Corrina KerrDiversity and civic engagement initiatives play a large role in President Michael S. Roth's Preliminary Reflections On Planning from September 2009. To that end, the Wesleyan community is fortunate to have Sonia Mañjon at the helm of the Diversity and Strategic Partnerships as Vice President. Mañjon looks forward to working with students and other members of Wesleyan as the university makes its mark on the 21st century. Back in the 1960s and '70s, Wesleyan earned the informal moniker “Diversity University” in reference to the Vanguard classes that attended the school and the administration's active recruitment of students of color. Since…
Patrick Dowdey, curator at the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, adjunct assistant professor of anthropology, and adjunct assistant professor of East Asian Studies, is a co-curator of Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing at the Derge Parkhang, an exhibit of original prints from Tibetan Buddhists. The exhibit will be held from Sept. 11 to Dec. 5 at The Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College in Chicago. The prints from the Derge Parkhang are still created from hand-carved woodblocks, as they have been for over 300 years. Dowdey will participate in a Nov. 21 panel discussion about the prints he helped retrieve…
Anna Shusterman, assistant professor of psychology, recently received a five-year, $716,227 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study "The role of language in children’s acquisition of number concepts." Shusterman will be evaluating 3-to-5-year-old hearing children in her Cognitive Development Laboratory at Wesleyan. She also will be studying deaf and hard-of-hearing children of the same ages who are learning English to try to determine how language delays affect children's learning of number concepts. The grant, which begins this year, comes from the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. The program is only available to non-tenured faculty. Researchers…
For the next two years, researcher Silvia Matesanz of Segovia, Spain will be collaborating with Chair and Professor of Biology Sonia Sultan in her plant evolutionary ecology lab at Wesleyan. Matesanz was awarded the prestigious Marie Curie International Post-doctoral Fellowship from the European Commission. Matesanz, Sultan and biology BA/MA student Timothy Horgan-Kobelski ’09 will be studying an introduced annual plant called Polygonum cespitosum that is becoming invasive in North America. The scientists are particularly interested in understanding the evolutionary dynamics of the plant’s spread. Sultan and her research group will provide Matesanz with evolutionary expertise, which will enhance her previous…
Before the internationally-known social network site Facebook existed, there was Social Psychology Network (SPN), founded at Wesleyan in 1996 by professor of psychology Scott Plous. Three years after launching his site, Plous received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to enhance SPN. Now NSF is providing a new $700,000 grant to help Plous transform the site into a full featured social networking service for visitors and its approximately 2,000 members across the world. The primary users of SPN are researchers, educators, students, and others interested in psychology. According to the site's usage page, more than 10,000 people from over 100…
Lori Gruen, associate professor of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, associate professor of philosophy, was recently awarded the William A. Robinson Visionary Award for 2007-2008 for her work with captive chimpanzees at Chimp Haven in Keithville, La. Gruen has donated her time and provided her expertise in ethics to the organization for the past three years. The chimpanzees that arrive at Chimp Haven have spent time as either research subjects, performers or pets. Although the chimps are primarily from laboratories, when Gruen was last there she observed a recently rescued chimp named named Henry who had been kept as…
Joss Whedon ’87, writer, director and executive producer of such popular TV shows as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Firefly,” and the new series “Dollhouse,” will give the May 30 keynote address for the seventh annual Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns. The unique seminar scheduled for May 29 through 31 will focus on “Defining American Culture: How Movies and TV Get Made.” Jeanine Basinger, the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Chair of the Film Studies Department, and curator of the Cinema Archives will be the facilitator for this seminar. Other presenters include successful Wesleyan alumni who work as film and…
Wesleyan’s Social Justice Leadership Conference (SJLC) will provide participants an opportunity to learn more about social justice and how to apply it in their lives. The free, all-day March 28 event is open to all members of the Wesleyan community and to anyone who may be interested. The SJLC, which is co-sponsored by the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) and the Office of Student Activities and Leadership Development (SALD), grew out of the previously held WSA-sponsored Social Justice Day and SALD’s WesLead emerging leaders conference events. “I think what we saw was that both events could be more successful if they were…
Three Wesleyan alumni took trophies at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament hosted by New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz in February. A total of 684 competitors from all over the world vied for victory in several categories. Along with the Wesleyan award-winners, three additional alums participated in the tournament. Brian Cimmet '95 placed first in Division E, and 278th overall. Brian is also half of a team writing the blog Brian and Ryan do Crosswords. Brian also participated in a panel on blogging crosswords. Jesse Lansner '96 placed second in the Rookies category (first time competitors), 90th overall, 4th in…
Thirty years ago, the United States opened its first embassy in the People’s Republic of China as our nation began reestablishing its relations with the country. Vera Schwarcz, professor of history and East Asian studies and director of the Freeman Center, remembers the events well. After all, she was part of them. Schwarcz, an expert on Chinese culture, politics and literature, was one of only seven official exchange scholars invited to visit China in February 1979 when the embassy opened. Her recollections of this time, and her subsequent 30 years of experiences studying in and about China, served as the…
Wesleyan has become the latest institution to join iTunes U, a component of Apple’s iTunes Store that provides free educational audio and video content from the world’s foremost higher education institutions, museums and public media organizations. Wesleyan joins more than 160 higher education institutions who have met Apple’s strict quality control requirements and have been allowed to post educational content on Apple's iTunes U site. The initiative was the result of a joint effort between University Communications and the New Media Lab. The departments worked within the guidelines provided by Apple to create a web-based presence that showcases unique workshops,…
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recently recognized Wesleyan for its continued involvement in community outreach by selecting the university as a recipient of a 2008 Community Engagement Classification. The university was among 119 institutions (and among two in Connecticut) that received this classification for 2008. The foundation initiated the community engagement classification in 2006. Visit this page for more information and a list of the selected institutions. "The significance of Wesleyan receiving the Carnegie Foundation Community Engagement Classification is major in light of this historic moment we experienced this week in our country," said Sonia BasSheva Mañjon,…