Cynthia RockwellIt doesn’t seem an obvious choice, publishing one of the most important memoirs to come out of the Holocaust into the language of a country that is home to the world’s largest Muslim population—but that’s exactly the project Max Bevilacqua ’12 and Mansoor Alam ’15 have taken on. The project is the brainchild of Bevilacqua, who grew up in a Jewish household and studied Christianity as a religion major at Wesleyan. As a Fulbright scholar, he requested placement in Indonesia, which is 88 percent Muslim, and where he taught English. State department officials—as well as family and friends—encouraged Bevilacqua not…
Ramanan Sivalingam ’10, vice president at Deutsche Bank, was named to Forbes magazine's “30 under 30” list in finance—a young professional who is “influencing money flows in the global economy.” An economics and East Asian studies double major at Wesleyan, he continued his high school exploration of the Chinese language, as well as his burgeoning interest in the stock market, which soon became a passion. He began trading stocks independently and also took a leadership role in Wesleyan’s undergraduate investment group with Mike Levin ’09, who now works for the top-ranked auto research team at Deutsche Bank. After graduation, Sivalingam accepted…
Gregory Heller ’04, CEO of American Communities Trust (ACT), was named Urban Innovator of the Week on Feb. 15, by Urban Innovation Exchange (UIX), an initiative to advance urban improvement and highlight those who are on the leading edge of this movement. Begun in 2012 as a three-year project in Detroit and funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, UIX is now showcasing talented people from all over the country who are transforming the cities and neighborhoods in which they live. As head of ACT, Heller, who has spent more than 10 years in community development in Philadelphia,…
Olivia Drake All photos by Ryan Heffernan '16.
Bill HolderThe Broadway musical sensation Hamilton claimed a Grammy Feb. 15 for Best Musical Theater album, and the show’s creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, rapped his acceptance speech. Miranda and the cast of Hamilton (directed by Thomas Kail ’99) also performed for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony live via satellite from the show’s home at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York. In addition to Miranda and Kail, the show’s Wesleyan connections include album co-producer Bill Sherman ’02 and Atlantic Records’ head of A&R Peter Ganbarg ’88, who helped sign the album to the label. “This has been an amazing…
“The objects in Cameron Rowland’s remarkable show at Artists Space offer a history lesson and an aesthetic experience, intricately fused,” wrote New York Times art critic Roberta Smith in a Jan. 28 article. “Accompanied by terse explanatory captions, they expose some of the troubling inequities in American society, especially concerning its prisons and their use of compulsory inmate labor. The process of grasping the meaning of this work equally involves looking, reading and feeling but its subject is one of the most urgent of our time." In his current show, titled "91020000,” Rowland '11 carefully placed items in the space that were…
Jack of the Red Hearts, a film by director and executive producer Janet Grillo ’80, depicts a family raising a child with autism, as did her first feature, Fly Away. This new work features Famke Janssen (of Taken and X-Men) and AnnaSophia Robb (Carrie Diaries and Soul Surfer). Jack of the Red Hearts has garnered 11 festival awards both in the United States and abroad including the jury award at the inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, co-founded by activist/actor Geena Davis, to promote women and diversity in filmmaking. Jack of the Red Hearts will open in limited theatrical release on Feb. 26, in 25…
The exhibition, Line Dance—The Art of Fly Fishing by Peter Corbin ’68, is now on view at the National Sporting Library and Museum (NSLM), Middleburg, Va., through July 3, 2016. Sporting artist Corbin, who majored in art at Wesleyan and graduated with high honors, notes that he considers himself first a landscape painter, with the sporting matter as a part of the scene. The 15 large paintings—spanning nearly four decades of creativity—are on loan to the NSLM from collectors. Initially an abstract sculptor, Corbin notes that now, as a representational painter, he is still exploring some of the same principals that…
Nicholas Quah ’12 is the subject of “Meet the 26-year-old who's got all the news on podcasting,” an article by Benjamin Miller on Poynter.org. Quah is the creator and full-time blogger at Hot Pod, his newsletter about podcasts, which you can find at nicholasquah.com. It is also hosted at NiemanLab, the site for Harvard’s Neiman Foundation for Journalism. While most media aficionados consider the fall of 2014 to be the time when podcasts gained considerable popularity (Serial—the true crime investigation series on public radio is just one example), Quah had been a fan of podcasts for several years by then: as…
Tufts Medical Center selected Jonathan Bush ’93 to receive the Ellen M. Zane Award for Visionary Leadership. Chairman and CEO of the health care technology company, athenahealth, Bush was cited for “exemplifying visionary and transformational leadership” as well as his "passion for uniting individualized and coordinated patient care with the demands and practicalities of healthcare management.” Bush co-founded athenahealth in 1997. In 2007 it was the most successful initial public offering, and it is now one of the health care information technology industry’s fastest growing companies, considered by many to be industry standard. In announcing the award, President and CEO of…
Shari Runner ’79 was named president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League. Crain’s Chicago Business notes that she is redirecting the purpose of league. “Right now, all the things we support are in turmoil,” Runner told reporter Shia Kapos. “We have an opportunity to change that.” Runner had been interim leader of the Urban League for eight months and had served as senior vice president for strategy and community development a the Urban League since 2010. Previously a banker—vice president of ABN/AMRO Bank and vice president at First National Bank of Chicago—she attributes her move into the nonprofit world to…
Laurie KenneyThomas Kail ’99, who is currently directing the blockbuster hit Hamilton on Broadway, written by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, brought the energy of live theater to the small screen as he set the stage direction for Grease: Live, a musical extravaganza starring Julianne Hough as Sandy and Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo, along with Aaron Tveit as Danny, Carly Rae Jepson as Frenchy, Mario Lopez as Vince Fontaine and Boys II Men in the role of Teen Angel. The musical, which was staged in front of a live audience, aired on Fox on Jan. 31. (more…)