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Do you remember what was happening on campus, in Chicago, around the world, and in arts and culture during your years in the College?
- Lawrence Kimpton was Chancellor when the Class of 1962 entered the College in fall 1958 with 485 first-year students, the largest in-residence class since World War II. More than one-fourth of the new students hailed from Chicago, 65 from elsewhere in Illinois, the remainder from 37 states and five foreign countries. Tuition was $840 a year ($960 by summer 1959).
- The late 1950s and early 1960s were a time of transition between the highly prescribed curriculum of the 1946-1954 Hutchins Era and the College that was reorganized by Edward Levi and Wayne Booth from 1966 onward. Alan Simpson became Dean of the College in May 1959 and was one of the leading exponents of the “New College’s” revised curriculum and inclusion of divisional as well as general education faculty. The College was also given independent status as a four-year institution with control over the granting of bachelor degrees. By June 1964, Simpson would leave the University to assume the presidency of Vassar College.
- Kimpton’s announcement in March 1960 that he was resigning as Chancellor surprised the University. He was praised for his neighborhood programs and for raising faculty salaries to one of the highest in the nation. Nobel Prize winner George Wells Beadle was elected to succeed him and started March 1961.
- The University experienced its share of student unrest during the 1960s, beginning in January 1962, when 30 members of the Congress on Racial Equality occupied President Beadle’s office in protest, claiming the University practiced racial discrimination in its off-campus rental policies.
- Queen Frederika and Princess Sophie of Greece visited campus in fall 1958. In October 1959, Vice President Richard Nixon visited campus to dedicate the new Law School. And later that same month, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. presented a sermon titled “Remember Who You Are” at Rockefeller Chapel. Ralph Ellison and Eudora Welty both spoke on campus during the fall of 1961. In February 1962, Malcolm X visited campus to participate in a debate on “Separation or Integration.”
- Fraternities made news not only for social activities and “smokers,” but also on charges of alleged illegal rushing practices. 1960 was the first year women were allowed into men’s dorm rooms.
- Starting in 1958-1959, student registration went electronic on IBM punch cards.
- Blackfriars experienced a resurgence. The first annual University of Chicago Folk Festival, which remains popular today, was a big success on campus. Student Health held all-campus Asian flu inoculation clinics.
- Quantrell Award winners in 1962 were Norman Nachtrieb, Leo Nedelsky, Fred Siegler, and Edward Wasiolek.
- 1958: Our Lady of the Angels School Fire. 1959: International Trade Fair celebrated opening of Saint Lawrence Seaway (Queen Elizabeth visits). 1960: Northwest Expressway opened (later renamed the John F. Kennedy Expressway).
- In 1958 Nathan Leopold, jailed in 1924 for the kidnapping and murder of Bobby Franks (with fellow UC student Richard Loeb, who was killed in prison), was paroled.
- This generation was shaped by the threat of the nuclear age. In May 1960, the Conference on World Tensions was held on campus and drew six winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
- 1958 witnessed Nikita Khrushchev becoming premier of the USSR, Charles becoming Prince of Wales, and Charles de Gaulle elected as the first president of France’s newly created Fifth Republic.
- In 1959, Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba, Alaska and Hawaii joined the US, Louis Leakey’s discovery of a skull in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania suggested that human evolution began in Africa not Asia, and the Dalai Lama fled to India after an uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet was repressed.
- Kennedy defeated Nixon to win the 1960 presidential election, becoming both the youngest and the first Roman Catholic president (students had favored Kennedy over Nixon two-to-one). Also in 1960, police killed 56 civilians protesting apartheid in South Africa and Mao’s Great Leap Forward failed.
- The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 and the Bay of Pigs Invasion ended in disaster. The Berlin Wall was built. The USSR put the first man in space. Freedom Rides in Alabama attempted to overturn southern segregation. The Peace Corps program was launched.
- John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in 1962. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave “A Tour of the White House” via television and over 46 million people tuned in. American military strength in South Vietnam reached 4,000, Agent Orange was introduced, and America’s first combat missions against the Viet Cong took place.
- Books and Literature: Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Rabbit, Run by John Updike, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Nobel Prizes for Literature were awarded to Boris Pasternak, Salvatore Quasimodo, St.-John Perse, Ivo Andric, and John Steinbeck.
- Music: “Venus” by Frankie Avalon, “Runaway” by Del Shannon, “Blue Moon” by the Marcels, “Travelin’ Man” by Ricky Nelson, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” by the Shirelles, and “Duke of Earl” by Gene Chandler. Motown was founded and would become a major force in rock music in the 1960s. Billie Holiday and Buddy Holly died in 1959. Chubby Checkers’ 1960 “The Twist” started a dance craze. In 1961 Bob Dylan was discovered; his songs subsequently came to symbolize the civil rights movement and hippie culture.
- Television: In 1960 Charles Van Doren was among 13 contestants on TV quiz show “21” arrested for perjury in testifying that answers were not given to them in advance. The top rated television shows were The Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show,and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
- Movies: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Gigi, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Ben Hur, Psycho, West Side Story, Spartacus. The Academy Awards in 1962 went to Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird),Anne Bancroft (The Miracle Worker), and Lawrence of Arabia for Best Film.
- Sports: Sugar Ray Robinson lost and then regained and then lost middleweight boxing championship, Arnold Palmer won his first Masters tournament and then the US Open, the 1960 Olympic Games were held in Rome, Wilt Chamberlain scored a record 100 points in a game.
- Other: Credit cards were introduced, Frank Lloyd Wright died, Barbie was born, the microchip was invented, the laser was perfected.
Researched by the University of Chicago, Development and Alumni Relations, 2006. The Chicago Maroon was the primary source for the “On Campus” section.