Wesleyan in the News: September 2024

With an election that serves as an inflection point in American democracy just months away, President Michael S. Roth ’78 encouraged students to engage in political discussion and listen to opposing viewpoints in a piece for The New York Times on Sept. 2. “This fall we can all learn to be better students and better citizens by collaborating with others, being open to experimentation and calling for inclusion rather than segregation — and participating in the electoral process.”

He also wrote about how students can practice freedom better in a piece for The New Republic. “Practicing freedom can be messy, as it surely will be on many campuses this fall. Thinking for yourself in the company of others, especially when the coals are hot, is not easy. But our disagreements will teach us lessons that will serve us well long after the coals have cooled.”

Roth then appeared on NPR’s “Morning Edition” with Steve Inskeep on Sept. 5 to discuss why he supports political activism on campus. He highlighted the Jewett Center for Community Partnership’s Political Engagement Fund grants and said, “we should be activating the political energies of our students so that they go out there and work on the elections.”

“The university shouldn’t be neutral about the electoral system or democracy,” Roth said on “Fast Politics” with Molly Jong-Fast. “We should be encouraging our students and our faculty to be engaged in the public sphere.”

Roth also spoke to The Boston Globe for a piece on how U.S. colleges are putting a focus on dialogue ahead of expected protests this semester.

Other Headlines

Associate Professor of Sociology Robyn Autry wrote about why political candidates chose to identify where they’re from for MSNBC after media outlets drew attention to Presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’ claim that she is from Oakland, Calif. — despite being born in the adjacent Berkeley, Calif. “Instead of asking whether it’s technically true that she’s from Oakland and whether she ought to be corrected for slighting Berkeley, we ought to be asking whether we put more demands on Black candidates to authenticate who they say they are, and whether their answers are more closely scrutinized,” Autry wrote.

WNPR announced that “Disrupted,” hosted by Rob Rosenthal Distinguished Professor of Civic Engagement Khalilah Brown-Dean, will move to the 9 a.m. time slot on Fridays in a shake-up of the network’s programming schedule. “’Disrupted’ is about navigating both the extraordinary and mundane changes we all encounter whether personally, professionally, politically, or culturally,” Brown-Dean said. “Those disruptions provide important moments to learn with and from one another while building community. That search for understanding is crucial in these divided times.”

Jennifer Tucker, professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Guns and Society, was named a commissioner of the first-ever Commission on Global Gun Violence and Health from the respected medical journal The Lancet. “Gun violence is a global health emergency. Around the world, it contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of injuries, and billions of dollars in economic costs. Yet, the scale of gun violence—from the individual to the international level—is still poorly understood,” Tucker said. “…By shining a light on the drivers and impacts of gun violence, the Commission hopes to encourage investment in evidence-based strategies to save and prolong lives.”

Actress Beanie Feldstein ’15 will play Logan Schwartzandgrubenierre in the Broadway Center Stage production of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater from Oct. 11 to 20, according to Broadway World.

The Library of Congress appointed Karen Donfried ’84 as the new director of the Congressional Research Service, which supports Congress with the research, analysis, information, and consultation they need to legislate. Donfried served over 10 years in the Congressional Research Service as an analyst and specialist in European affairs. She has also served on the White House National Security Council.

Professor of Biology Michael Singer spoke with National Geographic for a story on animals that treat and prevent their own illnesses. Singer researches caterpillars and found that when the small insects are infected with a parasite, they will eat plants containing certain chemicals to try to kill the parasite.

Professor of African American Studies Khalil Johnson spoke with CBS News for a story on a private school honoring the history of its first two Black students, who were admitted a decade after the Brown v. Board of Education decision that desegregated schools in 1954. “For the students, their very presence on these campuses changed what these campuses were like,” Johnson said.

Product designer Max Gunawan ’02 founded the lighting company Lumio in 2013 and its products are now in 200 retail stores across 30 countries. The New York Times profiled Gunawan and his efforts to renovate his Paris apartment. He fell in love with Paris while studying abroad in the city as an undergraduate at Wesleyan, he told the Times.

Matthew Tyrnauer ’91 is now on a short list of filmmakers to have more than one film screened at Telluride in the same year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He debuted Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid, about longtime Democratic political strategist James Carville, and Nobu, about famed sushi chef and restauranteur Nobu Matsuhisa, at the festival this year.

Attorney Victoria Santoro ’07 was elected president of the Massachusetts Bar Association for the 2024-25 membership year. Santoro said she plans to advance reproductive justice, diversity, and inclusion, and mentorship efforts for members of marginalized communities. “I firmly believe that our legal community benefits from more involvement, more discussion, more participation and more community,” said Santoro.

Kim-Frank Fellow in Creative Writing Oliver Egger ’23 had two pieces published in The Boston Globe in August. Egger wrote a story on an exhibition at the Museo degli Innocenti featuring tokens left by parents who abandoned their children at the Ospedale degli Innocenti, a centuries-old foundling hospital. He also broke down what he loves about Bob Dylan’s “Ballad in Plain D”, which Dylan said he regretted recording in an interview in 1985.