Students Volunteer to Improve Community Conditions in New Orleans

Twenty Wesleyan students spent the first week of spring break volunteering in New Orleans to help with rebuilding and repairing homes in the community. The students, who were accompanied by Justin Marks, visiting assistant professor of mathematics, bused as a group to to New Orleans as part of ServeUp, a project organized by InterVarsity New England. Wesleyan's group joined volunteers from Boston College, Boston University, Clark University, Fairfield University, Northeastern, Rhode Island College, University of Vermont, among others. Wesleyan's group stayed at an old elementary school site and partnered with two organizations, Rebuilding Together New Orleans and Greenlight New Orleans. Students worked on priming, painting and screening a local home and…

On March 15, Wesleyan's Posse Veteran Scholars program was spotlighted on PBS Newshour, in an episode featuring interviews with President Michael S. Roth and several students. Wesleyan is first mentioned around 3 minutes with Michael Smith '18 speaking. According to the show, more than 1 million vets are using GI benefits, but most attend public or for-profit schools. The number of veterans attending top-tier colleges "is so small, it's not even known." A few years ago, the Posse Foundation—which has a long history of sending groups, or posses, of talented students "who don't fit the mold" to top colleges—started a program focused on…

A PhD candidate in chemistry will spend two years in Germany working on microwave spectroscopy research. As a recipient of the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, Dan Obenchain will continue his studies at the University of Hanover. He will start his fellowship in August 2016 after taking two months of intensive German language classes. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation brings young and senior scientists from around the world to Germany to conduct research in many different fields of science. "Thankfully, working at Wesleyan has given me many great opportunities to publish my work. The faculty of both the chemistry and physics departments have been very supportive throughout…

Two visiting faculty members from Wesleyan visited the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center in March to teach AfterSchool Program children about dance. (more…)

“What Does It Take to Launch a Successful Career?” Two notable members of the Wesleyan community tackled that question in a career workshop titled Your Career Playbook, sponsored by the WESpeaker Series, the Athletics Advantage Program and the Wesleyan Career Center on Feb. 26. Julie Bennett ’00, former captain of the women’s basketball team and member of the Athletic Advisory Council and now in sales and trading in equity derivatives at Citigroup (her “dream job”) joined Wesleyan trustee Jim Citrin P’12, P’14, leader of Spencer Stuart's North American CEO Practice, and author of The Career Playbook: Essential Advice for Today’s Aspiring Young Professional in…

Four Wesleyan academic departments, from psychology to dance to chemistry to biology, are competing for grant funds through a new crowdfunding site specifically designed for research project fundraising. Experiment.com's Challenge Grant for Liberal Arts Colleges asked scientists to define a scientific research question for the crowd with a prize for the project with the most backers. The pilot launched on Feb. 24 and concludes March 25.During this 31-day period, the goal is to reach $4,000 in funding. If so, the team is granted the money. If not, they receive nothing and no one's pledges are charged. By backing a project, participants will receive updates, results and data from project creators. Wesleyan research include how the…

Students who are enrolled in the E&ES 397/398 Senior Seminar and Senior Field Research Project Capstone spent eight days conducting research in Hawaii. Pictured, the students gather on a lava tree field.

Three social ventures started by Wesleyan students were recently awarded $5,000 seed grants in the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship's annual Seed Grant Challenge. They are Kindergarten Kickstart, TRAP House and Walking Elephants Home. The last weekend in February, all six finalists for the seed grants presented pitches for their ventures before the Board of Trustees, Patricelli Center Advisory Board and Seed Grant judges, as well as representatives of CT Innovations and the ‎State of Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, fellow students, and others. The event was also livestreamed. One of the other finalists, <Zim/Code>, chose to withdraw from the…

In honor of Black History Month in February, Wesleyan Students of Color hosted a campus formal on Feb. 19 and a performance by world-renowned poet Saul Williams on Feb. 20. The second event, held at Crowell Concert Hall in the Center for the Arts, also featured performances by Tarishi Midnight-Shuler, a professional Connecticut-based spoken word artist, and Destiny Polk ’19. Williams performed at Wesleyan as part of his “MartyrLoserKing” tour, offering the audience an original compilation of spoken word and performance. (Photos by Andrew Hirsh '18) (more…)

This month, the Workshop, a new student-run arts collective, opened in the basement of Hewitt 8, The collective was created to provide space, support and resources to any student wanting to pursue a creative project—from bookmaking and woodworking to photography and filmmaking to sewing and weaving.

In February, the annual student-curated exhibition, Be The Art, committed to celebrating and raising awareness of artists of color, was held at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. The objective of this showcase is to create a space that exhibits the work of artists who are often underrepresented at Wesleyan and in the world at large. The exhibition featured works of art by Gandarv Chawla '17, Dung Pham '17, Ocean Gao '19, Eunice Lee '19, Justina Yam '19, Shirley Fang '18, Phuong Le '18, Malcolm Phillips '19, Katherine Puntiel '19, Tenzin Kyisarh '16, and Rajaa Elidrissi '16, and performances by Sahil Singhvi…

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Students Volunteer to Improve Community Conditions in New Orleans

PBS Newshour Features Wesleyan’s Posse Veteran Scholars

PhD Candidate Obenchain Recipient of Humboldt Research Fellowship

Faculty Teach Dance, Creative Movements to Local Children

Citrin P’12, P’14 and Bennett ’00 Offer Advice, Experience in Career Workshop

Support Wesleyan Researchers in Crowdfunding Pilot

Seniors Improve Scientific Research Skills with Studies in Hawaii

2016 Patricelli Center Seed Grant Winners Announced

Students Celebrate Black History Month with Campus Formal, Poet Performance

New Student-Run Workshop Allows Any Student to Pursue Creative Projects

Student-Curated ‘Be the Art’ Exhibition Held at Zilkha

Romance Languages Hosts Cheese Tasting, Discussion in French