2017 – Page 29

A team of Wesleyan students took second place with a 24.28 percent return in the 2017 Adirondack Cup, a stock picking contest for college students interested in the investment field. This is the sixth year that Wesleyan has fielded a team, and represented the best performance to date. The contest offers a unique setting for students to test their investment research skills using businesses not widely covered by analysts and the news media. Over 160 students from 22 colleges and universities participated in the contest this year, which focuses exclusively on "small cap" public companies, the expertise of the contest's…

The film, Voices Beyond the Wall: Twelve Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World, documents the experiences of poet, priest, and teacher Spencer Reece ’85 in the year he spent teaching poetry at Our Little Roses, a home for abused and abandoned girls in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Executive produced by Hollywood actor James Franco and directed by Brad Coley, the film had its world premier at the Miami Film Festival in March. Sherri Linden, in the Hollywood Reporter, called it "eloquent," adding that "[i]t captures an inspiring connection between Reece and his students, whether they’re discussing love and loss or exploring…

As the recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, Michaela Fisher '17 will spend a year studying cooperatives in five countries. Her project, titled "Cooperative Worlds: Exploring the Global Cooperative Economy," will take her to Spain, Argentina, New Zealand, Germany and Canada. Watson Fellows are all seniors nominated by 40 partner colleges. According to the website, “Fellows conceive original projects, execute them outside of the United States for one year and embrace the ensuing journey. They decide where to go, who to meet, and when to change course.” Fellows receive a $30,000, 12-month travel stipend and health insurance while abroad. The Thomas…

Music graduate student Suhail Yusuf Khan will be a featured guest artist at the Berklee Indian Ensemble on May 9. In addition, he will conduct a master class on Hindustani music and the sarangi, one of the oldest string instruments featured in North Indian classical music. The sarangi is the only instrument in the world that can emulate all the nuances of the human voice. Played with a bow, this instrument has three main strings and 37 sympathetic strings. Khan started to play the instrument when he was 7 years old. The grandson of the sarangi legend Ustad Sabri Khan, and nephew of…

Associate Professor of History Erik Grimmer-Solem presented a talk, "The Wehrmacht Past, the Bundeswehr, and the Politics of Remembrance in Contemporary Germany," at the meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (CAAS), April 12. Grimmer-Solem also is associate professor of German studies and a tutor in the College of Social Sciences. His expertise is in modern German history with specializations in economic history, the history of economic thought, and the history of social reform. He has also developed research interests in German imperialism, German-Japanese relations before 1918, and Germany in the two world wars. Grimmer-Solem discussed his research, which uncovered…

Sarah Wildman ’96, an award-winning writer and regular contributor to the New York Times, presented the 36th Annual Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial Lecture on April 5, in the Daniel Family Common at Usdan University Center. The event was sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies and organized by Dalit Katz, director of the center. Wildman spoke on what she'd learned about the Holocaust in writing Paper Love: Searching for the Girl my Grandfather Left Behind (Riverhead Penguin, 2014). The story began for her, she recalled, when, after her grandfather's death, she came across a box that had been his,…

The For Us By Us (FUBU): Student of Color Fashion Show 2017 on April 13 featured alumni artist, Sandflower Power, as well as student models, designers, artwork and performances. The event was held in conjunction with WesFest and took place in Beckham Hall. Three hundred students attended the show. (Photos by Rebecca Goldfarb Terry '19) (more…)

Jim Greenwood, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, and Bill Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy, professor of integrative sciences, have received a research award from NASA in the amount of $550,000 for a program titled “Experimental simulations of chondrule formation by radiative heating of hot planetesimals." The grant will allow Greenwood and Herbst to hire a post-doctoral fellow who will work in Greenwood’s lab in Exley Science Center to reproduce chondrules — small spherules of melted rock that formed early in the history of the solar system and hold clues to the origin of the planets.…

On April 12, the Hunger and Homelessness student group in the Office of Community Service raised more than $500 at the Wesleyan Hunger Banquet, an interactive simulation of global poverty rates. The funds will be donated to the Amazing Grace Food Pantry in Middletown. More than 35 Wesleyan students and Class of 2021 admitted students and their parents, visiting for WesFest, attended the event. Participants were placed into an income bracket at random and then provided a seating arrangement and meal indicative of that income level. Anthony Hatch, assistant professor of science in society, assistant professor of African American studies,…

Hamilton’s America, the PBS documentary by Alex Horwitz ’02 that explores the history behind Hamilton: An American Musical, created and written by Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, Hon. ’15 and directed by Thomas Kail ’99, was honored as a finalist in the documentary category for the 76th annual Peabody Awards. The awards honor storytelling done well in film, television, radio, and on the internet. The acclaimed documentary was several years in the making. Horwitz first approached Miranda and Kail with the idea in 2012—and cameras were rolling by 2013. "All I needed to hear was a demo of that first song, 'Alexander…

Wesleyan Professor of Dance and Environmental Studies Katja Kolcio traveled again to Ukraine in April, this time to work with soldiers and psychologists in the National Guard. It was her third trip to the region to teach somatic practices to those undergoing the stress of political conflict, displacement, and combat. Somatics are “mind-body practices that combine physical activity and motion with deep reflection,” she explained in “Somatics and Political Change: Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity,” (Contact Quarterly, summer/fall 2016), detailing her first trip to the region after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. In June 2015 she had been invited to lead…

Music and French studies double major Rachel Rosenman '17 is the recipient of the inaugural Friends of the Wesleyan Library Undergraduate Research Prize. During a ceremony on April 11, Rosenman was honored for her essay titled, "'Mais la musique demeurera toujours': Repurposing the French Baroque." Rosenman’s essay describes the work she undertook in order to generate user-friendly editions of French Baroque music, adapting solo bass viol repertoire to make it playable on the treble viol, in modern notation. She includes discussion of editorial methodologies, and situates the music historically and theoretically. In addition to background information on the viol instrument family…

Wesleyan Team Takes Second Prize in Investment Contest

Poet Reece ‘85 and Honduran Orphans Are Subject of James Franco Documentary

Fisher ’17 Wins Watson Fellowship to Study Cooperatives

Grad Student Khan to Perform with Berklee Indian Ensemble

Grimmer-Solem Delivers Talk at Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences Meeting

Wildman ’96 Speaks on ‘Paper Love’ for Annual Frankel Lecture

Student Models, Artists Perform at SOC Fashion Show

NASA Supports Planetary Origin Research at Wesleyan

Students Learn about Global Poverty at Hunger Banquet Fundraiser

Horwitz ’02 Scores Peabody Nomination for Hamilton’s America

Kolcio Leads Somatic Exercises for the Ukrainian National Guard

Rosenman ’17, Feldman ’17 Receive Friends of the Wesleyan Library Undergraduate Research Prizes