Recently retired University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) officer Gordon Dameron suspected something was wrong with his wages around 2015; he was making the same amount as officers who had served for far fewer years than he had. He couldn’t fully determine what the issue was until Officer Victor Vazquez, president of Police Benevolent and Protective Association of Illinois, Local 185 — UCPD officers union — informed him that he had been missing his longevity raises since 2017. According to documentation that Dameron showed the Maroon, the University originally confirmed on April 6, 2023 ..read more

UChicago United for Palestine (UCUP) held a rally in front of Levi Hall on Friday before leading a march throughout campus. The crowd of more than two hundred demonstrators called on the University to divest from weapons manufacturers and fossil fuel companies, publicly disclose its investments, and initiate a process of reparations for Palestine and residents of the South Side. The protest comes as a growing number of students at universities across the country have set up tents on campus spaces to protest the war in Gaza and call for their respective universities to divest from Israeli milit ..read more

Eight startups affiliated with UChicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation have been included in innovation and tech website Chicago Inno’s “24 Startups to Watch in 2024” list. Now in its 10th year, Inno’s Startups to Watch list highlights the up-and-coming startups that have shown a readiness to tackle Chicago’s tech ecosystem. Established at the Booth School of Business in 1998, the Polsky Center provides support for students interested in entrepreneurship and faculty inventors looking to commercialize their discoveries. The Maroon sat down with founders from three of the st ..read more

On February 28, Judge Matthew Kennelly of the Northern District Court of Illinois preliminarily approved an antitrust class action settlement involving the University of Chicago, in which the University will pay $13.5 million. The settlement was reached in the lawsuit Henry, et al. v. Brown University, et al., which alleges that UChicago, among sixteen other universities, was part of a price-fixing cartel that determined financial aid amounts in violation of antitrust laws. 10 out of the 17 universities involved in the lawsuit have reached settlement agreements so far with the plaintiffs, with ..read more

On February 28, Judge Matthew Kennelly of the Northern District Court of Illinois preliminarily approved an antitrust class action settlement involving the University of Chicago, in which the University will pay $13.5 million. The settlement was reached in the lawsuit Henry, et al. v. Brown University, et al., which alleges that UChicago, among sixteen other universities, was part of a price-fixing cartel that determined financial aid amounts in violation of antitrust laws. 10 out of the 17 universities involved in the lawsuit have reached settlement agreements so far with the plaintiffs, with ..read more

Through April 21, the visual arts B.A. thesis exhibition ARACHNIDAE showcased the work of eight undergraduate artists who will be graduating this June. A curiously woven patchwork of materials, moods, and moments, each piece stood simultaneously on its own, within its artist’s collection of works, and in the midst of the exhibition as a whole. Some of the pieces are literal patchworks. Julia Fennell’s paintings are done on sewn-together pieces of canvas, mosaics of psychedelic colors. They are a strange kind of nostalgic, depicting living rooms and childhood beds and butterflies. Wide angles a ..read more

On April 1, about 650 of the over 1,000 residents, fellows, and interns at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCM) signed an election petition to join the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) labor union. If a simple majority of 50 percent vote yes in the election, the house staff will become a union represented by CIR. According to organizing committee member Aisha Amuda, who is a fourth-year internal medicine and pediatrics resident, the decision to unionize has been building among residents and fellows for the past two years, with patient care as a driving force. “We are forming ..read more

On April 16, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal visited International House at UChicago to speak about Ukraine’s wartime economy and recovery plan and call for increased global support for Ukraine.  The event was moderated by Institute of Politics (IOP) director Heidi Heitkamp and jointly organized by the IOP, Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, International House, and UChicago Global. Shmyhal, who has been prime minister since 2020, was introduced by Polsky Center Managing Director Samir Mayekar and Ukrainian American Booth School of Business student Marko Supronyuk ..read more

Hyde Park Produce (HPP), the locally-owned grocery store in Kimbark Plaza, has been temporarily closed since a small fire took place inside on April 5. A sign posted on the front door and a Facebook post on April 11 said that the shop will reopen at an unspecified date. The store has removed stock from its shelves, but electricity is still running and cleanup efforts are underway as of April 18. Hyde Park Produce could not be reached for comment. An “‘accidental’ electrical issue” started the fire shortly before 9 p.m. after the store closed to the public for the day, according to the Chicago ..read more

Three students were robbed at gunpoint in two separate incidents on the afternoon of April 17 on and near the University’s campus. In one of the incidents, an emergency blue light box located nearby to be used to contact emergency services was inoperable and had been since at least September 2023. After the robberies, the University sent an update on safety measures it was taking in response. Four armed individuals approached two University students at around 2:50 p.m. One student was on the sidewalk outside Bartlett Dining Commons on South University Avenue. The other student was across the s ..read more