Page 205

Students from Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Timothy Ku’s Environmental Geochemistry class presented their findings regarding the geochemical makeup of Lake Hayward in East Haddam, Conn., to almost two dozen members of the Lake Hayward and Wesleyan communities on Dec. 2 in a presentation at the Russell House. The class is part of Wesleyan’s Service Learning Program spearheaded by Rob Rosenthal, director of Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, the John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology. “Working in science, it's always fulfilling when you have people who care about the information you’re looking at,” said Zachary Kaufman ‘16.…

Fifteen seniors were inducted to the university's Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa during a ceremony on Dec. 2. (more…)

Arpita Vora ’16 clicks through a website that seeks to raise awareness about the hardships faced by low-income families in North Carolina. Middlesex United Way, the organization at which Vora was placed through the Center for Community Partnerships’ yearlong pilot Nonprofit Board Residency Program, is hoping to create a similar site using data from Connecticut. (more…)

More than 60 Graduate Liberal Studies students, their guests, and community members attended a free open class meeting of "Monk and Mingus: The Cutting Edge of Jazz," at Russell House on Nov. 30. Presented by Graduate Liberal Studies and Jazz Ensemble Coach Noah Baerman, the event included a discussion followed by a performance by Baerman of pieces composed by and associated with jazz greats Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. Baerman was accompanied by bassist Henry Lugo and Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Private Lessons Teacher Pheeroan akLaff on percussion. (Photos by Will Barr '18) (more…)

Four Wesleyan undergraduates and a faculty member received awards in the latest call for proposals from NASA's Connecticut Space Grant Consortium. Astronomy major Rachel Aronow '17 was awarded an Undergraduate Research Fellowship in the amount of $5,000 for her project, "Planet Formation and Stellar Characteristics in Tatooine-like Systems." She is working with Bill Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy, studying Tatooine-like systems (named after the fabled home system of Luke Skywalker), which are planet-forming disks that surround a close pair of stars that are in orbit around each other. Aronow conducted research with Herbst last summer, and these funds will support further…

#THISISWHY The Wesleyan community joined together in an amazing show of support for students on Giving Tuesday, Dec. 1, raising more than $1 million. “I was awestruck by the generosity of the Wesleyan community,” said Wesleyan President Michael Roth. “We set an ambitious goal, and the Wesleyans blew right through it!” (more…)

Two evenings of theater will be presented by the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures this month. Both events are free and open to the public and will take place at the department's common room at 300 High Street in Middletown, Conn. Students from French 281 and Theater 291 will present three plays in French on Dec. 9 at 6 p.m.: "Tu honoreras ton père et ta mère" or “You Will Honor Your Father and Mother," by Samira Sedira; "Ah! La belle vie" or “Oh! The Good Life," by Anne Giafferi; and “First Lady,” by Sedef Ecer. A reception will follow. The…

In this issue of News@Wesleyan, we speak with Assistant Professor of Mathematics Felipe Ramírez, who joined the Wesleyan faculty this fall. (more…)

Andrew Curran, professor of French, William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities, wrote a moving piece in The New York Times about the life-changing experience of his father's sudden death. Among other things, Curran describes the experience of seeing his father's body for the last time and saying goodbye. He also recounts the trip to his parents' house in North Carolina as a "chronology-less blur of grief and purifying laughter." He writes: I still dream quite often about my father. He generally makes an appearance toward 2 or 3 in the morning, sometimes waving to me from his car (he loved taking extraordinarily long car trips)…

Suzanne O'Connell, professor of earth and environmental sciences, faculty director of the McNair program, is the author of a new op-ed appearing on Inside Sources and The Hartford Courant, in which she urges aggressive action to counteract climate change. O'Connell acknowledges the difficulty in communicating the urgency of climate change, and writes that one way she's found to express this to her students is to liken climate change to cancer. That is, it is the rapid rate at which we are introducing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere—much like the accelerated rate of cell growth in cancer—that is so harmful. She writes: Cancer progresses at different rates in different…

The Office of Human Resources reported the following new hires and departures for November 2015: Newly hired Terry Emmons was hired as accounting specialist in chemistry on Nov. 2 Celestine Schwenneker was hired as administrative assistant in university relations on Nov. 2 Martha Crebbin was hired as administrative assistant in the college of social studies on Nov. 30 Transitions Renee Johnson-Thornton was hired as the Dean for the Class of 2018 on Nov. 16 Departures Nicholas Vennochi, sports information intern in communications.

More than 100 members of the class of 2016 attended an evening of craft brews and music in Beckham Hall on Thursday, Nov. 12. The event was sponsored by the Alumni Association and the Senior Class Gift Committee. For more photos, click here. (more…)

Environmental Geochemistry Students Present Research

15 Seniors Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa

Pilot Program Gives Students Insight into Local Nonprofits

GLS Holds ‘Monk and Mingus’ Open Class

Several Wesleyan Projects Awarded NASA’s CT Space Grants

Giving Tuesday: Wes Rallies for $1 Million Day

RL&L Presents Two Evenings of Theater

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Ramírez Studies Ergodic Theory, Dynamic Systems

Curran on Making Sense of His Father’s Death With Baudelaire

O’Connell Writes ‘Time to Stop Climate Cancer’ in Op-Ed

Staff on the Move, November 2015

Class of 2016 Celebrates Senior Night