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to the occasion. Admission is free to those who come in
costume. On the more serious side, the School also pro-
vides clinical assistance to various city organizations
through its music therapy program.
Not every form of service rendered by the University is
as organized or formally supported as the examples men-
tioned so far. On the contrary, many significant forms of
assistance are dependent upon student or staff volun-
teers. The Office of Campus Ministry actively encour-
ages student involvement in community projects, partly
for the purpose of instilling social mindedness in
students. DePaul students distribute food to needy
families, work in the St. Thomas of Canterbury Soup
Kitchen, participate in the Greater Chicago Hunger
Walk, raise funds during Hunger Awareness Week, assist
shut-ins, and collect Christmas toys for the St. Vincent de
Paul Day Care Center. Other students volunteer to work
in Appalachia or engage in other service internships.
Social organizations on campus are required to host at
least one philanthropic event per year.
DePaul’s curricula provide yet another way in which
the University addresses urban issues. More than thirty
regularly-offered courses deal expressly with urban con-
cerns. Almost half of these focus on Chicago. For exam-
ple, there are courses on “Chicago’s Current and Future
Economy,” “Chicago Architecture and Urban Develop-
ment,” “The History of Chicago,” and “Chicago
Authors.” The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers
an undergraduate major in urban studies plus several spe-
cialized urban minors in other departments.
In addition to courses and programs which are urban
by subject, there are many other programs within the
University that use the city of Chicago as a living
laboratory. The summer “Bridge Program” for marginal-
ly qualified freshmen and the Master of Arts in Liberal
Studies Program both focus on urban themes. Such rela-
tionships typically offer benefits beyond the classroom
since students and faculty frequently provide insights or
labor that serve urban needs. The School for New Learn-
ing requires its students to undertake an externship and
then produce a major work as a condition for graduation
and many students select urban topics. A police lieutenant
developed a physical fitness plan that was put into effect
at his station. Another student wrote a manual on how
programs for ministerial formation should assess incom-
ing students. This manual has been adopted for use in the
Joliet diocese. Other student projects which have resulted
in improved social services include a design for parish-
level help for the separated and widowed, a guide for
handling alcoholism in law enforcement agencies, and a
handbook for judicial aides in the Illinois Appellate Court.
One important characteristic these student projects
share with more formal enterprises is that they exhibit the
mutually beneficial relationship DePaul enjoys with the
city of Chicago. The relationship truly is one of inter-
dependence. For one thing, universities no longer have
the dominant claim they once had on leading scholars
and practitioners. A growing proportion of society's in-
tellectual, artistic, and technical talent now works out-
side of academe. In recognition of this fact, DePaul uses
its urban location to maximum advantage by drawing
into its classrooms the best external talent available. The
School of Music, for example, counts among its part-time
performance faculty twelve members of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra, including a number of principal
players, plus eight members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra
and ten recording jazz artists. In similar fashion the Law
School has several members of the Illinois Supreme
Court on its adjunct faculty and the College of Com-
merce draws heavily from Chicago corporations and
“big eight” accounting firms. The School for New Learn-
ing finds most of its mentors among the ranks of profes-
sionals employed elsewhere in the metropolitan area. The
University’s numerous advisory councils also benefit
greatly from the wealth of talent available in and around
Chicago.
The concept of sharing extends well beyond personnel.
DePaul is a leader in on-line cooperative library circula-
tion, and presently is the host institution for a new
statewide project to coordinate collections development.
Consortial arrangements, such as the Hispanic Alliance,
already have been mentioned. Though less common,
there also are a few instances of cooperative academic
ventures with neighboring businesses. Under develop-
ment, for example, is an agreement that will allow music
students specializing in recording technology to take all
of their technical training at Universal Recording Cor-
poration’s state-of-the-art studios. Such relationships
would be impossible to duplicate outside of major cities,
and therefore constitute one of the unique advantages
that urban universities have to offer to faculty and
students. Opportunities for career-related part-time
employment are another advantage keenly appreciated
by students who attend DePaul.
Working with the diverse individuals and organiza-
tions of metropolitan Chicago is a study in contrasts.
There are the educated and highly talented, who are
called upon as teachers, mentors, and colleagues, and
then there are the undereducated and economically de-
prived, who desperately need the services that can be
provided by the University. So much already is being
done, yet there remains so much more to do. No matter
how obvious the needs, resources seem always to be .in
short supply. Pride and humility shake hands daily.
The University confronts these tensions in the spirit of
St. Vincent de Paul, its patron. Vincent was a man of
great talent whose own searchings brought him into con-
tact with people of great wealth and influence. Yet he was
troubled by the poverty and oppression he saw through-
out his native France. Elegance and brutal misery existed
side by side. Vincent's solution was to link both worlds,
to counsel the French nobility and Church hierarchy in
the ways of charity and also to work in the streets and in
prisons and hospitals organizing volunteer services for
the downtrodden. The mission of DePaul University today
is to offer this same range of services—to provide moral
vision and intellectual enrichment to men and women of
high ability, and simultaneously to render direct service
to those in society who for various reasons have not yet
been able to enjoy the fruits of social progress.