Left to Right: Mr. Hablutzel, Dr. Grip, Dr. Horowitz

This year, The Chicago School hit the Big 3-0. As part of the celebration, we pulled together a panel of Chicago School presidents to share and compare recollections that span the three decades. Joining Dr. Horowitz for the October 9 event were Phil Hablutzel, J.D., the founding president, and Dr. Jeffrey Grip, who served as the school’s third president. Thus, Presidents’ Reflections replace our standing President’s Letter in this issue of INSIGHT. Happy Birthday, Chicago School!

Click on the play button to listen to the entire presidents’ panel discussion:

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Phil Hablutzel, J.D.—President, 1979-1983

On The Chicago School’s earliest days In those days, we were a shoestring operation. We began at the Lawson YMCA in four rooms, but the administration at the Y decided we had fixed up the place so nicely, they wanted it for their offices. So we had to move. We found a place on Michigan Avenue; it was built as a showroom for the Studebaker automobile and then remodeled into the Fine Arts Building. Next to my office was the first tuba player of the Chicago Symphony. He would have students sit next to my office and practice tuba. Everybody thought that was terrible, but since I was a tuba player, I loved it.

Dr. Jeffrey Grip—President, 1985-1995

On the Emergence of Diversity as a Distinctive Focus I think it was in 1986 that I hired a woman for the faculty by the name of Elizabeth Davis Russell. Elizabeth was born in Liberia and was very low-key, persistent, visionary. She talked to me about creating a center for intercultural clinical psychology. The board approved it and a year later, she came to me and said ‘let’s have an intercultural psychology conference.’ That was really the emerging of the intercultural focus. It became an identity of The Chicago School that was distinctive.

Dr. Michael Horowitz—President, 2000-present

On Beginning the Expansion Beyond a Single-Program School When we developed the I/O (Industrial and Organizational Psychology) Program, we didn’t have resources for a lot of outside people. And so I turned to Nancy Newton (long-time faculty member), who through her career had gone into organizational consulting, and didn’t want to be an administrator again. I went to her house and I said ‘You’re Plan A for continuing The Chicago School as an independent school. And Plan B is that there is no Plan B.’ And she said she’d do it for a year. We discussed what number of students would be needed to start a new program with. We said if we get six students, we will start this new degree program. We got 15 and never looked back.