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With an election that serves as an inflection point in American democracy just months away, President Michael S. Roth ’78 encouraged students to engage in political discussion and listen to opposing viewpoints in a piece for The New York Times on Sept. 2. “This fall we can all learn to be better students and better citizens by collaborating with others, being open to experimentation and calling for inclusion rather than segregation — and participating in the electoral process.” He also wrote about how students can practice freedom better in a piece for The New Republic. “Practicing freedom can be messy, as it surely…

Six members of the Wesleyan community have accepted grants through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a prestigious international academic exchange program that offers graduates, graduate students, and young professionals opportunities to study, research, or teach English abroad in over 140 countries. During the 2024-25 academic year, this year’s cohort — which includes Melanie Cham ’24, Eliot Kimball ’24, Sophie Mann-Shafir ’22, Daisy Montoya ’24, Simon Worth ’24, and Joanna Paul ’18 — brings their skills, interests, and curiosity to a far-flung geography spanning Argentina to India to Madagascar. The prestige of Fulbright experiences helps open doors to exploration and opportunities…

Despite the completion of a major project like the renovation of the Frank Center for Public Affairs, there is still work to be done on Wesleyan’s campus. Physical Plant, the team responsible for operations and maintenance of Wesleyan buildings and grounds, continues to make significant progress on many of the projects that will allow for deeper student learning and experience at Wesleyan. Alan Rubacha, associate vice president of facilities, said all projects are on schedule and on budget. Here are the latest updates on Wesleyan’s ongoing major construction projects: New Science Building The 197,000-square-foot New Science Building is set to…

During Robin Wall Kimmerer’s first days as a university student, a professor asked why she wanted to study botany. She replied that she wanted to understand why goldenrod and asters — flowering plants cultivated by Native Americans — looked so beautiful together, a perspective influenced by her upbringing as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The professor ridiculed her, dismissing her comment as unscientific. “Your way of thinking is not welcome here,” she recalled him saying. Years later, Kimmerer’s way of thinking received a standing ovation from students during their first days at Wesleyan. In addition to being a…

On Monday, Aug. 26, we welcomed 18 new permanent faculty and 51 visiting faculty to campus for the 2024-25 academic year. The work of these distinguished academics spans a wide range of disciplines and expertise, from civic engagement and public life, design and engineering, chemistry, climate change and sustainability, psychology, molecular biology and biochemistry, theater, music, physics, history, economics, biology, Jewish studies, earth and environmental science, philosophy, among many others. Our new faculty include Khalilah Brown-Dean, who is the Rob Rosenthal Distinguished Professor of Civic Engagement and Executive Director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. Brown-Dean,…

The Class of 2028 gathered on Andrus Field for a joyful celebration on Aug. 30. More than 600 first-year students took part in the 17th annual “Common Moment” as part of new student orientation. The celebration also included new transfer students from both the Class of 2027 and the Class of 2026. Joshua Lubin-Levy 06, director of the Center for the Arts, said the “Common Moment” is an opportunity during orientation for new students to get out of their heads and into their bodies, feeling and sensing the world around them through dance as they reflect on the kind of…

Arrival Day is the first step in the next stage of the lives of Wesleyan’s Class of 2028. For these students, it was the first time they were able to see inside their dorms at Clark Hall, Bennet, the Butterfields, and also the first time they could put their personal stamp on the walls of their spaces away from home — with an unsettlingly green brat poster or a vinyl from an old rock band to show their new cohort of friends. For hundreds of Wesleyan’s newest first-year and transfer students, it was also the first day of the next…

Senior Julia Armeli '25 is one of a dozen undergraduate students using innovative technologies to make sense of the deluge of political ads targeting citizens at Delta Lab, the computational arm of the Wesleyan Media Project (WMP). This election season, Armeli, her student colleagues at Delta Lab — and another group of students at WMP known as human coders — will continue to apply their research and analytical skills to shed light on an increasingly diverse and polarized media messaging landscape. Delta Lab is a student-centered lab that draws on the skills and passion of students to analyze political ads…

Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts (CFA) opens the 2024-25 season with a wide range of special exhibitions and performances that encourage interactions and exchanges between visiting artists and the campus community. The CFA’s season also features artists in residence who integrate themselves into campus life as they incubate new work. CFA Director Joshua Lubin-Levy ‘06 and his curatorial team create opportunities for audiences to explore the way art can build new points of connection between otherwise discrete aspects of life and learning. “I invite students, faculty, and visitors to consider the CFA as more than a space, but rather…

The Wall Street Journal published a piece on the pressure faced by college administrators for the upcoming academic year after widespread student protests last year. President Michael S. Roth ’78 said the situation poses an opportunity for students to be actively engaged in politics. Wesleyan offers students political engagement grants through the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships to make it easier for them to be involved in political campaigns and other civic engagement opportunities. “The real issue is, how are we going to govern ourselves in the next four years? And students can play a big role in that,” Roth…

Free speech. Admissions. On-campus crises. All these issues and others contribute to the growing impact of legal concerns for colleges and universities. Today higher education leaders need to not only know the law, but how to prepare for legal challenges. In response to this new climate, colleges and universities have employed a rising number of legal experts. Since 1985, the membership of the National Associate of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) has doubled, from around 2,400 members to over 5,000 in 2022, according to Andrews Professor of Economics, Emerita, Joyce P. Jacobsen, who recently co-authored “All the Campus Lawyers: Litigation,…

For decades, many people thought that technology startups were a source of positive change in the world and an economic driver for the United States, said Benjamin Shestakofsky ’05, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. But over the last 10 years, public opinion of tech start-ups has swung a different way. “People have become increasingly aware of the social problems that startups can leave in their wake as they grow,” Shestakofsky said. Alongside the data leaks and spread of misinformation that are popular topics in federal hearings and media reports, there are other costs to technological growth…

Wesleyan in the News: September 2024

Wesleyan Fulbright Fellows Embark on Global Journeys of Curiosity

Updates on New Science Building, Integrative Arts Lab Construction

At Common Read, Author Asks Class of 2028 to Reimagine Relationships with the Earth

Wesleyan Welcomes New and Visiting Faculty Members

‘Common Moment’ Tradition Connects New Students Across Difference

Welcoming the Class of 2028

Student-Led Lab Shines Light on Political Advertising

Center for the Arts ’24-’25 Season Examines Art as a Way of Knowing the World

Wesleyan in the News: August 2024

Jacobsen Maps Out Legal Landscape of College Campuses in New Book

In a New Book, Alumnus Examines Venture Capital’s Impact on Startups