Olivia DrakeWesleyan's Program for Student College Success received a $10,000 award from AT&T Connecticut on Oct. 12. State Senator Paul Doyle was on hand to celebrate the announcement. This program replaces the former Upward Bound program, which lost its federal funding this year for the first time in 45 years. Wesleyan’s Program for College Success is a comprehensive program that supports first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students as they move through high school and into college. The program serves 100 high school students (25 in each class), helping them to make a successful transition to college. Led by a director and operated by…
The U.S. Department of Education awarded Wesleyan's Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program with a $1.1 million grant on Sept. 31, 2012. The award will support the McNair Program through Sept. 30, 2017. The Ronald E. McNair Program was established at Wesleyan in 2007 and assists students from under-represented groups in preparing for, entering and progressing successfully through post graduate education.
The U.S. Department of Education awarded Wesleyan's Upward Bound Math-Science Program with a $1,250,000 grant on Sept. 12, 2012. The award will be used to support the program through Sept. 30, 2018. Wesleyan's Upward Bound Math-Science and Collaborative Programs prepare hundreds of local youth (from elementary school to high school) for college and strengthen their math and science skills by providing rigorous academic summer experiences as well as ongoing academic enrichment and tutorial support, college visits, and assistance with prep school, college application and financial application processes during the school year.
Wesleyan's Green Street Arts Center received a $7,500 grant from the Middletown Youth Services Bureau on Sept. 27. The award will support Green Street's Arts and Science Afterschool program during the 2013 fiscal year.
The Center for the Arts received a grant worth $6,485 from the New England Foundation for the Arts to support "Voices of Afghanistan." Voices of Afghanistan was the first performance of Music & Public Life, a year-long campus and community-wide exploration of sounds, words, and the spirit of music in public.
Greg Voth, associate professor of physics, received a grant worth $300,000 from the National Science Foundation's Material Research division to support his study on "Rod Dynamics in Turbulence: Simultaneous 3D measurements of Anisotropic Particles and Velocity Fields" through May 31, 2015. In a wide range of natural and industrial situations, turbulent flows carry particulate material. For example, clouds are turbulent flows containing water droplets and ice crystals. Papermaking uses turbulent suspensions of fibers. If the particles are spheres, there are a variety of tools available for measuring their motion. But usually the particles are not spheres, and the movement and…
Wesleyan received a $10,000 grant from the Learning by Giving Foundation to support a Service Learning course titled "Money and Social Change: Innovative Paradigms and Strategies" on Sept. 18, 2012. The course is taught by Joy Anderson '89, visiting assistant professor of public policy. Students will use the $10,000 grant dollars to allocate to local organizations. The course will culminate in students writing a request for proposals based on the personal theory of change around capital and social change that they will develop throughout the course. Learn more about the class online here.
Constance Leidy, assistant professor of mathematics, received a $130,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Mathematics Science to support her research on "Noncommunative Techniques in Knot Theory" through Aug. 31, 2014.
Elizabeth McAlister, chair of the Religion Department, received a grant worth $114,000 from an initiative funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and developed in conjunction with the Social Science Research Council’s program on Religion and the Public Sphere. McAlister plans to study the increase and globalization of what she terms “aggressive forms of prayer,” including evangelical spiritual warfare prayer and political forms of imprecatory prayer, in the context of increasing global militarization. Over the coming years, 28 grantees will participate in a series of interdisciplinary workshops and digital initiatives organized in conjunction with the project. McAlister also is associate professor…
Rich Olson, assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, received a grant worth $460,197 from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Aug. 8. The grant will support his research on "Mechanism of Cell Membrane Targeting by Vibrio cholera Cytolysin" through July 31, 2015. Vibrio cholerae cytolysin (VCC) belongs to a family of secreted toxins produced by pathogenic bacteria that allows them to evade the immune system and to colonize the human body. Understanding how bacteria and their toxins target cells is important in developing therapies against human infectious diseases.
Lauren Caldwell, assistant professor of classical studies, received a faculty grant for course development in Middle Eastern Studies from the Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program of the U.S. Department of Education. Caldwell, whose research specialties include Greco-Roman medicine, used the grant for summer travel to the Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine, in London, England, and to Cambridge University. The grant allowed Caldwell to consult the Wellcome Library's substantial collection of texts on ancient and medieval medicine. "The transmission of the writings of Galen, the most famous of Roman imperial physicians, into medical theory in Baghdad in the 8th and 9th centuries is a key moment in…
Ruth Striegel, the Walter A. Crowell University Professor of the Social Sciences, professor of psychology, received a grant worth $492,300 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases on Aug. 21. The grant will support her research titled "Targeting Binge Eating to Prevent Weight Gain in College Students" through Aug. 31, 2014.