Big Draw Unleashes the Artists Within

On April 25, the Friends of the Davison Art Center presented The Big Draw: Middletown, a community celebration of drawing and workshops for all skill levels, from beginning drawers to accomplished artists, at locations across Wesleyan. Facilitated by Wesleyan art professors and students, and sponsored by the Middletown Commission on the Arts and nine local businesses, the fourth annual free event attracted more than 300 participants from almost 40 towns. (Photos by Mariah Reisner '04 MA '07 and Tessa Houstoun '17) (more…)

Spring weather arrived at Wesleyan this week, and both students and faculty took advantage of the warm temperatures to spend some quality time outdoors. (Photos by Laurie Kenney) (more…)

On April 21, Dione Longley '82 spoke about her new book, Heroes for All Time: Connecticut Civil War Soldiers Tell Their Stories, co-authored by Buck Zaidel (Wesleyan University Press), in the Davison Rare Book Room at Olin Memorial Library as part of the 2015 Friends of the Wesleyan Library Annual Meeting Talk. The book uses soldiers’ letters and diaries, and written accounts by nurses, doctors, soldiers’ families, and volunteers on the home front to vividly portray the war. Hundreds of period photographs (most, previously unpublished) add to the narrative. Longley was director of the Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown for 20 years. Now a…

#THISISWHY Claudia Kahindi ’18 and Olayinka Lawal ’15 have received a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant to launch KIU, an English education project, in Kahindi’s home area of coastal Kenya this summer. Named for the Swahili word for “thirst,” KIU will serve more than 100 fourth-grade students at Kahindi’s alma mater, Kilimo Public Primary School, in Kenya’s Kilifi County. (more…)

Wesleyan’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP) has been awarded a four-year, $100,000 grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to support the participation of low-income students and students of color in ICPP’s master’s and certificate programs through the ICPP Scholarship Fund. Founded in 2010 and housed at Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts, ICPP is a center for the academic study of the presentation and contextualization of contemporary performance, and offers an interdisciplinary, graduate-level education in innovative and relevant curatorial approaches to developing and presenting time-based art. Starting in July 2015, the institute will offer a master’s degree in performance…

#THISISWHY On April 17, more than 30 alumni, parents and community members and 80 student-athletes participated in an Alumni Athletics Mentoring Workshop in Beckham Hall. As part of the program, mentors met with female student-athletes to speak about career options. Student-athlete Melissa Leung '16 has first-hand knowledge of the workshop's value. "At last year's event, I met my mentor, Clare Colton '12," says Leung, who attended the event for the second year in a row. "Clare provided resume and email etiquette advice and connected me with Jim Citrin (P'12 P'14), senior director of Spencer Stuart, who created an internship position for me with…

#THISISWHY On April 15, faculty and staff met to share their service- and project-based learning stories during an Academic (Technology) Roundtable lunch at the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. A(T)R lunches are designed to promote conversation, cooperation and the sharing of information, ideas and resources among faculty members, librarians, graduate students and staff. Barbara Juhasz, director of service-learning, associate professor of psychology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior, led the session, providing an overview of service-learning at Wesleyan as well as the variety of ways that service can be used as a pedagogical tool. Other speakers included Rob Rosenthal, director of…

On April 10, the Career Center hosted its second annual Connect@WES: Creating Connections, an on-campus event bringing together alumni, parents and recruiters as expert advisors for brief one-on-one networking sessions with students. More than 100 students and 32 advisors—including 25 Wesleyan alumni and parents—attended the event in Beckham Hall. Speakers at the event included Ed Heffernan '84, president and CEO of Alliance Data, who spoke to students about big data and the usefulness of a liberal arts education in business; Evan Shapiro P’17, executive vice president of digital enterprises at NBCUniversal, who held two breakout sessions for students interested in careers in digital…

On April 9, more than 200 students gathered at Olin Library for a vigil to remember the 147 people—most of them students—killed in the massacre at Garissa University College in Kenya earlier this month. Speakers at the vigil included Arnelle Williams '17, Giselle Torres '16, Claudia Kahindi '18, Geofrey Yatich '17, Ismael Coleman '15, Nyanen Deng '17, Alexandria Williams '15, and Irvine Peck’s-Agaya ’18. (more…)

#THISISWHY Wesleyan students Selin Kutlu ’16, Jacob “Jack” Lashner ’16 and Aaron Young ’16 have been chosen for honorable mention by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program for the 2015-2016 academic year. The award is presented annually to U.S. sophomores and juniors for excellence in mathematics, science and engineering. This year’s recipients were selected from a field of more than 1,200 students nominated by faculty from more than 420 colleges and universities nationwide. Less than half the students nominated each year are selected as a scholar or for honorable mention. Kutlu, a molecular biology and biochemistry and…

Wesleyan’s Green Street Teaching and Learning Center has received a $12,500 grant from the Petit Family Foundation to support the center's Girls in Science Summer Camp. Green Street Director Sara MacSorley accepted the gift from Dr. William Petit. The Green Street Girls in Science Summer Camp will take place August 3 - 7 and will be open to girls entering grades 4, 5, and 6. Erika Taylor, assistant professor of chemistry, assistant professor of environmental studies, Ruth Johnson, assistant professor of biology, and Christina Othon, assistant professor of physics, will participate in the five-day program, covering topics from biochemistry to physics and culminating…

Big Draw Unleashes the Artists Within

Springtime Arrives at Wes

Longley ’82 Speaks at Friends of Wesleyan Library Event

Students Receive Davis Projects for Peace Grant to Launch English Education Project

ICPP Receives $100K Doris Duke Grant

Mentors Share Experience with Female Student-Athletes

Faculty, Staff Share Service- and Project-Based Learning Stories

Career Center Hosts Second Annual Connect@WES

Students Gather to Mourn Kenyan Victims

3 Students Receive Goldwater Honorable Mentions

Petit Foundation Awards Grant to Green Street