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As part of the City of Middletown’s PrideFest Celebration, Middletown Pride partnered with Wesleyan’s College of Film and the Office for Equity & Inclusion for a showing of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. On June 24, members of the Wesleyan and Middletown communities gathered on the south side of Foss Hill for the screening. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), directed by Stephan Elliott, is an Australian road comedy film that follows two drag queens, played by Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce, and a transgender woman, played by Terence Stamp, as they journey across…

On June 18, several members of the Wesleyan community gathered at Smith Park in Middletown to participate in City of Middletown's second annual Juneteenth Liberation celebration. Wesleyan’s Office for Equity & Inclusion was a co-sponsor of the event. "Juneteenth is a time when we can reflect on the painful mistakes of our nation’s past and work towards racial reconciliation, honoring the day as a time for healing, learning and taking action," says Alison Williams '81, vice president for equity and inclusion. "It's also a time when we celebrate the significant contributions of African Americans to every aspect of American culture."…

In recognition of Juneteenth, we share a message from Alison P. Williams, vice president for equity and inclusion: On Saturday, June 18, Middletown will have a Juneteenth celebration in Smith Park. Wesleyan’s Office for Equity & Inclusion is a Gold sponsor of this event. We invite everyone to come out and celebrate with us. Juneteenth is also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day. It marks the date when, on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, TX, and announced the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery. …

In 2021 Wesleyan began construction on a reimagined southeast corner of Andrus Field. At the core of this work is an extension and gut renovation of the Public Affairs Center (PAC), and a new Davison Art Center gallery building. This latter project is part of a broader effort to expand the arts at Wesleyan beyond the Center for the Arts and to make them part of an inclusive, accessible, and interdisciplinary network of buildings at the core of campus. On June 4, as part of the Class of 2020's Weekend Celebration, Alan Rubacha, assistant vice president of construction and infrastructure…

While most universities value either pedagogy or scholarship, Associate Professor of Biology Joseph Coolon appreciates how—at Wesleyan—both are celebrated concurrently. "Wes is a truly unique place," he said. "Wesleyan faculty aim to be true scholar-teachers with each benefiting the other synergistically." Coolon, who joined the Wesleyan faculty in 2015 as an assistant professor of both biology and integrative sciences, has since co-authored 13 articles on ecological and evolutionary genomics in peer-reviewed publications such as G3: Genes | Genomes | Genetics; Developmental Biology; and Insect Molecular Biology. Ten of these papers were co-authored by both his graduate and undergraduate students. Together, they…

It was sitting in the peace of synagogue with his wife where Stephen Angle began to contemplate his personal relationship to Confucianism. Angle, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies and professor of philosophy, had spent his career studying the ancient philosophy, which emphasizes personal ethics and morality. He’d written multiple academic books on the subject. The roots of his interest went all the way back to high school with a fascinating class on non-Western cultures. Still, there had always been one small remove between the ideas and his own life. “I didn’t understand the Hebrew being chanted. Half of…

When Dr. Andrea Grubb Barthwell '76 arrived on campus the summer of 1972, she was in the second full class of women admitted to Wesleyan. "I chose to become educated in a place that was undergoing change," she said. "One principle that guides my life is, embrace change, it is inevitable." Barthwell, who delivered the keynote address during the Spring 2022 Phi Beta Kappa initiation ceremony, graduated with a degree in psychology and went on to founding the health care policy firm Encounter Medical Group and directs Two Dreams, a comprehensive alcoholism and addiction treatment system. She previously served under President…

Growing up in a religious and conservative town in Colorado, it wasn't easy being a gay kid. Now 29 and a PhD candidate in biology, Zachary Drum—who identifies as a gay cisgender male—is hoping to garner public support for LGTBQIA2S+ equality so youth nowadays can find pride in who they really are. (LGTBQIA2S+ is an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, and other ways in which people choose to self-identify.) On June 4, Drum joined a cohort of fellow Wesleyans for the City of Middletown's fourth annual PrideFEST, which included a Pride parade and…

Wesleyan’s intellectually dynamic faculty, students, alumni, staff, and parents frequently serve as expert sources for national media. Others are noted for recent achievements and accolades. In The Conversation, Benjamin Elling, assistant professor of chemistry, explains why Bisphenol A, or BPA, is so widely used to make plastics, despite its reputation for causing adverse health effects. Elling, a synthetic polymer chemist, says BPA-derived polycarbonates "are transparent, incredibly strong, light, and don’t begin to melt or lose structural integrity until they reach high temperatures." Polycarbonates, he says, are a ubiquitous part of modern life. "A major concern with designing new plastics is…

The Class of 2020 engaged in a bit of time travel over the course of their long-awaited in-person Commencement Celebration Weekend, which took place June 2-5, 2022. In the warmth of the perfect weather, the former classmates lounged on Foss Hill, gathered in the residence halls, shared meals and events together, and danced under the tent on Andrus Field. For a few days, they were able to interrupt daily life and experience the end of senior year feeling that COVID-19 took away. “I wanted to meet the special group of people who had decided to redo the past, this time…

The votes are in! Luz Burgos-López ’09, Andrew Fairbanks ’90, and Kimberly King ’97 are the newest Wesleyan alumni to be elected to the University's Board of Trustees, and they will begin their three-year-term on July 1. Burgos-López, Fairbanks, and King join 33 other trustees who are responsible for making sure the University fulfills its mission, sustains its values, and appropriately balances its obligations to current and future generations. While many schools have some Alumni-Elected Trustee representation, Wesleyan is unique in that nearly one-third of the Board is elected by the alumni body. All alumni plus members of the class of…

Last fall, while working as the lead production assistant for WesWorks, a performance featuring Wesleyan facilities staff, Erin Byrne '24 became acquainted with Victor Ignacio Rosario— a custodian at Wesleyan who is contracted through SMG. Rosario, who primarily works in Exley Science Center and the Science Library, allowed Byrne to job-shadow him and in return, Byrne gained a deep appreciation for his day-to-day responsibilities. "Victor is a vital and enthusiastic member of the Wesleyan community," Byrne said. "Especially during the pandemic, keeping communal spaces on campus clean constantly was difficult and necessary, and Victor helped me realize just how much…

Wesleyan Screens Adventures of Priscilla as Part of Middletown’s PrideFest Celebration

Wesleyan Community Celebrates African American Culture on Juneteenth

On the Importance of Juneteenth

Class of 2020 Alumni Receive a Perimeter Tour of the Renovated PAC, Art Gallery

Coolon, Ponce-Hegenauer, Ramírez Conferred Tenure; 11 Others Promoted

Angle’s New Book Offers Modern-Day Confucian Guide to Life

Phi Beta Kappa Inductees Advised to Create, Innovate the Future

Wesleyan Supports LGBTQIA2S+ Community at Pride Parade

Wesleyan in the News, June 2022

Class of 2020 Returns to Campus for an In-Person Commencement Celebration

Wesleyan Welcomes 3 New Alumni-Elected Trustees

Employees, Students Honored with Peter Morgenstern-Clarren ‘03 Social Justice Awards