2010-01-14

              Last week, central Illinois expe-rienced
the full wrath of winter.
The storm, which started around
10 p.m. last Thursday, accumulat-ed
between six and seven inches
of snow. The storm was especially
hard to manage, not because it
snowed so heavily, but because it
snowed for so long—approxi-mately
12 hours.
“When the snow is packed so
thick that it becomes ice, it sets up
a no-win situation,” said Eric
Nelson, manager of grounds serv-ices
on campus. “Fortunately for
last week’s storm, we were able to
use the plows early on and then
use the snow brushes to make the
parking areas, sidewalks and steps
safe for everyone.”
Anticipating the resilience of
the storm, the grounds crew start-ed
working on steps and sidewalks
between 3:30 and 4:30 a.m. Some
of the crew put in 12 to 13 hours
fighting off the storm.
“The storm put the grounds
crew in a difficult position; it
came at a bad time,” Nelson said,
FEATURES, P. 7 OP/ED, P. 8 SPORTS, P. 12
The Argus questions
potential identity-theft
e-mail alert
IWU Facebook pages
are friendly resources
for students
Top 10 movies
of 2009
Men’s basketball
celebrates 100 years
NEWS, P. 2
Volume 116 | Issue 12
January 15, 2010
ERINN TOBIN/THE ARGUS
Campus cleanup efforts buried by hours of snow
SEE SNOW, P. 2
KENNY WOODARD
STAFF REPORTER
Above left, above: Attempts to clear campus streets and pathways
were obstructed by last week’s long storm.
International students spend Winter Break touring U.S.
While a majority of Illinois
Wesleyan’s students went home
after completing fall semester
classes, several of their interna-tional
peers packed up for a dif-ferent
reason. This Winter Break,
14 international students partici-pated
in a not-for-profit program
called Christmas International
House (CIH), an organization
affiliated with the Presbyterian
Church. Through the program,
international students apply to
live with a volunteer host family
or housing options provided by
churches for the duration of
Winter Break in cities around the
United States.
Reenie Bradley, International
Office coordinator, advises inter-national
students during the CIH
application process. “I think this
is a good opportunity for interna-tional
students to see other parts
of the U.S. and get away from
campus so they can return
refreshed for the new term,”
Bradley said.
Students this Winter Break
traveled to Kansas City, Kan.;
Florida; Harrisburg, Pa.; Atlanta;
Texas; and Chicago.
First-year Hyung Joon (Clark)
Choi, who stayed with a host fam-ily
in Atlanta, said he chose to
participate in the program
“because the break was too short
to go back to my country [Korea],
and traveling to different parts of
America was a good opportunity
to learn American culture.”
During his time in Atlanta,
Choi and a group of other students
participating in CIH House visited
popular local sites such as the
state capitol, CNN Tower, the
Martin Luther King Jr. Library
and Stone Mountain. When he
was not site seeing, Choi said that
he spent his time with his host
family, “learning American cul-ture
and doing activities they
arranged.”
For first-year Wei (Iris) Zhang,
who is originally from Zhenjiang,
China, the CIH experience in
Chicago provided an opportunity
to try several new things. “I went
sledding for the first time in my
life and learned to skate in only
twenty minutes.” Zhang said that
participating in the program
“makes me embrace different cul-tures
and ready for the coming
semester.”
As part of the CIH program,
many host families invite their
visiting students to participate in
their Christmas traditions.
“On Christmas Day, I liked that
all their relatives came to my host
NICOLE TRAVIS
NEWS EDITOR
SEE BREAK, P. 3
Left: Through the Christmas International House program, sophomore internation-al
student Hong (Claire) Zhou (third from left) stayed with a host family in Florida.
Below: (Left to right) sophomores Cheng (Jasmine) Zhou, Qinfan (Cha Cha) Jiang
and first-year Le (Emma) Yin visit Mickey and Minnie Mouse in Disney World.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF HONG ZHOU AND REENIE BRADLEY