Podesta Leads Presidential Transition Team

John Podesta '71 is one of three co-chairs of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Podesta is taking a leave of absence from his position as president of the Center for American Progress, a think-tank he helped create in 2003, to help lead Obama's transition to the White House. 

A major player in Washington politics for more than 20 years, Podesta brings a wealth of political experience to Obama's team. He served as President Clinton's chief of staff from 1998 to 2001 and has held a number of positions on Capital Hill.

Since joining the transition team, Podesta has become a regular on cable news channels and in national and international newspapers, including the New York Times, USA Today, Canada's Globe and Mail, and London's Telegraph. In fact, Washington Post op-ed columnist Dana Milbank dubbed Podesta a "rock star" in his most recent column.

Podesta joined the Knox College Board of Trustees in 2001. He has volunteered for Knox's admission and advancement offices and returns to campus to participate in political symposiums, Board meetings, and Commencement exercises. Read more on John Podesta's role on the Obama team.

Homecoming 2008

Nearly 1,000 alumni and friends of Knox returned to campus to celebrate Homecoming 2008. The weekend featured close to 100 different events for alumni to enjoy, including an alumni symposium on presidential debates in American politics; the "Taste of Galesburg" All-Class Reception; and the Homecoming dinner and dance. New this year was a Halloween party for students, alumni, and their families.

The Prairie Fire football team's victory over Lake Forest -- the first Homecoming game in the new Knosher Bowl -- was a highlight of the weekend. Rumor has it that a secret play inspired by President Roger Taylor '63 was a major factor in the Prairie Fire victory. After the game, the team gave President Taylor the game ball.

See the Homecoming Recap for photos and videos of various events around campus.

Lose something at Homecoming? Contact alumni relations and give us a description of the item and your address. If we have it, we will gladly mail it back to you.

Help Make Homecoming Even Better 
After a successful Homecoming 2008, we're already making plans for next year's festivities, October 23-25, 2009. If you attended Homecoming this year, please take a few moments to fill out the Homecoming questionnaire, so we can make Homecoming 2009 even better! 

Obama To Be 3rd President with Knox Honorary Degree

With his inauguration as president in January, Barack Obama will become the third United States President to hold an honorary degree from Knox College, joining presidents Abraham Lincoln and William Jefferson Clinton.  Read more about Obama's connection to Knox.

Students Celebrate
Shortly after Obama delivered his acceptance speech on November 4, hundreds of Knox students spilled out of campus dormitories and buildings and marched into downtown Galesburg. Read more about the student celebration and view a video of of the election party on YouTube.

Upon returning to campus, the crowd danced to jazz music on the lawn of the Ford Center for the Fine Arts well into the morning. Read more in The Register-Mail.

A Note from the Editors

Help Redesign the Knox Web Site
In May, the College officially began a major Web site redesign project. The goal of this project is to develop a Web site that is interactive, dynamic, intuitive to navigate, and shows the full Knox experience in uniquely engaging ways.

A blog has been developed to inform the Knox community of the progress of the redesign and to encourage input from current and prospective students, faculty and staff, and alumni and friends of the College. Four designs are currently being reviewed as possibilities for the new design. View the blog to see and comment on the proposed designs.

Watch Knox on YouTube
Knox College now has it's own page on YouTube. Go to youtube.com/knoxcollege to see videos from Homecoming, Commencement, and other Knox events.

View Basketball Games Free of Charge on MWC TV
The Midwest Conference and Penn-Atlantic have recently announced that all men's and women's basketball games will be broadcast free of charge this season on www.midwestconference.tv. Tune in and cheer on Prairie Fire basketball! View the basketball schedule.


 
Campus News 

Knox Dedicates Facilities at Homecoming
Knox dedicated three new facilities over Homecoming weekend -- Knosher Bowl, Borzello Hall, and Turner Track.

Before Saturday's Homecoming game, Knox dedicated the Knosher Bowl, the extensively renovated football field named in honor of Harley Knosher, Knox's athletic director from 1964 until his retirement in 2000. Honoring Knosher at the event were current head football coach Andy Gibbons, along with former head coaches Randy Oberembt, Al Reilly, and Joe Campanelli. The officiating crew invited Knosher to conduct the coin-toss before the game and presented him with the engraved coin, which read "Knox-Lake Forest, November 1, 2008, Harley Knosher Bowl" in honor of the event.

Renovated this past summer, Borzello Hall at 115 East South Street houses the College's journalism program, offices for faculty and Knox's public relations department, a high-tech classroom, and a media lab. A gift of $300,000 by Robert Borzello '58 supported the purchase and renovation of the building. After a successful career in journalism in the United States, Borzello moved to England, where he is a trustee of MediaWise, an organization that promotes ethics in reporting. 

The renovated outdoor track was named Turner Track, in honor of Harold Turner, who taught and coached at Knox for 25 years. At the time of Turner's retirement in 1963, he was the only coach in the Midwest Athletic Conference to have won conference championships in three sports.  

Hunting Ghosts at Knox
Last month, the student Union Board hosted a real ghost hunter as part of its haunted Homecoming activities. Student embarked across campus with the ghost hunter to uproot any ghosts rumored to be haunting Knox. Read more on the ghost hunter in The Knox Student.

Do you have any Knox ghost stories to share? Share them with us.

More campus news and features.

Student News

Students Compete in Simon Graduate School of Business Case Competition
Each year, the Simon Graduate School of Business hosts an "Early Leaders Case Competition" for students interested in pursuing an M.B.A. The competition is a team-based event designed to simulate challenges faced by global leaders. 

Six Knox students traveled to Rochester, New York, with John Spittell, professor of business and management and executive-in-residence. Knox students who placed in the competition were Jessica Wise '09, member of the first place team, who will share a team award of $7,000; Garry Barton '09, whose third place team will share an award of $2,000; Zehra Munir '09, fourth place team and $1,500 shared award; and Rafay Kahn '10, fifth place and $1,000 award.  Read more about Knox's connection to the Simon School.

National Award to Student Literary Magazine
Knox's student literary magazine, Catch, received an Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Award as one of the top college literary magazines in the nation. The 2008 Pacemaker is the fourth national honor that Catch has won in the past six years.

Associated Collegiate Press selected nine Pacemaker Awards in the literary magazine division this year. Awards were based on content, quality of writing and editing, photography, art and graphics, layout and design, and overall concept. The other magazine winners included journals from Notre Dame, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois. Read more on Catch's most recent award.

Students Fare Well at Programming Competition
The Knox College Programming Teams recently competed in their seventh Association for Computing Machinery Intercollegiate Programming contest. The Knox Gold Team of Jehan Lala '09, Alex Lindsay '09, and Brian Zhang '09, came in third out of 17 teams. The Knox Purple Team, Andy Sheehan '09, Alex Nimmer '09, and Andrew Hickey '09, finished sixth.
Knox was one of the top liberal arts colleges in the region, faring better than teams from Illinois College, Augustana College, The University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Missouri-Rolla, and two of the three University of Illinois teams.

Student Studies Forces on Knee With Nintendo Wii
Sarah West '09, a biology and physics double major, spent much of her summer around video games. But she wasn't playing. West developed a way to write computer code using a Wii Fit balance board and gaming system to study the knees of football players, who put intense loads on their knees every day. "I wanted to study the impact of force on the articular cartilage of the knee," she says.  Read more about West's research.

Students attend Bioneers Conference
More than 60 students attended the Bioneers Conference at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale in October. The goal of the event was to show how easy it is to help the environment and gave students the chance to listen and talk about sustainable technology and ideas. "It is important this movement does not become another 'ism'," said Dan DiMeo '09, who attended the conference. "This is for the overall good and it affects much more than just the natural environment." Read more in The Knox Student.

Barrios Elected 2008 Student Laureate
Elizabeth Barrios '09 of Aurora, Illinois, has been selected as a 2008 Student Laureate by The Lincoln Academy of Illinois. The award is given annually to one distinguished senior at each four-year college and university in Illinois, as well as a student from one of the state's community colleges. Read more about the Student Laureate.

More coverage of Knox students is available on the Knox news page.


Alumni News

Alumni Inducted Into Knox-Lombard Athletic Hall of Fame
Four alumni were inducted into the  Knox-Lombard Athletic Hall of Fame at Homecoming, which recognizes the achievements of distinguished athletes and teams. Inductees included Russell Schwem '54, who earned a total of six varsity letters in both golf and swimming; Bill Fuerst '69, who was the leading scorer his freshman year and was named to the First Team All Midwest Conference basketball team his junior and senior years; Megan N. Owens '01, who finished her Knox career with 49 goals and 17 assists in soccer and 115 points in track and field; and Beth E. Conant '02, who was a four year most valuable player on the Prairie Fire golf team. Read more about the Hall of Fame inductees.

Hall of Fame inductees are selected by a five-member committee and welcomes nominations. Download a nomination form.

Three Receive Service Awards at Homecoming
The Knox Service Award is given to members of the Knox community to recognize outstanding volunteer service. Recipients of the 2008 award were Phyllis Holowaty Albrecht '56, who serves on the Alumni Council, is a class correspondent, and assists with Fifty Year Club projects; George B. Eaton '80, who has served as chair of the Alumni Council, leads the Quad Cities Knox Club, and returns to campus frequently to speak with current students about his life after Knox; and Carolyn Swartz Park '55, who is an active volunteer for the Fifty Year Club and writes more than 1,500 birthday postcards to FYC members annually. Read more about the 2008 Service Award Winners.

Scroll of Honor Winners Named
The Scroll of Honor award is presented to Fifty Year Club members in recognition of their lifetime achievements in the service of their community, society, or humanity. This year's recipeints include Joan Felter Hotchkiss '50, retired high school chemistry and humanities teacher, who has been a very active volunteer for Knox College and the Fifty Year Club for many years; Len A. Kuchan '53, retired company treasurer and director of investor relations at Caterpillar, for his dedication to his career and his involvement in his community and church;  and Jack Reiners '56, retired banker, business counselor, and educator, for his dedication to furthering banking technology and biotechnology, and his service to Knox College. Read more about the Scroll of Honor winners.

Alumni Notes

David Walton '29, has lived more than a century, but was still thinking about the next four years when he cast his vote on November 4. Read more about Walton in the Jacksonville Times-Union.

Bill Stephenson '50 received Earlham's Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his successful career as a biology professor at Earlham College.

Lee Balgemann '68 was one of 10 American photographers who journeyed to Rizhao City, China, to document the sailing venue for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Read more about Balgemann's trip to China in the Deerfield Review.

W. Dudley McCarter '72 received The Foundation Award from the Fellows of the St. Louis Bar Foundation. A partner in the Clayton law firm of Behr, McCarter & Potter, McCarter is also past president of The Missouri Bar and the St. Louis County Bar Association.

Linda Nelson Langston '75 was reelected to the Lynn County Board of Supervisors earlier this month. Langston has been very involved in flood relief efforts in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

After 20 years as the state's attorney in Ford County, Illinois, Tony Lee '75 is stepping down to join his wife, Ellen, in her Gibson City law practice.

Mary-Annie Cairns Guerrero '77 stood on the bell podium on October 31, as Eletrobrás, Latin America's largest holding company in the electricity sector, was listed for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. Guerrero is head of the capital management department for the company.

Lori Meyer Nugent '84, of the law firm Cozen O'Connor, recently presented "Using Lessons Learned from Claims Made Under Cyber Risk Policies in Future Underwriting and Product Development," at the American Conference Institute's Cyber Risk Insurance Conference. 

Indira Somani '92, assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington and Lee University, wrote, co-produced, and directed the documentary Crossing Lines, which is about her struggle to stay connected to India after the loss of her father. Read more about Somani's documentary. 

Peter Weber '86, executive director of the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association, received a 2008 Special Service Award from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

Read and post Class Notes in the Knox Online Community.



Faculty & Staff Notes

Stephen Schroth, assistant professor in education studies, is meeting weekly with a select group of Galesburg first through fifth graders as part of the Junior Great Books Program. Read more on Schroth in The Register-Mail.

Bruce Polay, professor of music, will return to guest conduct the Guanajuato Symphony in Mexico for two performances: November 28 in Guanajuato, and November 29 in Irapuato. This is Polay's third appearance with the Guanajuato Symphony.

Andrew Civettini, assistant professor of political science, provided election night commentary for WCBU in Peoria. WCBU is the NPR affiliate on the campus of Bradley University.

Neil Blackadder, associate professor of theatre, participated in a panel on "Translating the Erotic" at the American Literary Translators Association conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He also coordinated a staged reading of Bill Johnston's new translation of Slawomir Mrozek's 1961 one-act play Out at Sea, working with a cast of undergraduate actors from the University of Minneapolis' theatre department.

Owen Muelder '63, director of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center at Knox College, participated in a panel discussion at a conference at Grand Valley State University on the Underground Railroad in Michigan.

Frank McAndrew, professor of psychology, was recently quoted in The Boston Globe about why we're likely to spread negative rumors about "high-status" individuals, whether they're our bosses, professors, or celebrities. Read more on McAndrew's research in The Boston Globe. 

Douglas Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center, was recently interviewed on WGN Radio in Chicago, where he discussed the presidency of Abraham Lincoln and upcoming presidential inauguration of Barack Obama. Listen to Wilson's interview.



Contact Us
Submissions to The Gizmogram should be made to the editors at gizmogram@knox.edu. Submissions may be edited for space.

Editors
Megan Scott '96  & Cheri Siebken

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