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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. –Visiting Assistant Professor Saloua Zerhouni has joined the faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University this fall as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar. Zerhouni comes to Illinois Wesleyan from Mohammed V University Souissi, in Rabat, Morocco, where she is an assistant professor of political science at the School of Juridical, Economic and Social Science.

“It is an honor to be able to work with the students and faculty of Illinois Wesleyan,” said Zerhouni, who is teaching two courses at IWU this semester: Women, Gender and Politics in North Africa, and The History of the Arab World. “I look forward to open and engaging discussions with my students, and hope my time here will work to build bridges in understanding.”

Zerhouni earned a doctorate from The University of Hassan II in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2002 in political science. She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The University of Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah in Fez, Morocco. She was an associate researcher for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, Germany, and a visiting researcher at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., before taking her position with Mohammed V University Souissi.

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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. – The Minor Myers, jr. Welcome Center, has been awarded silver certification as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building – the first new construction building in Bloomington to be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The building, named in honor of Illinois Wesleyan’s 17th president, was designed by CSO Architects, Inc., as part of Illinois Wesleyan’s continuing efforts to create a more ecologically friendly or “sustainable” campus. Sustainable features include a geothermal heating and cooling units, the use of special insulated glass for the windows that reflects heat, called low-emissivity, or low-e, glass; and the installation of a traction elevator versus the usual hydraulic elevator.

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