Olivia DrakeCalling the attacks in Ukraine "a war" is against the law in Russia, and all media organizations there must use the term "special military operation (SMO)." "If anybody with a newspaper [doesn't use SMO], next day, you're in in jail," said activist Frantsuaza Li of Moscow during Wesleyan's fourth Ukraine-Russia Crisis: Livestream Conversations series event on March 25. "Russian propaganda works. Not because Russian people are devils, and they think that [the war] is a good thing. Because there [is] no information in the internet. The government blocked many newspapers. The government blocked Facebook, YouTube, and people . . .…
Steve ScarpaSilloway Gymnasium was pretty dead in the early days of the pandemic. The men’s basketball team had cancelled its season. Because of social distancing requirements, even playing one-on-one was prohibited. For the few players remaining on campus, there was nothing but drills. Lots and lots of drills. In those mundane practice sessions, the seeds were planted for a NESCAC championship. “We were practicing a new offense this year. We wanted to really get out and push the ball and just be faster than teams offensively and defensively,” said Sam Peek ‘22. And, just maybe, all that time in the gym…
Author Amy Bloom’s home office overlooks a lovely section of Long Island Sound, with rocky islands in the distance, boats drifting by, and sunlight playing off the harbor. When the time comes to put pen to paper, she has a magnificent view from her window. The great view doesn’t make the work any easier. “The job is, you’ve got to go to the office. You have to sit in the chair. You’ve got to make the effort. These things don’t sprout by themselves. It’s not magic and it’s not the muse. The muse shows up when she will but my…
Wesleyan’s intellectually dynamic faculty, students, alumni, staff, and parents frequently serve as expert sources for national media. Others are noted for recent achievements and accolades. Victoria Smolkin, associate professor of history and a scholar of communism, speaks in The Los Angeles Times about Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who is trying to defend the war in Ukraine with a spiritual defense. “What they are after is salvation,” Smolkin says. “Not just of the Ukrainians, but of themselves. They see it as their mission to establish unity.” (March 29) In The Hartford Courant, Suzanne O'Connell, Harold T.…
Editorial StaffBy Maia Dawson '24 Study Abroad offices are basically logistics hubs. There are the regular nightmares, like visa acquisitions. Then there are the less regular nightmares, like earthquakes or tsunamis. There are even the unique nightmares; lore has it that two Georgetown students were imprisoned in Cairo during the Arab Spring and then repatriated by their study abroad officers. Wesleyan's Office of Study Abroad has had its hands full during the global pandemic. When the first wave of the coronavirus hit Italy in March 2020, there were twenty-eight Wesleyan students in Bologna. Emily Gorlewski, director of the Study Abroad program at…
Eleven years ago, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami battered the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima, Japan, resulting in radioactive material spewing into the air, ground, and ocean. About 16,000 residents were killed from the explosions, and another 165,000 were forced to evacuate. "I should not be here," Eiko Otake shares in her most recent film, A Body in Fukushima (2021). But she keeps returning—for a total of five visits to the nuclear disaster site. Otake, visiting dance artist-in-residence, began her solo work there in January 2014. Her only audience is William Johnston, John E. Andrus Professor of History, who…
In April 2019, Middlesex County EMT Livia Cox '22 recalls responding to a medical call where she encounters an unconscious and pale-faced patient. She eyes a pill bottle in the room, and although the man is dead, she begins chest compressions anyway "with every joule of energy and every compassionate bone in me," she says. Cox had met this patient before. They've discussed his comorbid chronic physical and mental pain and substance dependency at length. A former military man, he has frequent PTSD episodes. He's been prescribed opioids to ameliorate his joint pain, but help more with his insomnia. "On…
Svitlana Andrushchenko left her home in Kyiv, Ukraine, due to the Russian invasion, but she refuses to be deemed a "refugee." "I call myself a temporarily removed person. I want [to be] back home and just be in my country. I want to live in peace in Ukraine," Andrushchenko said during Wesleyan's third Ukraine-Russia Crisis Livestream Conversation series event. "I am not scared for myself. I am scared for my children. Really, we are responsible for them." Andrushchenko, who is currently displaced in the western Ukraine city of Ivano Frankivsk, is nine hours from her home where she works as…
As an undergraduate contemplating what to study – perhaps even what to do with her life – Lori Gruen, William Griffin Professor of Philosophy, took a philosophy class that had a section on animal ethics. “It completely changed my life. It is why I became a philosopher. I’ve been involved in thinking about animal ethics now for about forty years,” Gruen said. “As it turns out, for a lot of students, animal ethics is their entry into philosophy.” Her research into the topic is going deeper thanks to a Brooks Institute Scholars Research Fellowship, administered by the Brooks Institute for…
Every year, Wesleyan's Dance Department faculty teach hundreds of students how to master ballet, West African, Indonesian, South Asian, Afro-Brazillian, and even hip-hop dance moves. But these scholar-teachers also work beyond the classroom, sharing their art with the general population. Last month, the work of three Wesleyan dance faculty caught the attention of the world-renowned Jacob's Pillow dance center. Jacob's Pillow is home to America's longest-running international dance festival and hosts performances, lectures, tours, films, artist talks, and exhibits, and boasts one of the most meticulously maintained dance archives in the country. "The Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival is one of…
One good bounce and the Wesleyan men’s basketball team would still be playing in the NCAA Division III Tournament. After an exciting start to the weekend where Wesleyan trounced Husson 81-61 in a first-round matchup Friday night, the Cardinals fell just short against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 59-58 in Saturday’s second-round game. After a hard-fought last few minutes where the lead kept changing hands, Preston Maccoux’s ['23] fallaway jumper hit the front rim and bounced away as time expired. “There isn’t much to say in those circumstances except to give (the players) a hug, tell them you care about them and…
(Maia Dawson '24 contributed to this article.) “For me there are no more days of the week," said Ukraine native Julia Kulchytska ‘24. "There is the first day of the war, there is the second. Today is day nine." Kulchytska spoke to a crowd that had gathered outside Usdan on March 4 for a rally in support of Ukraine. Among the students, one with tear-streaked cheeks behind a pair of cat-eye sunglasses were a group of faculty, staff, and residents of Middletown, and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal. “Russian troops are coming expecting that Ukrainian people will greet them with flowers,…