Marking Veteran’s Day

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On this Veteran’s Day, I’m reposting from last year. I am so grateful for the many contributions that faculty and students are making to our campus.

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Today, November 11th, is Veterans Day, a great time to acknowledge the service of the many in the Wesleyan community who have served in the U.S. armed forces. In 1918, the Armistice was signed on November 11th, and after that brutal conflict that left tens of millions dead and wounded, the world hoped to put war behind us. Alas, that was not to be, and over the last hundred years, we have at various times depended on servicemen and servicewomen to step into the breach.

There are now more than three million post-9/11 veterans, and many of them want to continue their education after leaving the service. About seven years ago, Wesleyan began partnering with the Posse Foundation to recruit veterans interested in a liberal education at the highest level. These students have contributed immeasurably to our campus culture, and I am very grateful for their participation in all dimensions of campus life. A few years after beginning our partnership with Posse, we began recruiting faculty members with military experience and academic expertise to teach at Wesleyan. The divide between civilian and military culture does a disservice to both, and Professors Robert Cassidy and Joseph Slaughter make many contributions inside and outside the classroom.

You can read about a few of our Posse Veteran students here and here, and learn more about the research and teaching of Professors Cassidy and Slaughter on our website. Wishing all a good Veterans Day!


 

Happy Homecoming and Halloween!

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We are welcoming alumni and parents back home to campus this weekend. We have many great programs and athletic events planned, and although the weather will be challenging on Saturday….all you need are the right clothes! The women’s soccer team has had a magical season this year, and they continue at home on Jackson field Saturday at 12:30 vs Bowdoin. The football team tries to continue its undefeated season against Amherst on Andrus Field at 1:00 pm. There’s lots of other things happening on campus, and you can find the program here.

My favorite part of Halloween these days is the parade of preschoolers who walk across campus to trick or treat. Olivia Drake snapped a few pictures this morning in front of South College.

Homecoming and Halloween highlight some of the strengths of our community, and I’m reminded of how fortunate we are this year to be able to celebrate together.

Fall Break Reflections

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During Fall Break I traveled to Los Angeles for a series of Wesleyan meetings and events. I also had the good fortune to visit family – my two young grandchildren (ok, and their parents) fill me with joy.

Around the time I was leaving Middletown, students received an announcement concerning social media and the harmful disruptions that can occur when rumors and anonymous accusations are passed around. We see this all over the country – from conspiracy theories gaining traction to a social media outrage machine undermining possibilities of connection across differences. It’s hard to protect oneself against the noxious noise of angry posts, and we should beware of contributing to a climate that undermines possibilities for solidarity. I found myself these last few days explaining to my 2-year-old grandson about sharing with the other kids at preschool. Sharing is obviously such a good thing, but as I thought about another kind of sharing on social media, I considered how hurtful it can be. Even if we know that it’s in the business plans for social media companies, we don’t have to be online conduits for negativity.

At one of the Wesleyan events, an alum asked me about the tension between protecting academic freedom and protecting student sensitivities. I replied that the students I encounter are quite resilient and that they require little protection. They do seek to change conditions that they perceive as unfair or systematically unjust. Academic freedom is at the core of our mission. The ability of students and teachers to speak their minds, to inquire widely over difficult and disturbing subjects is fundamental to a liberal education. There are times when we must step in to protect members of our community from harassment or intimidation – when we must protect “safe enough spaces” so that academic freedom and open inquiry can continue. Most of the time, though, we can exercise resilience, vigilance, and care so as to nurture the freedom of ongoing teaching, artistic practice, and research. We learn from that exercise habits of mind and spirit that are relevant far beyond the borders of the university.

I’m looking forward to the second half of the semester. There are bound to be plenty of experiences and achievements worth sharing.

Celebrating Those Who Make Wesleyan Work!

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A university needs more than just teachers, students, and educational tools. A university needs many people who behind the scenes ensure that classrooms, labs, houses, offices, fields, and so many other places at Wesleyan are the kinds of spaces in which we can learn, discuss, inquire. This week we will celebrate some of those people in an outdoor performance piece. WesWorks features students and folks from Custodial Services and Physical Plant who help make our campus a beautiful and hospitable environment for learning. Allison Orr’s Forklift Danceworks has been collaborating with workers and students to build relationships and will perform this week at 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, starting on Andrus Field. “I think this [show] opens up a world of understanding for students of the incredible support network that is on a university campus,” said the CFA’s Rani Arbo in a recent article.

Building on seven years of Forklift Danceworks’ engagement with Wesleyan, WesWorks was developed through a series of residencies and intensive course collaborations over the past year and a half. The multi-site outdoor performance invites the audience to witness the virtuosic and skilled work of Facilities staff as performed by the workers themselves, and to celebrate their indispensable place at Wesleyan.

You can read more about the performance and the work leading up to it here. You can also reserve a spot!

I remind my colleagues whenever I get the chance that whatever our job titles at Wesleyan, we are all educators. I look forward to admiring the work and learning from fellow staff members this week!

forklift
Allison Orr, third from left, celebrates a successful WesWorks rehearsal with custodial staff on Oct. 1.

 

One Month Into the Semester…

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There’s a chill in the air, and the leaves are changing colors. Midterms are around the corner, and we’ve already had dance recitals and a home football game (what a dominating performance). After great preparation and more than a little anxiety, with masks and regular testing, we are having a much more normal semester than I’d feared in mid-August. One month into the semester, I know that students and faculty are making progress on important projects, and staff is supporting that work while planning for Wesleyan’s long term future.

I’ve already mentioned how much fun I’ve had seeing our students perform at a high level in athletics. And this week something terrific happened when NESCAC chose three Wesleyan students as players-of-the-week!

Liam Devanny ’23 – the men’s soccer goalie who has been super in the net for the Cardinals.

Brina Kuslak ’23 – the women’s volleyball middle blocker was a “kill machine” for Wes during the last week. (Check out the games this weekend!)

Audrey Lavey ’23 – the women’s soccer forward had three goals during the week, including two within a few minutes against Bowdoin.

As we move into October, let’s cheer on the Wes folks doing great things all around campus. And let’s stay vigilant about reducing Covid risk…. By doing so, we make everything else possible.

Check out a Performance—Athletics or Otherwise!

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Yesterday I finally found some time to see our students out and about in the late afternoon. I say “out and about,” though it would be more accurate to say many were working hard. I was heading over to see the women’s soccer game, and on the way, and I saw baseball players training, runners getting race-ready, the women’s lacrosse team doing strength drills, the football team preparing for Saturday’s home contest against Hamilton, and some men just leaving what must have been an intense lacrosse workout. I thought I saw a volleyball net outside, but it was coming down as I walked toward Smith Field.

The women’s soccer team is having a great season, and it was fun to see them in action. Keeping their impressive win-streak alive, they scored three unanswered goals in the first half, and it was inspiring to see their level of skill and quality of teamwork. This afternoon I’ll get a chance to see the men’s soccer team take on Trinity College on Jackson Field, and with any luck, tomorrow I’ll see the amazing volleyball team face off against Connecticut College.

I love seeing our students perform at the highest level, whether it be in athletics, the arts or in poster sessions about their research. I bet almost everybody at Wesleyan has friends on a team or in a dance, theater, or orchestral performance, or in a band, and that you take the opportunity to cheer them on!

Go Wes!

Remembering 9/11 Twenty Years Later

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September 11, 2001.  Like many, I have a clear memory of that fateful morning. I was living in Berkeley, up early with the news on. I watched the replays of what I first thought was a crash, and then came to realize was an attack. Horrified, I gathered family around, as if being together would make us safer in a newly dangerous world.

At Wesleyan at the time, and all around the country, there was shock. How could this happen? Then came years of mourning, commemoration and efforts to remember the thousands who died at their desks, in elevators, on stairs, some heading up heroically to save as many people as possible. The photographs of those stunned first responders still make me shudder. Such sadness. We do our best to remember them.

We also remember the series of wars that were unleashed by the attacks of 9/11. The lies that led to the Iraq war, the hopes that many had of defending freedom, the slowly unfolding debacle in Afghanistan…torture, errant drone strikes, deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians over the last 20 years. What would it mean to do our best to remember all those victims?

For me, this sad anniversary is an occasion for piety, and I take some consolation in communal remembrance. Going forward, I’d like to think that by discovering ways of joining with others to provide security without making war, we are doing our best to remember all the victims of 9/11 and its aftermath.

Vigilance, Excitement and Joy

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Next week the Class of 2025 will arrive on campus, and although I am always excited about the start of the school year, this year brings a particularly distinctive mix of emotions. With a fully vaccinated campus, I am looking forward to a safer environment in which we can have more interactions with one another than we’d had in the past. But with the more contagious Delta variant, I also know that we must remain vigilant. The COVID-19 operations team, which consults with public health officials and epidemiologists with deep expertise, has developed protocols that should make our campus one of the safest places at which you could live and work.

Being one of the safest places at which you can live and work during a pandemic doesn’t mean the campus is risk-free. There will be some positive cases as we go through the semester, but with careful monitoring and basic preventative measures (like isolating when you’ve been infected and wearing a mask indoors), we will be able to prevent serious illness and widespread outbreaks.

I’m looking forward to seeing students engage in the full range of co-curricular activities, from athletics to theater, from poster sessions to art installations, as we get back in the swing of things. Although I taught in person last year, I so missed celebrating student, staff, and faculty accomplishments in person.

The transmissibility of the Delta variant should make us careful, but we won’t let it rob us of the kind of experiences that make being together on campus so powerful. With the cooperation of everyone, we will make the fall semester safe and joyful.

For Lola, being back on campus is just pure bliss!

Lola

Get Ready for a Great Year

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Across the country, and in various places around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is surging again, fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant. This is the bad news. The good news is that people who are vaccinated have excellent protection against the worst disease outcomes. Sure, there are breakthrough infections, some of which are symptomatic. But the vaccines protect almost everyone without co-morbidities from hospitalization or death. This is a great thing!

Last year, thanks to the cooperation of students, staff and faculty, Wesleyan was able to protect against the worst outcomes from COVID-19. And this was prior to the availability of vaccines. This year the University will be a vaccinated community, with very few exceptions for medical or religious reasons. With that in mind, though we will still want to exercise caution—especially in regard to indoor gatherings of large groups—we should be able to enjoy the kinds of social interactions and co-curricular experiences that make a residential education so potent and enjoyable.

The University will do everything possible to keep our community safe, while also recognizing that we will be living with the possibility of contracting the virus. Vaccinations should allow us the kinds of freedoms we have grown to expect while living and working on campus. We will require all visitors to campus to have been vaccinated. Of course, people who venture off campus should exercise caution, which will usually mean wearing masks when indoors, washing hands, etc. We can keep each other safe!

This is the time of year I usually begin to feel a sense of anticipation about the semester ahead. Whether I’m working on a syllabus, talking with advisees and colleagues, or planning events, I grow increasingly eager to be back in Wes mode. Sure, I’m nervous about the variants this year, but given the precautions we’ve taken and the cooperation of campus groups, I await the arrival of students and the start of classes with growing excitement.

So, enjoy the rest of the summer, and get ready for a great year at Wesleyan!

July 4th: “Inclusion is Patriotism of the Highest Order”

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For years, on July 4th I turned to Frederick Douglass’ great speech (“What to The Slave is the 4th of July“) as a reminder of the promise and the painful hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence. If you look look back on this blog’s July 4th posts, you’ll find excerpts and reflections.

This year, I was moved by an op-ed in the Washington Post by Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation. He underscores the resonance of the principles enshrined in the Declaration with the Foundation’s work on equity and inclusion.

Inclusion is patriotism of the highest order. It informs our answers to that fundamental, founding question of representation and whether we, the people, will truly extend representation to each other — then, now and into the future.

And so, the American story we should celebrate this Fourth of July is one of expanding representation — however slowly, unevenly, and imperfectly. It’s the story of a small circle of White, property-owning men in Philadelphia that, generation by generation, continues to grow wider, precisely because of the patriotic struggle and sacrifice of the people who were once excluded — above all, Black and brown people, and women.

Political theorist (and now candidate for Governor of Massachusetts!) Danielle Allen has recently written about Prince Hall, an 18th century black activist whose political work was energized by the values he saw in the American founding. Hall, she writes, “invokes the core concepts of social-contract theory, which grounded the American Revolution, to argue for an extension of the claim to equal rights to those who were enslaved. He acknowledged and adopted the intellectual framework of the new political arrangements, but also pointedly called out the original sin of enslavement itself.” Hall helped establish an activist community of free blacks in Boston and established a Masonic Lodge that bears his name. A founding father, too long neglected.

However one marks the 4th, I trust we can find some inspiration in Hall’s life and work, and in these words of Darren Walker:

In their flawed genius, the founders entrusted us with the tools to fix what they were unwilling to repair. They left us the capacity to build something that had never existed: a multiracial, multiethnic, pluralist democracy that extends the blessings of representation to all.

This is a legacy worth fighting for, preserving and passing forward — today and always.