Author Archives: Ann Aubry

Summer Enrichment Program Opens Doors to Success

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For most college students, summer is an opportunity to relax, forget about school and spend time with friends and family. Barbeques, pool parties and excursions to the beach dot the schedules of formerly stressed-out students. However, this summer nine Illinois Wesleyan University students have opted for a slightly different course, participating in the Summer Enrichment Program (SEP).

The rigorous 10-week program, open to all IWU minority students, focuses on three major areas; professional, academic and personal growth of the participants. As a part of the program, the students will receive formal professional training, learn from diversity workshops, have an internship and participate in volunteer activities, including a final social service project.

“Our aim this summer is to make the students into cultural mavens,” said Roshaunda Ross, director of the SEP and multicultural affairs, who chose the 2010 theme of ‘mavens in the making.’ A maven, as defined by author Malcolm Gladwell is “a trusted expert in a particular field who seeks to pass knowledge onto others.”

Students Take Poetry Off of the Page

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A class at Illinois Wesleyan University recently pulled poetry off the page and placed it into the community.

One of the May Term sections of Introductory to Creative Writing challenged students to not only write poetry and fiction, but to come up with ways of sharing it in the community.

“In the class, we talk a lot about why creative writing is important, and why it is out there. I wanted the students to have the chance to see more than just their own responses to the work,” said Brandi Reissenweber, an adjunct faculty member who was the instructor of the four-week class. May Term is a time when students can take intensive classes within the compressed time period, as opposed to the usual 16-week semester.

The project, called Act of Art, required students to write several works individually, then come together in groups to decide what pieces should be presented to the public, and how their work should be disseminated, said Reissenweber.

Several ideas came to fruition – including plastering a car with poetry and fiction and parking it in various spots around town; and holding a lemonade stand on the Constitution Trail with poetry pasted to the cups. “We thought that a lemonade stand would be a good idea since it was a hot month of May,” said Elise Anderson, a sophomore from Wheaton, Ill. She and fellow student Nicole Taylor led a group of students who wrote poetry in chalk to draw people to the stand, and then gave out lemonade with their poetic creations attached to the cups. “Most people who approached us seemed very interested in our project. They liked to ask questions. Some people even saved the poems that were on the cups.”

Taylor, a sophomore from Lake Zurich, Illinois, remembered one man who came up to to the table after he had his lemonade. “He walked past us after throwing away his cup and held out the part of my poem that was taped on his cup and he said, ‘I am going to pin this on my wall. This is a really good thing you guys are doing,’” said Taylor, who is a biology major. “We all thought that it was really special how he was impacted by our work and appreciated what we were doing.”

Alumna Makes International Opera Debut

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Elementary music teacher by day, international opera star on the weekend.

Welcome to the whirlwind life of 2001 Illinois Wesleyan University graduate Sarah Sipll, who recently made her international opera debut in Mazatlan and Culiacan, Mexico. The debut, which occurred Friday, May 7, 2010, was a Wagner Gala concert with the Orqesta Sinfonica Sinaloa des las Artes.

Sipll, an instrumental music education major at IWU, earned her spot in the opera after placing second in the 2009 Concurso di Canto Sinaloa Vocal Competition in Culiacan, Mexico. The opportunity occurred after nine years of studying opera nights and weekends while juggling her full-time job teaching music at an elementary school in the Chicago-land area.

“I went to Culiacan thinking of it as another opportunity to sing for people,” said Sipll. “I had no idea I would advance to the finals, go on to win Second Place and be chosen to solo with the OSSLA and the Mexico City Philharmonic. It was quite an honor.”

According to reviews from Mexico, opera spectators in Mazatlan, Mexico felt the honor was theirs as they sat spellbound in the theater engulfed by Siplls voice, which rose and fell to the dramatic movements of the opera. Hector Guadado, a reviewer from Noroeste Mazatlan, described the voice of the young lead as “substantial and rich,” with the power to “assert itself over a large orchestra and reach bright high notes that impart a dark quality to her interpretation.”

Alumna Named New Registrar

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – An alumna of Illinois Wesleyan University has been selected to fill the position of Registrar. Leslie Betz will begin her duties on July 1, taking over for Jeffrey Frick, who has been named the dean and academic vice president at St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wis.

Betz joins Illinois Wesleyan after serving as the associate dean of the graduate school at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.

After graduating from Illinois Wesleyan in 1993, Betz continued her education at Illinois State University (ISU), where she earned a master’s degree in business administration and a doctorate in educational administration.

Her career in higher education has included serving as the coordinator of development at Heartland Community College in Normal, and as the academic advisor and coordinator for the M.B.A Program at ISU. During her tenure at Bradley, she assisted in the development of new graduate programs such as the professional master’s degree of arts in “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, and math) education, and the master’s degree of science in quantitative finance.

New Chemistry Graduate Receives NSF Fellowship

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Recent Illinois Wesleyan University graduate Jennifer Faust has received a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.

A chemistry major from Saint Louis, Mo., Faust graduated in May from Illinois Wesleyan, receiving both the David Bailey Prize in Chemistry and The Harold C. Hodges President’s Club Award.

The prestigious NSF fellowship recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in the U.S. and abroad. Faust will begin work toward a doctorate in physical chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, next fall.

Chicago Fed Leader: Economy is Recovering

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The economy is looking up, but change may come slowly, said Charles L. Evans, president of the Seventh District Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who was the featured guest speaker for the annual Illinois Wesleyan Associates Luncheon on Friday, May 14, in the Shirk Center at Illinois Wesleyan University.

“The economy is recovering from the recession, and I am optimistic it will continue to do so,” he said. “I think we have turned the corner.”

Speaking to the crowd of business and community leaders, Evans said he is seeing recovery in the broadest sense of economic growth, but realizes the signs of recovery are not always apparent. “The ‘for sale’ signs posted in yards, the empty storefronts and long waits for job seekers are powerful reminders of how serious the recession was, and how far below our potential we still are,” he said.

Evans attributes growth to several factors, including the economic stimulus, businesses spending on capital equipment and increased private spending — though he said private spending may still remain lower as consumers struggle to pay down debt and battle unemployment. “In general, measures of economic activity show improvement early in a recovery, well before the job picture starts to get better,” he said, noting “muted gains in unemployment will hold back growth in wages and salaries.”

Professor Publishes Statistics Textbook

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University Associate Professor of Economics Robert Leekley had a problem. As an instructor of introductory statistics for economics for more than 30 years, the longer Leekley taught, the more disillusioned he became with textbooks available for his course.

“I felt textbooks in this field were headed in the wrong direction,” said Leekley from his office in the Center for Liberal Arts on campus. “They were increasingly written so that instructors could pick and choose topics in any order they pleased. That might seem desirable, but then students lose any sense of continuity.”

To remedy that fault, Leekley created his own textbook years ago to use in class. This month, his insights are available to a larger audience. Leekley has published his work as a new textbook titled Applied Statistics for Business and Economics (CRC Press, 2010).

“Statistics is really just a few key ideas applied differently to different data,” Leekley said. “My goal for the textbook was to bring out the connections.”

Ceramics and Painting on Display in Art Galleries

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The ceramics of Michael Schwegmann and the paintings of alumna Kay Seefeld will be displayed in Illinois Wesleyan University’s Merwin and Wakeley Galleries, respectively, from May 5 through May 26.

The galleries are located in the Joyce Eichhorn Ames School of Art Building (6 Ames Plaza West, Bloomington). The opening reception for both exhibitions will be held on Thursday, May 6 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Graduating Class of 2010 Celebrates Lifelong Learning

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – At the 160th Commencement ceremonies for Illinois Wesleyan University, President Richard F. Wilson congratulated the more than 500 graduates of Illinois Wesleyan, saying he was proud to share the event with the students, their families and friends. “Commencement marks the beginning not the end,” he said. “Today, we honor you and wish you well, wherever your journey may take you. We know what you have accomplished here and what you are capable of accomplishing as you move forward with your lives.”

George Vinyard, the president of the University’s Board of Trustees, also celebrated the graduates, and let them know that despite the challenges they see in today’s world, they are well-prepared to take on any adversity. “In my humble opinion, ‘Knowledge and Wisdom’ express precisely what higher education should be about, and what we need more of today,” said Vinyard, referring to the Illinois Wesleyan motto, Scientia et Sapientia.

Alumnus Honored for Excellence in Research

Illinois Wesleyan University alumnus Eric Gardner recently received the 2010 Earl L. Warrick Award for Excellence in Research from Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU), where he is a professor of English. The award is given each year to one of SVSU’s 300 faculty members whose research maintains the highest quality over a period of time.

A 1989 graduate from Illinois Wesleyan with a degree in English, Gardner is known for his work on 19th-century African-American writers and activists. He is the author of Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature (UP of Mississippi, 2009), and has edited several books, including Major Voices: The Drama of Slavery (Toby Press, 2005), which explores the work of African-American playwrights like William Wells Brown and Pauline Hopkins; and Jennie Carter: A Black Journalist of the Early West (UP of Mississippi, 2007).

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