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This morning I sent the following message to the campus community. Classes have begun, and we are looking forward to a great semester.

Over the past weeks, a number of our students have been traveling around the country as part of the new Wesleyan Engagement 2020 Initiative (E2020), which offers internship funding and credit to work in the public sphere during academic breaks. By facilitating students’ direct participation in civic life—and we expect many more to take advantage of E2020 in the spring and summer—we believe Wesleyan can help them gain valuable organizational skills and learn to engage more productively with others, even (or especially) those with whom they disagree.

While E2020 is a new initiative, its spirit has been part of Wesleyan’s DNA from the very beginning. In 1831, Wesleyan’s first president aimed our mission at both the good of the individual and the good of the world. In 1963, nine Wesleyan students traveled to the Deep South to assist with voter registration, the establishment of Freedom Schools, and their larger stated goal of “breaking the system of segregation in Mississippi.” Just last year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of African American Studies at Wesleyan and the Vanguard Class of 1969, members of which advocated for more university support for the Black community here on campus and beyond. In recent months, we have eliminated our fixed investment allocation to fossil fuels, and in the coming year we will develop a new Sustainability Action Plan.

A decade ago, we named our strategic plan Wesleyan 2020, and now here we are! We’ve made important progress on all three of its overarching goals—enhancing the distinctive education we offer, growing the reputation of our extraordinary University, and making our economic model more sustainable. Faculty have spearheaded several new interdisciplinary colleges and exciting collaborations; Communications and Admission staff have effectively cultivated and recruited many new members to our community; and all those involved in the hugely successful THIS IS WHY fundraising campaign helped us strengthen our financial footing and position ourselves for a bright future.

Of course, some of the goals of Wesleyan 2020 are really FOREVER goals. Professors FOREVER seek to improve classroom success; Academic Affairs FOREVER seeks to make the curriculum more powerful and relevant; Student Affairs FOREVER seeks to ensure the student experience is meaningful and inclusive; and all those involved with University infrastructure and resources FOREVER seek to provide a stable platform for it all.

But we must also align our pursuit of these goals with our current circumstances and ambitions. As we work to update our strategic plan by the end of the calendar year, we must keep in mind that higher education—and Wesleyan, specifically—has always been fertile ground for bold and productive experimentation. We have a responsibility to find new ways to empower our students and our broader community to act for both the good of the individual and the good of the world. E2020 is one of the first steps in that direction, and the imperative to integrate civic engagement with liberal learning has rarely had the urgency that it has today. You can find out more about E2020 here.

In this spirit of developing civic preparedness, we will be honoring the civil rights legacy of the courageous activist Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Friday, January 31 (12:15 pm – 1:15 pm in Crowell Concert Hall). This year, our keynote speaker will be writer, producer and activist Bree Newsome.

I thank you for all your efforts and look forward to the exciting work ahead!

Rob Rosenthal, Clifton Watson and I sent out this message to the campus last week.

Wesleyan has a long history of supporting student engagement in the public sphere, and our Civic Action Plan sets goals for building civic preparedness among students, faculty and staff and for enhancing the University’s role in public life.

The 2020 election cycle represents a crucial opportunity for civic engagement and liberal learning through engagement with the public sphere. We launch the Wesleyan Election 2020 initiative (E2020) with the goal of encouraging and supporting thoughtful participation of students, faculty and staff in the public sphere. Wesleyan will support electoral participation regardless of political affiliation, and we encourage work across the political spectrum.

The first stage of E2020 will make funds available to students who wish to engage in political campaigns, voter registration efforts, and issues advocacy at the local, state or national level. This kind of direct participation in civic life provides an educational richness that will help students develop skills for lifelong active citizenship, learn about themselves and how to engage productively with others with whom they disagree, and gain organizational skills.

E2020 welcomes all ideas for student work, though we will prioritize applications that seek financial or academic support:

work on campaigns, advocacy, or voter registration that will take place during school breaks (winter, spring, or summer)

work of large groups of students in the electoral process

work on local or national elections and issues that are especially contested

Since winter break will be here before we know it, we encourage students interested in financial support for this kind of work to consult this webpage and submit an application by Friday, December 13.

In the coming weeks, we will announce additional programs aligned with E2020, including service-learning courses and other credit opportunities as well as public programs and additional on-campus activities. In the interim, we welcome your suggestions for programs and other campus activities aligned with the mission of the Wesleyan Election 2020 Initiative.

Just a quick shout out to Coach Dan DiCenzo and the Wesleyan football team, who this weekend beat Trinity in Hartford for the first time since 1997. The win capped off an extraordinary season for the Cardinals, who went 8-1 and won the Little Three Championship. The overtime victories against Amherst and Williams were especially exciting.

So much hard work went into making this season such a great success. Go Wes!

Homecoming/Family Weekend is just around the corner, and there are plenty of programs planned for those returning to campus. The football team comes off an ultra-exciting victory vs. Amherst College last week, to take on Williams on Andrus Field at 1 p.m. After that game, Matt Simco ’22 was named offensive player-of-the-week, to join Daniel Banks ’22, named defensive player-of-the-week. There will be plenty of tailgating, and, depending on the NESCAC playoff schedule, potentially more games to watch.

Speaking of watching games, last weekend I caught a couple of sets in the volleyball team’s victory over Hamilton. The evening before, the Cardinals secured their third consecutive Little Three Championship with a victory over Williams. The team has SO many strong players (several of whom I’ve had in class), and is led by the multiple player-of-the-week winner Nicole Hilton ’20. They take on volleyball powerhouse Ithaca College this weekend. Stay tuned for the playoffs!

Homecoming/Family weekend sponsors several WESeminars and other programs. There are exciting presentations on subjects as varied as environmental science, dance, politics and creative writing. You can find a complete listing here.

Go Wes!

Each fall for the last several years, I’ve visited with Wesleyan alumni, parents and prospective students in Asia. I’m just back from Korea, China and Taiwan, where we held receptions and, in Beijing, a forum on liberal arts education and sustainable economic development. In a time of rising nationalism and chauvinism disguised with ethical posturing, it was good to have conversations with folks with a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds. Although my Fall Break trips go by very quickly, I always learn a lot from listening to our extraordinarily diverse Wesleyan family in Asia.

During my visit to China, I also met with those involved in a potential joint venture to open a film-centered school in the country. Following those meetings, Wesleyan has come to a decision not to proceed with such a project. As I explained in an email to campus today:

..in considering this possible campus in China, we needed to be sure that the academic work would be in line with the distinctive pragmatic liberal education at the core of Wesleyan’s mission. Further conversations with those who proposed the partnership have made it clear that our respective goals could not be sufficiently aligned—not to mention the questions we had around issues of academic freedom and the implications for our home campus.

While we will not move forward with this particular project, we remain interested in exploring collaborations in accordance with our Beyond 2020 strategic plan.

We have learned much from this process, and we will continue to seek ways to enhance the value of a Wesleyan diploma by expanding the reach of our academic programs, and by empowering our students, faculty, staff and alumni to do meaningful work on our campus and beyond.

Photos from the visit follow:

Recently, many Wesleyans have been discussing the news that the University has been invited to explore the possibility of opening a college in China. Our conversations have been very preliminary — should it be a film academy, a liberal arts college, some form of hybrid? Wesleyan has been running programs in China for many years, mostly in the form of lectures for prospective students or for our many alumni who live and work there. Should we explore doing something more substantial?

The University has looked into a variety of locations for Wesleyanish programing. Most of these are of the study-abroad variety with which many are familiar. We have also experimented with programs in Los Angeles for people entering the film industry, and investigated coordinated internship opportunities in public service in Washington. Giving students options for programs beyond our core campus can expand educational opportunities and increase the value of a Wesleyan diploma. In considering these possibilities, we want to be sure that the academic work is in line with the distinctive pragmatic liberal education at the core of Wesleyan’s mission. We also want the programs to be economically sustainable and contribute to positive recognition of the University.

I should say that most of these conversations don’t lead to actual programs. We set the bar very high for new initiatives, and most of the ideas we consider don’t meet our high expectations. Our conversations about a possible campus in China are still in the very early stages. Obviously, there are serious concerns about academic freedom and a host of related issues. At the same time, Wesleyan has had a very positive history of working with students and faculty from China, and so we are considering this possibility very carefully. The only decision that is imminent is whether we should do more research on this possibility.

Since many have questions about these topics, we will hold a  faculty and staff discussion on Wednesday, October 30, 4:30–5:30pm, and one with students from 6–7 pm. These conversations will surely help inform our considerations about a variety of possible Wesleyan initiatives that build on the great things that happen on our Middletown campus.