September 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For Illinois Wesleyan University senior Danielle Lauritson of Bloomington experience as a student intern meant more than catching a preview of the working world—it also earned her a scholarship.

Lauritson’s public relations internship at COUNTRY Financial in Bloomington included such responsibilities as writing news releases, monitoring the intern pages of www.countryfinancial.com and assisting with projects like the COUNTRY Chef Challenge.

One of four recipients, Lauritson earned her scholarship through writing an essay in response to the prompt: “U.S. corporations continue to focus more attention on Generation Y both as consumers and potential employees. What challenges and opportunities do you see for COUNTRY Financial in trying to reach this group? How can COUNTRY uniquely target this group through marketing and/or recruiting efforts?”

Lauritson is a business administration major with a marketing concentration.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Senior Accounting major,M. Darius Gant of Oswego, Ill. was named a recipient of the Frank R. Ross Scholastic Achievement Recognition Award and Scholarship, sponsored by the KPMG Chicago African American Network (CAAN). Gant served for KPMG, an international professional audit, tax and advisory services, as a summer accounting intern in Chicago. The award and scholarship is named in honor of Frank K. Ross, the first African American partner elected into the KPMG LLP (KPMG) partnership. It is based on personal commitment to promoting the development and success of African-Americans on campus and in the community, and helping the success of future generations of diverse professionals in the corporate arena.

At Illinois Wesleyan, Gant was a member of the basketball team for 4 years, served as president for Alpha Phi Alpha (APA) social fraternity, Inc. last year, and is now the current chair of educational activities for APA. He is also the founding and active president of the Bloomington chapter for the National Association of Black Accountants.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Illinois Wesleyan University will be able to conduct scientific research on a new supercomputer.

Once built, the computer will be housed at National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on the campus of The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (U of I), and will be available to all members of the Great Lakes Consortium (GLC).  The Consortium, of which IWU is a member, is a collaboration of dozens of universities, colleges, research laboratories and institutes from around the country. The GLC is developing the world’s first sustained “petascale” computational system dedicated to open scientific research.

This unprecedented machine, based on a powerful new system design from IBM, will be called Blue Waters™.  Supported by a $208 million grant from the National Science Foundation, it will come online in 2011 at the U of I.

“IWU appreciates how quickly emerging techniques become woven into the technological and educational fabric of our society,” said Rebecca Roesner, chair of the Chemistry Department at Illinois Wesleyan, who noted several faculty members are exploring how the activities of the Great Lakes Consortium might dovetail with their ongoing scholarly efforts.

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