Natalie Robichaud ’14Ron Jenkins '64, professor of theater, recently wrote an op-ed for The Jakarta Post about Run, a small Indonesian island. Run was “involved in a war between maritime empires” due to the presence of nutmeg on the island. While “the historic memory of Run’s inhabitants is vague, their pride… in the importance of their island’s past is vivid.” The residents of the small island no longer make a living with the spice trade and must have other jobs to provide for their families, but nutmeg is still a large part of the culture. “The small pale yellow nutmeg fruit still…
Vanity Fair says that Candace Nelson ’96, who reinvented America’s opinion on cupcakes, “is to cupcakes today what Debbi Fields was to cookies in the 1980s.” Nelson’s company, Sprinkles, known for its constant innovation, premiered the world’s first cupcake food truck and cupcake ATM. Wistful for the days of old-fashioned ice cream shops while surrounded by frozen yogurt trends, Nelson decided not to limit herself to cupcakes and introduced slow churned ice cream to her stores. Her most decadent dessert combines her two products; the Sprinkles sandwich is a unique treat of a scoop of ice cream enclosed by two…
Olivia Morgan ’94, after being appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), founded the National Student Poets Program (NSPP), the country’s highest honor for youth poets presenting original work. According to the PCAH, students who engage in school through the arts have better attendance records, better performance, and are more likely to graduate. Morgan decided to use her position on the PCAH to engage students without a strain on resources. “The amazing thing about poetry, or writing of any kind—you don’t need musical instruments, you don’t technology, it’s just a pen and paper," Morgan said.…
Toni Craige '09 received the SustainUS Lead Now Fellowship for her "innovative approach to women's education about reusable feminine products." Toni is the co-founder of Sustainable Cycles. The fellowship is awarded annually for demonstrated potential to advance sustainable development in communities and includes yearlong training and mentorship from SustainUS and a $1,000 grant. Sustainable Cycles educates women about reusable menstrual products through bicycle tours. Craige, together with friend and co-founder Sarah Konner, first toured down the West Coast on a three-month bicycle trip, handing out 300 menstrual cups donated by from manufacturers, and living on $4 a day. “We are working…
In her pursuit of happiness, Nataly Kogan ’98 found her way to the positions of CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Happier. Kogan’s life before Wesleyan was anything but easy: She escaped her native country, Soviet Russia, as a Jewish refugee at age 13 and made it to the United States after jumping from one refugee camp to another across Europe. Even after achieving the "American Dream," Nataly Kogan wasn’t happy. She believes that “you can't actually be happy, but you can always be happier,” so she spends her days spreading good cheer to as many people as possible with…
Cynthia RockwellRichard Locke ’81 was named director of the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. On leave from the MIT Political Science Department, he was previously deputy dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management. Locke’s current research focuses on improving the safety and environmental conditions for workers in global supply chains. The author of four books, he most recently published The Promise and Limits of Private Power (Cambridge University Press, 2013). In a recent Q&A for the Brown Magazine, he spoke on his hopes and expectations that the Watson Institute will build on Brown’s strong foundation as well as strengthen its…
Benjamin TraversIn this video, experience Wesleyan from day to starlight in this time-lapse video, captured over the course of six months on rooftops and in iconic locations across campus. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://youtu.be/SFISRDj5BNk[/youtube]
Bill FisherA crowd of more than 160 Wesleyan alumni, parents and friends gathered June 19 at the Knight Conference Center of the Newseum in Washington, DC, to "Talk Politics" with three high-profile Wes alums. The event, a fundraiser for financial aid, featured a lively discussion among Colo. Gov. John Hickenlooper '74, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin '79 and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet '87, who all credited Wesleyan's interdisciplinary programs and spirit of inquiry for their political success. The fundraiser was part of a series in the $400 million THIS IS WHY campaign to support the university's endowment. All proceeds from ticket sales—100…
Olivia DrakeSumarsam, the University Professor of Music, is the author of Javanese Gamelan and the West, published by the University of Rochester Press on July 1. In Javanese Gamelan, Sumarsam examines the meaning, forms and traditions of the Javanese performing arts as they developed and changed through their contact with Western culture. The book traces the adaptations in gamelan art as a result of Western colonialism in 19th century Java, showing how Western musical and dramatic practices were domesticated by Javanese performers creating hybrid Javanese-Western art forms, such as with the introduction of brass bands in gendhing mares court music and West Javanese…
Professor of Romance Languages Norman Shapiro, who translated La Fontaine into English, recently translated most of New Orleans poet Jules Choppin’s poems for New Orleans Poems in Creole and French. The book, published by Second Line Press in August 2013, presents a bilingual collection of forgotten treasures of 19th century francophone American literature. Choppin was a well-known poet who had been published in New Orleans papers as well as Comptes-rendus de l’Athénée Louisianais, a 19th-century Louisianan literary journal. Several of Choppin’s works are inspired by La Fontaine’s good-humored fables and written in “sprightly Lousisana Creole." Order the book online here.
A paper co-written by Professor of Biology Ann Burke, “Body wall development in lamprey and a new perspective on the origin of vertebrate paired fins,” was published in the July issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Burke and her colleagues investigated the sea lamprey and the Japanese lamprey, comparing “the embryonic development of both these jawless fish to jawed animals — a shark, the catshark, and a salamander, the axolotl.” The abstract of the paper states, “Classical hypotheses regarding the evolutionary origin of paired appendages propose transformation of precursor structures (gill arches and lateral fin folds) into…
Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, is the author of Ancestral Intelligence, published by Antrim House Books in 2013. In Ancestral Intelligence, Schwarcz depicts the cultural landscape of contemporary China by creating “renditions” of poems by a mid-20th century dissident poet, Chen Yinke, and by adding a group of her own poems in harmony with Chen Yinke’s. Like his, her poems show a degradation of culture and humanity, in this case through comparison of classic and modern Chinese logographs. In the tragic yet inspiring story of Chen Yinke, Schwarcz finds her own powerful…