SPORTING THE ‘STACHE Focus, Page 14
Vol. # 95, Issue # 7
October 17, 2011
Teach that tat
‘Ideas Week squares off over need for college By MICHARL CORIO Nation & World Editor
See IDEAS , page 10
Lessons of Chicago violence brought to classroom, art By NATALIA HERNANDEZ
Contributing Writer
LISA ARMSTRONG | The DePaulia
The Intelligence Squared Foundation, which hosts and televises Oxford-style debates in Europe and New York, recently made its Chicago debut on Oct. 12 with the premise that “too many kids go to college.” Part of Chicago’s Ideas Week, the debate featured PayPal co-founder and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel and Charles Murray (author of the AEI article “Do too many kids go to college?”) on the affirmative side. On the other side was Northwestern president emeritus Henry Beinen and the Washington Post/Bloomberg columnist and educational advocate Vivek Wadhwa. Despite attending Stanford as an undergraduate and law student, Peter Thiel is a prominent critic of higher education and the “perceived” necessity to go to college. His “20 under 20” Thiel Foundation will pay kids $100,000 not to go to college in exchange for receiving entrepreneurial training to pursue scientific and technical ideas. He argued that college today is “90 percent credentialing and 10 percent learning,” advocating that college, in many circumstances, is the wrong economic decision. He compared universities to subprime mortgage lenders, saying that these institutions want students to “pay no attention to price” despite a 300 percent increase in college costs over the past 30 years. The cost of college, as an institution, has “gone up more than anything
Eight weeks ago, Greg Scott was hit in the face with a cinderblock, leaving his nose and finger broken, lip split, tooth chipped and his elbows gauged out by seven guys on the west side of Chicago after spending 49 hours filming in a crack house. Scott, a sociologist and associate professor at DePaul University, was in two altercations prior to his latest one, not counting the two shoot-outs he was caught in while following the Vice Lords of Chicago. Scott broke his back while trying to break up two drug dealers from killing one another with a tire iron, and on a separate occasion also was jumped while filming a heroin addict shoot-up. “These things happen. But three incidents in 12 years isn’t bad,” Scott says while brushing his hand
up and down his tattooed forearms. His forearms read like novels, each tattoo an illustration and a story from the 16 years of field work he has put in as a sociologist. “It’s a fun way to live, you know? It can be exhausting,” he said. “It’s really hard to lead a duel life, to have these very very different worlds, and sometimes, you slip up. And sometimes, part of one world seeps into the other and can really f**k up your existence a bit.” For 16 years, Greg dove into the margins of society documenting the people, places and things he saw. After spending almost 15 years on the drugsupply side with street gangs, Scott found a new interest in heroin addicts. “My sincere care and appreciation for criminals, outlaws, thieves, addicts predates all of this.” he smiles, “so that’s the bigger question, right? Because I could be studying anything.” Scott said he is involved with heroin addicts because they are the true outlaws of society. Many addicts are not on welfare, without medicaid, are unemployed, and have probably cut all ties with former family members. Scott gains entree into the heroin See TATTOOS , page 9
Blue Madness celebration kicks off new season By DAVID BARRY Contributing Writer
Blue Madness, the start of the men’s and women’s basketball seasons, was held in front of a packed arena and delivered the excitement sure to get Blue Demons fans excited for the season, but was met with a bit of bad news from the men’s basketball team. “It was a real good atmosphere, there was a lot of energy in the building,” men’s head coach Oliver Purnell said. There was that news that is not so favorable to the men’s team moving into the season however. Junior Forward Tony Freeland was lost for the year with a shoulder injury and freshman guard Macari Brooks was deemed ineligible due to NCAA Clearinghouse issues. Both will miss the entire 2011-12 season. “I’m glad we had seven [newcomers]
because now we’re down to five,” Purnell commented, also noting that freshman forward Montray Clemons hurt his knee in warm-ups and will have an MRI peformed in the coming days. When asked what Clemons’ early prognosis was, Purnell said it “doesn’t look good.” Despite the tough losses, the men’s team was able to show why there should still be much optimism for the team that is coming off of a 7-24 season. One of the newcomers, junior college transfer guard Worrel Clahar, stole much of the show on Friday night. The 5-10 guard from Brooklyn made his presence known in the slam dunk contest, which featured him, fellow freshman Jamee Crockett, and Big East rookie of the year Cleveland Melvin. Clahar, by far the shortest of the three competitors, used his lack of height to his advantage and appeared to be floating on his dunks. See MADNESS , page 27
GRANT MYATT | The DePaulia
Donnovan Kirk enters McGrath Arena during Blue Madness, a pep rally marking the start of the 2011-12 basketball season.