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| Christopher Hitchens | On Tuesday, October 11, Christopher Hitchens, journalist and author, will visit ISU to deliver a lecture entitled “Are We at War with Terrorism?” sponsored by the Hibbert R. Roberts Lecture in Public Policy and the Sage Fund. Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, a regular contributing columnist to The Atlantic Monthly, and the author of many books including, most recently, Thomas Jefferson: Author of America; Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays; and A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq. Hitchens’ controversial stances on several political issues have led many to label his published work as polemical, yet Hitchens himself employs the term “contrarian” to describe his engaged political and social commentary. “I am delighted to have someone of Christopher Hitchens’s stature lecturing on our campus,” said Dean Olson. “The lecture promises to be lively and entertaining regardless of one’s political orientation.”
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Dr. Larry Long, Director of the
School of Communication,
reeled in big summer school
earnings this year. | At the College of Arts and Sciences Fall Address held on September 12, Dean Olson reported the impressive results of the College’s innovative entrepreneurial model of summer school funding that was piloted by the School of Communication this past summer. Before the new funding model was instituted, the School was prepared to offer eight courses to its students. Instead, the School of Communication offered twenty-nine courses, only three of which were cancelled due to low-enrollment. Due to the success of the pilot, Dean Olson has been assured that the College will be able to implement a comparable funding model College-wide next summer. “I am delighted to report that the results are stunning,” said Dean Olson. “As anticipated, the final enrollment figures are quite remarkable;they indicate that the School of Communication earned a total of $90,000 above and beyond the cost of delivering these courses.”
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From left, Jim Swindler,
Philosophy Club member
Trevor Shaw, Laurie Swindler,
and Club President
Andrew Higgins | The ISU Philosophy Club joined in campus Hurricane Katrina relief efforts on Thursday by providing a taste of New Orleans to all those walking through Stevenson Hall. The Club sold New Orleans Pralines that were baked by Laurie Swindler, wife of Philosophy Department Chair Jim Swindler. For a mere $2, patrons were treated to New Orleans' most popular creole confection. Swindler followed The New Orleans School of Cooking recipe for the pralines and was happy to help the Club raise money to aid Hurricane Katrina efforts. Also working for the relief effort was Nathalie op de Beeck, an Assistant Professor of English who donated children's books to the cause. Books are available in the Department of English for $5, and money earned from the sales will go to the NAACP Disaster Relief Fund. In addition to fundraising, Dr. Karie Barbour from the Department of Economics and Dr. Bill Shields from the Department of Geography-Geology provided education about the hurricane through a lecture titled "Hurricane Katrina: Why and What Now?" as part of a faculty lecture series. "Many College of Arts and Sciences students, faculty, and staff have generously donated their time and money to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina," said Dean Olson.
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| College of Arts and Sciences | Recently, the College launched two new items on its website in an effort to better serve its internal and external constituencies. The first new item is a brief introduction to the College. Once accessed, this link serves as a guided tour of the various aspects of the College and its units in streaming video with voice-over by Dean Olson. This introduction can be accessed by visiting http://www.cas.ilstu.edu/intro/video.htm. The second new item is a Facilities tour which offers a visual tour of the various departments of the College. When accessing this link, the user is shown various pictures of the different buildings that house College departments on campus and by clicking on them, users can find out more detailed information about each department. The Facilities tour can be accessed by visiting http://www.cas.ilstu.edu/gallery/index.htm. "I would like to thank the staff in the Laboratory for Integrated Learning and Technology (LILT) and WGLT for their hard work on these projects," said Dean Olson. "It is important that we inform the public about the important things we are doing in the College in order to create and strengthen relationships with prospective students and parents, community members, and others who may visit our site."
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| Dr. Heather Conley | Heather Conley joins the Department of Geography-Geology as an assistant professor. Her research interests include climate-society interactions, medical geography, disease ecology, and environmental change. She is in the final stages of completing her Ph.D. at the University of Iowa where she received her M.S. degree in 2001. Her dissertation research examines the role of climate variability in the emergence of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome in the western United States. She will teach courses in natural disasters, global environmental issues, geographic information systems, and medical geography.
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