A recent study shows that too many Illinois students are leaving the state to attend college, while not enough students from around the country are coming to Illinois to fill the gap.
Excerpt:
Some five to 10 percent of high school grads, depending on the district, leave the state each year.
What’s more, not enough students come here from other states to make up for the students lost, the report says. That resulted in a net loss of 66,000 students between 1992 and 2002….
….Why? The reasons vary, but students complained in interviews with the researchers that the state doesn’t have enough attractive schools to choose from.
“They sweepingly generalized Illinois colleges and universities as either being ‘corn and bean-field colleges in the middle of nowhere,’ or urban commuter colleges with little campus life,’” the report said.
The students singled out three schools as their “only” good choices in Illinois: the U. of I., Northwestern University and Knox College in Galesburg.
Read the Sun-Times article.
Knox’s Old Main is a candidate for the Seven Wonders of Illinois.
Excerpt:
“Old Main has been in continuous use for 150 years,” said Knox College spokeswoman Karrie Heartlein. “What a wonderful way to celebrate such a wonderful piece of history we have here in Galesburg.”
The Illinois Bureau of Tourism last month launched the Seven Wonders of Illinois promotion. Nominations for interesting, historic and quirky spots were accepted in seven regions across the state.
Read the story in the Register-Mail.
Representative Phil Hare was interviewed by Stephen Colbert for an upcoming episode of his eponymous show “The Colbert Report.” After the taping, Hare gave Colbert a new Knox College sweatshirt.
Excerpt:
Hare said Colbert stayed in character during his entire 90-minute interview, and he was witty, funny and quick. The interview will be edited to a 3-minute segment but Hare isn’t sure when it will run yet.
“He does it in such a fashion I couldn’t help but laugh,” Hare said.
Hare said during the interview Colbert challenged him to debate slavery, making Hare take the pro-slavery side, accused him of being a communist and tried to trick him into saying he supported President George Bush. Colbert also tried to argue that Carl Sandburg had been murdered, and that Hare wasn’t doing enough to catch the killer.
Although many politicians refuse interviews with Colbert, afraid he’ll make them look silly, Hare wasn’t afraid to take on the challenge.
“I’d rather do him than Tim Russert on ‘Meet the Press,’ ” Hare said. “Even though I know he’ll cut up the interview to make it funny. I’m not worried though. I think people realize it’s a comedy show.”
Read the Register-Mail story.
By Linda Wheeler of the Washington Post, Page VA12, March 8, 2007″Judges for the prestigious Lincoln Award had a tough choice when they picked a book on Abraham Lincoln as a wordsmith over a true romance across the color line and a moral history of the Civil War. They are all good reads.”
Excerpt:
The winner, selected from a field of 119 books by a panel of three historians last month, is “Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words” by Douglas L. Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. Wilson, who will receive $50,000 at a banquet in New York on April 2, won the same competition in 1999 for his book “Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln.”
Wilson’s book is a rare two-for-one in the U.S. history field, because it will appeal to students of Lincoln as well as to serious writers. Wilson was an English professor at Knox for 36 years before he took the position with the Lincoln Studies Center. He gently deconstructs Lincoln’s most famous speeches, including the Gettysburg Address, tracing the work as it was developed, written and rewritten, reviewed by colleagues, polished and then presented.
Read the Washington Post article
Knox students and Beta brothers joined the Galesburg community for a dip in the icy waters of Lake Storey, raising more than $3,000 for Special Olympics.
Read the Peoria Journal Star story.
Read the Register-Mail story.
Knox’s Jason Maclin has been name to the Midwest Conference’s First Team. Maclin was second in the conference in scoring and fifth in both rebounding and assists. He closed out his Knox career as the fourth leading scorer in school history, with 1,548 points.
Read the Register-Mail story.
