DePauw News & Stories

Roughly three dozen first-year seminars take place throughout campus every fall term. Although each one looks different from the next, these small, discussion-based classes all play a crucial role in bridging the gap between high school and college. 

What do you remember about DePauw winter term? For many, this now 50-year-plus tradition of the non-traditional class is the source of some of our most vivid and beloved college memories.Winter term offers DePauw students the opportunity to make an intentional choice of one course on which to exclusively focus for three weeks.

DePauw’s three schools are doing more than expanding academic offerings for students and opening the door to unprecedented interdisciplinary collaboration on campus. They’re also providing a crucial opportunity for alumni to give back in a new and meaningful way, something that several dozen alumni have embraced in their roles as inaugural members of the three recently formed school advisory boards.

The storied history of the DePauw School of Music lives on in its alumni. It lives in the current students diligently finishing their degrees from the original SOM model. And it will live on in all students joining the “Institute of Music” now and into the future. Because the beating heart of it hasn’t changed – it remains a rich education of musical excellence that aims to equip students with the tools they need to flourish in all their endeavors.

The DePauw community grieves the loss of its distinguished alumnus, trustee and loyal supporter Hirotsugu "Chuck" Iikubo ’57. Iikubo was an eminent business leader as well as an active proponent of international friendship and diplomacy. He passed away in Tokyo, Japan, on February 20, 2025. He was 90 years old.

DePauw University mourns the loss of Janet Prindle Seidler ’58, a Wall Street pioneer, a generous philanthropist and a beloved daughter of DePauw. She passed away on February 19. She was 88 years old.

Throughout Prindle Seidler’s remarkable career in finance, she consistently defied expectations and redefined success. She will be remembered for breaking new ground for women in the investment management business, emerging as a leader in the movement of socially responsible investing and generously supporting numerous philanthropic causes, including the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw.