Category Archives: Faculty

NSF Funds Wesleyan Study of Social Exclusion

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— What causes some of us to be ignored or feel isolated, how do these feelings impact us and what can we do about them? Gaining insights into these and other questions related to what psychologists call “social exclusion” will be the subject of a three-year National Science Foundation-funded study conducted by two Illinois Wesleyan psychology professors and their students.

“Persistent and chronic social exclusion has very powerful consequences and impacts,” says Illinois Wesleyan Assistant Professor of Psychology Jason Themanson, who will lead the study. “Profound feelings of depression, loneliness, anxiety and helplessness associated with exclusion can change one’s life, which is why it’s so important to deepen our understanding of the process and the triggers that lead people to feel excluded.”

Themanson’s investigation builds on his own past research and studies by others that have shown strong relationships between neural activity and the feelings of exclusion. Along with co-investigator Professor Joe Williams and student researchers, Themanson will examine patterns of brain activity during simulated social interactions.

Campus Mourns Forrest J. Frank

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Illinois Wesleyan University mourns the death of Dr. Forrest J. Frank, who died on Thursday, Feb. 9 in Bloomington. Dr. Frank was a member of the IWU faculty for 34 years.

“I am sorry to report the passing of our colleague Forrest Frank, associate professor of chemistry until his retirement in 1999,” said President Richard F. Wilson. “Even then, after 34 years of teaching, Dr. Frank continued to teach part-time for another five years. Dr. Frank was well known for his popular “Chemistry and Crime” forensic science course and was one of four IWU professors who wrote two textbooks for a new undergraduate chemistry curriculum in 1999. Our sincere sympathies go to Dottie and his family.”

A Chicago native, Dr. Frank studied chemistry at Grinnell College in Iowa, where he met his wife, Dottie, in a freshman general chemistry course.

Following his undergraduate studies, Dr. Frank pursued a doctorate in chemistry from Purdue University in Indiana. Prior to joining the Illinois Wesleyan faculty in 1965, he was employed as a research chemist at Rayonier, Inc., of Whippany, N.J.

Dr. Frank, who found working with students to be one of the great benefits to teaching, once estimated that he taught between 4,000 and 5,000 IWU students. He began teaching an innovative course, “Crime and Chemistry,” in 1985. In developing the course, Dr. Frank worked with the Illinois State Police Laboratory in Morton and other professional colleagues. The course provided non-science majors with an introduction to basic chemistry principles and techniques by studying scientific aspects of evidence.

Artists Explore Motivation and Mystery of Inspiration

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Many consider inspiration to be the phenomenon that both motivates the artist and serves as the greatest intrigue of their work. Artist Ginia A. Davis explains, “The soul of art is inspiration.”

At Illinois Wesleyan University, two professors and two students were posed the question, “What inspires you?” The answers from School of Art Director Miles Bair, Professor of Art Kevin Strandberg, as well as art students Leeya Jackson class of ‘13 and Riley Blindt class of ‘13, revealed surprising similarities.

Bair has painted for more than 40 years and teaches painting, art foundations and art theory and criticism. “There have been multiple inspirations in my development as a painter,” said Bair. “During the past 15 to 20 years my artwork has focused on landscapes and nature.”

For Bair, the woods are a great source of inspiration. “Any time I run out of ideas in the studio I head for places like Wisconsin, the Appalachian mountains, anywhere that’s green.” He then takes photographs of these places to capture a mood to communicate in his work.

Bair prefers to make artwork based upon what he has seen and added to with his imagination, rather than painting exact replicas of his photographs. “My winter paintings are created entirely from imagination. I just imagine what places would look like with snow and work from there.”

Voters’ Views Will Shape Interactive Musical Event

Jan. 16, 2012

Bloomington, IL — Grassroots 2012, an interactive political poll that engages respondents as part of a live musical event, will provide a preview of how Illinois voters view the issues, primary races and potential presidential election matchups. A town hall discussion of the issues follows the Grassroots 2012 electronic polling. The event takes place at Illinois Wesleyan’s Westbrook Auditorium on Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

bullet Watch the event in streaming video.

“Music has often been associated with political expression, but this is a totally new concept and one that brings people together to express and discuss their views in a very unique and entertaining way,” said co-composer David Brian Williams, a retired music and arts technology faculty member at Illinois State University. Williams and University of South Carolina collaborator Tayloe Harding created the Grassroots event during the 2008 presidential campaign, polling audiences in George and Alabama.

This innovative approach to political polling engages the audience with an original music score, digital imagery, electronic polling and a town hall discussion. During the live musical performance, audience members use digital clickers to respond anonymously to polling questions that probe primary and general election issues, with responses instantaneously totaled and displayed on screen. After each set of questions the music changes to reflect the intensity of opinions expressed by the audience. Following the performance and polling there will be a bipartisan town hall discussion and a second round of electronic polling intended to see if the discussion influenced any opinions.

“The importance of bipartisan political dialogue has never been more important than it is today, which is why we are so excited about the opportunities to gather opinions and engage citizens in discussion via Grassroots 2012,” says Illinois Wesleyan’s Professor of Political Science Tari Renner, an expert in political polling, who will lead the town hall discussion.

Teach-In to Honor Martin Luther King, Jr.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University’s Action Research Center (ARC) and political science honor society Pi Sigma Alpha (PSA) will host a “teach-in” comprising of three, one-hour panel discussions on Monday Jan. 16 from 1- 4 p.m. in Hansen Student Center (300 Beecher St., Bloomington).

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the teach-in will focus on three topics relating to food and social justice. While he is most known for his impact on the Civil Rights Movement, King’s teachings also addressed a wider scope of social justice.

The Teach-In schedule is as follows:

• 1 p.m. – National Efforts to Create Local Food: keynote speaker and alumnus Danny Burke ’09 will present, “Meaningfully Engaging Diversity,” along with community voice Lindsey Record of Illinois Stewardship Alliance.

• 2 p.m. – Sustainable Agriculture in Bloomington and IWU: keynote speaker Danny Kenny ’13 will present “Community Gardens in Higher Education,” along with community voice Elaine Sebald of Heartland Local Food Network.

• 3 p.m. – Insecurity: International, National, and Local Perspectives: keynote speaker Professor of Political Science William Munro will present “Food Aid, Philanthropy, and the Farm Bill: How Should We Tackle Hunger in the Global Food Economy?” along with community voice Emily Carroll of Food and Water Watch.

Chair of Political Science and Associate Professor of Political Science James Simeone notes that the teach-in is held in the spirit of King’s creation of the International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment (IAACM), which strove to constantly challenge societal norms. As an activist, King never wanted to become well-adjusted to society, explained Simeone, because there was always more work to be done. “He was the gadfly on the horse, like Socrates,” said the political science professor.

Students Collaborate in Circulo de Lectores

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – This semester, Professor of Hispanic Studies Carmela Ferradans and Byron S. Tucci Professor of Hispanic Studies Carolyn Nadeau will join to create a reading circle, or circulo de lectores, for students enrolled in two 300-level Spanish courses, Grammar and Composition and Introduction to Literature, as well as those in the Illinois Wesleyan Barcelona program. The goal of the activity is to have students collaborate outside of class, reading and discussing in Spanish the selected novel, Los mares del sur by Manuel Vazquez Montalban.

First published in 1979, the detective novel is set in Barcelona during the tumultuous years of the Spanish transition to democracy in the late ’70s. “The protagonist is also, and foremost, a gourmet, so the plot is intertwined with culinary commentaries and some of the best Catalan recipes I know,” said Ferradans. In relation to the novel’s culinary thread, the circulo de lectores will close with a literary dinner on Thursday, March 29 at World Gourmet in Bloomington, where students will sample rice recipes from the book, including paella, a traditional Spanish dish. Alumna Rachel Slough, class of 2007, will be the keynote speaker for the event. Slough, who received a bachelor of arts degree in Hispanic Studies and English Literature, wrote a research honors thesis on the novel.

Power of Poetry Slams onto Campus

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – When one thinks of traditional poetry courses, quiet classes spent analyzing meter, form, and imagery come to mind. However, there has been a relatively recent movement to educate people on contemporary forms of poetry, such as slam poetry.

Slam poetry, or the competitive art of performance poetry, originated in 1984 when construction worker Marc Smith started a poetry reading series at a Chicago jazz club, looking to breathe life into poetry. The experiment spread to other clubs in Chicago and eventually to Ann Arbor, San Francisco and other major cities with nation-wide slams throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Slam has been well publicized in the media through television shows such as HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and the 1998 film, Slam. Some people think slam is brash, perhaps even abrasive, but others find it moving and persuasive and “the obvious power of slam poetry puts to the test the power of other kinds of poetry,” said Associate Professor of English Michael Theune.

Educators Find iPad a Useful Aid in the Classroom

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Since the creation of the chalkboard over 120 years ago, the classroom has seen significant changes, each invention revolutionizing the way students learn. Today, the classroom continues to evolve and has been introduced to a new type of technology – one that is touch sensitive, lightweight and compact – the iPad.

A tablet device released by Apple Inc. in April of 2010, the iPad has been praised by many for its ability to perform a number of the same tasks as a laptop, with half the weight and twice the portability. Shortly after the iPad’s premiere, companies such as Verizon Wireless and Blackberry, among others, released similar products.

Critics of the iPad first saw it only as a larger version of the company’s earlier product, the iPhone. What some perceived as just another gadget, however, is quickly becoming a valuable tool for educators, from elementary school teachers to college professors, including a few at Illinois Wesleyan University.

According to Professor Jeanne Koehler, visiting instructor in educational studies, the iPad enhances pedagogy and eases the administrative tasks of teaching. With a variety of educational applications, or apps, ranging from math and engineering games to word puzzles, students of all ages can be engaged in a fun, hands-on learning experience. Even one of the iPad’s most popular games, Angry Birds, can have educational purposes, according to Koehler, with the goal of the game achieved through manipulating angles.

For the educator, the iPad also serves as a useful way to keep track of simple administrative tasks, such as taking attendance, recording student participation and creating seating charts. Apps such as Teacher Pal store all the information a teacher may need for the classroom. The convenience of having everything located in one place is an incentive for using the iPad, as Koehler has noted from personal experience.

Memorial Concert to Honor the Late Dr. Campbell

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – On Sunday, Oct. 23, the Illinois Wesleyan School of Music will hold a memorial concert for the late Dr. C. Lawrence Campbell, who served as a member of the Illinois Wesleyan faculty for 33 years.

The concert, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 11:30 a.m. in Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall (1210 Park St., Bloomington).

A professor of music, piano, piano pedagogy and literature, Dr. Campbell, a member of the Illinois Wesleyan faculty since 1978, held degrees from Northwestern University and Indiana University. A celebrated artist who held many distinctions, Dr. Campbell was named a winner or finalist in several national competitions, including the Chicago Young Artists’ Competition, the Allied Arts Piano Competition, the Talman Musical Arts Competition and the international auditions of the Artists’ Advisory Council. He was named to the Fern Rosetta Sherff Professorship in 1998, honoring his distinguished teaching, research and service to the University.

Scholars Traveling to Russia

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Illinois Wesleyan’s Isaac Funk Professor and Professor of Russian Studies Marina Balina, will lead a multi-disciplinary delegation of faculty members from Wesleyan, Illinois State and the University of Illinois on a weeklong conference to Russia, where they will discuss global children’s issues. The group leaves on Sept. 23 for Moscow and St. Petersburg for their second international colloquium with prominent Russian scholars.

The conference, titled “Transforming Childhood,” is the second organized by Balina, who has written extensively on Soviet-ear children’s literature and modern Russian life. The colloquium is supported, in part, through funds provided by the Funk Foundation endowed professorship she holds. This second gathering will build on the dialog that began in September 2010 when eight Russian scholars from several of that country’s most prominent institutions visited Illinois Wesleyan.

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