Campus News & Events

A Brazilian play, translated by Wesleyan's Elizabeth Jackson, will make its American premiere at The Yale Cabaret in early February. "The Meal: Dramatic Essays on Cannibalism" tells three stories about people consuming — and being consumed. This poetic piece by Newton Moreno, one of Brazil’s leading contemporary playwrights, was translated into English by Jackson, adjunct associate professor of Portuguese for Wesleyan's Romance Languages and Literatures Department. Jackson's translation of "The Meal" first appeared in Theater, Yale's journal of criticism, plays, and reportage (Vol. 45 No. 2, 2015). "The Meal" is one of four texts by different playwrights that Jackson translated for the journal.…

Abigail Hornstein, associate professor of economics, presented two papers at the 2017 American Economic Association meeting held Jan. 6-8 in Chicago. In her working paper, "Words vs. Actions: International Variation in the Propensity to Honor Pledges," Hornstein used data on contracted and utilized foreign direct investment in China to show that firms fulfill an average of 59 percent of their pledges within two years. "The propensity to fulfill contracts is lower for firms from countries with greater uncertainty avoidance, power distance and egalitarianism; and is higher if the source country is more traditional," she explained. Prior literature has shown that…

Former men's head basketball coach Herb Kenny will be inducted to the Middletown Sports Hall of Fame on Jan. 26. The Middletown Sports Hall of Fame and Museum was created to honor the numerous outstanding athletes and other sports-minded individuals, and to preserve the deep and rich history of sports in the life of the City of Middletown. Kenny, an adjunct professor of physical education, emeritus, coached the Cardinals from 1968-1995 and ended his career with a 312-280 record. Kenny was known for his intense coaching style and intricate offenses. To honor Kenny for his 27 years of coaching, Wesleyan annually…

More than 100 Wesleyan students completed a full-semester course in two weeks as part of Winter Session 2017. Now in its fourth year, this was the highest enrollment to date. Winter Session was held Jan. 9-24 and classes typically met for four hours a day for 10 days. Courses this year included Introduction to Digital Arts, taught by Christopher Chenier; The Dark Side of the Universe, taught by Edward Moran; Homer and the Epic, taught by Andrew Szegedy-Maszak; Introduction to Programming, taught by James Lipton; U.S. Foreign Policy, taught by Douglas Foyle; Masculinity, taught by Jill Morawski; and Applied Data Analysis taught…

Wesleyan Associate Professor of Astronomy Seth Redfield and astronomy student Julia Zachary '17 recently reported at the 229th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on their research using data from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with two Voyager spacecraft probes, both very long-lived and successful NASA missions. The findings were shared in dozens of news outlets from the U.S. to India to Afghanistan. According to Nature.com, "The work is a rare marriage of two of the most famous space missions — and an unprecedented glimpse at the realm between the stars." “If the Voyager spacecraft and the Google Street View car are going…

Student-athlete Jordan Stone '17 not only ended the Cardinal football season as tri-captain of the team, he also scored a professional career thanks to Wesleyan's Athletic Advantage Program (A+). Head Coach Dan DiCenzo says he was not surprised with the decision his team made to elect Stone as a captain. "Jordan is a special kid and has a presence about him. He works hard and leads by example. He is everything we are looking for in a student athlete." A 255-pound, 6'4" athlete, Stone was named 1st Team All NESCAC in 2015 and 2016 and contributed to the team's defense being in the top…

Wesleyan's Green Street Teaching and Learning Center is currently accepting applicants for its Discovery AfterSchool Program. Spring semester classes will be held Jan. 30 through May 12. The Discovery AfterSchool Program offers a range of classes in the arts, sciences, and math for children in Grades 1- 5. The program encourages children to be curious and creative while they build self-esteem and problem-solving skills. For middle school students in Grades 6-8, GSTLC offers the Wesleyan Bound college experience class on Friday afternoons. "Classes range from visual arts to dance, even to kung fu this semester," said Sara MacSorley, director of GSTLC.…

Professor of Economics Richard Grossman tells his students that getting closer to the truth is what economic research is all about. That's why he was so dismayed when "my devotion to, and belief in, the truth was battered by the presidential election," he writes in an op-ed on The Hill. He writes: It turns out that polling data and analysis contained very little truth. The news were no better. The mainstream media got many things wrong. And there was no shortage of fake news. Although peddled as the real thing, it really wasn’t even trying to provide truth, only to shape opinion.…

Sixty-eight Wesleyan student-athletes were honored for their excellence in the classroom when the New England Small College Athletic Contest (NESCAC) announced its 2016 Fall All-Academic Team. Nine others were named to the All-Sportsmanship Team. To be honored on the All-Academic Team, a student-athlete must have reached sophomore academic standing and be a varsity letter winner with a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.40. A transfer student must have completed one year of study at the institution. The women's soccer team led the way for Wesleyan with 14 selections, followed by men's soccer with 12, golf with nine and football…

Sonia Sultan, professor of biology, professor of environmental studies, was invited to speak at a major meeting of London’s Royal Society in November. The theme of the meeting was “New Trends in Evolutionary Biology.” Sultan was joined by biologists, anthropologists, doctors, computer scientists and other visionaries to discuss the future of evolutionary biology. Sultan discussed her research on the Polygonum plant, known by its common name “smartweed.” Her research shows that if genetically identical smartweed plants are raised under different conditions, the end result is plants that may look like they belong to different species. Sultan is a plant evolutionary…

The National Endowment for the Arts approved more than $30 million in grants as part of the NEA’s first major funding announcement for fiscal year 2017. Included in this announcement are Art Works grants of $30,000 for Wesleyan's Center for the Arts' Breaking Ground Dance Series and $25,000 to support Wesleyan University Press in the publication and promotion of books of poetry. The Art Works category focuses on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. The…

Bill Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy; Martha Gilmore, the George I. Seney Professor of Geology; Wilson Cauley, a post-doctoral fellow; and Nicole Arulanantham MA ’15 are the co-authors of a paper forthcoming in The Astrophysical Journal. The paper is based on Arulanantham's thesis research at Wesleyan. The paper also was featured in the December newsletter of the Gemini Observatory, an international observatory based in Hawaii and Chile. “The subject of the paper, a star known as KH 15D, was recognized as an important and interesting object in the 1990s through observations made on the Wesleyan campus by undergraduate and graduate students,” Herbst explained.…

Brazilian Play on Cannibalism, Translated by Jackson, to Make American Debut

Hornstein Presents Papers at American Economic Association Conference

Coach Kenny Inducted into Middletown Sports Hall of Fame

Record Number of Students Enroll in Winter Session 2017

Research by Redfield, Zachary ’17 Using Hubble, Voyager Probes Widely Reported

Stone ’17 Ends Wesleyan Football Career; Takes Advantage of Athletics Advantage Program

Register Children for Green Street’s AfterSchool Spring Semester Program

Grossman Argues Truth Was Lost in the Election

68 Student-Athletes Named to NESCAC’s Fall All-Academic Team

Sultan Discusses Evolutionary Biology at the Royal Society in London

NEA Supports Center for the Arts, Wesleyan U. Press

Thesis Research by Arulanantham MA ’15 to Appear in Astronomy Journal