David Pesci"Stan's Cafe: Of All the People in All the World, USA," is a installation and performance art exhibit that uses grains of rice to bring various comparative statistical data to life. The piece is part of the Feet to the Fire project and was recently profiled on WFSB 3 TV. It runs from Feb. 20 until March 3 at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery.
First year men's head basketball coach Joe Reilly was profiled on NBC Channel 30. He speaks about the academic and athletc rigors at Wesleyan, and about carrying on the same profession as his father and brother.
Olivia DrakeAs a former U.S. Army sergeant, Max Krafft ’09 has a lot to say about his two stints serving in Iraq. The English major was deployed in December 2005, and again in January 2007. On both occasions he was touring as the bass player and sound engineer for a rock/pop/country/R&B ensemble affiliated with the 389th Army Band. "We were there to perform for the members of the military and government contractors who were stationed there during the holidays in an attempt to entertain them and boost their morale," Krafft explains, regarding his role overseas. Krafft, who lived and worked within 300…
About 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, the ground around Mount Redoubt has begun to shake and a smell akin to rotten eggs tinges the air. The last time this happened the 10,197-foot volcano erupted for five months, venting hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide gas and spewing ash into the air. Professor Johan Varekamp remembers it well. He was among scientists who analyzed the direct effects of the 1989-1990 eruption. The ash he examined was ejected more than 40,000 feet into the sky; the resulting ashfall covered nearly 8,000 square miles of the surrounding landscape. “As is often quoted in…
Corrina KerrThirty years ago, the United States opened its first embassy in the People’s Republic of China as our nation began reestablishing its relations with the country. Vera Schwarcz, professor of history and East Asian studies and director of the Freeman Center, remembers the events well. After all, she was part of them. Schwarcz, an expert on Chinese culture, politics and literature, was one of only seven official exchange scholars invited to visit China in February 1979 when the embassy opened. Her recollections of this time, and her subsequent 30 years of experiences studying in and about China, served as the…
In the sparsely populated, mountainous region of Ladakh, India, elderly Buddhist nuns are suffering from isolation, illiteracy and lack of respect from their communities. These women, who spent their lives serving their family or working as laborers, have rarely had the opportunity to become ordained or to worship in a monastery like the highly regarded male monks. "These women have been devalued from the beginning," says Jan Willis, professor of religion, professor of East Asian studies. "All they've ever wanted to do is serve the dharma and study, but instead, they've become servants of their community, or helpers for the…
Bill HolderPresident Barack Obama has appointed Diana Farrell ’87 as deputy director of the National Economic Council. She most recently served as director of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey & Company’s economics research arm. In announcing the appointment, President Obama said Farrell “will work day and night with me to advance an American Recovery and Reinvestment plan that not only aims to jumpstart economic growth, but also promotes the long-term investments in our economy necessary to save and create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, and assure energy independence.” Farrell’s work has appeared in academic journals, books, and on the op–ed pages…
President Barack Obama has named Ian Bassin ’98 to be a deputy associate counsel in the Office of Counsel to the President. Bassin recently served as a member of the Education Policy Working Group for the Presidential Transition Team, and had earlier served as the Florida Policy Director on the Obama Campaign for Change. Previously, he served as a law clerk to Judge Sidney R. Thomas of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Wesleyan has become the latest institution to join iTunes U, a component of Apple’s iTunes Store that provides free educational audio and video content from the world’s foremost higher education institutions, museums and public media organizations. Wesleyan joins more than 160 higher education institutions who have met Apple’s strict quality control requirements and have been allowed to post educational content on Apple's iTunes U site. The initiative was the result of a joint effort between University Communications and the New Media Lab. The departments worked within the guidelines provided by Apple to create a web-based presence that showcases unique workshops,…
David LowArtist Andrew Witkin ’00 Wins Foster Prize Andrew Witkin ’00 was recently awarded the prestigious Institute of Contemporary Art's 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize of $25,000. He was one of four finalists whose work went on show at the ICA in Boston in November (the exhibition ends March 1). His art work on display, Untitled, 1990, is an installation of carefully arranged personal effects and impersonal furniture. According to the Boston Globe, the “arrangement reflects aspects of the artist's own life, which is both fervently social (he works at the Barbara Krakow Gallery on Newbury Street and has a…
The Spring 2009 Distinguished Writers Series features a short story author, New York Times Magazine writer, student poets and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Amy Bloom ’75, the 2009 Jacob Julien Visiting Writer, will speak at 8 p.m. Feb. 18 in Russell House. Bloom is the author of the novel Love Invents Us, the short story collection A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, and the nonfiction work Normal. Her most recent novel, Away, was a New York Times bestseller, and she has received the National Magazine Award and been nominated for the National Book Award and…
Dick Miller, the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, emeritus, is the author of “The Weighted Cost of Capital is not Quite Right” and “The Weighted Cost of Capital is Not Quite Right: Reply to M Pierru," published in the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 2009.