DePaulia (DePaul University, Chicago, IL), 1986-01-10

              By Chris Meister Production manager Afire broke out in the downtown cashier's office on the 16th floor of the Lewis Center on Saturday, December 21 at approximately 4:30 p.m. Only minor damages were sustained as a result of the blaze. "AN APPLIANCE PLUGGED into a standard electrical outlet Volume 64 Number 10 By Mary Litsikas Associate editor The College of Commerce recently approved the addition of business minors for College of Commerce students. The program will take effect in autumn 1986. THE RECOMMENDATION TO OFFER DEGREEseeking business students the option of obtaining a minor in a College of Commerce concentration was first introduced by the College of Commerce Curriculum Committee in October of 1984. Another committee, comprised of faculty members from the five areas considering minor offerings, and Lynne Chappel, director of the College of Commerce undergraduate program, considered the proposal. The committee agreed that the recommendation had merit and would be of value to the students opting to declare a business minor. They submitted their approval of the idea to Brother Leo Ryan, C.S.V., dean of the College of Commerce, on Monday, November 18, 1985. Brother Ryan also approved the idea shortly afterward, according to Michael Miller, associate dean of the College of Commerce. "I think that students all along have taken courses in a major area of interest, but have not received recognition for it," stated Miller. ACCORDING TO MILLER, IF A STUDENT WANted to gain recognition for more in-depth study in a business field other than their major, they had to either double major or personally emphasize their strength in that particular area. "This gives students some recognition for something they've been doing all along without the extra time," said Miller. In order for students to obtain a double major, they would mostly likely need to attend school for an exrtaquarter, added Milller. Majors that returned the surveys: 108 Accounting 68 Economics 119 Finance 106 Management 57 Marketing 399 out of 2,936 surveys sent about midway into the space on the west wall shorted out," explained Bob Janis, director of Lincoln Park physical plant. "The spark caught on to some loose paperwork and flamed on to other nearby items." The fire was confined to the wall and immediate vicinity of the desk. It partially damaged an electric typewriter, gutted a centel phone, damage, the downtown cashier's office continues to serve the DePaul community. Business minors offered in '86 Blaze strikes downtown cashier's office and burned almost half of the laminated desk top. Janis said that the real damage came not from the fire itself but from "the thick, oily PCB type of smoke" produced by the burning plastic items. The smoke permeated the cashier's office and the entire 16th floor. Computers on the floor suffered carbon damage as a result of the smoke, and the The DePaulia Because the requirements for minors will include basic business courses that all business majors must take, the time element and amount of courses necessary will be decreased, according to Miller. As with courses taken for credit toward a major field of study, all courses taken for minor requirements must be either 200 or 300 level. Liberal Arts and Science students will not be effected by this decision. They will still be allowed to take minors only in economics (also listed as a LA&S major) orbusinessadministration, as the pamphlet on minors in LA&S states. All College of Commerce degree-seeking students are eligible to obtain a business minor. Requirements for these students are an overall grade point average of 2.0 or above, enrollment in minor courses for a grade (the pass/fail option will not be permitted), and a grade of or better in all courses to be applied toward the minor. ONE POSSIBLE DRAWBACK TO ESTABLISHing minors within the College of Commerce, according to Miller, was the fear that one or two certain concentrations would be flooded with an increased amount of students, thereby hampering the department, as well as making it more difficult for students to take classes in their major because of closed classes. In order to determine whether or not this would actually be a problem, surveys were sent out to all degree-seeking College of Commerce students concerning the creation of minors along with the winter registration forms. Results of the survey mitigated this concern. "We were convinced after the survey results were tabulated that the departments would still be able to serve their major," said Miller. Miller also stated that the creation of this program will neither benefit nor hurt the faculty. Students are the only ones to benefit, because their transcripts will officially display all their efforts. "The terms'major" and 'minor" jump off the page," said Miller. Courses required for minors: Accounting: 101, 103, 104, 204, 206, and 1 elective Economics: 103, 104, 215, and 3 electives Finance: 310, 311, 330, and 3 electives Management: 200,201, and 4 electives (excluding 230, 231,233, 234, 304, 340) Marketing: 200, 202, 300, 310, and 2 electives keyboards of all the computers had to be replaced. "No one was in the space, or that entire quadrant of the building (at the time of the fire)," Janis stated. "The alarm signal alerted security at the Lincoln Park campus, who in turn notified Lewis Centersecurity. After a guard found the 16th floor filled with smoke, the fire department was called." THE CHICAGO FIRE DEPART­ ment quickly exterminated the minor blaze. Both Janis and John Lawler, head of downtown physical plant, thoroughly checked the electrical system in the cashier's office and found it to be in perfect order. "It was a chance short from a plugged-in appliance. The Lewis Center electrical system had nothing to do with the fire," reported Janis. DPU enrollment going against average By Laura Schmit Editor-in-chief The final statistics on this year's enrollment show DePaul going against the national tide and demonstrating an increased new student enrollment. While a 24% decline in new student enrollment at state and national levels was evident, DePaul is going against this trend by showing an increase of 12%. 840 freshmen and 875 transfer students make up this increase. THIS INCREASE IN POPULATION STRETCHED INTO THE AREA of credit hours taken by students. Tom Abrahamson, director of admissions, pointed out that this is important, because credit hours are what change into tuition dollars. Abrahamson stated that a major point of pride in the type of new students that came to DePaul is the minority percentage of the class that helped the university to achievo a "major increase in ethnic representation." The freshmen class maintained a level of .1% in its American Indian population. The Asian-Pacific population was down by .3% in the freshman class, while university-wide the level was maintained at .2%. There was a significant increase in the Hispanic population of the freshmen ciass of 5.8% to 8.8%. This increase carried over to a university-wide increase from 5% to 5.4%. The black population university-wide increased 1.2% despite the decreas of .2% in the freshmen class. The foreign student population also decreased slightly in the freshman class while remaining about the same at a university-wide ievel. All of these shifts in the minority populations had an end result of decreasing the white population from 76.2% to 73.8% university-wide. This is a major accomplishment, according to Abrahamson, because "universities across the country are fighting to reach the minority students. Most universities would love to have the minority population that DePaul does." This minority population is very important, says Abrahamson, in achieving the proper college atmosphere of balancing and mixing all types of backgrounds and views. THE FRESHMEN CLASS HAS ALSO BROUGHT WITH IT A MAJOR ity of students from public school backgrounds. Last year's class was 44.2% public and 46.2% private while this academic year's class is 46.8% public and 41.1% private. DePaul's admissions staff has spread itself out more in the last year in order to do selective recruiting in a 300 mile radius around DePaul. Abrahamson points out that this was done in response to the fact that "90% of the students attend a university within a one-day drive." This tactic has achieved its purpose by raising the amount of Illinois students outside Chicago and its suburbs in the freshmen class from 1.9% to 3.5%. Out-ofstate students in the freshmen class have increased form 7.6% to 7.8%. Female is the predominant sex of not only the freshmen class, but also the university as a whole. 51.9% of the freshmen class is female while only 48.1% is male. The university population is 50.5% female and 49.5% male. The average ACT score of the freshmen class stayed the same at 22.5. The ages of the freshmen stayed about the same as last year, increasing or decreasing only by 1.1% at the most. The age of the entire university population did not vary much either from the 1984-1985 academic year. The under-24-year-olds made up 41.8% of the population, up from 40.2%. The 24-29 group went from 34% to 32.6%. The 30-44-year-olds decreased from 23.8% to 21.2%. Students 45 and over increased from 2.2% to 2.4%. MANY DIFFERENT ELEMENTS COMBINED TO BRING THE current crop of new students to DePaul. Abrahamson, his 13 professional admission staff members Anne Kennedy, associate vice president for enrollment management, and her staff Dr. Patricia Ewers, vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculties, and the faculty members and current students have all contributed to making an impression on prospective students. Abrahamson says that his staffs role is to "make the university tangible to prospective students. Many students base their judgement on whether or not to attend DePaul on their impression of the admissions staff." An informal, but important, part of the admissions staff is the Ambassadors Club, made up of current students. This group is always looking for new members, says Abrahamson, to share their experiences with prospective students. The admissions staff is already working on recruiting next year's new students. Revamped publications and a more personal application and a new look to the downtown admissions offices are all elements Abrahamson feels bring a greater accessibility to prospective students. The admissions staff is also turning towards networking. "We are going to look toward alumni more. We want people to have an awareness of DePaul, to also have in the back of their minds'Would this student be good for DePaul?' when they're talking to a 17-year-old. I would like everyone who ever went or is going to DePaul to think awareness. We are going to need this kind of awareness in order to keep our admission levels up with the declining under-17 population. January 10, 1986