Olivia DrakePosted 12/07/07 Barbara Jones has taken her commitment to intellectual freedom around the world and back again. The Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian has put forth extensive work on behalf of intellectual freedom, both in the United States and abroad. For her efforts, she received the 2007 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, given by the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Dec. 3. Jones's work on behalf of the Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression has taken her to Costa Rica, Dubai and…
President Michael Roth, center, signed a document Nov. 16 stating that he and Wesleyan will support measures to fight global climate change. Pictured left to right are Bill Nelligan, director of Environmental Health, Safety and Sustainability; Jacob Mirsky '08, representative of EON; Roth; Jim Dresser, chair of the Wesleyan Board of Trustees; Matthew Ball '08, member of the Wesleyan Student Assembly. Posted 11/20/07 President Michael Roth signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment before an applauding crowd of several dozen Wesleyan students, staff, faculty and trustees on Nov. 16. The commitment can be seen in full text here.…
Lori Gruen displays her collection of primate portraits at the Who's Looking exhibit inside Zilkha Gallery. This month, Who's Looking will provide the Wesleyan community with opportunities to explore human's complex relations to chimps through photographs, film, theater and words. Posted 11/20/07 One cannot help but be stirred with emotions upon viewing Who's Looking?Who's Looking? A collaborative, multi-disciplinary investigation of human relations to chimpanzees, an exhibit at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery that runs until Dec. 2, explores what chimpanzees see when they look at humans and what humans see when they look at chimpanzees. The exhibit, directed by…
Posted 11/20/07 A new series of films will shine a spotlight on how literary works are translated onto screen. The newly-created Adaptation Series, sponsored by the Center for Film Studies and Olin Library, will begin Nov. 29 with a talk by screenwriter and alumnus Stephen Schiff. Schiff will speak about his screen adaptation of Nabokovs Lolita, filmed in 1997 by director Adrian Lyne. The talk will be preceded by a screening of the film, starring Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith and Dominique Swain. This is the inaugural event of the Adaptation Series, which has been designed by Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor…
Posted 11/20/07 Peter Gottschalk, associate professor of religion, and Gabriel Greenberg 04 have written a new book Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. In the 1990s, Gottschalk heard a lecture as a graduate student at the University of Chicago by Professor John Woods about negative images of Muslims and Islam in political cartoons. He used some cartoons when he first began to teach. Following the 9/11 tragedies, Gottschalk started following certain cartoonists daily because of his concern regarding the rising anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiment in the country. Greenberg, a student in one of Gottschalk's classes, got…
Posted 11/20/07 The university has been awarded a TRIO Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The McNair program will provide financial support, mentoring, research opportunities, and academic guidance to eligible students who want pursue Ph.D. study. Laurel F. Appel, visiting associate professor of biology, is the McNair program's director. She's excited that Wesleyan is part of the federal program. It is presently the only Connecticut institution that is part of the program. "This program fits in with the goals of Wesleyan by broadening access to research to all students," Appel says. The focus…
Posted 11/20/07 Two Wesleyan alumni each have made substantial gifts to create need-based scholarships for former servicemen and women for four years of full-time baccalaureate study. These new gifts will fund as many as 10 scholarships at any given time. One of the donors, Frank Sica '73, hopes he can enable young men and women who have performed a service for the U.S. to attend a premier liberal arts university. "The government-provided college aid and pay scales for enlisted personnel are such that, unless these people received substantial aid, they could not pay the expenses associated with attending a place…
Posted 11/05/07 In the 1930s, Hollywood unveiled a new way of watching film with the introduction of three-color Technicolor. Scott Higgins, left, associate professor of film studies, will speak on the 75-year-old color film process technique during a three-weekend retrospective of Technicolor films at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. His lecture, which begins at 2 p.m. Nov. 17, will be held in conjunction with the publication of his book Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s (University of Texas Press). Filmmakers had already mastered the art of monochrome, of translating stories into a…
For 40 years, Wesleyan's Upward Bound Program has prepared hundreds of underrepresented local youth for college by providing rigorous academic summer experiences, motivational "boot camps," college visits, and assistance with the challenging college application and financial application processes. On Nov. 10, Upward Bound will celebrate its 40th anniversary inside Wesleyan's newly renovated Fayerweather Building in the Edgar F. Beckham Hall. Beckham was one of the Upward Bound founders, and along with Willard McRae and others, they had a vision that local, low-income students should have the opportunity to consider the college dream. "Upward Bound has been empowering eligible youth to…
Alfredo Jaar is displaying three of his exhibits inside Zilhka Gallery. Posted 11/05/07 Is a media giant like Newsweek able to shape public opinion by defining what is newsworthy? This is one question internationally acclaimed artist Alfredo Jaar leaves for his audience to answer in a current exhibition in Zilkha Gallery. Jaars exhibition is on display in Zilkha Gallery through Dec. 2. He will present an art seminar at 4:15 p.m. Nov. 6 in Zilkha 106 and a music colloquium at 4:15 Nov. 7 in the Music Department. Through a straightforward photography installation that addresses the media coverage of the…
Wesleyan's men's crew team took second place at the annual Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, Mass. Posted 11/05/07 The sport of rowing requires strength, endurance and technique. The pattern of striking the water with a perpendicular blade, pulling through a stroke, raising the blade while feathering for the next stroke, and contacting the water again is rhythmic. Perfecting this action, especially in an eight-person boat, is an art. If that is the case, then Wesleyan mens crew is right up there with Van Gogh. This year, despite having three rowers and the coxswain graduate, Wesleyan opened the season…
Janice Astor del Valle, left, director of the Green Street Arts Center, listens to Sonia BasSheva Manjon, director of the Center for Art and Public Life at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, speak on "Building Bridges between University and Community" during a Inauguration Event Nov. 2 in Memorial Chapel. Manjon and del Valle each spoke on how their arts center has helped their local communities. Posted 11/05/07 One of Michael Roths predominant themes during his inauguration, as well as his professional life, has been Liberal Education and Public Life. This theme was reflected in several special Inaugural…