DePaulia
The
Arts & Life, page 20
2016 Pacemaker award Finalist/ Best Weekly College Newspaper-SPJ
Volume #101 | Issue #1 | Sept. 12, 2016 | depauliaonline.com
Holtschneider begins last year at DePaul on positive note
Up, up and away
By Brenden Moore Political Editor
Entering his 13th and final year leading DePaul, Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M., seems at ease. With a recordsetting fundraising campaign complete, all 10 colleges set to be appropriately housed in with the eventual completion of the new School of Music Building and with preparation for a new strategic plan approaching, the Vincentian priest felt the end of this academic year was the right time to vacate the presidency. Yet, Holtschneider understands there is still much to be accomplished this year, especially in light of contentious debates over the presence of free speech, safe spaces and trigger warnings on college campuses playing out at DePaul. The university is only three and a half months removed from alt-right blogger Milo Yiannopoulos’ visit, which saw election year tensions boil over as students clashed with the Breitbart editor’s supporters, most of whom were not affiliated with the university, as well as an army of followers on social media. In an interview with the DePaulia, Holtschneider reaffirmed that “DePaul must do better” and is taking steps to do so. “For DePaul, what we’ve said is we’ve never had policies of not accepting speakers because of controversy (attached) to their ideas,” Holtschneider said. “And indeed, we’ve had very controversial people over the years, whether that’s Ann Coulter, the president of the Minutemen, or name your list.” “But in the midst of this conversation, people raised an interesting question. They asked, is there anybody whose ideas are so devoid of actual content and they’re just meant to demean human beings and that’s their intent, or to get some kind of rise or create some kind of reaction, that the university wouldn’t offer its platform and its name for that kind of speech?” Holtschneider said. “And our
JOSH LEFF | THE DEPAULIA
Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M. attends a ceremony honoring women’s basketball coach Doug Bruno. Holtschneider announced his resignation as university president in June. policies, our procedures don’t speak to that question. So what I said is that it’s a fair question. The example I’ve used is would we have the head of the KKK? And the answer’s probably not. But we don’t have anything in our policies one way or another. So we will convene a task force that we had several years ago on speech and expression to give some thought to that question.” While the task force has not yet been set, Holtschneider hopes it will have recommendations by the end of the academic year. But whatever recommendations are made, they will have to meet a high bar, he said. “(The bar is) higher than even most of society because we have to. This is where we engage the world’s ideas and we find them wanton or worthy. And we do that in debate. We do that in letting them stand up against competing ideas and seeing which ideas turn out to be stronger,” Holtschneider said. “To do that, you need to have the ideas at the
table. So any language that the task force will find is going to have to hit a very high bar. So it’s going to be a very interesting exercise as they think through that question this year. ” While the university grapples with questions on speech, Holtschneider sought to make a distinction between speakers like Yiannopoulos and conservative writer Ben Shapiro, who in July was barred from speaking at DePaul because of safety concerns. While the decision left the university open to criticism from the city’s editorial boards and people across the ideological spectrum, Holtschneider kept the door open for a potential Shapiro appearance in the future. “When Milo was proposed to come back again this fall, we spoke about safety concerns, but we also spoke about the content of his messages. Ben Shapiro’s, we didn’t. Ben Shapiro is very different in that regard. He is very conservative, he’s very controversial, but he has something
to say,” Holtschneider said. “So this one was not about the content at all. This one was strictly about the safety. And if you look at the statement, it said ‘at this time.’ I can imagine a time where the safety and security issues may not be at the level they’ve been at recently at Cal State or Penn State. We specifically used the words ‘at this time’ intentionally.” Repeating what he said in June, Holtschneider said there was no connection between his leaving and calls from some student groups for his resignation. “We had always planned it for the day after graduation because we had hired the search firm in May, so we already had (them) working on our behalf. But we started saying, because of what’s happening on campus, should we delay the announcement,” Holtschneider said.
See PRESIDENT, page 10
Advice for freshmen
What we wish we knew our first year at DePaul
See FRESHMEN, page 20-21