Archive for April, 2010
I’m in the money….
Monday, April 26th, 2010As was common in newly established and struggling institutions of higher education in the mid-nineteenth century, the Illinois Institute sold perpetual scholarships. Like the Methodist DePauw, the Illinois Institute sold these scholarships for $100. Not without some sort of restrictions, such as only lineal descendants of the purchaser and only one-at-a-time, these scholarships became a [...]
Mortimer to the rescue…
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010Visiting the second floor of Buswell Memorial Library, one will spy a sign near the drinking fountain designating a small alcove in a short hallway as “Mortimer B. Lane.” Cornered in this quiet byway are the offices of retired professors Gerald Hawthorne and Beatrice Batson. Before Lane was a place he was a person, hired [...]
Samuel Richey Kamm
Monday, April 19th, 2010Each year the campus hosts the Kamm Lecture, a lecture series that dates back nearly three decades and is named after Dr. S. Richey Kamm, a Wheaton College Professor of History, Political Science, and Social Science. For over thirty years, Kamm had a remarkable impact on the lives of many undergraduates. As a teacher of [...]
Wheaton’s own NAACP
Friday, April 16th, 2010In 1965, coinciding with the increased work of the Civil Rights Movement nationally and the Selma marches, Wheaton College students established a campus chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was established with the purpose of seeking “an end to racial discrimination in areas of public life, to increase [...]
The Serialized Adventures of Roy J. Snell
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010Certain writers are famous for one book, such as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird or Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Others generate saleable wordage as easily as sneezing. For instance, Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of unbeatable lawyer Perry Mason, positioned multiple typewriters around his office and simply switched from one manuscript to another. [...]
Frank Dyrness
Friday, April 9th, 2010On March 22, 2010, Dr. Nicholas Perrin, Associate Professor of New Testament, gave his inaugural lecture as holder of the Franklin S. Dyrness Chair of Biblical Studies entitled “The Bible from Westminster to Muenster: The Interface between Theological Confession and Free Historical Inquiry.” Dr. Perrin holds degrees from The Johns Hopkins University (B.A. 1986), Covenant [...]
All but one or two….
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010According to the minutes of the Quarter Centennial Meeting of the General Association of Illinois (1869), a Congregationalist publication, Wheaton College had survived their negative vote to salvage or aid Wheaton’s finances from ten years earlier. The school, under Jonathan Blanchard, had moved forward and began to grow. By 1869, it had, according to the [...]
Raymond P. Fischer and the American Institution
Sunday, April 4th, 2010Raymond P. Fischer possessed a mind both meticulous and imaginative. Born the youngest of twelve in the same house in which his grandfather, Jonathan Blanchard, died, he attended Wheaton College (1918-20) and Pomona College (1922) in California, before matriculating to Harvard law school, graduating in 1924. Undoubtedly he was quite proud of his degree, which [...]