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Paul Hanakata '14 was named a finalist for the American Physical Society's prestigious Leroy Apker Award, the highest prize offered in the United States for an undergraduate thesis in physics. He will compete to win the award this month. The Apker Award was created to recognize outstanding achievements in physics by undergraduate students, and thereby provide encouragement to young physicists who have demonstrated great potential for future scientific accomplishment. At Wesleyan, Hanakata received high honors for his Wesleyan thesis titled, "Cooperative Dynamics in Supported Polymer Films," under his advisor, Francis Starr, professor of physics and director of the College of Integrative Sciences. In…

Wesleyan nearly doubled its number of Teach for America participants this year over 2013, the national organization said. With 19 participants in the 2014 cohort, Wesleyan is tied for third among "small schools" (those with under 2,999 students) who send graduates into the corps. The Wesleyan alumni join the most diverse corps in Teach for America's 25-year-history, with one third of the members the first in their families to attend college, half identifying as people of color, and nearly half Pell Grant recipients as undergraduates. Teach For America works in partnership with communities to expand educational opportunity for children facing…

A country that wants to maintain the dream of social mobility requires real colleges and universities

The mysterious disappearance of millions of honeybees - known as colony collapse disorder - has frustrated and worried scientists around the world for more than seven years. The visiting scholar at Wesleyan's College of the Environment explores this mystery in a new exhibit at the Green Street Arts Center that opened Sept. 4. Joseph Smolinski, a noted artist who has exhibited in many venues ranging from MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass. to the Cleveland Institute of Art , uses 3-D printing, video and other media to show the scale of the honeybee crisis - and note that environmental stressors (more…)

More than 20 student bands participated in THE MASH on Sept. 5. Inspired by Fete de la Musique, also known as World Music Day, the third-annual event highlighted the student music scene at Wesleyan and kicked off the year-long campus and community-wide Music & Public Life initiative. Bands performed concurrently on stages at Olin Library, the Butterfields, North College and at the base of Foss Hill. Bands and soloists included Jacob & The Masters, Quasimodal, David Stouck, Mixolydians, Andrew Hove, Slavei, all-caps LADD, Materiq, Trillion Dollar Boys Club (Butts Reunion Tour 2k14), jdv plus™, MFDP, Don Froot, Mazel Tones, Sam…

A Wesleyan student is being treated for serious injuries sustained in a fall from a window

Q: Welcome to Wesleyan, Professor Matesan! Can you please tell us a little about your background? A: I’m originally from Romania. I came to the U.S. for undergrad in 1998, and earned a degree in economics and political science from Monmouth College in Illinois. Coming from Romania, I had no sense of differences in states. I got together with a couple friends, and we looked at the admission of international students and amount of aid for them at different colleges, and we applied to the colleges with the most aid per international student. It was very much a cost-benefit analysis.…

Scott Rohde will become Wesleyan's new director of Public Safety on Oct. 1. Since 1998, Rohde has served as director of Police Services at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse where he managed safety and security operations for a campus population of 10,000 students, faculty and staff. Prior to working in higher education, he worked for 10 years in municipal policing in a small town in Wisconsin. Rohde holds an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University, and a BS from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, where he majored in criminal justice and minored in sociology. "After an extensive search, I’m confident…

Writing at Wesleyan announces the Spring 2015 Russell House Series on Prose and Poetry. Writer/authors in the Spring 2015 series include Ron Padgett on Feb. 25, Millett Fellow Caryl Phillips on March 4, Sadia Shepard on March 25, Rowan Ricardo Phillips on April 1 and Ruth Ozeki on April 8. All events are free and open to the public. For more information on these talks visit the Writing at Wesleyan website. Support for this series is provided by Writing at Wesleyan, the English Department, the Annie Sonnenblick Fund, the Joan Jakobson Fund, the Jacob Julien Fund, the Millett Writing Fellow Fund, the Center…

Wesleyan head women's volleyball coach Gale Lackey, the senior athletics department member with 37 years of service, will retire in June. In her 30th year coaching volleyball, Lackey is also the senior woman administrator in athletics and an associate athletics director. Lackey began coaching at Wesleyan in 1978, handling both field hockey and women’s lacrosse and leading the field hockey squad to its only undefeated campaign — and a subsequent berth in the Wes Athletics Hall of Fame — in 1980. She took over as volleyball coach in 1985. “The time is right,” Lackey said. "Coaching and teaching here has…

The Wesleyan community gathered on Foss Hill Sept. 2 to view The Monument Quilt, a crowd-sourced collection of thousands of stories from survivors of rape and abuse. The quilt serves as a platform for storytelling and a space where survivors are publicly supported. Sections of the quilt are traveling throughout the United States. In August, the quilt made stops in North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland. Following the tour, thousands of fabric squares will be stitched together to spell “NOT ALONE" on the National Mall.Through public recognition, the quilt aims to…

David Rabban '71 will speak on “Free Speech, Academic Freedom, and the American University” during Wesleyan's annual Constitution Day Lecture. The event will take place at 7 p.m. Sept. 17 in the Smith Reading Room inside Olin Memorial Library. The lecture, hosted by the Friends of the Wesleyan Library is free of charge and open to the public. This talk will cover the judicial treatment of free speech and academic freedom at American universities from the 1950s to the present. It will explore the First Amendment rights of professors, students and universities as institutions, and the tensions that arise when these rights conflict. (more…)

Hanakata ’14 Finalist for American Physical Society’s Apker Award

Wesleyan Nearly Doubles Its Teach for America Cohort

Why ‘Nano-Degrees’ Can’t Replace Liberal Arts Education

COE Scholar Presents Multi-Media Exhibit on “Colony Collapse”

Student Music Scene Celebrated at THE MASH (with Photo Gallery)

Update on Injured Student

Matesan Studies Contentious Politics, Violence in the Middle East

Rohde Hired as Wesleyan’s New Director of Public Safety

Writing at Wesleyan Announces Spring Russell House Series on Prose and Poetry

Volleyball Coach Lackey to Retire After 37 Years, Hundreds of Victories

Monument Quilt Offers Public Platform for Rape Victims to Grieve, Heal

Rabban ’71 to Deliver Constitution Day Lecture Sept. 17