On an Extraordinary Monday in February
| Dan Lassiter |
 |
As the Wisconsin presidential primary approached, Beloit College was busy urging candidates and political camps to include the campus on their campaign itineraries. The hope was to engage students in the electoral process, expose them to future leaders, and promote discourse on issues, all when many students were preparing to vote for the first time.
On Friday, Feb. 15, just a few days before the primary, the campaigns started returning Beloit’s calls. By that afternoon, College officials were meeting with candidate representatives to address everything from parking to wireless access.
Proposals included a major rally for Barack Obama in the Sports Center, a question-and-answer session with Chelsea Clinton in Eaton Chapel, an address by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, and a visit to Beloit by Florida Congresswoman Corrine Brown—the latter three appearing as surrogates for Sen. Clinton.
Campaign staff members started arriving to inspect campus venues, and by Saturday, the numbers of Secret Service personnel on campus were growing. News arrived that Brown and Townsend were not coming, but the decision to hold the Obama “Stand for Change Rally” in the Flood Arena was locked in, as was the visit by Chelsea Clinton, now moved to Pearsons Hall.
| Dan Lassiter |
 |
In the midst of the planning, a 14-inch snowfall was predicted, which would impede the already restricted parking. The snow didn’t come, but rain did; campus and city streets were icy, and by nightfall the temperature hovered at zero. Because of the cold, the Field House was opened for early arrivals to the Obama rally on Monday night.
In the Flood Arena, design teams, press and crowd control staff, sound engineers, and police and safety officials were all getting their requirements out on the table. The decision was made to keep athletic facilities open for normal use as long as possible on Sunday but to close the Flood Arena that night so that crews could hang sound equipment and staging could begin at 7 a.m.
Monday was one of those crazy days on campus that people will talk about for years to come. Chelsea Clinton arrived only a few minutes late to meet student supporters and Professor of Political Science Georgia Duerst-Lahti in Weeks Lounge. Escorted by U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin and introduced by student Bridget Crowther’11, Clinton spent the next hour delighting an overflow audience in D.K.’s Snack Bar.
Later that night, more than 3,000 people filed through security to fill Flood Arena, some of them waiting more than four hours to get in. Obama was welcomed by Tamara Fouche’10 and was preceded by a new campaign song written by Robert Tomaro of the Beloit College music department.
The next morning, just as polling places opened across the state of Wisconsin, everyone on campus stopped to catch their breath.
Coach Knapton Surprised with Special Honor
| Jeff Woods |
 |
Bill Knapton, who coached men’s basketball for 40 seasons at Beloit, was honored with a plaque commemorating his contributions to Buccaneer Athletics during halftime of the Feb. 9 basketball game against Illinois College.
Knapton, who resides in Florida with his wife, Joan, was surprised with the plaque by Beloit College President John Burris and Director of Athletics Kim Chandler during a tribute, which also recognized the 2008 Athletic Hall of Honor inductees.
Hall of Honor inductee Erik Quamme’96 delivered a heartfelt statement as a representative of the nearly 500 players that Knapton coached, while several dozen of Knapton’s former players stood in the stands.
During his tenure at Beloit, Knapton compiled some staggering statistics. Besides 557 career victories, he also led the Buccaneers to 31 winning seasons, including 20 straight from 1976 to 1996; his teams won 345 Midwest Conference games and 10 MWC championships, including a stretch of three straight from 1980-83 and four titles in five years; and his teams earned nine NCAA Division III tournament berths, including five straight from 1978-83.
Knapton also had a strong influence on the game of basketball as a whole. He served on the NCAA Basketball Rules Committee from 1981-86, when the three-point shot was introduced. Knapton originally voted no for the three-point arc, and the measure was defeated when the voting ended in a 6-6 tie. The following year, Knapton changed his vote to yes and the measure passed 7-5.
He was also on the National Basketball Coaches Association board of directors from 1986 to his retirement, including serving as the board president in 1994-95. Among the high-profile coaches on the board during his presidency were Michigan’s Johnny Orr’49, Louisville’s Denny Crum, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Purdue’s Gene Keady, and Kansas’ (now North Carolina’s) Roy Williams.
The plaque honoring Knapton was installed in the lobby entrance to the Flood Arena immediately following the tribute.
RELATED LINK:
Beloit College Athletics home page
Without Missing a Note
| Jeff Woods |
 |
In a career that spans more than four decades, Max Yount has enriched the cultural life of Beloit College through his music. And the professor of music hopes to continue doing so, even though he will retire from full-time teaching in May.
Yount’s ties to the College are strong, bound by enduring relationships with his students and peers. A talented organist and harpsichord player, he has accompanied countless music majors in performances.
Concerts have taken Yount from Eaton Chapel to recital halls on the East Coast to international locations. He has written more than 60 original compositions and conducted research in libraries and archives in New York and Europe, where he found Renaissance, Baroque, classical, and contemporary pieces that were later featured in concert programs.
As the long-time chair of the music department, Yount kept music at the forefront of the College’s curricular programming. For many years, he coordinated the Music at Eaton Chapel series, and in 1998, he joined the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble, “a marvelous professional group” that performs regularly on campus, in Madison and Milwaukee, and at other colleges and universities.
Yount arrived at Beloit in 1963. He had studied at the conservatory at Oberlin College and the Mozarteum Akademi in Salzburg, Austria, before earning advanced degrees from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.
In retirement, he will continue to live in Beloit and also perform and offer lessons in organ, harpsichord, and composition as an adjunct instructor. He will also organize concert tours of Europe and is planning to write a textbook on music theory.
As his formal teaching career comes to a close, you might say that Yount looks forward to marching to the beat of a different drummer. “I have enjoyed teaching, but 44 years is enough,” he says. “I am eager for a change.”
| To make a gift in honor of Prof. Yount’s retirement, complete the online giving form at www.alumni.beloit.edu or call 800-331-4943. |
Science Center Making Headway on Construction, Recycling Goals
On any given day, as many as 100 workers are laboring on the construction site of Beloit’s Center for the Sciences. Some crews have started working weekends to make up for delays related to Wisconsin’s winter weather. Progress on the 116,000 square-foot, four-story building is coming along quickly, and as this magazine went to press, several visible milestones had been achieved. With the exterior brick work completed on the east end of the south tower, workers were just moving to the west end, while most of the roof over the four-story central atrium had been completed. Temporary walls that separated the atrium from the north and south towers have come down, revealing spectacular views. Work has also begun on the building’s interior labs and classrooms.
As of the end of January, the College had recycled 446 tons of construction material, which is 90.7 percent of the total removed from the site. The largest of those components were asphalt (39 percent) and concrete (32 percent). Both were removed as the site was prepared for construction. Once Chamberlin Hall is taken down, the percentage of recycled material related to the building project will rise substantially, since nearly all of those materials will be either reused or recycled.
Faculty will begin to pack up their belongings in Chamberlin just after Commencement in mid-May. The Center for the Sciences, Beloit’s first green building, will be ready to welcome students in the fall of 2008.
Anyone with an Internet connection may monitor progress on the Center for the Sciences through the College’s Web camera, located at www.beloit.edu/webcam/, or learn more about the building and its connection to Beloit’s teaching philosophy by clicking on the Center for the Sciences button on the College Web site.
Remembering Chamberlin Hall
The Beloit College library is building a commemorative digital collection of Chamberlin Hall photos as the science building takes its place in Beloit’s history. Chamberlin is slated for deconstruction (it will be recycled) this fall after it is replaced by the Center for the Sciences. Photos by alumni and friends of the College are being sought for possible inclusion in the collection
To learn how to submit your favorite photos of Chamberlin, either inside or outside the building, click here. Photos are being accepted from now until October 2008 through Flickr, the online photo sharing site. Eventually, visitors to the library Web site will be able to view the Chamberlin collection, along with other historic photographs that have been digitized. Questions about the Chamberlin collection may be directed to Josh Hickman (hickmanj@beloit.edu) in the Beloit College library.
RELATED LINK:
Collection of Chamberlin Images on Flickr
Strengthening Ties with Minority Alumni
| Jeff Woods |
 |
| Courtney Snowden’00 makes a point during Beloit’s first minority alumni conference while Fred Buggs’93 looks on. |
Beloit reached out to alumni of color through an inaugural Domestic Minority Alumni Conference in late February. Held at the Beloit Inn, the event was hosted by the College’s Intercultural Center and Alumni Affairs Office.
Reconnecting with minority alumni who came to Beloit from U.S. locations was an express goal of the conference. Through a panel discussion and other events, alumni were asked to give input about their experiences as minority students and alumni of Beloit College. Minority alumni perspectives are increasingly important as Beloit works to recruit a more diverse student body and to improve intercultural understanding among all students on campus.
To those ends, Beloit has recently hired a minority recruitment coordinator in the Office of Admissions, and the campus Intercultural Center (formerly the Multicultural Center) has been reinvigorated under the leadership of Cecil Youngblood as director and assistant dean of students.
At the conference, attendees heard about the state of the College from President John Burris and members of Beloit’s senior administrative staff. Alumni, current students, and leaders of the College also participated in panel discussions as part of the weekend’s events. Attendees toured campus and took part in small group sessions with students, faculty, and staff.
“Alumni came from all over to attend, including Barbara Monroy’04 and her father, who drove all the way from Texas,” says Youngblood. “Alumni shared a lot of great memories and thoughts with staff, administrators, and current students. Their input will definitely assist us in moving forward.”
Participants came together at the end of the conference for a dinner and dance.
RELATED LINK:
Intercultural Center home page
Dance Company Presents Premiere Season
The Beloit College Dance Company will present its premiere season in Chicago on July 18-19, 2008, at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts at 1016 N. Dearborn Parkway.
The company is composed of Beloit College students and alumni and features choreography by Beloit College dance faculty Chris Johnson, Dmitri Peskov, and Kate Corby’99. Tickets go on sale in April. Contact the Beloit College dance program at 608-363-2713 for more information.
RELATED LINK:
"In the Moment" - Beloit College Magazine, summer 2006 issue
Campaign Moves Forward
Beloit’s comprehensive campaign, a $100 million fundraising program taking place over five years, reflects and supports the College’s priorities and the most distinctive elements of its identity: its classic liberal arts education philosophy; its history of innovation and risk-taking, whether with programs or institutional direction; and its ability to change lives, a trademark of Beloit since its founding.
Appropriately named Classic. Daring. Life-Changing., the comprehensive campaign moved beyond its midpoint last summer and now stands at $65 million in gifts and pledges received toward the $100 million total goal.
Campaign goals are focused on four distinct priorities:
• Endowed professorships and academic programs
• Endowed scholarships and international experiences for students
• The College’s major capital project, the new Center for the Sciences
• Unrestricted gifts to the Beloit Fund, which allow the College to be flexible and innovative in responding to opportunities
The success of the campaign to date demonstrates not only the strength of the College but also the commitment of its constituency. At the two-year mark, it has already exceeded several of its individual fundraising goals. Unrestricted giving stands at $17 million, surpassing its $15 million goal. Faculty support, including the establishment of endowed professorships and other academic programs, reached $19 million, exceeding its $15 million goal. The goal for student scholarships and other elements of the undergraduate experience is now at 65 percent of its $20 million goal.
While the College has turned to a variety of creative ways to underwrite construction of the Center for the Sciences, the key to success in that critical project comes in the growth of unrestricted gifts to the endowment. Unrestricted gifts allow the College to take advantage of financial opportunities and will guarantee the August 2008 opening of the new science facility.
More than 10,600 individuals have made commitments to the Classic. Daring. Life-Changing. campaign for Beloit during its first two years. As the campaign moves toward completion, people who believe in Beloit continue to come forward, helping to build the College’s future with their support.
RELATED LINKS:
Classic. Daring. Life-Changing. campaign home page
Giving to Beloit home page
Looks Great, and It's Greener Too
This issue of Beloit College Magazine looks completely different from past issues, the result of a comprehensive graphic redesign that has evolved over the past six months. Not so visible, but we think equally as important, are the advances we’ve made to reduce the environmental impact of printing the magazine.
Starting with this issue, our paper contains 30 percent recycled content, all of which is post-consumer, and the paper is also manufactured in a process that contains no chlorine bleach. In addition, the paper we’ve chosen for Beloit College Magazine is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. FSC is a non-profit organization that supports responsible forest management.
At the same time, we are pleased to note that our printing partner, Madison, Wis.-based Royle Printing, has made significant strides in its conservation strategies. Royle also was recently audited and certified to the Forest Stewardship Council Chain of Custody Standard (SW-COC-002972). This certification guarantees that FSC-certified paper flows directly through an FSC-certified supply chain, which identifies companies that legally harvest wood, thus supporting responsible forestry companies that are linked with manufacturing paper.
RELATED LINK:
Susan Kasten - Editor, Beloit College Magazine
NEA Chair to Deliver Commencement Address
Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and internationally acclaimed poet Dana Gioia will deliver the 2008 Commencement address at Beloit College on May 11. More than 300 students will receive their degrees at the ceremony, which is scheduled to take place at 11 a.m. on the lawn in front of historic Middle College.
A native Californian of Italian and Mexican descent, Gioia earned a bachelor’s degree and a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University and a master’s degree in comparative literature from Harvard University.
He has published three full-length collections of poetry, and his collection Interrogations at Noon won the 2002 American Book Award. An influential critic, his 1991 book Can Poetry Matter? was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and is credited with helping to revive the role of poetry in American public culture.
Now in his second term heading the National Endowment for the Arts, Gioia is the former vice president of the Poetry Society of America and has served on the boards of numerous arts organizations. In 2001, he founded Teaching Poetry, a conference dedicated to improving high school teaching of poetry. He is also the founder and co-director of the West Chester University Poetry Conference, the nation’s largest annual all-poetry writing conference. His anthology, Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, co-edited with X.J. Kennedy, is the best-selling college literary textbook in America.
Sports Center Gets in Shape
The waiting is over for students who faithfully showed up to exercise in the College Fitness Center, but frequently had to cool their heels while someone else used their favorite stairmaster or stationary bike.
Recent renovations to the College Sports Center, focusing on the Fitness Center, regular and varsity locker rooms, and the Flood Arena, have significantly expanded and improved Beloit’s athletic facilities.
A complete overhaul of the Fitness Center includes new equipment along with features that make exercising more enjoyable. New weight training stations and cardio machines that include iPod technology were installed in February, and flat screen televisions have been added to the center.
All Sports Center locker rooms and restrooms have been painted, carpeted, and tiled, and varsity locker room technology has also been upgraded.
The Flood Arena now features a new wireless scoreboard and sound system and the interior space is freshly painted.
The substantial upgrades to the Sports Center complex were possible because of a generous gift from Jim Flood’49 and his family, and a unique partnership between the College and BelCon, Beloit’s student government organization, which spearheaded the Fitness Center transformation.
RELATED LINKS:
Beloit College Athletics home page
John Burris Announces Departure
Just as this issue of Beloit College Magazine was about to go to press, College President John Burris announced that he would be leaving Beloit at the end of June.
Burris will assume the presidency of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a 14-year-old, independent private foundation dedicated to advancing the medical sciences by supporting research and other scientific and educational activities. The foundation is located in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
“I leave the College confident that we are in a strong position to continue and enhance our tradition of excellence,” Burris said in an email to the Beloit College community.“I have enjoyed serving as Beloit’s 10th President, and I look forward to watching, with pride, the future accomplishments of Beloit.”
Chairman of the Board of Trustees James Sanger noted Burris’ contributions to the College over the past eight years. “The impressive growth in applications and in the quality of students, when combined with the increases in the size of the faculty, staff, and student body, and the addition of new resources, all work to set Beloit College on a strong course for the future,” Sanger said. He added that the board had already begun to define the process for seeking a successor, noting that the search will be “international in scope and will include representation from all sectors of the Beloit College community.”
Prior to joining Beloit in 2000, Burris had been director and chief executive officer of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Mass.
Athletic Hall of Honor Grows by Four
| Jeff Woods |
 |
| From left: Kim Chandler, director of athletics, Maurice "Mo" Redd’96, Erik Quamme’96, Judy Logback’95, Amanda Lundgren Urish’92, and President John Burris. |
Beloit’s Athletic Hall of Honor grew to 111 “best of the best” athletes when Judy Logback’95, Erik Quamme’96, Maurice Redd’96, and Amanda Lundgren Urish’92 were inducted during a February dinner on campus.
As a student, Judy Logback’95 forged an athletic résumé that was on par with the best female athletes in College history. In just two seasons of volleyball, she was a nearly unstoppable force in the middle, finishing her career with 537 kills and 306 total blocks, including 181 solo blocks, which still ranks third all-time. Logback also went out for the track squad and won the Midwest Conference outdoor high jump crown as a senior and set the school record in the heptathlon with 4,347 points, a record that still stands.
In 1997, shortly after graduating, she founded the Kallari Association in Ecuador. Now, she is pursuing a master’s degree in forestry and business administration at Yale University. After finishing her studies, she will return to work toward conservation in the Amazon, where she will continue creating sustainable economic development alternatives to logging and extractive industries.
Four years after first stepping on the Flood Arena court, Erik “Big Q” Quamme’96 had cemented his status as one of the best basketball players ever to play for the Bucs. A three-time All-Midwest Conference selection, Quamme still ranks as the number-three scorer in Beloit history with 1,491 points. A main cog in the 1993 and 1995 conference championship teams, Quamme scored a good deal of his points from behind the three-point arc, where he made a Beloit career-best 231. In addition to Player of the Year honors as a junior, he became the first junior in Head Coach Bill Knapton’s 38 seasons to reach 1,000 career points.
Post-Beloit, Quamme continues to achieve success at Quamme Insurance. In 2004, he married Beloit alumna Sudha Pavuluri’94.
One of the fiercest competitors ever to play for the Buccaneer football program, Maurice “Mo” Redd’96 was a different person on and off the field. Off the field, he had a great desire to work with and help people, especially kids. On the field, his main goal was to secure a victory for the Bucs. As defensive back, Redd had seven career interceptions and nearly 200 tackles. After earning team Defensive Rookie of the Year honors in his first season, he went on to accumulate many honors, including as a three-time All-Midwest Conference selection, Wisconsin Private College Player of the Year, and Division III All-American as a senior. Twice he was All-MWC at two positions—defensive back and special teams player. Redd helped lead the Bucs to North Division titles in 1992 and 1994 and to a share of the title in 1995.
Off-the-field, Redd continues to pursue his goal of working with and helping kids. After taking graduate courses in social work at Loyola University and later at the University of Chicago, Redd moved to Rockford, Ill., where he runs a business and continues to dedicate his time and talent to helping others, especially his daughter.
Amanda Lundgren Urish’92 has enjoyed a 20-year relationship with the Buccaneer women’s soccer program. A four-time All-Midwest Conference pick during her Beloit career, she also has served the program as assistant coach, co-head coach, head coach, and the team’s official photographer. Her four seasons with the Buccaneers culminated in her senior year, when she led the squad into the MWC Championship match and finished as the program’s all-time leading scorer. She went directly from playing to coaching, returning to Beloit as an assistant coach in 1995. In 1997, she was named co-head coach with Kristi Straub’92, and the two earned MWC Co-Coach of the Year honors in 1999. Urish stepped away from the program after that season to raise her young family but returned as assistant coach to former teammate Liz Bartley’93 in 2006.
Urish is a self-employed graphic designer and photographer who collaborates on numerous Beloit College Athletic projects. She and her husband, Jon, who works in Beloit’s Admissions office, have three children.
RELATED LINK:
Beloit College Athletics home page
