Knox in the News

From The Quad City Times:
Sean O’Harrow’s goodbye is a unique one.

The executive director of the Figge Art Museum in Davenport will officially leave the post within days to become the director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Its collection, however, has been in the Figge since March 2009 after flooding the previous year destroyed the university’s building.

“I still have a stake in the success of this organization and in our community here,” O’Harrow said.

O’Harrow said the university made him the job offer and he wanted to be able to give the Figge three months’ notice before he officially left.

There is no timetable to replace the university museum - “as fast as we can get it,” O’Harrow said - but the 42-year-old director will get to guide its path.

He also wants to see more cooperation between Davenport and Iowa City.

“These two cities along I-80 are very high-profile for the state,” he said. “It’s good that they work together.”

The Hawaiian native, who spent six years as development director of St. Catharine’s College in the University of Cambridge in England before moving to the Figge, is credited with several initiaves, including getting the collection from the corporate offices of Deere & Co. and Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., on display, and working with Western Illinois University to get a museum studies program that includes hands-on work at the Figge.

In an interview shortly before his last day at work and before a farewell dinner with VIPs tonight, O’Harrow talked about his “3.3 years” at the Figge:

Biggest accomplishment

“The museum is a more popular place and it’s … a really good museum now. It was OK when I arrived, but right now, when you walk into the museum, there’s some of the best art in the world. Our education programs have been immensely successful. People see the value of having an art museum now more than when the project started. …

“Bringing the University of Iowa collection here and Knox College and John Deere (as well). These are ways of getting people to understand what an art museum does. In this community, these names are some of the biggest names in our culture.”

From Wire Service Canada:

When it comes to our chances of avoiding global climate catastrophe, a June 2010 Gandalf Group poll, commissioned by Climate Action Network (CAN) Canada, could be one the most important reports ever produced. Yet, CAN has not released it to the public.

Canada is considered one of the leading obstructionists in ongoing climate negotiations while being one of the highest per capita emitters in the world, as well as, home of the world’s most destructive project, that of the Alberta tarsands.

What this poll (dated June 2010 - Gandalf Group) found is that the Canadian public (which is not so different from the American public) is well aware of and very concerned about catastrophic global climate change. What the report advises is that Canadian environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) should start to communicate the truth of climate catastrophe and should be campaigning on the basis of climate catastrophe.

The text of the report is explosive because it has life or death implications for hundreds of millions of climate vulnerable people around the world, the future of humanity, and all life on our planet. Meanwhile, climate change negotiations are paralyzed, the UN climate convention secretariat advises us not to expect a new UN climate treaty for decades.

NGOs continue to downplay the catastrophic risks of global climate change, even now as those risks are rapidly increasing. A paper for the Four Degrees and Beyond conference in September 2009 titled Psychological Adaptation to the Threats and Stresses of a Four Degree World, written by Clive Hamilton (Charles Sturt Professor of Public Ethics in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University) and Tim Kasser (professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology at Knox College, Illinois, USA) states: “At present most governments and environmental organisations adopt a ‘don’t scare the horses’ approach, fearful that exposing people fully to the scientific predictions will immobilise them. With climate scientists now stressing the need for extremely urgent action and spelling out more catastrophic impacts if action is inadequate, this now seems to us a dangerous approach to undertake.”

Although, as Hamilton and Kasser point out, several leading climate change experts have clearly stated that the world is beyond dangerous interference with the climate system (now glaringly obvious, post-Russian fires, post-Pakistan floods, post-Niger double drought), the environmental movement has still not stated that the climate situation is beyond dangerous, nor has it made submissions to the UN climate negotiations to this effect.

From The Register Mail: 
Knox College alumni will take to the court to see if they still got it in the second annual Knox Basketball Alumni Scrimmage with registration beginning at 6 p.m. today.

The event will kick off with a 3-point and free throw contest beginning at 6:20 p.m.

After that, coaches Dave Peck and Harley Knosher  will lead the alumni team, first against the freshmen Prairie Fire, followed by the varsity team. The games will begin at 7 p.m.

Alumni participating in this year’s event include Steve Hopkins, Jesse Temple, Josh Moten, Jason Maclin, Grant Kluge, Ray Campbell, John Baillie, Mark Loftus, Przemyslaw Kania, Donnie Moore and Matt Gorham.

 From WGIL:
The betterment of Knox College athletics is the goal of the recently formed K-CLUB. The college says the organization will consist of alumni, family, and friends who will work towards the improvement in quality of Prairie Fire athletics. The K-CLUB hopes to raise funds to help the teams, improve the facilities, increase attendance, and build enthusiasm for the Knox athletic programs. Memberships are available at five levels of annual contributions.