Campus News & Events

Master printmaker Keiji Shinohara, artist in residence, will have three solo exhibitions in 2015." The title is "Keiji Shinohara: Woodcut." The first will be at the Odakyu Shinjuku Art Salon in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan March 11-17. For more information call 03-3342-1111 (Japan). The second show will be at Art Zone-Kaguraoka in Kyoto, Japan May 9-May 25. For more information call o75-754-0155 (Japan). The exhibition will return to the United States and be on display at the Visual Arts Gallery at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. throughout the month of October. In addition, Shinohara will be demonstrating Japanese Ukiyo-e printmaking…

Since the announcement last September that residential fraternities must become fully co-educational over the next three years, Greek life on campus has changed in several significant ways. The decision to mandate coeducation of residential fraternities came after several months of deliberations among students, faculty, staff, alumni and the Board of Trustees. While the three all-male residential fraternities were given three years in which to become fully co-educational, the deadline to present an initial co-education plan was the end of fall semester. (more…)

Registration is open for the 59th Annual Wesleyan Writers Conference. This year, the conference is offering scholarships and fellowships for alumni and other members of the Wesleyan community, including six scholarships for undergraduates. The conference, held June 10-14, welcomes established writers, new writers, and everyone interested in the writer's craft, and features seminars, workshops, readings and manuscript consultations. Sessions include novel, short story, poetry, nonfiction, journalism and special sessions such as writing about science and medicine. "This is a wonderful opportunity to start a new project or develop your current work with the help of distinguished writers, editors, agents and publishers," said…

Wesleyan men's tennis will have ample opportunity this spring to test its mettle. Head coach Mike Fried, who set up a challenging schedule for his young Cardinals, is hoping it will achieve the desired effect. "When trying to bring the program up to the top national mix, we needed to do something more competitive with our spring training trip," he said. In past years, the Cardinals traveled to Orlando, Fla. during March break, playing 4-6 matches against high-level Divisions I, II, III and NAIA opponents, but not the top teams in Division III. Breaking from tradition, (more…)

Wesleyan's "Music at the Russell House" series concludes with a free concert by the Connecticut-based jazz quartet Stanley Maxwell at 3 p.m. March 1 in the Russell House. The group plays music that blends tight arrangements with intricate group improvisations. The concert at Wesleyan will feature acoustic arrangements of original tunes from the past decade, including several world premieres. Stanley Maxwell features the CFA's Press and Marketing Director Andy Chatfield on drums, Mark Crino on bass, Eric DellaVecchia on alto saxophone, and Evan Green on piano. The group has built a grassroots name for themselves at colleges and festivals throughout…

Novelist Amy Bloom '75, the Distinguished University Writer-in-Residence, director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing, is co-hosting a new weekly podcast titled "Ethicists." The podcast, a re-imagination of the New York Times Magazine’s longtime “The Ethicist” column, features Bloom and two other ethicists answering questions for a half-hour. NYT Magazine Editor-in-Chief and Wesleyan alumnus Jake Silverstein '98 invited Bloom to participate in the show. The other panelists are Politico media columnist Jack Shafer and New York School of Law constitutional law professor Kenji Yoshino. The first episode, titled "Close Quarters: Can I ask my neighbors to quiet their baby?" debuted Feb. 18 and is produced…

This semester, 21 senior earth and environmental science majors in the Senior Field Research Project (EES 398) course traveled to Puerto Rico to develop their research, data collection, analytical and presentation skills. As part of the EES Department's capstone course sequence, students are required to participate in a series of student-designed research projects. From Jan. 12-19, students performed independent research in the field. "The overarching spirit is to have students participate in the full arc of a research project: from the design all the way to the presentation of the results," said Dana Royer, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, associate professor…

#THISISWHY On Feb. 3, President Michael Roth gave a talk on “How to Destroy Liberal Education” in Memorial Chapel. Since the publication of his book, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (Yale University Press, 2014), Roth has been speaking about liberal education to Wesleyan alumni and many others at various venues around the country. At this event, he spoke to students, staff and faculty about the relevance of the kind of education offered so compellingly at Wesleyan. A video and more photos of the event are below: (more…)

A Body in Fukushima, a series of color photographs and video presented in a groundbreaking exhibition across three Wesleyan galleries, is on display through April. The series is an exploration into the area around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which destabilized and melted down after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. The power plant released radioactive materials into the surrounding environment. In 2014, dancer-choreographer Eiko Otake and photographer/historian William Johnston followed abandoned train tracks through desolate stations into eerily vacant towns and fields in Fukushima, Japan. Otake is a visiting instructor in dance and Johnston is professor of history, professor of…

Lori Gruen, chair and professor of philosophy, was a distinguished guest speaker at the third Minding Animals Conference (MAC) in New Delhi, India on Dec. 7. Gruen also is professor of environmental studies, professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies. During the conference, Gruen discussed "Entangled Empathy," which is the topic of her most recent book. Gruen notes "that we are already entangled in complex and life-altering relationships with other animals and argues for a version of empathy as a way of rethinking and practicing animal ethics." She also sat on a panel that discussed the state of the field of animal studies and led…

How do faculty help students, and themselves, thread a path through an ever-growing body of information? What practices can faculty and students find that enable them to bring a clear and sustained focus to their work in the classroom and the laboratory? Through two workshops and discussions, held Feb. 19, participants can consider how one might approach teaching from a contemplative perspective, in both the long and short term. Faculty and students will experiment with the adaptation of several traditional contemplative practices to classroom situations including “stilling” (breath and body awareness), contemplative writing, “beholding,” and explore how these might be instantiated in a classroom, laboratory or personal…

Phillip Resor, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, was recently interviewed on WNPR about an amazing part of Connecticut's geological history. According to the story, several hundred million years ago, Connecticut was in the middle of a massive continental collision, which formed the super continent Pangea and pushed up huge mountains. Deep beneath the earth, a borderland beneath the two continents formed. Today, geologists call it the Lake Char fault system; it runs along the I-395 corridor in southeastern Connecticut. Resor took WNPR reporter Patrick Skahill to East Haddam by Gillette Castle to walk along the banks of the Connecticut River, and showed him fine black…

Shinohara’s Solo Exhibitions to be Displayed in Japan

Update on Greek Life at Wesleyan

Wesleyan Writers Conference Offering Scholarships, Fellowships

Men’s Tennis to Participate in Challenging Stag-Hen Invitational in California

Jazz Quartet Stanley Maxwell to Perform World Premieres March 1 at Russell House

Bloom Co-Hosts NYT Magazine‘s “Ethicists” Podcast

Students Travel to Puerto Rico to Develop Research Skills

President Roth Speaks about Liberal Education (with video)

A Body in Fukushima: Photo, Video Exhibit on Display at 3 CFA Galleries

Gruen Speaks at Minding Animals Conference in India

Faculty, Students Invited to Workshops on Contemplative Pedagogy Feb. 19

Resor Explores Connecticut’s Geological History