Events

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University annually honors three alumni as part of its Homecoming festivities. This year Lawrence Herbolsheimer, class of 1972 will receive the Distinguished Alumni Award; Chet and Helen Sheldon, class of 1943 and 1940 respectively, will receive the Loyalty Award; and Arman Dabiri, class of 1994, will receive the Robert M. Montgomery Outstanding Alumnus Award. The awards will be presented Saturday Oct. 10, at 11:30 a.m. at the Alumni Awards Lunch in the Shirk Center (302 Emerson St., Bloomington).

The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes Illinois Wesleyan graduates who have achieved professional distinction, demonstrated civic leadership or contributed to society in a remarkable way. Lawrence Herbolsheimer graduated with an economics degree from Illinois Wesleyan, where he was Vice President of Student Senate, Treasurer of IFC and a member of Phi Gamma Delta (a social fraternity) and Alpha Kappa Psi (a professional business fraternity). Herbolsheimer went on to earn his MBA from Harvard in 1980. From 1983 through 1985, Herbolsheimer served on the staff of President Ronald Reagan. From 1985 through 1991, he worked as the Deputy Assistant Administrator of NASA’s Office of Commercial Programs.

In 1991, Herbolsheimer made a move back into the business world, working as CEO of United Pacific Holdings, Ltd., a holding company for investments in manufacturing companies of China and other East Asian nations. Since then, he has aided in the creation of other businesses in which he continues to play a significant ownership role or participates on the Board of Directors. He was also a director of a management company of third-party direct investment funds with assets in excess of $350 million.

Currently, Herbolsheimer is the Co-Chairman of Comway Capital Group, a Shanghai holding company of 14 Chinese companies. He is also a Managing Director of The McLean Group of Virginia, a middle market investment-banking firm. Herbolsheimer lives in McLean, Virginia with his wife, Pia, and their two children.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Illinois Wesleyan University School of Theatre Arts will present “What the Butler Saw” by Joe Orton. The production will take place in McPherson Theatre (2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington) at 8:00 p.m. on Sept. 29 and 30 and Oct. 1, 2 and 3. A matinee performance will be held Oct. 4 at 2:00 p.m..

Compared to Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”, the story line follows a psychiatrist, Dr. Prentice, as he opens his own clinic. His sexual escapades become evident through his interviewing of a new assistant. Meanwhile, a bellhop seduces (or rather gets seduced by) Dr. Prentice’s wife, Mrs. Prentice. The couple must try to keep these secrets from one another while handling an unexpected visit to the hospital from the state inspector. The result, of course, is pandemonium.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – This year marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the most famous symbols of the Cold War.

Before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, artists decorated the western side with graffiti of protest, while the eastern side remained untouched.

“The city of Berlin [which was separated by the wall] has been holding celebrations all year, leading up to the anniversary on November 9,” said Sonja Fritzsche, associate professor of German and Eastern European Studies at Illinois Wesleyan, who was in Berlin working on research at the Humboldt University in Berlin this summer.

Illinois Wesleyan University will honor the anniversary with an international film series on the wall and talk by Visiting Professor Bill Brown from Oct. 4-8, following German Reunification Day (which is Oct. 3). Details are available on the German Studies site.

The Berlin Wall amounted to more than 80 miles of concrete and wire built in 1961 under the Soviet leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. Constructed to stem the tide of emigration from the east, the city of West Berlin was encircled by the wall. In 1990, the former Federal Republic of Germany (or West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) reunified on October 3, nearly a year after the fall of the wall.

Now that 20 years have passed since 1989, it might seem as though the events of that November could be relegated to the pages of history. Like all history, however, the ramifications of an event reverberate through time.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The music group ONIX Ensamble will be the featured guests at Illinois Wesleyan University School of Music’s annual Symposium of Contemporary Music. The Symposium will be held from Oct. 2 to Oct. 3 and is free and open to the public.

Established in 1952, the Symposium of Contemporary Music brings prominent guest composers or performers to campus for a two-to-three day residency. The Symposium’s goal is to involve students directly in performing new compositions by contemporary composers while also participating in discussions on the aesthetics of the works. Recent guests of the Symposium include the Orchid Ensemble, Roderik and Annelie de Man, Stephen Paulus, New York New Music Ensemble, and Louis Andriessen.

ONIX is a group of musicians from Mexico that plays Latin American contemporary music. The group consists of Alejandro Escuer, Edith Ruiz Zepeda, Fernando Dominguez, Abel Romero, and Edgardo Espinosa. All members of the group have experience as soloists, have an international career, and are all professors at the National University of Mexico. Founded by Escuer in 1993, ONIX has released 50 musical works and is a non-profit organization striving to use educational and community projects to enhance and redirect the role of music in society.

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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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