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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?
- The Class of 1977 entered in fall 1973 with some 530 first-year students, 10% of minority backgrounds, another 6% from small rural high schools as part of the University’s Small School Talent Search. 45 states and 19 foreign countries were represented, 146 students hailed from Illinois, and 60% ranked in the top 10% of their high school classes. There were 346 men and 184 women, 60 students were children of alumni. 1976-1977 tuition was $3,420, up from $2,850 in 1973-1974.
- This has been described as a transitional class, falling between the wildness of the 1960s and the conservatism of the 1980s. It was on campus between the Hutchins and Gray administrations, when the school had begun to lose its monastic identity and was becoming more traditionally collegiate. It was one of the classes of the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll era. The physical layout of the campus was changing. One-third of the class that entered in 1973 did not graduate with the class.
- Edward H. Levi served as president of the University for about half of the class’s time on campus. The Maroon described him in this way: “Levi is very inaccessible, and without too much effort a student could avoid seeing him until graduation … Levi is difficult to talk with, not because he has nothing to say (quite to the contrary, in fact), but because he is very precise and will cut you to ribbons if you are sloppy in logic or expression.” Indeed, Levi’s talents would make him a national figure. In February 1975, he resigned to become U.S. Attorney General under President Gerald Ford. Provost John Todd Wilson served out the remainder of that year as acting president before officially becoming the University’s ninth president. Charles Oxnard, Dean of the College, resigned in 1977.
- In October 1973 the University celebrated the opening of the new College center and renovated Harper Memorial Library with a formal “rededication” of the College.
- Issues related to labor, gender, and ecology figured prominently during of this class’s time on campus. The dismissal in 1973 of six librarians (“The Regenstein Six”), four of whom were active in an attempt to organize a union at the library, led to protests and a successful one-day strike. A group of Hyde Park women established the Rape Action Group Hotline in 1973, the University Women’s Center opened its doors in 1974, and feminist groups on campus multiplied. Amidst fretful headlines covering the “energy crisis,” Maroon editors argued that environmental safeguards be prioritized.
- Nevertheless, few major issues had come to the fore that generated much organized dissent since the protests of the Vietnam years.
- After a two-year hiatus, the annual Lascivious Costume Ball returned to campus, drawing a crowd of 1,800. The Ball’s resurrection in 1974 was not surprising, given the rise in popularity of “streaking” at that time. That same year the University sponsored a Festival of Medieval Heritage and celebrated the grand opening of the Ida Noyes Pub. In April 1975 the Pub was set on fire, in the wake of a rash of arson activity on campus.
- Secretary of State Henry Kissinger officially opened the $280 million Campaign for Chicago with an address in November 1974.
- Due to a housing crunch in fall 1975, some students had to live in hotels.
- The Regenstein got a face lift in fall 1976.
- Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize for Economics, followed immediately by Saul Bellow for Literature, the University’s fortieth and forty-first Nobel Laureates.
- When singer Bonnie Raitt performed in Mandel Hall in May 1977 tickets cost $3.50-$7.50.
- Former President Robert Maynard Hutchins died in May 1977.
- Quantrell Award winners in 1977 were Norman H. Nachtrieb, Ralph W. Nicholas, and Hewson H. Swift.
- Richard J. Daley, the city’s long-time mayor (first elected in 1955), suffered a stroke in May 1974 but had recovered enough by the fall to seek an unprecedented sixth term. He won 75% of the vote in that election, which was marred by the lowest voter turnout rate in 50 years. Daley died in December 1976.
- In 1973, the Sears Tower was completed, making it the world’s tallest building.
- In 1973’s Roe v. Wade case, the Supreme Court ruled that women have the unrestricted right to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, after which the state has some interest in protecting the fetus.
- The towers of the World Trade Center were completed in 1973.
- The U.S.-U.S.S.R. space race was going full force, with the U.S.’s last two Apollo ships 16-17 and Soviet Luna crafts 18-23 exploring the moon, and crafts and space probes from both countries reaching and exploring Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury. 1975 saw the first international manned flight, when the U.S. Apollo and Soviet Soyuz space crafts linked 140 miles above the earth.
- In July 1972, District of Columbia police arrested five men inside the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate complex; by the end of the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon had become the first U.S. President to resign, in August 1974. Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned in 1973 for tax evasion, replaced by Senate Minority Leader Gerald Ford.
- Domestic inflation resulted in federally mandated price and wage controls; by 1974 worldwide inflation had brought about dramatic increases in the cost of fuel, food, and materials, leading to gas lines and other shortages. In 1975, the U.S. unemployment rate reached 9.2%, the highest since 1941.
- In Vietnam, the U.S. continued its pull-out so that by the fall of 1972 there were fewer than 24,000 U.S. troops remaining in Vietnam (from a 1969 high of 543,000). Two cease-fire pacts were signed in 1973. However, troops remained in Vietnam, and the world stood by as the deaths mounted. In April 1975, Communist forces captured Saigon, ending the Vietnam War. As the North Vietnamese forces advanced, the South Vietnamese Army disintegrated. The United States airlifted key South Vietnamese personnel to safety. It was in 1975 that the U.S. fully evacuated troops, civilians, and refugees, ending two decades of military involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1976, North and South Vietnam were reunited as one country after 22 years of separation.
- In April 1975, Communist forces captured Phnom Penh. The new regime was headed by Pol Pot, who ruthlessly tried to remake Cambodia. He implemented the forced relocation of millions of people, resulting in the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands of individuals.
- In 1976 the National Academy of Science reported that gases from spray cans could cause damage to the atmosphere’s ozone layer. The same year, Apple II was introduced; the first serious home computer, it would result in a desktop computer revolution throughout the world.
- In a 1976 reversal of a 1972 decision, the Supreme Court rules the death penalty constitutional.
- Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter beats Gerald Ford for election to the U.S. presidency in 1976. In 1977 as one of the first acts of his new administration, President Carter would pardon close to 10,000 men who opposed the Vietnam War and evaded the draft.
- Books and Literature: Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Maya Angelou’s Gather Together in My Name, Thomas Harris’s I’m OK, You’re OK, Kurt Vonnegut’s (AM’71) Breakfast of Champions, Carl Burnstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men, Richard Adams’ Watership Down, Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift, Alex Haley’s Roots.
- Music: Led Zeppelin recorded their classic “Stairway to Heaven” (1972); Paul Simon started his first solo tour (1973); rock critic Jon Landau wrote “I saw Rock and Roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen” (1974); Stevie Wonder gave a free concert for 125,000 people at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., for Human Kindness Day (1975); and Jefferson Airplane members Marty Balin, Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, and David Frieberg formed a new group called the Jefferson Starship. Disco reigns.
- Television and Radio: Popular TV shows were M*A*S*H, All in the Family, The Waltons, Hawaii Five-O, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bridget Loves Bernie, Chico and the Man, Good Times, The Bionic Woman, Welcome Back Kotter, Happy Days, and Charlie’s Angels.
- Movies: The Godfather, The Exorcist, American Graffiti, Blazing Saddles, The Towering Inferno, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, A Star Is Born, A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection, The Sting, Annie Hall, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever.
- Sports: The 12th Winter Olympics were held in Innsbruck, Austria, in the winter of 1976. At home, tennis took a political turn in 1973 with tennis great Billie Jean King defeating Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” and Americans watched baseball great Hank Aaron best Babe Ruth’s record 714 career homers in 1974.
Researched by the University of Chicago, Development and Alumni Relations, 2006. The Chicago Maroon was the primary source for the “On Campus” section.