My latest Tribune story:
On Rockford College's response to Chris Hedges' controversial antiwar commencement address:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0310220016oct22,1,3015745.story

Incidentally, an early report on the speech in the Rockford Register-Star last May contained one of the worst sentences I've seen in a while:

[Hedges] criticized military heroic ideals that grow during war. The fervor sacrifices individual thought for temporarily belonging to something larger, he said.

Paging an editor, or an English teacher...

One of my professors responded to the story this way:

This shows outstanding leadership, taking a "bad" experience and elevating the experience of students and the role of the college as a
whole! I think that I learn from this that, every "crisis" situation presents a unique opportunity, and can be an opportunity for enlarged growth and development individually and collectively.

Which was--as you will not be shocked to learn--the angle of the story. But couldn't you spin this the other way, and ask, what good will endless high-minded deliberation by these ivory tower dwellers do to win back trust in their blue-collar town?

-My Tribune portfolio