Christian CamerotaBefore "Fortnite" and "Candy Crush," before "Super Mario Bros." and "Tetris," in fact, even before things like VCRs, Post-its, email, and hacky sacks, eight young MIT students came up with a truly novel idea that ended up becoming not just one of the first video games of its kind, but one of the first video games ever. Their excitement is still palpable in the game's title, "Spacewar!" The game essentially launched what today Smithsonian Magazine estimates as a $140 billion industry, with games as varied and ubiquitous as the devices they are played on. All modern-day players and developers owe…
Olivia Drake(more…)
Following a winter storm and subzero temperatures on Jan. 20-22, students returned from Winter Recess to a campus crystallized in an icy sheathing. Several trees on campus succumbed to broken limbs. Pictured below are scenes on campus on Jan. 22: (Photos by Olivia Drake) (more…)
Benjamin TraversAs first announced in October 2018, Wesleyan has assumed leadership of the Center for Creative Youth (CCY) as an official program of the University. The first CCY camps under Wesleyan’s management will be offered in summer 2019. For 42 years, CCY was held on Wesleyan’s campus, but run by the Capitol Region Education Council (CREC). With state education cuts and the resulting financial strain experienced at CREC, CCY’s existence was in jeopardy. This transition to Wesleyan is not only the beginning of a bright new chapter for CCY, but the continuation of a beloved series. CCY is a four-week precollege…
The Office of Human Resources announces the following hires, transitions, and departures between August and December 2018: HIRES Matt Glasz, director for annual giving, on Aug. 1 James Huerta, associate dean of admission, on Aug. 6 Emma Walsh, assistant director for internships and campus recruiting in Gordon Career Center, on Aug. 6 Michael Acosta, study abroad advisor in the Fries Center for Global Studies, on Aug. 13 Christian Camerota, director of editorial content strategy and creation in University Communications, Aug. 13 Aracely Montes, administrative assistant in chemistry, on Aug. 14 Jessica Tyler, web specialist in University Communications, on Aug. 27…
In this Q&A, we speak with Amy Grillo, associate professor of the practice in education studies. This spring, she is teaching Schools in Society and Practicum in Education Studies. Q: You joined Wesleyan’s faculty during the fall 2018 semester. Welcome to Wesleyan! What are your overall thoughts so far on the University? A: I keep pinching myself, which is to say that I am incredibly happy to have landed here. I’ve found the students to be lively and engaged, both with their academic work and with the world beyond Wesleyan. The staff and faculty seem similarly energetic and positive. I was…
On Dec. 3, Lisa Brommer was hired as associate vice president for human resources, succeeding Julia Hicks, who retired in September. Brommer comes to Wesleyan from Colorado College, where she was serving as interim director of human resources. In her work at Colorado College, she was known for creating professional development opportunities for staff, improving recruitment processes to ensure a diverse applicant pool, building leadership capacity at all levels, and putting systems in place to identify and retain top talent. Brommer received her BA at the University of Sioux Falls and her MA from the University of South Dakota and…
On Oct. 8, Christopher Olt joined Wesleyan as associate vice president for finance. Olt took on a role last held by Nate Peters before his promotion to vice president for the Office of Finance and Administration. Upon Peters's retirement, the leadership structure of Finance and Administration was reorganized, reestablishing this new role. Olt comes to Wesleyan with significant finance experience in education, most recently at Notre Dame High School of West Haven, where he was responsible for all aspects of finance, budget, and other operational areas including physical plant, information technology, campus safety, and risk management. He was previously a…
Lauren RubensteinNancy Hargrave Meislahn, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid, recently announced that she will retire. Meislahn will leave the University in September after the arrival of the Class of 2023, the 20th class she will admit to Wesleyan. Meislahn came to Wesleyan from her previous role at Cornell University in January 2000 and is the longest-serving dean of admission in Wesleyan history. Over the past two decades, she has overseen a period of enormous growth and progress in Wesleyan admissions. For the Class of 2004, the first class admitted under Meislahn, Wesleyan received fewer than 7,000 applications…
Mark Slobin, the Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music, Emeritus, is the author of Motor City Music: A Detroiter Looks Back, published by Oxford University Press (November 2018). Slobin's book is the first-ever historical study of music across all genres in any American metropolis. According to the publisher: Detroit in the 1940s–60s was not just "the capital of the 20th century" for industry and the war effort, but also for the quantity and extremely high quality of its musicians, from jazz to classical to ethnic. Slobin, a Detroiter from 1943, begins with a reflection of his early life with his family and others,…
Karl Boulware, assistant professor of economics, presented a paper at the Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA) Annual Meeting on Jan. 4. The three-day meeting was attended by more than 13,000 economists, who gathered to network and celebrate new achievements in economic research. Boulware's paper, titled "Labor Market Conditions and Charges of Discrimination: Is There a Link?" examines whether the degree of labor market conditions affects the frequency of claims of discrimination based on race, sex, age, national origin, color, and disability. "Our findings have implications for how macroeconomic policies might be used to promote equal opportunity in the labor market,"…
New poetry by John Murillo, assistant professor of English, is published in the Feb. 2019 issue (Volume 48, No. 1) of American Poetry Review. Murillo also is featured on the publication's cover page. His poem, titled "A Refusal to Mourn the Deaths, by Gunfire, of Three Men in Brooklyn,” is a nod to Dylan Thomas’s famous poem, “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London.” (more…)