Shasha Seminar: Exploring Histories of Race

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Each year Wesleyan hosts the Shasha Seminar for Human Concerns, bringing together scholars, students, faculty and alumni in an intensive series of lectures and discussions. Past programs have focused on popular culture, on environmentalism, on ethics and on international problems of violence. I remember the series of talks on food, which really made me think more carefully about the intersection of politics and economics on my kitchen table. And Joss Whedon’s 2009 discussion of how film and TV projects get made was funny and insightful. This year’s Shasha program, which runs from April 8-10, will explore ideas of race and how they have evolved over time.

Ideas concerning race have a long history, and it’s a history that continues to have powerful reverberations on politics and culture today. The organizer of the program, Andrew Curran of Romance Languages at Wes, has written on the history of the idea of race in relation to concepts of human origins, with a particular emphasis on the age of Enlightenment. The keynote speaker, Nell Painter, Honorary ’96, who for many years was a distinguished member of the history department at Princeton, has written the influential The History of White People, which will be the basis for her remarks on Saturday night. A leading historian of the United States, Prof. Painter is also an accomplished artist. Other discussions will explore race and science, the vicissitudes of race-thinking in Latin America and in China, and the ways that the idea of race still affects our conception of the human.

The Shasha Seminar offers a distinctive way of diving deep into a timely subject area in the company of curious, thoughtful and engaged participants. Alumni and parents join with students and outside experts to create an exceptionally lively series of conversations. If you are interested in learning more about the program, or in signing up for it, you can find information here.

Local Thoughts on Women’s History Month

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One of the most dramatic transformations of Wesleyan was the achievement of co-education in the early 1970s. The university had experimented with co-education at the beginning of the 20th century, but the male students just couldn’t deal with women studying alongside them. The contrast with the 1970s was great, and when I arrived in the middle of the decade it seemed that men and women were treated equally on campus. Of course, that was just one guy’s perspective.

And that guy was wrong. Having now spoken with many alumnae from the early 1970s, I have come to realize how difficult gender and sexuality issues were at Wes. Women reported routine harassment, a curriculum and campus culture geared to men, and a reluctance of the institution to change. But change did come, as richly talented women joined the student body and the faculty.

One of the important changes was the development of a Women’s Studies component of the curriculum, a process that culminated in the faculty approving a program in 1979, and a full major about a decade later. More recently, students and faculty changed the name of this concentration to Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, to better reflect the evolving teaching and research going on in the program. More on the history of FGSS can be found here.

There are plenty of other professors at Wesleyan who have been cultivating this vineyard. Suzanne O’Connell, for example, has received major support from the National Science Foundation to help women at all academic levels take part in programs that emphasize professional development in the geosciences. In addition to being a professor of Earth and Environmental Science, Suzanne also has been directing the Service Learning Center. Carol Wood has been a leader in making the mathematics field more inclusive. Carol is Chair of the Board of the American Mathematical Society, where she continues her long-term work of promoting possibilities for women in math departments across the country. The Edward Burr Van Vleck Professor of Mathematics at Wesleyan, Carol has been president of the Association for Women in Mathematics and represents the United States at the International Mathematics Union.

Su Zheng, Associate Professor Music, has been teaching and writing about the intersection of gender, sexuality, globalization and music. Her interests range from world music and experimental composition to heavy metal. Gina Ulysse, Associate Professor of Anthropology and African-American Studies, has been teaching and writing about gender, transnational feminism, race, class and performance — to name just some of her many topics. I was delighted to learn recently that Ruth Striegel, Walter A. Crowell University Professor of the Social Sciences, will be returning to the psychology department next semester. Her research and teaching on eating disorders has had a deep impact on our understanding of these phenomena, and her teaching has inspired generations of Wesleyan students.

The achievements of these fine scholar-teachers – and there are many others on this campus doing important work in this area – exemplify the Wesleyan spirit of engaging in academic work that reverberates in society. You can find a similar spirit among our campus activists fighting for reproductive freedom, gender equality and civil rights. It is Women’s History Month, and while much has changed here at Wesleyan, we can be grateful that the work of building a more inclusive community continues.

Thinking of our friends in Japan

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The news from Japan has been wrenching, and the human toll of the earthquake and tsunami is heartbreaking. Wesleyan has scores of alumni, faculty and friends in Japan right now, and our hearts go out to them in this terrible time of need.

If alma mater can be helpful in any way, please let us know.

If readers of this blog would like to support organizations responding to this emergency, you can find a list here.

Integrative Education: Working Across the Disciplines

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This morning I published an op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle on the importance of integrating the sciences with the rest of the liberal arts. This particularly vital as we think about education as an investment in the future. This week I heard the great science studies scholar Bruno Latour talk at the Center for the Humanities about “modes of knowing” and “modes of existence”. Latour acknowledged more than once the work of Wes philosopher Joe Rouse, who has led our Science and Society Program with energy and distinction. I’ve been meeting recently with science faculty and with our wide range of scholars interested in science studies, and I am so impressed with the variety of ways in which Wesleyan connects these disciplines through project oriented teaching and research.

Here’s the op-ed:

We recently saw President Obama out on the West Coast emphasizing the importance of an education in the sciences and engineering to help America “win the future.” He visited Intel, met with executives from Apple and Facebook, and talked with high school teachers and students about going on to college so that they would have access to good jobs later in life. In a period when some of our representatives seem to think that governing means taking resources away from the neediest while giving breaks to the most advantaged, it was great to see the president making a case for investing in the future through education. I was almost delighted.

But why does Obama only talk about science and engineering as the ticket to a brighter future? Although the president has appointed people with strong liberal arts credentials to do everything from restructuring the automobile industry to figuring out how to develop sustainable health care systems, he has recently talked as if the only education that matters is a specialized focus on science and engineering. As Stanley Fish recently remarked in his New York Times blog: “It looks like the only way humanist educators and their students are going to get to the top is by hanging on to the coattails of their scientist and engineering friends as they go racing by.”

While West Coast techies were wowing the president, the Cambridge-based American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the appointment of a panel to remind representatives in Washington of the importance of the social sciences and the humanities. “The humanities and social sciences provide the intellectual framework for the nation’s economic, political and governing institutions,” said the panel’s co-chair, Richard H. Brodhead, the president of Duke University. “They enrich our lives and our understanding. Americans already appreciate the importance of math and science to our future; this Commission will remind Americans of the long-term importance of the liberal arts as well.” Commission Co-chair John W. Rowe, the CEO of Exelon, added: “Knowledge of history, an understanding of civic institutions, the ability to use evidence and to think creatively, an aptitude for cross-cultural communication — these are all vital attributes of a 21st century citizen.” The panel is very impressive, and its task is an important one. I was almost delighted.

Why “almost delighted?” I would hope that our leaders in government, industry and academia would realize that they don’t have to make a choice between the sciences and the rest of the liberal arts. Indeed, the sciences are a vital part of the liberal arts. The key to our success in the future will be an integrative education that doesn’t isolate the sciences from other parts of the curriculum, and that doesn’t shield the so-called creative and interpretive fields from a vigorous understanding of the problems being addressed by scientists. For example, at liberal arts schools across the country there has been an increase in interest in the sciences from students who are also interested in history, political science, literature and the arts. Here at Wesleyan, neuroscience and behavior is our fastest growing major, and programs linking the sciences, arts and humanities have been areas of intense creative work. Last week we hosted a conference in the young field of Animal Studies, and throughout the semester one can find productive collaborations between social scientists, artists and biologists, dancers and physicists, and filmmakers and biochemists. These teams form not because the members are trying to be fashionably interdisciplinary. They come together to address specific problems or in pursuit of particular opportunities.

I would hope that President Obama’s advisers would realize that innovation in technology companies, automobile design, medicine or food production will not come only from isolated work in technical disciplines. I would also hope that the American Academy’s commission on the social sciences and the humanities would recognize that some of the most interesting work in these fields now involves the active participation of scientists. A pragmatic, broadly based education that encourages bold inquiry and regular self-reflection recognizes the increasingly porous borders among disciplines and departments.

I will be delighted when the vitality of problems-oriented, multidisciplinary research and teaching that is reinvigorating liberal arts schools grabs the attention of those promoting education as an investment in our society. When that happens, we can all have more confidence in the future of our schools and the country they serve.

Education and Women’s Health Care as Investments in the Future

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This past weekend Wesleyan was visited by two of our leaders in Washington, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Senator Richard Blumenthal. Our representative in the House stopped by briefly to talk with our Trustees about threats to the financing of education, and Connecticut’s new senator was a featured speaker at a rally on campus in support of Planned Parenthood. Although their topics seemed very different, by the end of the weekend I began to think they were in fact closely intertwined.

Rep DeLauro has long been a friend of the university, and Wesleyan awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2007. She serves in the Democratic leadership as co-chair of the Steering and Policy Committee, and she is the ranking member on the Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, where she oversees our country’s investments in education, health, and employment. She stopped here on her way to a series of events at which she discussed the effects on Connecticut citizens of the budget cuts proposed by the House.

She reminded us that these cuts would reduce the maximum Pell Grants, monies that go to the neediest students. Wesleyan would lose more than $1 million of Federal support for our students least able to afford a college education. Our Upward Bound and AmeriCorps funding for low-income and first-generation students would also be dramatically cut. Rep. DeLauro, like me a first generation college graduate, emphasized that these reductions in support would further compromise the ability of our educational system to be a vehicle for cultural and economic mobility. Without financial aid, elite schools just reproduce a static status quo. Education is an investment in the future, and undermining this investment is a counterproductive way to reduce government spending.

Senator Blumenthal is a newcomer to Washington, but he is already becoming an important figure in the defense of health care for women and families. He and the other speakers at the Planned Parenthood rally spoke eloquently about the importance of reproductive rights. Student organizers of the rally – including  Susanna Banks ‘12, Zak Kirkwood ‘12, Alex Ketchum ’12, Elijah Meadow ‘13 and Hannah Adams ’13 – did a great job of bringing together hundreds of men and women to demand access to quality information and health care with regards to  sexuality, birth control and parenthood. One in five women in the country use Planned Parenthood’s services at some point in their lives. Cancer screenings, STI testing, accurate information…these are just some of the essential services offered by Planned Parenthood. Sen. Blumenthal pledged to fight in its defense with “every fiber of his being,” and he praised students for “showing America what it means to stand up for American values in the 21st century.”

How are the cuts to education and to women’s health care related? Some would say by an urge to reduce the budget deficit that threatens our economic future. But even if you think that deficit reduction is a priority, these cuts are cultural and political choices, not just economic necessities. And these particular choices would reduce the social and economic mobility of vulnerable members of our society. The attack on education for low-income families and on low-cost health care for women would limit the abilities of these people to direct their lives – to change their lives, if they so desire.

That’s why as a university president I think it important to speak out on these cuts. I usually try to avoid overtly partisan public stands, but this assault on financial aid and health care for women is an assault on what we are trying to provide our students year in and year out: the possibility of transformation through education. There is still time to reach out to our friends, neighbors and elected officials in Washington to let them know what we stand for. Don’t let Congress undermine our future by limiting our capacities for learning and health.

Hot Winter Sports

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I was delighted to learn this weekend that Wesleyan’s men’s hockey team defeated Hamilton for our first ever NESCAC tournament win! This is another step forward for Coach Potter and the guys, who had already accomplished much this season. They defeated Middlebury and Bowdoin on our rivals’ home ice — something Cardinal teams had never accomplished before. In our final regular season match, Wes scored 14 goals in a win over the University of New England. Let’s keep that momentum going!

There have been a bunch of standout performances this season, from Shasha Brown’s scoring heroics in men’s basketball to Cara Colker-Eybel’s record-breaking races in women’s swimming. Hats off also to our wrestling team, which won 16 of its 17 final matches and placed third this past weekend in the New England Championships! Coach Drew Black at last count has 131 career victories at Wesleyan in 13 seasons at the helm.  This eclipses the school record for career coaching victories in wrestling, held by John Biddiscombe, the college’s athletics director, who had 127 wins over 15 seasons. Drew, like all our coaches, is a thoughtful mentor and caring university citizen. We are proud of and grateful for his accomplishments!

Our hockey team is off to Williams on Saturday for the NESCAC semifinals. GO WES!!

Our Joshua Boger ’73: Philosopher, Chemist, Entrepreneur

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Yesterday I received an email from a friend who has a relative who suffers from cystic fibrosis, “an inherited disease that causes thick, sticky mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive tract. It is one of the most common chronic lung diseases in children and young adults, and may result in early death.” She was writing because she had just heard about the amazing results that Vertex Pharmaceuticals had achieved with a drug it had created to eliminate almost all symptoms of a form of this dreaded disease. The jury is still out, but the results so far are inspiring. My friend had read that Vertex was founded by Joshua Boger. “Is that our Joshua Boger?” she asked.

It is our Joshua Boger ’73, P’06,’09, Chair of Wesleyan’s Board of Trustees. He reported the following to me:

We basically transformed most of these patients into biochemical normals; using biochemistry you could not tell they had a major metabolic defect, because we fixed it with one tiny pill twice a day.  Average lung function went, in 30 days or so, from barely being able to climb stairs to being in normal activity indistinguishable from the usual American coach potato.  We added on average a pint to every one of their breaths.  Some patents ran across a room for the first time in ten years.  Hospitalizable lung issues dropped 50%.  Patients, who have a hard time keeping up normal weight because the defect affects food absorption, gained an average of 7 pounds over six months.  All the effects are sustained through the entire study.  Side effects leading to stopping participation in the trial were something like 5x higher in the placebo group than the drug group.  It is without qualification the most spectacular clinical result I have ever seen.   Transformative.  First oral drug for any genetic disease that addresses the genetically defective protein directly.  A major paradigm shift in drug discovery.

And only took 13 years from start till here!  We should have this on the market by the first of next year.  Good stuff.

Joshua was a philosophy and chemistry major at Wesleyan, and he founded his biotech company to “transform the way serious diseases are treated” (the company’s other major drug in production is for Hepatitis C). He’s told me more than once that he has a “high tolerance for ambiguity,” and I can see how he thinks of the long run. These drugs take a decade or more to develop. They also have the potential to make a lasting difference in the lives of thousands of people.

I was so proud to respond to my friend that yes, that’s Wesleyan’s Joshua Boger. He is on campus today for our Board of Trustee meetings (he also chairs the board of the Harvard Medical School). If you see him wandering around campus this weekend, please say “congratulations and thank you!”

Housing Policy and Threats to Student Freedom

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At the beginning of this month, we announced a revision to Wesleyan’s housing policy to clarify off-campus options for undergraduates. Our goal was to remove a dangerous ambiguity that has existed for more than five years: the Beta Fraternity seems to be a Wesleyan organization, but the university has no oversight over the house. We wanted to accomplish two things with this change: 1. to encourage Beta to join the other fraternities and societies in working together with the school; 2. to prevent similar situations from arising in the future with private homes adjacent to campus. Since this was not only about Beta, we used broad language, and we also wanted to announce this change before the housing process got underway so that students could plan accordingly.

I made two mistakes in this. First, the language (as many students have pointed out) is just too broad. Many students appear to see this as a threat to their freedom, and I want to be sensitive to that. The university has no interest in regulating the social lives of our students when they are away from campus, and the language we used suggests otherwise. We will change the language. My second mistake was not consulting enough with students. I did meet with some of the Beta undergrad leaders (and we have been talking about this with their alumni representatives for four years!), and I was hopeful they would join Psi U, DKE and ADP. Alas, they decided otherwise.

I told the WSA leadership yesterday that I would ask Dean Mike’s team to meet with the relevant committees to craft language that conveys that residential Greek societies adjacent to campus must be recognized by the university in order to remain open to Wesleyan students. This is the only way we can continue to have a safe system that includes our historic residential fraternities. That’s all we want to achieve with this revision.

I want to be as clear as possible: if the Beta Fraternity does not join with the other Greek fraternities and societies, it will be off-limits to undergraduates next semester. Students who violate this rule will face significant disciplinary action, including suspension. This is not an attempt to regulate the expressive activities of our students. It is an attempt to minimize unsafe conditions adjacent to campus.

I want to thank the vocal Wesleyan undergraduates for reminding their president to be more careful in his use of language, and to be more attentive to student culture. Of course, I should have known this already, but hey, I try to keep learning.

At Friday night’s trustee dinner we will be celebrating recent campus activism, such as efforts to combat sexual violence on campus, to confront housing and poverty issues in Middletown, to promote flood relief in Pakistan, and to create educational opportunities and free health care in Kenya. I know that there is a protest planned Friday about the fraternity housing policy, and there are other opportunities for making student voices heard. The state of Connecticut and the federal government both have proposed dramatic cuts to financial aid. Hundreds of current Wesleyan students depend on the programs that are threatened. This seems to me a dramatic threat to student freedom, and we are joining with other colleges to make our voices heard in Hartford. Planned Parenthood supporters plan to hold a rally here on campus Saturday afternoon to combat recent attacks on reproductive rights, another important threat to our freedom. Of course, students don’t take activism instructions from the president, and they may still want to protest for the right to have Beta remain outside the fraternity program at Wesleyan. That’s up to them.

Near the end of my first year as president of Wesleyan, I wrote a blog post about the role of fraternities and societies at Wesleyan: I have found them to be energetic, vital student organizations capable of making contributions to the campus as a whole. I know many Beta brothers; I cheer for them at games, and I enjoy having them in my classes. I hope their fraternity decides to join with the other residential student organizations. That’s up to them.

Black History Month

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We’ve just passed the mid-way point in February, which means that there have already been a number of interesting events celebrating Black History Month. Students and faculty have been planning lectures, concerts, and social events that commemorate important events in the history of African Americans and other groups in the African Diaspora.  This Sunday at 5 pm at Crowell Concert Hall is Jubilee, an annual event that celebrates the talents of students, faculty and community members. Wesleyan’s Center for African American Studies has a long, distinguished history of scholarship and activism, and you can find out more about events in Black History Month by visiting the Malcolm X House at 343 High Street.

I had lunch today with Ann duCille, Professor of English, who for more than two decades has been teaching students about literature, race, history, gender and theory. We talked about the changing landscape for Black Studies, and about the potential for doing some exciting things at Wesleyan in this field, in creative writing, and in our diversity efforts across campus. Ann’s interests range from Barbies to black feminist theory, and she has deep roots in the arts and academia. Ann has decided to retire at the end of this year, and she will be sorely missed by students and faculty alike. Only after I left the lunch did I realize that it was Ann’s birthday! To make up for this gross oversight, I’ll extend these birthday wishes publicly!!