• DePaul University is named for St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), the French Catholic priest known as "the Apostle of Charity."
  
  
• DePaul became the largest Catholic university in the United States in 1999 and has held this distinction ever since.
  
  
• DePaul’s Catholic Studies program recruits top-flight faculty scholars, including Peter Casarella and Farrell O’Gorman. Casarella has written extensively on topics of medieval Christian Neo-Platonism, contemporary theological aesthetics, St. Bonaventure’s Trinitarian theology of creation, the idea of emergence in contemporary physics and the Hispanic/Latino presence in the U.S. Catholic Church. Author of the critically recognized novel, "Awaiting Orders" (Idylls Press, 2006), O’Gorman is an expert on American and Anglo-Irish literature, specifically that of writer Flannery O’Connor.
  
  
• In January 2009, DePaul made much of its vast collection of research, books and records on the life and work of St. Vincent de Paul available on via the internet. This vast Vincentian library is the most extensive in the world and can be accessed at http://via.library.depaul.edu.
  
  
• In October 2008, DePaul – along with the Catholic Theological Union – hosted an international conference that examined the evolving role and identify of the Catholic Church in Latin America, Africa and southern Asia where 70 percent of the world’s Catholics now live.
  
  
• DePaul and another Vincentian university, St. John’s in New York, are known for their success in enrolling low-income, first-generation and under-represented students of color. Only Xavier University in Louisiana, a historically black university, enrolls more African-American students, and only Incarnate Word in Texas, an institution that serves primarily Hispanic students as a part of its mission, enrolls more Latino students.
  
  
• The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., became the 11th priest to lead the university since its founding when he was appointed president in 2004. He has spearheaded two national studies of American Catholic higher education that examined trends in governance and leadership, and he is well-known for his training of religious and lay presidents at Catholic institutions to support and nurture the Catholic intellectual tradition.
  
  
• A new 65-seat Catholic chapel named for St. Louise de Marillac was dedicated in 2007 on the Lincoln Park Campus. It complements the Miraculous Medal Chapel that has served the Loop Campus since 1958. The new chapel features a five-foot high icon of St. Louise de Marillac (1591-1660), founder of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, and other religious works of art. Weekday masses at DePaul’s chapels have been longstanding traditions at the university.
  
  
• In 2007, DePaul created a special segment of University Ministry specifically for Catholics called Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM). This distinctive new section addresses key goals of DePaul’s strategic plan to support a greater emphasis on the university’s Catholic and Vincentian missions. CCM is led by the Rev. Christopher Robinson, C.M. and its chaplain is the Rev. Ronald Hoye, C.M..
  
  
• DePaul’s University Ministry coordinates the student Community Service Association to work with Chicago community groups on a variety of public service projects throughout the city. Students commit to at least three hours of public service every week, such as tutoring Chicago public school children, rehabbing city homes and helping homeless people.
  
  
• DePaul’s Office of Mission and Values engages faculty, staff and students to enhance their understanding and support of DePaul’s Catholic, Vincentian, and urban identity. These internal constituencies in turn provide the leadership that enables DePaul to serve its students, and maximize its strategic capacities as the leading urban, Catholic and Vincentian university in the United States.
  
  
• Located at DePaul, The Vincentian Studies Institute promotes a living interest in the historical, spiritual, and charitable heritage of the Vincentian community under the patronage of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac.
  
  
• The Vincentian Studies Institute launched an intensive training program in 2007 for more than a dozen top lay staff members from DePaul and the other two Vincentian universities in the United State – St. John’s and Niagara – to further deepen the Catholic and Vincentian character of the universities as the numbers of ordained religious leaders at the schools decline.
  
  
• In 2007, DePaul’s School for New Learning launched the first bachelor of arts degree program designed for sisters and brothers from Catholic religious congregations in Africa. The innovative liberal arts curriculum is offered in Nairobi, Kenya through a partnership with the Institute of Spirituality and Religious Formation (ISRF) at Tangaza College. The program is individually tailored to prepare students to be leaders in their future ministries and apply their knowledge and skills in a variety of roles in their congregations.
  
  
• Students in the program include Catholic sisters and brothers from all across Africa, with an average age of about 35. About two-thirds of the students are women. In December 2008, the first 14 students graduated from the program
  More than 50,000 sisters and 7,000 brothers work in 450 Catholic religious congregations in Africa that sponsor a large network of faith-based schools, hospitals, retreat centers, clinics, job training programs, agricultural cooperatives and more, which provide essential social services and are fundamentally improving the lives of the poor.
  
  
• Religious congregations in Africa struggle to achieve their full potential because their members cannot get a higher education that meets their professional needs.
  
  
• In 2006, DePaul created the Institute for East African Collaboration to support faculty and staff conducting educational and research activities in the region and formally joining the family of Vincentian-related organizations teaching and working with residents of Kenya, Eritrea and Ethiopia. The institute is housed in DePaul’s Steans Center for Community-based Service Learning. Institute projects include:
  • Psychology Professor Gary Harper’s youth HIV-prevention education for young adults living in Thigio, a poor farming community in the Rift Valley; evaluation of a school-based HIV-prevention curriculum in all Kenyan Catholic schools; and a radio-based public education campaign focused on HIV prevention for youth.
  • Computer Science Professors John Rogers and James Yu work with the Kenya Education Network to build an information technology infrastructure for higher education in the nation
  • Vincentians from the Midwest Province of the Congregation of the Mission, which sponsors DePaul, have been working in Kenya for more than 20 years. DePaul’s chancellor and former president, John T. Richardson, C.M., has taught in the seminary in Nyeri since 1997.

A link to many Catholic resources around the university is available at: http://president.depaul.edu/CatholicIdentity/CatholicIdentity.html