Wesleyan Emeritus College Offers Theses Supervised by Retired Faculty

Starting next fall, the Wasch Center for Retired Faculty will begin a two-year pilot program, “Wesleyan Emeritus College,” to encourage thesis tutorials between undergraduates and retired faculty members.

During this pilot, 11 retired faculty participants have been specifically approved to administer tutorials for credit by their parent departments.

Richard Elphick, professor of history, emeritus, taught at Wesleyan from 1972 to 2015. His interests are African history, comparative imperialism, revolutions, theory of history, and the history of Christianity. “I would be interested in supervising theses focusing on the following areas: History of Christianity, Africa (especially South Africa), imperialism, World War I and II, Cold War,” he said.

Jack Carr, professor of theater, emeritus, worked at Wesleyan from 1984 to 2015. He was the lighting and scene designer for the Theater Department, and a professional designer for productions in New York, the United Kingdom, Bucharest, Romania and Russia. His interests include lighting, design for dance and theater, and theater history. At Wesleyan, he taught Introduction to Production, Lighting Design, Designing for the Computer, and has already advised hundreds of thesis productions.

Al Turco, professor of English, emeritus, taught at Wesleyan from 1967 to 2009. He is open to supervising theses on Shakespeare, selected playwrights of the early modern period, Scandinavian literature in translation, Wagnerian opera, late and post-Victorian novels and literary classics.

Other interested faculty emerti include David Beveridge (chemistry), Alex Dupuy (sociology), Al Fry (chemistry), Russ Murphy (government), Karl Scheibe (psychology), Yoshiko Samuel (Asian languages and literatures), Arthur Wensinger (German languages and literatures) and Duffy White (Russian languages and literatures).

Combined, these faculty could advise theses on classical sociology, Russian literary theory, organic chemistry, theories of capitalism and globalization, German literature in early 19th and first half of the 20th century, U.S. politics and government, postwar Japanese literature, structural biology and bioinformatics, addictive disorders and much more. Read more about the faculty members’ academic interests online here.

For more information on the Wesleyan Emeritus College, call the Wasch Center at 860-685-3005.

Founded in 2004, the Susan B. and William K. Wasch Center for Retired Faculty provides a shared intellectual and social community where retirees may continue their engagement with teaching and scholarly activities. The programs of the Wasch Center include faculty members approaching retirement as well as retirees, extending as well to the Wesleyan and Middletown communities.