Bill Wolf '56, left, tours Fine Arts Center with Brian Lynch, fine arts director

A North Central alumnus with strong family ties to a local Methodist church returned to campus from out of state for a visit on Dec. 30.

The Rev. Wilmert (Bill) Wolf Jr., a 1956 graduate of North Central, was particularly interested in seeing Meiley-Swallow Hall—the former Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church at 31 S. Ellsworth St. Bill’s father, the Rev. Wilmert Wolf, was pastor of the congregation.

The elder Bill Wolf graduated from North Central in 1926 and returned to teach political science and history here. He later served as president of the College’s Board of Trustees and helped plan the libraries for the college and Evangelical Theological Seminary that was then part of the College.

The younger Bill Wolf, visiting from Pennsylvania with his wife Marianne and daughter Karin Wolf Snodgrass, hadn’t seen Meiley-Swallow Hall since its renovation was completed in 2007.

“For eight years I was custodian of this building,” Wolf said. “I blew out the boiler.” Wolf has fond memories of his years at North Central, and remembers attending an early-morning Shakespeare class taught by the late Dick Eastman.

“Liberal arts colleges like North Central brought culture and education to the masses in the Midwest,” he said.

Wolf and his family also toured the Wentz Concert Hall and Fine Arts Center. Associate Professor of English Judith Brodhead, archivist Kim Butler and Fine Arts Director Brian Lynch accompanied the Wolfs on their tour.

Jim Godo, director of marketing, was promoted to assistant vice president of marketing and communications.

Ashley Dudich, admission counselor, and her husband John welcomed a daughter, Grace McKenna, on Dec. 15, weighing 7 lbs., 4 oz.

T.S. Galloway, jazz trombonist and lecturer of music, and Doug Scharf, jazz trumpeter and lecturer of music, were in Washington, D.C., with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra to play for the 32nd annual Kennedy Center Awards Gala on Dec. 6, honoring Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbry, Robert DiNiro and Bruce Springsteen.

Tom Gill, instructional media coordinator in Oesterle Library, had several photographs published. Five of his winter lighthouse photographs were published in the November/ December issue of Northern Indiana Lakes Magazine for a feature article titled “A Light To Show the Way Home” about the lighthouses of Michigan City, Ind., and St. Joseph, Mich. One of the photographs was chosen for the cover of the same issue. Another photo titled “Limestone Waterfall” was one of some 150 selected from more than 28,000 submissions for the CBS 2 photo book “Capture My Chicago” available at Borders and Barnes & Noble stores.

The print edition of the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday, Dec. 30 profiled North Central wrestler Gabe Youel on page 5 of the Sports section.

Gabe Youel

The piece noted that Youel competed against a Division I opponent for the first time and prevailed in two matches Tuesday at the 47th annual Midlands Wrestling Championships, held at Northwestern University.

“This is a completely new experience for me,” Youel said. “This is my senior year and I wanted to try something new.”

The three-time College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin 184-pound champion beat Illinois’ Matt McCarter 12-0 for a major decision victory in his first match and then defeated Northwestern’s Aaron Jones 11-7 before losing an 18-6 major decision to third-seeded Phillip Keddy of Iowa.

Head coach Kevin Bratland and his staff have the Cardinals off to a 10-4 start. They’ll be in action Jan. 9 at the Cliff Keen National Duels at the University of Northern Iowa.

Workers have begun installing the surfaces for the multipurpose courts and track in the 60,000-square-foot arena at the Res/Rec Center.

Installation work on the Res/Rec Center arena floor is shown on Dec. 20.

Installation work began on Dec. 18, said Glenn Behnke, project manager for Mustang Construction. The center courts, which can accommodate basketball and volleyball, have been glued to the concrete. Bricks were placed on the surfaces to hold the seams tight until the glue set.

Also installed were red tiles for the long jump runways and darker gray tiles for other parts of the arena.

A Grand Opening for the Al Carius Track and Frank Gramarosso Gallery in the Res/Rec Center will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8, during the 26th annual Alumni Indoor Track and Field Meet. The meet starts at 5 p.m. with field events.

Ann Durkin Keating

North Central College history professor Ann Durkin Keating was featured in an NBC5 Chicago report that aired at 10 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17. The report was about time zones, and how 12 different railroads convened in Chicago in 1883 and established the time zones we know today. Prior to that, each town set its own time, incredible as it sounds.

Chicago Sun-Times travel writer David Hoekstra writes about his experience at Wentz Concert Hall in a blog post titled, “Sounds good in Naperville.”

Two science faculty from Beloit College in Beloit, WI met with North Central College science faculty on Friday, Dec. 11, to demonstrate the workshop method of teaching and discuss how it was implemented at Beloit.

The workshop method engages students more than the traditional lecture/lab structure, said Beloit faculty Yaffa Grossman, professor of biology, and Brock Spencer, Kohnstamn professor of chemistry. They demonstrated the pedagogy by bringing a variety of vegetables, to illustrate a biology lesson on identifying plant parts.

“Our botany class starts with chapter 23—the section on flowers—because students didn’t sign up to learn about the chemistry in chapter one or the DNA in chapter two,” Grossman said. “They’re dissecting a flower within the first 15 minutes of the first class.”

Yaffa Grossman, professor of biology at Beloit College, helps Becky Clemente, North Central professor of education, identify plant parts during a presentation on the workshop method of instruction.

North Central faculty asked interrogative questions about how the different teaching style was established at Beloit, where half of the college’s 300 first-year students now take a general chemistry course.

“We’ve seen a major change in the ‘fright factor’ about chemistry,” Spencer said.

Beloit College recently opened a new Center for the Sciences, and how faculty teach students figured into how the building was designed and constructed. Grossman pointed out that courses covering many disciplines are taught in the classrooms in the new building.

“It’s a college building in which science classes are taught,” Grossman said. “We changed our teaching style before we built the building. We designed the new building around those changes in our teaching style.”

North Central’s science faculty is involved in developing recommendations for the design and use of a new science center proposed for the Naperville campus.