ROSALIND FRANKLIN DETAILS REVEALED
As previously reported Oct. 1, DePaul and Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science (RFUMS) formally announced their strategic alliance at an Oct. 3 press conference.
The announcement featured speeches from DePaul president Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., and RFUMS president and CEO K. Michael Welch, who both cited a growning need for educated medical students in the United States.
“As health care delivery changes in the coming years, it is critical that we prepare students today for what we know will be tomorrow’s health care needs,” said Welch at the conference, “Together, DePaul and Rosalind Franklin will offer one of the widest arrays of health science programs among private universities in the Midwest.”
ANOTHER ALLIANCE IN THE WORKS?
DePaul is rumored to be forming an alliance with Gordon Tech College Prep High School, according to the Roscoe View Journal.
DePaul spokesman Ed Lawler declined to comment about the relationship, but told the Roscoe View Journal that he expected DePaul to have a press release later in October explaining the details of the alliance.
Gordon Tech, a Catholic High School near Roscoe Village, enrolls about 500 students. The school opened in 1952.
TIBETAN MONKS TO VISIT DEPAUL
Buddhist monks from Drepung Gomang monastery in Mundgod, India will visit DePaul this week from Monday to Friday.
The monks will perform a traditional sand mandala in DePaul’s Center for Intercultural Programs and a Puja in the Brownstone Annex.
THIS WEEK IN DEPAUL HISTORY
Rumors about a new stadium for DePaul’s men basketball team are flying higher than a half-court three-point shot, as DePaul tries to reenter the city it left in the 1980 season.
But before DePaul moved to Rosemont, they played right here in Lincoln Park, at the now-demolished Alumni Hall.
“Once only the dream of faculty members, alumni, and students at DePaul, the new, ultra-modern gymnasium-auditorium is nearly its completion on the uptown campus,” the Oct. 12, 1956 issue of the DePaulia wrote about Alumni Hall. “With the aid of many, [DePaul] has been making great strides in her endeavor to keep up with modern education efforts… and this is only the beginning!”
The move to Rosemont was prompted by the success of Blue Demon basketball in the 1970s, and the need of a stadium that could seat more than Alumni Hall’s paltry 5,300.
But these days, many students are hoping that the Allstate Arena-era will come to a swift end. DePaul men’s basketball games have been plagued by low attendance, which many attribute to the off-campus location of the stadium.
Of course, any move to a new stadium won’t be implemented until 2015, when DePaul’s contract with Allstate Arena expires.
Until then, the Blue Demons will keep playing in what DePaul University Athletics’ website calls “one of the crown jewels of the village of Rosemont.” In the future, DePaul men’s basketball hopes to regain its title as one of the crown jewels of Chicago.
One last thing: wondering where Alumni Hall was located? If you’re reading this in the Lincoln Park Student Center, you’re sitting right on top of it: Alumni Hall was paved over, and the Student Center was built in its place. So the next time you pick up some food or go to class on the third floor, remember you’re walking on hallowed ground.
