October 7, 2004

Northwestern people, events and things; The digest

Ryan steps down at Aon / Board of Trustees Chairman Patrick Ryan will step down as president and CEO of Aon Corporation. Ryan, a Northwestern alumnus, will continue as chairman of the Board of Directors. Andrew J. McKenna, who heads the Board’s Corporate Governance Committee, said, “As the company’s founder, Pat Ryan has become synonymous with Aon. He is an extraordinary leader, having built Aon into a globally respected franchise with all of the elements necessary to effectively compete and succeed.”

McPhilimy named to board / Betty McPhilimy, director of auditing, has been elected chairman of the board of The Institute of Internal Auditors. Established in 1941, The Institute of Internal Auditors is an international professional association with more than 95,000 members in 150 countries who perform internal auditing, risk management, governance, internal control, IT audit, education and security.

How do you get freshmen to cross the road? / Give them a free dinner…and an iPod! The Alumni Association and Student Affairs hosted more than 1,700 new students last month at the All-Campus Mardi Gras picnic. Held at the John Evans Alumni Center, the picnic featured good food, great summer weather and the Spirit Squad. Students could also register to win a free iPod. Three winners will be announced next week.

Student interns at Labor Dept. / Senior Ha-Thanh Nguyen served as a summer intern with the U.S. Department of Labor. Nguyen was assigned to the department’s Office of Public Affairs, which is responsible for news coverage of the department and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao’s activities. Nguyen, who will earn a degree in history and Asian studies, hopes to someday conduct research in Vietnam.

Exonerated shares experience / Approximately 60 people gathered last week at the Center on Wrongful Convictions to hear Kirk Bloodsworth and author Tim Junkin discuss Junkin’s new book, “Bloodsworth: The True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA.” Bloodsworth was convicted of the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in Maryland and sent to death row in 1984, the victim of the mistaken testimony of five eyewitnesses. A Center on Wrongful Convictions study by Executive Director Rob Warden found that erroneous eyewitness testimony is a leading factor in wrongful convictions, contributing to more than half of all wrongful convictions in capital cases. Nine years after Bloodsworth’s conviction, he was set free based on a new procedure called DNA fingerprinting — a procedure he came across while reading a true crime book borrowed from the prison library.