Olivia DrakeSusanne Fusso, professor of Russian, East European and Eurasian studies, delivered a paper at a symposium on "Dostoevsky beyond Dostoevsky," held at Brown University, March 15-16. Merging Darwinian theory, Romantic poetry and the complexities of human morality, the Dostoevsky symposium offered multiple perspectives on novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's work. Fusso's paper was titled "Prelude to a Collaboration: Dostoevsky's Aesthetic Polemic with Mikhail Katkov." The conference was attended by scholars from Yale, Columbia, Duke, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, St. Petersburg State University, Brandeis, University of California - San Diego, and other institutions.
Bill Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy, director of graduate studies, received a $5,000 grant from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to support observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The title of the proposal is “Planet Formation in the Circumbinary Disk of KH 15D.” Herbst and his colleagues are measuring the brightness of the T Tauri binary system KH 15D covering several important missing orbital phases around minimum light and one near maximum. Data is crucial to understanding the mechanisms behind the observed reddening in the system, which has implications for planetformation and disk evolution. Learn more about this study online here.
Clifford Chase, visiting writer in the English Department, is the author of The Tooth Fairy: Parents, Lovers and Other Wayward Deities published by Overlook Press on Feb. 6. The Tooth Fairy is a humorous memoir of a man torn between isolation and connection. Chase tells stories that have shaped his adulthood through intimate confessions, deadpan asides and observations on the fear and turmoil that defined the long decade after 9/11. He writes about his aging parents, whose disagreements sharpen as their health declines; his sexual confusion in his 20s; the joyful music of the B-52s; his beloved brother, lost tragically to AIDS;…
On March 31, students and staff gathered at the Career Center for the series finale of the hit TV show, How I Met Your Mother. The show was co-created by Carter Bays ’97 and Craig Thomas ’97 and has won several awards throughout its nine seasons. University Relations and the Wes Watches HIMYM Blog sponsored the event so the Wesleyan community could watch the final episode together. Photos of the event are below: (Photos by Ryan Heffernan '16) (more…)
James "Jim" Greenwood, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, and four colleagues have co-authored a paper titled “The Lunar Apatite Paradox,” published in the journal Science on March 20. The study casts doubt on the theory of abundant water on the moon while simultaneously boosting theories around the creation of the moon, several billion years ago.
This article has moved to: https://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2014/03/31/tenurespring20142/
On March 20, Wesleyan’s Campus Community Emergency Response Team (C-CERT) participated in a day-long training program to prepare for a public health emergency. The training, coordinated by the Connecticut Department of Health’s Division of Public Health Preparedness and Response Strategic National Stockpile Program, taught C-CERT members how to organize a Mass Dispensing Area and effectively receive, process, ship and recover stockpile medical assets. Wesleyan C-CERT members, made up of faculty and staff, joined participants from the Middletown Department of Health, Cromwell Department of Health, Middletown Emergency Management, Middletown Fire Department and Middletown Police Department. The training took place in the…
Wesleyan's spring mid-semester recess began March 7 and several students chose to stay on campus for all, or part of, the 16-day spring break. Classes will resume on March 24. (more…)
This month, the College of Film and the Moving Image (CFMI) secured a $2 million challenge grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. If Wesleyan is able to raise $4 million for the College over the next four years, the Mellon Foundation will offer an additional $2 million gift. In 2011, Wesleyan's Center for the Humanities received a similar challenge grant from the Mellon Foundation. Through support from generous donors, Wesleyan completed that match in 2013, establishing an endowment for the Center for the Humanities for the first time in its 50-year history. The CFMI is dedicated to advancing understandings of the…
Three student-led social ventures are the winners of the 2014 Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship Seed Grant Competition. Student representatives from each group will each receive $5,000 in unrestricted startup funds as well as trainings, advising, mentoring, incubator workspace, and other resources from the Patricelli Center. Recipients were selected from a strong pool of finalists who submitted written business plans and pitched to a panel of expert judges comprised of alumni, students, faculty, and staff. Applicants were assessed on their project design, leadership qualities and potential for social impact. ”We are thrilled to support the early development of these three breakthrough projects, led…
When Rebecca Coven ’13 decided to dedicate herself to the arduous task of completing a senior honors thesis, she was concerned that no one would ever read her work beyond the few professors grading it. So she was excited to have the opportunity to conduct relevant, timely research on teacher evaluations in the state of Connecticut, and share her findings at a press conference held in Hartford March 6 by the state’s largest teachers union. Together with her advisor, Assistant Professor of Sociology Daniel Long, Coven spent her senior year conducting a review of a teacher evaluation pilot program run…
In the event of a public health emergency, Wesleyan's Campus Community Emergency Response Team (C-CERT) may be deployed to help distribute medicine and medical supplies to the Wesleyan and Middletown community. On March 20, the C-CERT team, made up of Wesleyan faculty and staff, will undergo a day-long training program to prepare for such emergencies. The training, coordinated by the Connecticut Department of Health's Division of Public Health Preparedness and Response Strategic National Stockpile Program, will teach C-CERT members how to organize a Mass Dispensing Area and effectively receive, process, ship and recover stockpile medical assets. "If there's ever a…