David LowSix-time Tony Award winner Jeffrey Richards ’69 is co-producing three exciting productions on Broadway this fall season. First up is a new revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which begins previews on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012 and opens on Saturday, Oct. 13 at the Booth Theatre (222 West 45th Street), exactly 50 years to the day of the play’s original opening. This alternately hilarious and devastating dissection of marriage and grief, directed by Tony Award nominee Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park), features Tracy Letts and Amy Morton—the playwright and the star of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning…
Olivia DrakeGot milk? All-natural dairy products, farmed and distributed by two Wesleyan alumni, are MOOving into the university's Dining Services this semester. Rick Osofsky ’66 and his daughter Kate ’94 are owners and operators of Ronnybrook Farm Dairy in Ancramdale, N.Y. As second and third generation dairy farmers, the Osofskys pride themselves on their natural farming methods using a small herd of Holstein cows. "Our dairy products are bottled on site in the morning, and since we're located less than two hours from Wesleyan, they arrive fresh," Rick explains. "We're both so pleased to bring a bit of our farm back…
Harvard Law School recently announced that John C. P. Goldberg ’83 has been appointed to the Eli Goldston Professorship of Law. An expert in tort law, tort theory and political philosophy, he joined Harvard Law School as a tenured faculty member in 2008 and teaches first-year and upper-level courses. Goldberg has worked closely with Professor Henry Smith to develop the Project on the Foundations of Private Law at Harvard and has co-taught with Professor Smith the Private Law Workshop, which enables students to discuss with leading scholars cutting-edge research in torts, property, contracts, restitution, and other topics. He recently served as…
Jonah Sachs ’97 is the author of Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell—and Live—the Best Stories Will Rule the Future (Harvard Business Review Press). Viral storyteller and advertising expert Sachs draws upon case studies from his own body of work and some of the most successful brands of all time to show how values-driven stories can influence and revolutionize marketing. The book suggests that marketers can take on the role of heroes with the possibility of transforming not just their craft but also the enterprises they represent. The author shares insights culled from mythology, advertising history, evolutionary biology,…
Randy Siegel ’83 has just published his second children’s book, My Snake Blake (Roaring Brook Press). In this amusing story, a boy finds friendship with an unusual pet snake, a gift from his father, much to the dismay of his mother. As it turns out, the green snake has exceptional abilities such as twisting his body into words and helping the young lad with his homework. Siegel’s entertaining tale is illustrated by award-winning artist Serge Bloch. Publishers Weekly called the book “…a loving salute to the unconventional pet heroes of an earlier era.” In his review in The New York…
Matvei Yankelevich ’95 is the author of Alpha Donut: The Selected Shorter Works of Matvei Yankelevich (United Artists Books), which brings together poems and prose texts written over the course of the first 11 years of the millennium. The volume contains a pastiche of works from the writer’s several serial projects (such as Writing in the Margin or The Bar Poems) and stand-alone poems. Many of these pieces have appeared previously in progressive literary journals and little magazines. Yankelevich comments: “Alpha Donut's title comes from an old-school coffee shop in Queens, near my first NYC apartment. I used to write…
Cynthia RockwellTasmiha Khan ’12, founder of Brighter Dawns, a charitable organization committed to improving health in the slums of Bangladesh, was invited to the White House to participate in a forum to discuss the important role that faith-based social innovators play in expanding opportunity and addressing social issues. Khan, who was selected by DoSomething.org as one of 11 Young Women To Look Out For, founded Brighter Dawns in the fall of 2010 after working on a health and hygiene project in Bangladesh with the World Peace & Cultural Foundation that summer. Back on campus, she convinced other students to join her in…
Acclaimed writer Amy Bloom ’75, known for her award-winning fiction (Away, Where the God of Love Hangs Out) and nonfiction, has written her first children’s book, Little Sweet Potato (HarperCollins), to be released August 21. The book is published under the name Amy Beth Bloom, with illustrations by Noah Z. Jones. Bloom is writer-in-residence at Wesleyan. In the book, Little Sweet Potato rolls away from his patch and is forced to search for a new home. He stumbles upon some very mean plants on his journey and begins to wonder if maybe he is too lumpy and bumpy to belong…
Jacob Walles ’79, the new American ambassador in Tunisia, delivered his credentials to the Tunisian presidency on July 24. A 20-year veteran of the U.S. State Department, Walles has served in a number of posts involving Middle Eastern affairs, including special assistant for the Middle East peace-process in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He was also First Secretary at the US Embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv. Walles previously held the rank of Minister Counselor, and before that he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. A history major at Wesleyan, he holds a master’s degree…
Former Wesleyan Dean of Students and Dean of the University Mark Barlow '46 died June 23 at the age of 87 in Hanover, N.H. Born in Utica, N.Y. in 1925, he graduated with a degree in mathematics from Wesleyan after serving in the Navy. He received an M.A. from Colgate University and a doctorate of education from Cornell University. He married Jane Atwood in 1954, and in 1957 he became Dean of Students at Wesleyan and later Dean of the University. Because of his age, the students dubbed him "the boy dean," but he quickly developed a reputation for handling…
Political Animals, a six-part television mini-series created and written by Greg Berlanti with Lawrence Mark ’71 as an executive producer, premiered on USA Network on July 15. Sigourney Weaver stars as Elaine Barrish Hammond, a former first lady divorced from the ex-U.S. president who becomes secretary of state after losing the presidential nomination to a younger, less experienced male candidate. The series follows Elaine’s political success in her new job and touches upon her desire to run for the presidency again, but it also revolves around her family relations. In an article in The New York Times, Amy Chozick notes…
Jean François-Poncet ’47, Hon. ’81, French diplomat, businessman, senator and Secretary General, died July 18, 2012. Wesleyan celebrated his achievements at the 1980 Wesleyan Commencement ceremonies, where François-Poncet delivered the commencement address and received an honorary degree. In 1981, he returned to campus to deliver the keynote address for Wesleyan’s 150th anniversary. An obituary in Le Monde noted that he was the son of an ambassador, André François-Poncet, who served as French ambassador to Germany from 1930–38, and observed that the younger François-Poncet had quickly made a name for himself in the 1950s as a brilliant young diplomat. In that era,…