Olivia DrakeShining Hope for Communities, a Wesleyan foundation that serves Nairobi, Kenya’s poorest slum, was recently awarded a $750,000 grant from the Westport, Conn.-based Newman’s Own foundation to expand a school for girls in Kenya. Shining Hope for Communities was co-founded by Jessica Posner '09 and Kennedy Odede '12. Called the Kiberia School for Girls, the school is the first tuition-free school for girls in the community. The expansion of the school effectively doubles its size with 22 new classrooms. Newman’s Own Foundation has contributed nearly $1 million in grants to Shining Hope for Communities since 2010. In addition to funding for…
Wesleyan University Press received a grant from the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving in December 2011. The grant will support the publication of five books in 2012 including: Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776, edited by Dennis Barone and Ella Grasso: A Biography by Jon Purmont, which are part of The Driftless Connecticut Series; and When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA by Adam Abraham; The Great Camouflage Writings of Dissent (1941–1945) by Suzanne Césaire; and A Guide to Poetics Journal Writing in the Expanded Field, 1982-98, edited by Lyn Hejinian and Barrett Watten.
The Green Street Arts Center received a $3,500 grant from Citizens Bank and a $5,000 grant from Pratt & Whitney to support its After School Program in 2012.
The Davison Art Center received a $1,000 grant from the Middletown Commission on the Arts and a $500 grant from the Middlesex County Community Foundation/Mary Ann Lambert Fund to support "The Big Draw: Middletown." "The Big Draw: Middletown" is a community event with drawing activities on Sunday, April 22. It is modeled on the successful British program that promotes interactive activities designed to break down the “I can’t draw” syndrome and promote the visual arts. Organized by the Friends of the Davison Art Center to celebrate their 50th anniversary, the event will be located on Wesleyan's campus, including the Davison…
Wesleyan's Center for Prison Education received a three year grant worth $60,000 from the Weissberg Foundation. The grant was awarded in December 2011.
Wesleyan's Green Street Arts Center received a $75,000 grant from the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA) on Nov. 22. The grant will support Green Street's After School Program in 2012. CHEFA's mission is to enhance the welfare and prosperity and improve the health and living conditions of the citizens of the State of Connecticut by providing access to tax-exempt financing and other financial assistance to institutions of higher education, healthcare institutions, childcare providers and nonprofit organizations.
David PesciThe National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has offered Wesleyan's Center for Film Studies Cinema Archives a $425,000 challenge grant. Support from NEH, which requires a three to one match with private gifts, will ensure that the Archives continue to grow and flourish. The four-year NEH grant will help endow a full-time curatorial position for the Cinema Archives, a collection which includes the person papers and other materials of such seminal film icons as Frank Capra, Elia Kazan, Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood and Ingrid Bergman, among others. The NEH grant will only partially endow the position and, because it is…
Ed Moran, associate professor of astronomy, received a grant worth $62,804 from NASA for a project titled "Black Holes at the Center of Nearby Dwarf Galaxies." The project involves observations of six dwarf galaxies with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, also known as the "Hubble Space Telescope of X-ray Astronomy." "We have identified 'active nuclei' in these objects, which are powered by the accretion of gas onto massive black holes," Moran says. "The X-ray emission associated with the accretion will give us direct information about the black holes and their surroundings in their host galaxies." The black holes in these galaxies…
Wesleyan's Center for the Arts received a grant worth $20,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. The funds will support the 2012-13 Breaking Ground Dance Series. The NEA is supporting 863 organizations and individual writers across the country with grant funds. The CFA is the only dance presenter in Connecticut to receive support. The Breaking Ground Dance Series at the Center for the Arts, now in its 12th season, features cutting-edge choreography, world-renowned companies, and companies pushing the boundaries of the art form. Upcoming performances this season include the Connecticut premiere of Connected (2011) by the Australian dance company…
Stewart Novick, professor of chemistry, received a grant worth $43,260 from the National Science Foundation. The award is shared with Professor Stephen Cooke of SUNY-Purchase and represents a new collaboration between Professors Cooke and Novick who now co-mentor graduate students and share sophisticated equipment (Fourier transform microwave spectrometers housed in Novick's lab at Wesleyan). The collaboration, which goes beyond this one grant, involves investigating the structures and dynamics of a whole range of systems including large halogenated compounds and molecules involving actinide valence electrons in their chemical bonding.
Jennifer Rose, research associate professor, received a grant worth $456,225 from the National Institutes of Health on Sept. 7. Rose will use the funds to support her study on "Integrative Analysis for Nicotine Dependence Symptoms in Novice Smokers" through July 2013. "The goal of this project is to use integrative data analysis to pool three independent, national level data sets and to use newly developed statistical methods to evaluate DSM-IV nicotine dependence symptoms in recent onset smokers with varying levels of current smoking exposure," she explains. Rose also received a grant worth $9,935 (subcontracted with Miriam Hospital) from the NIH…
Michael Weir, director of the Hughes Program in the Life Sciences, professor of biology, received a grant worth $328,200 from the National Institutes of Health on Sept. 19. Weir will use the funds to support a study titled, "Proteomic Analysis of Translation Initiation of Yeast," through August 2011.