Westmont News

Workers are busy modernizing the lobby of Westmont’s Murchison Gym, upgrading the lighting, ceilings and walls, and installing two, 70-inch monitors to show video and photos of Westmont Hall of Fame athletes and other information. Maple hardwood flooring, dating back to the construction of the gym in the late 1960s, was removed during a 2008 renovation and has been recycled for use on the lobby walls.

Twenty first-year Westmont students met on campus Aug. 9 before trekking through the Sierra backcountry north of Yosemite. Inoculum is a unique, 12-day orientation program that introduces students to Westmont and earns them two units of academic and physical education credit.

David Newton, who has taught entrepreneurial finance at Westmont for 22 years, has been appointed provost at King’s College in New York City, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1981. He begins the position Jan. 1, 2013.

Family and friends will celebrate the life of Alex Moore at a memorial service Tuesday,
May 15, at 4 p.m. at Santa Barbara Community Church, 1002 Cieneguitas Road in Santa
Barbara. A reception at the church will follow the service.

Moore, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Westmont, died May 9 from complications following surgery for Crohn’s disease. He was 31.

Nancy Ortberg, leadership development director at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, delivers the address at Westmont’s Commencement, which features 314 graduates, 109 with honors, on Saturday, May 5, from 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at Russell Carr Field.

Westmont students present new works for theater, dance and performance art at “Westmont Fringe 2012: Fresh-ly Sliced,” which is modeled on fringe festivals throughout the world, April 19-21 from 6:30-10:30 p.m., beginning at Porter Theatre. A $10 general admission wristband, good for all three days of the festival, may be purchased at the box office or through Beth Whitcomb at (805) 565-7040.

Horticulturalist and Westmont alumna Virginia Hayes ‘72, curator of the living collection at Lotusland, lectures about Madame Ganna Walska’s famed botanic garden Tuesday, April 17, from 7-8 p.m. in Westmont’s Adams Center room 216. The lecture, part of Westmont in Lotusland Day, is free and open to the public.

Jonathan Tran of Baylor University will lecture about “Bombs or Bread? American Exceptionalism and the Church’s Mission to the Nations” on Thursday, March 8, at 3:30 p.m. in Winter Hall’s Darling Foundation Lecture Hall (Room 210) at Westmont.