Olivia DrakeShirley Lawrence celebrated her 34 years at Wesleyan with a retirement party Dec. 14 in the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies. Lawrence began her Wesleyan career in a part-time position the Mathematics Department where she remained until 1977. Lawrence moved to the Center of Humanities where she worked until 1985, and she worked in Alumni Programs until 1987 when the Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies officially opened on Washington Terrace. She is retiring as a program coordinator. Over the years Lawrence has coordinated such events as tours of the Freeman Family Japanese Garden, lectures on U.S.-Japan…
David LowGrammy Award nominations were announced on Dec. 2. Tierney Sutton ’86 and her band received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album for their album Desire (Telarc). In a review of the recording on All About Jazz.com, Carl L. Hager wrote, "Singer Tierney Sutton’s Desire is the kind of provocative musical work that could change the way a listener hears music. It is an album that is meant to spiritually provoke. It arrests, alarms, it even terrifies." MGMT's Ben Goldwasser ’05 and Andrew Vanwyngarden ’05 received two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Pop Performance by…
Pamela Tatge, director of the Center for the Arts, received the William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. The William Dawson Award is given to an individual or organization in the presenting field for sustained leadership, innovation and vision in program design, audience building and community involvement efforts. The award honors William M. Dawson, a seminal leader in the field of arts administration, who served for 14 years as Director of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (then called the Association of College, University and Community Arts Administrators). "The William Dawson Award is the…
The Green Street Arts Center received a $4,000 grant from the Aetna Foundation to support the center's Afterschool Program. The award will be applied Jan. 1, 2010 through June 30, 2010. In addition, The Green Street Arts Center received a $3,000 grant from Lego for the art center's mural project.
Lisa Dierker, chair and professor of psychology, and David Beveridge, the University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, professor of chemistry, received a $174,999 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will support an inquiry based, supportive approach to statistical reasoning and applications. The award will be applied Jan. 1, 2010 through Dec. 31, 2012.
The Center for the Arts was awarded a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the Breaking Ground Series. In addition, the CFA received a $11,992 grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism for the Breaking Ground Series and Dance Masters Weekend.
In Skyscraper: The Politics and Power of Building New York City in the Twentieth Century (University of Pennsyvania Press), Benjamin Flowers ’96 explores the role of culture and ideology in shaping the construction of skyscrapers, as well as the way wealth and power have operated to reshape the urban landscape. He studies closely the creation and reception of three major architectural sites: the Empire State Building, the Seagram Building, and the World Trade Center. Flowers wrote his new book using a broad array of archival sources, such as corporate records, architects' papers, newspaper ads, and political cartoons. He reveals how…