Daley to join faculty at U of C, organize lecture series
BY KARA SPAK Staff Reporter kspak@suntimes.com May 24, 2011 9:37AM
Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, appointed distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago Harris School, talks about his new role during news conference at University of Chicago, Tuesday, May 24, 2011. | John H. White~Sun-Times.
Updated: August 31, 2011 12:38AM
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley will be a “distinguished senior fellow” at the University of Chicago, organizing 10 annual guest lectures for each of the next five years, school officials announced Tuesday.
Daley will join a faculty that has included 85 Nobel Prize winners.
“I hope to prepare the next generation of policy makers and other future leaders,” Daley said.
U of C President Robert J. Zimmer praised Daley as a “significant new voice to the University of Chicago community” who will help guide discussion on the future of cities. Daley will work at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies.
Daley won’t be teaching or grading a class, though he will have an office at the school. The position is part-time for five years, though Harris School Dean Colm O’Muircheartaigh joked that “we know that he often continues for another term beyond the first.”
O’Muircheartaigh wouldn’t divulge Daley’s salary or the time commitment the job requires. The position emerged from a series of discussions between the school and former mayor, he said.
“The day I heard he was going to retire was the day I felt he should come here,” O’Muircheartaigh said, adding that he was open to an expanded role for Daley.
“I would love him to teach should he wish to teach,” he said.
Daley has also signed on with a public speaking agency and confirmed Tuesday he will be working in business with his son, Patrick, who has an MBA from the U of C.
“It’s a great honor to work with my son,” Daley said.
When asked for details of the business venture, Daley answered, “I’ll be working on things,’’ pointing out that “I’m a private citizen.”
Both Zimmer and O’Muircheartaigh said Daley’s appointment spoke to the university’s commitment to vigorous debate, a diversity of viewpoints and free and open dialogue.
“The tradition of the university is to have vehement and sometimes destructive argument about every topic that is raised,” O’Muircheartaigh said. “We can only hope that we will be able to provide him with as much aggravation” as the Chicago City Council.
Under Daley, the City Council earned a reputation as a rubber stamp, generally approving his proposals by unanimous — or near unanimous — votes.
Student reaction on campus to the new senior fellow was mixed.
“That’s horrifying,” said Noah Moskowitz, a third year psychology major. “Mayor Daley doesn’t have the greatest track record. The parking meter deal was $70 million down the drain, and the Olympics was a horrible idea.”
Moskowitz said he saw the hire as university leadership “trying really hard to shed their reputation as being an ivory castle.”
Maddie McLeester, 27, an archeology graduate student, said she thought the school would benefit by being “a little less academic.
“I think it’s great,” she said. “What’s better for teaching policy than someone who’s been mayor for an eternity?”
McLeester said she was surprised to hear Daley was coming to campus. “It doesn’t really fit with the character” of the school, she said.
But Daley will join a long list of his former aides who’ve found work at the university or its hospitals, including: former Corporation Counsel Susan Sher; former chief-of-staff John Satalic; former Budget Director Diane Aigotti; former First Deputy Housing Commissioner Ellen Sahli; former First Deputy Corporation Counsel Ben Gibson; former press secretary Avis LaVelle; former Planning Commissioner Arnold Randall and former mayoral aide-turned-First Lady Michelle Obama.
Contributing: Fran Spielman
Comments Click here to view or make a comment