Category Archives: Students

Student Takes Seat on County Board

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University senior Scott Black was recently appointed to the McLean County Board, placing him in the rare position of being a college student and an elected official.

“I’ve always been passionate for serving the community and working with local issues,” said the political science major and history minor from Mt. Prospect, Ill. “After being approached by several community leaders asking me to consider running, I came to the conclusion that the County Board would be a perfect way for me to incorporate my passions.”

Black takes over the last year of the term held by Illinois Wesleyan Professor of Political Science Tari Renner, who resigned his seat after he moved from the county’s District 8. Black decided to apply for the open position that covers about 15,000 people on the northwest side of Bloomington. Unopposed for the seat, he was appointed in March.

With his appointment, Black will serve on the county Property Committee and Transportation Committee. He said he looks at the chance to serve as an incredible opportunity. “By working together, we can raise the standard of living for all the people in the community,” he said. “Government has the ability to bring people together and solve the problems that folks face on a daily basis.”

Junior Selected for Internship at National Opinion Research Center

March 31, 2010

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan junior Jennifer Biess has recently been selected as one of four undergraduate students to partake in the Summer Internship Program at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.

Biess, who is a double major in sociology and political science and a native of Villa Park, Ill., will participate in the nine-week internship beginning in June. Created for students with an interest in social science research, the program consists of 10 interns – four at the undergraduate level, four at the graduate level and two students from a university in South Korea with which NORC partners. Each intern is given an existing NORC project and is assigned to work on the earlier steps of a research project, such as questionnaire design, interviewer training and testing questionnaires. In addition to this individual assignment, the interns will work collectively on a project. The group is allowed to select their own topic and will complete the research project from beginning to end. Senior staff members at NORC will hold seminars once a week for the interns, discussing a topic of the staff member’s choice related to research methods.

Sociology classes at Illinois Wesleyan – such as Social Statistics and Methods of Social Research – use data collected by NORC. “For one of our students to be involved in this NORC project is great. She can connect what we discussed in the classroom to what really happens out there,” said Professor of Sociology Teodora Amoloza.

Chemistry Major to Present Research to Congress

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Scott Krabbe, a senior chemistry major from Kirkland, Ill., will present his work to members of Congress at the Posters on the Hill event in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research.

Posters on the Hill is an annual event created to give students the opportunity to share their research with members of Congress, other policy makers, and representatives of federal funding agencies to show the importance of funding for undergraduate research programs. Approximately 60 students are selected to participate each year with more than 400 applying.

Krabbe has been conducting research in the Laboratory for Environmentally Friendly Organic Synthesis under Illinois Wesleyan Professor of Chemistry Ram Mohan since the spring of his sophomore year.

Students to Help Georgia Flood Victims on Alternative Spring Break

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – On March 13, at 5:30 a.m. approximately 40 Illinois Wesleyan students and four faculty and staff members will embark on a weeklong volunteer trip to Atlanta, Ga., to help with disaster relief in the community. The students are part of Illinois Wesleyan University’s Alternative Spring Break (ASB), an organization created through the Student Volunteer Center to give students the opportunity for a non-traditional spring break vacation.

The ASB students will be assisting in disaster relief after the flooding that took place in Atlanta this past September.

Assistant Dean of Students Kevin Clark is the director of the Student Volunteer Center. According to Clark, “Students will be rebuilding homes but also working in the local community center and helping with job placement of those who were unable to find work after the disaster. All work will be done on a day-by-day basis and we will do whatever is needed.”

Wesleyana Memories to Return for New Generation

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – It has been a decade without seeing the smiling faces of Illinois Wesleyan University students gracing the pages of a yearbook. The last issue of the Wesleyana was printed in 2000, and then discontinued when no one stepped forward to take up the helm.

This year, the Wesleyana returns. The planned 160-page tome with its theme of “restart” is set to be printed in April, with sophomore Cameron Ohlendorf at the head. A business major from Beecher, Ill., Ohlendorf said he felt something was missing on campus without the Wesleyana. “Where is the history of what our classes are doing? There really isn’t one right now,” he said.

Sitting in the sparse Wesleyana office in the Memorial Center, Ohlendorf flops open a 1985 yearbook to answer the question of what inspired him to resurrect the publication. “Those are my parents,” he said, pointing to a smiling couple in the glossy pages. Greg and Melissa (Packard) Ohlendorf were both editors of the Wesleyana when they attended IWU. “They got me interested in yearbooks in high school, and when I got here I figured it was something I could restart,” said Ohlendorf, who notes his parents have been proud of his efforts.

Bulgarian Tradition Brings Hope for Spring

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Though Illinois Wesleyan University’s campus may not yet be covered in budding trees and flocking birds, students who are aware of the Bulgarian tradition of the martenitsa will be ready to embrace these signs of spring.

The martenitsa is a small piece of adornment made from yarn that is worn starting on March 1. This day marks the Bulgarian holiday Baba Marta, which means Grandmother March, and celebrates the beginning of the end of winter. Friends tie martenitsi to each others’ wrists while making wishes. Wearing it brings the hope that winter will pass quickly and that removing it will bring health and good luck. These martenitsi are red and white to symbolize blood and purity, which combined, mean health. They are worn until the first time an individual sees a stork, swallow or budding tree. When any of these symbols of spring are spotted, the owner of the martenitsa either ties it to the tree that they saw in bloom or puts the martenitsa under a stone in the area they saw the forementioned bird. This is symbolic of passing one’s own luck onto the surrounding nature.

Seniors Stefan Stoev and Teddy Petrova are both senior economics and finance double majors from Bulgaria; Stoev is from Plovdiv while Petrova is from Silistra. These Illinois Wesleyan students celebrate the coming of spring by bringing martenitsi to the campus.

IWU Sophomores Selected to Study at Oxford

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University sophomores Jennifer Ceisel and Amanda Williams have been selected to study at Oxford University through Illinois Wesleyan’s Pembroke Program. The two will study in England for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Ceisel, who is an international studies major with a double minor in economics and Spanish, will study in the Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) program. She will focus on politics.

Having family in England, Ceisel is especially enthused to study at Oxford University. “My Grandpapa went to Oxford for two years and studied PPE, but was drafted and never able to finish his degree. Needless to say, my entire family is excited. I can’t wait to spend the holidays in England with them,” said the Chicago native.

Williams, who is an English literature and theatre arts double major, will study English literature while at Pembroke. Acceptance into the Pembroke Program is something she has been working toward since her first year at IWU. “It’s been a dream of mine for a long time and the realization of that dream is one of the most rewarding feelings I’ve experienced in my life. It’s an absolute honor to be accepted to study at Oxford and will no doubt be a life-changing experience!” said the native of Alhambra, Ill.

The Argus Honored by Illinois College Press Association

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University’s student-run newspaper, The Argus, garnered 11 awards at the recent Illinois College Press Association (ICPA) convention in Chicago.

The Illinois College Press Association serves 40 member schools and honors the work of student journalists whose newspapers are members of the ICPA. Entries to the annual ICPA Contest are judged by professional journalists. The students earned awards for the 2009 issues of The Argus.

“We made a lot of changes to the newspaper last year,” said junior Nicole Travis from St. Charles, Ill., who was news editor in 2009, and is currently editor-in-chief of The Argus. Under then-Editor-in-Chief Garrett Rapp, a senior from Harvard, Ill., and Managing Editor Laura Spradlin, a senior from Morton, Ill., The Argus changed size, added color and poured focus into the content, said Travis. “Getting the recognition for all that work meant a lot to us,” she added.

Action Research Center Initiative Wins $100,000 Grant

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A new joint initiative from Illinois Wesleyan University’s Action Research Center (ARC) has received a nearly $100,000 grant from the State Farm® Youth Advisory Board (YAB). The grant was announced Monday in Hansen Student Center on campus.

The Blank Canvas Program, an effort of ARC and Illinois State University’s College of Fine Arts (ISU), aims to cultivate the creativity of low-income, minority youth in Bloomington-Normal to help communicate the challenges they face in thinking about college, said co-creator of the program Deborah Halperin. “This project put the question to the very people targeted, ‘What would you do if you were in charge?’” said Halperin.

The grant is part of the $1 million the YAB is giving away this year nationally aimed toward closing the achievement gap in higher education. Over the past two years, the board has granted $12 million to service-learning projects across the United States and Canada, but this is the first to be awarded in McLean County.

Illinois Wesleyan University sophomore Karin Unruh is a member of YAB, which is comprised of only 30 students, ages 17 to 20, from across the nation. “It will be exciting and rewarding to personally experience the results this grant will have on our local community,” said Unruh, an elementary education and sociology double major from Algonquin, Ill.

Blank Canvas is the brainchild of Halperin and Dick Folse, an Illinois Wesleyan graduate who works for ISU’s College of Fine Arts. “The idea is to show the value of college and the college experience and expose young people to the arts,” he said. The grant provides four new computers with state-of-the-art design software, digital cameras and color printers to three community partners: the Jesus House, Western Avenue Community Center and UNITY Community Center.

International Students Help Peers in China Discover Their Passions

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University sophomore Li Haoda spent the first 10 years of his life in a small village in China before he moved to a nearby city of Guangzhou. Years later, when he returned to visit to the rural village, he realized his childhood friends had few educational opportunities.

“The people I went to school with [when I was very young] were just as smart as I was, but about one in five of them dropped out of school,” said Li. “The rural schools just did not have the opportunities that were available in the city.”

The disparity of educational opportunities spurred Li to join the Peer Experience Exchange Rostrum (PEER), a not-for-profit organization geared toward bringing educational equality to China. The group recruits Chinese students studying abroad to volunteer at summer tutoring camps for students in rural, impoverished areas of China.

“We dedicated ourselves to a seemingly impossible mission: to provide resources for disadvantaged children in China, supporting their continued education to change their lives,” said Li, who joined PEER in 2008 when the organization only had 10 volunteers. “We faced obstacles in our work, such as enduring an eight-hour bus ride to a remote rural school, and coordinating multi-national volunteers in nine-hour online meetings, but with each minute devoted to my work, I better prepare volunteers, thereby helping the poor students gain more from our summer camps.”

Now in is third year with the group, Li became executive director last year. “When you create opportunity, people can discover their passions,” said Li, an Illinois Wesleyan sophomore with a double major in political science and economics. “That works both for those getting help, and the volunteers providing it. People can have a passion, but no opportunity. This is an opportunity.”

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