One of the most exciting parts of being a freshman at DePaul is learning about the vibrant and historied city that is Chicago. Chicago Quarter is a class all freshmen are required to take, but you have a few different options for what that class can look like.
Explore vs. Discover
There are two types of Chicago Quarter classes you can take: Explore Chicago or Discover Chicago
Explore Chicago is a standard, 10-week class that will begin at the start of Autumn Quarter. These classes will have planned trips or experiences, but all occur within the standard academic quarter. (If you are living in a campus dorm and taking an Explore course, we recommend you choose a move-in date after August 28.)
Discover Chicago includes immersion week that starts one week before all other Autumn classes. Students will explore the city during the five days of immersion week, followed by regular class time throughout the rest of Autumn Quarter. (If you are living in a campus dorm and taking a Discover course, you must choose a move-in date before August 28.)
The Honors Program offers both options for students. These are the available courses for 2023-2024:
Explore Chicago Courses
CHICAGO IN FILM
Tues/Thurs
1:00-3:00 PM
For more than a century, Chicago has had a close relationship with the movies. In this course we will study the representation of the city and its people to the world through film. As part of the study, we will visit sites where films were made and where others were set. We will screen and study several Chicago films and meet some people who have been involved. We will see historical events represented, from the Great Fire through the Prohibition gangster era through the 1968 riots, and we will compare the historical events with their cinematic portrayals. We will interactively study sites where two of the 1980s Chicago comedies were filmed, The Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And finally, the class will create and share their own very short films about Chicago. Note: This class has an additional Friday afternoon “lab” session for movie screenings.
THE RADICAL TRADITION IN CHICAGO
Tues/Thurs
10:00 AM-12:00 PM
Chicago has a rich tradition of radicalism. In this class, we will explore a few of the city’s radical movements and people from the last one hundred and thirty years—German-American anarchists, African-American communists, Puerto Rican activists, and socialist feminists. As a system of belief, it is notoriously hard to pin down and assign a consistent meaning to the term radicalism. We will explore the varied ideas and actions of our chosen subjects so that we can ultimately explain what we mean when we label all of these groups as radical. This course will focus on four topics—the Haymarket riot, Richard Wright and African-American communism, the Young Lords in Lincoln Park, and the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union of the late 1960s and early 1970s. We will use a variety of different sources—web pages, primary source documents, novels, cemetery monuments, and videos—to explore these topics. In addition, students will do a variety of different types of writing exercises—informal individual journal writing, small group projects, and more formal individual papers.
CHICAGO HOMES: THE ARCHITECTURE & ARTIFACTS OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Friday
1:00-5:00 PM
In this course we explore several Chicago-area homes and neighborhoods, paying careful attention to how the architecture and artifacts of these spaces lend insight into the changing nature of how Chicagoans have lived in this city from the 19th century to today. We will also be thinking broadly about the wide variety of Chicago’s homes, and as such we will consider the mansions of Chicago’s Prairie Avenue as well as Chicago’s notorious high-rise public housing projects; we will examine the landscape-inspired lines of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style houses, as well as the spaces that house Chicago’s homeless– all in service of understanding how domestic architecture and the “stuff” inside the places we call “home” might serve as windows into how people lived in the past. Class will meet in person every week, but not always for the full 4-hour block. When class meets for less than the full block, there will be supplementary asynchronous online activities. Specific information will be provided well in advance.
APPRECIATING BEAUTY IN THE CITY
Wednesday
10:30 AM-2:30 PM
In this course, we will visit several important landmarks and discuss their aesthetic value. We shall use the city as our text and consider the city of Chicago as a kind of work of art. Since to fully appreciate anything at all, it is necessary to know something about its history and genesis, we will spend some time studying the history of Chicago, with a focus on the people and events behind the current layout of the city. In addition to introducing you to the city, this course will also serve as an introduction to philosophy, in particular to the branch of philosophy that deals with issues concerning beauty, that is, aesthetics. We might all agree that the view of the Chicago skyline from Buckingham Fountain or the view of the river from Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive is beautiful, but why do we agree? What makes a given thing or collection of things beautiful? Is a more diverse city a more beautiful city? Is a more beautiful city a more valuable city? In this course we shall explore such questions as we explore the city of Chicago.
CHICAGO LITERATURE AND ART
Monday
1:00-5:00 PM
This course will examine Chicago-based authors and artists who have shaped the city’s artistic identity. We will read, view, and discuss a wide range of expressive forms — novels, short stories, poetry, drama, painting, sculpture, architecture — to gain a deeper understanding of how Chicago has been artistically conceived. More importantly, we will explore the city that inspired these artists, traveling in their footsteps and visiting landmark institutions important for Chicago artists. Ultimately, this course will sharpen your ability to interpret, analyze, and write critically about literature, art, history, and culture. You will evaluate important and complex works while broadening your understanding of Chicago’s status as a cultural epicenter.
CHICAGO’S WOMEN BUSINESS LEADERS
Tuesday
1:00-5:00 PM
In this course, students will learn about Chicago’s women business leaders — the experiences, strengths, and resources that have facilitated their professional and personal accomplishments. Women, especially women of color, are notably underrepresented in CSuite and senior leadership positions. Moreover, for those who opt to start their own ventures, women-founded businesses receive only 2% of venture funding. COVID-19 further exacerbated gender disparities in business, with women leaving the workforce at significantly higher rates than their male counterparts. Despite these disparities, women in Chicago are creating and leading high-impact businesses that drive sustainability, equality, and economic growth. In this course, students will learn about the experiences of women leaders from a diverse array of backgrounds and Chicago neighborhoods. They will use these insights to better understand business in Chicago, through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through self-reflection, writing, and a group project, students will explore their own leadership identities, future career paths, and roles in creating a more equitable Chicago. *Note that students do not need to be woman-identifying to participate in the course **Note that women is defined inclusively to include nonbinary, trans, and other femme-identifying individuals
Discover Chicago Courses
THEATRE IN CHICAGO
Wednesday
3:10-5:50 PM
“Theatre in Chicago” will introduce you to one of the nation’s most vibrant theatre cities. During Immersion Week, you will explore the neighborhoods and communities that make Chicago’s theatre scene so vibrant. Throughout the quarter you will see performances and tour theatres ranging from Tony-award winning companies to Chicago’s dynamic storefront theatres to right here at The Theatre School of DePaul. This course will introduce you to the cultural and aesthetic diversity of Chicago’s performing arts and artists while welcoming you into the DePaul Honors community.
CHICAGO: CITY ON THE LAKE
Monday
8:40-11:10 AM
Chicago is often referred to as an “accident of geography.” This course will introduce students to the environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural history of Chicago’s 27-mile long lakefront. Students will study the interactions between Chicago and its surrounding natural environment, its geography and natural resources, the central role the lakefront played in important cultural and historical events, and how Chicago’s growth and development have impacted its natural environment. Immersion Week escapades will include a stop at the 360-Chicago observation deck in the John Hancock Tower, stops along the lakefront, including Grant Park, Millennium Park, Navy Pier, Jackson Park, the former U.S. Steel South Works site, a stroll along the Chicago Riverwalk, and a canoe trip on the North Branch of the Chicago River. Students should bring sunscreen, a camera, and a zest for learning
DYING TO UNDERSTAND: LOSS & THE CITY
Monday
1:00-3:40 PM
The purpose of this course is to examine the different types of loss that we are likely to experience throughout our lives. The types of loss that may be addressed in this course include: the death of a loved one (e.g., family member, pet), the loss of a relationship (e.g., divorce, breakups), and the loss of identity (e.g., traumatic life events, transition to adulthood). From a life course perspective, this course will examine beliefs and spirituality, loss legacies, healing, and resilience. Experiential components of the course may consist of trips to various Chicago institutions such as museums, cemeteries, a funeral home, an animal shelter, sites of famous
ETHICAL & ENVIRONMENTAL PRODUCTION IN CHICAGO
Tuesday
10:00 AM-12:40 PM
Fair trade and ethical trade are both responses to a desire for more ethical principles in commodity sourcing as well as a growing concern about the social conditions under which products are produced and distributed. While fair trade and ethical trade share a common commitment to social development, their methods and goals differ, though both can be included under the umbrella term of more ethically sourced products. DePaul students join a Fair Trade University that commits to building awareness of Fair Trade products on campus and committing to serving Fair Trade products in retail outlets. For example, the coffee served at DePaul is Fair-Trade certified from Metropolis, a Chicago-based coffee roaster (metropoliscoffee.com). DePaul is also part of a Fair Trade community. Chicago Fair Trade, the largest grassroots fair trade coalition in the United States, works “to increase support for economic and environmental justice through consumer education, advocacy, and promotion of local fair trade businesses” (chicagofairtrade.org)
THE MODERNIST MOVEMENT IN CHICAGO
Tuesday
2:40-5:20 PM
Using Chicago as a base, this course will look at the international artistic movement of modernism, known for its rule-breaking experimentation with style and its shocking subject matter. The modernist arts are exceptionally well represented in Chicago: modern artists including Picasso, Chagall, and Miro created several of the public sculptures displayed in the Loop; major modernists are featured in the Art Institute of Chicago; and the city features buildings designed by influential modern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Chicago also provided an infrastructure and an inspiration for several modernists: Harriet Monroe’s groundbreaking Poetry: A Magazine of Verse published major modernist poets; Jane Addams’ Hull House provided a Chicago venue for several controversial modernist plays, at times even provoking death threats; and Bronzeville’s “Black Metropolis” served as base for several important African American writers, artists, and musicians. As we study works of modernist art across the city, we will consider how the artists were responding to cultural, historical, and social developments taking place in the first decades of the twentieth century, including the Great Migration, the feminist movement, the entertainment boom of the 1920s, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. We will see how these modern developments were felt throughout the city, from the vibrant jazz scene on the South Side and the dance halls and picture palaces in Uptown, to immigrant communities on the west side and the 1933-34 Century of Progress International Exposition on the lakefront.
NONVIOLENT CHICAGO
Tuesday
11:20-2:00 PM
What would Chicago look like if violence were not as stubbornly pervasive as it is? A growing number of organizations across the city are determined to find out – by building a culture of nonviolent options. In Chicago this potential nonviolent culture (where every person matters and where this respect, compassion, and commitment to the well-being of all can spark effective alternatives to personal, interpersonal, and structural violence) is potentially emerging piece by piece through the work of numerous Chicago organizations. These include the South Austin Coalition, Su Casa Catholic Worker, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Interfaith Youth Core, Kairos Community, and American Friends Service Committee. This course will study and experience the work of these groups to illuminate what a nonviolent culture might look like and how a more “Nonviolent Chicago” could emerge through education, community-building, social movements, awareness campaigns, and nonviolent design, which this class will engage in methodically and creatively. This course begins with an Immersion Week, where we will visit and engage with the organizations across Chicago listed above.
POVERTY AMIDST PLENTY
Tuesday
1:50-4:30 PM
Food, shelter, healthcare, education, work… These are the five pre-conditions necessary for the “pursuit of happiness” that the Declaration of Independence identifies as each person’s “unalienable right.” Without them the pursuit of happiness risks becoming a hopeless, Quixotic quest. Yet not all Americans have access to these basic necessities. Some go hungry, some are homeless, some lack health insurance, some attend poorly funded and unsafe schools, some do not earn a living wage. What challenges confront the poor, the nearpoor, the working poor? How do they address them? What human capabilities and assets do they draw on to meet those challenges? What assistance is available to them? What more may be done to address poverty and wealth inequality? What is the best solution—a free-market economy, government intervention, local community organizations, private charitable efforts, private-public partnerships…? What obligation do I as an individual and we as a society have to help our fellow Chicagoans? These are the issues and questions around which the course will take shape. The issues that you the students choose to explore, the further questions that you generate, the research and the service that you undertake will add to this structure. During Immersion Week we will visit sites and community organizations addressing issues such as food access, housing, environmental justice and employment training in neighborhoods on the north, south and west sides.
NONPROFITS AND SUSTAINABILITY IN CHICAGO
Monday
2:00-4:40 PM
What do you think of when you hear “not for profit”? Most people would say a Red Cross blood van or a pet adoption center. This class challenges that perspective by taking an indepth look at the variety of NFP’s around the city of Chicago. Through site visits and inclass discussions, students will have the opportunity to learn more about local Chicago nonprofit businesses and the multiple stakeholder groups involved with each. By meeting the leaders, civic-minded volunteers, charitable giving representatives from for-profit businesses, and the people each group seeks to support, students will gain a broad understanding of all it takes to make a non-profit successful. During the class, we will explore the environmental, social, economic and political challenges facing charitable organizations located in Chicago. Additionally, we will learn first-hand about the areas and people served across Chicago’s many diverse areas.
HEALTHY CHICAGO 2025
Wednesday
11:50 AM-2:30 PM
What does health mean to you? Is it larger than the mind, body, and spirit? As health involves a sense of togetherness, community, and society at large these concepts and access to resources will be explored. This course introduces students to a wealth of community health resources afforded to Chicagoans while pondering the true meaning of health. Through strategically selected readings, films, site visits, and course discussions of topics that compare societal health agendas at the national, state, and local levels, students will gain a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which health disparities are approached at the community level. During immersion week, students will visit community health organizations in various prominent neighborhoods within Chicagoland and review the diverse nature of health issues, often dictated by community access to resources and need. Finally, students will explore the roles of communication in outreach services through some of the city’s current health initiative by reviewing various media forms including billboards, mass transit, social media, and more!
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