Class of 2021 – Page 4

A clothing brand that promotes education and discussion of mental health and wellness is the winner of the Wesleyan COLLISION Spring 2020 pitch competition sponsored by the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Created by Blake Northrop '22, Be Better consists of the clothing brand itself—which highly values customer participation and artist collaboration—as well as an online community forum for followers and members to connect, discuss, and share their stories about mental health. On May 5, Northrop and more than dozen other aspiring student entrepreneurs pitched their social benefit business ideas. Watch a recording of the Pitch Night online here. (more…)

In late March, as New York City's coronavirus infection rate skyrocketed to five times higher than the rest of the country, members of Wesleyan's Traveler's Lab explored a movement-focused approach to the rapid spread of the disease. Rather than focusing on political borders, lab members depicted major freeways, highways, and commuter rail lines out of New York City, and examined counties within a 2.5-hour drive from the City. "While New York City may be the center, it is the travel region immediately surrounding the city that provides the true context of how COVID-19 has spread and is spreading to, and…

The shows must go on. Rather than allowing the COVID-19 pandemic to force a final curtain call on theatrical productions, Wesleyan's Theater Department pivoted to an online format. On May 1, and again on May 2, the department offered livestreamed performances of The Method Gun, featuring 10 student-actors. A replay of the Saturday performance is available for viewing on The Method Gun @ Wes website. After countless hours of line rehearsals, overcoming technical frustrations, and learning how to act and teach theater in a virtual world, show director and Assistant Professor of Theater Katie Pearl breathed a sigh of relief…

When President Michael Roth announced in mid-March that Wesleyan would suspend in-person classes for the remainder of the spring semester because of the increasing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty had less than two weeks to prepare their courses for distance learning before classes resumed after spring break. Trying to recreate the immersive Wesleyan classroom experience in a digital format presented a variety of challenges, particularly for faculty who had never taught online previously. It’s become clear over the last month that faculty have been able to rise to those challenges, and the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) formally recognized their…

Wesleyan in the News 1. Washington Post: "Biden Makes End Run Around Trump as the President Dominates the National Stage" Erika Franklin Fowler, associate professor of government and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, comments on Biden's unusual strategy during an unprecedented time for the 2020 presidential campaign. “There is not a ready off-the-shelf playbook for how you campaign in this environment if you are a nonincumbent, so that’s part of what you’re seeing,” she said. “We’re all being thrown into this new environment, where campaigns are going to need to reinvent, to some extent, how they go about things,…

The student-run Wesleyan Investment Group (WIG) is celebrating a first-place victory in a six-month-long collegiate investment contest that concluded April 9. Despite the COVID-19 epidemic's detrimental impact to the stock market, WIG managed to garner a 27.04% return in the 2019–20 Adirondack Cup, a stock-picking contest sponsored by the advisor to The Adirondack Small Cap Fund (ADKSX). Wesleyan competed against 22 other institutions in New England and New York. Each student team managed a hypothetical $1 million portfolio consisting of five small cap equities. Team members studied the performance of more than 100 businesses and predicted which ones would perform…

Astronomy and Physics major David Vizgan '21 has expanded his interest of astrophysics to the far corners of the universe. By using emissions of a "forbidden" line of ionized carbon [CII] in simulated galaxies, he's trying to measure mass and other physical properties of young galaxies over 12.7 billion light years away which populated the universe shortly after the universe's "dark ages". For his outstanding research poster presentation on the subject at the most recent American Astronomical Society meeting, David Vizgan '21 received a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award. Vizgan is one of 15 undergraduates students (out of 355 total…

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, Wesleyan canceled all spring semester events, and courses moved to an online format. Wesleyan's Piping Performance course, however, welcomed the Wesleyan community to "attend" their midterm performances on April 7 through the Zoom platform. "Our organ class is thriving in spite of our transition to online classes," said course instructor Alcee Chriss, artist-in-residence and university organist. "It is a particular challenge to teach organ when none of your students have access to one. Many of the students have opted to give their performances on piano for this semester." Six of the 13 students wrote original…

Katerina Ramos-Jordán '21 is the recipient of a Beinecke Scholarship, which will support her graduate career and her academic goal of becoming a cultural studies scholar. She's among 18 college undergraduates nationwide to receive the honor, and she's the first Wesleyan student to receive the award in 13 years. Ramos-Jordán will use her Beinecke Scholarship to explore the connection of nature, literature, art, and community in the Caribbean. "Today, in a moment of ecological, racial, and political crisis, I envision my artistic, scholarly, and community projects to cultivate understandings and be a part of Caribbean creolité ways of reading," she said.…

Wesleyan English major Katie Livingston '21 is one of 12 young writers around the world who will be honored at the 36th Annual L. Rob Hubbard Achievement Awards on April 3 in Hollywood, Calif. She's a finalist for the Writers of the Future Contest, which was initiated by Hubbard in 1983 to provide “a means for new and budding writers to have a chance for their creative efforts to be seen and acknowledged.” Based on its success, its sister contest, Illustrators of the Future, was created five years later to provide that same opportunity for aspiring artists. The grand prize…

Wesleyan's Chinese community (particularly students and parents) recently banded together to help their fellow citizens who are battling with the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. From Feb. 2–15, the student-initiated group WesInAction raised more than $23,000, which was used to purchase medical equipment for hospitals affected in the epicenter of the outbreak, Hubei province, China. WesInAction members also provide the campus community with facts about the outbreak and its prevention, and work to promote awareness of racial discrimination on campus. WesInAction student volunteers have done extensive research on COVID-19 and created a brochure that highlights key facts and statistics about it,…

Wesleyan in the News Connecticut Public Radio: "The Struggle for Sleep: Why More School Districts Are Considering Later Starts" Speaking as both a scholar and a mother, Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman comments in this story on the movement to push schools in the state to start later. “People ask me, as a developmental psychologist, ‘Oh, we have this mental health crisis in the state, what are we going to do, what should we be funding, what kind of resources do we need to build in?’ And I just think it’s so silly when we have such a straightforward…

Students Pitch Social Benefit Business Ideas

Traveler’s Lab Creates Map of COVID-19 Cases in the NYC Commuting Region

Theater Department Produces, Livestreams The Method Gun

Wesleyan Student Assembly Commends Faculty on Distance Learning Efforts

Wesleyan in the News

Wesleyan Investment Group Takes 1st Place in Adirondack Cup

Vizgan ’21 Honored with Chambliss Medal by American Astronomical Society

Pipe Organ Class Hosts Midterm Performances Online

Ramos-Jordán ’21 Named Beinecke Scholar

Livingston ’21 a Finalist in a Worldwide Writing Contest

Wesleyan’s Chinese Community Raises Funds, Purchases Medical Supplies for Hospitals Treating Coronavirus Patients

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