To ring in the holiday season, the annual tree lighting took place on the Quad. See our coverage in Arts & Life, page 16.
50 years after 1969, we look at what’s changed and how that year impacts our world today. See Focus, pages 14-15.
DePaulia
The Talent carries Blue Demons to strong start
Volume #104 | Issue #9 | Nov. 18, 2019 | depauliaonline.com
Low bar Law school lags with bar passage, rankings as Dean faces review
By Lawrence Kreymer Sports Editor
For the last 14 years the DePaul, men’s basketball hasn’t had much to cheer about. Until last year the program hadn’t had a winning record since the 200607 season. The program has been starving for something positive to go their way that they can use to build momentum, and they finally got that on Nov. 11 when they went to Iowa and dominated the Hawkeyes en route to a 93-78 victory. For the first time in years, there is a real buzz surrounding DePaul because of their impressive win over Iowa and the fact that they have started 5-0, the best start for the Blue Demons since the 1986-87 season. The schedule has been kind to DePaul to begin the year, with four of their five games coming at home. But like the first week of college basketball has shown, there are no more easy games in the sport. Former No. 1 ranked Kentucky lost to Evansville (who?) at home on Tuesday. Northwestern opened their season with a loss to Merrimack , a new addition to Division I basketball, and Loyola-Chicago lost to Coppin State at home. DePaul has not only managed to win their first five games, they have done it in dominant fashion, winning each game by an average of 18.8 points. But the big win came on Nov. 11 at Iowa in the Gavitt Tipoff Game when the Blue Demons sent a message to the country: this is a different DePaul team. The dominant performance by the Blue Demons, which began with a 13-0 run to start the game, had people on Twitter asking “is DePaul basketball back?” Well,
See BASKETBALL, page 27
By Shane René Editor-in-Chief
the kind of all-in-one experience that one might expect. The building can serve your desire for food, coffee, cocktails, merchandise and more. “I have spent more than I thought I would already, and I still don’t have all of the things that I really want,” Frank Riter said. “I feel like I could spend a whole paycheck here and still want more.” The bread baked for this location was delicious, well-crafted and traditional. The coffee meets and exceeds the quality of the
DePaul University College of Law (COL) has gone five years under the command of Dean Jennifer Rosato Perea, over which time the school’s national ranking has fallen, distinguished professors have exited and its students have graduated less and less prepared to practice law. Now Rosato Perea, who stepped into her roll in 2015 as the COL was recovering from the 2008 financial crash, is taking her track record to the university for an extension of her contract. An extension would likely make her the longest serving COL Dean in recent memory and the fourth since 2010. In a memorandum addressed to Interim Provost Salma Gahnem obtained by The DePaulia, Rosato Perea, who is in her late 50s, made her case to be retained, highlighting her victories since she took the reigns of the college in 2015. Among them she sites the “student trifecta,” an improved academic program, financial sustainability, mission focused initiatives and leveraging DePaul’s COL alumni network. “My commitment to the DePaul community and our students’ success is unwavering,” Rosato Perea wrote. “We know where we need to go, and we are well on the path. I would be honored to lead our community for the next five years and experience the law school’s and university’s successes together.” According to the memo, Rosato Perea said she hopes DePaul
See STARBUCKS, page 16
See LAW SCHOOL, page 4
RYAN GILROY | THE DEPAULIA
The largest Starbucks in the world opened on Michigan Avenue on Friday. It has 5 floors with a top-floor terrace.
Record-breaking Starbucks opens By Hank Mitchell Contributing Writer
There’s something contagious about the excitement surrounding an attraction that people deem worth lining up for. The opening of the new Starbucks Reserve Roastery on Friday at Michigan Avenue and Erie Street has drawn huge crowds lining up for hours to see inside. Many of those who passed by the large line outside wondered if it was worth the wait. “I am so ready to be inside, but it’s cold and I kind of regret this decision already,” said Jack
Arledge, a River North resident. The requirement for entry is not insignificant, and probably discouraged many from participating. Even once inside, the lines and waiting still delay the gratification of this experience. Waits to sit at the bar seemed to be over an hour throughout the day. David Blake, 35, said he and his party waited an hour and twenty minutes before being seated. “It was a long wait, but worth it,” he said. From the special Reserve Roast coffee beans to the unique coffee-themed mixology bar on the fourth floor, this is certainly
Diversity among professors at DePaul is often criticized as limited. But among tenured professors on campus, the lack of diversity is even more significant. Of the 528 total tenured professors at DePaul, The DePaulia was able to find 469 through DePaul’s website. The data collected by The DePaulia, though incomplete, shows that out of those 469 professors, 323 are white, 35 Asian, 28 African American and 83 unknown. Faculty and staff statistics for DePaul are not available for this year and only numbers were given when The DePaulia reached out trying to find out who had tenure, making it difficult to obtain all of the correct data. At 68 percent, white full professors or associate professors represent the largest
.97% Black, 5 6% 7.4
Asst. Arts & Life Editor
portion of tenured faculty. “I think there are several reasons for that,” said Chernoh Sesay, one of the few African American professors at DePaul with tenure. “One of those is that the numbers at DePaul to some degree reflect general patterns of diversity in high[er] education. But I don’t think that that’s an excuse. I think that DePaul has a big enough name, it’s an impressive enough institution that and it’s in a wonderfully diverse urban area that it would be a major attraction for people of diverse groups.” Although Chicago is one of the most diverse cities in the U.S., diversity among faculty at DePaul offers a stark contrast. In 2017, there were 916 full-time faculty and out of that, only 332 were not white. That is only 36 percent of DePaul faculty. In the Institutional Research & Market Analytics (IRMA) data, the lack of diversity on campus is apparent. It shows that from
n,
By Keira Wingate
ia As
Tenured faculty highlights diversity issues
1996 to 2017, DePaul has only seen an increase of 6.26 percent to 7.3 percent of African American full-time faculty. Other/Not The IRMA data shows that if it conListed, 17.7% tinues at a rate of a 1 percent increase every two decades, African Americans White, 68.87% would not constitute 10 percent of DePaul’s full-time faculty until sometime in the 2030s. “Not only is it kind of more difficult for concerned faculty of color to become full professor, in the last five years and even decades, DePaul has lost significant numbers This chart represents incomplete data collected of faculty of color that include women at by The DePaulia based on research and publicly the full professor level,” Sesay said. “So, the available information from DePaul. The DePaulia question becomes outside of bringing in was able to confirm tenure status for 469 faculty members across all colleges and from that, new faculty, what is the university doing to determine the racial breakdown therein. support faculty of color?” Data from IRMA shows that from sors to leave during that time was white, 2013-2017, there was a decrease in facul- they still have the highest percentage of ty, going from 975 in 2013 to 916 in 2017. See TENURE, page 6 Even though the largest group of profes-