Class of 2015

A film featuring the works of eight Wesleyan alumni was presented at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Titled Bruiser, the film focuses on a boy named Darious who begins to investigate the limitations of his own manhood after his father gets into a fight at a bowling alley. Bruiser was presented in Sundance's Short Films category. The film was directed by Miles Warren '19; assistant directed by Eliza McKenna '20; written by Warren and Ben Medina '19; produced by Gustavo René '19, Albert Tholen '15, and Lauren Goetzman '19; and designed by Emma Cantor '19. Costumes were designed by…

Aletta Brady ’15 saw the power in collective storytelling to launch social justice campaigns such as Black Lives Matters and the #MeToo movements. Knowing that these movements were successful because of the power of words, Brady connected the idea of storytelling to the climate crisis, launching a climate-justice organization that was recently recognized by the J.M. Kaplan Fund. The J.M. Kaplan Fund awarded Brady's Our Climate Voices the J.M.K. Innovation Prize for its use of digital storytelling as a new model in the environmental field. The prize is awarded biennially to 10 nonprofit and mission-driven for-profit organizations tackling America’s most…

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Wesleyan in the News 1. The Nation: "Edward Snowden Deserves to Be Tried by a Jury of His Peers, Just Like Everyone Else" In this op-ed, Associate Professor of Government Sonali Chakravarti argues against the Justice Department's decision to deny Edward Snowden's request for a jury trial. She contends that in Snowden's case, in which he is accused of leaking classified information from the National Security Administration in 2013, a jury trial "is not only a viable alternative to a hearing…

More than 110 Wesleyan students, faculty, alumni, and local guests participated in the second annual Power of Language Conference, April 26-27 at the Fries Center for Global Studies. The event was open to the entire Wesleyan community. The two-day event featured six panels that focused on: Creative Language Learning, Crossing Time and Border through Translation, Language and Society, Language in Curriculum, Arabic in the U.S., and Polyphony through Literature. "The presentations ranged from class final projects (such as a comic version of Dante’s Inferno, reimagined at Wesleyan) to senior theses (such as the challenges of translating early modern Spanish into…

Isabella Banks ’15 was awarded a 2018–19 Fulbright Study/Research Grant for the master's program in International Crimes, Conflict, and Criminology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Combining perspectives and methodologies from the fields of criminology, law, psychology, sociology, and political science, the program also draws on resources available through its location near The Hague—home to the UN’s International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. “I hope to focus my research on transitional justice, which applies restorative principles to systematic, conflict-related human rights violations,” says Banks, who majored in the College of Social Studies with a certificate in international relations while at Wesleyan. Her…

(By K Alshanetsky '17) Actress Beanie Feldstein ’15 has made her Broadway debut as Minnie Fay in the sold-out, Tony-winning revival of Hello, Dolly! this past April. The role has her playing a fresh-faced shopgirl in this comedic musical theater hit about a meddlesome matchmaker named Dolly Gallagher Levi. Starring alongside the iconic Bette Middler and Broadway veteran Kate Baldwin, Feldstein is living out her childhood dream night after night in Broadway’s Shubert Theatre—and certain magazine outlets, such as Vogue, are asking whether we are seeing the next Middler in Feldstein. (more…)

Logan Dancey, assistant professor of government, and Jasmine Masand ‘15 are the co-authors of "Race and Representation on Twitter: Members of Congress’ Responses to the Deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner," published in Politics, Groups, and Identities in July 2017. This paper investigates the public responses of members of Congress to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the subsequent protests and grand jury decisions. To do so, the authors examined members’ engagement with the issue on Twitter, which became a platform for public protest with such hashtags as #BlackLivesMatter and #ICantBreathe. "We find that a member’s race is a…

Only two years out of Wesleyan where they met, Hana Elion ’15 and JJ Mitchell ’15, the duo who are Overcoats, have enjoyed several markers of success this spring. While both Elion and Mitchell describe the formation of the band as something that “just sort of happened,” Elion adds that a career in music seemed like “a faraway dream that I didn’t expect to happen in reality.” But it is. Their debut album, Young, released on April 21, 2017, is what they consider work-in-progress since their graduation, The title, they say, reflects the album's emotional content: the confusion and wonder of the recent college…

Men in the U.S. today increasingly believe themselves to be victims of gender discrimination, and there are a record number of recent lawsuits claiming anti-male bias. In a study published in March in Psychology of Men and Masculinity, Assistant Professor of Psychology Clara Wilkins and her co-authors assess the consequences of these perceptions of anti-male bias. Are men who perceive discrimination more likely to discriminate against women? How do beliefs about societal order affect men's evaluations of men and women? The article is co-authored by former post-doctoral fellow Joseph Wellman, now an assistant professor at California State University–San Bernardino, Erika Flavin '14, and…

LaNell Williams ’15, currently enrolled in the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s to PhD Bridge Program, was named a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow for 2016. This fellowship program not only recognizes but also supports outstanding students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions. With more than 17,000 applicants, Williams was one of 2,000 selected for the three-year stipend, with its professional development and international research opportunities. At the Fisk-Vanderbilt program, which aims to increase the number of underrepresented minority students engaged in PhD-level STEM research, Williams is focusing her research on the…

John Bonin, the Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Science, and his former student Dana Louie ’15, are authors of a new paper published in Journal of Comparative Economics titled, “Did foreign banks stay committed to emerging Europe during recent financial crises?” In the paper, Bonin and Louie investigate the behavior of foreign banks with respect to real loan growth during times of financial crisis for a set of countries where foreign banks dominate the banking sectors. The paper focuses on eight countries that are the most developed in emerging Europe and the behavior of two types of banks:…

"There is an entire neighborhood full of funny people in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising," wrote Kevin Polowy, senior editor at Yahoo! Movies. "But some of the film’s biggest laughs belong to newcomer Beanie Feldstein, who makes her major-studio movie debut as the party-hearty sorority pledge Nora." Feldstein '15, a Los Angeles, Calif. native and sociology major at Wesleyan has been acting on stage since she was 5, with "three to six musicals a year every singer year from 5 to 22," ending last year with graduation. She tells Yahoo that Neighbors 2 was not a typecasting situation: “My college experience was nothing…

Films Created by 9 Alumni Screened at 2021 Sundance Film Festival

Brady ’15 Wins National Prize for Social Innovation for Nonprofit Work

Wesleyan in the News

Cultural Experiences Discussed at Power of Language Conference

Banks ’15 Receives Fulbright to Study International Crimes, Conflict, Criminology

Feldstein ’15 Wows in Broadway Debut

Paper by Dancey, Masand ’15 Focuses on Congress’s Response to Deaths

Elion ’15, Mitchell ’15 of the Overcoats Release Album

Wilkins, Alumni Author Paper on Consequences of Perceived Anti-Male Bias

Williams ’15 Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Bonin, Louie ’15 Co-Author Paper in Journal of Comparative Economics

Feldstein ’15 Dubbed ‘Breakout’ for Neighbors 2