April 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – With the intent to pursue advanced studies of the Hindi language, Illinois Wesleyan University junior Kari Irwin will study at the American Institute for Indian Studies (AIIS) for 10 weeks this summer in Jaipur, India.

A religion and philosophy major from Palatine, Ill., Irwin took a course in intensive Hindi last summer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she learned about the program in Jaipur.

In addition to her acceptance to the AIIS program, Irwin also received a Critical Language Scholarship, which is sponsored by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.

Critical Language Scholarships are awarded to American students and recent graduates who wish to pursue various levels of intensive overseas study in “critical need” foreign languages. Recipients are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period and later apply their critical language skills in their professional careers.

Irwin believes that a mastery of Hindi will “not only be useful, but will be necessary” for her research and desired profession. “Following my graduation next year, I hope to research the expression of popular religion in India before beginning by graduate studies in South Asian religions,” said Irwin, who hopes to eventually complete a Ph.D. in South Asian religions with the intent to become a professor.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Seven Illinois Wesleyan students will attend the annual International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS) Academic Conference & General Assembly in Greece from May 5 through May 11.

The IAPSS Conference is hosted by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Macedonia in Serres. During the conference, the group will present their research entitled, “The Disparity of Knowledge in the Global Context” and attend a series of workshops with students from around the world.

Students attending the conference are: Babawande Afolabi, a sophomore business and economics double major with a minor in political science from Nigeria; Arielle Cassiday, a sophomore international studies major from Spring Grove, Ill.; Andrew Clott, a sophomore political science and sociology double major from Chicago; Maria Gobbi, a first-year international studies major with a French minor from Evanston, Ill.; Charlie Sell, a sophomore political science major from Wauconda, Ill.; Monica Shah, a sophomore international studies major from Downers Grove, Ill.; and Monica Simonin, a first-year anthropology major from Belleville, Ill.

Other students involved in the research, though not attending the conference, are Erica Podrazik, a sophomore political science major from Lombard, Ill. and Nathan Wheatley a sophomore political science major with an economics minor from Glenn Ellyn, Ill.

The students’ conference presentation culminates work that began on the first day of a course taught by Juan Gabriel Gómez Albarello, visiting assistant professor of political science. In the syllabus for his class “The Politics of Developing Societies,” Gómez Albarello asked his students to work on a paper that they could eventually submit to a conference. Under their professor’s direction, the students began to collect data to construct a preliminary version of the paper, which investigated the inconsistency of sources that scholars cite in political science research articles.

Their research revealed that in political science articles, citations of scholars writing in Western nations vastly outweigh citations of scholars from developing countries. After compiling their research into a formal report, the students discovered that, of the 53 articles included in the study, 86 percent of the cited sources were from the United States and the United Kingdom, rather than citing sources produced in developing nations. This vast source disparity between Western countries and developing nations in scholarly articles is “not just a bias,” said student Nathan Wheatley. “It’s a reflection of a neo-colonial relationship that mirrors the relationship between the former colonies and their former colonizers on every level— economic, social, political and now educational.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Double the age of most current IWU students and the result will be the number of years the Phoenix, a student performance space located in the basement of the Memorial Center (104 E. University St., Bloomington), has been a part of Illinois Wesleyan’s campus.

Aptly named the Phoenix after a mythical bird that dies and is reborn out of its own ashes, the space has been through its own set of rebirths. Continuously evolving throughout its 42 years as a campus fixture from use as a coffeehouse to its current operation as a small theater, at one time the Phoenix even hosted disco-dance nights. Currently, the Phoenix is configured as an adaptable black-box theater, comprised simply of bare, black walls with minimal furnishings.

In recent years, the Phoenix has supplied a space for students of any major to stage a variety of creative presentations, particularly short plays and musicals. Unlike other performance spaces on campus, the theater is open for use by any student or faculty production, not reserved solely for use by the School of Theatre Arts.

Shows staged in the past school year have included everything from two short operas, A Hand of Bridge and Gallantry, to a musical, Edges. Other shows have included student adaptations of literary works in particular, James Billings’ The Nutley Papers and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

Born in 1966 as a student-run coffeehouse, the Phoenix provided entertainment including poetry readings, folk singers, speakers, and student performances. Reminiscent of the “beat” generation, the coffeehouse catered to an independent and expressive minded audience.

“It was a place for students to talk about issues and exchange their own ideas,” according to Professor Paul Bushnell, who began teaching at IWU the same year the Phoenix opened.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University students will be conducting a campus book drive to raise money for Alternative Spring Break and the organization, Books for Africa.

The book drive began April 16 and will continue until May 30.

Students can bring new and used college-level books to the green and white bins labeled “Book Drive,” which will be placed in the Hansen Student Center (300 Beecher St., Bloomington), IWU Bookstore in Hansen Student Center, The Ames Library (1 Ames Plaza East), Center for Natural Sciences (CNS) (201 E. Beecher St., Bloomington), Center for Liberal Arts (CLA) (310 E. Beecher St., Bloomington), Shaw Hall (1312 N. Park St., Bloomington), Memorial Center Main Desk (104 E. University St., Bloomington) and at the steps of the Bertholf Commons in Memorial Center.

Alternative Spring Break began in 2007, offering Illinois Wesleyan Students the opportunity to spend their spring break helping those in need. This spring 60 students and staff aided with Hurricane Katrina disaster relief in New Orleans.

Books for Africa, which began in 1988, is an organization that collects textbooks from publishers, schools, libraries, individuals and organizations to distribute to children in Africa. Books for Africa has shipped over 18 millions books and is the largest provider of donated textbooks in Africa.

For more information on the book drive contact Gulick Residence Hall Director Jacob Meltzer at (309) 556-3129. For more information on Alternative Spring Break of Books for Africa contact the Student Volunteer Center at (309) 556-3850.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan students have voted Associate Professor of English Michael Theune the 2008 Professor of the Year in the annual election run by Student Senate.

Since joining the faculty in 2002, Theune has served as faculty advisor of Illinois Wesleyan’s award-winning chapter of the international English honor society Sigma Tau Delta. The chapter organizes the annual undergraduate literature conference MUSE and produces The Delta, a journal of undergraduate academic literary essays. He recently received the 2008 Elaine W. Hughes Outstanding Sponsor Award from Sigma Tau Delta for his contributions to the chapter. He is also the faculty advisor of Tributaries, which produces a student fine arts magazine by the same name and organizes the annual Tongue and Ink Undergraduate Writing Conference.

Theune earned a bachelor of arts from Hope College and from Oxford University, a master of fine arts from the University of Iowa, and a doctorate from the University of Houston. He is a working poet and scholar who, in 2007, published his first book, Structure and Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in a variety of journals, including The Iowa Review, The New Republic, Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, and Verse.

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