Blog Posts by Westmont

A Westmont professor and a student researcher may be closing in on a cure for rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Eileen McMahon has discovered a strain of mice that spontaneously develops arthritis after about 50 days of age and may represent a new model of rheumatoid arthritis. Student Joel Wilcox will present some of the findings as part of A Celebration of Student Research at Westmont, this Thursday, Sept. 8, from 4-6 p.m. at the Founders Dining Room.

Santa Barbara crews will soon begin loading up supplies in preparation for a week-long hurricane relief effort in northwest Louisiana. A team of about 17 local volunteers will be leaving from Westmont’s Murchison Gym early Saturday morning.

Volunteers are expected to arrive in Shreveport, La., Sunday, and will work in area shelters and a distribution center to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Thanks to a $50,000 matching grant, the Institute for the Liberal Arts at Westmont will reach out to underserved students this fall through an innovative Liberal Arts Ambassadors program. The collaborative project between Westmont and the University of La Verne involves college students from underserved groups engaging with prospective students in junior high and high schools.

They arrived with boxes, pillows, computers and probably some anxiety. For many of these teens, it’s their first time living away from home. About 340 first-year students representing the Class of 2009 have begun their Westmont College career. The fall 2005 orientation kicked off Thursday, Aug. 25, as students arrived with their parents and unloaded their belongings into the residence halls.

Westmont has once again been listed among the nation’s top liberal arts colleges in the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings, which were recently released.

U.S. News moved Westmont into the first tier with a ranking of 104th. The numeric rank puts Westmont in the top half of schools in each of 10 categories. Westmont is just one of two ranked members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

Westmont moved into the second tier from the third tier in 2003.

Westmont sociology professor Ron Enroth is no stranger to some of the world’s most unusual religions. In fact, he’s appeared on numerous television and radio broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News and Oprah as an expert cult consultant. Enroth penned, “Youth, Brainwashing and the Extremist Cults” six months before the Jonestown massacre in 1978, the mass suicide that put the word “cult” on the map. He warned of other dangerous religions before the tragedies in Waco and with Heaven’s Gate. In 1982, he received the Leo J.