.

“Health care for trans people is practically atrocious,” she said, citing a lack of knowledge about and sensitivity to trans bodies and trans health needs.

Concerns voiced by the trans community about the state of health care available to trans students at the SCC prompted several students from the LGBTQ community to meet with SCC representatives last month to discuss ways to make SCC services more welcoming to trans students.

The discussions resulted in a set of initiatives tentatively slated for implementation early next year, said Cherie Dupuis, a family nurse practitioner who attended the discussions along with SCC director Kristine Bordenave.

Dupuis said that the SCC would like to designate a staff member as a point person familiar with trans health care who would be able to connect students with health care clinics and resources throughout Chicago.

“There are so many different areas in health care that we can’t know about all of them. We are hoping to get at least one person who would be knowledgeable about these issues,” Dupuis said.

In the past, trans students at the U of C have sought out health care options not offered through the SCC at Howard Brown, an independent health clinic north of Lincoln Park that serves the LGBTQ community in the Chicago metropolitan area. Howard Brown offers testing, vaccination, support groups, and primary medical services to members of the LGBTQ community for free or at a reduced rate.

“There are a number of [health care services] available in a city like Chicago, but you sort of have to dig around and search. Howard Brown is a tremendous resource for transgender students,” said John McPherrin, a psychologist at the University’s Student Counseling and Resource Service.

In addition to systematizing the Chicago area health care resources already available to trans students citywide, Dupuis also said that the SCC is planning on changing the name of its Womancare services both in clinic settings and on its website, since many trans students find the wording alienating.

“It’s supposed to be a time to talk. We’re trying to make it clear that it’s a service for everyone,” she said. “We’re hoping to make it more inclusive.”

Additionally, the SCC and members of the LGBTQ community have plans underway to add trans educational components to the SCC’s upcoming retreat in August.

Several trans students have also expressed frustration about their inability to get prescriptions for hormone therapy at the SCC. According to Dupuis, SCC personnel hesitate to write or fill the prescriptions because they don’t have expertise in the field of sex hormones.

“The truth is that we don’t know long- term consequences of [hormones], so we hesitate,” she said. “I don’t think anyone right now is comfortable with that. It should be done through an endocrinologist.”

Nevertheless, campus clinics nationwide prescribe and dispense hormones to trans students, and some insistent trans students at the U of C were eventually able to get hormone prescriptions from the SCC filled after several attempts.
Carfagna, who did his undergraduate work at the University of Vermont, said that the University’s trans health care lags behind that of his alma mater.

“At my past institution, they just got hormone therapy covered under student health care. And they are, as are other schools, working on covering gender reassignment surgeries. And the only complications they are running into are with the health insurance companies. It’s not with the administration on campus,” he said.

Nevertheless, while many trans students find fault with the current state of trans health care at the SCC, they attribute these oversights to lack of education and not to unwillingness to work with trans students.

“There’s a really self-conscious lack of information at the Student Care Center about trans people. They’ve very up-front about their lack of knowledge,” said Red Tremmel, a graduate student in the history department.

“We’re going to stay in contact. We thought we were doing a lot of good things, so we were surprised to hear that some students felt uncomfortable [with SCC health care],” Dupuis said.

Robert, a 5 foot 8–ish man who wears a black quilted jacket, stands in front of the Med. It’s hard to discern his age, as his features are soft and youthful but weathered, framed beneath a hood which almost overshadows his warm, patient half-smile. The StreetWise newspapers held at chest level are the only indication that he wants to sell you something. A man walks by with his daughter. “Hey Robert, how’re you doing?”

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” Robert said. The man took a five dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to Robert in exchange for a newspaper. Robert reached into his pocket for change, but the man interjected.

“That’s for you, man,” he said. Robert shook his hand, and the man and his daughter continued to walk down the street.

A student soon walked by as well. “StreetWise newspaper today?” Robert asked. But the boy walked by, looking intently at his shoes.

Ten years ago, Robert was in a homeless shelter in Evanston where he heard about StreetWise, a program that publishes a weekly newspaper to be sold by homeless or unemployed vendors. According to the organization’s website, StreetWise is “the only place where you can become employed immediately with nothing more than a desire to work, regardless of your background or situation.”

So Robert attended a mandatory two-hour orientation to learn the dos and don’ts of working as a vendor, a program which stresses that StreetWise employees must be courteous and presentable at all times.

But Robert is beyond courteous—he barely even advertises his presence as people walk by.

“Most people don’t understand what StreetWise is. I don’t want to bother anybody. I’d rather lose a dollar than get their attitude,” he said.

Robert used to read the paper each morning on the way to work and share the news with passersby. But Robert said this method was often met with responses like, “Man, get a job, leave me alone.” To Robert, that’s one of the most insulting comments someone could make. “This is a job,” he said.

One of the goals of the StreetWise program is to help vendors become self-sufficient. However, both Robert and Kenny Turner, a 10-year StreetWise veteran, acknowledge that one of the drawbacks of StreetWise employment is the lack of a reliable paycheck.

The vendors buy each paper from StreetWise for 30 cents and sell them for a dollar, accepting tips if they’re offered. Robert said that in past years, he made as much as $50 to $60 per day selling papers in front of the Medici. But these days, he considers himself lucky if he makes $30. He attributes this drop to the downturn in the economy.

Although Robert used to like his job, his enthusiasm has waned as selling papers has became less lucrative and more frustrating. Both vendors noted that the job is not for those with a short temper or deficiency of will.

“You’ve got to take in everybody’s attitude and keep a smile on your face all the time,” Turner said.

Robert recalled one incident when a man looked him in the eye, took out a dollar, walked by with it in his hand, and looked back mockingly as he put it back in his pocket.

“If that makes his day, then fine, that kind of stuff doesn’t bother me,” he said.

Some Hyde Park employers have recognized that the persistence and amicability necessary to working for StreetWise make for good employees. Turner now bags groceries at Hyde Park Produce. Pizza Capri hired Robert as a deliveryman, but since his car broke down last week, he has returned to selling StreetWise until he has enough money to get his car repaired.

“When Hyde Park Produce was making deliveries to the Medici, they’d see me out there every day, in every kind of weather—winter, summer, fall. They saw that I’m cool with everybody, that I know how to treat people,” Turner said.

When the grocer began remodeling this past winter, Turner filled out an application and eventually received a job offer.
Robert now lives on the South Side. He now takes classes at iO Chicago Theater, an improv comedy studio in Belmont, and hopes to soon be employed in his dream job as a comedian.

“StreetWise helps a whole lot of people,” Turner.

The University’s holdings in Darfur during last year’s investment controversy were minimal and may no longer exist, according to University President Robert Zimmer.

Last year, the University chapter of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND), a nationwide student group advocating divestment in companies that support or deal with the Sudan, pushed the administration to discontinue investments in the country. After several months of deliberation, the Board of Trustees ultimately decided against divestment, citing the Kalven Report, drafted in 1967 in response to student protests over the Vietnam War. The report restricts the University from taking political positions that could endanger its culture of academic freedom.

Zimmer told the Maroon last month that in response to STAND’s advocacy the Board of Trustees asked him about the state of the University’s investments. According to the president, he then asked Chief Investment Officer Peter Stein to determine whether there was any money invested in Darfur.

“At that time, at the best we could tell, we had a very diminuous holding in one relevant company, which I reported to the Board,” Zimmer said.

Zimmer stressed that such definitive statements about the nature of the University’s investments are difficult to make, as well as to keep continuous track of. Because the University invests in funds, as opposed to direct ownership in a company, it is not always readily apparent what companies the University has an interest in, Zimmer said.

“Sometimes we don’t just invest in funds, but funds of funds. So, in many cases you’re three orders of magnitude away from knowing what the answer is,” Zimmer said.

According to Zimmer, due to such indirect advisement of the Investment Office and the dynamic changes in the market, it is only possible to take a snapshot of investments.

A source knowledgeable about the operations of the Investment Office and only willing to speak on the condition of anonymity corroborated Zimmer’s statements and said further that it was highly likely that at any given time the University’s investments in Darfur are minimal, if existent at all.

The source said that Peter Stein had mentioned in August that the University had no money invested in Darfur and that generally the Office wouldn’t invest there, regardless of the campus politics surrounding the country.

“It’s not stable enough to go into Africa,” the source said. “The economies there are too risky and unstable. And while University investments are fairly aggressive, they aren’t particularly aggressive in taking risks in different geographic regions that aren’t established yet.”

The source added that while the University is often many steps removed from the companies it gives money to, it is still unlikely that the University had significant ties to funds that do business in Darfur. The Investment Office, he said, likes to hire fund managers who invest very specifically—industrial manufacturers in the Midwest, for example—so it would be difficult to have substantial money in Darfur, given that fund managers specializing in that region aren’t seriously considered by the University.
“It’s unlikely that the University would even take a meeting with a person who wants to raise a fund to invest in Sub-Saharan Africa,” the source said.

Vice President for Strategic Initiatives David Greene said that even if the University hadn’t held any interest in companies involved with Darfur last year, the administration still would have taken a stance on the question of divestment.
“These are still relevant issues whether or not there are actual funds involved,” Greene said. “We have to take these questions with all the seriousness they imply. There were fundamental questions that deserved serious consideration and shouldn’t be tossed aside.”

According to Zimmer, he would have been ducking the issue if he hadn’t taken a substantive position.

“I didn’t think it was the right stance to try to avoid the question,” Zimmer s