Students

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Mortar Board has announced that Illinois Wesleyan University has been selected to host the 228th chartered chapter of Mortar Board, a prominent national honor society for college seniors.

The group will officially become a chartered chapter at a special installation ceremony held on Sunday, Nov. 8 at 1 p.m. in the Davidson Room of the Memorial Center (104 E. University St., Bloomington). Twenty-two collegiate members and will be inducted into the society.

Mortar Board is a prestigious national honor society that recognizes college seniors for outstanding achievement in scholarship, leadership and service. Since its founding in 1918, the organization has grown from four founding chapters to what will soon be 228 chartered collegiate chapters with nearly a quarter of a million initiated members across the nation. The chapter will be named “Egas,” in honor of IWU’s inactive senior women’s honor society, established at the University in 1937. All of the chapter’s 220 former members will also be invited to become full members of Mortar Board at this time.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Iranian presidential election was a topic of international discussion and dispute this summer. The election garnered worldwide attention, especially after protestors took to the streets of Iran disputing the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Information about the election was limited for international observers. All foreign press was expelled from Iran during the election. While the election proceedings were closed to the rest of the world, Illinois Wesleyan University junior Sara Ghadiri was able to spend the summer in Tehran and witness first-hand the election fervor.

Ghadiri, whose father was born in Iran, claims dual-citizenship and was therefore able to vote in the presidential elections. As a political science major, Ghadiri was excited by the amount of political activism that occurred in Iran during the election. “People of all convictions, all social classes and all beliefs came to the polls. I was so amazed to see the mass turnout, what ended up being over 70 percent of the eligible voting population,” said Ghadiri.

Iranian citizens also became active in the campaign process. “Pre-election, I can tell you that the atmosphere was absolutely electric. There were people in the street every night handing out posters and flyers,” said Ghadiri, “So many people were involved in campaigning that it was impossible to walk down the street in Tehran without seeing someone handing out literature, a newspaper or a green piece of ribbon or cloth.” Green was the color of Mousavi’s campaign advertisements, while Ahmadinejad chose red.

Ghadiri collected many of these campaign materials and brought them back with her to the Illinois Wesleyan campus in order to analyze them. “My research is still in data collection phase now. I have collected, cataloged and translated everything I brought back,” said Ghadiri. Her ability to read and speak Farsi, the official language of Iran, has been helpful in her analysis of campaign materials. “I am now working on a thesis synthesizing my research. I have been working with both Professor Jim Simeone and Professor Kathleen Montgomery on the project, so it’s still evolving,” said Ghadiri.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The West Bloomington Revitalization Partnership (WBRP) will receive the American Planning Association Award for their strategic plan in improving the neighborhood of West Bloomington. The award will be presented at the city council meeting Monday, Oct. 26.

> Read the plan (pdf)

The honor acknowledges the hard work of multiple community organizations, members of the Illinois Wesleyan University faculty and staff, as well as 13 IWU Action Research students who are working to improve the West Bloomington neighborhood.

Illinois Wesleyan has worked with the WBRP since it’s inception in the spring of 2008, and placed two summer interns with the association, senior sociology major Aaron Massey and senior political science major Mike Kotz. The Action Research Seminar class in the fall of 2008 also contributed to the program, focusing their research on the youth on the Westside. Currently, junior sociology major Bianca Spratt and junior business administration major Brittini Gray are working for the organization.

The WBRP developed after community members identified West Bloomington as a concern and in need of intervention. After surveying a portion of the neighborhood and obtaining feedback, the partnership created an improvement plan with six key components; Greening, Youth, Safety, Economic Development, Housing and Education. Each topic has a list of short and long-term goals that will be implemented in the coming months and years.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University has announced students Emily Coles and Jessica Meyer as the 2009 Peace Fellows. The Peace Fellows Program, created in 2007 by IWU alumnus John Stutzman and his wife, Erma, annually awards fellowships to first-year students and sophomores interested in peace, social justice and conflict resolution.

In addition to taking Illinois Wesleyan courses in these areas, students selected to participate in the Peace Fellows Program are required to further explore their commitment to peace by completing an independent study and participating in an off- campus internship in the United States or abroad. The program offers $1,000 to each student in order to help them complete these personal projects.

For Coles, the fellowship is an opportunity to get closer to the issues that matter most to her. “The fellowship means an ability to pursue something of importance that is outside the range of typical academic studies. It really pushes you to go out and do something more,” said Coles, a junior international studies and French double major. She is particularly interested in how to best protect human rights, especially those of children in conflict areas. “I have developed a passionate interest in the plight of children, especially refugees and child soldiers, whose lives have been disrupted by war,” said Coles, of Champaign, Ill.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. –Not everyone can be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, however this year several Illinois Wesleyan University students received the opportunity to participate in the show’s latest renovation. On August 18th, the program began filming its latest project.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition surprises deserving families by demolishing their old home and building a new one in its place in just one week. It requires shifts of hundreds of volunteers, as well as designers and a local construction crew to work from early morning until late at night to complete the task.

The Montgomery family from Philo, a town nine miles south of Urbana, Ill., was selected to receive this new house and was selected for its contributions to the community. The winning homeowner, Nathan Montgomery, a former engineer, gave up his career to start a food pantry and clothing bank called “Salt & Light” in Champaign. The pantry helps feed over 250 families and provides clothing for over 300 families.

Bevin Cowie, a senior sociology major from Braidwood, Ill., was one of 18 Illinois Wesleyan students that volunteered along with Illinois Wesleyan’s Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, Kathy Cavins. The students helped keep the site clean, move bricks, and supply lunch and water to the other volunteers. As Site Coordinator, Cowie was given a list of tasks that she could then delegate to other volunteers to help her.

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