Category Archives: Faculty

Professor Honored by Choral Association

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University Assistant Professor of Music Brian Russell was recently awarded the American Choral Directors Association’s (ACDA) Julius Herford Prize for his dissertation titled “The Psalm Settings of Telemann: A Study in Performance Practice with Critical Editions of Seven Psalms for SATB Voices and Orchestra.”

Nominations for this award are accepted annually for doctoral recipients who procured their degree in the year prior to their nomination. The winner is someone whose dissertation, document, thesis, or treatise can be considered to be an “outstanding doctoral terminal research project in choral music,” according to the Julius Herford Prize Subcommittee of the ACDA.

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Retirees Coffee Club Revisits Wesleyan of Yesteryear

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – On a snow-covered morning, a group gathered at Illinois Wesleyan University’s Hansen Student Center. They gravitated toward a large, round table in the middle of Centre Court, with steaming cups of coffee in hand. Those seated around the table collectively represented nearly 260 years of dedication to Illinois Wesleyan. Known simply as the Retirees Coffee Club, they are individuals who have helped shape the University.

“We sit here and solve all the world’s problems,” joked Jim Routi ’63, who retired as dean of university admissions in 2003 after 40 years of working at IWU. “Really though, this gives us a chance to get together and talk.”

The Retirees Coffee Club meets every Wednesday at Hansen. The only requirement to sit at the table is to have retired from Illinois Wesleyan, though longtime friends are always welcome. The number of people who attend varies from week to week, however that day, eight braved the cold. Over the music humming on the sound system and the whirl of the espresso machine at Hattie’s, snipits of conversation were caught that ranged from travel plans to the new health-care legislation.

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Professor Awarded Nurse Educator Fellowship

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University’s Assistant Professor of Nursing Susan L. Swanlund has been awarded a State of Illinois Nurse Educator Fellowship from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

The purpose of the Nurse Educator Fellowship Program is to ensure the retention of well-qualified nursing faculty at institutions of higher learning that award degrees in nursing.

Swanlund received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Illinois Wesleyan in 1980. She went on to earn a master’s in nursing at Texas Woman’s University in 1988, and a doctorate in nursing at Saint Louis University in 1998. Before joining the Illinois Wesleyan faculty in 1995, Swanlund taught at the Mennonite College of Nursing in Bloomington, where she received the Dr. Kathleen A. Hogan Teaching Excellence Award. She also has experience as a staff nurse at the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis; in the operating room and post-anesthesia recovery room at Brokaw Hospital in Normal; and at Baylor University Center in Dallas. Swanlund later was operating room supervisor and then director of the Cataract Surgery Center in Dallas.

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Professor’s Book Takes Insight From What Lincoln Read

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Historians often recount President Abraham Lincoln’s avid love of learning. The image of a young Lincoln reading late into the night by the dying embers of the fireplace has become an iconic part of Lincoln lore.

Illinois Wesleyan University faculty member Robert Bray is shedding new light on that firelight image of Lincoln. Bray, who is the R. Forrest Colwell Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan, examines the books Lincoln read, and how those books reflect his thoughts and influences in Reading with Lincoln (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010).

“I like to think of it as looking over Lincoln’s shoulder while he’s reading,” said Bray, who tied the materials Lincoln read to his speeches, writing and political policies.

Bray delved into the world of Lincoln to research the book, reviewing everything from letters he composed for illiterate friends, to books, pamphlets, poetry, plays and essays to which Lincoln was exposed.  He spent a year compiling and reviewing materials in places such as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and Huntington Library in Pasadena, Calif. “I tried to find the editions that would have been available to him,” said Bray. “Not all editions are the same. You find some very interesting things in older editions that are not reflected in contemporary ones.”

Lincoln scholars are praising Bray’s book. According to William Lee Miller, author of President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, “Robert Bray has not only discovered every book and text and poem and treatise and humorous sketch and Shakespeare play that Lincoln read; he has also read them himself, and he takes the reader inside those readings—and therefore inside Lincoln’s mind—in this excellent book.”

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Professor of Physics Wins Award to Study Astronomer’s Life

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University Professor of Physics Linda French has been named a winner of the 2010 Herbert C. Pollock Award for her efforts to bring attention to the extraordinary life and work of 18th-century deaf astronomer John Goodricke.

The Herbert C. Pollock Award, bestowed by the Dudley Observatory in New York, provides encouragement and support for an innovative project in the history of astronomy or astrophysics. French won the award with her paper titled, “Hearing with the Eye: The Astronomical Education of John Goodricke.”

French, who has been a member of the Illinois Wesleyan faculty since 2002, is known for her work in astronomy, and is often invited to the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory near La Serena, Chile, to study asteroids. She became intrigued by the amateur astronomer Goodricke, who died in 1784 at the age of 22 of pneumonia.

“I’ve always been curious about him,” said French. “How did he live? How did he get interested in astronomy? How did he do his observations?” According to French, Goodricke and his neighbor Edward Pigott discovered and measured the period of variation of stars by observing in the skies above their homes in York, England. “These stars are terribly important in modern astronomy,” said French.

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Professor’s Book Explores Debate Over Genetically Modified Foods

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – In the 1970s, scientists worked out how to move genes across species. The world buzzed with possibilities for recombinant DNA. This breakthrough led agricultural scientists to eventually develop genetically modified (GM) seeds in the 1990s, which was hailed as a potential step to ending hunger by creating plants that might withstand adverse weather. Soon after, however, widespread protests of “Frankenfoods” emerged, along with a highly political debate about genetically modified organisms (GMO) that continues today.

In his new book, Fighting for the Future of Food: Activists versus Agribusiness in the Struggle over Biotechnology (University Of Minnesota Press, 2010), Illinois Wesleyan Professor of Political Studies William Munro has joined Rachel Schurman of the University of Minnesota to explore the debate over genetically modified seeds.

According to Munro, the main focus of the books is to “go beyond labels” of those involved in the debate. “These are two different adversaries from two different life worlds,” he said. “They did not and do not meet and speak to each other. I think the two sides would get better traction with one another if they understood each other, rather than label one another.”

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Stroyan Named as Candidate for ALA Presidency

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University Information Services Librarian Susan Stroyan has been named as one of two candidates for the 2012-13 presidency of the American Library Association (ALA).

Founded in 1876, the ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with members in academic, public, school, government and special libraries. It serves the more than 122,000 libraries in the United States, working to strengthen libraries, the profession, and the public’s access to information.

“I am honored, humbled, and excited at the possible opportunity to serve ALA as President,” said Stroyan. “I’m inspired by our colleagues around the country that have achieved high levels of success by leading their communities to new heights of library awareness in these difficult economic times.”

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International Colloquium Bridges Cultures

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – An idea knows no language. A thought does bend to borders or nations. Yet to share ideas, we must work to transcend such human challenges as location and language. This sharing of ideas was the aim of an international colloquium last week on the campus of Illinois Wesleyan University.  A group of scholars journeyed 5,000 miles from the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU) in Moscow to Bloomington to work together at a colloquium titled, “Childhood and Globalization.”

“We all share a common goal, to understand and describe both our diverse history and the current realities of the childhood experience in a rapidly changing, global existence,” said Illinois Wesleyan’s Isaac Funk Professor of Russian Studies Marina Balina. “Our colloquium provided those colloquium participants and our audience participating with a unique opportunity for the immediate exchange of ideas on this important subject.”

It was Balina’s works that planted the seed for the colloquium. An academic author of books and articles on childhood in the Soviet Union, her publications are printed in English, German, Italian and Russian. It was while working in Germany that Russian scholar Professor Vitaly Bezrogov became familiar with (discovered) Balina’s book on children’s literature that was published by Routledge Press in English.

“I ‘knew her’ through her publications on life-writing genres many years before I met her,” said Bezrogov, who is studying the nuances of textbooks and readers designed for schoolchildren. “We began to actively correspond in late 2007, but did not have a chance to meet until 2009.” The two met face-to-face when Bezrogov invited Balina to an interdisciplinary conference in Moscow. It was there they decided they wanted to bring scholars to Illinois Wesleyan with the aim of exchanging ideas on childhood.

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Jazz Band Alumni Celebrate 40 Years of Swing

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The 2010 Homecoming at Illinois Wesleyan University is called Homecoming and All That Jazz for a reason. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Illinois Wesleyan School of Music’s Jazz Program, and part of the events will include the kickoff of the 2010-2011 tribute to the program in honor of the man who founded it, Professor Tom Streeter.  This year marks a double celebration as Streeter, who founded the Jazz Program at IWU in 1971, plans to retire at the end of the academic year.

Celebrations will begin with a Jazz Bands Reunion concert on Friday, Oct. 8 at 9 p.m. in Hansen Student Center (300 E. Beecher St., Bloomington), led by Professor of Music Tom Streeter. “We’ll have four bands, with former students from each of the four decades performing. Dancing is definitely encouraged,” said Streeter.

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Homecoming Highlights Include 40th Anniversary of Observatory

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – At this year’s Illinois Wesleyan University Homecoming alumni will gather to mark the 40th anniversary of students peering toward the heavens from the Mark Evans Observatory. Tours of the observatory will be from 9-11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 9, with a reception at 4:30 p.m. in the Commons of the Center for Natural Science Learning and Research (CNS) (201 E. Beecher St., Bloomington).

When it was completed in 1970, the Mark Evans Observatory – like space exploration itself – offered hope in a turbulent time. Even the building of the observatory brought excitement to campus. In March of 1969, Col. Frank Borman, commander of the Apollo 8 space mission, arrived on campus for Founders’ Day to lay the cornerstone of the observatory and receive an honorary degree.

“He piloted his own jet into Bloomington,” then-University President Robert S. Eckley recalled in his memoir, Pictures at an Exhibition: Illinois Wesleyan University: 1968-1986. “He generated more interest and excitement than any other visitor to the campus during my years at Wesleyan.” Though he was not the main speaker for Founders’ Day, Eckley noted that Borman, “captivated the audience and the campus,” by offering a message of hope during a time when racial tension and war gripped the nation. “For a man who just returned from circling the moon, nothing was impossible,” wrote Eckley.

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