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Steve ScarpaMarch 25, 20246min
As jazz albums go, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue represents a high-water mark. The record came at a time of profound musical innovation: bebop had given way to hard bop, a more soulful version of jazz, but Davis wanted to simplify the music and send it in a new direction. The triumvirate of Miles, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans pushed the boundary of what musicians could do, creating a work of hushed magnificence, said James Kaplan ’73. Kaplan is the author of 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, a book…

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Steve ScarpaJanuary 3, 20245min
Assistant Professor of Education Studies Alisha Butler will launch a new study exploring the ways that families and young people can (and don’t) influence school and citywide education-related decision-making processes. “How is it that non-system policy actors are attempting to include the decisions that affect what happens day-to-day in school?” Butler said. Butler’s study, a collaborative effort with Kristin Sinclair, Assistant Teaching Professor of Education Advocacy and Policy in the Education Transformation Program at Georgetown University, is funded through a Spencer Foundation Small Grant, a program that supports “rigorous, intellectually ambitious and technically sound research that is relevant to the…

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Steve ScarpaDecember 13, 20234min
Willette Burnham-Williams’ goal in her new role as Wesleyan’s vice president for Equity and Inclusion is to be the best servant-leader she can be. She has recently been appointed after a nationwide search that included the input of faculty, staff, and students. Burnham-Williams will begin on March 4. “I come into this position to serve the students, but also to serve the faculty and my colleagues. For me, it’s about being someone who is there to support and advocate, and to collaborate and co-facilitate,” she said in a recent interview. Burnham-Williams comes to Wesleyan from the Medical University of South…

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Steve ScarpaDecember 13, 20239min
Students from high schools across the country are getting the chance to “live like a philosopher” thanks to a Wesleyan course taught by Tushar Irani, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Letters. The course is offered through Wesleyan’s partnership with the National Education Equity Lab—an initiative that seeks to democratize college access and advance education justice by providing college-level courses to students attending Title 1 high schools across the country. (The New York Times wrote about the program previously.) There are six high schools participating in the course—from Albuquerque to El Paso to the Bronx—with a total of over 75 students…

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Steve ScarpaDecember 6, 20235min
Phoebe C. Boyer ’89, P’19, ’23’s long Wesleyan journey has taken her from being an undergraduate worker who helped at Board of Trustees meetings to her upcoming role as the University’s next Chair of the Board. Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees named Boyer as Chair of the Board for a two-year term beginning July 1, 2024. The decision was made during the Board’s November 18 meeting. “I am honored to assume this responsibility and look forward to continuing to contribute to the Board’s collaborative efforts in support of this extraordinary, and ever important institution,” Boyer said. “I am so grateful that…

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Steve ScarpaDecember 5, 20235min
Hoping to expand the diverse ways the Wesleyan community engages in public discourse, Associate Professor of Sociology Robyn Autry has been named director of the Center for the Study of Public Life, at the Allbritton Center. “Provost Nicole Stanton has trusted me to do something new with the CSPL (Center for the Study of Public Life). I am still figuring out what I want to do, but it is connected with a lot of the public writing I’ve been doing for the past few years,” said Autry, who is a critical sociologist. The new role dovetails with Autry’s research interests…

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Steve ScarpaDecember 5, 20235min
Artificial intelligence is a disrupter the likes of which humanity has never seen before. It can magnify existing societal evils, but also offers students unique educational opportunities. It can both replace human knowledge and offer unprecedented opportunities to capture and harness it. It’s seemingly inevitable; it must be regulated. What was clear from the conversation at the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, held Nov. 10 and 11, is that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence represents an inflection point for humanity. Groups of experts from a variety of fields came together at the seminar to talk about “Artificial Intelligence or…

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Steve ScarpaNovember 27, 20236min
Poet and social entrepreneur Ahmed M. Badr '20 has been named the new director of the Patricelli Center, an organization he considered a home while attending Wesleyan. After serving in an interim capacity, Badr took on the permanent role in August. “I hope that the folks going through the classes and the program realize their own capacity to create a direct impact in the world,” Badr said. Badr’s road to helping students find their way to change the world through the Patricelli Center began with finding his own voice. His family came to the United States in 2008 as refugees from…

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Steve ScarpaNovember 27, 20235min
Assistant Professor of Sociology Courtney Patterson-Faye felt that her recent contribution to a new book celebrating Black families might have been just what she needed to read when she was growing up. Karida L. Brown, a professor of sociology at Emory University assembled — with her husband, artist and illustrator Charly Palmer — “The New Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families,” released on Oct. 10 by Chronicle Books. The book was recently selected by Oprah Daily as part of its holiday gift books list. Patterson-Faye contributed a moving essay called “For Breanna and Other Children Who Love to…

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Steve ScarpaNovember 27, 20237min
Wesleyan University has formed a new college that will challenge students to think and respond critically to the complex social, technological, cultural, and environmental conditions that surround them. The new College of Design & Engineering Studies (CoDES) launched this semester. CoDES is home to the Integrated Design, Engineering, Arts & Society (IDEAS) minor and linked major. There are currently about 60 students minoring in IDEAS, a number expected to increase in the short term. Many of those minors will likely declare themselves majors in the college in the spring semester. “At its core, we are interested in hands-on course work—learning…

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Steve ScarpaNovember 20, 20235min
From a young age Chigozie Obioma knew he was going to be a novelist. But the moment he told his classmates, they laughed at him. “When I was in primary school it was a common question kids were asked—what do you want to be? I used to get laughed at. The class would just boom with laughter. It didn’t make any sense (to want that) because there was no such thing. I didn’t know anyone who was a writer,” he said. Kids would say they wanted to be a pilot or a lawyer or an engineer. Obioma wanted something very…

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Steve ScarpaNovember 20, 20235min
There are few things as deeply embedded in the American consciousness as the ideas of religion and capitalism. Assistant Professor of History Joseph Slaughter’s new book talks about the connection between those two aspects of the national psyche and how Christian capitalism developed in the first half of the 19th century. The book, entitled Faith in Markets: Christian Capitalism in the Early American Republic, was published in November by Columbia University Press. In the first half of the 19th century, the United States saw both a series of Protestant religious revivals and the dramatic expansion of the marketplace. “It’s easy for…