Dulcey Hunter serves as the University of Chicago’s inaugural banned books postdoctoral scholar, a role that aims to highlight the importance of intellectual freedom and bring awareness to the rise in efforts to challenge or ban books in the U.S. and abroad.

A new ChicagoSpeaks survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago offers insight into Chicagoans’ financial pressures, concerns of job loss and the inability to pay bills, along with the role of federal safety net programs like SNAP and Medicaid.

Incidents of sexual assault on college campuses are making national headlines after a former student at Cornell University filed a lawsuit last month alleging she was gang raped in a fraternity house in 2024.

No suspects are in custody and police have not made any arrests, but the university said a person of interest has been identified. The man is not a University of Chicago student and has been banned from the campus, the university said.

The study, which tracks 100 years of ward redistricting in Chicago and Milwaukee, found that 15% of Chicago’s land has never changed wards.

Vincenzo Vitelli, a physicist at the University of Chicago, and Kaiyu Guan, an environmental scientist at the University of Illinois, were among a group of 20 fellows chosen for this year’s MacArthur Fellows Program. Recipients receive a “no-strings-attached” $800,000 award.

Both Chicago-area universities fell slightly in the new rankings, coming in a tie for ninth place, but they remained the highest-ranked schools both in Illinois and the Midwest as a whole.

More Chicagoans believe violent crime has increased in the city, according to a new poll, even as the numbers of shootings and homicides throughout 2026 are essentially the same as last year, which ended with the fewest recorded killings in 60 years.

The University of Chicago is among dozens of universities and colleges that have agreed to terminate their partnerships with a nonprofit that helps students from underrepresented groups get degrees in business.

The unique size and shape of the bones from Spinosaurus mirabilis — the first Spinosaurus species discovered in over a century — gives important clues to the history of spinosaurids on Earth.

The grant is part of a $25 million commitment by the Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation to expand or establish five Ralph Lauren-named centers in the U.S.

The annual Department of Energy evaluation shows Fermilab’s leadership and safety grades rose from C+ to B in 2025, yet finance‑system gaps and transformer shortages caused concern. Argonne posted strong marks and earned a $6 million fee despite lower publication output and an accelerator shutdown.

With only a handful of days left before the calendar turns to 2026, Chicago is on pace to see its lowest homicide total since at least 2014.

Each year, the Office of Science at the Department of Energy evaluates the performance of the organizations that run its national laboratories. Despite some grades improving in the past fiscal year for local labs, records show scores dropping in some key areas.

Norbert Holtkamp, a veteran of international research, takes over leadership of the particle physics laboratory in suburban Batavia in 2026. The decision was announced by the Fermi Forward Discovery Group, the lab’s new management and operations contractor.

The University of Chicago ranked sixth in the nation, jumping up five spots from eleventh last year, while the Evanston-based Northwestern University fell one spot into a tie for seventh.