Upcoming out-of-state alumni events
Central College alumni events will be held in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, Feb. 8, and Atlanta, Ga., Thursday, Feb. 23. Visit http://www.central.edu/alumni/events.html for more information.

Alumni day
Central’s annual alumni day is Saturday, Feb. 11. The Central College Bookstore is open from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. A 20 percent discount on clothing and gifts will be available to alumni. Tour the athletic facilities starting from the Schipper Fitness Center lobby at 3 p.m. Women’s and men’s basketball teams face Coe College in the final regular home games of the season in Kuyper Gym at 4 and 6 p.m. The first 100 alumni to sign in at the alumni table in Kuyper lobby receive a free gift and are entered into a drawing. At halftime of the men’s game, a Goalsetter Classic will be presented to the alumni drawing winner. The pom squad’s popular co-ed dance will perform at halftime, too. RSVP for the athletic facilities tour by Thursday, Feb. 9. Call ext. 5154 or e-mail alumni@central.edu.

Help needed
Central College is hosting the IIAC Wrestling Championship Tournament Thursday, Feb. 16. This is an all-day event and requires a lot of help to make everything run smoothly. Wrestling begins at 10 a.m. and finals start at 7 p.m. A variety of help is needed and previous experience is not necessary. If you are interested in volunteering your time to help run the tournament, please contact John Edwards at ext. 5348 or edwardsjoh@central.edu for more details.

Alumni award nominations
The Central College alumni office currently is accepting nominations for 2006 alumni awards including alumni achievement, alumni stewardship and service, Mr. and Mrs. Alumni, fellowship of service and honorary alumni.

For more information including award descriptions, past winners and an online nomination form, go to www.central.edu/alumni and click on alumni awards or log onto the alumni community. Deadline for nominations is March 1.

Help Central College Auxiliary
The Central College Auxiliary is looking for photographs, paper records or other memorabilia for their archives collection. If you have an item you are willing to donate, please contact Christine Peery in the Central College archives at 641-628-5170, or send items to Christine Peery, Campus Box 6500, 812 University St., Pella, IA 50219.

Central license plates
Is there any interest in having a state-issued Central College license plate? We need 500 interested Iowa residents to make this work. Tell us what you think by e-mailing alumni@central.edu.

Central Connections
Central Connections is Central’s alumni mentoring database, with approximately 500 alums registered. Faculty and students can use their Central username and password to enter. Select alumni by academic major, career field or location. Contact with alums begins with an e-mail message from the searcher. Central alumni are great resources for information about careers, internships/employment and location. Check it out by going to www.central.edu/connections.

Central College receives $1 million gift
Central College received a $1 million gift from John ’59 and Judy Reynen to endow the Donald T. Butler Chair in Economics at Central. Butler, professor emeritus of economics, was a faculty member at Central from 1953-95.

The Reynens transferred ownership of three parcels of property in Sacramento, Calif., which are expected to be sold this summer for $1 million. However, if the land does not sell for the full amount, Reynen agreed to make up the difference. He will manage the rental property until it is refurbished and sold this summer with all proceeds going to Central College.

“Central College is truly blessed to have successful alumni who greatly appreciate the impact legendary professors at Central had on their lives,” said David Roe, president. “The Reynens wanted to honor and thank Don Butler and Central College. Endowing a chair in Don’s honor is a marvelous way to accomplish these goals, and we are most appreciative of the Reynens for this generous gift.”

Book signing
The book Just Wash Your Hands and Tell Germs to Bug Off is a collaborative effort between Central College, the Art Center Program at the Pella Community Center and Pella Regional Health Center. During fall 2003, Central College students enrolled in elementary school art read the poem to students in the Pella Community Center’s After School Art Center Program. Then the Art Center students drew black and white pictures. Tilly Woodward, cultural affairs manager for the City of Pella and visiting assistant professor of art at Central College, then synthesized the drawings into illustrations and added color to them.

“This has been a great opportunity to integrate health, science, reading and art into a wonderful project,” said Woodward.  

“We wanted to continue the circle of community support of this project,” said Bob Kroese, CEO of Pella Regional Health Center. “Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated back to the Community Art Center Program and the Pella Good Samaritan Free Clinic.”  

The cost of printing the full-color copyrighted book was donated by the Pella Community Hospital Auxiliary. The books are being sold for $5 at the Pella Regional Health Center Gift Shop and Main Street Books and may be ordered by visiting www.pellahealth.org or calling 641-621-2388. A book signing celebration for the young artists will take place at Main Street Books Saturday, Feb. 18, from 1-3 p.m.

Nominations for Faculty Awards
Nominations are now being accepted for annual faculty awards. Descriptions of each of the awards and a complete explanation of the nominating procedures can be found in Chapter 10 of the Faculty Handbook.

Nominations for the Outstanding Performance Awards in the areas of effective teaching, professional growth and development, institutional service and community service should be sent to Robert Franks (computer science), chair of the personnel committee. Last year’s recipients were: Bob Maurer (accounting), community service; JimZaffiro (political science) and Wendy Weber (mathematics), effective teaching; Lois Smith (library), institutional service, and Gabriel Espinosa (music), professional growth and development.

Nominations for the Huffman Award for Outstanding Support of International Education should be sent to Steve Ybarrola (anthropology), chair of the off-campus programs committee. Last year’s recipients were David Purnell (English) and Anya Butt (environmental studies).

Nominations for the David Crichton Memorial Teaching Award should be sent to Paul Naour (academic affairs), provost and dean of faculty. Last year’s recipient was Louise Zaffiro (chemistry).

The deadline for nominations for all of the awards is Monday, April 3.

Breckenridge presents lecture, recital
On Jan. 13, Carol lei Breckenridge (music) presented a lecture, “A Brief History of the Harpsichord,” at Southern Oregon University. Jan. 15, she performed a harpsichord recital at St. Mark’s Episcopal Parish in Medford, Ore.

Breckenridge played for Mozart’s 250th birthday Jan. 27 the composer’s ninth piano concerto with the Friends of Orchestra de Camerata at the Salisbury House in Des Moines.

Mills at math meetings
Mark Mills (mathematics) attended the joint meetings of the American Mathematics Society and the Mathematical Association of America Jan. 12-15 in San Antonio, Texas. As a part of the meetings, Mills co-presented a talk with Dale Buske of St. Cloud State University titled “Using NASCAR to Illustrate Optimization.” The talk centered on the speakers’ attempts to use mathematics, especially optimization, to make picks in a NASCAR fantasy league.

Pavlat presents Fenzian
Dave Pavlat (exercise science) presented on the Fenzian and Central's research program at Kiwanis in Pella Jan. 25.

Six attend CASE conference, win awards
Susan Canfield, Jim Danks, Don Morrison, Dave Sutphen and Sunny Eighmy (all advancement) and Cyndi Atkins (marketing and media relations) attended the CASE District VI conference in St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 22-24. Danks moderated a session on fund raising and Atkins on communications. The group met up with Central alumna, Julie Lawrence Fiedler ’00, a former student worker in the alumni relations office who is currently working in alumni relations at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Mo.

Larry Happel, Abby Gonzales and Betsy Kane ’05 received a silver award for excellence in feature writing for the winter 2005 issue of the Central Bulletin, and Gonzales, Happel, Atkins, Eric Bumgardner(marketing and media relations) and Eighmy earned a bronze excellence in periodicals of four or more colors for the fall 2004 — summer 2005 Central Bulletin issues.

Whitmore VP of American Culinary Federation
Benjamin Whitmore (dining services) was elected vice president of the American Culinary Federation Greater Des Moines Chapter starting Jan. 16.

Harris published
Michael Harris’ (English) essay “Outside History: Relocation and Dislocation in Edna O’Brien’s House of Splendid Isolation ”is among those selected from the conference “Edna O’Brien: A Reappraisal” to be included in a new book.  Edna O’Brien: New Critical Perspectives, edited by Maureen O’Connor, will appear at the end of this year, published by Carysfort Press in Dublin, Ireland. Harris’ essay also will appear in a forthcoming issue of New Hibernia Review, published by the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.

Stark presents programs, named Who’s Who
Mary Stark (English) presented a program on Big Rock Park for the Vriendshcap Village in November as well as helped with a program on Pella for the College for Seniors at Iowa State University in November. She also was selected for the 10th edition of Who's Who Among America's Teachers  as a multi-year honoree. 

Dolezal’s poem published, read
Josh Dolezal’s (English) poem “Geometric” will be read on the show “The Naturalist’s Datebook,” which airs on Martha Stewart Living Radio via Sirius Satellite Radio. The poem was originally published in Isotope, a journal of science and nature writing.

Geometric
Glacial basin swept clean
of all but grass, scattered birds —
view so plain it could be
the square root of the sum
of this body, this earth. 

Weihe leads workshop, published
Paul Weihe (biology and environmental studies), along with Yaffa Grossman of Beloit College and Bob Woodmansee of Colorado State University, led a workshop titled “Global Ecological Education: An Initiative” at the Ecology In An Era of Globalization Conference in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, Jan. 6-12. This was the first international conference sponsored by the Ecological Society of America. 

The upcoming issue of the Journal of Natural Resources and Life Science Education contains an article titled “Helping Students Understand Risk” by Weihe.

Streed faculty rep on Iowa task force
Esther Streed (education) was the higher education faculty representative of the five-member Iowa Department of Education co-teaching task force, which led a collaborative conversation with the state department of education and higher education faculty in Altoona Jan. 26. Following presentations in the morning by the co-teaching task force, and Lana Michelson, chief of Bureau of Children Family and Community Services, Arlie Willems and the task force facilitated afternoon conversations about state-level in-service approaches and higher education preserves approaches to collaborative teaching among general and special education teachers. Over 60 faculty members from Iowa’s colleges and universities, which provide teacher education, were in attendance.

Benedict and students take tropical trip
Dec. 28-Jan. 11, 15 students and Russ Benedict (biology) traveled to Belize and Costa Rica as part of the Tropical Ecology class. Students included Becky Aspholm ’06, Sarah Benedict ’08, Sarah Bonefas ’07, A.J.Christian ’07, Eddie Elkin ’07, Tina Failor ’08, Jenna Garrett ’07, Heather Goemaat ’07, Courtney Green ’07, Sarah Macksey ’08, Amy Morrison ’07, Nate Rasmussen ’06, Nicole Sojka ’08, Reece Satre ’06 and Dana Wilkerson ’06.

They started their exploration on a tiny island off the coast of Belize where they spent time snorkeling on coral reefs. The group saw a nurse shark, several large stingrays, color-changing octopi and cuttlefish (squid relatives), and fish so brightly colored they nearly defy description. They took in sunrises (from an east-facing dock) and sunsets (from a west-facing dock), both over the Caribbean Sea. After leaving Belize, they spent nine days traveling in Costa Rica beginning in a tropical dry forest on the Pacific side of the country and moved to a cloud forest in the mountains. They explored a lowland rainforest on the east coast. The contrast in forest types was striking, as was the contrast in weather. They saw a sloth, three types of monkeys, three types of snakes, two types of tree frogs, orchids, passion flowers, peccaries (small, hairy pigs), leafcutter ants and a phenomenal variety of birds, some of which were so brightly colored that they looked artificial.

During three nights of netting, they caught eight kinds of bats, including one species that was large enough to be truly intimidating. One of the most amazing events occurred during the first night, when they netted bats in Belize. While removing one noisy bat from a mist-net, other bats began swirling overhead to investigate the noise. Within 30 seconds, there were 37 bats in the nets, most of which were dusted with the bright yellow pollen from the flowering tree they were visiting. A presentation summarizing the trip will be offered in February.

No news.

We extend our sympathy to Linda Blatt (center for academic excellence) and daughter Sam in the passing of Linda’s sister Arlene Scheir of New York Dec. 23.

Congratulations to Katie and Phil Hemming (admission) on the birth of their son Parker Jordan Jan. 10. He weighed 7 lbs. 15 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.

Janet Hanson joined the post office as postal services clerk.

Nicole Kaplan accepted the appointment of associate professor of French beginning August 2006. Kaplan currently serves as director of the Central College program in Paris. She received a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in French literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

No news.

Students take trip to Reynosa
A group of five students along with Diana and Joe Brummel (campus ministries) departed New Year’s Day to prepare work sites for the winter break mission trip in Reynosa, Mexico, for the larger group of 50 students, campus ministry staff members Abbie Hinz and Matt Ploeger and Bill Rozendaal and David Ibeling, parents of three of the students on the trip. The group stayed in Mission, Texas, each night. In Reynosa, they built four houses during four work days. A number of students went to a Christian bi-lingual school in Reynosa and taught students from kindergarten through sixth grade. The volunteer teachers and a few other students did some painting for the school during the week. Bible school was held three afternoons. On Jan. 12, the last work day, a group of about 20 students painted a church in Reynosa in about three hours. Also on Jan. 12, a group of about 12 students started a house from the foundation and almost finished the entire project in 9-10 hours. The trip was sponsored and organized by campus ministries.

Students included: Myra Appelgate '06, Travis Appelgate '07, Michelle Bahl '06, Jenny Baier '08, Leah Boyd '07,Krista Bradt '06, Aleisha Brummel '07, Sabrina Cheney '07, Chris Childs '09, Marianne Coonan '09, Aimee Crippen '08, Liz Davis '08, Samantha Dishman '07, Kyle Fleener '06, Tom Gill, '07, Derek Groenendyk '09, Anna Grootveld '06, Cathy Heaton '07, Alicia Herman '09, Kristen Hickman '07, Kristin Hildreth '07, Evelyn Howard '07, Lance Ibeling '07, Lindsay Ibeling '09, Dana Johnson '09, Greg Kapusinski '07, Heath Kelley '06, Sara Meyer '07, Heidi Miksch '06, Amy Nanninga '09, Brooke Nederhoff '08, Ryan Neuhaus '08, Jenny Petersen '08, Steve Poole '07, Megan Reinders '07, Kira Reinig '08, Lacey Ritscher '07, Jill Rozendaal '05, Sarah Schlager '06, Angie Schnedler '07, Dani Sexton '08, Angela Sheridan '09, Colleen Sheriff '09,Shea Stamp '06, Kristin Sturm '07, Rob Tanzer '07, Leanne Townsend '07, RJ Van Dyke '06, Michelle Van Ommeren '06, Mandy Van Woerkom '08 and Ashley Van Zee '07.

PLUS conference
Central’s PLUS students attended a conference in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26-28. Students included Nasra Al Habsi ’06, Hanaa Bouchikhi ’07, Amani Maihoub ’06, Shaima Muhammad ’06, Rama Musharbash ’07, Jayaseelan Raj ’07, Nasr Saradar ’07, Moksheda Thapa ’07 and Hafsa Zarrouk ’07.

Iowa International Fellows Program
Five international students participated in the Iowa International Fellows Program, a series of four weekend seminars in Des Moines. Students involved include Nasra Al Habsi ’06, Hanaa Bouchikhi ’07, Jayaseelan Raj ’07, Moksheda Thapa ’07 and Claudia Engelberth. 

Concerto-aria winners
Shuohan Fu ’08, piano, and James Skretta ’08, saxophone, won Central’s concerto-aria contest and will perform with the Central College-Community Orchestra Sunday, April 9, at 4 p.m. in Douwstra Auditorium. Fu will play Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467, first movement, and Skretta will play Villa-Lobos’ Fantasia for Saxophone and Orchestra, movement I. The concert is free and open to all to attend.

Care bags
As part of a floor activity for residents of Graham Hall, 11 Central students helped fill over 100 Care Bags this fall for Hurricane Katrina victims. The bags were distributed in late December to residents of Chalmette, La., a suburb of New Orleans. Students who participated included Jenny Baier ’08, Nicole Brooks ’08, Lyndi Beeman ’08, Jennifer Curl ’08, Emily Davey ’08, Liz Davis ’08, Crystal Freland ’08, Lindsay Kelderhouse ’07, Taryn Krug ’08, Shaunna Miller ’07 and Amanda Zook ’08.

Flex spending
Please submit any flex spending claims for 2005 to Marsh Tax Saver. The reimbursement forms are available on the internal Web site or in the human resources office. You have until Friday, March 31, 2006, to submit your 2005 incurred medical/dental/dependent care expenses to Marsh Tax Saver. Medical/dental/dependent care expenses incurred in 2006 should be submitted to FlexAmerica. The reimbursement form is on the human resources Web site at http://www.central.edu/humanresources/forms.html.

Open positions

Dean of Student Life

Director of Intercultural Life

Coordinator of International Student Services

College Bus Driver

Please click on the position that interests you to see a detailed description. If you would like to download an application click here or visit the college Web site at www.central.edu for more information.

Central College is strongly committed to creating a diverse community. In furtherance of that commitment, the college encourages candidates from diverse backgrounds, under represented groups, and/or have had experience working with and/or interacting with individuals from diverse populations to apply. Central College is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and actively seeks a diverse pool of candidates.