This month’s public viewing with Westmont’s Keck Telescope will include a free lecture by a world-renowned astronomer from Australia. Martin George, curator at the Launceston Planetarium of the Queen Victoria Museum, will speak on “Astronomy Down Under: Studying the Sky from Australia,” Friday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m. in the Carroll Observatory lecture hall.
Six high school choirs will join four college groups for Westmont’s third annual Fall Choral Festival at First Presbyterian Church, Constance and State Street, Friday, Oct. 26, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The Westmont Theatre Department presents Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in an acclaimed adaptation by Polly Teale Oct. 19, 20, 26 and 27 at 8 p.m. in Porter Theatre. They will also give matinees Oct. 18, 19, 25 and 26 for invited high school students in the first installment of the Found in Translation: Great Literature in the Theatre program.
President Gayle Beebe has welcomed long-time co-worker Doug Jones to Westmont as vice president for finance. Jones fills a position left vacant when Ron Cronk retired last year after working at the college for 22 years.
Jones was vice president of finance and administration at Spring Arbor University for the seven years Beebe served president there. Jones left his job as controller at Huntington College, his alma mater, in 2000 when Beebe recruited him to Spring Arbor University.
The Fletcher Jones Foundation has awarded Westmont $1 million toward the creation of the college’s first endowed chair in the social sciences. The grant is being matched with a $500,000 gift from an anonymous donor to fully endow the chair.
Influential early 20th century English writer G.K. Chesterton will be the focus of a talk at Westmont Thursday, Oct. 18. Dale Ahlquist, president of the American Chesterton Society, will deliver a free lecture, “An Introduction to G.K. Chesterton,” in Hieronymus Lounge at 7 p.m.
A group of Westmont alumni and friends who began a chapter of The Chesterton Society in Santa Barbara in 2003 are sponsoring the event.