Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Mon, May 14, 2012
The respected sports analysis website Baseball Prospectus has an interesting article today about the unexpected career of former IWU Wildcat Brandon Beachy. Beachy stunned the Major Leagues during his first season with the Atlanta Braves last season by demolishing the record for rookie-year strikeouts after being completely ignored by the 2008 draft.
Prospectus offers a classic nature vs. nurture analysis as they try to figure out how Beachy, who seemed to show up out of nowhere, became the strikeout powerhouse that he is today:
...How, exactly, do major-league players happen? Are they the result of years of hard work, mental preparation, thousands of innings, excellent coaching? Or are they just the men born with the right combination of tendons, reflexes, and eyesight?
Brandon Beachy suggests it’s the latter. Beachy isn’t a great pitcher because he spent his entire life working toward being a great pitcher. He isn’t a great pitcher because he has more experience than everybody else. He isn’t a great pitcher because he worked out all of his flaws through 15 years of play. Beachy is a great pitcher because he has a great arm. When he was 22, he discovered that great arm, like the first time Evie Garland put her two index fingers together. Just so easy.
Brandon Beachy also suggests it’s the former. Beachy’s success is attributed to his make-up as much as any pitcher in the league. “That kid has it all figured out,” Fredi Gonzalez said of him. “A strong kid with a great work ethic,” said Roger McDowell, his pitching coach. “A great student … and a great leader on the team,” said a former college coach. “He does things the right way,” said a former high school coach. Everybody says good things about everybody, but everybody really says good things about Beachy.
Read more here. Beachy is still doing well this year; just yesterday, he helped lead the Braves to a 7-2 Mother's Day victory against St. Louis Cardinals with his parents in the stands to watch. He struck out six and walked four.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Fri, May 11, 2012
The nurses of the IU Health system are getting new uniforms, and Indiana Wesleyan University will be showing up at the various IU Health locations to show their appreciation for the nurses' dedication and commitment, in association with the Indianapolis soft-rock station B 105.7. Representatives of the IWU nursing school also recently attended the Indianapolis Star's annual Salute to Nurses event at the Indiana Roof Ballroom in downtown Indianapolis.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Fri, May 11, 2012
Inside Indiana Business has a story about Santiago Jaramillo, a 2012 IWU graduate who won first prize at this year's Business Plan Competition down the road at Taylor University:
Santiago Jaramillo's company specializes in custom mobile apps for businesses. BlueBridge Digital is based in Marion and its client list already includes the Grant County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The Chronicle-Tribune in Marion reports Jaramillio can receive funding from the competition, including $7,000 cash and a $15,000 loan.
Read the rest of the story here, sourced to Marion's Chronicle-Tribune newspaper, whose original article is behind a paywall.
Jaramillo tweeted a picture of himself with the award.
BlueBridge Digital has produced a number popular mobile apps. IWU's Sojourn student newspaper did an article on the company earlier this year:
Together, the team launched four Super Bowl apps for visitors to Indianapolis. “Indy Eats” contains information for a large selection of restaurants in the city. “Indy Night Life” is an app for live music venues, bars, Super Bowl parties and other Circle City entertainment. “Indy Transportation” informs visitors of street-closures, city maps and shuttle information. “We Love Indy,” the most popular of the four apps, is a “best of Indianapolis” app providing places to stay, places to eat and events to attend.
Those four apps made the top-five Super Bowl apps on the iTunes App Store.
Read the rest here.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Thu, May 10, 2012
The interior designers for Indiana Wesleyan University's Education Center in Lexington, Kentucky just received a “Traveling Gun Interior Design of the Year” award for their work on the Lexington center's new facility, which opened for business in November.
The award comes from the Northern Ohio Chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. "Traveling gun" is the term for work done on a property outside of the northern Ohio chapter.
"It's quite lovely," says Barrie Wilson, Office Manager of the Lexington facility, calling it a "110 percent" improvement over the previous location.
"The interiors here, the colors and so forth, the textures, are all updated to today's likes," Wilson says, "and we have all of the audiovisual equipment in each room, that's all updated, and grander and just much more slick than the previous site."
For students, Wilson says, the new education center has become more than just a place to stop for class--there's also well-appointed, welcoming space for eating and studying.
"Our student lounge has been referred to as almost a Panera bread-like cafe setting," Wilson says. "What's great is that the students come in earlier from the office and they might have another student with them and they'll have dinner back here in the lounge before class begins."
The center also offers a space for prayer, worship and reflection.
"The chapel is lovely," Wilson says. "The stained glass at the front of the chapel--the reverse side of it is here in our lobby."
Dennis Martin, IWU's director for regional operations, says that IWU has a similar ethos for the education centers that Starbucks does for its coffee shops: to create a "third place" besides home and work where a student can feel that they belong.
"We definitely present an upscale space, but not feeling ostentatious or unapproachable," Martin says.
This isn't the first time Herschman Architects has won awards for their work on IWU facilities. They picked up honors from the NAIOP and the American Society of Interior Designers for their work on the Merrillville, Indiana Education Center in 2009, and from the NAIOP in 2007. They've done significant work for IWU in locations throughout Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.
"They are a very forward-thinking and progressive group," Martin says. "They're definitely interested in the new and the innovative...they create the space that our students love to be in."
The Lexington Education Center is also available as a comfortable conference center for area businesses and organizations who want to reserve space for workshops, conferences, meetings and other activities. The 14,400 square-foot building has six technologically up-to-date classrooms--two of which can convert into one larger room--available for conference use.
For anyone in the Lexington area who wants to see the building, IWU is hosting an open house for the Lexington Education Center on Friday afternoon, June 1. Tours start at 12:30 p.m., with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 1:00 p.m. The event should wrap up around 2:00.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Wed, May 09, 2012
Wesleyan.org has a profile of Joshua Lavender, the Indiana Wesleyan University student who recently won The Wesleyan Church's nationwide songwriting contest. Lavender will perform his song at this summer's General Conference.
About his winning song, “Nothing Between,” Joshua says, “I knew I wanted to write a song expressing the simplicity of our task as Christians, to let nothing come between ourselves and God.” Reflecting on formative conversations in his past, he said “It became a habit to ask myself if there was anything I was holding back from God.”
In the “About” section of Joshua’s Facebook page, he reflects on his personal faith: “I'm all heart but still learning to love. I'm a warrior that battles the unseen, I'm a slave that chose his chains, I'm a survivor... What was sent to destroy me, through Him I have overcome. Who am I? I am His.”
Read the rest here.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Tue, May 08, 2012
Indiana Wesleyan University's Board of Trustees has approved the naming of three facilities on the Marion campus in memory of alumni whose lives left a significant impact on the University.
Cheryl Beckett: North Hall will be named in memory of Cheryl Beckett, a 2000 alumna, who was one of 10 medical volunteers shot to death in August 2010 in Afghanistan. She spent the last six years of her life serving the people of Afghanistan through community development, focusing on nutritional gardening and mother-child health.
Caleb Dimmich: The men’s varsity basketball locker room in the Recreation and Wellness Center will be named in memory of Caleb Dimmich, a captain of the men’s basketball team, who died in a farm accident in 1999 before his senior year at IWU. He was the leading scorer on the team the two years before his death.
Leah Whittaker: The women’s varsity basketball locker room in the Recreation and Wellness Center will be named in memory of Leah Whittaker, a freshman center on the women’s basketball team, who died in August 2011, eight months after she was diagnosed with cancer. Her valiant struggle for life inspired the entire University community.
Individual ceremonies will be held at each of the facilities in coming months.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Fri, May 04, 2012
Construction workers set the first precast wall panel for the new Wesley Seminary building earlier this week. Jay McHenry, IWU Associate Vice President for Planning and Construction, took this photo.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Fri, Apr 27, 2012
A group of Indiana Wesleyan University students are gearing up to host AWAKEN 2012, a conference for young adults interested in spiritual revival, on May 11-12 in the Phillippe Performing Arts Center on the IWU campus.
The event is free and open to anyone from IWU and surrounding communities.
AWAKEN comes in the middle of IWU's May term. Junior Garrett Howell, one of the conference’s organizers, says that many students find themselves at spiritual loose ends when spring semester's end brings a halt to the usual cycle of thrice-weekly chapels and campus bible studies.
"Summer's a really hard time, spiritually. It can be easy to feel alone and dry. We go from having this amazing community here all year around to not seeing people and sometimes struggling,” Howell says. “We really feel like [encouraging] people to make this summer a summer where they're taking spiritual responsibility. We want to send them off with a challenging event."
“[It’s] just a May Term conference for people who know the basics of the Christian faith but need a fresh vision,” says freshman Elyse Garverick, who is also helping craft the vision for the event.
Howell says that AWAKEN is designed for a range of young adults, from high schoolers through twentysomethings, from IWU and the surrounding community. Howell is the main speaker; students will host the conference in cooperation with the Office of the Dean of the Chapel. The Indianapolis-based Christian band Alanna Story (pictured at right) will lead the assembly in worship.
The theme for AWAKEN 2012 is “Calling our Generation to Revival.” Many people his age, according to Howell, are talking about revival—what it is, how to bring it about, what it might look like—and this conference will fit well into the stream of that ongoing discussion.
"We really believe that revival and spiritual awakening happens only when God's people get into God's presence," Howell says.
The conference starts on Friday night, May 11, at 7:00 p.m. in the main auditorium of the Phillippe Performing Arts Center, with subsequent sessions on Saturday morning and evening. Classrooms in the same building will host breakout sessions in between the main events, discussing aspects of the central theme of revival.
"It's very broad, but it's just about: what does revival look like in our generation? What does it take for that to happen?" Howell says. "We're talking a lot about what it means to be a leader in revival."
Registration is free; people interest in attending can e-mail Howell (garrett.howell@student.indwes.edu) or Garverick (elyse.garverick@student.indwes.edu) or simply show up on Friday evening.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Fri, Apr 20, 2012
The Indianapolis Star has an article this morning about creative ways that some women use to come to terms with breast cancer.
Among others, they spoke with Jeanne Craig, associate director of undergraduate management and marketing at Indiana Wesleyan University's School of Business and Leadership, who was diagnosed in August:
Ducks, specifically rubber ducks, became her symbol of hope and survival -- and a way to make others smile.
Craig, who is getting Herceptin cancer drug infusions through October, makes gift bags for cancer patients that include scarves made from duck-printed fleece, rubber ducks and copies of her "duck story." She brings duck-shaped cookies to doctors and nurses. She puts rubber ducks on her infusion stand at the IU Health Spring Mill Outpatient Center. At home, there is a duck is in every room.
It's been therapeutic.
"I started making decisions based on living," she said, "rather than dying."
How did ducks become a symbol of life for Jeanne Craig? Read the full story here.
Posted by Indiana Wesleyan University on Thu, Apr 19, 2012
by Lauren Rahman, IWU senior
Ceramics professor Bill Goodman has mixed emotions about retiring from his 34-year teaching career, which culminated in six years spent teaching ceramics in the IWU Division of Art.
“As you think about completing a career and retiring, it’s really different than actually doing it,” he said. “I’m not looking forward to the last couple days ‘cause I think it’s going to be sad.”
Goodman also knows that God has other things in store for him and his wife, Cheryl. “We encourage our students, as they go into art, to potentially have their own studios,” he said, “and I’d like to try that myself.”
Goodman and his wife will move back to Minnesota, where they have family. There, Goodman will open a ceramics studio—creating, displaying and selling his work to the public.
A pivotal personality in the Indiana Wesleyan University Division of Art, Goodman has spent his time at IWU shaping the students he worked with. Josh Martin, IWU senior and ceramics major, has spent his four years working closely with Professor Goodman.
“Goodman has become a friend to me and I am extremely blessed to have him as my professor these four years,” Martin says.
Martin says that Goodman has influenced him both as an artist and as a Christian. “He has modeled for me an incredibly humble and servant’s attitude in his teaching and personal mentorship.”
Goodman has been pleased with the level of dedication students in the art department demonstrate, especially the students he has worked with in ceramics courses. He said, “The ones majoring in ceramics have really done a great job and really have taken it, I think, to another level in terms of their careers.”
One of Goodman’s former students, Justin Schortgen, is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa, where he also serves as a teaching assistant. “I’m pretty excited for him,” Goodman said, adding that his time at IWU has been rewarding.
At IWU, students in ceramics classes are exposed to all aspects of the discipline, from glaze chemistry to building kilns. In Goodman’s seven years at IWU, he has led students in constructing seven different kilns, including a couple permanent ones which stand today in a shed outside of Beard Arts Center.
The art program is housed in both Beard Arts Center and Center Hall. Combined, these facilities hold space for 13 studios, three Mac labs, two photography wet labs, a frame and wood shop with spray booth, two lighting studios, offices for art faculty members, a lecture hall and two large galleries. Students are most likely to find Goodman in Center Hall’s sculpture studios and Beard’s two ceramic studios.
IWU's Division of Art has been labeled the largest art department of any school in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, with more than 276 students enrolled this past year.
As Goodman prepares to depart, a search committee, composed of art professors and faculty from two other departments, has been in the process of selecting another accomplished candidate to fill his position in IWU’s leading Division of Art.