Monmouth College events, Nov. 10-16

Veterans Day programs, Sienkewicz Lecture, Monmouth Associates all on tap

by Barry McNamara

Monmouth, Ill. (11/07/2023) —

College's Veterans Day ceremony to be Nov. 10; Zedric '83 to speak at Nov. 11 event

Monmouth College will pay tribute to the nation's veterans with a ceremony on campus on Nov. 10.

Joe Switzer, chief of the Monmouth Police Department and an Army veteran, will be the featured speaker at the Veterans Day event, which will be held at 4 p.m. in the Veterans Memorial Great Room in the Center for Science and Business.

Monmouth students who are James and Sybil Stockdale Fellows - a prestigious scholarship, leadership, service and enrichment program - are involved in organizing the event. Isabel Gimm '24 of Liberty, Illinois, a lead mentor in the program, will serve as the emcee, Corey Pevitz '24 of Naperville, Illinois, will give the invocation, and other fellows will serve as ushers.

The program is named for Vice Adm. James Stockdale and his wife, Sybil. Known as an inspiring and courageous leader, Stockdale was a member of the Monmouth College Class of 1946 and a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Stockdale was shot down in 1965 over North Vietnam and held captive for nearly eight years as the most senior naval officer in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison. He left the service as its most highly decorated member, having earned 26 personal combat decorations, including the Medal of Honor.

Within her duties as director of the College's Wackerle Center for Career, Leadership & Fellowships, Marnie Steach helps to oversee the Stockdale Fellows program, and she will also speak at the ceremony.

Monmouth music professor Justin Swearinger will lead members of the Fighting Scots Marching Band at the event, including a presentation of "Taps."

The following day, Nov. 11, Monmouth College graduate Lance Zedric '83 will be the featured speaker for the City of Monmouth's Veterans Day program at 10 a.m. at the American Legion, which will again feature music by the Fighting Scots Marching Band, playing a selection of patriotic tunes, as well as "Amazing Grace" and "The Star-Spangled Banner."

A former Army intelligence analyst and the author of 11 books and hundreds of articles, Zedric has a strong interest in World War II and Army special operations forces. He has also worked as an adviser and historian on several television documentaries and major feature films.

One of his books is Silent No More: The Alamo Scouts in Their Own Words, the culmination of his 20 years of work with the unit. The oral history features material based on interviews and correspondence with the men, offering a personal glimpse inside one of the most fascinating clandestine units ever to wear an American uniform. Zedric has served as the historian for the Alamo Scouts Historical Foundation since 2003.

A Peoria Magazine article about Zedric noted "his message is unselfishly about our combat soldiers. .... Their sacrifices and devotion to their country should never be forgotten, and Lance means to devote his (writing) career to that message."

When not writing, Zedric teaches troubled high school youth in central Illinois.

Sienkewicz Lecture will look, literally and figuratively, beneath Pompeii's surface

This year's Thomas and Anne Sienkewicz Lecture on Roman Archaeology at Monmouth College will take a deeper look at what the city of Pompeii was like before it was utterly destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Allison L.C. Emmerson, an associate professor of classical Studies at Tulane University, will present the seventh annual Sienkewicz Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13 in the Morgan Room on the upper level of Poling Hall. Titled "Excavating Hidden Lives in Roman Pompeii," her talk is free and open to the public.

Pompeii has long occupied a privileged place in modern imaginings of the Roman past. Beyond the city's well-known monuments, however, lies a well of data that has barely begun to be tapped. Emmerson's talk will introduce the research program of Tulane University's Pompeii I.14 Project, a new excavation that brings the most cutting-edge archaeological technologies to stratigraphic exploration below the floors, streets and sidewalks buried by Vesuvius.

A series of case studies will illustrate how the excavation team applies interdisciplinary techniques to restore the experiences of some of Pompeii's hidden and forgotten residents: women, the enslaved, and the urban poor, who might appear only rarely in traditional sources, but who shaped their town and their own lives in distinct ways.

Emmerson is a Roman archaeologist who specializes in the study of cities. She is particularly interested in the "marginal" aspects of ancient urbanism - not only literal city edges and the activities they attracted, such as waste management and the treatment of the dead, but also the people who have been marginalized both in ancient life and in modern reconstructions of it.

Her first sole-authored book, Life and Death in the Roman Suburb, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020 and was awarded the Archaeological Institute of America's James R. Wiseman Book Award in 2022.

Emmerson was field director of the University of Cincinnati's excavations at Pompeii and has recently co-authored the first volume of the final publication of that work: The Porta Stabia Neighborhood at Pompeii (Vol. 1): Structure, Stratigraphy, and Space (Oxford, 2023).

A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and of the American Council of Learned Societies, Emmerson has been awarded the highest honor in teaching given at Tulane University - the Suzanne and Stephen Weiss Presidential Fellowship for Undergraduate Education.

The lecture series was anonymously endowed to honor one of Monmouth's most broadly influential faculty members, Tom Sienkewicz, who retired as Minnie Billings Capron Chair of Classical Languages in 2017 after 33 years at the College. During his first year on the faculty, Sienkewicz founded the Western Illinois Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, which has hosted scores of archaeological lectures on campus. From 2012-17, he served the Classical Association of the Middle West and South as its chief executive and financial officer.

His wife, Anne, has been a loyal supporter of archaeology and over the years has hosted countless speakers.

Four Scots coaches to preview their winter sports team at Monmouth Associates

With the weather turning colder on the Monmouth College campus, it's time to head indoors for basketball games, swim meets and track invitationals.

At the next meeting of Monmouth Associates on Nov. 16, veteran Fighting Scot coaches Todd Skrivseth (men's basketball), Brian Woodard (track and field) and Jake Dacus (swimming) will speak about their winter sports teams, as will new women's basketball coach Michelle DeCoud, who was a three-time All-American player at the University of Dallas.

The luncheon will begin at noon at Meks on Main, 201 N. Main St., Monmouth. The coaches' presentation is free, but there is a $17 charge per ticket to eat lunch at the event. Individuals attending the meal are asked to make reservations by Nov. 13 at 309-457-2323 or at alumni@monmouthcollege.edu.

Parking will be available in the city lot at North First Street and East Archer Avenue or at the corner of North Main Street and West Boston Avenue.

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