David LowRoberta Pereira ‘03 is the co-founder and managing editor of Dress Circle Publishing, whose mission is to provide its readers with a peek behind the curtain through theater-themed books. The company publishes fiction and nonfiction, which attracts a varied audience, and especially theater-lovers everywhere. Dress Circle Publishing has just published The Untold Stories of Broadway, Volume 1, by musical theater historian and producer Jennifer Ashley Tepper, which records the stories of eight Broadway theaters and productions that have played there, as told by producers, actors, directors, writers, musicians, and the various other artists and workers involved. Pereira edited the book and…
Natalie Robichaud ’14Kenneth Kimmell ’82 will join the Union of Concerned Scientists as president in May. After graduating with a BA from Wesleyan, Kimmell received his JD from UCLA. His decision to become an environmental attorney was prompted by an experience assisting a United State District Court judge on a case in which the government misused science. He was a director and senior attorney at a law firm in Boston before joining the administration of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. As General Counsel of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Kimmell wrote and helped pass five groundbreaking environmental and energy laws.…
Cynthia RockwellThe Institute on Education Law and Policy (IELP), an interdisciplinary research project at Rutgers University-Newark that director Paul Tractenberg '60 established in 2000, has produced two major reports [see one and two] on school segregation in New Jersey in collaboration with The Civil Rights Project at UCLA. “The findings were sobering, even for a state that has long been home to some of the most segregated schools in the country,” wrote Tractenberg for NJ Spotlight. Tractenberg, who is also the Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor and Alfred C. Clapp Distinguished Public Service Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law-Newark, recently published Courting Justice:…
Brian KattenWhen Jeff Galloway '67, Amby Burfoot '68 and Bill Rodgers '70 ready for the start of the Harvard Pilgrim Middletown Half Marathon Sunday, April 6 near Main Street, it will be a reunion of titanic proportions. The three haven’t been seen together since running as Cardinals 47 years ago. "This might be the first time the three of us have been together since Wesleyan," Rodgers said. The trio of Galloway, Burfoot and Rodgers has given Wesleyan tremendous presence in the running world. Burfoot, as a Wesleyan senior, became the first collegian in the then 72-year history of the Boston Marathon,…
Mike SembosLaura Fraser '82, who majored in American studies, has cofounded and launched Shebooks, an e-publishing site dedicated to producing short e-books by and for women. The site went live in January, and it features exclusive memoirs, fiction and journalism by established authors like Hope Edelman, Marion Winik, Faith Adiele, Jessica Anya Blau and Suzanne Paola. Some contributing Wesleyan authors include Jennifer Finney Boylan '80, who wrote an original novella for Shebooks and is on its advisory board, Virginia Pye '82, who wrote an original novella, stories by Bonnie Friedman '79 and some essays by Fraser herself. All works, ranging from long…
Hamidreza (Hamid) Ramezani Ph.D. ’13, recently won the Biruni Graduate Student Research Award. The award aims to promote and recognize outstanding research by a physics graduate student of Iranian heritage who is currently studying in one of the institutions of higher education in the United States, seeking originality, thoroughness, a teamwork spirit and ownership among the candidates. The honor comes with a cash award. Before graduating with his Ph.D. from Wesleyan in November, Ramezani studied cosmology and gravitational physics while earning his master’s degree at the University of Tehran. He completed his bachelor study in solid state physics at Sahed University.…
Max Perel-Slater ’11 has won an Advancing Leaders Fellowship from World Learning for the Tanzania-based project, The Maji Safi Movement (“maji safi” means “clean water” in Swahili; see majisafimovement.org). Maji Safi is focused on disease prevention and health promotion and particularly aimed at empowering rural communities in their efforts to combat water-borne and water-related diseases. The Movement encompasses both a local NGO and a US-based 501(c)3; Perel-Slater is president and co-founder of the U.S. arm and treasurer of the Tanzania-based organization. He has worked on water projects in Shirati, Tanzania, since 2009, when he led the construction of a rainwater…
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently appointed Shola Olatoye ’96 as chairwoman of the New York City Housing Authority. Olatoye’s last position was vice president at Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit organization that advocates affordable housing nationally. The previous head of the authority was John Rhea ’87. The mayor made the announcement at the Abraham Lincoln Houses in Harlem, a complex of 1,282 apartments in which de Blasio and other Democratic candidates spent a night during the mayoral campaign in order to get a firsthand look at the “moldy walls and broken cabinets” that constitute the disrepair of…
Clifton B. “Kip” Anderson ’71 has written a full-length poetry book, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder, published by White Violet Press in 2013. Anderson was a gardener with the PBS show “The Victory Garden” for over 20 years and only began writing poetry in 2003, at the age of 54. He e-published an e-chapbook, A Walk in the Dark, with The New Formalist Press in 2007. This new work is the first poetry collection he’s published using ink and paper. Anderson’s poems are strongly influenced by the world of fertility and natural growth, but they are not simply an…
Olivia DrakePeri Smilow '82, a College of Letters graduate, will be honored at the Association of Reform Zionists of America's (ARZA) 36th Anniversary Gala on April 5 at Central Synagogue in New York City. Known internationally as one of the bright lights in contemporary Jewish music, Smilow will be recognized for her ability to elicit a sense of spirituality and social action in her audiences, drawing on a wealth of personal and professional experiences. As a composer, Smilow's music is sung in worship, in youth group settings and at Jewish summer camps throughout the country. As a recording and touring artist, her music has been enjoyed…
(more…)
Four Wesleyan faculty and five alumni participated in the annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in Boston, Nov. 21-24, 2013. Wesleyan attendees included Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic thought, professor of government, professor of Russian and Eastern European studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies; Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock, assistant professor of history, assistant professor of Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian studies, tutor in the College of Social Studies; Priscilla Meyer, professor of Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian studies; Bill Trousdale, associate professor of physics, emeritus; and Russian…