Lauren RubensteinLearning about wine can make the drinking experience "rewarding and, occasionally, even profound"
Olivia DrakeThis month, the College of Film and the Moving Image (CFMI) secured a $2 million challenge grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. If Wesleyan is able to raise $4 million for the College over the next four years, the Mellon Foundation will offer an additional $2 million gift. In 2011, Wesleyan's Center for the Humanities received a similar challenge grant from the Mellon Foundation. Through support from generous donors, Wesleyan completed that match in 2013, establishing an endowment for the Center for the Humanities for the first time in its 50-year history. The CFMI is dedicated to advancing understandings of the…
Three student-led social ventures are the winners of the 2014 Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship Seed Grant Competition. Student representatives from each group will each receive $5,000 in unrestricted startup funds as well as trainings, advising, mentoring, incubator workspace, and other resources from the Patricelli Center. Recipients were selected from a strong pool of finalists who submitted written business plans and pitched to a panel of expert judges comprised of alumni, students, faculty, and staff. Applicants were assessed on their project design, leadership qualities and potential for social impact. ”We are thrilled to support the early development of these three breakthrough projects, led…
When Rebecca Coven ’13 decided to dedicate herself to the arduous task of completing a senior honors thesis, she was concerned that no one would ever read her work beyond the few professors grading it. So she was excited to have the opportunity to conduct relevant, timely research on teacher evaluations in the state of Connecticut, and share her findings at a press conference held in Hartford March 6 by the state’s largest teachers union. Together with her advisor, Assistant Professor of Sociology Daniel Long, Coven spent her senior year conducting a review of a teacher evaluation pilot program run…
Bill Holder Wesleyan’s Homecoming/Family Weekend, which traditionally has been a combined event, will split to separate weekends next fall because homecoming is scheduled to occur during fall break. “We have two great weekends planned, one oriented toward Wesleyan families and the other intended to build on the success of Middletown Day last year,” said Barbara-Jan Wilson, vice president for university relations. “Each will offer our community lots of athletic contests plus plenty of opportunity for intellectual stimulation and fun.” During Family Weekend, scheduled for Sept. 26–28, Wesleyan will hold WESeminars, all-college meals, student performances, a Career Center open house, the 22nd annual…
In the event of a public health emergency, Wesleyan's Campus Community Emergency Response Team (C-CERT) may be deployed to help distribute medicine and medical supplies to the Wesleyan and Middletown community. On March 20, the C-CERT team, made up of Wesleyan faculty and staff, will undergo a day-long training program to prepare for such emergencies. The training, coordinated by the Connecticut Department of Health's Division of Public Health Preparedness and Response Strategic National Stockpile Program, will teach C-CERT members how to organize a Mass Dispensing Area and effectively receive, process, ship and recover stockpile medical assets. "If there's ever a…
The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures is hosting the 2014 Hispanic Film Series March 27 to April 24 at the Center for Film Studies. "For the second year in a row, we’re showcasing recent award-winning films from Latin America and Spain," said María Ospina, assistant professor of romance languages and literatures. "Last year, we had hundreds of students attend the screenings, and we’re hoping that this year the event is equally successful." All films start at 8 p.m. in the Goldsmith Family Cinema. Screenings are free of charge and are open to the public. Films have English subtitles. March…
Several graduate students and faculty from the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department, Chemistry Department, and the Molecular Biophysics Program presented their research at the 2014 Annual Biophysical Society meeting in San Francisco, Calif. Feb. 15-19. The Biophysical Society encourages development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics through meetings, publications and committee outreach activities. Every year, the society holds an annual meeting that brings together more than 6,000 research scientists in different fields representing biophysics. (more…)
J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of American studies, associate professor of anthropology, was a distinguished guest panelist at the 2014 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in the Humanities Conference at the University of California - Los Angles on March 7. She spoke on “Hawaiian Indigeneity, (Same-Sex) Marriage, and the Racial Politics of Colonial Modernity." She also spoke on “Till death Do Us Part? Settler Colonialism and (Same Sex) Marriage in Hawaii,” at the Women’s Studies and Consortium for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies on Feb. 20 and “New Directions in American Studies: Settler Colonialism and Critical Indigenous Studies,” at the Circuits of Influence: U.S. Israel, and Palestine Symposium…
Psyche Loui, assistant professor of psychology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior, presented a talk at a symposium held March 6-8 at the University of Rochester Medical Center's Schmitt Program on Integrative Brain Research (SPIBR). Her talk, titled, "Action and Perception in the Musical Brain," described current research from her lab and others that related to the structure and function of the brain to music perception and production, with examples from tone-deafness, absolute pitch, music learning and strong emotional responses to music.
Mike SembosDavid Westmoreland, associate professor of chemistry, and chemistry graduate student Breanna Craft presented a paper titled, “pH-Dependent Mechanisms of 1H Relaxivity in a Series of Structurally Related Mn(II) Cyclen Derivatives” at the 245th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in New Orleans, La. in April 2013. Westmoreland, Craft and chemistry graduate student Sarah Hensiek also presented a paper titled, “Solution Dynamics of Transition Metal Complexes of Cyclen Based Ligands Containing Amide and Carboxylate Functional Groups."
Eirene Visvardi, assistant professor of classical studies, gave three talks in 2013 including “Afraid, They Judge. Afraid, They Act: Collective Fear in Greek Tragedy and Democratic Politics," at Texas Tech University on May 6; "Emotional Acts: The Case of Pity," at Yale University on Sept. 28; and "Teaching Euripides' Medea," at Columbia University on Oct. 13.