Olivia DrakeThe Center for the Humanities advisory board awarded eight Wesleyan seniors with a Student Fellowship for 2011-12. These fellows will explore the themes “Fact and Artifact” and “Visceral States: Affect and Civic Life." Four Student Fellowships are awarded by the center’s advisory board each semester. During the fall semester, fellows Conan Cheong, Kevin Donohoe, Bridget Read and Alexandra Wang will will explore the theme "Fact and Artifact." They will examine the career of the modern fact and its uncomfortable companion, the artifact. The fellows will question, "Under what conditions can facts be created?" "How do efforts to pin down empirical…
The Center for African-American Studies (CAAS) is hosting a First Book series during the Fall 2011 semester. The series features trailblazing junior scholar-authors whose projects are and will make significant contributions to the field of African-American Studies. Gina Athena Ulysse, the new director of the Center for African American Studies, associate professor of African American Studies, associate professor of anthropology, created the series as the main initiative of her directorship to coincide with the AFAM junior colloquium that she is teaching. Ulysse's interests and concerns were to economically achieve three goals: 1) give AFAM incoming majors the opportunity to engage directly with scholars who are impacting the…
An article by Katie McConnell '13 and Emma Leonard '13 was featured in a recent Permaculture Institute of the Northeast newsletter. McConnell and Leonard are members of the new student group WILD Wes (Working for Intelligent Landscape Design). They've been vying for permacultural principles to be adopted into the University’s landscaping practices. In the past year, the group hosted its first annual Sustainable Landscaping Design Charrette, where Wesleyan faculty, administrative members, permaculturists, landscaping experts, and students from Wesleyan and nearby Northeastern colleges converged. In the newsletter, McConnell and Leonard explain how at the conference, groups collaborated to develop permacultural and sustainable…
Enrollment for the Wesleyan Institute for Lifelong Learning (WILL) Fall 2011 semester is open. WILL is chartered to provide educational opportunities outside of formal degree-granting programs to members of the broader community. WILL classes are taken for interest, not for credit. Classes are small with an informal atmosphere. Faculty include Wesleyan faculty, emeriti faculty, and similarly qualified members of the community. The courses are short, intellectually-stimulating and lively. The course offerings cover the arts, social sciences, literature, science and mathematics. (more…)
This issue, we ask "5 Questions" of Scott Holmes, associate professor of molecular biology and biochemistry. He received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support his research on epigenetic silencing of gene expression. Gene expression refers to the observable characteristics generated on a molecular level by a particular sequence of DNA or gene; epigenetic controls are essential in maintaining the specific patterns of gene expression that distinguish hundreds of distinct cell types in skin, muscles and other types of tissue. Epigenetic mechanisms also explain how humans can have more than 200 distinct cell types. Q: Professor Holmes,…
David Pesci(more…)
This summer, 26 students representing six colleges and universities in the Northeast participated in the Humanitarian Free and Open-Source Software (HFOSS) Project 2011 Summer Institute, hosted by Wesleyan. Wesleyan is part of a growing community involved in The Humanitarian FOSS Project, dedicated to building and using free and open source software to benefit humanity. Students from Wesleyan, Connecticut College, Trinity, St. John's College, Mt. Holyoke College, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute participated in the summer institute and designed 11 projects for HFOSS. They presented their research July 22 in Woodhead Lounge. Diego Calderon '13, Jeremy Fehr '13 and Trinity student Vlad…
Brian KattenJeff McDonald, an assistant football coach at Wesleyan, will have a trio of instructional DVDs and an article produced by American Football Monthly (AFM) magazine, one of the premier trade magazines for football coaches in the United States. The article will appear in the August issue of the magazine and will be accompanied by online promotional samplings of the instructional DVDs, each of which will run approximately one hour. McDonald flew to Florida in June to help prepare the DVDs. In each he presents instruction on different techniques and defenses, including defensive schemes, unique approaches to eight-man defensive fronts, and…
On June 7, Zach Schonfeld '13 toured the modest 170-year-old site of President Grover Cleveland's 1837 birthplace. "Live from Caldwell, N.J.," Schonfeld blogged on this day. "It’s not much—the house has been expanded significantly since Cleveland’s birth, but the siteitself still blends seamlessly into the background of Caldwell’s quiet suburban sprawl. Yes, I drove past it initially and had to circle back. Sorry, Grover. Just be thankful I didn’t steal your parking spot." Cleveland's childhood home is one of 20-some presidential birthplaces Schonfeld is exploring this summer as a Wesleyan Olin Fellow. His project, partially funded by the History Channel,…
During a 100 kilometer pilgrimage across Spain in June 2010, Kristin McQueeney purchased a silver scallop shell slide to wear on her necklace. Little did she know that shell carried a coincidental Wesleyan connection. The scallop, which represents the pilgrimage across Europe to Santiago de Compostela, also appears on the Wesleyan crest. According to Valerie Gillispie, assistant university archivist, the Wesleyan crest is based on the Methodist founder John Wesley's family coat-of-arms. Wesley was a descendent of the Wellysleye/Wellesley family, whose crest bears a cross decorated with five scallop shells. "Those who made pilgrimages across Europe, or from the port to the…
Eric GershonThis issue we ask "5 Questions" of Vera Schwarcz, who spent the spring semester as a Lady Davis Fellow at Hebrew University in Israel. Schwarcz is the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, professor of East Asian studies. She returns to campus this fall. Q: What will you remember most about your recent sojourn in Israel? A: What lingers most in mind is the vibrant commitment to live fully the values of Jewish tradition. In Jerusalem, each day I witnessed some act of kindness, some conscious effort to reach out to strangers in a way that pays homage…
Through a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Wesleyan Hughes Summer Research Program supports undergraduate education in the life sciences. This summer, Wesleyan is hosting 43 Hughes Fellows and approximately 65 Hughes Associates. Hughes Associates are not funded by Hughes, but they participate in Hughes activities. The program runs from May 25 to July 29 and is open to freshmen, sophomores and juniors currently enrolled at Wesleyan. Fellows receive a $4,000 stipend and are expected to work full-time on their research. Wesleyan faculty members serve as mentors in the Hughes Summer Research Program. The Summer Program also includes…