10.02-01 .On the web since.1997. CRES .sidebar. Vern Barneern Barnett Vernon BarnettTFNBIOSPIRITWESTPORT39NOTES
   
Crescat scientia, vita excolatur. 


Click here to enter CRES.ORG
or read statements about the University of Chicago below
C r e s c a t   s c i e n t i a ,  v i t a  e x c o l a t u r .
Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched.
Vern is a grateful alumnus of the University of Chicago and its Divinity School
and credits it for supporting interdisciplinary approaches to learning
and the unfettered and respectful exchange of ideas.

When he was President of the University of Chicago, Edward Levi was repeatedly congratulated on the University’s sponsorship of the nuclear testing initiative that supported the Manhattan Project.  Levi’s response: “Thank you, but any University presented the opportunity would have done that.  I’m proud of the fact that our Press has committed to the Hittite dictionary.”
--RICHARD A. ROSENGARTEN Jan. 27, 2022

CHICAGO PRINCIPLES

“There is not an institution of learning in the country in which freedom of teaching is more absolutely untrammeled than in the University of Chicago.”
 --William Rainey Harper,
First President of the University of Chicago


“We do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.” 
--Robert J. Zimmer,
13th president of the University of Chicago


“Concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community."  


Main page and video:

1967 Kalven Report

the '69 protest

40 years later


"To listen and understand; to question and disagree; to treat no proposition as sacred and no objection as impious; to be willing to entertain unpopular ideas and cultivate the habits of an open mind — this is what I was encouraged to do by my teachers at the University of Chicago.

"It’s what used to be called a liberal education.

"The University of Chicago showed us something else: that every great idea is really just a spectacular disagreement with some other great idea.

"Socrates quarrels with Homer. Aristotle quarrels with Plato. Locke quarrels with Hobbes and Rousseau quarrels with them both. Nietzsche quarrels with everyone. Wittgenstein quarrels with himself.

"These quarrels are never personal. Nor are they particularly political, at least in the ordinary sense of politics. Sometimes they take place over the distance of decades, even centuries.

"Most importantly, they are never based on a misunderstanding. On the contrary, the disagreements arise from perfect comprehension; from having chewed over the ideas of your intellectual opponent so thoroughly that you can properly spit them out.

"In other words, to disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen carefully, watch closely. You need to grant your adversary moral respect; give him the intellectual benefit of doubt; have sympathy for his motives and participate empathically with his line of reasoning. And you need to allow for the possibility that you might yet be persuaded of what he has to say."


‘If you’ve never met a student from the University of Chicago, I’ll describe him to you. 
     If you give him a glass of water, he says: ‘This is a glass of water. But is it a glass of water? And if it is a glass of water, why is it a glass of water?’ . . . 
     And eventually he dies of thirst.” 

--Shelley Berman
.

" . . . about my college, the University of Chicago.  They say that Chicago is a Baptist school where atheist professors teach Jewish students St. Thomas Aquinas. That’s your Interfaith America right there."
-- David Brooks
  .
.
UChicago is widely regarded as the most diffcult 
and demanding of American private universities.
 

The University of Chicago's unofficial motto is "the place where fun comes to die."

Or to put it more simply: "That's all well and good in practice . . . but how does it work in theory?"

The ["Reg" Library] holds ~4.5 million volumes, including everything from 5th Century manuscripts to that obscure academic book that was cited in a paper that was cited in a book that was cited in a paper that was cited in a book that your thesis advisor suggested you read this one chapter from. 

What is graffiti at a UChicago restroom stall like? Here's a sample: "The statement on the other side of this stall is false." To which another scribe added: "The statement on the other side of this stall is 'The statement on the other side of this stall is false' is actually true."

Q. How common is sex among UChicago students?
A. If you stroke us, do we not roll our eyes back in pleasure?

Q. Where in the library is the safest place to have sex, least likely to be discovered?
A. In the Sports Illustrated section.

Statistics and Economics buttons include "Standard deviant," "Enjoys random walks," "What's your production function?" and "I have rational expectations."

U of C humor

37 Things Only UChicago Students Understand