Southwestern Magazine | Fall 2019

FORTHETHIRDYEAR in a row, a record-breaking number of students applied for admission to South- western. The school ultimately received 4,984 applications—4,766first-yearapplicationsfortheclass of 2023 and 218 transfer applications—just two years after the number of applications surpassed 4,000 for the first time in theUniversity’s history. Thenews came as no surprise toVicePresident for StrategicRecruitmentandEnrollmentTomDelahunt. “Theopportunitiesouruniquecurriculumprovides,as wellastheintroductionofMosaicforcocurricularprogramming,havebeenattractivetoprospectivestudentsandtheirfamilies,”hesays. Theupwardtrendofrecord-settingapplicationnumbersdemonstratestheUniversity’stremendousgrowthinreputationoverthepast twodecades. According toSouthwestern’sO«ceof Institutional ResearchandE”ectiveness, 1,495 students applied for admission for the 1999–2000school year. A233%increase inapplications in just 20years is onlyone sign that theUniversityhas evolved frombeing a best-kept secret to a nationally ranked institution of higher education. However, beyond rankings, the real draw for applicants is howSouthwestern alumni are excelling after graduation. “We should be ranked based on howwe lifted students up during their years at SU,” says Delahunt. “And our graduates are enjoying very successful lives after they leave here.” Breaking Admission Records MARCH–APRIL 1945. The final major battles of World War II are being waged in both Europe and Asia. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is preparing for the founding conference of theUnitedNations at the LittleWhite House, his personal retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia. Cinema super- star Humphrey Bogart, 45, and Hollywood newcomer Lauren Bacall, 20, are filming The Big Sleep while kindling their o”-screen romance. And amural commissioned by the U.S. government, painted a mere four years earlier, goesmissing froma Kennebunkport, Maine, post o«ce. Who had it removed? Where did the painting—artistElizabethTracyMontminy’s Bathers —go? Nearly 65 years later, Professor of Studio Art VictoriaStarVarner and a teamof student artists are on the case. FollowVarner, Sophia Anthony ’19, KatieHellmer ’19, andDanbiHeo ’19 as they travel across the U.S. to locate the missing Montminy mural. Their search for clues takes them to a museum in Missouri, to the National Archives in the U.S. capital, and to the site of the disappearance itself. Their investigationwill uncover a historical controversy characterized by misogyny and collective body shaming—a scandal that would end with no less than an act of Congress signed by the president of the United States of America. What would our intrepid researcher–detectives find? Would they recover the missing mural? Find out more by visiting www.southwestern.edu and searching for “Art History Mystery.” Art History Mystery 11 SOUTHWESTERN Sophia Anthony ’19 (left) and Danbi Heo ’19 (right) at the Boone County History and Culture Center.