Students – Page 40

Abigail Gruppuso '16, Austin Tamaddon '16, and Cyrus Nury '16 delivered "Senior Voices" Addresses on May 21 in Memorial Chapel. Andrea Roberts, associate professor of the practice, chemistry, delivered the faculty reflection. Below are the text of their speeches: Abigail Gruppuso '16 The lunch table in Usdan is where my friends and I split into two camps and argue whether Cherry Berry or Froyo World is better. It’s where Mike and I exchange stories about our study abroad experiences in Nepal and Beijing. It’s where I was urged to Feel the Bern and taught how to eliminate food waste. At the…

Members of the Class of 2016 were inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest national scholastic honor society, in a ceremony May 21 at Memorial Chapel. The Wesleyan Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was organized in 1845 and is the ninth-oldest chapter in the country. Membership is conferred for high scholastic achievement. Fall election eligibility is based on a student's grades at the end of junior year; spring election is based on four-year achievement. Seventy-three students were inducted at the ceremony. They join fifteen other seniors inducted in December 2015. PHI BETA KAPPA SPRING 2016 Holt Akers-Campbell Elizabeth Marie…

The Hartford Courant has featured the work of T.R.A.P House, a nonprofit business incubator that targets high-crime, high-poverty areas and has recently started working in the north end of Hartford. T.R.A.P. House is the creation of a team from Wesleyan: Irvine Peck’s-Agaya ’18, Gabe Weinreb ’18, Sara Eismont ’18, and Bashaun Brown, a former student in Wesleyan's Center for Prison Education, where he earned 16 credits while serving six years at the Cheshire Correctional Institution for bank robbery. Brown will be a member of Wesleyan's Class of 2018, starting in the fall. T.R.A.P. stands for "transforming, reinventing and prospering," and is a play…

The Hartford Courant reported on a study of the Wangunks, the indigenous people of Middletown and Portland, Conn., by members of a Wesleyan course taught by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of environmental studies. Eleven students spent a semester in the archives of the Middlesex County Historical Society studying the Wangunks as part of a course on local Native Americans: "Decolonizing Indigenous Middletown: Native Histories of the Wangunk Indian People." Four of those students presented their research at a March seminar at Russell Library. According to the story: The Wesleyan students made use of a number of sources to piece together a…

The Wesleyan women’s tennis and women’s crew teams both qualified for the NCAA Championships this week. Women’s tennis, ranked No. 8 in the ITA national rankings, returns to the postseason tournament for the first time since the 2000-01 season, and only the second time in program history. The Cardinals earned a first round bye after posting an 11-5 overall record, and will face the winner of No. 14 Mary Washington and Simmons on May 14 at 11 a.m. on the campus of Amherst College, the regional host. If Wesleyan wins, it would advance to play either No. 7 Amherst, SUNY Geneseo…

Anna Fox '19 wrote an essay in The Forward about Wesleyan's Jewish community and the campus political climate surrounding the Israel Palestinian conflict. Though, as a Zionist, she was anxious about coming to a campus with a pro-Palestine reputation, she was met with a pluralistic community, "diverse opinions" and "students exchanging ideas thoughtfully—though rarely in agreement—and leaving the conversations with respect, compassion and nuanced approaches to their ideas." She writes: The passion I see in my peers who engage with Israeli-Palestinian politics, regardless of their political affiliations, gives me so much hope about the future of the Holy Land. My voice is not…

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The Office of Student Affairs hosted a Spring 2016 awards banquet for students who received academic prizes, fellowships and awards on May 4 in Daniel Family Commons. Students received awards for demonstrating outstanding character, leadership and intellectual commitment; intercollegiate debating; extracurricular participation; promoting the health, visibility, and participation of the Latino community at Wesleyan; writing the best paper that uses econometric techniques to analyze an economic problem; excellence in environmental stewardship; excellence in modern languages; exhibition in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, or architecture; and much more. To view the entire list of awards and recipients see Student Affairs Prizes…

Three teams from Wesleyan received honors during the American Statistical Association DataFest, hosted at Wesleyan April 8-10. During DataFest, students are presented with a large, complex, surprise data set and work over the weekend to explore, analyze, and present their findings. Teams of three to five undergraduate students from Wesleyan, Trinity, Connecticut College, Yale, and the University of Connecticut competed against each other. After two days of intense data wrangling, analysis and presentation design, each team was allowed only five minutes and no more than two slides to impress a panel of judges. The event, coordinated by Wesleyan's Quantitative Analysis Center, is…

The Center for the Arts hosted a West African Drumming and Dance performance May 6 in Crowell Concert Hall. The program was coordinated by Iddi Saaka, artist-in-residence and John Wesley Dankwa, a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology. Students in West African Dance I and III performed with help from drumming students. (Photos by Olivia Drake) (more…)

Every week, a group of Wesleyan students in the Wesleyan Alliance for Generational Exchange (WesAGE), visit local senior centers to play card games and bingo and interact with the residents. “Our residents can’t get out into the community because of mobility and safety issues,” David Frankel, activities coordinator at One MacDonough House, told The Middletown Press in a feature story about the program. “So Wesleyan students through a program called WesAGE come to MacDonough Friday afternoons rather than party with their friends. These are special young men and women. They let us know that we’re a value to the community.” “Wesleyan University has worked very hard…

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Gruppuso, Tamaddon, Nury Deliver “Senior Voices” Addresses

73 Seniors Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa Society

Wesleyan’s T.R.A.P. House Business Incubator Working in Hartford’s North End

Wesleyan Class Studies ‘Lost Tribe’ of Lower Connecticut River

Women’s Tennis, Crew Teams Qualify for NCAA Championships

Fox ’19 Writes on Wesleyan’s Jewish Community, Campus Political Climate

Students Toss Objects from Exley’s Roof during Big Drop

Students Honored with Academic Prizes, Fellowships

Students Solve, Analyze Complex Problems at DataFest

Students Perform West African Drumming, Dance at End-of-Year Concert

Wesleyan Students, Local Seniors Become ‘Fast Friends’

Refugees’ Art Featured at Student-Run “Art in Crisis” Exhibit