The average dean of an undergraduate college serves about five years. John Boyer, who is leaving his post at the University of Chicago on June 30, has been dean for four decades.
John Boyer, Dean of the College for undergraduates at the University of Chicago, rides his bicycle across campus on June 20, 2023.North of 51st Street, if you were to spot him zipping past on his Schwinn, you might assume he was an eccentric aging hipster, a blur in a white mustache and spindly Ichabod Crane frame, with far-off eyes behind thin eyeglasses and a dark suit too large for his gangly dimensions.
But it is a concern, one wrapped up in a steep decline in interest in liberal arts courses nationwide. Rakesh Khurana has been having this conversation with Boyer since Khurana became dean of Harvard College in 2013. “I think we both have seen standard residential four-year college experience, once embedded in liberal arts, become increasingly niche in higher ed, majors become increasingly professional minded — and also this growth in the student who takes five or six years to finish,” he said.
Boyer, then and now, was a hybrid: He was an intellectual who recognized college as a tool for social mobility. He joined the history faculty in 1975. Ralph Austen, a professor emeritus in the department who occasionally taught with Boyer, recalls: “John was a very good teacher and extremely solid member , but he also arrived here from Loyola! And was from the South Side! None of which is typical of the background here. It made some of the older, senior faculty suspicious.
Chicago Studies, as Skrable described later, is a fine example of Boyer thriving for years despite making big, sometimes sweeping decisions. “He didn’t see a department like this as public relations or want it subverted for those goals. He never told me that, but I think he wanted it firmly part of the college to protect it.” Among the university’s earliest missions was engaging with the city to learn.
The Core is now about two years of classic courses. In 1992, the college was receiving less than 6,000 applicants a year. Today, the pool of possible freshmen is about 38,000.
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