SILCS Blog

It’s been a busy month here on the Wheaton College campus. We’re already at the end of week three, with only one week to go. Right now, the SILCS students are visiting the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center and the Boston University English Department. This afternoon, SILCS alumnae/i will be arriving for the reunion this weekend. Though we started the month with a week of cold rain, we’re currently enjoying a few days of heat and humidity to round out the month.

In the past few weeks, the students have visited the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University and the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Last weekend, we attended the Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945 conference and met with SILCS alum Perry for a tour of the Brown campus. We have had lectures by Drs. Sam and Alex Vasquez of Dartmouth University and Wheaton College respectively, Dr. Ryan Cordell of St. Norbert’s College, Dr. Lavina Dhingra of Bates College, Dr. Greg Colón Semenza of the University of Connecticut, and Dr. Tanya Rodrigue of Wheaton College.

In our final week, we look forward to one last lecture by Dr. Cord Whitaker of the University of New Hampshire. Next Friday is our annual graduate fair, where schools such as Stanford University, Southern Methodist University, Loyola University Chicago, and Ohio State University will be meeting with the students to talk about their programs. Finally, on Saturday will be our Symposium, where the students present the projects on which they’ve been working all month. We’re excited to see the results of their hard work!

Welcome SILCS class of 2012! We excited to see you all in June.

We’d also like to congratulate the SILCS class of 2011, who are hearing back from graduate programs now. So far our students have been accepted to:

• Ohio State University
• Northwestern
• University of Florida (2 students)
• Vanderbilt (2 students)
• Syracuse University
• Emory
• University of Delaware
• Howard University
• Temple University
• Virginia Tech
• Yale Divinity School
• Brown University
• Cornell University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Pennsylvania State University
• UC Berkeley
• University of Texas Austin
• University of Wisconsin

Congratulations, everyone.

The Summer Institute has come to another successful conclusion. We had a great month and made a lot of close friends who we hope will stay in touch. Have a great summer, everyone!

In the second half of the month, we listened to lectures from Dr. Daniel Kim of Brown University, Dr. Tanya Rodrigue of Wheaton College, Dr. Greg Colón-Semenza of the University of Connecticut, and Dr. Darryl Dickson-Carr of Southern Methodist University. All of them gave information on their own research and tips on the graduate application process. In addition, on June 17 we visited the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research in Cambridge.

On Friday, June 24, we celebrated our fourth annual Graduate Recruitment Fair, where such schools as Tufts University, Stanford University, SUNY Albany, Syracuse University, Washington University in St. Louis, Southern Methodist University and Northeastern University set up tables and spoke individually with each student about their graduate programs. The next day, the students presented their work in a Symposium in front of their classmates and returning alumnae/i from the previous year.

This fall, we plan to make SILCS better than ever, with the help of our new team of alumnae/i coordinators. Now the SILCS office closes once more for the summer, but we will be back again in September, ready to start preparing for SILCS 2012!

SILCS 2011 is nearly halfway over, and the students are working hard. As usual, the month has passed very quickly, and we’re fast approaching our final symposium, where the students will present their work.

Everyone arrived on campus over Memorial Day weekend, where the weather was unseasonably warm for Massachusetts. As in the past, we visited Project Adventure and learned a lot about each other as we worked together on team goals. The day ended with a BBQ on the campus green.

The first week, Drs. Sam and Alex Vasquez (of Dartmouth College and Wheaton College, respectively) came to talk about their dual careers and balancing graduate school and family life. On Monday, June 6, Dr. Gillian Johns (of Oberlin College) came to talk about her own work. The students also visited Brown University’s John Carter Brown Library and Boston University’s English department and Gotlieb Research Center.

This week, we’re looking forward to more lectures and trips, and are trying to stay warm after the heat wave suddenly turned into cold rain. Stay tuned!