Knox in the News

From the Register-Mail:

Despite a cut in federally funded work-study dollars at colleges and universities across the country, Knox County’s higher education facilities aren’t worried their programs will suffer.

But the poor economy is still affecting students’ educational options.

The Federal Work-Study Program provides part-time employment to eligible students while they are enrolled in school, allowing those students to earn money. It is considered a self-help program, as opposed to gift programs like scholarships.

The number of work-study jobs will drop by more than 160,000 positions across the country in the upcoming academic year, according to U.S. News and World Report.

But that drop was expected, after American Investment and Recovery Act funds injected an additional $200 million during 2009. The funds for the upcoming school year are back to average levels, said Ann Brill, Knox College’s director of financial aid.

“Last year we actually received a little bit more in federal work study funding,” she said. “But last year was an exception because of that act (ARRA) but I would say we get a little bit more each year, but not significant… it’s hard to compare.”

Brill said Knox typically covers most of the work-study program anyway. In the 2008-09 school year, the school received about $200,000 from the federal government for the program, but kicked in close to $700,000 to pay its student workers. Most of those student workers are work-study participants or part of the campus employment program, similar to work-study but for international students with financial need.

From the Register-Mail:

It was supposed to be a routine doctor visit for 10-month-old Elizabeth “Ella” Myers.

“I took her to her doctor for an appointment,” said her mother, Leah. “That’s the last time I was home for quite a while.”….

Ella was one of the youngest survivors of cancer Friday night at the Knox County Relay for Life, sponsored by the American Cancer Society. The event kicked off at midday and lasted through the night and into the morning.

The all-night event in many ways symbolizes the plight of a cancer patient, ending with the sunrise and a hope for a cure, said Stacey Dutton, a staff partner with the American Cancer Society.

A total of 54 local teams took part in the festivities on the Knox College campus. And each of them had something in common.

“Unfortunately, everybody in our community has been touched by cancer,” said Dutton, whose father died of prostate cancer and whose mother survived cancer.

Now 3 years old, Ella has been a survivor for a year and a half.

From WGIL radio:

Knox County residents likely didn’t mind Friday’s heat and humidity, or Saturday morning’s heavy thunderstorm, because it gave them a chance to try and help combat something much greater than that: cancer.

The annual Knox County Relay for Life was held at the Knox College track. And while plenty of honor and recognition was given to those whose lives were lost to cancer, the feeling was that of a party, with plenty there to celebrate survivorship while raising funds for the American Cancer Society.

Co-organizer Anne Giffey says more people need ACS help than ever before.

“When you hear that 178 people in Illinois each day receive the devastating news that you have cancer, remember: hope is greater,” Giffey said.

During opening stories, the crowd of walkers was moved by what was described as a different story of survivorship.

From the Register-Mail:

Dormitory rooms at colleges and universities usually average about 12-by-19 feet.

That means students entering their freshman year at universities across the county have, on average, 228 square feet of living space.

And most will have at least one roommate — which means the amount of personal space shrinks to about 114 square feet.

It’s safe to say most students have a lot more than 114 square feet of space to store all their junk, so fitting dorm room essentials into a teensy area can be tough.

But there is a way to do it, if you’re smart about what you pack and creative in your organization methods.

From the Register-Mail:

Though her feelings about her hometown are complex, world renowned surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning has been strongly influenced by her childhood and college years in Galesburg. Almost 100 years after her birth, Tanning’s life, work and legacy are still tied to the city.

“Our family had a friend, Carl Sandburg, who was my father’s buddy in the Spanish-American War,” she said. “His great friend the poet. Daddy showed him little Dorothea’s sketches. ‘Oh no! Don’t do that! Don’t send her to art school. They’ll spoil her talent.’ As a poet he was self-taught, wouldn’t you know? At any rate, the utterance of these august words deprived the young artist of an early start. Later, after ripe reflection: no doubt it was for the best.”

It turns out that Sandburg was right about “little Dorothea.” Tanning wrote these words in a memoir “Dorothea Her Lights and Shadows (a scenario)” in 1977, years after she had became a famous artist; years after she had left the Art Institute of Chicago after only a few weeks of classes; years after attending Knox College; and years after her growing up in Galesburg….

“At 16 I was employed: The Galesburg Public Library, my House of Joy. In that gray stone building flying the American Flag I was forever corrupted by “Salammbo,” “The Red Lily,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “Against the Grain” — oh, such delicious hymns to decadence, hidden in the stacks among thousands of other bewitching revelations,” Tanning wrote.

The books that Tanning read at the Galesburg Public Library, particularly Gothic novels, greatly influenced her later artistic works.

“It’s where she comes from, the Gothic novels she read at the Galesburg Public Library, and that was with her for her entire life, and she really tapped into that her entire life,” said Michael Taylor, curator of Modern art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Tanning’s most famous works are on display. He’s also a personal friend of Tanning.

Tanning began at Knox College in 1928 where she studied for two years. During her time at the college, she performed with the Players’ Club theater group and was an organizer in the Women’s Self Governance Association, which was devoted to the governance of female student affairs at Knox. Tanning was also the art director for the 1931 edition of The Gale yearbook (produced in 1930), for which she created original art pieces.

Tanning left Knox after the 1930 school year and went to Chicago where she attended classes for only a few weeks; she left when she became frustrated with the art instruction and decided to strike out on her own as an artist. Tanning moved to New York, and then, after World War II and her marriage to influential surrealist Max Ernst, she and her husband moved to France in 1956, where they lived for many years. Following Ernst’s death in 1976, Tanning returned to the United States. She now lives in New York City.

From the Register-Mail:

If you asked Lori Sundberg 20 years ago where she thought she’d be in 2010, she probably would have told you she’d be styling hair in her salon.

Now, as the sixth president of Carl Sandburg College, and in possession of not only her cosmetology degree but also her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, Sundberg is the first to say her career path has been non-traditional.

“I took a very circuitous route to be here,” she said with a laugh.

Born, raised and educated almost entirely in west-central Illinois, Sundberg is the first CSC president who also attended the school. After graduating from Galesburg High School in 1976, she went to CSC for her cosmetology degree, then went straight to work. She later owned her own salon on Losey Street, The Best Little Hair House.

“I was probably 29 and I always wanted to finish my bachelor’s degree, but I had no interest in changing careers,” Sundberg said. So she went back to CSC for two years and knocked out some general education requirements, then went on to Knox College to double major in economics, a lifelong interest, and history — somewhat of a surprise.

“I found as I was at Knox that history was something I really enjoyed, but I didn’t really know it,” she said.

She graduated from Knox in 1995, still with no plans for a career change. That’s when an economics professor at CSC asked her to fill in for a teacher who suddenly had to leave for medical reasons, teaching traditional classes as well as a distance learning class. She found she liked the position, and later took a job in institutional research at the college. She then obtained her MBA from Western Illinois University in 1998 and finally her doctorate at St. Ambrose University, graduating in 2003 with a degree in business administration.

“I really enjoy learning and I guess I just didn’t realize it until that point,” she said.