Olivia Drake – Page 111

For the third year in a row, Wesleyan will welcome members of the community and Wesleyan faculty, staff, students, alumni and families to Middletown Day—a day of family fun and athletic events on campus. The theme of this year’s event, taking place Sept. 26, is “Salute to Service, Honoring Our Veterans.” “We are excited to once again welcome Middletown families to campus, and honored to partner in saluting veterans from campus and the community,” said Cathy Lechowicz, director of the Center for Community Partnerships. “It will be a celebratory day that highlights the assets of our campus and the community.”…

In July, the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education (CPE) was awarded a grant from The Tow Foundation of $100,000 over two years in unrestricted funding for general operating expenses. Funds will be used for academic programming, instructional materials and administrative costs of the program. Now in its sixth year, CPE provides accredited Wesleyan courses to incarcerated students at Cheshire Correctional Institute, a men’s maximum security prison, and York Correctional Institution, Connecticut’s only women’s facility. Prisoners at MacDougall-Walker CI are also able to apply to the Center, and are transferred to Cheshire CI if admitted. The Center currently serves 40 students, and will…

This fall, Wesleyan’s Campus Community Emergency Response Team (C-CERT) is offering a free training course to any Wesleyan faculty, staff or student interested in helping the campus community. Formed in September 2009, Wesleyan’s C-CERT members are trained to assist first responders, provide immediate assistance to victims, and organize volunteers at a disaster site. The 20-hour program, which is supported by a grant from the Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, includes sessions such as Disaster Preparedness, Fire Safety and Utility Controls, Disaster Medical Operations, Light Search and Rescue Operations, CERT Organization, Disaster Psychology, Terrorism and Disaster Simulation. All participants receive their…

Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento, associate professor of theater, is the guest co-editor of Theater, Volume 45, Number 2, published in 2015. The topic is Brazilian contemporary dramaturgy. The volume contains four Brazilian contemporary plays, translated by Elizabeth Jackson, visiting assistant professor of Portuguese at Wesleyan, accompanied by four introductory essays. The volume, edited by Yale University and published by Duke University Press, is the first collection of Brazilian plays published in the United States since 1988. In addition, Tatinge Nascimento is the author of an essay titled "Subversive Cannibals: Notes on Contemporary Theater in Brazil, the Other Latin America" published in the same Theater edition, pages 5-21. In this…

A new Academy for Project-Based Teaching and Learning will encourage students and faculty to build knowledge and skills by investigating and responding to complex questions, problems and challenges within and across disciplines. Hosted by Wesleyan's Center for Pedagogical Innovation, the Academy's project-based approach includes teaching significant content at the heart of each academic discipline, and cutting edge competencies in problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity/innovation. “The Academy will help us build capacity to increase the number of courses in the undergraduate curriculum that incorporate project-based teaching and learning methods,” said Lisa Dierker, professor of psychology and director of…

The Wesleyan Student Assembly hosted the 24th Annual Student Groups Fair Sept. 18 on Andrus Field. The event provided students with an opportunity to meet with both new and established groups. The annual fair also offered students a chance to network with multiple school departments who provide a variety of programs every year.

As the Syrian war draws on and the ranks of displaced people grows ever larger, Europe arguably faces its largest refugee crisis since World War II. The movement of people across the Mediterranean and the Balkans has alternately revealed official incapacity, reactionary violence, and outpourings of voluntarism and support. In recent weeks, some commentators have objected to the characterization of those in flight as migrants, insisting that the term misrepresents their movement as voluntary as a way of denying them basic human rights. On Sept. 17, four faculty panelists discussed “Refugee or Migrant? The European Crisis in Historical Perspective,” as…

On Sept. 25-28, Wesleyan will welcome Iraq War Veteran Drew Cameron to campus to share the story of Combat Paper, the practice of hand papermaking, and how this collaborative project has become an integral part of the emerging veteran artist movement. Cameron is the co-founder of Combat Paper, a project in which veterans and the non-veteran community use traditional hand papermaking techniques to transform military uniforms into paper, prints, books, and art. “All of our experiences are encoded within the material items we carry about. With clothing, and military uniforms, our personal geographies, memories, and accomplishments are carried in the…

Three experts and a Wesleyan student led a panel discussion on “After Charleston: Next Steps for the Movement for Social Justice” Sept. 17 in Memorial Chapel. The event was sponsored by the Allbritton Center for Public Life's Right Now! series. The talk featured Clemmie Harris, visiting assistant professor of African American studies; Tedra James ’18; activist and filmmaker Bree Newsome and Connecticut Bishop John Selders. (more…)

Francis Starr, director of the College of Integrative Sciences, professor of physics, received a $282,000 grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in September. The grant will support “Heterogeneous Dynamics and Assembly Processes in Soft and Biological Materials," a collaborative research project between Wesleyan and NIST. NIST is expected to fund the project through 2018 with a total amount of $1.66M. Soft and biological materials are commonly composed of synthetic or biopolymers, or are formed as a result of the supramolecular assembly of small molecule, nanoparticle, or protein molecules into dynamic organized structures. These materials are central to developing…

For her outstanding contributions to Milky Way research by observational methods, Meredith Hughes, assistant professor of astronomy, received the 2015 Bok Prize in Astronomy from Harvard University. The prize, named in honor of Astronomer Bart Bok (1906–1983), is awarded to a recent holder of a PhD degree in the physical sciences from Harvard or Radcliffe who is under 35 years of age. Hughes received her PhD from Harvard in 2010, and a MA in astronomy from Harvard in 2007. Hughes is an expert on planet formation, circumstellar disk structure and dynamics, gas and dust disk evolution and radio astronomy. She studies planet formation by observing…

Lisa Dierker, professor of psychology and director of pilot programs for the Center for Pedagogical Innovation, received a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation in July. The three-year grant worth $300,000 will support the new Academy for Project-Based Teaching and Learning. The Academy for Project-Based Teaching and Learning, which is under development, will encourage students and faculty to build knowledge and skills by investigating and responding to complex questions, problems, and challenges within and across disciplines. The cornerstones of the project-based approach include significant content at the heart of each academic discipline, and cutting edge competencies in problem solving, critical…

Family Fun at Middletown Day Sept. 26

Center for Prison Education Awarded 2-Year Grant from The Tow Foundation

Help Wesleyan Community, Build Camaraderie as C-CERT Member

Tatinge Nascimento Co-Edits Theater Volume on Brazilian Dramaturgy

Center for Pedagogical Innovation Creates Academy for Project-Based Teaching and Learning

WSA Hosts Student Groups Fair

4 Faculty Panelists Discuss European Crisis in Historical Perspective

Wesleyan Hosts “Combat Paper” Exhibit, Workshop with Iraq War Veteran

Student, Experts Speak on the Social Justice Movement

NIST Grant Supports Research on Biological Materials, Assembly Processes

Hughes Recipient of 2015 Bok Prize for Astronomy

Davis Foundation Supports Academy for Project-Based Learning