Upcoming events at Monmouth College, March 14-19

Merit Badge University is March 14; Great Decisions on March 18; guest lecture by Augustana professor is March 19

Monmouth, Ill. (03/10/2020) —

College to host its ninth Merit Badge University for Boy Scouts on March 14

More than 375 Boy Scouts from Illinois, Iowa and other states will gather March 14 at Monmouth College to hone their skills during a daylong Merit Badge University.

This is the ninth year that Monmouth College has hosted the Boy Scouts of America's annual conference for scouts working toward their Eagle Scout rank by earning merit badges. Many of the activities will be held in the College's Center for Science and Business, and others will be held throughout the local community.

"In order for a scout to earn a badge, they explore their interest with an adult who is an expert in that area," said Monmouth staff member Kathy Mainz, who organizes the event in her role as chair of the local merit badge committee. "Our merit badge counselors will work with small groups of scouts and guide them through a booklet of information on their particular topic."

The conference also features adult educational programs, including required training for scoutmasters and information about the Scouts BSA program. Accompanying the scouts to campus this year will be more than 80 adult scouts and 45 volunteers.

Some scouts receive two badges at the conference, taking a half-day course in the morning and another in the afternoon. The Monmouth conference offers 34 of the 138 possible merit badges, including several that are difficult to find.

"We are one of the few places in the country to offer badges for railroading, plumbing, aviation and welding," said Mainz. "This is a wonderful opportunity for our scouts to think outside the box, to think outside the world of academia and explore different things."

The traditionally difficult badges to complete are available thanks to the cooperation of Kenny St. George (plumbing), retired BNSF employees Charlie Tanner and Maurie Godsil (railroading), Trevor Davies and JetAir in Galesburg (aviation) and Sam Gooding, Mike Torsney, Aaron Heartt and Shane Hudson (welding). Twenty students are enrolled in the latter course, with some working at Gooding's shop in Roseville and others receiving their instruction at United High School. The railroading students will get a tour of the Galesburg Railroad Museum.

Students from the Western Illinois Severe Weather Club will lead the weather course. Also assisting from the local community will be Prairie Communication/WRAM Radio's Vanessa Wetterling (broadcast journalism), Bill Leahy of Alexis (electricity and electronics), Matt Thompson of Thompson Brothers Trucking (truck transportation and traffic safety) and J.R. Girskis, president of Suburban Construction in Davenport, Iowa (American business).

Others include the Monmouth Police Department (crime prevention and fingerprinting), the McDonough Public Health Dept. (public health), the Warren County Genealogy Society (genealogy) and Kunes Country Auto (auto mechanics).

"We could not do these specialty badges without our business partners," said Mainz. "I've had some of them comment to me that if we don't show these specialized professions to young people, they'll never know about them."

College Editor and Historian Jeff Rankin and retired teacher Tom Best will teach the citizenship in the community session, which will include a tour of Monmouth's City Hall and the Warren County Courthouse.

Monmouth physics professor Chris Fasano, who got his first exposure to nuclear science as a scout, will help Matt Franciscovich '21, a physics major from Kewanee, Ill., lead Monmouth's nuclear science merit badge session. Fasano will also speak during the lunch program, helping the scouts - who range in age from 11 to 18 - and adults on campus learn more about the advantages of attending Monmouth College.

A counselor with Eagle Scout experience, Ryan Dawson '21 of Monmouth, will lead the art and graphic arts session. Dawson was a member of the local Troop 355. Monmouth faculty members Tim Tibbetts and Mike Nelson will also help Mainz keep the event going throughout the day.

Monmouth's Hinck to lead next Great Decisions discussion on China on March 18

A Monmouth College professor with a scholarly interest in China will lead the next Great Decisions discussion.

Communication studies professor Robert Hinck will introduce the topic "China's Road into Latin America" at 7:30 p.m. March 18 in Room 276 of the Center for Science and Business.

All eight discussions in this spring's Great Decisions series are free and open to the public.

As the Trump administration continues to withdraw from the world stage, China is looking to fill the void. How does Latin America fit into China's "One Belt, One Road" plan? How will the relationship with China affect the region? Should the United States be concerned about China's growing "sphere of influence?"

Last year, Hinck co-authored Global Media and Strategic Narratives of Contested Democracy: Chinese, Russian and Arabic Media Narratives of the U.S. Presidential Election.

Links between western films and classical world is topic of talk at Monmouth

When the "Wild West" is mentioned, we typically think of it as a region in the western half of the United States. But a guest lecturer at Monmouth College will show how the phrase also refers to the western half of the world, and how films portraying the region are linked to the classical world.

Kirsten Day, chair of the classics department at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., will deliver a talk titled "West of Them: Classical Allusions and identity Politics in Western Film" at 7:30 p.m. March 19 in the Pattee Auditorium of the Center for Science and Business. Sponsored by the Monmouth College Department of Classics, the talk is free and open to the public.

"The persistent association of the United States' immediate mythic-historical roots - which lie in narratives of the 'Wild West' - with the Greco-Roman world suggests an unconscious attempt to reinforce the position of the classical past as a direct cultural ancestor," said Day, whose monograph on classical epic and Western film, titled Cowboy Classics, was published in 2016.

Day said the division of the world into "West" and "East" is consistent with the "us vs. them" mentality.

"That mentality is crucial to the foundational narratives of a nation eager to justify the extermination of native peoples and the appropriation of their lands as a triumph of civilization over savagery divinely sanctioned by the tenets of Manifest Destiny," she said.

In addition to several articles on classical receptions in edited volumes and in scholarly journals, Day has also edited special issues of Arethusa and Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy dedicated to classics and popular culture.

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