Olivia DrakeWesleyan President Michael Roth reviewed the book The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, by Ken Gormley, for the Feb. 20 edition of The Huffington Post. In the article, Roth writes, "The sordid and the sanctimonious, the crazy and the corrupt, the hypocrisy of those last years of the Clinton administration and, well, especially the hypocrisy were just awful to recall. The weight of the book, too, gave me pause. How was I to get through 800 pages on that nightmare? But although Ken Gormley's book spares none of the gory details, it's a great read that reveals the core dynamics…
Angel Gil-Ordóñez, director of private lessons, chamber music and ensembles, adjunct professor of music, music director of the Wesleyan Orchestra and Wesleyan Concert Choir, received a grant from Spain's Ministry of Culture and that of Foreign Affairs to conduct the orchestra in Falla and Flamenco April 17 in Brooklyn, N.Y. Falla and Flamenco is a program of three works by Manuel de Falla (1876—1946) that imbue 20th-century music with flamenco’s ancient gypsy traditions. Gil-Ordóñez's musicians will premiere "The Three Cornered Hat," in the U.S. for which Picasso created the scenery and costumes for the original. This original version was a ballet/pantomime called "El…
Matthew Kurtz, assistant professor of psychology, was interviewed and quoted in a Feb. 10 issue of Medscape Medical News. The article is titled "Mixed Results for Computer-Assisted Cognitive Remediation in Schizophrenia." Although computer-assisted cognitive remediation can help patients with schizophrenia improve their performance on training tests, these improvements do not generalize to broader neuropsychological or functional outcome measures, according to new research. The remediation program study is published in the February issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. "I thought this was a very well-conducted study with a strong sample size and paradoxical findings," Kurtz says in the article. "It's…
Brenda Hillman's book, Practical Water, published by Wesleyan University Press in 2009, was named a 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in the Poetry category. The 124-page book is part of the Wesleyan University Press's Poetry Series. Publishers Weekly says "Hillman's eighth collection of poems is the third in her series of book-length meditations on the elements. In these aesthetically challenging, yet often surprisingly clear poems, which span the personal, political and environmental, water is simultaneously a transparent vessel, a mirror and an endangered resource. This is one of the most unusual and compelling books so far this year."
David PesciGary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, and a senior member if the U.N.'s IPCC panel discusses the economic implications of polar ice melt with ABC's Bill Blakemore '65. He estimates the costs of polar ice melting and rising seas at $2.4 trillion over the next few decades.
Q: Mert, why do students call you "the pizza man?" A: Because I make pizzas. It's all I do. Pizza and special stuffed breads. I love my job. Pizza makes students happy. Q: How long have you been making pizza? A: This is my third year making pizza, but I've been working for Dining Services for 14 years. There's also a pizza maker on the evening shift and weekends. Q: What's the pizza-making process? A: The bakers make the dough, but I am responsible for stretching it out. I make 45 pizzas a day. I roast fresh rosemary and garlic…
Brian KattenWesleyan head women's ice hockey coach Jodi McKenna returned from the 2010 Olympics with a silver medal for Team USA. In May 2009, McKenna was asked to serve as an assistant coach for Team USA during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. While in Vancouver, Team USA demolished China (12-1), Russia (13-0) and Finland (6-0) during group play to earn a spot in the medal rounds. In the semi-finals, Team USA defeated Sweden, 9-1, to move into the Gold Medal Game vs. arch-rival Canada. Despite the 10-goal-a-game average for Team USA entering the Olympic Gold Medal Game, the Americans were shut…
David LowBill Cunliffe ’78 received a Grammy Award in January for his arrangement of “West Side Story Medley.” The track appears on the CD Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson (Resonance Records). Cunliffe, an associate professor of music at California State University, had been nominated for a Grammy twice before for best instrumental arrangement. In 2007, Cunliffe joined the California State Fullerton faculty after having toured as a pianist and arranger with the Buddy Rich Orchestra and performing with Frank Sinatra and jazz legends such as Ray Brown, Benny Golson, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, James Moody and Joshua Redman.…
Tony winning actor Frank Wood ’84 is currently starring in Clybourne Park, a darkly comic play by Bruce Norris, which deals with race relations among neighbors. The play opened to good reviews in February, and runs through March 21 at off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons. Clybourne Park begins in 1959 in a Chicago neighborhood as a white family moves out. In Act Two, the action shifts to 2009 and a white family moves in to what has become a predominantly black community that promises to be gentrified. During the intervening years, change overtakes the neighborhood, along with attitudes, inhabitants, and property values.…
Cynthia RockwellIrvin Richter ’66, chairman and chief executive officer of Hill International (NYSE:HIL), was named to the New Jersey Business Hall of Fame. He was one of only four laureates this year. This is a lifetime achievement award for individuals who have made a significant contribution to the quality of life and the business climate in New Jersey, and who will also serve as “role models for the next generation of New Jersey's business leaders,” according to Dave Weaving, chair of the induction event, scheduled for April. Richter founded Hill in 1976 and the company is now considered one of the…
In the Feb. 1 issue of The New Yorker, Carlo Rotella ’86, the director of the American Studies Program at Boston College, profiles U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Rotella points out that President Obama has allotted Duncan more than 70 billion dollars in federal economic-stimulus funds to hand out to the states—more money than any Secretary of Education has had before him. Duncan has exceptional leverage with this stimulus money and his close relationship with Obama, which dates back to when Duncan worked in Chicago. Rotella writes about Duncan’s childhood on the South Side of Chicago, his passion for…
In The Un-Americans: Jews, the Blacklist, and Stoolpigeon Culture (Duke University Press) Joseph Litvak ’76 offers a rethinking of the Hollywood blacklist and McCarthyite America by uncovering a political regime that did not come to an end with the 1950s or even with the Cold War, in which the good citizen is an informer, ready to denounce anyone who will not play the part of the earnest, patriotic American. Litvak draws on the work of Theodor W. Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Alain Badiou, and Max Horkheimer to show how the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) conflated Jewishness with what he calls…