DePaul’s vaccine requirement, The Chicago Minute, and details on Allen, Texas
Plus, Fest artists announced
Welcome back to ‘In the Loop’! It’s your newsletter team — Kate, Emily, Anna, Hailey, Citlali, Sam, Lauren, Monique, Bridget and Kiernan — here with your Monday night newsletter.
Mark your calendars for 14 East’s upcoming public newsroom on Wednesday, May 24 at 5 p.m. at DePaul’s Loop campus. The event will feature a screening and panel discussion for the #NoCopAcademy documentary. Food will be provided. RSVP to the event here.
Today, we’re releasing our latest short documentary, sharing the latest on DePaul’s vaccine requirement, checking out the Park District’s new headquarters and giving details on the Allen, Texas mall shooter’s ties to white supremacy.
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With that, let’s get into the news.
The Chicago Minute: the team putting Chicago’s messages up in lights
By Emily Soto with Kiernan Sullivan and Anna Retzlaff
To build the iconic message Chicagoans see on the side of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower on Randolph Street, one person would have to walk 25 miles — weaving in and out of office cubicles and around pillars to pull the shades open or closed.
But luckily that’s not the case. Head Engineer Roy Swanson, with his team of electricians, work together to light up the south side of the well-known building.
The process starts with Ashley Bullock, a communications consultant who receives requests from community partners. Sometimes they want to highlight a city event like Lollapalooza or just remind people to get their flu shot. It’s her job to design a message that fulfills the request while staying within the guidelines of her “canvas.”
“A lot of the times organizations come to me and they ask for specific phrases and colors to represent their cause or their organization. But if not, then it's kind of fun for me to use my creative license and come up with messages,” Bullock said.
Her creativity has a few limits though. Each word is 50 windows wide and every letter is five floors tall.
After the message is decided, she sends it over to Swanson, who uses Microsoft Excel to plan out which shades to open and which need to be closed. While it’s a pretty quick process today, it wasn’t always that way. Before Swanson, the team used to draw each design by hand, so making a mistake was time-consuming.
Finally, everyone receives a printed copy of the design, but it doesn’t look like what is seen from the outside of the building. Their paper displays a mirror image of the message so the team knows what they should see from inside the building. To do this, Swanson learned to write backwards to make the additional design.
So as the team walks from floor to floor they are proud of the role they play in creating the messages.
“Especially when you nail it, when the lights are like perfect, the reds and the greens,” Swanson said. “There's certain messages we put up, we don't know how they're gonna look on the building because you're looking at it from a piece of paper. Once you see it on a building, it's like, wow, that looks cool. Then you get to go home and eat.”
Check out our latest episode of The Chicago Minute, to see the team in action.
DePaul News
By Hailey Bosek
DePaul rescinds COVID-19 vaccine requirement
In an email sent out to DePaul students, faculty and staff from the DePaul Community Health team, DePaul announced it will no longer mandate the COVID-19 vaccination for students, faculty and staff effective Friday, May 12. This announcement is based on the federal government and Governor Pritzker’s end to the public health emergency on May 11, 2023. The email stated that free rapid tests will still be available until the end of the school year, Friday, June 9, 2023.
DePaul’s task force addresses Vincentian relationship with slavery
Last week DePaul’s task force, a team created in 2021 to help address the Vincentian legacy of racism, held a ceremony that confronted the Vincetian’s historical relationship with slavery. Led by Minister Jené A. Colvin, the event featured faculty staff and students offering prayer and reflection over the past actions of Vincentians. Colvin feels that DePaul must address its past to move onto the future. “Reconciliation cannot happen without truth. Healing cannot happen without restorative reparations. Liberation cannot happen without addressing the root causes of what keeps us bound in the first place,” Colvin said according to Newsline.
This event comes after an announcement from DePaul President Robert L. Manuel earlier this year stating a series of actions that DePaul is committed to in order to address biases and oppression in the DePaul community. The president also recognized the work done by 14 East Alum Cam Rodriguez who published The Long Shadow of White Supremacy at DePaul. Rodriguez was presented with a shared coin for their work uncovering DePaul’s legacy of white supremacy. They spent two years in DePaul’s special collections and archives digging through documents that exposed DePaul’s involvement in barring black students from entering, as well as minstrel shows put on. Rodrigez stated that what they reported on was not addressed during the conference.
“I'm appreciative to be acknowledged, but without an acknowledgment of the history and harm I researched and wrote about, the impact just isn't there for me,” said Rodriguez in a tweet they sent after the event.
You can read Rodriguez's piece here.
Student Government Election Results
The Student Government Association (SGA) Spring 2023 election ended with Parveen Mundi and Avery Schoenhals winning the race for president and vice president. They received 52.18% of the votes. Mundi and Schoenhals will replace current SGA president Kevin Holecheko and vice president Magoli Garcia. The team ran on making students a part of more university decisions, financial responsibility from the university, and forming a concrete DEIA plan for DePaul. You can see their plans and Instagram here. You can access all the election results here.
Fest artists announced
DePaul Activities Board released the headliners and openers for the DePaul 2023 Fest concert. The rap rock band Emblem3 will perform as the opener. Rapper Flo Milli will perform as the headliner. Flo Milli, the first woman of color to perform as the headliner for Fest, is known for hits such as In the Party (2019) and Conceited (2022). The gates will open at 4:00 p.m. and the event will start at 4:30 p.m. on May 26 with the openers and headliner starting at 7:00pm. Students can buy tickets here, and will be able to bring a guest that is 18+ this year. Tickets will be $10 for students and $20 for guests.
Lastly, here is your weekend sports update (May 5-7):
DePaul’s softball team won 8-5 against Georgetown on Friday
DePaul’s softball team won against Georgetown again on Saturday (5-1)
DePaul’s softball team won their final game 12-4 against Georgetown on Sunday.
Chicago Headlines
By Citlali Perez
Park District headquarters moved to the South Side – On May 5, the city held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new park district headquarters which was moved from downtown to the Brighton Park neighborhood. The 17-acre headquarters sits on 4800 S. Western Ave. and features office space, a fieldhouse with a gym and multi-purpose rooms. Next to the building are two turf fields, a playground and a splash pad for families in the neighborhood. Park District workers will begin to move into the office in June. The district plans to provide summer programming for kids. Madison Savedra with Block Club Chicago has the full story.
Parents of students at Hope Learning Academy push to keep their school open – Hope Learning Academy is a contract school operated by the Springfield-based Hope Institute which operates in multiple states and focuses on serving adults and children with learning disabilities. The school's operating agreement expires in June and the institute opted not to renew it in March. Families are largely dissatisfied with this and refuse to accept CPS’s alternative to send their students to nearby schools. Demands to keep the school open have been pushed by the impacted families and have received the support of those who experienced the CPS mass school closures from a decade ago. Sarah Macaraeg with the Chicago Tribune has more on the story
Safer sidewalks for visually impaired pedestrians – Chicago is behind on sidewalk safety for visually impaired pedestrians; fewer than three dozen intersections include audible cues like Accessible Pedestrian Symbols (APS). In March, a federal judge ruled that this was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act in a class action lawsuit. Some intersections that already include APS devices may require an update in technology. Chicago Department of Transportation spokesperson Erica Schroeder says that APS devices are included in 35 intersections and “under construction” at more than 150 others. The estimated price tag to install these devices is $50,000 to $200,000. Jeff McMurray with WBEZ has the story.
National Headlines
By Sam Freeman
Investigating the Allen, Texas mall gunman’s ideology – Federal officials are investigating potential motives for the gunman who killed eight people at a mall in Allen, Texas on Saturday, May 6. A social media profile belonging to the gunman shows white supremacist ideology and Neo-Nazi views. Additionally, at the shooting, the gunman, Mauricio Garcia, was wearing a patch that said “RWDS” – an abbreviation for “Right Wing Death Squad” that refers to Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s violent right-wing regime in Chile and has been adopted by modern right-wing organizations, such as the Proud Boys. Although the gunman was killed at the mall, investigators are looking to determine if there is a further threat to public safety. Alan Feuer, Adam Goldman, Neelam Bohra and Livia Albeck-Ripka of the New York Times have the story.
President Biden requests compensation for passengers who experienced flight delays and cancellations – The Biden administration looks to address the unexpected costs experienced by passengers during this past winter. President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced the start of the new regulations today. Regulations could compensate passengers for meals and hotel rooms due to flight delays and cancellations. Southwest Airlines canceled more than 16,000 flights between Christmas and New Year, and passengers were stranded for days. Juliana Kim from NPR has more information.
People are trying to claim videos are deepfakes – With the advancement of artificial intelligence, people are beginning to claim that video footage could have been altered or manipulated by AI. The issue was recently brought to light in a lawsuit brought by a family of a man who died using the Tesla self-driving feature. Lawyers cited a statement that Elon Musk made in 2016, claiming that a self-driving Tesla is safer than a person. Musk’s lawyers wrote in a court filing that he is the victim of deepfake videos, which are intended to manipulate the things he says and does. The court did not condone Musk’s lawyers' claims to ensure accountability and set a precedent for future cases. The issue of AI is becoming increasingly prevalent, as people are claiming evidence as fake on the grounds that it could have been altered by AI. Shannon Bond from NPR has the story.
The U.S. approaches its debt ceiling without a definitive agreement – The debt ceiling, or debt limit, is a law that limits the total amount of money that the federal government can borrow for payment of federal employees, the military, pensions, etc. Every so often, the U.S. Congress votes to raise or suspend the debt ceiling. The cap is approximately $31.4 trillion currently, which was breached in January, but the Treasury Department made an exception to provide the government with additional money. The U.S. has never reached its debt ceiling (except for an accidental default in 1979); if it does, it will likely cause economic turmoil. Congress hasn’t been able to reach an agreement on the debt ceiling. Natalie Sherman from the BBC has more information.
Hey, Check This Out!
With Featured Columnist Lauren Sheperd
Hello and welcome back! I hope you all have been enjoying the nice weather as much as I have (today excluded)! This weekend, my parents were in town. In my world, this means eating GOOD for a few days. On Saturday night, we decided to head over to Lakeview with some of my extended family for some of the best Italian food I have ever had.
Mia Francesca is located at the corner of N. Clark St. and W. Aldine Ave., just a few blocks from the Belmont Red/Purple/Brown Line stop. It is also walking distance from Wrigley Field and would make for the perfect post-baseball dinner. According to their website, Mia Francesca features food from Central Italy including Rome, Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio. You can enjoy multiple courses from their menu inside their classic Italian restaurant, in one of their private dining areas or outside on their beautiful patio during the summer.
When I went on Saturday, I got their paccheri alla vodka e salsiccia and split appetizers with the table, my favorite of which was the steamed calamari. I also recommend saving some room for dessert, as the chocolate torte is delicious. Mia Francesca also has a comprehensive gluten-free menu by request.
The next time you’re looking for some good Italian food, a nice patio to eat on, or hungry after a Cubs game, head over to Mia Francesca.
Resources
Need resources regarding cooling centers, rental assistance, abortion access, COVID-19 testing and vaccines or mental health? Check out our complete list here.
That’s it for today! See you next Monday.
The 14 East Newsletter Team