Wesleyan in the News

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni.

Recent Wesleyan News

1. The New York Times: “Why Half a Degree of Global Warming Is a Big Deal”

Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, comments on a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group with which he was involved from the early 1990s through 2014.

2. Avant Music News: “Tyshawn Sorey Residency at the Kitchen”

On Oct. 21–23, Tyshawn Sorey MA ’11, assistant professor of music; assistant professor, African American studies; will present a rare three-night New York City appearance in a residency at The Kitchen in Chelsea with a variety of musicians.

3. The New York Times: “Amy McGrath Is Avoiding Attack Ads. Can a Congressional Candidate Win Without Them?”

Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler of the Wesleyan Media Project explains why, though voters “universally decry” negative political ads, they tend to be effective.

4. Hartford Courant: “Middletown Earns Bronze Rating in First Round of Sustainability Work”

Ingrid Eck ’19 compiled Middletown’s application for the new Sustainable CT certification, which last week earned the city a bronze rating. Read more here.

5. National Association of Colleges and Employers: “Helping International Students, Others Meet Internship Requirements”

Sharon Belden Castonguay, director of Wesleyan’s Gordon Career Center, discusses the quarter-credit internship course implemented in 2012 in response to demand from students whose internship employers required that they receive course credit, as well as from international students who wanted to be eligible for curricular practical training (CPT).

6. Buzzfeed News: “These Are the Finalists for the 2018 National Book Awards”

Wesleyan University Press book Wobble by Rae Armantrout is on the National Book Award shortlist.

Recent Alumni News
Chicago Tribune: “Venom Director’s Hollywood Path Began When He Saw Batman as a Teenager”

Reviewer Michael Cavna begins: “For filmmaker Ruben Fleischer [’97], pop-culture experiences are closely tethered to a sense of place. And Washington was where his dream of making superhero movies began. Fleischer realizes a boyhood hope today, with the official opening of his first comic-book movie, Venom, Sony’s $100 million attempt to build out its Spider-Man cinematic universe.”

2. Broadway World: “Melissa Stern [’80, P’17]: Strange Girls Opens This Week at Garvey|Simon”

The exhibition, opening Oct. 11 and running through Nov. 11, “featur[es] the artist’s evocative and dark-witted works…. ‘We are all strange girls,’ says Stern. ‘We all harbor some memory of feeling like an outsider, a stranger.’”

3. Washington Post: “Ready for a Psychopath on the Level of Hannibal Lecter? Check Out Sunrise Highway”

This review by Patrick Anderson begins: “Writing for television can be challenging and lucrative, but there are limits to how deep one can venture into the unpleasant realities of crime. In novels there are fewer limits. With his new book, Sunrise Highway, Peter Blauner [’82]— a former writer and producer for Law & Order and the author of seven novels—makes that clear. Sunrise Highway is often an ugly tale, but Blauner set out to tell a brutally honest story, and he has done so with exceptional skill.”

4. This American Life: ”The Runaways”

In the prologue, This American Life host Ira Glass “takes us through a couple of occasions in which President Trump has evoked the brutal street gang MS-13. The President has lauded local law enforcement on Long Island on its efforts to stop the gang. But reporter Hannah Dreier [’08] has turned up evidence suggesting otherwise.” Glass notes that the episode is a collaboration with ProPublica, where Dreier is a reporter. You can read her print version here.

5. 06880: “Mitchells at 60: Westport Flagship Store Flies High”

The article celebrates the redesign of the store that was begun 60 years ago by Ed and Norma Mitchell. The couple’s son, Jack Mitchell ’61, is now chair of all nine stores that the company owns—on both East and West coasts. “‘Our value that the customer comes first, and our goal of building relationships, hasn’t changed since I was at Wesleyan University and my dad opened the store,’ Jack says.”