Author Archives: Ann Aubry

It’s “Celebrate Your Roommate Week”

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – It can be a challenge living with a stranger, but at Illinois Wesleyan students have met that challenge. Kim Stabosz, class of ’09, and Erin Wondrak, class of ’09, have been living together since freshman year.

Stabosz said she was nervous about the initial meeting, which did not go quite as expected. “The entire time Erin was pretty silent, and I freaked out because I didn’t know why she wasn’t talking. I was so scared she was going to be quiet,” Stabosz said.

Needing an escape from parents and siblings who were helping them move in, the newly formed pair explored their residence hall. “The second we were away from our parents it was instant relaxation and we just clicked,” said Wondrak and the bonding began.

The Office of Residential Life (ORL) (http://www.iwu.edu/~orl) has a responsibility to pair compatible students as roommates. To promote positive roommate relationships, ORL’s First-Year Experience (FYE) Program is hosting its second annual “Celebrate Your Roommate Week” Oct. 13 to 17 (see schedule of events) to remind students that having a roommate should be a pleasurable part of the college experience.

“The event was created to help students understand how to value their roommate. Conflicts may arise around this time of year, and we are hoping this will progress communication,” said Stacy Ploskonka, Gulick Hall residence director. “Celebrate your roommate week is about ensuring that there are good relationships between roommates and encouraging them to get to know each other better.”

ORL looks for similarities when matching roommates. Stabosz and Wondrak discovered they both had a passion for dance, so they auditioned for the dance team and the Student Choreographed Dance Concert (SCDC) together. They watched many movies together as well, including, The Princess Diaries, and they would talk for hours at night.

According to ORL, the roommate matching process begins early in the summer. First-year students are mailed a letter asking them to fill out a survey online about their lifestyle habits and their interests. The survey includes categories of questions about bedtime, cleanliness, smoking, social environment and pet peeves. Students are sent basic contact information about their roommate so they can begin talking before they arrive at Illinois Wesleyan. ORL suggests that students talk to their roommates before they officially move in together.

“We use a listing of about 20 different preferences that have been determined as key concerns for students. Differences in lifestyle preferences such as drinking and smoking habits or living habits such as cleanliness or desired temperature in the room are issues that can easily cause roommate conflicts,” said Terrance Bond, assistant director of Residential Life. “By asking some of these questions up front, we can attempt to pair students with others who closely match their individual preference.”

Habitat for Humanity to Host Shanty Town Sleepover

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity will hold a sleepover in a Sustainable Shanty Town on the Eckley Quadrangle (located at the center of IWU’s campus) on Saturday, Oct. 18 from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. the next day.

The event is free and open to those 18 years and older.

The Sustainable Shanty Town will be made up of students and their cardboard-box “homes,” who will participate in activities including a cardboard house building competition. The chapter hopes the Shanty Town will raise awareness regarding homelessness and Habitat for Humanity’s efforts to provide affordable housing.

Interested participants should dress warmly, bring their own cardboard box home and sleeping bag. Also, bring a mug for complimentary hot chocolate. Participants are asked to bring any spare change or aluminum cans they can donate to the Habitat for Humanity program as well.

Evelyn Chapel to House John Wesley Letter

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University’s Evelyn Chapel (1301 N. Park St., Bloomington) will soon welcome the addition of a valuable and unique artifact: a letter written by John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church and the man for whom the University is named.

The letter, dated Aug. 15, 1766, came to the University by way of a donation from the Rev. and Mrs. Ron and Doris Bogart of Bloomington. Bogart, a member of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference and Methodist Church, has previously exhibited Wesleyana relics on the IWU campus. Over the summer, Bogart contacted University Librarian Karen Schmidt to offer the University the final piece of his personal collection of John Wesley items.

“He felt that it would be well placed here, with our historic connection to the Methodist church, and that we would value and care for it,” said Schmidt. “The letter is remarkably well preserved, and reading it gives you a glimpse into a different time and way of communicating.”

Addressed to a Mrs. Elizabeth Woodhouse on its accompanying envelope, the Wesley letter encourages its recipient in her Christian endeavors and expresses an opinion of the itinerant minister John Standring. This particular letter has not been found in former publications of John Wesley material.

The letter will be displayed in the Chapel along with a portrait of Wesley as a direct connection to the Methodist beginnings of Illinois Wesleyan.

New Exhibits at Art Galleries

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Works by artists Steve Feren and Marie-Susanne Langille will be displayed Sept. 30 to Nov. 6 in Illinois Wesleyan’s Merwin & Wakeley galleries, located in the Joyce Eichhorn Ames School of Art Building (6 Ames Plaza West, Bloomington).

The exhibits are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 12 to 4 p.m., Tuesday evenings, 7 to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. During Homecoming weekend, the gallery hours will be extended on Saturday, Oct. 4 and Sunday, Oct. 5 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Saturday there will be a reception for IWU alumni from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the galleries.

On Thursday, Oct. 2 there will be a lecture with Feren in the Joyce Eichhorn Ames School of Art Building from 4 to 5 p.m. followed by an opening reception in the galleries from 5 to 6 p.m.

The Merwin Gallery will feature Feren’s work. He has been creating sculptures since the 1980s and has worked in a variety of mediums, however, he is best known for his work with glass. Feren teaches art glass at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he has done glass cast relief murals, fiber optics, glass outdoor environment, mosaic sculpture, and concrete work. He also has experience working with architects, designers, engineering and planning committees and his works have been created for universities, cities, companies and private collectors.

The Wakeley Gallery will showcase the work of Langille, an adjunct assistant professor of photography at Illinois Wesleyan. Langille graduated from the University of Missouri in 1995 with a master’s degree in photojournalism. She has worked for newspapers in Utah, Iowa and Indiana. She has also worked for the Associated Press in New York.

Homecoming 2008 Offers Celebration of Tradition and Change

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Only one year ago, Illinois Wesleyan University Homecoming attendees had the opportunity to sign beams to be placed in the Minor Myers jr., Welcome Center. Now complete, the Welcome Center and Alumni Walkway will be dedicated on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 10:30 a.m. as part of the 2008 Homecoming festivities, to take place from Friday, Oct. 3 to Sunday, Oct. 5.

The dedication ceremony will also include tours of the Welcome Center, Bloomington’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) new construction project.

Along with celebrating the new Welcome Center, the 2008 Homecoming festivities will include several new events. This year’s pep rally, billed as “Titanium – IWU’s Largest and Best Pep Rally Ever,” will take place at 6 p.m. on Oct. 3 at Wilder Field. The rally will feature a performance by the Titan Pep Band, the crowning of the Homecoming king and queen by University President Richard F. Wilson, and a concert by “The Blanks,” who have been featured on the television show “Scrubs” as “Ted’s Band.” A fireworks display will conclude the evening.

The first “Fall into the Arts” juried fine arts fair will take place on Saturday, Oct. 4 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the Eckley Quadrangle. The fair, sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations, will feature the work of nearly 100 IWU alumni and local professional artists. Blown glass, drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, jewelry, mosaic art and more will be available for purchase.

Illinois Wesleyan Adds Chinese Language, Culture to Classes

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Olympic flame may be extinguished in Beijing, but China will still be on the minds of students at Illinois Wesleyan.

This fall, Illinois Wesleyan University has added the Chinese to the language classes offered to students. The addition is timely, and needed, said Sonja Fritzsche, co-chair of the Modern and Classical Languages and Literature Department (MCLL) at Illinois Wesleyan. “No one can deny China is increasing in importance globally,” said Fritzsche. “More students are looking to understand China and learn the language.”

Chinese 101 is currently being offered this fall, with plans for Chinese 102 to be offered spring semester. Visiting Instructor Kelly Changjun Huo joined the faculty this fall to teach the language courses. Along with the language classes, Huo will also be teaching two Chinese culture classes, an ancient Chinese culture course in the fall semester, and a modern Chinese culture course in the spring.

“The history of China plays a big role in China today,” said Huo, who comes to Illinois Wesleyan from The Ohio State University, where she earned her doctorate in teaching the Chinese language. “It is important for students to know of China’s many accomplishments over its 5,000-year history to understand modern-day China better.” The culture courses will focus on everything from literature, art and architecture, to food and festivals.

MUSE Undergraduate Conference is Sept. 27

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The fourth annual MUSE Undergraduate Literature Conference, to take place on Saturday, Sept. 27, will feature keynote speaker Lisa Ruddick, professor of English at the University of Chicago. Ruddick will give her address, titled “Literature and the Feeling of Aliveness,” at 12:30 p.m. in the Center of Natural Science Learning and Research (201 E. Beecher St., Bloomington), room C101.

MUSE is presented by Illinois Wesleyan University’s Alpha Eta Pi chapter of Sigma Tau Delta (STD), the international English honor society, in conjunction with Illinois State University’s Lambda Delta chapter.

The conference, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Center of Natural Science Learning and Research. Registration begins at 8 a.m. in the commons area and conference activities begin at 9 a.m. with student research presentations. The conference will also feature informational panels on post-graduate options for literature majors, Feminist literature, and British literature.

Ruddick’s current scholarship focuses on the ways in which “training in the humanities, conducted with the best of intentions, can thwart the feeling of aliveness by partially dissociating practitioners from their intuitions and their deep affective resources.” She is the author of Reading Gertrude Stein: Body, Text, Gnosis (Cornell University Press, 1990), “The Near Enemy of the Humanities is Professionalism” (Chronicle of Higher Education, November 23, 2000) and “Stein and Cultural Criticism in the Nineties” (Modern Fiction Studies 42, 1996).

New Chemistry Textbook Offers Instructor a Way to Reach New Audiences

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For Illinois Wesleyan University’s James E. House, writing textbooks is more than sharing information, it is the chance to teach students across the nation and around the world. “Last year, I taught at several universities, and the students have never heard my voice,” said House, speaking of chemistry textbooks. His latest book, Inorganic Chemistry (Academic Press), was published in August and is slated to be used by universities in the spring.

Inorganic Chemistry is House’s fourth textbook in seven years. A second edition of his Principles of Chemical Kinetics (Academic Press) came out last summer, another second edition, Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics (Academic Press), was published in 2005, and Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry (Brooks Cole) was released in 2001. “People ask me why I am writing these books and I tell them that I guess it’s because I can,” said House, who has been teaching chemistry for more than 40 years, and joined the Illinois Wesleyan Chemistry Department as an adjunct faculty member in 1997. “I’ve seen a lot of textbooks through my years, and I thought maybe it was time to give my views on some topics.”

IWU Intern Receives COUNTRY Financial Scholarship

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For Illinois Wesleyan University senior Danielle Lauritson of Bloomington experience as a student intern meant more than catching a preview of the working world—it also earned her a scholarship.

Lauritson’s public relations internship at COUNTRY Financial in Bloomington included such responsibilities as writing news releases, monitoring the intern pages of www.countryfinancial.com and assisting with projects like the COUNTRY Chef Challenge.

One of four recipients, Lauritson earned her scholarship through writing an essay in response to the prompt: “U.S. corporations continue to focus more attention on Generation Y both as consumers and potential employees. What challenges and opportunities do you see for COUNTRY Financial in trying to reach this group? How can COUNTRY uniquely target this group through marketing and/or recruiting efforts?”

Lauritson is a business administration major with a marketing concentration.

Student Earns Academic Scholarship Through Summer Internship

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Senior Accounting major,M. Darius Gant of Oswego, Ill. was named a recipient of the Frank R. Ross Scholastic Achievement Recognition Award and Scholarship, sponsored by the KPMG Chicago African American Network (CAAN). Gant served for KPMG, an international professional audit, tax and advisory services, as a summer accounting intern in Chicago. The award and scholarship is named in honor of Frank K. Ross, the first African American partner elected into the KPMG LLP (KPMG) partnership. It is based on personal commitment to promoting the development and success of African-Americans on campus and in the community, and helping the success of future generations of diverse professionals in the corporate arena.

At Illinois Wesleyan, Gant was a member of the basketball team for 4 years, served as president for Alpha Phi Alpha (APA) social fraternity, Inc. last year, and is now the current chair of educational activities for APA. He is also the founding and active president of the Bloomington chapter for the National Association of Black Accountants.

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