August 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – With a deafening cry, hundreds of volunteers charged to destroy a worn down home in Philo, Ill., Thursday morning. Helping lead the charge was Illinois Wesleyan University alumnus Ed Brady. His act was one with charitable intentions. The owners of the demolished house have been chosen to receive a new home by the ABC television show Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and Brady’s construction company, Brady Homes, has been selected as the local building sponsor to donate his company’s labor and resources.

The television show chooses deserving families to receive a new home. Under the leadership of a local construction crew, the old home is razed and a new one built in about a week. For the home in Philo, shifts of construction workers and volunteers will be running from 6 a.m. to midnight in order to construct the house in seven days, a task that usually takes four months. Filming of the episode has been ongoing for the past week, and will continue until the completed home is revealed to the family next week. The episode is scheduled to air this fall.

Chosen for the show was the family of Nathan Montgomery, a former engineer who gave up a lucrative career to start the pantry Salt & Light that provides food, clothing and ministry to around 250 families in and near Philo, located southeast of Champaign. “This entire project is about the family, about communities coming together to provide food and shelter,” said Brady from the demolition site. “The Brady family is honored and happy to give back to this family who has given so much of themselves for others.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Greg Mortenson, the co-author and subject of the No. 1 New York Times bestselling book Three Cups of Tea, and founder and executive director of the Central Asia Institute, will speak at the President’s Convocation at Illinois Wesleyan University at 11 a.m. Wednesday, September 9, in Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall.

The annual Convocation ceremony is focused on the campus community as it celebrates the start of the academic year. The general public is invited to view the Convocation via remote from Hansen Student Center (300 E. Beecher St., Bloomington).

Mortenson’s book about his efforts to build schools for children in poverty-stricken areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has sold 3 million copies and been published in 34 countries, was chosen for the 2009 Summer Reading Program for Illinois Wesleyan first-year students. Co-authored by journalist David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea was named a Time Magazine Asia Book of The Year, won the Kiriyama Prize Nonfiction Award, and has spent 120 weeks on the bestseller list since its release in 2007.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – It was a day of beginnings and welcome for Illinois Wesleyan University students of the class of 2013. Celebrating their first day on campus, 526 new students and 31 transfer students gathered in Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall on Tuesday for the New Student Convocation, part of the annual “Turning Titan” week on campus.

“This is a very talented and diverse group that comes from across the nation and around the world,” said President Richard F. Wilson at the Convocation. Wilson noted students sitting in Westbrook had come to Illinois Wesleyan from 21 states and from 11 different countries. “You hail from China, Spain, Nepal, Ghana and Israel, just to name a few. The diversity of your background, interests, talents and ideas adds to the vitality of our campus community.”

Wilson led the students in their first recitation of the campus motto, “Scientia et Sapientia” (which translates to “knowledge and wisdom”). “You should do more with your time here than simply acquire facts and information,” Wilson said. “You must learn how to use that knowledge wisely for the benefit of others.”

Keynote speaker Associate Professor of English Wes Chapman said he could envision the excitement and nervousness new students experience on their first day. Still, he encouraged students to “have confidence. Have confidence that it is going to be okay, but try to have the right kind of confidence – a genuine confidence rather than a false one.”

> Hear Chapman’s address (mp3 file)

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Beginning Tuesday, Aug. 18, Illinois Wesleyan University’s class of 2013 will officially “turn Titan” as part of the University’s annual “Turning Titan: New Student Orientation.” The program is designed to acclimate incoming first-year students to academic, residential and social aspects of college life. The orientation will culminate on Sunday, Aug. 23, and University classes will begin the following Monday.

The Titan Orientation schedule will combine support services with entertainment, offering events such as “Traditions Night,” where students can socialize while learning about the University’s history, and “Real World 101,” an onstage send-up of common student anxieties.

Other key events will include: New Student Convocation, an address to be delivered by Associate Professor of English Wes Chapman titled “The Right Kind of Confidence;” “One Stop Shop: a Campus Community Resource Fair,” which introduces students to local businesses and other services; and the Summer Reading Program, which invites students, faculty and staff to critically discuss a common literary work.

This year’s selection for the reading program is Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time, by New York Times No. 1 bestselling author Greg Mortenson. Co-written by journalist David Oliver Relin, Mortenson’s novel chronicles his experience in Pakistan in 1993 after a failed expedition to climb K2, which inspired his efforts to establish over 75 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the years since. Mortenson will be the guest speaker at the President’s Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 11 a.m. in the Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall (1210 N. Park Street, Bloomington).

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – He may not be “America’s Favorite Dancer,” but Evan Kasprzak is still Illinois Wesleyan University’s favorite dancer, as well as the favorite of millions who voted for him across the United States. Kasprzak, an IWU senior from West Bloomfield, Mich., has won third place on Fox TV’s So You Think You Can Dance?, a hit reality TV show in the style of American Idol.

A music theatre major and a dancer since the age of six, Kasprzak was the first contestant dancing the Broadway style to compete on the award-winning show’s top 20. He was also the only dancer of the top 20 in season five who did not have to “dance for his life” to stay in the competition. Each week, the TV audience phoned in votes for their favorite dancer, and there were sufficient votes for Kasprzak to advance without impediment every round of eliminations this season.

“It’s been an awesome journey and I couldn’t ask for anything else,” said Kasprzak in front of an audience of over 3,000 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. He said one of his favorite aspects of the show has been working with the various professional choreographers, many of whom have won Emmy awards for their work. Hostess Cat Deeley asked him if he was glad he had been on the show. “I’m ecstatic,” he said.

Kasprzak’s final episode was greeted with cheers from an audience of over 60 at IWU’s Minor Myers, jr. Welcome Center auditorium. Members of the campus community gathered to celebrate the Illinois Wesleyan student’s weeks of dancing on the show, and many wore shirts with the phrase “Proud Kasprzaktivist” on them.

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