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THE UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO RECORD

THE UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO RECORD5710 South Woodlawn AvenueChicago, Illinois 60637

NonprofitOrganizationU.S. Postage

PAIDChicago, IllinoisPermit No. 8070

Volume 39, Number 1 February 3, 2005

C O N T E N T S

2 Annual Report to the Faculty of the College—John W. Boyer

24 The Aims of Education Address—Don Michael Randel

2 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

Awarm welcome to the new aca-demic year. The Class of 2008,whose members are now in the

middle of their first quarter at the College,number 1,218 new first-year students.This represents the largest entering class inthe history of the College. The total popu-lation of the College is now almost exactly4,500 students, also an historical record.The challenges that we have successfullyaddressed this academic year in teachingour first-year students are a reasonablemeasure of the challenges that our general-education programs will continue to face inyears to come, as we seek to sustain aCollege of 4,500 students.

The 1,218 members of the Class of2008 were chosen from 8,752 applicants,of whom 40 percent were admitted. Bycomparison, the Class of 2004, whichgraduated a few months ago, was admittedfrom a pool of applicants 1,356 studentssmaller and had an admit rate of 44 per-cent. We had 1,046 first-years in the Classof 2004, 173 fewer than this year. Alongwith their numbers and their competitive-ness, the academic preparedness of ourstudents has also increased. In the fall of2000, when the Class of 2004 entered theCollege, the middle 50 percent of our ad-mitted students had SAT scores in the rangefrom 1310 to 1470. For this year’s admit-ted students, the middle 50 percent of SATscores ranges from 1360 to 1490; the aver-age SAT score for admitted students hasrisen from 1381 to 1415 over the sameperiod. We should take pride in the qualityof the students who have chosen to join ourcommunity, and equally we can take pridein the quality of education that we provideto them. Our simultaneous growth in sizeand quality is a tribute not only to theefforts of the Admissions Office, but also tothe College faculty and staff, who continueto deliver on our promise of a rigorouseducation and a stimulating, engaging aca-demic and cultural community.

Turning from new students to returningand recently graduated students, I am de-lighted to report that our students onceagain won their share of national awards inthe past year. Among these awards areeight Medical Science Training ProgramFellowships, six Fulbright Fellowships (forgraduate study and research abroad), fourBarry Goldwater Scholarships (for studyin mathematics or science), two NationalSecurity Education Scholarships (also forstudy abroad), one Harry S. Truman Schol-arship (for post-graduate study leading to acareer in public service), one RockefellerBrothers Fund Fellowship (for students ofcolor planning careers in public educa-tion), one George C. Marshall Scholarship,twenty-two Howard Hughes Undergradu-ate Research Fellowships in the BiologicalSciences, six Howard Hughes Undergradu-ate Research Fellowships in Neural Com-putation and Engineering, and two GermanAcademic Exchange Service Scholarships. Iam grateful to you, the members of theCollege faculty—as I know these studentsand their families are—for the role thatyou played as teachers, as mentors, and ascollaborators in their achievements.

I am pleased to report that from 2001–02 to 2003–04 enrollments in languagecourses have increased overall by 12 per-cent, from 4,122 to 4,630 enrolled students

(the percentage increase in Arabic is the mostdramatic: 54 percent over this period). Thatis an increase of 508 additional students inlanguage classrooms. Over the same periodCollege enrollment overall was up about 7percent, so enrollment in foreign-languagecourses is clearly running ahead of thegrowth curve.

The increase in foreign-language enroll-ments reflects in part a national trend inhigher education, but it is also attributableto our own efforts to encourage languagelearning at a higher level. We have aggres-sively promoted foreign-language coursesto our first-year students with summermailings; we have offered Foreign Lan-guage Acquisition Grants (nearly ninety inthe summer of 2004) and research grantsfor advanced language students; we estab-lished the Advanced Foreign LanguageProficiency Certificate Program; and wehave greatly expanded the range of aca-demically sound foreign-study opportuni-ties available to our students. The results ofall these efforts have been dramatic notonly in terms of simple course enrollmentsbut also in reshaping on-campus attitudesabout international education. Interna-tional study, including the study of lan-guages abroad, is now recognized as anessential part of our curriculum, and it is amuch sought after opportunity among ourstudents. Our civilization-abroad coursesare an innovative way to provide cross-cultural learning experiences and to moti-vate serious advanced language study. Asgeneral-education courses, the civilization-abroad courses are an integral part of thecurriculum, not a mere add-on, and be-cause they are taught intensively in a singlequarter, they are accessible to students inall fields. Because the courses take place insitu, they also serve as powerful motivatorsto students to continue on with their lan-guage learning.

Our new Center in Paris will be a crucialpart of our endeavors in international edu-cation, and I am pleased to report that thecenter enjoyed a successful opening year.Courses offered last year (and to be offeredagain this year) included European civiliza-tion courses in French and in English, a setof courses in economics and public policy,intensive beginning language instruction,and both intermediate and advanced lan-guage courses. The center offered coursesto ninety College students in 2003–04. Forthe coming year we project even higherenrollments, close to two hundred students,and new course clusters in geophysical sci-ences, and in philosophy and art history.

The Paris Center was officially openedwith a gala event on May 14 and 15, 2004.President Don Randel, Dean Janel Mueller,and many University faculty members,alumni, and students were joined by MayorRichard M. Daley and his wife and numer-ous officials and dignitaries from the Cityof Paris and the French government. Thepride of the Trustees and the alumni whoattended this celebration was visible andinspiring. The University has created aunique institutional and scholarly presencein Paris, one that is the envy of our peerinstitutions. I urge the members of thefaculty to consider participating in one ofour instructional programs at the centerand to stop by the center for a free cup ofcoffee the next time you are in Paris.

I am also pleased to note that, based onrising demands for the use of our class-rooms in Paris, we have developed a plan toadd additional space in an adjoiningbuilding that shares a common garden withthe present facility. This new space willallow us to provide for two more class-rooms and additional faculty offices. TheCollege and the Division of the Humanitiesare very grateful for the support offered tothis project by the Board of Trustees, thePresident, and the Provost of the Universityin the successful completion of the ParisCenter.

In 2003–04, the College council enteredits second year of ongoing reviews of theCollege majors. The council discussedreports prepared by the Departments ofAnthropology and English Language &Literature. Russell Tuttle in anthropologyand Janice Knight in English led thereviews undertaken by each department. Iam grateful to each of them and to all oftheir colleagues for the thoughtfulness andthoroughness of their reviews.

Each department reported that the op-portunity afforded by the review to bringcolleagues together to discuss both the in-tellectual rationale and the administrativedetails of the undergraduate program wasvery valuable. This is exactly what thecouncil and the College Curriculum Com-mittee hoped for when they instituted thereview process two years ago. Our goal is toprovide each department and program witha formal opportunity for reflection and forcollegial discussion about the current sta-tus of its degree programs. The discussionslast year in the College council were valu-able, particularly as a way to introducecolleagues to scholarly and teaching areaswith which they are not familiar.

My charge to the departments underreview is to provide the College councilwith an account of what makes their fieldcompelling to the scholars and teacherswho work in it and to explain how theircollegiate program expresses and conveystheir field’s rigor and creativity to our stu-dents. I am pleased with the results so far.In the coming year we will have reportsfrom the Departments of Mathematics,Geophysical Sciences, and History.

I am grateful to Susan Art for her contin-ued strong leadership as Dean of Studentsin the College. In addition to their contin-ued excellence as academic advisers, Susanand her staff have been instrumental inhelping to implement the new registrationsystems for our College students. I wantparticularly to note this year the excellentwork done by our colleagues in the Dean ofStudents Office in managing the Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer(LGBTQ) Mentoring Program, the AsianMentoring Program, and the CollegiateMentoring Program (CMP). Linda Choi,Kathy Forde, Colbey Harris, and EliseLaRose deserve great credit for makingthese programs successful. In addition, theMellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowshipcontinues to thrive under the leadership ofElise LaRose and Ken Warren.

The office of Career Advising and Plan-ning Services (still CAPS, formerly Careerand Placement Services) continues to flour-ish under the leadership of Liz Michaels.In the Spring of 2004, CAPS undertookits second annual survey of graduating

seniors. As of May 2004, 21 percent of ourgraduating seniors were headed to gradu-ate or professional school this fall, 38 per-cent had full-time jobs in hand, and 41percent did not yet have firm post-gradua-tion plans. This is a slight improvementover 2003, when 44 percent did not yethave plans. Of course, we will need a longerrun of data before real trends can be confi-dently identified.

Some of the data on the Class of 2004were presented to new fourth-year students(the Class of 2005) at the beginning ofAutumn Quarter in a large meeting inMandel Hall as part of a presentation de-signed to encourage them to start makingpost-graduation plans early. In both yearsof the senior survey thus far it has beenclear that students who work on their plansfor several months before graduation meetwith more success than those who waituntil Spring Quarter. This is not a surpris-ing result, but having the data to present tostudents is quite persuasive. Additional datafrom the spring 2004 survey will be pre-sented to students and faculty over thecourse of this academic year.

The results of the 2003 survey indicatedthat students in particular majors are morelikely to leave the College without definiteemployment or graduate school plans.This was particularly true for English andhistory majors in 2004. In response, theCollege has embarked on a pilot effort tohelp English and history majors better pre-pare for life after the College. The project,led by Liz Michaels and Meredith Daw ofCareer Advising and Planning Services incollaboration with faculty colleagues inboth departments, kicked off over thesummer with several efforts directed atidentifying the root causes of insufficientpost-graduate planning.

English and history were chosen as thepilot majors for these programs because oftheir size and prominence and the apparentneed as revealed by the 2003 survey, butour hope is that successful elements fromthe pilot will be applied to other Collegemajors. An alumni donor is generouslyfunding all of the English and HistoryCareer Pilot Programs.

The range of activities mentioned here,and many more that I have not mentioned,are evidence that our College is flourishingas an academic institution and a social andcultural community. We remain commit-ted to our primary academic mission as aliberal arts college within the research Uni-versity, but we are also mindful of the waysin which the social and cultural lives of ourstudents are implicated in the education weprovide. We should take pride not only inthe academic ambition and creativity ofour students but also in their cultural andsocial engagement with the many commu-nities in the College and in the wider city towhich they belong. I am particularly grate-ful to the Collegiate Masters for their strongleadership in organizing the academic pro-grams of their curricular areas. All of usowe a debt of gratitude to Michael Foote,Dennis Hutchinson, John Kelly, LarryNorman, and José Quintans for their dis-tinguished service to the College’s studentsand faculty.

It is worth remembering that sevenyears ago the College agreed to expandsubstantially the number of undergraduate

Annual Report to the Faculty of the College“The ‘Persistence to Keep Everlastingly At It’: Fund Raising and Philanthropyat Chicago in the Twentieth Century”By John W. Boyer October 26, 2004

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 3

students matriculating at Chicago. We didso in the expectation that we would receivesufficient support to protect the basic fea-tures of our curriculum, and if possible toenhance that curriculum. It is also worthremembering that we did not add an addi-tional thousand students to the Collegesimply for the sake of doing so. Rather, wedid this to a very large extent because wefelt that this increase was necessary toprotect the financial integrity of the artsand sciences at the University of Chicagoand to ensure that all of those who partici-pate in the arts and sciences—our faculty,our graduate students, and our Collegestudents—would continue to flourish inthe new century.

As we adjust to teaching a College of4,500 students, I hope that we will remem-ber that the intellectual heart and themost distinctive feature of our College, thatwhich most distinguishes Chicago fromour private university peers, is our general-education curriculum. The general-educa-tion curriculum must remain strong andvibrant, not only for the sake of the Collegeand its students but also for the long-termacademic integrity of the University as awhole. Faculty teaching and faculty leader-ship in general education is essential to oureducational enterprise, whether of a Col-lege of 3,400 or 4,500 students. Just thispast Saturday and Sunday, during FamilyWeekend, I spoke with dozens and dozensof parents of current students about theCollege. Among the many facets of ouracademic community that the parents mostadmire is Chicago’s long-standing convic-tion that the faculty should organize andtake responsibility for our Core courses.Many parents commented on how uniquesuch a practice is in the world of Americanhigher education, and how grateful theywere that Chicago has tried to hold the lineagainst converting our Core courses intoinstructional projects largely taught bygraduate students. The pressures exertedby our simultaneous obligations as researchscholars, as mentors of graduate students,and as teachers of College students areoften relentless, but we must sustain thefaculty-led and faculty-taught character ofour general-education programs. If we losethe faculty-taught character of that part ofour curriculum, we will lose a fundamentalprinciple of the College’s historic identity,and we will live to regret it.

As of last month, the College has raised$115 million toward its current goal of$250 million as part of the $2-billion Chi-cago Initiative campaign. Those funds havebeen hard won, but they will help bothfaculty and students alike in the years tocome. We have three years to complete ourpart of the campaign. We face a hugeamount of work in the months ahead, but Iam pleased with the energy with which weare proceeding.

The current campaign will have a sig-nificant impact on the future financial well-being of the College and the University.How are campaigns organized? Why arethey so important? How difficult is it toraise funds for the University? These aretimely and legitimate questions, and theytake us back into our history and revealsome fascinating aspects of our past.

Fund-raising campaigns require that uni-versities encounter and engage wide sectors

of American society. Universities and espe-cially this particular university usually thinkof themselves as institutions of permanencethat operate apart from the bustle of theworld, changing slowly and only accordingto their own desires and wishes. Yet fundraising brings them in touch with contem-porary American life and forces them tostep out of their isolation to appeal forsupport from an array of human and cor-porate actors—some of whom are alumni,while others are essentially strangers. Howare universities affected by this intermin-gling? How do they explain what they areand why they deserve support? Who sup-ports them? Are they tempted to changewhat they are in the constant search forfunds?

Financing and organizing a university in2004 is a different enterprise from organiz-ing and financing one in 1904. For ex-ample, like many of our sister institutions,the University of Chicago today is muchmore dependent on tuition revenue and onfund raising than it was in 1900 or 1925.Today, universities must raise funds con-stantly and with considerable urgency, justas all other successful not-for-profit insti-tutions do in the United States.

The national context in which such fundraising takes place has also changed. Foun-dation giving has become far more targetedand less inclined to assist universities insupporting ongoing activities that consti-tute the core work of the institution. Be-tween 1949 and 1965 the Ford Foundationprovided the University of Chicago withwell over $50 million ($250 million in2004 dollars), much of it as gifts that couldbe used for general faculty salary supportand other key institutional priorities. Incontrast, between 1989 and 2003 the FordFoundation gave total gifts to the Univer-sity of less than $10 million, most of whichwere focused on specific research projects.

Second, corporate giving has becomemore focused toward the benefit of specificinstitutional sectors within the universities.Nowadays, corporations are less inclinedto provide general support for the coreactivities of the university, and more likelyto insist on designating their gifts to busi-ness schools or other instructional pro-grams that have an instrumental value tothe corporations themselves.

Third, universities have become pro-gressively more tuition dependent. Todaytuition and fees make up 63 percent of theunrestricted revenue for the University ofChicago’s budget (not including the Divi-sion of the Biological Sciences and thePritzker School of Medicine), whereas en-dowment income provides only 23 percent.In 1925 tuition constituted less than 33percent of the University’s budget, whereasendowment revenue provided 43 percent.

Most universities look to their alumninot only as a source of annual giving butalso a primary source of major gifts. It is ageneral rule among professional higher-education fund-raisers that the undergradu-ate alumni of a university are likely to beamong the most enthusiastic, dedicated,and generous of an institution’s donors.Chicago faces some interesting challengeson this score. Our fund-raising opportuni-ties today are shaped by the fact that wehave several decades of “missing” under-graduate alumni, i.e., those students who

did not enroll and who thus did not fill theUni-versity’s own, publicly stated enroll-ment targets in the 1950s through 1970s.Our current undergraduate alumni bodytotals about 33,000. If we had enteringfirst-year classes appropriate for a Collegeof 5,000 students between 1965 and 1995,which is the enrollment level that Chancel-lor Lawrence Kimpton recommended andthat was accepted by the Board of Trusteesin 1954, we would now have many thou-sands of additional alumni with whom wecould work, and many of those alums wouldbe in the crucial giving years of fifty toseventy years of age. Moreover, the tuitionincome and subsequent gifts lost by thesethousands of “missing” students com-pounded other budget problems facing theUniversity and adversely affected thegrowth of our endowment, compared tothe endowments of our peers.

The rest of this report seeks to providean historical overview of the practices andtraditions of fund raising at the University,from its beginnings to the 1960s. I seek totell not one, but multiple stories, since fundraising inevitably touches upon a host ofdifferent institutional areas and problemsin our common history. Let me be clear atthe outset. The fundamental purpose of ouruniversity is and always has been scientificdiscovery and teaching, and our recordin both domains over the last century isnothing less than astonishing. We are aremarkable university, one of few trulydistinguished universities in the world. Butexcellence in both domains requires steadyaccess to significant financial resources.Fund raising was and is one obvious way toattain those resources. Hence, I will con-clude my report with some reflections onour current situation, as we seek to raise $2billion for the current capital campaign.

Early Fund Raising at the UniversityThe earliest period of the University’s his-tory is unique in its profound dependenceon civic generosity by individual donors,many of whom had no specific prior con-nection to the cause of higher educationin Chicago. Civic pride, personal contacts,the urgency of William Rainey Harper’spleadings, inter-elite sociability, and thedesire to honor deceased spouses—all hada powerful effect in helping to establish theUniversity. Alumni played no significantrole, nor did foundations or corporations.

The reborn University was based on twofund-raising strategies: an appeal to JohnD. Rockefeller and a parallel campaignfor local Chicago support. The first fundraising done on behalf of the University ofChicago was Thomas Goodspeed’s urgentpersonal lobbying of John D. Rockefellerto support the cause of a reborn universityin Chicago. Beginning in April 1886Goodspeed became a one-man lobbyingfirm on behalf of a cause that, so he insistedto Rockefeller, was “of incalculable impor-tance to the denomination and the causeof Christ.”1 With the able assistance ofFrederick T. Gates, the corresponding sec-retary of the American Baptist EducationSociety who eventually became a trustedadviser to Rockefeller, Goodspeed’s invo-cations of man and God were successful inpersuading Rockefeller to pledge a match-ing grant of $600,000 in May 1889 to startthe process of establishing a new college on

the South Side of Chicago.2

Rockefeller’s pledge was contingent onthe Chicago Baptists raising an additional$400,000 within one year. The first fund-raising campaign on the University’s behalfthus became a door-to-door subscriptiondrive undertaken by Thomas Goodspeedand Frederick Gates. The University ar-chives still own the original subscriptionbooks and forms used by Goodspeed andGates as they urgently sought support inthe Baptist community to meet Rockefeller’spledge with an additional $400,000. Theeager advocates contacted over one thou-sand people, gaining 1,081 contributionsas small as $1 and as large as $50,000. Onehundred and one subscriptions were for$1,000 or more, most of the rest werebelow $500, and a large number was in the$1 to $25 range.3 Gates later rememberedthis year as “the most disagreeable, de-pressing, anxious work of my life.” But soeffective was Gates as a fund-raiser that hewas asked by others for advice on fundraising, which he put in a modest “how-tomanual,” which was subsequently redis-covered during the Hutchins administra-tion and reprinted in 1937 and again in1966 and 1991, the latter under the title ofKeep Absolutely and Serenely Good Hu-mored. A Memorandum on Fund Raising.4

After months of urgent solicitations amongthe Baptists in Chicago and across thenation, Goodspeed and Gates widened thecircle of potential donors to include moreestablished members of Chicago’s businessand civic elite. Charles L. Hutchinson andMartin A. Ryerson played crucial mediat-ing roles in enlarging the focus of fundraising, and by late May 1890 Goodspeedand Gates had the money needed to matchRockefeller’s original pledge.

Up to the First World War, John D.Rockefeller was the principal—if often am-bivalent—donor to the University, contrib-uting a total of $35 million by 1910.Rockefeller’s largesse came in stages, withHarper chronically unable to live withinthe University’s income and constantly hav-ing to prevail upon Rockefeller to cover hisdeficits with additional gifts. In addition toRockefeller, however, the University mer-ited considerable support from prominentChicago business families. Silas Cobb gave$150,000 for the first building on campus,a lecture hall. Martin A. Ryerson, the long-serving Chairman of the Board of Trusteeswho played a crucial political role in legiti-mizing Harper’s work among his fellowChicago civic leaders, contributed $225,000toward a physics building, named in honorof his father; while Sidney Kent gave$235,000 for a chemistry building; andMary Beecher, Elizabeth Kelly, Nancy Fos-ter, and Henrietta Snell each gave $50,000for residence halls. Annie Hitchcock pro-vided $200,000 for a residence hall, LeonMandel $85,000 for an assembly hall,Caroline Haskell $100,000 for an OrientalMuseum, George Walker $120,000 for amuseum of natural history, Mrs. JosephReynolds $100,000 for a student club-house, and A. C. Bartlett $150,000 for amen’s gymnasium, and so on.5 SinceRockefeller insisted that most of his gifts beused for endowment or operations, it wasthe Chicago contingent, led by individualslike Kent and Ryerson, who gave most ofthe first buildings on the Quadrangles.

4 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

What passed for fund raising in theseyears, beyond Harper’s continual entreat-ies to Rockefeller, assumed two forms. Onthe one hand Harper and Goodspeedcontinued to solicit members of Chicago’scivic and social elite, urging the cause of thenew university. When Harper called onMrs. Henrietta Snell, seeking additionalsupport beyond the men’s residence hallshe had already agreed to, she told herhousekeeper, “That is Dr. Harper. Don’tlet me see him. He’ll make me give himsome money for the University.”6 On theother hand, the young institution profitedfrom extraordinary donations that cameout of the blue and that were not the resultof prior solicitations. Helen Culver’s gift of$820,000 in December 1895 to supportthe construction of buildings, and researchand teaching in the biological sciences wasan example of such fortuitous largesse,generated by the self-sustaining enthusi-asm that the early University encouragedin many local citizens.

Gradually the initial momentum associ-ated with the founding of the Universitysubsided, and Harper’s last years weremarked by frustration on Rockefeller’spart over Harper’s spendthrift ways andseeming inability to raise additional fundslocally to meet his ever-rising ambitions.In his unpublished memoirs, Goodspeedreflected that Harper had misjudgedRockefeller and might have gained evenmore support had he been willing to movemore cautiously:

It sometimes seemed as though Dr.Harper was deliberately forcing theFounder’s hand and had adaptedthis as a thoroughly considered andpermanent policy. It led to very un-happy consequences for Dr. Harper,as will appear later in this narrative,but I do not think the question canever be decided. The matter madesomething of a breach between Dr.Harper and me. But I would not liketo say that he consciously adoptedthe policy of rapid expansion withthe deliberate purpose of forcing theFounder’s hand and extorting fromhim ever increasing millions, al-though this was in fact the result ofthe policy pursued. . . . Did Dr.Harper pursue the really wisecourse? Was the method of extort-ing gifts from the Founder by whatseemed like compulsion the bestmethod? Was this the only way inwhich the great immediate successand growth of the University couldhave been attained?7

When Harper died in early 1906, theboard chose as his successor Harry PrattJudson. Judson’s great accomplishmentwas to balance the budget, and for this theTrustees and Rockefeller were extremelygrateful. Responding to Judson’s fiscalprobity, Rockefeller solved the deficitproblem (at least temporarily) with severalmassive additional gifts to the endowmentbetween 1906 and 1910, concluding withRockefeller’s final gift of $10 million inDecember 1910. These gifts essentially capi-talized the structural deficit and allowedthe University to bring order to its financialaffairs.8 Judson also was fortunate in the

decisions of Julius Rosenwald, HobartWilliams, and La Verne Noyes to givemajor gifts to the University between 1912and 1918.9 But Judson himself did littleactive fund raising, preferring to advocatethe University’s cause in a style of a “digni-fied silent appeal,” which unfortunatelymeant that the pace of gifts to the Univer-sity from prominent Chicagoans slowedconsiderably from that of the early Harperera.10 The early public enthusiasm sur-rounding the new and young Universitygradually dissipated, and by 1924 theJohn Price Jones Corporation, a profes-sional fund-raising firm hired by the Uni-versity, reported of Judson’s presidency,“[t]he reason the University has not beenreceiving the support of Chicago people isnot because people have lost interest, butbecause the University has failed to main-tain contact” and that “[t]he University hasvirtually neglected its Chicago contacts formany years, which will necessitate carefuland intensive cultivation.”11

Nor did the University do much to culti-vate its alumni. Before the 1920s the Uni-versity did not rely on alumni contributionsfor current expenses, nor did it activelysolicit them for such purposes. What alumnigifts did come in were processed throughJudson’s assistant, the Secretary to the Presi-dent David Robertson, since there was noprofessional development staff. An AlumniFund was only created in 1919, as the resultof pressures from a key group of youngeralumni leaders and some sympathetic fac-ulty members, including Ernest Burton andShailer Mathews, who felt that the alumnishould be solicited regularly for a fund tosupport the University. In an attempt tochange this situation, a young alumnus ofthe College and newly appointed memberof the Board of Trustees Harold H. Swifturged President Judson in 1919 to arrangefor the publication of a small bookletthat would describe the current state of theUniversity and its material needs. Swiftreported, “I am amazed to find how littleour alumni know about what is going onat the University—what we have accom-plished and what we hope to accomplish.. . . I think our alumni ought to know inconsiderable detail the progress of the Uni-versity and the University’s ambitions alongdifferent lines. I believe that such informa-tion will develop in alumni good will andenthusiasm, the strongest asset the Univer-sity can hope to secure.”12 In a subsequentletter pushing the project, Swift insisted, “Iearnestly believe that many of our alumniare thirsting for material from the Univer-sity. . . . I think if the University will makethe effort and show her real interest in herformer students, the reward, both tangibleand sentimental, will be very great.”13 Swiftwas convinced that it was important toshow to the alumni that Rockefeller’s giftswere neither sufficient nor overwhelmingand that “[a]ctually we have departmentsthat are almost suffering for the want of$50, which we can’t fit into these great bigschemes. I wish we could emphasize thepoint that there is a field [of support] forevery man and woman with their contribu-tions until they get into the bigger and moreaffluent class when we want large ones.”Swift also insisted, “[l]et’s stress the fact tothe alumni that we need the alumni. In myopinion, our failure to express this is one of

our fundamental weaknesses at present.Let’s cultivate them. Let’s indicate that wewant the real family feeling.”14

Judson dithered about proceeding withSwift’s proposal, but Swift’s nudging fi-nally led to the administration commis-sioning Thomas Goodspeed’s son, EdgarGoodspeed, to draft such a pamphlet, TheUniversity of Chicago in 1921, in late 1920.Even then, Goodspeed could not resistproudly restating the status quo, namely,that “[I]t is not the policy of the Universityto call upon its alumni to meet deficits or tohelp in carrying current expenses.”15 Whatis fascinating about this document is thatthe younger Goodspeed assumed that sim-ply by identifying the University’s needs,alumni donors would voluntarily respond.

Swift hoped to “stimulate Club work”on the part of the alumni via the pam-phlet.16 Whereas Judson’s staff decided thatthe whole alumni body should receive aletter informing them of the pamphlet, of-fering to send it free of charge, Swift and theother alumni leaders wanted a more ag-gressive strategy. In the end the Universitysent the pamphlet to all subscribers of theUniversity magazine and all subscribers tothe Alumni Fund, as well as to other alumnifor whom good addresses were available.

Burton’s Vision: The Campaign of1923–25When Ernest D. Burton became Presidentin early 1923, he faced a disgruntled seniorfaculty, many of whom felt a loss of direc-tion on the part of the University’s leader-ship and an unsteady financial situation,in which the University was only able tosustain Judson’s budgetary austerities bybelt-tightening in the faculty salary budget,which seriously impeded the capacity of theUniversity to attract and retain the bestfaculty. As the Jones Corporation reportedin 1924, “Failure to raise faculty salaries,to meet increased living costs and competi-tion with other universities, together withthe failure to fill vacancies with new men ofcomparable attainments, has naturally hada detrimental effect on the morale andprestige of the teaching staff.”17 Burtonsaw his mandate to strengthen and eventransform the University by appealing toan expanded donor base beyond theRockefeller charities, and to use this appealto reenergize the faculty to think ambi-tiously about improving the University.Burton thus created large expectations,which matched the heated economy of the1920s.

Burton’s appointment as President cameless than nine months after another crucialtransition of power, for Harold H. Swiftsucceeded Martin A. Ryerson as Chairmanof the Board of Trustees in June 1922. Analumnus of the College (Class of 1907),Swift was young, ambitious, well connectedsocially, and of a solidly pragmatic temper.His admiration for and preoccupation withthe University dominated his professionaland personal life. Swift had earlier workedwith Burton on the pamphlet project, andhe knew Burton and respected him. In viewof Swift’s scarcely concealed doubts aboutJudson’s capacity to lead, Burton was acomplete change.

The economic situation of the Univer-sity was solid in the sense that the budgetwas balanced, but it was also increasingly

uncompetitive and thus fragile. In 1923 theendowment was able to cover almost 45percent of the total operating expenses ofthe University, a figure that nowadayswould be impossible. Yet the impact of thewar had led to many more students andrising costs, as well as a national environ-ment in which top Eastern universities wereoutspending Chicago for senior facultysalaries. Not only had Judson’s austerityregime led to key faculty departures, butmany of the remaining senior faculty expe-rienced the final years of the Judson presi-dency as a period of dangerous stagnation.Burton’s job was to get things movingagain, and the only way to do this was toraise substantial sums of new money, bothfor faculty appointments and salaries aswell as for new research and teachingbuildings.18

Burton’s energy was contagious, andothers soon realized the need to raise newmoney. Albert Sherer, a recently appointedTrustee, an alumnus of the College (Classof 1905), and a close friend of HaroldSwift, generated a memo in May 1923urging that the University needed to in-crease the number of donors and thus toincrease the size of the endowment. Shererwas especially interested in enhancing theUniversity’s supporters among the citizensof Chicago and the Middle West. He urgedSwift to appoint a committee of the Boardto be known as Committee on Public Rela-tions to study the problem of how to raisemoney. Sherer also felt that the Boardneeded to appoint an “experienced man todevote his entire time to the work of inter-preting the University to possible donors.Such a man working with the Committeeon Public Relations could be of great ser-vice in formulating a practical programand his experience should be of value inco-operating with the alumni in organizingwhatever fund raising activities they planto undertake.”

Swift agreed to Sherer’s scheme, andappointed Sherer, Rosenwald, Burton andhimself to be an ad hoc Committee of Four,which would have the authority to hiresuch a person.19 But before hiring a fund-raising czar, Swift insisted that the Univer-sity also come up with a systematic plan ofwhat a fund-raising campaign might looklike and how it might be executed. Afterconsulting with Sherer and Rosenwald,Swift and Burton therefore asked the Boardof Trustees to approve a campaign plan-ning study in January 1924. Swift wasconvinced that the amateurish, in-housemethods of the past would not suffice.Hence, when Edgar Goodspeed arguedagainst hiring external consultants to planthe campaign, insisting that he and like-minded local faculty could very well de-velop the campaign structure and message(just as his father had done in the 1890s),Swift rejected such advice. Rather, hewanted a “comprehensive plan before go-ing ahead to secure funds,” and to start theplanning process off, he hired the JohnPrice Jones Corporation of New York Cityto undertake a preliminary report on thefeasibility of raising funds.20 While Swifttook it upon himself to coordinate thestructure of the campaign, he also tried tobolster Burton’s resolve in the face of animpatient and ambitious senior faculty.21

The report of the John Price Jones

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 5

Corporation was ready by March 1924.22 Itsuggested that the University might suc-cessfully run a campaign that would invokeits past achievements and future promise,that would resonate with civic elites ofChicago by stressing the University asChicago’s university, that would highlightthe tremendous prestige brought to the cityby the University, and that would also relyon alumni and trustee support: “The Uni-versity has a strong appeal and a genuineneed; it requires only the loyal effort of itsTrustees, faculty, and alumni to bring thedesired response.”

To coordinate and assist with the actualcampaign the University hired the JonesCorporation, which had already staffed anumber of other post-war college cam-paigns, beginning with the 1919–20 cam-paign at Harvard that had generated $14.2million.23 Jones assigned a younger col-league, Robert Duncan, to work on theChicago campaign. A graduate of Harvard(Class of 1912), Duncan was already anexperienced veteran of college fund raisingwho had played an important role in theHarvard campaign. John A. Cousens, thepresident of Tufts College, assured Univer-sity authorities, “[W]e employed . . . Mr.Robert Duncan to do some special public-ity work for us. Mr. Duncan is a young manof unusual ability and energy. The Univer-sity of Chicago would, I think, be fortunateif he entered its service.” 24 Mark Cresap ofNorthwestern reported that Duncan was“highly satisfactory . . . a thorough, effi-cient executive.”25 Duncan would stay withthe University as an episodic adviser overthe next three decades, and by the 1950s hehad a unique historical perspective on theinternal problems and potential of the insti-tution. After leaving Chicago in 1956, hereturned to his alma mater and helpedlaunch the spectacularly successful Harvardcampaign from 1956 to 1960, which nettednearly $83 million.26 Inevitably, the advice(and, subsequently, the criticisms) thatDuncan provided to Chicago reflected thefund-raising experiences (and the successes)that he had at Harvard.

Over the winter and spring of 1924,Duncan helped to engineer a highly sophis-ticated organization, staffed with clericaland professional staff who developed sys-tems to research the giving capabilities ofpotential major gift donors, who organizeddonor assignment lists (who was to makethe initial contact with the prospective do-nor, who was assigned to make the actualsolicitation, etc.), donor tracking andacknowledgement, a faculty speakers’ bu-reau, and many other features that are stillthe core activities of a major fund-raisingcampaign. Duncan had a flair for advertis-ing, and in addition to dozens of differentcampaign publications, he also had largebillboards created at several points in thecity, with the slogan “The University ofChicago, It’s Yours.” Trevor Arnett pre-pared a lucid explanation of the finances ofthe University, which demonstrated theneed for new support.”27 The campaignwas also noteworthy for giving birth tothe word “development” as a key rhetori-cal symbol of the University’s self-advance-ment. Duncan later recalled, “At one ofthe first luncheons the question of a namefor the committee and for the campaignwas raised. After some discussion and at

President Burton’s suggestion, it was de-cided to call the committee the Committeeon Development and the campaign theDevelopment Campaign. So far as I canremember now, that was the first time Iever heard that term used.”28

Swift was insistent on getting the cam-paign started in the fall of 1924.29 To an-chor and help launch the campaign, theUniversity was able to parlay its contactswith the New York-based charities estab-lished by the Rockefeller family into a $2-million matching gift from the GeneralEducation Board (GEB) at 61 Broadway (at2 to 1, with the University having to raise$4 million).30 Happily for the University,the officers and trustees of the Rockefellercharities included several men with strongChicago connections (George Vincent,Trevor Arnett, James Angell, and laterDavid Stevens and Max Mason). AlthoughJohn D. Rockefeller, Sr.’s final gift came in1910, bringing his total gifts to $34.7 mil-lion, the University maintained close con-tacts with Rockefeller’s boards which, overthe next twenty years, gave an even greateramount of money to Chicago than hadRockefeller himself (between 1911 and1932 alone the Rockefeller charities gavethe University $35.8 million, a sum slightlylarger than the total personal benefactionsof John D. Rockefeller). The extent of ourcontinued dependence on Rockefeller gen-erosity was demonstrated by the fact that ofthe $137 million that the University re-ceived in gifts between 1890 and 1939,Rockefeller contributions (personal orboard-driven) amounted to over $80 mil-lion, or almost 60 percent.31

The heart and soul of the campaign wasErnest D. Burton, a distinguished NewTestament scholar and director of the Uni-versity Library who was one of Harper’sfirst appointees in 1892. Long a forgottenfigure in the history of the University be-cause his term as President only lastedtwo-and-a-half years, Burton was a charis-matic leader who had a lasting impact onChicago’s welfare. The campaign gaveBurton a chance to reinvigorate the Uni-versity by creating new momentum amongthe faculty and setting new goals for theTrustees, as well as rekindling enthusiasmwithin a wider civic public. Burton wasshrewd enough to understand that a suc-cessful fund-raising campaign required thathe articulate his personal vision for theUniversity and not simply ask donors formoney. In a number of key speeches deliv-ered in Chicago and in other cities aroundthe country, Burton sketched his plans forthe future of the University. The basic themeof the speeches was the need to build onHarper’s heritage by making the Universitynot bigger but better. Burton stressed thefundamental mission of research (“thismighty and fruitful thing, the quest for newtruth”), but he was also able to translate“research” into a set of practices that in-volved undergraduate and professionaleducation, as well as doctoral training inthe arts and sciences. He insisted that a newideal of college life was evolving in theUnited States, stressing the development ofintellectual habits more than the “imparta-tion of known facts,” and the University ofChicago would help to shape it: “The domi-nant element of that life will be the recogni-tion of the fact that life is more than lore,

that character is more than facts; that col-lege life is the period of the formation ofhabits, even more than of the acquisition ofknowledge, and that the making of menand women with habits and character thatwill insure their being in after life men andwomen of power, achievement, and helpfulinfluence in the world, is the great task ofthe college.” What better place to trainyoung minds in the “capacity to think forthemselves” than to place them under theinfluence of scholars “who are striking outnew paths, fearlessly attacking the myster-ies of truth. . . . it seems logical and rightthat the work of the colleges should beconducted in an atmosphere imparted byor akin to that of the great graduate schools,in places where freedom of the mind isencouraged.”

Burton’s approach was thus consistentwith Harper’s values, but with a morecapacious and articulate sense of the valueof undergraduate work in a research uni-versity than Harper had ever articulated.32

Tellingly, one of Burton’s key ideas was tocreate a set of new buildings for the Collegeon the south side of the Midway, whichwould allow it to flourish adjacent to thegraduate programs but not be overwhelmedby (or overwhelm) those programs.33 Bur-ton was also emphatically pro-alumni, in-sisting that the alumni were critical to thefuture development of the University.Burton’s The University of Chicago in 1940,the idea of which was suggested by Duncan,was a splendid and incurably optimisticstatement of the future of the University.34

Burton conducted a detailed survey ofthe University’s future needs in Februaryand March 1924, and by the summer hecame up with the figure of $50–60 millionfor current and long-range needs, $21 mil-lion of which should be raised in the nexttwo years.35 Burton essentially wanted todouble the University’s current endowmentwithin the coming fifteen years by addingan additional $33.5 million by 1940. Notall of this could be raised immediately,however, and the final goal for the cam-paign was reduced to $17.5 million ($7.5million for endowment, $10 million fornew buildings) in September 1924 aftermuch negotiation among Burton, Duncan,Swift, and others.36 The campaign centeredprimarily on endowment support for thefaculty and on the construction of newbuildings. Among the latter, Burton in-cluded plans for a set of buildings on thesouth side of the Midway for the under-graduates, including new residence halls.On the faculty front, Burton initiated aneffort to create the first endowed professor-ships in the University’s history, persuad-ing Martin A. Ryerson to endow the firstDistinguished Service Professorship in 1925for $200,000.37 Within five years the Uni-versity had eight such chairs, most of whichwere contributed by local Chicago donors.

The campaign consisted of appeals tothe Trustees, to the alumni, to foundations,and to the general public in Chicago. TheTrustee side of the campaign was moder-ately successful. Harold Swift contacted allof the other Trustees via personal visit,phone, or letter, urging that they set agenerous standard of participation in thecampaign.38 In the end, the Trustees com-mitted themselves to $1.68 million, or about20 percent of the total that was finally

raised. But Swift had a hard time generat-ing active participation and real enthusi-asm from many of the Trustees. Moreover,their gift patterns were uneven, with someTrustees giving paltry amounts. ThreeTrustees—Julius Rosenwald, MartinRyerson, and Harold Swift himself—ac-counted for $1.5 million, with the remain-ing $168,000 in smaller gifts, some as smallas $1,000.39

The campaign of 1924–25 was also thefirst time that the University systematicallytried to mobilize its alumni. A GeneralAlumni Committee was organized in thefall of 1924. By October, it had 175 mem-bers and an executive committee of eigh-teen and developed an “Alumni CampaignHandbook” to guide volunteers in theirsolicitations. They in turn coordinated thework of a host of district and local alumnileaders around the country, who werepoised to begin solicitations in March 1925and whose task it was to obtain a pledge“from every Chicago man and woman inthe locality over which he has jurisdiction,and as much more as is necessary to makeup his quota.”40 The organization also in-cluded a detailed procedure for local lead-ers to rate the gift capacities of individualalumni in their area as to what they mightbe expected to give over a five-year period.Each district was also assigned a quota, andit was expected to fulfill that quota, comewhat may. The results were encouraging inChicago and in other localities as well—bylate 1925 out of approximately 27,000alums, over 11,000 gave contributions, anda majority of these were College alums.Total alumni giving was slightly over $2million. Alumni leaders would recall in1926 that the “[s]udden and startling at-tention bestowed upon Alumni was un-precedented, and in marked contrast to anyevident interest theretofore displayed bythe University in its Alumni.”41 Even moreimpressive was the fact that this was arelatively young or at least younger groupof people—in 1923 about 89 percent of ouralumni were under forty-three years of age.Although men outnumbered women in thetotal alumni population, women graduatesoutnumbered men among the undergradu-ate alumni. Over 43 percent of the alumniin 1923 were employed in education—onthe primary, secondary, and university lev-els—a characteristic that was crucial to theshape of the early alumni culture at theUniversity.42

One of the more charming features ofthe alumni campaign involved the work ofa paid alumni volunteer, who was sent totry to encourage alumni outside of Chicagowho were out of touch with the University.Some fascinating correspondence survivesrelating to the activities of Evon Z. Vogt,whom his friends called Skeeter.43 Born inDayton, Ohio, Vogt had entered the Uni-versity of Chicago in 1902 but was forcedto drop out of the College during his senioryear in November 1905 because he hadcontracted tuberculosis. He moved to NewMexico for health reasons, where he even-tually became a sheep rancher, gold miner,and small-town newspaper editor (between1938 and 1942 he edited the Gallup, NewMexico, Gazette). A friendly and sociableperson, Skeeter Vogt proved to be a superbfund-raiser. In fact, during his years at theUniversity, Vogt showed an aptitude for

6 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

such work when, upon joining the DeltaUpsilon fraternity, he raised money for thatgroup by performing magic tricks. Paid$74 a week plus expenses, Vogt had amandate from campaign headquarters inChicago to travel to various towns in theMidwest and West during the winter andspring of 1925. Vogt was empowered tocreate new alumni clubs where none ex-isted, to energize existing clubs, to appointnew chairmen on the spot, and to help localvolunteers raise their quotas. A latter-dayversion of a French Revolutionary Repre-sentative on Mission, Skeeter Vogt arrivedin the towns that he visited representing thesovereign powers of the University. Liter-ally living out of a suitcase, Vogt met withcountless individual alums and smallgroups, and thereby gained an immediatesense of the temper of the alumni and whatthey thought of the University—of its pastand its future.

Vogt operated with limited resources.While in Houston, Texas, he was told inone cryptic instruction from the campaign’sdirector, George Fuller, that “the next jobis to work back into Iowa, or if your ticketdoes not make that possible, work backalong the route covered by your ticket.”44

And he occasionally arrived in towns tofind local fissures among our alums thatthreatened to disrupt the campaign. Hereported, for example, from Wichita,Kansas, that he had convened a group ofloyal alums, only to find that several werenot speaking to each other because of fall-out over a local municipal election: “I findthe thing which has held up the Wichitawork has been a municipal election whichdivided the town and tore it wide openalmost as bad as a KKK election.” Still,Vogt was a man of considerable persua-siveness, and he eventually persuaded theWichita alumni to come together andmake a decent contribution.

Not shy about proffering his own opin-ions, Vogt liked to send back reports toChicago on his encounters. In his first mes-sage in early 1925, entitled “Bulletin #1,”Vogt announced that he and his fellowalums had conceived of a surefire methodto ensure the University’s future fame andglory—the radio: “As the University is des-tined to be the greatest in the world, it issuggested by many [alumni] that this en-larging field of influence be studied andsurveyed with the greatest care, so thatChicago may take advantage of it. . . . Themessages of Chicago, all inspirational andof the finest, could reach the entire countryand perhaps the world.” Hence, Vogt urgedhis superiors that the University shouldbuild a “broad casting station of the besttype.”

Vogt also lobbied for merit scholar-ships, suggesting that “in all parts of thecountry it is considered a good thing to givescholarships every year to at least one out-standing student in each city. . . . The awardof such scholarships should be made amatter of some ceremony if possible andaccompanied with proper publicity pre-pared at the University and sent out to themost interested local alumnus who will seethat the material gets into the papers . . .”Vogt further urged that the Universitystrategically and systematically deploy itsfaculty to meet regularly with alumni groupsall over the American West: “All alumni are

proud of their degrees and study at Chi-cago. They are anxious to see the influenceand fair name of the University grow eachyear. They feel in the central West that theinfluence of schools further east is gradu-ally taking the place formerly held byChicago. . . . It is hoped that it will bepossible after the endowment drive is putover successfully to establish a speakersbureau which shall be ready and willing tosend out the representatives of the facultyas well as the Board of Trustees to addressmeetings of all sorts in the West.” Nor wasVogt lacking in shrewd assessments aboutour alumni’s choice of careers: “It seemsthat in the south west a large percent . . . ofthe practical oil geologists are Universityof Chicago men . . . The oil men are a verylively enthusiastic bunch and are makinggood salaries. They will be able to help theUniversity of Chicago increasingly withendowments in the future, if the Universityturns out the most successful men in thisline.”

But Vogt did not always report backhappy news, for he also encountered dis-gruntled alumni, and these notations arenoteworthy because they inaugurate rhe-torical themes that run through much of theUniversity’s history in the twentieth cen-tury. In his “Bulletin #10” he noted, “Morethan once I have heard that the attitude ofthe University was non-progressive andarrogant toward its students and gradu-ates. No pains have been taken to befriendthe students there, to cultivate a friendlyfeeling between the students themselvesand between faculty and students. . . . Oneman mentioned to me that the professorsand deans were very inaccessible, hidden attimes behind painted doors swung onsprings intentionally stiff so they could notbe opened.” But Vogt insisted, “[T]his[kind of criticism] has not been mentionedto me very often, for I get it for the mostpart the other way around—the kindliestfeeling, though in many cases it is more ofan intellectual admiration and not a collegespirit that will readily express itself inchecks to the endowment fund.” Vogt’slast point was sobering—many alumniwho did admire the University often feltlittle personal commitment to support itfinancially. This would not be the last timesuch views were heard.

Robert Duncan also had personal sto-ries to tell about alumni living in distantareas, for he visited eastern South Dakotaand northwestern Iowa for one week inMay 1925 and contacted one hundredalums who had not given a contribution.Seeking to explain such apathy, he laterreasoned that it was caused by “a neglecton the part of the University to keep intouch with its alumni after graduation. Wewere informed many times by alumni thatthey had never received any communica-tion whatever from the University” as wellas by the “‘cold-blooded and machine-like’way in which the University was conductedwhen they were in college, resulting in thecreation in the minds of many alumni of thefeeling that their attendance at the Univer-sity was purely a business transaction andthat the services rendered by the Universitywere paid for by the alumnus in full.”45

In the middle of the spring 1925 cam-paign activities, Ernest Burton died sud-denly on May 26 of a recently diagnosed

colon cancer. His death was a terrible shockto the leaders of the campaign and to thefaculty, and it created an immense leader-ship vacuum. Trustee Robert Lamont noted:

Nothing is gained by attempting tominimize the seriousness of the di-saster that has come to the commit-tee. I am more impressed with itafter listening to the tributes to thecharacter, personality, and abilityof Dr. Burton. One of the things thatgreatly impressed me . . . was thecourage and fighting quality of theman. At 67 he undertook a workthat would have daunted most men,and his last thought was that itshould go forward. We must not failhim now.46

Yet, in retrospect, that is exactly whathappened, since Burton’s successor, a dis-tinguished mathematical physicist from theUniversity of Wisconsin, Max Mason, hadlittle stomach for the kind of public cam-paigning necessary to complete the finalpart of the drive, which was to be a majorpublic campaign in the City of Chicago.The campaign for public civic support urgedby Duncan and Jones and planned for1925–26 was potentially the most impor-tant, but least successful, component of theBurton Campaign.

Outsiders looking at Chicago’s predica-ment thought it natural that the Universityshould seek and receive downtown support.President R. D. Hughes of Miami Univer-sity, who published one of the first rankingsof U.S. universities in 1924, wrote to aChicago friend in October 1923 urging:

Chicago businessmen should take adefinite step to aid Chicago Univer-sity in maintaining her prestige inthe United States. It would seem tome that if a group of Chicago busi-nessmen took the matter up ear-nestly and raised some money, theymight prevail upon the General Edu-cation Board of the RockefellerFoundation to aid in making theendowment of Chicago Universitymore adequate. Roughly, it wouldseem to me that they should have atleast twenty million more dollars inendowment. I am enough of a middlewesterner to feel that the heart ofAmerica is here in the center ofAmerica, and that our civilization inthe United States will depend a greatdeal on what development in thecentral part of the country comesabout. Chicago University in its typeand in its ideals is an institution byitself. It can do things which thestate university cannot do, and willnot do, and it is a proper crown tothe higher education of the west. Itshould be maintained at any ex-pense in a preeminent position.47

John Price Jones had urged HaroldSwift in January 1925 to undertake a majorinitiative to recruit support from leadingbusinessmen in Chicago who were notpresently connected to the University. Jonesthought it essential to have a $1-milliongift to announce publicly, and he wantedthe University to avoid the temptation of

approaching wealthy donors on a one-by-one basis. Rather, Jones wanted the Boardto assemble a group of outside Chicagodonors who could represent the Universityto the outside world:

If you do not establish this groupleadership by getting gifts outsideearly in your work and if you arerefused by leading citizens, you mustremember that the man who hasbeen asked for a gift and who hasrefused does in most instances tellsome intimate friend that he wasasked for money and then seeks tojustify himself for not having given.Thus you have an anti-propaganda.Reversely, when a man has given, heis proud of having supported aninstitution; and he talks and influ-ences others by his conversation. Iwrite thus, not because I am alarmedlest Chicago will not get sizable gifts,for I believe it will, but because Ideem it important that you, who arenew to the psychology of this work,should have an ideal situation andstate of public mind toward whichto strive. The greater the momen-tum of this kind is established, themore money the University will getthis year and in the following years.48

Jones urged Swift to seek at least onemajor $1-million gift by a “prominentman,” which would “give the committee abig lift toward developing the momentumof which I write.49

Jones then followed up in mid-April1925 urging again that special gifts receivemajor attention—“[t]oo much emphasiscannot be placed on the necessity for hard,driving work here.”50 Robert Duncan alsoinsisted on the importance of a city cam-paign, imagining a huge city-wide effortthat would capture the imagination of thecitizens of the city, driving home the ideathat the University belonged to the city, andmaking sure that in the future the Univer-sity became the alma mater of the childrenof leading Chicago citizens and those of theMidwestern and Western states: “[I]nsteadof many of the youth of the West going eastfor a college education, they would come toChicago because there would be foundbetter facilities than anywhere else.” For aHarvard alumnus, Duncan’s ideas wereboth shrewd and generous, for what he wasin fact imagining was a strategy wherebychildren of Midwestern and Chicago eliteswould stay in Chicago, rather than ventur-ing to the East Coast, for their undergradu-ate education.51

Key leaders on the Board of Trusteesseemed to agree with Jones and Duncan,and began to make plans for the fall civiccampaign that included a request to JohnPrice Jones that Robert Duncan stay withthe campaign.52 For a time, John G. Sheddseemed a possible candidate to give a block-buster gift and to lead the city campaign(Duncan prepared a detailed memo on whyShedd should be asked to a give a massivegift).53 After Shedd declined, the campaignorganizers eventually persuaded BernardSunny of the Chicago Telephone Companyto take the chairmanship of a Committee ofCitizens in November 1925. But withoutstrong leadership from the new President,

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 7

Max Mason, the committee met only infre-quently and without substantial results.54

The campaign of 1924–25 was long re-membered as a model effort and a successfulone to boot. The final results of the cam-paign were optimistic. The University spentabout $300,000 on the campaign and raisedas of June 1, 1926, $7,785,300, $2 millionof which was generated by the alumni.55 In1954, Harold Swift looked back on theBurton years as the “two most thrilling yearsin the University’s history.”56 Yet the cam-paign had mixed results. Almost one-thirdof the total came from the matching grantfrom the GEB and a single gift from JuliusRosenwald. Aggregate alumni contributionswere impressive, but the campaign also en-countered a lack of interest on the part ofmany alumni, some of whom complainedabout the faculty’s indifference to the lives ofthe undergraduates.

The most troubling part of the cam-paign, however, was the dearth of thespecial gifts solicited from members ofChicago’s civic elite. The special gifts initia-tive in the city was in fact a failure, and alack of focused leadership after Burton’sdeath was the real cause. In his final reporton the campaign, submitted in February1926, Robert Duncan did not mince wordsas to whom he thought was to blame:

Several members of the [SpecialGifts] Committee were ‘bearish’ intheir attitude on obtaining largegifts, with the result that the meet-ings of the Committee, instead ofbeing of an inspirational nature, hadthe opposite effect. . . . It is a sourceof regret that, with the mass offavorable publicity which the Uni-versity was receiving last Spring andAutumn, members of the Board [ofTrustees] were unable to prosecutemore actively the Special Giftscampaign. . . . Success in SpecialGifts work is obtained only as aresult of persistence and constanthard work, and few of the Univer-sity of Chicago Trustees or leadingalumni were in a position to give thenecessary time to the effort.57

Duncan was certain that had Burton lived,the civic campaign would have been pushedforward with vigor, since “[h]e was the realleader of the campaign. Shortly after hisdeath, there was a noticeable slowing upin campaign activity, and the momentumof early spring 1925 was never regained.The result is that the possibilities of giftsfrom citizens of Chicago have hardly beenscratched.”58

In the confusion that followed Burton’sdeath, signals became crossed. As late asAugust 1925, Harold Swift admitted thathe was well satisfied with Robert Duncan’swork and reported that “we believe theygave us a good set-up and we think themwilling and capable of cooperation. At anyrate, we have engaged [the John PriceJones Corporation] for next year when weexpect to have a wider appeal to the pub-lic.”59 This statement suggests that Swiftwas committed to a full continuance of thecampaign. Yet when Max Mason arrivedon campus, things began to change. Swiftlater recalled that, although he (Swift)thought well of the John Price Jones

operation, Mason disliked their campaigntactics, resenting their (as Swift put it) “go-get-em salesmanship” which, Mason felt,might accomplish its goals but which mightalso “do so much harm as to make peoplesore and hurt us in the long run.” Masonwas opposed to a “continuing plea forfunds” at the University. Hence, accordingto Swift, “[a]fter Mr. Mason was elected, itwas decided to call off the campaign.”60

In fact, the decision was more complex.Several members of the Citizens’ Commit-tee, led by Bernard Sunny, lobbied Masonand Swift to substitute a “quiet” campaignamong local businessmen for the public,city-wide effort advocated by RobertDuncan and John Price Jones. Sunny’smotives are unknown, but Mason clearlywelcomed Sunny’s intervention. In mid-January 1926, the Trustees Committee onDevelopment voted to close down the pub-lic campaign and to recommend that thecity campaign “take the form of a quietcanvass of the wealthier prospects underthe leadership of and along the lines to bedetermined by Mr. Sunny and PresidentMason, it being understood that the formercampaign closing date of June 30, 1926,will be ignored, and, a vote having beentaken the motion was declared adopted.”At this meeting Albert Sherer recordedSunny’s promise to the effect that “Mr.Sunny’s willingness to take active leader-ship and responsibility in the raising of the$10,500,000 balance and the co-operativeattitude of members of his Committeehave greatly encouraged the Committeeon Development.”61 Robert Duncan wasthanked, and the agreement with JohnPrice Jones abrogated.

Max Mason’s decision may have re-flected his temperament and family situa-tion, as well as his confidence that, in thebooming economy of the later 1920s, per-sonal fund raising led by Bernard Sunny ona one-on-one basis might gain the Univer-sity sufficient large donations to financenecessary new buildings and create moreprofessorships. During the remainder ofhis short presidency, until Mason left (orwas forced out of) office in mid-1928,several wealthy citizens did in fact decide tofund new buildings, including WieboldtHall, Eckhart Hall, Jones Hall, and SunnyGymnasium. But in the case of Jones,Wieboldt, and Eckhart, the gifts camebecause of idiosyncratic contacts withUniversity officials, not because of Sunny’s“quiet” campaign.62 Another Chicago do-nor, Max Epstein, promised $1 millionfor a new art building in late August 1929,but his commitment proved to be one of the first victims of the Great Depression.

Mason’s determination to curtail thepublic appeal of the campaign was unfortu-nate for three reasons. First, in relying onBernard Sunny to carry on the campaignquietly to raise the missing $10 millionMason made a serious miscalculation. Itwas soon clear that Sunny had no way todeliver such grandiose sums, even thoughSunny himself generously donated$164,000 in April 1928 for the construc-tion of a gymnasium for the LaboratorySchools and upon his death in 1943 estab-lished trust funds that also came to theUniversity over time.63 In fact, Sunny soonbecame enraged by Professor Paul Douglas’sstrident attacks on Samuel Insull, in whose

traction schemes in Chicago Sunny wasinvolved, and he could hardly serve as anactivist spokesman for the University.64

Second, Mason’s “quiet” strategy deprivedthe University of the unique opportunityto make a systematic, city-wide canvass forfunds among prominent and not-so-promi-nent citizens in Chicago at a time wheneconomic conditions were extremely fa-vorable.65 Finally, Mason’s decision resultedin a collapse of long-range developmentplanning, halting the progress in donorcultivation made between 1924 and 1926and returning the University on the fund-raising front to a state of affairs reminiscentof the Judson days.

One problem that ensued from the fur-tive way that the campaign was closeddown was that no one bothered to write tothe alumni volunteers to thank them fortheir efforts until mid October, almost sevenmonths after the Trustees had abrogatedtheir agreement with John Price Jones. Theseevents were, in retrospect, regrettable, andthe last example cited—the lack of courtesyto the alumni leadership—was unfortu-nate.66 In 1941, Robert Duncan, who willshortly reappear in our story, would com-ment acidly that “it must be rememberedthat for many years after 1925 there was noorganized attempt to educate the alumni onthe University’s needs.”

Still, the last years before the Crash wereflush ones for the University, in part be-cause of the magnificent grants bestowedon us by the Rockefeller Boards. Max Ma-son visited the headquarters of the GEB inJanuary 1927, and came away confidentthat the GEB and its sister boards like theLaura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial andthe Rockefeller Foundation would supportmost of the relevant research requests thatthe University might put forward. Masonreported, “I feel there is almost no limit tothe support the Boards will give us pro-vided we have important projects under thedirection of able men.”67 A month later, inFebruary 1927, the board gave $1.5 mil-lion to support research and facilities inchemistry, physics, mathematics, as-tronomy, and botany; equally impressivesupport, amounting to almost $3 million,followed in 1927 and 1928 for the MedicalSchool and the Hospitals. In May 1927, theGEB gave the University $250,000 for sup-port of research in the humanities, and theLaura Spelman Rockefeller Memorialawarded over $2 million for the construc-tion and operation of a new Social Sciencesbuilding, including support for faculty re-search. In December 1928, the Interna-tional Education Board then gave theUniversity $6.2 million for the OrientalInstitute. The year 1929 was also a fruitfulone for Chicago in that the GEB voted inMay to award the University $2 millionin endowment support for the MedicalSchool and $1 million to sustain its clini-cal operating expenses over ten years, to-gether with smaller grants from theRockefeller Foundation in support of re-search in anthropology, comparative phi-lology, and the biological sciences. 68 Thislargesse was stunning, much easier thanrunning fund-raising campaigns, andMason’s skepticism about Burton’s cam-paign may have been strengthened by his(then) quite reasonable confidence in un-limited access to Rockefeller money.

The Hutchins Era and the FiftiethAnniversaryIn April 1929, Robert Maynard Hutchinswas elected the fifth President of the Uni-versity of Chicago. Hutchins was the mostcontroversial but also, next to Harper, themost important President in the University’shistory. Hutchins’s restructuring of thearts and sciences in 1930–31, his supportfor the new general-education curriculumdeveloped in the 1930s, his adamant andeloquent defense of academic freedom, hisuncompromising insistence on intellectualexcellence, his abolition of intercollegiatefootball, and his idealization of the Univer-sity as a place exclusively given to learningand discovery—these and many other in-terventions gave Hutchins a most distin-guished place in our history and in thehistory of American higher education.

In 1940–41, Robert Hutchins presidedover (or endured, depending on one’s pointof view) the second major fund-raisingcampaign in the University’s history. Thestory of this campaign is fascinating, sinceit brings together a set of complex issues,some perennial, others peculiar to the1930s, involving the austerities of the bud-get, cultural changes in student life, pat-terns of alumni discontent, tensionssurrounding Hutchins himself among thetrustees and local civic elites, the uneasyrelationship between public relations andfund raising, and basic questions about theidentity of the University.

The Hutchins’s era is legendary for itscultural revolution in undergraduate lifeand learning, which also had profoundinfluences on the wider academic culture ofthe University. Hutchins undertook thisrevolution under sorely trying circum-stances, for within several months of takingoffice Hutchins faced the greatest economicchallenge in the University’s history. TheDepression hit the University hard, yet ourexperience was less traumatic than atmany other institutions, largely because ofthe substantial reserves that had beenaccumulated in the 1920s. The endowmentof the University continued to grow ($22.3million in new endowed funds wereadded between 1929 and 1939), largelyas a result of gifts to the Medical School(the core endowment, aside from Medi-cine, grew by only 6.9 percent). The annualincome available from the endowmentdeclined from $3.4 million in 1929–30 to$2.1 million in 1938–39, as the rate ofreturn dropped from 6.2 to 4 percent.

Hutchins initiated an austerity programthat cut administrative costs by 20 percent.Three hundred and fifty courses wereeliminated, faculty teaching loads were in-creased, and a mandatory retirement age ofsixty-five imposed. The general budget(which covered the costs of the non-medi-cal areas) was cut from $6 million to $4.5million over three years from 1930 to 1933.Faculty salaries were frozen, but not re-duced, and attrition and retirement reducedthe full professorial ranks from 160 in1930–31 to 116 in 1939, with few replace-ments being hired, even at junior levels.Total salary expenditures for full profes-sors declined by almost 20 percent between1930 and 1940. Some departments feltdecimated—by 1936, English had lost fiveprofessors, one associate professor, and sixinstructors, all of whom were replaced by

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three instructors.To cover the budget shortfalls that re-

mained even after these austerity measures,the Trustees approved the use of $12 mil-lion between 1929 and 1939 from gifts,reserves, and cash funds. By 1939, both thegeneral and medical budgets were in chronicdeficit ($300,000 and $500,000 respec-tively), with the GEB’s $1-million grant forclinical operations in medicine from 1929totally depleted and the $3-million grantfrom the GEB half gone.

By 1938–39, it was clear that the Uni-versity had exhausted all easily availableausterity measures and that a budget gapthat could not be closed remained at about10 percent of the annual budget. Furthercuts would have meant a still greater reduc-tion in faculty size, which Hutchins wasloath to do. In the face of this disaster, thespecter of urgent new fund raising loomedon the horizon.69 The target of $12 millionset for the 1940–41 campaign was intendedto generate sufficient income to cover asignificant part of the University’s operat-ing deficit for ten years.

Between 1926 and 1936, little changedin the organization of fund raising. TheBoard of Trustees continued to have astanding Committee on Development (itwas dissolved in 1926 but reestablished in1928.)70 Sewell Avery chaired the commit-tee, but the group led a rather sleepy lifeand Avery finally asked out in 1931.71

Harold Swift thereupon put a retired cler-gyman, James M. Stifler, in his place. Thecommittee languished, with Stifler com-plaining to Swift that it was “doing a littlebetter than marking time.”72 To EdwardRyerson in January 13, 1932, he observed,“Our committee has not been functioningvery well. It has been difficult to secureattendance at meetings, although the num-ber of meetings has been reduced.”73 Whenthe committee finally met in February 1932,Stifler reported that the members “depre-cated any direct advances in solicitationsfor money at this time. It was their viewthat it would be prejudicial to the interestsof the University, that while the unemploy-ment campaign was in such serious condi-tion and the state warrant was finding it sodifficult to secure a market, to ask people togive money to these things was not wise.”74

All public relations, development andfund raising, alumni activities, and collegerecruitment efforts were handled by Stifler’soffice with minimal staffing and modestbudgets, at a cost of about $83,000 ayear.75 Stifler was not an expert in any ofthese fields, and he concentrated on recruit-ing students to campus, putting ads innewspapers on University activities, creat-ing promotional pamphlets, and promot-ing the University to high school students.Aside from student recruitment, the Uni-versity spent about $50,000 annually on allof its public relations, alumni relations, andfund raising.

Hutchins’s first step to try to stabilizethe finances of the University was to treadthe well-worn path of visiting theUniversity’s friends in New York City. Inthe autumn of 1929, he journeyed to NewYork and had confidential meetings withthe officers of the Rockefeller Boards.76 Inearly March 1930, he then submitted amassive joint request to the GEB for $2.5million and the Rockefeller Foundation for

$4.5 million toward the first stage of ageneral financial program consisting of $28million.77 The application was originallyintended to be part of a larger scheme thatincluded gifts from Julius Rosenwald andEdward Harkness for $5 million, but theprospects of those gifts had disappeared inearly 1930.

A prominent addressee of the March1930 appeal was none other than MaxMason, who had become president of theRockefeller Foundation in 1929. This wasthe beginning of a series of appeals to theRockefeller Boards for financial support,which became more urgent as the Depres-sion deepened. The University of Chicagoseemed well placed to enter these negotia-tions, since Mason was not the only ex-Chicagoan involved. Trevor Arnett hadreturned to New York to become presidentof the GEB in 1928; and David Stevens,formerly a faculty member at Chicago andassistant to Max Mason, left Chicago in1929 to become the vice-president of theGEB and then director of the HumanitiesDivision of the Rockefeller Foundation.78

But such intimacy also had its dangers,especially in times of financial distress,when all universities were scrambling forwhatever support they might find. Masonwas candid with Hutchins that his andArnett’s close association with Chicagowas an issue of some awkwardness.79 WhenHarold Swift tried to push Chicago’s causeby writing a flattering, but grossly inflatedletter to Mason telling him that his presi-dency was, along with Burton’s, part of a“renaissance of the University,” the situa-tion became more awkward.80

The initial response of the boards toHutchins’s appeal was equivocal. In May1930, the GEB agreed to a $1 million grantto assist in the construction of new build-ings for anatomy and hygiene and bacteri-ology, but the general omnibus request wasdeferred, with Mason urging the Universityto undertake systematic budget reduc-tions.81 Hutchins was able to secure a five-year grant of $275,000 in April 1931,however, to implement the College’s NewPlan curriculum between 1931 and 1936from the GEB, covering faculty and admin-istrative salaries, scientific equipment,and the costs of the new ComprehensiveExaminations.82 The spectacular academicsuccess of the College in the 1930s wasthus deeply indebted to New York support.

Then, after further remonstrations, theGEB agreed in December 1936 to give theUniversity an emergency grant of $3 mil-lion to support both the Medical Schooland the University’s general budget.83 Thesuccess of this appeal rested largely on aneloquent presentation about the nationalimportance of the University that Hutchinsmade personally in May 1936, which localstaffers subsequently christened “BobHutchins’s $3,000,000 Speech.”84 As thismoney slowly evaporated, Hutchins thentried again with another appeal in May1940, arguing, “[I]n periods like the presentthe community seems unable to distinguishbetween the good and the excellent, or atleast is unwilling to meet the large addi-tional expense that excellence involves.Vocational training, practical or short-termresearch, and ‘college life’ are easily under-stood and are relatively cheap. Liberal edu-cation, long-term research, and experiments

in organization and instruction are noteasily grasped and are likely to be expen-sive.” This time Hutchins’s eloquence failedto work its magic.85 Undaunted, Hutchinsdelivered another verbal appeal in January1941, pitched at the need to defend the coreactivities of the five or six best privateAmerican universities, urging that theRockefeller Boards allocate $3.5 million ayear over five or even ten years to strengthenthese institutions. Hutchins reported that“[a]t the end I was thanked very nicely.Several members spoke about how interest-ing the meeting had been. I have no way ofknowing what the effect of this conferencewas or may be.”86 Sadly, it did not have theoutcome that Hutchins wanted.

As long as personal visits to 61 Broad-way in New York City continued to gener-ate needed support, why undertake onerousfund-raising campaigns? John Price Jonescaptured this psychological dilemma wellwhen he shrewdly observed in 1936 that“over a long period of its history, this[fund-raising] function of the Board [ofTrustees] was to some extent dulled by thelarge gifts from Rockefeller sources.”87

Among the Rockefeller officers, however,there was a growing concern that the Uni-versity needed to find other sources ofmajor support. David Stevens wrote toFritz Woodward in 1931 hoping that “ayear from now there may be funds in handfor current support in full measure, andlikewise something for the capitalization ofstronger undergraduate instruction alongpresent or other lines.”88 Stevens’s vaguehopes were put in more forceful languageby a memorandum drafted in 1936 for thedirectors of the GEB that was, in turn, sentto the University authorities. This memo,most likely authored by Raymond Fosdick,insisted that the GEB had no

peculiar responsibility . . . to theUniversity of Chicago. We do notrecognize any such responsibility,nor have our trustees ever consid-ered that they were under any obli-gation to the University of Chicagothat differed in any way from theobligation which they have to otherinstitutions of similar rank. We em-phasize this point because in somequarters it has been intimated thatpublic opinion in the Middle Westand elsewhere has believed that theRockefeller boards bore a peculiarand unique relationship to the Uni-versity that was not shared by othereducational institutions. For the sakeof the University itself, and the ne-cessity which it faces of developing abroad basis of financial support, wewould want to emphatically disavowthis opinion.89

Fosdick’s message was conveyed morebluntly three years later by Warren Weaver,the director of Natural Sciences at theRockefeller Foundation. In an informalconversation in January 1939 with DeanWilliam Taliaferro of the Division of theBiological Sciences, he reported that “cer-tain members of the Board of Trustees ofthe Foundation seem to resent what theyconceive to be a feeling on the part of theUniversity officials that the University ofChicago has a special claim on Rockefeller

funds. . . . The upshot of this generaldiscussion was that the [Rockefeller]Trustees would probably not be favorableto any large grant to the University at thepresent time.”90

Fosdick’s goal—to nudge the Universityinto “developing a broad basis of financialsupport”—could only be accomplished bya strategic fund-raising plan, and as theflow of money from New York City beganslowing, it was natural that the idea of ageneral fund-raising campaign again rearedits head.

In fact, as the University’s finances dete-riorated, some Trustees had considered anemergency campaign as early as in 1934.The Trustees commissioned another fund-raising advisory firm, Tamblyn & Brown,to analyze the situation. Tamblyn reportedon the University’s dire financial situation,recommending a mini-campaign to raise$400,000 in one year.91 In addition, theyrecommended increasing College enroll-ments as a long-term strategy and offeredto help the University market itself better toprospective high school students.

No action was taken on these sugges-tions, but in October 1934 with Hutchins’sagreement Harold Swift removed JamesStifler as chair of the Development Com-mittee and appointed Paul Russell in hisplace. Russell was a College alum (Class of1916), a recent appointee to the board, anda close friend of Harold Swift. Russellwrote to the full board in February 1935urging a covert alumni campaign to closethe budget gap: “The Committee on Devel-opment recognizes that a public appeal forfunds is not timely but it is still of theopinion that there are individuals known tothe trustees to whom the situation can andshould be presented in such a way to bringa favorable response.” The committee alsothought that there were alumni “who willnot only give to such an object according totheir ability but will cooperate with thetrustees in an effort to maintain the emi-nence of their institution. . . . It is important. . . that we proceed at once with personalinterviews and [a] presentation of the de-tails of the University’s urgent needs so thatthe reception of some substantial gifts maybe assured as soon as possible.”92 In a fur-ther report to the board in June 1935,Russell noted that “the Committee on De-velopment recognized that it is not timelyto make a broad appeal under presentconditions and that, therefore, it is impor-tant that as much as possible of the amountneeded to help support the current budgetand to care for other emergency needs besecured from alumni and Trustees.”93

To provide a conceptual context for thiseffort, the board commissioned the JohnPrice Jones Corporation in February 1936to prepare a detailed report on the pros-pects of fund raising at Chicago. In one ofthe many small ironies that mark our his-tory, the University thus recalled the firm ithad dismissed in 1926 to advise the boardon the chances of undertaking a campaignten years later. Jones and his staff produceda thoughtful analysis of the University’ssituation, including its budget problemsand the impact of the accusations of radi-calism generated by the Walgreen Affair.94

Jones was fascinated with Hutchins, andmuch of the report focused on the opportu-nities (and problems) that Hutchins posed

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for fund raising. This report, 201 pages inlength, was submitted to the Trustees inMay 1936, together with a summary pre-pared by John Moulds.95 It argued thatthe University required a campaign for atleast $15 million to stabilize its finances,but that the University also needed tomobilize a much larger body of leadersthan was done in 1924–25 to attain thisgoal. Jones’s message was crucial: “TheUniversity has grown great not throughdependence on student fees and currentgifts, but on independence born of endow-ment. If this independence is to be pre-served, endowment must be the mainobjective of fund-raising.”96

Jones’s tome had little initial effect,however, other than a vague resolution bythe Trustees that the “University shouldproceed with some program for the devel-opment of public relations and a plan forsecuring additional funds, and that theCommittee on Development be instructedto recommend a plan to the board for theattainment of these objectives.97 An alumnicampaign in the context of the upcoming1941 anniversary gained additional sup-port in September 1936, when two Chi-cago Trustees returned from the HarvardTercentenary celebrations, which includeda campaign that raised $2.5 million.Clarence Randall wrote to Harold Swiftthat he had been “thrilled” by the Harvardcelebration and that “I am so obsessed withthe idea that I should like to urge stronglythat some suitable occasion be found forstaging a similar celebration at Chicago.”98

Still, James Stifler reported to Swift in De-cember 1936 that “[b]oth Laird Bell andMax Epstein blew off to me with consider-able heat this morning about the lack ofaggression on the part of our Board ingoing at some money raising at once. I haveheard the same thing from other of ourtrustees. I am myself not quite sure what isholding us back at this moment. . . . I havea feeling that we should hop to it at once.”99

Harold Swift responded that the boardfelt bound by its decision to commissionanother report by a public-relations expert,William Benton, whom Hutchins had urgedon them.100 Benton was a talented publicrelations specialist whom Hutchins hadknown since his days on the intercollegiatedebate team at Yale.101 Benton agreed tocome out to Chicago in the fall of 1936 andessentially to repeat the John Price Jonesexercise of six months earlier, but from hisown perspective. While Benton completedhis report, the University received somevery welcome news. The GEB approvedHutchins’s request for $3 million to help tostabilize the University’s budget in Decem-ber 1936, thus taking immediate pressureoff University leaders.102

In his confidential report to the Trusteesin January 1937, William Benton came toconclusions not very different from thoseof John Price Jones, although he was moreinterested in shaping positive public opin-ion for the University than in the instru-mentalities of fund raising. The Universityneeded a dramatic reengineering of its pub-lic relations, but Benton also acknowledgedthe budget problem and advised the Uni-versity to plan a full-scale campaign by1940–41.103 With this report as additionalevidence, the Development Committee meton January 25, 1937, and determined that

the University try to raise at least $15million over the next five years, culminat-ing in a celebration of the fiftieth birthday,to be “patterned after the Harvard Tercen-tenary.” They further recommended that“the general program suggested, withoutcommitment as to details, on the conditionthat Mr. Benton will personally put intoeffect such parts of the program as receivethe approval of the committee. He shoulddirect the alumni secretary; the publicityoffice; the speaker’s bureau; solicitation offunds; and development of material forstudents, donors, and others.104 Bentonjoined the University in October 1937 as apart-time vice-president, but his other ac-tivities and unsteady health prevented himfrom devoting full-time attention to theUniversity’s affairs.

The committee’s recommendationswere approved by the full Board of Trusteeson February 3, 1937. But the next eighteenmonths were given over to more debate overexactly what kind of a campaign should beundertaken. Finally, to break the inertia, theCommittee on Development recommendedin late December 1938 that the Universityshould re-engage the John Price Jones Cor-poration to assist in planning both a generalfund-raising campaign and the anniversarycelebration.105 As the Jones Corporation’sofficer who was most familiar with theUniversity of Chicago, Robert Duncan wasassigned to the case and he returned to theUniversity in mid-January 1939 to beginplanning the second great campaign in ourhistory. After a whirlwind of consultations,Duncan prepared a detailed action plan fora dual alumni/public campaign that wouldcost approximately $430,000. He submit-ted this document to the Board of Trustees inmid-February.106 General consensus emergedabout the need for an alumni campaign, butmuch less agreement was evident about ageneral, public campaign. Trustee ClarenceRandall argued that a campaign beyondthe alumni would be a waste of time since“the University could not raise money fromtrades and industry. . . . the Universitycouldn’t raise funds from the CommercialClub group, or from the Chicago Club group.. . . the University (or at least the President)was definitely unpopular with the businessinterests and would not be supported.”Sewell Avery insisted that “he considered itentirely inappropriate to think the Univer-sity could raise money from the businessmen of Chicago” because “the University(or at least the President) was unpopular”and because it was “too much affiliated withNew Deal ideas.” As of mid-March LairdBell was uncertain what should be done,and concerned about cost, he urged that theUniversity not “splurge” in a time of fiscalduress.107

Most important, Robert Hutchins wasskeptical, being especially concerned withRobert Duncan’s call that large amounts ofmoney and organizational resources shouldbe committed. He wondered if a campaignwould be the best use of “time, energy,organization and funds.”108 Hutchins notedthat during the 1924–25 campaign, theUniversity had received forty-one majorgifts from non-alums. Could we not merelycontact those forty-one people again, andthose who had already been cultivated sincethen, and save the time and trouble of acampaign?

Trustees like Herbert Zimmermann(Class of 1901) were conflicted as whetherto have a focused drive, seeking money, ora more general informational movement.Their ambivalence came in reaction to aquestionnaire that Charlton Beck sent totwo hundred local and national Chicagoalumni about their receptivity to a fund-raising drive for the fiftieth anniversary.Twenty-three percent of these alums wereopposed to a drive and a further percentwere non-committal, while the opinion ofthose who gave the most generous gifts in1924–25 was solidly negative; further,many of these same alums expressed an“unhappy feeling” about the University.109

Not surprisingly, Zimmerman was quotedin Benton’s report that “[t]he Alumni feellike hell. They think they’ve been badlyneglected, that the University is indifferentto them. This is a bad time to ask them formoney even though the time is near whenpeople will have money to give.”110

Eventually, reacting to dismal reportsabout the state of the budget, the Commit-tee on Development forced the issue, votingin June 1939 to proceed with campaignsboth for the alumni and for the widerChicago public.111 The Committee made itclear that “beginning on July 1, 1939, adiscrepancy of some $1.2 million betweenprobable income and the cost of operatingthe University at the present level” wouldbecome known and that “[a]ny plans for acampaign between now and the Anniver-sary in September 1941 must take this factinto consideration.”112 There was no otherway to bridge this gap except by an externalappeal, and “[t]he only way by which thediscrepancy between recurring income andrecurring expense can be met is by raisingnew money.”

In recommending both an alumni cam-paign and a general campaign, the commit-tee also cautioned that these interventionswould not succeed unless “[e]ach memberof the Board . . . by his personal activity takean individual part in the campaign. . . . It isessential that every member of the Boardassume a sense of individual responsibilityin completing the Anniversary Fund. Un-less such spirit pervades the Board, thecampaign should not be launched.”113

The committee’s recommendations wereapproved by the board on July 13, 1939.The campaign was to seek $12 millionunder the guise of an “Anniversary Fund”and be launched on September 1, 1939.Final planning for the campaign ensued inthe summer of 1939.114 Since the Universityextended its contract with the John PriceJones Corporation, Robert Duncan becamea key actor in the shaping of the totalcampaign strategy. Duncan requested theopportunity to interview Robert Hutchinsone-on-one to gain insights for possiblethemes for the campaign. This remarkableinterview, which was recorded in a verba-tim transcript and took place on June 19,1939, revealed much about the possibilitiesand limits of fund raising at Chicago. Thegoal of the meeting was to find a coherenttheme to organize the campaign. Duncanasked Hutchins to outline his vision for theUniversity over the next ten to fifteen years.Hutchins responded by arguing that thisway of framing the question was mislead-ing, since no one in 1939 was in a positionto justify any new initiatives. Rather, the

only purpose of the campaign could be tocontrol the deficit problem, or as Hutchinsput it, “Keep what we’ve got!” This troubledDuncan as well as John Howe and JohnMoulds (who sat in on the session), since itwould force the University to try to raisemoney to cover deficits, which ran counterto the conventional wisdom about how toproject a positive campaign image. Theythus pressed Hutchins as to what he wouldreally like to do with the University in thenext decade. Hutchins admitted that if itwere up to him he would stress integrationand consolidation to a much greater degreethan heretofore. Howe and Duncan thoughtthis might be the angle they were lookingfor, but Hutchins torpedoed that possibil-ity with the comment that what he thoughtabout the University’s future and what thefaculty thought were two very differentthings:

Mr. Duncan: Is it possible for you totell us in what ways you would liketo see the University made better inthis process?

President Hutchins: Yes, but itcouldn’t be published!

Mr. Duncan: You don’t thinkany of it could be published?

President Hutchins: No, sir.Mr. Duncan: Not even enough of

it to raise some money?President Hutchins: It wouldn’t

help to raise any money and it wouldonly antagonize the Faculty to agreat extent.115

Duncan gamely suggested that it mightwell be a novel idea to try to raise money forthe deficit; perhaps the urgent circumstancesof the University could be the central mes-sage. But he was not convinced. The ex-change is fascinating because it showed theparadoxical situation in which Hutchinsfound himself. He could not try to “sell” anew program of integration because thefaculty would disown it.116 Instead, he hadto raise money to keep the status quo aliveand well. He would do so largely via abooster’s argument that the University ofChicago was the best university in theUnited States, and it was important to thenation that it remain so. Duncan also askedHutchins if he intended to go back to theGEB for another large grant. Hutchins an-swered affirmatively and with seemingconfidence that he could talk Fosdick andthe other GEB officials into another roundof largesse. In this he was, as we know now,mistaken.

The final message of the campaign wasthus not radical innovation and change—themes that one might have expected fromHutchins—but continuity of the high qual-ity, intellectually distinguished, and finan-cially encumbered status quo. The finalcampaign pamphlet, on which John Howeand Duncan collaborated, developed thistheme superbly. This pamphlet, entitledYour University and Its Future, argued thatendowed universities like Chicago enjoyeda very special and implicitly privileged rolewithin the system of higher education inAmerica, and that they deserved to be sus-tained and protected, especially in a time ofsevere financial problems (which werediscussed at length and with candor).117

Brilliant invocations of American national

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interest and the greatness of the researchuniversity as a guarantor of the future ofcivilization in time of war (“At least until amore peaceful order is restored Americahas a special responsibility to future gen-erations everywhere.”) replaced bold newideas on the future of the University.

Yet the tensions with the senior facultyto which Hutchins had alluded in his con-versation with Duncan were overshadowedby two other issues that would determinethe fate of the campaign—the discontentwith the University among members of thedowntown business elite, which also para-lyzed some of our Trustees, and grumblingand unhappiness among some segments ofthe alumni. Hutchins’s eloquent defense ofthe idea of academic freedom during theWalgreen Affair in 1935 and his equallystaunch defense of Paul Douglas’s socialreformist rhetoric merited him great admi-ration on campus, but it also irritated manywealthy Chicago businessmen. WilliamBenton noted in his 1937 report that “[w]ideacclaim would Mr. Hutchins win in somequarters if for New Year’s he resolved tofire, or to attempt to fire, certain membersof the faculty on the charge of radicalism.These are influential quarters, includingsome of Chicago’s wealthiest citizens, manypotential donors to the University.”118 Thesurvey of local opinion in the city under-taken by the Jones Corporation in 1936encountered numerous leading citizens whoaffirmed the high intellectual standing andprestige of the University but who werealso critical of its teaching “radicalism.”The authors concluded that “[t]here is awidespread feeling that certain elementswithin the University are unjustifiablystirring up social discontent, and that theUniversity itself has not been sufficientlydiligent in controlling this.”119

Nor did Hutchins’s subsequent espousalof isolationist rhetoric in January 1941 godown well with pro-British leaders in thecity. Harold Ickes, FDR’s Secretary of theInterior and Chicago alum, recorded in hisprivate diary in April 1941, “Hutchins hasjeopardized the endowment drive thatcomes to a head early next fall. [Charles]Merriam thought that he was looking for alarge sum of money from Marshall Field,and Field is quite distinctly on the otherside. Dr. Fosdick had remarked to Merriamthat it seemed curious that ever since he wasappointed president at Chicago, Hutchinshad made no statement on a political sub-ject but that now he should take the posi-tion that he has. The Rockefellers are alsoagainst him on this issue.”120

The “radicalism” charge also muddiedthe waters for the some members of theBoard of Trustees and other alumni whowere successful businessmen. When awealthy businessman (and undergraduatealumnus) A. C. Allyn wrote to John Nuveenrefusing to join the alumni campaign com-mittee in November 1939, he explainedthat “[m]y interest in the University ofChicago has faded materially since theschool has been so conducted in recentyears as to make it unattractive to both ofmy boys who, despite my interest in theUniversity of Chicago, refused to considerit as a place of education. As a consequence,I question if I would be of any materialassistance in this undertaking of yours. Inother words, while I would be glad to do

almost anything you, as an individual,wanted me to do, I am not particularlysympathetic to the University of Chicago orits operations.”121 One Trustee, CharlesGoodspeed, bluntly insisted that the fac-ulty needed to confront the radicalismcharge before the Trustees could ask formoney in a public campaign. He wrote toJames Stifler in March 1935,

As no increase in the usual source ofincome is probable and as it wouldbe detrimental to the work of theUniversity to further reduce expen-ditures, the only solution of the situ-ation seems to be an appeal to thepublic for contributions to supportthe budget. Unfortunately, however,the public due to the outside activi-ties of a very small number of thefaculty, has the impression that theUniversity of Chicago is an institu-tion which is encouraging those ele-ments which are working for thedestruction of our American institu-tions. This impression, which is agrave injustice to the faculty andstudent body of the University, willhave to be overcome if we are toreceive any important support fromthe public. It may be wrong foranyone to accumulate wealth butthe fact remains that the Universityis dependent upon accumulatedwealth for its support and cannothope to receive the support if thisimpression is not rectified. This is aproblem for the faculty and not theTrustees. . . . The Trustees wish topresent the situation to the facultyand request that they suggest a planfor solving these problems and as-sure them of their support andcooperation.122

Other Trustees who were close to theCollege were disturbed by what they felt tobe a privileging of graduate over undergrad-uate life in the campaign rhetoric. ErnestQuantrell (Class of 1905) wrote to Swift inOctober 1939, “While I realize the impor-tance of research and graduate work atChicago, we should not forget to emphasizeour undergraduate department. Harvardseems to be a leader in both departments andthere is no reason why Chicago should notbe the same. I have the impression that theresults of our alumni campaign will dependlargely on former students who did nothingbut undergraduate work as contrasted withgraduate students. If this is true, it is short-sighted not to emphasize teaching andundergraduate work in our fund raisingliterature. So far, the greater emphasis hasbeen on research.”123 Was Quantrell wor-ried that Harvard seemed to be educatingthe children of the social class that gener-ated its trustees and top benefactors, whileChicago was not?

In the face of such intramural wran-gling, it was not surprising that the Trust-ees presented a divided front in thefund-raising efforts between 1939 and1941. As the campaign wore on, WilliamBenton commented on the failure of Trust-ees to do effective fund raising. They werewell meaning, helped to respond to criti-cisms, and gladly distributed brochures,but “with the exception of four or five

trustees who have definitely asked thepeople assigned to them for money, thebalance have confined their assistance toadvice and help . . . most [of the] advice andhelp have now been given. . . . what remainsis the final drive for money, for which thetrustees in most cases do not seem to bequalified.” Benton concluded,

I believe we have counted far toomuch on the trustees to do a job thatthe trustees will not and cannot do.. . . For a long variety of reasonsfamiliar to you, trustees are notqualified by the nature of their busi-ness connections, nor sufficientlyinformed about the University, todo a real soliciting job. Even when atrustee comes in with a gift of $1,000,we should assume that the gift isprimarily an evidence of interest onthe part of the prospect: perhapsthat particular prospect could give$100,000 were the story properlypresented. I remind you of Mr. FrankMcNair’s remark of some monthsago that there are 100 men in thecity who might give $100,000 apieceto this Campaign. To date, apartfrom our trustees, only one suchgift has come in as a result of theCampaign.124

Robert Duncan’s assessment was evenharsher than Benton’s: “Too many reasonswere found last year for not going ahead.Initial refusals were given too muchweight.” Moreover, the Board of Trusteesbore major responsibility and “the cause ofthis lack of spirit appears to lie mainly withthe Board of Trustees. The Board does notyet seem sufficiently convinced of the needfor reaching the campaign goals. Until theBoard regards the University’s situationwith more seriousness and a number of itsmembers get excited about it, one cannotexpect the crusading spirit among subordi-nate alumni leaders. Coverage of any re-spectable proportion of 48,000 alumniscattered throughout America cannot beaccomplished without leaders dedicated toa cause, and that dedication is not yetsufficiently serious.”125

The campaign also generated many re-sponses and commentaries about the Uni-versity among alumni leaders and ordinaryalums who had an opinion to offer or abone to pick. Hutchins could count on thesolid support of most of the current stu-dents in the College, and those studentswho were mobilized to meet with alums orother groups during the campaign made anexcellent impression. William Benton re-lated that Carey Croneis had told him thatat several alumni group presentations “hehad seen undergraduates at these alumnimeetings who were much more effectivethan the members of the faculty.”126

The situation among the alumni wasmore complicated. Robert Duncan hadwarned the Trustees in April 1939, “[T]hese[negative] feelings on the part of influentialalumni, if left as they are today, will be a bighandicap in any campaign.”127 The conclu-sion of the 1924–25 campaign had ledsome alumni to expect that the Universitywould continue to cultivate them and thatover time, this would lead to impressivefinancial support for the University. In 1926,

a group of alums observed to Harold Swiftthat “[w]ith the passing of the next fifteenyears, the Alumni body will have grown innumbers, wealth, and influence. There willthen be living generations of Alumni com-parable with those of any other universityof hundreds of years of history. A system-atic sowing of the seed will yield an impres-sive harvest when the time comes. Thedevotion of the coming years to the cultiva-tion of Alumni, therefore, would seem to beadvisable and is strongly recommended.”128

Asked to comment, Harold Swift agreed,“Proper handling of Alumni relationsshould lead to the fullest understanding ofthe University, and through the Alumni weshould have interpreters of the Universitythroughout the width and breadth of theland. Thus, if the University continues todo its splendid work, and if the Alumni areproperly informed and cultivated, the mostideal result should be expected—a full un-derstanding and appreciation which shalllead to moral and financial support.”129 ButSwift also added an important caveat: “Ithink we ought to keep in mind all the waythrough that our Alumni are a peculiar,heterogeneous lot, and that if we adoptstandard practice of following Alumni, weshall probably go wrong. In my opinion,there is no institution in the country thathas as difficult an Alumni contact problemas we, so that I think we should keep thedetailed facts always in mind.”

Swift’s candid notation of an “alumnicontact problem” suggested that the Uni-versity needed to take considerable care totry to develop relationships with its alumni.Yet from its earliest days the independencegenerated by Rockefeller’s huge gifts hadresulted in little pragmatic need for sustain-ing ongoing personal or professional rela-tionships with the undergraduate alumni.That a considerable number of our alumniwere graduates of M.A. or Ph.D. programscomplicated the issue still more.

Ten years later, the problem of alumnirelations was still unresolved. In 1936Herbert Zimmerman, who would join theBoard of Trustees a year later, wrote toPaul Russell, urging that the Universityspend more money on alumni informationand noting that “[o]rganization among ouralumni is, as you know, difficult. They haveno class organizations and experience hasshown that they can only be brought to-gether by an intellectual attraction. If weare going to have them friendly to theUniversity for a campaign, the cultivationshould start intensively right off, and onlyif the University treats it as a major problemwill it be successful.”130

By the later 1930s, the University wasthus in a bind: it now needed alumni andespecially undergraduate alumni support,and it was forced to solicit their coopera-tion, even though it had made little effort tosustain the kind of strong connections thatthe writers of the 1926 appeal had calledfor. Some might fall back into private cyni-cism—William Benton once quipped that“As far as I know, every university regardsits alumni pretty much as a necessary evil,good only for providing funds and stu-dents”—but most senior administrators andsenior faculty understood that better com-munications with the alumni were highlydesirable.131

Inevitably, when the door cracked open,

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alums with divergent opinions rushedthrough, trying to tell the administrationhow to improve the University. The inter-ventions of Allan Marin are a good ex-ample of the challenges generated by aloyal, indeed deeply committed, under-graduate alumnus who thought he couldimprove the running of the University. A1934 graduate with an undergraduatebusiness degree, Marin lived in Hyde Parkand was a member of the alumni executivecommittee in Chicago. He was not shyabout offering unsolicited advice to every-one associated with the campaign.132

Marin was convinced that the Universityfaced serious challenges with its alumni. Heestimated that 40 percent of the (approxi-mately) 40,000 alumni in 1938 were teach-ers and of the rest (24,000) only 70 percentwere men, thus leaving only 16,800 as (inhis words) “good prospects” for the fund-raising campaign.133 In dealing with thelatter group, Marin believed that Chicagowas handicapped by the fact that the alumsfelt a “lack of sentiment about the Univer-sity” and that “the University has failed toinstill that spirit [of sympathy and under-standing] in the alumni body, by and large,and this failure goes back to its relations tothe undergraduate body.”134 Citing his ownexperience—plus those of his sister, brother,and other local Chicago alums whom heknew—Marin concluded that Chicago suf-fered from an undergraduate student bodytoo small in proportion to number of gradu-ate students. Moreover, since more than 50percent of the undergraduates lived at home,the University was for them a mere “dayschool” that did not generate loyalty. Thesestudents came to the University to attendclasses, use the libraries, and pass exams,but they did not develop strong bonds ofaffection. The University in turn deliber-ately encouraged a feeling of “cold intellec-tuality, [and] reflects it in contacts withstudents and student organizations.” Marinfurther insisted,

[A] spirit of warmth and friendli-ness does not seem to me to bepresent on campus. It is not surpris-ing, then, that this same spirit maybe lacking in the majority of thealumni, many of whom would natu-rally get dewey-eyed at the mentionof the University. I do not overlookthe many loyal alumni who givegenerously of their time and moneyto the University. But I claim thatthese people are by far in minority.Any general appeal for support tothe alumni body as a whole must, inmy opinion, rely principally on thedegree of friendliness it is able togenerate. There are too many genu-inely pressing appeals being madefor charities, refugee funds, relief,etc. Conditions are different nowthan they were at the time of the lastcampaign (1924). And for that rea-son, I think the appeal for the Uni-versity will have to be even strongerthan at that time.135

Whether Marin’s views were shared bymany other younger alumni is uncertain. Asurvey of 1,085 students in 1938 who stud-ied under the New Plan between 1931 and1935 found most of them quite positive

about their educational experiences in theCollege and about the University’s cultureof tolerance and liberalism, but a majority(78 percent) felt that their education hadnot helped them select a job or a professionand almost half (46.7 percent) thoughtthat there was too little “college spirit” atthe University. When asked to comparethe opportunities for social contacts atChicago with those at the college or univer-sity they had subsequently attended, ex-actly half (50 percent) of the 179 studentswho transferred to another institution saidit was worse (as opposed to 26.4 percentwho found it the same, and 23.6 percentwho found it better).136 But the real prob-lems for the campaign organizers relatedto the opinions of alums who graduatedbefore Robert Hutchins came to the Uni-versity. The senior leaders of the campaigncame primarily from the pre-Hutchins col-lege. A list of the local and regional chair-men of the University of Chicago AlumniFoundation in October 1939 indicated thatof 213 men and women, all across thecountry, only 35 had graduated since 1931.Almost all of them were undergraduatealumni, suggesting the reliance on collegegraduates to carry the fund-raising torchfor the University.137

Yet it was precisely among the pre-1930alumni cohorts that the University had themost problems. Some older alumni resentedHutchins’s innovations, which seem to castdoubt on the efficacy of their degree pro-grams before 1930. Still others resented the“radical” aura that they imputed to theHutchins administration. Martha LandersThompson, an alumna (Class of 1903)and the wife of historian James WestfallThompson, captured these sentimentswhen she wrote to Harold Swift in October1939, “[I]n the last drive [1923–25] theAlumni stood behind President Burtonand the University policies, and financialconditions were much better than at present.You know that the recent policies of theUniversity have caused much discussionand criticism. Many of the older Alumniprobably would not contribute and theyounger ones who have worked under Presi-dent Hutchins and might wish to contrib-ute are in no position to do so. In Berkeleythere are very few graduates of the Univer-sity of Chicago except those on the Califor-nia faculty. I do not think you will findmuch enthusiasm for the present policies ofthe University of Chicago among the mem-bers of this faculty.”138

Such views were not isolated. Trustee(and undergraduate alum) Ernest Quantrellheld a luncheon meeting with senior alumnirepresentatives at the University Club inJanuary 1940 to discuss their concernsabout the University. Quantrell encoun-tered lots of criticism of the recent decisionto end intercollegiate football and of aperceived indifference to the fact that manychildren of alumni were no longer inter-ested in attending the University. But thefollowing exchange also took place high-lighting another major problem: “Val Appelstated that when Teddy Linn passed awayhis affection for the University ended. Heresented the statement a young faculty mem-ber made on the occasion for the twentiethreunion of his class to the effect that acollege education twenty years ago was thesame as a high school education today.

Several of those present resented the impli-cation that the education of their day waspoor and that the only good education thatwas being received was that at the presenttime. Appel greatly resented the fact that onthe occasion of their twentieth reunion thePresident did not answer a letter whichhad been sent to him regarding the classreunion and that no representative wasappointed to greet the class. He felt therewas a marked feeling of indifference on thepart of the Administration regarding theAlumni.”139 Hutchins was seen as flippantand smart-alecky to these senior alums, butQuantrell was careful to note that duringthe five hours of “picking the University topieces, communism was not mentionedonce.”

Given the extraordinary publicity withwhich Robert Hutchins and ChaunceyBoucher launched their general-educationNew Plan curriculum in the early 1930s, itwas perhaps understandable if older alumsfelt consigned to a form of academic sec-ond-class citizenship. If Chicago only cameto provide a really first-rate education afterthe creation of the New Plan in 1930–31,then what kind of education did those whograduated in the 1910s and 1920s receive?And was the New Plan really preferable towhat had gone before? These questionsmust have grated on some older alums, asVallee Appel’s comments suggest. CareyCroneis, a professor in the department ofGeology, insisted that many of pre-1930alums whom he knew—who were “theonly ones with important resources”—dis-approved of the level of freedom given tostudents under the New Plan (not having tocome to class, in engaging in “disrespect-ful” attitudes toward the faculty and ad-ministration, etc.), and that many “deplore[Hutchins’s] anti-vocationalist standpoint,and that some of them, and many of thegeneral public, will have nothing to do withan organization which sponsors it.”140

The leaders of the campaign receivednumerous comments from alumni corre-spondents. One alumna, Beth Fogg (Classof 1910), wrote, “Since the launching ofthe New Plan and the breakdown of alltraditions under Mr. Hutchens [sic], I havebeen questioning the place of the alumni inthe University planning. To realize that weare alone important when funds are lowdoesn’t arouse me to a feeling of enthusi-asm. I realize that alumni are obnoxious,but I am strongly opposed to Mr. Hutchens’attitude that he can’t waste his time listen-ing to the unanointed.” Still, Fogg’s loyaltygot the better of her, since she sent her sonto the College, from which he graduated in1938, and in the end she agreed to serve onthe Alumni Advisory Committee.141

Another alum, Tom Cowley (Class of1931), argued that the University needed topay more attention to athletics and to the“undergraduate side of the University,”and he resented “the overemphasis on thegraduate aspects of the school, which mindyou are fine, but when they result in suchone sided activities we kind of squirm.”142

A third correspondent, G. Harold Earle(Class of 1911), observed, “I think theattitude of the present administration ofthe University toward well-rounded under-graduate life is most unfortunate. I suspectit is having a very strong influence on thealumni today. . . . It seems to me that the

University of Chicago today decidedlylacks the atmosphere of experiences whichunites the undergraduate body into a unit,and that those experiences of college lifewhich keep the alumni interested in theiralma mater are somehow lacking. . . . Iwonder if other alumni are particularlyenthusiastic about assisting financially tomake the University of Chicago purely agraduate institution.”143

Helen Norris (Class of 1907) was deeplyunhappy with the educational experimentson campus, and she did not mean football:“I do not altogether approve of what isgoing on at the University (and I excludefootball though I love to watch it).” Norriswas willing to come to a fund-raisingdinner, however, “because I have been con-vinced that I will not thereby be condoninganything. I hope you understand.”144

Finally, an exchange between Hutchinsand Howell W. Murray is illuminating.Like Ernest Quantrell, Murray was a loyalundergraduate alumnus (Class of 1914)and a successful investment banker, andlike Quantrell, Murray donated a much-valued prize that the College still awardseach Spring Quarter. In December 1939,Murray wrote Hutchins with a detailedcritique, urging more attention to under-graduate life, noting that most of the moneyraised in the 1924 campaign came fromundergraduate alumni, who also made uptwo-thirds of the total alumni body. Murrayargued that the administration shouldsupport the fraternity system (which, heinsisted, was very different from that ofYale), encourage class organization andreunions, and look to future alumni rela-tions: “We are all proud of the outstandingrecord of the University, but it seems to methat the undergraduate school can give itsstudents a better rounded college experi-ence and this has bearing on the alumniattitude toward the University. It also hasan important bearing on the public rela-tions of the University.” Hutchins re-sponded by admitting that “the alumniwho have done their undergraduate workat the University are the most importantalumni to the University in connection withany money raising efforts.” But Hutchinsthen argued that the quarter system and thefact that 63 percent of all students in theCollege receiving bachelor’s degrees trans-ferred here from another college made theconstruction of class identity very difficult.The two were talking past each other.145

To meet such criticisms head on and toreestablish personal ties with as manyalumni as possible, campaign officials or-ganized alumni meetings around thecountry in the early winter of 1940 thatfeatured senior faculty as guests of honor.These meetings were a considerable suc-cess. Suspicions and questions could beanswered on the spot, and the alumni reas-sured. The alumni seemed honored to meetsenior faculty up close and to spend timewith them. Of Professor Anton Carlson’svisit to Washington, D.C., one alum wrote,“I feel that one of the finest things whichthe University can do is to send a man likeDr. Carlson to our alumni meetings. Mak-ing no pretense to be an orator, he never-theless by his sincerity, frankness, and subtlehumor immediately wins the attentionand respect of his audience. No one sleepsduring Dr. Carlson’s talks and I am sure

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that he even startles some out of theirlethargy in thinking. Dr. Carlson not onlysays what he thinks but he thinks a lot andtherefore has something worthwhile tosay.”146 Professor John Wilson’s appear-ance in St. Paul, Minnesota, was just assuccessful. D. B. Smith wrote, “I was mightyglad that Dr. Wilson came to the TwinCities for several reasons. In the first placeI found him to be a darn good egg; in thesecond place I learned a great deal on asubject that has always fascinated me andin the third place it gave me an opportunityto become acquainted with your brother.. . . The evening meeting at the Saint PaulInstitute was unusually well handled by Dr.Wilson. He had everyone’s tongue hangingout for more information and then stoppedtalking. In other words, everyone was veryenthused with him.”147

Hutchins too went on the road, and—given his charisma, eloquence, and poweras a public speaker—he was almost alwaysable to win his audiences over, at leasttemporarily. From Tulsa, Oklahoma, camea report, “The President gets an A plus ontoday’s performance. Talked with businessleaders for a couple of hours and acted asthough he enjoyed it. Made a darned goodimpression. Talked to two reporters with-out batting an eye. Made a corking goodspeech to the alumni and answered ques-tions for 45 minutes, after which he stuckaround and shook every hand presented,with the graciousness of a true gentle-man.”148 Even on the North Shore, whichwas the preserve of many conservativealumni who distrusted his policies, Hutchinswas able to do some good. A report on adinner for alums from Kenilworth, High-land Park, Glencoe, and other posh sub-urbs argued that the attendance of 184guests (out of 700 invited) to hear Hutchinsspeak was

gratifying in view of the unusualresistance to the University which isevident among the large majority ofalumni in this region. To generalize,most of the alumni are graduates ofthe College in the pre-war era whohad strong fraternity attachmentsand who are proud of the footballteams of their era. The recent yearsof depression, the elimination ofmany of their fraternity chapters, aconservative point of view with re-gard to politics and social legisla-tion, the biased and too frequentlyerroneous opinion of the University’sadministration and the subconscioustendency to oppose its actions andconfuse it with and hold it respon-sible for the national administrationare possible bases for their resis-tance. Fortunately, a few of the leastenthusiastic were at the dinner, andin some cases their conversionfrom anti- to pro-administration wasnoticeable.

The report concluded, “One fact is out-standing: in accomplishing good will for theUniversity and stemming the tide of antago-nism to it, the dinner undoubtedly helped.If such an event had been held annuallyover the past years, the pledge results wouldundoubtedly have been better.”149

The early 1940 regional meetings and

lectures may have generated considerablegoodwill, but the campaign staff in Chi-cago and in the regions still found it diffi-cult to generate effective participationamong professionally successful alumni forthe actual work of the campaign. At ameeting of the Campaign Steering Com-mittee on January 3, 1941, “[t]here wasconsiderable discussion on the questionraised by Mr. McNair as to whether thealumni leadership could be obtained.Zimmermann said it was difficult to get thealumni in the upper brackets enthusiasticenough to fire [up] the workers. Mr. Gor-don said that he did not think the interestand leadership of the prominent alumnicould be obtained; that he had spent a largeamount of time on the ‘glamour boys’ thisspring and they had either refused to helpor were apathetic.”150

Some regional organizers faced consid-erable challenges in generating real enthu-siasm. From Cleveland Nell C. Henry (Classof 1912) wrote to Swift in late January1940, complaining that the local chair ofthe Cleveland area was doing nothing.151

To Clifton Utley she observed,

The lack of response here in Cleve-land is getting me down somewhat.Just to show you what one carelessspeech can do—I have today talkedwith a man who gave $500 to theDevelopment Fund [in 1924], andwhose wife (then single and teach-ing) gave $300. They are not givingone cent this time, because DeanBoucher said in a talk here that the‘small’ alumni gifts were not [even]a drop in the bucket—the Universityneeded ‘large’ gifts. They decidedthat the need for their gifts was in noway commensurate with their im-portance to themselves. She had paidhers out of saving because she wasnot employed part of the time whenpayments were due. So it goes! Aboutone third of the people we approachrefuse to give anything at all. Itmakes me feel that I have failed. Iwish I knew the answer.152

Rudy Matthews (Class of 1914), whowas responsible for the alumni campaign inFlorida, complained in October 1939 abouta lack of class organization and the need torestore confidence among the alums: “Wefumble the ball of creating good will asbadly as do the Germans. Sometime writeto me how much active support you expectfrom all these PhD’s we rattle off in listingour achievements? Damm little, is my guess,is what we’ll get.”153 A friend of Matthewsin Florida, Douglas Ball (Class of 1916),who hosted a fund-raising event, also foundthat most alumni in Miami were “not par-ticularly interested” in the University: “Eventhose like Red Cunningham for whom wereserved dinner did not show up, and manyothers who said they could not come todinner but promised to attend the meetingafterwards, failed to appear.” Ball insisted,“You can’t get away from the fact that theschool has neglected the alumni, and it willtake a lot of work to bring back any num-ber into the fold.”154

The situation in Los Angeles was alsotroublesome. Norman Barker (Class of1908) reported in January 1939 to Swift,

“[T]here are only a very small per cent ofalumni that are hostile to the policy of theUniversity. Many want to be active, butthey do not know just what to do.”155 Laterhe confessed that he was meeting manydisappointments in organizing a local com-mittee, largely from “previous inactivity,”but hoped that this effort would help infuture. John Moulds reported in May1940 to Quantrell about the situation inLos Angeles that “many of the men . . . werenot sufficiently enthusiastic to get out andwork at the job of personal solicitation. Asa result the campaign in the Los Angelesarea was heading almost entirely towarda mail solicitation.”156

Of course, these comments do not dif-ferentiate between the views of graduateand undergraduate alumni. One might ex-pect more zeal from the undergraduatealumni, but Chicago had a relatively largegraduate alumni pool by 1940, mainly thosewho came to Hyde Park for a master’sdegree. The attitudes of the M.A. alumni,many of whom were in school teaching,made the alumni loyalty problem still morecomplicated. An observation from analumni gathering in Michigan illustratesthis point. At a meeting in Muskegon,Michigan, as reported by Howard Mort,the local chair was Harold Caesar, a localschool principal. Mort noted that Caesarwas very dedicated and committed but he“explains that the few businessmen whoare alumni are hard to interest in the Uni-versity. He was unable to get any of them toattend this meeting. Even the teachers arelukewarm about Chicago, insisting thatthey had little student life while there andsimply went to get higher degrees for pur-poses of advancement in their teaching.”157

Harold Swift found similar problems inOrlando, Florida. He reported, “The meet-ing impressed me as fairly typical, an intel-ligent and interested group (three or fourphysicians, two or three theolog[ian]s, mostof the others in education), without muchprospect to the University financially.”158

Rudy Mathews confirmed Swift’s estimatewhen he wrote, “I would like to deferappealing for subscription until next Fallhere in Florida. With the lack of interestand the large majority of our prospects[being] graduate students it will take sev-eral more meetings to recreate the loyaltynecessary to sign on the dotted line.”159

The alumni issue could play in the re-verse, however, especially where alumniinvolved in higher education were con-cerned. Professor Ralph Gerard, who spokeat gatherings of alumni at Mount HolyokeCollege and Cornell University, reported:

[T]he University has an Alumni bodyof which it can justly be proud andwhich should be intensively culti-vated for values even more impor-tant than the raising of money. Ineach case the group had never previ-ously met, and most of the individu-als did not know each other, butthey seemed to really enjoy comingtogether and have made plans forfuture meetings. The tone of theseAlumni groups was so far from the‘rah-rah’ atmosphere and on such aplane of intelligence and culture thatI should have no fear of a stronglyorganized Alumni body, which

would then inevitably exert moreinfluence on University affairs.Graduation from a common institu-tion is not ordinarily much of aguarantee of a community of adultinterests, yet in our own case, I thinkjust this is true to a considerabledegree.160

Gerard’s invocation of shared intellec-tual values was pleasing and reassuring,but the organizers who paid for his tripmust have felt chagrined to learn that thesevalues were “more important than the rais-ing of money.” The hard fact was that theUniversity needed the alumni’s financialsupport. Could shared intellectual values—as opposed to (as Gerard put it) a “rah-rah”atmosphere—motivate alumni not only toadmire and respect the University but alsoto support its financial needs?

In the face of these considerable chal-lenges, the actual campaign was skillfullymanaged. John Howe (Class of 1927) espe-cially did an extraordinary job, one of themany unsung staff heroes over the decadeswho combined intelligence and dedicationto implement our campaigns.161 The alumnimail campaign was targeted and techni-cally well organized. Several waves of mailsolicitations went out, including one inMay 1941 to 34,000 recipients. An honorroll was created for the recognition of do-nors. Local chairmen were designated incities and towns across the country, whowere to constitute ad hoc solicitation com-mittees. But, unlike the 1924–26 campaign,no quotas or explicit targets were assigned,which may have been politically necessarybut which had negative consequences inlevels of alumni giving. For those volun-teers assigned to work with major-gift pros-pects detailed instructions were formulatedon how to approach donors, urging a three-visit approach when the prospect was newto the University. Fund-raisers were alsogiven a clear explanation of the financialsituation of the University to assist them inanswering questions.162 Behind the scenes,the Campaign Steering Committee consist-ing of several Trustees, administrative of-ficers, and senior campaign staff met weeklyto monitor progress and to adjust ongoingtactics. As is often the case in such projects,the records of their meetings give the im-pression of a creatively controlled chaos,making things up as they went along.163

As 1940 wore on, Hutchins, Swift, and afew other leaders systematically visitedmajor gifts prospects and heads of founda-tions. Hutchins visited each person on theprime prospect list at least once, and insome cases more than once. He also wroteletters to potential prospects asking formeetings, and he regularly went to suchmeetings.164 The campaign systematicallycollected information on potential donors,including friends who might be sympa-thetic mediators with other donors.Hutchins even led a personal discussion ofthe prime prospect list in May 1941.165

From September 1, 1939, to September30, 1941, the University received $6,092,987in new gifts.166 The alumni gave $510,072,significantly less than in 1924–26, and allthe more troubling in view of the fact thatthe University in 1941 had 49,300 alums asopposed to 27,000 in 1926.167 The aggre-gate results for the campaign fell short of

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the original target of $12 million, but giventhe circumstances under which the cam-paign was launched and conducted, theresults were as good as could be expected.As in 1924–25, the weakest part of thecampaign was the lack of major gifts frommembers of the civic elite who were notalums or Trustees. The largest single gift bya non-alum was $250,000 from theRosenwald family, given on the conditionthat the University would raise at least $5million in pledges from other sources forthe campaign. The two next largest giftswere for $150,000 and $100,000. Gifts ofthis level, while extremely generous, couldnot resolve the structural budget difficul-ties of the University.

Robert Duncan’s close involvement inthe campaign can be charted from severalconfidential reports that he prepared forthe Trustees during its two-year history. Incontrast to the strictly operational role thathe had played during the 1924–25 cam-paign, this time Robert Duncan served bothas a loyal coach and a frustrated critic. In areport in November 1939, Duncan ob-served that the alumni part of the campaignhad come together much earlier and moreeffectively than the general campaign or theanniversary celebration. But he cautionedthat this momentum could unravel, warn-ing that

[t]here are at least two essentials tosuccess in any such undertaking asthe University of Chicago has deter-mined upon. These are (1) an effec-tive organization capable of provid-ing proper leadership, a case worth(in this instance) $12,000,000, de-termined workers, and interestedprospects, and (2) a spirit of deter-mination and persistence to keepeverlastingly at it. I have been fairlyfamiliar with the University’sfundraising efforts since the sum-mer of 1924 and I state with convic-tion that since the end of the Devel-opment Campaign at the death ofPresident Burton in May 1925, theUniversity has not possessed thesetwo essential and necessary mea-sures, either on the part of the Ad-ministration or the Trustees.168

Displaying a tension that sometimesemerges between public relations and de-velopment professionals, Duncan was alsoskeptical about William Benton’s expen-sive public relations program, to the extentthat it took resources away from the hard,trench work of actual fund raising.169 Heasserted:

The Board is familiar with the pre-sent excellent program of public re-lations. It needs no praise from me.Were the University not faced withan immediate, pressing financialneed, that program would be timelyand valuable. But in view of presentconditions the question is pertinentwhether the University can afford tosuperimpose a $12,000,000 fund-raising campaign on top of it. . . .The present program of public rela-tions is a formidable one. . . . some ofthese men are active in some phaseof fund-raising but few of them have

had fund-raising experience. In aninstitution even as large as the Uni-versity of Chicago any promotionalplan is going to run second best to aprogram which possesses such ex-pert and dynamic leadership. A fund-raising campaign, in a very real sense,then becomes a necessary evil, itsdemands to be filled as best they can,but to come after the main show. . . .Now, it is clear to the most inexperi-enced that a campaign to raise$12,000,000 cannot run second toany activity except the actual con-tinuation of the educational pro-gram. To succeed, it must be a majorinterest, not only of the President,but of all his assistants, except thoseimmediately engaged in conductingthe University. I have a feeling thatthis is not the case at Chicago today.

A year later, in December 1940, Duncanreturned to these themes by observing:

The present campaign is turning intoa public relations campaign and assuch it is extremely valuable. But itis not fund-raising on the scale ofwhich the University is capable. Thecase, or appeal, is not yet as strongas it must be if workers and donorsare to reach the necessary pitch ofenthusiasm. The University has donea notable piece of publicity work inits pamphlets, but the emergencyhas not been pointed up or drama-tized. Some members of the Boardharbor doubts as to the real need[for the campaign]. . . . Partly be-cause of the weaknesses in the casethere is not sufficient power or drivein the volunteer organization. Presi-dent Hutchins is giving the cam-paign everything that he has, but thebalance of the organization has notreached the state to which it shouldbe brought if the job is to be done.There should be more ‘fight’ andwillingness to sacrifice other thingsfor the Fund. It is said that $24,000was raised for the Chicago Operaover the telephone recently in anhour and a half, and that $75,000was pledged to the Wilkie Cam-paign in ten minutes at a luncheon.Compared with either of these ex-cellent causes the University canmake a strong case. These otherfunds were raised because a fewinfluential men were excited aboutthese causes and an emergency ex-isted. It is now time that some bodyof the same type got excited aboutthe University of Chicago and pointout to alumni and the communityexactly what kind of a universityChicago will have if the needed fundsare not obtained. Today the volun-teer organization lacks punch. Afighting leader from the Board oreven better from the Citizens Board,who will ‘take his coat off’ is muchneeded.170

Duncan prepared a third report in earlyJanuary 1941 on the alumni campaign. Hewas especially concerned with the issue ofleadership. He insisted, “Too many reasons

were found last year for not going ahead.Initial refusals were given too muchweight.” Moreover, the Board of Trusteesbore major responsibility for the Universitybut

the cause of this lack of spirit ap-pears to lie mainly with the Board ofTrustees. The Board does not yetseem sufficiently convinced of theneed for reaching the campaigngoals. Until the Board regards theUniversity’s situation with more se-riousness and a number of its mem-bers get excited about it, one cannotexpect the crusading spirit amongsubordinate alumni leaders. Cover-age of any respectable proportion of48,000 alumni scattered through-out America cannot be accomplishedwithout leaders dedicated to a cause,and that dedication is not yet suffi-ciently serious.

Duncan concluded that the Universitywas trying to do two things at once—makeup for lost time in creating “a favorableattitude” among its alumni and also tryingto “establish quickly a nation-wide [cam-paign] organization.” As a result, localalumni chairman were enlisted beforethey were thoroughly “sold on the cause,and they, therefore, failed to functioneffectively.” Momentum was never cre-ated, and “the alumni had no feeling thatthey were all joined together in one well-organized national movement.” Duncanthen remarked, “[I]t must be rememberedthat for many years after 1925 there was noorganized attempt to educate the alumnion the University’s needs. . . . Thoughthe relations between the alumni and theUniversity are better than in the recent past,there are many complexities to rob theleaders and workers of their enthusiasmand to afford prospects convenient reasonsfor refusals to give. This was particularlyso in Chicago.”

He also believed:

Many alumni, several of them influ-ential, whether or not interested infootball, still feel that the Admini-stration’s attitude on football andfraternities dooms the type of un-dergraduate life to which they aredevoted and which would promptthem to give. . . . Exactly how muchin money the University is losing onthese counts will never be known.But there is no doubt that the dissat-isfaction of some alumni with whatthey consider to be the Admini-stration’s attitude toward under-graduate life is a major campaign[obstacle]. . . . The apathy attribut-able to these circumstances proveda great handicap in organizing theChicago canvas. The leaders on whomthe University would normally relyrefused to accept responsibility. Asone leader expressed it, ‘the glam-our boys refused to work’ Muchvaluable time was consumed in ex-plaining and arguing. As a result thecampaign burden had to be placedon an entirely new and untrainedgroup of leaders and workers. Buteven with them the job is being done

from a sense of duty and not withenthusiasm.171

The final celebration of the campaigntook place in September 1941, which alsomarked the fiftieth anniversary of the Uni-versity. A highpoint of the celebration wasthe return of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., tocampus. As a courtesy to Hutchins,Rockefeller sent him a first draft of thespeech that he intended to deliver before adinner of prominent guests, many of whomwere members of the Citizens Board. In thisspeech, which was otherwise extremelyfriendly and supportive to the University,Rockefeller tried to signal that Chicagowould not receive any additional familymoney, and, conflating the gifts from hisfamily and gifts from Rockefeller funds andboards, he also seemed to suggest that theUniversity would no longer receive boardmoney as well. Upon receiving a copy ofthis speech, Hutchins wrote to Rockefellerdelicately but urgently requesting that hedifferentiate between family gifts and boardgifts, that he make clear that the Universityhad received the latter on the merits of itsproposals, and that, at least potentially, itwould be free to apply for more such gifts.

Hutchins was worried that a public state-ment coming from Rockefeller, in front of abanquet for local citizens, that no furthergifts would be forthcoming would be readby other wealthy donors as indicating thatthe family was leaving the University in thelurch and as having a “somewhat negativering.” Instead, Hutchins wanted Rockefellerto create a “positive challenge by telling thegroup what you told me in New York, thatthe Family was not ‘abandoning’ the Uni-versity because of lack of faith or interest init; it was doing so because it wanted nosuspicion to lurk in the minds of the com-munity that it could evade its responsibilityto keep the University great and strong.”172

Rockefeller responded graciously andtried to accommodate Hutchins, all thewhile still insisting that the University hadnow become the responsibility of thepeople of Chicago and no longer of hisfamily. The anxiety of the University au-thorities (Fritz Woodward also wrote toRockefeller, urging him to soften his re-marks) was underscored by Hutchins’scomment to Rockefeller that “every wordyou say will receive the closest attention.173

These exchanges, filled with amicablecomments by Rockefeller and Hutchinsabout each other, signaled the final end ofthe Final Gift. But they also demonstratedhow acutely sensitive Hutchins had be-come about the standing of the Universitybefore the local civic community. Giventhat many potential major donors weresitting on the fence, Rockefeller’s originalformulations might have created problemsfor the University. But even in the form inwhich they were delivered, Rockefeller’sremarks made it clear that the only sourceof general support for the University wouldbe the civic community. Speaking of him-self in the third person, Rockefeller insisted:

Though they [his father’s and hisown gifts] have been completed andit is not to be expected that furthergifts from the same source will beforthcoming, this does not meanthat the founder’s son is any less

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interested in the University or itsfuture than his father was for that isnot the case. He rejoices in its presentattainment and is eager for its in-creasing usefulness. It simply meanshe also feels that in one way alonecan the University achieve thepurposes for which it was created;that is, as the university not of afamily, but of the people; whollyadministered and supported bythem; resting squarely on theirshoulders; their responsibilityalone; theirs to make as great asthey will; its successes redoundingto their credit exclusively.174

The Rockefeller era was over; and, al-though Hutchins could not know this, theera of large-scale general support from theRockefeller boards was over as well.

Years of Transition, 1945–50The last years of the Hutchins presidencyproject a fascinating but conflicting set ofimages. On the one hand, these were yearsof great pedagogical excitement and cur-ricular drama at the University. What wecustomarily refer to as the Hutchins Col-lege, the College based on a uniformgeneral-education curriculum, reached itszenith during these years, under the bril-liant leadership of Deans Clarence Faustand F. Champion Ward. The budget of theCollege exploded upward, growing from$79,000 in 1939 to $631,000 in 1949, andremarkable standards for faculty teachingin small discussion classes were establishedfor our general-education programs, towhich we still adhere fifty years later. TheUniversity also made the transition topeacetime research in nuclear energy,metallurgy, and solid state physics, retain-ing or recruiting scientists of the caliberof Enrico Fermi, Harold Urey, and JamesFranck, establishing the Institute forNuclear Studies and the Institute for theStudy of Metals, and constructing theResearch Institutes buildings.

On the other hand, these were also yearsof deteriorating financial solvency, withpressures being put on Robert Hutchins todo something to put the University’s fiscalhouse in order. In order to finance thepost-war expansion of the University, in-cluding the construction of the new Re-search Institutes and the AdministrationBuilding, Hutchins persuaded the Board ofTrustees to draw upon the endowmentprincipal of sixteen Rockefeller funds forfour years at a rate of 5 percent and a fifthyear at 2.5 percent, for a total of $3.3million, all of which was technically legalbut which, as a later observer put it, “causeddisappointment among the Rockefellersthat the University used for current pur-poses funds which were intended as perma-nent endowments.”175 Such practices, whencoupled with spending of other endowedfunds to cover the operating deficits of theperiod, negatively affected the University’sendowment over time.

In two letters in June 1950, Harold Swiftcommented on the University’s financialsituation to Laird Bell, who had succeed-ed him as Chair of the Board of Trusteeseighteen months earlier. Swift criticizedHutchins’s propensity toward overspendingand his half-hearted work as a fund-raiser:

As I see the situation, since the warthe University has spent or appro-priated unprecedented amounts ofcapital (endowment) and other Uni-versity funds for postwar buildingprojects and for underwritings tofinance current operations. ExhibitII [one of several charts that Swiftsent to Bell] further exemplifies thissituation by setting forth in sum-mary the financing of the postwarbuilding projects under construc-tion or completed and the specificappropriations and underwritingsof building projects with the specificfunds designated. The tendency hasincreased with the years, and hasreached (or passed) the safety point.The same situation seems to me truein reference to the Regular Budget.

Please note exhibit showing a 20-year look at what has happened toour Endowment funds. The differ-ence between the result of the earlierten years and the later ten years isquite marked. Exhibit V shows thatour Regular Budget has practicallydoubled in a ten-year period,whereas our Endowment funds haveremained practically constant. Forten years we have lived off fat ratherthan building up our Endowmentfunds. While we have had reason-able contributions and bequests,which heretofore would have goneto building up Endowment, we havededucted funds heretofore allocatedto Endowment and this categoryhas not increased.

The result is that our financialsituation is extremely precarious, andour important manpower should bedevoted to improving the situationby raising funds, so that temporaryallocations from endowment andreserves can be restored. The experi-ence of other universities during theperiod was very different, and moreconventional. My conclusion was—We should tighten our belts and chan-nel the activities of the Chancellor,who should spend the large majorityof time raising money to cover theabove underwritings and for newprojects. This should be arranged bythe Chairman and Vice Chairman ofthe Board . . . who should thoroughlyunderstand the situation and keepa tight rein [possibly meetingsevery two weeks . . . is the way to getgoing], working with the Chancel-lor, Williams, and Kimpton, if neces-sary leaving the administration ofthe University to Colwell andHarrison. The University’s greatestneed is money, and raising it shouldbe the Chancellor’s chief concern,and his time should be dedicated toit until the situation ceases to beprecarious.176

Five days earlier, Swift had written an-other, even more candid letter to Bell, whowanted more information on the financialsituation and who thought that Swift wasbeing too harsh toward Hutchins. Swiftinsisted that:

My argument is that during and

since the War we have been livingoff of fat. Now our ribs are showing,and since the War we have beenchipping at our backbone (endow-ment). This procedure of living offof fat is generally speaking unprec-edented in our history, in that tradi-tionally we have not embarked onprojects unless we could see themfinanced (and in the main this hasbeen done by the chief administra-tive officer, heretofore President,now Chancellor). Nor do I see thatthis situation has occurred in anyother important institution of learn-ing. Harvard, Yale, Princeton,Cornell, notably Northwestern,have been building up endowmentwhile they were expanding.

In the last ten years we havedoubled our general University bud-get (not counting war activities),and during that same period ourendowment has not increased. Wehave had through gifts and bequestsa reasonably good accretion of as-sets during the period, but we havespent those accretions either in build-ing underwritings or in not perma-nently financed activities. I don’tbelieve there is another importantinstitution of learning in the countrywhich has doubled its expenses andnot increased its endowment fundsduring the last ten years.

We have done it on the theory pro-posed by the Chancellor [Hutchins]that the needs were so great thatthere wasn’t time to raise the money,but that the money would be raisedto relieve the underwritings whichwere entered into. This has not beendone, I think chiefly because theChancellor has not given his undi-vided attention or even his chiefinterest to the project; and I believethe situation is now so critical as torequire that he should do so, and Ithink other important institutionsare an illustration of what we shouldhave done and failed to do. . . .

I think the explanation is simple.The Chancellor found it more excit-ing and more interesting to ventureinto these new projects and to live offof fat rather than to do the morehumdrum thing of making [a] realeffort to raise money as we wentalong; and I think his failure to doso has increased (with the yearsand with each new expenditure) hismoral commitment and the necessityof doing so now. His recommenda-tion in building the Institute [forNuclear Studies] buildings and themany other buildings was that theybe temporarily financed and theunderwritings would be replaced.This has not happened.

I think we cannot pass over lightlythe criticism of the chief financialofficer, with his constant feeling ofirritation that when the Chancelloris away he cannot get anything doneand when the Chancellor is presenthe cannot get his attention and sup-port for money raising affairs be-cause he is too busy worrying aboutacademic freedom (or some other

subject—not money raising).177

In late 1950, the Board of Trustees com-missioned Kersting, Brown & Company, anew fund-raising firm of which Robert F.Duncan had just become president, to sur-vey the development situation. The resultswere mixed.178 They found that manyalumni were unhappy with the University’salleged left wing activities, and resented thefact that (in their mind) the College was“not getting a fair cross section of youth”and that the College was appealing to“prodigies to become ‘long-haired’ ge-niuses.” They also felt that little socialprestige was attached to the school, andresented the fact that many alumni senttheir children elsewhere; that the abolitionof football and “the fraternity situation”precluded sentimental attachment and tookaway “any reason for return to campus tokeep up ties.” Finally, some felt the Chan-cellor to be a controversial figure.179 Evenso, these individuals almost always admit-ted the importance of the University as aninstitution, and many wished “to knowabout what the University is doing and asone put it be ‘made to feel proud of havinggone to Chicago.’ ” This translated intogiving rates by Chicago alumni substan-tially below those of private peer institu-tions. The average participation rate in theannual fund for Chicago alumni was 14percent, compared with an average of 37.5percent for five other top private universi-ties, resulting in $135,304 in cash contribu-tions compared with the average of$484,320 attained by our peers. Perhaps asa result, Kersting found that “[t]here seemsto be on the part of some members of theAdministration a sort of defeatist attitudetoward the University’s alumni, a feelingthat they are not to be counted on, espe-cially those in the earlier classes who shouldbe more able to give.”180

Kersting took the appointment ofLawrence A. Kimpton as the new Vice-President for Development to be an encour-aging sign. The current Vice-President forPublic Relations, Lynn A. Williams, Jr.,was overburdened with public relationswork, and he had received little support:“There also seems to have been a decidedtendency to leave to him the calls on manyprospects for substantial gifts which shouldrightfully have been in the province of theTrustees, Chancellor, President or top fac-ulty men.” But “[t]he bringing in of Mr.Lawrence Kimpton as Vice-President inCharge of Development for full-time fund-raising fulfills a major requirement andshould do much to further the program.”181

Most striking, Kersting found that thegrowth of the University’s endowment wasalmost flat from 1939–49, whereas theendowments of eight other top privateuniversities had averaged a growth rate of34 percent. The University had taken $10million out of the endowment in this periodto cover building costs and underwritedeficits, but the book value remained thesame (so that endowment actually didgrow). The University was especially defi-cient in gifts from individuals for currentuse. Chicago received $466,884 in giftsfrom individuals for 1949–50, represent-ing 14 percent of the total gifts for currentoperations. In 1948–49, Harvard had re-ceived $1,043,379 in gifts from individuals

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(28 percent of the total gifts it received),Yale $545,764 (27 percent), Columbia$616,560 (31 percent), and Princeton$598,766 (54 percent).182

As time went on, contemporaries werewilling to talk, at least confidentially, aboutthe financial problems that Hutchins hadleft behind. In a confidential memorandumin November 1955, the University’s chieffinancial officer, John I. Kirkpatrick, ex-plained the University’s financial problemsby noting that expenditures exceeded in-come by approximately $1 million a yearsince the end of World War II. Whereas theUniversity’s budget increased from $8.75million in 1939–40 to $18.4 million in1949–50, sufficient new income to financethese increases was not apparent, with theresult that Hutchins was forced to carrylarge deficits. Moreover, Kirkpatrick in-sisted that Hutchins thought deficits were agood thing: “Mr. Hutchins proclaimed pub-licly that a great university operates in thered. He went on the theory that there arealways more things to do than a universitycan afford and hence a balanced budget isan indication that a university is not pro-gressing enough.”183 In a subsequent oralhistory interview in 1987, George Watkins,who greatly admired Hutchins’s bravadoand intellectual style, admitted that theTrustees “were scared to death of what thisguy might do fiscally.” Hutchins “scaredthe Board to death, in terms of its financialand fiduciary responsibility.”184

As the next decades of the University’shistory would reveal, these patterns in en-dowment growth were difficult to undo.Robert Hutchins’s eloquent defense of in-tellectual values shaped the University inpowerful ways that endure down to thisday. Hutchins’s cultural imprint still influ-ences the collective self-understanding ofthe University, not in the least because hisemphasis on the vital intellectualism of ourcommunity accords so well with the way inwhich the faculty think about the funda-mental purposes of the University. But tohis critics, Hutchins’s academic successescame at a serious cost to the endowmentand to the image of the University amongkey sectors of our alumni and importantelements of Chicago’s civic elite.

At the very end of his presidency, inJanuary 1951, mixing ruefulness and deepfrustration, Hutchins insisted, “The onlyproblems that money can solve are finan-cial problems, and these are not the crucialproblems of higher education. Money is nosubstitute for ideas.”185 Yet the reality andthe depth of the financial crisis was unmis-takable and stirring rhetoric, laden withself-justifying declarations, would not makeit go away. The Trustees wanted a change,and they would have it.

Although he had ambivalent feelingsabout development, Robert Hutchinsmight have been an effective fund-raiserhad he faced more sympathetic consti-tuencies. After all, Hutchins believed in thefundamental importance of the University,and, for all its faults, he seemed genuinelycertain that the University of Chicago wasthe closest example of what a real univer-sity should be. Moreover, Hutchins andthe University as a whole had much to beproud of, for the 1930s and 1940s wereamong the most exciting in the Univer-sity’s history, if measured by the scholarly

attainments of the faculty and the educa-tional progress of our students. But, per-haps tragically, Robert Hutchins did notenjoy the privilege of negotiating only withthe converted. Instead, key members of thesenior faculty opposed his educational re-forms, important pockets of the alumniresented his institutional reforms, moreconservative members of the Chicago’s civicelite believed the myths that his Universitywas filled with “red” students and faculty,and members of his own Board of Trusteesfeared his budget practices, even if they alsoacknowledged his intellectual brillianceand personal charm.

William Benton shrewdly remarkedabout Robert Hutchins’s dilemma in 1937,“A large percentage of the criticisms aimedat the University by businessmen in Chi-cago springs from ignorance of the func-tions of a real university. My surveys andinterviews in Chicago show how wide-spread and how profound this ignoranceis.186 If Benton was correct, and I personallythink that he was, we might take consola-tion by arguing that Robert Hutchins wassimply ahead of his time. That is, Hutchinshad the courage to try to create a “realuniversity,” filled with uncompromisingacademic values and revolutionary peda-gogical practices, but the world was justnot ready. If such was the case, then weare surely obligated to ask: is the worldnow ready for these values? Will those whocherish Chicago as a “real university” inour time support its unique values andeducational practices?

Kimpton’s Crusade: The Campaign of1954–57Robert Hutchins resigned as Chancellor ofthe University on December 19, 1950. Hewas succeeded by Lawrence A. Kimpton onApril 13, 1951. Kimpton became Chancel-lor at the most fragile time in the University’shistory. Financially, the University’s bud-get had been in deficit for almost a decade.It faced severe challenges in its relations tothe surrounding neighborhood. Equallydifficult, the College’s enrollments wereshaky and about to collapse, hitting bot-tom in 1954, when less than 1,400 under-graduate students were enrolled.187 Inter-necine hostility among senior faculty in thedivisions and in the College about the un-dergraduate curriculum adopted in 1942and revised in 1946 also remained a sourceof disruption.

Kimpton had first joined the Universityin 1943 to work as the Chief Administra-tive Officer on the Metallurgical Projectand soon was appointed Dean of Students.He departed for his alma mater Stanfordin 1947 to serve as dean of students.Kimpton disliked working in Palo Alto,however, and when Hutchins, reacting topressure of the Trustees that his adminis-tration must become more active on thefund-raising front, offered Kimpton thenewly created position of Vice-Presidentfor Development, he accepted with alacrityand returned to Chicago in August 1950.188

Kimpton was a thoughtful, well-spokenperson with suitable academic credentials(a Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell Uni-versity). He had civic courage, much com-mon sense, and a genial wit. He was also anadroit fund-raiser.

Once in office, Kimpton acted immedi-

ately to try to restore financial order and toplan a major capital campaign. The Trust-ees liked Kimpton’s dogged, non-confron-tational style, and they agreed to theimportance of improving the public rela-tions of the University, especially in Chi-cago, and regaining alumni support.189

Kimpton hired George Watkins in 1951 ashis chief development officer. An affableand creative College alum who had fondmemories of his years on campus in the1930s (he remembered with particular grati-tude courses taught by Mortimer Adler andRobert Redfield), Watkins had gained con-siderable marketing experience in the in-surance industry. Watkins was a perfectadjutant for Kimpton and became, overtime, Kimpton’s veritable alter ego.

Kimpton spent the first three years of histenure cutting the budget, pushing facultyto revise the most radical features of theHutchins College’s curricular structures torespond to the external demographic crisesand internal factional pressures, and mak-ing weekly and even daily forays to meet asmany Chicago civic leaders as possible. Ashis budget cuts took a serious toll in facultymorale and as enrollments in the Collegecontinued to worsen, Kimpton assembled akey group of Trustees and senior staff atHarold Swift’s home in Lakeside, Michi-gan, in early March 1954 to present themwith a tough, but pragmatic plan to dealwith the University’s financial troubles.

Kimpton advocated a vast social reen-gineering of the campus, focusing on thenecessity of recruiting many more studentsto the College and on the need for a generalfund-raising campaign:

The Chancellor thus said that hehoped to state quite frankly to thetrustees that the administration ofthe University had taken every pos-sible step toward balancing the bud-get but that to take more would beruinous to the institution and, there-fore, he stated the belief that thetrustees must be acutely aware ofthe consequences of any further re-duction. He stated that he felt one ofthe great problems of the Universityis that of attracting more studentsand doing so at once. . . . He reiter-ated the sentiment, which he hasexpressed on various occasions, thatthe tendency of the University inrecent years has been to attract toomany students of a certain type andthat selection must be greatly broad-ened in order to make the Universitya healthier institution, particularlyat the undergraduate level.190

Kimpton’s bold strategy for returningthe University to budgetary solvency wasbased on a unit-by-unit survey of facultyneeds.191 It was premised on the Universityachieving a total enrollment of 10,000 stu-dents by the mid 1960s, 5,000 of whomwould be College students.192 This wouldlead to an increase in new net tuition in-come for the University from $224,000 in1955 to $2.9 million by 1965.193 Kimpton’splan further involved raising $12 millionto sustain current academic operations,adding $3.7 million more to bolster in-structional areas that would have to dealwith the student enrollment increases,

$2 million in additional financial aid, and$11.4 million for residence halls for Col-lege and graduate students and other capi-tal projects. The total equaled $29.1 million,which was later adjusted upward for anofficial campaign goal of $32.8 million.194

Kimpton and Watkins’s presentation ofthe new financial plan persuaded the Trust-ees, and soon the debate changed fromwhether to have a campaign to how toorganize it and where to set its goal. GeorgeWatkins recommended that the Universityengage Robert Duncan, whom he admiredfor having helped organize the “classic”1924 drive, to help run the campaign.195

Harold Swift then asserted that a drive foronly $15 million would hardly be a majordrive and that it should in fact be more than$20 million. Watkins insisted that eitherthe University must launch a major drive orbegin to “lower our sights” as a University.Gardiner Stern said that $25 million wasinitially high to him, but that as the conver-sation had unfolded it seemed “less fantas-tic than it had in the past.” Henry Tenney,who had felt “quite negative about a drivewhen it was first mentioned,” now decidedthat “we would be slipping unless we didsomething positive to change the course ofevents and therefore he would favor thedrive.” Fairfax Cone observed, “[W]e hadno choice in the matter—that we must dothis or start going backward” and HermanDunlop Smith concurred about the positive“moral effect” of a drive. Swift was for it,and Edward Ryerson, as Chair of the Board,concluded, “[W]e must go ahead and in abig way.”196 With that, Kimpton had wonthe day. But would he succeed in a cam-paign for $32.8 million? This was one ofthe largest sums ever sought by a privateAmerican research university up to thattime.

Robert Duncan, who had left John PriceJones in 1950 to become president ofKersting, Brown & Company, returned toChicago in early 1955 and stayed, full time,until June 1956 for the University’s thirdgreat campaign in the twentieth century.This time, Duncan found a more apprecia-tive audience.197 Duncan was impressed withKimpton’s vision for the future of the Uni-versity, but urged him to make it morepublic: “If a majority of the leading citizensof the City could have the understanding ofthe University which you gave the grouplast evening, I think you would have notrouble in future years in getting all themoney you need.”198 Duncan had very spe-cific notions of the role of the Presidentand his leadership. The President shouldarticulate the ideas that would carry thecampaign:

I have a strong personal feeling thatif the president of the institution isincapable of writing (or having writ-ten) a compelling statement of theinstitution’s opportunities (notneeds) he is not fit for the job. Ideasraise money; if the head has notideas on education, or if he has themand is incapable of projecting themto a widespread constituency, he isnot in the right niche. These days animportant functio n of a collegepresident is to interpret his institu-tion to those capable of giving itfinancial aid.199

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As in 1924 and 1940, the campaign wasa multi-front effort, seeking support fromthe alumni, the Trustees, foundations, cor-porations, and outside major gift donors.The campaign devised a careful publicityschedule for the alumni, with many differ-ent letters and brochures, all specificallytimed for greatest effect.200 The alumnicampaign was put in the hands of twosenior alumni from the 1920s, Earle Ludgin(Class of 1920) and John McDonough(Class of 1928). Ludgin, a noted advertisingexpert in Chicago, assumed a vital role indesigning letters sent to the alumni to re-enlist their loyalty and support. Ludgin’salumni letters won a national award, theTime-Life Award from the American Alumnicouncil in 1956, which avowed that the“erudite humor and effectiveness of thecopy is spectacular in its quality.”201 Theletters completely ignored Robert Hutchinsand his educational reforms, and said noth-ing about the curricular controversies be-tween the College and the divisions in theearly and middle 1950s. Rather, invoca-tions of the glories of an idealized studentpast were put forward, such as the com-ment that a new women’s dorm would be inline with the traditions of Kelly, Beecher,and Green, which had been “charming andromantic in our day,” and an additionalnote, “The girls on campus are remarkablypretty these days, even to these bifocaleyes—well up to the standard of Kelly,Beecher, Foster, Green.”202 These materialswere an amalgam of friendly boosterismand candid financial appeals. Much em-phasis was placed on quality of student lifeissues, on recalling pleasant memories, onthe importance of faculty research, and onthe general prestige of the University.

There was, thus, a clear effort to developthemes that pre-1930 alums could under-stand and accept. The main campaignstatement, The Responsibility of Great-ness, was a sophisticated attempt to runagainst the record of the Hutchins adminis-tration by rejecting the unpopular facets ofHutchins’s rule without publicly repudi-ating him. Nowhere in this booklet wasHutchins mentioned, even to the point thatWilliam Rainey Harper had to be givencredit for formulating the program of theCollege. In essence, the campaign sought toreach out to and co-opt alumni who hadgraduated before 1930, who occupation-ally and professionally would have fullyestablished their careers by the early 1950s,who would be in a position to give substan-tial gifts, and whose connection to theUniversity was once very positive and couldnow be reengaged. George Watkins laterremembered the situation he found in rela-tion to his fellow alums in 1951:

Almost all of the publicity in thenews media was negative. Many ofthe alumni, and certainly most ofthe alumni of the classes prior toRobert Maynard Hutchins wereshocked and outraged. Many ofthem were already spooky about[the] academic changes taking placein the College, and the decisionabout football compounded theirconcerns. They responded by notsending their children to the Col-lege. . . . And alumni financial sup-port diminished drastically.203

Watkins’s restorative theme was tricky,however, since trying to hide Hutchins waslike trying to squirrel away an elephant.Inevitably, intergenerational tensions be-came apparent, such as those in the com-ments of those alums who wrote responsesto the fund-raising letters they received. Ofthe 40 comments about Kimpton’s admin-istration that came in, 22 were favorable toKimpton and “the way things are goingnow,” while 18 were mildly or stronglyhostile to the administration. Most inter-esting about these responses is that themedian class membership of the positiveresponses was the Class of 1908, whereasthe median membership of the opponentswas the Class of 1946. What Kimpton andWatkins had clearly tried to do is to placateand reconnect with pre-Hutchins eraalumni, while not further alienating themore recent grads. They did the first bril-liantly, but clearly had difficulty with thesecond, and in fact, managed to alienatesome alumni of the Hutchins era.204 Re-sponding to the first nexus of alumni un-happiness—that generated among alumswho graduated before 1930—Kimpton andhis colleagues inadvertently created a sec-ond nexus of alumni discontent on the partof graduates from the later 1940s and early1950s, many of whom resented Kimpton’sseeming trashing of the Hutchins College.

While the campaign was proceeding,Kimpton also tried to revamp the College’sadmissions efforts, organizing volunteersand attending small parties for prospectivestudents. At Duncan’s urging, the Univer-sity tried to organize alumni committeesthroughout the country to try to recruitmore applicants for the College.205 At thesame time, Kimpton found himself atodds with the admissions office staff, sev-eral of whom seemed unwilling to embraceKimpton’s ideas. To Watkins, Duncancomplained in June 1955 that “the [admis-sions] counselors do not talk the samelanguage as the Chancellor when operatingin the field.” Duncan reviewed the advertis-ing material used by the staff and con-cluded that it was “long and difficult toread,” that it had a “tendency to boastful-ness” and “an almost exclusive emphasison intellectual competence to the exclusionof conscience,” and that it provided no“real reasons why a boy or girl should wishto attend the University.”206

Kimpton’s ambitions for a larger andmore diverse applicant pool were well re-ceived by Trustees like Harold Swift, how-ever, who felt that the additional studentswould be more likely to go into a widerarray of occupations. Swift too complainedto Watkins that the current publicity on theCollege seemed to suggest the Universityonly wanted to recruit students who in-tended to become scholars:

My comment on the material is thatit seems to me to be effective for agroup who are interested in gradu-ate work, but I see little in it toattract the right kind of young menand women who mean to get out inthe world after receiving their col-lege degrees. In fact, I would say thatif a parent, looking about as towhere he should send his child tocollege, were to have access only tomaterial as sent to me, it would be

pretty conclusive evidence to him asto why he should send his childsomewhere else, because you haveemphasized only scholarly workwhereas many parents want to traintheir children to become good mem-bers of society, not expecting thatthey will turn out to be scholars.

As I understand the Chancellor’sprogram, he puts very high on hislist of desiderata more students and,particularly, more of the right kindof men and women for the College.Because of this, I feel that it is veryimportant to correlate both the Col-lege and the Divisions and schoolsat almost any time that either ofthese is mentioned.

In my opinion we have a remark-able group of College alumni whoare proving to be constructive andeffective in our social milieu, and itseems to me in the buildup of theCollege they are worth boastingabout. It seems to me among ourCollege alumni we have a tremen-dous number of bankers, heads ofbusiness, professional people,economists, scientists, lawyers, andtop industrialists, and that theyshould be featured in most of ourpublic relations material.207

The work of the Trustees and the alumniconstituted bright spots for the campaign.The Trustees achieved a 100 percent par-ticipation rate and raised $4.5 million, closeto their original goal of $5 million. Incontrast to 1939–40, there was little or nodissent behind the scenes. Leading the giftsfrom the Trustees was a joint gift of Bell,Swift, and Ryerson for $1,250,000.

The alumni campaign was vibrant andcreative, and generated a very respectable$2.6 million. Special gifts from non-alumsremained a dilemma, however. To betterunderstand how the civic elites viewed theUniversity, the National Opinion ResearchCenter (NORC) undertook a survey inAugust 1954 on the views of Chicagoansabout the University. Clyde Hart of NORChad proposed a survey of the general popu-lation of Chicago in 1949, but Hutchins’sstaff vetoed the idea as a waste of time andmoney.208 Kimpton allowed the survey, fo-cused now on elite attitudes, to go for-ward.209 The survey found that opinionsabout the University were in considerableflux, more so than those about Northwest-ern. Of the members of the University’sCitizens Board, as many had a favorableimpression of Chicago as of Northwestern;but among other prominent leaders in thecity, Northwestern had the clear advan-tage. The study found that LawrenceKimpton had substantially improved atti-tudes about the University in the last twoto three years—nearly two-thirds of theCitizens Board and half of the womenand other prominent persons reported thattheir opinion of the University of Chicagohad changed for the better over the pasttwo or three years, in large part because ofKimpton’s work. But some of the findingswere troubling, such as the fact that amajority of Citizens Board members agreedwith the proposition that “the Universityof Chicago undergraduate college hastoo high a proportion of very bright but

socially-not-well adjusted students.”210

Still, these findings might have givensome cause for optimism, but when thepreliminary major-gift solicitations beganin early 1955, Robert Duncan reportedthat the civic atmosphere still remainedfrosty: “[w]e are confirming our early dis-covery that, because of little continuouscultivation by the University in previousyears, there are few ‘pools of wealth’ famil-iar with our needs and favorably disposedtoward us.” Moreover, the climate withinthe city itself remained neutral if not “posi-tively unfavorable” and “a number of caseshave come to light which seem to indicate adeep-seated unhappiness with the Univer-sity and especially with its current product.While there are favorable comments aboutthe Chancellor, his administrative associ-ates, and individual members of the Boardof Trustees, we hear too often dissatisfac-tion with the University and especially criti-cism of the type of student and recentgraduate.” Duncan concluded that “we areonly expressing the opinion of many Boardmembers when we say that the University isattempting to raise money in an amazinglycomplex situation and in the face of ex-traordinary handicaps.”211

Edward L. Patullo, the staffer who ranthe special gifts campaign, offered the fol-lowing reflections on the difficulties hefaced:

The greatest difficulty faced by Spe-cial Gifts solicitors has been the lackof sustained, effective prior cultiva-tion of prospects. Many of the indi-viduals to whom we must now turnfor multi-thousand dollar gifts havebeen out of touch with the Univer-sity, or downright hostile to it, for adecade or more. Substantial gifts arerarely given to an institution untilthe donor has had fairly close con-tact with it over a period of years.An important part of any campaignis precisely the creation of situationswhich will bring such long-standingrelationships to fruition. We havenot had our share of ripe prospectsready to be plucked. . . . The forego-ing analysis of the difficulty underwhich Special Gifts has laboredpoints up a moral for the Universityto remember during the years ahead.. . . Whatever other developmentactivity is carried on henceforth,ample and explicit provision mustbe made to ensure that an adequatenumber of top prospects are effec-tively cultivated in season and out.Continuity is very important andsomeone on the staff should alwaysbe clearly charged with responsibil-ity for seeing that several scores ofsuch relationships are constantlynurtured and strengthened. This isoften a complicated, frustrating,rather tiresome business and it de-mands time from both officers andtrustees for activities which at themoment may seem picayune; to ne-glect it can be disastrous.212

On the foundation front, the Universitymoved to try to reengage the big three NewYork-based foundations. Swift, Ryerson,Bell, Kimpton, and Watkins met the heads

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 1 7

of the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and FordFoundations for dinner in May 1955 topresent the University’s case. A cordial timewas had by all, and while the bids toRockefeller and Carnegie were less success-ful, in December 1955 the Universitylearned that it would receive a massive $5-million gift for faculty salaries from theFord Foundation.213 While grateful forFord’s support, Kimpton was disillusionedby the penchant of foundations to restricttheir giving to focused projects, and torefuse to provide general support for thecore activities of the research universities.In a speech before the Trustees and facultyin January 1956, Kimpton asked archly:

What really happens? First, and mostimportant, the professor is usuallyenticed into doing something thathe really does not want to do interms of his own development as ascholar. Second, there occurs anominous bulge in the pattern of theuniversity, and it is very often abulge that the university would notseek if it were operating with its ownfunds. Finally, all sorts of casualpeople of dubious distinction clus-ter ‘round the project and drift omi-nously toward tenure commitments.At the very peak of this circus, whenthere are the most people and themost commitments, the lemonademoney runs out and the university isleft to support this side show thathad no place under the main tent inthe first instance.214

For Kimpton, this added up to a danger-ous game:

As gifts in more recent years havecome to the universities in increas-ingly restricted form, the adminis-tration of a university has becomemore difficult. Those fields of teach-ing and research that have capturedthe imagination of the public andthe foundation executive have flour-ished and the salaries and facilitiesof such areas have burgeoned. Thoseparts of the university that have hadno similar appeal—whatever theirintrinsic importance—have starvedand withered. . . . [W]e have recentlylaunched a campaign to raise manymillions of dollars. If we fail, it willseriously injure the University foryears to come. And I am forced toadd that if we succeed, it may alsoinjure the University for many yearsto come, since we can be killed byrestricted kindness. Our objective isto keep the University free, and un-less we take careful heed, we mayenslave it, for we can be degradedand disfigured by the money weseek and spend and we can lose oursouls at the peak of our prosperity. Ihave had ample time to ponder onour origins as I have sat in the wait-ing rooms of the corporations andthe foundations.215

Later in his life, George Watkins lookedback at his six years with Kimpton in the1950s and took justifiable pride in havingled a professional and successful effort.216

But, in fact, by its conclusion in June 1958the campaign had raised only $22 millionout of the $32.8 million required for theoriginal campaign objectives, and fully one-third of the total raised came as grants fromthe Ford Foundation, including very largegrants for faculty salary support ($5 mil-lion) and for the Graduate School of Busi-ness ($1.375 million).217 While the alumniand Trustees’ segments fared quite well, themajor-gifts initiative among non-alumnidonors was disappointing. Our continueddependence on large foundation support,as opposed to major gifts from individuals,was striking.

The campaign was encouraging to theTrustees and the faculty, not in the leastbecause it was a vast improvement over the1940–41 drive. But it could not satisfy theUniversity’s need for additional resources.In fact, as early as 1956, the board realizedthat the needs of the University far sur-passed the initial campaign goals of 1954–55. Neighborhood investments to stabilizethe area adjacent to the University wouldbe extremely costly, and much of the dis-cussion at a second summit meeting ofofficers and trustees in February 1956 wasabout the possible need to take money fromthe endowment to invest in the neighbor-hood. Trustee Gardner Stern asked “if theneighborhood program is essential, wouldwe object to taking profits from endow-ment for our goals?” Kimpton remindedthe group that “if we lose the area we losethe character of the University and it mightbecome an institution like C.C.N.Y. orN.Y.U.” Harold Moore thought that sav-ing the “character of the institution” wasmore important than “maintaining the ex-act endowment with appropriate in-creases,” but Laird Bell responded that “wehave dug our own grave in effect if we dipinto endowments.”218 Edward Ryerson latercommented candidly that “we had lulledourselves into thinking that $32,000,000would be sufficient and that we must nowrecognize the cold fact that we must projectplans which call for additional sums.”219

Moreover, the campaign’s partial suc-cesses proved frustrating for some cher-ished projects. At another meeting ofofficers and Trustees in March 1957, avigorous debate broke out over whether tostart the Law School’s new building on thesouth side of the Midway, based on incom-plete fund raising (only $2.5 million hadbeen raised or pledged, out of a needed $3.6million), or whether to delay it in favor ofcompleting already launched centralprojects and providing for additional bud-get underwriting. Dean Edward Levi wroteto Kimpton strongly urging that he be givena green light, even though the Universitywould have to underwrite nearly $1 millionnot in hand. Regretting that he sounded“hortatory,” Levi insisted that not buildingthe new school would significantly damagethe Law School.220 Trustees sympatheticto the Law School, especially Glen Lloydand Henry Tenney, got involved. Tenneylobbied Kimpton hard, insisting that Levihad taken a second-rate Law School andhelped it to blossom, and that it was a“miracle” that the Law School alumni hadcontributed over $300,000 toward a newbuilding.221 Insisting that the needs of theneighborhood programs, student housing,the Laboratory Schools, and the regular

budget ranked ahead of the Law Schoolproject, Kimpton opposed starting con-struction until the missing million dollarswas raised, whereas Glen Lloyd arguedfiercely for it. Finding no agreement, theTrustees and officers adjourned to separatecaucuses, but when they reassembled thenext day consensus was still lacking.222 Ata subsequent meeting of the Committee onthe Budget on April 1, 1957, Kimpton wasoverruled, with the Board supportingLloyd, based on the latter’s scheme of afund-raising “revolving fund” that, Lloydpromised, would raise money as we werespending it. Kimpton observed archly that“such a policy is a good one if we can raisenew money, but a dangerous one if wecannot.”223

Lawrence Kimpton provided a heroicservice to the University. He helped tostabilize and to improve the neighborhoodof Hyde Park; he enhanced faculty salaries(the median for full professors rose from$10,416 in 1951–52 to $13,257 in 1959–60) and he curbed the exodus of facultythat began in the early 1950s; he negotiateda successful, if controversial truce betweenthe College and the divisions over the un-dergraduate curriculum; he presided over agenerally successful fund-raising campaign;and he began the long road back to areasonably sized undergraduate College.224

In his eulogy to Lawrence Kimpton inRockefeller Chapel in January 1977, GeorgeWatkins insisted that his friend had “saved”the University, and there is much truth tothat statement.

Yet the old-timer Harold Swift, who hadgreat personal affection for Kimpton, wasnot persuaded that all was well. In the fall of1959, Swift wrote to Kimpton arguing:

I understood you to say [in a conver-sation they had on September 19about University finances] that youconsidered the University financialpicture relatively good. I might agreeto this if I were assured of prosper-ous conditions in the nation for thenext ten or fifteen years. However,if we should have a national condi-tion similar to the early 1930s—which we barely got through by theskin of our teeth because we had agreat many reserves which could becalled upon—I believe we would bein worse shape than we were in1930, because we do not have re-serves equivalent to those we hadthen and our budget responsibilitiesare greater in geometric proportionthan at that time. Therefore, I can-not think of the University’s finan-cial picture as being in relativelygood shape until our reserves andbudget are in like proportion to the1930 reserves-budget situation.225

The 1960s and 1970sExhausted from a decade of intense struggle,Lawrence Kimpton resigned in late March1960. The board appointed a distinguishedgeneticist and recent Nobel Prize winner asPresident, George Beadle. Beadle came inwith the intention to plan “a quiet butintensive campaign to raise substantialfunds to meet current and future needs ofthe University.”226

Just before he left the University’s ser-

vice in 1957, George Watkins presented aseries of recommendations to sustain thework of the development office past thecampaign. He noted that the Universityhad a long-standing problem with itsalumni—having faced an “enormous back-log of inertia and ill will”—and that it wasterribly important to continue to sustainmomentum. Watkins urged a permanentincrease of the budget of the alumni anddevelopment office by almost $400,000.227

Yet in the fall of 1961, two staffers inpublic relations, Carl W. Larsen andSheldon Garber, wrote a long memoran-dum criticizing current development ef-forts and urged that the development officebe abolished. Fund raising was to becomepart of the Office of the President, but themain work to be done in the individualunits.228 Larsen and Garber totally ignoredWatkins’s work, as if the campaign of1955–57 was centuries away.

Beadle approved this recommendation,and abolished the Office of the Vice-Presi-dent for Development in 1961, creating amore decentralized system, “utilizing theefforts of the deans, department chairmenand faculty members” under the directionof L. T. Coggeshall and an outside consult-ing firm run by Charles R. Feldstein.229

Temporary confusion resulted, whichended when the University decided to launchyet another major campaign in the mid-1960s. During the transition from theKimpton to the Beadle administrations, theBoard of Trustees under Glen Lloyd’s lead-ership determined that the Universityneeded $100 million in new resources for anew central library, additional studenthousing, new science facilities, and contin-ued support for faculty salaries as well asscholarship and fellowship aid.230 Soon af-ter Beadle took office, Lloyd and he openeddiscussions with the officers of the FordFoundation for a large challenge grant thatwould serve as the centerpoint of a newcampaign.231 As was the case with theRockefeller Boards in the 1920s and 1930s,Chicago had strong connections to theleadership of Ford, since Clarence Faustand F. Champion Ward, both former Deansof the (Hutchins-era) College, held highadministrative positions at the foundation.

The lack of a challenge grant to launchthe campaign slowed planning in the early1960s, and for a time the Trustees consid-ered the possibility of a series of smaller,unit-based campaigns.232 Beadle continuedto cultivate Ford, visiting again in 1963. Inthe autumn of 1963, the Trustees decidedto move forward with planning for a majorcampaign, hiring Kersting, Brown &Company again as consultants and launch-ing a search for a new Vice-President forDevelopment, thus returning the Univer-sity to the professional format that GeorgeWatkins had imagined some years ear-lier.233 The impetus for this decision wasagain budgetary constraint, for Glen Lloydinformed the Board in June 1963 that theUniversity was “dangerously close to ex-hausting the funds” needed to continue toimprove the University, unless the Trusteeswere willing to return to the practice ofexpending endowment funds (which Lloydnow opposed), and that the only way for-ward was “to organize and undertake adramatic and huge development programin the amount of $100 million to celebrate

1 8 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Univer-sity of Chicago.”234

In February 1964, Richard F. O’Brienwas appointed Vice-President for Planningand Development. In the fall of 1964, theFord Foundation agreed to allow the Uni-versity to submit a new application for amajor challenge grant. The famous two-volume “Profile” was submitted in April1965.235 In October 1965, the Ford Foun-dation approved a challenge grant of $25million on the basis of a three-to-one match.This remarkable grant, which in 2004 dol-lars would be worth almost $150 million,became the core of the new campaign forChicago, and was soon supplemented by asecond Ford grant in April 1966 for anadditional $8.5 million for internationalstudies. Working with Levi, Beadle, and theTrustees, O’Brien then orchestrated thefirst part of what became a two-part cam-paign over a ten-year period spanning the1960s and 1970s.236

The first part of the Campaign for Chi-cago, with a goal now set at $160 million,ran from 1966 to 1969. This drive wasextremely successful in that it was thefirst campaign in the history of the Uni-versity to meet its official target. The“golden” 1960s were buoyant, optimistictimes, not unlike the 1920s, but the successof the campaign was substantially owingto the good fortune of the University inobtaining two huge grants from the FordFoundation (totaling $33.5 million), to-gether with significant gifts from theRegenstein and Pritzker families. The mostimportant single factor was the $25-mil-lion challenge grant offered by the FordFoundation, which galvanized the cam-paign and gave impetus to the fund-raisingstaff to achieve their targets. Never before,not even in the 1920s, did the University ofChicago have such a powerful motive toencourage general philanthropy.

From the beginning of the campaign, theorganizers manifested none of the defen-siveness about relations to the city or to thealumni that was so apparent in the 1940–41 and 1954–57 campaigns. In this sense,Lawrence Kimpton and George Watkinshad done their work extremely well, andthe University was clearly moving in posi-tive directions. Nor did the campaign feelcompelled to hide Kimpton, for the officialcase statement in August 1965 acknowl-edged Kimpton along with Hutchins, anddeclared that the decision to spend $29million in the neighborhood revitalizationprogram in the 1950s had been “an in-spired, courageous act.” The statementoutlined a vision for a still better and stron-ger University, with additional residentialand athletics facilities for a larger College(the enrollment goal was now set at a morerealistic 4,000 undergraduate), more sup-port for graduate students, and still moreresearch luster for the institution.237 Thecampaign of 1966–69 was also crucial inencouraging faculty morale, not only bybuilding upon the achievements of the 1950sbut going beyond them. When ProvostEdward Levi asked the Deans to commenton the initial impact of campaign in late1966, most were able to come up withsignificant accomplishments that the cam-paign had made possible.

Leon Jacobson of the Division of theBiological Sciences argued:

The decision to have a campaignfor $160 million, the fact that Fordprovided a matching grant of $25million, and the initial success of thecampaign—such as getting a donorfor the library ($10,000,000), onefor the surgery building ($2,000,000)and other successes—all have pro-vided the faculty with an enormousinterest in upgrading the Universityof Chicago and a confidence thatthe funds necessary will somehowbe provided. Regardless of how re-alistic is this belief that the moneywill be found for everyone’s need,the fact remains that the whole fac-ulty has a new spirit; they believe inan impending renaissance in all partsof the University, which will againmake it a model of Harper’s dream.This reawakened spirit in the fac-ulty—more important than theavailability of unlimited resourcesgenerated by the drive. I personallybelieve that this new spirit if nur-tured can bring about a new andgreater University even if all themoney were not raised by the cam-paign. One can even die happy ifdespair is replaced by signs thatsome form of salvation is possible.238

The new Regenstein Library became thephysical showpiece of the Campaign forChicago, an extraordinary symbol of theambition of the University to remain one ofthe leading universities of the world. DeanD. Gale Johnson observed:

The progress that has been madetoward making a new graduate li-brary for the social sciences and thehumanities a reality has been a subtlebut important factor in the enhancedmorale of the faculty of the Divisionof the Social Sciences. This massiveand imaginative solution to a majorproblem has done as much as anyaction could have done to convincethe faculty that this University hasboth the will and the imagination tobe one of the world’s outstandinguniversities.239

Alumni participation was robust. Thefinal report on the campaign proudly ar-gued, “The most spectacular gains, by far,were achieved by the alumni. The level ofgiving—including sizeable one-time giftsand campaign pledges as well as annualsupport for the Alumni Fund and thePresident’s Fund—nearly doubled year-to-year during the campaign. In 1968–69the alumni gift total was nearly seventimes what it had been in 1963–64.”240 Butaside from the successful appeals to theFord Foundation, foundation grants weredisappointing, since the Ford Foundationcontributed nearly 70 percent of all suchgifts. More importantly, the University’sreliance on Ford to play a role similar tothat of the Rockefeller Boards before 1940could prove precarious if Ford supportwere to disappear (which it did in the1970s). Special gifts were also a cause ofconcern at the beginning of the campaign,but improved substantially as time wenton. O’Brien noted in 1965 that “[m]orethan 80 per cent of the $10.6 billion given

to philanthropy last year came from indi-viduals rather than from corporations orfoundations. The University of Chicagodoes not have a good record of gifts fromindividuals when compared either withnational results of all philanthropy in 1964or with average results from other leadinginstitutions during the past five years.”241

Yet, by 1969 the campaign had bookedtwenty-two gifts of $1 million or more and119 gifts in the $100,000 to $900,000 range.

Phase II of the Campaign for Chicagowas presented to Board of Trustees on April27–28, 1973, with a goal of $280 million,and was launched on July 1, 1973, to run forthree years. Unfortunately, it was pursuedduring a rocky presidential transition andwithin a deeply troubled economy in reces-sion, and came in the aftermath of the enor-mous disruptions and animosity caused bythe sit-in of 1969. The latter events led torenewed concerns and in some cases bitter-ness on the part of younger alumni, creatinga third nexus of disaffection among thealumni in the twentieth century.242 Thecampaign lacked an attractive, coherent fo-cus, and it had few goals involving studentlife. Lacking strong administrative leader-ship, a huge challenge grant like that fromFord in the 1960s, and a compelling mes-sage, the campaign faltered.243 By 1977,Chauncy D. Harris, a senior faculty memberwho was forced to take temporary charge ofdevelopment operations because of staffturnover, reported to the Board that the“achievements, though great, are less thanhoped for.” Among the problems encoun-tered was that “the aspirations for somevery large gifts have not been realized.”Also, there were “more changes in personnelthan generally desirable.”244 By the end(June 1977, a year later than planned) thecampaign raised $150 million, far short ofits original goal. Only $27 million was raisedfor endowment, barely one-fifth of theoriginal endowment target of $121 million,and most of that went to the GraduateSchool of Business and the Medical School.

Among the many lessons to be learnedfrom the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s was theimportance of a strong and stable profes-sional development staff, enjoying the fullpersonal support of decision-making au-thorities at the highest levels of the Univer-sity. Such a staff would come together inthe 1980s under the leadership of PresidentHanna H. Gray. The positive improve-ments in development operations made byMrs. Gray and her successor, Hugo F.Sonnenschein, have resolved many of theinternal structural challenges that GeorgeWatkins placed before the University in1957 and have created many new opportu-nities to strengthen the University. Thecolleagues who have worked in develop-ment since 1980 have been responsible formanaging the successful fund-raising cam-paigns that the University launched in the1980s and 1990s. These ambitious cam-paigns recovered and built upon the posi-tive momentum generated by the 1955–57and 1966–69 campaigns. Chicago is a stron-ger institution today because of the successof these drives.

Toward the PresentUniversities like Chicago are nationalinstitutions. Some would argue they arenational treasures. A recent ranking of five

hundred universities in the world placedChicago among the top ten. The highestranked continental European university wasthe Technical University in Zurich, at 27;the University of Paris was 41; and themuch-fabled German universities, whencewe developed our original model, faredsurprisingly poorly, with the highest rank-ing going to the Technical University inMunich at rank 45.

Universities like Chicago are also localinstitutions. They owe much of their iden-tity to the places in which they live. OurUniversity is profoundly local in two ways.First, it owes much of its ancestral cultureto the great metropolis of which it is a part.Chicago has often been called the mostAmerican of cities, which bespeaks theresilient diversity of its people, its respectfor candor and ambition, its pragmatism inconfronting hard choices, its sturdy opti-mism, and its disdain for mediocrity. TheUniversity shares these values, and in fullmeasure. But we are also local in that weare a transgenerational community of past,present, and future members, each of whomlives and works with us in this magnificentcity and each of whom, over the genera-tions, nurtures memories of our commu-nity and helps to weave our collectiveidentity in history.

As the University journeyed through thetwentieth century, the funding basis for itsacademic programs shifted toward a grow-ing reliance on student-tuition revenues. Atthe end of the Depression in 1938–39,tuition revenues covered only 42 percent ofthe University of Chicago’s annual budget;whereas by 2004, 63 percent of the unre-stricted revenue of Chicago (apart from theBiological Sciences) derived from tuition,and to a substantial degree from under-graduate tuition.

Chicago faces special challenges notshared by our private peers. We began witha huge endowment from Mr. Rockefellerand even larger support from his charitableboards, support that came without cul-tural, political, or ideological strings. Thosegifts enabled us to seize center stage in theearly twentieth century as a uniquely inde-pendent, faculty-dominated university. Thespecial faculty culture at Chicago—confi-dently autonomous, impatient with exter-nal regulation, committed to the highestscholarly and educational excellence, andardently protective of the ideals of aca-demic freedom—is deeply related to thestyle and the plenitude of aristocratic be-neficence that the early University enjoyed.But that munificent support also encour-aged the institution to live in a highlyindependent way, without serious regardfor the external constituencies on whom itwould eventually have to depend, mostnotably our alumni and on local civic elitesin the Chicago area. Moreover, before 1950our very large endowment enabled us topursue bold new ventures even in times offinancial distress, at the risk of cutting intothe fat and eventually the bone (i.e., spend-ing funds designated as endowment), to useHarold Swift’s homespun term, rather thanraising new money to cover new expenses.

We then endured two crucial blows.First, the unanticipated collapse of Collegeenrollments in the early 1950s put us on ademographic trajectory that was extremelydisadvantageous compared to our peer

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 1 9

institutions. Second, the simultaneous cri-sis of the South Side made it urgent that theUniversity divert significant financial re-sources into stabilizing the neighborhood.Those resources, in another time andplace, could have gone into rebuilding ourendowment.

The 1960s were times of optimism, andthe campaign of 1966–69 was quite suc-cessful, owing to a one-time gift of $25million from the Ford Foundation. But thegolden 1960s were followed by the bleak1970s, a time of further retrenchment,caution, and apprehension.

Since the late 1970s, the University hassignificantly improved its budgetary plan-ning and its development operations. Per-haps the greatest structural change since1979 has been the creation of an effectivedevelopment office, staffed by many dedi-cated professionals who, over the lastthirty-five years, have provided an enor-mous service to the University. In recentyears, much more dynamic programs ofalumni relations and career counseling andplacement have also been set in place. Andour attitudes have changed in subtle, butsignificant, ways about how we work withour students. Not only have we addednearly 1,800 new students to the Collegesince 1979, and several hundred additionalmaster’s-level students to the divisions since1993, making our demographic portraitmore closely aligned to those of our topprivate peers, but we understand that ourundergraduate and graduate students arefull members of our community and thatthey deserve our support to develop all oftheir creative potential.

The cumulative result of these transfor-mations since the late 1970s has been toreturn Chicago to a trajectory of fiscalstrength and fund-raising effectiveness. Butwe continue to face long-term structuralchallenges. The endowments of our peersnow substantially exceed our own, as aresult (in part) of the structural and policyproblems identified in this report: thesmall size of the undergraduate alumnibody, reflecting the long-term impact of theenrollment crisis of the 1950s; the occupa-tional distribution of our alumni (we tendto have an overproportional share ofalumni in the teaching professions); earlierincursions into the endowment itself,which reduced our growth base; and theheritage of episodic engagement-followed-by-disengagement with the alumni andwith the civic elites of the city of Chicagothat marked the decades before 1980. Overthe last thirty-five years, the University’sfund-raising income has grown at a healthyrate in absolute terms, but it has grownmore slowly than the combined averageof our top peers. Similarly, our annualparticipation rate for alumni contributions(28 percent) still lags well behind those ofour peers.

Viewed over the longue durée of theUniversity’s financial history, tight budgetshave been characteristic of the University’sfiscal experience for much of the twentiethcentury after 1920. This was not becauseof waste or unworthy initiatives. Rather,our predecessors sought to constitute oneof the three or four most distinguishedresearch and teaching universities in thenation, if not the world. The endless pres-sure of high ambition constantly challenged

the resources of the institution. In effect,the University has always been under-funded, measured by its own ambitions.Edward Levi observed in 1970, “Ours is aproud University, given to ambition be-yond belief.” Yet ambition is not a freegood, for it must be funded and thus sus-tained over time.

At the beginning of a new century, weface a fundamental question: will we findthe resources necessary to sustain the kindof learning and teaching community wewant to be? Robert Hutchins’s boldnesshelped to constitute a special intellectualculture for the University. Yet Hutchins’spractices of spending first and worryinglater proved disastrous for the University,and cannot be repeated. Many of us wouldagree with William Benton that Hutchinswas defending the ideal of a “real univer-sity.” If some found this ideal uncongenialin the 1930s, is it more plausible today?Will our alumni and our closest friendshelp us to sustain this ideal in our time?

We are now engaged in the most ambi-tious fund-raising effort the University hasever attempted, to raise $2 billion by 2006.Why should alumni and friends supportthis effort? From my perspective as Deanof the College, I would like to offer threeanswers.

The first reason to support the cam-paign is that the future welfare of the Uni-versity hinges upon it. The University ofChicago is a community devoted to learn-ing and to scientific discovery as a way oflife. It is a community that believes thatknowledge is of fundamental value in guid-ing human action, and it sees the discoveryof new knowledge as a compelling socialnecessity. To support the practical work ofour community, we need an endowmentthat is appropriate to the mission and re-sponsibilities of the University. For some ofthe reasons explained in this paper, ourendowment has failed to keep pace withthose needs and responsibilities. $800 mil-lion of the current campaign will be dedi-cated toward increasing our endowment.The balance will underwrite essential build-ing projects, instructional and research pro-grams, and programs to support and enrichstudent life in the College, the graduatedivisions, and the schools.

The second reason to support this cam-paign is that we are Chicago’s university.Those civic leaders who care about thefuture of the city should care about thefuture of the University. As Robert Hughesso eloquently argued eighty years ago, theUniversity is a part of the cultural fabric ofthe great Midwestern metropolis. We bringprestige and honor to the city, and thecity in turn provides us with a magnificentcultural and social milieu in which toeducate our students and to undertake thediscovery of new knowledge. We seek toencourage more opportunities for our stu-dents and our faculty to learn from thecity and to help individuals and groupswithin the city. The campaign will supportthese partnerships, and we in turn hopethat the city and its people will supporttheir university.

A final reason to support the campaignis that the future welfare of the College isdeeply implicated in its success. The Col-lege lies at the heart of the University.With 4,500 students the College is now the

largest unit in the University and the onecharged with the education of our youngeststudents. American research universities inthe twenty-first century will be judged aboveall else by how well they educate theirundergraduate students. We have a longtradition of excellence and rigor in aca-demic learning, but we also have a check-ered history in providing supportmechanisms and learning opportunitiesbeyond the classroom. In the past the Col-lege also had little capacity to support vitaldomains of student life. All of this haschanged since 1980, and it has changedprofoundly. Just as the College has initi-ated new programs to support andstrengthen our faculty’s teaching in generaleducation, it has also developed new inter-national initiatives to enable our studentsto become leaders in a transnational world.Working with the Division of the Humani-ties, the College has supported new pro-grams in music, drama, creative writing,dance, and the visual arts to encourage theremarkable creativity of our students; andwe have also strongly advocated new ath-letics and residential-life projects to pro-mote a more supportive and nurturingcommunity for our students. The campaignwill buttress these new programs, and guar-antee their future efficacy.

Many of the tensions that afflicted theHutchins era involved fundamentally dif-fering views about how to best educateyoung adults to serve as leaders in Ameri-can society. In recent decades, we havetried to sustain the intellectual rigor anddiscipline that characterized Hutchins’scultural revolution. But we have also soughtto broaden our understanding of the workof the College to include new support forstudent life programs; new encouragementof personal and community development;new programs of internships and commu-nity service that bring our students intodirect contact with the people of Chicagoand the nation at large; and striking newopportunities for international and sec-ond-language education, such as the For-eign Language Acquisition Grants, the ParisCenter, and our many new civilizationalstudies programs around the world.

Today, the College is flourishing—filledwith extraordinary students who want tobe at Chicago and who want to live inChicago; who appreciate the value of arigorous, interdisciplinary liberal educa-tion; who view themselves as full membersof our community; and who deserve thebest teaching that our gifted faculty col-leagues can offer. The College’s welfare isessential to the long-term welfare of theUniversity.

We can sustain our special intellectualvalues and scholarly greatness while alsobuilding a vibrant community with ourstudents and maintaining wide and sturdybridges to our alumni. We can celebrate theUniversity as an essential asset for the greatcity to which it so naturally belongs. Weseek support to do all of these things, and todo them well. As Ernest Burton remindedus many years ago, we should not seek to bebigger. Rather, we want to be better. Thatwas a defensible vision in 1924, and itremains so in 2004.

Without the consistent and passionatesupport of our own members, our alumni,the University will not be able to sustain its

greatness. The age of huge, unrestrictedfoundation grants is over. The time ofdiscreet trips to 61 Broadway is long gone.The alumni are now the principal stewardsof our community, and they will determine,more than any other single agent, our fu-ture fate.

Our founders set out to create a great uni-versity, the greatest between the Allegheniesand the Pacific Ocean, a university thatwould defend the highest standards ofscholarly achievement and that would serveas a model for other universities in theirstruggles to defend the cause of academicfreedom. Our founders succeeded in thatmarvelous work by creating a place thatmany consider the ideal university, a realuniversity, a place of integrity and author-ity and of efficacious intellectual powerused to encourage the development of thecreative will. Down through the decades ofour history comes a cascade of respect forthe educational work of the University, forthe good that it has done, for the creativitythat it has nurtured, for the self-confidenceand talent that it has sponsored in its stu-dents. Very few institutions in our societyhave such power to enrich and transformhuman life.

In our time, the faculty have the chanceto defend those high achievements but alsoto broaden and deepen the impact of theUniversity on the lives of our students andour alumni. The University is a uniquecommunity worthy of support, and morethan ever in our past we need that supportfor the educational work that we must dowith the most talented younger people ofthis nation.

As always, I thank you for your devo-tion to the work of the College, and I wishyou a stimulating and productive academicyear.

Notes1. Unpublished letter of Goodspeed to Rockefeller,filed in “Reminiscences of Thomas WakefieldGoodspeed,” p. 264, Thomas Goodspeed Papers.The archival materials cited in this report arelocated in the Special Collections Research Center,University of Chicago Library. I wish to thankDaniel Meyer and Daniel Koehler for their assis-tance in the preparation of this essay.

2. These events are described in detail in Tho-mas W. Goodspeed, A History of the University ofChicago. The First Quarter Century (Chicago,1916), pp. 66–91; and Frederick T. Gates, Chap-ters in My Life (New York, 1977), pp. 97–118.

3. See the Subscriptions for Contributions tothe University of Chicago. Records 1889–1906,Box 1. Several of the largest original donors wereunable to meet their pledges. Goodspeed was forcedto draft dunning letters, asking people in the mostpolite way to honor their pledges.

4. Gates, Chapters, p. 114.5. Lists of the early major gifts are in Goodspeed,

History, pp. 184, 274, 281; and Record of Pledgesfor University of Chicago, 1890–1906, SpecialCollections.

6. “Memorandum by J. H. Tufts,” James TuftsPapers, Box 1, folder 22. Thomas Goodspeed laterrecalled that face-to-face fund-raising solicitationswere difficult for Harper. “He admitted to hisfamily that he sometimes turned back from a doorwhere he knew he must ask for money, to seek freshcourage for the interview.” Thomas W. Goodspeed,William Rainey Harper. First President of theUniversity of Chicago (Chicago, 1928), p. 151.

7. “Reminiscences of Thomas WakefieldGoodspeed,” pp. 300–1.

8. Between 1906 and 1907, Rockefeller con-tributed $3.7 million in additional endowmentsupport: $1 million in January 1906 for the 1906–07 fiscal year and another $2.7 million in January1907 for the 1907–08 fiscal year. This wasfollowed by another $1.54 million gift in January

2 0 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

1908 and an additional gift of $928,000 in January1909. See Minutes of the Board of Trustees, 1904–07, pp. 350, 478; Minutes of the Board of Trustees,1907–09, pp. 149–50, pp. 309–13. Judson notedin his annual report for 1908–09 that “[t]he gift bythe founder in January of one million dollars forendowment, to take effect July 1, 1909, will, it isexpected, in the next fiscal year wipe out the last ofthe recurring annual deficits.” The President’s Re-port. July 1908–July 1909 (Chicago, 1910), p. 5. Inmid-December 1910, Rockefeller then announceda $10-million concluding gift that would be paid in$1-million installments over the next ten years,beginning January 1, 1911.

9. La Verne Noyes gave $300,000 to build IdaNoyes Hall in 1913 and an additional $1.5 millionto create a scholarship fund for veterans of WorldWar I and their descendants. Hobart Williams gavea gift of $2 million for scholarships and instructionin 1916, which was totally unsolicited. Rosenwaldprovided $250,000 in 1912 for a building forgeology and geography.

10. James Tufts, “Burton,” p. 8, James TuftsPapers, Box 3, folder 18.

11. “A Survey and Fund-Raising Plan for theUniversity of Chicago,” March 8, 1924, pp. 16, 41.Presidents’ Papers, Addenda 1924–1981, 85–14,Box 4. Presidents’ Papers, hereafter cited as PP.

12. Swift to Judson, October 11, 1919, SwiftPapers, Box 156, folder 25. The enthusiasm, lead-ership, and personal contacts with other alumnithat Swift showed in this transaction may have ledto his selection to succeed Martin A. Ryerson as theChairman of the Board in 1922.

13. Swift to Judson, June 5, 1920, ibid. Judsononly commissioned Goodspeed to work on thebooklet a year after Swift requested it. SeeGoodspeed to Swift, December 24, 1920, ibid.

14. Swift to Edgar J. Goodspeed, January 4,1921, ibid. A few days later, Swift sent another letterin which he noted that “undergraduates and gradu-ates of our College Department frequently feel thatwe are trying to stifle rather than encourage thatDepartment.” Letter of January 7, 1921, ibid.

15. The University of Chicago in 1921 (Chicago,1921), p. 26.

16. Swift to A. G. Pierrot, February 19, 1921,Swift Papers, Box 156, folder 25. Pierrot was thesecretary of the Alumni council. The Alumni Fundraised over $100,000 in 1921, including some$57,000 in Liberty bonds.

17. “A Survey and Fundraising Plan for theUniversity of Chicago,” p. 20.

18. See, for example, Burton to Swift, Decem-ber 26, 1923, Swift Papers, Box 73, folder 3.

19. Dickerson to Swift, May 9, 1923, SwiftPapers, Box 82, folder 12.

20. Swift to Burton, December 31, 1923, SwiftPapers, Box 73, folder 3. Goodspeed’s proposal foran internally organized campaign is also in thisfolder. He insisted that “an outside agency, evenfor survey purposes, could tell us little, if anything,that we do not already know.” Swift was encour-aged to select the John Price Jones Corporation inJanuary 1919 by Trevor Arnett, who was stillemployed at the GEB but who was about to returnto Chicago as Burton’s chief financial officer. SeeArnett to Swift, January 17, 1924, folder 4.

21. See Swift’s encouragement of Burton whenBurton wanted to call an emergency meeting of theSenate to announce a shortfall of revenue thatmight endanger Burton’s expansion program. Swiftstrongly urged him not to call the meeting, on thegrounds that a “consistent and well rounded plan”was emerging that might resolve the situation. SeeSwift to Burton, January 7, 1924. Box 73, folder 4.Burton again inquired in April whether he mightcall such a meeting, and Swift responded that thetime was “nearly ripe.” Swift to Burton, April 17,1924, Box 74, folder 7.

22. See “A Survey and Fund-Raising Plan forthe University of Chicago,” PP, Addenda 1924–81, folder 4. Jones believed that “such a surveybears to a financial campaign the same relationthat a map bears to a military campaign or adiagnosis to medical treatment.” See Jones to AlbertSherer, November 14, 1923, Swift Papers, Box 73,folder 4.

23. See Scott M. Cutlip, Fund Raising in theUnited States. Its Role in America’s Philanthropy(New Brunswick, 1965), esp. pp. 171–77, 480–82.Jones was also a graduate of Harvard. The Jonesfirm was chartered in New York State on Novem-ber 23, 1919.

24. John A. Cousens to G. O. Fairweather,

January 21, 1924, Swift Papers, Box 73, folder 4.Swift reported that Duncan was “much interested[and] anxious [to] have work.” Telegram fromSwift to Arnett, January 15, 1924, folder 4.

25. “Extract of letter from Wilbur E. Post inresponse to H. H. S.’s request to find out from Mr.Cresap all he would say in reference to Mr. Duncanand the John Price Jones People,” Swift Papers,Box 73, folder 5.

26. Cutlip, Fund Raising, p. 481.27. Trevor Arnett, “A Letter to Alumni,” PP,

1889–1925, Box 28, folder 22.28. Duncan to Thomas Gonser, October 24,

1955, PP, 1952–1950, Box 70, folder 7.29. Swift to Burton, February 20, 1924, Swift

Papers, Box 73, folder 5.30. Burton first visited the GEB in early Febru-

ary 1924. As late as April, he hoped that he couldget $6 million from them. See Burton to Swift,April 17, 1924, Box 74, folder 7. The final decisionwas taken at the May meeting of the GEB.

31. See the list of Rockefeller-associated gifts tothe University of Chicago from 1890 to 1932 in theSwift Papers, Box 85, folders 13a, 15, 17. See also“Conditional Gifts-University of Chicago,” July21, 1927, Swift Papers, Box 75, folder 28, and thedata from 1938–39 in VP Papers, Box 9, folder 26.

32. Copies of his various speeches are in Uni-versity Development Campaigns, Part 1: 1896–1941, Box 5.

33. Burton’s views of the College may havereflected nudgings by Swift. When Burton sent himthe first draft of The University of Chicago in1940, Swift used Ernest Quantrell’s imagined, pro-undergraduate reactions to urge Burton to tonedown arguments in favor of pure research in favorof a parallel argument about education as a socialgood unto itself. See Swift to Burton, October 31,1924, Swift Papers, Box 75, folder 1. Many yearslater Swift recalled about Burton’s support forundergraduate education that some senior faculty“reproached and reviled him for his emphasis onthe College. Mr. Burton won the battle but onlyafter great difficulty.” “Eighth Session,” p. 54, PP,1952–1960, Box 165, folder 2.

34. Duncan to Swift, September 13, 1924,Swift Papers, Box 74, folder 19; ibid., September25, 1924, Box 76, folder 9.

35. “The University of Chicago. Its Needs,Immediate and of the Future. Its Plans to MeetThese Needs. A Memorandum for the Informationof the Trustees of the University,” July 1924, PP,1889–1925, Box 46, folder 17.

36. The negotiations may be charted by thecorrespondence in Swift Papers, Box 74, folder 7.

37. See Burton to Ryerson, April 19, 1924, PP,1880–1925, Box 28, folder 23.

38. Swift’s standard solicitation letter left therecipient with little choice but to give a gift: “Idislike soliciting funds, especially from my goodfriends, but [I] believe you will realize that this isthe feasible way to handle [the matter]. To thatend, I enclose herewith two pledge cards, one ofwhich I should appreciate you filling in with theamount of your subscription.” Swift to RobertLamont, November 21, 1924, Swift Papers, Box76, folder 4.

39. The lists are in ibid., folders 4 and 8. RobertScott gave $25,000, Thomas Donnelley $25,000,Robert Lamont $75,000, and Harold McCormick$10,000. Edward Ryerson gave $5,000, AlbertSherer $1,500, William Scott Bond $3,000, HarryGear $1,500, Frank Lindsay $1,000, Wilbur Post,$1,500, C. H. Axelson $3,000, Samuel Jennings$1,500, Howard Grey $6,000, Deloss Shull $1,000,and Burton himself $5,000. Charles Evans Hughesgave $100. During the negotiations over whichTrustee might serve as a leader of the developmentcommittee, with Thomas Donnelley begging offfor reasons of overwork, Swift was forced to admitthat “[n]o one else on the Board impresses me asideal or even satisfactory.” Swift to Arnett, April21, 1924, ibid., Box 73, folder 15.

40. “Alumni Campaign Handbook,” p. 8, ibid.,Box 75, folder 23.

41. “University-Alumni Relations. A Surveyand A Suggested Plan,” [1926] p. 21, Swift Papers,Box 156, folder 27.

42. If one includes the additional 4.8 percent ofthe alumni who were in the ministry, and another2.2 percent who were categorized as being “scien-tists,” it is clear that well over half of our alumni in1924 were in occupations in some way related tolearning and education. See University Develop-ment Campaigns, Part 1: 1896–1941, Box 2, folder

5, and Floyd W. Reeves and John Dale Russell,The Alumni of the Colleges (Chicago, 1933), pp.64–91.

43. For a charming memoir of Vogt’s life, seeBarbara Vogt Mallery, Bailing Wire and Gamuza.The True Story of a Family Ranch Near Ramah,New Mexico, 1905–1986 (New Mexico, 2003),esp. pp. 18, 42. Both nicknames and loyalty to theUniversity of Chicago seem to have run in thefamily. His son, Evon Z. Vogt, Jr., also attendedthe University of Chicago, beginning in 1937 as anundergraduate, where he majored in geography.He stayed on to take his Ph.D. in anthropology,working with Robert Redfield, W. Lloyd Warner,and Fred Eggan, and went on to have a distin-guished career in Mesoamerican anthropology atHarvard University. Among family and friends, hewas called “Vogtie.”

44. The Vogt correspondence is in UniversityDevelopment Campaigns, Part 1: 1896–1941, Box2A, folder 1.

45. Robert F. Duncan, “The Campaign forDevelopment of the University of Chicago. August11, 1924–February 6, 1926,” pp. 37–38, Univer-sity Development Campaigns, Part 1: 1896–1941,Box 1, folder 9.

46. Robert L. Lamont to Swift, May 29, 1925,Swift Papers, Box 76, folder 21.

47. R. M. Hughes to R. D. Lee, October 27,1923, Swift Papers, Box 73, folder 5.

48. Jones to Swift, January 27, 1925, SwiftPapers, Box 82, folder 1. Swift sent the letter to allmembers of the executive committee.

49. Ibid.50. Jones to Sherer, April 13, 1925, ibid., Box

73, folder 6.51. Robert Duncan, “A Suggestion Regarding

the Future of the University of Chicago Cam-paign,” May 16, 1925, ibid., Box 82, folder 1.

52. Writing at Swift’s request, Sherer told JohnPrice Jones that he anticipated that the summer of1925 would be slow, but that in the fall the “secondlap” of the campaign would begin, and that theUniversity very much wanted Duncan to continueto work on the Chicago campaign. Sherer to Jones,March 19, 1925, ibid., Box 73, folder 6.

53. Ten years later Harold Swift recalled, “It isan interesting fact that when we first conceived ofthe college buildings across the Midway, PresidentBurton went to John G. Shedd and asked him to dothe whole thing at a cost of three to four milliondollars. His reply was that he was interested but hewas already committed to the Aquarium and hewould not do both at that time. He said, however,that the city had not taken up the Aquariumenthusiastically and that he had lost his ardor for it,and that if the project was defeated when it went tothe voters for approval, he would then give theUniversity the three million dollars—probably forthe college plan. Unfortunately for us, the votersapproved the Aquarium project.” Swift to Stifler,March 26, 1935, ibid., Box 82, folder 12. Swift’ssecretary, M. F. Sturdy, informed Duncan on June12, 1925, “Mr. Swift reviewed the matter with Mr.Donnelley and they both definitely agreed that Mr.Shedd was out of the picture at present.” Letter ofJune 12, 1925.

54. “The Citizens Committee of the Universityof Chicago,” Swift Papers, Box 75, folder 4.

55. See John F. Moulds to Max Mason, June 1,1926, ibid., Box 75, folder 19. $2 million came asa matching grant from the GEB and $1 millionfrom Julius Rosenwald that was counted as part ofthe $1.7-million Trustee gift. Rosenwald intendedthat his gift be expended and not lodged in apermanent endowment. Swift to Trevor Arnett,March 25, 1925, ibid., Box 82, folder 1; William C.Graves to L. R. Steere, January 14, 1927, ibid., Box76, folder 4; and Moulds to L. R. Steere, October14, 1926, ibid., folder 1.

56. “Eighth Session,” p. 54, PP, 1952–1960,Box 165, folder 2.

57. Robert F. Duncan, “The Campaign forDevelopment of the University of Chicago. August11, 1924–February 6, 1926,” pp. 22, 23, 27,University Development Campaigns, Part 1: 1896–1941, Box 1, folder 9.

58. Ibid., p. 7.59. Swift to Jacob Pfeiffer, August 11, 1925,

Swift Papers, Box 73, folder 13.60. Swift memo to C. H. S., February 19, 1930,

ibid. Shortly after Mason’s resignation, RobertDuncan sent Swift a letter asking about the statusof fund raising at the University and offering tobecome reengaged with Chicago, on an ongoing

consultancy basis. See Duncan to Swift, October19, 1928, ibid.

61. “Minutes of the Committee on Develop-ment,” January 13, 1926, Swift Papers, Box 74,folder 6. See also Minutes of the Board of Trustees,January 14, 1926, p. 7. The Trustees’ Committeeon Development, having no more work to do,recommended its own abolition. See Minutes of theBoard of Trustees, November 11, 1926, p. 434. Itwas only reestablished in November 1928. Seeibid., November 8, 1928, pp. 226–27.

62. The Eckhart gift came as a result of TrusteeJulius Rosenwald’s intervention. The Jones giftoriginated from an intervention by David Evans.The Wieboldt gift resulted from cultivation byErnest Burton and Julius Rosenwald.

63. Minutes of the Board of Trustees, May 10,1928, p. 109. By 1930, with final collections, theDevelopment Fund stood at $9.9 million, far shortof the original $17.5-million target set in 1924.Swift Papers, Box 82, folder 6.

64. Sunny to Woodward, June 12, 1929 andJune 25, 1929, “Paul H. Douglas File,” PP, Ad-denda, 97–60, Box 6; Sunny to Hutchins, July 2,1932, Swift Papers, Box 192, folder 3. Sunny wasborn in Brooklyn in 1856 and came to Chicago in1871. He was active in the unsuccessful municipalCharter movement in Chicago before World War I,and served as president of the Civic Federation. Bythe time he volunteered to lead the “quiet” cam-paign, he was seventy years old. In June 1929,Sunny reminded Vice-President Frederick Wood-ward, “Of course as you say (and as I said in myletter to you) Professor Douglas is a free andindependent citizen, entitled to his views, etc., buthe is free and independent only to the extent that hewill not do damage to the institution that is payinghis bread and butter. . . . As the University isapplauded for the achievements of Breasted,Compton, Michelson, et al., and its prestige height-ened thereby, so must it take the onus of the actsand opinions of its professors when they disagreewith the experience and sentiment of the commu-nity.” Douglas, in turn, later recalled that “[t]heInsull forces put heavy pressure on the universityeither to fire or to muzzle me. I was distinctlyconscious of being followed. . . . The financialinterests on La Salle Street considered me danger-ous because I dared to stand up to Insull and tothem. Some of these tycoons were trying to have medropped by the university.” See In the Fullness ofTime. The Memoirs of Paul H. Douglas (NewYork, 1972), pp. 57, 59.

65. In 1931, the Citizens’ Committee collecteda number of $1,000 gifts, mainly from UniversityTrustees but also from a few interested business-men. But this was hardly a major developmenteffort. See Minutes of the Board of Trustees, June11, 1924, pp. 92–93; July 9, 1931, p. 114, Novem-ber 12, 1931, p. 230.

66. Swift Papers, Box 76, folder 23.67. “Memorandum on New York Trip of Max

Mason, January 4, 1927,” Swift Papers, Box 175,folder 6. An interesting exchange occurred on thisvisit between Abraham Flexner and Mason. Flexnerdecried the influence of undergraduates at a re-search university, but Mason pointed out that thebest way to change the attitudes of Americansociety about the importance of scholarly researchwas to expose undergraduates to scholarship dur-ing their years in college.

68. Woodward to Arnett, March 29, 1929,forwarding “The General Medical School Budgetand the University Clinics,” March 27, 1929, De-velopment and Alumni Relations Records, Box 48.The total awards from the Rockefeller Boards tothe Medical School were over $12.8 million up to1932. Plimpton to Swift, March 4, 1932, SwiftPapers, Box 85, folder 13a.

69. Detailed information on University financesin the 1930s, as presented to the Board of Trusteesin 1939, is in VP Papers, Box 9, folder 26.

70. See John F. Moulds to Swift, November 5,1926, Swift Papers, Box 74, folder 6.

71. See “Report for the Committee on Develop-ment to the Board of Trustees,” April 11, 1929,Swift Papers, Box 75, folder 4; Minutes of theBoard of Trustees, April 11, 1929, pp. 80–82.

72. Stifler to Swift, December 1, 1931, SwiftPapers, Box 82, folder 7.

73. Stifler to Edward Ryerson, January 13,1932, ibid., Box 82, folder 8.

74. Stifler to Hutchins and Swift, February 16,1932, ibid.

75. “John P. Howe to Executive Committee

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 2 1

and Committee on Development,” December 11,1939, ibid., Box 201, folder 2.

76. Hutchins to Swift, October 1, 1929, SwiftPapers, Box 175, folder 7; “Confidential memo-randum of conversation between Mr. Hutchinsand Mr. Mason, October 13, 1929,” and “Memo-randum of Conversations with Mason, Day, andRuml, December 7, 1929.”

77. Hutchins to the Rockefeller Foundation,March 5, 1930, Swift Papers, Box 175, folder 7;“Memorandum on the Financial Programme of theUniversity of Chicago,” March 24, 1930, Develop-ment and Alumni Relations Records, Box 52. Thismemo revised slightly the original proposal ofMarch 5, 1930.

78. For example, to procure the $275,000 fromthe GEB, Robert Hutchins paid personal visits toTrevor Arnett and David Stevens in January 1931in New York. The grant was approved three monthslater. These informal networks with former Chi-cago men must have had an impact on the decision-making processes.

79. “Very embarrassing to so many Chicagomen officers. More embarrassing to Arnett thanhim.” “Confidential memorandum of conversa-tion between Mr. Hutchins and Mr. Mason, Octo-ber 13, 1929,” Swift Papers, Box 52.

80. Draft of a letter to Mason, November 14,1939, ibid.

81. Minutes of the Board of Trustees, June 12,1930, p. 147.

82. Ibid., May 14, 1931, p. 59. This grant wasalso the result of a personal visit to New York. See“Mem. of conversation with Messrs. Mason,Arnett, and Stevens, 13 January 1931,” Develop-ment and Alumni Relations Records, Box 52.

83. Hutchins provided Mason with a detailedaccounting of the financial distress of the Univer-sity in a letter of November 7, 1931, and itsintended budget reductions. Ibid.

84. Raymond D. Fosdick to Hutchins, Novem-ber 16, 1939, ibid. Hutchins’s notes for the speechare in the same file. See also Hutchins to Fosdick,June 4, 1936, Development and Alumni RelationsRecords, Box 48.

85. Robert M. Hutchins, “The University ofChicago, with Special Reference to Medicine,”May 15, 1940, ibid. Hutchins was forced to replyto Fosdick’s ambivalent response to this memo byinsisting that the University was not seeking “pref-erential” treatment by making these further re-quests. See draft of a letter to Fosdick, undated,1940, ibid.

86. Robert M. Hutchins, “The RockefellerTrustees,” February 4, 1941, as well as his re-marks, entitled “The Function of the EndowedUniversity,” in Development and Alumni Rela-tions Records, Box 52.

87. “Survey, Analysis and Plan of Fund-Raisingfor the University of Chicago,” April 18, 1936, p.119, University Development Campaigns, Part 1:1896–1941, Box 7, folder 20.

88. Stevens to Woodward, May 8, 1931, Gen-eral Education Board files, Development andAlumni Relations Records, Box 48. Woodwardnoted in pencil “I don’t know what this means!”but Stevens’s meaning was actually quite clear—hehoped that Chicago would find ways to endow theactivities the GEB was temporarily supporting, butfrom sources other than the GEB.

89. “Report of the Committee of Three of theGeneral Education Board (Mr. Rockefeller, Jr.,Mr. Young, and Mr. Fosdick) on the ChicagoUniversity Medical Project,” included in a letterfrom Raymond B. Fosdick to Harold Swift, De-cember 18, 1936, ibid., Box 48.

90. W. H. Taliaferro to Hutchins, January 24,1939, Development and Alumni Relations Records,Box 52.

91. “Statement and Recommendations to theUniversity of Chicago,” January 1934, Swift Pa-pers, Box 82, folder 11. $200,000 was to be raisedin major gifts quietly, and $200,000 from alumnifor scholarships.

92. “Memorandum of the Committee on De-velopment for the attention of the Board of Trust-ees,” February 1935, Swift Papers, Box 82, folder12.

93. Memorandum to the Board of Trustees,June 13, 1935, p. 6. ibid., folder 10. This memourged more attention to improving student enroll-ment, urging that “[i]t is desirable that as large aproportion as possible of these persons shall beable to pay their own way.”

94. For the Walgreen Affair, see John W. Boyer,

Academic Freedom and the Modern University.The Experience of the University of Chicago (Chi-cago, 2003), pp. 23–66.

95. “Survey, Analysis, and Plan of Fund-Rais-ing for the University of Chicago,” April 18, 1936,University Development Campaigns, Part 1: 1896–1941, Box 7, folder 20. These materials are alsofiled in PP, Addenda, 1924–1983, 86–67, Box 3.

96. John F. Moulds, “Digest of the Report ofthe John Price Jones Corporation,” p. 13, ibid.

97. Minutes of the Board of Trustees, May 14,1936. Russell presented it to the full Board withoutany specific recommendation on May 14, 1936. Atthe same meeting, Swift informed the Board that adelegation of Chicagoans would be meeting withofficers from the GEB in New York on May 19,1936. Again, New York seemed to be the easiestway out of the predicament.

98. Randall to Swift, September 25, 1936,Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 1.

99. Stifler to Swift, December 1, 1936, ibid.,Box 82, folder 13.

100. “It has seemed to me that pending infor-mation from the General Education Board as towhether we are going to get funds from them asrequested by our special committee who went tosee them on May 19, and pending Mr. Benton’sreport, since we brought him on to ‘expert’ on thesubject, that we have been necessarily stymied forthe present. . . . I have hopes, however, that we canget fairly prompt action on both of these subjects.If we do so, I think we shall be in a position to makea constructive program.” Swift to Stifler, Decem-ber 9, 1936, ibid.

101. Sydney Hyman, The Lives of WilliamBenton (Chicago, 1969), pp. 68–70.

102. Minutes of the Board of Trustees, January14, 1937, p. 3. Although the formal use of themoney was to support the Medical School, the GEBallowed the University to use part of it to stabilizethe general budget.

103. William B. Benton, The University ofChicago’s Public Relations (Chicago, 1937), pp.129–42.

104. “Memoranda for Development Commit-tee,” undated [January 1937], Swift Papers, Box82, folder 13. In folder 14 there is a letter fromSwift to Russell, February 1, 1937, indicating heedited Russell’s memo. See also the Minutes of theBoard of Trustees, February 3, 1937, pp. 13–14.

105. “Committee on Development,” Decem-ber 23, 1938, and January 19, 1939, Swift Papers,Box 201, folder 21.

106. “The Fiftieth Anniversary Plan for TheUniversity of Chicago,” February 15, 1939, SwiftPapers, Box 201, folder 15.

107. See Swift’s notes of these conversations in“Memoranda for P. S. R.,” [Paul S. Russell, 1939]Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 2; Bell to Swift,March 14, 1939, ibid., folder 2. Randall’s negativeview is confirmed by a later letter of Frank McNair.See McNair to Randall, February 7, 1941, ibid.,folder 3.

108. “Memoranda for P.S.R.,” [Paul S. Russell,1939] Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 2.

109. Zimmermann to Paul S. Russell, April 20,1939, Duncan to Zimmermann, April 19, 1939,VP Papers, Box 7, folder 5. See also “Minutes ofthe Meeting of the Alumni Committee on Coop-eration with the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration,June 27, 1939,” Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 6;and Swift to Moulds, “confidential” June 12, 1939,ibid., folder 2.

110. Benton, The University of Chicago’s Pub-lic Relations, p. 66.

111. See “A Suggested Report from the Com-mittee on Development to the Board of Trustees,”in Moulds to Swift, July 3, 1939, Swift Papers, Box201, folder 21. Duncan wrote to Paul Russell onJune 30, summarizing where the situation stood.

112. Committee on Development to the Boardof Trustees, July 13, 1939, Swift Papers, Box 201,folder 2.

113. Minutes of the Board of Trustees, July 13,1939, p. 232.

114. Donald P. Bean (Class of 1917), a formerdirector of the University Press, was installed as theexecutive director of both the alumni and publiccampaign efforts, with assistance from John Howe,William Morgenstern (campaign publicity direc-tor), George Mather (executive director of thealumni campaign), and other staff members fromBenton’s office. The University opened a down-town office, and organized alumni gift committeesand a special gifts committee.

115. “Proceedings. President Robert M.Hutchins Special Conference,” June 19, 1939, VPPapers, Box 7, folder 10, pp. 10–11.

116. For Hutchins’s sometimes turbulent rela-tions with key groups of senior faculty in the 1930sand 1940s, see Mary Ann Dzuback, Robert M.Hutchins. Portrait of an Educator (Chicago, 1991),esp. pp. 185–207.

117. Your University and its Future (Chicago,1941), p. 4. See the files in VP Papers, Box 12,folder 15.

118. Benton, The University of Chicago’s Pub-lic Relations, p. 23.

119. “Survey, Analysis, and Plan of Fund-Raising for The University of Chicago,” UniversityDevelopment Campaigns, Part 1: 1896–1941, Box7, folder 20, pp. 76–77.

120. The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (3vols., New York, 1953–54), 3: 472.

121. Allyn to Nuveen, November 18, 1939,Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 4. Allyn was aninvestment banker who was Class of 1908.

122. CBG to Stifler, [March 1935] who sentcopy to Swift. Swift Papers, Box 82, folder 12.

123. Quantrell to Swift, October 23, 1939,Swift Papers, Box 156, folder 10.

124. Benton, “Some Observations on the Cam-paign,” November 1, 1940, pp. 7–8, Swift Papers,Box 201, folder 19.

125. “The University of Chicago Alumni Foun-dation. A Report from the John Price Jones Corpo-ration.” January 2, 1941, Swift Papers, Box 156,folder 2, p. 5.

126. Benton to Hutchins, November 21, 1939,p. 2, VP Papers, Box 9, folder 23.

127. Duncan to Herbert Zimmerman, April 19,1939, VP Papers, Box 7, folder 5.

128. “University-Alumni Relations,” p. 45,Swift Papers, Box 156, folder 27.

129. Swift to Earl D. Hostetter and AdolphPierrot, April 30, 1926, ibid., pp. 2–3, 11–12. Healso observed, “It is easy to say that continuedAlumni contacts will produce cash in the long run,and it is probably true, but that doesn’t establishhow much is a logical expenditure, particularlywhen the University is greatly in need of funds tocarry on its academic pursuits. It seems to me quiteanalogous to a new business, where it is easy andprobably wise to say that a new business shouldspend money in advertising, but when demands areenormous and income scarce, the question is—where is the money to come from?” p. 2.

130. Zimmerman to Russell, August 8, 1936,Swift Papers, Box 82, folder 13.

131. Benton to Mather, April 11, 1940, VPPapers, Box 13, folder 2.

132. Howe wrote to Benton, “Marin’s greatestasset is his vigor. He has ideas—some good, manynot good, few of them new. What he’d apparentlylike to do is develop ideas at large—radio, alumni,donor relations, or whatever—and try to worksome of them out. This won’t work very well. Hedoesn’t know the University too well. . . . I suspectthat most of our men—Beck, Bean, Dryer, etcetera—wouldn’t think many of his ideas werevery good, and would resent him.” Memo ofMarch 27, 1940, VP Papers. Box 9, folder 18.

133. Marin to Hutchins, March 13, 1939,ibid., Box 13, folder 1.

134. Marin to John Nuveen, July 24, 1939, ibid.135. Ibid. To prove his point, Marin contacted

twelve local alums and asked them to respond to asurvey developed by the Alumni council withvarious questions, including, “What, by and large, isyour opinion of the University’s relations with itsalumni?” The responses he received were almost uni-formly negative, from “remote,” “poorest possible”“quite formal and distant,” and “University seemsindifferent to alumni” to “I do not think the Universitymaintains any kind of close relations with alumniexcept to invite them to the [Interfraternity] Singand ask for contributions.”

136. “Students at the University of Chicago,”pp. 7–9, VP Papers, Box 9, folder 23.

137. Swift Papers, Box 156, folder 3.138. Thompson to Swift, October 7, 1939,

Swift Papers, Box 156, folder 1.139. “Confidential Report of Mr. Quantrell’s

Luncheon at the University Club,” January 17,1940, ibid., folder 10. Vallee O. Appel was thepresident of the Fulton Market Cold Storage Com-pany and a graduate of the Class of 1911 who alsoreceived a J.D. in 1914. He was a personal friend ofHarold Swift.

140. Croneis to John Nuveen, March 19, 1940,

Swift Papers, Box 82, folder 18.141. Beth Fogg Upton to Nuveen, November 8,

1939, Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 5.142. Tom Cowley to Clifton Utley, November

6, 1939, ibid.143. G. Harold Earle to Charlton Beck, No-

vember 1, 1939, ibid.144. Norris to Swift, January 18, 1940, Swift

Papers, Box 200, folder 16. Swift also received agenerous note from Lawrence Whiting, to theeffect that he was sure that the University wouldrebalance itself in time.

145. Howell Murray to Hutchins, December 1,1939, and Hutchins to Murray, December 8, 1939,Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 5. Hutchins’s nota-tion about the large number of transfer studentsshould also be put in the context of the fact that in1939 nearly 67 percent of the then current Collegestudents had to work to put themselves through theCollege, compared to 6 percent in 1910. Residen-tial patterns also affected class loyalty, since in1938 66 percent of all men students and 54 percentof all women students in the College lived at homeand commuted to the University. See “Facts aboutUndergraduates,” VP Papers, Box 12, folder 3.Hutchins’s attitudes about fraternities were morecomplicated. Fraternities continued to exist duringthe 1930s. The total number of fraternities de-clined from 26 to 17, but the number of membersdeclined only slightly, from 682 in 1932 to 630 in1940. Although Hutchins did not encourage thefraternities, he did loyally show up each year at theInterfraternity Sing, and stood with the membersof Alpha Delta Phi, since he himself had joined thatfraternity as a college student at Yale. I am gratefulto Mr. Paul Wagner for providing me with thisinformation.

146. Al. F. O’Donnell to Mather, January 23,1940, Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 10.

147. Smith to Mather, February 26, 1940,ibid., folder 11.

148. Report of January 22, 1940, ibid., folder10. Hutchins was treated as a celebrity in FortWorth, Texas, where he inspected the local publiclibrary and visited three public schools, being ac-companied by the local president of the board ofeducation. Report of January 24, 1940, ibid.

149. “Report on the North Shore Dinner,”February 21, 1940 [no author given], ibid., folder11.

150. “Steering Committee,” January 3, 1941,ibid., folder 18.

151. Henry to Swift, January 28, 1940, ibid.,Box 156, folder 7.

152. Henry to Clifton M. Utley, February 23,1940, ibid., Box 201, folder 11.

153. Matthews to Utley, October 31, 1939,Box 156, folder 9.

154. Ball to Matthews, March 6, 1940, ibid.155. Barker to Swift, October 29, 1939, ibid.,

folder 5.156. The situation was similar in New York,

where Ernest Quantrell reported weak results.John Moulds noted that of those who gave, theamount was often much below what had beenexpected. Moulds to Quantrell, May 15, 1940,Swift Papers, ibid. Grumbling was also heard inChicago. At a luncheon for local Chicago chairs ofthe alumni campaign in March 1940, an alumnileader from Hyde Park “pointed out that too hugea task had been given them. He outlined at lengththe difficulties he had experienced in getting peopleto come to meetings—of getting those who came toagree to work, etc. He referred bitterly to theremarks of a Trustee’s son who came to a meetingand said he had discussed the University with menon La Salle Street and could not find himself willingto go out and ask for funds.” “Luncheon forChicago Chairmen,” March 30, 1940, Swift Pa-pers, Box 201, folder 12.

157. Mort to Mather, February 23, 1940, ibid.,folder 11.

158. Swift to Mather, February 27, 1940, ibid.159. Matthews to Mather, February 25, 1940,

ibid.160. Ralph W. Gerard to Carey Croneis, Feb-

ruary 23, 1940, ibid.161. Howe’s own proposal for the campaign

from late 1938—“The Fiftieth Anniversary of theUniversity of Chicago”—was acute in its analysis,rejecting inflated goals (some of Hutchins’s staffdreamed of raising $40 million) and urging a morerealistic figure that might be attainable. See VPPapers, Box 7, folder 4.

162. “Canvassing Suggestions” and “The

2 2 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

Financial Situation of the University,” Swift Pa-pers, Box 202, folder 3.

163. These are in Swift Papers, Box 201, folder18.

164. See the “Report of Contacts and Informa-tion Gleaned by Mr. Hutchins,” November 13,1940, Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 19.

165. “Meeting of the Executive Committee ofthe Committee on Development of the FiftiethAnniversary Campaign,” May 13, 1941, SwiftPapers, Box 201, folder 18. At the meeting of“Steering Committee,” November 22, 1940, ibid.,Frank McNair (Class of 1903) commented that“[I]n spite of the apparent lack of immediate re-sults to personal approaches on the part of Presi-dent Hutchins and others, Mr. McNair saw noreason to be discouraged. On the contrary, in viewof the present times and circumstances, he feelsthat results to date for the campaign have beenhighly encouraging.” See also “Steering Commit-tee,” July 26, 1940, folder 18, where Hutchinsreported meetings with Leon Mandel twice, EdwinMandel, and Eugene Meyer, and letters sent to Mr.Kraft, and Mrs. D. Mark Cummings, plus unsuc-cessful efforts to see Arthur Andersen, CharlesWalgreen, Jr., and Justin Dart.

166. “Outcome of Fiftieth Anniversary FundRaising Reports,” Swift Papers, Box 201, folder 7.

167. 14,484 alumni made contributions out ofthe total alumni body of 49,300. John Nuveen, Jr.,“Report of the Chairman of the Executive Com-mittee,” November 1, 1941, ibid.

168. “A Statement to the Board of Trustees ofthe University of Chicago from the John PriceJones Corporation,” November 9, 1939, SwiftPapers, Box 156, folder 2, pp. 4–5. Duncan notedthat the impact of two recent football disasters andthe shortage of publicity department personnelhad led the University to cancel a scheduled specialgifts fund-raising dinner at the Blackstone Hotelscheduled for November 17. He also noted that theUniversity’s goal of $12 million was extremelyambitious in that Pennsylvania had set similar goaltwo years ago and had only raised $3.5 million.Even Harvard was only able to raise $5.5 millionfor its Tercentenary Fund in 1936.

169. See Cutlip, Fund Raising, pp. 178–79.170. “The Fiftieth Anniversary Program of the

University of Chicago. A Report from the JohnPrice Jones Corporation,” December 19, 1940,Swift Papers, Box 156, folder 2, p. 3. A subsequentmeeting of the Executive Committee of the Com-mittee on Development, December 24, 1940, re-vealed that there was a division of opinion “as tothe merits of Mr. Duncan’s further usefulness atthis time in connection with invigorating the ef-forts and setting up a more comprehensive pro-gram for the general campaign,” which may suggestthat Duncan’s frankness was not well received. SeeSwift Papers, Box 201, folder 20. An agreementwas reached to postpone a decision on Duncan’sfuture involvement until later in January 1941. Atthe next meeting of the committee, Benton wasclearly unhappy with the way things were going,suggesting that Duncan’s usefulness depended onhis having a “proper attitude . . . regarding theparticular circumstances involved in this particularUniversity of Chicago money-raising effort.”Trustee Frank McNair was pro-Duncan, however,because “his presence tends to crystallize actionand force issues on behalf of the campaign.” PaulRussell sided with McNair, and an agreement wasreached to continue to retain Duncan one week outof every five. Meeting of January 10, 1941, ibid.

171. “The University of Chicago Alumni Foun-dation. A Report from the John Price Jones Corpo-ration.” January 2, 1941, Swift Papers, Box 156,folder 2, pp. 5–8.

172. Hutchins to Rockefeller, August 28, 1941;Rockefeller to Hutchins, August 30, 1941, SwiftPapers, Box 201, folder 22.

173. Hutchins to Rockefeller, September 4,1941; and Woodward to Rockefeller, August 29,1941, ibid.

174. “Remarks by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. atthe Citizens Dinner of the President and the Trust-ees of the University of Chicago,” September 26,1941, University Development Campaigns, Part 1:1896–1941, Box 14, folder 34.

175. John I. Kirkpatrick, “The University’sFinancial Problem,” November 18, 1955, p. 5,Swift Papers, Box 77, folder 2.

176. Swift to Bell, June 7, 1950, Swift Papers,Box 90, folder 9.

177. Swift to Bell, June 2, 1950, ibid.

178. “An Inventory of Fund Raising Resourcesand Suggested Procedure,” December 1, 1950, byKersting, Brown & Company, Swift Papers, Box83, folder 13. The research included interviewswith fifty-one alumni representatives selected inChicago; New York; Des Moines and Waterloo,Iowa; and Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin;and fifty-six interviews with non-alumni business-men and professionals as well as members of theboard, senior staff, and some foundation leaders.

179. “An Inventory,” pp. 13–14.180. Ibid., p. 13.181. Ibid., p. 10. Lynn Williams himself wrote

to Hutchins in June 1949 urging an overhaul of thecentral administration and complaining that “themembers of the Central Administration are sooverwhelmed with minutiae as not to find the timefor reflection and study which is required if wehave to have an intelligent and orderly approach tomeet our major difficulties. . . . We need to developclear and regular channels for doing things so thatmost decisions can be handled in groups or classes,and so that we do not treat every instance as newand special. . . . As matters stand now we have noorganization chart and no schedule of responsibili-ties.” Williams to Hutchins, June 24, 1949, PP,1945–1950, Box 14, folder 16.

182. “An Inventory,” pp. 20, 39.183. Kirkpatrick, “The University’s Financial

Problem,” November 18, 1955, pp. 4–5.184. “Interview of Christopher Kimball with

George H. Watkins,” August 25, 1987, p. 16.185. Robert M. Hutchins, “A Farewell Ad-

dress,” January 10, 1951, University of ChicagoMagazine, February, 1951, p. 4.

186. The University of Chicago’s Public Rela-tions, p. 19. Thirty years later, the distinguishedjournalist and Chicago alum (Class of 1924) JohnGunther remarked that “[s]everal old-style Chi-cago tycoons had ambivalent feelings toward theUniversity in older days. They respected it—per-haps stood in a certain awe of it—but they did notreally like it. They thought that it was off-beat,radically inclined, even pinko, although its Eco-nomics Department is one of the most conservativein the country. But the old mercantile aristocracycould not abide its devotion to what they called thevisionary. And the Irish political bosses thoughtthat long-haired professors dedicated to theorywere crazy. They were suspicious of anything ‘in-tellectual’. Chicago has traditionally been ‘run’ byState Street and the Irish (and other immigrant-descended) ward heelers, and to most of these theUniversity was a puzzle.” John Gunther, ChicagoRevisited (Chicago, 1967), pp. 70–71.

187. See John W. Boyer, Three Views of Conti-nuity and Change at the University of Chicago(Chicago, 1999), pp. 6–9.

188. Hutchins had been in touch with Kimpton,on and off, since Kimpton left for California,occasionally expressing a hope that Kimpton wouldreturn to Chicago. He contacted Kimpton in March1950 about this specific job. Swift was also in-volved, since he had been asked for a reference onbehalf of Kimpton by a new organization in thefield of mental health. Hutchins’s mandate toKimpton was to “to direct the money-raising . . .the financing of the University.” Hutchins toKimpton, April 12, 1950. In approving Kimpton’sappointment on May 1, 1950, the Committee onthe Budget noted that “in the discussion that fol-lowed concern was expressed about the financialsituation of the University and particularly theimmediate need of funds for the Hicks Memorialand the Charles Gilman Smith buildings. The ne-cessity for more aggressive approaches to donorswas emphasized, and for continuous pressure onthe Development Office and, in the last analysis, onthe Chancellor.” Laird Bell drafted this statement.Hutchins himself claimed that he was “feelingmuch better about everything” once Kimpton hadaccepted the job. Hutchins to Kimpton, April 29,1950. This correspondence is in Robert M. HutchinsPapers, Addenda, Box 79, folder 1.

189. See Watkins’s account of these early yearsin his comments to the Lakeside IV Conference,March 15, 1957, PP, 1952–1960, Box 167, folder1.

190. “Third Session,” pp. 25–26, PP, 1952–1960, Box 165, folder 2. Two months later, inMay 1954, Kimpton was even blunter. Comment-ing on the College’s enrollment crisis, he argued“[w]hat that means is that Chicago gained less interms of post-war enrollment than any of theseother comparable institutions [Northwestern,

Harvard, Columbia] and it has lost far more as thepost-war years receded. These are very seriousfigures indeed because they show how we look inrelation to the institutions with which we compareourselves.” Kimpton then noted that whereas Chi-cago had originally had 3,144 undergraduates and2,719 graduate students in 1939, it now (in 1954)found itself in the situation of having 1,612 under-graduate students and 2,830 graduate students. Hecontinued: “I think that the moral of this is clear.On the basis of economics we cannot continue tohave the kind of ratio that we now have. . . . wecannot exist economically on that basis [havingmore graduate students than College students] andI can only remind you that Clark University practi-cally disappeared as the first great university be-cause of this and Johns Hopkins is trying to digitself out of the same hole. This is our first problem.The second problem in this matter of distributionof students is that as the undergrad numbers de-crease, the place becomes less attractive to under-graduate students and less alluring to them by wayof coming in the first place. The result is that youcan become involved in an almost vicious circle, interms of which, as you have fewer undergraduates,fewer and fewer are attracted. The entire atmo-sphere on the campus changes and the result is thatyour undergraduate body, for all practical pur-poses, is shot to pieces. Now, the causes of this areimmensely complex. . . . Certainly one of ourdifficulties is that at the undergraduate level at anyrate, we have obtained a very undesirable reputa-tion all through the country. We have been broughtout as a quiz kid institution, interested only in thevery bright student, the unusual youngster, who,too often it seemed to me, was merely odd. This hasgiven us a very unfortunate reputation with the[high] school[s]. Another difficulty, of course, atleast I think so, was the organization of the under-graduate program in terms of which our AB’s didnot stand up. It had no currency in the marketplace, and, as you know, we changed that in part atany rate for that reason. Our alumni, and perhapsthis is one of the most distressing things—ouralumni no longer send their youngsters to thisinstitution as undergraduates. They don’t like it.They don’t enjoy the program and they don’t knowanything about it, and this, I think, has deeply hurtus too.” Transcript of Kimpton’s presentation atthe May 13, 1954, meeting of the Trustees, pp. 18–21, PP, 1952–1960, Box 170, folder 3; and anedited version in Minutes of the Board of Trustees,May 13, 1954, p. 79.

191. This material is in PP, 1952–1960, Box165, folder 1. Watkins transmitted the final resultsto Kimpton with the note, “One basic assumptionbehind the planning is the acceptance of a figure ofa total Quadrangles enrollment of 10,250, ap-proximately half of which would be undergradu-ate. Both faculty salaries and dormitory needs areplanned with such a total enrollment in mind.”Ibid.

192. Kimpton’s plan assumed that there wouldbe 3,000 first- and second-year students in theCollege’s general-education program, and 2,000third- and fourth-years under responsibility of thedepartments. Faculty in the College were to in-crease from 75 to 160.

193. “Effect on Regular Budget of OptimumEnrollment and Projected Expenditures,” June 10,1954, Swift Papers, Box 77, folder 4.

194. Confidential Memo to the Board ofTrustees, June 9, 1954, ibid.

195. “Mr. Watkins is much impressed with BobDuncan and was given approval for securing himas counsel. . . .” Sixth Session,” p. 48, PP, 1952–1960, Box 165, folder 1.

196. Ibid., pp. 48–49.197. Duncan was forced to take on responsi-

bilities in the day-to-day running of the campaignthat exceeded the role of adviser. His positivefeelings at the end may in part have been anexpression of his satisfaction in having done a goodjob, as opposed to coaching others to do a goodjob. It was a odd mixture of roles, but then theUniversity was in a rather unorthodox situation tobegin with. “Counsel was thus called upon to covera wider field in these respects than is usually thecase.” Robert F. Duncan, “University of ChicagoCampaign. An Interim Report Covering the Periodfrom the Initiation of the Campaign Through June30, 1956,” p. 11, PP, 1952–1960, Box 71, folder 1.

198. Duncan to Kimpton, March 7, 1956, PP,1952–1960, Box 70, folder 7.

199. “Summary of Remarks to Class in Fund-

raising at Teachers College, Columbia Univer-sity,” October 31, 1956, pp. 13–14, ibid.

200. “Publicity Schedule for Alumni Cam-paign,” PP, 1952–1960, Box 70, June 25, 1955,folder 4.

201. The 1955–1956 Time-Life Award-Win-ning Direct Mail Letters of the University of Chi-cago (Washington, D.C., 1956), p. 1.

202. Letter of May 23, 1956 from John J.McDonough and Earle Ludgin, Swift Papers, Box78, folder 4.

203. “Interview of Christopher Kimball withGeorge H. Watkins,” August 25, 1987, p. 24.Various drafts of The Responsibility of Greatnessare in University Development Campaigns, 1955–58, Box 1.

204. “Highlights from the 1955 CampaignAnalysis,” Swift Papers, Box 78, folder 4.

205. The University was represented at onehundred College Days in various high schools.Kimpton also traveled to events for secondaryschool principals in Boston, Providence, and Phila-delphia in late 1954. Staff Letter No. 1, January 31,1955, ibid., Box 79, folder 15.

206. Duncan to Watkins, June 7, 1955, PP,1952–1960, Box 70, folder 8. Calls for morediversity among students date back to the Hutchinsera. In 1937 William Benton claimed that he wastold by John Moulds that the faculty deliberatelyset the admissions criteria high so as to keepundergraduate student numbers low. John Howe,certainly a Hutchins loyalist, remarked to Benton,“The University needs students who are able andeffective in the social world, not just the bulging-brow kind.” Benton himself wanted the Universityto style itself as a place where leaders would cometo be educated, a proposition with which Kimptonwould have strongly agreed. See The University ofChicago’s Public Relations, pp. 118–19, 124, 126.

207. Swift to Watkins, November 26, 1954,ibid., Box 79, folder 13. In 1954, Kersting, Brown& Company prepared a public relations plan forthe campaign, in which they argued, “It wouldappear that at the bottom of the University’s seri-ous decline in undergraduate enrollment lies thedisaffection of important segments of the public,including particularly secondary school educators,alumni, and parents of college-oriented young menand women.” “Public Relations Plan for the Uni-versity of Chicago,” [1954] in University Develop-ment Campaigns, 1955–58, Box 1.

208. J. A. Cunningham to Clyde W. Hart,September 30, 1949, “The consensus was that thissurvey would not be of value to us at this time.” PP,1952–1960, Box 127, folder 6. Hutchins himselfseems to have suggested the idea to Hart, but thenran into harsh opposition from some of his seniorstaff. The 1949 proposal was for a general surveyof the population, not specifically focused on elitebehavior or attitudes.

209. Confidential Survey 360, Form 1, 8-9-54,Swift Papers, Box 79, folder 11. The survey wasconducted in August and September 1954 with304 members of the Citizens Board, 156 otherprominent men, and 31 prominent women.

210. “Attitudes of Prominent Citizens TowardsProblems of Higher Education in the ChicagoArea.” NORC, Report No. 53, October 22, 1954,marked confidential, PP, 1952–1960, Box 127,folder 7.

211. Duncan to Watkins, April 25, 1955, ibid.,Box 70, folder 7.

212. Quoted in Robert F. Duncan, “Universityof Chicago Campaign. An Interim Report Cover-ing the Period from the Initiation of the CampaignThrough June 30, 1956,” p. 26, ibid., Box 71,folder 1.

213. Memorandum, May 6, 1955, Swift Pa-pers, Box 79, folder 18.

214. Trustee dinner speech, January 11, 1956,PP, 1952–1960, Box 70, folder 2.

215. Kimpton drafted a protest statement, whichwas probably as much therapeutic as anything else,and sent it to four fellow university presidents inJanuary 1957. Kimpton to C. W. de Kiewiet, VirgilHancher, David Dodds Henry, and Grayson Kirk,January 8, 1957, folder 2. “It is the serious conten-tion of this document that current foundationpolicy, if continued over a period of time, will tendto weaken the fundamental strength and health ofthe universities. Most of the difficulties that we inthe universities have experienced with the founda-tions relate to the policy of project giving.” Accord-ing to Kimpton, the idea of project-oriented grantsimplied that “the foundation knows better than the

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 2 3

university what the university should be doing andwho should be supported in such activity. This, ofcourse, may be true, but, if true, the foundationofficer should be operating the universities ratherthan the administrative heads of those institu-tions.” Kimpton was in fact anticipating the pro-cesses of professionalization and project-orientedgrant making within the foundation world thataccelerated in the 1970s. See Peter Frumkin, “Con-flict and the Construction of an OrganizationalField: The Transformation of American Philan-thropic Foundations.” Dissertation, University ofChicago, 1997, pp. 227–30, 386. I owe this refer-ence to Professor Andrew Abbott.

216. The progress of the campaign can becharted in the records of the Trustees’ campaignSteering Committee, from May 13, 1954, to Au-gust 2, 1957. These minutes provide a candid,behind-the-scenes view of how a major campaignis organized and executed. Watkins and Duncanserved as the conveners.

217. “Campaign Gifts—Cumulative Summary,June 1, 1954–June 30, 1958,” as an attachment toEdward L. Ryerson, “Report of the University ofChicago Campaign,” PP, 1952–1960, Box 168,folder 6; as well as the additional files in UniversityDevelopment Campaigns, 1955–1958, Box 14.This report was drafted by William B. Cannon.

218. “Lakeside Conference II, February 15–19,1956,” pp. 15–16, PP, 1952–1960, Box 165, folder 3.

219. “Lakeside Conference II, February 15–19,1956,” p. 30.

220. Levi to Kimpton, March 20, 1957, PP,1952–1960, Box 167, folder 1.

221. Tenney to Kimpton, copying him on alonger letter he had sent to Glen Lloyd, March 20,1957, PP, 1952–1960, Box 167, folder 1.

222. Robert Strozier, who took the minutes,

described the collision as politely as he could:“There was uncertainty among the entire group asto the consensus of the final session of Lakeside IV.While there was not real disagreement, there wasnot concurrence about the prime needs particu-larly as they applied to [the] Law School. Mr.Lloyd’s position which represented one of greatenthusiasm for the Law School, for the ability toraise additional funds, and for the financing throughthe proposed revolving fund changed the catego-ries and priorities which had been presented by themembers of the administration. Mr. Kimpton,while recognizing the value of the Law Schoolproject and also expressing his appreciation of theenthusiasm expressed by both Mr. Lloyd and Mr.Ryerson, expressed great doubts about movingahead without further assurance of funds for theprojects which he put in the first category.” LakesideIV, PP, 1952–1960, Carton 167, folder 1. JohnKirkpatrick drafted an internal staff memo datedApril 1, 1957, that articulated the worries of theadministration about an early construction of theLaw School. See his “Early Construction of theLaw School,” PP, 1952–1960, Box 167, folder 1.Kirkpatrick worried that allowing the project to goforward would reduce the pressure on the school’sfund-raisers and donors to generate the remainderof the costs.

223. Committee on Budget, April 1, 1957,ibid., p. 10; Minutes of the Board of Trustees, April11, 1957, filed in Swift Papers, Box 79, folder 26.Concerning the Law School project, GeorgeWatkins later remembered that Lawrence Kimptonwas “mighty upset about the proposal—and I wasoutraged—for I could see this seriously divertingsupport from the all-University goals. . . . Needlessto say [the] other deans were furious—for they toohad pet projects which they had set aside as cam-

paign objectives to support the all-University cam-paign concept.” “Interview of Christopher Kimballwith George H. Watkins,” August 25, 1987, p. 70.

224. “Median Faculty Salaries,” April 8, 1959,PP, 1952–1960, Box 169, folder 1.

225. Swift to Kimpton, September 29, 1959,PP, 1952–1960, Box 169, folder 4.

226. L. T. Coggeshall to the Deans and Admin-istrative Officers, July 20, 1961, PP, 1961–1968,Box 25, folder 1.

227. Watkins to the Officers attending LakesideIV Conference, March 15, 1957, PP, 1952–1960,Box 167, folder 1.

228. Larsen and Garber, memorandum of Oc-tober 27, 1961, PP, 1961–1968, Box 25, folder 1.

229. Coggeshall to the Deans, December 15,1961, ibid.; Minutes of the Board of Trustees,September 13, 1962, pp. 190–91.

230. Ibid., January 12, 1961, pp. 5–6, 14–21.231. Ibid., April 13, 1961, pp. 64–65.232. Ibid., February 14, 1963, p. 24.233. Ibid., October 10, 1963, p. 290; Novem-

ber 14, 1963, p. 304.234. Ibid., June 13, 1963, p. 108.235. For the history of this document, see John

W. Boyer, The University of Chicago in the 1960sand 1970s (Chicago, 2000), pp. 8–20.

236. O’Brien held up setting the final goal andstructure of the new campaign until the Universityreceived news of its bid to the Ford Foundation. Seeibid., September 10, 1964, p. 19.

237. “Preliminary Case Statement,” August1965, PP, Addenda, 85–14, Box 4.

238. Jacobson to Levi, October 11, 1966, PP,Addenda, 85–14, Box 4.

239. Johnson to Levi, October 5, 1966, ibid.240. “The Campaign for Chicago 1965–1968:

A Review,” p. 8, PP, Addenda, 89–12, Box 5,

folder 5.241. Richard F. O’Brien, “The Campaign for

Chicago. A Manual,” Confidential, 1965, PP, Ad-denda, 85–14, Box 3, p. 4. Also in PP, Addenda,89–12, Box 5. This was sent to the members of theCampaign Steering Committee on December 13,1965.

242. The University thus unwittingly exasper-ated elements of its alumni population almost on acyclical basis: pre-1930 alums during the Hutchinsera; late 1940s and early 1950s alums during theKimpton era; and alums of the late 1960s and early1970s during the Beadle-Levi era.

243. The College was assigned goals of $3.5million out of a total of $260 million, and studentlife only budgeted for $13.2 million. “Campaign forChicago II. Presentation to the Board of Trustees,”April 27–28, 1973, PP, Addenda, 85–14, Box 4.

244. Chauncy D. Harris, “Campaign for Chi-cago, Phase II. Report to the Board of Trustees,June 9, 1977,” Development and Alumni Rela-tions Records, Box 73. Unlike Phase I, no large giftcould be secured from Ford or Lilly or any otherfoundation.

John W. Boyer is the Martin A. RyersonDistinguished Service Professor in the De-partment of History and the College, andDean of the College.

2 4 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

This is not the first discussion of theaims of education to which youhave been a party. For some of you

these discussions go all the way back to theperiod leading up to the happy day onwhich you received the fat envelope an-nouncing that you had been admitted to thenursery school of your choice. (In case youdoubt that this matter is taken seriously insome quarters, I should tell you that, in mycapacity as a university president, I havesometimes been asked to write letters ofrecommendation for children applying tonursery school—as if that might do somegood. Lest it occur to you to ask me to dothis for a child of your own some day, Ishould also tell you that I am quite power-less in this as in many other matters. But Idigress.)

In most of the discussions of this kindtaking place among young people andtheir parents or other adults, the aim ofthe education in question has been under-stood to be a preparation for somethingthat comes later. The chain of events goesas follows: You get into the right nurseryschool so as to get into the right gradeschool so as to get into the right middleschool so as to get into the right high schoolso as to get into the right college or univer-sity so as to . . . well, so as to what? In somecases, that has an easy answer, too: so as toget into the right graduate or professionalschool. Or maybe so as to get the right job.Or maybe so as to get any job at all.

We raise the matter for discussion againthis evening, however, because you nowenter on a period in your education inwhich the aims must take on a much broaderaspect than mere preparation for somewell-defined something that comes next,even if you are quite certain that you al-ready know what that next thing will be.Unfortunately, much conspires to preventyou from addressing this broader aspect.

How many times have you been askedwhat you plan to study at the Universityand what you plan to “do” with that? Suchquestions are all versions of the questionunderlying many of your previous discus-sions of the aims of education, namely,“What are you going to be when you growup?” These questions imply a certain kindof answer, and you will often have beenmade to feel that if you are really clever andresponsible you will have that kind of an-swer: doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc. If youdoubt this kind of social pressure, try thiswhen you are at home after some numberof weeks of study here and someone asksyet again what you are studying and whatyou plan to be when, as it were, you growup. Say, “I’ve been reading Aristotle’sNicomachean Ethics, and on that basis I’vedecided to be happy when I, as it were,grow up.” Or try saying, “If I must be someparticular thing that can be named in aword, I decline in that sense to grow up.”Well, perhaps you shouldn’t try this athome. At least be sure that you know youraudience well if you do.

If we try to break out of the narrowconstraints within which the aims of youreducation at various stages have most oftenbeen discussed—education as preparationfor some next thing, whatever that mightbe—we find ourselves forced to think aboutsomething more like the aims of life itself.This is clearly a big question over which

Aristotle and a great many others havelabored long and hard. The first thing torecognize about life itself at this stage inyour education is that life itself has alreadybegun. The kind of education on which younow embark, especially at this university, isnot a preparation for life. It is a way oflife—a kind of life that you should want tolive as long as you draw breath. I do notmean that you should want to spend therest of your life taking examinations andaccumulating degrees, though some of youwill make an attempt at that to the dismayof the people who keep asking you whatyou are going to be when you grow up. Imean that education is the exercise of acertain quality of mind. It can be part ofaccumulating academic degrees or profes-sional certifications, but it ought to be atthe heart of life itself.

Recognizing that life has already begun,however, and asserting that education oughtto be a way of life rather than a merepreparation for it, I have not really an-swered the question about the aims of life.The simple and brutal answer to that ques-tion is, of course, that the aim of life is toput off death as long as possible and tocome to terms in some appropriate way inthe meantime with its inevitability. Argu-ably the three greatest forces in humanhistory have been race, religion, and sex,and each of these could be said to be theresult of the attempt of the self to defineitself in relation to the other and thus todeath. But this realization should not be agloomy one. From it should spring a libera-tion that begins to get at the aims of life andits many wonderful possibilities.

Here is a poem by A. R. Ammons thattakes on this topic:

Play

Nothing is going to become of anyoneexcept death:

therefore: it’s okayto yearntoo high:the grave accommodatesswell rambunctiousness &

ruin’s notcompromised by magnificence:

that cut-off pointliberates us to thecommon disaster: so

pick a perch—apple branch for example in

bloom—tune upand

drill imagination right throughnecessity:

it’s all right:it’s been taken care of:

is allowed, considering

“Drill imagination right through neces-sity.” That is a memorable phrase, and Ihope that you will remember it. There willbe many times in your lives, some in thenext few years here, when you will needmore than anything to have the ability, andbelieve in your ability, to drill imaginationright through necessity. It follows that one

of the qualities of mind that you will mostwant to develop both now and evermore isimagination. But let me come back to that.

Granted the problem of death, what isthe goal of life? Aristotle’s NicomacheanEthics provides a long account worth con-sulting, among many others. He assertssimply enough that the aim of life is happi-ness. But that, of course, poses another setof questions. Of particular interest in thecontext of the aims of education is thedistinction that he draws between happi-ness and pleasure. Much of what is saidtoday about the value of higher educationhas to do with enhancing one’s ability toacquire pleasures as distinct from the abil-ity to achieve happiness. Often the plea-sures in question are quite material andphysical. Even if one cannot imagine happi-ness in the absence of pleasure, if life is toafford happiness and in at least that senseto matter, and if education is to serve thatgoal, then education cannot be merely aboutacquiring the ability to acquire the meansto pleasure. Above all, one does not want tofall into the trap of thinking that real lifesomehow comes later—after one has gainedwhat are essentially the practical skills withwhich to pursue pleasures of the kind thatour society seems particularly to prize. Thatis, do not wait until you have a big income,and a nice house, and a nice car, and agood-looking spouse to ask yourself whathappiness might be about.

Aristotle concludes with the view thathappiness is not amusement but activity inaccordance with virtue and that happinessin the highest sense is the contemplativelife. He gets to the contemplative life byway of an argument about the nature of thegods that may not seem so persuasive in anyliteral sense. But the conclusion has forcenevertheless, and it comes down to a cer-tain quality of mind that is essential tohappiness suitably defined.

If education, then, is not merely a prepa-ration for life but a way of life even longafter you cease to be in school, educationmust first and foremost be about develop-ing and exploiting a certain quality of mindand not primarily about acquiring whatmight more properly be called skills. Un-fortunately, that quality of mind is not soeasily judged with standardized tests. Thatis why, in deciding whether you were rightfor the University of Chicago, we asked youto write on what some might regard asunusual essay topics. I have sometimesbeen asked why we pose such topics insteadof using the standard ones. Do we not runthe risk that some students might decline toapply rather than go to the trouble ofcomposing a separate essay for us? That,we believe, is a risk worth taking, becauselong before you arrive on campus we areprincipally interested in the quality of yourmind. A student not interested in or stimu-lated by the kinds of topics that we poseperhaps should not come here in the firstplace.

Well, what is that quality of mind thatwe have looked for in you, that we hope tohelp you develop further, and that we hopeyou will carry with you evermore? Nosingle word describes it perfectly. But as Ihave suggested already, imagination issurely a crucial quality of the mind wecultivate. This is not the same thing asfantasy. Imagination is what enables you to

come up with a better idea, whatever thesubject. Indeed, imagination is preciselywhat enables you to come up with ideasthat can in fact survive the tests imposed byreality. It is what liberates you from theprison of the belief that things must con-tinue to be a certain way because that is theway they have always been. It is whatenables you to surmount the apparentlyinsurmountable.

To what does this mind apply its imagi-nation? That depends on another crucialquality, namely curiosity. The mind we aretalking about is not easily bored. I hope youthink twice before you let the word boringescape your lips. You will remember, Itrust, that last Saturday I tried to get you toremember a Spanish proverb. I will giveyou a second chance at it now, and this timeI really will expect you to remember it. Fouryears from now I will expect you to repeatit to me before I am willing to hand you adiploma.

Si te da un libro en la cabeza y suena ahueco, no siempre es culpa del libro.

If a book strikes you in the head and itmakes a hollow sound, it is not always thefault of the book.

This goes hand in hand with yourability to drill imagination right throughnecessity.

In principle, you ought to be curiousabout everything—about how nature worksat every level, about the past, about thecurrent state of the world, and perhapsabove all about people. It matters a greatdeal that you are not all alike, for there ismuch to be learned from people differentfrom oneself. It will be a great loss if you donot make the effort here to know peoplefrom different racial, ethnic, cultural, geo-graphical, and social backgrounds. Thiscountry and the world are in desperateneed of greater understanding among allpeople. More even than that, we need agreater positive engagement of peopleacross all lines of difference and diversity. Itwill make for a richer life for everyone anda much safer planet.

Much has been said lately about thevalue of diversity in higher education, and anumber of universities, ourselves included,have battled in court for the right to makediversity an explicit part of the educationalenvironment that we seek to create. Simplyput, greater diversity will make us a betteruniversity and will make possible a bettereducation for everyone here. Thecounterargument is one of reverse discrimi-nation that assumes, without exactly say-ing so, that there is a purely objective andquantifiable method by which one couldrank precisely from one to n the qualifica-tions of all applicants and that it is discrimi-natory to reject one applicant in favor ofanother farther down the supposed list.

This argument has been given some cre-dence by the methods of some very largeuniversities that do in fact rely to a greatdegree on test scores and similar quantita-tive measures. The argument is given moreemotive force when the terms quota andset-aside are introduced. These points cancertainly be addressed. For present pur-poses let me simply say that the situation atthe University of Chicago is rather differentfrom that of the larger public institutions

The Aims of Education Address

By Don Michael Randel September 23, 2004

F E B R U A R Y 3 , 2 0 0 5 2 5

that have been sued. I have already saidthat we are interested in much more thantest scores. It just happens that test scoresare very well correlated with family in-come, and that is hardly the criterion thatought to drive the admissions process. Evenmore important is that learning here is notpassive. We expect each of you to contrib-ute to the educational experience of thewhole community, and if we were not adiverse community, what we would have tocontribute to the education of one anotherwould be greatly impoverished. In today’sworld, where isolation is no longer pos-sible, this feature of our educational com-munity is more important than it has everbeen.

I confess that I come to this with acertain experience. I grew up in the Repub-lic of Panama, where my father and mother,both U.S. citizens, had a small business forthirty years. I do not remember when I didnot speak Spanish. My schoolmates werefrom all over the world, and my Panama-nian friends were multiracial. A number ofthe music teachers who mattered to memost were black West Indians. These werepeople that I admired and loved. I pro-foundly believe that my life was made im-measurably richer by my having come toadmire and love people who were in impor-tant ways very different from me. I hopethat every one of you will experience thatsame richness in some way, and the Univer-sity would be failing you if it did notfacilitate that by creating a diverse commu-nity for all of you.

I have now said a lot about qualities ofmind—imagination, curiosity—urging youto believe that this is what education oughtreally to be about first and foremost. Dothere not remain, nevertheless, some ques-tions about what education is good for andhow the aims of education might addresssome of the facts of life? What will you dowith your education in the process of achiev-ing some degree of happiness worthy of thename? What kinds of things might you dothat might in fact contribute to that happi-ness?

One of the aims of education has longbeen to produce good citizens. Indeed oneof the views of the modern university ascreated in the nineteenth century is that theuniversity’s principal purpose was to pro-duce proper citizens of the modern nation-state. Starting from this position, oneanalysis concludes that, as the modern na-tion-state has been greatly weakened ordisappeared, the aims of the modern uni-versity have necessarily been undermined.In the absence of a mission to support andmaintain the nation-state’s image of itself,this argument goes, universities have fallenback to the claim of existing for the purposeof creating excellence, a notion that is largelyvacuous. Universities in this view stand fornothing of real consequence and have in themeantime become merely the handmaidensof corporate interests.

Much of the debate about higher educa-tion in recent years has been about whatyou know and what you don’t know. Thishas often taken the form of a complaintthat you and your contemporaries do notknow many things that you ought to know.This is shorthand for: you don’t knowprecisely the same things that your criticsfrom previous generations were taught and

know. This is the debate about the canon:Is there some closed list of books or body ofknowledge that everyone ought to haveingested? Those who assert that there is,essentially rely, whether explicitly or not,on the notion that education ought to servethe purpose of creating successive genera-tions of citizens with a common image ofthe state of which they are citizens. In thisview, the aims of education are to teach usthe received opinion about who and whatwe are. This is often the view that theUnited States is the inheritor of the civiliza-tion of classical antiquity, font of the great-est civilization the world has ever known.

This view, in some circles, leads to impe-rialism in foreign policy. But it can lead toan intellectual imperialism as well, accord-ing to which young people should be taughtprecisely the things that were taught toprior generations, all the way back to oursupposed origins. That is the method bywhich the state maintains its image of itself,justifies its behavior in world affairs, andassures the support of the citizenry forthose behaviors.

No doubt the nation-state is a weakenedconcept, and no doubt universities no longerserve the aims of the state in precisely thisway. But this does not mean that there is nosuch thing as citizenship and that universi-ties have no role to play in the education ofcitizens—both of nations and of the world.For a start, mastering the canon remainsimportant, not for the sake of staving offchange but for the sake of understandinghow we came to be what we are and howwe might be better. We ought to want toknow the canon not because it is the onlything worth knowing but so as to questionit and its assumptions and the conclusionsthat have been drawn from it. It cannot bethe case that a civilization (for want of abetter term) rooted in the notion of indi-vidual freedoms and the questioning of theestablished order reaches a point at whichthe freedom to question the establishedorder is suppressed. We ought to treat thecanon not as a reliquary but as the possiblysubversive force that it was throughout itscreation. And then we must recognize thatother people have other canons, and weought to want to know something aboutthem as well.

Among the aims of education oughtcertainly to be the creation of citizens, butcitizens capable of acting on—and respon-sible to—a much broader landscape thanwe have often invoked. In today’s world wemust assume that citizenship entails notonly a responsibility to one’s immediatelysurrounding community and to whateverhierarchy of political spheres there maybe within the sphere of the issuer of ourpassports or birth certificates, but also aresponsibility to everyone else who lives onthis planet. This necessarily entails know-ing something about other people’s canons.Above all, it cannot be made to seem unpa-triotic to want to know about other peopleas much as to want to know about peoplelike ourselves and our particular history.

Your education ought certainly to makeyou a proper citizen of the world, with aproper respect for the people and culturesthat share the world with you. But thereremains a responsibility to the country ofyour particular citizenship, and one ofthe aims of education ought to be to serve

that narrower responsibility, too. This is, Ibelieve, a particularly acute responsibilityin the United States of America at thismoment.

This is a country in which your intelli-gence is daily being insulted by the media,which assume that you cannot read, and bypoliticians, who assume that you cannotthink. What passes for public discourseabout issues of enormous importance forevery one of us can hardly be expected toenable even an attentive electorate to de-cide things sensibly. But of course most ofthe electorate does not trouble to appear atthe polls. Perhaps that has something to dowith the quality of the national discourse.You, however, have a clear responsibilityto exercise your franchise and to exercise itbased on the education that you are beingafforded. You have no excuse not to askhard questions and to demand answers ofour elected and aspiring officials. Numer-ous studies show that most voters votebased on very modest amounts of informa-tion and often mere impressions of candi-dates rather than any information about oranalysis of the issues. Your education af-fords you the tools with which to be muchmore responsible in the voting booth. Ihope that every one of you who has reachedthe appropriate age will exercise that re-sponsibility on November 2. I would notdream of trying to tell you how to vote,though I consider myself entitled to have anopinion of my own and to express it as anindividual under appropriate circum-stances. What I will try to tell you, how-ever, is that you must apply the quality ofthe debate that you will be taught to prac-tice here to the issues before this countryand the world. And you must use the qual-ity of mind that education at the Universityof Chicago develops to shape your duties asa citizen.

Your education here should also guideyour response to another set of responsi-bilities, and those are your responsibilitiesto the people around you, especially thosewho are less fortunate. This country, therichest and most powerful in history, has avery unequal distribution of wealth andpower among its people. You have a re-sponsibility to understand the relevant factsabout that and to ask yourself what youought to do about it. The exercise of thisparticular responsibility may not seem toyou to be a part of your university educa-tion. But it is another respect in which youshould not suppose that real life beginsonly after you have collected a degree. Thisuniversity takes very seriously its responsi-bilities as an institution to the city and theneighborhoods of which it is a citizen, andyou should feel some of that same responsi-bility and be a part of the University’sefforts to improve the well-being of Chi-cago and the South Side. This responsibilityto the surrounding community goes backto the founding of the University and itsgreat traditions in the social sciences. Youtoo must be good citizens of Chicago andthe South Side while you are here.

I have talked about the aims of educa-tion in relation to life itself and to the dutiesof citizenship. But should I not take at leastsome account of the need that we all face toput groceries on the table by some method?My celebrated predecessor Robert MaynardHutchins remarked that you don’t come to

the University of Chicago to learn how tomake a living. I have tried to suggest to youthat you come to the University of Chicagoto learn how to make a life. Fortunately, thehabits of mind that you will develop inmaking a life here are precisely the habits ofmind that will best equip you to make aliving.

The University is quite incapable ofteaching you everything that you will needto know in order to make a living in someprofession or other for the rest of your life.That means that whatever profession youexercise, you will need to be capable ofcontinuing to educate yourself—to rein-vent both your profession and yourself inresponse to change, which is both inevi-table and unpredictable. The Universitybegins this process with you even now byinsisting that your education at the Univer-sity is not something that the Universitydoes to you. It is something that, even here,you must do to and for yourself. There aremany people here to help you—indeed,challenge you—to do that. But your successor failure in gaining education is ultimatelyup to you, now and evermore. And theeducation of the truly educated is nevercompleted.

Apart from the qualities of mind aboutwhich I have spoken, there are a few otherparts of your intellectual armament thatyou should develop at the University, andthese too will be of great value in whateveryou do to earn a living as well as in life itself.You should become good with words, goodwith numbers, and good with people.

To become good with words is notmerely to become faster with Latinate poly-syllables. Words are not simply the meansby which you express ideas, as most peopleprobably suppose. Words are the tools ofthought. Wordsworth put it rather force-fully as follows: “Words are too awful aninstrument for good and evil to be trifledwith: they hold above all other externalpowers a dominion over thoughts.” Thericher your use of language, the richer yourthought. You are probably kidding your-self if you think that you have ideas forwhich you simply do not have the words.That is one of the reasons that you shouldwelcome every writing assignment. Themore the better, for working out the wordsis in fact to work out the ideas themselves.

There is another underlying reason forwanting to make your use of language asrich and subtle as possible. One of thefundamental insights of modern linguisticsis that the individual linguistic sign (or onecould say word) has no inherent meaning(apart from onomatopoetic words likemeow or perhaps jingle) but instead derivesits meaning from its relationship to all ofthe other signs in the system. The meaningof a sign derives ultimately from its differ-ence from other signs. Your ability to readand write and speak, then, derives fromyour mastery of a system of signs in relationto one another. The richer the system youmaster, the greater your ability to compre-hend and use individual signs and the greateryour ability to comprehend and createmeaning. Nothing of consequence that youdo in life will fail to benefit from the subtleuse of language as the tool of subtle thought.

In similar ways, numbers enable thoughtand ideas rather than merely capturingthem. Being good with numbers is of course

2 6 T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O R E C O R D

enormously valuable in solving certain prac-tical problems, and in some professions(and on April 15 every year) your ability tomanipulate numbers will be essential. Butnumbers also give you the ability to haveideas about many aspects of the worldaround you. Along with words, numbersenable you to frame ideas about the awe-some beauties of nature and about whathumankind’s relationship with nature is orought to be.

I have already said something aboutwhy you might want to be good with people,by which I mean having the ability tounderstand, appreciate, and communicatewith others, especially others different fromyourself. The purely practical aspect of thisis that whatever you decide to do in yourlife, it is likely to entail the need to under-stand the views of others and persuadethem of your own. The better you are atyour first job, the sooner you will go toyour second and nth jobs, and at everystage in this progression you will have anincreasing need to engage others with dif-ferent perspectives. Instead of talking withonly other chemists, you will be asked totalk with the people in finance. Instead oftalking only with other economists or thepeople in finance, you will be asked to talkwith the people in marketing or govern-ment relations. In short, in most profes-sions, it will be important to be able to winan argument or to have your idea be the onearound which consensus is created and onwhich action is based. That ability willrequire you to be good with words, goodwith numbers, and—especially—good withpeople.

Perhaps you are still not satisfied withwhat I have said about the more practicalaims of your education, even if you sub-scribe to everything I have said about lifeitself. How are you going to figure out whatcourses to take, what major to pursue,what activities to engage in over the fourshort—yes, extraordinarily short—yearsthat most of you will be here? Begin byremembering that these remain low-levelquestions in relation to all of the otherthings I have been talking about. Verynearly every last alumnus of this university,

when asked what their education heremeant to them, answers by saying, “Ittaught me how to think.” In that respect thealumni of this university have somethingvery profound in common. The alumni ofmost other universities have mostly trivialthings in common. You should want to beamong our alumni in this respect, and thisshould guide your choosing activities here.

This is a university dedicated first andforemost to thinking. We expect both stu-dents and faculty to engage in this activity.We love to joke about the life of the mindand where fun went to die. But our sense ofhumor about such things is in fact a sign ofthe seriousness of our commitment to thelife of the mind. It is the life of the mind thataffords the best kind of fun there is forhuman beings. This does not for a minuteexclude the fun or pleasures of the body.The life of the mind is what prevents the lifeof the body from being absurd.

I said some number of minutes ago thatrace, religion, and sex are arguably themost powerful forces in human experience.I come now to the part about sex. I will notspeculate about how many of the minutessince I first mentioned the topic you havedevoted to thinking about sex rather thanlistening to me. But I will intrude on thosethoughts long enough to say that the life ofthe mind is what enables sex to be pro-foundly human and the expression of whatis best in life rather than the absurd activityof blind nature looking only to its continu-ance. Even sex will be more beautiful andmore profoundly meaningful to the extentthat you integrate it into a life that you havethought about and that you have mademeaningful by the very act of thinking.

Having said a bit about race and sex, Ishould not leave out religion. This too is adangerous subject in our time. For onething, slaughter in the name of religion (asin the name of race) continues unabated.And you should not think that any particu-lar religion has the monopoly on this kindof slaughter. In Western civilization, we areinclined to think that sixteenth-centuryEurope represents a high point of art andculture. Critics will lament that this is amongthe periods that young people today no

longer know enough about. We should allremember that in 1572 more than seventythousand people died in France in the St.Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, part of aconflict between Protestants and RomanCatholics, whose differences on the scale ofworld religions is hardly measurable.

In the United States today, much is de-cided on the basis of religious belief, andthe role of religious belief in world affairs isperhaps greater than it has been in centu-ries. You should want to know about reli-gions and form the deepest understandingof them that you can, lest you be tempted tosupport even tacitly the crimes that havelong been committed in the name of reli-gion. This is important whether you your-self are an adherent of any particular religionor not. If you are not, you must respectthose who are and never suppose in eithercase that you are somehow superior. Oneaspect of this is captured beautifully in apoem by Czeslaw Milosz:

If there is no God,Not everything is permitted to man.He is still his brother’s keeperAnd he is not permitted to sadden

his brother,By saying that there is no God.

I still have not told you what coursesto take. And I won’t. I will say instead thatit does not matter so terribly much withinthe guidelines that we lay down for you inthe common core and other requirements.We do, however, require a kind of trust.You must be prepared to trust the Univer-sity and its faculty to care about yourintellectual development and to ask you todo things that, on the basis of considerableexperience, we believe will be good for you,even when it may not seem so to you at first.Remember that if a book strikes you in thehead and it makes a hollow sound, etc. Afruitful pedagogical relationship requires akind of willing suspension of disbelief inwhich you trust your teachers to be askingyou to do what will be of lasting value toyou. This is somewhat foreign to the skep-tical age in which we live. But trust isfundamental to the kind of community that

this university is. We must trust one an-other to use the freedom of inquiry andexpression responsibly. We must trust oneanother not to intrude on the freedoms ofothers irresponsibly. And we must trustone another to ask of one another onlywhat might make us better and not what isintended merely to make one or the other ofus subordinate.

One of the simple matters on which wewill ask you to trust us is in the belief thatthere really is good stuff in old books. Whyshould young people in the twenty-firstcentury want to read Thucydides’ historyof the Peloponnesian War, for example?Well, you might wish that some high offi-cials in our government had read it recentlyand taken it to heart. Thucydides recordspart of Pericles’ funeral oration as follows:“The worst thing is to rush into actionbefore the consequences have been prop-erly debated.”

I still have not told you what to do. Thatis because only you can figure that outultimately. Whatever the aims of educa-tion, only you can ultimately figure themout for yourself. We will help in every waythat we can. But you will take what we offerand educate yourselves. We hope and be-lieve that what we offer will make educat-ing yourselves a lifelong activity and thatthis will be a source of lifelong satisfaction.

You live in a nation with a profoundlyanti-intellectual streak. This is dangerousfor world peace and justice as well as fordomestic prosperity. You must be thenation’s defense against itself in this regard.The aims of your education must includenot only your own happiness in theprofoundest sense. They must include mak-ing this nation and the world a place wherethat kind of happiness is available to all.You have more years left to work on thisthan I do. So I am counting on you. And agreat many other people who do not evenknow it are depending on you. Thank you,and good luck.

Don Michael Randel is President of theUniversity and Professor in the Depart-ment of Music and the College.

© 2005 The University of ChicagoISSN 0362-4706

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