How should a large institutions react when its people win a significant prize? The University of Chicago Medical Center pondered that question again, but differently, in October 2009. Here’s the preface to an essay they published:
Foundational Research: Our (Ig) Nobel Prize
In all the hubbub over the Nobel Prizes this week, we don’t want to overlook the prestigious scientific prize that University of Chicago researchers recently received. To celebrate this momentous occasion, here’s a guest post from John Easton, Medical Center director of communications. Every year around this time a memo goes out defining the precise role for each member of the communications team if a University researcher should win a Nobel Prize. But this year, some unanticipated laureates caught the team with their pants down.
The essay itself begins:
Well, not actually pants, and not quite Nobel. The University boasts ties to more than 80 winners of the big one. But on Oct. 1, 2009, three employees won an Ig Nobel Prize for multifunctional underwear….