Letters on Pragmatic Hope is a collection of essays in which Wesleyan professors and administrators reflect on a daunting question: How can students act with purpose and efficacy amid an increasingly authoritarian environment?
The essay series, started in Fall 2025 amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher education, aims to gather responses from a diverse group of Wesleyan faculty and offer a vision for how students can turn despair into pragmatism and action.
By Roger Matthew Grant, Deputy Provost and Dean of the Arts and Humanities
A Personal Reflection on Political Life in Trump’s America
By Peter Rutland, the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought
Make a Difference Here and Now
By Mary Alice Haddad, the John E. Andrus Professor of Government
Calibrating Your Inner Compass
By Noah Baerman, Director of Wesleyan University Jazz Ensemble and Visiting Professor in Continuing Studies
Political Faith in an Age of Despair
By Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Assistant Professor in the College of Social Studies
The Classroom as a Liberatory Space
By Tushar Irani, Professor of Philosophy
