Campus News & Events

Every day the workers of Wesleyan’s facilities staff labor to keep the University going in the most fundamental ways. Their work can often be invisible but without properly ventilated performance spaces, clean laboratories, and functional classrooms, just to give a few examples, the University would grind to a halt. An upcoming multidisciplinary dance project titled “WesWorks” takes the rituals and movements of their days and creates choreography that transforms the ordinary, mundane, and skillful movements of work into a performance accompanied by live, original music and stories told in the workers’ voices. The performance will take place outdoors on Andrus…

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: In The Washington Post, William Griffin Professor of Philosophy Lori Gruen is quoted in a story about neutering. In her early career, Gruen, who specializes in animal ethics, worked in shelters where she witnessed "perfectly healthy dogs destroyed" and the toll it took on employees. “The overpopulation issue sounds abstract,” she said. “But these are dogs whose lives end and the people who have to bring those…

Assistant Professor of Government Alyx Mark’s aspiring law students arrived at her new service-learning class with a typical set of assumptions about how American courts work: Lawyers do most of the talking, decisions by the Supreme Court are followed to a tee by lower courts, and people who have legal problems tend to resolve them. However, most individuals' interactions with the law come through small civil actions—lawsuits, traffic court, and evictions, for example. For many people who live in low-income neighborhoods, not only is finding legal assistance difficult, but when they do access the law, often representing themselves in court,…

Scientists have already discovered more than 3,500 exoplanetary systems (planets orbiting around stars) in the universe, with the number continually expanding. By using Wesleyan's new 24-inch telescope, Kyle McGregor '24 is on the hunt for more, specifically systems involving two planets. To find them, he measures the light from stars over time, noting that the light will decrease when an exoplanet passes in front of a star, blocking the radiated light to Earth. "The measuring of this change in light, known as the 'transit method,' allows us to detect the presence of these distant worlds and to study their properties,"…

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: In The New Yorker, screenwriter, director, and actor Mike White '92 discusses his latest work, money and status, and his time on Survivor. "Instead of just focusing on one couple’s honeymoon, I constellated [the new show The White Lotus] with many people grappling with ideas about money," he says. "Who has the money can really create the dynamic of a relationship, the relationship itself, the sense of…

María Ospina, associate professor of Spanish, believes that writing fiction is another powerful way to engage the subjects that have driven her academic work—memory, violence, and culture. “Right now, I think that this is the way that I am going to continue exploring intellectual issues that interest me, including those related to history and politics,” said Ospina, who previously published a book of cultural criticism. Her debut book of short stories, Variations on the Body, has been translated into English from Spanish by Heather Cleary and was published in the United States in July by Coffee House Press. The book…

It’s common today to speak of building one’s brand—everyone from world leaders to precocious teens are worried about their image, shaping their personalities online, creating a persona that straddles reality and the imagined. For the Medici family, the 16th-century rulers of Florence and Tuscany and patrons of some of the most famous Renaissance artwork, the tools to accomplish this were very different from those of today. However, the objective was the same. Wesleyan's Davison Arts Center (DAC) is participating in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called “The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512-1570,” currently on display through October…

For many first-generation and low-income students, simply the idea of attending college can be daunting. The cost of higher education might be prohibitive. The application process can be complicated and overwhelming. Even with a committed support network, it can all be too much. “Oftentimes for first-generation students, college is not something that's expected … It is now starting to be a little bit more like ‘hey, you should go to college’ but it is not as widespread as in more affluent communities,” said Miguel Peralta, director of Wesleyan's Upward Bound Math-Science program. The Upward Bound Math-Science program is pulling down…

So long are the days of slipping out the back door of a party to avoid confrontation with a date gone bad. Through social media, one can easily "ghost"— that is, cut off all communication without giving a reason. In a new qualitative study titled "Disappearing in the Age of Hypervisibility: Definition, Context, and Perceived Psychological Consequences of Social Media Ghosting," lead researcher Royette Dubar, assistant professor of psychology, and her former master's student Jhanelle Oneika Thomas '18, MA '19 investigated both the motives and psychological consequences of the act of ghosting. Dubar and Thomas discovered that this modern-age disappearing…

After wrapping up a successful Spring 2020 issue showcasing the intellectual vibrancy and risk-taking Wesleyans employ in their creative pursuits, the Wesleyan University Magazine team thought they had their next issue’s subject all figured out. With a highly divided political landscape and a contentious presidential election looming, it was clear that the next issue should focus on Wesleyan’s long history of civic engagement and the University’s recently announced commitment to Engage 2020—an initiative aimed at encouraging widespread participation in the political process. But then COVID-19 hit. And just as the world was busy adapting to a new and scary reality,…

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: June 24 Marketing Technology Insights — ADEC Innovations Appoints New Executive To Lead Company In Their Next Phase Of Growth And Development. Features Sondra Scott '88, chief executive officer for ADEC Innovations U.S. and Europe. The Middletown Press — Connecticut State Colleges and Universities to require the COVID-19 vaccine for students this fall. Mentions that Wesleyan University "was among the first in the state to require the…

When launching spacecrafts and missiles, small navigational mistakes could lead to catastrophic results. A satellite could spin completely out of orbit, a missile could mistakenly strike a civilian territory, or a spaceship could end up at another planet altogether. Three Wesleyan researchers are collaborating on the development of a novel sensor that would benefit navigation and several other applications. The new, hypersensitive acceleration sensor is based on a principle borrowed from nuclear physics and has been developed at Wesleyan. It provides enhanced sensitivity and precision compared to conventional sensors. "Our underlying concept can be applied in a variety of sensing…

Wesleyan Facilities, Custodial Staff Celebrated through Performance

Wesleyan in the News

New Access-to-Justice Class Helps Students Enact Changes in Civil Law

Students Study Exoplanets, Bird Viruses, Chinese Immigration, Bacteria during the Summer

Wesleyan in the News

Ospina Explores the Struggle of Searching for Community in New Book

Davison Art Center Lends Rare 16th-Century Print to the Met

Wesleyan’s Upward Bound Helps Local Students Prepare for College

Dubar, Thomas ’18, MA ’19 Explore the Psychological Effects of Social Media Ghosting

Wesleyan University Magazine Honored with Prestigious CASE Award

Wesleyan in the News

Faculty Collaborate on New, Patent-Pending, Hypersensitive Accelerometer