Faculty – Page 60

In this News @ Wesleyan story, we speak with Yamil Velez, a new member of Wesleyan's Government Department. Q: Welcome to Wesleyan! Please tell us about your background—where did you grow up, go to school, etc? A: I grew up in Miami, Florida as the only son of two immigrant parents. My parents divorced at an early age and since my mother had to work and go to school to support us, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. It was my grandmother who instilled a passion for politics in me, as I would spend every afternoon listening…

President Michael Roth reviewed Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder in The Washington Post. While many other historians have emphasized structural elements that made the Holocaust possible, Snyder focuses on Hitler's personal ideology "as essential for grasping the history of Nazi efforts to eliminate Jews from the planet." Roth writes: In “Black Earth,” we are reminded that for Hitler, Jews were the explanation for everything that went wrong. The health of the human race was dependent, he shrieked, on protecting it from Jewish pollution. There was talk among Nazis and others of isolating the malignancy — maybe shipping Jews…

An essay by Ethan Kleinberg, professor of history, professor of letters, is the featured reading material for the H-France network's fall 2015 webinar on “Modern Intellectual History." H-France’s mission is to promote scholarly work and discussion on the history and culture of the Francophone world through digital form. Kleinberg also is director of the Center for the Humanities and executive editor of History and Theory. The H-France webinar will take place at 3 p.m. Sept. 18. Designed particularly for graduate students, H-France webinars are open to anyone. Participants are expected to read Kleinberg's essay prior to the seminar and consider related questions. (more…)

Professors Lisa Dierker and Jennifer Rose, along with Jalen Alexander BA/MA ’14,'15, are the co-authors of an article titled “It Is Complicated: Sexual Partner Characteristic Profiles and Sexually Transmitted Infection Rates within a Predominantly African American Population in Mississippi,” published in the May 2015 issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Vol. 42, No. 5. Dierker is professor of psychology, director of pilot programs for the Center for Pedagogical Innovation. Rose is professor of the practice and research professor of psychology for the Center for Pedagogical Innovation and director of the Institutional Review Board for Academic Affairs. Alexander is co-chair of the…

This fall, Wesleyan welcomes Assistant Professor Joseph Coolon to the Department of Biology. Coolon comes to Wesleyan from the University of Michigan where he worked as an assistant research scientist and a postdoctoral fellow for the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Coolon has a BS in biology and PhD in biology from Kansas State University. His dissertation was titled “Ecological Genomics of Nematode Responses to Different Bacteria.” At Wesleyan, Coolon plans to have two primary research projects. The first project is aimed at understanding the major sources of variation in gene expression including changes in DNA sequence, responses to…

Three experts and a Wesleyan student will lead a panel discussion on “After Charleston: Next Steps for the Movement for Social Justice” at 8 p.m. Sept. 17 in Memorial Chapel. The event is sponsored by the Allbritton Center for Public Life. The talk will feature Clemmie Harris, visiting assistant professor of African American studies; Tedra James ’18; activist and filmmaker Bree Newsome and Connecticut Bishop John Selders. "The idea is to spur conversation with the audience about the killings in Charleston, reactions to killings, debate over the Confederate flag, and protests in Ferguson,” said Rob Rosenthal, director of the Allbritton Center for…

This month, Wesleyan will launch a new specialization on Coursera in the rapidly growing field of data science. The four-MOOC (massive open online course) sequence, together with a final capstone project, will offer learners a verified certificate of completion that they may share with prospective or current employers. Wesleyan’s specialization, Data Analysis and Interpretation, is one of more than 30 new business, computer science, and data science specializations starting on Coursera on Sept. 15. (Learn more on Coursera's blog.) Wesleyan is continually expanding its offerings on Coursera, and in January 2016, plans to introduce a new Creative Writing specialization. (more…)

On Sept. 3, Class of 2019 students met with their faculty advisor to discuss their fall semester pre-registration enrollments and educational goals. The individual faculty advising appointments are part of New Student Orientation for the Class of 2019.

Annie Dillard, who taught writing at Wesleyan for more than 20 years, will receive the 2014 National Humanities Medal, the White House announced on Sept. 3. President Barack Obama will confer the medal on Dillard and nine others at a ceremony at the White House on Sept. 10 (which will be live-streamed at 3 p.m. here). The National Humanities Medal honors an individual or organization whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience, broadened citizen’ engagement with history and literature or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to cultural resources. The medal was first awarded in 1996. This year’s…

Registration is now open for Fall courses through the Wesleyan Institute for Lifelong Learning (WILL) in topics including art, literature, poetry and meditation. A special one-day program will take place at the Florence Griswold Museum, the internationally-known home of the Connecticut impressionists, on Nov. 14. It will coincide with the museum's exhibition, The Artist in the Connecticut Landscape, drawing from its Hartford Steam Boiler Collection and that of ten partner institutions from around the state. This marks the 10th semester of courses offered by WILL, an initiative that began in 2009. The program features short, intellectually stimulating and lively courses taught by current and retired members of…

This fall, Wesleyan welcomes to campus 15 new tenure-track faculty and more than 40 visiting faculty with research interests ranging from ecological and evolutionary functional genomics to behavioral economics; from Chinese history to sociological and cultural studies of knowledge, medicine and health; from psychosocial determinants of healthy aging outcomes among women to political psychology. On Sept. 1, the new faculty members attended an orientation program that included discussions on classroom climate; active learning, service learning and community service; flipped classrooms; and effective lecture styles for larger classrooms, among other topics.

Wesleyan vibraphonist and composer Jay Hoggard was named the Music Ambassador for the City of Middletown on Aug. 31 at the Mayor’s Office. In addition to being recognized for his valuable artistic and creative contributions, the Music Ambassadors’ music becomes the featured ‘music on hold’ for all City of Middletown phones. Hoggard, who is a member of the Class of 1976, is an adjunct professor of music and adjunct professor of African American studies. City of Middletown Mayor Dan Drew also proclaimed that August 31 is Jay Hoggard Day. Read more in The Middletown Press. The Music Ambassadors' program is sponsored by…

Velez Studies Political Psychology, Racial and Ethnic Politics

Roth Reviews Black Earth in The Washington Post

Kleinberg’s Essay the Featured Reading Material for Modern Intellectual History Webinar

Dierker, Rose, Alexander BA/MA ’14, ’15 Co-Author Article on Sexually Transmitted Infection Rates in Mississippi

Biology’s Coolon Studies Variation in Gene Expression

“After Charleston: Next Steps for the Movement for Social Justice” Topic of Sept. 17 Panel

Wesleyan Announces New Data Science Specialization on Coursera

Faculty Hold Advising Appointments with Class of 2019 Students

Professor Emerita Annie Dillard to Receive National Humanities Medal

WILL Announces New Fall Courses on the Mystery Novel, Picasso, Japanese Poetry and More

New Faculty Attend Orientation Program

Hoggard Named Middetown’s Music Ambassador