Faculty Council considers ‘banning the box’ By Carolyn Bradley Copy Editor
MARLEE CHLYSTEK | THE DEPAULIA
Most of SNL faculty taking buyouts By Emma Oxnevad & Ella Lee Asst. News Editor & Focus Editor
Eligible faculty in the School for New Learning were offered buyouts in light of the school’s “restructuring” come fall. Of the 26 eligible faculty, more than half are accepting the buyout. “All of the tenured-lined faculty in the School for New Learning — that includes tenured and tenured-track — were offered a voluntary buyout,” said Don Opitz, dean of SNL. “We also had six retirementeligible full-time staff members who were also offered an early retirement incentive.” Of the 14 tenured-line faculty who took the SNL buyout, 11 are retiring. The six staff members Opitz referenced as eligible for an early retirement incentive program is separate from the SNL buyouts, and was laid out by President A. Gabriel Esteban in an email March 8. Three of the six staff eligible for that program volunteered to
take it. SNL’s restructuring involves its renaming and rebranding as The School of Continuing and Professional Studies. The school’s current system, which is designed for adult students working fulltime, offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. Nearly 70 percent of undergraduate SNL students work 30 hours or more per week, and the school’s average undergraduate age is 36. The universitywide adult student average is 24 years old. The purpose of the shift is to give the school equal footing in relation to other continuing education programs in the Chicagoland area. Opitz said he thinks of the buyout as a positive option, stating that it gave the faculty a choice regarding how to move forward. “The decision was made to keep the school a school, so that’s one thing that I think we often lose sight of and a sustainable footing for a long-term longevity,” he
said. “The buyout is part of the school’s sustainability, so the greatest expense of any academic unit are salaries. We had a large full-time faculty and a full-time faculty that is primarily tenured faculty. There are very limited ways in which you can reduce the size of a full-time faculty, and it was thought by the administration— at least from my perspective—that offering a voluntary buyout to the faculty was a way of moving forward that would give faculty options.” Ludovic Comeau, an associate professor staying on for the new school, said that he was originally shocked by the option of a buyout. “Like many of my SNL colleagues, my initial reaction was a bit emotional—a feeling of sadness that profound changes in the national adult education environment have brought the university to the point of seeking a reduction in the overall
See SNL, page 8
DePaul Faculty Council is expected to vote at its June 5 meeting on whether to remove the university’s admission application questions asking applicants if they have been responsible for a disciplinary violation and/or convicted of a misdemeanor or a felony. Students Against Incarceration (SAI) created the proposal asking the university to remove the questions. Members will be giving a presentation at the meeting to support it. DePaul does not necessarily deny an applicant based on these questions. While this may be the case, it can deter twothirds of individuals from continuing their applications, according to a Ban the Box report. Shelby Klingberg, a senior at DePaul and co-president of the organization, said SAI wants to remove the question so applicants are not deterred. The Common App, which allows applicants to send their applications to multiple schools, has removed the box, the report said. Faculty sponsor Nila Ginger Hofman, an anthropology professor, said students approached her to sponsor the bill. Hofman said she participates in the Inside Out program, which brings students to the Cook County Department of Corrections in Chicago and Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois. Students participate in a course with incarcerated students. “I think it would just open up more opportunities for the applicants,” Hofman said of the ban. “There are so many studies that show that education is a really good way to prevent recidivism and to get people trained, educated, employed and keeping them away from a state of incarceration.” A statement from SAI cites information
See FACULTY COUNCIL, page 9
Students claim victory, Hill vows to continue writing By Doug Klain Opinions Editor
On the 23rd day of Ramadan, students sat in the Schmitt Academic Center pit listening to speeches during a celebratory iftar dinner — speeches questioning how to support students that feel unsafe on campus, DePaul’s need for reform and how they felt their activism led to DePaul professor Jason Hill’s censure. But for the wider university community, it remains unclear whether Hill was officially censured and condemned by DePaul’s administration. “It was us saying, ‘This is a really big win for us and we’re not stopping here,’” said junior Rifqa Falaneh, a board member of Students for Justice in Palestine and one of the organizers of the student coalition against Hill, which sponsored the May 28 iftar dinner. What the group says is a win came in the form of an email statement sent to the DePaul community by Acting Provost Salma Ghanem on May 15. The statement reads in part that “professor Hill’s views are his own and do not
“I won’t be silenced. I won’t be stopped.” Jason Hill
DePaul University professor
represent the views of the university.” Ghanem’s email statement comes after DePaul’s Faculty Council passed a resolution May 1 condemning the contents of Hill’s article in The Federalist calling for the Israeli annexation of the Palestinian West Bank, which students and professors have called equivalent to ethnic cleansing. “I won’t be silenced,” Hill said in a phone interview with The DePaulia. “I won’t be stopped, I will continue writing my op-ed pieces, I will continue pursuing my very ambitious scholarly works.
“So they can issue formal censures or informal censures or whatever they want to call it,” Hill said. “It will not stop me and it will not prohibit me from expressing my freedom of speech in any way or form.” Whether the May 15 email statement from Ghanem qualifies as an official condemnation from DePaul remains a matter of confusion for members of the community. Quinn Mulroy, a member of DePaul Socialists and an organizer with the student coalition, said, “I think that’s as close as we’re going to get to an official condemnation from the university.” “So the president has not formally censured me,” Hill said, “but there have been two organs within the university, the provost and Faculty Council, which have made statements that feels [sic] to me very much like a formal censure.” When asked whether Hill has been formally censured by the university, Ghanem responded in a phone interview by saying, “I don’t even know what you mean by that question.”
See CENSURE, page 4