Author Archives: Ann Aubry

Students Explore Collaborations with City, County

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Two Illinois Wesleyan University classes are taking advantage of a wealth of information from local sources in Bloomington, and returning the favor by providing new insights on the data – all part of a collaboration with the city the University calls home.

“I really wanted my students to get into the local community,” said Associate Professor of German and Eastern European Studies Sonja Fritzsche. In her German 488: Von Demokratie zur Diktatur (From Democracy to Dictatorship) class students are introduced to the concept of German immigration by translating old, German-language newspapers from the Bloomington-Normal area that are housed at the McLean County Museum of History’s archives.

For Associate Professor of Economics Diego Mendez-Carbajo, the idea of using real data from the City of Bloomington for his new class titled Economics 370: Time Series Analysis was more than a good way to study financial and economic variables.

“Quantitative analysis skills are one of the comparative advantages that business and economics majors bring to the job market,” said Mendez-Carbajo, who noted students who take the class should be able to look at a long series of observations and discern the patterns. “I wanted students to learn about the data-gathering process itself. At the very least I would like them to be the one person that steps forward when their future boss or supervisor asks ‘can anybody make sense of these numbers?’”

Junior Awarded Scholarship for Lobbying Trip to Washington, D.C.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University junior Paige Maynard was recently awarded a scholarship to attend the One Voice trip to Washington D.C., sponsored by the Economic Development Council (EDC) of Bloomington-Normal.

A double major in sociology and economics, Maynard will travel with a group of local community leaders in March to meet with Illinois congressional representatives. While there, she will lobby for programs that will benefit the economic development of McLean County.

Maynard, a native of Granite City, Ill., was initially approached by Action Research Center (ARC) Coordinator Deborah Halperin to apply for the scholarship. As a student who is interested in local issues, Maynard submitted her application and was one of three students interviewed by five community leaders. With experience in local projects such as working with the Downtown Bloomington Farmers’ Market, and coursework focusing on public finance and social organization, Maynard demonstrated to the panel that she was a strong candidate and was granted the scholarship.

Students Receive Scholarships for Study Abroad

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Two Illinois Wesleyan students have received Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships to support study abroad programs. Cassandra-Lee Jordan and Bianca Spratt each received $4,000 to study abroad with the School of International Training (SIT).

Jordan, a sophomore anthropology major, is studying Chinese culture and ethnic minorities in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. She left for China on Jan. 28 to spend a few weeks in Nanjing and Xi’an with her sister, who currently lives there, before beginning her program at SIT, which will run from Feb. 21 to June 5. “I hope to do research in my independent study in China that I can continue in my anthropology and religion independent studies at Illinois Wesleyan,” said Jordan, “and on a personal level, I would like to be able to fluently communicate with my Chinese roommate, Li Li, (in Chinese) by the time I return to Illinois Wesleyan.”

The Gilman scholarship requires recipients to complete a follow up project on their study abroad experience within six months of returning to the United States. For her project, Jordan is keeping a blog of her experience. You can read her blog at blogs.iwu.edu/cjordan/. “The ultimate goal of this project is to promote international education,” said Jordan. She also has plans to arrange a dinner this fall when she returns to campus in order to share her experience at SIT with other students on campus.

Spratt, a junior sociology major, is currently studying multiculturalism and human rights through SIT in Cape Town, South Africa. “I hope to gain the South African Perspective on life, culture and the issues that affect the people there on a daily basis,” said Spratt. “I intend on learning as much as I can from the excursions, home stays and the people I am surrounded by.” Spratt says her goal is to one day travel throughout Africa and live with the people there.

Students to Join Study of Dark Energy

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – This fall, an assistant professor of physics at Illinois Wesleyan University plans to have students help research one of the biggest questions facing science today: What is dark energy?

According to Assistant Professor of Physics Thushara Perera, studies involving dark matter and dark energy are showing there is more that is unknown in the universe than known. “Everything we know about the universe is probably 5 percent of what is really out there,” he said. “Dark matter is maybe 25 percent, and the other 70 percent is probably dark energy.”

Highly sensitive cameras, filled with detectors, are set in dry places at high elevation in an attempt to reveal the nature of dark energy and the history of the universe. Perera has spent years working on such a camera, known as the Astronomical Thermal Emission Camera (AzTEC), which was mounted on a telescope in the mountains of Chile. “The data from AzTEC helps answer fundamental questions about early galaxies and how they formed.”

White House Internship Inspires Student’s Passion for Public Service

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The White House Office of Correspondence serves the lofty purpose of keeping one of the most powerful people on the planet in touch with everyday Americans. It is a purpose with which Illinois Wesleyan University senior Jessica Kong became intimately acquainted.

Kong, a native of Lake Forest, Ill., spent last summer as an intern at the Office of Correspondence. “The Office is really a bridge between the President and the American people,” said Kong, who was one of nearly 100 interns serving at the White House.

According to the Office’s Web site, the White House receives more than 165,000 letters, e-mails and faxes each week. Members of the staff and interns for the Office of Correspondence go through each message received. Kong said she saw messages to President Obama that ran the gamut. “You would hear the most heartfelt and horrific stories of people losing their homes or jobs, and then you would hear these wonderful messages of thanks or congratulations,” she said. “The whole experience definitely opened my mind to see what is happening in the nation.”

Students Selected to Present Research at National Conference

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.—Two Illinois Wesleyan University students, Scott Krabbe, a senior chemistry major from Kirkland, Ill., and Maggie Olson, a senior biology major from Glen Ellyn, Ill., have been awarded a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduate (NSF REU) Chemistry Leadership Group Travel Award.

Only 25 students in the nation were selected to receive this stipend, which will help with Krabbe’s and Olson’s travel expenses to attend the American Chemical Society’s national conference in San Francisco on March 22. Both students will present their summer research findings as part of the NSF REU programs.

Last summer Krabbe spent 10 weeks at Boston University and Olson spent 10 weeks in Bangkok, Thailand, doing research under the ThaiREU program.

In New Book, Scholar Debates Whether Tolerance is Best Approach for Discussing Religion

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – When it comes to discussing religion, the modern-day concept of “tolerance” as it is often employed, in fact, aggravates tensions, said Assistant Professor of Religion Robert Erlewine. His new book, Monotheism and Tolerance: Recovering a Religion of Reason (Indiana University Press, 2010), looks for ways to challenge and thereby change the nature of discussions involving religion.

“I’ve been very dissatisfied with the direction the discussion of religion is going, as if religion is the cause or solution of all problems in the world,” said Erlewine, a scholar of philosophy of religion and modern Jewish thought at Illinois Wesleyan University, who said what is needed is a better understanding of how religious traditions actually work in order to facilitate discussions. “Really, the idea behind the book is ‘How can we get secularists and religious conservatives speaking to one another? Indeed, how can we get them speaking a common language?’”

Erlewine contends the current concept of religious tolerance creates unintended tensions in the modern world because it criticizes religiously committed people for considering their own particular traditions as true. Being committed to one’s tradition often involves the belief that it is the true religion, which inevitably means also believing that other religions are not also the true religion. However, “With the modern concept of tolerance, there is this insistence that all religions must recognize that other religions are their equals, and they have no special claim,” Erlewine said. “When in reality, part of the nature of monotheistic religions is to claim an elect status, so denying that creates barriers to dialogue with those who belong to these traditions. If you hold your own religion to be true, you hold others not to be true, or at least not as true.”

IWU to Celebrate African American History Month

January 28, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, Student Senate and the Black Student Union have planned events for the month of February in honor of African American History Month.

African American History Month, which was extended to the entire month of February in 1976, was first celebrated through a weeklong celebration in 1926. According to The Library of Congress, the month is an opportunity to pay “tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.”

Campus events will include the annual Soul Food Dinner with speaker Jeff Johnson, musical entertainment, a poetry night, the Black Student Union’s annual banquet and a speaker on the birth of the NAACP.

Environmental Justice Activist to Address Founders’ Day Convocation

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Dorceta Taylor, environmental justice activist and program director for the Multicultural Environmental Leadership Development Initiative at the University of Michigan, will be the speaker for the 2010 Founders’ Day Convocation at Illinois Wesleyan University on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 11 a.m. in Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall (1210 Park St., Bloomington).

Taylor’s talk entitled “Environment, Social Justice and the Challenge of Sustainability,” is free and open to the public. The event honors the 30 founders who signed the charter for the University in 1850. In celebration of Founders’ Day, an anniversary cake celebrating the University’s 160 years will be served from 3-5 p.m. at Joslin Atrium of the Memorial Center. The Ames Library will hold its annual exhibit highlighting the documents from the University’s founding, including Illinois Wesleyan’s “birth certificate.”

Named in 2007 to Who’s Who Among American Teachers and Educators, Taylor has spent her career shedding light on the connections between nature, race and gender, making her a pioneer studying environmental justice. An associate professor of environmental sociology and Afroamerican and African studies at the University of Michigan, she helped to develop one of the nation’s first environmental justice programs at the university.

Students Receive Weir Fellowship for Community Work

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University students Lindsey Haines and Kenny Woodard are the recipients of the Weir Fellowship that honors students who make a deep commitment to volunteering in the community.

The $1,250 fellowships come through Illinois Wesleyan’s Action Research Center (ARC), which links Illinois Wesleyan students and research projects for not-for-profit organizations. Students chosen as Weir Fellows must have previously worked closely with community partners and proposed collaborative projects with them.

Haines, a senior economics and political science major from Crete, Ill. is working with the West Bloomington Revitalization Project (WBRP), a local not-for-profit organization seeking to assist Bloomington’s Westside neighborhood in a renewal effort. Haines’ work is focused on securing a not-for-profit federal tax status for the WBRP, as well as certifying the organization. With this status the WBRP will be able to use grant money to purchase and rehabilitate houses. Haines said, “Bloomington’s west side, one of the oldest parts of the city, is a great community of history. The WBRP wants to help community members preserve and maintain the housing stock.”

Haines plans to continue her interest in community involvement by pursuing a master’s degree in urban planning after graduating Illinois Wesleyan.

Woodard, a senior political science major from Chicago is working with Habitat for Humanity, to develop and implement a marketing strategy that would allow Habitat to improve their ties with members of the Westside churches. He is also assisting the Christ Temple Church with their neighborhood block party event. Woodard began his service work as a peer mentor with Project Rise at Heartland Community College, a program that gives low income, handicapped and first-generation college students a mentor to help them succeed in college.

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