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Scott Backer, associate dean of students, and Rick Culliton, assistant vice president/dean of students, received a Cardinal Achievement Award in October for completing the federally mandated campus crime (Clery) report for the past two years. This special honor comes with a $250 award and reflects the university’s gratitude for those extra efforts. They completely revised and updated the report from previous years and incorporated additional edits to ensure the data in the report was accurate. This involved collaborating with various offices on campus. They took on this responsibility in the absence of the Public Safety Director who is typically responsible…

The Wesleyan Media Project, which analyzes campaign television advertising in federal elections, has launched a new initiative to educate the public about attack ads and dark money in elections, thanks to funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. As anyone who watches television is well aware, the airwaves are filled with attack ads. Negativity in advertising is especially pronounced in some races, such as the Connecticut governor’s race, in which only 15 percent of ads were positive from Sept. 1 to Oct. 23. At the same time, dark money—or spending by outside groups who do not disclose…

Roth reviews new book suggesting the Diaspora, Israeli should thrive in productive tension

Wesleyan faculty Joop Varekamp and Ellen Thomas are among the authors of a paper on rates of sea-level rise along the eastern U.S. seaboard titled "Late Holocene sea level variability and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation," published in the journal Paleoceanography, Volume 29, Issue 8, pages 765–777 in August 2014. Varekamp is the Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science, professor of earth and environmental sciences and professor of environmental studies. Thomas is research professor of earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan, and also a senior research scientist in geology and geophysics at Yale University. Pre-20th century sea level variability remains poorly understood due to…

On Oct. 24, Richard Grossman, professor of economics, was a discussant at a conference titled “Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development," organized by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. Grossman commented on a paper by Dan Bogart (University of California at Irvine) titled “Securing the East India Monopoly: Politics, Institutional Change, and the Security of British Property Rights Revisited.” The paper focuses on the history of the English East India Company and ways it yields new insights on the relationship between politics, institutional change, and the security of property rights in Britain.

A study co-authored by Graduate Research Assistant Eleana Makri and two other Wesleyan researchers is a topic of a Oct. 20 article published in Scientific Reports. Due to the ultrahigh-speed and ultrawide-band brought by adopting photons as information carriers, photonic integration has been a long-term pursuit for researchers, which can break the performance bottleneck incurred in modern semiconductor-based electronic integrated circuits. The article states that "recently, Makri theoretically proposed the concept of reflective power limiter based on nonlinear localized modes, where a nonlinear layer was sandwiched by two reflective mirrors, thus increased the device complexity." The report is based on Makri's study, titled "Non-Linear Localized Modes Give Rise…

Tsampikos Kottos and Ali Basiri, a Ph.D. student in physics, are co-authors of a paper titled "Light localization induced by a random imaginary refractive index," published in Physical Review A 90, on Oct. 13, 2014. Kottos is the Douglas J. and Midge Bowen Bennet Associate Professor of Physics. In the paper, the authors show the emergence of light localization in arrays of coupled optical waveguides with randomness.

Scott calls the new documentary "terrifying"

Wesleyan President Michael Roth recently spoke about "Why Liberal Arts Education Matters" as part of the 92nd Street Y (92Y) American Conversation series. 92Y connects people all over the world through culture, arts, entertainment and conversation. In the Oct. 15 episode, New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni interviews Roth about the contentious debate over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education. In the interview, Roth, who is author of Beyond the University, Why Liberal Education Matters, makes the case for the great American tradition of humanistic education. Watch a video of the conversation below: Roth also discussed “The Future of Education” at…

Assistant professor of Astronomy Meredith Hughes and eight colleagues have found evidence of magnetic fields in stardust – an indication that magnetic fields are important in the process of planetary system formation, according to a new paper in the journal Nature. The discovery is another step in work by Hughes and other astronomers to understand how celestial bodies are formed. It is known that magnetic fields in the “accretion disks” of stars play a dominant role in the star formation process. Using data from an observatory near Bishop, Calf., Hughes and her colleagues were able to spot signs of magnetic…

Wesleyan's Athletics Department welcomed five notable former athletes and one coach into the seventh class of Wesleyan's Athletics Hall of Fame Oct. 17. The inductees include Joe Barry Morningstar ’39; Cochrane Chase ’54; Marion Stoj, M.D. ’74; Thomas Vincent Reifenheiser III ’94; Sarah Hann, DVM '95; and J. Elmer Swanson, track and cross country coach. Chase, a tremendous football and wrestling talent, was unable to attend the event. The Wesleyan University Athletics Hall of Fame grew out of the collaborative work of the Athletics Advisory Council (AAC), founded in the fall of 2006, and the Wesleyan administrative. Though the inventory of…

Hundreds of Wesleyan alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends of the university took part in an array of Homecoming Weekend events Oct. 17-19 on campus. Events included campus tours, a luncheon for the Athletics Advisory Council (AAC) and AAC meeting; the Athletics Hall of Fame Ceremony and Dinner; the Class of 1965 50th Reunion Planning Reception and Dinner; a 35mm screening of the 1935 picture Top Hat; a celebration of Rabbi George Sobelman, Wesleyan's first Jewish Chaplain; a Leadership Donors Reception; Skull and Serpent Society Annual Meeting; Alpha Delta Phi Banquet Dinner; Wesleyan Old Methodist Men’s Rugby Club Scrimmage; and…

Backer, Culliton, Quinones Honored with Cardinal Achievement Awards

Wesleyan Media Project Launches New Attack Ads Website, Videos; Provides Campaign Analysis

‘At Home in Exile’ Examines Jewish Diaspora

Studies by Varekamp, Thomas Published in Paleoceanography

Grossman Discussant at Economics Research Conference

Makri’s Power Limiter Research Noted in Scientific Reports Article

Kottos, Basiri Author Paper Published in Physical Review

“Citizenfour” Draws Praise

Roth Speaks about Liberal Arts Education in 92Y Interview

Hughes Finds Magnetic Fields in Stardust; Study Published in Nature

6 Inducted to Wesleyan’s Athletic Hall of Fame

Tailgating, Athletic Contests, Middletown Day Part of Homecoming 2014