Howard Bernstein, a visiting professor who taught for 20 years in departments as diverse as the College of Letters, History, Science in Society, and the Graduate Liberal Studies Program, died on Monday, Jan. 15. He was 63 years old. According to an online report written by members of his family, Bernstein died of cancer in a hospital in Nyack, NY.
This week, the University is taking part in the largest theater collaboration in U.S. history. The production of "365 Days/365 Plays" by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks officially began on Monday, Jan. 5 with an opening ceremony in the CFA Theater.
Usually, Hwinei Tavengwa ’08 returns to campus after breaks thinking about the worsening situation in her home country, Zimbabwe. "It’s upsetting [to see the state of the country]," Tavengwa said. "But I also feel helpless to some extent. I wish things were better but sometimes I feel like there’s nothing I can do."
According to Erin Pannell '07, co-president of the University's chapter of Students for Microbicides, talking about microbicides is tough for some people because it involves the discussion of a certain body part. "One of the toughest things about getting people to talk about this issue is that you have to say vagina," Pannell said. "Vagina. Vagina. Vagina. There, I've broken the ice."
The fire that destroyed O'Rourke's Diner this past August has left many Middletown residents nostalgic for Brian O'Rourke's Irish-style cooking. Students have had the good fortune of eating his food at WesWings, but now Middletown residents and University students alike can head to the Coppertop Grill on Main Street to experience O'Rourke's famous cuisine.
This past winter break, 31 students went on the trip of a lifetime. For 12 days, from Jan. 6 to Jan. 18, they traveled across Israel on a program sponsored and funded by Taglit-Birthright. Taglit-Birthright is a program that offers educational, peer-oriented trips to Israel for young Jewish adults.
Though the Chaplain's Lounge usually contains nondescript black leather couches on a dull blue carpet surrounded by entirely blank, white walls, it takes on a completely different feel every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. This is when Protestant Chaplain Gary Comstock hosts an interfaith, and what he calls "semi-spiritual", ritual called Vespers.
An undefeated weekend that included victories over NESCAC rivals Tufts and Connecticut College by scores of 6-3 and 3-2, respectively, has vaulted the men's hockey team into sole possession of first place in the conference with a 9-3-3 record. The two Cardinal victories, coupled with two losses by Amherst, put Wesleyan in first place in the NESCAC for the first time ever in the conference's short history, which dates back to 1999.
Winning 13 of 16 events, the Cardinal women's swimming and diving team handily beat the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 185-112, in their last regular season match-up before the NESCAC championships. Only three races in Saturday's home meet ended without a Cardinal victory, a fitting outcome for a team that hadn't competed at home in almost two months.
Senior weekend saw the women's basketball team return to winning form with victories over Trinity and Amherst. With the sweep, the Cards (13-7, 4-3 NESCAC) moved into a tie with Williams for fourth in the conference standings. Next weekend's road contests against Middlebury and Williams will determine if the seniors get one more shot to play on their home court during the playoffs.
The women's squash team struggled in the NESCAC Tournament this weekend, going 0-3 against their conference rivals. The team, the eleventh seed in the eleven team tournament, opened up the weekend with a 9-0 loss to sixth-seeded Colby in the opening round, eliminating the Cards from the main draw.
Wrestling in four matches in the past four days, Wesleyan summoned all of its endurance to finish the dual-meet season by dominating Western New England (44-3), breaking even with Oneonta St., ranked 25th nationally, and losing a heart-breaker to Williams (19-18) in a quad-meet at Western New England College on Sunday.
The women's hockey team traveled to New London on Friday for the first game of a crucial weekend series against NESCAC foe Connecticut College, eager to snap a 0-5-2 skid that followed a 2007 opening win against St. Catherine, and the Cardinals came out with a win and a tie.
The NESCAC Tournament did not go as well as planned last weekend, as the men's squash team dropped all three games to opponents Tufts, Middlebury, and Colby. The Cardinals faced the Jumbos, the sixth ranked NESCAC team, last Friday at Trinity College and fell by a score of 9-0.
The men's basketball team came into last weekend needing a win to solidify its prospects for reaching the NESCAC tournament. Instead, the Cards (6-14, 2-5 NESCAC) dropped lopsided decisions to Trinity (95-57) and Amherst (81-56), falling to the bottom of the conference standings.
Although it may be easy to feel helpless about the amount of personal influence one has over the Wesleyan presidential search, let alone the crisis in Sudan or Iraq, one Wesleyan student has found a way to fight her frustration in an individual, hands-on approach to activism. Hwinei Tavenga '08 has combined her interest in art with her concern for the political situation in her native Zimbabwe.
I would like to thank the Film Board and Will DiNovi in particular for responding to my concerns about the inclusion of lots of recent movies in the Wesleyan Film Series (WFS). I hope in this Wespeak to respond to some of the points he makes and to clarify my primary argument.
There are a few things I’d like to say about the trustees. My first issue has already been Wespoken about, and need not be repeated. This is the disturbing conversation I had at the trustee mixer in Zelnick about freshmen gender-neutral housing, when the trustee I spoke to was very stubborn, close-minded, and seemed to think that since his opinion is that the issue is not important, that’s just the way it is, despite the nearly-unanimous consensus of this campus.
There's something scary happening in Connecticut. There are fourth graders in Connecticut taking standardized tests. Their test scores will be used to determine how many new jail cells need to be built in the state. In Texas, this same judgment is made based on third grade test scores; whether a state is blue or red, politicians have discovered the same correlation between academic performance and criminal behavior.
Wesleyan Peeps, this past Saturday night I endured nearly 75% of the entire duration of the Vieux Farka Toure concert in Crowell Concert Hall. It was a sold out show — there were even people gathered outside of the Crowell windows, hands cupped around their eyes in hopes of getting a glimpse through the window constantly being fogged up by the breath of the onlookers.
The WesDemocrats, the CRC, and Teach For America are hosting a panel discussion of the achievement gap on Thursday, February 8th at 7:30 pm in the Woodhead Lounge. The purpose of the event is to create an open dialogue between a variety of panelists and Wesleyan students about the causes and solutions of educational inequity in the United States and talk through what they can do to help.
We do in fact have a lot of money, but we just don’t know where it is. God, this must be how MC Hammer feels. If we could find that money this is what we would do with it.
Hundreds of college students gathered in lounges and dorm rooms this past Sunday night over wings and beer to watch the year's most-anticipated television event. Parties were planned solely for the screening, and many participants sported apparel featuring their favorite X-team members.
Senator Joseph Biden, Jr.'s (D-DE) made headlines recently by going off on tangents about all of the leading Democratic candidates' shortcomings, from Hillary's electability and Edward's Iraq plan, in what speculators are calling a marketing lead into his "Biden: Uncut and Uncensored: Gone Wild: Spring Break '07" videos.
So apparently, the humor publications at other schools *cough* Yale *cough* get their own house to have meetings and throw awesome ragers…and we don't. The Ampersand should have a house. But what type of house should we have? Here are the pros and cons of the houses we're considering.
After much debate and research, scientists have concluded that the "Hebrew-Money Gene" is pure schlock. "It took me 10 years and over a hundred million dollars, but I can now confidently say that Jews are, in fact, not genetically linked with money," said geneticist Frank Cummings.
In 1950, I was born under the Brooklyn Bridge to a Black disciple of Marcus Garvey and a bald Jew of the Ashkenazi strain. My parents were simultaneously addicted to welfare money, fried chicken, and Talmud studies. My skin is not a creamy cappuchino or a choclatey swirl, but rather the color (and consistency) of pruney old grapes.