Campus News & Events

Sally Bachner, associate professor of English, Demetrius Eudell, professor of history, and James Lipton, professor of computer science, received Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching at Commencement on May 22. These prizes, made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank G. Binswanger Sr., Hon. ’85, underscore Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers, who are responsible for the university’s distinctive approach to liberal arts education. Recommendations were solicited from alumni of the last 10 graduating classes, as well as current juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Recipients were chosen by a selection committee of faculty and members of the Alumni Association Executive Committee.…

Abigail Gruppuso '16, Austin Tamaddon '16, and Cyrus Nury '16 delivered "Senior Voices" Addresses on May 21 in Memorial Chapel. Andrea Roberts, associate professor of the practice, chemistry, delivered the faculty reflection. Below are the text of their speeches: Abigail Gruppuso '16 The lunch table in Usdan is where my friends and I split into two camps and argue whether Cherry Berry or Froyo World is better. It’s where Mike and I exchange stories about our study abroad experiences in Nepal and Beijing. It’s where I was urged to Feel the Bern and taught how to eliminate food waste. At the…

Members of the Class of 2016 were inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest national scholastic honor society, in a ceremony May 21 at Memorial Chapel. The Wesleyan Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was organized in 1845 and is the ninth-oldest chapter in the country. Membership is conferred for high scholastic achievement. Fall election eligibility is based on a student's grades at the end of junior year; spring election is based on four-year achievement. Seventy-three students were inducted at the ceremony. They join fifteen other seniors inducted in December 2015. PHI BETA KAPPA SPRING 2016 Holt Akers-Campbell Elizabeth Marie…

Wesleyan’s Commencement ceremony will take place outside on Andrus Field, as planned. Our best advice is to come prepared for cool, wet weather conditions, and bring along an umbrella. Please keep in mind the field may be wet and muddy. A reminder that rain or shine the Commencement ceremony will be simulcast in the Memorial Chapel, Patricelli ’92 Theater, Ring Family Performing Arts Hall and Tishler Lecture Hall (150 Exley Science Center). The ceremony will also be available to view on the website wescast.wesleyan.edu. For additional information about Commencement, please see the Reunion & Commencement website.

The Hartford Courant has featured the work of T.R.A.P House, a nonprofit business incubator that targets high-crime, high-poverty areas and has recently started working in the north end of Hartford. T.R.A.P. House is the creation of a team from Wesleyan: Irvine Peck’s-Agaya ’18, Gabe Weinreb ’18, Sara Eismont ’18, and Bashaun Brown, a former student in Wesleyan's Center for Prison Education, where he earned 16 credits while serving six years at the Cheshire Correctional Institution for bank robbery. Brown will be a member of Wesleyan's Class of 2018, starting in the fall. T.R.A.P. stands for "transforming, reinventing and prospering," and is a play…

The Hartford Courant reported on a study of the Wangunks, the indigenous people of Middletown and Portland, Conn., by members of a Wesleyan course taught by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of environmental studies. Eleven students spent a semester in the archives of the Middlesex County Historical Society studying the Wangunks as part of a course on local Native Americans: "Decolonizing Indigenous Middletown: Native Histories of the Wangunk Indian People." Four of those students presented their research at a March seminar at Russell Library. According to the story: The Wesleyan students made use of a number of sources to piece together a…

The Wesleyan women’s tennis and women’s crew teams both qualified for the NCAA Championships this week. Women’s tennis, ranked No. 8 in the ITA national rankings, returns to the postseason tournament for the first time since the 2000-01 season, and only the second time in program history. The Cardinals earned a first round bye after posting an 11-5 overall record, and will face the winner of No. 14 Mary Washington and Simmons on May 14 at 11 a.m. on the campus of Amherst College, the regional host. If Wesleyan wins, it would advance to play either No. 7 Amherst, SUNY Geneseo…

Anna Fox '19 wrote an essay in The Forward about Wesleyan's Jewish community and the campus political climate surrounding the Israel Palestinian conflict. Though, as a Zionist, she was anxious about coming to a campus with a pro-Palestine reputation, she was met with a pluralistic community, "diverse opinions" and "students exchanging ideas thoughtfully—though rarely in agreement—and leaving the conversations with respect, compassion and nuanced approaches to their ideas." She writes: The passion I see in my peers who engage with Israeli-Palestinian politics, regardless of their political affiliations, gives me so much hope about the future of the Holy Land. My voice is not…

Wesleyan recently hired five additional tenure-track faculty who will begin their appointments during the Fall 2016 semester. They join eight other faculty who were hired in February. The new faculty include: Joan Cho, assistant professor of East Asian studies. Cho's BA is from the University of Rochester, and she is completing her dissertation at Harvard, titled “The Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Modernization and Generation Turnover under Authoritarianism.” (more…)

On May 7, Master drummer Abraham Adzenyah, adjunct professor of music, emeritus, was honored with a ceremony, farewell concerts, and reunion featuring past and present students (View photo set here). Adzenyah taught West African music, dance and culture at Wesleyan for 46 years and retired in May. During the event, Adzenyah was honored with the naming of the Abraham Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall (formerly the Center for the Arts Rehearsal Hall). This is the first time that a leading U.S. university has named a building after a traditional African musician. In addition, grateful students, alumni and friends have raised more than $225,000 to establish the…

The Office of Student Affairs hosted a Spring 2016 awards banquet for students who received academic prizes, fellowships and awards on May 4 in Daniel Family Commons. Students received awards for demonstrating outstanding character, leadership and intellectual commitment; intercollegiate debating; extracurricular participation; promoting the health, visibility, and participation of the Latino community at Wesleyan; writing the best paper that uses econometric techniques to analyze an economic problem; excellence in environmental stewardship; excellence in modern languages; exhibition in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, or architecture; and much more. To view the entire list of awards and recipients see Student Affairs Prizes…

Three teams from Wesleyan received honors during the American Statistical Association DataFest, hosted at Wesleyan April 8-10. During DataFest, students are presented with a large, complex, surprise data set and work over the weekend to explore, analyze, and present their findings. Teams of three to five undergraduate students from Wesleyan, Trinity, Connecticut College, Yale, and the University of Connecticut competed against each other. After two days of intense data wrangling, analysis and presentation design, each team was allowed only five minutes and no more than two slides to impress a panel of judges. The event, coordinated by Wesleyan's Quantitative Analysis Center, is…

Bachner, Eudell, Lipton Honored for Excellence in Teaching

Gruppuso, Tamaddon, Nury Deliver “Senior Voices” Addresses

73 Seniors Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa Society

Wesleyan Commencement Weather Information

Wesleyan’s T.R.A.P. House Business Incubator Working in Hartford’s North End

Wesleyan Class Studies ‘Lost Tribe’ of Lower Connecticut River

Women’s Tennis, Crew Teams Qualify for NCAA Championships

Fox ’19 Writes on Wesleyan’s Jewish Community, Campus Political Climate

5 Tenure-Track Faculty Hired for Fall 2016

Master Drummer Adzenyah Celebrated at Ceremony, Hall Dedication

Students Honored with Academic Prizes, Fellowships

Students Solve, Analyze Complex Problems at DataFest