Wesleyan in the News: February 2025

By: Phuc Ngo ’26

The New York Times interviewed President Michael S. Roth ’78 in an article on universities’ responses to President Trump’s endowment tax proposals. Roth acknowledged the difficulties that a potential tax hike would have on Wesleyan, stating that “it means we will be serving fewer worthy applicants.” 

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s report on Part I of the University of Pennsylvania’s forum on the future of American universities highlighted Roth’s participation. “We are on the front lines of a war against civil society by the new administration,” Roth emphasized during his address. 

A piece from Syracuse on the importance of affordability in higher education mentioned Roth’s New York Times opinion essay, “How Higher Education Can Win Back America.” The article uses Roth’s framing, namely his argument that ‘elite’ education institutions could and should use their resources to expand access to their classrooms across the socioeconomic spectrum, to discuss the case of Le Moyne College, a private Jesuit college situated near Syracuse, NY.  

The New Yorker’s documentary “How Police React When a Killing Is Caught on Tape,” produced by Jamie Kalven ’69 and based on his reporting, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The 30-minute film reconstructs a deadly shooting by a Chicago police officer through a montage of surveillance and police body-camera footage, documenting how a narrative begins to take shape in the aftermath. 

Chris Wink ’83, a founding performer in the Blue Man Group, was quoted in The New York Times for a story on the group’s last show in New York. The group will continue to perform in Boston, Las Vegas, and Berlin. “We love the idea of a show that is sublime and ridiculous,” Wink said. 

Kennedy Odede ’12 appeared in a New York Times piece on youth in Africa. The article mentions SHOFCO, a program started by Odede in a Nairobi slum that now encompasses a girls’ school, a skills training program, a clinic, and a high-tech water treatment and distribution program. “Something is happening. Africa is changing,” said Odede. “Youth are the present and future.” 

Assistant Professor of Theater Maria-Christina Oliveras is playing the queen in Cymbeline at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater in Greenwich Village, which was recently reviewed in The New York Times. The show is set to run until Feb. 15. 

Rob Rosenthal Distinguished Professor of Civic Engagement of Civic Engagement Khalilah Brown-Dean appeared on CBS News to speak on the aftermath of the D.C. plane crash, specifically President Trump’s comments on DEI. “It’s not about parties or ideology,” said Brown-Dean, “it’s about ‘can we reaffirm the humanity of the people that have been lost?’”  

The second season of The Critic and Her Publics: The Art of Editing debuted on Jan. 28. This LitHub podcast, hosted by Director of the Shapiro Center for Writing and Criticism Merve Emre, is a series of live conversations with savvy editors discussing how magazines, movies, books, television shows, and more get made. 

Gary Yohe, Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, co-wrote a piece for The Hill on the consequences of recent Trump administration decisions, like leaving the Paris Agreement. 

Yohe appeared on Utah Public Radio’s UnDisciplined program to discuss the potential lasting impacts of the California wildfires. “Out of the health literature has come a conclusion that the most important determinant of responding to the climate issue is public trust,” Yohe emphasized, “public trust in the science, and public trust in the communicators of that science.” 

Yohe also spoke to Fox National News Desk about the wildfires and the associated insurance crisis. “I’m not saying that there’s going to be financial instability because of the California fires,” Yohe said. “I’m just saying it is a nonzero probability that we should be aware of.” 

Visiting Professor of Government David Aaron has a new podcast miniseries on the “Just Security Podcast” entitled “What Just Happened.” The show aims to explain the meaning and consequences of policy changes that may not be immediately apparent. 

Aaron also wrote a piece for Just Security on cybersecurity in the transition from Biden to Trump. After a thorough discussion of Biden’s Jan. 16 “Executive Order on Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation’s Cybersecurity,”  Aaron moves on to what cybersecurity might look like under Trump. “Even if President Trump decides to withdraw, supersede, or modify the EO,” Aaron wrote, “it provides a useful set of goals, practices, and tools that governments, businesses, and civil society should adopt in a manner appropriate to their risk profile.” 

Professor of Government and Environmental Studies Giulio Gallarotti wrote an article for The National Interest on the pressures on big business to cut carbon emissions. Throughout the piece, Gallarotti makes the argument that “efficient business is consistent with environmentalism because efficiency dictates producing the most with the least amount of energy and waste.” 

BroadwayWorld reported on the appointment of Joshua Borenstein ’97 to the Chair of Theater Management at Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama. Having graduated from Wesleyan with Honors in Classical Civilization, Borenstein is currently principal at the arts consultancy Odyssey Associates, which he founded in 2019. Borenstein will take up the post at Yale on July 1, 2025. 

Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Fellow in Applied Computational Data Analysis Sebastian Zimmeck’s Global Privacy Control—a signal that allows users to automatically opt-out of the “sale” of their personal information to websites they visit—was the subject of a FOX61 piece as a potential solution to data privacy issues. 

The Scientist centered Lauren Nichols BA’07, MA’08 in an article on data visualization. The article discusses Nichols’ finding of a professional niche in science after finishing an accelerated master’s program studying the role of evolution in invasive smartweed at Wesleyan. 

“Dance, Monkey, Dance,” an original ‘performative lecture’ by CJ Joseph ’25 appears in Hartford Courant’s round-up of Black History Month theater events. Taking place Feb. 27 and 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Patricelli ‘92 Theater, the show promises to connect “fetish-like-fear political visibility to Black female performativity in modern media.” 

Jesse Nasta, assistant professor of the practice in African American Studies, spoke to Ridgefield Press for an article on John Mills, a historian and software architect who works to unearth lesser-known Black history and help Black Americans trace their ancestry. According to Nasta, Mills’s work helps to “undo and combat and correct” inaccurate and biased myths about the history of slavery in Connecticut.