Centennial Honors College - Western Illinois University Oct 10.pdffessor of the Year for Doc-toral...
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a slowdown in services and deteriorating infrastructure. It is easy to blame elected and appointed officials, but it just might be that we have not been giving enough at- tention to learning about and responding to everyday legislative and executive ac- tion. Now that the distract- ing start of the new academic year is over, it might be very good to study current affairs, vote in November, stay tuned to the public trust, and e-mail the servants of the people when laws and regulations are under consid- eration. In the end, we do a disservice to ourselves, no matter how many hours we work, if we do not accept and respond to the chal- lenges of our political system in some way each day. Often people—especially professional people and students—make a point of saying how many hours a week they work. Forty hours? No way. Try 60, 70, and even 80! Given that a week has 168, some folks, by their reckoning, leave only about 88 hours for every- thing else that goes into life. If this overworked popula- tion sleeps just 6 hours a night, that leaves 46 hours. Two hours for three daily rushed meals leaves just 32. An hour a day walking or hitting the gym leaves 25, or about 3.5 hours for distinc- tively human daily behavior, including having relation- ships, taking care of our stuff, practicing personal hygiene, hanging out with our friends, pets, avatars. . .and reading for pleasure, visiting an art exhibition or a live musical performance, or otherwise nurturing our human spirit. It seems strange how many brag or complain about how long they work, yet never mention even an hour a week they spend being citizens. It seems that over the last gen- eration, in particular, partici- patory democracy has suf- fered in direct proportion to the time we spend on the job. One might ask ques- tions about the problems we are currently experiencing with state and federal govern- ment, with deficits, and with Director’s Note Centennial Honors College September/October 2010 Volume 13, Issue 1 Welcoming a new Associate Director, Cindy Struthers Dr. Struthers completed her B.A. (1988), M.A. (1991), and Ph.D. (1999) in Sociology at Michigan State University, East Lans- ing, Michigan. She ac- cepted her faculty position with Western Illinois Uni- versity on the same day she successfully defended her doctoral dissertation. She is an Associate Professor with the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs where she manages the Health and Housing Program. That position requires an aware- ness of issues of health access and housing in rural Illinois as well as conduct- ing research and helping rural communities better understand their health and housing needs. She is also an adjunct faculty member to the Depart- ment of Sociology and Anthropology where she regularly teaches courses in Community, Family, and Women and Poverty. She has a sincere interest in improving the lives of women, immigrants, and preserving rural communi- ties. In August 2010, she became the Associate Di- rector of the Centennial Honors College. Her pri- mary duties are to work with students in the Stu- dent Honors Association (SHA) and publishing the Honors College Newslet- ter. She plans to develop new honors courses that incorporate service learn- ing and offer opportunities to students to engage in community-based research projects. Dr. Struthers lives with her husband in Carthage, Illinois. They have two grown children. She is the President of the Board for the Samaritan Well which provides shel- ter to homeless men, women and their chil- dren. She is a member of University Women and participates in the Litera- ture and Discussion group. She isn’t a gar- dener per se but more of a flower planter. She is a regular reader of The Chronicle of Higher Educa- tion and is a huge fan of the ProfHacker column. ProfHacker has helped her get more use and fun out of her I Pad. She is an avid walker and can fre- quently be seen around Carthage walking her two dogs. Inside this issue: Around Campus 2 Honors Faculty Recognition 2 Honors College Orientation 3 Honors Students Off Campus 3 Semester at Sea 4
Transcript of Centennial Honors College - Western Illinois University Oct 10.pdffessor of the Year for Doc-toral...
a slowdown in services and deteriorating infrastructure. It is easy to blame elected and appointed officials, but it just might be that we have not been giving enough at-tention to learning about and responding to everyday legislative and executive ac-tion. Now that the distract-ing start of the new academic year is over, it might be very good to study current affairs, vote in November, stay tuned to the public trust, and e-mail the servants of the people when laws and regulations are under consid-eration. In the end, we do a disservice to ourselves, no matter how many hours we work, if we do not accept and respond to the chal-lenges of our political system in some way each day.
Often people—especially professional people and students—make a point of saying how many hours a week they work. Forty hours? No way. Try 60, 70, and even 80! Given that a week has 168, some folks, by their reckoning, leave only about 88 hours for every-thing else that goes into life. If this overworked popula-tion sleeps just 6 hours a night, that leaves 46 hours. Two hours for three daily rushed meals leaves just 32. An hour a day walking or hitting the gym leaves 25, or
about 3.5 hours for distinc-tively human daily behavior, including having relation-ships, taking care of our stuff, practicing personal hygiene, hanging out with our friends, pets, avatars. . .and reading for pleasure, visiting an art exhibition or a live musical performance, or otherwise nurturing our human spirit.
It seems strange how many brag or complain about how long they work, yet never mention even an hour a week they spend being citizens. It seems that over the last gen-eration, in particular, partici-patory democracy has suf-fered in direct proportion to the time we spend on the job. One might ask ques-tions about the problems we are currently experiencing with state and federal govern-ment, with deficits, and with
Director’s Note
Centennial Honors College September/October 2010 Volume 13, Issue 1
Welcoming a new Associate Director, Cindy Struthers
Dr. Struthers completed her B.A. (1988), M.A. (1991), and Ph.D. (1999) in Sociology at Michigan State University, East Lans-ing, Michigan. She ac-cepted her faculty position with Western Illinois Uni-versity on the same day she successfully defended her doctoral dissertation. She is an Associate Professor with the Illinois Institute
for Rural Affairs where she manages the Health and Housing Program. That position requires an aware-ness of issues of health access and housing in rural Illinois as well as conduct-ing research and helping rural communities better understand their health and housing needs. She is also an adjunct faculty member to the Depart-ment of Sociology and Anthropology where she regularly teaches courses in Community, Family, and Women and Poverty. She has a sincere interest in improving the lives of women, immigrants, and preserving rural communi-
ties. In August 2010, she became the Associate Di-rector of the Centennial Honors College. Her pri-mary duties are to work with students in the Stu-dent Honors Association (SHA) and publishing the Honors College Newslet-ter. She plans to develop new honors courses that incorporate service learn-ing and offer opportunities to students to engage in community-based research projects. Dr. Struthers lives with her husband in Carthage, Illinois. They have two grown children. She is the President of the Board for the Samaritan
Well which provides shel-ter to homeless men, women and their chil-dren. She is a member of University Women and participates in the Litera-ture and Discussion group. She isn’t a gar-dener per se but more of a flower planter. She is a regular reader of The Chronicle of Higher Educa-tion and is a huge fan of the ProfHacker column. ProfHacker has helped her get more use and fun out of her I Pad. She is an avid walker and can fre-quently be seen around Carthage walking her two dogs.
Inside this issue:
Around Campus 2
Honors Faculty
Recognition 2
Honors College
Orientation 3
Honors Students
Off Campus 3
Semester at Sea 4
Dr. McNabb received the Provost’s Award for Excel-lence in Teaching. Dr. Rahman received the Pro-vost’s Award for Excellence in Internationalizing the Campus.
Drs. Rahman and McNabb teach Honors courses and participate in numerous
The Centennial Honors College would like to recog-nize and congratulate Jenni-fer McNabb, Associate Pro-fessor of History and Shazia Rahman, Associate Profes-sor of the English and Jour-nalism Department for re-ceiving 2009 Provost of Excellence Awards.
activities on and around campus.
Though the Provost’s Awards for Excellence were made last fall, Drs. Rahman and McNabb were recog-nized for their achieve-ments at the 17th Annual Founder’s Day Celebration on September 23, 2010.
Around Campus
Honors Faculty Recognition
On October 25 at 7:00pm in the University Union Grand Ballroom, Michael Wesch, a cultural anthro-pologist, dubbed “the ex-plainer” by Wired Magazine, will be exploring the effects of new media on society and culture. After two years of studying the impli-cations of writing on a re-mote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, Dr. Wesch turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society. His videos on cul-ture, technology, education,
and information have been viewed by millions, trans-lated in over 15 languages, and are frequently featured at international film festi-vals and major academic conferences worldwide.
He has won several major awards for his work, includ-ing Wired Magazine’s Rave Award, the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis Media Ecology, and he was recently named an Emerging Explorer by Na-tional Geographic. He has also won several teaching awards, including the 2008 CASE Carnegie U.S. Pro-
fessor of the Year for Doc-toral and Research Univer-sities.
For more information about the University Theme “Teaching and Learning in a New Era” contact Colin Harbke, 309-298-1206, or [email protected].
Contact Cindy Struthers, Associate Director of the Honors College, if you are interested in getting a group of honors students together to attend this event, 309-298-2228, or [email protected].
Page 2 Centennial Honors College
"I feel that you are justified in looking into the future with true assurance, because you have a mode of living in which we find the joy of
life and the joy or work harmoniously combined." Albert Einstein
Michael Wesch
Shazia Rahman
Jennifer McNabb
On August 24, the Centennial Honors College welcomed new honors students, returning hon-ors students, honors faculty, uni-versity administrators and honors council members to Western Illi-nois University and the Honors College for a brief introduction to the honors program and staff. The Honors Orientation was held in the Honors College and the Garden Lounge area of the Malpass Library. Honors Orien-tation was the perfect opportu-nity to meet other honors stu-dents, reconnect with friends, eat, and play games. Well over 120 students and faculty attended the event.
sparked this opportu-nity. To top it off, one of our honors students, Steve Solomon, was the house pianist. Steve, a member of the Jazz Studio Orchestra and the jazz combo pro-gram at Western, was ex-cited to perform there, not-ing the pleasure of making music with the Italian guest artists, as well as playing on
What does the COFAC Recital Hall and Carnegie Hall in New York have in common? Well, the Jazz Studio Orchestra of WIU has had the opportunity to play in both, specifically Carnegie Hall this past May. A collaboration with conductor Marco Renzi and clarinetist Bepi D'Amoto from the Italian Big Band
the concert hall's historic Steinway piano. He en-joyed New York but still prefers living in his home town of Chicago. "New York is a hip, bustling place, and is definitely the city that never sleeps," he says. "But I like sleep."
Honors College Orientation
Honors Students Off Campus
Page 3 Volume 13, Issue 1
Top Left: Director Bill Knox welcomes students to WIU and introduces the Honors Col-
lege Staff Top Right: Competitive “Apples to Apples” Bottom Left: University President
Alvin Goldfarb addresses the crowd Bottom Right: Provost Jack Thomas welcomes stu-
dents to the University and the Honors College
Steve Solomon
Overall, this experience is very unique from other study abroad programs. You get to visit
eight different countries and live on a ship for a few months. I highly recommend Semes-
ter at Sea to anyone, I learned an unbelievable amount of knowledge and had fun at the
same time! Your global perspective will change forever.—Britney Palmer
WESTERN
ILLINOIS
UNIVERSITY
Centennial Honors College
Malpass Lilbrary
1 University Circle
Macomb, IL 61455
Phone: 309-298-2228
E-mail: [email protected]
"The beginning is always today." -- Mary Wollstonecraf
Study Abroad: Semester At Sea
Top Left: Barcelona, Spain: A group of us posing in front of the ship before exploring Barcelona.
Top Right: Dubrovnik, Croatia: The panoramic view of the bridge and beautiful mountains
Bottom Left: Athens, Greece: In front of the Acropolis.
Bottom Right: Cairo, Egypt: Riding a camel along the pyramids
