Intro Letter

Welcome to the 2025-26 Dis-Orientation Guide!

Now that you’re done with your sugar-coated orientation tours and activities, it's time to learn the truth about the University — the things that they don’t want you to know — from what it's actually like to be a student, to the resources you can access and organizations you can join, to the dirty secrets of what the University actually gets up to. Instead of investing in meeting the needs of the students, staff, and wider community (from mental health to housing), UChicago has, since its founding, spent its time and resources to brutalize, surveil, and expel South Side residents through gentrification and overpolicing. All the while, it funnels its money to fossil fuels, militarism, and genocide. For however much the University touts its commitments to “free speech,” this seems to only apply to those supporting eugenics and using racial slurs - with the University suspending and evicting students for the “crime” of attending protests.

But for however powerful the University may seem, there are students organizing to fight back. With an understanding that these crises stem from interlocking systems of hierarchical domination, including racial capitalism, settler colonialism, cisheteropatriarchy, ableism, etc., student organizers take collective and direct action both to carve out a space to survive these systems and strive to change them, bringing the crisis to its creators and taking action to force our demands to be met. Our targets? The suits in UChicago’s admin who have the power to give us what we want. If we want to cut back on campus police, we’ll zero in on the Chief of Security. If we want more funding for affordable housing, The Board of Trustees and the President (who chairs the board) are our targets.

The nostalgia towards the late 1990s and early 2000s as well as the resurgence of physical media in our present day point to a collective desire: that of returning to what seems like simpler times, where human connection was not mediated through social media. This sense of togetherness and eagerness to connect is also what underpins community organizing.

A lot of times, it can feel inevitable that we have to live at the whims of powerful institutions. It can feel inevitable that UChicago gets richer and continues its project of gentrification and policing. It can feel inevitable that UChicago continues to not care about its students’ wellbeing. But organizing is about changing the conditions of what is possible, and we are here to make our dreams the inevitable outcomes.

The optimism and carefree nature of y2k allows some sort of hideout from that. As organizers, we do our best to move with community care in mind—channeling that same hope and optimism towards a brighter future from the era. We get it, shit is scary right now for everyone! No matter where you’re at, organizing has a home for you. Here’s to a new year of fighting for restorative justice, and being the change we need.

TTYL,

Dis-O 2025 team <3

Notes: Please see “Read more” under each of the topics for plain text and more information. Additionally, you can visit our site from previous years for other one-pagers and resources.