Lauren RubensteinThree Wesleyan professors have been awarded a four-year, $1.49 million grant by the state of Connecticut’s Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. The grant will help fund research on using human embryonic stem cell-derived GABAergic neurons for epilepsy therapy, which is being conducted by Janice Naegele, professor of biology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, Laura Grabel, Lauren B. Dachs Professor of Science and Society, Professor of Biology, and Gloster Aaron, associate professor of biology, associate professor of neuroscience and behavior. This grant was the largest single award to researchers in this year’s competition. Only 23 projects were selected to receive funds…
Olivia DrakeComposer, saxophonist, clarinetist, flutist, pianist and music educator Anthony Braxton was named a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master for his unique approaches to jazz. The award is considered the nation's highest honor in the field. Braxton, the John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, will receive a $25,000 award along with the honor. According to the NEA, Braxton's compositions "almost defy categorization through his use of the improvised and rhythmic nature of jazz but moving it in a more avant-garde direction, such as in his Ghost Trance Music compositions." Braxton, who was born in Chicago, Ill. has redefined…
Kate CarlisleEchoes of the fight song were still bouncing off Foss Hill after Commencement when word got around about a big offseason win for Wesleyan athletics: a generous commitment by Frank Sica ’73 to endow the position of athletic director. Sica is a former trustee who wrestled and played football at Wesleyan. The gift to fund the post currently held by Michael Whalen ’83 firmly establishes the importance of athletics in co-curricular learning at Wesleyan, according to Dennis Robinson ’79, P ’13, immediate past chairman of the Athletics Advisory Council. “Nearly 25 percent of the entire student body plays a varsity…
Nine Wesleyan faculty members received promotions on July 1. In its most recent meeting, the Board of Trustees conferred tenure to Patricia Rodriguez Mosquera, associate professor of psychology. (Seven faculty members were tenured in 2012-13; Rodriguez Mosquera joins four faculty members who were awarded tenure earlier this spring, and two who received tenure in the fall.) Additionally, the following eight faculty members are being promoted to full professor: Michael Calter, professor of chemistry; Manju Hingorani, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry; Scott Holmes, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry; Elizabeth McAlister, professor of religion; Masami Imai, professor of economics; Suzanne O’Connell, professor of…
Admissions reports that the class of 2017 is nearly fully formed, the final offers have been made and Wesleyan will welcome a class of around 750 frosh in September. The class is more international than in previous years, with 101, or 13 percent of its students coming from outside the United States. These students are extremely well prepared academically for college and an open curriculum: more of its members took calculus, at least four years of a foreign language and biology, chemistry and physics in high school than the previous admitted class. “We’re pretty excited about this, and have a…
Embrace the contradictions and tensions within yourself and between yourself and others, and accept that they will never go away. This was the advice Joss Whedon ’87 shared with the Class of 2013 at the 181st Commencement Ceremony on Sunday, May 26. “The best thing is not just the idea of honest debate, the best thing is losing the debate, because it means that you learn something and you changed your position. The only way really to understand your position and its worth is to understand the opposite. That doesn’t mean the crazy guy on the radio who is spewing…
Award-winning writer, director, and producer Joss Whedon '87 delivered the Commencement Address during the 181st Commencement Ceremony. Watch a video of his address below, or read the text of this speech. [youtube width="640" height="420"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn866ryQ5RY[/youtube] "Commencement address—it’s going well, it’s going well. Thank you, Jeanine, for…making me do this. This is going to be great. This is going to be a good one. It’s gonna go really well. Two roads diverged in a wood, and… no. I’m not that lazy. I actually sat through many graduations. When I was siting where you guys were sitting, the speaker was Bill Cosby—funny man…
(Story contributed by Jim Smith) When graduate student Amy Steele settled into her seat the first day of an upper-level Radio Astronomy course last January she was anticipating a rigorous four-month exploration of the discipline. The instructor, Meredith Hughes, who had just joined the Astronomy Department as an assistant professor, came with strong credentials in radio astronomy. Steele was excited. After completing her undergraduate work at Williams College, she had taken four years off to work as the astronomy lab supervisor at the University of Texas at Arlington. Last fall she enrolled as a graduate student at Wesleyan. “Radio astronomy…
Bill HolderDuring Wesleyan's Commencement Ceremony on May 26, Wesleyan President Michael Roth awarded Joss Whedon ’87, Majora Carter ’88 and Jim Dresser ’63 with honorary degrees. Joss Whedon ’87 Joss Whedon is an award-winning writer, director and producer and delivered the commencement address on May 26. He is the force behind such popular television shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and the 2012 superhero blockbuster film, The Avengers. The son and grandson of successful television writers, Whedon was raised in New York and studied film at Wesleyan. After graduating, he landed his first TV writing job on the show Roseanne. He developed a script for the 1992…
If you’ve ever spent an evening looking up old flames on Facebook, shopping online and watching questionable YouTube videos, you may have wished there were a way to preserve your anonymity on the World Wide Web. It turns out there is a way; and a Wesleyan senior’s capstone work explored how to make that way faster and better. Julian Applebaum ’13, a computer science major, spent the year working on a simulation of Tor, a global network run by volunteers, that allows internet users to remain anonymous. There is one problem: Tor is painfully slow. His work attempts to simulate…
Every year Wesleyan recognizes outstanding teaching with three Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching awarded at commencement. These prizes, made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank G. Binswanger Sr., Hon. ’85, underscore Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers, who are responsible for the university’s distinctive approach to liberal arts education. Recommendations are solicited from alumni of the last 10 graduating classes, and current juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Recipients are chosen by a selection committee of faculty, emeriti, and members of the Alumni Association Executive Committee. This year, Wesleyan honored the following faculty members for their excellence…
Wesleyan President Michael Roth '78 made the following remarks during the Wesleyan Commencement Ceremony: "Members of the board of trustees, members of the faculty and staff, distinguished guests, new recipients of graduate degrees and the mighty class of 2013, I am honored to present some brief remarks on the occasion of this commencement. During your four years here, Wesleyan has been largely isolated from many of the troubles of this world. While you have been students, the United States has been engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on this Memorial Day Weekend, I begin by asking us all…