Corrina KerrThe following is the second installment of The Wesleyan Connection's new feature, "5 Questions." This issue, accomplished composer and Wesleyan Professor of Music Neely Bruce is our guest. Q: I see your piece Vistas will be performed at the "Hearts Pounding and Skins Taut" concert in late October at Wesleyan. For what instrument was this piece originally composed? NB: Vistas at Dawn is a short (approximately three minute) piece for organ and vibraphone. Q: For what musician did you compose this piece? NB: I wrote it for Ronald Ebrecht, Wesleyan University Organist, to play. Over the years I’ve written two…
Olivia Drake“Every university should have a labyrinth, for it represents our desire to unravel the essential mysteries of human existence. It is a problem to be solved, a question to be answered, a paradox to be considered. Each labyrinth has a center and, as a diagram of learning, its tangled patterns lead us to that hidden core. Even as the pursuit of knowledge follows many diverging paths there is also a basic symmetry to these designs, a unified whole that pleases the eye and piques the mind.” - Stephen Alter '77 This month, the Wesleyan community can leave the stress behind…
A service in tribute to Stanley Lebergott, the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, Emeritus, who passed away on July 24, will be held at 11 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 18. The service will be in the Daniel Family Commons in the Usdan University Center and will be followed by a reception. The Lebergott family invites friends and colleagues who may have photographs or remembrances of Stan to bring them to the service. Lebergott began his career as a public servant, working for 20 years in the U.S. Department of Labor, the International Labor Office, and the U.S.…
Every October, Wesleyan's Jewish community dwells in a temporary structure built for the festival of Sukkot. For eight days, students study, socialize, mediate, eat, host events and occasionally sleep in the religious building. This holiday, the Jewish students will celebrate the Israelites 40-year journey to the Holy Land inside an airy, five-mound curving structure of carbon-steel clad in bamboo. Designed by 15 students enrolled in Architecture II, a research-design-build studio, the "WesSukkah" provides a sacred space that adheres to a complex, medieval Rabbinic building code. "The students have crafted something which is both compelling and meaningful for Wesleyan's campus," explains…
Wesleyan welcomes 19 newly-hired tenured faculty, tenure-track faculty and adjunct faculty for the 2009-10 academic year. Robyn Autry joined the Sociology Department as assistant professor. She studies the sociology of race and ethnicity, political sociology, comparative historical sociology, institutions, sociology of science and technology and cultural sociology. Autry has a Ph.D. and Master of Arts from the University of Wisconsin, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Javier Castro-Ibaseta joins the History Department and the College of Letters as assistant professor. Castro-Ibaseta studies early modern Spanish history, early modern political culture and cultural/poetic analysis of political…
Wesleyan welcomes 14 new visiting faculty members and fellows to campus for the 2009-10 academic year. They include: Neil Canady joins the Economics Department as visiting assistant professor. His areas of interest include economic history, labor and public finance. Much of his research has examined discrimination in tax assessment policy and school resources during segregation, as well as black-white differences in property accumulation. He received a Bachelor of Science and Ph.D in economics from Clemson University. Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities. Chambers-Letson joins the Center’s yearlong study of “War,” arriving from…
David Pesci5 Questions is a new feature in The Wesleyan Connection that will ask faculty members - surprise! - five questions about their work and activities. This issue, the questions go to Edward Moran, chair and associate professor of astronomy and director of the Van Vleck Observatory. His primary area of study is black holes. This summer he received a major National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for an extensive study on “intermediate mass” black holes. Q: Everyone thinks they know, but once and for all: what is a black hole? EM: Technically, black holes are places where matter has been crushed down…
Biology Ph.D candidate Kate Miller treks through a wildflower-lined trail alongside Middletown's Coginchaug River. She approaches a plastic garbage bin and a PCV pipe protruding from the ground. "That's my bat echolocation recorder," she says. “It’s old but I’m not complaining. It was free and it works.” Miller credits Scott Reynolds, Ph.D, of North East Ecological Services in Concord, N.H. for the loan of the equipment. Inside the crude setup is a 12-volt battery, an echolocation call recorder and lap-top computer. Every 1.5 seconds, the equipment translates the information into a graph and stores it as a data file on the…
If you want to study the life and work of Elia Kazan, "you come to Wesleyan." That's what Jeanine Basinger, chair and the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, curator of the Cinema Archives, suggests to students or film fanatics in the community. For more than two decades, screenwriter/director Kazan (1909-2003) had ties with Wesleyan, and donated photographs, scripts, personal letters, and other life documents to the university. To celebrate and honor Kazan on what would be his 100th birthday, the Film Studies Department is hosting the Elia Kazan Centennial. The semester-long retrospective includes 11 Kazan film screenings with introductions, a…
Wesleyan Writing Programs begin Sept. 23 with a faculty readings and multiple guest speakers. Lisa Cohen, assistant professor of English; Deb Olin Unferth, assistant professor of English and Elizabeth Willis, the Shapiro-Silverberg Associate Professor of Creative Writing, will read from their work at 8 p.m. Sept. 23 in the Russell House. Cohen's poetry and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals, including Ploughshares, Lit, Barrow Street, GLQ, Fashion Theory, Bookforum, The Boston Review, and Voice Literary Supplement. She is currently completing a group biography of three early 20th century figures—the fashion professional Madge Garland, the fan and collector Mercedes de Acosta, and…
During the summer recess, amateur gardeners Sierra Bintliff ’12 and Nat Lichten ’09 seeded rows, weeded, irrigated, and tended fruits, vegetables and livestock at a small organic farm near St. Joseph's College in Standish, Maine. A bulk of the bounty was harvested for St. Joseph's dining services, managed by Bon Appétit Management Company, the same business that oversees Wesleyan dining. "I was thrilled at the opportunity to work for a company whose mission statement embodies the ideal combination of my two passions: sustainability and food," says Bintliff, who works as a Bon Appétit catering employee at Wesleyan. "While working on…
Noah Klein-Markman ’13 learned his first lesson at Wesleyan 20 minutes after arriving on campus. "I already lost the key," he said, carrying in two armloads of belongings. "I think I left the key inside the room." Klein-Markman, of Berkley, Calif., was one of the first students to move into the Butterfield Residence Hall during the Class of 2013 Arrival Day Sept. 1. He joined more than 800 other first-year, transfer, exchange and visiting students in the class. His mother, Laura Klein '78; father Henry Markman; and brother Sam Klein-Markman assisted Noah with the early morning move. The family dog,…