Willamette Appoints Associate Chaplain/Lilly Grant Director

Dr. Karen L. Wood will join the Willamette University administration Aug. 19 as associate chaplain for vocational exploration, a five-year position funded by a $2 million grant from the Lilly Endowment. Wood will take primary responsibility for implementing and directing the grant, which focuses on the religious, spiritual and ethical dimensions of vocation.

“The grant seeks to evoke a consciousness of calling in Willamette students – both in the direction of traditional ministry and in the wider sense of other helping professions,” said Charlie Wallace, Willamette University Chaplain and chair of the Lilly Grant implementation committee. The Lilly grant will also fund new courses, internships, and summer study possibilities, retreats, art and music projects, and enhanced opportunities for service learning.

A native of Ohio and a graduate of Brown University, Wood has a master’s of divinity and doctor of theology degrees from Harvard. Her work experience includes brief stints in residence life and teaching at Wellesley College and chaplaincy at Smith College, four years as director and two years as associate dean for student life at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and four years as a program associate with the National Conference of Christians and Jews, also in New York. She comes to Willamette from the position of dean of student affairs at the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland.

“Karen brings great experience and skills to our position,” added Wallace. “In a national search we are lucky to have found such a wonderful candidate so close to home. Everyone who met her on campus is looking forward to working with her.”

Wood currently sits on the boards of the Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre and the Friends of the Martin Buber House in the USA, and on the Theater Grants Panel of the Oregon Arts Commission. She is an avid backpacker and mountain climber.

[ email this story ]

New Vice President of Finance Named at Willamette University

Jeffrey Glenn Eisenbarth, currently the vice president of business and administration at Berea College in Berea, Ky., will begin his new job as vice president of financial affairs at Willamette University Sept. 2.

“We are pleased to welcome Jeff to the Willamette community,” said University President Lee Pelton. “He has worked in higher education finance for 22 years and we believe he possesses the qualities necessary to help Willamette University reach its financial goals. We expect him to play a key leadership role in the development of the campus and in managing Willamette’s endowment.”

In addition to serving Berea College since 1997, Eisenbarth worked in finance at the University of Idaho and Washington State University, Pullman.

He earned his bachelor of science and his master’s of business administration degrees from the University of Idaho. He and his wife, Sudie, have two daughters, Lyndsey and Danielle.

Eisenbarth replaces Brian Hardin who retires from Willamette University in August after 21 years of service.

[ email this story ]

Body Mapping Workshop Offered at Willamette

Consider the wear and tear on muscles used to repeat the same series of motions hundreds of times in one practice session. Athletes often play in pain. So do musicians.

"What Every Performing Artist Needs to Know About the Body" is a five-day intensive workshop in Alexander Technique and Body Mapping with Barbara Conable, Aug. 1-5 in the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center, Willamette University, Salem.

The Alexander Technique and Body Mapping are used to improve ease and freedom of movement, balance, support and coordination and, according to Conable, is a valuable tool for musicians, actors and dancers. The workshop will also include time for participants to work individually with the instructor.

Conable is a teaching member of the North American Society of the Teachers of the Alexander Technique and of Alexander Technique International. She has taught the theatre movement class at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music for a number of years and has traveled extensively with lectures and workshops across the United States, Europe and Japan. Her publication, "How to Learn the Alexander Technique: A Manual for Students" is in its 13th printing.

Registration and room check-in will be from 4 to7 p.m. Wednesday, July 31. The course begins Thursday, Aug. 1, at 9 a.m. Daily sessions will run from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., Thursday through Monday. The course will conclude Monday, Aug. 5, at 4:30 p.m.

Tuition for this five-day workshop is $450. Rooms at Willamette University are available for an additional $200 for single occupancy. College credit is available through the University's School of Education for an additional fee.

The workshop is sponsored by the University's departments of music and theatre. For more information, call Kurt-Alexander Zeller Monday through Wednesday at 503-375-5434.

[ email this story ]

Willamette Law Dean Delivers Prestigious Lecture at The Hague

Willamette University College of Law Dean Symeon C. Symeonides will deliver the prestigious lectures in Private International Law at the Academy of International Law at the Peace Palace at The Hague, July 8-12. This is the highest international recognition bestowed on a scholar in this field. During the 78 years of the Academy's existence, only 17 American scholars have been invited to lecture on private international law. Symeonides is the 18th.

The annual lectures were established when the Academy was created in 1923 through a grant from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Lecture attendees include diplomats, judges, law professors, and attorneys from all over the world. The Academy’s Curatorium selects the lecturers on the basis of their publications and other accomplishments.

Each lecturer is required to produce an original monograph reflecting the content of his or her lectures. The book is published by the Academy in the Recueil des Cours, a collection that is read widely around the world. Symeonides' book, which is entitled "Choice of Law in the American Courts," is a study of the conflict-of-law decisions of all American courts in the last 30 years.

Symeonides began his teaching career in 1976 at the University Thessaloniki, Greece. In 1978, he joined the faculty at Louisiana State University Law Center, where he became the Judge Albert Tate Professor of Law (1987) and vice chancellor (1991-97).

In January 1999, he was nominated for the Boyd University Professorship, the highest distinction in the LSU System, which he declined in order to assume the deanship at Willamette. He has lectured widely at several European and American universities and has taught at Tulane, Loyola (New Orleans), Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), and the Universities of Paris-V and Aix-en-Provence (France).

Symeonides is a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law; secretary of the American Society of Comparative Law; former president of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Conflict of Laws; and a member of the Order of the Coif; the American Law Institute; the Oregon Law Commission; the Louisiana State Law Institute; and the Bartolus Society.

He is also a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of Comparative Law; the Electronic Journal of Comparative Law (Netherlands); the International Yearbook of Private International Law (Switzerland), and a scholarly consultant for the 8th edition of Black's Law Dictionary.

Symeonides has authored or co-authored more than 70 publications. In 1999, he was recognized by an unprecedented Resolution of Appreciation of the Association of American Law Schools Section of Conflict of Laws, which praised him for his "enormously influential" publications which "have proved extraordinarily helpful to the members of the Section, other academics, the Bench and the practicing bar."

In 2000, the Louisiana Law Review published “A Tribute to Symeon C. Symeonides,” a collection of 26 essays authored by prominent American and foreign academics honoring him for his contributions to the development of comparative law, conflicts law, and civil law.

Symeonides has been active in law reform, having drafted Book IV of the Louisiana Civil Code on Conflict of Laws, the new law of leases for the same state, and a Draft Code of Private International Law for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. He has also provided legislative advice to the governments of the Russian Federation, Estonia, and Tunisia. Currently he is involved in a project to codify Oregon's conflicts law under the auspices of the Oregon Law Commission. His teaches Conflict of Laws, Comparative Law, International Litigation, and Property.

He received his S.J.D. and LL.M. from Harvard University Law School; his LL.B. (Public Law) from Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki Law School, Greece; and an LL.B. (Private Law) also from Aristotelian University.

[ email this story ]