Campus News & Events

Felice Li '25 met, mingled, and offered a campus tour to one of Japan's sōryōji—or consuls general—during a recent visit to Wesleyan. "As a new student here, I felt very excited to show the consul general our campus and what I had explored here so far," Li said. "I lived in Tokyo before coming here, so I was excited to present the tour in Japanese." Li was among several students and faculty who spent the day with Consul General Setsuo Ohmori, who is the highest-ranking Japanese consul in Boston. The CG supports the safety and stability of the Japanese people,…

Wesleyan’s intellectually dynamic faculty, students, alumni, staff, and parents frequently serve as expert sources for national media. Others are noted for recent achievements and accolades. A sampling of recent media hits is below: Variations on the Body, written by María Ospina, is reviewed in The New York Times. "Ospina’s debut collection opens not with a bang but a scratch: The protagonist of the first story faces the irritation of a shirt tag. The body troubles, you see. Welts appear. The heart becomes a defiant pump. Pregnancy happens, whether or not it is a vocational disqualification. Then, of course, there’s the…

One in five women and one in 16 men experience sexual violence in college, according to recent studies. The percentages are even higher amongst women of color and the LGBTQ+ community. The frightening thing about those already disturbing numbers is that they are almost certainly not the whole story. “We know that this is one of the most underreported experiences of harm,” said Johanna DeBari, director of the Office of Support, Healing, Activism, and Prevention Education (SHAPE). DeBari and her team at SHAPE are hoping that their work during Dating Violence Awareness Month this October will help draw attention to the…

Richard Ohmann, Benjamin Waite Professor of the English Language, Emeritus, died Oct. 8 at the age of 90. Ohmann received his BA from Oberlin College and his MA and PhD from Harvard University. He arrived at Wesleyan in 1961 and, until his retirement in 1996, served in many roles and helped to shape the future of Wesleyan. Joel Pfister, Olin Professor of English, sketched Ohmann’s trajectory: “He was promoted rapidly to full professor; was appointed vice president and provost; protested on national TV against the Vietnam War; was elected vice president of the Modern Language Association (MLA) on an antiwar…

Malik Booker '25 isn't the average first-year student. At age 26, the potential computer science and College of East Asian Studies major has already served four years with the U.S. Navy as a petty officer third class officer in San Diego, Calif. and the island of Guam. As a former hull technician, he's a trained welder, pipefitter, and carpenter, and has experience firefighting, repairing boats, maintaining marine plumbing, operating ballast control systems, and inspecting nuclear-level materials. But honing these skills wasn't enough for an ideal post-military career. "I didn't want to be trapped into [working in the] trades forever," Booker…

The grand finale of Jeanine Basinger’s storied career at Wesleyan took place in late September with the naming ceremony in her honor of the new Center for Film Studies. The event, held Sept. 25, celebrated the completion of the third and final phase of the center. The 16,000 square-foot addition includes a state-of-the-art production studio, a cyclorama and green screen, a 50-seat screening room, additional indoor and outdoor classroom spaces, a three-story house dedicated to on-site film shooting, and increased archival research space. Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Emerita Professor of Film Studies and founder of The Ogden and Mary Louise Reid Cinema…

Since 2012, Associate Professor of Spanish Maria Ospina has worked with the Wesleyan Film Board to organize an annual film series titled Contemporary Cinema from the Hispanic World and celebrate Hispanic cultures following Hispanic Heritage Month. The series has run every year since then, except for in 2020 (during the pandemic). This year, the series will occur in the Goldsmith Family Cinema on Thursdays at 8 p.m. from Oct. 7 to Nov. 4, with five recent award-winning films from Latin America and Spain featured in the span of a month. “This film series aims to showcase cultural, social and political…

Wesleyan’s intellectually dynamic faculty, students, alumni, staff, and parents frequently serve as expert sources for national media. Others are noted for recent achievements and accolades. A sampling of recent media hits is below: Forbes ranks Netflix CMO Bozoma Saint John '99 as the world's most influential CMO. Saint John, who also is a member of Wesleyan's Board of Trustees, took the helm of Netflix’s marketing department last year following her leadership roles at powerhouse brands including Endeavor, Apple and Uber. More than half of the honorees on this year’s list are women and around 20 percent of the list are…

One day, back in 2019, three armed men came to Henry Dilonga Meriki’s house. He knew why they were there—they needed money to keep the fight against the Cameroon government going, or, they'd resort to kidnapping him. Anticipating the worst, Meriki put on warm clothes and shoes that would allow him to walk miles into the bush to their camps. They were separatists, a group of English-speaking fighters who have been battling with the government of Cameroon for over five years. He gave them about $180—down from $1,100 they asked for—to let him go. “We had to negotiate, and it’s better…

A team of researchers at Wesleyan has discovered new strains of bacteria—located on the University's campus—that may have the ability to break down microplastics and aid in the world's ongoing plastic waste crisis. Microplastics, which measure less than .20 of an inch, enter the ecosystem— and our bodies— largely through the abrasion of larger plastic pieces dumped into the environment. According to a study published in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, the average person consumes at least 50,000 particles of microplastic a year and inhales a similar quantity. "Plastic is typically classified as a non-biodegradable substance. However, some…

Like every other part of the campus community, Wesleyan’s student activity organizations are learning to adapt to the realities of the pandemic. The biggest change for many of those groups is a simple one—having the ability to get back together again. Hundreds of students attended the university’s annual Student Involvement Fair (view photos) in early September, and the excitement was, understandably, quite high. Wesleyan’s wide array of activities are always an opportunity for students to expand their intellectual and cultural horizons. For many, stuck in a pandemic stasis for almost two years, the Involvement Fair is a chance to interact…

As a newly-selected non-resident adjunct fellow for the Washington Research Consortium on Korea, Joan Cho hopes to showcase South Korea’s democratization through a new scholarly book tentatively titled, Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Development and Democracy in South Korea, 1961-1987. Cho, assistant professor of East Asian Studies, will participate in the multi-year laboratory research project until 2024 through the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The project, titled “The South Korean Pathway: Understanding the Theoretical and Policy Significance of Korean Democracy and Foreign Policy,” will conduct an in-depth analysis of South Korea’s democracy and foreign policy to fill an important gap in…

Consul General of Japan Visits with Wesleyan Students, Faculty

Wesleyan in the News

SHAPE Office Recognizes Violence Awareness Month with Activities

Ohmann Remembered For Transforming University Life and Culture

Posse Veteran Scholars Program Bring Diverse Backgrounds to Campus

Basinger Celebrated at Center for Film Studies (with Photos)

Hispanic Heritage Month Celebrated with Contemporary Cinema Series

Wesleyan in the News

Wesleyan Participates in Efforts to Protect Visiting Scholars

Student Researchers Discover Potential “Plastic-Eating” Bacteria on Campus

Student Activity Groups Excited to Get Back to Normal

Cho to Join Washington Research Consortium on Korea