Bill HolderPresident Michael S. Roth and Professor Kari Weil have made a $100,000 gift to Wesleyan in support of endowment for financial aid. In announcing the gift, Joshua Boger ’73, chair of Wesleyan's board of trustees, said: “I can’t thank Michael and Kari enough for their generosity. Their gift represents the kind of ‘stretch gift’ that we are frequently soliciting from other alumni and their families, and I hope that all members of the Wesleyan community will follow their lead in making Wesleyan a philanthropic priority. Their support of financial aid underscores Michael's and Kari’s superb leadership and dedication to Wesleyan’s…
The former Squash Courts Building located at 41 Wyllys Ave. on Wesleyan’s historic College Row has opened as the renovated home for Art History, the College of Letters and the Career Center. Notably, several College of Letters and Art History alumni have provided gifts for the project to honor faculty members from their undergraduate days. David Resnick ’81, P’13, joined by his wife Cathy Klema P’13, contributed the lead gift to name the Art History Wing in honor of John Paoletti, the William R. Kenan Professor Emeritus of the Humanities and Art History. Resnick, now chairman of global financing advisory…
David Pesci Seth Redfield had to cut short his first Astronomy 224 class of the 2012 spring semester, but he had a good excuse: he was presenting at an international press conference being held by NASA on one of its recent missions. Redfield, an assistant professor of astronomy, was chosen by NASA to be a non-mission expert to help verify results from the space agency’s ongoing IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) mission, an unmanned probe that analyzes the interstellar boundary that protects much of our solar system, including the Earth, from deadly cosmic rays from interstellar space. One of Redfield’s primary areas…
Olivia DrakeNearly half of the nation’s students - 44 percent - are students of color, but only one of every six teachers is a teacher of color. To help recruit, support and retain individuals of color as K-12 public school teachers, the Woodrow Wilson-Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowships for Aspiring Teachers of Color offers scholarships to to ensure that greater numbers of highly qualified teachers of color enter public school classrooms around the country. This year, the Fund awarded fellowships to two Wesleyan seniors: Randyl Wilkerson '12 and Nastassia Williams '12. Wilkerson, an English major, and Williams, an African American Studies major, were chosen…
Lauren RubensteinProfessor of Art Tula Telfair’s latest exhibition, Out of Sight: Imaginary Landscapes, opened at the Forum Gallery in New York, N.Y. on Jan. 5 to a packed crowd. The 15 large panoptic paintings shown in the exhibition, which ran through Feb. 11, depict majestic mountainous landscapes dominated by dramatic skies that reflect a broad range of locations and weather patterns. As with Telfair’s past work, her landscapes are derived from memory and imagination. Telfair, director of Wesleyan’s Arts Studio Program, finds it fascinating when people tell her they can identify a particular location, since none actually exist. “Since I have…
In Bangladesh, more than 100,000 children die every year of intestinal diseases. About 31 million people are without access to safe drinking water and 99.9 million people lack proper sanitation. About 80 percent of the wells in more than 8,000 villages are contaminated. Tasmiha Khan '12, founder of the Wesleyan chapter of Brighter Dawns, has spent the past four years determined to help sanitary and living conditions in a slum in Khalishpur, Khulna. Through fund-raising, partnering with NGOs and grant applications, the Wesleyan chapter has teamed up with other Brighter Dawns chapters in the country to distribute more than 1,000 sanitary…
We live in a world of germs; multitudes of them live in our own bodies. While some cause many infectious diseases, they also help digesting and processing the food and fight off tooth decay. How is this possible? During the Spring 2012 semester, William Firshein, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry emeritus, will discuss the myths and realities of these pathogens as part of the Wesleyan's Institute for Lifelong Learning (WILL). Germs are Us, is just one of the seven courses offered this spring by the institute, housed in the Wasch Center for Retired Faculty on Lawn Ave. WILL provides…
The Center for Faculty and Career Development announce the Spring 2012 Academic (Technology) Roundtable lunch series. A(T)R lunches are designed to promote conversation, cooperation and the sharing of information, ideas and resources among faculty members, librarians, graduate students and staff. Meetings take place at noon in Olin Library's Develin Room (unless specified otherwise) and include a buffet lunch. The Spring A(T)R Schedule is below: Feb. 20 "Using Digital Media in Place of the Traditional Academic Paper," a videoconference with Hisa Kuriyama of the Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History, Harvard University. Feb. 27 "Writing History in the Digital Age," with…
In this issue of The Wesleyan Connection, we ask 5 Questions of Catherine Poisson, associate professor of romance languages and literatures. Q: Professor Poisson, you were recently named a Chevalier L'Ordre des Palmes Académiques (a Knight of the Order of Academic Palms) by the Minister of Education for your contribution to the promotion of French language and culture. What was your reaction to receiving this award, and why do you think you were nominated for the honor? A: I was puzzled and somewhat apprehensive on receiving the notice of Certified Mail, so when I opened the envelope at the post…
"Her name is Sally. She's bleeding. She's stuck under a concrete slab and she can't move her leg," says Krystal-Gayle O'Neill, area coordinator in Residential Life as she examines a woman trapped under explosion debris. "Let's get some cribbing material," suggests Doug Allen, assistant to the facilities manager in the Department of Chemistry. Noel Garrett, dean for the Class of 2015, inserts wood blocks, one at a time, underneath a concrete slab, hoping to stabilize the heavy obstruction. "Sally, if it hurts let me know," he says. "We're going to get you out of here." For 15 minutes, the Wesleyan…
A word of caution to the caterpillar munching on that delicious, nutritious black cherry tree: watch out for hungry birds. Michael Singer, associate professor of biology, is the lead author of a new study published in The American Naturalist on the effect of a caterpillar’s choice of feeding spot on its chances of becoming bird food. The article found that on balance, nutritious trees, like black cherry, can increase by 90 percent a caterpillar’s risk of being taken by foraging birds. According to the article, this effect is seen because the most nutritious tree species harbor the greatest number of…
David LowThe most recent work by Professor of Art David Schorr will be shown in February and March 2012 in the exhibition APOTHECARY (storehouse) at Davison Art Center. The show features more than 75 paintings of antique apothecary bottles that have been meticulously executed by Schorr in gouache and silverpoint on luxurious, colored Fabriano Roma papers. The exhibit opens at noon, Feb. 3. Schorr will speak at 5:30 p.m. and the gallery will be open until 7 p.m. that day. Schorr also will speak at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Center for the Arts Hall. A 160-page full-color catalog accompanies…