David LowPolitical Animals, a six-part television mini-series created and written by Greg Berlanti with Lawrence Mark ’71 as an executive producer, premiered on USA Network on July 15. Sigourney Weaver stars as Elaine Barrish Hammond, a former first lady divorced from the ex-U.S. president who becomes secretary of state after losing the presidential nomination to a younger, less experienced male candidate. The series follows Elaine’s political success in her new job and touches upon her desire to run for the presidency again, but it also revolves around her family relations. In an article in The New York Times, Amy Chozick notes…
Cynthia RockwellJean François-Poncet ’47, Hon. ’81, French diplomat, businessman, senator and Secretary General, died July 18, 2012. Wesleyan celebrated his achievements at the 1980 Wesleyan Commencement ceremonies, where François-Poncet delivered the commencement address and received an honorary degree. In 1981, he returned to campus to deliver the keynote address for Wesleyan’s 150th anniversary. An obituary in Le Monde noted that he was the son of an ambassador, André François-Poncet, who served as French ambassador to Germany from 1930–38, and observed that the younger François-Poncet had quickly made a name for himself in the 1950s as a brilliant young diplomat. In that era,…
Paul Gross '84, chair of the Hydrocephalus Association, has been nominated for the Microsoft Alumni Foundation, 2012 Integral Fellows Award, which recognizes meaningful contributions of Microsoft alumni, using time, talent, and resources to improve the daily lives of others in this country and throughout the world. Gross’s cause began with his son’s birth. Born 10 weeks prematurely, he suffered complications and developed hydrocephalus, excessive fluid in the brain, a condition that affects more than 1 million people in this country. Hydrocephalus can cause severe brain damage, and even death if not treated immediately, yet the standard of care was a…
Benjamin TraversIn the video below, Bruce Corwin '62 Hon '87 talks about his life, his career in the Motion Picture Exhibition Business, and his second career in philanthropy. Bruce founded the group "Alumni On Campus," to help address the social and educational issues that plague Los Angeles High School. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NUu9_Zso6g[/youtube]
Bill HolderMike Fries ’85, president and chief executive officer of Liberty Global, has made a gift of $2 million in support of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives Endowment Fund. The gift establishes the Charles W. Fries Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, which Fries named in honor of his father. Chuck Fries is considered the “godfather” of the television movie for his role in producing or supervising more than 275 hours of television movies and mini-series. His films have won Emmy, Peabody, Humanitas and Christopher awards among others from film festivals. “Wesleyan’s Cinema Archives,” says President Michael S. Roth, “is a treasure…
Lily Raff McCaulou ’02 is the author of the memoir Call of the Mild: Learning to Hunt My Own Dinner (Grand Central Publishing), which was published in June. She was raised as a gun-fearing environmentalist and an animal lover and stuck by the principle that harming animals is wrong. But her views changed when she left an indie film production career in New York to take a reporting job in central Oregon. For her articles, she began spending weekends fly-fishing and weekdays interviewing hunters and found that some of them were quite thoughtful about their relationship with animals and the…
Jeffrey Richards '69, Broadway producer and 2012 Tony Award winner for the Best Musical Revival (The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess) discusses life, his work on Broadway, and his love for Wesleyan in this video: [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkDItIlWqCA[/youtube]
Shalini Shankar ’94, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of Asian American studies at Northwestern University, was invited to appear on WTTW (the Chicago PBS station) to discuss the recent Ashton Kutcher "brownface" controversy that arose from his Popchips ad. The segment explored representations of Asian Americans and issues of race in advertising. Host Phil Ponce notes that critics of the ad think it says something about the larger issue of race in America and Shankar agrees. “I was a bit shocked when I saw the commercial. Usually brownface is not something that is used to sell potato chips and…
Benno Schmidt '93, host of dLife (CNBC), the only TV series dedicated to people with diabetes, began the April 15 episode by telling his viewers, “I recently spent a week in Haiti, investigating the state of health care, particularly for those with diabetes, two years after the earthquake. I came away deeply humbled by what we found." The episode included remarks by U.N. Special Envoy and President Bill Clinton, actor and humanitarian Sean Penn, and model and humanitarian Petra Nemcova, as well as members of the new government of Haiti and physicians dedicated to treating those with diabetes in Haiti.…
Mathematical physicist Jennifer Chayes ’79 recently announced the opening of the new Microsoft Research New York City lab, which will consist of 15 researchers who previously worked at Yahoo! Research. According to The New York Times, the lab will “include well-known researchers in hot niches of computing research like Duncan Watts (online social behavior), David Pennock (prediction markets) and John Langford (machine learning).” Chayes will be the managing director of the new research lab. On the Inside Microsoft Research web site, she says: “This new lab will provide an opportunity for Microsoft Research researchers and developers worldwide to share and…
A new exhibition by visual artist, author, and educator Wendy Richmond ’75 opened at The Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design on May 25. "Wendy Richmond: Navigating the Personal Bubble" will be up through Nov. 4. Richmond documents and explores the ways in which digital technology creates “personal bubbles”—or mobile privacy zones, which transform the social experience of sharing public space. Museum director John Smith calls her work “surprisingly revealing of the ways in which we interact and communicate in this digital age,” and adds that the video installation, “Alone in Public (2012),” was created especially for the…
Ari Brand ’06 has received acclaim for playing the title role in My Name Is Asher Lev, a play produced by the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn. which completed its run on May 27. The play has been adapted by Aaron Posner from the Chaim Potok novel about a troubled, successful painter whose creative work clashes with the world of his parents. In a positive review of the production in The New York Times, Anita Gates writes: “If you are unfamiliar with the actors in the excellent new Long Wharf production of ‘My Name Is Asher Lev,’ just…