Olivia DrakeSeveral Wesleyan students, staff, faculty, alumni and friends of the university attended the Edgar Beckham Helping Hand Awards Ceremony April 28 in Beckham Hall. Guests joined urban revitalization strategy consultant Majora Carter '88, former Dean of the College Janina Montero, and several other prominent alumni in recognizing students, faculty and staff who have exercised cultural sensitivity and promoted diversity and inclusion. The event was created and organized by Phabinly Gabriel ’13 and Luciana Pennant ’13. "The event was amazing," Pennant said. "It was a spectacular evening full of joy and laughter." The student award recipients are: Dorisol Inoa '13; Evan…
Lang Chen, a visiting instructor in religion, was named a 2013 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The Newcombe Fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious such award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences whose dissertations address questions of ethical and/or religious values. Each 2013 Newcombe Fellow will receive a 12-month award of $25,000. Chen is teaching "Buddhism "and "(Non)violence in Buddhism" this semester at Wesleyan. Chen also is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Yale University. Her dissertation, Elixir or Poison? Indian Origins and Chinese Interpretations of Buddhist Antinomian…
Brian KattenThe Department of Athletics recognized the accomplishments of 173 scholar-athletes during a dinner at Beckham Hall May 1. Howard Tobochnik '13 and Roger Laura Kurash '13 received the Maynard Memorial Award, presented annually to the top senior male and female scholar-athlete at the university. Those invited to the gathering were members of the sophomore, junior and senior classes who had distinguished themselves both in the classroom with a minimium GPA of 3.2 and in athletic competition as a significant contributor to the success of their chosen sport(s). Tobochnik was an NCAA Division III qualifier in 2012-13 after finishing third at…
Wesleyan's WESU 88.1 FM was named the "2013 Best College Radio Station" by the Hartford Advocate in April 2013. Read more.
Mike Fried, the interim head men's and women's tennis coach, was named NESCAC men's tennis co-Coach of the Year in recognition of the team's unprecedented conference success. Men's tennis posted a 7-10 record which included a best-ever 5-4 NESCAC record, giving the Cardinals their first-ever bid to the NESCAC tournament, seeded fifth among the six teams. Fried, who also serves as a visiting instructor in physical education, adds tremendous playing and coaching experience to the Cardinals' staff. He came aboard as an assistant during the spring of 2011, and was elevated to head women's coach during the spring of 2012.…
Wesleyan has its fourth NESCAC Player of the Year in 2012-13 as softball sensation Allee Beatty '13 joined men's soccer standout Adam Purdy '13, women's soccer star Laura Kurash '13 and men's ice hockey scoring leader Keith Buehler '14 with the honor. Beatty also earned NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year accolades. She led the Cardinals with a .421 average, scored 50 runs, drove in 11, stole 25 bases, had a seasonal record eight triples and was perfect in the field with 58 putouts and one assist in center field. Her 152 runs, 12 triples and 114 stolen bases all…
Lauren RubensteinAssistant Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman had an op-ed published in The Hartford Courant about a low-cost, intensive, and effective pre-K program piloted in Middletown last summer, which she argues could be a model for the nation. Pre-kindergarten preparation programs are critical to narrowing the achievement gap between low-income students starting kindergarten and their wealthier peers, she writes. Kindergarten Kickstart, a short-term summer program in which Wesleyan students taught alongside experienced teachers using research-based methods and curriculum, showed measurable improvements in kindergarten readiness after just five weeks. Read the op-ed here.
Bill FisherOn April 25, Matt Weiner '87, creator and writer of Mad Men, regaled an engaged Wesleyan crowd of 280 with insights into the TV business and comments on connections between the COL syllabus and Don Draper's reading. The fundraising event, "An Evening with Mad Men" was held at the Director’s Guild of America Theater in New York, N.Y. During an engaging and unscripted conversation with President Michael Roth, Weiner presented clips from his popular and award-winning AMC series and spoke about Wesleyan experiences that helped to shape his career in the entertainment industry. He talked about being a College of…
Kate CarlisleHenry Howell ’03 is bicycling to his 10th Reunion. He lives in London. So, a long trip. Luckily the transatlantic portion of the roughly 3,300 mile journey will last only about eight hours, via airplane. Howell, an investment banker who has taken up bicycling in a big way, will finish the trip – about 75 miles – on two wheels, from his family home in Pound Ridge, N.Y. “Reunion will be even more memorable heading up to Wes by bike,” Howell said. “I’m already looking forward to it.” He won’t be the first alumnus to bike to Wes for Reunion.…
David LowGregory Heller ’04 is the author of Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania Press), the first biography of the controversial architect and urban planner. A book launch will be held on Thursday, May 16 at the Center for Architecture in Philadelphia (1218 Arch Street) at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Go to http://hellergreg.ticketleap.com/edbacon/ for more information. In the mid-20th century, Edmund Bacon worked on shaping urban America as many Americans left cities to pursue life in suburbia. As director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, Bacon forged…
Storyteller and cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar ’77 is the author of Traveling Heavy: A Memoir Between Journeys (Duke University Press), in which she recounts her life as an immigrant child and later, as an adult woman who loves to travel but is terrified of boarding a plane. Behar shares moving stories about her Yiddish-Sephardic-Cuban-American family, as well as the kind strangers she meets on her travels. The author refers to herself an anthropologist who specializes in homesickness and repeatedly returning to her homeland of Cuba. She asks the question why we leave home to find home. Kirkus Reviews writes: “A…
Virginia Pye ’82 has published her first novel, River of Dust (Unbridled Books), which begins on the windswept plains of northwestern China not long after the Boxer Rebellion. Mongol bandits kidnap the young son of an American missionary couple. As the Reverend sets out in search of the child, he quickly loses himself in the rugged, drought-stricken countryside populated by opium dens, nomadic warlords, and traveling circuses. Grace, his young wife, pregnant with their second child, takes to her sick bed in the mission compound, and has visions of her stolen child and lost husband. The foreign couple’s dedicated Chinese…