According to “Engaged with the World,” the strategic plan adopted by the trustees last spring: “One of our highest priorities will be to support a growing proportion of essential and predictable costs (faculty salaries, financial aid) through the endowment. Over the long term, this will increase our budgetary flexibility and reduce our dependence on tuition. We must take every opportunity to increase the endowment through new gifts, careful stewardship, and successful investments.”

While trustee policy has allowed a 5.5 percent annual draw from the endowment to support the operating budget, two special, additional draws were instituted in the past few years. The first of these, a roughly 0.4 percent draw this year, has been used to build and sustain the Wesleyan’s fund-raising organization. The second, approximately 1.5 percent, represents gifts invested alongside the endowment through the so-called Campus Renewal Fund and drawn down each year to pay debt service on the bonds sold to build and renovate campus facilities. Together, these draws total 7.4 percent, a level that conflicts with Wesleyan’s goal to build the endowment and its plan to borrow in future years to finance additional facilities.

Accordingly, at their November meeting, the Board of Trustees reviewed scenarios for reducing the total draw to 5.5 percent and endorsed an administrative proposal to phase it down over five years to produce approximately $5.6 million in cumulative savings. This five-year plan is intended to allow for targeted reductions in the operating budget, as well as a restructuring of the Campus Renewal Fund to meet debt service obligations without a period of co-investment.

“While we will be faced with difficult decisions about the budget we are acting from a position of overall financial strength,” said President Doug Bennet. “We can be deliberate and strategic about our choices, thanks to the efforts of the volunteers and staff who have built our fund-raising, improved our investment performance, and identified operating efficiencies. I am confident that we have the financial discipline and the support to strengthen Wesleyan for the long term.”

Bennet and Interim Vice President for Finance John Meerts have met with faculty, staff and student groups to explain the change in financial practice. Meerts has invited members of the community who have suggestions concerning operating efficiencies to contact him. The Office of Finance and Administration will establish a Web site to solicit such suggestions and report on their implementation.

At the same meeting at which it was decided to reduce the University’s total endowment draw, the trustees also endorsed a plan to invest roughly $3 million in new resources in fund-raising activities. These funds, to be raised through donations, would augment fund-raising, alumni events, communications, and administrative support in order to accelerate the growth of Wesleyan’s annual gift revenues. Specific plans for this investment are being developed in consultation with the CORE Group, a firm that uses aggregate fund-raising data from more than 50 top private colleges and universities to provide normative recommendations on the allocation of resources to maximize the return on investment. According to CORE Group projections, Wesleyan’s anticipated investment could yield $26 million per year in additional gift resources in 10 years.

Striegel-Moore, an internationally-recognized expert on eating disorders, says the study will last four years and include male and female subjects between 18 and 50 years of age. People participating in the study who present with eating disorders will be offered treatment options. The study is being funded by National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disease, and Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research of Portland, Oregon.

“Kaiser-Permanente’s involvement is the reason that the study will be conducted in Portland,” Striegel-Moore says. “That’s where they are headquartered and they will provide access to the study population and offer the clinical sites.”

Kaiser-Permanente’s inclusion is also part of the reason that this study will offer opportunities for ground-breaking inquiry. The HMO maintains an extensive database of all its members’ health care visits, conditions and treatments, as well as significant demographic information on each patient. It has extensive procedures in place that ensure patients’ information is protected and that individuals’ participation in the study is completely voluntarily. As a result, Striegel-Moore and her co-investigators will be able to look beyond the immediate data generally associated the eating disorder studies.

“For example, in these studies we usually know the subject’s age, sex and maybe a little bit more,” she says. “But this database will allow us to look at such things as health history, income level, education, past treatments sought and a wealth of other information that will allow us to get much more specific in our analysis. It’s a treasure trove of comprehensive data that is, quite frankly, a researcher’s dream.”

The study’s initial phase, a screening of nearly 7,000 men and women, is just finishing up. The screening phase targeted respondents randomly, rather than inviting participation only of individuals who self-identified as having a problem with their eating behavior. This component is unique and permits a more accurate estimate of the extent of binge eating in the community than when research relies on individuals to judge whether they have an eating problem. However, not everyone suffering from binge-eating is aware of the problem.

“Not seeking help can lead to needless suffering and create additional health problems that include obesity, heart conditions, infertility and hypertension,” Striegel-Moore says.
“However, effective treatments are available for binge-eating.”

She adds that, when studies selectively recruit individuals with eating problems and fail to actively recruit individuals who do not experience eating problems, the number of individuals who suffer from an eating disorder that are identified will be inflated.

Striegel-Moore says that this is the first major study to include male subjects and such a broad age range. As a result, the study will provide new data on how common binge- eating is in men and individuals who are beyond college-age.

“We know that men and people who are not in their teens and twenties suffer from binge eating too,” she says. “But for some reason they’ve been excluded from major studies.”

From the initial pool of respondents, 250 people will be identified for the second stage of the study and invited to participate in treatment. Each participant’s progress will be followed for a year. Researchers will analyze the effectiveness of the treatment options on several levels.

Berry joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1964 and retired in 1999.

He earned a bachelor’s of art in biology from Williams College with a minor in art history; a master’s of arts in biology from Wesleyan; and a Ph.D at Western Reserve University.

An expert in the mechanisms of insect development, he held a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Career Development Award from 1971 to 1976 and received several research grants from the NIH and National Science Foundation. He published more than 40 papers in professional journals, and he delivered talks at many professional meetings and conferences.

Professor Berry also was a valued contributor to Wesleyan, serving on the Advisory Committee, the Association of American University Presses Executive Committee, the Editorial Board of the Wesleyan University Press, the Health Sciences Advisory Panel, the Faculty Committee on Rights and Responsibilities and several administrative search committees.

In the local community, Berry was a founding member of the Middlefield Land Trust, vice-chairman of the Middlefield Conservation Commission and the Middlefield Inland Wetlands Commission.

He is survived by his wife Susan, daughter Alice, sons Matthew and Peter and several grandchildren.

“We extracted DNA from wheat germ, checked hydrogen levels in household products and stripped-away pigments from M&M candies.”

Probably a little different from the responses parents had heard the day before.

The extracting, checking and stripping-away came courtesy of an all-female Wesleyan faculty and student organization called Action Science Kids (ASK), which is part of the Wesleyan Women in Science program (WesWIS). One of ASK’s goals is to generate interest in science among the elementary school-aged students, as well as to demonstrate to girls and boys that the sciences are not only accessible to men.

“The idea is to infuse a notion of intelligent, competent women in various scientific fields,” said Kate Longley, a ASK member and Wesleyan senior biology major from Delmar, N.Y.

The Nov. 10 demonstration in Mrs. Greenlaw’s homeroom class was ASK’s most recent effort. Students and volunteers were divided up into groups and participated in the three different science experiments.

Manju Hingorani, assistant professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, led an experiment where she explained how common household products like vinegar, aspirin and ammonia, among others, contain different levels of hydrogen. When mixed with red cabbage juice, students determined that the pink mixtures, like vinegar, contained more hydrogen than the green mixtures like ammonia.

“Learning how to engage such a young audience in scientific discussions is quite an experience,” says Hingorani.

She adds that she enjoys the presentations and is hoping more Wesleyan students will get involved with the ASK program.

“It is very effective to show kids that, at any age, how much fun they and grown-ups can have with scientific experiments,” she explained.

Emily Alexy, a Wesleyan senior and math major from Ohio, worked on the experiment extracting DNA from wheat germ.

“Does anyone know what DNA does?” she asked. “It’s like a recipe for something and tells your body what you’re going to look like.”

Alexy discussed DNA and its functions, using common items, like soap, rubbing alcohol and water. In her experiment, DNA strands bubbled up to the top of the student’s test tubes when they mixed soap with wheat germ, warm water, meat tenderizer and baking soda.

One of the students, a 10-year-old named Eleanor, grew excited when her DNA strand fizzed to the top of her test tube.

“I like science because you get to learn about your world and earth you live in!” she exclaimed.

Samsun Nahar, a freshman from Manchester, Conn. presented an experiment called candy chromatography. She led students through rubbing coffee-filter paper across the candy coating of brown M&Ms, brown Reese’s Pieces candies and purple jellybeans to observe their different color coatings and dyes.

“By merging the two areas we’ve created a more efficient, more accessible service for faculty and staff,” says Meerts. “Bringing these areas together in a single department will provide better overall service in these areas and eliminate confusion about who to contact for any of these issues.”

Meerts adds that the offices will eventually be combined physically at a single location to provide additional convenience for faculty and staff.

Dan Michaud has been appointed as the interim associate vice president for human resources to manage the new expanded department. Michaud comes to Wesleyan from Caritas Christi Health Care in Boston, Mass.

“We’re very excited about Dan coming to Wesleyan,” Meerts says. “He has tremendous experience in managing these services in a nonprofit environment and we’ll be looking forward to his expertise and leadership, especially during this transitional period.”

According to Assistant Professor of economics and Latin American Studies, Francisco Rodríguez, this increasingly vocal and confrontational posturing by Chávez is typical. Rodríguez knows this first hand. He’s met Chávez. In fact, Rodriguez has even been a guest at the Venezuelan Presidential Palace.

That was in 2002, when Rodríguez was working as the chief economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly (2000-2004) where it was his job to compile economic outlook prediction reports for the country.

One of Rodríguez’s reports caught the attention of the moderates within Chávez’s administration. It warned of a looming Venezuelan financial crisis and deep recession.

“At that moment, it seemed that the meeting was a positive step towards Chávez becoming a more progressive, democratic leader,” says Rodríguez.

“Shortly after the meeting, however, Chávez realigned himself with the more radical advisors within his administration and our report was widely ignored.”

It wasn’t long after Rodríguez’s meeting with Chávez when Venezuelan citizens tried unsuccessfully to oust the dictator from power. The repercussions are being felt to this day. Numerous citizens, journalists and politicians have been thrown in jail for simply speaking out against Chávez.

Since joining Wesleyan, Rodríguez has continued much of the same research he conducted while working for the Venezuelan National Assembly.

At Wesleyan, he examines economic growth, the political economy and international trade relations of Latin American countries, like Venezuela. One of his most recent papers studies how economic policies like openness, redistribution and liberalization, which are successful within one country, cannot necessarily succeed in another.

“There are many relevant interactions between policies, institutions and economic structure that make it problematic to use one country’s growth experience to make inferences about other countries,” says Rodríguez.

Similarly, his recent research outlines how open trade could be harmful to Latin American countries. In fact, Rodríguez predicts the free and open trade agreement, proposed by the Bush administration at the recent Summit of the Americas, is bound to fail.

“Latin American countries run the risk of not being able to compete with U.S. high-tech goods or East Asian low-skill intensive manufactured imports,” says Rodríguez. “Therefore, they’re forced to specialize in less dynamic sectors such as natural resource and agricultural exports.”

Rodríguez is both academically and personally interested in Venezuela’s economic issues. He was born in Venezuela, yet admits he is critical of elements of the leftist Chávez administration.

“His human rights violations are simply atrocious,” Rodríguez says.

Even the new television station, Telesur, whose signal is broadcast over Latin America on a satellite, which Venezuela recently purchased from China, proves what a powerful hold the Chávez administration has on the people.

“It’s Latin America’s version of Al Jazeera,” says Rodríguez.

However, despite the negativity surrounding Chávez and his government, Rodríguez admits the administration has recently developed some positive social programs to assist the needy.

One called “Barrio Adentro” places doctors to live and work in the poorest areas of the country and other, “Mercal,” sells food to the needy at subsidized costs.

While Rodríguez admits that these social programs have raised living standards among the poor, he is skeptical of the government’s intention as well as of the sustainability of their policies.

He claims that Venezuela’s economy continues to be threatened by high budget deficits and an overvalued exchange rate.

“Before Chávez, oil cost $9 a barrel and after he came into power it rose to as high as $60 a barrel,” explains Rodríguez. “While some of the revenues are being spent on social programs, a considerable proportion is spent on lavish government projects.”

These include such “projects” as a luxurious $54 million A319CJ Airbus plane for Chávez’s personal use. Rodríguez says that Chávez and the Kuwaiti royal family are the only developing country government to have purchased the airplane for official use.

Another is a case of missing money — $3.2 billion. In 2002, the Venezuelan National Assembly assigned the money to the Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund – a fund the nation uses to protect itself against sudden changes in oil revenues.

However, Rodríguez says the funds were never deposited and the government cannot account for their whereabouts. Rodríguez says the funds are thought to have been used to finance political destabilization in other Latin American countries.