Category Archives: Speakers

From Dante to Hogwarts: IWU to host MUSE Undergraduate Literature Conference

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University will offer 35 students from 19 academic institutions the opportunity to present undergraduate work in literature during the third annual MUSE Undergraduate Literature Conference on Saturday, Oct. 6, with registration beginning at 8 a.m. and the first of three sessions to begin at 9:00 a.m. in the Center for Natural Science (CNS) (201 Beecher St., Bloomington).Wendy Wall, chair of Northwestern University’s Department of English, will deliver the keynote address titled “At Home with Shakespeare” at 12:30 p.m. in CNS E101.

The conference, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by IWU’s Alpha Eta Pi chapter of the international English honor society Sigma Tau Delta (STD) with the assistance of Illinois State University’s Lambda Delta chapter of STD and IWU’s Department of English.

Expanding significantly after its first two years, MUSE features students from IWU and ISU in addition to students from as near as Knox College and St. Francis University to as far away as the University of Pittsburg and the University of Montenegro.

Students will present works of literary analysis and criticism at MUSE that range from classic (“‘Stolen Rolls’ and Different Souls: An Examination of Plato’s Theory of Forms in the Lives of Levin and Oblonsky”) to contemporary (“What’s Wrong With Hogwarts?”) to seemingly bizarre (“‘A Backward Glance’ at The House of Mirth: How Future-consciousness is Necessary for the Creation of Fictional Memory”).

The conference will also feature a panel devoted to post-graduation options for literature students, including information on professional and graduate school opportunities, as well as careers in education.

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Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Addresses Convocation

BLOOMINGTON, Ill., – Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder asked Illinois Wesleyan University students to be more inspired than he was in his youth.

“Now, I’m 61, it’s too late for me,” joked Kidder, addressing the IWU President’s Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 26, in a speech punctuated with humor and a message – do what you love and use it to change the world. “For most of you the question of what you’re going to do with your lives has not been answered, though it is the one question you cannot stop asking yourself.”

Hear the address.

Kidder’s speech, titled “One Way to Live a Meaningful Life,” followed the subject of his novel Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Could Cure the World. The book was the focus of Illinois Wesleyan’s 2007 Summer Reading Program, which all first-year students were assigned.

“Dr. Farmer’s message, it would seem to me, is a plea that we pay attention to the world as it really is,” said Kidder, who followed Farmer for several months as the world-renown physician worked tirelessly to fight illness and establish “poverty with dignity” for people in Haiti, Moscow and Peru with clean water, livable housing and medical attention. “If we see a bag lady or a drunk sleeping in a doorway, our first reaction is to get as far away from them as we can,” said Kidder. “Farmer’s message is don’t do that. Don’t join what seems to be America’s collective amnesia to human suffering.”

Telling stories of Farmer’s adventures, Kidder spoke of his eclectic upbringing, his days among the wealthy at Duke University and his struggles to create Partners In Health, a not-for-profit organization. Contending that Farmer, with his boundless energy and determination, is unique, Kidder still believes he is an inspiration to guide students not to “forget the forgotten people” of the world.

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TV Anchor, Alumna Addresses Commencement

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Award-winning television reporter and Illinois Wesleyan alumna Demetria Kalodimos urged graduates to “question everything” in her speech at the University’s 157th Commencement ceremony Sunday, May 6 on the Eckley Quadrangle.

“Question everything until you are satisfied that your truth has been revealed,” said Kalodimos speaking to the 518 graduates amid the brisk breeze that swept the Quad. “Question everything until you know where you need to go, and how best to get there. Question everything. Then do the work and put in the time to find the answers.” Read her speech.

Kalodimos encouraged students to take an active role in their future. “Write the first draft of your story after Illinois Wesleyan,” said Kalodimos, who graduated from Illinois Wesleyan in 1981 with a degree in music education, then went on to earn a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A news anchor at WSMV in Nashville, Tenn., Kalodimos has been awarded 15 Emmy awards, two National Headliner awards, the Investigative Reporters and Editors National Award, and a national citation from American Women in Radio and Television, Inc. She recently won an award from the Society of Environmental Journalists and was chosen the 1996 Tennessee Associated Press Broadcaster of the Year.

“You know, in all my years of news reporting, I’ve been exposed to some bad guys, been caught in a shoot-out, talked face-to-face with a serial killer, even witnessed the Olympic bombing. But I have to tell you, nothing tops a commencement speech for pressure,” said Kalodimos in her often humorous remarks that looked back on her days on the Illinois Wesleyan campus 26 years ago. Her main message, however, spurred graduates to pursue the questions that face them. “If we’re persistent, focused and a little lucky, our questions lead to answers, and action,” she said.

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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.”

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