When Prof. John W. Boyer published his landmark book on the history of the University of Chicago in 2015, his work gave a valuable new window into UChicago’s past. But for Boyer, a renowned historian and longtime College dean, that story also contained vital lessons on the very essence of the University.
Though he initially undertook the research that made up the book to better inform his leadership decisions, Boyer’s University of Chicago: A History became an important work highlighting UChicago’s impact. A decade later, the book has a new edition to bring it more nearly to the present, including the influential 15-year tenure of the late President Robert J. Zimmer.
Given the current state of U.S. higher education, Boyer said his work comes at an important time in history—contending that reflecting on the past can lead to greater understanding of the future.
“I think the more we can maintain our understanding of UChicago’s values and where they came from,” said Boyer, the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of History and the College, “the more we will understand how we should conduct ourselves in the present and deal with the many challenges that we face.”
Boyer’s original book examined the decisions that shaped the University and led to its triumphs and failures since its founding in 1892. In his latest edition, Boyer identifies additional patterns of repetition and risk, examining how leaders aimed to set their decisions squarely within the University’s value system amid an evolving world. The newest chapter, focusing largely on Zimmer’s work and legacy, provided a perfect opportunity to examine the impact of those durable values in a new time, Boyer said.
“I would characterize these features of our history as involving what European jurists would call ‘Grundnormen’—first-order and foundational principles that marked the early decades of the history of the University that have continued to define who we are and how we act in the world,” Boyer said.
While the results of these actions will be determined by future historians, Boyer set out to shed light on the processes and personalities that led to UChicago’s current and future state.
To write an unwritten history
Boyer said his first ventures into the University’s history had an aim “to contextualize the rather stormy events that were happening in the 1990s.”
During this period, the College broke out of a troubling cycle of high acceptance and low yield rates, completely revised the College’s curriculum, developed new international programs and many new interdisciplinary majors, strengthened admissions and alumni relations, and implemented efforts to enrich student and residential life and to provide stronger career planning resources for College students, among other changes. Boyer sought to better understand this tumultuous time as he looked to the future.
“It felt like the eighth inning or ninth inning, but it wasn't too late. We were able to bring a lot of important new innovations to the College,” he said.
After publishing monographs on eras in UChicago’s history, Boyer wrote A History. It included such turning points as its founding, the financial consequences of the College’s collapse in enrollments after World War II, the publication of the Kalven Report on academic freedom in the 1960s and the debate in the 1990s around significantly expanding the College.
Within his record, Boyer identifies a trend of the school’s successful leaders: a careful balance of understanding UChicago values with a drive to take risks. Among these notable leaders are founding President William Rainey Harper, who made UChicago one of the most distinguished universities in the country; Robert Maynard Hutchins and his appetite for innovation, such as the reimagining of the Core curriculum; and Hugo Sonnenschein’s continued efforts to attract the best undergraduates in the nation.
“It just shows you how these institutions can't be taken for granted,” Boyer said. “They depend upon wise leadership, but they also depend upon understanding what needs to be done in your time, not just keeping some totemic achievement from 50 years ago alive and well. Because that might not be the best thing to be doing for your university or your institution. They need to change responsibly, but also to take risks.”
Bringing vital legacies into the present
Boyer’s knowledge of a changing regime and watching a leader’s early ambitions aren’t merely based on academic research. He distinctly recalled sitting down in his office with Zimmer in 2006 and listening to the incoming president outline his lofty goals.
“I remember asking him: ‘What do you want to do?’ He had a long list of things—10 or 12 points,” Boyer recalled, as Zimmer outlined ambitious plans such as strengthened relationships with the city, greater connections with Argonne National Laboratory and strong investment in applied science. “Fifteen years later, he accomplished quite a bit of this. He took great pride in having done that.”
Instead of his usual archival research, Boyer’s expansion of The University of Chicago: A History incorporates conversations with Zimmer before his death in 2023; interviews with about 55 former colleagues, friends, current administrators and trustees, along with other archival materials.
The expanded chapter provides insights into some of the University’s major projects and accomplishments under Zimmer’s presidency, a list that includes the creation of the Institute for Molecular Engineering, now the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering; new UChicago global centers in Paris, Beijing, Delhi and Hong Kong; and the revitalization of 53rd Street and Harper Court in Hyde Park.
While many of these projects have come to fruition, their effects are still being felt—or yet to be fully realized. Boyer characterizes Zimmer’s tenure as “one of substantial investments premised on long-term returns.”
As Boyer recounts, one of Zimmer’s priorities was to reinforce UChicago’s principles of free expression—a response to controversial speakers being disinvited to campuses across the country. He commissioned a faculty committee to provide a summation of UChicago’s traditions on free expression, which led to the “Chicago Principles,” in January 2015. The report codified traditions and norms at UChicago and have been adopted by more than 100 colleges and universities around the country.
Yet just as the Chicago Principles continue to be debated today, there is no way to be sure how UChicago’s historical decisions will play out in the future.
A History shows the past can serve as a resilient structure on which to base decisions, given leaders who are value-driven in their ambitions.
“Beardsley Ruml, the first dean of the Social Sciences Division, once said that the kind of people who really prosper at the University of Chicago are people who are willing to take risks and be entrepreneurial and innovate,” Boyer said. “And I've often thought that’s something we really owe to our first President William Rainey Harper. Most of our subsequent presidents have had that instinct or that quality as well. And you need that, the place needs that in order to fulfill its destiny.”