BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – It was a day top celebrate the new and honor traditions past at Illinois Wesleyan University during Founders’ Day on Wednesday. This year marks the 160th anniversary of the 30 founders who gathered to sign Illinois Wesleyan’s charter.
At the Founders’ Day Convocation, President Richard F. Wilson said he believes the University is on course to fulfill the vision of the founders. “We must keep in mind their admonition which appears on the Founders’ Gate: ‘We stand in a position of incalculable responsibility.’ That instruction requires us to be vigilant about our work as teachers and scholars,” said Wilson.
In carrying on a responsibility to the founders, Wilson announced University alumnus and benefactor Byron Tucci has established a new endowed professorship for Illinois Wesleyan University. The 1966 graduate has created the Byron S. Tucci Endowed Professorship in honor of the faculty who assisted him. “Byron views this gift as a way to acknowledge the caring faculty members who make students the center of their attention and whose accomplishments over an extended period are key to the stature of the University,” said Wilson.
Speaking in Westbrook Auditorium on Wednesday as part of the Convocation, Dorceta Taylor connected struggles for sustainability with the history of inequality in the United States.
Hear her remarks (mp3)
“To have a sustainable society, one has to have a just society,” said Taylor, an associate professor of environmental sociology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, who helped to develop one of the nation’s first environmental justice programs.