David PesciChair of Film Studies will provide commentary as part of TCM's new TV series.
Bill HolderWesleyan has received gifts totaling $5 million from Terry Huffington, her family and the Huffington Foundation to fund an endowed faculty chair in the College of the Environment and endowed scholarships. The Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair in the College of the Environment, created with a $3 million gift from the Foundation, will benefit the nascent College, devoted to the development of environmental knowledge and the exploration of innovative approaches to environmental problems. A separate $2 million gift establishes endowed scholarships that will support Wesleyan’s need-blind financial aid program. “Through these very generous gifts, Terry Huffington, her family and the Huffington…
Olivia DrakePresident Michael S. Roth, tri-chair of the 75th anniversary Middlesex County United Way campaign, recalled the university's first campaign on behalf of United Way (then the Community Chest) in his Oct. 11 letter to the Wesleyan community. Noting that times were tough as the Great Depression lingered, he said, "The response at Wesleyan was remarkable. Every member of the Wesleyan faculty and staff stepped in and donated funds to help less fortunate neighbors meet their basic needs. "As then, our neighbors today are struggling in tough times. And as then, through the United Way, we can help." Through the campaign,…
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, acclaimed author and speaker, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University, will deliver a University Lecture titled "Building an Ethical Society: The Death Penalty and Human Dignity" on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. Wiesel received an honorary doctor of humane letters from Wesleyan in 1979. Wiesel's efforts have earned him the United States Congressional Gold Medal (1985) and the Medal of Liberty Award (1986); the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992); the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor (2001); an honorary Knighthood…
Last fall, Stephen Devoto, associate professor of biology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior, took on an unusual teaching engagement — to work with Peter Gottschalk, chair and professor of religion, in order to bring the science of evolution and animal development into Gottschalk’s course, "Religion, Science and Empire: Crucible of a Globalized World." “It was liberating to teach science in a different context than a typical science course with its attendant responsibility to cover a vast knowledge base, and to have students’ learning be driven by their interest in the intersection of science and religion,” Devoto says. “Students felt…
The American Physical Society awarded Chia Wei "Wade" Hsu ’10 with its prestigious LeRoy Apker Award for his achievements while at Wesleyan. The American Physical Society awards the Apker Award to only one student from a Ph.D-granting institution each year. Reinhold Blümel, the Charlotte Agusta Ayres Professor of Physics, calls it a "mini-Nobel Prize." The award provides encouragement to young physicists who have demonstrated great potential for future scientific accomplishment. “This means that Wade out-competed students from MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton and CalTech,” says Wade's former advisor Francis Starr, associate professor of physics. “He’s the best of the best.” On…
[youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcsyJORXEUg&[/youtube] This issue we ask “5 Questions” of Peter Gottschalk, chair and professor of religion and co-author, with Gabriel Greenberg '04, of the book Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy (Rowman & Littlefield). Q. How did you become interested in studying Islam? A: My interest arose entirely by serendipity. While in college, I hadn’t any interest in studying Islam but, because I was planning on visiting my parents who had just moved to Saudi Arabia, I took an introductory course on Islam. Fortunately, John Esposito, one of the few American specialists in Islam at the time, taught the class.…
Cynthia RockwellJudge Anthony J. Scirica ’62, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, was one of two justices presented with the 28th Annual Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Awards on Sept. 13 in Washington, D.C. The Devitt award, administered by the American Judicature Society, is given annually to honor judges “whose careers have been exemplary, measured by their significant contribution to the administration of justice, the advancement of the rule of law, and the improvement of our society as a whole.” William D. Johnston, president of the society, noted in the press release that, “The award…
Wesleyan's Green Street Arts Center continues its Fall 2010 Sunday Salon Discussion Series with talks by J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of American studies and anthropology on Oct. 24, and Stephanie Weiner, associate professor of English, on Nov. 21. The Sunday Salon Discussions are informal lectures by Wesleyan's faculty. The Wesleyan and local communities are invited to attend. David Beveridge, the Joshua Boger University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, professor of chemistry, hosts the event. Each salon includes opportunity for socializing as well as a reception with light refreshments. On Oct. 24 from 2 to 3:30 p.m., J. Kehaulani Kauanui will…
Dr. Joseph J. Fins ’82, chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies. IOM membership is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. Announced Oct. 11, at the IOM's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., Fins is among 65 new members and four foreign associates elected this year. "Each of these new members stands out as a professional whose research, knowledge, and skills have significantly advanced health and medicine and who has served as a model for others,"…
The Department of Physics welcomes Christina Othon as an assistant professor. This semester, Othon is teaching a graduate level course called Advanced Topics in Condensed Matter. It is an introductory soft condensed matter physics course that encompasses the physical, mechanical and thermodynamic properties of liquids, colloids, polymers and biological systems. She’s also teaching an upper-level undergraduate laboratory called Experimental Optics, where students learn about the propagation of light, diffraction and polarization. In her own research, Othon uses ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy to investigate changes in protein-solvent interactions during protein structural transitions. She has also investigated the modificatio (more…)
David LowHalley Feiffer ’07 may have her juiciest acting role yet in the new off-Broadway play, Tigers Be Still, which opened this week at the Roundabout Theater Company’s Black Box Theater. The Sam Gold-directed play was written by Kim Rosenstock. Feiffer says, “I play Sherry, a 24-year-old art therapist who is emerging from a six-month-long depression as she embarks on her first job, teaching art to Middle School children and working on the side as an art therapist with a troubled young man. Though my depression has lifted, my life is still in shambles—I live with my sister who is always…