DePaul University
private Catholic university in Chicago, Illinois, USA
DePaul University is a private Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1998, it became the largest Catholic university in terms of enrollment in North America. DePaul is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and has two campuses; one located in Lincoln Park and one in the Loop.
Following in the footsteps of its founders, DePaul places special emphasis on recruiting first-generation students and others from disadvantaged backgrounds. The university enrolls around 14,500 undergraduates and about 7,900 graduate/law students. In 2017, about 90% of DePaul's students commuted or lived off campus. The student body represents a wide array of religious, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds, including over 118 foreign countries.
DePaul's intercollegiate athletic teams, known as the DePaul Blue Demons, compete in the Big East Conference. DePaul's men's basketball team has made 18 NCAA tournament appearances and appeared in two Final Fours.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “DePaul University” as private Catholic university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as private Catholic university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1179603. VIAF identifies the subject as 152944137. The Library of Congress control number is n50059851. Authority coordinates are 41.924, -87.654. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1998 and 2017.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “DePaul University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.