In the Media

With an election that serves as an inflection point in American democracy just months away, President Michael S. Roth ’78 encouraged students to engage in political discussion and listen to opposing viewpoints in a piece for The New York Times on Sept. 2. “This fall we can all learn to be better students and better citizens by collaborating with others, being open to experimentation and calling for inclusion rather than segregation — and participating in the electoral process.” He also wrote about how students can practice freedom better in a piece for The New Republic. “Practicing freedom can be messy, as it surely…

The Wall Street Journal published a piece on the pressure faced by college administrators for the upcoming academic year after widespread student protests last year. President Michael S. Roth ’78 said the situation poses an opportunity for students to be actively engaged in politics. Wesleyan offers students political engagement grants through the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships to make it easier for them to be involved in political campaigns and other civic engagement opportunities. “The real issue is, how are we going to govern ourselves in the next four years? And students can play a big role in that,” Roth…

Tony Award-winning playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, Hon. ’15 collaborated with playwright and actress Eisa Davis to release a concept album inspired by the cult-hero movie “The Warriors,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The 26-song album, executive produced by the rapper Nas, will be released on Oct. 18 by Atlantic Records. “We’ve spent the past three years musicalizing the Warriors’ journey home, from the South Bronx to Coney Island,” Miranda and Davis said in a joint statement, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Along the way we’ve gotten to work with a lot of our favorite artists, and…

President Michael S. Roth ’78 was one of 503 authors, critics, and book lovers who contributed to The New York Times Book Review’s “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century” list. Roth selected his 10 top books and wrote a passage on Jon Fosse’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Septology,” which placed 78th on the list. “The repetitive patterns of Fosse’s prose made its emotional waves, when they came, so much more powerful,” Roth wrote. Roth discussed the history of the student, politicization of U.S. universities, the relationship between university administrators and students, and what “safe enough spaces” could look like in…

New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier ’08 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for her work on a series of stories revealing the widespread reach of migrant child labor across the United States. Dreier also previously won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2019 for a ProPublica series that followed Salvadoran immigrants on Long Island whose lives were affected by federal investigations in the MS-13 criminal gang. “This reporting was possible only because of the bravery of migrant children who took huge risks to share their experiences,” Dreier said after receiving the prize on May 6. “There are hundreds of…

President Michael S. Roth ’78 urged for the defense of academic freedom and democracy in a piece for TIME: “If we are to strengthen our democracy and the educational institutions that depend on it, we must learn to practice freedom, better. We must learn to be better students. Our future depends on it.” As many colleges across the country have seen protesting on their campuses, Roth appeared on CNN’s “The Assignment with Audie Cornish” to talk about free speech and the campus climate at Wesleyan. “It’s so much better that [Wesleyan students] are worried about Gaza, than just getting an A on…

President Michael S. Roth ’78 wrote an op-ed for Inside Higher Ed on his recent letters to state representatives calling for them to redouble their efforts to bring peace in the Middle East and to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. “Silence at a time of humanitarian catastrophe isn’t neutrality; it’s either cowardice or collaboration. We don’t need institution-speak, but we do need leaders of academic and cultural institutions to call on our government and our fellow citizens to address this crisis.” Roth joined the Yale University Press Podcast to talk about his book the history of the student, current crises…

Elizabeth Bobrick, visiting scholar in classical studies, wrote a piece for Salon on the parallels between Athenian playwright Sophocles’ “Antigone” and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initial refusal to let the country’s public mourn the death of political enemy Alexei Navalny or his family hold a public funeral. “Navalny’s mother and widow join Antigone in prodding us to remember that the treatment of the dead has consequences for the living—not for Putin, necessarily, but for everyone who gets in his way,” Bobrick wrote. Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth ’78 appeared on WNPR’s “Disrupted” on Feb. 7 to talk about his role…

On the Freakonomics Radio Hour, Jan. 24, Stephen J. Dubner spoke with President Michael S. Roth ’78 about the difficulty of being a college president in a moment of political pressure on higher education. “I realize that you can’t please everyone, but I don’t think that that’s an excuse for trying to say nothing,” Roth said. “And the fact that you can’t speak about everything doesn’t mean you should stay silent all the time.” Roth was quoted in a Boston Globe story on the challenges university president’s face in the modern political climate that has some colleges facing frequent public attacks,…

The New York Times recently highlighted research reporting that five people with moderate to severe brain injuries scored higher on cognitive tests following a brain implant that stimulated their brains. Joseph Fins ’82, Hon. ’22, medical ethicist at Weill Cornell Medicine, was mentioned with the piece after he published a series of interviews with the subjects and their families in a separate paper for Cambridge University Press. Author and LGBTQIA+ rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan ’80, Hon.’23 was elected President of PEN America, a key organization in the defense of free speech in the United States, on Dec. 11, according…

The Los Angeles Review of Books reviewed a book recently published by President Michael S. Roth ’78, titled The Student: A Short History—which explores what it means to be a student over the years. “[Roth’s] self-described ‘pragmatic idealism’ is hardly a battle cry, but it is exactly what we need more of,” writer Todd Shy said. Roth joined PBS Newshour on Oct. 24 for a segment on how colleges have responded to the Supreme Court’s decision to end race-based admissions. “This summer, when I read the Supreme Court opinions … I thought to myself, how could we continue this practice?…

Two Wesleyan alumni were hired in key roles at the White House by the Biden-Harris Administration in September. Ed Siskel ’94 started his new role as White House Counsel and Rob Wilcox ’01 joined the administration as a Deputy Director of the new Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Siskel, the nation’s top attorney, was called a seasoned lawyer who could “hit the ground running as a key leader on my team,” by President Joseph R. Biden in a statement, according to The New York Times. Siskel will be tasked with guiding Biden through an impeachment inquiry spearheaded by Speaker of the…

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