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Nearly 1,700 issues of the Wilson College student newspaper are now online and searchable, thanks to a grant that allowed the college to digitize the papers and make them available to researchers on and off campus.

The print editions of The Billboard, which date to 1921, can be accessed by going online to www.wilson.edu/billboard-archive, where icons representing the newspaper's front pages are displayed. To search them, users should click on "Search within results" next to the search bar, where a topic can be entered. On the left, to search a range of years, users should click on "CE" when entering both the start and end dates.
 

Digitizing the collection of student newspapers enhances its value as a historical record by making it searchable, which means the information contained within the papers is easier to tap by anyone researching a variety of topics─from gender and social issues to national and world affairs.

Wilson was able to digitize its archived collection of Billboards using a $6,000 grant from the Council of Independent Colleges. The CIC grant was made possible by a contribution from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The newspapers provide a valuable record of not only student life at Wilson over the years, but also of popular culture and the events of the time in general─all as seen through the lens of the former women's college's students, according to  Amy Ensley, director of Wilson’s Hankey Center, which  houses and manages the college’s C. Elizabeth Boyd ’33 Archives.

“The public may not think of Wilson as the center of discourse on world affairs, but it was very much at the center of national and political debate on very important women’s issues, including reproductive rights, sex discrimination and the equal rights movement, as well as the role of women in the workforce, the armed services and government,” Ensley said.

The process of scanning and digitizing the Billboards, then making them searchable and publishing them, took months and began in early 2019 when Wilson hired an outside firm to scan the college's collection of printed student newspapers, said Wilson Archivist Kieran McGhee, who oversaw the project. After the newspapers were scanned, they had to be catalogued, which was the most time-consuming part of the project.

Now that the Billboards are online and available for research, Ensley and McGhee expect them to be used by Wilson students for research assignments, alumni who may want to research topics or revisit their time at the college, and others who want to research a wide range of topics, such as local history, women's issues, popular culture and a variety of historical events.

Once published weekly, The Billboard today is published every three weeks.

On Jan. 31, Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-33, presented Wilson College President Wesley R. Fugate with a citation─passed by the state Senate last month─congratulating the college on its 150th anniversary. Wilson, which was chartered in 1869 and opened the following year, is celebrating its Sesquicentennial over a 15-month period.

“Since its inception, Wilson has striven to provide excellent educational, social and civic opportunities to its students and to keep its curriculum vital and current with the rapidly changing intellectual world,” the citation states in part. “Dedicated faculty members and strong support from the community have built a foundation for the college’s tradition of academic excellence and have prepared it for success in the future.”

Mastriano presented Fugate with the citation at the senator’s downtown Chambersburg office.

Wilson College will hold a reception from 4:30 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 5, to mark the opening of a new at exhibition, Selections from the Collection: “Who are we?” The exhibition, featuring works of art from Wilson's teaching collection, will continue through March 6 in the Bogigian Gallery in Lortz Hall. It is free and open to the public.

The exhibition includes artwork given to Wilson by alumni, patrons, former students, faculty and other artists who have been associated with the college as artists-in-residence or visiting artists. The title of the exhibition─Who are we?─begs the question, "Who are the subjects in the work, who are the artists and who are we as viewers?" In a number of works in the exhibition, the artist is unknown, leaving the artwork open to interpretation.

The exhibition is presented by Wilson’s Department of Fine Arts and Dance.

The Bogigian Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information or an appointment, contact Professor of Fine Arts Philip Lindsey at 717-264-2783, or philip.lindsey@wilson.edu.

As part of an ongoing celebration of its 150th anniversary, Wilson College will host a performance by the Taylor 2 Dance Company at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 21, at the Capitol Theatre. Tickets are on sale now for the performance, which is open to the community.

The six-member Taylor 2 Dance Company is one of two dance companies formed by legendary American choreographer Paul Taylor, who is regarded as a modern dance visionary. Taylor died in 2018. Taylor 2 and the larger Paul Taylor Dance Company, based in New York, perform Taylor’s masterworks and offer dance concerts, master classes and lectures/demonstrations all over the world.

Taylor 2’s performance at the Capitol is part of Paul Taylor: The Celebration Tour, which pays tribute to its founder. The Company will perform three masterworks from his collection: Airs, set to music by Handel, calls to mind the wind with movement reminiscent of gusts and eddies. In Company B, Taylor created a quintessential piece of Americana as he explored the turbulent era of the 1940s. Set to music performed by the Andrews Sisters, the dance incorporates elements of familiar social dances (the lindy, jitterbug and polka) in a work exploring the realities of relationships during World War II. Finally, Esplanade is an exuberant piece set to music from J.S. Bach, incorporating everyday movement in a visually exhilarating tour-de-force

After the performance, Wilson College Master of Fine Arts Program Director Joshua Legg will lead a question-and-answer session with Taylor 2 Director Cathy McCann and the dancers.

Tickets are $30 for adults, $18 for students and $12 for children under 12. Group rates are also available. Tickets can be purchased now by calling the theater box office at 717-263-0202 or visiting its website: www.thecapitoltheatre.org. Depending on availability, tickets will also be available at the door the evening of the performance.

The Taylor 2 company was established to ensure that performances could be seen all over the world, regardless of economic considerations and the logistical limitations of non-traditional venues, according to Legg.

“Paul Taylor, who helped forge modern dance during his 64- year career, was one of the greatest American dancemakers and his works encompass an unparalleled range of content, style and dynamics,” Legg said.

The Celebration Tour─a multi-year, global celebration featuring more than 20 masterpieces spanning seven decades─was developed by Paul Taylor Dance Company Artistic Director Michael Novak as a way to pay tribute to Taylor, who he describes as “the last pantheon of choreographers who defined the distinctly American art of modern dance” over the course of his life.

“Taylor was hailed as ‘the master of light and dark’ for good reason: his repertoire of 147 dances covered an unprecedented range. There were dances that took an unflinching look at war, depravity and death. Other dances were very funny. And many reminded us of the poignancy of uninhibited love and hope,” said Novak. “The Celebration Tour is an unprecedented opportunity for audiences and students to connect with Paul Taylor’s history like never before.”

For more information about the Taylor 2 performance, contact Joshua Legg at 717-264-2781.

When Margaret Hamilton Duprey learned at the October 2019 Wilson College Board of Trustees meeting that the college hadn’t raised enough money through donations to cover the entire cost of the new veterinary education center, she stepped up.

Duprey─a Wilson Trustee who had already made a $1 million gift to the veterinary center─made another pledge: From then through December 2019, she would match every dollar contributed to the project to help close a $90,000 gap between what had already been raised and the new facility’s $3 million price tag.

“(Duprey) said she wanted to provide a matching gift scenario where she would match any gift that came in from that point forward,” said Vice President for Institutional Advancement Camilla Rawleigh.

Duprey announced the one-to-one match before the board meeting ended and the effect was almost immediate. Wilson Interim President A. Richard Kneedler and his wife, Suzette Gallagher Kneedler ’67, made the first gift to what was dubbed the VEC Duprey Challenge.

And in a serendipitous coincidence, another former Wilson president, Donald F. Bletz, made a gift around the Christmas holiday that pushed the veterinary center campaign to its goal in just two months, Rawleigh said.

“The Duprey Challenge was very successful in helping us reach our fundraising goal,” said Rawleigh. “We are enormously grateful to Margaret for her continued generosity─and to all who donated the project,” said Rawleigh.

In total, the college has raised $3,008,341 from 103 donors for the veterinary education center, according to Rawleigh.

The veterinary center is home to Wilson’s four-year veterinary medical technology program. VMT is the second-most popular major at the college, after nursing.

The new center opened just before the fall 2019 semester began, replacing the cramped and outdated Helen M. Beach ’24 veterinary facility, which has since been torn down. The college held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Oct. 19, 2019, to mark the opening of the building─named the Breakefield Veterinary Education Center in recognition of Susan Breakefield Fulton ’61, who contributed the lead gift and other gifts totaling $975,000.

Fulton and Hamilton both attended the ribbon-cutting for the center, where the clinical suites, animal facilities and onsite programs and courses are collectively known as the Margaret Hamilton Duprey Center for Veterinary Excellence.

A lifelong horsewoman and business owner, Duprey also contributed $500,000 to Wilson in 2015 to establish an innovative home healthcare nursing program for horses called Equi-Assist®. A focused concentration within the college’s VMT program, Equi-Assist® trains students to provide home healthcare to horses, under the guidance of a veterinarian.

Wilson College and Healthy Franklin County are co-sponsoring a free community garden workshop to be held Saturday, Feb. 1, in Warfield Hall's Allen Auditorium. The theme of the workshop‘s theme is permaculture, a design system for ecological and sustainable living that integrates plants, animals, buildings, people and community.

Lincoln Smith, founder of Forested LLC, will be the keynote speaker for the workshop, which will also feature a panel discussion on land restoration and breakout sessions on:

•     Seasonal planting/winter sowing
•     Composting
•     Pollinator gardens

Healthy Franklin County started a Community Garden Work Group in 2016 to address nutrition, which is identified in the 2018-2019 Community Health Needs Assessment as a priority. The work group brings neighborhoods together to provide a sustainable food source for easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables, with the goal of expanding community engagement, strengthening economic development and using collective resources to help sustain existing community gardens and assess the potential to develop new gardens.

Smith teaches and trains people interested in forest-agriculture and permaculture, and creates and designs forest gardens for homes, commercial properties and public spaces. Smith, who started Forested to develop and share research in forest gardening, is a regular speaker on forest gardening at venues such as the University of Maryland, the U.S. Botanic Garden and the Maryland Master Gardeners’ Conference.

A team of 14 Wilson College students, faculty members and an alumna, accompanied by three local medical practitioners associated with Wellspan Health, traveled to the Dominican Republic Jan. 5 on a weeklong medical mission trip to help Haitian sugar cane cutters with healthcare needs. It was the second such Wilson-sponsored trip in the past two years─the first was held in 2018.

The students, Wilson nursing professor Julie Beck (who directs Wilson's nursing program) and Spanish professor Wendell Smith, along with retired physician George Baker, Dr. Sanjay Dhar and Wellspan Chambersburg Hospital Senior Vice President of Hospital Services Sherri Stahl provided medical services in remote villages called "bateyes," where Haitian "guest workers" who cut sugar cane make their homes during the cane harvest. Because of the company-owned villages' isolated locations and poverty, most families living in the bateyes have limited access to preventative healthcare and depend on volunteer teams that bring doctors, nurses and medicine to provide basic medical care for the workers and their families.

The local team coordinated its work through an agreement with El Buen Samaritano (the Good Samaritan) Hospital in the southeastern coastal city of La Romana, which runs medical trips to approximately 100 bateyes twice a year.

Medical missions are part of Wilson’s service-learning programs for students. 

Wilson College will hold its annual Christmas vespers 2019 service at 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019 in Thomson Hall's Alumnae Chapel. The public is invited to attend.

The service will feature scripture readings by students, faculty and staff and a brief homily by Wilson's chaplain, the Rev. Derek Wadlington. The service will include scripture readings by students, faculty and staff; songs by the Wilson College Choir; and Christmas carols sung by all. Musical selections will include: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence; O Come, O Come, Emmanuel; In the Bleak Midwinter; What Child Is This?; Angels We Have Heard on High; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!; Joy to the World and Night of Silence/Silent Night.

An offering collected during the service will go to the South Central Community Action Programs (SCCAP).

After the service, free refreshments will be served in Sarah’s Coffeehouse on the lower level of Lenfest Commons.

Area residents are invited to take part in Las Posadas-a Mexican Christmas tradition re-enacting the story of Christ's birth-being held Thursday, Dec. 5, on the campus of Wilson College. The celebration will run from 6 to 8 p.m., starting at the Brooks Science Center and ending with a meal in Laird Hall.

In the Mexican culture, Las Posadas re-enacts the Nativity story, following the journey Joseph and Mary made from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of a refuge where Mary could give birth. When they were unable to find lodging in Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary sought shelter in a stable, where Jesus was born.

During the Wilson celebration, children will walk on luminary-lighted paths around the campus, seeking "shelter" for their group. They will visit three buildings on campus, with the Wilson College Choir leading the group in traditional Posadas songs as they walk. All participants are invited to take part in an interactive Christmas play that will take place along the walk. A bilingual script will be provided.

The group's search for shelter will end at Laird Hall, where a celebration with prayer, music and authentic Mexican pozole (a traditional pork stew served at Christmas), tamales and appetizers provided by Chambersburg's Veroni Cafe will conclude the celebration. Children will be treated to a piñata after dinner.

Learning Campus, Wilson’s after-school tutoring program for the children of migrant families, is hosting and co-sponsoring the celebration, along with the Wilson College Choir, Spanish Club, Muhibbah Club, Learning Campus Club, Office of Student Development, chaplain’s office and the Office of Marketing and Communications.

Learning Campus sponsored the first Las Posadas re-enactment on the Wilson campus in 2017.

Wilson College recently announced the winners of its 9th annual juried high school student art exhibition, which runs through Dec. 6 in the Bogigian Gallery in Wilson's Lortz Hall.

•    First place - Vincent Castillo, a senior at Greencastle-Antrim Senior High School, won a $200 prize for his ceramic stoneware sculpture called Perception of Waste.
•    Second place – Maximiliano Raulli, a senior at Chambersburg Area Senior High School, won a $100 prize for his crushed paper sculpture, Cherry Blossom.
•    Third place - Madison Hongell, a senior at Washington County (Md.) Technical High School, won $50 for a digital photograph entitled Twisted Mind.
•    Honorable Mention – Carisma Dawson, a junior at Greencastle-Antrim High School, for her stoneware piece called Frog Mug.
•    Honorable Mention – Angel Walker, a senior at Shippensburg Area Senior High School, for her oil-on-canvas painting called Pneuma.

Wilson received 102 submissions of artwork from 43 students in Franklin, Fulton, Adams and Cumberland counties in Pennsylvania and Washington County, Md. Twenty-two entries were chosen for the exhibition.

The art show, which is free an open to the public, is on display from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday in Wilson’s Bogigian Gallery on the second floor of Lortz Hall.