The Wesleyan Connection

Alice Hadler, associate dean for international student affairs and coordinator of Writing Program Language Services for Non-Native Speakers, congratulates Abhisit Jiranaphawiboon ’16 for being the recipeint of two academic prizes, awarded on May 8. Jiranaphawiboon received the Ayers Prize for attaining the highest academic standing in the first semester, and the Sherman Prize for excellence in mathematics. (Photos by Eki Ramadhan ’16)

The Office of Academic Affairs and Office of Student Affairs hosted a reception honoring students who have been awarded academic prizes, fellowships and scholarships on May 8 in Daniel Family Commons. The awards and award recipients are:

GEORGE H. ACHESON AND GRASS FOUNDATION PRIZE IN NEUROSCIENCE

Established in 1992 by a gift from the Grass Foundation, this prize is awarded to an outstanding undergraduate in the Neuroscience and Behavior Program who demonstrates excellence in the program and who also shows promise for future contributions in the field of neuroscience.

• Nicholas Woods ’13

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY ANALYTICAL AWARD

Awarded for excellence in analytical chemistry.

• Andras Sagi ’14

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY CONNECTICUT VALLEY SECTION AWARD

Awarded for outstanding achievement to a graduating chemistry major.

• Sarah Hensiek ’13

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY UNDERGRADUATE AWARD IN ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

Awarded to a senior who has displayed a significant aptitude for organic chemistry

• Ging-ji Wang ’13

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CHEMISTS AWARD

Awarded for outstanding achievement to a graduating chemistry major.

• Sarah Shackleton ’13

AYRES PRIZE

The gift of Daniel Ayres, Class of 1842, to the first-year student who attains the highest academic standing in the first semester.

• Abhisit Jiranaphawiboon ’16 (more…)

Several Wesleyan students, staff, faculty, alumni and friends of the university attended the Edgar Beckham Helping Hand Awards Ceremony April 28 in Beckham Hall. Guests joined urban revitalization strategy consultant Majora Carter ’88, former Dean of the College Janina Montero, and several other prominent alumni in recognizing students, faculty and staff who have exercised cultural sensitivity and promoted diversity and inclusion.

The event was created and organized by Phabinly Gabriel ’13 and Luciana Pennant ’13.

“The event was amazing,” Pennant said. “It was a spectacular evening full of joy and laughter.”

The student award recipients are: Dorisol Inoa ’13; Evan Okun ’13; Chantaneice Kitt ’13; James Gardner ’13; Syed Ali ’13; Malik Ben-Salahuddin ’13; Roselee Mohika ’13; Hira Jafri ’13; Oladoyin Oladapo ’14; Jalen Alexander ’14; Christian Hosam ’15; Michael Leung ’15; Nkosi Archibald ’16 and Alton Wang ’16.

The faculty and staff recipients are: Robert Steele, Lisa Dierker, Persephone Hall, Sarah Mahurin, Elizabeth McAlister, Renee Johnson-Thornton, Elisa Cardona, Indira Karamcheti, Matthew Kurtz, Sarah Carney, Helen Treloar, Stacy Fambro and Sonia Manjon.

The specialty award recipient was former dean of students Janina Montero, who succeeded Dean Edgar Beckham. (Photos by Bill Tyner ’13) View the entire photo gallery in this Wesleyan Flickr gallery.

(more…)

Lang Chen

Lang Chen, a visiting instructor in religion, was named a 2013 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The Newcombe Fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious such award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences whose dissertations address questions of ethical and/or religious values. Each 2013 Newcombe Fellow will receive a 12-month award of $25,000.

Chen is teaching “Buddhism “and “(Non)violence in Buddhism” this semester at Wesleyan.

Chen also is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Yale University. Her dissertation, Elixir or Poison? Indian Origins and Chinese Interpretations of Buddhist Antinomian Narratives, explores the origins of antinomianism in Indian Buddhist narrative literature and the pertinent philosophical development in China.

As a Newcombe fellow, she will return to her dissertation after the spring semester and try to finish it by March 2014.

“I believe while writing my dissertation, I will always recall my experience of teaching at Wesleyan and my inspirational students there,” she said. “According to the Buddhist idea of interdependence, my experience at Wesleyan has become and will always be a part of ‘me.’”

For more information on the fellowship see http://www.woodrow.org/news/news_items/WW_NewcombeFellows_2013.php.

Howard Tobochnik ’13 and Roger Laura Kurash ’13 received the Maynard Memorial Award, presented annually to the top senior male and female scholar-athlete at the university. Both are seen with their respective head coaches, head wrestling coach Drew Black and head women’s soccer coach Eva Meredith, along with athletics director Mike Whalen.

The Department of Athletics recognized the accomplishments of 173 scholar-athletes during a dinner at Beckham Hall May 1.

Howard Tobochnik ’13 and Roger Laura Kurash ’13 received the Maynard Memorial Award, presented annually to the top senior male and female scholar-athlete at the university.

Those invited to the gathering were members of the sophomore, junior and senior classes who had distinguished themselves both in the classroom with a minimium GPA of 3.2 and in athletic competition as a significant contributor to the success of their chosen sport(s).

Tobochnik was an NCAA Division III qualifier in 2012-13 after finishing third at 149 pounds during the NCAA Northeast Regional qualifier. That followed his 21-1 dual-match record as he led the Cardinals to a 15-7 record. He was a four-year starter for the wrestling team and will graduate with more overall victories (119) than any previous Wesleyan grappler. He was a three-time National Wrestling Coaches Association Scholar All-American.

Kurash is the 2012 NESCAC Player of the Year in women’s soccer after leading the team in scoring for a fourth straight year with nine goals and four assists for 22 points. She also was selected all-New England by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) as well as an NSCAA Scholar All-East pick and a CoSIDA District II Academic All-American. She graduates as the number-two all-time leading scorer at Wesleyan with 37 goals and 14 assists for 88 points with 15 of her 37 tallies counting as game-winners.

The Maynard Award, established in memory of Roger Maynard ’37 by his family, recognizes the finest combination of athletic achievement and academic accomplishment among the senior student-athletes each year since 1970 for men and 1977 for women.

Standing, Jesse Brent, Mickey Capper, Ben Michael, Adam Wechsler, Adam Isaacson, Katherine Cohen and John Whalen; Kneeling, Isabelle Gauthier and Rick Sinkiewicz; Lying down, Adrien DeFontaine and Avery Trufelman. (Photo by Robert Cooper)

Wesleyan’s WESU 88.1 FM was named the “2013 Best College Radio Station” by the Hartford Advocate in April 2013.

Read more.

Mike Fried

Mike Fried, the interim head men’s and women’s tennis coach, was named NESCAC men’s tennis co-Coach of the Year in recognition of the team’s unprecedented conference success.

Men’s tennis posted a 7-10 record which included a best-ever 5-4 NESCAC record, giving the Cardinals their first-ever bid to the NESCAC tournament, seeded fifth among the six teams.

Fried, who also serves as a visiting instructor in physical education, adds tremendous playing and coaching experience to the Cardinals’ staff. He came aboard as an assistant during the spring of 2011, and was elevated to head women’s coach during the spring of 2012.

A 1991 graduate of Brown University, where he was a four-year tennis team member, two-year captain, and No. 1 singles and doubles player, Fried was a national high school tennis All-American before attending Brown and attained a No. 1 Eastern Tennis Association in the men’s open ranking. During his playing career, Fried posted wins over eventual Grand Slam winners Goran Ivanisevic, Mark Knowles and Donald Johnson while also competing against other future pros such as Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang.

Read more about the men’s tennis team online here.

Allee Beatty ’13

Wesleyan has its fourth NESCAC Player of the Year in 2012-13 as softball sensation Allee Beatty ’13 joined men’s soccer standout Adam Purdy ’13, women’s soccer star Laura Kurash ’13 and men’s ice hockey scoring leader Keith Buehler ’14 with the honor. Beatty also earned NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year accolades. She led the Cardinals with a .421 average, scored 50 runs, drove in 11, stole 25 bases, had a seasonal record eight triples and was perfect in the field with 58 putouts and one assist in center field.

Her 152 runs, 12 triples and 114 stolen bases all represent Wesleyan career standards and she sits third in career hits with 180. She is a four-time NESCAC honoree with three nods to the all-NESCAC second team before gaining first-team laurels this year.

Beatty is a three-time academic all-NESCAC choice and is a CoSIDA/Capital One District II academic All-American. She found her third spot on an National Fastpitch Coaches Associaton (NFCA) New England all-star squad this year with a first-team selection. She was a second-teamer in 2012 and third-teamer in 2011.  Beatty was not alone with NESCAC honors as pitcher Su Pardo ’16 also garnered first-team recognition while picking up Rookie of the Year honors as well. She went 12-4 with a 1.78 ERA and 152 strikeouts in 188 innings of work.  She joins six other Wesleyan athletes still on campus who enjoyed NESCAC Rookie of the Year honors – Purdy and Kurash being two of them, along with LaDarius Drew ’15 (football), Jordan Schildhaus ’15 (women’s ice hockey), John Steele ’14 (men’s squash) and Shasha Brown ’13 (men’s basketball).  Jill Gately ’15 also was first-team all-NESCAC after hitting .416 with seasonal school-record efforts for doubles (14), homers (7) and RBI (45).  Both she and Pardo were NFCA all-New England third-team choices.

Wesleyan’s WESlam team placed 13th out of 59 college teams from around the country in the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, held April 3-6 at Barnard College in New York City.

Five students, Evan Okun ’13, Lily Myers ’15 , Zachary Goldberg ’13, Cherkira Lashely ’15 and Markeisha Hill ’16 competed on the team and Emily Weitzman ’14 coached. Lily Myers won the award for best love poem.

“‘Most moving’ was the response Wesleyan got from community ,” Okun said. “We were complemented for our creative manner in which we resisted the typical ‘slam-poem-formula’ that is often over dramatic and exploitative of personal trauma.”

Watch Zachary Goldberg, Evan Okun and Lily Myers perform “We Made It:”

Gina Ulysse delivers a TEDxUofM talk at the University of Michigan’s Power Center on April 5. (Photo by Aimée Xia)

Gina Ulysse made a 13-minute presentation during “Untapped,” the fourth annual TEDxUofM ideas convention at the University of Michigan on April 5. Ulysse is associate professor of African American studies, associate professor of anthropology and director of the Center for African American Studies.

Ulysse, a University of Michigan alumna, was one of 20 speakers at the event. More than 1,300 guests attended. Ulysse focused her talk on untapped creativity and why she is turning to performance work at this stage of her life.

“With a broad range of topics ranging from NASA funding, creativity, brain cancer research, philanthropy, a food cart hero, ground-breaking physical therapy, Detroit, teaching philosophy, life outside of prison, Arab stereotypes, gay bashing and bullying, among other things, I certainly can attest to the fact that the event was engaging and thought-provoking,” she said.

While at the conference, Ulysse was inspired by the student-organizers’ “dedication and infectious spirit of openness to ideas and difference.” She wrote about her experience working with the students in this Huffington Post article.

Wesleyan’s softball team.

The Wesleyan softball team, led by head coach Jen Lane, captured the 2013 Little Three title after taking two of three games from Amherst over the weekend. Combined with their two wins earlier this year over Williams, the Cardinals went 4-2 for the Little Three crown. Su Pardo ’16 picked up both pitching wins vs. Amherst, giving up just six hits and one earned run over 12 innings of work with 13 strikeouts. Jill Gately ’15 was tremendous at the plate, going 5-for-9 in the series with two doubles, a home run, five runs scored and six RBI. She broke school seasonal records for both doubles (14) and RBI (44) while tying the mark for homers (6). Allee Beatty ’13 went 5-for-11 with four runs scored.

The Cardinals, now 24-7 on the year and ranked fourth regionally by the NCAA, need one win in the final NESCAC West series vs. Middlebury Fri.-Sat., April 26-27 to lock up a NESCAC tournament spot as well as set a program record for wins in a season. Two wins will make Wesleyan the top seed in the West for the playoffs to be hosted by Tufts Fri.-Sun., May 3-5.

Rosa Hayes ’13 presented her paper on yield spread during The Carroll Round, an annual international economics conference at Georgetown University, in April. The Carroll Round provides a unique forum for research and discussion among the world’s top undergraduates.

The goal of the Carroll Round is to foster the exchange of ideas among the leading undergraduate international economics and political economy students by encouraging and supporting the pursuit of scholarly innovation in the field.

Hayes’ advisor is Masami Imai, chair and associate professor of East Asian studies, associate professor of economics and director of the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies. She also has been serving as the head tutor of Quantitative Analysis Center’s tutoring program under Manolis Kaparakis, director of the centers for advanced computing.