Join us for an intimate conversation with John W. Boyer, Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of History, as he discusses the University of Chicago’s rich legacy with Michèle Lowrie, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in Classics and Boyer Center Academic Director, 2025-26.
Join us for a discussion between John W. Boyer, Martin A Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of History and Michèle Lowrie as they explore the history of the University of Chicago and celebrate the new edition of Boyer’s book, University of Chicago, a History. Join us after the discussion for a reception and further conversation.
One of the most influential institutions of higher learning in the world, the University of Chicago has a powerful and distinct identity, and its name is synonymous with intellectual rigor. With nearly 170,000 alumni living and working in more than one hundred and fifty countries, its impact is far-reaching and long-lasting. With The University of Chicago: A History, John W. Boyer, Dean of the College from 1992 to 2023, thoroughly engages with the history and the lived politics of the university. Boyer presents a history of a complex academic community, focusing on the nature of its academic culture and curricula, the experience of its students, its engagement with Chicago’s civic community, and the resources and conditions that have enabled the university to sustain itself through decades of change. He has mined the archives, exploring the school’s complex and sometimes controversial past to set myth and hearsay apart from fact. Newly updated, this edition extends through the presidency of Robert Zimmer, whose long tenure was marked by significant developments and controversies over subjects as varied as free speech, medical inequity, and community relations.
John W. Boyer
Senior Advisor to the President and the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor
John W. Boyer is Senior Advisor to the President and the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of History. He served as Dean of the College from 1992 through June 2023.
Michele Lowrie
Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in Classics and in the College, and is currently the Academic Director of the University of Chicago Center in Paris. Her research focuses on how Latin literature thinks about politics, particularly the ways political thought emerges from a text’s formal elements and figurative expression short of abstract conceptualization.
