Olivia DrakeSeveral Wesleyan staff and students participated in United Way's Day of Caring on Oct. 3. Projects included storytelling and reading with children at Farm Hill School, leading arts and crafts projects, painting a mural and planting gardens. The event was hosted by the Center for Community Partnerships. Read more about the Day of Caring in this Oct. 23 Hartford Courant article. Contributed photos of the day are below:
View more photos of students (and a Wes Squirrel) in the snow in this Wesleyan University Facebook gallery.
Five Wesleyan employees received a Cardinal Achievement Award in November. They are: Gayle Gibbons, administrative assistant in University Relations; Gladys Fountain and Evelyn Harris, payroll coordinators for Human Resources; Denise Skura, payroll and human resources assistant for the Human Resources; and Lisa LaPlant, assistant to the president. The staff members were honored for demonstrating extraordinary initiative or providing outstanding service with regard to specific tasks in their department. This special honor comes with a $150 award and reflects the university’s gratitude for those extra efforts. The award recipients are nominated by department chairs and supervisors. Nominations can be made anytime throughout the year. For…
Wesleyan welcomed several new employees in October and November. In October: Kevin Kane joined Information Technology Services as an applications programmer. Robert Borman joined Physical Plant-Facilities as an athletic facility maintenance person. Michael Anderson joined Public Safety as a patrol person. Logan Ludwig joined the Film Studies Department as an administrative assistant. In November: Honor Keeler joined the Office of Diversity and Institutional Partnerships as a repatriation coordinator and visiting assistant professor of anthropology. Bill Fisher joined the Office of University Communications on Nov. 12 as a manager of online and video communications.
Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock, assistant professor of history, assistant professor of Russian and Eastern European studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies, delivered the Sherman Emerging Scholar Lecture titled "A Sacred Space: The Spiritual Life of Soviet Atheism" Oct. 18 at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Paul Townsend, chairman of the History Department at N.C. Wilmington, said Smolkin-Rothrock was chosen because her work "explored the connections between art, culture and history." A native of Ukraine, Smolkin-Rothrock studied at Sarah Lawrence College and received her master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. She has published articles on “scientific atheism” and…
Khachig Tölölyan, professor of letters, professor of English, was appointed by the Social Science Research Council of the U.S. to teach a special seminar jointly with a French professor appointed by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. They taught the topics of "Transnationalism" and "circulation migratoire" to 12 Ph.D candidates--six French and six American--first at the Université de Poitiers, France, from June 11-15, 2012, then in Philadelphia, from Sept. 12-16, 2012. Tölölyan also was the keynote speaker and gave a lecture titled “Claiming diasporas, reclaiming diaspora studies,” at the conference on “Transnationalism and Diaspora,” Centre for Research in International Migration…
John Finn, professor of government, recently finished recording a 12 lecture audio series on the First Amendment for “The Great Courses,” which offers college courses by engaging professors. Finn’s course on “The First Amendment and You: What Everyone Should Know,” is a practical guide to understanding the protections and limitations implied by this fundamental constitutional provision. Finn, an internationally-recognized expert on constitutional law and theory, helps listeners grasp why we have a First Amendment, what and whom it protects, and why it matters. Finn is also an internationally-recognized expert on constitutional law and political violence. His public lectures include testimony…
Eric Graf, visiting assistant professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, speaks about the monetary policy and the economy on Coy Barefoot. Graf connects the dots between the fall of the Spanish Empire and the House of Hapsburg with the fiscal challenges now facing the United States, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke and the very real threat of inflation in the 21st century. "We've been here before. There are lessons to be taught in history. What has happened will happen again. What America is experiencing now is similar to 16th century Spain," he says…
Scott Holmes, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a grant worth $374,150 from the National Institutes of Health. The grant will support a study on "Functional interaction of histone H1 with the core nucleosome" until 2015. Several Wesleyan undergraduates conducted experiments crucial for developing this grant proposal, including Samantha Schilit '10, MA '11, who is currently in her first year as a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard School of Medicine. Histone proteins organize DNA into its basic organizational unit, the chromosome, and have a fundamental influence on the function of DNA. The four core histones assemble into the…
Glenn Stowell '13, an economics major, is the editor and translator of, and an author of, two poetry books published in 2012. Stowell recently edited, translated and wrote the introduction to Yan Jun's You Jump to Another Dream, published by Vagabond Press. Last spring, Stowell worked with Ao Wang, assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures, assistant professor of East Asian studies, on an independent study on translation of contemporary Chinese poetry. You Jump to Another Dream was the result of the independent study. Additionally, the Olin Fellowship provided Stowell with funds needed to travel to China this summer and to work…