Olivia DrakeMore than 500 students and their families celebrated all-things Wesleyan during the annual WesFest April 16-18 on campus. WesFest allows all admitted students an opportunity to explore what Wesleyan has to offer. Attendees took campus tours, visited campus housing, attended classes, explored science laboratories, samples campus dining, visited with current Wesleyan students, viewed art, film and music performances, and much more. "WesFest benefits students by giving them the opportunity to engage with the Wesleyan community," says Stephanie Pruitt, program and events coordinator for the Office of Admission. "For many students, their time on campus helps them decide if Wesleyan will…
From the day Carl T. West ’11 arrived on Wesleyan's campus, he wanted to study the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Although reluctant at first, Tsampikos Kottos, assistant professor of physics, welcomed the eager frosh to his "Complex Quantum Dynamics and Mesoscopic Phenomena" research group. "To be honest, Carl was a kind of an experiment, for me," Kottos says. "I usually take sophomores and above at my group, but Carl was so confident on what he wanted, so I decided to involve a freshman in our research. It was a good and decision." In the past two years, West wrote an article…
Baltimore native Esther McCready grew up in segregated, discriminatory world and was denied admission to the University of Maryland School of Nursing. At that time, the school did not admit "Negros." With help from NAACP civil rights leaders like Thurgood Marshall, she sued for admission to the university, and in April 1950, McCready won her right to attend classes. In the spring semester course "Making the Science Documentary," molecular biology and biochemistry major Christopher Doucette '11 had the opportunity to interview and film McCready about being the first African American woman to attend Maryland's School of Nursing. He also interviewed…
Melanye Price, assistant professor of government, was a featured guest speaker for the University of Nevada's College of Liberal Arts on April 23. She was broadcast on 88.9 KNPR Nevada Public Radio. In a lecture titled "Dreaming Blackness: Black Nationalism and African-American Public Opinion," Price spoke about ways African-Americans have come to understand Black Nationalism, an ideology important to the Black Power movement of the 1960s.
Bill HolderOn April 20, Oracle Corp. announced it would acquire Sun Microsystems, whose chief executive officer is Jonathan Schwartz ’87. The deal, valued at $7.4 billion, promises to make Oracle a more potent competitor against I.B.M., Sun’s previous suitor, according to The New York Times. "With Sun, Oracle will more directly compete against I.B.M., H.P. and other giants selling products and services used in corporate data centers by big corporations,”"said the Times. “The move by Oracle is part of the trend of the largest technology companies to assemble more offerings — hardware, software and services — for corporate customers, often through…
Carl T. West ’11 and Tsampikos Kottos, assistant professor of physics, are co-authors of the article "Short-time Loschmidt gap in dynamical systems with critical chaos," which was accepted for publication in Physical Review E Rapid Communications.
Kennedy spoke to students in Professor of Art David Schorr's classes. Schorr is pictured at left.
Eco-activist. filmmaker and reality television star Shalini Kantayya spoke about the global water crisis during Wesleyan’s Earth Day Celebration April 15. Her production company, 7th Empire Media, is committed to using media to give a powerful voice to the unheard. Kantayya captured the attention of the nation during the television series “On the Lot,” a reality show created by Steven Spielberg for the purpose of finding Hollywood’s next great director. Out of over 12,000 filmmakers, Kantayya was the only woman to finish in the top 10. (Photos by Alexandra Portis '09)