Olivia DrakeU.S. Senator Ted Kennedy is currently the senior Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Senate. He will speak at the 176th Wesleyan commencement. Posted 02/01/08 U.S. Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy will deliver the main address at Wesleyan's 176th commencement in May. Senator Kennedy, a Democrat, is the senior senator from Massachusetts and the second longest-serving current member of the U.S. Senate. Senator Kennedy has long been a thoughtful and energetic supporter of higher education in the United States, says Wesleyan's President Michael Roth. In this time of great change at our universities, it is…
Janice Astor del Valle, left, director of the Green Street Arts Center, listens to Sonia BasSheva Mañjon, director of the Center for Art and Public Life at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, speak in Memorial Chapel during a campus visit Nov. 2. Mañjon will return to campus in July as Wesleyan's new vice president for diversity and strategic partnerships. Posted 02/01/08 President Michael Roth has appointed Sonia BasSheva Mañjon as vice president for diversity and strategic partnerships, a new position that will include leadership on civic engagement and cooperation with private and public organizations. Mañjon will work…
Wesleyan has secured a permanent endowment that will support the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at the Center for the Americas. Posted 02/01/08 In 2004, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation challenged Wesleyan to raise $1.5 million over a three-year period. Wesleyan agreed -- and recently succeeded. As part of the challenge, the Mellon Foundation matched these funds to endow a permanent Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in the humanities within the Center for the Americas. Since 1998, postdoctoral fellows were hired on a year-to-year basis as grant funding allowed. The Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship Program has become part of the very rhythm of the…
Barbara Juhasz, at right, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience and behavior, explains eye-tracking data to guests during a roving lab event Jan. 23. Posted 02/01/08 Three new psychology labs in Judd Hall allow faculty and students to study readers' habits, to reveal insights into children's' minds and to help improve existing treatments for schizophrenia.The Department of Psychology hosted a roving lab event Jan. 23 to introduce the labs and showcase the extensive renovations that were completed to create customized multi-purpose facilities. The renovations include Barbara Juhasz's eye tracking lab on the fifth floor, Anna Shustermans child development lab on…
Multimedia artist Lenore Malen is the artistic director of "Lenore Malen and the New Society for Universal Harmony," on display in Zilkha Gallery Feb. 2-March 2. Posted 02/01/08 A new Center for the Arts exhibit uses the lens of history to explore the far-ranging beliefs and anxieties of our time and the sciences and technologies that have informed them. Lenore Malen and the New Society for Universal Harmony runs from Feb. 2 through March 2 in the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. It consists of a multi-media installation that uses video, digital prints and archival materials. The New Society exhibit…
Brian Katten '79, sports information director, stands in the Warren Street Lobby, home to Wesleyan's future Athletics Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame will honor top athletes, coaches, trainers, teams and athletic contributors throughout Wesleyan's 144-year athletic history. Posted 01/15/08 In 1864, Wesleyan began its rich history participating in intercollegiate sports. Wesleyan scholar-athletes have won Olympic medals, NCAA championships, regional titles and participated on teams that won New England titles. And many Wesleyan coaches and alumni have been major contributors on professional teams, in athletic associations, in promoting a sport, or as innovators in the evolution of a sport.…
Norman Rudich, professor of letters and of romance languages and literatures emeritus, died Dec. 20, 2007 at home in New York City. He was 85 years old. Professor Rudich joined the Wesleyan faculty in 1952 and served with distinction until his retirement in 1991. He earned his Ph.D. in French from Princeton University and did graduate work at the Sorbonne. Rudich was an accomplished scholar who edited two notable books, Premiers Oeuvres (with J. Varloot) and Weapons of Criticism, and published numerous articles, essays, and reviews. Rudich was one of the founding members of Wesleyans College of Letters. His former…
Posted 01/15/08 For the past three years, College of Social Studies and French double major Anand Venkatachalam 08 has studied South Asian culture, history, language and the Hindu religion. What was lacking, however, was the opportunity to practice Hinduism on campus. "I found it very odd that a campus so greatly endowed with an interest in Asian art forms did not have even a student group that provided a community for Hindus on campus," says Venkatachalam, a native of Chennai, India. "College is a time of ethic formation, and questioning norms and values. Hindu students, or students who were raised…
Posted 01/15/08 Parlez-vous français? By attending the Wesleyan Summer Language Institute, students will learn to speak, write and comprehend basic French in only four weeks. The new Summer Language Institute, developed by the Division of Continuing Studies, will offer programs in Arabic, Russian and Spanish as well as French. Participants will be grouped together by language, and will live, study, eat and mingle together constantly in the target language. In four weeks of immersion, students will gain the equivalent of a full year of language study at Wesleyan, says Jennifer Curran, assistant director for admissions and outreach. This is a…
Posted 01/15/08 Lisa Dierker, associate professor of psychology, has received a $1 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop a new statistical method that will move past standard approaches to provide more sensitive ways to evaluate both the etiology and clinical course of mental and physical health outcomes. Numerous statistical methods used in longitudinal health research help make sense of mountains of complex data and aid researchers in uncovering important associations that can inform health care.Dierker, pictured at right, and Runze Li, associate professor of statistics at Pennsylvania State University, are principal investigators on the grant, which is a…
Lauren Nichols, a BA/MA biology student, demonstrates how the new LICOR Li-6400 measures the rate of carbon fixation via photosynthesis in living plants. Posted 01/15/08 A challenge grant from The Kresge Foundation is supporting much-needed equipment for the sciences at Wesleyan. With a challenge grant from The Kresge Foundation, Wesleyan has already acquired a photosynthesis system, microplate reader, spectrometers and a dye laser. With $500,000 raised from donors, the foundation provided a grant of $250,000 for a total of $750,000 used towards the equipment purchase. And this month, Wesleyan will receive an additional $250,000 from the foundation to support future…
Posted 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…