Olivia DrakeQ&As with outstanding students are an occasional feature of The Wesleyan Connection. This issue we speak with Evan Okun from the Class of 2013. Q: Evan, you'll be graduating this spring. How would you sum up your Wesleyan experience so far? A: Wesleyan University encourages interdisciplinary inquiry while simultaneously supporting student efforts to put theory into practice. Earlier this semester the Sociology Department (along with other student and administrative groups) sponsored a panel discussion on the education system featuring the brilliant rap duo, Dead Prez. This served as the action component of my Senior Essay, which addressed exclusion in academia and incorporated…
Janice Naegele will become director of the Center for Faculty Career Development on July 1. Naegele, professor of biology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, has served as chair of the Biology Department, and has served on the Educational Policy Committee, Review and Appeals Board, the Graduate Liberal Studies Advisory Committee, the Life Sciences Building Committee, and the Writing Certificate Committee. She has published extensively in the areas of developmental neurobiology, stem cells and translational rodent models of neurological disorders. Her research explores genetic, small molecule, and neural stem cell based treatments for cognitive disabilities and epilepsy. She currently serves on…
Brian KattenFor the first time in men's basketball history at Wesleyan, three members of the same class are 1,000-point scorers. All-time leading scorer Shasha Brown '13 has 1,745 points; Mike Callaghan '13 finished with 1,175 career points to rank sixth; and Derick Beresford '13 ranks 18th with 1,055 points. Brown, who averaged 18 points a game over his career, also will graduate as the Cardinals' all-time leader for assists (393) and free throws made (438). During the New England Division III Women's Indoor Track Championships at Southern Maine, Sierra Livious '14 set a Wesleyan record in the shot put with a…
J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of American studies, associate professor of anthropology, was appointed an Organization of American Historians (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer by the OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program. In an e-mail to Kauanui, Alan M. Kraut, president-elect of the OAH wrote, "Since 1981, OAH presidents have appointed their most illustrious and dynamic colleagues to our program, making it one of the longest running and most successful efforts of its kind among scholarly associations. It has proven to be an ideal way to reach a broader audience while raising money for the organization's initiatives on behalf of historians." As part of the…
Gabe Rosenberg '16Mateusz Burgunder ’15 returned recently from competing in the 2013 Ski Mountaineering World Championships, where the U.S. National Ski Mountaineering Team finished ninth out of 23 competing teams. This year was Burgunder’s third time competing for the U.S., participating in both the sprint race and the men’s individual race. He placed 51st and 65th, respectively. The U.S. won its first medal in the world championships, with Dartmouth College alumna Nina Silitch taking a silver medal in the sprint race. The Ski Mountaineering World Championships, hosted by the International Ski Mountaineering Federation, were held in Pelvoux, France from Feb. 9–16.
Diana Windemuth, a graduate student in the Astronomy Department, received Honorable Mention as a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award Recipient at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society held Jan. 6-10 in Long Beach, Calif. The award is given to recognize exemplary research by graduate students who present a poster at the meeting. Diana's poster was titled "Dramatic Evolution of the Disk-Shaped Secondary in the Orion Trapezium Star θ1 Ori B1 (BM Ori): MOST Satellite Observations." Windemuth's advisor is William Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy. Her work included results from two former Astronomy graduate students,…
Cynthia RockwellEyal Bar-David '09, Wesleyan psychology major and New York University research assistant in the department of psychology’s Phelps Lab, co-authored a paper asking whether “racial bias affects the way the brain represents information about social groups,” published in the journal Psychological Science. With co-authors Tobias Brosch from the department of psychology at the University of Geneva and Elizabeth Phelps, director of the Phelps Lab at New York University, Bar-David noted in the abstract that their "findings suggest that stronger implicit pro-White bias decreases the similarity of neural representations of Black and White faces." The paper headlined the "This Week in Psychological Science" sent…
David LowIn his new nonfiction collection Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories (University of Chicago Press), acclaimed journalist Carlo Rotella ’86 explores a variety of characters and settings, His writing has been praised for going beneath the surface of the story as he sympathetically dwells in the lives of the people and places he encounters. The two dozen essays in this volume deal with subjects and obsessions that have characterized his previous writing: boxing, music, writers, and cities. “Playing in time” refers to how people make beauty and meaning while working within the constraints and limits forced on…
Paul Dickson ’61 is the winner of the fifth annual Jerome Holtzman Award for his 2012 book, Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick. The Holtzman Award, established in 2008, is presented by the Chicago Baseball Museum to the person who “reflects the values and spirit of its Hall of Fame namesake. The honoree is selected by what is deemed to be the most significant contribution to the promotion of Chicago baseball and the preservation of its history and namesake.” The book, collecting information and accounts from primary sources and over one hundred interviews, is an in-depth portrait of a baseball innovator,…
Bill Queen ’86 was recently named president of the Travelers Ocean Marine business unit. Affiliated with Travelers since 1986, he has held a variety of positions in underwriting and sales, as well as marketing and field management. Most recently, Queen served as chief operating officer for Travelers First Party Group and as a key member of the interim management team for the Ocean Marine organization. This group, currently ranked as one of the largest ocean marine insurers in the United States (based on direct written premium) provides highly specialized property and liability insurance products for maritime-oriented exposures including commercial vessels, cargo transport,…
Jonathan Kalb ’81 is the recipient of two national awards for his recent book, Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater, published by The University of Michigan Press. Kalb, professor of theater at Hunter College and doctoral faculty member at The City University of New York, won the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism and the Theatre Library Association’s George Freedley Memorial Award. Great Lengths takes a close look at large-scale theater productions, often running more than five hours in length, which present special challenges to the artists and audiences. Recreating the experience of seeing the works, which include Tony Kushner’s…
Abbie Goldberg ’99 is the author of the new book Gay Dads: Transitions to Adoptive Fatherhood , published by New York University Press, which collects stories and empirical data from interviews with 70 gay men, taking a close look at societal and political issues in gay parenthood. Introducing the book with a vignette of two new adoptive fathers, Carter and Patrick, Goldberg dives into a discussion of the mazes of adoption agencies, couples’ decisions to openly present themselves as gay, the social implications of parenthood, and the changes in career commitment. “Exploration of the experiences of gay adoptive fathers,” Goldberg writes,…