The University of Chicago Magazine

Sharing UChicago's stories since 1907. Write us at [email protected].

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Dan Bulla, AM’07, has made his mark on Saturday Night Live with music-driven digital shorts. At the show’s 50th anniversary, he joined Adam Sandler onstage to perform a song they cowrote. Read about Bulla’s comedy career: https://mag.uchicago.edu/arts-humanities/funny-business

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Fourth-year Renato Mariotti, AB’98, introduces former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell at the Challenge of Modern Democracy conference in April 1998. The three-day conference, which Mariotti co-organized with classmate Rohit “Ro” Khanna, AB’98—now a member of Congress (D-CA)—also featured speakers including former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and CNN anchor Bernard Shaw.

(Photography by Dave O., Copyright 2026, The Chicago Maroon. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.)

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“Almost all humor involves some kind of deception, involves some kind of trickery, some kind of misdirection,” says linguist Jason Riggle. In The Language of Deception and Humor, students explored how these two modes interact and help us make meaning. https://mag.uchicago.edu/arts-humanities/talking-out-both-sides-your-mouth

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Nick Varsam, AB’83 (front right), shared this photograph of his intramural (IM) football team celebrating on the Midway around November 1980. “I believe we were only one pitcher of beer into our IM football championship celebration,” Varsam writes. Other team members pictured here include Larry Wilt, AB’84; Craig Peters, EX’83; Charles Episalla, AB’83; Kenny Davis, AB’83; Larry Mendelsohn, AB’83; Krikor Topouzian, AB’82; and Barry Peterson, AB’83. (Photo courtesy Nick Varsam, AB’83)

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Artist and critic Maria Porges, MFA’79, began making ceramic sculptures again after teaching a course on the history of ceramics during the pandemic. The ancient vessels she taught about served as inspiration: “there are some of them I want to recover and bring back into the world as a living shape.” https://mag.uchicago.edu/arts-humanities/recovered-craft

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“I hope the more time you spend with me, the better you become, whether that’s smarter, richer, or feeling more stable. I want to leave people better than I found them,” says Vivian Tu, AB’16, aka Your Rich BFF. Read the full interview with “your favorite Wall Street girly”: https://mag.uchicago.edu/economics-business/money-talks

Photo by Jenny Anderson

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“We’re not dealing with a regular trivia audience. We’re dealing with people who are used to being the smartest person in the room. They’re very willing to argue.” Three UChicago alumni discuss the art of writing questions that spark friendly competition at Global Pub Trivia Night. https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-news/trivia-trival

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“If you don’t understand the political institutions in a society,” says economist and political scientist James A. Robinson, “there’s no way to make sense of the economic outcomes that they generate.” The Nobel laureate won acclaim showing how institutions shape nations. Now he’s asking what shapes the institutions. https://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/measure-idea

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From left, UChicagoans Neal Johnston, AB’60; Roger Downey, EX’59; Leonard Friedman, AB’63; and Elliot Lilien, AB’61, compete in the General Electric College Bowl in December 1959. The show was hosted by Allen Ludden (far right) and aired on CBS. In each episode, two colleges or universities—one a returning champion—competed in a 24-minute trivia contest with questions such as “What president said, ‘I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor’?” and “If you heard someone refer to the Arlberg method, would he be talking about biological research, Willie Mays’s batting stance, or a ski technique?” The Maroons bested the University of Miami in their first matchup but lost to the University of Kansas in their second. Nevertheless, they took home $2,000 in scholarship and grant money for the University and got to enjoy “two week-ends of New York luxury,” as this magazine put it. (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf1-10634, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library) @uchicagoscrc

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“A lot of these plants we’re seeing here are adapted to blooming early in the spring, using stored nutrients. They put leaves up, they bloom, they produce seeds, they disappear.” Take a tour of the Jackson Park’s flowering ephemerals with Michael LaBarbera, professor emeritus in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy: https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/springtime-ephemeral

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Math professor Izaak Wirszup, PhD’55 (seated in the white chair), and his wife, lecturer in Russian Pera Wirszup (standing, center), longtime resident masters in Woodward Court, chat with students over drinks in 1971.

(Photography by Sandi Kronquist, UChicago Photographic Archive, apf1-11450, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library) @uchicagoscrc

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At the Laboratory Schools in 1951, Olga Adams’s (PhB 1924, AM 1932) kindergarten class builds a cardboard city as part of a city planning unit. After construction was completed, the students filled the buildings with furniture and played in the structures. (Photography by Mildred LaDue Mead, UChicago Photographic Archive, apf2-09524, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library) @uchicagoscrc

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Bridge, Washington Prom, jazz clubs, Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap: Get swept away in the social whirl of the Hutchins College https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-news/university-utopia

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Students enjoy an enchanted evening in the Loop in the early 1950s (UChicago Photographic Archive, apf4-02165, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library) @uchicagoscrc

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Could you make the grade in the Hutchins College? Try your hand at a selection of comprehensive exam questions from 1937. https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-news/so-you-think-you-can-comp

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“You took one test for every class. That was it, that was your grade. So if you weren’t feeling well that day, too bad,” says Marion Shorts, AB’46. Could you handle Hutchins-era comprehensive exams? Read about student life in the Hutchins College: https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-news/university-utopia

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“A full four years of liberal arts is good for a person. At least that was what they made us think at the University of Chicago. And I think they were right,” says Ken Green, SB’59. Read about the Great Books–based curriculum in the Hutchins College https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-news/university-utopia