Bill FisherMore than 100 Wesleyan alumni and guests in the Los Angeles, Calif. area attended "A Conversation in Hollywood" with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper ’74 and Emmy-award winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus P’14. The fundraising event took place at the Paramount Theatre in Hollywood on May 1. View photos of the event online in this Wesleyan Flickr gallery. The fundraiser for financial aid was moderated by President Michael Roth, who prompted his guests with thought-provoking questions about their views on politics, the importance of humor, and the influence of Wesleyan in their lives. Hickenlooper described the winding career path that took him from…
David LowFrances Northcutt ’97 is the co-editor with Scott Silverman of the newly revised 5th edition of How to Survive Your Freshman Year (Hundreds of Heads Books), which offers tips and advice directly from students on today’s campuses. This guide for those heading off to college was compiled from interviews with hundreds of students at more than 120 colleges across the country. Northcutt, who most recently has been an honors advisor and admissions reader for Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York, contributes her expert guidance and helpful commentary. Chapters of the book are devoted to such topics as…
Olivia DrakeColin Campbell, who served as president of Wesleyan University from 1970-1988 and received Wesleyan honorary degrees in 1971 and 1989, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters at the College of William & Mary's Commencement on May 12. Campbell, who served on the William & Mary Board of Visitors from 2008-12, has been the president and chief executive officer of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation since April 2000. He was elected a member of the foundation’s Board of Trustees in 1989 and served as its chairman from 1998 to February 2008. Campbell previously served as the president of the Rockefeller Brothers…
David Hessekiel ’82 is co-author with Philip Kotler and Nancy Lee of Good Works! Marketing and Corporate Initiatives that Build a Better World … and the Bottom Line (John Wiley and Sons), a guide that offers actionable advice on integrating marketing and corporate social initiatives into broader business goals. The book suggests that purpose-driven marketing has moved from a nice-to-do to a must-do for businesses and explains how to balance social and business goals. The book’s introduction explores why some marketing and corporate social initiatives fail and others succeed and then looks at six social initiatives for doing well by…
Cynthia RockwellCharisse Lillie ’74, vice president of Community Investment of Comcast Corporation, delivered the 2013 keynote commencement address at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. The school, the oldest of the historically black colleges and universities in America, was founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth. Lillie, who holds a J.D. from Temple University and an LLM degree from Yale Law School, received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Cheyney. Cheyney University President Michelle Howard-Vital welcomed Lillie, saying that her “many accomplishments will inspire our new graduates to aim high as they approach their future.” Lillie urged the new Cheyney graduates…
David Igler ’88 has written the new history book, The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (Oxford University Press), the first book to combine American, oceanic, and world history in a vivid portrayal of travels in the Pacific world. He researched hundreds of documented voyages to explore the commercial, cultural, and ecological upheavals following Captain Cook’s exploits, and concentrated on the eastern Pacific in the decades between the 1770s and the 1840s. Igler starts with the expansion of trade as seen via the travels of William Shaler, captain of the American Brig Lelia Byrd. Soon he…
Mike Whalen, director of athletics and chair of the Physical Education Department, head coach of football, received a grant worth $40,200 to support an ethnic minority and women's internship. The award was granted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and will support the internship through May 2015. NCAA Division III strives to be a dynamic and engaging group of colleges, universities and conferences of varying sizes and missions, committed to an environment that encourages and supports diversity and inclusion, values fairness and equity, and places the highest priority on the overall educational experience of the student-athlete in the conduct of…
Barry Chernoff and Dana Royer are the co-authors of "Diversity in neotropical wet forests during the Cenozoic linked more to atmospheric CO2 than temperature," published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, in 2013. Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of the journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology. Chernoff is the director of the College of the Environment, the Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies, professor of biology, professor of earth…
Fred Cohan, chair and professor of biology, professor of environmental studies, is the co-author of "Species," published in the Encyclopedia of Genetics, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2013; "Accuracy and efficiency of algorithms for demarcating bacterial ecotypes from DNA sequence data," published in BMC Genomics, 2013; and "Speedy speciation in a bacterial microcosm: New species can arise as frequently as adaptations within a species," published in the ISME Journal's Advance Online Publication, 2013.
The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) National Dance Project presented Wesleyan's Center for the Arts with a $4,500 grant on May 7. The grant will support a presentation and bharata natyam dance by Sannidhi Aparna Ramaswamy during the 2013 Navaratri Festival. Lead funding for this project comes from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) National Dance Project awarded Wesleyan's Center for the Arts with a $10,000 grant on May 7. The grant will support two presentations of "Times Bones" by the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in January 2014. Lead funding for this project comes from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Lauren RubensteinWesleyan's Commencement will take place as scheduled on Andrus Field.