Celebrating Students ’13: Avery Trufelman

Over this summer, I interned at Air America. Yes, that is an airline, and yes, that’s also a movie starring Mel Gibson, but the Air America I worked at was a liberal talk radio station, with a line of hosts meant to counter the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. My internship was unpaid, but it wasn’t a hey-intern-go-get-some-coffee type of job. I actually got to contribute to the station’s blog by summarizing and commenting on current events. 

IMG_1610Naturally, it kept me really up to date on the news, since I had to read the paper every morning and constantly monitor news sites during the day. It was also pretty great to work in New York City all summer, since another component of my job was going to Union Square and interviewing people about their thoughts on the news for a series of videos Air America put on YouTube. I also got an opportunity to meet Lewis Black, who was interviewed on one of the shows, Montel Williams, who hosts his own show daily, and Wesleyan sophomore Adam Schlesinger, who just so happened to be interning with me.

I’ve learned that blogging isn’t just some snarky medium, and, over all, my internship inspired a lot of what I do here at Wesleyan. I’d like to continue with radio on WESU, to keep blogging on the beautiful Method Magazine website (www.methodmagazine.com), and, hopefully, to get back into the habit of reading the newspaper. Hopefully.

Usdan Common Connections: A Call for Musicians

Dear Wesleyan Musical Performers,

In an effort to collaborate and combine programming efforts, a new committee has been established.  The Usdan Common Connections Committee is looking to work with musical performers within the Wesleyan Community to provide opportunities to showcase your talents.

thumbnailCA0E3S6PThese performances will take many different forms and will happen in a variety of venues.  We are currently planning a series of Coffee House performances that will feature two or three artists or groups and will likely be held in the Daniel Family Commons on the third floor of Usdan.  The committee is also putting together a “Last Waltz”esque jam that will happen on December 14 in the Marketplace Dining wing.  This event is tentatively being billed as “Classes Ending on a Good Note.” 

Our hope is that throughout the year many different performers or groups will take advantage of the opportunity to let the Usdan Common Connections Committee plan their performance event.  If you have ideas for performances or would like to play in either a Coffee House or in the December jam, please contact Michelle Myers-Brown via email (mmyersbrown@wesleyan.edu) for more details.

 If you, or your group, are interested in performing in Usdan at these or other events, please email Michelle Myers-Brown by 11/20/09.

We look forward to hosting performances that showcase the diverse musical styles and the musicians helping to continue the tradition of great music at Wesleyan.

Sincerely, The Usdan Common Connections Committee

STAY TUNED FOR MUSICAL MADNESS

a music competition between the classes

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        February 18, 2010

     Crowell Concert Hall

Celebrating Students ’13: Michael Conrad

You can’t get anywhere if you don’t know where you came from. In my case I hadn’t met my entire family. My mother IMG_1608was an immigrant; she came to America from a poor Central American Country. At age 16 she entered high school not being able to speak a word of English. She graduated and went on to college. Coming from Honduras she was raised in a strict home that provided her with a “family over everything” attitude, as well as a mentality to work as hard as you can for everything and to appreciate all the opportunities given to you. Before embarking on my college journey, I felt it was necessary for me to find my roots and return to the place my mother and grandmother and aunts and uncles came from so I could proceed to make my family proud and return to Honduras a successful man. Seeing the family I had only seen in pictures and heard over the phone was almost as fulfilling as going on a missionary trip, or working at a soup kitchen. When I got there I had no idea what to expect, but when I left I realized what was expected of me and how much family I had to make proud. I left Honduras with so much motivation, so much drive to succeed in all aspects of my life. My twenty-one day trip was more of a realization than it was a vacation, and I will remember it for the rest of my life.

Wes Athletics

SATURDAY AT HOME:  CHEER ON THE CARDINALS TO VICTORY!!  

 MEN’S SOCCER  

 NESCAC Semi-final

vs

Middlebury

11 a.m.

cardinal

 FOOTBALL

vs

Williams

1 p.m

 

AWAY:  BRING HOME THE CHAMPIONSHIPS!!

 WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

NESCAC Championships

at Tufts

cardinal

WOMEN’S & MEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY

at Mt. Greylock H.S., MA

 

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!

3 on 3 Tourney: Sign-up deadline Sat., Nov. 7

Think you and your friends got game???  Well here is your chance to prove it.  The Deans Office and The Office of Public basketballSafety are sponsoring a “Midnite Madness” 3 on 3 basketball tournament at the Freeman Athletic Center fieldhouse on Friday night November 13th.  The tournament will begin at 12 midnight.  Registration is open to all current students and will be limited to the first 32 teams to sign up by November 7th. Teams can consist of 3 or 4 players.  Awards will be given to the top four teams.  For more information and to register you can go to www.wesleyan.edu/publicsafety/basketball .

Pre-registration begins today

thumbnailCA66YGAZAmazing that it is already time to be thinking of courses for next semester!  The planning period begins tomorrow and runs through Mon., Nov. 16 at 5 p.m.  Scheduling is the next day and the adjustment period starts on Wed., Nov. 18 at 8 a.m. through Tues., Dec. 1 at 5 p.m. 

As you think of your program of study, keep in mind the importance of exploring new areas of the curriculum and choosing courses that will stretch your mind, get you thinking and engaged in your work.  At the same time, keep an eye on gateway courses needed for possible majors, GenEd courses, and courses that emphasize Essential Capabilities you would like to strengthen. 

Take advantage of WesMaps’ categories to help you navigate the curriculum in anything from FYIs to  intellectual clusters to departmental descriptions to anything in the above paragraph.

Remember to spread your courses throughout the week and the day, and seek variety in the kind of coursework you will be doing. 

Any questions?  Talk with your professors, your faculty advisor, me as your class dean, Dean Lazare, and any other person with curricular expertise who you think will be helpful in your decision-making process.

Not Happy with Mid-terms…?

Not Happy with Mid-term Grades…

Many of you will be getting your mid-term exam, papers, and projects back soon, if you haven’t already.  While I hope you will be pleased with how you did, if you are not, it can be quite an eye-opener and rattle your confidence a bit. 

thumbnailCA0I6DB4Suggestions for next steps:   Review the exam with your professor and/or your TA and talk with them about study strategies specific to the discipline; meet with your faculty advisor and with me for study suggestions and time management tips; talk to a peer advisor and strengthen areas that you’ve identified as trouble-spots by going to an academic skills workshop (keep your eye out for exam prep and exam taking workshops for the next round of “mid-terms;” check out the SARN resources through the class blog, below; seek out some support at OBH or the chaplains; and come see me with any other questions or concerns. 

Always remember that you never would have been admitted if you didn’t have the chops!  We all run into times that are difficult or seem overwhelming.  It’s how you deal with them that makes a difference.

Celebrating Students ’13: Liza Messinger

I love corn, whether eaten grilled at my house or dipped in butter and salted at the Minnesota State Fair, but this summer is the first time I ever truly appreciated it because I dug, sweat, watered, and begged corn into existence on IMG_1609my family’s new plot at a Minneapolis community garden. As a sustainable garden, I couldn’t use power tools or synthetic fertilizers, so in the fashion of Little House on the Prairie, I used only a shovel and pitchfork to remove the sod, turn over the soil to add air, shape the beds, and plant corn, lettuce, beets, and peas. When sprouts started to appear, I was surprised to find how invested I was in the success of each plant. I knew where each new carrot shoot was, observed the bees pollinating the corn, and mourned the bug- eaten lettuce. So now whenever I bite into a corn cob, I taste the sweet kernels, but also the hard work of my summer, and the often forgotten work that someone did somewhere to grow the food on my plate.

Celebrating Students ’13: Hilary Hobel

No, I do not wear silver face paint nor am I one of the intense Raiders’ fans so brilliantly depicted on television. thumbnailCAZC0L98Instead, I am just a local to the Bay Area, and someone who got to participate in an organization I never would have imagined. This past summer, I had an internship with the Oakland Raiders, but no, I was not a Gatorade go-getter. Instead I took part in the business side of the organization. It was by no means glamorous, although, granted, I did get to go to an event in Los Angeles and guard the Super Bowl Trophies.  And, yes the Raiders do have Super Bowl wins! And yes, putting me in charge of the trophies may have been a silly idea, as most of the fans were twice my size and looked like they played football. But just so the Raiders’ fans know, the trophies are back under lock and key, so I guess I did my job. This internship was a great opportunity for me to see the interworking of not only a sports team, but also a business, and although I am not much of a football fan, I now greatly appreciate the Oakland Raiders and even the amount of work put into each luxury box ticket.

The Many Psychologies of Global Warming: Bill Blakemore ’65, ABC News Correspondent

Tuesday, November 3 in the Chapel at 8:00 p.m.

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Four weeks before the nations meet in Copenhagen to try to avert global catastrophe, Mr. Blakemore will identify many often surprising psychological factors at play as people in all walks of life deal with the latest “hard news” on climate.

He’ll explore new definitions of sanity that may pertain, and give examples displaying different “psychologies”, as well as manmade global warming’s place in the long history of narcissistic insults to humanity itself.

Two new time-line graphs of rapid and dangerous climate change will give fresh global context to the psychological challenges and experiences he has observed in the five years since he began focusing on global warming for ABC News.

Computer modelers trying to project the speed and severity of global warming’s advance often say that “the biggest unknown” in their equations is not data about ice or atmosphere, carbon or clouds, but “what the humans will do.” This talk probes that field and many states of mind already engaged.

Sponsored by the Wasch Center, Department of Psychology, and the Robert Schumann Lecture Series in the Environmental Studies Program.  Follow-up discussion on Wed., Nov. 4 at 4:15 p.m. in the Wasch Center.