MSI name change, DePaul pro-Palestine encampment taken down, and Chicago teen youngest to receive PhD at Arizona State

Museum of Science and Industry name change

On Sunday, May 19, the Museum of Science and Industry was renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, after the Citadel founder and CEO donated $125 million to the South Side institution. Originally announced in 2019, this was the largest single gift in the museum’s over ninety-year history. Marking the occasion, the museum offered free admission and launched several new exhibits.

As part of the move of his business from Chicago to Florida, the billionaire hedge fund manager also donated $130 million to forty Chicago organizations, and has donated millions more to other organizations and projects, including the Lakefront Trail. Simultaneously, Griffin stopped his hundreds of millions in donations to his alma mater, Harvard, to demonstrate his opposition to student protests calling for divestment from companies with ties to Israel’s military. 

DePaul University pro-Palestine encampment last to be taken down

On May 16, police took down pro-Palestine encampments at DePaul University. Students at the Catholic institution erected tents in the Lincoln Park campus quad on April 30. Seventeen days later, just after 5:30am, the Chicago Police department raided the encampment, pushing through students who tried to prevent officers from entering, according to CBS 2. While there were no arrests made, the quad and student center were shuttered. The encampment was cleared by 6am and protesters took to the adjacent streets to continue their rally and demonstrations. 

The Divestment Coalition delivered ten demands to the University’s engagement team on May 1 that included acknowledgment from the University of the ongoing genocide and scholasticide in Gaza by the Israeli military; disclosure of investments, budgets and holdings of the university; and divestment from companies that advance Palestinian suffering. Also a part of their demands was the removal of “individuals with ties to Israel from board of trustee.” In a press release published after the clearing of the encampments, University President Robert L. Manuel called this demand “antisemitic and antithetical to [their] Vincentian values.” President Manuel also noted that two people were later arrested during the demonstration on Belden Ave. 

Chicago teen is youngest person to get PhD at Arizona State

Dorothy Jean Tillman II is the youngest PhD recipient at Arizona State University. The seventeen-year-old is the granddaughter of former 3rd Ward Alderwoman Dorothy Jean Tillman, who was elected in 1985 and the first woman to hold the position. AP reports that Tillman successfully defended her dissertation in December for her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health.

Tillman’s accelerated educational journey began when mother enrolled her at the College of Lake County at age ten. She earned an associate’s degree in psychology from Lake County in 2016. Tillman then graduated from New York’s Excelsior College in 2018 with a bachelors in humanities, before completing her master in 2020 at Unity College in Maine. She was accepted to ASU’s doctoral program in 2021 at age fifteen.