Lauren RubensteinFor first-year students, leaving home and starting a new life at Wesleyan can be exhilarating—but it’s also a major adjustment. Students who find themselves in need of a little extra support now have the option to be matched with faculty or staff mentors to help ease the transition, thanks to a new program from the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Diversity and Institutional Partnerships. The Connections Mentoring Program, which started as a small pilot in the 2011-12 school year, recently was expanded to any first-year student who wants mentoring. There are currently 49 mentors and 70 mentees,…
Olivia DrakeFulbright Fellow Janette Suherli could attend graduate school anywhere in the world, but the Indonesian resident decided to persue her master's degree in astronomy here at Wesleyan. "I learned about Wesleyan when I was in high school, and now I'm here because the Astronomy Department offers a great research program with well-known faculty members. The research and learning environment encourages me to be better everyday," she said. Suherli, who came to Wesleyan this fall, is one of three international Fulbright recipients who chose to complete their graduate studies at Wesleyan. Christine May Yong of Malaysia, plans to be at Wesleyan…
For demonstrating sustainability commitments and sustainable leadership, Wesleyan received a silver rating by STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System), a program of The Association of the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). Wesleyan received the honor on Oct. 14 after successfully completing the institution's STARS Report, which includes all of the data submitted during the reporting process. See the full report online here. In November 2012, Wesleyan became a member of AASHE to recognize the importance of sustainability and commitments set forth in the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. AASHE is a national organization that enables higher education institutions to meet…
This month, Wesleyan employees have the opportunity to help their local community by participating in the university's annual Middlesex United Way fundraising campaign. Wesleyan staff and faculty members already received informational packets and department representatives are collecting funds for the organization. "Although all of us have many organizations we support, our gifts to United Way raise Wesleyan’s collective voice in support of programs that help our Middlesex County neighbors in need," said Wesleyan President Michael Roth in an all-campus e-mail. "Wesleyan faculty and staff have long been known as contributors to this community endeavor – a tradition worthy of renewed…
Kate CarlisleThanks a million, WesScholar! The open-access repository of scholarly work at Wesleyan had its one millionth download sometime in the wee hours between Oct. 1 and 2, and the number of downloads now stands at 1,000,082, according to WesScholar’s keepers at Olin Library and ITS. The title or nature of the millionth download, however, remains obscure. “We’ve been wondering about that ourselves,” said University Archivist Leith Johnson. Perhaps it was one of the all-time top-10 downloads of faculty work, say, “A Sorcerer’s Bottle: The Visual Art of Magic in Haiti,” by Professor of Religion Elizabeth McAlister, or one of the…
Brian KattenWesleyan’s scholar-athletes continue to achieve in the classroom and on the field. Thirteen athletic teams have been honored for academic achievement by their national coaches associations for the 2012-13 year. Men's and women's cross country, field hockey and volleyball all were recognized academically during the fall. Men's and women's swimming and diving earned academic distinction for both the fall and spring semesters individually while the wrestling team was a winter achiever. Over the spring, women's lacrosse, softball, men's and women's track and field, and men's and women's tennis received honors. Among the 11 teams cited for scholastic accomplishment, the field hockey…
It may be difficult for today’s sophomores (roughly 54 percent female and 46 percent male) to imagine a Wesleyan without women. Harder still to wrap their minds around the idea that coeducation is relatively young at the 182-year-old university. (A pre-modern coed experiment lasted from 1872 to 1912.) Yet this year, Wes celebrates 40 years of women at Wesleyan, from the early female varsity athletes (some of whom competed on men’s squads until enough women could be found to join) to the influx of women who integrated the largely male professoriat (and now make up about 46 percent of the…
Homecoming/Family Weekend celebrates some of the best and most enjoyable aspects of life at Wesleyan. It brings people together from across the university's extended community—including students and their families, faculty, and alumni—to enjoy an array of academic, cultural and athletic events. During HCFW 2013, held Nov. 1-4, students’ families gain a sense of the undergraduate experience by sitting in on regularly scheduled classes, attending WESeminars, and by meeting faculty and administrators in both academic and social settings. Alumni reconnect with Wesleyan and with each other at a host of special seminars and social gatherings. This year, attend an all-college dinner, a…
Wesleyan University continues to go green. Campus is now equipped with four solar-powered waste compactors and single-stream recycling stations which may reduce collection frequency by up to 80 percent. Wesleyan’s Sustainability Office and Physical Plant have been working since last fall to bring the stations, designed by BigBelly Solar, to campus. The four new campus stations are located at Memorial Chapel, Usdan University Center, Olin Library and the Office of Admissions. Single-stream recycling reduces the number of bins necessary to collect recyclable goods and waste compactors reduce the number of times Wesleyan's custodial division needs to pick up trash. The BigBellys also are expected…
The Friends of the Davison Art Center is hosting its first-ever online auction featuring many pieces of fine art including works by internationally-exhibiting photographers, Wesleyan faculty, alumni and friends. The online auction, supported by Bidding for Good, runs for three weeks, from Oct. 15 through Nov. 9 and will be accessed at http://fdac.wesleyan.edu. As part of Wesleyan’s Homecoming/Family Weekend the Friends will also host a silent auction and free champagne reception at the Alsop House from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2. "We welcome the public to come get an up-close look at the pieces in the online auction…
Thanks to a matching grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and substantial gifts from generous supporters, Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities has secured $6 million in endowment as it celebrates 54 years of scholarship. The $2 million Mellon grant was announced in October 2011 (see story here); Wesleyan succeeded in raising the $4 million required for the match in two years, less than half the time required by Mellon when the grant challenge began in 2011. Fifteen Wesleyan alumni, parents and friends supplied leadership gifts to win the matching funds. “At a time when one hears so much rhetoric…
Clara Wilkins, assistant professor of psychology, is interested in research showing that whites are increasingly likely to see themselves as victims of racial discrimination, despite persistent gaps in income and other forms of inequality between blacks and whites in the U.S. Perceiving bias against whites is even more pervasive in white young adults than in the population as a whole, with 58 percent of whites aged 18-24 agreeing that, “discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.” In a new study, Wilkins and Joseph Wellman, postdoctoral fellow in psychology, investigated how whites react…