Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has started off the school year on a high note: its online nurse educator master’s program has been ranked first in Illinois and fifth in the nation for affordability, according to Affordable Schools, a site that ranks low-cost, high-quality degree programs.

To compile its list, Affordable Schools considered more than just the average cost of attendance. The rankings also took into account the program’s student-to-faculty ratio and its national standing as determined by U.S. News and World Report. Affordable Schools praised SIUE’s opportunities for hands-on learning and its individualized coursework, as well as its focus on preparing students to sit for the National League for Nursing Certified Nurse Educator examination after they graduate. Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois, joined SIUE in the top 15.

A marker commemorating the first soybeans ever planted in Illinois was placed at the Louis and Clark Community College in Alton, Illinois nearly 167 years after John Lee of Alton helped them take root.

However, Lee did not receive this crop by ordinary means. Illinois’ long history with soybeans begins 500 miles off the coast of Japan in 1950, after a shipwrecked Junk stranded 17 Japanese sailors at sea.

The group was transported to San Francisco after the North American freighter Auckland rescued them from the wreck. Among the survivors was Joseph Heco, pictured left, who later became the first Japanese person to be naturalized as a United States citizen. A chest of goods he and his shipmates brought from the wreck contained the very first soybeans that Illinois would see.

At the time, Alton resident Dr. Benjamin Franklin Edwards was residing in San Francisco. Like many others during this time, Edwards was drawn to California by the gold rush.

Our July Artist of the month is Ellen Ransom of Evanston. Ransom is a portrait artist whose goal is to show African Americans around the world that they too can be portayed in art.

How long have you been an artist or when did you start?

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawing something! I was the youngest of four children and the only girl being raised alone as my brothers remained in Alabama with my grandmother and their father. I didn’t have much company or playmates and therefore found ways to entertain myself by drawing everything in sight. Upon becoming a teenager, my oldest brother joined my mother and me, but still, as a baby sister, there were not a lot of opportunities for my brother and I to interact together, besides art. 

With the University of Illinois’ world-renowned Science and Engineering departments, it’s no surprise that six U of I researchers have received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers this year. The award is the highest honor the U.S. government can bestow upon young professionals at the beginning of their independent research careers.

This year’s winners include mechanical engineering and science professors Gaurav Bahl and Kelly Stephani, materials science and engineering professor Pinshane Huang, chemistry professor Prashant Jain, molecular and integrative physiology professor Daniel Llano, and physics professor Julia “Jessie” Shelton.

These young scientists and engineers are eligible to receive a research grant for up to five years, allowing them to further their studies in support of critical government missions. The federal agencies involved include the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and the National Science Foundation.

Read more here.

Tom Heflin of Rockford is our June Artist of The Month. Hieflin began his career as an artist in the spring of 1970. He often opens his home to visitors who can come and view his latest work.

How long have you been an artist or when did you start?

With a wife and five children I was working in a sign company and doing my art at night and weekends waiting for the proper time when I could launch my career as a fine artist. It took 16 long years but I reached a point when I was 33 years old and decided it was now or never. I found an abandoned farm house on a dead end road 10 miles from the little city of Freeport, Illinois. The owner gave me permission to use it and wouldn’t charge me rent because it had no indoor plumbing and only a kitchen wood stove for heat. So with my hopes and dreams I moved into this old haunted place and started my career as an artist in the spring of 1970.