Kate CarlisleSeptember 16, 20132min
Wesleyan’s friends and neighbors in the community are invited (along with students, staff and faculty) to enjoy Middletown Day on campus Sept. 21. A menu of family activities is planned for the afternoon, leading up to the first night football game in the NESCAC, as the Cardinals face the Tufts University Jumbos in the season’s first contest. From 2:30 until about 4:45 p.m., Freeman Athletic Center will be the scene of games, live music, poster-making and balloon art, a bouncehouse for small visitors and various farmers’ market vendors. Free popcorn and beverages will be offered as well. At afternoon’s end,…

Olivia DrakeSeptember 16, 20132min
From Sept. 18-26, Wesleyan's Jewish community will observe the holiday of Sukkot by living, studying, holding classes, meditating, eating and socializing in a structure made completely of bamboo and steel rods. On Sept. 9-11, four members of Wesleyan's Physical Plant staff worked full days to assemble the massive temporary structure on the lawn of Olin Library. (more…)

Lauren RubensteinSeptember 16, 20132min
There are nearly 3 million post-9/11 veterans in the U.S., many wishing to attend college and pursue bachelor’s degrees. Unfortunately, liberal arts colleges and universities often struggle to recruit these veterans, and retention and graduation rates are low. In an effort to dramatically increase the number of veterans it enrolls, Wesleyan is entering into a new partnership with The Posse Foundation, Inc. Since 1989, The Posse Foundation has helped colleges and universities to recruit exceptional public high school students who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. Through its newest initiative, the Veterans Posse Program, the foundation identifies talented…

Olivia DrakeSeptember 16, 20131min
Ted Shaw '76 will speak on “Looking Backwards; Looking Forward: The Persistence of Race in 21st Century American Life” during Wesleyan's annual Constitution Day celebration Sept. 17. Shaw is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University Law School and counsel at the international firm of Fulbright and Jaworski. He served as director-counsel and president of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 2004 through 2008 and as a Wesleyan Trustee for 15 years. Shaw's talk begins at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Library's Smith Reading Room. Wesleyan’s Constitution Day event is part of a nationwide observance the U.S. Department of Education has…

Kate CarlisleSeptember 16, 20134min
The smack of the football in a receiver’s hands, the percussive thud of runners’ feet on the straightaway, the roar of spectators as the tape is broken or the ball goes through the uprights: these things don’t change. Other things do. Wesleyan athletes returning to campus this month were greeted by a sparkling new artificial turf field and track, glistening almost in Technicolor behind Freeman Athletic Center. The $1.6-million facility, funded by more than 100 generous supporters, will be home not just to track meets and everyday runners, but will serve as a practice surface for the football and other…

Olivia DrakeSeptember 16, 20132min
Aharon Barak, former president of the Israeli Supreme Court Interdisciplinary Center, in Herzliya, Israel will deliver the 23rd annual Hugo L. Black Lecture on Freedom of Expression at 8 p.m. Oct. 8 in Memorial Chapel. His talk is titled, “Human Dignity and Free Speech." Barak served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Israel from 1978 to 1995 and as president of the Court from 1995 to 2006. Earlier, he was Attorney General of the State of Israel and Dean of the Law Faculty at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1978, Barak traveled to the United States as…

Lauren RubensteinSeptember 16, 20133min
No matter what field of study they pursue, Wesleyan students almost inevitably find that their education provides an introduction to cultures other than their own. Whether it’s the German film, West African dance, or Latin American politics class they take; a study abroad adventure; or a new friend or classmate from another part of the world, the Wesleyan experience reaches far outside central Connecticut. To celebrate and share the global nature of a Wesleyan education—as well as the impact of Wesleyan students, faculty and alumni in countries around the world—a new International website has just been launched. The site serves…

Olivia DrakeSeptember 16, 20133min
On Sept. 28, Wesleyan hopes to change the conversation, change the culture, and change future laws regarding gun violence in America. During a day-long conference titled, "Marching On," experts from Wesleyan and all over Connecticut will speak on gun violence prevention and ways to promote legislation change. The event is hosted by Connecticut Against Gun Violence, the Wesleyan Association of Christian Thinkers, Wesleyan's Center for Community Partnerships and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Psi Upsilon, Womanist House, Buddhist house, 200 Church residence hall and Wes Democrats. "The evidence of preventable, unnecessary gun violence in our society is…

Olivia DrakeSeptember 16, 20133min
This fall, join novelists, poets, editors, writers and a physician for the Russell House Series on Prose and Poetry. The series is presented by Writing at Wesleyan and sponsored by the Center for the Arts. All events are free and open to the public. The series kicked off Sept. 11 with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. Komunyakaa is author of 20 books of poetry. He received a bronze star for his service as a journalist in the Vietnam War and is a professor and senior distinguished poet in the graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. Salvatore Scibona and…

Kate CarlisleSeptember 16, 20132min
President Michael S. Roth will join 54 other speakers, including former Vice President Al Gore, at the Social Good Summit Sept. 22-24 at the 92nd St. Y in New York. The speakers will address diverse topics on the theme of “How to Change the World,” seeking innovative solutions to global problems. To view and listen to a live stream of the event, go to: new.livestream.com/mashable. You may need to select the "join" link. The summit live stream will also be available in the Usdan University Center video lounge. The summit will form the basis of a new MOOC (massive open…

Olivia DrakeAugust 28, 201310min
Watch this video of Arrival Day: [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://youtu.be/RoY0k4kisv8[/youtube] (Story by Olivia Drake and Cynthia Rockwell) After touring 12 colleges and universities, Hannah Wolfe Eisner '17 stopped looking after visiting Wesleyan. "I fell in love with Wesleyan on a campus tour," Eisner said. "Wesleyan students are passionate, but they also love to share their passions with each other and interact and share ideas with one another, and that's the educational philosophy that I was looking for in a school." On Aug. 28, Eisner, who hails from New York City, moved a car-load of belongings into her new home-away-from-home at the…

Olivia DrakeAugust 28, 20134min
Fifty years ago, political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) published Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, a work she completed while she was a Fellow at Wesleyan’s Center for Advanced Studies (now the Center for the Humanities). On Sept. 26-28, Wesleyan will host a conference to honor this achievement and reflect on the reverberating repercussions of Arendt's work, a trial report that asks important and abiding questions about personal responsibility under dictatorship, the moral judgment of evil, the juridical prosecution of genocidal crimes of an international nature, and, more broadly, the historical conditions that shape our understanding of the Holocaust. The…