Olivia DrakeProfessor of Government James McGuire is the author of a book chapter titled "Democracy, Agency and the Classification of Political Regimes," published in Reflections on Uneven Democracies: The Legacy of Guillermo O'Donnell by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Guillermo O'Donnell (1936-2011) was widely recognized as the world's leading scholar of Latin American politics. During his doctoral studies, McGuire worked closely with O'Donnell in both Argentina and the United States, translating from Spanish to English O'Donnell's Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Argentina, 1966-1973, in Comparative Perspective (University of California Press, 1988). McGuire's chapter in this new volume commemorating O'Donnell's life and work argues that schemes for classifying…
In the summer of 2014, students from more than 200 countries enrolled in Professor of Psychology Scott Plous's Social Psychology "MOOC" (massive open online course). The class was offered by Wesleyan, hosted by Coursera.org, and drew more than 200,000 students. The final assignment of the course, "The Day of Compassion," asked students to live 24 hours as compassionately as possible and to analyze the experience using social psychology. (more…)
Lauren Rubenstein"We are in the midst of hard times now, and it feels as if art is failing us," writes Scott
The foreign exchange, "forex," scandal was a series of conspiracies, writes Grossman
The Washington Post selected President Michael Roth's book, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, on its list of top 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2014. A brief summary of the review states: The president of Wesleyan University describes two distinct traditions of a liberal education--one philosophical and "skeptical," the other rhetorical and "reverential"--and argues that both are necessary for educating autonomous individuals who can also participate with others. Beyond the University was originally reviewed in the Post on May 23 by Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's College in Annapolis, Md. In that review, Nelson calls the book "a substantial and lively discussion" as well…
Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins is the co-author of a paper titled "You Can Win But I Can't Lose: Bias Against High-Status Groups Increases Their Zero-Sum Beliefs About Discrimination" published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2014. The article will be published again in the in the journal's March 2015 print edition. Wilkins co-authored the article with several other researchers including Joseph Wellman, formerly a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Wesleyan, who is now at California State University, San Barnardino, and Katherine Schad BA '13/MA '14. The study considered what causes people to espouse "zero-sum beliefs"—or beliefs that gains for one…
Throughout history, advances in these technologies have unsettled the public, yet have forged ahead
Richard Grossman, professor of economics, delivered a keynote speech at the 10th Chief Risk Officer Assembly in Munich, Germany on Nov. 19. The speech was based on his book, WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them (Oxford University Press), and focused the consequences of government policy for economic risk. The CRO Assembly is organized by Geneva Association, an insurance industry think-tank, and the CRO Forum, which is made up of chief risk officers from large (primarily European) multi-national insurance and re-insurance companies. The conference took place at the headquarters of Munich RE, one of the world’s largest…
A book by Magda Teter, the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies, received honorable mention for the 2014 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award. The Schnitzer Book Award was established in 2007 to recognize and promote outstanding scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies and to honor scholars whose work embodies the best in the field: innovative research, excellent writing and sophisticated methodology. Teter's book, Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation, published by Harvard University Press in 2011, was honored in the Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History category. In recognizing her book, the Prize Committee wrote: "In this beautifully written and…
Steve Stemler, associate professor of psychology, is the co-author of "Development and Validation of the Wesleyan Intercultural Competence Scale (WICS): A Tool for Measuring the Impact of Study Abroad Experiences," published in Frontiers: the Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, XXIV, 25-47, 2014. He's also the co-author of "Testing the theory of successful intelligence through educational interventions in Grade 4 language arts, mathematics and science," published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(3), 881-899, 2014.
In this Q&A, meet Tracy Mehr-Muska, Wesleyan's Protestant chaplain. Q: Rev. Mehr-Muska, how long have you been Wesleyan’s Protestant chaplain, and what did you do before this? A: This is my third year as a university chaplain at Wesleyan. Like many, my professional journey was not a direct route. After graduating from the Coast Guard Academy, I served as a Deck Watch Officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. My love of the sea and my degree in Marine/Environmental Science led me to subsequently work as a marine scientist, conducting oceanographic surveys and engineering subsea cable routes for a company that…