News in Brief
The Beloit Fiction Journal was in the spotlight this spring as the only publication to have published Ben Rhodes’ work back in spring 2002, when he was an aspiring fiction writer. Today, Rhodes is President Obama’s foreign policy guru—the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications. A profile on Rhodes in the May 5, 2016, edition of the New York Times Magazine, quoted from Rhodes’ BFJ short story, earning some high profile ink for the lit journal, which is edited by students.
Human rights activist Zainab al Khawaja’07 was released from prison in Bahrain in May, where she had been held with her infant son on charges stemming from criticizing the government. Al Khawaja, who has dual citizenship in Bahrain and Denmark, was quickly threatened with detention again and had to flee her home country. “I have been arrested 11 times,” she told the New York Times in a telephone interview from Denmark in June. “I have done all I can do inside of prison.” Bahrain has been cracking down on dissidents since an uprising against the monarchy in 2011.
Beloit has had its share of random mentions on popular television shows, including numerous times on Mad Men. On March 13, on an episode of the new show Billions, the character Tonelle “T” Burton, played by actress Tijuana Ricks, name-dropped Beloit as her alma mater. When asked where she went to school, she replied “Beloit, then Yale.”
Beloit’s 2016 Giving Day was an overwhelming success. The college community raised $65,000 in only 24 hours from more than 450 supporters. Of six categories, the highly flexible Beloiter Fund attracted the most donors and dollars, with 181 donors generating $33,651. Total giving was $24,000 more than last year.
Last spring, Beloit College received $1.3 million in grant funding from three major grantors and one anonymous donor. Among the funds were grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the Logan Museum, four-year funding from the Henry Luce Foundation for studies of Chinese and Japanese landscapes, and a Mellon Foundation grant to support inclusive leadership on campus. An anonymous donor also gave a three-year, $270,000 grant to fund students in four- or eight-week summer science research projects.
Beloit’s dance program continues to be on a roll. Once again this spring, a performance choreographed by Beloit dance faculty and performed by students, was selected for the Gala Performance of the American College Dance Association’s North Central Conference. Faux Fur, choreo- graphed by Assistant Professor of Dance Gina T’ai, was also selected as the first alternate for the National Festival to be held at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
