Olivia DrakePrize-winning author Robin D.G. Kelley will deliver the Center for African-American Studies 17th Annual Distinguished Lecture at 8 p.m. April 14. Kelley is a professor of American studies and ethnicity and history at the University of Southern California. His topic will be, "Faking It for Freedom: Grace Halsell's Amazing Journey through the Minefields of Race, Sex, Empire and War - A 20th Century Love Story." The lecture is based on Kelley's new project - a biography of the late journalist Grace Halsell. Halsell, a white journalist, spent a good part of her life masquerading as others and traveling the country…
The Wesleyan McNair Program assists students from underrepresented groups in preparing for, entering, and progressing successfully through post-graduate education. The program provides guidance, research opportunities, and academic and financial support to students planning to go on to Ph.Ds. All fields of research leading to a Ph.D. are eligible. In efforts to prepare undergraduates from diverse backgrounds for graduate studies, the McNair Program hosts a series of research talks. These talks are designed for interested, non-expert, students. They are free and open to all students. The next McNair Research Talk will take place from noon to 1 p.m., Friday, April 15…
For 40 years, Alvin Lucier, the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, has pioneered music composition and performance, including the notation of performers' physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes. His recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra in which, by means of close tunings with pure tones, sound waves are caused to spin through space. On Nov. 4-6, the Music Department and Center for the Arts will…
Brian KattenApproximately 115 students from the Woodside Intermediate School in Cromwell joined Wesleyan student-athletes from the men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s ice hockey, football, softball, women’s tennis and wrestling teams and the rugby club for an hour in the Bacon Field House for “recess.” Three play stations were set up, allowing groups of third- to fifth-graders from Woodside to interact with the Wesleyan students in kickball, capture the flag, red light/green light and basketball. The Wesleyan football team, through an arrangement between assistant coach Jeff McDonald and Woodside principal Bo Ryan, who met during their college years in the…
Eric Gershon
David LowMarine scientist and educator Ellen Prager ’84 is the author of Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans’ Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter, just published by University of Chicago Press. She introduces the reader to a variety of fascinating and often strange creatures that live in the depths of the ocean—from tiny but voracious arrow worms whose rapacious ways may lead to death by overeating, to the lobsters that battle rivals or seduce mates with their urine, to the sea’s masters of disguise, the octopuses. Prager examines the ways these sea inhabitants interact as predators, prey, or potential mates.…
Stephen K. Friedman ’91 has been promoted to president of MTV. Since the fall of 2008, he has been general manager, and he will now oversee MTV, MTV2, mtvU, MTV.com, MTV Hits and MTV Jams. During Friedman’s tenure, MTV has had five consecutive quarters of growth, and launched such successful shows as Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Life as Liz, and the upcoming Teen Wolf. He joined MTV in 1998 and started MTV’s strategic partnerships and public affairs department. As general manager, he launched mtvU, the channel dedicated to college students, in 2004, and helped shape the channel’s Emmy Award-winning…
Noah Hutton ’09 has directed and scored a new documentary, More to Live For, which was shown recently at the Dallas International Film Festival. According to Glenn Hunter in the Dallas-based D Magazine, the film focuses on “three cancer victims searching for the bone-marrow transplants that could save their lives. The three are Dallas entertainment-insurance executive James Chippendale; Nigerian athlete Seun Adebiyi; and multiple-Grammy-Award-winning saxophone player Michael Brecker, who eventually died. Brecker’s widow, Susan Brecker, and Chippendale co-produced the film, which is intended to raise awareness about the importance of bone-marrow donation.” Hutton is currently a creative director at Couple…
Cynthia Rockwell“Executive VP of Acquisitions & Production for Sony Pictures Classics, Dylan Leiner has spent his career traveling to Cannes, Milan and other international film festivals looking for material to acquire. For roughly 15 years, he's also been a member of an informal floating soccer game,” writes Michelle Kung for the March 25, 2011, Wall Street Journal. On April 23, Leiner and a friend, Jeffrey Saunders, founder of CinemaCapital and a former professional soccer player, will bring a version of that floating game of film professionals and more to New York City. Their organization, NYFEST—New York Film and Entertainment Soccer Tournament—will…
In late December, Denise Jefferson Casper ’90 was confirmed to a United States District Court Judgeship in Massachusetts. She had been nominated last April by President Obama, and an American Bar Association panel had rated her as "unanimously well qualified'' for this lifetime appointment. Casper was previously the Deputy District Attorney for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, overseeing the daily operations of one of the largest district attorney's offices in New England. Prior to that position, Casper taught legal writing at Boston University School of Law. She had served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston from 1999 to…
In March, Steven Katz ’96, M.D., chaired the inaugural New England Sarcoma Symposium, a joint effort between the Roger Williams Cancer Center in Providence, R.I., and the Kristen Ann Carr Fund. Additionally, Dr. Katz received the first Murray Brennan Research Award. He is the Director of Surgical Immunotherapy and Society of Surgical Oncology Fellowship Director at the Roger Williams Medical Center and assistant professor of surgery at Boston University. His clinical practice focuses on soft tissue sarcoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, melanoma, and liver mestastases. His prior and present research focus is on manipulating the immune system to treat patients with…
Rosemary Ostfeld ’10, MA ’11, an E&ES and biology major, is a semi-finalist for Sierra Club’s “Best Internship on Earth.” The winner will spend the summer video-blogging on different Sierra Club outings sponsored by the club’s Inner City Outings, Building Bridges to the Outdoors, and Volunteer Vacations programs. A four-year member of Wesleyan's Outing Club and former house manager of OutHouse, Ostfeld also developed and led an outdoor program for Snow Elementary School in Middletown. She says that Suzanne O’Connell, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences and director of service learning, encouraged her to apply for the internship with…