Knox in the News

New York’s Times Herald-Record reflects on the rituals of graduation: bringing home a college graduate — and all their stuff — commencement speeches that drone on, and parental pride.

Excerpt:

I’m still trying to figure out how to convince commencement speakers to keep their remarks down to a select few words. A very select few. I’m fine with institutions of higher learning trying to showcase themselves by snagging a celebrity to speak at commencement. Hand them an honorary degree. It’s no sheepskin off my back.

My problem is when these folks feel obligated to give a speech that lasts longer than your kid has attended the school.

Here’s a reality check. No one attends a graduation ceremony because they’re interested in hearing the keynote speaker.

“What do you say, Hon? It’s miserable outside. You want to catch a matinee or listen to the chairman of the New York state Assembly Energy Committee speak for 30 minutes on the road less chosen?”

What, the tuition bill isn’t punishment enough?

And no student decides what college they’ll attend based on the celebrity commencement speaker.

“Gee, Dad, Cornell is a great Ivy League school, but Stephen Colbert spoke last year at Knox College. Maybe I’ll go there. Where is it?”

Read the editor’s column in the Times Herald-Record.

Rod Davis comments on the theory that Abraham Lincoln has smallpox.

Excerpt:

Abraham Lincoln has been dead for 142 years, but he still manages to make medical headlines, this time from doctors who say he had a bad case of smallpox when he delivered the Gettysburg Address.

Physicians in Baltimore said last week that Lincoln might have survived being shot if today’s medical technology had existed in 1865. Last year, University of Minnesota researchers suggested that a genetic nerve disorder rather than the long-speculated Marfan syndrome might have caused his clunky gait….

Rodney Davis, a Lincoln historian at Illinois’ Knox College, said people who don’t read Lincoln biographies may not know about his smallpox, but ‘’it’s not anything that’s ever been suppressed. It’s just never been all that significant given the highlights of his career.'’

Citing an autobiography of J.M.T. Finney Jr., an early 20th century surgeon, the report says a physician summoned by Lincoln’s personal doctor diagnosed a mild form of smallpox. Upon hearing the contagious diagnosis, the report says, Lincoln joked that while he was constantly hounded by people who wanted something from him, ‘'’For once in my life as President, I find myself in a position to give everybody something!”’

Read the New York Times article.

Business editor John Pulliam explores the various access points around Galesburg for wireless connection.

Excerpt:

In addition to CSC, the other colleges are Knox College in Galesburg, Monmouth College in Monmouth and Western Illinois University in Macomb.

Karrie Heartlein, director of public relations at Knox, said “Knox has been wireless for a few years now.”

She said the entire campus is wireless, although there are spots where the signal is weaker.

“Students are so tech savvy and they communicate via their social network sites, like MySpace, text messaging, cell phones and also” other forms of wireless communication technology. “For them it’s tremendous to have that access, where before they had to go to a computer lab or back to their dorm,” she said.

Not only do young people seem to be more comfortable, in general, with technology, they may have bigger dreams about where technology, such as wireless Internet, can go from here.

“I know at Kaldi’s I can always get a connection,” Hunt said. “At Innkeeper’s, I got a signal once, but it didn’t last. I think it would be awesome if they could get all of Galesburg wireless.”

Read the full story in the Register-Mail.

Knox dedicates its new Looking for Lincoln wayside exhibit.

Excerpt from the Register-Mail:

If you’re looking for Abraham Lincoln, head to Knox College.

A permanent outdoor exhibit unveiled Wednesday on the college campus as part of the statewide Looking for Lincoln program commemorates Old Main as the last remaining site of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates and links Galesburg to other Illinois cities with Lincoln connections.

The Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition selects sites and cities where Lincoln worked, spoke or traveled for inclusion in the program, then helps design exhibits to foster knowledge about Lincoln throughout the state.

Excerpt from the Peoria Journal Star:

The marker, which is one of about 45 in Illinois, is sponsored by the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition. The group selects Lincoln-related sites such as Old Main and commemorates their historic significance with the markers.

The fifth of seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas was held in 1858 at Old Main, just one year after the building was completed, according to the college.

The marker lists the topics of the three-hour debate, including equal rights for slaves and the expansion of slavery in the west.

“As far as Abraham Lincoln was concerned, African-Americans were included in the ‘All men’ Thomas Jefferson was referring to in the Declaration of Independence,” said Rodney David, professor and co-director of the Knox Lincoln Studies Center.

The marker also features a map of what Galesburg and the college looked like in 1858.

Read the full story in the Register-Mail.

Read the full story in the Peoria Journal Star.

An AP story on college sanctioned blogs was accompanied by a selection of snippets from various colleges. Knox’s own AJ Ross earned a mention. The story ran in several newspapers around the country, courtesy of the AP.

Excerpt:

A sampling of college student blog postings from university-sanctioned student blog sites around the country…..

“Well that was what I spent most of my Saturday on, working on a paper, studying for a midterm, and somehow managing to get kicked out of a soccer game for no other reason than making sense and doing it loudly.”

– Knox College, Oct. 23.

Read the story in the Boston Herald.

Read the story in the Chicago Tribune.

Columnist Amanda St. Amand notes that many commencement speakers this year are also mothers. She also doles out some Mother’s Day advice

Excerpt:

Many of the wise words that will be uttered by speakers at commencements across Illinois began as something Mom once said.

More than 20 years have passed since my own graduation from college. I had no idea who spoke at the ceremony until I searched the archives of this newspaper. Perhaps Earl Lazerson laid some real wisdom on the 2,000 folks who were part of that graduation from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Whoever spoke at my high school graduation, I’m sure it was brilliant. I just don’t remember it.

Graduates at Northwestern University will hear from one of its funniest alums, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus. One of the founders of YouTube, Jawed Karim, will talk to the grads at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And the graduating class at Knox College in Galesburg will hear from former President Bill Clinton, who gives a good speech regardless of whether you agree with his politics.

Read the full article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.