Olivia DrakeProfessor of Astronomy Bill Herbst observed sand-like grains in space through the reflection of light from stars. These grains are the building blocks of an Earth-like planet. Posted 03/17/08 For the first time, astronomers have observed the initial phase in the formation of an earth-like planet.The discovery, highlighted in the March 13 issue of Nature, was documented by a team of astronomers led by William Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy, chair of the Astronomy Department and director of the Van Vleck Observatory (pictured at right) and Catrina Hamilton, Ph.D 03, assistant professor of physics and astronomy…
Posted 03/17/08 For the second year in a row, Wesleyan is participating in the nation-wide competition, RecycleMania, for college and university recycling programs. The 10-week program provides campus communities with a fun, proactive activity in waste reduction. More than 400 institutions are participating in different contests to see which institution can collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate. "This is a fun way for the Wesleyan community to get excited about recycling, and possibly end up with national recognition, awards…
Posted 03/17/08 Food: Power and Identity is the topic of the Wesleyans 2008 Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns. The event will take place April 4-6 on campus. Endowed by James Shasha 50, the annual Shasha Seminar supports lifelong learning and encourages participants to expand their knowledge and perspectives on significant issues. This year, seminar speakers will discuss how food shapes our identity, public and private discourse, politics and daily lives. Food: Power and Identity will tackle issues on food production, such as industrial agriculture, organic agriculture, genetic manipulation, local vs. global, sustainability; food and politics, for example unequal distribution of…
Intisar Abioto 08, left, and her sisters, Amenta and Kalimah, traveled to Djibouti as part of their "People Could Fly Project." In Djibouti, they met men and camels returning from Lac Assal, the lowest point in Africa, with salt from the lakes shores. Posted 03/17/08 Intisar Abioto 08 had a recurring daydream where she traveled to all parts of the world, adventure-seeking, meeting new people and hearing their stories especially people her own age. Our positive stories arent always represented in books or movies or on TV, and what the repercussions of this are, is that young people dont…
Laurel Appel, visiting associate professor of biology and director of the McNair program, teaches participants how to extract DNA from wheat germ during the Green Street Arts Center's Sunday Salon Series, hosted by David Beveridge, pictured in back. Posted 03/17/08 In the 18th century, educated people in the upper reaches of society would meet at a salon to discus their ideas and observations. Today, this tradition continues without the pretentious aristocratic trappings at the Green Street Art Centers Sunday Salon Series. During the two-hour sessions held on Sundays throughout the academic year, Wesleyan faculty and staff speak to a general…
Santos Cayetano, associate director of the McNair Program, works with first-generation college students to prepare them for graduate school. The program is located inside Butterfield B. Posted 03/17/08 Santos Cayetano has supported Wesleyan for years. He mentored students through the Upward Bound program and taught classes at the Great Hollow Wilderness School, an experimental education center formerly overseen by Wesleyan. Now Cayetano is helping first generation college students from low-income families prepare for a successful post-graduate education experience through the Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program. The McNair Program serves students who are first generation college students from low-income…
In January, Hannah Hastings '08 and Andrea Pain '08 collected seagrass from the ocean floor to study nutrient content in a dinoflagellate-rich ecosystem off the southwest coast of Puerto Rico. The seniors returned to Wesleyan and analyzed their samples for carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus levels. They discovered a high ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus compared to the normal ratio in the ocean. "We discovered that high dinoflagellate concentrations are directly associated with elevated nitrogen to phosphorus ratios," Pain said during Part I of the Earth and Environmental Science Departments Senior Seminar Research Project colloquium March 6. Part II of the…
CLIMATE CHANGES: Jon Dickinson, the New York City Office of Environmental Coordination deputy director, delivers the keynote address for Focus the Nation, a nation-wide day of education, discussion and activism to address climate change, in Memorial Chapel Jan. 31. Wesleyan was one of 1,550 universities, schools, businesses, and places of worship that took part in Focus the Nation. Dickinson focused on proposed climate change, air and water quality, transportation and clean energy initiatives in the New York City area. To a full chapel audience, Dickinson said New York City's goal is "to have the cleanest air quality of every city…
Wesleyan's Academic Media Studio created the website, www.henrymerrittwriston.org, in honor of Wesleyan alumnus Henry Merritt Wriston, B.A. '11, M.A. '12. Posted 02/27/08 This month Wesleyan's Academic Media Studio premiered www.henrymerrittwriston.org, a biographical portrait of distinguished professor, college president, and foreign policy expert Henry Merritt Wriston, 11. Created though support by the Wriston family, the non-profit educational site was designed to provide textual, visual and audile information about the life and work of Henry Merritt Wriston and serve as a research portal for scholars investigating liberal education, college administration, internationalism, domestic and foreign policy and more. The website presents a complete…
Posted 02/27/08 Being home to one of the oldest ethnomusicology programs in the country, it was only fitting that Wesleyan host the 53rd annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Oct. 25-28. All activities will take place on the Wesleyan campus, primarily in the Center for the Arts, Usdan University Center and Memorial Chapel. The meeting will take place during fall break to accommodate the more than 850 academics, students, professional musicians, and public sector administrators expected to attend. Events during the three day meeting will include conference-style panels, performance workshops, and concerts. A one-day pre-conference on Oct. 24…
From left, Noah Hutton 09 and Jeremy Finch '09 are co-producers of the new WESU 88.1 FM show, "The Faculty Lounge." Posted 02/27/08 Over radio waves, Neely Bruce chatted about his recent musical compositions; Peter Mark expressed his opinions on the recent crisis in Kenya; and Patrick Dowdey spoke on his passions as a museum curator. Bruce, professor of music; Mark, professor of art history and professor and director of African American studies; and Dowdey, curator of the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies and adjunct assistant professor of East Asian studies and anthopology, had the opportunity to speak on…
Posted 02/27/08 Nobel Prize winner and University of Massachusetts Medical School professor Craig C. Mello, Ph.D, pictured at left, will be presenting a lecture as part of Wesleyans First Year Matters program. The talk, titled "Return to the RNAi World: Rethinking Gene Expression, Evolution and Medicine," will begin at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28, in Shanklin 107. The event is free and open to the public. Mello and his colleague Andrew Fire, Ph.D, of Stanford University, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2006 for their discoveries related to RNA interference (RNAi). We are excited and…