Voices from the Ever-Widening Circle: Elmhurst University at 150

Voices from the Ever-Widening Circle Elmhurst University at 150

Voices from the Ever-Widening Circle Elmhurst University at 150

Elmhurst University Press 190 Prospect Ave. Elmhurst, Illinois 60126 ISBN: 978-0-9715120-5-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2023913371 © 2023 by Elmhurst University

Table of Contents Foreword Introduction 1 Making the Grade 2 The Investigators 3 The Innovators 4 Belonging 5 First in the Family 6 Meeting a Crisis 7 Becoming a University 8 A Campus Community 9 A Pioneering Spirit 10 Onward from 150

4 6 10 16 22 28 34 38 44 50 56 64

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Foreword The past few years have been truly historic times for Elmhurst University.

We introduced our first doctoral program, launched the most ambitious (and successful) fundraising campaign in our history, celebrated the University’s Sesquicentennial, and after decades doing business as Elmhurst College, formally became Elmhurst University on July 1, 2020. And as if that were not enough, in the middle of all that activity, we demonstrated inspiring unity of purpose in navigating the unprecedented challenges of a global pandemic.

Our recent Sesquicentennial celebration gave all of us the opportunity to reflect on some of the lessons of Elmhurst’s journey. I believe history shows that Elmhurst has thrived by adapting and evolving without ever losing sight of who we are and where we came from.

The 21st-century achievements you can read about in this book spring from the mission and values we still share with our founders.

Throughout the years, we have consistently honored a commitment to academic excellence, service and social responsibility, innovation, and professional preparation. Those shared values have guided Elmhurst through so many challenges in our 150-year history. I am confident that they will conduct us to ever-greater success in the years ahead.

Troy D. VanAken, Ph.D. President

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I N T RO D U C T I O N

An Auspicious Moment One of the best times to walk Elmhurst University’s campus is on the first gorgeous afternoon of spring. Students emerge to unleash discs on the Mall and bask in sunlight. Windows open, and music pours from rehearsal rooms in Irion Hall. At the Kranz Forum, a professor teaches her class en plein air to make the most of the mild day.

On days like these, it can be difficult to imagine that it was within steps of all this activity that Elmhurst’s story began, in very different times and under very different circumstances. In 1871, the German Evangelical Synod of the Northwest established a secondary school for the farm boys and parsons’ sons who hoped to become the ministers and educators of the growing Middle West. The new school’s first home, on the site now occupied by the Frick Center, was a New England-style two-story house topped by a widow’s walk.

The faculty in that first year numbered exactly one. The Rev. Carl F. Kranz taught classes in the house’s parlor. His 14 students, for want of a dormitory, trudged upstairs at day’s end to sleep packed into the house’s attic.

What would these students of a century-and-a-half ago make of today’s Elmhurst University? Would they recognize our parklike campus? The old house is gone, but the campus has grown to cover 48 acres, and it attracts visitors from afar to admire its carefully curated Arboretum grounds. The University is now home to more than 3,700 students. Unlike their predecessors, they are not required to pump their own well water or split their own firewood.

In fact, the University’s educational mission now transcends the campus.

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Students do service work in South African primary schools, intern with classical-music promoters in Germany, and conduct biology field research on the marsupials of Australia, among many other overseas experiences. Elmhurst students choose from study away options on seven continents. Still others pursue their studies virtually—a development that the students of 1871 almost certainly could not have anticipated.

The University has become a much more diverse place too. Students come from all over the world and from a rich variety of backgrounds and orientations. Elmhurst is now proudly designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution, creating better opportunities and support for Hispanic students.

Just as the proseminary did, today’s Elmhurst still educates a great many outstanding teachers and preachers; but it also prepares future scientists, supply chain managers, musicians, digital marketers, entrepreneurs and doctors.

But as much as Elmhurst has changed since its founding, today’s lively, diverse, innovative and globally focused institution would be impossible to imagine without the example of its founders. Their story became an inevitable focus of renewed attention as we celebrated Elmhurst’s 150th birthday in 2021. Over more than a year of special events and commemorative projects marking the Sesquicentennial, we have been reminded that the pioneering spirit of the founders is reflected in our continued commitment to innovation and the transformative power of education.

This is not the first time our community has had occasion to reflect on our roots. Elmhurst published its first comprehensive institutional history a quarter-century ago, to mark its 125th anniversary. Melitta Cutright’s An Ever-Widening Circle continues to be the definitive and authoritative resource for anyone interested in Elmhurst’s history. A second, revised edition updated the story to the first years of the 21st century.

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Though this publication covers the two decades that followed, it makes no pretense to the scope and detail of Cutright’s book. It does, however, provide a portrait of the University at a momentous juncture in its history.

The past decade or so has been an event-filled and consequential period for Elmhurst. Even as we prepared to celebrate our Sesquicentennial, we enrolled some of our biggest and brightest classes ever. We added new academic programs, including our first doctorate. We formally adopted the name Elmhurst University, to more accurately reflect our evolving educational profile.

And we were tested by a pandemic that posed unprecedented challenges—but also called forth the compassion, commitment and resourcefulness of our faculty, staff and students.

So this certainly seems an auspicious moment to take stock of our accomplishments, celebrate who we have become, and reflect on the path that led us here.

This publication originates in a grant from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, or NetVUE. The two-year Reframing the Institutional Saga grant provided resources to help us “document and reexamine where we have been, where we are going, and what the journey has taught us along the way.”

The grant has helped us produce new avenues for alumni, students, faculty and staff to share their Elmhurst stories, and this book is part of that effort. It aims to capture the spirit of Elmhurst University in the years leading to its Sesquicentennial, and to reflect some of the ways we are building on the pioneering work of our founders. We hope you will find it an inspiring portrait of a thriving and evolving institution of liberal learning and professional preparation.

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Making the Grade “Elmhurst has valued the liberal arts integrated with professional preparation for decades, and I believe that is the vital combination for this generation of students. Our students are hardworking and amazing, and care about more than just themselves.”

A N N

F R A N K

WA K E

Professor, English and Intercultural Studies

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Making the Grade A culture of inquiry and academic excellence is thriving at Elmhurst. It manifests itself in the impressive achievements of our students and faculty.

Continuing a Fulbright Tradition

In 2022, Norbaya Durr ’22 made an impressive bit of Elmhurst history. She received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to teach English in Botswana in 2023. That made her Elmhurst’s ninth U.S. Student Fulbrighter, its first Fulbright honoree who is a woman of color, and the first to teach in Africa.

A nontraditional-age student and mother who had been working as a medical technologist before enrolling in Elmhurst, she packed a lot into her time on campus—majoring in English, biology and chemistry, mentoring fellow students, and teaming with biology and chemistry faculty on research. As a Fulbright student, she aimed to foster connections as part of an educational and cultural exchange.

Durr said adding a major in English to her already ambitious course load paid off. “By studying English, I derived a great sense of cultural and social knowledge, adventure and exploration—and critical thinking skills that have forever changed me in ways I did not expect.

I plan to provide the same opportunity for intellectual growth to students in Botswana,” she said.

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ELMHURST’S U.S. FULBRIGHT STUDENTS Name

Country

Year

Oksana Didyk Jacquelyn Jancius Scott Morris Elizabeth Glass Lauren Williams Michelle Petersen Isabel Mercedes Juvan Rebecca Vogt Norbaya Durr

West Germany Hungary Germany Panama Thailand Brazil Slovakia Argentina Botswana

1981 2000 2008 2010 2011 2013 2017 2018 2022

Advancing Environmental Justice

Hailey Nicholas ’23 nurtured a passion for environmental justice and sustainable urban planning as an environmental studies major at Elmhurst.

And thanks to a prestigious Udall Undergraduate Scholarship from the Udall Foundation, she also got to follow her academic interests to the deserts of Arizona, where she worked with community leaders in environmental fields, tribal health care and local governance. Nicholas was one of just 55 scholars so honored in 2022.

“I got to make connections with these people across the country that I never would have been able to make before,” she said. “That’s really important for me, pursuing a career in the future and graduate school later.”

Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers

From the beginning, preparing teachers for the growing primary and secondary schools of the still-developing Middle West was part of Elmhurst’s mission.

Today, Elmhurst student teachers are in demand in classrooms close to campus and around the world. No one knows this better than Xavier Ahuad ’24, a self-described “Elmhurst history buff.” The history major plans to teach grade-

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school social studies after graduation. He figures to get plenty of job offers, as the winner of an award from the Golden Apple Foundation meant to prepare teachers for the most challenging teaching environments. The honor provides him with tuition support, classroom teaching experience, mentoring and job placement assistance. In return, he will help to fill a demand for top teachers at underserved schools. “I’m so excited to be part of the solution to our shortage of teachers,” Ahuad said.

A Model Library

Elmhurst has come a long way from its earliest versions of a school library— if that’s what you would call the modest collection of books that lived in the closet of a smokehouse through the 1880s. Today’s students know the A.C. Buehler Library as a resource for the 21st century. In fact, in 2010 the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, bestowed on Elmhurst its Excellence in Academic Libraries Award. The awarding committee cited the library’s role in integrating information literacy into the undergraduate curriculum.

In early 2019, Elmhurst celebrated the opening of the larger and more flexible Learning Center on the main floor of the library. Along with the Russell G. Weigand Center for Professional Excellence, the new Learning Center brought the campus’s academic support spaces under one roof.

Getting Students Ready

Elmhurst introduced its first freshman orientation program in 1928 and has been perfecting the concept ever since. In 2008, the University introduced a new, intensive orientation for first-year students to ease their transition to college life, while also inviting them to begin an ongoing encounter with questions of value and meaning. First-year students also choose from an

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expanding number of First-Year Seminars—required, full-credit courses that take an interdisciplinary approach to topics such as climate change and art’s role in society. Together, the orientation and the seminar build student success and encourage student retention by providing a head start on college life.

An Impactful Honors Program

Elmhurst has offered the Honors Program since the mid-1960s, but participation reached unprecedented levels beginning in 2004 under the leadership of director Mary Kay Mulvaney, also a professor of English. By 2022, about 10 percent of Elmhurst undergraduates were participating in the program, which has made an outsize impact on campus as well. Honors Program students play leadership roles in academics, campus life and community service, and contribute to a more intellectually engaged campus community.

A Focus on Partnerships

An Elmhurst education has long placed significant focus on the transformative nature of experiential learning and service to the world beyond campus through educational and community partnership.

The D.K. Hardin Center for Market Research teams students and faculty with local businesses, providing opportunities to develop solutions for real-world marketing problems and gain valuable practical experience.

Through a partnership between Elmhurst University and DuPage High School District 88, college-level courses are offered to students in the district’s two high schools, on subjects ranging from college-level algebra and calculus to social justice and English. Taught at the high schools, remotely and on the Elmhurst campus, the courses offer high school students the opportunity to experience the rigor of higher education and earn college-level credit while also connecting with the University.

A Voice for Women’s Health

In 2020, Campus Compact, a higher-education coalition that promotes civic engagement, selected Elmhurst communication major Grace Woods ’21 as one of its national Newman Civic Fellows. The honor recognized Woods’ advocacy for women’s rights and mental health. Woods volunteered with the DuPage County branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and participated in Kappa Kappa Gamma’s GIRLS Academy, educating middle-school girls about personal empowerment, body positivity and mental health.

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The Investigators “Undergraduate students at large research universities rarely get to run projects the way they do here. Students like problem-solving, they like to innovate in the lab, and they thrive in a research setting. My motto is ‘small college, big science.’”

V E N K AT E S H

G O PA L

Associate Professor and Chair, Physics

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The Investigators Elmhurst students collaborated with faculty on research projects supported by big-time funders such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

A Champion for Undergraduate Research

Helga Noice joined Elmhurst’s psychology faculty in 1999 and made an indelible impact on campus as a champion for undergraduate research and as an advocate for women in research. Noice, who died in 2022, was instrumental in starting the Research and Performance Showcase, an annual campuswide event for students. In 2013, the awards for each year’s best presentations were named in her honor.

Noice was an accomplished researcher herself, focusing on issues related to memory in older people, with funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust. She teamed with her husband, Tony Noice, who was an adjunct faculty member, on projects that examined how theatrical training could aid cognition in older adults.

Undergrad Investigators

Undergraduate research and scholarship at Elmhurst has flourished with the support of initiatives such as the Creative and Scholarly Endeavors (CASE) program, which awards summer fellowships to students to complete projects under the close guidance of faculty. CASE fellows receive a $3,000 stipend and present their work at an annual conference.

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At a student research symposium

Showing Their Work

Elmhurst hosted its first Research and Performance Showcase in 2003, offering a selection of student research presentations, musical performances and art exhibits. Since then, the event has become an annual campus highlight, with hundreds of students presenting their work. Undergraduate researchers also showcase their work at regional and national conferences, including the National Collegiate Honors Council and the National Council on Undergraduate Research.

Lessons of the Tadpoles

Patrick Mineo, an associate professor of biology, teamed with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh to investigate how microbial communities inside amphibians can help the cold-blooded creatures cope with a warming climate.

Unlike mammals, amphibians cannot regulate their own internal temperatures.

This means that a shift of just a few degrees in the temperature of their aquatic environment can have a huge impact. The researchers found that tadpoles with depleted microbiomes were five times more likely to die when exposed to rising temperatures than those with healthy gut microbiomes. Mineo and his colleagues published their findings in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

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Support for STEM

To support and encourage students interested in STEM topics, Elmhurst in 2013 launched its KEYSTONE (KEYs to Success Through Year ONE) Program, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Designed for first-year and new transfer students, the program points students toward careers in scienceand math-related fields. Students complete a monthlong “science boot camp” focused on research methods, explore career options and are teamed with peer mentors who provide guidance and support.

With another assist from the NSF, Elmhurst has been addressing a national need to educate a larger and more diverse pool of students in STEM fields. In 2019, Elmhurst launched the Promotion of Underrepresented Minorities in Academic STEM (PUMA-STEM) Alliance, a consortium of eight four-year colleges and one community college in and around Chicago committed to increasing the number of students from underrepresented minority groups graduating and pursuing graduate studies or joining the workforce in STEM fields.

Elmhurst also established its Financial and Academic Support for STEM Transfers (FASST) scholarships for high-achieving, low-income transfer students. The FASST Scholarship Program is also funded by the NSF.

Responsible Brains

The John Templeton Foundation awarded philosophy department colleagues (pictured, from left to right) William Hirstein, Katrina Sifferd and Tyler Fagan a grant to support their collaborative work in the philosophy and science of moral and legal responsibility. The three coauthored Responsible Brains: Neuroscience, Law, and Human Culpability, published in 2018 by MIT Press.

Award-Winning Department

Elmhurst’s biology department earned a Gold Medal ranking in 2022 from the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education for the quality of its curriculum and faculty. Elmhurst was one of only four institutions in the U.S. to earn that recognition.

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Impactful Faculty

A. Andrew Das, Niebuhr Distinguished Chair and Professor of Religious Studies, has published prolifically on early Christianity and earned recognition as one of the leading authorities on Paul. His book Remarriage in Early Christianity is scheduled for publication by Eerdmans in 2024.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Emily Navarro has researched and written about the rights of immigrants and refugees, and on the experiences of unaccompanied minors in the U.S. Her work has appeared in both academic publications and in highly respected popular outlets such as ProPublica Illinois.

Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders Brenda Gorman has researched and published extensively on language and literacy development and assessments and intervention among bilingual populations. In 2023, she received the Exemplary Practice Award from the Illinois Speech-LanguageHearing Association.

Plant research on the Frick Center’s green roof

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The Innovators “It is hard to imagine a better preparation for real-world nursing than the one our students get at our Simulation Center.

Employers value our students for their competence, preparation and integrity.

Experiences like this are a big reason why.”

L AU RY

W E S T BU RY

Assistant Professor, Nursing and Health Sciences

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The Innovators How does an institution thrive through 150 years of challenge and change? A capacity for innovation has been central to Elmhurst’s continued success.

Keeping It (Almost) Real

Elmhurst began a new era in nursing education in 2014, with the opening of its 4,500-square-foot Elmhurst University Simulation Center at Elmhurst Hospital. The result of an innovative collaboration, the facility helps undergraduate and graduate nursing students build clinical skills in handson scenarios representing inpatient, outpatient and community settings.

Students at the facility care for lifesize, robotic, simulated patients programmed to display symptoms and conditions ranging from a fever to complications in childbirth. Over the past few years, U.S. News & World Report has ranked the University’s undergraduate and graduate nursing programs among the best in the nation.

Innovation in the Air

U.S. News & World Report ranked Elmhurst third among the Most Innovative Schools in the Midwest in 2021, recognizing the University’s many recent pioneering advances, including new academic programs in environmental studies, digital media, cybersecurity, and game and animation art. In 2020,

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Computer and esports lab

Evolving to Meet New Needs

In recent years, Elmhurst has enhanced its academic offerings in ways that highlight its responsiveness to an increasingly complex and interconnected world—and the students who seek to thrive in it.

Undergraduate Year Established Criminal Justice 2008 Graphic Design 2012 Sport Management 2014 Health Science Technology 2016 Digital Media 2019 Environmental Studies 2019 Multimedia Journalism 2019 Cybersecurity 2020 Art Business 2022 Game and Animation Art 2023 Latino Studies 2023

Graduate Year Established Communication Sciences and Disorders 2012 Data Science and Analytics 2013 Occupational Therapy 2015 Master’s Entry in Nursing Practice 2016

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Elmhurst also launched its E-celerator, a campus resource for students interested in starting a new business or innovating from within an existing one; and the Bluejay Tank Pitch Competition, a showdown between would-be entrepreneurs modeled on ABC’s Shark Tank television program. And to provide aspiring entrepreneurs with insight, support and inspiration, Elmhurst named alumnus Patrick Yanahan ’94, MBA ’10 its first entrepreneur in residence.

Help for the Forward-Thinking

Jump-starting a startup or bringing new ideas to an established organization can be perilous undertakings. To help forward-thinkers navigate the challenges in their path, Elmhurst launched a new graduate certificate in innovation and entrepreneurship in 2020. The program links students with Innovation DuPage, a business incubator serving the DuPage County region that unites startup founders and small-business owners with the people and resources to help them grow.

Firsts in Nursing

Elmhurst introduced its first doctoral program, the doctor of nursing practice, in 2021. Offered entirely online for working nurses who have already earned master’s degrees, it focuses on practice rather than research. The start of the program coincided with the University’s 150th anniversary, and the nursing program’s 50th. And in 2020, Elmhurst introduced its online master’s entry in nursing practice program, the first online program of its kind in the U.S.

Boundless Possibilities

By 2020, students were working in two new maker spaces on campus, one in the physics department and one in the art department, using 3D printers, laser cutters and other resources to turn their creative ideas—product prototypes, architectural models, sculptures—into reality.

Talking the Talk

Elmhurst began hosting TEDx events in 2022, providing a forum for speakers to explore “ideas worth spreading” in talks of 18 minutes or less. The first event featured 14 speakers, including Board of Trustees vice chair and executive coach Wes Becton, speaking on the value of curiosity.

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Physics department maker space Bluejay Tank Pitch Competition

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Belonging “We wouldn’t be the people we are without the bonds we’ve built as a team. That makes all the work worthwhile.”

AVA

D AV I D

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Record-setting sprinter (far left), Women’s Track and Field team

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Belonging From its sectarian roots, Elmhurst University has grown dramatically more diverse. Actively pursuing diversity and inclusion has become central to the University’s mission of preparing students for lives of engagement and achievement in a global, interconnected society.

Glad We Asked

When Elmhurst made one of its annual revisions to its application for undergraduate admission in 2011, it inadvertently created headlines and sparked a national conversation. That year’s application asked: “Would you consider yourself a member of the LGBT community?” Responding was optional and the question was not very different from others the University had asked on its application in previous years, including about ethnic identity, religious affiliation and languages spoken at home.

But this question attracted national attention. The nonprofit Campus Pride sent out a press release congratulating Elmhurst for “setting the bar” by becoming the first college or university in the U.S. to ask about sexual orientation and gender identity in its application. Others mistakenly accused the University of unfairly favoring LGBT students. As a result, Elmhurst found itself part of a national discussion about diversity and sexual identity.

Elmhurst’s reasons for including the question, and others like it, were simple: to help the University connect students with campus support and point them toward resources such as scholarships. “We wanted them [students] to know that they would find abundant resources and would not feel isolated on campus,” President S. Alan Ray wrote in The Chronicle of Higher

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From the Winter 2011 issue of Prospect magazine

Education. Media coverage of the question, and reactions to it, cast a spotlight on Elmhurst’s commitment to inclusivity. Ray continued, “We were proud to have so much attention focused on our efforts to build a campus that is diverse, open, and affirming to all.”

‘La Promesa Azul’

By the second decade of the 21st century, students who identified as Hispanic made up more than a quarter of Elmhurst’s undergraduate student body. This earned the University recognition as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, a designation that made it eligible for federal grants to support Hispanic and underserved students. One such grant came in 2022, when Elmhurst was awarded $3.4 million in federal funds for a project called “La Promesa Azul (The Blue Promise).” One of the project’s main goals was the creation of the Elmhurst Center of the Blue Promise/Centro de la Promesa Azul, a campus resource dedicated to removing academic and social barriers for Hispanic and underrepresented students pursuing higher education.

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Bruce King, Elmhurst’s inaugural vice president for equity and inclusion, called the grant a “game changer” that would enable the University to expand its efforts in the areas of student success and equity “with greater intentionality and speed.”

Confronting Injustice

Like the rest of the nation, Elmhurst reckoned with issues of social justice in the wake of the protests sparked by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. In a series of letters, University President Troy D. VanAken challenged students to educate themselves “across lines of difference.”

The Institutional Statement on Racism, signed by campus leadership and the President’s Advisory Council for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, states: “The mission of our University, our legacy in Reinhold Niebuhr’s call for social justice, and our concern for our collective future, compels us to stand as a community with those who protest the racism that plagues our society.”

Notable among student responses to the national outcry was a Black Lives Matter vigil staged by the Pre-Law Club on the steps of Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel. University leadership initiated the Actions Speak Louder Than Words challenge, to build a more welcoming and inclusive campus. The campaign raised more than $200,000 from the campus community in less than three months to fund the new Presidential Scholarship for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, benefiting students from historically underrepresented groups. The University awarded its first Presidential Scholarships in 2021.

Scholarships for Diversity

The National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program awarded $1.3 million to Elmhurst in 2022 to establish the Promoting Inclusiveness and Diversity in STEM Education (PRIDE) scholarships. The

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PRIDE scholarships help students

who want to be teachers earn degrees in biology, chemistry, physics and secondary science education. They also help realize the ultimate goal of increasing racial, gender and linguistic diversity among Illinois primary and secondary science teachers.

Elmhurst’s United Scholars program, begun in 2020, empowers students of color with scholarships, career preparation and academic support. The United Scholars Living and Learning Community provides them with dedicated housing as well as advising and support, and fosters a community spirit of academic excellence.

The Elmhurst Learning and Success Academy

When the Elmhurst Learning and Success Academy (ELSA) launched in 2005, it was rare for a young person with developmental or learning disabilities to have access to a college experience. Indeed, ELSA was then the first program of its kind in Illinois and one of just a few in the country. ELSA is a four-year, full-time certificate program for young adults with differing abilities. It provides the kind of complete residential college experience—including participation in student activities, clubs and campus life, and career advising and placement— that would have been out of reach not long ago. And as a pioneering program, ELSA has continued to evolve. It has forged relationships with employers to increase job shadowing, internship and employment opportunities for ELSA students, and it has diversified its academic offerings so that many ELSA students now take traditional college courses alongside their non-ELSA peers.

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First in the Family “My parents were born in Mexico, and they worked all their lives to provide opportunities for our family. Their resilience and persistence is something I admire. Going to college is a chance for me to show them what a difference they made for me. And it allows me to set a path that my younger siblings can follow.”

C H R I S TO P H E R

P E R E Z

Awardee, American Dream Fellowship

’2 2

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First in the Family Elmhurst has always been a destination for first-generation college students. By offering scholarships, mentoring and academic support, the University continues to help them navigate their unique challenges.

Sharing College Knowledge

First-generation college students may face a unique set of challenges on their way to earning a degree. As the first in their family to go to college, they may not be able to draw on the familial “college knowledge” that other students can tap to make social connections, access financial resources and navigate complex applications. They are also more likely to come from low-income families.

Facing these and other obstacles, just 11 percent of first-generation students in the U.S. earn a bachelor’s degree in six years.

Elmhurst in the past decade launched a number of initiatives to improve the success and retention of its first-generation students. Its Bluejay First program links incoming first-generation students with peer mentors to help them make the social and academic transition to college life. Each fall, new first-year and transfer students who identify as first generation participate in leadership, professional-development and personal growth activities.

Their mentors provide practical advice and guidance and help them make connections on campus. And they can take advantage of dedicated study space and assistance finding on-campus jobs.

A Step Up

For many families and caregivers, a college education is key to helping their children achieve a more economically secure future. U.S. News & World Report

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in 2022 ranked Elmhurst eighth among regional universities for “advancing social mobility.” The ranking recognized the University’s success in enrolling and graduating economically disadvantaged students.

Aid for All

By 2020, about half of Elmhurst’s undergraduates were first-generation students; every one of them received some form of financial aid. One of the most highly prized awards for first-generation students is Elmhurst’s American Dream Fellowship, first offered in 2018. Any first-generation student admitted to Elmhurst may apply for the program, and all who apply receive some scholarship support. One winner receives a fouryear, full-tuition scholarship.

Transforming Lives

Alejandra Galvan won the American Dream Fellowship Competition in 2022

Supporting first-generation students is a personal priority for President Troy D. VanAken and Dr. Annette VanAken, first lady of the University and a professor of education. The couple were first-generation college students when they met at Hillsdale College in Michigan, and want to extend similar opportunities to others. President VanAken has said that their college experience has made them particularly aware of the importance of welcoming first-generation students.

“Our lives have been transformed by the educational opportunities and support we received in college. So much so that we have dedicated our professional lives to working with young people during this pivotal period in their life journey,” he said.

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Meeting A Crisis “The world needs beauty, now more than ever, and I am so proud that these students are sharing theirs with such great generosity.”

A M Y

LY N

M C D O N A L D

Assistant Professor, Theatre and Dance

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Meeting A Crisis Elmhurst responded with resilience and unity to the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic— and emerged from the experience stronger than ever.

A United Response

In early 2020, Elmhurst, like institutions everywhere, found itself faced with an unprecedented challenge: responding to a pandemic that disrupted not just classroom teaching, but every aspect of college life. At Elmhurst and elsewhere, COVID-19 brought in-person education to a halt, cut short study away trips, wiped out athletic seasons, and even postponed commencement ceremonies.

In March of that year, in response to local stay-at-home directives from government and public health officials, Elmhurst made the transition to online instruction. That required flexibility, creativity and dedication from faculty and students. Professors literally overnight improvised new ways to

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teach. Students, finding themselves isolated from classmates, contended with the new realities of remote learning. Both groups demonstrated resilience and creativity. For example, at the end of the Spring Term, with pandemic restrictions making in-person, live performances impossible, 60 dance students delivered a remote version of their usual end-of-term recital.

Working with Professors Amy Lyn McDonald and Rick Arnold, they turned their backyards, bedrooms, kitchens and family rooms into stages for their performances, which were streamed online.

Elmhurst established a COVID-19 task force to manage its response to the pandemic, and extended emergency financial aid resources to families rocked by the economic fallout. With students riding out the shutdown at home, Elmhurst opened student housing to front-line health care professionals who had tested positive, so they could self-isolate. Elmhurst students contributed to the community response to the pandemic as well. Sixty nursing students—the entire senior class—joined the DuPage County Health Department’s COVID-19 vaccination team, administering vaccinations and monitoring and educating patients at community clinics.

Finally, with new provisions made for testing, contact tracing and social distancing, students returned to campus for in-person classes in the fall of 2020. Elmhurst finished the term with just a 1 percent positivity rate among those tested on campus.

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A Commencement Unlike Any Other

In May, when the Class of 2021 gathered for the 150th Commencement, they were joined by the members of the Class of 2020, whose in-person graduation ceremonies had been postponed the previous year due to the pandemic. The unprecedented double graduation was conducted under a huge white canopy on the Mall, with graduates masked and seated at a safe distance from each other. The extraordinary safety measures did not dampen the celebratory mood.

Some graduates exchanged congratulatory elbow bumps with President Troy D. VanAken as they crossed the stage to receive their diplomas.

“Thanks in large part to your hard work, dedication and resilience, we are able to come together today,” President VanAken said. “We have been through so much together, especially in the past year. Always remember—you are a historic group in a historic time.”

Showing the Way

When the pandemic forced schools to move instruction online, biology teachers everywhere confronted a lack of resources for creating the laboratory experiences that are an important part of science courses. Elmhurst’s biology faculty came through with some assistance. In a paper published in the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, they presented a plan for a revised biology course, including laboratory experiences that students could manage at home using a preassembled kit.

Opportunities Born of Crisis

Even after Elmhurst welcomed students back to campus in 2021, the University continued to offer remote learning as an option for students who needed it. The Office of Information Services outfitted 42 classrooms for remote instruction. And the Center for Scholarship and Teaching (CST), founded in 2008, helped faculty integrate technology into their classroom teaching, providing technical resources and support. The enhancements occasioned by the pandemic outlasted the crisis and made possible new kinds of learning experiences for Elmhurst students. For example, in 2022, at a CST symposium, Assistant Professor of Political Science Timothy Hazen presented on Collaborative Online International Learning, an approach to connecting Elmhurst students with students around the world for virtual educational encounters.

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Many nursing students took part in COVID-19 vaccination efforts An unprecedented double graduation in 2021

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Becoming a University “Shared values are the glue that holds the place together. Our shared values are not going to change; that’s who we are. We’ll always remain true to the spirit of Elmhurst.”

B E AT R I Z

G Ó M E Z

AC U Ñ A

Chair, World Languages, Literatures and Cultures Professor, Spanish

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Becoming a University On the eve of its 150th birthday, Elmhurst embraced an ambitious future by adopting a new name.

The University Years Begin

On July 1, 2020, an institution with a proud history formally took on a new name: Elmhurst University.

The change came only after years of study and discussion, both formal and informal, among the institution’s leadership, alumni, students and faculty. A campuswide strategic planning process launched in 2016 raised the idea of changing the institution’s name to Elmhurst University. After extensive consultation with the campus community, Elmhurst’s leadership recommended the name change, arguing that the “university” label most accurately reflected Elmhurst’s profile as a comprehensive higher-education institution. This recommendation was then debated and endorsed by campus governance groups before being submitted to the Board of Trustees. The Board approved the change on June 15, 2019.

Though students and alumni had proudly identified with Elmhurst College for decades, this would not be the first time the institution had changed its name. At its founding in 1871, it was called the German Evangelical Proseminary. Later, it would be called simply Elmhurst Proseminary; and later still, Elmhurst Academy and Junior College. Not until 1924 did it formally become Elmhurst College.

Advocates for the change noted that Elmhurst was already classified as a university by education monitors such as U.S. News & World Report.

Elmhurst had been offering graduate programs since 1998, and the addition of its first doctoral programs figured to be imminent. The new identity would

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reduce confusion about the nature of the institution. Locally, Elmhurst could be confused with a community college. And for some international students, increasingly a focus of student recruitment efforts, “college” could connote a technical or secondary school.

“A change in name will not alter our commitment to outstanding teaching, personal education and the fostering of an inclusive and supportive campus learning community that promotes social justice,” said Ed Momkus, chair of the Board of Trustees at the time and an alumnus from the Class of 1974. “As one of more than 36,000 proud alumni, I believe in and treasure my Elmhurst education and the underlying values that support it.”

Updating the Gates

The Gates of Knowledge, the formal entrance to campus on Prospect Avenue, was the natural place to debut Elmhurst’s new name when it became official.

The task of preparing the archway above the gates for the big moment went to a father-daughter alumni pair, Edward Bartholomew, MBA ’10, and Erin Bartholomew ’18. Their family business, Sign Artist, dismantled, cleaned and

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restored the wrought-iron arch, then cast and placed the letters spelling out the institution’s new name.

The arch was just one of 100 signs on campus updated to reflect the new identity. A new University seal was cast in bronze by Associate Professor of Art Dustan Creech and his students, and placed in the hood over the fireplace in the Frick Center. Creech and his students turned the Kranz Forum into a temporary foundry to complete their assignment.

On Day One

As the campus and the world continued to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic, Elmhurst University celebrated July 1, 2020, its historic first day, with virtual and in-person activities. The day began with the launch of a video that debuted the new arch and featured music performances and congratulatory messages from nearly 50 Elmhurst students, faculty, administrators, alumni and friends. In addition, the City of Elmhurst issued an Elmhurst University Day proclamation, and nearly 250 faculty, administrators and staff gathered online and in person for a special toast.

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A Campus Community “You don’t have to be a music major to be part of Elmhurst’s jazz band. Everything’s open to everyone on this campus. That’s what a liberal arts institution should be about.

All the opportunities are there for you.

Those experiences make our students better people, and in turn they go out and make the world better with their contributions.”

D O U G

B E AC H

Former Director, Jazz Studies Program and Elmhurst University Jazz Band

June Jazz on the University Mall

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A Campus Community Elmhurst’s campus has become a true cultural and entertainment hub, drawing audiences for concerts, lectures, athletic contests, plays and exhibitions—while providing a wealth of opportunities for students to grow and achieve outside the classroom.

Talk of the Town

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Journalist Bob Woodward.

Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Florida governor and presidential candidate Jeb Bush. Poet Maya Angelou. These were just some of the big names who came to Elmhurst to speak in recent years before appreciative audiences. The University’s various lecture series enrich the cultural life of the campus, serve local communities and raise Elmhurst’s profile.

Beginning under President S. Alan Ray’s leadership, annual Cultural Season guest lectures were thematically linked to institutional projects and courses. In 2009, Elmhurst awarded its highest honor, the Niebuhr Medal, to Catholic priest and theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez for his advocacy for the poor.

His work became the inspiration for the yearlong, campuswide Poverty Project, an effort to confront “the everyday scandal of material poverty” around the world and close to home.

Life of the Spirit

Although only about 5 percent of Elmhurst’s students identified as members of the United Church of Christ by 2000, ties to the church have remained strong.

That year, Elmhurst’s Board of Trustees voted to join the UCC’s newly formed Council for Higher Education as full members, signaling its commitment to

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A sold-out audience for historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

an ongoing relationship with the UCC. In 2002, Elmhurst established the National Church Associates of Elmhurst College, enlisting alumni pastors and church officials as ambassadors.

Interfaith engagement has remained an institutional priority.

Elmhurst initiated three lecture series with religious themes: a Catholic lecture, named for Cardinal Joseph Bernardin; a Jewish lecture, named for philosopher and theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel; and a Muslim lecture, named for 12th-century theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Under the leadership of Chaplain H. Scott Matheney, these and other lectures and initiatives became part of the Religious Literacy Project at Elmhurst University. And a diverse range of student organizations promote spiritual, religious and interfaith engagement on campus and participate in community service.

Celebrating Service

Elmhurst launched the Niebuhr Service to Society Scholarship Competition in 2019 to recognize and reward prospective students for their commitment to service. Awards range from four-year, full-tuition scholarships to $1,000 grants for all who participated in the competition. In 2023, more than 200 applicants

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entered the competition, including students from every region of the U.S., as well as Brazil, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico and Uzbekistan. The competition is named for theologians Reinhold Niebuhr (Class of 1910) and H. Richard Niebuhr (Class of 1912), two of Elmhurst’s most renowned alumni.

Unstoppable

Bluejay running back Scottie Williams Jr. ’13 won the prestigious Gagliardi Trophy, which honors the nation’s top football player in NCAA Division III, in 2012. That award capped a collegiate career full of academic and athletic achievements for Williams, including All-America and Academic All-America honors. Williams helped lead Elmhurst to the second round of the 2012 NCAA DIII playoffs for the first time in school history.

The men’s basketball Bluejays advanced all the way to the championship game of the NCAA DIII tournament in 2022, finishing as national runners-up and registering a school record 27 wins. Guard Jake Rhode, a senior, earned All-America honors for the second consecutive year.

A Growing Roster

The addition of men’s and women’s lacrosse, in 2013 and 2015, respectively, raised the number of varsity sports to 20. In 2017, Elmhurst also started an esports club, with team members competing in games such as Overwatch 2 and League of Legends.

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Elmhurst University Jazz Festival

All That Jazz

The University’s acclaimed Jazz Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017 with a gala concert featuring vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater. In 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 54th annual festival became the first and only one to be presented entirely online. The response from an appreciative global audience proved so positive that when the Festival returned to an in-person format in 2022, performances continued to be streamed live online.

The 2021 Festival also marked director Doug Beach’s retirement after a remarkable 27-year tenure. Beach joined Elmhurst’s music faculty in 1978 as director of the Jazz Band, and over the next 43 years, he led the ensemble to international recognition.

Green Campus

Environmental stewardship continues to serve as the catalyst for much campus activity. The U.S. Green Building Council awarded West Hall a Gold rating in its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. In 2012, the Illinois Campus Sustainability Compact, a statewide program that encourages sustainable practices at colleges and universities, honored Elmhurst for its efforts to protect the environment and create a campus culture of “living green.”

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A Pioneering Spirit “I have a lot of gratitude toward the people who started this place—the people who built the culture, built the departments, built the buildings. I feel very proud to be here celebrating 150.”

RO B Y

T H O M A S

Professor, Business and Economics Program Director, M.S. in Supply Chain Management

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A Pioneering Spirit With special events spanning an entire academic year, Elmhurst University marked its Sesquicentennial by honoring the pioneering spirit of its founders.

Celebrating 150 Years

It was a party 150 years in the making. Elmhurst University’s Sesquicentennial celebration began in the fall of 2021, and unfolded on a campus revitalized by the return of students and the full resumption of in-person learning after long months of pandemic-related disruptions. Over Homecoming weekend, nearly 1,000 people gathered on the Mall to see fireworks illuminate the sky over Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel.

The Elmhurst History Museum hosted an exhibit called “An Ever-Widening Circle: Elmhurst University at 150” that drew on treasures from the University’s archives to trace its remarkable evolution and continued impact. With funding from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE), Elmhurst launched “Calling All Voices,” an oral history project that traced the University’s impact on alumni, faculty and friends of Elmhurst—and their contributions to the University. The grant also helped to fund the creation of this book. Both NetVUE projects sought out less-heard voices and stories, creating a richer take on Elmhurst’s history.

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Elmhurst University dates its founding to the arrival on Dec. 6, 1871, of the Rev. Carl F. Kranz and 14 students to establish a proseminary for the German Evangelical Synod of the Northwest. On Founders Day 2021, in freezing temperatures with sub-zero windchills, a troupe of students gathered in period costumes outside the Frick Center to reenact scenes from the institution’s founding. That same evening, at an elegant reception for campus and community, Elmhurst announced the launch of a $50 million comprehensive fundraising campaign, the University’s largest ever.

The Sesquicentennial celebrations were completed with the 151st Commencement in 2022, where nearly a thousand undergraduate and graduate students received degrees. Speaking to the graduates, President Troy D. VanAken called the occasion “the first day of our next 150 years.”

Digging Into History

For some Elmhurst history majors, the Sesquicentennial turned out to be a rich source of research topics. In Associate Professor of History Karen Benjamin’s Public History seminar, students combed through local archives and library collections in search of overlooked stories from Elmhurst’s past. Among their projects: a consideration of the role of German as the language of instruction in the institution’s first decades, a look at how Elmhurst responded to World War II and an examination of Elmhurst’s record of enrolling Black students.

A Bold Statement

A 200-foot-long stretch of brick wall on the north edge of campus was transformed into a work of public art when faculty members Rafael Blanco and Andrew Sobol (who also chairs the Department of Art) created a mural in honor of Elmhurst’s Sesquicentennial. It became the first outdoor public art mural not only for the University but also for the City of Elmhurst. Unveiled in 2022, the vividly colored work proclaims, “Be Bold. Be Elmhurst.”

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151st Commencement Public art mural “Be Bold. Be Elmhurst.”

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150 Years at Elmhurst 1871

1873

Founding as German Evangelical Proseminary

Kranz Hall opens

1878

Main Hall opens

1872

First students graduate

1921

1925 Board approves plan by H. Richard Niebuhr (Class of 1912) for “Greater Elmhurst”

Memorial Library opens

1924

School name formally changes to Elmhurst College

1965

Students participate in civil rights march in Alabama

1930

First female students enroll

1928 Freshman orientation introduced

1966

1967

Arboretum founded

Jazz Festival launches

1966

Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel

1992

Students research space tomatoes

1995

STEM Academy launches

1997 Center for Professional Excellence opens 1998 First graduate programs offered

1998

Gwendolyn Brooks speaks on campus

1968 Interim term launches 2005 Elmhurst Learning and Success Academy (ELSA) launches 2010 Poverty Project launches

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1887 Diphtheria epidemic forces closure

1900

1903

Baseball team plays first home game

1911

Literary journal The Keryx launches; postsecondary studies offered

Athletic Association formed

1916

Elms yearbook debuts

1940 Athletic teams renamed Bluejays

1947

Speech clinic opens

1949 First evening students enroll

1942 Japanese American students welcomed

1951 First African American students enroll

1935

1945 First midyear commencement takes place

1961 First Festival of Lessons and Carols held

1971

1979

1983

2014

2020

E Club formed by varsity athletes

Art collection founded

The Leader student newspaper publishes first issue

Elmhurst volleyball wins national championship

1988 Computer Science and Technology Center opens

1976 Latino Extension Project launches

2013

Sandra Day O’Connor speaks on campus

Elmhurst Simulation Center opens at Elmhurst Hospital

Elmhurst College changes name to Elmhurst University

2021

Elmhurst celebrates Sesquicentennial

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Onward from 150 “Just as our history has made us, we now are poised to make history ourselves.”

T ROY

D. V A N A K E N

14th President, Elmhurst University

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Onward from 150 Elmhurst’s Sesquicentennial provided an opportunity for the University community to reflect on its history, reaffirm its mission and make big plans for the future.

The past two decades have been times of historic progress at Elmhurst University. Even as some other private colleges succumbed to the effects of declining enrollment and dwindling tuition revenue, Elmhurst took bold and strategic steps to invest in its future—strengthening its financial position, adding new graduate programs, upping its student recruitment efforts internationally and closer to home, enrolling record numbers of students and climbing up national college rankings. And in the renaming as Elmhurst University, we confidently began a new chapter in our century-and-a-half-long story.

On Dec. 6, 2021, during Elmhurst University’s 150th anniversary Founders Day celebration, President Troy D. VanAken announced the start of the University’s most ambitious fundraising effort ever. The $50 million campaign focused on four institutional goals: creating a multidisciplinary hub for Elmhurst’s programs in health care fields, improving athletic and recreational facilities, strengthening the endowment and restricted funds, and increasing the Annual Fund to support more students in financial need.

Elmhurst’s Sesquicentennial provided occasion for reconsidering and celebrating our long history. But with the announcement of the campaign and its ambitious goals, the anniversary also became a time for looking forward and making bold plans for Elmhurst’s future.

In Oct. 2022, the University officially exceeded that baseline $50 million fundraising goal. And by the campaign’s official end on June 30, 2023, Elmhurst had raised a record $55.3 million.

In the spring of 2023, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved a new, five-year strategic plan, ensuring that Elmhurst University is well positioned to navigate the shifting higher-education landscape and successfully serve students into 2028 and beyond.

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A rendering of the multidisciplinary health sciences building The renovated R.A. Faganel Hall

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Acknowledgments This publication was made possible in part by funding from the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education’s (NetVUE) Reframing the Institutional Saga grant program. NetVUE, a program of the Council of Independent Colleges, promotes vocational exploration among undergraduate students and supports hundreds of colleges and universities that have prioritized this work.

NETVUE GRANT AND PROJECT COMMIT TEES

Troy D. VanAken, Elmhurst University President Dean Pribbenow, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Lisa Hartley, Executive Assistant to the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Robert Butler, Department of History Chair and Professor Desiree Chen, Senior Director of Communications and External Relations Elaine Fetyko Page, Associate Librarian and University Archivist Natasha Strother, Department of English Lecturer EDITORIAL AND PRODUCTION

PHOTOGRAPHY

Andrew Santella, Writer Laura Ress, Creative Director and Designer Desiree Chen, Editor Natalie Bieri, Project Manager Molly Heim, Proofreader

Rudy Alceda Geoffrey Black Bob Coscarelli Rob Hart Steve Kuzminski Sarah Nader Justin Runquist Andrew Schones Steve Woltmann Elmhurst History Museum Elmhurst University Archives

Rendering of health sciences building

by Ayers Saint Gross Printing by Dupli-Group

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