Dyson to Offer Keynote Address At February Democracy in Action Convening

Author and academic Michael Eric Dyson will offer the keynote address at Wesleyan University’s Democracy in Action Convening, a weekend exploration of the convergence of higher education and democracy. The event will be held February 16-17, 2024, and is free for Wesleyan students and $25 for all other attendees. Registration is now open. Across two days of thought leadership and engaging activities, participants will hear from a collection of scholars, community leaders, experts, and peers. Following a Friday afternoon filled with student-centered engagement opportunities, the Convening opens to all with Dyson’s keynote address that evening. Saturday will be filled with…

Phoebe C. Boyer ’89, P’19, ’23’s long Wesleyan journey has taken her from being an undergraduate worker who helped at Board of Trustees meetings to her upcoming role as the University’s next Chair of the Board. Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees named Boyer as Chair of the Board for a two-year term beginning July 1, 2024. The decision was made during the Board’s November 18 meeting. “I am honored to assume this responsibility and look forward to continuing to contribute to the Board’s collaborative efforts in support of this extraordinary, and ever important institution,” Boyer said. “I am so grateful that…

Artificial intelligence is a disrupter the likes of which humanity has never seen before. It can magnify existing societal evils, but also offers students unique educational opportunities. It can both replace human knowledge and offer unprecedented opportunities to capture and harness it. It’s seemingly inevitable; it must be regulated. What was clear from the conversation at the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, held Nov. 10 and 11, is that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence represents an inflection point for humanity. Groups of experts from a variety of fields came together at the seminar to talk about “Artificial Intelligence or…

Artist Renée Green ’81 spoke with Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee ’00 during Wesleyan’s Homecoming + Family Weekend in October. Chaffee is the curator of the exhibition “No Title: Relays and Relations, Works by Renée Green and Sol LeWitt,” on display in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery through Sunday, December 3. As a student at Wesleyan, Green was exposed to LeWitt’s methodologies, ethos, and ways of relating to other artists. She participated in a course taught by Professor of Art History Emeritus John Paoletti that focused on LeWitt’s art collection in collaboration with the Wadsworth Atheneum, which…

By Rose Chen '26 On Thursday, Nov. 16, students gathered at the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies for a conversation between film director Daniel Kwan and Professor of Religion, Philosophy, Science in Society, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Dean of the Social Sciences Mary-Jane Rubenstein. Kwan, having previously directed music video “Turn Down for What” and Swiss Army Man (2016), is most renowned for Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), which won seven Oscar awards out of eleven nominations and is estimated to be one of the most awarded films of all time. The event was organized…

Poet and social entrepreneur Ahmed M. Badr '20 has been named the new director of the Patricelli Center, an organization he considered a home while attending Wesleyan. After serving in an interim capacity, Badr took on the permanent role in August. “I hope that the folks going through the classes and the program realize their own capacity to create a direct impact in the world,” Badr said. Badr’s road to helping students find their way to change the world through the Patricelli Center began with finding his own voice. His family came to the United States in 2008 as refugees from…

Wesleyan University has made significant strides in reducing its carbon footprint, cutting its carbon emissions by a third. In addition, more than half of the student body have participated in sustainability courses and activities over the past year. The University’s progress was documented in its first Sustainability Strategic Plan annual report, recently released by the Wesleyan Sustainability Office this week. A full text of the annual report is available at bit.ly/sspreport2023. Thanks to its renewable energy purchases, carbon offsets for air travel, and campus upgrade from steam to hot water pipes, the University reduced its carbon footprint by 35 percent…

By Rose Chen '26 Tony Award-winning director Thomas Kail ’99 joined the Gordon Career Center, in collaboration with the Theater Department, for a career conversation and a Q&A session on Monday, Oct. 30. Kail graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in history and went on to work with fellow graduate Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02. He became renowned for directing Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton, the latter of which earned Kail a 2016 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical. Kail is currently represented on Broadway with the critically acclaimed revival of Sweeney Todd and has been tapped…

Thousands of alumni and family members converged on Wesleyan University’s campus for Homecoming and Family Weekend from Oct. 27 to 29. Attendees walked the footpaths they once knew, hugged loved ones they hadn’t seen in a while, sparked up their grills at the football game, sat in on WeSeminars, and joined in on a historic University announcement. After hours of tailgating on Andrus Field, with music blaring and the distinct smell of hotdogs in the air, Wesleyan’s football team took the field against rival Amherst in front of 5,000 fans. The Cardinals cruised to a 34 to 7 victory over…

The Supreme Court ruling on SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC may have ended affirmative action in college admissions this past June, but Wesleyan will continue to recruit a racially and economically diverse applicant pool. This year’s 31st Annual Dwight L. Greene Symposium on Oct. 28 invited several distinguished alumni in the fields of law, civil rights, and admissions, to discuss access and opportunity in higher education, a topic that has been at the forefront of the higher education conversation for the past several months. The panel featured Tanya Greene ’91, director of US Programs, Human Rights Watch; Shereem…

Wesleyan University announced the launch of a $600 million fundraising initiative, the largest in the University’s history, on Saturday, October 28 during Homecoming and Family Weekend. Approximately 350 members of the Wesleyan community gathered to celebrate that more than $360 million had already been raised through the initiative, called “This is Not a Campaign. This is Wesleyan.” “Wesleyan is not your ordinary liberal arts college, and to signal this, we make a point of scrapping the ordinary term ‘campaign’—the ordinary just doesn’t do justice to who we are and who we want to be,” wrote President Michael S. Roth ’78…

Stewart E. Novick, Joshua Boger University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, Emeritus, passed away recently at the age of 78. Stew received his BS from Stony Brook University and his AM and PhD from Harvard University. He served as a research fellow at Harvard and a research associate at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, University of Colorado at Boulder, before he arrived at Wesleyan in 1978, where he taught until his retirement this past summer. During his 45 years at Wesleyan, he was named an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, a National Science Foundation Fellow, and a Woodrow Wilson…

Dyson to Offer Keynote Address At February Democracy in Action Convening

Phoebe C. Boyer ’89, P’19, ’23 Named Next Chair of the Board

Artificial Intelligence Explored in Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns

Zilkha Gallery Exhibit: “No Title: Relays and Relations, Works by Renée Green and Sol LeWitt”

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ Director Speaks about Creativity and the Multiverse

Badr ’20 Named Director of the Patricelli Center

Wesleyan Cuts Carbon Emissions, Report Says

Tony Award Winner Kail ’99 Speaks to Students

Wesleyan Celebrates Homecoming and Family Weekend

31st Annual Dwight L. Greene Symposium

Wesleyan Launches Historic Fundraising Initiative

Stewart E. Novick, Joshua Boger University Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, Emeritus, Passes Away