Kate CarlisleJanuary 28, 20145min
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded Wesleyan's Center for the Arts a $750,000 grant to support the Creative Campus Initiative and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance. Half a million dollars of the $750,000 grant will be matched by $1 million to be raised to endow continued cross-disciplinary Creative Campus activities. With support from Wesleyan alumni, the fundraising campaign to meet this challenge is being launched on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the CFA during the 2013-14 season. "This terrific grant is a recognition of the critical role the arts play at Wesleyan," said President Michael S. Roth.…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 27, 20142min
A book written by Joe Siry was named a finalist for the 2013 National Jewish Book Award in the visual arts category. Siry is professor of art history, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the Humanities and chair of the Art and Art History Department. The Jewish Book Council announced the winners of the 63rd Annual National Jewish Book Awards on Jan. 15. Beth Sholom Synagogue: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Religious Architecture was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2011. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Beth Sholom Synagogue was one of Wright’s last…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 23, 20145min
This month, more than 40 Wesleyan students completed a semester-long class in less than two weeks. As part of Wesleyan's first Winter Session, held Jan. 8-21, students took advantage of a quieter campus and a long winter break to focus intensively on just one course. "During Winter Session, students can connect more closely not just with the topics they're studying, but also with their instructor and classmates," said Jennifer Curran, interim director of Continuing Studies. During this pilot session, Wesleyan offered four courses: “Introduction to Computer Programming," taught by James Lipton, associate professor of computer science; "U.S. Foreign Policy," taught…

Kate CarlisleJanuary 23, 20143min
Wesleyan President Michael Roth joined  leaders from 100 universities and colleges and 40 nonprofit groups at the White House on Jan. 16, to discuss how to promote greater access to higher education. The event is part of an Obama administration initiative to help more students afford and graduate from college. The institutions represented at the event have all made commitments to programs that would increase access to students from historically underserved communities. "At the summit,  I learned that ninety percent of low-income people who get their BA will move out of poverty," Roth said. "Access to education truly has an…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 23, 20144min
Which professor has made the biggest impact on your Wesleyan education? If you're a junior, senior, graduate student or Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD), then you're eligible to nominate your favorite faculty member for the prestigious Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching honor. The Binswanger Prize was inaugurated in 1993 as an institutional recognition of outstanding faculty members. These prizes, made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank G. Binswanger Sr., HON ’85, underscore Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers, who are responsible for the university’s distinctive approach to liberal arts education. Prize winners are announced at…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 23, 20143min
For 75 years, 88.1 FM WESU has provided a platform for the enjoyment of underground music and under-represented genres generally absent from commercial airwaves. The year 2014 will mark WESU’s 75th Anniversary, and "we’ve got a metric boatload of events and special programming to celebrate," said DJ "Cheshire Cat" Bryan Skowera '99. "Rather than air just our selections, we want our listeners and friends to contribute to our playlist by helping us pick the songs." This month, WESU is broadcasting “75 Years of Socially Conscious Music," a program that features listener and staff suggestions that reflect both socially conscious music and WESU’s…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 23, 20142min
Seven films, all with English subtitles, will be screened during the annual Israeli Film Festival this spring. The festival aims to educate and explore the richness, diversity and creativity of Israeli culture as witnessed through the flourishing of contemporary Israeli cinema. Each film screening is followed by a guest speaker or Wesleyan faculty who comments on the film from a particular perspective. FIlms this year include Fill the Void, Wherever You Go, Welcome and our Condolences, Zaytoun, By Summer’s End, Six Million and One, Back by Popular Demand: Eyes Wide Open.  Films run every Thursday at 8 p.m. from Jan. 30 to March 6 in the Goldsmith…

Olivia DrakeJanuary 23, 20143min
"Audience(s)" is the theme of the Center for the Humanities' Spring 2014 lecture series. “Audience(s)” asks us to explore the phenomena of the audience from multiple perspectives. How does audience shape the form and function of our work? Is the desire to reach a wider audience consistent with our academic or artistic goals? How should we reflect on the relation of intellectuals to their audience or audiences in general? What can the audience tell us about past or present works of scholarship, theater, music, politics or art? Speakers also will explore the ways in which audience behavior is changing in…

Bill HolderJanuary 23, 20143min
Quiara Alegría Hudes, a Pulitzer Prize recipient, will be the new Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Writing and Theater for three years beginning in the fall of 2014. The appointment marks a return to campus for Hudes, who taught as a visiting playwright in 2012. Hudes’s most recent publication is The Elliot Cycle, three standalone plays written over an eight-year period. Each play uses a different kind of music – Bach, Coltrane, and Puerto Rican folk music¬ ¬– to trace the coming of age of a haunted young man from Puerto Rico. Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, the first play, was a…