As plans for the new Molecular and Life Sciences Building solidify, a growing number of students and faculty are questioning the decision to demolish Shanklin Laboratory to make room for the new facility. On Feb. 11, Izaak Orlansky '08 founded "The Save Shanklin Campaign" Facebook group, writing that, "as one of Wesleyan's most historic buildings, Shanklin deserves an eleventh-hour fight for its survival."
Several University alumni returned to work on Wednesday, Feb. 13 as the three-month long Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike ended. The WGA walked the picket lines since Nov. 5, 2007 in protest of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ (AMPTP) policies on writers’ residuals for Internet content and DVD sales.
According to an ongoing Wesleying poll, as of Feb. 21, 85 percent of 255 students wish the University offered the option to minor. As major declaration descends upon the Class of 2010, students of all years are voicing concern over the University's lack of minors.
President Michael Roth named Michael Whaley as Vice President of Student Affairs on Thursday afternoon. Whaley, better known as “Dean Mike,” has served as the Interim Dean of the College since July 1, 2007. He will be the first to hold the newly created title at the University, which is replacing the Dean of the College position.
Approximately 50 students filled an uncharacteristically well-lit Eclectic yesterday afternoon to hear about the history and future of presidential power from a uniquely qualified expert. Philip Lacovara, a legendary lawyer who argued in the 1974 United States v. Nixon case, warned of the dangers of excessive presidential power.
On Thursday morning, patrons of the newly reopened O’Rourke’s Diner were surprised to discover that Senator Joseph Lieberman, an Independent Democrat representing Connecticut, would be joining them for breakfast. An entourage of press and Congressional staffers trailed behind.
On Sunday, Feb. 10, Middletown residents Israel Dandrade, 31, and Tyrese Lockhart, 25, were shot and killed at a Cromwell sports bar located less than six miles from the University. Police have charged Middletown resident Antonio Inglis, 19, with the murders. He could face the death penalty.
In 1969, 160 University students occupied the president’s office for 27 hours in protest of military recruitment on campus. In 1973, 1,165 students signed a petition to impeach Nixon. And in 1975, a group of student activists founded the political journal named after the God of Mischief, Hermes, as a rival to the University’s official school newspaper, The Argus.
Although Associate Professor of African American Studies Renee Romano is not teaching classes this semester, her sabbatical is by no means a vacation from work. Romano is spending her leave working on multiple projects, though her focus has been on her new book.
As soon as the light turned green and the RIDE began accelerating up Cross Street, a group of students sprung into the street. As the van came to a screeching halt, the students scurried past in laughter. Mark Fazzino, a well-known RIDE driver of three years, gave a sigh of irritation.
As I looked over WSA midyear reports last week in preparation to write the standard Student Budget Committee allocations story, I noticed something odd: the SBC seemed to have $356,000 left for the second semester of this year, an unprecedented amount in comparison to past the two years.
At noon on Tuesday, Feb. 19, WesPeace and Students for Ending the War in Iraq (SEWI) hung a banner made of bedsheets from the Usdan balcony. The drop was intended to raise awareness about plans to protest in Washington D.C. during Spring Break, to mark the 5 year anniversary of the Iraq war.
Here is a very rough estimation: on a given night, each game of Beirut around campus uses at least 22 Solo cups. Let’s say there are roughly 50 games played on a given weekend night during pre-parties, houses parties, frats and team drink-ups. This seems like a pretty low figure on a campus of 2,700 students.
Despite what you may have previously thought, Allie Levey is not just that guy who sings a lot of a cappella. He wants the world to know that he does other stuff, too. When he’s not singing, he dabbles in scaling the walls of MoCon and dressing like a woman. Also, he’s not gay. Just in case you were wondering.
A recent Wesleying poll revealed that 85 percent of 255 students at the University want minoring to be an option. Administrators have been hesitant to respond to student inquiries as to why the University does not offer this option, which is available at many of our peer institutions.
Wesleyan University advertises that it is a socially responsible investor. To explain the lack of any appropriate policy and our holdings in weapons contractors, some argue that the semantic issues of the phrase "socially responsible investment" are beyond resolution. What an embarrassing cop-out for an educational institution.
Recently the Argus published an article that addressed the practices of the Student Budget Committee (SBC) (“SBC tightens funding for student activities,” Feb. 19, vol. CXLIII, no. 30). I have taken issue with the article because it presented an incomplete and thus unfair depiction of the SBC. By relying on choice statistics and lacking proper analysis, the article wrongly presented the SBC as more stingy despite having a larger budget.
According to Ezra Silk’s article in Tuesday’s Argus (“SBC tightens funding for student activities,” Feb. 19, vol. CXLIII, no. 30), this year you’ve experienced an increase in budget and a decrease in funding requests. So why are you cutting funding to student groups? Please do your job. Give WESU the money they’ve asked for.
On a recent route sweep of the main reading room, I managed to retrieve 29 bottles and cans from the trash. I do this on a pretty regular basis, at the risk of looking crazy, not to mention that trash receptacles are host to any number of unpleasant bacteria (I also hate the smell of wasabi and soy sauce, inevitable spillage from sushi containers).
Andrew Perechocky’s Wespeak “Could ‘green’ destroy culture?” (Feb. 19) suggests that the propagation of “the green city template” may “accelerate the homogenization, and even destruction of, cultures around the world.” We should not worry that such a catastrophe could result from this new trend, but should be hopeful that it can preserve cultural diversity.
For the second year in a row, the men's basketball team took on Middlebury and Williams on the season's final weekend needing at least one win to qualify for the postseason. And for the second year in a row, the Cardinals fell to both foes to end their season on a down note. Wesleyan has now missed the playoffs the past three seasons after qualifying for the NESCAC tournament each year since its inception in 2001.
With just two regular season games remaining, the men’s ice hockey team has clinched a spot in the playoff spot, and will be playing this weekend to determine its seed and the location of its first-round match-up.
Mentioning the year 1994 to any baseball fan will undoubtedly bring unpleasant repressed memories back to the surface. 2007 Hall of Fame inductee Tony Gwynn was chasing .400, the oft-moribund Montreal Expos were baseball’s best team at 74-40, and juiced-up San Francisco Giants slugger Matt Williams was closing in on Roger Maris’ single-season home-run record, with 43 home runs through 112 games.
One thing we have learned from the performance-enhancing drug (PED) era of pro sports in America is that if you admit your guilt, you are practically forgiven. A plethora of athletes in both MLB and the NFL have been caught cheating over the past few years. Many, if not most, of the abusers’ identities have been either forgotten or simply disregarded.
You can scream "vagina." You can scream "vagina" by yourself, or you can scream "vagina" with 133 other people seated in the '92 Theater on a Saturday afternoon. When "The Vagina Monologues" co-director Sarah Abbott '10 entreats you to do it, thrusting back her body and dropping her hips to roar, reaching the height of the '92 Theater ceiling, you will scream back at her, because that is what she wants.
Dave Eggers and a committee of high school students chose the articles for “The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007.” Eleven teens from the Bay Area searched through hundreds of periodicals and independent publications to find their favorite articles. After discussing these pieces with one another, they handed their selections to Eggers, who whittled the entries down to the volume in the reader’s hand.
What is the purpose of film? To take the viewer into a new world and present unusual experiences in a visceral way, so as to impact an audience to an extreme? Is it to document true events as they occur, chronicling history with utmost care? Or perhaps the purpose of film is to simply present you with images and a story.
Dancers emerge on a darkened stage in staggered rows, silently stepping and tumbling forward in the precise and slow motions of a protracted passage of space and time. Light ripples like water under the feet of 14 men and women as they raise their fists one by one. Each traces their lineage aloud in languages including English, French, and Wolof.
Lisa Butler, a student at Manchester Community College, announced to the audience at Russell House that “storms are best for procreation.” Butler is not a climate researcher, but rather a student poet who was chosen as part of the Connecticut Circuit Student Poets tour. She, along with four other winners of the annual poetry contest, read original poetry last Wednesday.
Unless you keep solid tabs on European contemporary jazz, chances are you’ve never listened to Iain Ballamy or his main project, Food. It’s fairly depressing that such a talented performer and composer only got to me by the chance mailing of a promotional CD. Nonetheless, Food’s “Molecular Gastronomy,” which features Ballamy on saxophone, caught my ears at once.
Walking into the Davison Art Center Gallery, one of the first things you see is a black and white rendering of a giant pear being strung up in effigy. The pear dangles from the rafters of a barn where it has been hoisted by three terrified-looking men; the richly shadowed fruit looms over them with an ominous concupiscence.
An excited audience filled Beckham Hall last Monday in anticipation of the Sex Workers’ Art Show, which came to Wesleyan for a single performance as part of its national 2008 tour. Among those who hadn’t seen the performance last year, there was a good deal of uncertainty as to what exactly to expect: Was this going to be a strip show?
Believe it or not, the Film Board is no insular, ritualistic cabal; we’re more like the brainy policy geeks at a well-intentioned liberal think tank, knowledgeable in our field but receptive to progress and new minds. And we want you, the cultured undergraduates of Wesleyan University, to join us.
Jamaican-born spoken word poet Staceyann Chin mingled with students after speaking at Usdan Thursday Feb. 21 at 9 p.m. Chin, recently published in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, has also appeared in one-woman shows Off Broadway and in Russell Simmons’ Broadway show “Def Poetry Jam.” A New York resident, she makes regular appearances at the Nuyorican Poets Café.