Olivia DrakeThe student-run organization Brighter Dawns raised more than $1,150 during the 5K for Brighter Dawns on April 16. The group is raising funds to build 30 latrines and 10 wells in Khalispur, Bangladesh. They also hope to provide sanitary kits to local households and hire three community health officers to educate the community in sanitary practices. Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano and Wesleyan President Michael Roth attended the event. Participants paid $10 to walked or run the 3.1 mile course, which was located on the Wes Fuhrman ’05 Trail near Long Lane. Brighter Dawns also raised funds by selling t-shirts at…
Davy Knittle '11 will participate in the 2011 American Experience Student Freedom Ride, created by PBS. From May 6-16, Knittle and 39 other college students will join original Freedom Riders in retracing the 1961 historic rides from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, La. via bus. They will explore the state of civil engagement today. "I'm getting on the bus to work with and learn from several generations of student activists," Knittle says. "I’m interested in thinking about what student activism can look like, does look like, and has looked like by considering what we can do to provide a model…
Jesse Friedman '11, Anya Olsen '11 and Catherine Steidl '11 received a Baden-Württemberg–Connecticut Exchange Grant for one year’s study in Germany. The Baden-Württemberg Exchange Program offers students an opportunity to earn college credits in one of Germany's top nine universities. Students spend the academic year at the university they choose. The Baden-Württemberg Exchange originated from a legislative partnership formed between the State of Connecticut and the German state of Baden-Württemberg in 1989. The agreement invites all students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities in Connecticut to study at any institution of higher learning in Baden-Württemberg. With nine universities from which to choose…
Members of the student-run group, Brighter Dawns, participated in the Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation 2011 Conference April 16-17 at Yale University. The conference welcomed leaders, changemakers, and participants from all fields of global health, international development and social entrepreneurship. Tasmiha Khan ’12, founder of Brighter Dawns, spoke about her organization during a session on “Water and Clinic Social Enterprise Pitches – Ideas in Development.” Brighter Dawns is raising funds to improve access to safe sanitation in Bangladesh. More than 2,220 professionals and students from all 50 states attended the conference.
In honor of the centennial of the writer Sybille Bedford, and in conjunction with The Paris Review, Lisa Cohen, assistant professor of English, organized an evening of readings of her work on March 24 in New York City. Cohen writes about Bedford in The Paris Review. Cohen’s writing has appeared in Fashion Theory, Bookforum, Ploughshares, The Boston Review, and other journals and anthologies. Her book, All We Know—portraits of the neglected modernist figures Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, and Madge Garland—will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2012. Sybille Bedford (1911-2006) was one of the great 20th-century stylists of the English language.
By synthesizing the antimatter particle antihydrogen, physicists will have the ability to create a more accurate picture and explanation of the universe. "Would antimatter fall down -- or fall up?," asks physics major Guy Geyer '13. "If we could trap antihydrogen for a longer length of time, we could test the gravitational effects of the particle. This would certainly be what scientists aim to do in the end." Geyer, who studies antihydrogen at Wesleyan, received honorable mention for the 2011-12 Barry Goldwater Scholarship. He competed with 1,095 mathematics, science, and engineering students nationwide for the award. Geyer began his antihydrogen…
David LowChi-Young Kim ’03 has translated the international best-selling Korean novel, Please Look After Mom (Knopf), which recounts the story of a family’s search for their mother, who disappears one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway. The novel is told from the points of view of four of the family members. In a review of the novel in The New York Times, Mythili G. Rao writes: “Shin’s prose, intimate and hauntingly spare in this translation by Chi-Young Kim, moves from first to second and third person, and powerfully conveys grief’s bewildering immediacy.” The Korea Times wrote that Please…
Cinema Verite, a new film directed by Shari Springer Berman ’85 and Robert Pulcini (The Nanny Diaries, The Extra Man, American Splendor), premiered on HBO on April 23. The film stars Diane Lane, Tim Robbins, and James Gandolfini and explores the making of the 1971 PBS 12-episode documentary series, An American Family, which chronicled the lives of “a normal American family” living in Santa Barbara, California. The series is now considered a precursor to current-day reality television shows as it invaded the privacy of the family, revealed the dissolution of a marriage, and showed an openly gay character for the…
Vibraphonist and composer Chris Dingman ’02 releases his debut album, Waking Dreams, on June 21, 2011 on Between Worlds Music. Dingman is joined by many of New York’s best young musicians including trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, saxophonist Loren Stillman, pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer Justin Brown. Dingman recreates the experience of dreams in the form of a suite of new music that travels over its 14 tracks from darkness to light, from hazy melancholy to serene peace, while moving, often obliquely, through moments and memories from the composer’s life. The CD Release Party will be held on Saturday,…
Cynthia RockwellNoted author John F. Ross ’81 received the first annual Fort Ticonderoga Prize for Contributions to American History on March 4. After a national search and in a unanimous vote, the trustees selected Ross for his broad contributions to 18th-century military scholarship with his book War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America’s First Frontier (Random House 2009), which explores the exploits Major Robert Rogers. Speaking at the ceremony, Ross said, “When I started a book on the 18th century warrior hero Robert Rogers, I realized what I had been looking for all…
Lara Galinsky ’96 is the author (with Kelly Nuxoll) of Work on Purpose, published by Echoing Green, a nonprofit social venture fund that supports emerging social entrepreneurs. The book tells the stories of five changemakers and their journeys from struggle and uncertainty to significance and success. Through these true-life narratives, the publication reveals how personal fulfillment and societal impact are the result of aligning passion and talents. The altruistic spirit of these young people helps craft careers with meaningful impact, contributing to a robust ecosystem of individuals and institutions dedicated to pushing forward bold ideas to solve the most deeply…