Campus News & Events

On Nov. 21, Wesleyan's Center for Prison Education (CPE) was honored by the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) at its annual Leaders and Legends award ceremony in Hartford, Conn. The ceremony celebrates the state's civil rights leaders in many different areas, including education, business or law, community activism, civic leadership, and social justice. CPE received the Edythe J. Gaines Award for Inclusive Education, named in honor of the first African American and first woman to head the Hartford school system. The award recognizes educators who dedicate their careers to promoting equality, inclusion, and fairness in education. Since…

Fifteen Wesleyan students who were enrolled in the Introduction to GIS course this fall learned how to apply GIS concepts and skills to solve local problems in environmental sciences. Kim Diver, associate professor of the practice of environmental sciences, taught the class and an accompanying service-learning lab component. After learning about the basic theory of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), data collection, data management, spatial analysis, visualization, and map preparation, the students were paired with a community partner or organization to assist them with an issue. On Dec. 5, the students presented the results of their projects to their community partners…

Associate Professor of History Victoria Smolkin's book, A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism (Princeton University Press), was awarded an honorable mention for the 2019 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize. Established in 1983, the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize is sponsored by the Association for Slavic Studies, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) and the Stanford University Center for Russian and East European Studies. It is awarded annually for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences published in English in the United States…

Hari Krishnan, associate professor of dance, is the author of a new book, Celluloid Classicism: Early Tamil Cinema and the Making of Modern Bharatanatyam, published by Wesleyan University Press in August 2019. According to the publisher: Celluloid Classicism provides a rich and detailed history of two important modern South Indian cultural forms: Tamil Cinema and Bharatanatyam dance. It addresses representations of dance in the cinema from an interdisciplinary, critical-historical perspective. The intertwined and symbiotic histories of these forms have never received serious scholarly attention. For the most part, historians of South Indian cinema have noted the presence of song and…

Wesleyan's community-based radio station, WESU 88.1 FM, celebrated its 80th anniversary on Dec. 8 with a Free Form Jubilee. The event, held in the Daniel Family Commons, featured special musical performances and talks by local dignitaries. Established in 1939, WESU began as one of the first student-owned and -operated radio stations in the country. That fall, Wesleyan freshman Arch Doty Jr. began broadcasting his homemade 1-watt AM transmitter from his Clark Hall dorm room. Eighty years later, WESU is among the largest student groups on Wesleyan’s campus, uniting nearly 150 student and community volunteer broadcasters. The event featured Noah Baerman,…

Be the Change Venture (BCV), a nonprofit organization founded and led by Anthony Price ’20, has been chosen as a 2019 Changemaker Challenge Winner by T-Mobile and Ashoka. BCV was one of 30 winners selected from 300 applicants for the Ashoka-T-Mobile Changemaker Challenge, a yearly prize that supports young changemakers across the United States and Puerto Rico. BCV aims to train and empower young people to be workforce-ready. It works with youth aged 14 to 18 to help them develop soft and practical skills, find and obtain internship and job opportunities, and foster professional relationships with various career experts. The…

Sherman Hawkins, professor of English, emeritus, died on Dec. 3 at the age of 90. Sherman received BA degrees from both Harvard University and the University of Oxford and his PhD from Princeton University. He served in the US military at the conclusion of the Korean War. Arriving at Wesleyan in 1971 after teaching at Princeton, Bryn Mawr, and University of Rochester, he taught English here for 20 years until he retired in 1991. For decades, his essay on college as a green world experience was given to every freshman entering Wesleyan. “Sherman was an unforgettable colleague and presence at…

Wildfires can transform forest ecosystems to varying degrees, depending on fire severity. While low-severity wildfires change plant community composition by killing short-statured trees and understory plants, high-severity fires result in top kill of above-ground vegetation. This variation in wildfire effects can have major impacts on post-fire vegetation composition and water stress. Helen Poulos, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies, received a $300,000 grant from NASA on Dec. 5 to examine how forests can permanently change in response to high-severity wildfire in southeastern Arizona. (more…)

On Dec. 4, 15 students from the Class of 2020 were elected to Wesleyan's scholastic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa. To be elected, a student must first have been nominated by the department of his or her major. The student also must have demonstrated curricular breadth by having met the General Education Expectations and must have achieved a GPA of 93 or above. Wesleyan's Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa Society was organized in 1845 and is the ninth oldest chapter in the country. Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest surviving Greek letter society in America, founded in December 1776…

Wesleyan faculty frequently publish articles based on their scholarship in The Conversation US, a nonprofit news organization with the tagline “Academic rigor, journalistic flair.” On the release date of the new film The Aeronauts, Associate Professor of History Jennifer Tucker writes about how the first hot-air balloon trips in the 19th century transformed our views of the world and opened up a new "laboratory for discovery" for scientists interested in studying the atmosphere and meteorology. From their balloons, the first aeronauts transformed our view of the world Near the beginning of the new film “The Aeronauts,” a giant gas-filled balloon called the…

Catherine Rachel Ostrow-D'Haeseleer, adjunct instructor of French, died on Saturday, Nov. 23, at the age of 65. Ostrow-D'Haeseleer was born in Kananga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In the fall of 1983, she was asked to take over a French course for a professor who had to take an unexpected leave. With only a high school education, she immediately demonstrated the professionalism, commitment, and excellence as a teacher that characterized her entire career. After stints as both a part-time and full-time visiting faculty member, Ostrow-D'Haeseleer was hired as an adjunct lecturer in 1991 and taught at Wesleyan…

grown, the café inside the Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore at 413 Main Street in Middletown, has announced that it will end its operations in that space. The Middletown location was the only Connecticut outpost of the USDA-certified organic fast-food chain. grown has operated inside the Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore since the bookstore opened in May 2017. The franchise is owned by Shannon Allen, a Middletown native. At Wesleyan, as at all of its locations, grown prides itself on catering to all diets and food sensitivities, and on serving inclusive, wholesome options for everyone. Its menu includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner,…

Center for Prison Education Honored by Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities

Students Use GIS Skills to Help Solve Environmental Problems

Smolkin Receives Honorable Mention for Prestigious Book Prize

Krishnan Authors New Book on Tamil Cinema, Bharatanatyam Dance

WESU 88.1 FM Celebrates 80th Anniversary with Free Form Jubilee

Venture by Price ’20 Wins 2019 Changemaker Challenge

Hawkins Remembered for Teaching English at Wesleyan for 20 Years

NASA Supports Poulos’s Wildfire Research

15 Seniors Elected to Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society

Tucker in The Conversation: From Their Balloons, the First Aeronauts Transformed Our View of the World

Ostrow-D’Haeseleer Remembered for Teaching French at Wesleyan for 29 Years

grown Ends Operations in Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore