Campus News & Events

On Nov. 2, elected city and state officials and university staff joined a large crowd of WESU volunteers and staff in Wesleyan’s Daniel Family Commons for an event commemorating the community radio station’s landmark 75th anniversary.State Representatives Matt Lesser and Joe Serra presented the WESU Board of Directors with a citation, and Middletown Mayor Daniel Drew was joined by Councilmen Grady Faulkner and David Bauer to present the station with a Proclamation from the City of Middletown. Cathy Lechowicz, director of the Center for Community Partnerships, and Ben Michael, WESU general manager, gave brief remarks about the important role WESU…

Children enrolled in Wesleyan’s Neighborhood Preschool participated in the annual NPS Halloween Parade on Oct. 31. The children, accompanied by their parents, teachers and care-takers, paraded through Exley Science Center and stopped at Olin Library and North College to sing songs. Many trick-or-treaters are the children of Wesleyan faculty and staff. (more…)

On Nov. 7, the Wesleyan African Students Association will host the first Africa Innovation Summit. Co-sponsored by the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship and other campus partners, the event will facilitate conversations about the growth of innovation on the African continent, and will celebrate those who are paving a new path for progress in Africa. The summit will be held from 2:30 to 8 p.m. in Daniel Family Commons in Usdan University Center. Hirut M'cleod '00 of the World Bank, a former Wesleyan trustee, will deliver the keynote at 2:30 p.m. There will also be panels on topics including children…

Wesleyan faculty Joop Varekamp and Ellen Thomas are among the authors of a paper on rates of sea-level rise along the eastern U.S. seaboard titled "Late Holocene sea level variability and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation," published in the journal Paleoceanography, Volume 29, Issue 8, pages 765–777 in August 2014. Varekamp is the Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science, professor of earth and environmental sciences and professor of environmental studies. Thomas is research professor of earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan, and also a senior research scientist in geology and geophysics at Yale University. Pre-20th century sea level variability remains poorly understood due to…

A study co-authored by Graduate Research Assistant Eleana Makri and two other Wesleyan researchers is a topic of a Oct. 20 article published in Scientific Reports. Due to the ultrahigh-speed and ultrawide-band brought by adopting photons as information carriers, photonic integration has been a long-term pursuit for researchers, which can break the performance bottleneck incurred in modern semiconductor-based electronic integrated circuits. The article states that "recently, Makri theoretically proposed the concept of reflective power limiter based on nonlinear localized modes, where a nonlinear layer was sandwiched by two reflective mirrors, thus increased the device complexity." The report is based on Makri's study, titled "Non-Linear Localized Modes Give Rise…

Tsampikos Kottos and Ali Basiri, a Ph.D. student in physics, are co-authors of a paper titled "Light localization induced by a random imaginary refractive index," published in Physical Review A 90, on Oct. 13, 2014. Kottos is the Douglas J. and Midge Bowen Bennet Associate Professor of Physics. In the paper, the authors show the emergence of light localization in arrays of coupled optical waveguides with randomness.

Wesleyan President Michael Roth recently spoke about "Why Liberal Arts Education Matters" as part of the 92nd Street Y (92Y) American Conversation series. 92Y connects people all over the world through culture, arts, entertainment and conversation. In the Oct. 15 episode, New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni interviews Roth about the contentious debate over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education. In the interview, Roth, who is author of Beyond the University, Why Liberal Education Matters, makes the case for the great American tradition of humanistic education. Watch a video of the conversation below: Roth also discussed “The Future of Education” at…

Assistant professor of Astronomy Meredith Hughes and eight colleagues have found evidence of magnetic fields in stardust – an indication that magnetic fields are important in the process of planetary system formation, according to a new paper in the journal Nature. The discovery is another step in work by Hughes and other astronomers to understand how celestial bodies are formed. It is known that magnetic fields in the “accretion disks” of stars play a dominant role in the star formation process. Using data from an observatory near Bishop, Calf., Hughes and her colleagues were able to spot signs of magnetic…

Wesleyan's Athletics Department welcomed five notable former athletes and one coach into the seventh class of Wesleyan's Athletics Hall of Fame Oct. 17. The inductees include Joe Barry Morningstar ’39; Cochrane Chase ’54; Marion Stoj, M.D. ’74; Thomas Vincent Reifenheiser III ’94; Sarah Hann, DVM '95; and J. Elmer Swanson, track and cross country coach. Chase, a tremendous football and wrestling talent, was unable to attend the event. The Wesleyan University Athletics Hall of Fame grew out of the collaborative work of the Athletics Advisory Council (AAC), founded in the fall of 2006, and the Wesleyan administrative. Though the inventory of…

WESU 88.1 FM will host a Fall Record Fair from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 26 in Beckham Hall. Dozens of vendors from across the Northeast will be selling vinyl records, CDs, posters, T-shirts and more. WESU DJs will sell WESU gear and records to support the station. The station also is seeking donations to be sold at the event. (more…)

The Office of Human Resources reported the following new hires and departures for September 2014: Newly hired Janani Iyer was hired as a research assistant/lab coordinator in the Psychology Department on Sept. 2. Ilona Bass was hired as a research assistant/lab coordinator in the Psychology Department on Sept. 2. Paul Wilson Cauley was hired as a researcher in the Astronomy Department on Sept. 8. Franklin Huynh was hired as a senior budget analyst in the Office of Financial Planning on Sept. 15. Michael Schramm was hired as assistant director of the Wesleyan Fund on Sept. 15. Luigi Solla was hired an associate…

On Oct. 24, the Dance Department and Center for the Arts present "To Not Forget Crimea: Uncertain Quiet of Indigenous Crimean Tatars," a panel discussion and the Fall Faculty Dance Concert by Associate Professor of Dance Katja Kolcio. While international media and political leaders are ignoring the situation in Crimea, this event draws public attention to the widespread violation of the Tatars' human rights and the degree to which the Russian Occupation has forced them out of their ancestral homeland. The evening will begin with a free panel discussion, "Indigenous Ukrainian Perspectives of Crimea Post Russian-Invasion," from 6 to…

88.1 FM WESU Honored for 75 Years of Community Radio

Trick-or-Treaters Parade through Wesleyan’s Campus, Sing Songs

Wesleyan African Students Association to Host Africa Innovation Summit

Studies by Varekamp, Thomas Published in Paleoceanography

Makri’s Power Limiter Research Noted in Scientific Reports Article

Kottos, Basiri Author Paper Published in Physical Review

Roth Speaks about Liberal Arts Education in 92Y Interview

Hughes Finds Magnetic Fields in Stardust; Study Published in Nature

6 Inducted to Wesleyan’s Athletic Hall of Fame

WESU Seeking Donations for Fall Record Fair Oct. 26

Staff on the Move, September 2014

Crimea, Tatar Rights Explored at Panel Discussion, Multimedia Performance