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Mike MavredakisDecember 22, 20232min
Wesleyan’s Public Safety collected over $2,000 worth of donations and a full cruiser of toys at the sixth annual week-long Holiday Toy Drive. The toys and proceeds were delivered to eight families in need, including 29 children, on Dec. 17. Public Safety collaborated with the Middletown Fire Department and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) to sponsor the drive. “The Wesleyan Community has been so generous during our Stuff-a-Cruiser event, we are humbled by the outpouring of support we have received from the students and staff on campus,” a representative from Public Safety said. “Without the students, support from the department, and…

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Mike MavredakisDecember 20, 202318min
Wesleyan’s faculty has been hard-at-work in 2023 sharing their scholarship with the world. Here are some of the books written by Wesleyan’s faculty over the past year.  Homesick Blues: Politics, Protest, and Musical Storytelling in Modern Japan by Scott Aalgaard  Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Scott Aalgaard explores how people in Japan have used “musical storytelling” as a means of expressing themselves in their everyday life and as a political practice from the late 1940s to 2018. Within the book, he challenges assertions that political upheavals in the 1960s and 70s in Japan were the climax and end of…

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Editorial StaffDecember 20, 20236min
The New York Times recently highlighted research reporting that five people with moderate to severe brain injuries scored higher on cognitive tests following a brain implant that stimulated their brains. Joseph Fins ’82, Hon. ’22, medical ethicist at Weill Cornell Medicine, was mentioned with the piece after he published a series of interviews with the subjects and their families in a separate paper for Cambridge University Press.  Author and LGBTQIA+ rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan ’80, Hon.’23 was elected President of PEN America, a key organization in the defense of free speech in the United States, on Dec. 11, according…

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Mike MavredakisDecember 20, 202321min
It has been a consequential year at Wesleyan. The University announced the end of legacy admissions and loans, policy changes aimed at improving the access and affordability of its liberal arts education. It also launched the largest fundraising initiative in school history.   While Wesleyan was focused on its mission to provide a diverse group of students with an expansive and broad education, its students continued to learn and create and faculty continued to make significant contributions in their fields of study. Throughout the year, the Wesleyan Connection has documented this creative and compassionate community hungry to have an impact on…

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Andrew ChatfieldDecember 20, 20233min
Wesleyan University faculty and alumni are making art across the region over the next several months. Here is a small sampling of offerings: Assistant Professor of Art Tammy Nguyen’s first museum solo exhibition is on display at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston now through January 28, 2024. Assistant Professor of the Practice in Theater Edwin Sánchez’s one-act play, Still Nuts About Him, is based on Clara from The Nutcracker, and is part of the eleventh annual evening of theater Christmas on the Rocks at TheaterWorks Hartford. Sanchez also collaborated with playwright Jacques Lamarre on the latest addition to the…

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Sarah ParkeDecember 18, 202310min
Exams have been graded and final projects evaluated. Perhaps you’re enjoying some much-needed rest and relaxation after a busy semester, or you want to bring a little bit of Wesleyan home to share. We’ve compiled a list of entertainment offerings from Wesleyan alumni for you to enjoy until we return to campus in January. Television and Movies The seventh season of Big Mouth premiered on Netflix in June. Jennifer Flackett ’86 is writer and co-creator of the raunchy, animated adult sitcom about teenagers struggling through the turbulent, traumatic changes of adolescence. Big Mouth was renewed for its eighth and final…

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Mike MavredakisDecember 13, 20235min
In a time when campus dialogue is front page news as violence continues in the Middle East, Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth ’78 has spoken and written extensively on the topic over the last few days, providing his perspective and insight into the environment at Wesleyan. Roth appeared on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” on Dec. 5 to discuss the campus conversation surrounding the war and student’s perception of safety during times of rising religious interpersonal conflict. “On our campus, we have seen that people have the ability to sit together in the same room and listen to…

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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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Mike MavredakisDecember 13, 20235min
Professor of Astronomy Seth Redfield was one of several collaborators who recently published the discovery of a six-planet system around a nearby bright star within the Milky Way Galaxy, according to a paper in Nature. Not only are the planets within our galaxy, but they are in perfect resonance, a rare and potentially highly important discovery for humanity’s understanding of planet formation, Redfield said. A planetary system in resonance means that the orbital periods—how long it takes a planet to complete a single orbit around its star—are in ratio with one another. Redfield said that in this case all six…

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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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Mike MavredakisDecember 12, 20237min
Wesleyan’s newest Phi Beta Kappa Society members plan to impact the world through service, research, policymaking, music, literature, and art.  There were 15 high-achieving Wesleyan students inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society at a ceremony in the McKelvey Room on Dec. 6, joining over 500,000 members from 293 campuses across the country. They join former presidents, members of Congress, and Nobel Laureates as part of the nation’s oldest scholastic honor society.  “It is really an impressive honor,” said Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth ’78, who is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. “It's not just your grades, it's not…

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Andrew ChatfieldDecember 12, 20237min
Four prototype mosaics sit on display in storefront windows along Main Street’s Downtown Business District this fall. The quartet are a sample of what Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art and Art Studio Technician Kate Ten Eyck will install in the pedestrian tunnel connecting downtown Middletown to the Connecticut River as part of a new public art project. The ongoing multi-year mural installation project, called “Mosaics on Main/TunnelVision," will showcase 200 million years of local history. Ten Eyck’s mosaic depicts the dinosaur Anchisaurus, one of the few fossilized skeletons found in the region, in Manchester and East Windsor. Ten Eyck held…