Knox in the News

From The Daily Advance (Elizabeth City, NC):

An unassuming 16-foot yellow powerboat with two 20-something sisters aboard stopped along the Elizabeth City waterfront Friday, drawing questions about a water-bound journey they launched in early June.

Their stop at the Harbor of Hospitality is part of a journey that began on the Illinois River and will take them north to the St. Lawrence in Vermont before ending sometime in August, back in Chicago, on what boaters call The Great Loop.

The sisters, Katie McPhail, 26, and Elizabeth McPhail, 22, are from Seattle, Wash. The siblings are not out to make a point about anything, sell a book, or even write one, they’re just having an adventure.

Older sibling Katie says she got the idea to travel The Great Loop after reading a book about a similar journey, “Only in America,” chronicling the journey of three college buddies along America’s eastern waterways.

“At the beginning of the trip, it was difficult,” says Katie, a part-time teacher. “Most of our (boating) experience was on a lake.”

The Great Loop is a boating journey that begins in Chicago, Ill., runs downriver through various waterways before pouring into the Mississippi River. From there, boaters will travel down through the Gulf of Mexico along the Florida coast, either going as far south as Key West, or cutting across the state through the Okeechobee Waterway before heading north.

The sisters took the latter route, cutting their time on the water short.

“One of the things we’re realizing is that we’re missing a lot of the loop,” says Katie. “Most people take a year to five years to complete it.”

When Katie conceived of this journey, her sister Elizabeth was a senior attending Knox College in Illinois. Their father, a boat manufacturer in Issaquah, Wash., had had a slow year and as a result had some leftover inventory. Katie says the 16-foot Duraboat fishing vessel was the largest boat in stock, so it was the obvious choice.

Katie trailored the boat to Chicago, attended her sister’s graduation on June 6, and on June 7 the two had launched the boat and set off on the trip of a lifetime.

From the Register-Mail:

The largest gift ever given by a living donor will help Knox College hire its first full-time religious studies professor in about 30 years.

The school announced that a female alumna from the 1960s, who wished to remain anonymous, gave the school $2 million toward its religion program. The full-time professor in religion will be the first since Bill Matthews left in 1983 after 30 years at Knox College.

From the Register-Mail:

Dennis Schneider, professor of mathematics at Knox College, has been named winner of the 2009 Caterpillar Foundation Faculty Achievement Award. The award is presented annually to a member of the Knox faculty for outstanding achievements in teaching, research, creative activity and service.

S.C. “Sid” Banwart, vice president of the human services division of Caterpillar Inc., presented the award at Knox’s 2009 Commencement on June 6. “For his entire 36 years on the faculty, Professor Schneider has maintained high standards of rigor and innovation, as he taught and provided leadership for the program in mathematics,” Banwart said.

From the Peoria Journal Star:

A Knox College graduate has endowed $2 million to start a religion and culture program.

“Making the gift now gives me the pleasure and honor of helping Knox to establish a full-fledged religion and culture program during my lifetime.”

That’s how the graduate, who wishes to remain anonymous, explained her generosity last month to Knox President Roger Taylor when making the endowment for a Distinguished Chair for the Study of Religion and Culture

“It gave me chills,” Taylor said. “Because she has made her gift now, the college can begin right away to seek an experienced professor for the new position.”

From the Chicago Tribune:

Former presidents and chancellors of the University of Illinois are laying much of the blame for the current admissions scandal at the feet of trustees, calling for sweeping changes on the board and the way it is appointed.

A letter from four former U. of I. leaders to the commission investigating admissions abuses falls just short of calling for the governor to fire the trustees, but says that some of them are more interested in personal gain than the well-being of the university…..

The four former leaders served over a 26-year period combined, from 1979 to 2005.

They blamed the current situation on the patronage culture that evolved during the administrations of Govs. George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich. But they didn’t exonerate U. of I. President B. Joseph White or Herman.

Weir, chancellor from 1988 to 1993, said he would have quit before caving to political influence.

“I would have objected strongly and hoped that would be enough,” he said. “If they said, ‘Admit or else,’ I would have taken ‘or else.’ I wouldn’t have stood for it.”

He said he cannot recall an instance in which a trustee pressured him to accept a student or even mentioned a particular admissions case. Neither Gov. James Thompson nor Gov. Jim Edgar involved themselves in admissions beyond sending letters of recommendation, he said.

As chancellor, Weir said he never tracked students or asked for status reports of politically connected students, as documents suggest Herman has done for years. If university lobbyists forwarded requests from lawmakers, Weir said, they never crossed his desk.

“It’s hard to imagine how this has happened,” said Weir, now a trustee at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. “It’s very important for universities to be high places of integrity. That’s about all we have to go on.”

Ikenberry said “none of us can remember an instance” in which they pressured an admissions officer to change a decision.

From NBC News Chicago:

Even though University of Illinois administrators were the ones who buckled, a few former presidents and chancellors of the institution say the trustees are ultimately to blame for the culture of clout that developed around the school’s admissions process….

“It is within the Governor’s power to alter the composition of the board,” former presidents Stanley Ikenberry and James Stukel and former chancellors Morton Weir and Michael Aiken wrote in a challenge to Gov. Pat Quinn, “[and] appoint a generation of Trustees who will create a new culture of governance.”….

“I would have objected strongly and hoped that would be enough,” former chancellor Morton Weir told the Tribune. Weir, who said he was never pressured to admit a student, is now a trustee of Knox College. “If they said, ‘Admit or else,’ I would have taken ‘or else.’ I wouldn’t have stood for it.”