Olivia DrakeSheryl Culotta, director of continuing studies and Graduate Liberal Studies, will serve as Wesleyan's associate provost beginning Nov. 18. Culotta started working at Wesleyan in 2005. She earned a JD at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and a BA from Colgate University. Before coming to Wesleyan, she was assistant director of Master of Liberal Arts at Stanford University. As director of continuing studies, Culotta has a long record of developing, launching and overseeing many new programs at Wesleyan, including Summer Session, Coursera, Pre-College Studies, Non-Degree Study, ICPP and the new Winter Session, while continuing to manage the Graduate…
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Gabe Rosenberg '16Joshua Dubler ’97 is the author of the new book Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison (Farrar Straus Giroux). A religion scholar who was working on his dissertation at Princeton University, he spent more than six years working with prisoners at the Graterford Maximum Security Prison outside of Philadelphia, focusing his studies on the religious diversity of the prison chapel. Down in the Chapel tells the story of one whole week at the Graterford chapel in which Dubler attended Jewish, Muslim, Native American, Catholic, and various other services and study sessions. Conversing with chaplains and correctional…
Cynthia RockwellMolly Barton ’00, global digital director of Penguin Random House, was on campus in November to participate in the Narrative in the Age of Distraction, a conference held on campus to examine the role and importance of long-form storytelling in the age of increasing technological and attentional distractions. Sponsored by The Connection Institute for Innovative Practice, Wesleyan Writing Programs, the College of Letters (COL), the Science in Society Program (SISP), Lisa Weinert Consulting, and Narrative.ly, the conference sponsored two “tracks”—one devoted to “Healing Letters,” which discussed the physical and psychological benefits for patients and clients to share life narratives with…
David LowPhotographer and sculptor Anne Arden McDonald ’88 has self portraits included in a group show, The Mind’s Eye: Sight and Insight, at the Hewitt Gallery of Art, Marymount Manhattan College (221 East 71st Street), in New York City. The show runs through December 5. The artists in this exhibition have a special relationship to their creative process both through the neurological (perception/sight) and the psychological (interpretation/insight). Information on exhibition Her work also appears in another group show, Mad Hatters to Pixel Pushers, at the Projective Eye Gallery of the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture, UNC Charlotte City Center,…
Kate CarlisleWesleyan University apologized this week to Native Americans and other indigenous peoples, and said it is launching an effort to repatriate human remains and cultural objects, collected mostly in the 19th century, which are part of its anthropology and archaeology collections. The university has adopted a repatriation policy in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. “Wesleyan University is dedicated to working in partnership with Native Nations and indigenous peoples,” the apology reads. “We welcome Native Nations to campus for tribal consultations and commit to having an ongoing dialogue with indigenous peoples about repatriation.” Here is the…
Casey Blake ’78 is senior historian for "The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution," an exhibition now at the New York Historical Society (NYHS) through Feb. 24, 2014. In highlighting the importance of the original exhibition—and the reason behind mounting a centennial—NYHS notes: “The 1913 Armory Show… in just less than a month … changed the way Americans thought about modern art. It has been called the most important exhibition every held in the United States.” Blake, himself, calls his work on the centennial show, “the opportunity to tell a story about New York during a period of…
In her new book Scrambling for Africa: AIDS, Expertise, and the Rise of American Global Health Science (Cornell University Press), Johanna Tayloe Crane ’93 considers the past exclusion of African countries from advancements in HIV medicine and shows how the region has transformed into a center for international research and global health programs. After conducting research in the United States and Uganda over the past 10 years, Crane traces the flow of knowledge and money between laboratories and conference rooms in America and sub-Saharan HIV clinics. Her findings reveal how global health science has paradoxically benefited from and even created…
Rayman Solomon ’68, dean of the Rutgers School of Law-Camden, was named to the newly created role of provost for the Rutgers-Camden campus. As chief academic officer, Solomon will work the Rutgers-Camden’s academic departments on achieving rigorous standards for curriculum and faculty development. Solomon will begin his new responsibilities as provost on Jan. 1, 2014, and will continue to serve as dean of the Rutgers-Camden law school, a position he accepted in 1998, until July 1, 2014. Under Solomon’s leadership as dean, the school opened a new, state-of-the-art $37 million classroom building in 2008. He also oversaw the school greatly…
Moira McNamara James '78 P’10, P’16, was named chair of the board for Landmark School, an independent, coeducational boarding and day school serving students in grades 2–12 who have language-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. The mission of the school also includes an extensive educational outreach program to parents and professionals, as well as a research collaboration with the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “I am honored to serve in this role,” said James in a press release. “Landmark’s Trustees are an impressive group of individuals. We all passionately believe in the remarkable and life changing work that the school…
In her new poetry collection Grains of the Voice (Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press), Christina Pugh ’88 reveals a fascination with sound in all its manifestations, including the human voice, musical instruments, and the sounds produced by the natural and man-made worlds. All of these serve as both the framework of poems and the occa¬sion for their changes of direction, of tone, of point of reference. The poems contain echoes—and sometimes the words themselves—of other poets, but just as often of popular and obscure songs, of the noise of pop culture, and of philosophers’ writings. Beneath the surface of her work,…
Matt Lichtash ’13 was co-author of an op-ed published in U.S. News and World Report titled “Five Steps America Must Take Now to Combat Climate Change.” Lichtash is working with Evan Weber ’13 and Michael Dorsey, who served as visiting scholar for Wesleyan’s College of the Environment for the 2012–13 academic year. The three, concerned that the United States adopt an effective national energy strategy, have developed “The Plan,” which they propose can “set our nation on a promising path towards ensuring a safer, more prosperous, and more just future for ourselves and our posterity.” The Plan is available for download…