Campus News & Events

Q: Anna, where are you from and what attracted you to Wesleyan? A: I am from Woodbridge, Conn. and I was born in New York, but I didn’t seriously look into Wesleyan until October of my senior year of high school! When I was looking for schools I wanted to stick closer to home and, at the time, I was being recruited for swimming—a sport that had dominated my time during high school and that I had decided to pursue at the collegiate level. Of all the schools I looked at, I narrowed it down to a couple NESCAC schools and Wesleyan…

A book by Stephen Angle, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, was recently published in Chinese translation by Jiangxi People's Press. Titled, "Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy: Toward Progressive Confucianism," the book was originally published by Polity in 2013. The Chinese version includes a new preface. According to the blurb for the English-language version: Confucian political philosophy has recently emerged as a vibrant area of thought both in China and around the globe. This book provides an accessible introduction to the main perspectives and topics being debated today, and shows why Progressive Confucianism is a particularly promising approach. Students…

Jeanine Basinger, the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, appears in an interview about internationally renowned film actress Ingrid Bergman in the new documentary Ingrid Bergman—In Her Own Words, directed by Stig Bjorkman, which recounts the life of the cinema luminary through the subject’s home movies, photographs, diary entries and letters to family and friends. The director had access to these materials from the Ingrid Bergman Collection at the Wesleyan Cinema Archives, making ample use of them in the film. The documentary also features interviews with Bergman’s daughter, actress and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini, as well as other relatives and actresses Liv…

(By Fred Wills '19) A composition by Assistant Professor of Music Paula Matthusen will debut in the U.S. on Nov. 21. Her work, “on the attraction for felicitous amplitude,” will be performed by the string quartet, Brooklyn Rider, in Crowell Concert Hall. Join Matthusen for a pre-concert talk at starting at 7:15 p.m. In addition, on Dec. 3, violinist Todd Reynolds will perform a composition written by Matthusen at CFA Hall. Matthusen returns to Wesleyan this fall after being named a 2014-2015 Rome Prize recipient. Through a fellowship awarded by The American Academy in Rome, she received the opportunity to expand upon her own professional and…

Ron Jenkins, professor of theater, will participate in an international simulcast on Nov. 27 to celebrate Balinese language and Indonesia’s cultural and linguistic diversity. The simulcast will take place at the Indonesian Embassy in Washington where Jenkins will be helping to celebrate Saraswati Day by reading from his new book, Saraswati in Bali. Saraswati Day is the Balinese day set aside for honoring wisdom, knowledge and culture. The celebration will be streamed simultaneously to Indonesian diplomatic missions in New York, Tokyo, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Australia. The program also will include live simulcasts of a reading of a…

On Giving Tuesday, Dec. 1, the Wesleyan community will join together to support Wesleyan students. This will be Wesleyan’s third year participating in the global giving campaign, which encourages people to give back by supporting their favorite causes during the holiday season. Last year Wesleyan doubled its initial goal of 1,000 donors, with more than 2,000 members of the Wesleyan community giving a total of more than $500,000 in support of students at Wesleyan. This year, Wesleyan’s goal is 3,000 gifts between Nov. 20 and the end of the day on Giving Tuesday, Dec. 1. “The Wesleyan community is known for its generosity…

The Muslim Coalition of Connecticut honored Wesleyan's Center for the Arts on Nov. 15 for its "outstanding contributions and standards of excellence in advancing higher education," according to a proclamation from Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman. The awards dinner in Hartford was attended by Center for the Arts Director Pam Tatge, Associate Provost Mark Hovey, and faculty, staff and students from the advisory committee and Wesleyan's Muslim Students Association. View the event's photo gallery online. The honor recognized the CFA's Muslim Women's Voices series during the 2014-15 academic year. The series explored and celebrated the complexity of Muslim women today, and the historical and cultural context from…

More than 100 alumni and other members of the Wesleyan community attended the Social Impact Summit, Nov. 13-14, on campus. The summit was sponsored by the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns. Endowed by James Shasha ’50, P’82, the seminar supports lifelong learning and encourages participants to expand their knowledge and perspectives on significant issues. The event included keynote speakers with TED-style talks on the theme "The Change I Want to See," panel discussions, and workshops, as well as networking opportunities. “Social impact and entrepreneurship are deeply embedded in Wesleyan culture, and our students and alumni are known for creating significant…

Graduate Liberal Studies will present a special concert and open session of the course Monk and Mingus: The Cutting Edge of Jazz with Jazz Ensemble Coach Noah Baerman, Nov. 30 in Russell House. Baerman will perform on piano, accompanied by bassist Henry Lugo, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Private Lessons Teacher Pheeroan akLaff on percussion. The first hour of the class (6:30-7:30 p.m.) will be a discussion, demonstration and Q&A session, followed by a performance of music composed by and associated with Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. Attendees interested in learning more about Graduate Liberal Studies are encouraged…

On Nov. 9, more than 200 people gathered to celebrate the launch of The World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research and Capacity Building in Mental Health at Columbia University, Department of Psychiatry. The event, Global Mental Health Priorities and Opportunities, provided a platform for discourse around the challenges humans are tackling in mental health. Ruth Weissman, the Walter A. Crowell University Professor of the Social Sciences, professor of psychology, joined a panel discussion on "Global Mental Health Priorities and Opportunities," which was moderated by Pulitzer Prize winning author Sheryl WuDunn. Weissman and other leaders in the field discussed stigma…

In the 1920s, a team of scientists working in the Zhoukoudian cave system in Beijing, China unearthed Peking Man, a roughly 700,000 year-old sample of Homo erectus. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man became a prominent figure in bringing science and the story of human evolution to the masses. As part of the required reading for the HIST 368 class, History of Science and Technology in Modern China, Ying Jia Tan, assistant professor of history, is having his students read The People's Peking Man, written by Wesleyan alumna Sigrid Schmalzer '94. The People’s Peking Man offers a skilled…

From Nov. 4-7, Gabriel Lipton Galbraith '16 participated in the 67th annual Student Conference on United States Affairs (SCUSA) at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The conference, titled "Confronting Inequality: Wealth, Rights and Power" brought together students, scholars and members of the military to talk about pressing challenges currently facing U.S. policy makers. Student delegates were split into roundtables to discuss specific topics touching on this broader theme. Lipton Galbraith's roundtable focused on international trade and inequality. Over the four day conference they authored a position paper focusing on the possible consequences of the recently signed Transpacific Partnership (TPP) on inequality.…

Science in Society Major Lu ’17 Interested in Public Healthcare, Neurophysiology

Angle’s Book Published in Chinese Translation

Basinger Interviewed in Ingrid Bergman Documentary

Composer Matthusen’s U.S. Premiere Performed Nov. 21 at Crowell

Jenkins Celebrates Indonesia’s Cultural, Linguistic Diversity in International Simulcast

Support Wesleyan Students on Giving Tuesday

Muslim Coalition of Connecticut Honors Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts

Changemakers Convene at Wesleyan Social Impact Summit

GLS Presents Jazz Concert, Open Course Session, Nov. 30

Weissman Discusses Mental Health Care as Panelist

Anthropology, Archaeology Collections Offer Hands-On Learning

Lipton Galbraith ’16 Attends Confronting Inequality Conference at U.S. Military Academy