February 16th is Thank A Giver Day — a day when the Illinois Wesleyan campus community celebrates the generosity of our supporters. We celebrate Thank A Giver Day on February 16th because at this point we’re 70% of the way through the school year. Since tuition covers 70% of the total cost of an IWU education, it’s a fitting time to draw attention to the fact that outside support from alumni and friends of the University plays a key role in delivering the kind of educational experience we expect from our alma mater.

Last year, over 8,000 people made gifts to Illinois Wesleyan University and, regardless of the size, each and every one played a role in keeping Illinois Wesleyan strong. If you would like to take a moment to make your annual gift, we invite you to do so at iwu.edu/give.

Go Titans!

The class of 2012 had 77 donors for All In on April 2, 2014!  These gifts will help future students have the experience of a lifetime at IWU, so thank you again for your support!

Click the photo to see what exciting memorabilia Meg Miner – University Archivist & Special Collections Librarian – has requested.

Josh Conrad ’12 has self-published an ebook, CyberWorld: The Legend of Alaxeria.

TangleKnot Theatre in Chicago presented Joan Holden’s Nickel and Dimed as its inaugural production July 19 through Aug. 11.

TangleKnot’s Artistic Director Dani Snyder-Young is assistant professor of theatre arts and head of the Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts program at Illinois Wesleyan. She also directed Nickel and Dimed, with alumna Britnee Ruscitti ’10 who served as assistant director. Curtis Trout, director of the School of Theatre Arts, was the production’s scenic designer. Alumnus Tristan Meredith ’12 was lighting designer, and Celeste V. Kelley ’13 designed Nickel’s costumes. Antonio Gracias ’12 was the production’s sound designer. Current student Sarah Menke ’15 received an Eckley Summer Scholar fellowship to serve as assistant stage manager and audience development and outreach associate. The project was funded in part by an Illinois Wesleyan Artistic and Scholarly Development grant to Snyder-Young and Trout.

Understanding of the language of basketball helped Olivia  Lett hurdle language barriers while playing professional basketball in Spain last winter.

Erick Henderson was published research in the spring issue of The Journal of Global Health based on his time in Kenya helping people with vision problems.  Henderson was a past recipient of the  “25 under 25” award sponsored by Global Youth Service Day which recognizes young leaders making outstanding contributions to the Bloomington-Normal community.

Erika Olsen, is establishing her career as a nurse in the ICU at Unity Point Methodist in Peoria.  The unit is a 14 bed medical/surgical intensive care unit.

Colin Schofield presented papers at the XIII Simposio Internacional de Comunicacion Social (13th International Symposium on Social Communication) January 2013. Schofield’s paper, based on research carried out during his study abroad experience with SIT Chile, was titled: “Etnologia del exito academico: los tres lados” (Ethnology of academic success: three sides).

The conference focused on communication in multiple ways, such as linguistics, medicine, mass media, art, folklore and computational linguistics. It was held at the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment’s location in Santiago de Cuba, the Centre for Applied Linguistics.

Alex Kim created a bike as an environmentally friendly vehicle that can be used for distribution of the Peace Garden’s produce. According to Kim, the Veggie Bike is, “A bike-powered trailer that was created with the intent of aiding the IWU Peace Garden in its efforts to exemplify and maintain sustainable principles through practice. In short, it will help the Peace Garden be as green as possible.”  The Peace Garden, established by junior political science major Ryan Dyar and senior environmental studies and Hispanic studies double major Danny Kenny, is the campus garden created to grow produce for Illinois Wesleyan’s food provider, Sodexo and the Bloomington-Normal community.  Students and faculty volunteer their time in order to help the Peace Garden flourish.

The idea of a Veggie Bike came about during discussions on where the harvested food would be delivered. “There are several places around Bloomington that accept food donations from the garden already, and hopes are that additional places like the Farmers’ Market and places in West Bloomington might be new venues of distribution,” Kim said.