David LowWork by painter Ben Weiner ’03 is now on view in the exhibition Elements of Nature: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation at the Carnegie Art Museum (424 South C St., 805-385-8157) in Oxnard, Calif. The show also includes artistic contributions by Charles Arnoldi, Billy Al Bengston, Vija Celmins, Joe Goode, Ed Ruscha and Ali Smith. Works in this exhibition reveal the ability of art to interpret, replicate and reimagine the natural world. Some artists authentically depict the ephemeral beauty of the landscape, while others draw from nature to create their own fantasy environments. The show runs from now…
Robert Gardner ’51 recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at the group’s annual meeting on February 20, 2010 in San Diego, Calif. Gardner was recognized for writing more than 130 hands-on science books for children during the past 35 years. Terry Young, chairman of the award selection committee, noted that Gardner’s clear presentation of science at all grade levels, along with his creative writing and use of common household materials, have excited thousands of children to get involved in science and understand the scientific method, all while having fun. The…
Corrina KerrSasha Rudensky '01, visiting assistant professor of art, is exhibiting her work in the "31 Women in Art Photography" exhibition at Affirmation Arts in New York City. The exhibit is open until April 10.
John Behlmann ’03 and Kate MacCluggage ’04 will star in the off-Broadway production of The 39 Steps that will open April 15 at the New World Stages in New York City. Previews begin March 25. Directed by Maria Aitken and adapted by Patrick Barlow, the play is a comedic take on Hitchcock’s 1935 classic thriller of the same name about a man who is forced by a mysterious woman’s death into a cross-country race for his life. The show played previously on Broadway for 771 performances. Behlmann plays leading man Richard Hanney and MacCluggage is the sole female performer in…
David PesciWesleyan announced $22M in gifts by two of its Board of Trustees' families, including a $12M gift by the family of Board Chairman Joshua Boger '73, P'06, P'09. The gifts will benefit financial aid and Wesleyan’s endowment. The $12M gift from Boger, and his wife Amy Boger, M.D., P'06, P'09, will establish the Boger Scholarship Program and the Joshua Boger University Professorship of The Sciences and Mathematics. The first recipient of the chair appointment will be David L. Beveridge, professor of chemistry. "This gift shows tremendous leadership and generosity on the part of the Boger family,” says Wesleyan President Michael…
Bill Cunliffe ’78 received a Grammy Award in January for his arrangement of “West Side Story Medley.” The track appears on the CD Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson (Resonance Records). Cunliffe, an associate professor of music at California State University, had been nominated for a Grammy twice before for best instrumental arrangement. In 2007, Cunliffe joined the California State Fullerton faculty after having toured as a pianist and arranger with the Buddy Rich Orchestra and performing with Frank Sinatra and jazz legends such as Ray Brown, Benny Golson, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, James Moody and Joshua Redman.…
Tony winning actor Frank Wood ’84 is currently starring in Clybourne Park, a darkly comic play by Bruce Norris, which deals with race relations among neighbors. The play opened to good reviews in February, and runs through March 21 at off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons. Clybourne Park begins in 1959 in a Chicago neighborhood as a white family moves out. In Act Two, the action shifts to 2009 and a white family moves in to what has become a predominantly black community that promises to be gentrified. During the intervening years, change overtakes the neighborhood, along with attitudes, inhabitants, and property values.…
Cynthia RockwellIrvin Richter ’66, chairman and chief executive officer of Hill International (NYSE:HIL), was named to the New Jersey Business Hall of Fame. He was one of only four laureates this year. This is a lifetime achievement award for individuals who have made a significant contribution to the quality of life and the business climate in New Jersey, and who will also serve as “role models for the next generation of New Jersey's business leaders,” according to Dave Weaving, chair of the induction event, scheduled for April. Richter founded Hill in 1976 and the company is now considered one of the…
In the Feb. 1 issue of The New Yorker, Carlo Rotella ’86, the director of the American Studies Program at Boston College, profiles U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Rotella points out that President Obama has allotted Duncan more than 70 billion dollars in federal economic-stimulus funds to hand out to the states—more money than any Secretary of Education has had before him. Duncan has exceptional leverage with this stimulus money and his close relationship with Obama, which dates back to when Duncan worked in Chicago. Rotella writes about Duncan’s childhood on the South Side of Chicago, his passion for…
(By Anne Calder ’11) Allison Heaney ’09 has been awarded a Fellowship at Auschwitz for the study Professional Ethics. A law student at Duke University, she will spend two weeks this summer traveling to New York, Poland and Germany. The Fellowship enables students in law, medical, seminary, journalism and business to address contemporary and future ethical issues by looking to the past. In the context of Nazi Germany and Auschwitz, Heaney will analyze the responsibilities lawyers have to their clients and to society. Heaney was a psychology major at Wesleyan, and is now pursuing a master’s degree in psychology while…
Olivia DrakeBruce McKenna ’84 is the lead writer for the HBO series The Pacific. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced this as follow up to Band of Brothers, for which McKenna also wrote. According to a Feb. 28 article in The Los Angeles Times, McKenna accompanied a locations crew to a tiny coral island near Guam known as Peleliu to prepare for the $200M show. A ridge there is laced with hundreds of caves -- undisturbed for more than half a century -- where Japanese troops hid out from U.S. Marines during one of the WWII's deadliest conflicts. "There are still skeletons…