Exhibit of Commonplace Books

Posted on December 15, 2023 by ebloodwo

Students in Joanne Diaz’s Survey of English Poetry class visited the archives multiple times this semester to create an exhibit that showcases both material from IWU collections as well as commonplace books created by their classmates throughout the semester. The students explored commonplace books, scrapbooks, diaries, and notebooks donated by IWU faculty and alumni. They made connections between archival material and their own commonplace books and selected items to feature in their exhibit. Items selected include a Civil War diary kept by early IWU President William H. H. Adams and a scrapbook assembled by IWU alumna Florence Kasiske (Class of 1933).

Students arrange archival material in exhibit cases.

English 243 students install an exhibit of commonplace books in entry level rotunda cases.

Once selected, the students wrote exhibit labels and created flyers and promotional images for social media. On Wednesday, December 6, the students installed the exhibit in the rotunda cases on the entry level of the Ames Library. Through this exercise, students had the opportunity to interact with archival material, while learning about exhibit curation and IWU history.

Students seated at table in archives make selections of archival material for exhibit.

English 243 students curate an exhibit using archival material and student-created commonplace books.

The exhibit will remain on display through January 31, 2024. Thank you for sharing your work with us, English 243!

Presidential Biography: S. Georgia Nugent

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Meg Miner

After serving as interim president since August 2019, S. Georgia Nugent has been appointed to serve as Illinois Wesleyan University’s 20th president by the Board of Trustees. Nugent is president emerita (2003-2013) of Kenyon College, OH and served as interim president at The College of Wooster, 2015-16.

A widely published scholar of the classics and of higher education, Nugent earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a doctorate from Cornell University. At Princeton she was assistant to the president, associate provost, and dean of the Center for Teaching and Learning. She was professor of classics at Princeton and Brown universities and also taught on the classics faculties of Cornell, Swarthmore College and Kenyon.

Dr. Nugent is the first woman to officially hold the presidency at IWU. There have been two previous interim presidents: Wendell Hess, 1988-89 and Janet McNew, 2003-04.

Named places: Munsell Hall

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Meg Miner

Munsell Hall is named for two brothers: Charles W. C. Munsell and Oliver Spencer Munsell. Both are credited with seeing IWU through its first financial crisis in 1857, growing student enrollment, and securing funds for the second campus building (1870). Charles served as IWU’s financial agent, in charge of raising funds for the struggling school, and Oliver served as second president of the University. President Munsell’s tenure also saw positive Board of Trustee action on admitting African American students (1867) and female students (1870). He resigned in 1873 due to questions raised about inappropriate contact with student. No criminal charges were brought but the incident was investigated by both the Methodist Conference and the Board of Trustees. Minutes of the latter are available in the University Archives.

Charles W. C. Munsell

Oliver Spencer Munsell

Named places: Wilson Atrium

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Meg Miner

President and Mrs. Wilson, November 16, 2010

The Wilson Atrium in the Center for Natural Science Learning and Research (CNS) is named in honor of IWU’s 18^th President Richard F. Wilson (2004-2015 and interim in summer 2019) and his wife, Patricia L. Wilson. Wilson gave special attention to developing a strategic plan for Illinois Wesleyan, strengthening the University’s financial position, and conducting the largest fund-raising campaign in the school’s history. Along with financing The Wilson Atrium seal, plaques and lettering, members of the Board of Trustees furnished the atrium with new chairs and couches to make the space more comfortable and functional in honor of Richard and Patricia Wilson.

Unveiling the seal at the Wilson Atrium dedication, May 7, 2018.

Named places: Eckley Quadrangle

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Meg Miner

Robert S. and Nell Eckley

At the heart of IWU’s 82-acre campus is the park-like Eckley Quadrangle, named for IWU’s 15^th president Robert S. Eckley (1968-1986) and his wife Nell. They were instrumental in developing and implementing a landscaping plan for the Quad after Dutch elm disease destroyed almost all of the trees in the 1970s.

1970 campus aerial view prior to Quad redesign

1974 Aerial view of campus following redesign

Named places: Bertholf Commons

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Meg Miner

President and Mrs. Bertholf (no date on photo)

Bertholf Commons, aka “Saga,” in the Memorial Student Center honors President and professor of Biology Lloyd Bertholf (1959-1968) and his wife Martha. During his presidency IWU established the practice of offering a “short term” in our academic year. What we now know as May Term started out as travel course offerings in a January short term. IWU added ten new buildings during this time, including three dormitories.

For more on President Bertholf, see the blog post containing his biographical description and his 1984 book, A Personal Memoir of the Bertholf Years at Illinois Wesleyan: 1958-1968

President Lloyd Bertholf

Exhibits: Homecoming

Gallery

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Meg Miner

This gallery contains 7 photos.

Every year since 2010, we’ve sustained a tradition of selecting artifacts, photos and publications from archival collections for exhibition in the Homecoming Mini Museum on the Quad tent. This post contains photos of the tent from the 2017 celebration so you … Continue reading →

May Day: Help others and save your own digital life!

Posted on May 1, 2017 by Meg Miner

Happy May Day!

The Society of American Archivists promotes May 1 as a day for all cultural heritage institutions to take time to consider how well their collections are protected.This year there’s a twist: a call for support of the SSA-SAA Emergency Disaster Assistance Grant Fund. The Society of Southwest Archivists and the Society of American Archivists created the fund to address the stabilization and recovery needs of archival repositories affected by Hurricane Katrina.

To learn more about this collaboration, including how to receive funding, visit the SAA page that describes the program. If you are able to assist our colleagues by donating to the fund, please click here.

Below are some tips from the Library of Congress on how you can help save the digital objects that mean the most in your life:

Visit http://digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/ for more details!

Digital objects are not durable–threats to them include but are not limited to losing account access (third party providers can disappear at any time) and losing the ability to read file formats and media due to obsolescence.

Digital files can’t be placed on a virtual shelf and forgotten. All digital preservation strategies include specific ways to record as much information about the original file as possible.

Digital objects proliferate so take time to organize versions and apply standard names to your files. It is often difficult for archivists to arrange digital files other than by creation date, but creators have the first-hand knowledge required to identify and arrange versions of their works.

STEPS YOU CAN TAKE:

- Retain original physical media. Never dispose of physical media and never copy over original bit streams. Even if files are unreadable today, new technology may enable archivists to view “unreadable” files in the near future.

- Migrate files to new software and hardware. The easiest way to increase the longevity of digital material is migration, or the transfer of materials from one hardware and software configuration to the next generation of hardware and/or software. Files stored on 5.5″ or 3.5″ floppy disks should be transferred to a hard drive and a back-up. Migrate files written in older software to newer versions of open-source or standard software. It is desirable to retain at least two versions of migrated digital files: one in its original software format (this is the “original” bit stream) and one in a more current software format. If you purchase a new computer, migrate files from the old hard drive to the new one. Migration to a CD is not an effective solution as the life of a CD is rather short.

- Avoid specialized software.Migration can be hindered if the original files were not saved in a standard format. Although non-proprietary formats are the best options for saving digital files (e.g., ASCII or Rich-Text Format (RTF)), Microsoft Office products also serve as de-facto standards due to their prevalence. For images, we recommend using file standards such as Tag Image File Formats (TIFF) or Portable Network Graphics (PNG) files.

- Never compress or encode your data.Compression and encoding provide one more obstacle to preserving electronic material. Electronic material should be as transparent as possible to facilitate preservation. Compression and encoding software prevents others from readings your data, including archivists

Presidential Biography: Eric R. Jensen

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Meg Miner

Jensen is a native of Homewood, IL; he earned his Ph.D. and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Michigan and and his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Miami. He most recently served as provost of Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN.
Earlier in his career, Jensen was a faculty member at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Jensen also served as a Visiting Scholar in Economics at the University of Indonesia and worked for four years with the College Board to develop and implement its Financial Aid Strategy Tool (FAST), which enabled participating institutions to individually tailor financial aid offers to admitted students.

Eric Jensen

Presidential Biography: Richard F. Wilson