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Sherman Ave Interviews: Morty Schapiro

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The Sherman Ave Editors (Evander Jones, Ross Packingham and Sir Edward Twattingworth III) sat down with Northwestern University President Morty Schapiro for an interview.  Why he agreed to let us do this, we may never know, but we sure are happy he did. Packingham: If you could make a drink called “The Morty,” what would it entail? Morty: Oh man. Like an alcoholic drink? Twattingworth: Wow, interesting that your mind went there. Morty: Yeah… Well, you know when I drink, like last night–this is really exciting–but one-third orange juice, two-thirds Perrier. Packingham: Perrier? Is that vodka? Or rum? Morty: And they have to give me this much wine so I can hold it to pretend I’ll drink it, but I’m not a wine drinker. I like beer when I have Asian food. I like Thai beer, or Japanese beer or something. Packingham: Like a Budweiser? Morty: I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those. So I’m not big on like American brands, or European brands, but you know when I have Pad Thai– Twattingworth: So as an economist, you’re saying ‘Don’t buy American.’ Right? Morty: No one will listen to me as an economist. So why would you listen to me for that? Yeah, so I think the one-third orange juice, two-thirds Perrier, you’ve got to get the apportionment exact, otherwise it’s too much orange juice, or too little Perrier. Twattingworth: You’ll get drunk so quick if you have too much orange juice. Morty: It’s really tough, yeah. And three ice cubes shaken, not stirred. Evander: So, what advice would you give to an incoming freshman? Morty: Incoming freshman? You know, I mean the academics are really important, and especially when I teach my fall course… and I expect them to work really hard. But there’s a lot more to life than just being in the dorm room and being in the library. And when I do my regular firesides, which I do regularly, and I ask people, ‘When was the last time you were in Chicago? You know for a restaurant or a concert or athletic event, and some people were there yesterday and some people said, ‘Oh, where’s Chicago? I thought we were in Milwaukee.’ So there’s certain people, and they tend to be people who just focus so much– and academics is important– but what I tell them and the freshmen — I’m not sure if I did it for you guys, probably did, is that it’s not just maximizing your GPA. You should care about learning, it’s a really important thing, but what happens outside the classroom is probably gonna have as large an impact on your life as what happens in the classroom. And there’s certain people from certain backgrounds that they don’t quite get that. So that’s what I’d tell them. They should have fun, they shouldn’t suffer for four years.  That’s what grad school is for. And they should get out of their comfort zone and they should take advantage of the fact that there’s this great university town and we’re right next to one of the great cities in the world.  We’ve got everything you want here. That’s what I’d tell them. Twattingworth: As a follow-up on the Class of 2017, I know that our class isn’t as smart or diverse or funny or cool or- Morty: Or good-looking. Twattingworth: Yeah, but uh, um, do you still… like us? Morty: Yeah, actually I tolerate you. The class that’s graduating now is my class, right? I stayed back, and I hope to stay back a number of years, but I shot a little video for the class gift. You’re supposed to give $20.13, and I made some joke that if you give it, I love you, and if you don’t give it, I love you but not as much. But I was joking, ok? These days, when presidents joke people don’t get it. But yeah, we just, we love the students here. We had the tour guides over last night, and I don’t know, have you guys ever been to the house for dinner? No? You guys are three losers, I mean we have a lot of people over. But so last night, we had the typical 60 over and we had so much fun. They were all telling sketchy stories about tours and stuff like that, and it just reminded me and my wife, who’s very outspoken about that, she loves the students, but that the students here aren’t very entitled. Some are, but most are not and they’re much more civil– not everybody, but most are. I think the Midwestern values, that people talk about on the coasts almost sort of as a negative, kind of as ‘It’s too civil, it’s not exciting, it’s too sedated,’ it’s part of the students… even if you aren’t the smartest or the best. Packingham: If you’re worried that your wife is too enamored with Northwestern students, we’d be happy to meet her for lunch sometime. Morty: Yeah, that’ll get rid of that in a hurry. Yeah, put her somewhere in between the three of you and that’ll change. Twattingworth: Shifting gears a little bit, I saw recently that you’re not going to be reading any more petitions. I don’t know if you saw but that was in the news a little, and I just wanted to know if that includes petitions to graduate? Because honestly that thing is like four pages long and I really don’t see myself filling it out. Morty: Yeah, no, you’re not going anywhere. You think you’re a junior, and I don’t know if you’ve even been admitted. But I have this old friend who’s president of Lewis and Clark, a wonderful school in Portland, beautiful campus, great school. And he writes best-sellers, I write books that no one reads, but we’ve been friends for many, many years and over my career I’ve written many op-eds, but I hadn’t been writing recently. Mainly because once you’re president, you write […]

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