of President Mark H. Erickson, Sept. 24
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Dr. Mark H. Erickson, President |
For only the 13th time in Wittenberg’s 160-year history, students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends will have the opportunity to witness and participate in this historic event titled “Distinctively Wittenberg.” The inauguration is being coordinated by a 12-member steering committee and includes a week of special events leading up to the inaugural ceremony at 11 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 24, in Weaver Chapel.
William Steinbrink, chair of the Wittenberg Board of Directors and a 1964 alumnus, will preside over the ceremony, which will feature musical performances by the Wittenberg Choir and the Imani Gospel Choir. Greg Farrington, president of Lehigh University, where Erickson served in numerous capacities for 20 years, most recently as vice president for administrative and government affairs, will share brief remarks as will William Adams, president of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, under whom Erickson served as one of only 34 nationally selected American Council on Education Fellows in 1997. Erickson will present the inaugural address.
The ceremony will be followed by a reception on the chapel lawn and a range of other activities, including historical walking tours of campus at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.; a Witt Expo featuring numerous student performances from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Alumni Way; the President’s Tennis Tournament from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the David B. and Georgiana S. Albright Tennis Complex, and an inaugural ball open for the Wittenberg community and special guests from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. in the Center Dining Room of the Benham-Pence Student Center.
Additional celebratory activities scheduled throughout the week beginning Sept. 18 will also bring together students, faculty, staff and the Springfield community to share in all that is “Distinctively Wittenberg.” Wittenberg’s long-standing commitment to global education, student-faculty collaboration and community service will be reflected in many of the events.
A number of student- and faculty-coordinated events are also being planned for President Erickson and his wife, Lin. At 9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 19, students will host Pizza with the President on Alumni Way, and at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, faculty members will sponsor their annual Around the World reception featuring an array of international dishes for the campus community in Hollenbeck Hall. Students also plan to sponsor an ice cream social at Friday, Sept. 23.
The university is also proud to welcome Rajan Menon, the Monroe J. Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn., and a Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., who will present a guest lecture at 4 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 22, in 105 Shouvlin Center on campus.
Selected as a Carnegie Scholar in 2002 and the author of Soviet Power and the Third World and a forthcoming book titled The End of Alliances, Menon has taught at Columbia University and Vanderbilt University and served as Special Assistant for Arms Control and National Security to Congressman Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY). His current work concerns American foreign policy; the international relations of Russia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and East Asia; the political and security dimensions of energy development in the Caspian Sea zone; globalization; and the comparative study of empires.
A regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, who has also written for Newsweek, The International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times, Newsday, The Chicago Tribune, and The Asahi Evening News, Menon has received several prestigious fellowships and grants throughout his career, including from the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Institute for Peace, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
A faculty panel will follow Menon’s presentation, which is free and open to the public.
A complete list of inaugural events and related information is available on the university’s inauguration Web site.
— Karen Gerboth
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