Olivia DrakeSpecial Collections & Archives hosted "A Reading of Documentary Nonfiction and Poetry" on May 13. Each student in the "Creative Criticism and Inquiry: Writing Documentary Nonfiction and Poetry" course chose an archival collection from the holdings of Special Collections & Archives and wrote a creative piece inspired by the collection. The class was taught by Teagle Fellow Kate Thorpe. "The results are wonderful examples of thinking outside the box of traditional archival research," said Suzy Taraba, director of Special Collections & Archives. "The collections chosen range from Civil War letters to the Hewlett Diversity Archive." A selection of the archival…
Oladoyin Oladapo ’14 received a $500 Enrichment Grant in 2013 from the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship. This funding allowed her to get private training in HTML and JavaScript, which she will use in her entrepreneurial endeavors. During spring break, she spent time learning programming languages with Brian Macharia ‘14, a computer science major who has professionally developed websites for companies and students internationally since he was 14. "Learning to code in this short time was rigorous and challenging. I worked from 9 to 5 learning code. I worked on HTML for the first three days. This language was relatively…
The Office of Academic Affairs and Office of Student Affairs hosted a reception honoring students who have been awarded academic prizes, fellowships and scholarships on May 8 in Daniel Family Commons. The awards and award recipients are: GEORGE H. ACHESON AND GRASS FOUNDATION PRIZE IN NEUROSCIENCE Established in 1992 by a gift from the Grass Foundation, this prize is awarded to an outstanding undergraduate in the Neuroscience and Behavior Program who demonstrates excellence in the program and who also shows promise for future contributions in the field of neuroscience. Nicholas Woods '13 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY ANALYTICAL AWARD Awarded for excellence…
Jan Naegele, professor of biology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, made two presentations in 2013. On March 12, she spoke on "Promises and Pitfalls of Stem Cell Therapy for Brain Disorders" at the 17th Annual Meeting for the Israeli Society for Biological Psychiatry in Kibbutz Hagoshrim, Israel. On March 26, she spoke to the Middlesex Elderly Service Providers on "Stem Cell Therapy for Brain Disorders" in Middletown. On June 11, Naegele will speak on "GABAergic interneuron replacement for temporal lobe epilepsy" at the University of California-Irvine.
Lois Brown, the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor of African American Studies and English, will be the featured speaker at the annual “Giving Voice” program to benefit the Royall House and Slave Quarters from 3 to 5 p.m. June 8 on the museum grounds at 15 George St. in Medford, Mass. The title of Brown’s talk — “Marked with the furrows of time: Belinda, the Royalls and Accounts of Freedom” — refers to the 18th century petition of Belinda, a woman enslaved for more than 50 years by the Royall family, for financial support in post-Revolutionary Massachusetts. “As her commentary in…
On April 24 at the New Haven Lawn Club, the Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Science (PIMMS) at Wesleyan was recognized for its successful, effective, and influential program in professional development for mathematics and science teachers in Connecticut. PIMMS received the Dr. Sigmund Abeles Science Advocate Award at the annual awards banquet of the Connecticut Science Teachers and Connecticut Science Supervisors Associations for Excellence in Science Education and Supervision. The award is designed to recognize individuals or organizations that have demonstrated staunch advocacy for science education in Connecticut as evidenced by their substantial and sustained support and contributions. The award…
The Rockfall Foundation awarded the Middletown Food Project at Long Lane Farm a $1,000 grant on May 14.
Colin Campbell, who served as president of Wesleyan University from 1970-1988 and received Wesleyan honorary degrees in 1971 and 1989, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters at the College of William & Mary's Commencement on May 12. Campbell, who served on the William & Mary Board of Visitors from 2008-12, has been the president and chief executive officer of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation since April 2000. He was elected a member of the foundation’s Board of Trustees in 1989 and served as its chairman from 1998 to February 2008. Campbell previously served as the president of the Rockefeller Brothers…
Mike Whalen, director of athletics and chair of the Physical Education Department, head coach of football, received a grant worth $40,200 to support an ethnic minority and women's internship. The award was granted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and will support the internship through May 2015. NCAA Division III strives to be a dynamic and engaging group of colleges, universities and conferences of varying sizes and missions, committed to an environment that encourages and supports diversity and inclusion, values fairness and equity, and places the highest priority on the overall educational experience of the student-athlete in the conduct of…
Barry Chernoff and Dana Royer are the co-authors of "Diversity in neotropical wet forests during the Cenozoic linked more to atmospheric CO2 than temperature," published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, in 2013. Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of the journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology. Chernoff is the director of the College of the Environment, the Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies, professor of biology, professor of earth…
Fred Cohan, chair and professor of biology, professor of environmental studies, is the co-author of "Species," published in the Encyclopedia of Genetics, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2013; "Accuracy and efficiency of algorithms for demarcating bacterial ecotypes from DNA sequence data," published in BMC Genomics, 2013; and "Speedy speciation in a bacterial microcosm: New species can arise as frequently as adaptations within a species," published in the ISME Journal's Advance Online Publication, 2013.
The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) National Dance Project presented Wesleyan's Center for the Arts with a $4,500 grant on May 7. The grant will support a presentation and bharata natyam dance by Sannidhi Aparna Ramaswamy during the 2013 Navaratri Festival. Lead funding for this project comes from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.