Cathy Crimmins-Lechowicz, director of Community Service and Volunteerism, stands outside a Northern Middlesex Habitat for Humanity house, where she places volunteer workers.   Posted 03/31/05 Q: The Office of Community Service and Volunteerism (OCS) fosters community building within Wesleyan and with the communities of Middletown and Middlesex County. How are some ways the department goes about this? A: We, meaning my colleagues and I here at the Center for Community Partnerships, meet with community organizations and students regularly to hear about the needs, interests and possible connections that we can facilitate. We support current programs and encourage students and community…

  Henry Goldschmidt, assistant professor of religion and society, joined the Religion Department in 2004.   Posted 03/31/05 Henry Goldschmidt joined the faculty in the Religion Department as an assistant professor of religion and society. Goldschmidt completed his undergraduate work at Wesleyan in 1991, and earned his Ph.D at the University of California Santa Cruz in 2000. His dissertation, which he is currently revising for publication, focuses on Jewish identities and Black-Jewish differences in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, a neighborhood known for its history of conflict between Lubavitch Hasidic Jews and their predominantly Afro-Caribbean neighbors. The manuscript is titled “Race,…

  Yonatan Malin, assistant professor of music, came to Wesleyan in in August 2004. He learned to play piano as an undergraduate.   Posted 03/31/05 Yonatan Malin joined the faculty in the Music Department as an assistant professor in August 2004. Malin instructs classes on music theory and analysis and the history of western music, including the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods. Prior to coming to Wesleyan, Malin taught music at the University of Colorado. He completed his undergraduate work at Harvard University and earned his Ph.D. is from the University of Chicago. His dissertation is on "Metric Dissonance and…

Katy Wichlac, CPP, is Wesleyan's payroll manager and works in Financial Services.   Posted 03/15/05 Q: I’ve heard of a CPA but not a CPP. What does that stand for? A: A Certified Payroll Professional. Q: Are you a math person? What skills do you need to work in payroll and what is your educational background? A:  I graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, Connecticut.  I have a bachelor of arts degree in American Studies and British History from Cardinal Cushing College in Brookline, Massachusetts I am currently taking classes through the Graduate Liberal Studies Program here at Wesleyan.…

Allynn Wilkinson, digitization specialist, works on scanning and piecing together a map of Middletown inside the Information Technology Services digitization lab.   Posted 03/15/05 Allynn Wilkinson is leading Wesleyan into a digital world. As Wesleyan’s digitization specialist, Wilkinson support curricular instruction by converting and creating multimedia instructional materials. And campus wide, technology seems to be contagious. “We give faculty members what they need, and that gets other people interested in these types of services,” she says. “It’s just amazing what we can do nowadays with technology.” Wilkinson works in her own digitization lab at Information Technology Services. There, she uses…

  Public Safety Senior Officer William Heckstall has worked for Wesleyan more than 20 years.   Posted 03/15/05 In his distinctive black, gray and red uniform, a shimmering silver badge and a belt equipped with a jingling set of keys and nightstick, Public Safety Senior Officer William Heckstall appears daunting from afar. But once eye-contact is made with this 6-foot-3, broad-shouldered officer, his sweet, signature smile overwhelms his face. “I like to greet everyone with a friendly smile, and let them know I’m a nice guy and can be trusted,” officer “Hex” says, modeling his beaming grin. For 23 years,…

  Biology visiting assistant professor Stanley Lin researches ways to prevent brain cell death in stroke patients.   Posted 03/15/05 Q: Professor Lin, you’re among only a handful of scientists, nationwide, studying excitotoxic cell death. Please explain your research, and what this means for stroke victims. A: After a stroke, millions of brain cells can get over excited and the cells can die. This cell death is an ongoing process. This condition can be prevented if the neurological signaling pathways that that cause cell death are inhibited. If we use proteins that block excitotoxic pathways, we could prevent post-stroke death.…

  Lingzhen Wang, assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures stands outside Fisk Hall, where she teaches a class on 20th century Chinese literature and film.   Posted 03/15/05 Lingzhen Wang joined the Asian Languages and Literatures Department as an assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures in January 2005. She teaches China Modern: An Introduction to the Literature and Film of Twentieth Century China and Intermediate Chinese at Wesleyan. Wang completed her undergraduate work at Nanjing University and earned her Ph.D at Cornell University. Her master’s thesis is a comparative study of a well-known Chinese writer, Shen Congwen, and…

Laurie Zolty, assistant to the coordinator of University Lectures, poses with lecture advertisements inside the Horgan House.   Posted 03/15/05 Q: When did you join the staff at Wesleyan and why? A: I joined the staff in the fall of 2000 looking for a career change. A very good friend was on staff here and spoke so highly about working at Wesleyan. I was searching for almost a year, looking for a position where each day would be different – working a diverse schedule, meeting new people, taking on new tasks and challenges. This newly created position with University Lectures…