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Andrus Field turned into a forum of ideas on August 31 with the return of the yearly Academic Fair, held on August 31. The fair was a staple of university life before the pandemic, offering new students the chance to peruse Wesleyan’s array of academic classes. “I’ve definitely seen a lot of wonderful academic opportunities that I want to pursue,” said Keith Do ’27, who is interested in computer science. Under a large white tent near Usdan, faculty enthusiastically explained their offerings to first year students less than 24 hours into their Wesleyan experience. The students moved from table to…

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…

You might expect that a pregnant person at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic would’ve rested easily being fully compliant with public health measures aimed at keeping them safe. Not so, according to a new study by Assistant Professor of Psychology Royette Dubar published in Sleep Health: Journal of the National Sleep Foundation. Dubar and her colleagues looked at perceived current and anticipated postpartum sleep duration and quality among a nationally representative sample of pregnant people. Dubar believes that the quality of sleep a person experiences can be a strong indicator of their mental health. “Findings from the present study…

Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts (CFA) starts a celebration of its 50th birthday in September. The 2023-2024 season features live performances and exhibitions that reflect on the roots of the center while also bringing new artists and works to campus. Director Joshua Lubin-Levy ‘06 said he and his staff want to hear from anyone who has engaged with the CFA over the years. The CFA’s curatorial team will be asking students, faculty, staff, and visiting artists to join them in their reimagining of what it means to center art in the context of a liberal arts education. “As with…

When Wesleyan’s crew teams journeyed to New Jersey at the end of last season, each found something a little different, meteorologically speaking. At Cooper River on Memorial Day weekend, the women’s squad rowed in near-ideal conditions and water still as glass. By the time the men’s team plunged oars into Mercer Lake a week later, an abundance of wind had replaced race-postponing heat. Weather notwithstanding, both Wesleyan contingents finished the season in the same fashion: by racing a few thousand meters and landing in the record books. The men’s first varsity eight and second varsity eight teams each secured runner-up…

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities grant to Jennifer Tucker, Professor of History at Wesleyan University, and Stephen Hargarten, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Medical College of Wisconsin, (MCW) and the senior policy and injury science advisor for the Comprehensive Injury Center at MCW. The NEH grant supports their collaborative study Engineering Safety into U.S. Firearms, 1750-2010: Inventions, Manufacturers, Outcomes, & Implications. The two-year scholarly investigation is hosted at Wesleyan University within the Center for the Study of Guns and Society, which was established in 2022 with…

After a four-year hiatus due to construction and COVID-19 restrictions, Wesleyan’s Summer Film Series returned this past July with a trio of films showcasing international settings as part of the “Big Screen Vacations” theme. The Summer Film Series was launched by the film department in 2007 with the goals of offering free-of-charge programming to local audiences, welcoming new people to campus, and making use of the state-of-the-art Goldsmith Family Cinema at the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies during summer breaks. Today, audience members are an eclectic mix of Middletown community members, Wesleyan faculty, and students doing summer work or…

The fourth annual Narratio Fellowship performance at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City took place over the summer. This year's fellows came from cohorts in Syracuse, New York and Richmond, Virginia. They worked all summer to create art books, self-portraits, and poems that were inspired by artifacts in The Met's Ancient Near East Collection. The fellows performed by the Temple of Dendur, but they will continue to work on their pieces throughout the year before exhibiting them in the spring in Syracuse and Richmond. The Narratio Project was founded by Ahmed Badr ’20, Interim Director for the…

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,…

An Olympic swimmer at the peak of their profession can, at best, blaze across a 50-meter pool in under 25 seconds. That’s with Goldilocks conditions—decades of training, supreme reaction time, and the perfect dismount. It’s a feat of athleticism few can truly appreciate or relate to. Now imagine trying to do the same task, but in a cardboard boat engineered and assembled by a group of high schoolers. One group of Wesleyan’s Upward Bound students did just that. They hopped into a small vessel with two recyclable paddles in hand and hit the water with calculated rhythm, momentum, and determination…

While the majority of students are away from campus during the summer months, many members of Wesleyan’s faculty, staff, and alumni are hard at work and making headlines. President Joseph R. Biden announced that attorney Ed Siskel ’94 will serve as White House counsel on August 22. Siskel spent four years working in the White House Counsel’s Office during President Barack Obama’s administration, including time as the Deputy Counsel. Siskel will lead a team to provide the president with legal counsel, help to craft policies and executive actions, and defend and advance Biden’s agenda. “Ed Siskel’s many years of experience…

Academic Fair Returns

Class of 2027 Arrives at Wesleyan with Open Mind

2023 Wesleyan Fulbright Fellows Begin Their Work

New Study Released on Impact of COVID on Pregnant People’s Sleep

Center for the Arts Celebrates 50 Years

After Record-Setting Performances, Men’s and Women’s Crew Row into a New Season

NEH Awards Grant For Collaborative Study “Engineering Safety into U.S. Firearms: 1750-2010”

Wesleyan Summer Film Series Returns

Wesleyan Moments: Badr’s Narratio Project Fellows Performs at The Met

Students Present Research Contributions at Annual Poster Session

Wesleyan’s Upward Bound Students Traverse Freeman Pool in Cardboard Vessels

Wesleyan in the News: August 2023