Lauren RubensteinNicholas Rasmussen '87, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, spoke on NPR's "Morning Edition" about progress made in the fight against the Islamic State. He said the tactical gains the U.S. military and its partners are making in Iraq and Syria are a "necessary" part of quashing the danger it poses—but not "sufficient." Rasmussen told NPR that government agencies—ranging from federal to local—are working well together, and counterterrorism leaders are confident they can detect, disrupt or stop big, complicated attacks on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. But the danger remains from smaller-scale attacks directed or inspired by ISIS, and these may linger…
WNPR's The Colin McEnroe Show featured a conversation between Joss Whedon '87, Hon. '13; Jeanine Basinger, the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives; and David Lavery, author of Joss Whedon, A Creative Portrait: From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Avengers and co-founder of the Whedon Studies Association. Basinger described her experience with Whedon while he was a student at Wesleyan. "When I encountered Joss at Wesleyan, he was my superhero because he was a really fabulous student, an original thinker and somebody who you just knew was born to be a storyteller. Those things were very, very clearly in…
David LowCarolyn Parkhurst (Rosser) ’92 is the author of the new novel Harmony (Pamela Dorman Books, Viking), in which a mother does everything she can to save her family. The Hammond family’s seemingly normal life is disrupted when oldest daughter Tilly shows signs of abnormal development. Her social behavior is considered undiagnosable and she is asked to leave the last school in Washington, D.C. that will have her. To help Tilly, the Hammonds move to Camp Harmony in the New Hampshire woods, seeking the guidance of a child behavior expert Scott Bean and testing the bonds of the family. Parkhurst expertly…
Cynthia Rockwell“Can Serialized Fiction Convert Binge Watchers into Binge Readers?” asked NPR reporter Lynn Neary in All Things Considered. “Serialized books have a long history in publishing—Charles Dickens famously released many his novels in serial form,” she observed. Noting that television “episodic storytelling” is newly popular, Neary reported that Julian Yap and Molly Barton ’01 have entered the publishing industry with this in mind. Their start-up company, “Serial Box… aims to be ‘HBO for readers.’” Neary said, explaining, “Serial Box releases ‘episodes’ (not ‘books’) over a 10 to 16 week season. Each season is written by a team of writers. “'We're not…
Olivia DrakeThe Gordon Career Center is helping students design their futures. Through a new intensive seminar called Careers by Design, Wesleyan students can explore the many influences on their career decision making and make choices that are right for them. The Gordon Career Center’s innovative approach to career education encourages students to design their own careers by exploring the intersection between their interests, the skills they have and wish to acquire, and market demand. “Careers by Design is a framework that applies the principles of design thinking to solve every college student’s ultimate questions: ‘Who do I want to be? What…
Hannah Levin '19 recently interviewed Peter Cambor '01, an actor on Showtime's Roadies, about his career and his time at Wesleyan. The interview appears on Master Chat Mag, a website Levin has been running since her sophomore year of high school, which serves as a resource for students who are passionate about TV, film, theater and comedy and wish to work in the field one day. Cambor has starred in television series including Notes from the Underbelly and NCIS: Los Angeles. In the interview with Levin, he talks about catching the acting bug in high school, and about how his time at Wesleyan fueled his creativity:…
Associate Professor of Economics Abigail Hornstein and James Hounsell '11 are the authors of a new paper published in The Journal of Economics and Business titled "Managerial investment in mutual funds: Determinants and performance implications." In the paper, Hornstein and Hounsell examine what determines managerial investments in mutual funds, and the impacts of these investments on fund performance. By using panel data they show that investment levels fluctuate within funds over time, contrary to the common assumption that cross-sectional data are representative. Managerial investments reflect personal portfolio considerations while also signaling incentive alignment with investors. The impact of managerial investment on performance…
Josh Lockwood ’93, CEO for the American Red Cross in Greater New York and co-chair of the national LGBT affinity group, is no stranger to disaster and tragedy in his workday. Heading the organization’s efforts within an area that is home to 13 million persons, he estimates that his chapter receives between five and 20 serious incident-calls each day. Red Crossvolunteers also travel to other states to help out. Lockwood recalls his response when the country awoke to the horrific news about the mass shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on June 12, 2016. “I’ve been on a…
For the July 4 PBS News Hour, hosted by John Yang ’80, Sebastian Junger ’84 offered a video essay, his reflections on American heroes. “Several years ago,” Junger begins,” I spent much of a deployment with a platoon of combat infantry at a remote outpost called Restrepo. It was named after a medic, PFC Juan Sebastiàn Restrepo, who was born in Columbia, emigrated to America as a child, and died fighting at the bottom of a hill in Afghanistan…. The platoon was in several hundred firefights that year. And everyone out there was almost killed. Yet over and over, I…
Bill HolderIrrepressibly optimistic, funny, self-deprecating, at times self-doubting but driven to tackle difficult challenges. These are the qualities that shine through in John Hickenlooper ’74’s disarming autobiography, The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics (with Maximillan Potter; Penguin Press, 2016). It was in a moment of self-doubt, or perhaps profound personal insight, that Hickenlooper chose Wesleyan over Princeton, having been accepted to both universities in 1970. He confesses now that he didn’t think he was good enough for Princeton, but then adds, “I had a feeling that Princeton would be a bit too conservative, too buzz-cut and buttoned-down…
Charles W. Smith ’60, professor of sociology emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York, spoke to News @ Wesleyan about his latest book, What the Market Teaches Us: Limitations of Knowing and Tactics for Doing (Oxford University Press, 2015). Q: I was surprised to note that you are a sociologist, not an economist. How, then, did this lead you to studying the stock market? Charles W. Smith: The sociology of knowledge—how do people make sense of the world—has been my intellectual pursuit for the past 50 years? We create narratives, not only in our minds, but also in out communities. The…
Laurie KenneyThis month, the Cardinal community is joining together to secure up to $1 million for financial aid for Wesleyan students by taking the $1 Million Cardinal Challenge. “Thanks to the generosity of John L. Usdan '80, P’15, P’18, P’18, this is the perfect time to make a gift to Wesleyan,” says Chuck Fedolfi ’90, director of annual giving for the Wesleyan Fund. “John will give $500 for financial aid for every gift of any amount to any Wesleyan cause received this month—for a total of up to $1 million.” So far, more than 568 people have accepted the challenge, which translates to $284,000 so far for financial aid.…