Westmont News

Local volunteers are heading back to Santa Barbara after working the past several days in Louisiana and Texas aiding victims of Hurricane Katrina. Twenty-one volunteers from Hope Community Church, Westmont and the community worked through the day Wednesday, Sept. 14, in Houston before driving back to the West Coast. The group is expected to arrive in Santa Barbara Friday night, Sept. 16, at about 6 p.m. They left Westmont last Saturday morning and arrived in Shreveport early Monday morning.

More than 90 volunteers from Westmont will put on sunscreen and work gloves Saturday morning. They’ll spend the day volunteering at several charitable organizations in Santa Barbara County as part of United Way’s Day of Caring. More than a thousand people are expected to take part in the county-wide effort, painting, gardening and sorting for over 40 charitable organizations. Last year, Westmont sent a team of 52 people. This year, thanks to a huge student response, Westmont is expecting 93 volunteers.

Westmont has honored two students with the Intercultural Leadership Award for the 2005-06 academic year. Jamie Gates and Gloria Tebelman will each receive a $3,700 award for their work on campus diversity.

Westmont established the award to develop and encourage student leaders who are committed to promoting diversity on campus. Applicants are required to encourage student interest, support and participation in intercultural activities. They must also organize an original intercultural campus activity.

A Westmont professor and a student researcher may be closing in on a cure for rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Eileen McMahon has discovered a strain of mice that spontaneously develops arthritis after about 50 days of age and may represent a new model of rheumatoid arthritis. Student Joel Wilcox will present some of the findings as part of A Celebration of Student Research at Westmont, this Thursday, Sept. 8, from 4-6 p.m. at the Founders Dining Room.

Santa Barbara crews will soon begin loading up supplies in preparation for a week-long hurricane relief effort in northwest Louisiana. A team of about 17 local volunteers will be leaving from Westmont’s Murchison Gym early Saturday morning.

Volunteers are expected to arrive in Shreveport, La., Sunday, and will work in area shelters and a distribution center to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Thanks to a $50,000 matching grant, the Institute for the Liberal Arts at Westmont will reach out to underserved students this fall through an innovative Liberal Arts Ambassadors program. The collaborative project between Westmont and the University of La Verne involves college students from underserved groups engaging with prospective students in junior high and high schools.

They arrived with boxes, pillows, computers and probably some anxiety. For many of these teens, it’s their first time living away from home. About 340 first-year students representing the Class of 2009 have begun their Westmont College career. The fall 2005 orientation kicked off Thursday, Aug. 25, as students arrived with their parents and unloaded their belongings into the residence halls.

Westmont has once again been listed among the nation’s top liberal arts colleges in the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings, which were recently released.

U.S. News moved Westmont into the first tier with a ranking of 104th. The numeric rank puts Westmont in the top half of schools in each of 10 categories. Westmont is just one of two ranked members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

Westmont moved into the second tier from the third tier in 2003.

Westmont sociology professor Ron Enroth is no stranger to some of the world’s most unusual religions. In fact, he’s appeared on numerous television and radio broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News and Oprah as an expert cult consultant. Enroth penned, “Youth, Brainwashing and the Extremist Cults” six months before the Jonestown massacre in 1978, the mass suicide that put the word “cult” on the map. He warned of other dangerous religions before the tragedies in Waco and with Heaven’s Gate. In 1982, he received the Leo J.

Several Westmont students have returned home following a trip to Sri Lanka to help children who lost their parents in the December 2004 tsunami. Four Westmont students joined Professor Thomas Jayawardene and his wife, Jasmine, on the month-long summer service trip. The group left July 3 to meet a team of 14 to serve with the Jayawardenes’ The Children of Joy. The organization is founding a new home for about a dozen orphaned children. It’s also set up a children’s center to provide food, clothing, medical care and school needs to 150 kids.

More than three dozen Westmont students are returning to the United States after spending a month of their
summer serving overseas. Different groups visited Tanzania, Rwanda and Indonesia. Meantime, three teams remain in Guatemala, Russia and Sri Lanka. The students have been involved in building classrooms, teaching English and serving at orphanages.

Students in Westmont’s art department have received a $10,700 Worship Renewal grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Mich., for a project titled “Stations of the Life of Christ.”

Students will create a series of 14 images interpreting moments in Christ’s life that speak to Westmont’s identity as a Christian liberal arts college.

“The Power of WORD,” a theme show judged by Art Historian Richard West, will be on exhibit May 19 through June 30 in Reynolds Gallery. An independent curator, West is the former director of both the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Frye Museum in Seattle. An artists’ reception, open to the public, is 4-6 p.m. May 19 in the college Art Center, on the lower Westmont campus.

English Professor Marilyn McEntyre will give a lecture, “Loving Words,” in conjunction with the exhibition at 4 p.m., May 19 in the Art Center room 101.

The next Westmont Downtown Conversation, “Simplicity, Wonder and Wisdom: Reflections on Alexander McCall Smith’s “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” by Westmont Provost Shirley Mullen begins at 5:30 p.m. May 3 at the University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara St. The event is free and open to the public. No reservations are necessary.

Westmont musicians will showcase their skills at the spring concert for the Wind Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra at 8 p.m. April 29 in Deane Chapel on the lower campus. Admission is free and the concert is open to the public.

Westmont’s annual Spring Choral Concert featuring the College Choir, Chamber Singers and Vox Lumina Women’s Chorale will take place 8 p.m. April 22 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State St. at Micheltorena. A free-will donation will be requested.

A highlight of the evening will be “And Can it Be, that I Should Gain?” a group of well-loved hymn arrangements by Westmont’s composer-arranger and Professor Emeritus John Lundberg, who taught and directed music at Westmont from 1947 to 1979.

The Westmont Jazz Ensembles, directed by adjunct music professor Ron McCarley, will perform 8 p.m. April 15 in Deane Chapel on Westmont’s lower campus. Admission is free.

Three combos and a big band will treat the audience to a variety of pieces ranging from jazz standards to original compositions. Students Elizabeth Woodruff, Mary Patterson and Ben Banner will perform solos.

The Jazz Ensembles will also play in the courtyard of Restaurant Nu, 1129 State St., 7-10 p.m. April 5.

The Westmont theatre arts department presents unique performance art at the Fringe Festival 8 p.m. April 21 and 22 in Porter Theatre. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for children, students and seniors.

The festival brings together senior students with theatre and dance faculty showcasing original theatre, dance, performance art and film. Fringe festivals usually refer to alternative productions with promises of younger, more adventurous performance art. The event replaces the “New Works Festival” that Westmont hosts each spring.

Westmont’s senior art majors will present their final work as undergraduates in the annual Senior Art Show, April 14 through May 7. An opening reception will be held 4-6 p.m. April 14 in Reynolds Gallery on lower campus. Free and open to the public, the reception will feature a student awards presentation at 5 p.m.

After more than 50 years, Westmont will retire its 16-inch Newtonian telescope from Carroll Observatory and install a 24-inch F/8 Cassegrain with Ritchey-Chrétien optics. The new instrument features more than twice the light-gathering power of the old one and nearly twice the resolving power.

A $300,000 W. M. Keck Foundation grant for the telescope follows a $90,000 award from the James L. Stamps Foundation and a $15,000 gift from another foundation. College officials are working to secure the remaining funds for the $635,000 project.

Professor Dorothy Wang of Northwestern University will speak on Asian American poets at 3:30 pm on Monday, March 21, in Hieronymus Lounge, in Kerrwood Hall on the upper campus.

The lecture, “Reading Asian American Literature,” is the first lecture this semester in the Erasmus Series. It is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett will speak on “What’s Right and What’s Wrong with American Education” at Westmont’s first President’s Breakfast, 7 a.m. April 1 in the Grand Ballroom at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort. The sold-out event, first scheduled for Feb. 11, was postponed due to complications that arose after Bennett’s knee replacement surgery.

Westmont English Professor Paul Willis will speak on “Ophelia, You’re Breaking Our Heart: The American Appeal of Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroine” at 7 p.m. March 7 in Hieronymus Lounge, Westmont. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Willis’ talk is the Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture for the spring semester. Westmont Professors Cheri Larsen Hoeckley (English) and John Blondell (Theatre Arts) will respond.

The next Westmont Downtown Conversation, “Journeys of Choice—Pilgrims, Tourists and Mountaineers,” by Paul Willis and Lisa DeBoer begins at 5:30 p.m. March 10, at the University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara St. The two Westmont humanities professors will lead a series of reflections on the meaning of travel through the lens of literature and art. The event is free and open to the public.
Questions raised during the discussion will include: Do travelers today have anything to learn from those who have gone before? What traditions of travel shape our journeys?

The Westmont College Choir will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Jesu, Meine Freude” at the fifth annual Choral Masterworks Concert, 8 p.m. Feb. 25 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State St. in downtown Santa Barbara.

The suggested donation for admission is $10 for the general audience and $7 for students and seniors.

Music Professor Steve Hodson will conduct the College Choir in the 11-movement Bach motet, accompanied by strings and organ.

A team from Westmont was one of eight selected from 45 entries to compete in the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (SEED) business plan competition March 7 and 8 at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort. The eight semi-finalists in the national competition made presentations to a panel of venture capitalists, angel investors, investment bankers, corporate CFOs and successful entrepreneurs.

Although the President's Breakfast talk by former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett on Feb. 11 was postponed due to Bennett’s health, the follow-up discussion, “What’s Right and What’s Wrong with American Education,” will take place as scheduled 5:30 p.m. Feb. 17, at the University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara St.

David Lindberg, Hillsdale professor emeritus of the history of science, University of Wisconsin, will speak on “The Florentine Heretic? Galileo, the Church and the Cosmos” 3:30 p.m. March 4 in Porter Theatre, Westmont. The event, sponsored by the Pascal Society, is free and open to the public.

Westmont College’s Repertory Theater presents William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” 8 p.m. Feb. 25 and 26 and March 3-5 with a matinee performance at 2 p.m. March 5 in Porter Theatre. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for children, students and seniors.

Professor Ogbu Kalu, the Henry Winter Luce Professor of world Christianity and mission at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, will speak on “Patterns of Christian Presence and African Responses” 3:30 p.m. Feb. 24 in Hieronymus Lounge, Kerrwood Hall on the upper Westmont campus. Kalu also will speak in Westmont’s chapel 10:30 a.m. Feb. 25. Both events are free and open to the public.

The next Westmont Downtown Conversation, “What’s Right and What’s Wrong with American Education,” is a panel discussion lead by local educations specialists at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 17, at the University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara St. Panelists include Peter MacDougall, former president of Santa Barbara City College; Gerri Fausett, superintendent of Hope Elementary School District; Lynne Cavazos, interim director of UCSB’s Teacher Education Program and director of the county Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program; and Westmont education Professor Andrew Mullen.

Poet and playwright Jeanne Murray Walker will read from her new collection of poems, “A Deed to the Light,” 3:30 p.m. Feb. 17 in Hieronymus Lounge, Westmont. Refreshments will be served. She also will speak in Westmont’s chapel 10:30 a.m. Feb. 18. Both events are free and open to the public.

The Institute for the Liberal Arts at Westmont presents Naomi Shaefer Riley, author of “God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America,”  who will speak at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, in Hieronymus Lounge on the upper Westmont campus.  The event is free and open to the public.

On the occasion of his retirement after 35 years, Westmont philosophy Professor Robert Wennberg will speak on “Bringing Back the ‘Evangelical’ In the Evangelical College” 7 p.m. Feb. 7 in Hieronymus Lounge, Kerrwood Hall on the upper Westmont campus.

The event is free and open to the public.

Writer Jon Christensen will present “From the Tide Pool to the Stars” at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 in the San Rafael Room of Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort. Christensen will recount his expedition retracing John Steinbeck’s 1940 voyage with marine biologist Edward Ricketts exploring marine life along the coast of the Baja Peninsula.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

Representing the best mathematical minds of their schools, approximately 100 students will compete at Westmont’s 19th annual High School Mathematics Contest 1 - 5:30 p.m. Feb. 12.

Former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett will speak on “What’s Right and What’s Wrong with American Education” at Westmont’s first President’s Breakfast, 7 a.m. Feb. 11 in the Grand Ballroom at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort.

Tickets, which are $50, can be purchased by calling (805) 565-6895.

"Bennett, who served as secretary of education in the Reagan administration, is the author of the best-selling “The Book of Virtues” and “The Children’s Book of Virtues” and hosts a national radio talk show, “Bill Bennett’s Morning in America.”

As part of Westmont’s Conference on Christianity and Literature, Reverend Norm Freeman will marry music and ministry in a Jazz Vespers service 4:15 p.m. Jan. 22 in Hieronymus Lounge on the upper campus.

The event is free and open to the public.

The Jazz Vespers service synthesizes several traditions, each finding a unifying voice the musical heritage of jazz.

“Jazz gives voice to the hopes, dreams, frustrations and pain that express human experience,” Freeman said. “It is the musical incense that collects and carries the prayers of people.”

Westmont English Professor Paul Willis will read from his new book of poems, “How To Get There,” 7 p.m. Jan. 25 at the Contemporary Arts Forum upstairs in Paseo Nuevo, downtown Santa Barbara.

The reading is open to the public with a suggested donation of $3

Professor Robert Eric Frykenberg, professor emeritus of history and South Asian studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, will speak on “Pandita Ramabai and World Christianity” 3:30 p.m. Jan. 25 in Kerrwood Hall on the upper Westmont campus.

The lecture, part of the series on World Christianity is free and open to the public. This series seeks to draw the attention of students, faculty and interested community members to the global presence of Christianity, particularly in the non-Western world.

The “Faculty Show,” featuring recent work by the Westmont College art faculty, will appear Jan. 18 through March 12 in Reynolds Gallery. The college will host a reception for the artists, which is open to the public, 4-6 p.m. Jan. 20 in Reynolds Gallery on the lower campus.

“This is our centerpiece show for the year,” said Reynolds Gallery Director Tony Askew. “Our faculty members are all working artists in their own right and this show will display the wide range of ability and media that makes our department so creatively diverse.”

Five members of the Los Angeles chapter of the famous Tuskegee Airmen will visit Westmont for a colloquium and reception with students 3:30 p.m. Jan. 19 in Page Multipurpose Room on the upper campus.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American fighter pilot squadron of the U.S. Armed Forces. Instituted in 1939 in Tuskegee, Ala., the group was a profoundly segregated part of the new Army Air Corps during World War II.

Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye will read from various collections of her poems 8 p.m. Jan. 21 at Victoria Hall, downtown Santa Barbara. After the reading, Nye will hold a book signing (books may be purchased at the event). Nye also will speak in Westmont’s chapel 10:30 a.m. Jan. 21 on “The Light that Shines on Us All: A World of Voices.”

"Both events are free and open to the public.