About Hannah Benoit

Hannah Benoit is Senior Writer and Associate Director in the Communications Office.

Covering the bases

Spring 2013 by Hannah Benoit

Seminar takes on all-American pastime

The game of baseball, says David Fox, is a microcosm.

“There’s a goofy T-shirt that says, ‘Baseball is life’—and there’s some truth in that,” says the Wheaton theatre professor. “Baseball is a lens on the world. And the human stories that come out of it are very, very compelling.”

Last fall, Fox and 18 freshmen explored some of the game’s most memorable stories in a new First-Year Seminar titled “Curses, Cornfields, and Called Shots: Baseball as the Stuff of Myth and Legend.” Fox, a lifelong Red Sox fan, organized the syllabus into “innings” that explored themes such as baseball as romantic fiction, race and gender in baseball, and baseball’s rough side (subtitled “business, bitterness and scandal”).

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Around the Dimple

Combating sexual violence

Spring 2013 by Hannah Benoit

Grant will support new campus programs

In November, Kate Gannon ’16 raised awareness about sexual assault by hanging fact-filled pink shoes from a tree in the Dimple as part of her outrageous acts assignment for her “Introduction to Women’s Studies” class. “I was doing some research and I read a fact, which I put on one of the shoes, that 97 percent of rapists don’t spend a day in jail. That was startling to me and devastating. So I decided to do a piece about victim blaming because women are often blamed for what they are wearing,” she said.

Wheaton has won a three-year, $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to develop programming aimed at combating sexual violence on campus. In partnership with the Norton Police Department and New Hope, a sexual violence crisis center in Attleboro, the college intends to create a comprehensive community-based model that can be shared nationally.

The grant from the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women will support “a continuum of programming that will convey a consistent message that violence against women is not tolerated” at Wheaton, according to the college’s grant proposal. Rather than focusing solely on perpetrators and victims, the program will stress the notion that “every community member has a role to play in combating sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.”

Wheaton was one of 22 institutions awarded a grant from among 110 applicants.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Around the Dimple

Learning full circle

Winter 2013 by Hannah Benoit

Wheaton and the Norton schools form strong ties around education.

It’s 10:45 on a Friday morning, and third-grade teacher Sarah Alves is trying on shoes. No, she’s not out shopping. She’s teaching language arts.

Sitting in a circle around her, the children giggle as she tries on a men’s hiking shoe, a baby’s cowboy boot and then a ballet slipper. With each one, Alves asks, “Is this shoe a good fit?” And each time the kids call out, “Noooo!” Then she tries on a well-worn bedroom slipper, and they all agree it’s just right.

The exercise is part of a lesson designed to teach kids how to choose a book that fits their interests and comprehension level. It’s a lot like choosing the right shoe, Alves tells them.

“Boys and girls, if I have a shoe on that doesn’t fit me, that’s too tight or too big, I’m going to be very uncomfortable—and if you pick up a book that’s too hard or too easy for you, it’s not going to be a ‘good-fit’ book. When you’re reading a story that you picked, that you like, that is the best way to be a better reader.”

When the activity ends, Alves announces, “The library is open for choosing!” and the children rush to the bookshelves in the corner.

Wheaton Students at Norton Middle School

Wheaton students who went to Tanzania present their experiences in a slide show at Norton Middle School as part of the college’s partnership with the local schools.

It’s only the second week of school at the J.C. Solmonese Elementary School in Norton, but the rapport that Alves already shares with her students bespeaks her skill as a teacher. Her training began at Wheaton, where she majored in psychology and minored in elementary education, graduating summa cum laude in 2004. She completed her student teaching in the Norton school system that year, and she’s been there ever since. Last year, for the first time, she supervised a student teacher of her own—Wheaton student Olivia Ahmadi ’12.

“It was very interesting to be on the ‘other side’ of things,” Alves says, “and it was wonderful to stay connected to Wheaton and see how the Education Department has grown and changed since my graduation. Wheaton is certainly on top of the new trends in education, because Olivia was prepared for the changing classroom and schools.”

This “full-circle” success story illustrates one of the many connections that Wheaton shares with the Norton schools—mutually beneficial partnerships that enrich Wheaton students’ experience while expanding opportunities for Norton’s youngsters. Wheaton students offer tutoring, arts performances, science lessons and more, serving as powerful role models for the younger students. Norton educators open their classrooms to Wheaton students, teach education courses at the college and model current best practices. The two institutions have even collaborated on grant writing and joint program development. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Features

Getting the ball rolling on new turf field

Fall 2012 by Hannah Benoit

Diane C. Nordin ’80 playing on Wheaton’s field hockey team in 1977

As an alumna of Wheaton’s field hockey team, Diane C. Nordin ’80 knows that athletics shapes both body and mind.

“The feeling of working hard, cheering, competing, succeeding and failing, and doing something with your body, not just your mind—those were important things you didn’t always find in the classroom,” says Nordin, now a Wheaton trustee. Through sports she learned resilience, how to make decisions on the spot, and how to juggle everything she needed to do “in order to succeed athletically, academically and spiritually.”

Nordin was reminded of her field hockey days in the summer of 2010, when she invited local Wheaton families to dinner at her home in Concord, Mass. There she reconnected with a former teammate, Elizabeth Atwood ’80, and met Atwood’s daughter Julia, then a forward on the Wheaton field hockey team. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Go Beyond, People