Kate CarlisleThe Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded Wesleyan's Center for the Arts a $750,000 grant to support the Creative Campus Initiative and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance. Half a million dollars of the $750,000 grant will be matched by $1 million to be raised to endow continued cross-disciplinary Creative Campus activities. With support from Wesleyan alumni, the fundraising campaign to meet this challenge is being launched on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the CFA during the 2013-14 season. "This terrific grant is a recognition of the critical role the arts play at Wesleyan," said President Michael S. Roth.…
The Center for the Arts has received a grant of $200,000 to support the Muslim Women Voices Project during its 2014-2015 season. The project, part of the Creative Campus initiative, will present theater, music and dance performances by women from nine different countries. The award, announced Jan. 10, is from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, a national service and advocacy group. APAP distributes the grants (Wesleyan’s CFA is one of six organizations chosen this year), which are funded through the Building Bridges program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. Building Bridges…
Olivia DrakeEthnomusicologist Sumarsam, University Professor of Music, received a Henry Luce Fellowship grant worth $5,000 from the American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) in January 2014 for his research on “Expressing and Contesting Java-Islam Encounters in the Performing Arts.” Since 2001 due to global geo-politics, issues of religion and culture have been highlighted, especially within Muslim cultures that were repositioning in non-normative ways. "This adjustment, the popular if historically flawed perception of Islam as 'against performing arts' has made for significant dialogue about performing arts," Sumarsam said. "Inserted in a taking its cue from global dialogue between wahabi Islam and westernized global…
A $10,000 grant from the state of Connecticut will support local partnerships or “placemaking” by Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts in 2014. The grant, announced this week, will be used to support CFA performances in February and March. The Arts Leadership grant is one of 104 to organizations and individuals around the state as part of the Arts Catalyze Placemaking program of the state’s department of economic and community development. The program was created to invest in the state's arts-based cultural activities, advancing the attractiveness and competitiveness of Connecticut communities. "Supporting the arts in our community is an important part…
The Center for the Arts received an unsolicited national grant award of $400,000 from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in November 2013. The CFA is one of five arts organizations that will receive a total of $3.5 million in funding to help further develop long-term capacity to respond to changing conditions in the performing arts sector and the world at large, including those related to demographics, audience behavior and the impact of technology. The grants were not open for application. Instead, an anonymous panel identified five organizations that have demonstrated a sustained appetite to innovate and experiment in ways that…
A $50,000 grant to Wesleyan from the National Endowment for the Arts will support dance programs at the Center for the Arts and poetry initiatives at Wesleyan University Press. The award, announced by the NEA Dec. 11, recognizes the university’s commitment to the arts across all forms of artistic expression. It includes a $30,000 grant to the CFA, the ninth NEA award to the dance programs. That represents a 50 percent increase over the 2012-2013 season grant supporting the Breaking Ground Dance Series. “Support from the National Endowment for the Arts has been central to our ability to fulfill our…
Amber Smith '14 understands the importance of having connections with others who understand the hardships faced as an amputee. Smith, an African American studies major, was born with an upper extremity amputation of her left forearm. On Nov. 6, Smith received a 2013 Ella T. Grasso Leadership in Action Grant from the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. The award will serve as seed money for starting up her social enterprise, "I AMputee," an online community designed for amputees and their families to connect with those of similar circumstances in an effort to create positive, reciprocal relationships grounded in common experience. I AMputee's…
Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts is the recipient of a $400,000 grant recognizing the CFA as an innovator and leader among arts organizations. The unsolicited gift from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is one of five – totaling $3.5 million - given to arts centers around the country. It recognizes these centers for their “adaptability” to changing conditions in the arts sector and is intended to support the groups’ ongoing capacity to respond to these changes, according to the foundation. “We understand that most organizations do not have enough, if any, “change capital’ – funds they can devote to maximizing…
Wesleyan received a grant from the State of Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection to support a new electric vehicle charging station installation on campus. Wesleyan is one of 42 to receive the award in the state. The new station will be placed adjacent to an existing station located in the Freeman Athletic Center parking lot. It will service two vehicles. “Our goal is a network of charging stations that allows anyone driving an electric vehicle to travel anywhere in our state with total confidence that they will be able to recharge their car battery when necessary,” said Connecticut Governor Dannel…
Lauren RubensteinJanice Naegele, professor of biology, professor of neuroscience and behavior, director of the Center for Faculty Career Development, was awarded a $250,000 grant in September from CURE Epilepsy.org. The grant, which will be given over a period of three years, will fund research examining synaptic function in GABAergic stem cell transplants using optogenics. This technique provides a way to modulate and control the activity of individual neurons in living tissue using discrete delivery of light into the brain or tissue slice. It will be used to investigate how GABAergic stem cell transplants suppress seizures in mice with temporal lobe epilepsy.…
Thanks to a matching grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and substantial gifts from generous supporters, Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities has secured $6 million in endowment as it celebrates 54 years of scholarship. The $2 million Mellon grant was announced in October 2011 (see story here); Wesleyan succeeded in raising the $4 million required for the match in two years, less than half the time required by Mellon when the grant challenge began in 2011. Fifteen Wesleyan alumni, parents and friends supplied leadership gifts to win the matching funds. “At a time when one hears so much rhetoric…
Lisa Dierker, professor of psychology, and David Beveridge, professor of chemistry and the Joshua Boger Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics, have received a four-year grant for $599,995 from the National Science Foundation’s Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (TUES) program. This Phase II grant, awarded in August 2013, will support their work on “Passion-Driven Statistics: A multidisciplinary project-based supportive model for statistical reasoning and application,” which began with the development of the QAC 201 “Applied Data Analysis” course and will soon be implemented at other institutions.