Olivia DrakePosted 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…
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 12/07/07 Eating disorders are most often identified with young, white females, but a new study provides data showing that males and other ethnicities are not immune to developing eating disorders. After examining ten years of data, a group of Wesleyan researchers led by a recent graduate student has found that male adolescents are at increased risk of developing eating disorder symptoms. The researchers also found that black female adolescents are the least likely to practice weight control behaviors. The new study was published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, the official journal of…
Michael Singer, assistant professor of biology, is the recipient of a NSF grant which will enable him to hire a postdoc and undergraduate student to collaboratively research behavior of the woolly bear caterpillar. Posted 12/07/07 When a woolly bear caterpillar becomes infected with a parasite, it cant go to a pharmacy for medicine, so it does the next best thing: It eats the leaves of medicinal plants. This behavior and recognition for the need to self-medicate when ill is at the heart of a new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a proposal by Michael Singer, assistant professor…
Charles Batambuze, executive director of the National Book Trust of Uganda, visits with guests inside Olin Library during the Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression-International Federation of Library Associations conference Nov. 27. Posted 12/07/07 Alice Miranda stood in awe at the plethora of books available for check-out at Olin Library. Miranda, a professor at the Universidad Nacional Costa Rica, says Wesleyans library has more books than seven countries in Central America combined, including 15 universities. There are 1.5 million books in this library, Miranda says, peering at the wall shelves in Olins Smith Room. In Central America, our…
Posted 12/07/07 Singer, composer, historian and honorary degree recipient Bernice Johnson Reagon will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Wesleyan. Reagon, who founded the internationally-renowned a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, will participate in a class, facilitate a lunch discussion and speak at the community wide MLK celebration Jan. 29. The MLK discussion will begin at 4:15 p.m. Jan. 29 in Memorial Chapel. Reagon received an honorary degree recipient from Wesleyan University in 2001. Wesleyan annually honors and celebrates the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., who also received a honorary…
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…
Dan Lachman '09 hires designers from all over the world to create images for his T-shirt and computer-skin business, Sharp Shirter. He runs the business when he's not busy with classes. Lachman is wearing one of his designs, above, featuring a gorilla riding an ostrich. Posted 12/07/07 For the past year, Dan Lachman 09 has gotten used to wearing his heart on his sleeves. The Wesleyan junior has put all his creative energy into an online-based T-shirt company, and his imaginative designs are selling world-wide. Psychology major Lachman created his business, Sharp Shirter, in September 2006 after turning a daydream…