Posted 01/15/08 For the past three years, College of Social Studies and French double major Anand Venkatachalam ’08 has studied South Asian culture, history, language and the Hindu religion. What was lacking, however, was the opportunity to practice Hinduism on campus. "I found it very odd that a campus so greatly endowed with an interest in Asian art forms did not have even a student group that provided a community for Hindus on campus," says Venkatachalam, a native of Chennai, India. "College is a time of ethic formation, and questioning norms and values. Hindu students, or students who were raised…

Dan Lachman '09 hires designers from all over the world to create images for his T-shirt and computer-skin business, Sharp Shirter. He runs the business when he's not busy with classes. Lachman is wearing one of his designs, above, featuring a gorilla riding an ostrich. Posted 12/07/07 For the past year, Dan Lachman ’09 has gotten used to wearing his heart on his sleeves. The Wesleyan junior has put all his creative energy into an online-based T-shirt company, and his imaginative designs are selling world-wide. Psychology major Lachman created his business, Sharp Shirter, in September 2006 after turning a daydream…

Posted 12/07/07 Barbara Jones has taken her commitment to intellectual freedom around the world and back again. The Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian has put forth extensive work on behalf of intellectual freedom, both in the United States and abroad. For her efforts, she received the 2007 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, given by the faculty of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Dec. 3. Jones's work on behalf of the Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression has taken her to Costa Rica, Dubai and…

Posted 12/07/07 Singer, composer, historian and honorary degree recipient Bernice Johnson Reagon will be the keynote speaker at an upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Wesleyan. Reagon, who founded the internationally-renowned a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, will participate in a class, facilitate a lunch discussion and speak at the community wide MLK celebration Jan. 29. The MLK discussion will begin at 4:15 p.m. Jan. 29 in Memorial Chapel. Reagon received an honorary degree recipient from Wesleyan University in 2001. Wesleyan annually honors and celebrates the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., who also received a honorary…

Charles Batambuze, executive director of the National Book Trust of Uganda, visits with guests inside Olin Library during the Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression-International Federation of Library Associations conference Nov. 27. Posted 12/07/07 Alice Miranda stood in awe at the plethora of books available for check-out at Olin Library. Miranda, a professor at the Universidad Nacional Costa Rica, says Wesleyan’s library has more books than seven countries in Central America combined, including 15 universities. “There are 1.5 million books in this library,” Miranda says, peering at the wall shelves in Olin’s Smith Room. “In Central America, our…

Michael Singer, assistant professor of biology, is the recipient of a NSF grant which will enable him to hire a postdoc and undergraduate student to collaboratively research behavior of the woolly bear caterpillar. Posted 12/07/07 When a woolly bear caterpillar becomes infected with a parasite, it can’t go to a pharmacy for medicine, so it does the next best thing: It eats the leaves of medicinal plants. This behavior and recognition for the need to self-medicate when ill is at the heart of a new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a proposal by Michael Singer, assistant professor…

Posted 12/07/07 Eating disorders are most often identified with young, white females, but a new study provides data showing that males and other ethnicities are not immune to developing eating disorders. After examining ten years of data, a group of Wesleyan researchers led by a recent graduate student has found that male adolescents are at increased risk of developing eating disorder symptoms. The researchers also found that black female adolescents are the least likely to practice weight control behaviors. The new study was published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, the official journal of…

Posted 11/20/07 Two Wesleyan alumni each have made substantial gifts to create need-based scholarships for former servicemen and women for four years of full-time baccalaureate study. These new gifts will fund as many as 10 scholarships at any given time. One of the donors, Frank Sica '73, hopes he can enable young men and women who have performed a service for the U.S. to attend a premier liberal arts university. "The government-provided college aid and pay scales for enlisted personnel are such that, unless these people received substantial aid, they could not pay the expenses associated with attending a place…