The Wesleyan Connection

Matt Donahue '14 and Pik-Tone Fung '14 measure blood samples at a staged crime scene in Hall-Atwater Laboratory. (Photos by Olivia Drake)

On the morning of June 22, Matt Donahue ’14 and and Pik-Tone Fung ’14 learned that a Wesleyan chemistry professor had been shot in the basement of Hall-Atwater Laboratory. Public Safety taped off the area around Room 078 and removed the body, leaving behind a blood-stained lab coat, a gun, two shell casings, a hand-written note from “Greg Mulligan,” a bloody bullet and an overturned chair. Small pools of blood collected under the victim and blood droplets freckled the nearby lab cabinets and counter.

The professor did owe $20,000 to Greg Mulligan. Was he murdered for not returning the money?

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John Bonin, the the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Science.

In the midst of the banking crisis affecting the euro, John Bonin found himself in June offering banking advice to two countries that are members of the European Union, but have yet to join the monetary union linked by the euro.

Bonin, the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Science, professor of economics, gave the keynote address during the Annual Conference of the European Association for Banking and Financial History on June 7. The event was co-sponsored by National Bank of Romania in Bucharest, Romania. The address was titled “Two Decades of Foreign Banking in Emerging Europe: the Devil is in the Details.”

Romania is not yet in the European Monetary Union but its entry has been discussed during the last few years. Still it is likely linked to the European economy and Bonin’s presentation focused on the role of the six large international European banks in the Central and East European economies.

“The banking sectors of these countries have basically been taken over by these foreign banks,” Bonin says. “I traced the role of these banks in the retail credit, including mortgage, booms in the pre-financial crisis period. I then examined the differential responses across countries to the financial crisis and linked this to the structure of their banking sectors.”

Bonin shared the stage with Mugur Isarescu, the Governor of the National Bank of Romania, drawing extensive coverage from the Romanian and European news media. (more…)

Mike Fries ’85, has made a gift of $2 million in support of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives Endowment Fund. The gift establishes the Charles W. Fries Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, which Fries named in honor of his father, Chuck Fries, who is considered the “godfather” of the television movie.

Mike Fries ’85, president and chief executive officer of Liberty Global, has made a gift of $2 million in support of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives Endowment Fund.

The gift establishes the Charles W. Fries Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, which Fries named in honor of his father. Chuck Fries is considered the “godfather” of the television movie for his role in producing or supervising more than 275 hours of television movies and mini-series. His films have won Emmy, Peabody, Humanitas and Christopher awards among others from film festivals.

“Wesleyan’s Cinema Archives,” says President Michael S. Roth, “is a treasure trove for the film industry and for film scholars. I am deeply grateful to Mike for his generous support, which will significantly enhance the ability of the Archives to serve film researchers worldwide. Mike is a great Wesleyan citizen.”

The gift will fulfill the matching requirement of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for support of the Cinema Archives.

Wesleyan will also be receiving archival materials from Chuck Fries to be preserved in the Ogden and Mary Louise Reid Cinema Archives. The 50-plus collections there include holdings devoted to Elia Kazan, Frank Capra, Ingrid Bergman, Clint Eastwood, John Waters and Martin Scorsese, among others.

Chuck Fries and Jeanine Basinger, Wesleyan’s Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and curator of the Cinema Archives, were trustees together on the board of the American Film Institute for more than a decade and both received AFI honorary degrees in 2006. “Chuck is a colorful and dynamic man in the true fashion of a television or film mogul,” she says. “He knows how to get things done with generosity and humor, and is a pleasure to work with. We’re looking forward to having him be part of our Archive family.”

Mike Fries is a 25-year veteran of the cable and media industry who, at Liberty Global, leads the second largest cable TV operator in the world, with nearly 33 million video, voice, and broadband subscribers. (more…)

The Wesleyan Board of Trustees has awarded tenure to eight faculty members. Additionally, four associate professors and two adjunct faculty members also have been promoted.

Wesleyan President Michael Roth and Rob Rosenthal, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, announced the promotions, which were effective July 1.

Newly tenured faculty, promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor

Gloster Aaron, associate professor of biology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior, arrived at Wesleyan in 2006, following five years as a post-doctoral researcher at Columbia University. Aaron studies the brain’s synaptic circuitry to better understand communication patterns in the neocortex. His most recent research examines mechanisms involved in the propagation of seizures between the two hemispheres of the brain. Aaron’s work has been published in Science, Neuroscience and Synapse. He received a B.A. from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Nadja Aksamija, associate professor of art and art history, came to Wesleyan in 2007, after spending three years as an assistant professor at Colgate University. A recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, she is author of several major articles and a co-edited volume, as well as a curator of the Renaissance cartography section at the new Museo della Storia di Bologna. (more…)

John Kirn

John Kirn, professor of biology, professor and chair of the neuroscience and behavior program, in May published an article in the Journal of Neuroscience on neurogenesis in songbirds. He recently spoke about his research on WNPR public radio and in The Hartford Courant. 

Q: Professor Kirn, you study the neuroscience behind song learning and production in zebra finches. Please tell us about your research, and the surprising findings to come out of your most recent work.

A: I’m interested in the normal functions of adult neurogenesis—the continual addition and replacement of neurons. This happens to a limited extent in humans but is very widespread in the brains of birds. It is a widely held view that this process helps us learn, because young neurons might be more malleable than older ones. In some songbirds, like the canary, the highest numbers of new neurons are added annually when birds are learning new song. But neurons are also added when song does not change.

In the zebra finch too, neuron addition is highest when they are juveniles, learning their song. But song learning is over by adulthood and yet new neurons are still added. Why? We think that neurogenesis may also function to preserve pre-existing knowledge. Our most recent work, though still only correlational, supports this notion. If you deafen an adult zebra finch, song structure breaks down, as is also true with human speech. We recently showed that birds that preserved their songs the longest after deafening also had the highest number of neurons added to a brain region that appears to be critical for the maintenance of song structure.

Q: What are the implications of these findings?

A: They might indicate that adult neurogenesis serves more than one purpose. Depending on the brain region and type of cell produced, perhaps in some cases it promotes the acquisition of new information, while in other cases, it promotes stability of older information. (more…)

Wesleyan's Summer Session, held May 30 through June 29, offered 12 courses in the arts, sciences, English, film studies, government, psychology and quantitative analysis. Pictured is Jill Morawski, professor of psychology, teaching PSYCH 274, "Cultural and Historical Perspectives on Psychological Disorders."

Paul McCallion '15 and his peers learned about the historical and cultural studies of the naming and treatment of psychological disorders.

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Center for the Arts.

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Fifth grade students from Snow Elementary School in Middletown toured Wesleyan science departments on June 15. Pictured, a Snow School student observes sunspots and solar flares through a telescope at Wesleyan's Astronomy Department.

Astronomy graduate student Raquel Martinez explains how the telescope uses a hydrogen alpha filter, which allows light of exactly one wavelength to pass through, not harming the eye.

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Wesleyan hosted the 56th Annual Wesleyan Writers Conference June 14-17 on campus.

Author and poet Honor Moore led a poetry seminar on June 14. Moore is the author of three collections of poems. Her recent book, "The Bishop’s Daughter," was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

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Elizabeth “Beezer” Clarkson ’94

Elizabeth “Beezer” Clarkson ’94 has joined SAP Ventures as Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director. SAP Ventures is an independent venture capital firm affiliated with SAP AG, a global enterprise software company.

Clarkson will be based in the company’s Palo Alto, Calif., office and in charge of worldwide operations. She will also be managing the newly announced “SAP HANA Real-Time Fund,” which is focused on early-stage venture capital funds globally, and scheduled to launch this month.

Previously, Clarkson was a Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, Calif., where she managed the DFJ Global Network of 16 venture funds with $7 billion under management. Prior to this, she was an investment manager at Omidyar Network and was in business development at Hewlett-Packard.  She began her career as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Clarkson holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a Wesleyan trustee.

Lily Raff McCaulou '02 (Photo by Marisa Chappell)

Lily Raff McCaulou ’02 is the author of the memoir Call of the Mild: Learning to Hunt My Own Dinner (Grand Central Publishing), which was published in June. She was raised as a gun-fearing environmentalist and an animal lover and stuck by the principle that harming animals is wrong.

But her views changed when she left an indie film production career in New York to take a reporting job in central Oregon. For her articles, she began spending weekends fly-fishing and weekdays interviewing hunters and found that some of them were quite thoughtful about their relationship with animals and the environment. She eventually met her husband Scott, who took her fly-fishing.

Book by Lily Raff McCallou '02

Raff McCaulou writes about her decision to learn how to hunt—attending a Hunter Safety course designed for children, buying her first rifle, and field dressing an elk and serving it for dinner. She dispels some negative stereotypes about hunters and tackles large issues surrounding a sometimes misunderstood American practice and pastime. She also explores the role of the hunter in the 21st century, the tension between hunters and environmentalists, and new models of sustainable and ethical food procurement.

In a recent review of the book in the San Francisco Chronicle, Liz Colville writes: “McCaulou’s forthright and well-researched approach to this memoir, her first book, clearly conveys her message that there is a right way to hunt and to be active in both the American hunting community and the conservationist community. She lets us in on personal events, including two tragic family deaths, to show us how a newfound understanding of death helped evolve her identity as a hunter. And when sharing the deep knowledge she’s amassed about central Oregon and its wildlife, her writing is evocative and inspiring, and it will encourage all manner of nature lovers to forge a deeper connection to their surroundings.”

Raff McCaulou lives in Bend, Oregon and writes a twice-weekly column for the Bend Bulletin. In 2010, she completed a prestigious Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship at the University of Michigan, where she researched this book.

Author web site

David Nixon ’53

David Nixon ’53, senior partner of the Manchester, N.H., law firm of Nixon, Vogelman, Barry, Slawsky & Simoneau, P.A., received the Chief Justice Frank Rowe Kenison Award from the New Hampshire Bar Foundation. Selected by vote of the Board of Directors of the New Hampshire Bar Foundation, Nixon was chosen for his “substantial contributions to the betterment of New Hampshire citizens through the administration of justice, the legal profession, and the advancement of legal thought.”

Nixon, an economics major at Wesleyan, earned his law degree with honors from the University of Michigan Law School. He was voted one of New Hampshire’s best personal injury trial lawyers by his fellow attorneys in the state. One of his nominators for the Kenison Award noted, “I have seen none better in trial practice than Dave Nixon.”

Nixon has served as president of the New Hampshire Bar Association, the New England Bar Association and the International Society of Barristers. His honors have included the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Distinguished Service Award, the Distinguished Attorney Award by the New Hampshire Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence for his service representing abused women and children, and the Public Service Award by the Hillsborough County Law Enforcement Association for his 40 years as chair of its scholarship committee.