Brian KattenMarch 26, 20122min
Q&As with outstanding students is an occasional feature of The Wesleyan Connection. This issue we speak with tennis star Jeff Legunn from the Class of 2013. Q: You have been playing No. 1 singles for Wesleyan since your arrival and you currently have a career record of 33-11.  How do you see your role on the team as a top player and team captain? A: I believe myself, and the other upperclassmen, all maintain leadership roles.  As the top player, I think I have the ability to set the bar high and hold the other players accountable. We have a talented…

Olivia DrakeMarch 6, 20121min
Charles Sanislow, assistant professor of psychology, and two members of his lab, Katie Marcus '13 and Liz Reagan '13 published an article on challenging old assumptions about about the outcome of borderline psychopathology in the February 2012 issue of Current Psychiatry Reports. The paper details current findings from major longitudinal psychiatry studies including the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Study, which Sanislow has been as an investigator on for the past 16 years, and suggests new directions for clinical research. The article is online here. Also published in February is a work that Sanislow co-authored from the Collaborative Personality Study in the…

Olivia DrakeDecember 2, 20112min
At 1 a.m. on Nov. 15, the New York Police Department began clearing Manhattan's Zuccotti Park of all Occupy Movement protestors. About 70 protesters and eight credentialed journalists were arrested that morning. From his dorm room in Lo-Rise Residence Hall, sociology major Ben Doernberg '13, followed the police raid through Twitter and various news sites. For eight hours, he tracked the story online. Although he was 100 miles away from Zucotti Park, Doernberg, an active supporter of the Occupy Movement, served as a "citizen journalist" from his laptop at Wesleyan. He used the new social media site Storify to re-post…

Olivia DrakeNovember 2, 20112min
Q&As with outstanding students is an occasional feature of The Wesleyan Connection. This issue we speak with Bill Tyner from the Class of 2013. Q: Bill, what is your major and what are your favorite classes this year? A: I have the pleasure of majoring in Cultural Anthropology with a certificate in Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory. This semester my favorite classes are Anthropology Theory 1 and Digital Media. Q: Tell us about your new blog, Freshleyan. Why did you start it, and what is your involvement? A: Driven by our fascination with writing, fashion and design, my friend Khari…

Benjamin TraversNovember 2, 20111min
Arya Alizadeh '13 comes to Wesleyan from Boston. He studies history, economics, and is in the engineering combined plan program with Columbia University. He is an avid rower on the Wesleyan Men's Crew Team, serves as coordinator for the Wesleyan Student Assembly, shoots photographs for the Argus newspaper, and is a Wesleyan Tour Guide. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvf04PuQ5bc&feature=player_embedded[/youtube] 

Ben CohenSeptember 15, 20112min
Most Wesleyan student-athletes spend their summers training for the upcoming season, but this past July, women’s lacrosse standout Emma Daniels ’13 took it a step further. Daniels, a College of Letters major, was one of 28 students selected for Beyond Study Abroad, a program that “aims to connect the world through sports,” according to its mission statement. She spent six weeks in Costa Rica taking courses, training and introducing local youths to the sport of lacrosse. “I went down because I had to go abroad for COL, and summer was the only option because I wanted it to be a…

Olivia DrakeSeptember 15, 20113min
[youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49QKAlwdq8s[/youtube] Q: Mary, what is your class year, and what are you majoring in? A: I'm a junior, and I'm double-majoring in neuroscience and behavior and English. Q: You’re currently working in the lab of Jan Naegele, professor of neuroscience and behavior, professor of biology. Can you tell us a bit about your research in the Naegele Lab? A: The Naegele Lab studies temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), which involves instances of elevated electrical activity in the brain called seizures. In cases where medication does not alleviate seizures, TLE patients experience cell death and damage in the dentate gyrus,…

Olivia DrakeAugust 24, 20112min
An article by Katie McConnell '13 and Emma Leonard '13 was featured in a recent Permaculture Institute of the Northeast newsletter. McConnell and Leonard are members of the new student group WILD Wes (Working for Intelligent Landscape Design). They've been vying for permacultural principles to be adopted into the University’s landscaping practices. In the past year, the group hosted its first annual Sustainable Landscaping Design Charrette, where Wesleyan faculty, administrative members, permaculturists, landscaping experts, and students from Wesleyan and nearby Northeastern colleges converged. In the newsletter, McConnell and Leonard explain how at the conference, groups collaborated to develop permacultural and sustainable…

Olivia DrakeAugust 24, 20112min
Shamar Chin '13 was featured in the Aug. 3 edition of The Middletown Press for her efforts running the Green Street Art Center's Young Women's Leadership Institute. The program is designed to empower girls in fifth through seventh grades and to teach them leadership through art, dance, music and writing. Chin, an environmental studies major, started volunteering at Green Street earlier this summer and took on the five-week summer program because she wanted to help young girls succeed. “Especially with what we see in the media, what is being presented to young women, I feel like we are expected to look…

Olivia DrakeJuly 25, 20113min
On June 7, Zach Schonfeld '13 toured the modest 170-year-old site of President Grover Cleveland's 1837 birthplace. "Live from Caldwell, N.J.," Schonfeld blogged on this day. "It’s not much—the house has been expanded significantly since Cleveland’s birth, but the siteitself still blends seamlessly into the background of Caldwell’s quiet suburban sprawl. Yes, I drove past it initially and had to circle back. Sorry, Grover. Just be thankful I didn’t steal your parking spot." Cleveland's childhood home is one of 20-some presidential birthplaces Schonfeld is exploring this summer as a Wesleyan Olin Fellow. His project, partially funded by the History Channel,…

Olivia DrakeJuly 25, 20111min
Guy Geyer '13 received the General John A. Wickham Scholarship, awarded by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association's Educational Foundation. Geyer, a physics major, will receive a $2,000 scholarship. Candidate must be a U.S. citizen and working toward a degree in electrical, computer, chemical, systems or aerospace engineering; computer science; physics; mathematics; science or mathematics education; technology management; or management information systems. An overall GPA of 3.5 on 4.0 scale or better is required. General John A. Wickham, born June 25, 1928, was United States Army Chief of Staff from 1983 to 1987. Geyer also received honorable mention for a Goldwater…

Olivia DrakeJune 22, 20113min
한국말 하실 줄 아세요? (Can you speak Korean?) Judy Her '13 can. And by the end of this summer, she hopes to be fluent. As recipients of a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship, Her and Daniel Witkin '13 are spending 10 weeks in intensive language institutes this summer. The CLS Program provides fully-funded, group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences. Her is currently studying the Korean language in Jeonju City, South Korea at Chonbuk National University, and Witkin is studying the Russian language in Kazan, Russia at the Kazan Institute of Social Science and Humanities. "I…