A: After a stroke, millions of brain cells can get over excited and the cells can die. This cell death is an ongoing process. This condition can be prevented if the neurological signaling pathways that that cause cell death are inhibited. If we use proteins that block excitotoxic pathways, we could prevent post-stroke death.

Q: How do you describe an “excitoxin?”

A: An excitoxin, is an excited poison. It is a normal neurotransmitter that damages neurons when released in large amounts. An excitoxin binds to certain nerve cell receptors, stimulates the cell, and either damages the cell or results in neuronal cell death. Excitatory amino acids, can produce lesions in the central nervous system and set off progressive diseases such as. It’s also a factor in nerve damage in patients who have epilepsy or asphyxiation.

Q: In addition to strokes, what types of medical problems can arise from cell death?

A: Excitotoxic cell death is thought to be a central and underlying cause of brain damage in a variety of neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s disease. An understanding of what causes cell death and lesions after strokes will lead to prevention of the paralyzing cell loss.

Q: Where did you study this subject before coming to Wesleyan?

A: I earned my bachelors and doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. Most recently I’ve collaborated with professors at Yale University on this subject. Prior to coming aboard at Wesleyan in 2002, I worked in both the oncology and neuroscience fields, studying serotonin-associated signaling pathways, cloning novel signaling molecules from the brain, and studying the mechanism by which salmonella can target tumors and slow tumor growth.

Q: What are some of your recent publication topics?

A: They cover a broad range of topics, including neuroscience, immunology, oncology, and microbiology. My most recent articles include “Oxidative damage and defective DNA repair is linked to apoptosis of migrating neurons and progenitors during cerebral cortex development in Ku70-deficient mice,” which will be published in “Cerebral Cortex,” and “Role of SptP in enhanced tumor necrosis factor-a secretion and ERK activation in murine macrophages by Salmonella typhimurium,” which appeared in “Cellular Microbiology.”

Q: Do you collaborate with any of the other professors?

A: I perform research with Janice Naegele who is an associate professor in biology and neuroscience and behavior. She investigates the role of DNA repair in neuroprotection. She’s more anatomical, and I’m more molecular, so our work complements each other’s. We, and student Jia Liu, study cell cultures and segments of rodent brain. Under a microscope, we study the activity of a specific molecule, technically called “striatal-enriched tyrosine phosphatase,” or STEP, a brain-specific molecule that turns off cell death pathways.  During nerve death, the STEP molecule gets degraded, and is no longer present to prevent cell death.

Q: Please explain more about these STEP molecules.

A: The STEP proteins, both normal and mutated, are fused to amino acids that allow the STEP proteins to enter cells, bind to enzymes in the cell death pathway, and block death-associated signaling. So far, we’ve shown that addition of certain STEP mutants, but not others, can block excitatory cell death. I plan to study the differences in action of the individual STEP mutants in order to identify the critical cellular reactions involved in cell death.

Q: What classes do you teach here and what do you want students to get out of your classes?

A: Last fall, I taught neuropharmacology and this spring, I’m teaching a molecular and cellular neurobiology laboratory course. I want students to get a fundamental understanding of how cells work in the brain, the anatomy of the brain, and hope they can visualize paths in the brain.

Q: How do you study the brain?

A: We study them directly. Along with graduate students Jia Liu and Mohit Neema, we bring out a mini ‘bologna slicer’ and will slice apart mice brains for students to study under the scope.

Q: Do you enjoy research or teaching more?

A: I’ve always done research, but I’m enjoying teaching, too. Research keeps me mentally active, whereas the students can really keep you on your toes. Those students who really get into neurology are the most rewarding to teach.

Q: I understand working here has some sentimental value to you.

A: Yes. My father, Po Chen Lin, earned his master’s degree in English literature from Wesleyan in 1948 under Professor Fred Millett.

Q: What do you do after a long day in the lab?

A: I studied violin at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins, so I like to meet up with my trio. We call ourselves Youth ‘n’ Asia. We have performed at various local venues, including Connecticut Hospice and the Neighborhood Music School. I also enjoy reading and spending time with my daughters, Shau-Ru a recent graduate of Smith College, and Fu-Fu.

Lingzhen Wang joined the Asian Languages and Literatures Department as an assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures in January 2005. She teaches China Modern: An Introduction to the Literature and Film of Twentieth Century China and Intermediate Chinese at Wesleyan.

Wang completed her undergraduate work at Nanjing University and earned her Ph.D at Cornell University. Her master’s thesis is a comparative study of a well-known Chinese writer, Shen Congwen, and Thomas Hardy, and her dissertation is on modern Chinese women’s autobiographical writing.

Wang’s main areas of interest are modern Chinese literature, gender studies, feminist and literary theories, and modern Japanese literature. She is currently researching Chinese female film directors.

She was drawn to Wesleyan in part because of its top-notch faculty.

“Wesleyan has some leading scholars and professors in Chinese Studies and Women Studies,” she says. “And the role of East Asian Studies is quite prominent at Wesleyan compared to many other places.”

The Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies and proximity to her husband’s workplace were also big attractions.

In September 2004, Wang’s book “Personal Matters: Women’s Autobiographical Practice in Twentieth-Century China” was published by Stanford University Press. She recently edited a translation anthology of a famous contemporary woman writer, Wang Anyi, titled “Years of Sadness,” which is pending publication. Wang is currently working on two essays, “Peeling Onion: Teaching China and Gender in the United States” and “The Ambivalence of Maternal Body and Voice in Contemporary Chinese Women’s Cinema.”

Q: When did you join the staff at Wesleyan and why?

A: I joined the staff in the fall of 2000 looking for a career change. A very good friend was on staff here and spoke so highly about working at Wesleyan. I was searching for almost a year, looking for a position where each day would be different – working a diverse schedule, meeting new people, taking on new tasks and challenges. This newly created position with University Lectures seemed like the perfect fit.

Q: What were you doing before you came to Wesleyan?

A: My last job wasn’t very exciting. I was the office manager for a local orthodontist. But the one before that was great. I handled all human resources, payroll and office management for The Tournament Players Club at River Highlands, which meant my employer was the PGA Tour. That was cool.

Q: How do you and Jean Shaw, the University Lectures coordinator, work together?

A: Jean Shaw and I have worked wonderfully well as a two-person team. We handle the logistics for a number of endowed lectures, from their inceptions to their completion. We also assist faculty when they are applying for and receiving funding from the Edward W. Snowdon Fund. These Snowdon supported lectures are more numerous and we do everything from advising to organizing the lecture events and setting up small dinners to working with the graphic designer on advertising and posters. We also assist or manage individual lecture budgets and attend the events we help sponsor.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I’d say the diversity of skills used and the exposure and opportunity of working with and getting to know such a large number of faculty and staff.

Q: I understand working with lectures isn’t the only thing you do at Wesleyan.

A: The major part of my job is working with Lectures, but one-quarter of my time is connected with Reunion and Commencement. This part of my job is to coordinate and streamline the payment process for all R and C invoices and help to track all expenses. In addition, I have taken on assisting the Marshal of the Faculty for commencement. These come at the perfect time, when logistical work on lectures quiets down in the spring and early summer, so it rounds out my work schedule in a nice way.

Q: Do you attend lectures your department put on?

A: Yes, we attend every lecture, activity and performance, whether it be an endowed lecture, such as the Hugo L. Black or Raymond E. Baldwin events where we are totally involved, or be it a lecture, event or residency organized by an academic department, including all events funded through the Snowdon grant process.

Q: What would be an example?

A: A great example of this is the current series of 19 events spanning three semesters that the Center for Film Studies has organized in conjunction with different academic departments. We also work closely with faculty, like Anne Greene, to help support her major Writing Program lectures each year, the Annie Sonnenblick Lecture and the Joan Jakobson evening.

Q: What have been some of your favorite presenters or lectures?

A: It’s hard to say. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people over the past four years. Our first Snowdon Fellow was Steven J. Gould who was remarkable. I actually had the chance to accompany him on a private tour of Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill. It was amazing. But I’d have to say my favorite lecture each year is the Sturm lecture. Kathryn Johnston, of the Astronomy Department, brings in terrific speakers and for me, the topics are fascinating as each lecture explores an area of astronomy that is far beyond our world but so relevant to our lives on earth.

Q: Who generally presents the lectures? Professors? Visitors? Are there certain topics they address?

A: The lectures that we support and are involved with are always given by visitors. They are often professors from other universities, but can be dignitaries, judges, authors, dancers, college presidents, movie directors, journalists or clergymen. For Snowdon funding, a faculty member writes a proposal with a specific speaker, or speakers, and topic in mind. Snowdon supported events are required to have participation from multiple departments, so the topics can range as wide as your imagination will take it.

Q: What would I find you doing on a weekend?

A: You can find me most Sunday mornings sitting in my three-season room with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Over the past few years, my husband, Allen and I have been busy with a series of redecorating projects at home and this seems to be a never-ending process. One room triggers another. I enjoy the decorating process, searching for just the right fabric or accessory. My degree was in textiles and marketing so I love the hunt for a bargain and have a feel for what works and what doesn’t.

Q: That sounds like a fun, but inexhaustible project. Do you have other hobbies?

A: I like to cook and I sew and I used to play a bit of tennis. I really enjoy going to the movies and eating late dinners afterwards, so Allen and I will do one or both on most weekends. Our closest friends include people I grew up with and even though they live in New Jersey or New York, we often meet up for an afternoon or dinner. Every few months we try and get into New York. I just love the theater and the energy of the city.

Q: Where did you meet your husband? Do you have any kids, and if so, what do they do for a living?

A: I met Allen when we were both at UConn. We’ve been married for 32 years and have two sons. Allen has spent his career in labor and industrial relations with Pratt and Whitney, which afforded me the opportunity to stay at home with our kids while they were growing up. Stuart, our oldest, has been married for three years, works as a financial advisor and lives just outside the city. Our daughter-in-law, Meredith, is the general manager of the Jean Cocteau Repertory Company. Andrew, our younger son, lives and works in New York. He is an interactive Web designer, loves to travel and is focusing his time and energies promoting Seven Ender, a rock band that he fronts. 

Fresh out of the Ph.D. program at the University of California at Berkeley, 26-year-old Karl Scheibe accepted a faculty position at Wesleyan University. Apparently, he liked his first job.

“It sure lasted a while,” says Psychology Professor Scheibe, who has spent the more than four decades since teaching and doing research at Wesleyan. “I’ve considered going to other universities, but never did. And I’ve never regretted staying here.”

Scheibe, a social psychologist known for his classes emphasizing relationships between psychology and theater, will take his final bow when he retires after the spring semester.

Throughout his career, he’s taught 20 different psychology courses, some of which are self-invented. In 1980, he introduced an experimental course titled “The Dramaturgical Approach to Psychology,” which proved to be popular with both psychology and theater majors. The course explores the use of the language of theater in the illumination of psychological questions, exploring issues such as politics in theater, audience effects, role-playing as a teaching and therapeutic technique, the actor’s identity problems and general theory of the mask.

Today, the class is so well-known, Scheibe interviews students before allowing them to enroll in the size-restricted class.

“The class isn’t for everybody,” he explains. “This is for people who really want to get engaged and take charge. People who would rather sit through a lecture shouldn’t be here.”

Psychology major Elizabeth Thaler ’05, says discovering the intersection of drama and psychology is intuitive to many students. The class, she says, helps students experience a real-life illustration of everything the psychology department teaches.

 “The first day there was a buzz of mystery and excitement, because all anyone knew about the class was that it was intense, revealing, and huge amounts of fun,” Thaler says. “The fun is very important—we make ourselves pretty vulnerable and at times go into dark territory. The fun keeps us eager for more.”

Thaler says Scheibe puts class into the students’ hands, but stands by as a guide, providing agency and support.

“There is a feeling of trust in that classroom that I haven’t experienced anywhere else at Wesleyan, and the trust works both ways. He seems infinitely wise yet eager to learn from his students; we’re all in it together,” she says. “In the weekly journals we write him, I feel free to talk honestly about almost anything, from my personal life to my complaints about the class. I didn’t walk in feeling that way, it was the way Scheibe leads us that opened me up.”

Scheibe applied for a position at Wesleyan based on its “yeasty qualities,” he said.

“Wesleyan was a traditional New England small college, but it had this known quality of change  –  this avant garde – on-the-edge element that other colleges around here lacked,” he says.

A faculty position at Wesleyan also came with a daunting reputation. Scheibe said he and other junior faculty colleagues were bathing in tenure anxiety from the very beginning.

When he was hired in 1963, he was one of only six psychology professors in the department; now there are 14 on tenure and tenure track.

Wesleyan’s 11th president, Victor L. Butterfield, was in charge of the all-male university. Fraternities were quite conspicuous on campus, and Scheibe found himself in the curious position between teaching and being one of the boys.

“I was 26. I was listening to the same music as the students and sharing their culture. I even chaperoned frat parties, as back then, parties had to have chaperones,” he says, recollecting memories of his early days. “Wesleyan was a very different place then. But then, as now, it was an exciting place to be.”

Scheibe was promoted to associate professor in 1967, was awarded tenure in 1968, and was promoted to professor in 1973.

“Wesleyan was rich and resourceful and it was able to afford the best professors in the nation,” he says. “It was a superior institution, and it still is.”

Like most professors at the time, Schiebe came to Wesleyan with a broad array of abilities. Throughout the years, his research has focused not only on psychology’s association with theater, but also on theoretical issues of psychology of self and identity. His current research interests also include problems of substance abuse and other excessive appetites.

Julie Glickman ’04, events assistant for the Center for the Arts, took two of Scheibe’s classes. Scheibe was also her academic advisor while she was pursuing her degree in psychology.

 “Professor Scheibe is a kind and compassionate man,” she says. “He had the ability to captivate not only a small seminar of 20 students, but an entire auditorium with 350 students. He was an exceptional instructor and mentor.”

Psychology master’s student Justin Freiberg says Scheibe creates a structure in his class that makes the students feel safe enough to share openly, and to be spontaneous.

“He makes students take the initiative in figuring out what exactly they just learned,” Freiberg says. “You might think to yourself that what just happened was really a bunch of improv, and while this is true, it is in connecting the classes back to the readings and to past studies, be they in psychology or drama, that the real value lies.”

In addition to teaching courses at Wesleyan, Scheibe taught two-week graduate-level classes at an English-speaking DUXX Graduate School of Business Leadership in Monterrey, Mexico during the entire seven-year existence of the program. He also had two Fulbright appointments at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo, the first in 1972, the second in 1984. He taught these in Portuguese.

In Brazil, Scheibe wrote his first book, “Beliefs and Values.”  He’s also the author of “Mirrors, Masks, Lies and Secrets,” “Self Studies” and “The Drama of Everyday Life,” published in 2000 by Harvard University Press. The book describes human lives as dramas, that “we all live in boxes,” that are “little theaters wherein the play is earnest and the players all convinced of their grasp on reality.”

Upon retiring, Scheibe has plenty to keep him busy. Currently a part-time clinical psychologist, Scheibe will continue to practice at his business in Old Saybrook. He’ll focus the bulk of his time as the director of the new Wasch Center for Retired Faculty. This new center, slated to open on Lawn Avenue in fall 2005 creates a shared intellectual and social community where retired faculty members can continue their scholarly activities and participation in university life. Here, Scheibe hopes to complete another book, which is well underway.

“As a retired faculty member, I and others, need a place to go to think and write and read. And, when I am retired, they’re probably going to want to give my office to someone else and I will need a place to put all these books,” a smiling Scheibe says, peering up at hundreds of hard cover books, files and notebooks.

Ruth Striegel-Moore, professor of psychology and chair of the Psychology Department, says her colleague will be missed by other faculty members and students alike.

“Karl Scheibe has been a tremendous force in the psychology department,” she says. “In the past 40 years, he has taught a broad range of courses to thousands of Wesleyan students, including The Dramaturgical Approach to Psychology, which exemplifies Karl’s impressive breadth of scholarship and teaching. His students attest to his passion for teaching and his dedication to mentoring.”

Scheibe says he will miss teaching and that it never became mundane. The students, he says, keep class motivating.

“Every semester had fresh students and it’s like directing Hamlet all over again,” he says. “Every cast was unique.”

Katy Wichlac, CPP, is Wesleyan’s payroll manager and works in Financial Services.

Q: I’ve heard of a CPA but not a CPP. What does that stand for?

A: A Certified Payroll Professional.

Q: Are you a math person? What skills do you need to work in payroll and what is your educational background?

A:  I graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in Hamden, Connecticut.  I have a bachelor of arts degree in American Studies and British History from Cardinal Cushing College in Brookline, Massachusetts I am currently taking classes through the Graduate Liberal Studies Program here at Wesleyan.

Q: What courses have you taken?

A: I have taken Irish Music and Dance and International Organization and Evolution of Government: The Rise of the Modern Nation State.

Q: When did you become manager of payroll services?

A: In May 2000, I was new to Wesleyan, but I have been a payroll manager for over 25 years.

Q: You must be a real payroll pro. How would you describe a typical day working in payroll?

A:  Are you kidding? A typical day in payroll? That would be something to see. On a regular day I oversee the payroll staff – Evelyn Harris and Gladys Fountain. We process payroll for all the students and employees of the university. We get a lot of phone calls and e-mails every day. I spend a lot of time on the computer and not as much as I would like getting out to meet with employees. We see many of the students, but I am sorry to say I know most of the employees via phone or e-mail only.

Q: What do you like most about your job as a payroll manager?

A: Every day brings something new, something different. Payroll is never dull or predictable! We all try to have a laugh every day – it helps.

Q: Outside of work, what are your hobbies or interests?

A: I love to travel. I especially love London, and I serve on the board of the New England Payroll Conference. This year I will chair the conference for the third time. I also have spent a lot of years as member of a community theater group, the Windsor Jesters.

Q: Are you a performer? Or do you work behind the scenes?

A: I have been a member of the group and board member. I served as president for several years. Yes, I have been known to get on the stage. I have done a lot of musicals and my last play was “Dangerous Liaisons.”

Q: Do you have any children?

A:  I have two children. My son is Stephen and my daughter is Maria. My first grandchild was born on December 12th. Her name is Hollace Katherine Grace Grove, named after her two grandmothers, and she weighed 9 pounds, 2 ounces.

Mary Alice Haddad joined the faculty in the Government Department and East Asian Studies Program as an assistant professor in June 2004.

Haddad, a native of Washington, D.C., completed her undergraduate work at Amherst College and earned a Ph.D at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her dissertation, “Creating Citizens: Volunteers and Civil Society, Japan in Comparative Perspective,” was about civil society in Japan. Her primary area of research is comparative civil society, with a focus on Japan. 

“I am especially interested in traditional organizations like neighborhood associations and volunteer fire departments that have largely been overlooked by other scholars,” she says.

Haddad taught Japanese politics this past fall and is developing a course in Chinese politics that she expects to teach in 2006. 

Her current research includes an examination of the ways traditional Japanese civic organizations such as neighborhood associations, which were instruments of social control used by the fascist state to manipulate the people, have become institutions of democratic accountability now used by citizens to lobby the government.

Haddad is the author of a journal article “Community Determinants of Volunteer Participation: The Case of Japan” published in “Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Research” 33:3, September 2004 and a book review “The Voluntary and Non-Profit Sector in Japan” published in “Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Research” 33:2, June 2004. She is working on a manuscript titled “Performing Their Civic Duty: Voluntary Participation in the US and Japan in Comparative Perspective.”

Haddad said she is very committed to liberal arts education, and that’s among the reasons she came to Wesleyan.

“I was also attracted to the ways that Wesleyan promotes both teaching and scholarship among its faculty, without privileging one over the other,” she says.

Haddad lives in Middletown with her husband Rami. She enjoys sports, outdoor activities and pottery. Her first child is due May 3.

“May 3rd is the last day of class, so people can see me waddle around campus this semester as I grow increasingly round,” she says.