Olivia DrakePlant trees, create recycled art, tour a chestnut orchard, work on an organic garden and much more during Earth Month at Wesleyan! During the month of April, Wesleyan's Sustainability Office is hosting several earth-friendly opportunities. Events begin April 4 with a luncheon discussion on "Waste: Uncertainty, Futurity, and Democratic Engagement" at Woodhead Lounge. The Wesleyan community also is invited to the 6th Annual Global Environmental Sustainability Symposium on Transportation, Human Mobility and Sustainability at Central Connecticut State University the same day. On April 6, join student organization WILD Wes to plant the berry bushes and herbaceous plantings for the Edible…
Gabe Rosenberg '16For its 2013 Americas Forum, Wesleyan’s Center for the Americas is commemorating the centenary of Aimé Césaire, éminence grise of the Francophone Caribbean. Taking place on April 5-6 at Russell House, the annual symposium brings scholars and artists from "north" and "south" into dialogue about Césaire, who was not only a regional figure but also a global presence as an intellectual, poet, artist and politician. Celebrating his influential life, spanning from the movements of Surrealism and Negritude to his ideas on decolonization and spiritual and cultural pan-Africanism, the Americas Forum is also an intellectual consideration of Césaire’s contributions to our…
View the talents of the seniors in the Art Studio Program of Wesleyan’s Department of Art and Art History. “Senior Thesis Exhibitions 2013” runs March 26-April 21 in the Zilkha Gallery. The show, features drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, mixed media and architecture. “We’re all so proud of our senior majors. The four weeks of rotating Senior Thesis Exhibitions are a wonderful opportunity for the broader Wesleyan community to experience their remarkable work,” said Tula Telfair, professor of art. Allison Kalt, Tiffany Unno, Ilyana Schwartz, Anna Shimshak and Christina You will display their artwork from March 26-31. Piers Gelly, Zoe Albert,…
Bill HolderFriday, 7 p.m. March 1. A tide of trustees, faculty, students and staff flowed into Beckham Hall for the Board of Trustees' dinner to a background refrain from the Black Eyed Peas – “Tonight's gonna be a good night.” And a good night it turned out to be, with stirring speeches and rousing dance moves. President Michael Roth officially launched the public phase of Wesleyan’s fundraising campaign by celebrating a number of recent gifts, including $3 million from John Shapiro ’74 and Shonni Silverberg ’76 in support of Wesleyan’s writing programs, building on their 2009 gift which established the Shapiro…
A $3 million gift to support writing programs at Wesleyan was announced March 1 at the Board of Trustees dinner on campus. The gift from John Shapiro ’74 and Shonni Silverberg ’76, a Wesleyan trustee, builds on their 2009 gift establishing the Shapiro Creative Writing Center. Shapiro said he was delighted with the speed with which the center was developed. “We were gratified that the university moved quickly and got this program launched and established,” Shapiro said. “I’ve had good feedback from people both at Wesleyan and elsewhere. It has generated’ a bit of a buzz.” This new gift will…
Lauren RubensteinAssociate Professor Jennifer Tucker has been selected for a Fulbright-U.S. Scholar Award, through which she will spend eight months at the University of York in England. Tucker is a historian of British science, technology and medicine, specializing in the study of the connections among British science, photography and the visual arts from 1850 to 1920. At the University of York, she will complete work on her second book, tentatively titled, Facing Facts: The Tichborne Cause Célèbre and the Rise of Modern Visual Evidence. She also plans to begin preliminary research toward her next book project, which will trace the social…
What do you get when you cross Wesleyan student-athletes with four racket sports? The answer: the first American team to represent the U.S. in racketlon! In racketlon, a player challenges his/her opponent in each of the four biggest racket sports: table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis. The sport is a cousin of the triathlon and decathlon. Each team plays their opponents in all four sports. Shona Kerr, head squash coach teaches racketlon at Wesleyan and coaches the Wesleyan team. Last summer, Wesleyan team represented America in the Racketlon World Championship in Sofia, Bulgaria. They placed 11th overall. Team members included Ethan Moritz '14;…
All students, staff and faculty are invited to the Spring 2013 "In Theory" lecture series presented by the Certificate Program in Social, Cultural and Critical Theory. Each week, Wesleyan faculty will lead a discussion on social, cultural and critical theory or on a well-known theorist. Lectures take place in Downey House 113 from 4:15 to 5:30 p.m. On March 26, Matthew Garrett, assistant professor of English, will speak on V.I. Lenin, founder of the Russian Communist Party and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin’s political theories, derived from interpretations of Marxism, revolved around the establishment of a vanguard party to…
At its March meeting, Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition and residential comprehensive fees by 2.9 percent for the 2013-14 academic year, a rise equal to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation. This increase is significantly less than those for recent years, which have ranged from 3.8 percent to 5.0 percent. “We are committed to reining in over time the price of a Wesleyan education and to meeting the full financial need of students who enroll,” said Wesleyan President Michael Roth. “By tying tuition increases to the rate of inflation, we are seeking to moderate the…
Laurel Appel, adjunct associate professor of biology and senior research associate, died on March 4. She is survived by her husband, Michael Weir, and her children, Rebecca and Nathaniel. The following announcement was made by Provost Rob Rosenthal, the John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology, in an all-campus e-mail. "Laurel Appel's passion was equality of opportunity, and she developed and ran the Ronald E. McNair Program at Wesleyan for many years. This program provides support and nurturing of first generation college students and students in underrepresented groups for entry into graduate programs. In Laurel's words, working with the program 'was…
Wesleyan has announced the establishment of a new College of Film and the Moving Image, which includes the Film Studies Department, the Center for Film Studies, the Cinema Archives and the Wesleyan Film Series. "We're excited to bring together all the great things we've been doing around film—the Film Studies major and minor, the Cinema Archives and the Wesleyan Film Series—under the umbrella of the College of Film and the Moving Image,” said President Michael Roth. “The film curriculum is already so very strong, anchored in liberal learning and connected with the making of new work for cinema, television, and…
For people suffering in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, from head injuries or other conditions that impair memory, a special trip to the seashore or a visit with family may be just a blur by the end of the day. With assistance from a simple device known as a ViconRevue memory camera, Professor John Seamon and his students are studying whether it’s possible to help these patients remember more of their lives. While the studies are ongoing, early results are promising. They also suggest that our current understanding of how these patients’ brains are malfunctioning may be wrong, or…