Olivia DrakeOlin Library’s copy of the 1874 F.W. Beers County Atlas of Middlesex Connecticut has brittle pages and tattered maps. However, anyone investigating 19th-century local history finds the Beers atlas invaluable. “We’d love to make the book accessible to the Wesleyan community and outside researchers, but we can’t do so without damage to the book until its physical condition is stabilized,” explains Pat Tully, university librarian. “It needs to be preserved so that it is usable by current and future scholars.” To help old books find a home back on the shelves, The Friends of the Wesleyan Library created an “Adopt A…
Q: Maureen, you are an accounting specialist for the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department, and an administrative assistant for the Wesleyan Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Program in the Life Sciences. Is it challenging to wear two hats? A: Maybe it should be more of a challenge, but I’ve been doing it so long it’s become second nature. I akin it to speaking two languages, your brain just shifts automatically from one to the other. Michael Weir (director of the Hughes Program) in one door to talk summer applications and Mike McAlear (chair of the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department) walks in…
David LowSeveral Wesleyan graduates are involved in Armchair/Shotgun, a new literary magazine based in Brooklyn, N.Y. that publishes new fiction, poetry, visual art work and author profiles. The publication was co-founded by writers John Cusick ’07 and Evan Simko-Bednarski ’07 is run by an editorial and business staff that includes the co-founders and Laura McMillan ’05, Aaron Reuben ’07, Adam Read-Brown ’07 and W. Gavin Robb ’07. The staff celebrated the release of its second issue on March 18 at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. This issue features a profile by Kevin Dugan of novelist Jesse Ball, author of Samedi the Deafness…
Cynthia RockwellThe law firm of Miller Canfield has elected Megan Norris ’83 to serve a two-year term as a managing director, effective Jan. 1. She is part of a five-person management administration that works with the CEO to oversee the firm’s offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Poland and China. A principal in the Detroit, Mich. office, Norris is leader of the firm’s Labor and Employment Law Group. She counsels clients on employment matters that include discipline and discharge, discrimination, harassment, and tort claims. She is a nationally recognized expert on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family…
The first comprehensive mid-career retrospective devoted to pioneering New York–based artist Glenn Ligon ’82 is being held at the Whitney Museum of American Art (45 Madison Ave. at 75th Street, 212-570-3600) in New York City through June 5. The exhibition, "Glenn Ligon: AMERICA," features about 100 works, including paintings, prints, photography, drawings, and sculptural installations, as well as striking recent neon reliefs, one of them newly commissioned for the Whitney’s Madison Avenue windows. Over the course of his career, Ligon has created a body of work that has explored American history, literature, and society as it has built critically on the legacies…
For three years, Dana Delany ’78 brought a refreshing jolt of energy to ABC’s Desperate Housewives, in which she played the intriguing and conniving Katherine Mayfair. After displaying remarkable chemistry with actor Nathan Fillion on another popular ABC show Castle, she will now star on the same network in her own program, Body of Proof, which premieres on Tuesday, March 29. Delany plays Megan Hunt, a medical examiner who formerly was the first female head of neurosurgery at a prominent U.S. university hospital. Hunt takes on a new career when a car crash leaves her unable to continue performing surgery.…
Dr. Halley Faust, MA ’05 has been elected the president of the Board of Regents of the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM). Faust will assume the presidency in 2013; he will sit on the Board of Regents and the executive committee of the board until 2017, according to the Jewish Ledger. Faust currently works in bioethics and venture capital from his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He is clinical associate professor of family and community medicine at the University of New Mexico, and sits on the university’s Preventive Medicine Residency Advisory Committee. Previously, he was visiting professor of biology…
Ellen Driscoll ’74 is one of three artists this year to receive the prestigious 2010 MacColl Johnson Fellowships of $25,000 each—one of the largest no-strings awards to artists in the United States—from the Rhode Island Foundation. The fellowships are intended “to fund an artist’s vision or voice,” and have been awarded on a three-year cycle since 2005 to composers, writers, and visual artists. Providence-based Driscoll, a professor of sculpture at Rhode Island School of Design, plans to use her award to create three new floating sculptures for the Providence River. Her creations in sculpture, drawing, installation, and public art reflects…
Nominated by President Obama in January 2011 and confirmed in March, Eric Postel ’77 joins the leadership team at the U.S. Agency for International Development as assistant administrator for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade. Postel, an experienced economic development expert and financier with a background in emerging markets investments, has worked in Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East as an advisor and financial officer. In 2006, he served as commissioner on the bi-partisan Senate Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the Globe (HELP) Commission. A mathematics/economics major at Wesleyan, he is also a four-year veteran of the…
Ali Chaudhry ’12 and Kumail Akbar '12 participated in the Geneva International Model United Nations (GIMUN) conference March 12-18. Chaudhry and Akbar currently serve as co-presidents for the Wesleyan Model United Nations Society. The conference took place at the "Palais des Nations," the United Nations Office at Geneva (previously the Headquarters of the League of Nations). Meetings were held in rooms used by United Nation committees with journalists and interpreters in attendance. The students dined in the UN cafeteria. “It felt like we were living the life of a diplomat,” Chaudhry says. “We were walking around conducting negotiations and overseeing…
Two student-run organizations, Brighter Dawns and Possibilities Pakistan, were named semifinalists in the 2011 Dell Social Innovation Competition. Vote tallies, along with the competition judges, determines the $50,000 grand prize winner. Possibilities Pakistan already received the Dell Social Innovation Competition “Webbie Award” worth $1,000, for receiving the most votes online. The organization collected a total of 67,830 votes. More information (more…)
David PesciAppearing on a March 4 episode of “The Takeaway,” which is broadcast by NPR and other affiliates, Laura Stark, assistant professor of science in society, assistant professor of sociology, assistant professor of environmental studies, discusses her research which uncovered medical experiments in the U.S. on uninformed or under-informed individuals. The questionable consent practices ultimately led to today’s informed consent procedures and continue to influence consent development. She also commented in a story posted by ABC News, discussing unethical medical experiments performed on prisoners, the disabled and others during the last century.