Campus Life

Through a series of intimate and informal salons, Wesleyan’s Embodying Antiracism Initiative Fellows shared some of the work they have created this year during the program’s Think Tank. The salons are mini-festivals of arts, ideas, and activation, looking at works-in-progress and building community, said Stephanie McKee-Anderson, Executive Artistic Director of partnering organization Junebug Productions and Special Advisor to Provost Nicole Stanton. A Fellow might have the seed of a creation, so a salon could be a helpful place to dialogue about that idea, while the others might act as thought provocateurs. “What questions make a creator more excited about their…

One of Wesleyan’s hallmarks is its ability to foster conversation, difference of opinion and creativity. It’s a place where thinking one way isn’t always the way. The experience of Wesleyan is unique, it’s open and it’s broad. It’s a community, but it’s also individual. Despite its nuances, it shares a few universal fixtures that most other universities have too. It has stately buildings with hallways lined with classrooms, its students can be seen rushing from lectures to library study rooms, and if you listen closely enough you can hear the faint beeping of construction vehicles backing up in the distance.…

By Maia Bronfman ’24 So many people were interested in Wesleyan’s Archaeology and Collections Open House earlier this month, Archaeology Collections Manager Wendi Field Murray didn’t stop talking for two-and-a-half hours. “I had so many great conversations with people of all ages. A young boy who brought a sketchbook to draw all the interesting things he was seeing; an individual who helped excavate the Beman Triangle site 10 years ago; a Wesleyan student who had never seen the collection; an older gentleman who collects historic glass insulators,” Murray said. There were over 150 attendees at the open house held in…

The U.S. Department of State announced that Wesleyan University is a Fulbright Program Top Producing Institution for the 2022-2023 academic year. This is the fourth consecutive year Wesleyan has appeared on the list. “Fulbright is interested in Wesleyan’s commitment to thinking about how what happens in an academic setting interacts with the real world and how that can be mobilized in a positive way,” Erica Kowsz, Assistant Director for Fellowships at the Fries Center for Global Studies, said in a previous interview. The list of Fulbright Top Producing Institutions for 2022-2023 was published in early February. “Thanks to the visionary leadership of these institutions, administrators, and…

The $14,635 the Softball team raised on Wesleyan Athletics Giving Day (WAGD) will help to cover its spring break trip to Florida where it will play over a third of its season schedule in just nine days. The money Softball raised, while a significant sum for the program, is just a portion of the near-record breaking total of $521,363 from 2,136 donors that Wesleyan’s 28 athletic teams combined to raise on WAGD on Feb. 15, the second highest total in the fundraiser’s history. Alongside funding the crucial spring break trip, Softball Head Coach Jennifer Lane said the money it raised…

Growing up in suburban Iowa, Andrea Weires ’19 said she could not recognize the people she lived next to for over a decade. Despite being there for less than two years, the community she serves in for the Peace Corps in northwestern Dominican Republic is vibrant and full of welcoming faces. “In my Peace Corps site, people know, care about, and take care of their families and neighbors—which is often the same people,” Weires said. “The solidarity and care for community here is really inspiring.” Weires said a fellow former Wesleyan student told her to always smile at everyone she…

Every exhibition presented in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery establishes an idea–or an argument–of what art is, how art is made, who makes art, and what art does. “With every presentation, we attempt not to narrow the answers to any of those big questions,” said Associate Director of Visual Arts and Adjunct Instructor in Art Benjamin Chaffee ’00. “We think critically about the art that is shown and also how we’re framing it.” The most recent exhibition at Zilkha has created an interesting opportunity for juxtaposition. "Liquid Gold" includes a video installation and a sculpture by Assistant Professor of…

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Sebastian Zimmeck sees internet privacy as nothing less than a human right—everyone should have control over their data and how it is distributed in the world. “The concerns are twofold. Private companies have a lot of our data that we don’t know about, and the second point is that the government can request data from these companies that can be used in legal proceedings … the average internet user has no idea of the sheer amount of data collected from us,” Zimmeck said. A quick glance at the headlines in the New York Times over…

In recognition of a year since the Russian attack on Ukraine, Wesleyan's Dance Department and WesWell co-hosted Ukrainian dance artist Mariia Bakalo, to teach a Contemporary Dance class and a workshop in Ukrainian Dance: Choreotherapy. The Choreotherapeutic approach focuses on the collective dynamic experience of moving together in rhythm and special configurations with other people. Bakalo taught a Bukhovynian dance from the southwestern region of Ukraine. Participants, including students, staff and faculty, children and Middletown community leaders from Community Health Center of Middletown and the Free Center, learned, laughed and sweat together. “The event was a testament to the resilience…

Translation can be both a weapon for imperial conquest and a way to explode language in new and innovative ways, according to a New York Times bestselling writer. Author Rebecca F. Kuang and Stephen Angle, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies and director of the Fries Center for Global Studies, engaged in a wide-ranging discussion February 20 about the relationship between languages, translation, and colonialism, a theme in her bestselling novel “Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.” Kuang spoke as part of Power of Language Week, sponsored by the Fries Center.…

Yellow and blue balloons were fastened to each of the pillars of Zelnick Hall, but Friday’s gathering of students and faculty acknowledging that it had been one-year since Russia invaded Ukraine was not a celebration. It was a marking of one year of strife and tragedy. For Associate Professor of Dance Katja Kolcio it’s been a year of wondering if her relatives who live in Ukraine are still alive. She has not heard from some relatives since this past January. Kolcio said that February 24 “marks a year of Ukrainian bravery, steadfastness, and strength.” “I'm just continuously reminded that, sadly,…

Through a series of fun masterclasses and performances, members of The Second City integrated the company’s tenets of improvisation into the curriculum of four Wesleyan performance courses. Since its premiere in 1959, The Second City has revolutionized improv as an art form and launched the careers of iconic performers ranging from John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner to Mike Myers, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Keegan-Michael Key. When Dean of the Arts and Humanities Roger Mathew Grant learned that The Second City would be available to come to Wesleyan, he thought about how improvisation is a foundational…

Arts, Ideas, and Activation: Embodying Antiracism Fellows Share Creations

Public Affairs Center, New Science Building Construction on Schedule

Local Artifacts on Display at Second Annual Archaeology Program Open House

Wesleyan Again Named Fulbright Program Top Producing Institution

Wesleyan Athletics Giving Day A Success

Alumni Share Peace Corps Experiences

Open-Ended Questions: New Exhibit at the Zilkha Gallery

Internet Privacy Focus of 2023 Shasha Seminar

Dance Department Holds Ukrainian Dance Workshop

Bestselling Author R.F. Kuang Speaks on Power of Translation

Wesleyan Recognizes One Year Mark of the War in Ukraine

The Second City Teaches Improvisation to Wesleyan students