Current News

College students voting in this year's presidential election can thank others for leading the way in earning their right to cast a ballot. Among them: Candy Yaghjian Waites '65 and a group of her friends and classmates.

The Wheaton College greenhouses will offer an open house and repotting clinic on Monday, Oct. 13, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Arc of Intent: Claudia R. Fieo, Selected Works, 1988-2008, which is currently in the Beard and Weil Galleries through Oct. 19, reflects Professor of Art Claudia R. Fieo's faith in creating art, as well as traces the arc of her life. As a printmaker, this marks Fieo's 11th solo exhibition. The works span a range of techniques, stylistic choices and creative periods, but ultimately center upon what Fieo calls the "mystery of life's contrasting forces."

Wheaton and Norton officials have teamed up to improve safety on campus and in town. Through a program called Citizen CPR, Wheaton's peer health advocates, Norton Emergency Medical Service staff and Norton High School faculty will work together to train all Norton high school students in CPR, which can double a cardiac victim's chances of surviving. Wheaton's resident advisors also will receive the training.

On Friday, September 26, the college will celebrate the 199th birthday of Eliza Baylies Wheaton, the principal founder of Wheaton Female Seminary. The event, which begins at 1 p.m. in Cole Chapel, marks the revival of Founders' Day, a tradition first celebrated in 1889 to mark the 80th birthday of Mrs. Wheaton.

Tom Farrey, a regular correspondent with ESPN's primetime newsmagazine E:60, will speak at Wheaton College on September 24 about youth sports in the United States. His talk will be at 7 p.m. in the Holman Room in Mary Lyon Hall. His book, Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children, explores the pressure on younger and younger children to excel in organized athletic competition.

The Religion Department will host scholar Mary Evelyn Tucker as the college's annual Martin Lecturer. Her address, entitled "The Emerging Alliance of Religion and Ecology," will take place in the Holman Room of Mary Lyon Hall at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 22.

Miss opening convocation? You can watch it online. President Ronald Crutcher delivered the keynote address, "Where Do 'The Two Cultures' Intersect?: Engaging the Sciences and Humanities in a Broader Dialogue."

On campus for three weeks as a visiting artist, internationally known sculptor Patrick Dougherty will work with Wheaton College students to create a piece of outdoor art that will be visible to passers-by on the town of Norton's busiest street.

Wheaton will welcome 420 students representing the Class of 2012 to campus on Saturday.

Wheaton College has been awarded a $700,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a program to help the next generation of college professors sharpen their teaching skills.

Plans are underway to build a state-of-the-art science center on the Wheaton campus, with construction slated to begin in March 2009.
The Center for Scientific Inquiry and Innovation will be the college's most ambitious building project to date, comprising the construction of a three-story research-and-teaching facility and renovations to the existing science center.

Ryan Letada '08 has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to go to the Philippines to research methods to reduce homelessness.

Wheaton College 2008 graduate Ryan Patch plans to bike from California to Boston to raise $50,000 to empower poor villagers in Nicaragua, where he spent time last summer creating and funding microcredit as part of his project for peace, which was funded by Wheaton.

The Class of 2008 has set a new Wheaton record for Annual Fund participation by a graduating class, with 324 seniors--90 percent of them--contributing to the senior class gift.

Graduating senior Anne Bahr was awarded a French Government Teaching Assistantship which will provide her the opportunity to teach English as a foreign language through the Academie de Dijon next year.

Graduating senior Cara Strachan wins French Government Teaching Assistantship that will allow her to spend next year teaching English to elementary level students in Provence.

Two Wheaton faculty members are heading to Africa in June to participate in faculty development seminars sponsored by the Council for International Educational Exchange (CIEE). The seminars, supported with funds through the Wheaton Office of the Provost, will help the professors enrich their classroom curriculum.

Giving the keynote address at Wheaton College's 173rd Commencement held on May 17, 2008, Wheaton alumna Katharine T. Bartlett marveled at the dramatic social, technological and scientific advances that have occurred over the past 40 years since she graduated in 1968, and called attention to how far we still have to go.

What's in a name? For Dean of Students Sue Alexander, who has to pronounce all of the student names at Commencement and get them right, everything. What's the secret to her success?

Wheaton English professor and writer-in-residence Sue Standing will teach literature and poetry writing and work on a series of poems in Toulouse, France, this fall as a Fulbright Scholar.

The children and teachers of the Elisabeth W. Amen Nursery School worked together to create a vegetable garden on the school grounds this spring. President Crutcher paid a visit to help with the digging.

For years, the hidden history of the Abenaki peoples of the northeastern United States and Canada has captivated Wheaton College senior Ashley Smith, who has been researching the historical and contemporary lives and cultures of this Native American group. Now she gets to dig deeper. The Madison, Maine resident has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in Canada on the Abenaki.

The Department of Athletics held its annual awards ceremony at Emerson Dining Hall on Tuesday night. Highlighting the evening was the announcement of the five major awards, including two that went to senior Erin Davis (Easton, CT/Joel Barlow), and acknowledgment of Dean of Students Sue Alexander and her 21 years of support for Wheaton athletics.

Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, a nationally acclaimed public health leader, will deliver a lecture titled "Violence Prevention: A Public Health Mandate" at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, in Watson Auditorium.

The Wheaton College greenhouses will offer an open house and repotting clinic on Friday, May 16, from 1 to 4 p.m. Horticulturalist and greenhouse caretaker Jane Young will be available to answer questions.

Russian Studies major Michael Freese '08 will head to Russia later this year to teach English as a 2008 Fulbright Scholar.

Derron J.R. Wallace, who graduated from Wheaton in May 2007, has been awarded a 2008 Fulbright to teach English and conduct research on education reform in Thailand. In his Fulbright proposal, he said that as a teaching assistant he hopes to help Thai students gain higher levels of fluency in English and a broader, fuller understanding of the diversity and complexity of American culture.

Senior Ashlan Musante has been awarded a 2008 Fulbright Scholarship to join the research team of Dr. Tanja Weil at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. The team's work involves the design and cellular characterization of customized polymeric architectures.

Meghan Kenny, a Wheaton College senior majoring in theatre studies and dance with a minor in sociology, has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach English in Malaysia.