Educational consortium leader to give Convocation Address

GALESBURG -- Knox College formally opens the 2008-09 academic year with a convocation, featuring an address by Christopher Welna, president of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM), at 11 a.m., Thursday, September 11 in Harbach Theatre, Ford Center for the Fine Arts.

The event is free and open to the public. A live video feed of the ceremony will be provided in an overflow seating area.

In addition to Welna's convocation address, the event will include a performance by the Knox College Choir and presentation of awards for teaching excellence, student academic achievement, and staff institutional service.

Welna has been president of the ACM since 2006. Previously he served as Executive Director of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and as Faculty Director of the Latin American Area Studies Program, at the University of Notre Dame.

Established in 1958, the ACM is one of the nation's oldest educational consortia. Its foundations date to the Midwest Faculty Conference in 1951, and as far back as the 1920s with ties created among members of the Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference. In addition to Knox, ACM members are Beloit College, Carleton College, Coe College, Colorado College, Cornell College, Grinnell College, Lake Forest College, Lawrence University, Macalester College, Monmouth College, Ripon College, and St. Olaf College.

Today, the ACM coordinates faculty and curriculum development initiatives in various academic fields, especially science, mathematics, and instructional technology, for faculty from member colleges. The consortium also coordinates more than a dozen off-campus study programs in the U.S., Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe, which annually enroll more than 300 students from ACM colleges.

Knox College President Roger Taylor was recently named Chair of the ACM's Board of Directors, comprised of the presidents of ACM member colleges.

Welna earned a bachelor's degree at Carleton College, a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University. He has studied and conducted research in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East on a Thomas A. Watson Fellowship.

Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 48 states and 42 nations. Knox's "Old Main" is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.