Recollections by Mary Rolfe include Illinois Field, faculty life, student housing, trees on campus, Charles W. Rolfe, alumni reunions, 1902 commencement, Thomas J. Burrill, Thomas A. Clark and student life.
Wayne Pitard is an emeritus professor in the Department of Religion at Illinois and retired director of the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures. With a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, his research has focused primarily on the religion of the ancient Canaanites, particularly on the only surviving library of Canaanite religious texts, found in the ruins of the city of Ugarit, Syria, and dating to about 1200 BCE. In September 2024, he also published Watchman, Tell Us: John J. Bird and Black Politics in Post-Civil War Illinois, research that began while he was director of the Spurlock Museum.
Wendy Mathewson and Beth Watkins (both BA '96) met in an avant-garde honors seminar, "The History that Music Made." They became roommates and lifelong friends. Both graduates of the Department of History, both women are employed by the university today. Mathewson is the undergraduate advisor for the Department of History, and Watkins is the Education and Publications Coordinator at the Spurlock Museum. In this interview, they describe campus life in the 1990s and the gradual shifts in their political, religious, and worldview perspectives that they attribute to a liberal arts education. They reflect on enduring friendship across deep differences, the value of finding smaller communities within a large university, exposure to diversity, and the importance of resilience.
