Lauren RubensteinIn its recent meeting, the Board of Trustees conferred tenure on eight faculty members, effective July 1, 2015. They are: Associate Professor of Sociology Robyn Autry, Associate Professor of Government Sonali Chakravarti, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Amy MacQueen, Associate Professor of Music Paula Matthusen, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Rich Olson, Associate Professor of Mathematics Christopher Rasmussen, Associate Professor of Economics Damien Sheehan-Connor, and Associate Professor of Classics Eirene Visvardi. Brief descriptions of their research and teaching appear below: Associate Professor Autry is a cultural sociologist with broad interests in collective identity, memory, and visual culture. Her…
At its meeting Feb. 27, the Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition and residential comprehensive fees by 3.3 percent for the 2016-17 year. Tuition will be $50,312 for all undergraduate students. The residential comprehensive fee will be $13,950 for first-year and sophomore students, and $15,858 for juniors and seniors. For the past three years, Wesleyan has linked tuition increases to the national CPI average as part of an initiative to address affordability. That effort has been successful, resulting in very low tuition increases compared to most peer institutions. In recent years, we have seen increased pressure on our financial…
Laurie KenneyOn Feb. 26, Wesleyan honored Ellen Jewett ’81, P’17, a former trustee and incoming co-chair of the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, for her many years of service to the university with the naming of the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships (JCCP) during a ribbon-cutting ceremony outside of the center, located on the third floor of the Allbritton Center. The ceremony was part of the university’s Board of Trustees reception. The event was attended by more than 150 guests, including Wesleyan President Michael Roth '78, outgoing board chairman Joshua Boger '73, P'06, P'09, and JCCP director Cathy Lechowicz, as well as…
Bill HolderPropel Capital, a philanthropic and impact investing fund that supports innovative strategies to deploy capital for social impact, has announced a challenge grant to Wesleyan’s Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship (PCSE). Every dollar raised in gifts or pledges to the PCSE endowment by June 2017 will be matched 1:1 by Propel, up to $700,000 which will fully endow the Center. Co-founded by Jeremy Mindich ’87 and Sarah Williams ’88, Propel Capital provides grants and investments to nonprofits and social enterprises early or at critical junctures in their development. Mindich and Williams were part of a small group of Wesleyan alumni…
This month, the Workshop, a new student-run arts collective, opened in the basement of Hewitt 8, The collective was created to provide space, support and resources to any student wanting to pursue a creative project—from bookmaking and woodworking to photography and filmmaking to sewing and weaving.
Wesleyan is one of only 12 institutions awarded a prestigious Beckman Scholars Program this year, according to Francis Starr, director of the College of Integrative Sciences and professor of physics, who directs Wesleyan’s Beckman program. The Beckman Scholars Program provides intensive research experiences and career mentoring to help Wesleyan undergraduates develop as leaders in the sciences. Up to two Wesleyan students will receive this award annually, which carries a total stipend of $18,200 plus funds to support supplies and travel. Awards are normally made to sophomores to support research during the summer through the summer following junior year. (more…)
Building off research she did for her work "Body in Places" at Wesleyan in fall 2015, Visiting Instructor in Dance Eiko Otake will present a major platform at Danspace Project in New York City on March 11. The free talks include those by Wesleyan faculty members William Johnson, professor of history, professor of East Asian Studies, professor of science in society, professor of environmental studies, and Katja Kolcio, associate professor of dance, associate professor of environmental studies. March 11 marks the fifth anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. A photo collective by Eiko and Johnston will be…
Olivia DrakeA high school student from New York, who is mentored by a faculty member and a graduate student in Wesleyan's Neuroscience and Behavior Program, is one of the top four finalists for the Neuroscience Research Prize, awarded by the American Academy of Neurology and the Child Neurology Society. As a recipient of the prize, Armonk, N.Y. resident Ryan Infante will receive a $1,000 cash prize and per diem for expenses at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Child Neurology Society in Vancouver, B.C. in October 2016. He will present his stem cell transplantation research during the Child Neurology Society meeting. Infante,…
A paper by Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins, Alexander Hirsch '13 and Michael Inkles '12 has been published in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations. Titled, "The threat of racial progress and the self-protective nature of perceiving anti-White bias," the paper describes two studies in which the researchers examine whether racial progress is threatening to whites, and if perceiving anti-white bias assuages that threat. The first study showed that whites primed with racial progress—by reading an article on social advancement by minorities—exhibited evidence of threat: lower implicit self-worth relative to the baseline. The second study replicated the threat effect…
Sustainability Director Jennifer Kleindienst spoke in January at the Connecticut Recyclers Coalition conference about Wesleyan's experience with composting (also called organics recycling). Wesleyan's composting efforts began intermittently in 2010 through student initiative. Beginning in 2012-13, Kleindienst, her interns, Physical Plant staff, and Bon Appetit led regular residential and dining pre- and post-consumer collection. The vast majority of composed material comes from Usdan, but other participants include approximately150 wood frame, program houses, and apartment residences, seven of nine dorms, and a handful of offices. Finished compost is sent to Long Lane Farm. Wesleyan's trash, recycling and composting data can be seen below: Kleindienst announced that…
Frederic Wills '19Johan "Joop" Varekamp, the Howard T. Stearns Professor in Earth Science, led an invited talk at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, Dec. 2015. The earth and space science community participated in discussions of emerging trends and the latest research. The session, which was co-authored by former Wesleyan E&ES graduate student Lauren Camfield, focused on the 2012 eruption of the Copahue volcano in Argentina. Due to the success of the invited talk on Volcanic Hydrothermal Systems, Varekamp will be a co-editor for a special issue of a journal based on that session. As part of his role as…
“Bubbletrapper” is the goddess of bubblegum and is always nice — except to bad guys. “Bubblegum is her weapon,” said Marrisaana, a fifth grader at MacDonough Elementary School in Middletown. “When she’s mad, she traps bad guys in a bubble.” On Feb. 19, Marrisaana and four other classmates participated in Wesleyan’s WesMyth program, which provides fifth graders at McDonough with an introduction to Greek mythology. The program, taught by Wesleyan student volunteers, is held for one hour every week throughout the academic year. On this particular day, the WesMyth participants created their own Greek gods and goddesses based on mythical creatures they’ve studied in…