Wesleyan in the News: May 2024

New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier ’08 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for her work on a series of stories revealing the widespread reach of migrant child labor across the United States. Dreier also previously won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2019 for a ProPublica series that followed Salvadoran immigrants on Long Island whose lives were affected by federal investigations in the MS-13 criminal gang. 

“This reporting was possible only because of the bravery of migrant children who took huge risks to share their experiences,” Dreier said after receiving the prize on May 6. “There are hundreds of thousands of these kids in the country. Some are still working dangerous, grueling jobs, and I dedicate this prize to them. 

The Invisible Institute, founded by Jamie Kalven ’69, won a Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting for its 11-episode podcast “You Didn’t See Nothin” about a vicious hate crime at a Chicago housing development in the 1997. The firm’s reporting and Kalven’s role in the story was profiled in The New York Times. This was one of two Pulitzer’s won by the Invisible Institute this year. 

“It’s stunning,” Kalven, 75, told The New York Times. “I just stepped out of our office, which is in a complete uproar of excitement.”

Famed Auctioneer, Wesleyan Alumnus Passes Away 

In over four decades as an auctioneer for Sotheby’s, the late David Redden ’70, P’12 sold cultural fixtures of the modern world — the Magna Carta, a copy of the Declaration of Independence from 1776 , and a bat carried by famed baseball player Babe Ruth. He also sold the ancient. Redden secured an $8 million sale of a pristine Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton named Sue from South Dakota in the 1990s. He even sold the skies. In 1991, he convinced authorities in Star City, Russia to sell off space artifacts as the Soviet Union fell. 

“David Redden had a vision for presenting things to make them larger than life,” Benjamin Doller, the chairman of Sotheby’s for the Americas, told The New York Times. “He was a great auction impresario.” 

Redden died in his home on May 11 from complications of ALS, which he had for nine years, according to The New York Times. He graduated from Wesleyan with a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history before starting at Sotheby’s in 1974 as a catalog trainee. He was the longest-serving auctioneer in Sotheby’s history, rising to vice chairman over time, according to The Times. 

“He was always restless and looking for interesting new adventures,” Jeannette Redden P’12, environmentalist and wife of Redden, told The New York Times. “You were not bored with him.” 

Other news 

President Michael S. Roth ’78 urged future college students to pick their schools based on whether they would discover new skills, perspectives, and learn rather than where they would feel most comfortable in a piece for The New York Times. “The most rewarding forms of education make you feel very uncomfortable, not least because they force you to recognize your own ignorance. Students should hope to encounter ideas and experience cultural forms that push them beyond their current opinions and tastes.” 

Roth wrote a piece for The New Republic explaining his reasoning for allowing pro-Palestinian protestors to remain in encampments on campus on May 7. “Right now, I’m most concerned with protecting their right to protest in nonviolent ways that don’t undermine our educational program. For me, the modest violations of the rules are preferable to the narrow-minded vocationalism that others seem suddenly to pine for.” 

Roth appeared on a panel at the Milken Institute’s 2024 Global Conference to offer his thoughts on the interplay between higher education, skills-based hiring, and the value of a college degree in today’s labor climate.

Following the announcement from Harvard University that it would no longer take official positions on policy issues, Roth provided his thoughts on social media. His comments and an excerpt from his Commencement speech on May 26 were featured in The Guardian. “The attack on higher education, on democracy, on the rule of law, threatens to sweep away the freedoms that have been hard won over the last 100 years. We can fight back,” he said in his speech. 

Degrowth communism, an ideal crafted by philosopher and regular commentator on Japanese television Kohei Saito ’09 and explored in his book “Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto,” calls for wealthy nations to cut back on consumption and reduce growth to try to address the climate crisis. Saito and his book were featured in pieces for The Atlantic and Foreign Policy in recent weeks. 

Merve Emre, Shapiro-Silverberg professor of creative writing and criticism and director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism, reviewed Sigmund Freud’s “An Autobiographical Study” for The New Yorker alongside many of the other biographies of the famed philosopher. “Militantly impersonal in his style, Freud narrates his life through a series of lucid and economic summaries of the ideas that defined his career,” Emre wrote. 

Emre also hosted an episode of the “Intelligence Squared” podcast with guest Agnes Arnold-Forster, writer and historian, on Arnold-Forster’s new book “Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion.” 

Since its inception at the height of Jim Crow racial segregation in 1968, Red Lobster has emphasized equality, Robyn Autry, associate professor of sociology and director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, wrote on MSNBC.com. Following a series of financial missteps, the company filed for bankruptcy in May and closed nearly 100 locations. “The rise and slide of Red Lobster, and all the stumbles along the way, parallels a rise and backslide of Black working- and middle-class gains,” Autry wrote. “The sort of economic mobility we associate with the 1970s and 1980s, when Red Lobsters were being built, has slowed for many Americans and even reversed for many Black Americans.” 

Autry also wrote about a new HULU series “Black Twitter: A People’s History,” a documentary on the influence that Black users of Twitter had on the platform before it was purchased and re-shaped by Elon Musk, in a piece for MSNBC. “Sometimes the results were chaotic, and sometimes they were toxic, but most of the time the result was an awesome display of Black cultural power and influence,” Autry wrote. “The series tracks this influence as everyday Black people found not just each other but also political figures and celebrities who were in the mix alongside them.” 

The New York Times wrote about “Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality” (University of California Press) by Benjamin Shestakofsky ’05, assistant professor of sociology at University of Pennsylvania, in a recent story recommending business books. Shestakofsky writes about his experience at a Silicon Valley startup with an intensely competitive culture and pay disparities between offices. “Among the most glaring social problems associated with venture capitalism is its role in reproducing vast disparities in wealth,” he writes. “Venture capitalism is designed to further enrich the wealthiest among us.” 

Recent data published by the Wesleyan Media Project was published in an opinion piece from the Sacramento Bee. The Wesleyan Media Project calculated that $31 million was spent on television advertising in the U.S. Senate race in California.  

Joseph Fins ’82, Hon.’22 was awarded the 2024 Weill Cornell Medical College Alumnus of Distinction Award at its Commencement ceremony at Carnegie Hall on May 16. The award is presented each year to an alumnus who has “demonstrated exceptional achievement in education, research or patient care, and who has brought honor and acclaim to the institution.” 

Attorney Ellen Zucker ’83, partner at Burns & Levinson in Boston, was named to the 2024 Elite Women of the Plaintiffs Bar list by The National Law Journal. “Zucker is a skilled litigator and counselor who gives voice to those wronged in the workplace. Whether securing a meaningful resolution or litigating tenaciously for what is right, she helps clients navigate challenging circumstances,” Burns & Levinson said. 

Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science Suzanne OConnell co-wrote a piece, with University of Colorado, Boulder, Professor Alton Byers, on the growing trash and waste issues at the peak of Mount Everest for The Conversation. 

Visiting Scholar in Classical Studies Elizabeth Bobrick wrote a moving essay for The New York Times about her journey through education, a former relationship, and the impact of an outstretched hand when she needed it most.

Variety listed The College of Film and the Moving Image among its “2024 Top Film Schools in North America.” Scott Higgins, director of The College of Film and the Moving Image, said “While we teach skills such as analytical and creative writing, producing, shooting and editing, our goals are broader. We aim to help undergraduates discover their goals and to develop their creative and critical voices in a collaborative community founded on a passionate commitment to the moving image.”

Zachariah Ezer ’17 was selected for the Liberation Theatre Company’s Writing Residency Program for 2024-25, alongside three other emerging playwrights, according to Broadway World. The program offers residents dramaturgical and career support over the course of a 10-month period, in which they are required to complete a first draft of a full-length play. The residents are also given the opportunity to receive a reading of the play in the Spring of 2025. 

Monica Jahan Bose ’86 is set to open the public art installation “SWIMMING” at Marie Reed Plaza in Washington D.C. The exhibit, which explores our connection to water amid climate change, will be open 24 hours a day from June 6 to 20 and includes a series of public engagement events.