Universities: Happy Marriage in Chicago

In 1961, when Geneticist George Beadle was teaching at Caltech, University of Chicago Law Dean Edward H. Levi persuaded him to give up a life of scholarship and research to take the Chicago presidency. A few years later, when the University of California sought out Levi as chancellor at Berkeley, Beadle told Levi, then Chicago's provost: "If you want to run a university, why don't you take my place and run this one?" Levi stayed on at Chicago—and last week he was named by its trustees to succeed Beadle, who will retire next year. Levi will become Chicago's eighth...