David PesciJohn M. Shapiro `74 and Shonni J. Silverberg, M.D. `76 of New York City have made a gift of $3.5 million to transform Wesleyan's creative writing programs and endow the Writing Center. The gift includes an endowed faculty position that will begin later this year. It also will establish a Writing Center in Davenport Hall, which also will be the home to the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. The full details on the gift announcement can be seen here.
Actress Dana Delany '78 ("Desperate Housewives," "Kidnapped," "China Beach") and producer Janet Grillo '80 ("Spanking the Monkey," "Searching for Paradise"), will discuss their paths from Wesleyan to Hollywood and show and discuss their new short film "Flying Lessons" on Saturday, Feb. 7 at 8 p.m. at the Center for Film Studies Goldsmith Family Cinema. The event is open to the public and admission is free.
Robert D. Bullard, often called "The Father of Environmental Justice," will give the keynote address at this year's Martin Luther King Day celebration, which will be held Jan. 27 at 4:30 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. Bullard is the Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. More about the event can be found here and here.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of The United States establishing an embassy in communist-ruled China, and Wesleyan Professor Vera Schwarcz was one of only seven invited western scholars to be there for the event. Schwarcz, professor and chair, East Asian Studies, professor of history, and director of the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, was one of the very first group of official exchange scholars to arrive in China on February 23, 1979. On Thursday, Jan. 29 at 4:30 p.m., Schwarcz will present "A Thirty Year Harvest: Personal Reflections on U.S. China Relations" at the Mansfield Freeman Center. The…