Olivia DrakeThe Office of Human Resources reported the following new hires and departures for December 2015: Newly hired Colin Desjardins was hires as HVAC/utility mechanic in Physical Plant on Dec. 7. Janet Desmarais was hired as administrative assistant in the Physics Department on Dec. 10. Transitions Chris Wojick was hired as data analyst in the Office of University Relations on Dec. 1. Departures Gail Binezewski, custodian in Physical Plant. Randolph Alan Bougor, carpentry shop foreperson in Physical Plant. Ralph Connolly, plumber in Physical Plant. Peter Filanda, a/c refrigeration journeyman in Physical Plant. Camille Martin, administrative assistant in Mellon Mays/AFAM. David Pompei, Central Power…
A dusting of snow fell overnight on Jan. 12-13. (more…)
Recognize the Wesleyan faculty who had an enduring impact on your academic and personal development by nominating them for the 2016 Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Nominations are now open! The Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching was inaugurated in 1993 as an institutional recognition of outstanding faculty members. One to three Binswanger Prizes are presented each year and are made possible by the generosity of the family of Frank G. Binswanger Sr., Hon. ’85. Recent alumni up to 10 years out, seniors, juniors, and graduate students (including Graduate Liberal Studies) can nominate up to three professors for the award. Current faculty…
What started out as a class assignment has evolved into a public website. During the fall semester, students enrolled in the Philosophy 268 course, The Ethics of Captivity, explored the various forms and conditions of captivity, including prisons, zoos, laboratories and sanctuaries. As one of the class assignments, Lori Gruen, the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy and chair of the Philosophy Department, asked her students to work in small groups on a blog post, highlighting a variety of ethical and political issues that captivity raises for humans and other animals. (more…)
Wesleyan’s Winter Session, held Jan. 6-19, provides students with an opportunity to take a full-semester course in only two weeks. Students completed reading and writing assignments before classes started. Classes meet five hours per day. Indira Karamcheti, associate professor of American studies, is teaching ENGL246: Personalizing History. Students participate in daily memoir reading and writing, and question how they are shaped by their historical times and places. Students construct narratives about our times and selves in a series of writing workshops. They discuss memory itself, childhood, place and displacement, language, loss/trauma/melancholia/nostalgia, self-invention or transformation, family and generational differences. The class engages with…
A group of Wesleyan staff members is forming a "close-knit" community over crocheting and crafts. Dubbed the Wesleyan Society for the Preservation of Domestic Technology, the group held its first meeting Jan. 6 in Usdan University Center. Participants gathered for one hour for crafting and camaraderie. “You provide your own lunch and supplies, and we provide an environment fostering whimsy, creativity and technical facility in the traditional craft arts,” said group creator Nate Lerner, director of university events and scheduling. “All campus crafters are welcome!” Lerner brought a cross-stitch project to the gathering. "This is a scene from the Miyazaki film…
On Jan. 6, Wesleyan's Campus Community Emergency Response Team (C-CERT) trainees participated in a team-building exercise.
While working in groups of three and four, the teams each had five minutes to plan how they’d construct a 5-foot-tall, free standing tower using only paper, two sheets of cardboard, tape and scissors.
After developing a plan, the groups had five minutes to build their structure.
Jon Barlow, professor of music, emeritus, died Dec. 15 at the age of 73. Barlow arrived at Wesleyan in 1966 after receiving his BA and MA from Cornell University. He arrived as the Music Department began its visionary phase and taught in the department for 34 years. Grounded in “Western” music history, Barlow expanded his horizons geographically and conceptually, constantly creating innovative courses, which attracted serious students. Many of his students went on to become established composers, performers, musicologists and ethnomusicologists. (more…)
Students enrolled in Sculpture I and Studies in Computer-Based Modeling and Digital Fabrication displayed their art around the Center for the Art's public spaces Dec. 12-16. Sculpture I, taught by Professor of Art Jeffrey Schiff, is an introduction to seeing, thinking and working in three dimensions. Throughout the semester, the class examined three-dimensional space, form, materials and the associations they elicit. Through the sculptural processes of casting, carving and construction in a variety of media, students developed and communicated a personal vision in response to class assignments. Projects included janitorial supplies hanging in suspension, plastic color shapes making a stain-glass window, electronic components…
Alcohol use, traffic fines and race, and the impact of caffeine on sleep were among the topics presented at a poster session in which students enrolled in a project-based course at the Quantitative Analysis Center demonstrated the power of statistical analysis to illuminate social problems. The QAC Student Research Poster Session, held Dec. 11 in Beckham Hall, served as a final exam for students taking QAC 201: Applied Data Analysis. Several Wesleyan faculty and alumni evaluated the students’ poster presentations. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the QAC 201 class allows students to spend a semester studying a topic they are passionate about. They learn to generate hypotheses…
On Dec. 5, Wesleyan students, faculty and the local community gathered for a two-hour discussion on "Indigenous Middletown: Settler Colonial and Wangunk Tribal History." The event was sponsored by the American Studies Department, the Center for the Americas, and the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of American studies, coordinated the event, which stemmed from her Service Learning course, Decolonizing Indigenous Middletown: Native Histories of the Wangunk Indian People. The class is in partnership with the Middlesex County Historical Society. (more…)
William "Bill" Firshein, the Daniel Ayres Professor of Biology, emeritus, died Dec. 7 at the age of 85. Firshein arrived at Wesleyan in 1958 after receiving his BS from Brooklyn College and his MS and PhD from Rutgers University. He taught at Wesleyan for 47 years before retiring in 2005. Firshein was an active scholar who was awarded research grants totaling more than $2 million over his career. He investigated the molecular biology of DNA replication cell division in Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli and their plasmids. In his most recent book, The Infectious Microbe, published by Oxford University Press…