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Spring 2010 • Volume 16, Issue 2

Larry King Live

Though Larry King’s lighthearted stories kept the crowd laughing while he gave the keynote address for Bradley’s mid-year commencement at the Peoria Civic Center on December 19, his message was sincere as he stressed the importance of being willing to take risks in order to succeed.

DR. LINDSEY ROLSTON ’85, orthopedic surgeon, inventor, and 2009 Bradley Centurion, addressed graduate school candidates on December 17. Officially, 226 students earned bachelor’s degrees, while 69 graduate degrees were awarded.

Nancy Brinker, Raj Soin to address May grads

Nancy Goodman Brinker will address graduates at commencement on May 15. The Peoria native is CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which she founded in 1982 in memory of her sister. Last year she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Brinker is currently the World Health Organization’s Ambassador for Cancer Control.

RAJ SOIN, MSIE ’71, will give the commencement address to graduate students. He is an entrepreneur and the founder, chairman, and CEO of Soin International in Dayton, Ohio. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Captain of Industry Award from the Institute of Industrial Engineers in 2009.

A century of women artists

Photo by Leslie Renken / Journal Star

By ABBY WILSON ’10

Online

To view the project, visit iwa.bradley.edu.

Four years ago, CHANNY LYONS, MBA ’97 curated an exhibit at the Peoria Art Guild featuring 50 local women artists who worked in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After the event, she started researching female artists in Illinois history and found that little is known about most of them. Lyons decided to do her own research, and began work on the Illinois Women Artists Project 1840–1940. The project is online with a database containing biographies of around 500 female artists and exhibits featuring their works.

“You feel like you’re adding to American history, and you’re able to document our creative past,” said Lyons. “You become a historian.”

The century between 1840 and 1940 has always interested Lyons — her grandmother was an artist during that time. She wanted to know what life was like for her grandmother as an artist.

Lyons has partnered with universities, students, museums, collectors, libraries, and artists’ relatives to build the database. Bradley designed and is hosting the Web site. Lyons plans to publish a book in conjunction with the Web site. Much of the material in the database will be housed in the Cullom-Davis Library.

OME CANO LOPEZ ’08, assistant director of Web marketing and communication at Bradley, designed the Web site. “It was a fun project for me,” said Lopez. “The project involved a learning curve because it was in Drupal.”

Lyons has written several books about art, including Hedley Waycott, Peoria’s Premier Painter, which won an award from the Illinois Museum Association in 2007.