Olivia DrakeA service in tribute to Stanley Lebergott, the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, Emeritus, who passed away on July 24, will be held at 11 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 18. The service will be in the Daniel Family Commons in the Usdan University Center and will be followed by a reception. The Lebergott family invites friends and colleagues who may have photographs or remembrances of Stan to bring them to the service. Lebergott began his career as a public servant, working for 20 years in the U.S. Department of Labor, the International Labor Office, and the U.S.…
Every October, Wesleyan's Jewish community dwells in a temporary structure built for the festival of Sukkot. For eight days, students study, socialize, mediate, eat, host events and occasionally sleep in the religious building. This holiday, the Jewish students will celebrate the Israelites 40-year journey to the Holy Land inside an airy, five-mound curving structure of carbon-steel clad in bamboo. Designed by 15 students enrolled in Architecture II, a research-design-build studio, the "WesSukkah" provides a sacred space that adheres to a complex, medieval Rabbinic building code. "The students have crafted something which is both compelling and meaningful for Wesleyan's campus," explains…
Wesleyan welcomes 19 newly-hired tenured faculty, tenure-track faculty and adjunct faculty for the 2009-10 academic year. Robyn Autry joined the Sociology Department as assistant professor. She studies the sociology of race and ethnicity, political sociology, comparative historical sociology, institutions, sociology of science and technology and cultural sociology. Autry has a Ph.D. and Master of Arts from the University of Wisconsin, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Javier Castro-Ibaseta joins the History Department and the College of Letters as assistant professor. Castro-Ibaseta studies early modern Spanish history, early modern political culture and cultural/poetic analysis of political…
Marwa Aly, Muslim Chaplin, spoke to Islam Online Radio about her role as a Muslim chaplain for a Sept. 16 story. She discussed her role integrating religious leadership into the campus community.
The Center for the Arts sponsored the 2009 Feet to the Fire Common Moment Sept. 4 on Andrus Field. The Class of 2013 showcased drumming and dance movements from six different cultures—Korean, Cuban, West African, Japanese, Irish and South Indian—where water is an important component of their cultural traditions. The event included drumming, rhythmic movement and fire spinners. The evening culminated with the Class of 2013 forming a human histogram about its own water footprint. (Photos by Nick Lacy)
Berel Lang, visiting professor of letters, visiting professor of philosophy, is the author of the book Philosophical Witnessing: The Holocaust as Presence published by the University Press of New England, the fifth in a series of books by him on the Holocaust. The 260-paged book brings the perspective of philosophical analysis to bear on issues related to the Holocaust. Setting out from a conception of philosophical “witnessing” that expands and illuminates the standard view of the witness, he confronts the question of what philosophy can add to the views of the Holocaust provided in other disciplines. Drawing on the philosophical…
Nadja Aksamija, assistant professor of art history, received a grant for $13,500 from the Kress Foundation for her research on "Sala Bologna at the Vatican." Her grant, which was awarded May 1, spans for one and a half years.
Wesleyan welcomes 14 new visiting faculty members and fellows to campus for the 2009-10 academic year. They include: Neil Canady joins the Economics Department as visiting assistant professor. His areas of interest include economic history, labor and public finance. Much of his research has examined discrimination in tax assessment policy and school resources during segregation, as well as black-white differences in property accumulation. He received a Bachelor of Science and Ph.D in economics from Clemson University. Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities. Chambers-Letson joins the Center’s yearlong study of “War,” arriving from…
Philip Bolton, professor of chemistry, received a grant for $331,800 from the National Institute of Health on Drug Abuse for his research on "Finding Small Molecules that Modulate Gene Expression." The grant, awarded on Sept. 1, spans for two years.
Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, received a grant for $20,000 from NASA for his research on "Development and Flight Testing of High Efficiency Echelles & Detectors for the Future of Ultraviolet Astronomy." Redfield is collaborating with the project's lead institution, the University of Colorado. NASA awarded $2.1M for the entire project.