Any nexus for such an astoundingly diverse array of achievers certainly deserves Wonder consideration. And that’s not even mentioning the 78 Nobel Prize winners who have been faculty members, students or researchers, the 13 recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly known as a “genius grant”), the three Pulitzer Prize winners, the eight recipients of the National Medal of Science, etc.
Founded by another achiever, John D. Rockefeller, along with the American Baptist Educational Society, on land donated by Marshall Field, the U. of C. was, from the beginning, non-sectarian (despite the Baptist connection) and open to women and minorities. It has become one of the world’s pre-eminent institutions of learning and advancing knowledge. As the school motto notes: Crescat scientia; vita excolatur (“Let knowledge grow; let life be enriched”).
Most Chicagoans have heard that the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction took place in what had been a squash court beneath the university stadium. But most, including us, haven’t been aware of some of the U. of C. firsts mentioned by a Vernon Hills reader who thought the whole place deserved wonderhood.
“Within a hundred yards or so of these Gothic buildings and their gargoyles,” Thomas J. Lee wrote, “the first Ferris wheel turned. REM sleep was discovered. The academic study of sociology began. The defense of free-market economics took root. Carbon-14 dating was developed.”
Though the English gothic architecture of the Hyde Park campus is a hallmark look for the school, the 211-acre site also features modern buildings by Eero Saarinen, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Netsch, Ricardo Legorreta and Cesar Pelli.
With 12,469 faculty and staff, and a $3.2 billion endowment (as of 2003), the university casts a long shadow as an employer and financial force within its community and beyond.
And, as Lee’s lists concludes, the U. of C. is where Harry met Sally.
