Gabe Rosenberg '16Paul Dickson ’61 is the winner of the fifth annual Jerome Holtzman Award for his 2012 book, Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick. The Holtzman Award, established in 2008, is presented by the Chicago Baseball Museum to the person who “reflects the values and spirit of its Hall of Fame namesake. The honoree is selected by what is deemed to be the most significant contribution to the promotion of Chicago baseball and the preservation of its history and namesake.” The book, collecting information and accounts from primary sources and over one hundred interviews, is an in-depth portrait of a baseball innovator,…
Cynthia RockwellBill Queen ’86 was recently named president of the Travelers Ocean Marine business unit. Affiliated with Travelers since 1986, he has held a variety of positions in underwriting and sales, as well as marketing and field management. Most recently, Queen served as chief operating officer for Travelers First Party Group and as a key member of the interim management team for the Ocean Marine organization. This group, currently ranked as one of the largest ocean marine insurers in the United States (based on direct written premium) provides highly specialized property and liability insurance products for maritime-oriented exposures including commercial vessels, cargo transport,…
Jonathan Kalb ’81 is the recipient of two national awards for his recent book, Great Lengths: Seven Works of Marathon Theater, published by The University of Michigan Press. Kalb, professor of theater at Hunter College and doctoral faculty member at The City University of New York, won the George Jean Nathan Award for dramatic criticism and the Theatre Library Association’s George Freedley Memorial Award. Great Lengths takes a close look at large-scale theater productions, often running more than five hours in length, which present special challenges to the artists and audiences. Recreating the experience of seeing the works, which include Tony Kushner’s…
Abbie Goldberg ’99 is the author of the new book Gay Dads: Transitions to Adoptive Fatherhood , published by New York University Press, which collects stories and empirical data from interviews with 70 gay men, taking a close look at societal and political issues in gay parenthood. Introducing the book with a vignette of two new adoptive fathers, Carter and Patrick, Goldberg dives into a discussion of the mazes of adoption agencies, couples’ decisions to openly present themselves as gay, the social implications of parenthood, and the changes in career commitment. “Exploration of the experiences of gay adoptive fathers,” Goldberg writes,…
Steve Roslonek ’93, known to families with young children as "SteveSongs" or "Mr. Steve," the co-host of the nationally broadcast PBS KIDS preschool destination, released his eighth album, Orangutan Van, in January. Since its release, "Flat Stanley," the first single from the new album, reached the number one spot on the Sirius/XM Radio Kids Place Live chart; "Song Without a Rhyme" is headed up the chart. The new album and some of its songs have been four years in the making. To celebrate the release of Orangutan Van, SteveSongs will be touring around the country, along with Anand Nayak ’96 on electric…
Cynthia Arnson ’76 is the editor of the book, In The Wake of War: Democratization and Internal Armed Conflict, published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press in 2012. The book focuses on the relationship of internal armed conflict to postwar democratization in Latin America, centering on Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. In those countries, Arnson writes, the dominant aspect of political life during and after the end of the Cold War was insurgency or counterinsurgency war, a product of political exclusion and reinforced by patterns of socio-economic marginalization. Through its case studies, the book looks…
Olivia DrakeWesleyan alumni helped their communities by participating in the WEServe Week of Service, Jan. 20-26. Alumni all over the country worked side-by-side with fellow alumni, students, families and friends on special projects. WEServe follows the National Day of Service on Jan. 19, and honors Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 21. "The concept was uniquely translatable to geographic areas of all sizes; unlike some of our events which require a critical mass to be successful, these community service projects could engage alumni, parents, and students in cities or towns with as few as one or two people from Wesleyan,"…
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David LowIn her illuminating new book, Doctoring Freedom (University of North Carolina Press), Gretchen Long ’89 shares the stories of African Americans who fought for access to both medical care and medical education, as she reveals the important relationship between medical practice and political identity. Even before emancipation, African Americans recognized that control of their bodies was an essential battleground in their struggle for autonomy, and they devised strategies to retain some of that control. During her research, Long, an associate professor of history at Williams College, closely studied antebellum medical journals, planters' diaries, agricultural publications, letters from wounded African American…
Five alumni have contributed to exceptional documentaries that were shown this January at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Marc Shmuger ’80 is one of the producers of We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, which had its premiere at Sundance. Directed by Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, the film is an in-depth study of all things related to WikiLeaks and the larger global debate over access to information. It tells a compelling story of what happens when a small group of people decide to break open the intelligence vaults of the world’s most powerful nation. The…
Wesleyan alumni Jessica Posner '09 and Kennedy Odede '12 appeared on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams on Jan. 17 in a report titled “Couple’s School becomes Lifeline in Kenyan Slum.” Watch the report, hosted by Rock Center Special Correspondent Chelsea Clinton, online here. Posner and Odede are co-founders of Shining Hope for Communities, an organization working to combat gender inequality and extreme poverty in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. In August 2009, Shining Hope for Communities founded The Kibera School for Girls, the first tuition-free school for girls in Kibera. By providing a superior education, daily nourishment, uniforms, and schools supplies all free of…
This January, Liz Garcia ’99 brought her first feature film, The Lifeguard, to Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah to be shown in the U.S. Dramatic competition. She directed, wrote, and co-produced the movie; her husband, Joshua Harto, is a co-producer and an actor in the film. The Lifeguard follows a young woman (Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars) who leaves her job as an Associated Press reporter in New York City and returns to her hometown in suburban Connecticut where she last felt happiness. Complications arise as she rebels against adulthood by resuming her high school job as a pool…