December 26, 2004
The New York Times: '99 Alumnus Orion Creamer Creates 'The Big Chill'
Former classmates of 1999 Earlham graduate Orion Creamer may remember his unique tastes when it came to dorm room decor. As The New York Times details in a Dec. 26 business feature on the now Colorado-based industrial designer, as an EC undergraduate Creamer used to collect old refrigerator doors and hang them on the wall. “You know, just as art,” recounts Creamer, co-founder in 2001 of the Big Chill line of retro refrigerators currently grabbing a lot of consumer attention in some of the more trendy neighborhoods of California and New York City, where “people aren’t afraid to put a red refrigerator” in their kitchen. With exteriors said to resemble some of the design details of the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air — rounded edges, big colors, big chrome — the insides of each Big Chill feature the latest in frost-free refrigerator technology. Each unit retails for about $2,500. Although available in limited numbers from select home furnishings stores, Creamer says the company’s primary goal is to become a wholesale supplier to upscale kitchen designers.
December 23, 2004
Muncie (IN) Star Press: EC Biology Prof Bill Buskirk Helps Land Trust Reach Milestone
A conservation easement authorized recently by Earlham Biology Professor Bill Buskirk on 30 acres of wooded property he owns south of campus has helped the Red-tail Conservancy of East Central Indiana to an important achievement: the placement of more than 1,000 total acres of native Hoosier habitat under protection from any kind of future development. Buskirk’s donation of the conservation easement not only extends the Red-tail Conservancy’s inventory of protected land, but also continues a 50-year tradition of Earlham College faculty and alumni giving up some of their rights on privately purchased acreage in order to preserve it for future generations.
December 16, 2004
Requiem for Rudolph? Fulbright Scholar Says Days May be Dwindling for Reindeer
A recently issued scientific assessment of the effects of global warming on Arctic climate has led scores of biologists and environmental scientists worldwide to predict that, without quick international action to control greenhouse gas emissions, a variety of Arctic species could be on the verge of extinction by the end of this century. While the report mentions polar bears, especially, as being at risk, Earlham biology grad Karen Hibbard-Rode ‘04 — currently fulfilling a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Lapland in Finland — says significant warming in the Arctic means serious trouble for reindeer, too.
December 12, 2004
Billings (MT) Gazette: "The Simple Life: Kalispell Buddhist Lives Modestly"
Amid the people of Kalispell, Montana, Earlham alumnus Gen Kelsang Wangden is a striking study in contrasts, moving about the community as he does in the traditional scarlet and saffron robes of a Buddhist monk. Since taking his vows and being ordained as a monk in 2000, three years after graduating from the College with a degree in religion, Wangden has been the resident teacher at the Kalinga Buddhist Center in Kalispell, where, despite the occasional stares and sarcastic remarks about his manner of dress, he recently told the Associated Press he believes he’s been well received.
December 09, 2004
Taking It To The Streets: EC Students Help Prepare PeaceMobile
A multi-colored RV — dubbed the PeaceMobile — soon will begin plying the highways and byways of the Dayton, Ohio, area as a traveling peace museum, thanks to the artistic and scholastic efforts of several teams of Earlham College students.
December 01, 2004
USA Today: "From Kabul's Battlefields... a Future for Afghan Freshman"
During a recent visit to campus, USA Today writer Walter Shapiro reunited with first-year Afghan student Jawad Joya, who’s had to overcome far more than the customary challenges that confront international students wishing to study in the United States. “Foreign students in America, particularly those from war torn lands, tend to be the children of privilege,” writes Shapiro in his Hype & Glory column of The Nation’s Newspaper. “But Jawad, the oldest of five, was instead shaped by Afghan adversity.”