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.

Wesleyan in the News

1. The Hill: “Advice on Climate Policy for the 2020 Presidential Candidates”

In this op-ed, Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Emeritus Gary Yohe and his coauthors write that they are encouraged by the “unprecedented attention being given to climate change among those vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination” and offer words of advice for creating an ambitious but credible climate policy.

2. AINT — BAD: “Isabella Convertino”

The photography of Isabella Convertino ’20 is featured on this website, an independent publisher of new photographic art. According to the article, “Her work has been published by ROMAN NVMERALS press, and was recently acquired by the MoMA library. Convertino’s images speak to the complications of adolescence, compounding memory and trauma as points of departure. Interested in the interplay between familial and gender structures, her work probes modes of power-inheritance and the potential devastation of genetic happenstance.”

3. EOS: “Resurrecting Interest in a ‘Dead’ Planet”

Martha Gilmore, the George I. Seney Professor of Geology, is quoted in this article on new research suggesting that, contrary to popular belief, the surface of Venus actually may be quite active today. “Venus is an Earth-sized planet and now—who knew?!—there are Earth-sized planets all over the galaxy,” said Gilmore. “So now, Venus is even more relevant for that reason.”

4. The Middletown Press: “High School Students from Around World Take Part in Wesleyan Summer Arts Camp”

Sixty-eight Center for Creative Youth (CCY) participants from around the country and the world recently demonstrated the skills they had learned in just a week of intensive art study during a community share day. Wesleyan assumed leadership of CCY in fall 2018 as an official University program, and this is the first time the camp has been offered under Wesleyan’s management.

5. The Washington Post: “To Find Serenity, Freedom and Creativity, Sometimes It’s Best to Forget”

President Michael S. Roth reviews A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past, a book in which author Lewis Hyde “doesn’t ignore the pain of involuntary amnesia, but . . . is much more interested in the liberating aspects of ‘getting past the past,’ as his subtitle puts it.”

Alumni in the News

1. Money Inc: “10 Things You Didn’t Know about Alliance Data Systems CEO Edward J. Heffernan [’84, P’21]”

Number one on this list by Garrett Parker notes that Heffernan is from Ireland. Number two notes that he attended college in the United States (Wesleyan, of course), with graduate school (an MBA) at Columbia.

2. The Washington Post: “How ‘The Breakfast Club,’ Home to Brash Hosts and Irate Rappers, Became a One-of-a-Kind Campaign Stop”

The story by Bethnoie Butler on “Power 105.1’s popular nationally syndicated radio show hosted by Charlamagne tha God, Angela Yee [’97] and DJ Envy” notes that “[t]he hosts have a knack for getting their guests to divulge unexpected details.”

3. Vanity Fair: “Sisters of Swing”

Abigail Jones writes, “Half a century ago, the acclaimed music critic George T. Simon said everything you need to know about sexism in jazz: ‘Only God can make a tree, and only men can play good jazz.’ This gender bias has deep roots. Jazz has always been a boys’ club, a macho art form reserved for brash, fast-fingered men living on the road, in cramped quarters, hustling from gig to gig. And despite playing a pioneering role in integration and the civil rights movement, jazz has had an abysmal record on gender.” Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson ’02 is one of the 17 women highlighted here.

4. Wall Street Journal: “‘Are We There Yet?’ Review: Driven to Distraction”

Patrick Cook reviews the book by Dan Albert ’88 under the caveat, “Today’s ride is likely to be an SUV full of technically brilliant safety features but offering little appeal to the millennial generation.”

5. New York Times: “What I Learned Photographing Death” by Caroline Catlin [’15] 

“When I enter a hospital room as a photographer, I stand ready to pay attention, ready to capture the way that love honors the dying. Witnessing these small moments helps me come to terms with my own mortality,” writes Catlin, who is living with cancer and a volunteer for Soulumination, a Washington State photography nonprofit. “When I am in those rooms, I am present with the sole goal of finding the moments within grief that feel the most gentle and human.”

6. Hamptons.com: “Brian De Palma and Toni Ross [’79] To Be Honored During 2019 Hamptons International Film Festival”

Nicole Barylski quotes Hamptons International Film Festival Artistic Director David Nugent on Ross’s upcoming honor: “Toni Ross has been an instrumental champion of the arts and the East End community where she works and lives. She helped to launch the Hamptons International Film Festival and is the reason we are all here today. We look forward to honoring her at the festival in October.”