History

Jannotta House is named for Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta, emeritus University Trustee.  Edgar Jannotta received his AB from Princeton University in 1953 and his MBA from Harvard University in 1959. He is the Senior Advisor at William Blair and Company, one of the nation’s leading regional investment banks. He was elected as a Trustee of the University in 1984. In 1999, he became Chairman of University of Chicago Board of Trustees, serving in that role until he was succeeded by James Crown in 2003. Deborah Jannotta received her BA from Smith College in 1956, the same year she married Mr. Jannotta. She serves as the Vice President of Development for the Chicago Foundation for Education, serving teachers and students in Chicago public elementary schools. She is also a civic leader in Chicago. The Jannottas have four children.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Jannotta are very committed to their involvement with the University. They have been generous contributors to the Central Annual Fund, the Division of the Humanities, Chicago Booth, the Smart Museum, the Oriental Institute, and the University Hospitals. In addition to his leadership on the Board, Mr. Jannotta has served as a member of the Medical Center Board of Trustees, the Chair of the Chicago Initiative, and he was instrumental in creating a matching fund for College scholarships. Mrs. Jannotta remains an active member of the Women’s Board.

Culture

Each new constellation of students is welcomed and celebrated for the dynamic set of identities, interests, commitments, and orientations that they bring to the ongoing process of community emergence. The welcome and celebration emanates from the community itself, and is only explicitly referenced by a few broadly stated norms and an understanding of a specific common purpose: Jannotta is a community built around norms of openness and respect and an understanding that we come together as a community with a specific focus on supporting each other in the process of educational growth, broadly conceived, that brings us all to the University of Chicago. Understanding that culture emerges in relation to social structure, we maintain a stable set of all the usual dormitory institutional practices like study breaks, House meetings, trips, intra-mural sports, RH brunches and dinners, etc.