Wesleyan’s Holistic Approach to Student-Veteran Success

The path from military service to the classroom varies from veteran-to-veteran. Some spend four years in active-duty service straight out of high school and then utilize their educational benefits immediately. Others spend decades serving the country before venturing out to pursue personal enrichment through academia. Regardless of a veteran’s journey to education, Wesleyan University offers its student-veterans a holistic approach to reintegrating them into the classroom. The path for Chase Williams ’25 was a long and winding one. He first came to the United States in Aug. 2001, a month prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. He took an English…

Open trunks as far as the eye could see. Open eyes wandering all over—up into the rainy sky above, out past Andrus Field and up Foss Hill toward the Van Vleck Observatory, and down toward Usdan where Wesleyan’s newest attendees would eat their first meals as students. The new students arriving in Middletown on Aug. 30 for their first day on campus had an air of openness and curiosity about them. For many of the students moving in, it was that same openness that drew them to Wesleyan in the first place. An open-minded community, an open curriculum, being open…

The interests and accomplishments of Wesleyan’s current cohort of Fulbright Fellowship recipients is diverse, ranging from education to translation to refugee reception to tracing ancient trade routes across the Mediterranean. “This reflects something that I’m not sure people realize about the Fulbright program: with hundreds of distinctly different grants available across more than 140 countries, there’s no one cookie cutter Fulbrighter,” said Erica Kowsz, Associate Director for Fellowships. Nick Bowman ’23, Margalit Katz ’22, Ben Levin ’23, Emily McDougal ’23, and Anna Tjeltveit ’23 will fan out across the globe for their Fulbright years starting this Fall. “With two…

On the surface, the annual poster session held in Exley Science Center looked like an average scientific poster presentation. A couple hundred students lined up side-by-side, standing anxiously next to their tripod-hoisted poster boards waiting for passersby to ask them about their colorful charts and graphs. For the attendees, it could be their chance to learn about something new. For each presenter, the poster was the culmination of their curiosities, a spotlight on all their hours spent tucked under the lab lights or sifting through ocean sediment samples. “I love coming together as a community on this day,” Seth Redfield,…

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited Wesleyan University on July 28 for a roundtable discussion with first-generation students on the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to advance diversity and opportunity in higher education. Cardona engaged with students about how diversity is important to their learning experiences, bilingualism, having staff that represent their student populations, and culturally relevant teaching. He also sought advice on how to elevate students’ voices and what they want Washington to do to further this charge. “Each one of these students here today told me that one of the things they love about Wesleyan is learning in an…

Two promising young scientists at Wesleyan, Aaron Berson ’24 and Jessica Luu ’24, were chosen for the distinguished Barry Goldwater Scholarship, given annually to hundreds of college sophomores and juniors across the nation pursuing research in the natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering. “Because of their degree of involvement in research, many Wesleyan undergraduates are—if their career plans align with the award—great candidates for the Barry Goldwater Scholarship,” said Erica Kowsz, Assistant Director for Fellowships at the Fries Center for Global Studies. “A real advantage of this scholarship is that it gives students a chance to learn how to write a…

Three Wesleyan students’ in-depth analysis of the causes of and possible solutions for the problem of child marriage in Indonesia won the University of Oxford’s 2023 “Map the System” Challenge. The team of Sida Chu ‘26, Sun Boonbhati ‘26, and Valensia Tandeas ‘26 were among 900 that participated in the challenge, and were chosen as one of 12 finalists to present at the University of Oxford’s Global MTS Finals. The Wesleyan team became global champions for their project “No Longer Daughters: Child Marriage in Indonesia.” “‘No Longer Daughters: Child Marriage in Indonesia’ stands out both for its depth of research, as well as the team's…

This spring several current and former Wesleyan students were awarded a National Science Foundation Award. This fellowship award is among the most prestigious available in the category. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provides about 25 percent of the federal financial support for research at colleges and universities in the United States. On average, it provides about 12,000 awards for research, education, and training at over 2,000 different institutions across the country each year. For each of the fellowships, the NSF provides an annual $37,000 stipend and $12,000 in cost of education allowance, disbursed through the institution the fellowship provides three…

New research from Assistant Professor of Government Alyx Mark and Tiger Bjornlund ’24 shows that courts with publicly financed elections are viewed as more legitimate and less susceptible to donor influence than those that are selected through privately financed campaigns. The paper, titled “Public Campaign Financing’s Effects on Judicial Legitimacy : Evidence From a Survey Experiment,” was published May 30 in the journal Research and Politics. “There is so much focus on the U.S. Supreme Court, but there are entire other levels of courts that receive less attention that have an impact on our day to day lives,” Mark said. In Spring…

Alumni from years ending in 3 and 8 gathered on Wesleyan's campus in Middletown from May 25 to 27 for the annual Reunion celebration at Reunion & Commencement Weekend. From WESeminars to the annual Alumni Assembly to a picnic on Foss Hill, the Wesleyan alumni community was on full display.

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence—a document written by a group of five men. Five months later, five different people gathered at the College of William & Mary to form Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society in the United States. Now 246 years later, 93 new and current members from Wesleyan’s student body—78 nominated from the spring semester and 15 inducted last fall—packed into the Memorial Chapel on May 27 to be inducted into the honor society. They join an estimated total of over 500,000 living members. Throughout Phi Beta Kappa’s history,…

At the sound of an emphatic drumbeat, the Class of 2023 and the faculty who led them to their degrees marched from atop Foss Hill on Sunday morning for Wesleyan's 191st Commencement. Smiles of celebration and stares of reflection were scattered among the crowd of students and their loved ones. Here is a selection of photographs from the special day:

Wesleyan’s Holistic Approach to Student-Veteran Success

Class of 2027 Arrives at Wesleyan with Open Mind

2023 Wesleyan Fulbright Fellows Begin Their Work

Students Present Research Contributions at Annual Poster Session

Wesleyan Students Offer Advice to the Nation

Wesleyan Students Receive Goldwater Scholarship

Wesleyan Team Wins Global “Map the System” Challenge

Wesleyan Students, Alumni Earn National Science Foundation Fellowships

Publicly Financed Judicial Elections Viewed as More Legitimate, New Paper Says

Gallery: Alumni Celebrate Annual Reunion

Students Inducted Into Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society

Gallery: Wesleyan’s 191st Commencement