From the Nominator

"Laura Demanski, the magazine’s editor and author of this piece, has long been a fan of The New Yorker’s annual holiday poem, “Greetings, Friends!,” which celebrates the year’s newsmakers in light verse. For months, we mulled over the idea of making our own UChicago-themed version. In the fall/22 issue, we finally took the plunge.  

The result of that effort is a sincere but playful celebration of 65-plus of our faculty and alumni in insider-joke-dense couplets. (“For Ada Palmer, New Year hopes / To mock elect a bunch more popes,” for example, is a tribute to a history professor whose popular course on the Italian Renaissance features a simulated papal election.)   

Judging by Twitter responses, the poem struck a chord with readers. “You’ve outdone yourselves,” wrote one. Several of the alumni and faculty we featured shared the poem, with one tweeting, “Omg, being part of this U of C poem is one [of] the highlights of my whole career.” We loved seeing their reactions to this unusual tribute.  

We have three main goals for each issue of the University of Chicago Magazine: to nurture alumni connections to the institution and each other, highlight the breadth and impact of UChicago’s research, and delight our intellectually curious readers with engaging stories about everything under the UChicago sun. We’re proud that this piece did all of those at once—in rhyme. We plan to repeat it with a new roster of names—boldface and not—in 2023."

From the Judges

The only expense was $2,000 for a freelancer’s illustrations. This is a very creative concept that was a wonderful read for alumni, faculty and staff. They were spot-on with this for their U of Chicago audience. Very clever and creative entry with huge impact. Nice illustration to accompany excellent, clever poetry. Those who did the work are to be commended for thinking like The New Yorker in Chicago, and for writing in such a fashion.