Philip Gossett, a world-renowned authority on Rossini and Verdi who teaches at the University of Chicago, used to squirm whenever his school’s alma mater was played at academic functions. “The song has always been, shall we say, problematic,” he explains. “It fails to touch the deeper regions of the heart. Then as a number of us became more and more sensitized to its lyrics, we started saying to ourselves: ‘Can’t we do something about this?’”
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Nonetheless, up until five years ago, the U. of C.’s musical emblem served its purpose unobtrusively, if without distinction: obligatorily performed at convocations, it was forgotten immediately afterward. Few alumni or students were aware of its existence; and had they been, many would surely have preferred a Handelian tune. During my undergraduate stay there, I heard the alma mater only once–at a football game–and mistook it for a parody. Still, in 1985 the growing annoyance felt by Gossett and others prodded university officials into action.
The song’s total disregard for one of the sexes has been an embarrassment partly because the eminent bastion of liberalism has as its head–its chief representative at school ceremonies–a woman. President Hanna Gray said she found it “bizarre that an institution that’s been coeducational from its founding refers to ‘sons’ of alma mater.” The dean of the college ordered emergency surgery. The offending passages were purged of sexism: the U. of C. had both “daughters and . . . sons,” and moreover it loved her “children” not just her boys. Still, the music remained undistinguished. Gray vowed to find a suitable replacement in time for the university’s centenary.
The U. of C. has assembled a panel of judges that includes, besides Gossett, such notable sons and daughters as novelist Robert Coover (“He’s got an ear for certain types of whimsical songs,” observes Gossett), music scholar Ellen T. Harris, violinist Joel Smirnoff of the Juilliard String Quartet, and professor emeritus Edward W. Rosenheim. As added enticement to contestants, the school is offering $2,500 to the winner. Then there is the tunesmith’s vanity. “I think it would be foolish to pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to write the alma mater for a great university,” says Gossett. The criteria are simple: “Something that can be sung by a group, not too difficult to sing, catchy enough, with a feeling for the institution and for fun.” The official specification calls for entries that are “suitable for performance by professional and amateur choral groups (soprano, alto, tenor and bass with piano or organ accompaniment), and for community sing-alongs.” Gossett urges all contestants to “send us the written form of the music as soon as possible. Don’t worry about the arrangement, we can fix that up ourselves. All we want is the tune.”
