Daley show

Braced for more urban-policy fights, the former Chicago mayor begins a five-year Harris School appointment July 1.

By Jason Kelly

Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, whom President Zimmer introduced Tuesday as a new distinguished senior fellow at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, will coordinate ten guest lectures about urban issues. Daley put the University's task, and his impending part in it, in more pugnacious terms: "to combat these problems that gnaw at the fabric of cities."

He has come to the right place to continue the urban-policy fights that marked his political career. "The tradition of the University is to have vehement and sometimes destructive argument about every topic that's raised," Harris School Dean Colm O'Muircheartaigh said. "We feel that [Daley's] training as mayor for the last 22 years has equipped him well to participate in our discussions."

Saying he only hoped the University could offer the sort of bracing confrontations that Daley took on as mayor, O'Muircheartaigh added, "I feel confident, having been dean for only a couple of years, that the faculty and the students will provide all the trouble he could ever hope to face."

Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley addresses a gathering of scholars, researchers, urban planners and other City of Chicago leaders for the first Future of the City event held Feb. 1 at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Photo by Dan Dry

May 24, 2011