David PesciEvery Tuesday night this July is a Cary Grant night at Wesleyan, though he'll be joined by some very attractive company. “Cary Grant and his Leading Ladies” is the title and theme of this year's installment of Wesleyan University's annual Wesleyan Summer Film Series. The free series held at the Goldsmith Family Cinema will feature a classic, fully-restored Cary Grant film each Tuesday night in July, with an introductory talk beginning at 7:30 p.m. The screenings star on Tuesday, July 6, with “To Catch a Thief” featuring Grant and Grace Kelly. On Tuesday, July 13, Connecticut’s own Katherine Hepburn and…
Olivia DrakeJoin members of the Class of 2014, new transfer students, and their families for a casual summer social as they prepare to head to campus. “The Summer Sendoffs are an opportunity to meet others new to Wesleyan, as well as some current students and their families, alumni and friends of Wesleyan,” says Dana Coffin, assistant director of parent programs. All Sendoffs are hosted by Wesleyan alumni or parents. Sendoffs begin June 27. They will be held in New York, N.Y., Atlanta, Ga., Boulder, Colo., Cary, N.C., Chappaqua, N.Y., Chicago, Ill., East Hampton, N.Y., Houston, Texas, Los Angeles, Calif., Memphis, Tenn., Newton, Mass., Philadelphia, Pa.,…
Bill HolderWilliam Ward, professor of theater and design emeritus, died June 14, 2010. He was 79 years old. Ward came to Wesleyan in 1956, as an instructor in art, and he taught at Wesleyan for 42 years, becoming professor of theater and design in 1969. He retired in 1998. Ward designed sets for more than 100 plays and concerts at Wesleyan, and he also created graphical and other design work for more than 25 exhibitions and publications. Ward was one of the principal faculty involved in proposing the Center for the Arts complex, for which he served as design consultant. In…
“When you build something from scratch, you acquire a depth of understanding that no ‘professional,’ no management expert can match. There are few better ways to learn about yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, than building something from scratch. There is no better mirror.” This observation recounting specific experiences - the building of a restaurant, and later, the creation of a political campaign - also served as a metaphor for the moment at hand. That moment was the 178the Commencement Ceremonies at Wesleyan University, on Sunday, May 23. The speaker, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper ’74, M.A. ’80, shared with students insights…
John W. Hickenlooper ’74, MA ’80; Ruth J. Simmons; Stanley Cavell; and Richard Winslow ’40 received Honorary Degrees at the 2010 Commencement Ceremony May 23. John W. Hickenlooper received a Doctor of Laws, presented by Rob Rosenthal, the John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology. A geologist turned entrepreneur who had never run for political office (not even student council), Hickenlooper was elected mayor of Denver in 2003 and re-elected in 2007. In April 2005—less than two years into his first term—Time Magazine (more…)
Honoring a professor of music emeritus who oversaw the establishment of Wesleyan University’s renowned program in world music, the university has established the Richard K. Winslow Chair in Music. The chair is made possible through a generous $2.5 million gift from the Mayer & Morris Kaplan Family Foundation. The foundation’s gift expresses the appreciation of Burt Kaplan ’62, who took an introductory course in Western classical music from Winslow that proved to be a significant influence in his life. Professor of Music Mark Slobin will be the first holder of the chair. (more…)
Wesleyan faculty members Peter Rutland, Stephanie Kuduk Weiner and Jeremy Zwelling received the Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching during the 2010 Commencement Ceremony May 23. The Binswanger Prize was inaugurated in 1993 as an institutional recognition of outstanding faculty members. The standards and criteria for the annual prizes shall be excellence in teaching, as exemplified by commitment to the classroom and student accomplishment, intellectual demands placed on students, lucidity and passion. Peter Rutland, the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, has a B.A. in politics, (more…)
Mathematics major Joel Specter ’11 is ahead of the program. Despite only finishing his junior year at Wesleyan, he’s already completed all first-year graduate courses for the department’s Ph.D. program. “When discussing mathematics with him it becomes clear that he is already thinking like a mathematician in a very serious way that one rarely sees in students until well into their graduate careers,” says Specter’s advisor David Pollack, associate professor of mathematics. For Specter’s achievements in mathematics, he was awarded with a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for the 2010-11 year. Congress established (more…)
Recent graduate Anne Rosenthal’s years of taking French and environmental science classes will come in useful next year as she studies Belgium’s efforts to stimulate market demand for environmentally friendly products. Rosenthal '10 is one of four Wesleyan alumni selected to participate in the Fulbright U.S. Student Program in 2010-11. Fulbright scholars conduct research abroad or teach English in foreign countries. Rosenthal, who double majored in French studies and environmental science, will enroll in graduate-level environmental management courses at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), while examining Belgium’s role within the European Union framework for green product certification, and Belgium’s promotion of…
Although Japan lacks large national environmental advocacy organizations, it has one of the best records of environmental policymaking in the world. Japan is one of the top producers of clean energy technology and hosted the global Kyoto Protocol that has set the standard for climate change policy worldwide. For the next 12 months, Mary Alice Haddad will use Japan’s experience of environmental activism to build a broader theory of civic participation. She will test and refine a theory through the examination of environmental politics and civic participation in China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore. Her research is supported by the…
For two years, music graduate student Garrett Field will live in Sri Lanka studying the lives, music, poetry and writing of three composers who influenced Jatika Gi, the Sinhala nationalist poetry-song. As a 2010 recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship, Field will have the opportunity to complete his dissertation on Sunil Santha, W.D. Amaradeva, and Ananda Samarakone - whose careers, music, and poetry articulated different strands of Sinhalese nationalist thought. The fellowship comes with a $26,000 award. “The Jatika Gi artists played a significant role in the development of Sinhala cultural nationalism and thus served as…
Dana Royer, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, has been awarded the Donath Medal by the Geological Society of America (GSA). The Donath Medal is presented to "a young scientist (35 years or younger) for outstanding achievement in contribution to geologic knowledge through research which marks a major advance in the earth sciences." Royer's research interests include global change, paleoclimatology, carbon cycle, paleoecology, paleobotany, plant physiology and light stable isotope geochemistry. He has done extensive studies which have established evidence on how plants affected ancient ecosystems, drawing parallels and evidence from current plant life and conditions. The presentation of the Donath…