From Hyde Park to White House
Panel discussion on Obama takes on U of C feel to alumni, guests in D.C.
By Sara Jerome
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On a weekend steeped in history, in a club that dates back to the Civil War, the University of Chicago alumni and friends who gathered Sunday evening in Washington, D.C. to discuss the inauguration were firmly focused on the future.
Probing the financial crisis, federal appointments, and the state of CIA intelligence, they discussed policy and the new administration—and that was just over the cocktail hour.
Alumni, faculty, administrators, and guests gathered at the Metropolitan Club, a high-ceilinged venue where guests dined on cheese and dime-sized pastries while a pianist serenaded them by a fire.
But the main event of the evening was an off-the-record panel discussion, titled “From Hyde Park to the White House,” featuring New York Times columnist David Brooks, AB’83, and Chicago Booth professor Austan Goolsbee, an appointee to President-elect Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Ray Suarez, AM’92, parent of a Chicago student and senior correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, served as moderator.
Discussing the challenges facing the new administration and the ways the President-elect’s ascent has reflected on the University of Chicago, the conversation jumped from Hayek to health care to Al Capone’s Chicago—the kind of conversation alumni remembered as typical of the University.
“To the degree that it was a reaffirmation of the kinds of stereotypes that are actually true for the University of Chicago, it succeeded: It’s a culture of intellectualism and all of that,” said David Bholat, AM’06, a social sciences lecturer in the College. “There’s just a different sort of environment cultivated at the U of C. For lack of a better word, it’s a very nerdy population.”
During the Q&A period, audience questions lingered on the economy.
“Some questions were focused on concerns that people have right now,” said Sendhil Revuluri, AB’94, who attended the event with his fiancée. “Other parts got to more general points of how does governing work? And, what role does thinking hard about questions have in government?”
Some of the guests live and work in Washington. Others traveled to the city with more than one million people estimated to have made the trek for the inauguration—some with tickets, others just hoping to take in the atmosphere of the crowded and exhilarated capital.
For these alumni, an extra perk was the chance to catch up with old friends while analyzing everything from the Greek influence on modern worship practices to the aesthetic appeal of champagne glasses to the reasons alumni are compelled to reunite at all.
“It’s interesting to think about the kind of pride the alumni at the University have,” Bholat said. “They really feel that they got a good education … they feel drawn to coming back to affirm, ‘We were really educated,’ which is true.”
