Author Archives: Ann Aubry

IWU’s Suspended to Travel to Japan

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University’s a cappella group Suspended will travel to Asahikawa, Japan in June as a part of the 45th anniversary of the Bloomington-Normal/Asahikawa Sister City relationship.

Traveling to Japan will be the group members, as well as retired IWU associate professor of music Todd Tucker and several Twin City officials and residents. Suspended and Tucker will perform at a large gathering and possibly a few smaller venues.

“We’re really looking forward to the opportunity to share American culture through music,” said Suspended member and manager Matt LoPresti, a senior finance and political science double major from Glenview, Ill. “Illinois Wesleyan really focuses on intercultural relationships and studying abroad. This puts into play all that we’ve been taught for four years.”

Suspended, who arranges much of their own music, will also release their upcoming CD, Until Further Notice, on April 27.

Students Get Legal Lessons in Simulated Trial

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Robert Kearney’s final exam gets taken to court – literally.

As the final examination for the Illinois Wesleyan professor’s business law class, students take a real case and argue it in front of a real judge. “We take cases that are ripped from the headlines, just like ‘Law & Order,’” joked Kearney, associate professor and chair of business administration who has been teaching at Illinois Wesleyan since 2002. “It’s much more interesting to do a companion case to something real and truly complex.”

This year, the class will argue the case of the Chicago “cable murders,” in which a cable installer was accused of raping and murdering two women while installing their Comcast cable systems. The students will deal with the suit against Comcast and a subsidiary contract company that employed the installer. The trial will be 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 25 at the McLean County Law & Justice Center (115 E. Washington St., Bloomington).

Though this is the first time the class has tackled murder cases, the trials for the last four years have similar qualities. “I always pick cases that are business-related, involve deep pockets and have complex litigation,” said Kearney, whose past topics included a suit against the airlines for negligence in 9/11, and the Midway plane crash that killed a 6-year-old.

The business law class is unique and intense for students, said Kearney. The entire class is dedicated to one case with the 20 seniors planning and executing every part of litigation. “In law school, you take a class on how to file a complaint. You take another class on how to present yourself in front of a jury,” said Kearney. “In this class, the students spend four months doing everything an actual, practicing lawyer does. There is nothing like it in any law school I know, not to mention an undergraduate class.”

Sammie Robinson to Speak at Chamber of Commerce Luncheon

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Sammie Robinson, assistant professor of business administration at Illinois Wesleyan University, has been invited to speak at the McLean County Chamber of Commerce’s 2007 Administrative Professionals Luncheon on April 24 at the Doubletree Hotel and Conference Center (10 Brickyard Dr., Bloomington).

The Bloomington Chamber of Commerce hosts the event annually with State Farm Insurance Company and Connoisseur Media. This year, Robinson will address many influential administrative professionals on the theme “Shaping The Future.”

“The future is beyond our control, it is not promised,” Robinson said of the theme. “At best, we can make attempts to shape our future.” In her talk, she plans to address three major ways that people can mold their destinies. She will suggest that audience members seek truth by identifying personal touchstones of belief and self through honest recognition of personal worth. For Robinson, though, the most important way that people can shape the future is through finding what she calls their event. “We need to find that thing we do really well and make that our life’s work,” Robinson said. “My event happens in the classroom. My event happens when I connect with people.”

Marina Balina Wins Pantagraph Award for Teaching Excellence

Illinois Wesleyan Professor of Russian Studies Marina Balina was named as the 2008 winner of the Pantagraph Award for Teaching Excellence at the University on Wednesday, April 18, at the annual Honors Day Convocation in Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall.

Listen to the Convocation.

“This is the highest honor that Illinois Wesleyan can give, and I am honored and thrilled and happy and overwhelmed,” said an emotional Balina as she received hugs of congratulations from fellow faculty members and staff.

The $1,000 teacher-scholar award is the University’s top teaching honor and is sponsored by the daily newspaper headquartered in Bloomington that services eight counties and more than 60 communities in Central Illinois. The honoree is selected by Illinois Wesleyan’s Promotion and Tenure Committee based on nominations received from members of the faculty.

A native of Russia who earned her Ph.D. at Leningrad State University (now St. Petersburg), Balina joined IWU’s faculty in 1989 and is now a member of the University’s department of modern and classical languages and literatures. Along with teaching the German and Russian languages and Russian literature, she has published more than 20 articles and four books in three different languages, and earned an international reputation for work with children’s literature. She has been the recipient of grants from the U.S. Department of Education, the Austrian Ministry of Culture, the American Association of Learned Societies, the National Endowment of Humanities and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.

Patrick Beary Wins Technos International Prize

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University student Patrick Beary, a senior international studies major from New Lenox, Ill., was awarded the Technos International Prize by the Tanaka Ikueikai Educational Trust in Japan. The public announcement of the award was made at the Illinois Wesleyan Honors Convocation on Wednesday, April 18 in Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall.

“This is such an honor for me, because I know Technos does so much in developing international relations,” said Beary, who plans to follow a career in human rights and foreign policy.

While selection of the Technos award recipient is up to the discretion of the University, it is preferred that the student be connected by studies or activities to the international spirit of the award. Beary is no stranger to international travel, having spent time studying in South Africa, Switzerland and Guatemala.

After graduation, he will become a Rotary Ambassador Scholar at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina. An Illinois Wesleyan football player in the 2003-2004 season, Beary is a member of the honorary societies of Alpha Lambda Delta, Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Eta Sigma.

Orion Samuelson Addresses IWU Luncheon

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The greatest characteristic defining American agriculture is change, according to Orion Samuelson, renowned agribusiness director of WGN and Chicago’s “Voice of Agriculture” since 1960. More than 350 area business leaders turned out to hear Samuelson speak at the spring Illinois Wesleyan Associates Luncheon on Tuesday, April 17 at the IWU Shirk Center Performance Gym (302 E. Emerson St., Bloomington).

“The word I hear more often than any other today is change: the change in your land and in my land, in your profession and in my profession, in agriculture and industry and education,” said Samuelson. “And as human beings we resist change. We tend to fight change and be comfortable with the status quo.”

In his lecture titled “From Reaper to Satellite,” Samuelson spoke about the transformation agriculture has faced over the past eighty years, from the introduction of the tractor in the 1920s to today’s globalization of the market, which provides food for 300 million Americans and millions more overseas. “Think for a moment of the change you and I have seen over our lives,” he said, adding that what happens in agriculture affects us all. “If you eat, you are involved in agriculture.”

IWU Campus Responds to Virginia Tech Shooting

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — In response to the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech that horrified the nation, Illinois Wesleyan University invited all students to congregate in Evelyn Chapel Monday evening at 8 p.m. for an informal opportunity to seek or share comfort.

About 20 students gathered for quiet reflection and to share their feelings in the wake of the tragedy. Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Kathy Cavins, counselors, resident assistants and members of the Student Affairs and Residential Life staff were available to offer support and respond to questions about how a similar tragedy would be handled at Illinois Wesleyan.

“Our first priority would be to assure the safety of our students and that all people are accounted for,” Cavins said. “We would then enact our plan for communicating with our IWU community, parents and other stakeholders of the University and offering counseling and other support resources as necessary.”

New Spanish Class Encourages Community Interaction, Service

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For Illinois Wesleyan University sophomore Danny Burke, the end of the semester will mean more than taking tests and heading home—he’ll have to say goodbye to Jorge, the third-grader he has mentored this spring as part of his coursework for Spanish 240: Spanish for Social Justice.

The course, offered for the first time this spring, is part of an effort by the Hispanic Studies department to “strengthen course offerings at the 200-level, as well as involvement in the community,” said Professor of Hispanic Studies Carolyn Nadeau. The 10 students in the class spend three hours each week using their Spanish language skills to serve the community in a variety of field projects.

Burke mentors for the Grade-school Achievement Program (GAP) at Bent Elementary School and helps at the Immigration Project at the Western Avenue Community Center. Other projects include State Farm’s PALS program (high-school tutoring) and working with families of pre-school children at Heartland Head Start.

Spanish 240 is comparable to the established 230 course, Medical Spanish and Cultural Competency for Healthcare, in which students learn the vocabulary to speak about medical issues and then apply their skills as volunteers in a local clinic. Instead of healthcare, the new course focuses on five other social justice issues: immigration, housing, education, employment and citizenship.

“This course is unique in that it offers students both theory in the classroom and practice in the community,” Nadeau said. “We are also serving as a model of possibilities for classroom collaboration with with IWU’s Action Resource Center.”

Father’s Memoir a Labor of Love for Retired Professor

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – It was a 12-year labor of love for retired Illinois Wesleyan University Professor George A. Churukian to bring his father’s memoirs to the printed page.

“At times I thought it would never get done,” laughed Churukian, who self-published the book Never Settle for Second Best earlier this year, “but it was a journey I’m glad I undertook.”

Churukian’s father, Giragos Missak Churukian, died in 1994 at the age of 97. A physician who immigrated to America from the small Armenian village of Kessab in present-day Syria in 1931, the elder Churukian left behind a brief account of his life. “Parts of it were good, and parts were very sketchy,” said Churukian of the handwritten manuscript. “But my father left a lot of papers and a 1927 diary that helped put things into place. I was able to flesh out a lot of information.”

Shortly after his father’s death, Churukian and his family began to wade through the manuscript and a treasure trove of papers. “It was incredible how much we found. He had his passenger lists from the boat trips to America. He had an original contract when he worked as a doctor for the government of Sudan in the mid-1920s,” said Churukian, who also pulled from personal experiences when he and his brother Peter journeyed to his hometown in present-day Syria with his father on separate trips.

Professor Emphasizes Importance of Chemistry’s ‘Hot Topic’ on an International Stage

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University associate professor of chemistry Ram Mohan is helping fellow chemists worldwide. Mohan’s lab is part of a team exploring processes in a new class of solvents.

Mohan and his sabbatical host, Dr. Janet Scott of The Center for Chemistry in Monash University, Australia, recently published a review of the reactivity of ionic liquids. Ionic liquids have been a hot, new topic in chemistry over the last several years. Industrial scientists at such companies as BASF and Merck have been integrating ionic liquids into their work, looking for safer ways to produce chemicals. “Ionic liquids are opening doors for industry,” said Mohan, who has been working with the liquids for the past two years. “Companies are developing new uses of ionic liquids, such as lubricants and batteries.”

In the past, reviews on ionic liquids have focused on their role as a reaction medium. “This is one of the first comprehensive reviews that focuses on the possibility that ionic liquids can participate in reactions and give unexpected products,” said Mohan.

Most people are familiar with ionic compounds, the most common being table salt. Ionic liquids are a similar substance that remain in liquid form at room temperature. “In order to have salt be a liquid, you would have to heat it up to 800 degrees,” said Mohan. “With ionic liquids, you are talking about the same type of substance, but they are liquid without having to heat them.” Traditional organic solvents are volatile and pose a respiratory hazard, but ionic liquids are practically non-volatile and do not pose a respiratory hazard.

Until now, chemists assumed ionic liquids were simply a medium for reactions, much like a football field where the action occurred. Mohan, Scott, a leading international expert on ionic liquids, and Shahana Afrose Chowdhury, a Ph.D. student at Monash University of Melbourne, Australia, were invited to write the review in a leading international chemistry journal, Tetrahedron. “Several reports in the literature have clearly shown that ionic liquid participates in chemical reactions,” said Mohan. That means chemists who work with them may be getting unexpected products in their reactions. “The study helps them better understand what they are working with,” said Mohan.

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