Cynthia Rockwell

Connecticut Public Radio tapped Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, ’09, chair emeritus of the Wesleyan Board of Trustees, for his recollections of a historic flight he had taken back in 2007 with noted physicist Stephen Hawking, who died March 14 at the age of 76. The flight had been sponsored by Zero Gravity Corporation and provided, for those on board, eight zero-G opportunities—or "eight brief windows of weightlessness," as WNPR correspondent Patrick Skahill described them in his story, “Remembering The Flight Where Stephen Hawking Went Weightless.” Boger had written in detail about the experience of this zero-G flight with Hawking in "Weightless But Weighty" in Wesleyan magazine, 2007…

In an audience question-and-answer period, featured in the video below by Jon Hendel, Hilary Jacobs Hendel explained the usefulness of core emotions—including anger—and offered suggestions for nonthreatening ways that a reader could begin to talk about emotions with family and friends:

A game show where three contestants compete for the grand prize—immediate citizenship to the U.S.A.—and the audience decides who wins. That’s the premise of American Dreams, the newest work by actor/playwright Leila Buck ’99, which just completed its world premiere at Cleveland Public Theatre on March 3rd. In this participatory theater piece, each night the contestants—a Mexican-American medic and Dreamer, a Pakistani cartoonist, and a Palestinian chef—compete in five rounds: How America Works (a buzzer-style quiz with questions from the U.S. citizenship test); America’s Favorites (audience volunteers help contestants answer questions from national surveys about Americans’ “favorite things”); Aliens with…

Hilary Jacobs Hendel ’85, P’18, a licensed psychoanalyst and certified Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) therapist and supervisor, is the author of It's Not Always Depression (Random House and Penguin UK, 2018). She'll be speaking at Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore, at 7 p.m. on March 1, about a psychotherapeutic tool she calls the Change Triangle, a guide to carry people from a place of disconnection back to their true self. It's a step-by-step process to work with emotions to minimize stress and move toward authentic living. Through moving, persuasive stories of working the Change Triangle with her own patients, Hendel teaches us…

Professor of Psychology Emeritus Karl Scheibe recently published two new books, The Storied Nature of Human Life: The Life and Works of Theodore R. Sarbin (co-written with Frank J. Barret), which, he says, “sets the tone” for the second, Deep Drama: Exploring Life as Theater, a collection of recent essays. The latter book's final piece, “The Wisdom of Hamilton,” recalls Scheibe’s first meeting with Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, his advisee in the autumn of 1998, and then explores the psychological depth and truth within Miranda’s award-winning Broadway musical. Miranda had been a member of Scheibe’s course, A Dramaturgical Approach to Psychology, in the…

Lyricist for the Grateful Dead and cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation John Perry Barlow ’69 died Feb. 7, 2018. He was 70. A College of Letters major as an undergraduate, he collaborated with his friend from high school, Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, on lyrics for songs that included "Cassidy," "Mexicali Blues" and "Black-Throated Wind." In the 1980s Barlow was active in an early online community. Then in 1990, with John Gilmore and Mitch Kapor, founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In the summer 1994 issue of Wesleyan, an article, "Cognitive Dissident," written by Lisa Greim ’81, profiled his journey. "To…

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Recent Wesleyan News 1. Science Magazine: “India Plans Tricky and Unprecedented Landing Near Moon’s South Pole” James Greenwood, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, comments on India’s plans to unleash a rover into previously unexplored territory near the moon’s south pole. 2. Newsweek: “Putin Keeps His Foot Firmly Pressed on Europe’s Windpipe” Matthew Finkel ’18 writes that Moscow will likely be able to leverage its enormous energy exports to project soft power in Eastern Europe for years to…

Sustainability Across the Curriculum, a Jan. 23 workshop organized by Wesleyan's Sustainability Office and the Center for Pedagogical Innovation, provided faculty and instructors with the opportunity to discover ways to integrate sustainability into a variety of courses across academic disciplines. The workshop featured a panel highlighting work by faculty who participated in the first year of Sustainability Across the Curriculum and had integrated sustainability into their own courses, followed by small-group sessions offering brainstorming opportunities. The focus of the SATC program is to amend an existing course to include sustainability, explained Jennifer Kleindienst, Wesleyan's sustainability director, "The groups were divided into individuals…

Kyla Donnelly Pearce ’08, a government major at Wesleyan with a certificate in international relations, is now senior director of the LoveYourBrain yoga program, an outgrowth of the work her husband and the Pearce family are doing for those who suffer from traumatic brain injury. Their journey began after snowboarder Kevin Pearce, Kyla's brother-in-law, was injured in a training accident in Utah on Dec. 31, 2009, as he prepared for the Olympic trials. The previous year he had won three medals at the 2008 Winter X Games XII in Aspen, Colo. He spent the first six months of 2010 in rehabilitation hospitals…

For two hours every Saturday—and any early morning or late night shift available—Middletown resident Franco Liseo fills the airwaves of WESU 88.1 FM, with Italian music. His specialty is the sounds from the ’60s and ’70s; "Love songs," he says. "When I left Italy, I left with the music”—and he's been doing this for 30 years. The Saturday show is special; he broadcasts with a co-host, Lucilla Caminito, the daughter of a childhood friend, who Skypes in from Melilli. These shows feature contemporary music that Caminito chooses and sends to Liseo (whose DJ name is "Francaccio") via the internet, YouTube,…

"Pattern recognition was a constant in my explorations at Wesleyan—and what I focused on afterwards," says Benjamin Fels ’06, explaining the unity behind a seeming diversity of interests. The Bill and Melinda Gates Organization is interested, also, in what Fels finds intriguing. The company Fels co-founded, macro-eyes, is one of 20 that the foundation selected to be a Grand Challenges Explorations winner. The project that macro-eyes proposed seeks to use their own breed of statistical machine learning, trained on supply chain and immunization data at health facilities in Tanzania. The goal is to maximize the number of children who get vaccinated and minimize vaccine…

Boger ’73 Recalls “Weightless Flight” With Hawking for WNPR

Hendel ’85, It’s Not Always Depression at Wesleyan RJ Julia Author Event

Playwright Buck ’99: Quest for Citizenship as Game Show in American Dreams

A Black Phoenix Rising Art Experience Premiered at Zilkha

Hendel ’85: It’s Not Always Depression Offers Guidance on Emotional Health

Scheibe Explores “Wisdom of Hamilton,” Psychological Depth, in Talk, New Books

Grateful Dead Lyricist, Internet Rights Advocate John Perry Barlow ’69 Dies

Wesleyan in the News

Sustainability Workshop Sparks Discussions, New Ideas

Pearce ’08 Directs LoveYourBrain Yoga for Patients with Traumatic Brain Injuries

Liseo, Hardigg ’90 Share WESU Connection Spanning 3 Decades

Fels ’06 Wins Gates Grand Challenges Explorations with macro-eyes Health Care Initiative