Knox in the News

From the Register-Mail:

Michael Burlingame says President Abraham Lincoln’s famous “Letter to Mrs. Bixby” may not have been written by Lincoln after all. The Lincoln scholar spoke Thursday at Knox College about his most recent publication, a two-volume biography, “Abraham Lincoln: A Life.” The book was the 2010 winner of the Abraham Lincoln Book Prize.

In his talk titled “What New Can Be Said About Abraham Lincoln?” Burlingame focused on the difficulties in finding information on Lincoln that has not already been uncovered and published.

“It’s easy to find letters that Lincoln wrote or received,” said Burlingame. “What’s really valuable and hard to find are letters about him. You have to do a lot of sifting through gravel, but if you’re willing to do that, you find a lot of information.”

From Reuters (inform.com):

People want to save the planet but are unwilling to make radical lifestyle changes like giving up air travel or red meat to reduce the effects of climate change, a

straw poll by Reuters showed.

As leaders gear up for another round of climate change talks later this month in New York, motivating people to change their lifestyles will be crucial in ensuring

cuts in planet-warming greenhouse gases, experts say.

Over 40 percent of Britain’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the main greenhouse gas causing climate change, come from the energy we use at home and in

traveling.

A straw poll of 15 British men and 15 British women between the ages of 25-75 in central London, showed all were willing to make small changes for the

environment, such as recycling, but few would commit to more fundamental changes to behavior.

“I try to minimize using my car but I wouldn’t give it up,” a 42-year-old man, Emerald Wijesinthe, told Reuters.

Changing small habits like leaving appliances on standby are relatively easy, but more radical changes face resistance.

“We know from plenty of evidence in social, personality, and clinical psychology that people generally do not like to change their identities - they prefer stability,”

Tim Kasser, psychology professor at Knox College in Illinois, told Reuters.

From the Register-Mail:

You may not think of it this way, but Knox College is an exporter, and a darned good one. It turns out high-quality college degrees, which fetch about $120,000 apiece in today’s market. Counting those “sales” and other sources of revenue, Knox brings in about $40 million a year. Most of that is export income, because most Knox families are not from the area.

That $40 million goes a long way to explain why things aren’t worse than they are. It pays the salaries for about 375 employees, and Knox’s 1,300 students are also local consumers. Also, much of Galesburg’s tourist income is generated by Knox. In short, Knox College’s impact on Galesburg’s economy is huge.

So, here’s the question. How do we increase our local exports and put more people to work? Unfortunately, there is no way to add another prestigious old college, as nice as that would be. And let’s face it, most of the lost manufacturing jobs may never return, for all the big plans and trips to China.

Maybe it’s time to think about 21st century solutions, since we’re already 10 years into the new millennium. For starters, Google in Galesburg would be excellent, though by no means essential. (Knox students: a YouTube video would help the cause tremendously.) But it should be part of a grab bag of little ideas that don’t need a lot of capital investment. In other words, make no big plans, but also leave no stone unturned. Create jobs in small bunches, or even one at a time.

From the Register-Mail:

The Knox-Rootabaga Jazz Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary this year with performances by the Matt Wilson Quartet, Orquesta Alto Maiz, the Knox College Jazz Ensemble, Knox Alumni Big Band and the Knox Faculty and Friends Combo on April 8, 9 and 10.

Tickets for each event are available at the door. Individual event tickets or a $25 festival pass can be purchased in advance by e-mailing rootabaga@knox.edu.

Wilson, a Knoxville native and award-winning drummer, will perform with his quartet at 5 p.m. Saturday, April 10, in the Orpheum Theatre, 57 S. Kellogg St. Wilson was recently featured in a cover story by Downbeat magazine, which also has selected him as a “rising star drummer.” Wilson finished at the top of the 2004 readers’ poll in Modern Drummer magazine, and he was nominated Jazz Drummer of the Year in 2004 and again in 2006 by the Jazz Journalists Association.

The Knox College Jazz Ensemble will open the Saturday night concert with the Matt Wilson Quartet. Directed by Nicole Whittaker Malley, instructor in music and director of the jazz program, the Knox College Jazz Ensemble won one of two Overall Outstanding awards in the Jazz Ensemble category at the 2010 Elmhurst Jazz Festival.

From the Chronicle & Democrat (Rochester, NY):

Stephanie Roosa has been waiting a long time to be in Crimes of the Heart.

She first fell in love with the Pulitzer Prize-winning play — opening at Blackfriars Theatre today — when she was a theater major at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. One of Roosa’s professors assigned her to perform a scene from Crimes in class.

“When I saw that Blackfriars (Theatre) was doing it, I knew I had to audition,” says Roosa, 31, who lives in Irondequoit.

The play runs through April 10.

Written by Beth Henley, Crimes is a comedy/drama set in Hazlehurst, Miss., during the mid-1970s.

At the center of the story are three sisters: Lenny, 30 (played by Roosa); Meg, 27; and Babe, 24. When the play begins, Babe has just shot her husband and is in jail. Meg, an aspiring singer, has arrived home from living in Hollywood. And it’s Lenny’s 30th birthday — a fact that few seem to remember.

From Creators Syndicate:

DR. WALLACE: I am in the 11th grade and plan to attend college after I graduate. With all the colleges and universities out there, how does one go about selecting the right school? It’s physically (and financially) impossible for me to visit a lot of campuses. Any advice will be thankfully accepted. I don’t want to wind up at a lousy school. — Jenny, Rockford, Ill.

JENNY: Choosing a school can be frustrating, but the good news is that there are no bad colleges or universities out there. All of them could be rated from excellent to superior. What mainly distinguishes one from another is their relative strengths in certain disciplines.

For instance, Juilliard School in New York City is a fabulous place to study the performing arts (music, drama, dance). The College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, offers degrees in a single major: human ecology. (Courses deal with the relationship between humans and the environment.) Stanford on the West Coast and Harvard on the East Coast set the national standard with their rigorous academic programs in many fields, including engineering, science and law….

I was fortunate in finding two excellent Illinois schools that I could recommend. Knox College in Galesburg made me work hard to be granted a bachelor’s degree and Northern Illinois University in DeKalb honored me with a master’s degree in education.

After burning the “midnight oil” many times, I couldn’t have chosen two better schools in helping me reach my goals — teaching, coaching basketball and writing a column for teens. Any success that has come my way was due to the outstanding education I received at Knox and NIU.