Brian KattenDecember 19, 20112min
Patti Klecha-Porter, who has directed the field hockey team at Wesleyan since her arrival in Middletown in 1985, was inducted into the Connecticut Lacrosse Hall of Fame on Nov. 13, for her long-time service as a lacrosse umpire. Klecha-Porter was one of eight individual enshrined during a ceremony in Southington, Conn. Klecha-Porter graduated from Ithaca College in 1981.  As a student athlete at Ithaca, she was captain and MVP of both the field hockey and lacrosse teams.  After graduating she continued playing field hockey at the U.S. Hockey level as well as club lacrosse for Hampshire New England. Klecha-Porter was…

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20113min
Q&As with outstanding students is an occasional feature of The Wesleyan Connection. This issue we speak with Lief Fredrichs from the Class of 2014. Q: Lief, where are you from, and why did you choose Wesleyan? A: I am from Exeter, NH. I chose Wesleyan because, when I visited, the students (actually tour-guides) seemed the most real to me. I liked Wes because of its reputation for being a small and prestigious school. I applied and got accepted off the waiting list in July. I was planning to go to Bard College, but I decided that I couldn't pass up…

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20112min
Paul Karl Haake, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, emeritus, died on Dec. 3 in Middletown, Conn. He was 79 years old. A memorial service was held Dec. 7 at the Wasch Center for Retired Faculty. In the true spirit of the liberal arts and the Wesleyan tradition of service, Professor Haake was particularly proud of the popularcourses he taught to students outside the sciences and of his participation in community issues. In 1975, Governor Grasso appointed Professor Haake to the Connecticut’s Nuclear Power Evaluation Council, a commission concerned with the safety of nuclear power. Professor Haake completed his A.B.…

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20113min
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, philosopher, psychoanalyst and public intellectual, died suddenly on Dec. 1 at the age of 65. She served on the Wesleyan faculty for nearly two decades, joining the College of Letters in 1974, after earning her Ph.D. in Philosophy at the New School, where she studied closely with Hannah Arendt. In 1982, Young-Bruehl published what is still considered the definitive biography of Arendt, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (Yale University Press, 1982; Second Edition, 2004), a text for which she received the Harcourt Literary Prize in Biography and Memoirs. Six years later, in 1988, she published an intellectual…

Benjamin TraversDecember 19, 20111min
Opraha Miles '14 is an intended neuroscience and behavior major from Jamaica who sings, dances in the ISIS women of color dance troupe, is a member of the West Indian Student Association (WISA), student manager at Usdan University Center and is a dedicated YouTube enthusiast. Learn more about Opraha in this video below: [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VklhWEl-lQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20111min
Below is a video featuring WILD Wes (Working for Intelligent Landscape Design at Wesleyan). WILD Wes is a Wesleyan student group working to transform fossil-fuel-intensive lawns into food-producing, ecologically-regenerative landscapes. WILD Wes is currently working on its first project: a 3/4 acre courtyard situated in a cluster of West College. The video was created by WILD Wes member Erin O'Donnell '12 and Ofer Levy '12, who were enrolled in the "Documentary Advocacy" class. Jacob Bricca, adjunct assistant professor of film studies, taught the FILM 150 course last fall. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3pDlO0WKw&feature=youtube_gdata[/youtube]

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20111min
Wesleyan's Green Street Arts Center received a $75,000 grant from the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA) on Nov. 22. The grant will support Green Street's After School Program in 2012. CHEFA's mission is to enhance the welfare and prosperity and improve the health and living conditions of the citizens of the State of Connecticut by providing access to tax-exempt financing and other financial assistance to institutions of higher education, healthcare institutions, childcare providers and nonprofit organizations.

David PesciDecember 19, 20111min
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has offered Wesleyan's Center for Film Studies Cinema Archives a $425,000 challenge grant. Support from NEH, which requires a three to one match with private gifts, will ensure that the Archives continue to grow and flourish. The four-year NEH grant will help endow a full-time curatorial position for the Cinema Archives, a collection which includes the person papers and other materials of such seminal film icons as Frank Capra, Elia Kazan, Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood and Ingrid Bergman, among others. The NEH grant will only partially endow the position and, because it is…

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20112min
Ron Cameron, professor of religion, is the co-editor of the book Redescribing Paul and the Corinthians. The 340-page book was published by the Society of Biblical Literature in 2011. This second volume of studies by members of the SBL Seminar on Ancient Myths and Modern Theories of Christian Origins reassesses the agenda of modern scholarship on Paul and the Corinthians. The contributors challenge the theory of religion assumed in most New Testament scholarship and adopt a different set of theoretical and historical terms for redescribing the beginnings of the Christian religion. They propose explanations of the relationship between Paul and…

Olivia DrakeDecember 19, 20111min
Kit Reed, resident writer in the English Department, is the author of the book, What Wolves Know, published in spring 2011. The collection of stories includes tales of mothers who are monstrous in their maternalness, families on the brink of implosion, children mutated by parental pressure in every dream home a dystopia. The title story is about a boy raised by wolves who struggles to adapt to the modern world. Read more about this story collection and others at http://www.kitreed.net/.