2015-02-06

              Argus
the
Illinois Wesleyan University
Volume 121 | Issue 15 blogs.iwu.edu/argus/ February 6, 2014
Magician mystifies at Hansen
FEATURES, p. 6
Amelia Glueck earns Field Athlete of the Week.
SPORTS, p. 10
Vanderbilt rape trial
OPINIONS, p. 9
IWU School of Theatre ranked top five in U.S.
Illinois Wesleyan University’s School of Theatre Arts was ranked number two among the top five BFA Theatre Design & Technol­ogy programs in the country. Ac­cording to onstageblog.com, a blog that recently became an open na­tional website, Illinois has become a breeding ground for some of the­atre’s most successful artists and Illinois Wesleyan University stands out among the rest.
“People say any sort of rec­ognition or good press, even bad press, is great. However, we at the School of Theatre Arts take it kind of lightly because we are making a high level of artistic product regard­less of what an independent blogger thinks of us,” said Director of the School of Theatre Arts and Profes­sor of Theatre Arts Curtis Trout.
What makes IWU’s School of Theatre Arts different from other private institutions is that it is a School while other institutions only have a department. Anyone can be in a play at other private institutions while this is also true at IWU you must audition to be in the School of Theatre Arts.
Getting into the School of The­atre Arts is a unique process. “For a potential student to get into the School of Theatre Arts at IWU, they have two hurdles to jump over. First they must be admitted by the university, and then they must audi­tion in order to get into the School of Theatre,” said Trout. “Some­times if they are admissible by the university, we still require them to complete an online screening pro­cess before allowing them to come to IWU to audition.”
A significant amount of students are drawn into this definitive pro­gram from out of state and country. There are 91 majors this year in the School of Theatre, making up five percent of IWU’s campus popula­tion. 41 of these students are from out of the state or country.
International students make up 3.29 percent of the majors. Trout has already gone on five out-of-state recruiting trips this year to recruit and/or see students audition.
IWU’s School of Theatre Art design program is at an advantage among other private institutions and even some bigger state schools. “We have three faculty members who are also a part of a professional designers union and entry involving a peer-review process voting them in,” said Trout.
“Also, at state schools, theatre students get lost in the crowd while IWU’s smaller student population allows for theatre students to stand out and create a large presence for themselves,” he said.
Adding to the uniqueness of IWU’s program is the set up of the degrees. There are four different degrees, including three Bachelors of the Fine Arts (BFA) degrees, Music Theatre, Acting and Design Tech, and one Bachelor of the Arts degree.
“I think our Theatre Arts pro­gram is awesome in the sense that it is very individualized. You get to explore being an artist in all ar­eas of the theatre and the faculties are great,” said junior BFA Acting Major Shen Choong. “Because of the size of our department, we re­ally get individualized attention so that’s really wonderful and help­ful!”
The courses involved also con­tribute to the definitiveness of the design program. Students are re­quired to complete two independent studies as part of the curriculum.
Every design student is guar­anteed that they will design on the main stage, collaborating with a faculty director and mentored by a faculty designer.
“In other BFA programs, student designers never get a chance to de­sign. They are given craft positions, such as working on and painting sets. Here at IWU we put students in the forefront,” said Trout.
The other top four schools listed on the blog are number five Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, number four, the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, number three, Penn State Univer­sity in University Park, Pennsylva­nia, and number one, Emerson Col­lege in Boston, Massachusetts.
“I am very proud to be a faculty member at IWU. The entire student body is fantastic,” said Trout. “The students in the School of Theatre Arts are out of this world and I am thrilled to be a faculty member here.”
The breakthrough research method of Illinois Wesleyan Uni­versity graduates Jason Murphy ‘14 and Mark Swanson ‘14 was recently published and will now move into the testing stage.
The Auk: Ornithological Ad­vances, one of the top ornithologi­cal journals in the world, featured their work in the January ‘15 edi­tion of the journal.
While their work itself is not new, it is not yet known what knowledge can be gained from their design.
Three current IWU students – junior Jennifer Altman, junior Tess Kelley and junior Meaghan Mormann – are using this tech­nique to evaluate the pore spaces within the eggshells of the group of the flightless birds known as the ratites.
As part of their earlier ex­periments, Murphy and Swanson filled the pores of eggshells of the domestic chicken, the house spar­row and the ostrich with a poly­urethane resin. It occurred to them that this would be a great way to create better research models.
The polyurethane casts they designed allow for highly detailed models of the eggshells. This in­creased detail could prove crucial in further studies.
“Our understanding how eggshells influence gas fluxes has been largely dictated by our abilities to count and measure the outer diameter of the pores,” their co-advisor Professor Jaeckle said.
“It seems reasonable to suggest that there is a general relationship between the permeability of the eggshell and the rate of develop­ment of the embryo. How evolu­tion has shaped these spaces is an interesting question,” he said.
Previous to this new method, options were limited in visualiz­ing the three-dimensional shape of internal egg spaces.
Two of the most prevalent tech­niques are microscopic analysis of thin sections and the scanning electron microscopy to render a three-dimensional image.
Polyurethane casts could prove even more effective as they pro­vide an exact replica of the egg­shells’ textures.
The frequency and distribution of eggshell pores is interesting to ornithologists because the rates of gas movements can affect the de­velopment rate of embryos.
These pores control movement of gases and water vapor between the embryo and its environment.
Using this technique will al­low researchers to obtain more accurate information regarding the evolutionary history of certain bird species.
By creating three-dimensional models of the interior spaces of various eggs, researchers are en­abled to more accurately evalu­ate the morphology of the various eggshell pores.
Designing the casts was not an easy process. “It took about two weeks to produce a round of casts, and initially they did not turn out too well,” Swanson said.
The project itself spanned over two years, dating back to when both Swanson and Murphy were IWU students.
SEE ALUMNI, P. 3
PHOTO COURTESY OF: IWU.EDU
Biology major Jason Murphy examines egg shell structures of various bird species.
EMILY CONSIDINE
STAFF WRITER
Over time, Illinois Wesleyan’s School of Theatre Arts has proven to be an outstanding program.. This year, it ranked as the number two BFA Theatre Design & Technology program in the country.
Alumni project set to be tested
JEFF NEUKOM
MANAGING EDITOR
PHOTO COURTESY OF: IWU.EDU