DePaulia
The
Volume #106 | Issue #2 | Sept. 20, 2021 | depauliaonline.com
DePaul student stabbed Saturday morning near Lincoln Park campus By Josephine Stratman & Nadia Hernandez Asst. News Editor & News Editor
COURTESY OF JULIANA ATENCIA | LA DEPAULIA
On Sept. 18, Latinos in Chicago celebrate Independence Day and Hispanic Heritage month by flagging and driving in caravans throughout the city. Even though the 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade was canceled, people poured the streets of Chicago to celebrate their roots.
Sense of belonging
A DePaul student was stabbed last night on the 900 block of West Webster Avenue around 3 a.m., according to a report published by Public Safety. The student, 19, was approached by two men who then demanded his valuables before one of the offenders stabbed the victim in the lower back area and fled with his property. “They followed him outside, approached him, demanded his stuff and proceeded to punch him,” said a Chicago Police Department spokesperson. “The second attacker stabbed him under the left buttock with an unknown cutting instrument.” “They were able to get the victim’s wallet and fled,” the spokesperson said. The victim was later picked up by police two blocks west. The student was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and is in good condition, the CPD spokesperson confirmed to The DePaulia. “After the transport, we have no further updates on his condition due to HIPAA.” According to the police spokesperson, the victim was only able to give a vague description of the two assailants. “He just said there were two suspects roughly 5’10”, 170 [pounds],” the spokesperson said. DePaul’s report did not include descriptions of the suspects. “No one is currently in custody and detectives are still investigating,” the spokesperson said. As of Sunday, no arrests have been made and Area Three detectives are still investigating.
See CRIME, page 7
DePaul in-person honors retreat reveals administrative mishap By Sonal Soni, Nadia Hernandez, Josephine Stratman, Corey Schmidt Nation & World Editor, News Editor, Asst. News Editor, Copy Editor A clerical error among DePaul’s honors program staff highlighted a pattern of miscommunication between honors administration and students regarding an in-person retreat on Sept. 7. Honors administration initially stated in early August that the in-person retreat was mandatory for incoming students and student mentor employees. According to honors program director Jennifer Conary, the program considered offering students a virtual alternative in mid-August due to Covid-19 concerns. However, the honors administration never explicitly provided this virtual option, and some student employees didn’t receive pieces of
the honors program’s correspondence — leaving them in the dark about any possible virtual alternatives for the retreat. “From experience, I know that the honors program is not the best when it comes to communicating,” an anonymous student employee told The DePaulia. “At times, it’s even hard to tell if they even value some of their students. They say they do, but then something like this happens. Sure, it was a mistake — but this mistake could have hurt a lot of people’s lives.” Confusion started when honors staff contacted their student mentor employees on Aug. 1, stating that the retreat
would require mandatory attendance for incoming students. The anonymous honors employee voiced their concerns directly after this announcement to honors assistant director Jennifer Reichle, describing their health concerns for immunocompromised family members. “When [Reichle] first initially sent out information with the first details of the retreat, I replied to it with my concerns, and I explained my family’s specific health circumstances right now,” the student employee told The DePaulia. In an email obtained by The DePaulia, honors administration responded to the student the following day. The email outlined the Covid-19 precautions in place at the retreat. “I think proof of vaccination (for
faculty and staff, too!) plus masking is as safe as someone can possibly get for interacting with strangers,” Conary said in an email forwarded by Reichle. “The chances of transmission under those circumstances are minuscule. If [mentors are] really concerned, you could suggest that they purchase real N95 masks, which are now available to the general public.” “I just assumed that nothing was gonna come out of [my concerns],” the student employee said. “I would just have to suck it up and go, which is what I ended up doing ... In that email, they [said] that the best they could do was offer us masks … I didn’t see any masks being offered, regardless.”
See HONORS, page 8