October 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. –The Office of Multicultural Students Affairs will host Bobby Gonzalez in celebration of Native American Heritage Month at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6 in the Beckman Auditorium of The Ames Library (1211 Park St., Bloomington). The event is free and open to the public.

Gonzalez will present the program, “Somos Indios,” which examines history, art, leaders and important events of the indigenous people of Latin America. He will discuss how the Aztec, the Maya, the Inca, the Taino and other Native nations made important contribution to the fields of science, math, agriculture, linguistics and cuisine. He also considers contemporary issues like illegal aliens and the war on drugs.

Gonzalez, a multicultural motivational speaker, grew up in a bicultural environment in the South Bronx of New York City. He is part Native American (Taino) and part Latino (Puerto Rican) and uses his diverse background in his poetry and his storytelling. Gonzalez has given lectures at Yale University, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and the University of Alabama, Huntsville. He has told his stories at Carnegie Hall, the Museum of Television and Radio and the Detroit Institute of Arts, Gonzalez has also performed his poetry at the National Museum of the American Indian, the University of North Dakota and the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University sophomore Stephanie Nudelman’s family was surprised when they received a letter a few months ago. The letter, urging the recipient to register to vote, was addressed to her deceased goldfish: Princess Nudelman the Second. The family had no idea of the national attention that letter would draw.

The letter came from Women’s Voices Women Vote, hoping to convince Princess Nudelman to register so she could vote in the upcoming presidential election. The Nudelmans assumed their dearly departed goldfish’s name landed on their list because they had put a second phone line under their pet’s name to avoid spam e-mails and junk mail.

“When we got the forms this summer, my mom and I thought it was really funny,” said Stephanie Nudelman. “So we sent a Post-It to the county clerk’s office saying, ‘We regret to inform you that Princess Nudelman will not be voting this year because, one, she is dead, and, two, she is a goldfish. Please remove her from your mailing list.’ We thought that would be the end of it.”

Local news organizations broke the goldfish tale, and the yarn was spun by The Associated Press which declared, “Princess Nudelman won’t be voting on Nov. 4 because she is dead. And she is a goldfish.” National news media were drawn to the quirky tale, from The Chicago Sun-Times, The New York Times and National Public Radio, to TIME magazine, The Drudge Report, The Huffington Report, FOXNews. Even Saturday Night Live weighed in during their election special. “Weekend Update” co-host Amy Poehler speculated that Princess Nudelman received the registration materials because “she has the world’s most awesome goldfish name.”

The story, however, does not end there. What started months ago as a humorous mistake has turned into a political flashpoint. Lake County Clerk William Helander informed The Associated Press he intends to investigate the incident in conjunction with other instances of voter registration problems. U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) has gone as far as to link the case to “massive voter fraud efforts” in the area, according to reports of a recent town hall meeting.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Sandy Tun, a senior from Spring Valley, Ill., has been selected as Illinois Wesleyan University’s recipient of the 2008 Lincoln Academy of Illinois Student Laureate Award. The award recognizes outstanding academic achievement and extracurricular activities among college seniors.

A campus-wide committee directed by Associate Provost Roger Schnaitter selected Tun, a biology major with a pre-medicine concentration, from a pool of qualified Illinois Wesleyan students. Tun has served as a Bromenn Regional Medical Center volunteer in acute rehab, a summer intern with the McLean County Health Department and has participated in the Summer Undergraduate Medical Science Training Program at the University of Iowa and an NSF funded summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates program in ecology at Bradley University.

Additionally, she has presented her own research results at the Illinois Wesleyan John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference and served as a teaching assistant in courses in Parasitology and Invertebrate Zoology at the University.

Tun’s extracurricular involvements include co-coordinator of the IWU Red Cross Blood Drive and a team leader for ALANA, an IWU multicultural organization. She was awarded the Silas Purnell Minority Scholarship and is a member of Tri-Beta, biology honor society, and Phi Eta Sigma and Alpha Lambda Delta, first-year honor societies.

On Oct. 18, Tun attended an awards ceremony in the Old State Capitol in Springfield and a luncheon hosted by Governor Rod Blagojevich in the Executive Mansion, where she received a certificate, medallion and financial stipend from the Lincoln Academy.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Novelist Tim O’Brien made a confession.

When it comes to writing his many celebrated books, the author said has no set process in mind. “I’m more of a trial and error guy,” O’Brien said, adding that stories usually find him. “My novels are always born in what might be just a scrap of language – a bit of word spoken in the real world.” According to O’Brien, his Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel The Things They Carried was inspired by the phrase “This is true.”

“Out of those three words The Things They Carried was born,” he said. “I thought of how much is not true that we think of as true, how illusive truth is, and does it matter if a thing is true? What is truth?”

O’Brien spoke at Illinois Wesleyan University as part of the Seventh Annual Ames/Milner Visiting Author Program. A joint venture between Illinois Wesleyan’s The Ames Library and the Milner Library of Illinois State University (ISU), O’Brien presided over a question and answer period in Illinois Wesleyan’s Hansen Student Center in the afternoon, and spoke at ISU in the evening.

The afternoon session was filled with anecdotes and stories from O’Brien. “Sorry, I tend to answer questions with stories.” O’Brien said with a laugh. “I trust stories. When I hear or give exact, theoretical answers, they don’t really convince me. It is almost a distraction. But a story flows through that type of generalization.” In answer to one question, the author recounted receiving a letter from a woman who had broken off her engagement to a man who falsely claimed to be the author Tim O’Brien. “Everyone knows what it is to lie to someone, to be lied to,” said O’Brien, adjusting one of the ballcaps he traditionally wears everywhere. “That letter inspired [the 2001 New Yorker short story] ‘Too Skinny.’”

O’Brien also shared the story of his first novel, written when he was 10 years old, which he calls a “straight-forward plagerization” of a story called Larry and the Little League. “I read it after a particularly dismal little league practice. It was a bad day, I was really down,” said O’Brien, who played shortstop in his hometown of Wortington, Minn. “Larry could do all the things I couldn’t do – hit, field, run and throw.” O’Brien asked the librarian for a pencil and a pad of a paper, and proceeded to write a story called Timmy and the Little League. “When I felt my hand on that pencil writing this story, I was seeing another Timmy. I was seeing a Timmy who could have been a great shortstop, should have been. I was learning through doing what fiction wall about. That there are occasions when we do not have to write about what happened, but what almost happened, what could have happened.”

O’Brien said this idea of being inspired by life runs through his fiction. Most of his books, like The Things They Carried, are based around events and people from his time serving in the Vietnam War, but are not exact recitations of what happened. “That is what fiction is for. In a way I am inventing my own Vietnam, my own childhood, my own loves, but they are based on a reality beneath it – a dead father, a lost girlfriend, or a Vietnam that is now 40 years in my past – that I hope opens a door to you the reader that makes you feel something of what I felt,” said O’Brien, who lost his own father two years ago. “In those last hours and days, I could have and should have taken him in my arms. And I could have and should have told him I loved him, but I didn’t. Why? I don’t know. But you see, in a story, miracles can happen. My dad can sit up from the dead, and in the story my father can say, ‘That’s okay, I know you love me.’”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University has always called Bloomington home. And the connection between the city and the University continues with the appointment of Director of Government and Community Relations Carl Teichman to the Downtown Strategy Steering Committee for the City of Bloomington.

“The University and the city have grown up together,” said Teichman, who will help offer guidance on the continuing redevelopment. “The work that is going on in downtown Bloomington will benefit more than one neighborhood. It will benefit the entire city. ”

The 10-member committee will work in partnership with Farr Associates to create a comprehensive “action” plan for the downtown, as well as commenting on and assessing the plan throughout the process of redevelopment. Teichman and other committee members will also participate in a series of public meetings to gain the input of residents. “The city has made a significant investment in the downtown, and it shows a great deal of fiscal responsibility that they are forming this committee,” said Teichman.

The inclusion of a member of Illinois Wesleyan on the committee is another example of how the city and the University are active partners, said Teichman. “From our President Richard F. Wilson’s interest in the Main Street Corridor, to our students from the Action Research Center working with the West Side Development Project, the University has been involved in building a momentum that will keep our community strong.”

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