Author Archives: Ann Aubry

What’s in a Year? Leap Year Proof It’s All Relative

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Time does not really exist.

Certainly the sun rises and sets, the Earth spins, but time as we know it – chopped into months, hours and milliseconds – is a fabrication of mankind. Never are we more aware of this fact than on that rare day, February 29 of leap year.

“Leap year is one of those ways we keep the clock that we live by in sync,” said Linda French, associate professor of physics at Illinois Wesleyan University. “If we didn’t have leap years, then over decades, we would find the seasons start to drift, and instead of the first day of spring coming in at the end of March, it would come at the beginning of March.”

In other words, leap year works out the kinks in our calendar. The Earth takes about 365 days to go once around the sun – 365.24222 days to be exact. The idea of adding one more day every four years is to take care of all of those numbers past the decimal. “If you add in one day in the calendar, it catches us up so that we still have the first day of spring around March 21,” said French.

Noticing this slipping of seasons, Pope Gregory XIII decided in 1582 to revamp the old Julian calendar. His Gregorian calendar we follow today set down leap year as every four years. This, of course, included exceptions that sound a bit like the disclaimer portion of pharmaceutical ads:

Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100; the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years. For example, the year 1900 is not a leap year; the year 2000 is a leap year.

Chalk it up to a stubborn universe that refuses to go on Greenwich time, but in fact none of our closest celestial neighbors tend to roll by our watch. “It’s a big inconvenience, really, that no astronomical events happen commensurate with each other,” said French, who teaches students how time would be different if we judged it by a star other than the sun. “The time it takes the Earth to go around the sun and the time it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis simply don’t divide into each other evenly.”

WESN Now Webcasting

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – After several years of research and planning, Illinois Wesleyan University’s student-run radio station, WESN 88.1 FM, began Webcasting its music programs on February 5. Listeners can access the Webcasts through WESN’s Web site, www.wesn.org

“We really wanted to boost our listenership levels, and the only way to do that was to stay abreast of new technology,” said WESN Promotions Manager Kari Irwin, a junior religion and philosophy major from Palatine, Ill.

The WESN staff decided that Webcasting was necessary in order to compete with online music services and video streaming sites such as YouTube. “We conducted surveys of the student body and found out that no one really listens to the radio anymore,” said Irwin, who has been on the WESN staff for three years. “Webcasts have completely rejuvenated the station.”

Journalist Roland S. Martin to Speak at Soul Food Dinner

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Journalist and author Roland S. Martin will present the keynote speech at Illinois Wesleyan University’s annual Soul Food Dinner on Sunday Feb. 24 in the Hansen Student Center (300 E. Beecher St., Bloomington). The event, sponsored by Student Senate, is in celebration of Black History Month.

Dinner will be catered by Sodexho Campus Services and served at 5:30 p.m. Following dinner Martin will address the audience.

Tickets for the Soul Food Dinner will go on sale January 29 and sell through February 9. For the general public tickets are $12. For Illinois Wesleyan faculty, staff, and students tickets are $5. Illinois Wesleyan students with meals plans can charge the dinner to their ID.

Martin graduated from Texas A&M in 1991 with a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism and is currently studying for his master’s degree in Christian Communication at Louisiana Baptist University.

As a journalist, Martin has won more than 20 professional awards including a regional Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors, two citations from the National Associated Press-Managing Editors Conference, and several first place awards from the Dallas-Fort Worth Association of Black Communicators.

Alumna Fulfills Her Artistic Dreams

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Amanda “Gwydhar” Bratton, a 2004 Illinois Wesleyan graduate, is beginning to make a name for herself in the Chicago film community. With her new film The Persephone Project in its finishing stages, Bratton hopes to progress into a promising future as a director and producer.

An inherent interest in art brought Bratton to Illinois Wesleyan University as an art major. She quickly learned that she was able to foster her curiosity for cinema while attending the University, and made a film for an independent research project titled Anti-Hero. Illinois Wesleyan graduates Liz Schroeder, class of 2006, and Daniel Vendt, class of 2005, assisted Bratton with the movie. She recently collaborated again with both for The Persephone Project, with Schroeder acting as costume designer and Vendt composing the original score.

The film’s story revolves around the Greek myth of Persephone, who was captured by Hades and made goddess of the underworld until she was rescued. Using an experimental interpretation of the myth, the film focuses on a visual representation of the story. Each character wears a mask that was specifically designed and handmade for the film.

The production company behind the film is Blue Damen Pictures, founded and operated by Bratton. The organization, she explains, is a nonprofit Chicago-based ensemble of individuals dedicated to promoting and nurturing up-and-coming talent within the film community. “Our mission statement is to give anyone interested in learning or getting involved with filmmaking the opportunity to work hands-on on a film,” she said. Bratton felt that to really establish herself as a player within the film community, she would have to create her own production company so people would take notice. While The Persephone Project will be the first major short film Blue Damen Pictures has produced, they have created several smaller shorts, such as Man Jam, Big Brother and Single’s Awareness Day.

State Farm Companies Foundation Renews ARC Grant

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – State Farm will be continuing its partnership with Illinois Wesleyan University to support the community.

Illinois Wesleyan’s Action Research Center (ARC), which connects students with area non-for-profit organizations, has received a grant for more than $53,000. This is the second year the State Farm Companies Foundation contributed funds to ARC.

“We have been pleased with the efforts of ARC and look forward to the ongoing collaboration which will engage students, faculty and community leaders in a way that not only enhances their growth and effectiveness, but also benefits local not-for-profit organizations,” said Kathy Havens-Payne of State Farm.

ARC was created in 2003 to provide Illinois Wesleyan students with a set of expertise and skills necessary for applied research projects in the community.

The grant will help Illinois Wesleyan ARC Coordinator Deborah Halperin expand the program. “Together we create innovative and meaningful ways for Illinois Wesleyan and State Farm to impact our shared community. We are ready to take several exciting projects to new levels and we could not grow without State Farm’s support.”

Founders’ Day Speaker Vocal on Global Warming Threat

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Climate expert James E. Hansen is calling on today’s youth to reign in global warming.

Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Hansen will deliver the address for Illinois Wesleyan University’s annual Founders’ Day Convocation at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 19 in Westbrook Auditorium (1210 N. Park St., Bloomington). The evening event will cap a day of Founders’ Day activities, honoring the University’s founding in 1850, and is free and open to the public.

Hansen’s speech, titled “Climate Tipping Points: The Threat to the Planet,” will address the nature of the global warming problem that he sees as a potential “perfect storm” – an accelerated disaster out of humanity’s control. Hansen believes young people may provide a “tipping point” to draw needed attention to global warming.

One of the nation’s foremost researchers on climate change, Hansen has been called upon to testify before Congress on global warming and has published more than 50 articles in scientific journals and reviews on the subject. For decades, he has advocated an open dialogue on global warming, and been critical of both the Clinton and Bush administrations’ stances on climate changes.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Hansen has twice received the NASA Presidential Rank for Meritorious Executive Award. He has been awarded the John Heinz Environment Award in 2001, the Roger Revelle Medal from the American Geophysical Union in 2002, the Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal from the World Wildlife Fund in 2006 and the Leo Szilard Lectureship Award from the American Physical Society in 2007.

Professor Pursues Rediscovery of Soviet Children’s Literature

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Illinois Wesleyan University’s Marina Balina is forging the way to a rediscovery of children’s literature written in Soviet Russia.

For years, scholars ignored children’s literature written during the Soviet regime as merely a tool of propaganda. “Seventy-five years of Soviet children’s literature should not be dismissed that easily. It’s a shame,” said Balina, the Isaac Funk Professor of Russian Studies at Illinois Wesleyan, who recently co-edited Russian Children’s Literature and Culture (Routlegde, 2007). Almost no books have been written about Soviet children’s literature, and the few that were looked at single authors rather than trying to analyze the complex body of texts written during this time.

With her co-author Larissa Rudova, a professor of Russian at Pomona College in California, Balina is breaking new ground with the book, which is a collection of critical articles about children’s literature in Russia both during and after Soviet rule.

Balina is familiar with the children’s literature both as scholar and from her days growing up in Soviet Russia before immigrating to the United States with her family in 1988. “Soviet Russia was not the best place to have free ideas, in fact it was a challenge to remain a free thinker in that country. But Soviet children’s literature played a unique role in creating free minds, and this fact should not be ignored,” said Balina, who noted that the entertainment value placed on children’s literature gave authors more leeway in their choice of creative expression. “It was a much freer space for Russian writers to use alternative artistic devises, such as playful poetry similar to Dr. Seuss, but their work would still be publishable and considered politically correct.”

Issues Facing Children Focus of New Global Encyclopedia

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For Illinois Wesleyan University Professor Irving Epstein, who has studied issues involving street children, child labor and delinquency education, a society can be judged by the welfare of its children.

“Children symbolize the way in which societies interact,” said Epstein. “You can ascertain much about a society by the way its children are treated.”

Epstein enlisted his interest in the welfare of children as the general editor of a new encyclopedia that goes beyond facts and figures. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children’s Issues Worldwide is a six-volume set that includes essays by 174 contributors covering 126 different countries. Issues including children’s education, child labor, child abuse and neglect, play and recreation and religion are analyzed in each chapter.

“On a global level, children’s lives can be thrown away and neglected. They don’t have political capital in many societies,” said Epstein, an instructor with Illinois Wesleyan since 1996 who teaches a course on international human rights. “Even in our own society, children are the ones who are the casualties of poverty and abuse. There needs to be some accountability for how children are treated.”

IWU Joins Global Warming Teach-In

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – To prepare millions of students to become leaders in the largest civilizational challenge any generation has faced, an unprecedented educational initiative is about to take place. On Wednesday Jan. 30, and Thursday, Jan. 31, thousands of institutions, mostly colleges and universities, will participate in teach-ins focused on global warming.

Called Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America, these teach-ins are designed to engage millions of students and citizens on the issue of climate change, as well as draw the attention of decision makers and political leaders in advance of the November presidential elections. Focus the Nation has organized a model centered on three pillars for today’s youth, aimed to embrace solutions to global warming: education, civic engagement and leadership. Teams of students come from individual colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses.

Leslie Morrison, a senior environmental studies major and co-president of the Sierra Student Coalition, a student organization dedicated to environmental sustainability on Illinois Wesleyan’s campus, expresses the importance of understanding global warming, “College students have a responsibility to understand this issue and solutions to this issue because we are the future, and the future looks complicated. It is important for everyone to understand the implications of global climate change and what they can personally do to be a part of the solution,” said Morrison.

On IWU’s campus, the GREENetwork, the Sierra Student Coalition, the Office of Resident Life, and the Environmental Studies Program are involved with the preparation of events. Kicking off the Focus the Nation events, on Tuesday Jan. 29 at 8 p.m., the film An Inconvenient Truth will be shown in the Hansen Student Center (300 Beecher St., Bloomington). On Wednesday Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. a Webcast, 2% Solution will be shown in the Hansen Student Center. The central event is a teach-in that will take place throughout the day on Thursday Jan. 31 and will have five different panels organized around specific themes regarding global warming. Examples of the panels are: “Where Are We and How Did We Get Here,” “What is at Stake With Climate Change,” “What is Our Carbon Footprint,” and “The Moral/Ethical Implications of Climate Change.” Illinois Wesleyan faculty members along with selected staff and students who have diverse experience in these areas will speak and lead panel discussions.

Mellon Foundation Awards $175,000 for IWU Writing Program

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Illinois Wesleyan University a $175,000 grant to expand writing-intensive courses.

The New York-based Mellon Foundation, named after businessman, banker, public servant, and philanthropist Andrew W. Mellon, awards more than $200 million in grants annually to build, strengthen and sustain the nation’s educational and cultural institutions. The Foundation’s Liberal Arts Colleges Program provides multi-year grants to liberal arts colleges across the country.

“This grant will help us in our efforts to develop an even stronger writing program at Illinois Wesleyan,” said Frank Boyd, associate dean of faculty and associate professor of political science at Illinois Wesleyan. According to Boyd, the courses will benefit all students, regardless of their major. “No matter what discipline students choose to specialize in, writing is one of the keys to their success when they go on to post-graduate study or take positions with a non-profit organization, in government, or in the private sector. The grant will support our efforts to keep students writing across the entire university curriculum, whether in chemistry, literature or business courses.”

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