Announcing 192nd Commencement Honorary Degree Recipients and Speaker

Imani Perry, a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and distinguished Harvard University professor, will deliver the commencement address at Wesleyan University’s 192nd Commencement ceremony on May 26, 2024. Perry will also receive an honorary degree alongside fellow recipients Raj Chetty, renowned for his studies of higher education and social mobility, and Michael Greenberg ’76, P’14, one of the world’s most distinguished neuroscientists. "At a time when the Academy is under fire, the inspiring achievements of these honorees shows just how powerful and beneficial academic work at the highest level can be," said President Michael S. Roth ’78. "Award-winning author and professor of…

The Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism launched a podcast in partnership with the New York Review of Books and Literary Hub called “The Critic and Her Publics.” The podcast gives the public access to a series of talks between Merve Emre, Shapiro-Silverberg University Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism and director of the Shapiro Writing Center, and a lineup of writers from major publications. New episodes debut every Tuesday, starting Jan. 30, with guest Andrea Long Chu. Six episodes were recorded in the fall and six more will be recorded this semester as the Shapiro Center continues its…

Universities and colleges across the country are asking what the role of higher education is in supporting our democracy in the run-up to the 2024 election. This question will take center stage at Wesleyan University in February at the Democracy in Action convening, a two-day seminar seeking to make clear how students, faculty, staff, and alumni must all commit to defending democracy. Taking place Feb. 16 to 17, the Democracy in Action convening will feature a keynote address by author, academic, reverend, and activist Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, sessions led by faculty, students, and outside experts exploring topics that lie…

The Earth’s present-day atmosphere has a carbon concentration that’s 50 percent higher than it was before industrialization, a rapid escalation that is a contributing factor to widespread climate changes, according to experts across the field of paleoclimatology. To further understand the potential effects of climate change and other important aspect of Earth’s climate history, Dana Royer, George I. Seney Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and over 80 other paleoclimatologists published a comprehensive charting of 66 million years of atmospheric CO2 data. Their seven-year effort, dubbed the Cenozoic Carbon Dioxide Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP), was…

Assistant Professor of Education Studies Alisha Butler will launch a new study exploring the ways that families and young people can (and don’t) influence school and citywide education-related decision-making processes. “How is it that non-system policy actors are attempting to include the decisions that affect what happens day-to-day in school?” Butler said. Butler’s study, a collaborative effort with Kristin Sinclair, Assistant Teaching Professor of Education Advocacy and Policy in the Education Transformation Program at Georgetown University, is funded through a Spencer Foundation Small Grant, a program that supports “rigorous, intellectually ambitious and technically sound research that is relevant to the…

Wesleyan’s faculty has been hard-at-work in 2023 sharing their scholarship with the world. Here are some of the books written by Wesleyan’s faculty over the past year. Homesick Blues: Politics, Protest, and Musical Storytelling in Modern Japan by Scott Aalgaard Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Scott Aalgaard explores how people in Japan have used “musical storytelling” as a means of expressing themselves in their everyday life and as a political practice from the late 1940s to 2018. Within the book, he challenges assertions that political upheavals in the 1960s and 70s in Japan were the climax and end of…

Wesleyan University faculty and alumni are making art across the region over the next several months. Here is a small sampling of offerings: Assistant Professor of Art Tammy Nguyen’s first museum solo exhibition is on display at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston now through January 28, 2024. Assistant Professor of the Practice in Theater Edwin Sánchez’s one-act play, Still Nuts About Him, is based on Clara from The Nutcracker, and is part of the eleventh annual evening of theater Christmas on the Rocks at TheaterWorks Hartford. Sanchez also collaborated with playwright Jacques Lamarre on the latest addition to the…

In a time when campus dialogue is front page news as violence continues in the Middle East, Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth ’78 has spoken and written extensively on the topic over the last few days, providing his perspective and insight into the environment at Wesleyan. Roth appeared on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” on Dec. 5 to discuss the campus conversation surrounding the war and student’s perception of safety during times of rising religious interpersonal conflict. “On our campus, we have seen that people have the ability to sit together in the same room and listen to…

Professor of Astronomy Seth Redfield was one of several collaborators who recently published the discovery of a six-planet system around a nearby bright star within the Milky Way Galaxy, according to a paper in Nature. Not only are the planets within our galaxy, but they are in perfect resonance, a rare and potentially highly important discovery for humanity’s understanding of planet formation, Redfield said. A planetary system in resonance means that the orbital periods—how long it takes a planet to complete a single orbit around its star—are in ratio with one another. Redfield said that in this case all six…

Students from high schools across the country are getting the chance to “live like a philosopher” thanks to a Wesleyan course taught by Tushar Irani, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Letters. The course is offered through Wesleyan’s partnership with the National Education Equity Lab—an initiative that seeks to democratize college access and advance education justice by providing college-level courses to students attending Title 1 high schools across the country. (The New York Times wrote about the program previously.) There are six high schools participating in the course—from Albuquerque to El Paso to the Bronx—with a total of over 75 students…

Hoping to expand the diverse ways the Wesleyan community engages in public discourse, Associate Professor of Sociology Robyn Autry has been named director of the Center for the Study of Public Life, at the Allbritton Center. “Provost Nicole Stanton has trusted me to do something new with the CSPL (Center for the Study of Public Life). I am still figuring out what I want to do, but it is connected with a lot of the public writing I’ve been doing for the past few years,” said Autry, who is a critical sociologist. The new role dovetails with Autry’s research interests…

Poet and social entrepreneur Ahmed M. Badr '20 has been named the new director of the Patricelli Center, an organization he considered a home while attending Wesleyan. After serving in an interim capacity, Badr took on the permanent role in August. “I hope that the folks going through the classes and the program realize their own capacity to create a direct impact in the world,” Badr said. Badr’s road to helping students find their way to change the world through the Patricelli Center began with finding his own voice. His family came to the United States in 2008 as refugees from…

Announcing 192nd Commencement Honorary Degree Recipients and Speaker

Shapiro Writing Center Launches Podcast

Anand Giridharadas to Close Democracy in Action Convening

Wesleyan Professor Charts Atmospheric CO2 Back 66 Million Years

Grant to Fund Study on School Decision Making Processes

Wesleyan Faculty Publications 2023

Upcoming Faculty and Alumni Performances and Exhibitions

Wesleyan in the News: President Roth on ‘Safe Enough’ Campuses

Wesleyan Professor Collaborates on Discovery of Six Planets

High School Students ‘Live Like A Philosopher’ Through Partnership

Autry Named Director of the Center for the Study of Public Life

Badr ’20 Named Director of the Patricelli Center