Giving Tuesday!!

by

Today, December 3rd, is Giving Tuesday, a chance to support organizations around the world working with those in need. The needs seem greater than ever, and whether you are supporting education, healthcare, community organizations, peace efforts, or the environment, this Tuesday after Thanksgiving is a great day to find your generosity.  Over the years, thousands of alumni, parents, students, and friends have chosen to support their alma mater on this day. By giving to Wesleyan, donors have added millions of dollars to our  Financial Aid resources. This is the power of collective action. By joining others to help those with need, we all grow stronger.

Giving Tuesday is a powerful reminder of what we can achieve through collective generosity. Annually, Wesleyan alumni, parents, students, and friends make an incredible impact on a range of priorities at Wesleyan, from financial aid and first-generation student support to student life and athletic programs. 

Whether you choose to focus your generosity on Giving Tuesday, at calendar year-end, or on Wesleyan Giving Day this upcoming February during Engagement Month, I hope you will give to your favorite and most pressing causes this year, and I hope that Wesleyan will be among them. 

Thanksgiving Break

by

The first snow of the season has fallen a couple hours north of Middletown, and as I make my way through leftovers and get ready for the last week of classes, I send best wishes to my fellow-Wesleyans, near and far. 

 

Serving pre-Thanksgiving dinner with colleagues at Usdan

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving I sent the following message to campus:

 

 

Do you need a break? I know I am feeling it this year as we head toward Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to taking time with family, to sharing meals, laughs, and expressing gratitude together. I am so thankful for my teachers—people who opened for me worlds of thinking, dreaming, listening, and looking. I am also thankful for my students—people who have questioned my certainties, probed my doubts, and opened themselves up to living more expansive lives, often with deeper purpose. I am thankful for my colleagues here at Wesleyan—co-workers who make our university sing. I draw on my connections to teachers, students, and colleagues for comfort and inspiration.

I also draw on some poets, like the great W.S. Merwin:

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it

The poem turns much darker, but I’ll let you read that yourselves. It still speaks gratitude, as does the final section of the lovely Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander:

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

I hope your Thanksgiving celebrations will be filled with mighty love, and that you return to campus refreshed, ready for “walking forward in that light.”  

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

From Fall Glory to Launching Winter Sports

by

So much to celebrate with our Wesleyan student athletes this fall. We can start with tennis, and the national champion Jackie Soloveychik ’27 taking the ITA crown. Renna Mohsen-Breen ’25 and Lane Durkin ’27 took the doubles crown in the regionals. The Women’s Crew team continued its excellent run, with a 2nd place finish in the Head-of-the-Charles regatta. Stephanie Ager ’26 is enjoying a remarkable season in cross country, winning accolades across the conference. The Women’s Volleyball Team continues to compete at the highest level, winning an incredibly exciting match at home against Trinity. They are off to the NESCAC semifinals next weekend.

Tournaments are underway for both our soccer teams. After an incredible regular season, the women’s team lost a heartbreaker to Colby last weekend, but they are primed for NCAA success. They begin the tournament in Scranton, while the men will be in the NCAA tournament up at Babson. The Women’s Field Hockey Team will be in the NCAA tournament for the first time! They will be at home tomorrow, Wednesday at Hicks Field.

The Men’s Crew Team finished behind a couple of Div I schools and ahead of all Div III schools at the final regatta at the Wormtown Chase. Liam Calhoun ’26 was recognized by NESCAC for his superb cross-country season, as the team put in a solid season.

The Football Team capped off a season of thrills and chills by winning its first ever outright NESCAC championship with an outstanding win over Trinity on Saturday. Niko Candido ’25 led the Cardinal offense, and once again the defense did an amazing job. Congratulations to Coach DiCenzo and the entire squad.

And now it’s time for winter sports! Hold on to your Cardinal hats!!

 

Veterans Day at Wesleyan

by

As I often do on the second Monday of November, this morning I met with a group of prospective students and their families in Memorial Chapel. The Early Decision deadline in Admission is just days away, and for many high school students, today’s holiday provides them a little more time to visit the colleges that they are hoping to attend. Here on campus, for the dozens of students, staff, and faculty who are veterans, this is just another working day. But let’s take a moment to be grateful for the vets who are part of our community, and, if we have occasion to do so, to thank them for their service. 

Over the years, I have had occasion to get to know and often to celebrate our veterans on campus. Students who have served in the military often bring a distinctive set of life experiences to bear on their studies, and our faculty and staff who have served find innumerable ways to contribute to Wesleyan and to Middletown. I’d like to think we provide these folks with real opportunities to thrive just as they add so much to our community 

Working with the Warrior-Scholar Project and other groups, we will continue to recruit military veterans to Wesleyan. They make us proud. Happy Veterans Day!

Work to Do After the Election

by

As the results of the elections sink in, some at Wesleyan will be cheered by the outcomes, others will be distressed. It may be challenging now to remember that democracy and higher education have been good for each other. We don’t have to pretend to be neutral, but we do have a job to do. The work in this new political context is to continue to maintain Wesleyan’s commitment to an education based in boldness, rigor, and practical idealism. That work has never been more important.

The University will do everything it can to protect the most vulnerable among us. The mass deportations promised by president-elect Trump threaten our students who may be undocumented and are a cause of great concern to many in our community. As we said after the election of 2016: Wesleyan will remain committed to principles of non-discrimination, including equal protection under the law, regardless of national origin or citizenship. The University will not voluntarily assist in any efforts by the federal government to deport our students, faculty or staff solely because of their citizenship status. Today, the work to defend the most vulnerable has never been more important.

Candidate Trump promised to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion departments and to punish those schools who do not live up to his version of civil rights standards. At Wesleyan we have long believed in the educational power of diversity, and we know that our Office for Equity and Inclusion has a vital role to play in our educational mission. We will redouble our efforts to enhance belonging while we cultivate a greater pluralism. That work has never been more important.

The University will continue to defend academic freedom, which has allowed universities to create teaching environments free of official censorship or the soft despotism of pandering to commercial popularity. The classroom must remain a space for professors to share their professional expertise with students who could in turn explore ideas and methodologies without fear of imposed orthodoxies. The campus must strive to be the home of an ecosystem of genuine intellectual diversity. Cultivating an environment in which people can pursue ideas and forms of expression without fear of retaliation has never been more important.

The attacks on higher education, on democracy, on the rule of law, threaten to sweep away freedoms that have been hard-won over the last 100 years. Education is a process through which people develop their capacities for exploration, collaboration and creative endeavors. They learn to treat new ideas with curiosity and respect, even as they are also taught to critically evaluate these ideas. They learn skills that will be valued beyond the university and habits of mind and spirit that will help them flourish throughout their lives. They work to think for themselves so that they can be engaged citizens of a democracy rather than mere subjects of an authoritarian regime. That work has never been more important.

However we feel about the election’s results, we must strive to make education and democracy protect and nurture one another. At our university that will mean a very intentional effort to protect and nurture the seeds of a democratic culture. We must reject the cultivated ignorance that is used to fan the flames of hatred. We must defend the freedom to learn together in our schools, colleges and universities so that we can continue our democratic experiment. At Wesleyan, to quote our mission statement, we work to be “a diverse, energetic community of students, faculty, and staff who think critically and creatively and who value independence of mind and generosity of spirit.”  This work has never been more important than it is now.

VOTE!

by

Yesterday I sent the following message to all faculty, staff and students at Wesleyan. 

Americans will now cast their votes in one of the most consequential elections in our country’s history. By now, many of us will have already taken advantage of early voting or mailed in absentee ballots to home districts. Others will exercise their right to choose our own leaders by voting on Tuesday. Polls in Connecticut are open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

I am proud of the work many of our students, faculty, and staff have done in the runup to Tuesday’s election, including efforts led by Rob Rosenthal Distinguished Professor of Civic Engagement Khalilah Brown-Dean and sociologist/faculty director of the Allbritton Center Robyn Autry. The Wesleyan Media Project has continued its tireless efforts to analyze the endless political advertisements bombarding us these last several months. The participation of so many from our university in the public sphere is one of our great strengths.

Transportation Services and the Jewett Center for Community Partnerships will offer free rides to the polls for our students, with van transportation running every 15 minutes from the steps of Usdan on Wyllys Ave. If voting before or after the workday is not possible for any employee, check with your supervisor today to find a reasonable time to vote during the day on Tuesday. I look forward to seeing the Wesleyan community out in force.

 

Welcome Home!

by

Today marks the start of Homecoming + Family Weekend, and it should be a lovely few days. The Advancement team has planned a spectacular array of programs, from a conversation with artist Glenn Ligon ’82, Hon. ’12 this afternoon to seminars, lectures, and, of course, plenty of athletic events. We have a constellation of special events for our Latine families and alumni, and we are grateful for all the work of our volunteers and staff who put this together. 

Our athletes are pumped! Not only is the football team playing for the Little Three Championship (and more) at Corwin Stadium on Saturday afternoon, but the women’s soccer team looks to continue its unbeaten streak when they meet Conn College on Jackson Field at noon. Field Hockey, too, will be showing off its new field as it hosts the beginning of the NESCAC Championship for the first time since 2005. 

Theater, music, art, and so much more awaits you on campus. Welcome home!!

 

Follow the rainbows!

Wesleyan in India

by

This week, my Advancement colleagues Frantz Williams ’99 and Cecilia McCall ’91, P’24 joined me in taking the Wesleyan banner on the road to Mumbai and Delhi. We saw several old friends—alumni and parents—and made some new ones—guidance counselors, principals, writers, and even the American Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti. I gave a talk about The Student: A Short History at Hindu College at the University of Delhi, and met with teachers and students who were enthusiastic about pragmatic liberal education.

As I prepare to head home later today, I thought I’d share some pictures from our trip.

Reflections on October 7th

by

A year ago today, I wrote on my blog about the “sickening violence” of the massacres and kidnappings by Hamas. Little did I know that the violence would provoke a response that, while profoundly degrading Hamas’s military abilities, would kill tens of thousands of civilians and result in the destabilization of the entire region.

But I don’t want to write about events in the Middle East, about which I have strong feelings and slight expertise. I do want to talk about how the past year has affected education. We’ve seen fear and loathing — resulting from Oct. 7 and its aftermath — spread across the US and onto college campuses.  It would be an understatement to say that many on campuses are increasingly wary of one another. It doesn’t have to be that way, as I have written in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (which I draw on here).

As students and teachers, as people devoted to education, we must try to learn from all this. We can model meaningful opportunities for sustainable peace by showing that strong differences don’t have to end in violence. Wesleyan has programs that do just that. The Office of Equity and Inclusion, Academic and Student Affairs, along with the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, have all initiated educational activities to help students, faculty and staff build a greater capacity to have dialogues across difference. Sociology Professor Robyn Autry has been working with colleagues here, at Harvard and at the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, to integrate intellectual diversity and open conversation across the curriculum. Executive Director Khalilah Brown-Dean is building on the Allbritton’s history of community partnerships to help students learn to listen more deeply, respect differences of opinion, and find ways to take positive actions even when disagreements are not fully resolved. With the help of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations and the Templeton Religious Trust, the Chaplains use a similar model as they build interfaith literacy across religious groups that might at first glance seem to have irreconcilable world views.

At the heart of all these efforts is a commitment to pluralism, not sectarianism — a commitment to learn from those whose views are different from one’s own. Building on that engagement, we can foster conversations that take us beyond the borders of the university, leaving our comfort zones to engage with our fellow citizens and not just with like-minded undergrads and professors. In the coming months, we will be announcing grants to support this kind of work — both at the curricular and co-curricular levels. Going beyond a defense of freedom of expression, as Eboo Patel has counseled, we can integrate pluralism into a great many aspects of the education we offer. We can model a pragmatic liberal education that comes from cultivating connection, not canceling perceived enemies.

October 7th is a day of mourning for many on our campus, and I am hopeful that everyone here will respect that. However one marks this sad day, let us remember that education depends not just on free speech and critical thinking, but on a willingness to listen for the potential to build things together. A year ago, I ended my blog post like this: May the wounded receive care, the kidnapped be returned to their homes, and the bereaved find comfort. And may it not be long before the peacemakers can find a way. Alas, it has now been a year with scant prospects for peace. Let us do what we can to help peacemakers find a way. At a time when so much is being destroyed, let’s be peacemakers who together use our education for constructive purposes.

Turning Towards Peace for the New Year

by

As I prepare to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I looked back on my first High Holiday season at Wesleyan in 2007. That week I found a vibrant faith community, as I was able to attend both High Holiday services and the Imam’s sermon marking Ramadan. I was struck at the time by the ways that students from different religious cultures managed to learn from one another while also holding onto distinct traditions.

In this season, we are in some ways in a very different place. It is certainly still true that we have active groups of students, faculty, and staff oriented toward the world, at least in part, through their religious traditions. With foundation support and leadership from our chaplains, we now have an Interfaith Literacy Program that has been working with students to create programs on campus to support deeper understanding of different spiritual, religious, and ethical traditions. This understanding, I expect, will spread across the student body so that people with passionate commitments to different political and moral positions will learn how to have meaningful conversations across their differences.

On many campuses today, and Wesleyan is no exception, these conversations often break down over moral and political positions. The current war in the Middle East has flooded our screens and our minds with horrific images, and it is no wonder that people here want to stop the killing. There are, of course, very different views of how to achieve peace in the region. But reminding ourselves that peace is the goal might turn us toward more constructive dialogues across our differences.

Tonight, along with Jews around the world, I will celebrate the beginning of a new year. We will say “Shana Tova,” meaning simply “good year.” We will think about turning ourselves to better lives, for ourselves and for the communities of which we are a part.

What will make it a good year? More life, more peace.

Shana Tova!