Recent Graduates Celebrate Worldwide during the 2016 GOLD Challenge

On 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,…

Sue 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…)

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NPR’s All Songs Considered featured the former Wesleyan band Overcoats in its preview of the 2016 South by Southwest Music festival in Austin Texas. Overcoats, made up of Hana Elion ’15 and JJ Mitchell ’15, have made the leap from small on-campus concerts to performances in New York City's Mercury Lounge and the Longitude Festival in Ireland. Currently, Overcoats resides in New York City where they are performing and recording new music in studio. Overcoats describe their style as “combining electronic backdrops with soaring, harmonic intimacy — a sort of Chet Faker meets Simon & Garfunkel.” Their songs "draw strength from…

Dr. Joseph Wright ’77, MD, MPH, and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at Howard University College of Medicine, was recently elected to the American Pediatric Society (APS). “Election to the APS is a special honor,” said Wright, noting that membership provides a platform for him to further, not only “Howard’s commitment to outstanding patient care and service to the community,” but also the missions of the numerous national advisory bodies he serves on, including the Department of Transportation’s National EMS Advisory Council, the American Hospital Association’s Maternal and Child Health Council, the March of Dimes’ Public…

Maggie Nelson ’94 received the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in the criticism category for her book, The Argonauts (Graywolf Press, 2015). Literary editor and book critic Michael Miller describes it on the National Book Critics Circle blog as “a potent blend of autobiography and critical inquiry…[which] combines the story of her own adventures in queer family-making with philosophical meditations on gender, art, literary history, sexual politics, and much more.” Previous works include The Art of Cruelty, a 2011 Notable Book of the Year, and Jane: A Murder, a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of…

Franklin Sirmans ’91, director of the Pérez Art Museum of Miami (PAMM), was credited for his “star power” that drew a crowd to the museum’s reception and fundraiser. The first African-American director of this publicly funded museum, Sirman was previously curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. An article in the Miami Herald quoted Knight Foundation President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen ’66, who attributed the rise in attendance—double that of last year—to previously successful celebrations, as well as to Sirman’s arrival: “There is no getting around the fact that people are excited about Franklin Sirmans; they’re…

Recent Graduates Celebrate Worldwide during the 2016 GOLD Challenge

Kaiser Permanente’s McCulloch ’76 Named a Top-10 Exec

McDevitt MALS ’71 Honored with Asteroid Jackmcdevitt

Guiney ’77 Wins Freedom Through Literacy Award

6 Alumni Receive 2016 Guggenheim Fellowships

12 Alumni Discuss Their Drawing I Final Project on Podcast

Author, LGBT Activist Boylan ’80 to Speak at Wesleyan April 21

‘Photographing Ina’: Exhibition by Trager ’56 Opens at the Davison Art Center

NPR Previewed SXSW Performers Elion ’15 and Mitchell ’15 of Overcoats

Wright ’77 Elected to American Pediatric Society

Nelson ’94 Receives National Book Critics Circle Award for Argonauts

“Star Power” of Sirmans ’91 Draws Crowd to Miami Museum