Cynthia Rockwell (By Margaret Curtis '16) Philadelphia-based Caitlin Quigley ’08 was selected as a winner of the Knight Cities Challenge for her project “20 Book Clubs, 20 Cooperative Businesses.” The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awarded 37 winners out of a pool of more than 4,500 applicants with a share of $5 million to support one of the 26 communities in which the foundation invests. Quigley and her organization, the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA), were awarded $146,000 to implement her project, which will support neighborhood businesses. Quigley's project will form 20 community-based book clubs of six to 12…
Bozoma “Boz” Saint John ’99, head of global consumer marketing for Apple Music and iTunes, wowed attendees at WesFest—admitted students and their parents— as keynote speaker. The eldest daughter of Wesleyan ethnomusicology graduate Dr. Appianda Arthur PhD ’77, Saint John spoke on Wesleyan's powerful influence on her life today. Her father, recalling his formative years at Wesleyan and the lively intellectual community, had encouraged her to attend Wesleyan. Although her desire to rebel figured in early in the decision process, she ultimately chose Wesleyan. “My father was so excited when I decided Wesleyan was the school for me, but he…
Andrew Logan ’18An article in the journal Sapiens highlights the current work of anthropologist Ruth Behar in "Lifting the Emotional Embargo With Cuba." Working with poet Richard Blanco, the two are "cultivating reunion and reconciliation among people and cultures that have been estranged for decades," said author Barry Yeoman. Cuba is part of both the poet's and the anthropologist's identities. While Blanco grew up hearing about Cuba from his ex-pat community in Miami, Behar was born in Havana, Cuba. Her parents were of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish descent who moved the family to New York City after the Cuban revolution. As a child in…
Lauren Rubenstein(By Mike O'Brien, Director of Athletic Communication) On April 18, Chicago Cubs Executive Vice President and General Manager Jed Hoyer ’96 spoke to the news site MLB Trade Rumors about his career and his time at Wesleyan. When asked what led him to choose Wesleyan, Hoyer responded: “The over-arching goal of my college search was to combine three factors – great academics, the ability to continue playing baseball, and a campus environment that would broaden my limited horizons. I looked at a lot of different schools and the best combination of those factors was Wesleyan. In hindsight, I was less…
Lin-Manuel Miranda '02 has won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his hit musical, Hamilton, directed by Thomas Kail '99. According to Playbill, Hamilton "joins an exclusive club of just eight other musicals that have won the prestigious award since it was founded nearly a century ago." The awards were announced April 18
The Pulitzer is awarded to "a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life." It includes a $10,000 cash prize.
Olivia DrakeOn April 7, more than 600 Wesleyan alumni from the classes of 2006-2015 attended a GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) party to spend time with friends and raise funds for Wesleyan. Parties were held in Beijing, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Denver, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New Haven, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai, Singapore, and Washington D.C. This year’s GOLD Challenge response exceeded last year’s, with more than 500 young alumni making a gift to Wesleyan! View GOLD party images below and online in this Wesleyan Flickr album or on this Facebook gallery. (more…)
The Portland Business Journal named Kaiser Permanente President Andy McCulloch ’76 one of the top 10 executives of 2016. This award honors area executives whose business strategies have successfully expanded their companies over the last year. During the past year with Kaiser Permanente, McCulloch boosted membership by 3 percent while maintaining a member retention rate of 97 percent. In just their two hospitals, Kaiser Permanente physicians logged 3 million doctor visits and 420,000 dental appointments while earning $3.4 billion in yearly revenue. McCulloch began his presidency in 2006 and directs Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and Washington State. During this time, the…
Award-winning science fiction writer Jack McDevitt MALS ’71 received an out-of-this-world honor: Lowell Observatory astronomer named an asteroid for him. In an e-mail, astronomer Lawrence Wasserman, explained, “I discovered the books of Jack McDevitt early in 2015 and spent most of the year plowing through every novel he has written. I was especially taken by his naming the first Mars spaceship for Percival Lowell, our founder. And, as a person who spent their teens in the ’60s reading Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, I was very pleased to find someone who writes science fiction that doesn't have any elves, dwarfs,…
Frederic Wills '19Sue Rappaport Guiney ’77 and her organization, Writing Through, received one of six prestigious international Freedom Through Literacy award. Hosted by Judith’s Reading Room, an organization that provides literature to those who do not have access to it, the competition will donate $1,000 to the work of Writing Through. Guiney and the five other recipients will be honored at a dinner co-sponsored by the Colonial Association of Reading Educators (C.A.R.E.) in May. A novelist, poet and educator, Guiney founded Writing Through as a way to develop English fluency, conceptual thinking, and self-esteem through the creative writing process. She began on a…
On April 5, six Wesleyan alumni–David Rabban ’71, Roxanne Euban ’88, Lyle Ashton Harris ’88, Rick Barot ’92, Adam Berinsky ’92 and Jonas Carpignano ’06–were each awarded Guggenheim Fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. According to the foundation, these prestigious awards aim to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color or creed.” Rabban is an award winning author and academic whose research focuses on labor law, higher education and the…
(Story by Caroline MacNeille '16/Wesconnect) In a recent episode of the podcast Cellar Door, Piers Gelly '13 and a handful of alumni discuss the infamous Drawing I final project: a life-sized nude self portrait. The podcast focuses on objects, featuring often-overlooked subject matter like pockets and pearls. Gelly, who reports, writes, mixes and illustrates for The Chipstone Foundation, an arts non-profit, produced this episode that also features music by Jack Ladd '15 and Anna Schwab '16. The 'Student Body' episode features a dozen alumni talking about their experience creating the final project and its fate after the semester's end. No…
Author, professor and LGBT activist Jennifer Finney Boylan '80 will speak at Wesleyan from 4:15–6 p.m. on April 21. The event will be held in Beckham Hall. The talk will open with a short reading from Boylan’s bestselling memoir, She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders, as well as the anthology It Gets Better, and then open up into a discussion of gender and society. The talk touches upon Transgender 101 (a brief overview of the wide range of gender expression), and then moves outward to address the embracing of diversity in its many forms. The event concludes with an audience Q&A. (more…)