Summer 2009 Archive:
How Can We Make Our Life Count?
by Gayle D. Beebe, PH.D. President All of us have a longing to make our life count. There’s wonderful merriment involved in the college experience — as we witness in our students — but it’s also about finding our... Read More
A Masterful Exhibit
Pairing Rembrandt’s beggars with contemporary photos of urban poor provides a rich experience A series of small prints present a powerful message in “Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings” on display in Reynolds Gallery this fall. The... Read More
Grant Funds Art Catalog
Reynolds Gallery has received a $113,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to help manage its permanent art collection. The federal grant, which requires matching funds from Westmont, is highly competitive; only 167 out of... Read More
Wireless "Cloud" Connects the Campus
Installing 802.11N network puts Westmont at the forefront of wireless technology and keeps campus well connected Westmont has suddenly emerged as a leader in wireless technology, becoming the only school in the country to completely move to an 802.11n... Read More
Pointer Becomes Acting Provost
Richard Pointer, professor of history at Westmont and holder of the Fletcher Jones Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences, will serve as acting provost for two years. He replaces Warren Rogers, a physics professor who had served in this... Read More
Good News for Westmont in College Rankings
Westmont leaped 19 spots in this year’s ranking of the best liberal arts colleges according to U.S. News and World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges, 2010 Edition.” Of the nation’s 266 liberal arts colleges, Westmont finished at 92. This is... Read More
Goats Eat Their Way Through Westmont Brush
Westmont hired brush-eating goats in August to clear defensible space around the campus, better protecting the college from future wildfires. Brush Goats 4 Hire, a Santa Barbara County company, delivered a herd of penned goats that chewed their way... Read More
Construction Continues on Campus
Rebuilding after the Tea Fire nears completion as do some new projects under Westmont’s updated master plan A huge crane picked up and delicately lowered Westmont’s powerful Keck Telescope into its new home, a yet-to-be named observatory beyond the... Read More
Faculty Footnotes
Karen Andrews (San Francisco Urban program) received training in the research and mapping of high-probability locations for human trafficking. She will join the San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking, a community-based organization of service providers and others concerned about... Read More
Schloss Sits in Walker Chair
The T.B. Walker Foundation, an anonymous donor and other friends have committed $1.5 million to create the first endowed chair in the natural and behavioral sciences at the college. The T.B. Walker Chair in the Natural and Behavioral Sciences... Read More
Four Fresh Faculty Faces
Three Westmont Departments Welcome Promising New Professors to Campus this Fall It’s a homecoming of sorts for Michelle Hughes ’89 (education) who first arrived at Westmont as a transfer student 23 years ago. She has worked as a teacher... Read More
Transforming Communities through Art
by Judy L. Larson, R. Anthony Askew Professor of Art and Director of Reynolds Gallery Adapted from a lecture delivered in January 2009 for her installation in the Askew Chair A story in the Washington Post in 2007 described... Read More
The Educated Evangelicalism of John Stott
by Alister Chapman, Assistant Professor of History Adapted from his Phi Kappa Phi Address at Westmont in October 2008 Finishing a book about John Stott brings closure to an eight-year period of my life in which I wrote my... Read More
Mission to Mars
When a spacecraft lands on Mars or goes into orbit around the planet, Steve Levoe ’75 is one of the first people to see the images sent back to Earth. A software engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in... Read More
An International Take on Technology
At their 25th college reunion, a classmate said to Ken Rogers ’82, “You surprise me. I didn’t expect you to do so well.” Ken, then chief information officer at Homeland Security, says he’s a little surprised too — but... Read More
Adopted Daughter Seeking Father
After graduating from Princeton Seminary in 1995, Margot Starbuck ’91 had a great idea for a book: “Five Easy Steps to Being Transformed.” “Then I had 14 hard years of transformation,” she says. Her first book, “The Girl in... Read More
A Driving Ambition to Follow the Family Business
The son of an auto dealer, Bill Burris ’81 grew up with a passion for cars. His father’s business included dismantling and rebuilding vehicles, so Bill got to work on cars as a youth. With access to wrecks and... Read More
Sold on Stopping Human Trafficking
Rachel Goble Carey ’05 thought she’d been exposed to the plight of poor children throughout the world during travels with her family, so she was shocked to learn about human trafficking for the first time as a graduate student... Read More
Making Service to Youth Into an Art
With two degrees in art history, Brittany Heinrich ’04 accepted a job as museum educator at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. “I have a passion for art history and the academic world and designing programs for school... Read More
The Westmont Annual Fund is All About the Student
Gifts to the Westmont Annual Fund help students like Daniel Torres ’12. A starter for the Warrior soccer team, he plays with intensity and energy. But he’s quick to point out he does much more than play soccer: he... Read More
Latest Crop of Students Arrives on Campus
Westmont continues to enroll a well qualified and increasingly diverse group of new students The 320 first-year students in the class of 2013 arrived at Westmont in August. The incoming class includes 11 National Merit Scholars, 80 students of... Read More
Scholarships Programmed to Attract Computer Science Students
Westmont’s computer science department has awarded scholarships of up to $10,000 to seven students this year. The recipients are first-year students Riley Frambes and Daniel Leong, sophomores Morgan Vigil and Aaron Panchal, junior David Daneshforooz, and seniors Josh Carver... Read More
A Cross-Cultural Education in Costa Rica
education students gain valuable language and teaching skills through an intensive program with a leading Costa Rican school Four Westmont students hoping to become teachers completed their final semester in June, six weeks after other graduating seniors picked up... Read More
High Marks for Education
Westmont’s Multiple and Single Subject programs have received full accreditation from the Committee on Accreditation (COA) of California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Following site visits, extensive review, and interviews with faculty, students, graduates, administrators and public school personnel, experts... Read More
Guatemalan Family Finds a Home at Westmont
violeta valladares reflects on her experience as the mother of four westmont students and a member of the parents council “This is the first place where we feel genuinely accepted and even celebrated,” my husband said during our son... Read More
A Modified History of an Old Garage
When Westmont purchased its Santa Barbara campus in 1945, the former estate included some smaller buildings as well as the stately mansion that became Kerrwood Hall. One of these, a four-car garage, served as the home of the chemistry... Read More
Watching Westmont Grow Its Graduates
David Cole says a central theme of his life is watching things grow. A biochemist for 36 years at UC Berkeley, he observed biology develop from a collection of unrelated fields to a unified, systematic discipline attracting an increasing... Read More