Knox in the News

From the Peoria Journal Star:

Knox College will again have a commencement speaker pulled straight from the headlines.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, will deliver the Commencement address on June 6.

“United States Attorney Fitzgerald’s leadership in combating crime is exemplary,” explains Roger Taylor, Knox College president. “Once again, Knox students have chosen a national figure to address their class at commencement.”

The Class of 2009 knows Fitzgerald for his role in nationally significant investigations into terrorism financing, public corruption, corporate fraud, and violent crime.

From the Times Record News (Wichita Falls, TX):

It’s easy to get caught up in today’s riptide of gossip.

The Internet has turned it into an ever-present force, like spam e-mail and gravity, and traditional media have responded to the competitive pressure by offering more of it. Celebrity babies, divorces and dalliances are as inescapable as daybreak, and the result has been a rise in people bemoaning the form’s ubiquity and what they see as concurrent cultural debasing.

Even with names that aren’t often written in bold, social networking tools, from Facebook to Twitter, allow us to keep up with “status changes” in the lives of both friends and “friends” to a degree that gives many of us pause….

“People who had no interest in the private affairs of other people just got left in the dust,” said Frank McAndrew, a professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., who has written about gossip.

“The assumption people seem to make is, if we’re interested in gossip or celebrities, that in some way it reflects badly on us as individuals,” McAndrew said. “Most of my research says it really isn’t the case, that it’s just human nature to be interested in what other people are up to.”

From the Register-Mail:

Galesburg’s image has always been a case of glass half-full or glass half-empty, and right now, there are a lot looking at the “half-empty” glass….

Galesburg has two extremely well-known and respected educational institutions in Knox College and Carl Sandburg Community College. BNSF makes its home here, as do two major hospitals, and numerous small businesses. We have our own symphony orchestra, community gardens, Railroad Days, Sandburg Days, the Carl Sandburg birthplace, our own recreational lake, campground, water park, golf course, and, oh yes, the people. So, good people, let’s keep the ideas coming and acknowledge that our fair city is already worth our time and energy to improve it.

From the Register-Mail:

The secretary of the Ministry of Health in Bhutan, whose daughter attends Knox College, thinks everyone could take a lesson from his country’s focus on balance.

Dr. Gado Tshering says the Bhutanese concept of Gross National Happiness has helped its people weather the economic downturn now gripping much of the world. His daughter, Tashi Ongmo, is a first-year student at Knox.

“It was the fourth king, 20 years ago, that taught about the GNH,” he said. “The happiness of the people is important, not only the economic wealth. It became a philosophy which, ultimately, we in the country of Bhutan said, ‘Let’s make it a policy.’”

The GNH is based on a balance among four pillars: social/cultural preservation, environmental preservation, good governance and economic growth.

No one of the pillars is more important, Tshering says, and a change in one area is examined in light of the other three.

From the Register-Mail:

Nine women at Knox College hope a new group will bring about positive change effected by teen girls.

Be the Change, a group developed by Knox junior Sarah Miller of Phoenix, aims to bring together Knox women and girls in Galesburg-area high schools to create a place where teens can discuss things that are bothering them. Miller came up with the idea after spending four years working with Workshops for Youth and Family, a peer-mentoring program in Phoenix.

The camps “really helped people develop communication skills, leadership skills and really addressed issues that teenagers struggle with. It was very life-shaping for me,” she said. “To have a positive peer mentor at that age is one of the most important things I had in my life, (and) I missed being able to have that connection with people and to foster those kinds of skills.”

Last fall, Miller began talking with fellow Knox students Stefanie Gordon, Lola Copeland, Shruti Patel, Lauren Lynch, Kate Robbins, Helen Hapner, Mary Reindl and Grace Fourman about ways in which they could bring a similar program to Galesburg.

From the Register-Mail:

Sunday was the first day of meteorological spring. Try telling that to the 200-plus people who braved a 15-degree wind chill and jumped into Lake Storey as part of the annual Law Enforcement Torch Run Polar Plunge.

Money raised by the event benefits Region IV of Special Olympics Illinois….

The Polar Plunge here, the 7th annual, is one of 17 plunges held across the state from Feb. 28 to March 21.

She said 189 people registered online before the event, putting it well on the way to a record number after walk-ins signed up. The temperature was 26 at “plunge” time, with a wind of 7 mph, gusting to 13, from the north/northeast….

Cassandra Milleville, a junior at Knox and a member of Tri Delta sorority, said this was her first plunge.

“We’re getting more nervous,” she said. Milleville said she watched the plunge other years and “it’s never that cold when you’re coming here” to watch.

Milleville said almost every fraternity and sorority from Knox had a team in the plunge.