BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Biking 4,000 miles across the United States in just three months may seem like a grueling task for most – a task possibly accompanied by dangerous weather conditions, rugged back-roads, and pure exhaustion. As rigorous of a journey as this may be, there are those few strong-willed and committed souls who attempt and succeed at this challenge.

Vadim Kogan and Michael Henry, both members of Illinois Wesleyan University’s Class of 2012, attempted this endeavor. This summer they participated in “Ride Against AIDS,” a cross-country bike ride for the organization FACE AIDS. Beginning in June, Kogan and Henry started their cross-country bike ride in Half Moon Bay, Calif., and completed their trip in Boston, Mass. in August.

FACE AIDS, an organization founded at Stanford University in 2005, “is a student movement geared towards fighting HIV/AIDS and global health inequality,” said Henry. The “Ride Against AIDS,” now in its fourth year running, is meant to raise not only funds, but also awareness about the FACE AIDS organization. “We raised over $50,000,” said Kogan. “Individually the riders came up with $26,000. Along the trip we raised about $3,000 and there was an anonymous donation of around $22,000 once we got to Boston.”

Accompanied by four other riders, Kogan and Henry’s 67-day journey consisted of stops in 20 states and 53 different towns. “We had around 35 host families,” Henry said. “So there were 47 days where we had a roof to stay under.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Five Illinois Wesleyan students will run the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Sunday, October 9 in order to raise money for the charity Casa de los Angeles.

Janette Abbasi and David Dimas of Chicago, Melissa Ramirez of Los Angeles, Vanessa Rodriguez of Round Lake Beach, Ill. and Jairo Rosales of Melrose Park, Ill., all class of 2014, are members of Illinois Wesleyan’s Spanish and Latino Student Association (SALSA), a campus organization dedicated to promoting and celebrating Latin American culture, heritage and diversity. The students chose to run with Casa de los Angeles, a daycare, community center, transitional housing and medical clinic program in the city of San Miguel de Allende, because of its specific focus on the Latino community.

According to Kevin O’Donnell, coordinator for the Marathon’s Team Casa, Casa de los Angeles is one of only two or three Marathon charities working in Mexico. “Many of our volunteers are college students who come to Mexico for a winter, spring or summer break and take advantage of the experience as a language or cultural immersion,” he said. “I think one of the great benefits students glean from involvement with Casa particularly is insight into a meaningful response to poverty.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – When Meagan DeSalvo ’15 fell in love with Illinois Wesleyan University on a campus tour during high school, she had no idea her brothers Matt and Don, ’15, would follow suit.

Call it serendipity: On August 22, all three DeSalvo siblings will begin their college careers at Illinois Wesleyan—an outcome they attribute almost entirely to coincidence.

“It took my brothers a long time to even consider IWU,” said Meagan, who applied to two other universities but had “no intention” of attending any school other than Illinois Wesleyan. “I made my decision by myself, without anyone else’s influence. We never really thought we would end up at the same school; it just kind of happened.”

Don, who during his college search focused on schools that could provide him with a quality education and place him well in the job market, shares the sentiment.  Although he admits Meagan originally introduced him to Illinois Wesleyan, Don’s “final decision came down to the fact that I could envision myself at IWU,” he said. “I felt like it was where I belonged as well as where I could get the best education. I am still surprised we all ended up going to the same school, because we definitely didn’t choose to go to college together.”

Matt also applied to a few other liberal arts colleges besides Illinois Wesleyan, but was ultimately attracted to the family-like campus community as well as the warm welcome he received from members of the IWU cross country team. “At first I looked at bigger schools, but later in my search I became more interested in smaller schools that offered individual attention from professors,” he said.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – “Experience an earthquake” was not on the list of things Joe Daniels ’13 was looking forward to when he planned to spend spring semester of his sophomore year in Christchurch, New Zealand.

But as many members of the Illinois Wesleyan community know, studying abroad can be full of surprises.

“It was going to be a whole different experience,” said the Brookfield, Ill. native, who arrived in Christchurch on February 10 to study through the Institute for the International Education of Students (IES) at the University of Canterbury. “The earthquake pretty much changed everything for me.”

On February 22 at 12:51 p.m., Daniels was packing up after class in a second-floor lecture hall in the University’s forestry building. “The room just started to shake all of a sudden,” he said. “It started as a little shudder, then quickly escalated into something that moved the room what seemed meters side to side and up and down, all pretty violently. It was honestly probably one of the strangest things I’ve ever felt—like one of those 3-D movie rides where the seats move with the movie, mixed with bad airplane turbulence.”

Daniels was experiencing a 6.3-magnitude earthquake centered only 9 kilometers from the city, which between destructive aftershocks and the damage caused by the quake itself killed nearly 200 people, according to stuff.co.nz. “I can’t recall how it sounded,” said Daniels, noting the city center is still cordoned off nearly six months later. “But a friend in the same room said you could hear the building groan with the shaking.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Since 2006, there have been nearly a thousand foreclosures in McLean County.

A new study by Illinois Wesleyan University student Jake Mann and Associate Professor of Economics Diego Mendez-Carbajo is helping government officials understand more about the impact of those foreclosures.

Mendez-Carbajo and Mann, a senior economics major from Jacksonville, Ill., spent three months compiling data from the county recorder’s office on foreclosures and lis pendens – pending foreclosures in the court system that result after an owner is delinquent on mortgage payments for 90 days. Mann said he hopes the study will “provide a deeper understanding of complexities of the local housing market.”

The information is being utilized by the Town of Normal, which will use the data to generate a report on area trends in foreclosures. “We have been aware of foreclosures on a national level, but have not had the staff or the time to invest in a study on the local level,” said Geoff Fruin, assistant city manager for the Town of Normal. “This will give us a better understanding of how housing market has changed over the past few years.” The results of the collaborative effort are expected in September.

For the study, Mann collected data from more than 2,000 local families and individuals who have gone through the foreclosure system over the past five years. Fruin is working with Mendez-Carbajo and Mann to plug the data into software to examine foreclosures throughout the county. “They did the hard part by gathering the raw data,” said Fruin. “With our tools, we can use that data to see how foreclosures are spatially moving across the county.”

Mendez-Carbajo is pleased Normal officials will use the information to track the geographical trends of foreclosures. “People are aware of foreclosures in the county, but this can provide them a more comprehensive look at the data, and may help them develop a plan of action,” he said.

Mann’s data gathering began as part of Mendez-Carbajo’s Time Series Analysis class, which teaches students to look for trends in data. “We study anything from unemployment rates to crime statistics to health department scores for restaurants,” said Mendez-Carbajo. “The key is to engage students with data in a meaningful way.”

After taking a spring class, which focused on the real estate market, Mann continued his work with Mendez-Carbajo through an independent study funded by a grant from IWU’s Action Research Center (ARC). “Through the grants, ARC has found a new way to be a resource for the campus and the community,” said ARC Program Coordinator Deborah Halperin. “The city, the town and the county, as well as local banks and the revitalization project on the west side of Bloomington, all have an interest in Jake’s research.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Sameehan Patel ’12 is all too accustomed to the reaction when he tells people he is studying both fine arts and biology at Illinois Wesleyan University: “Theatre and science?  Why put yourself through all that pain?”

But for Patel, a theatre major working towards completing Illinois Wesleyan’s pre-dentistry program, combining the two seemingly contrasting disciplines isn’t about pain—it’s about passion.

“Ultimately I think of every class as a series of questions,” explained the Niles, Ill. native. “When I’m in a theatre class understanding a play, I’m exploring why we exist and how we relate to one another.  When I’m in a biology class understanding a natural phenomenon, I’m exploring how we exist and why we relate to each other.  While they’re extremely different in their methods, fundamentally I see both theatre and science as parts of a human investigation.”

The perception of theatre and science as complementary pieces of a larger whole is one Patel shares with Delta Dental Health Theatre (DDHT) in St. Louis, Mo., where he is spending his summer as an intern acting, organizing, writing and developing science and theatre programs.  At DDHT, staff members strive to promote good oral health and overall healthy life habits by designing interactive presentations, exhibits and performances with the goal of raising awareness and combating two of the most common diseases affecting American children today: tooth decay and obesity.

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