Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life

The Time to Engage is Now!

August 7, 2024August 6, 2024 by Michael S. Roth '78

It’s about three months from Election Day — the perfect time for students, faculty and staff to work for the candidates and issues of their choice. At Wesleyan, we have have the great good fortune to have added new leadership for our work in this regard. Khalilah L. Brown-Dean. Dr. Brown-Dean will be the Rob Rosenthal Professor of Civic Engagement and the Executive Director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life.

Having started only in the last month of the academic year, Dr. Brown-Dean has already developed some stirring initiatives to encourage our students to become active in this important moment for our democracy. We recently sent a joint message to campuses around the country encouraging them to stimulate civic engagement, and I’m going to turn the next section of this blog entry over to her.

At The Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, our mission is to cultivate a dynamic community committed to the exploration, understanding, and advancement of public life. We embrace civic engagement as a core value, inspiring individuals to become active participants in shaping their communities and the world at large.

As students prepare to return to campus in a few short weeks, we know that many grapple with concerns about the upcoming election, ongoing global conflicts, and what it all means for their future. It raises the question: How do we meaningfully support student engagement in an increasingly polarized environment? I offer a few strategies below that affirm the valuable role institutions of higher education in nurturing this connection.

Develop a Campus Civic Preparedness Plan

Many campuses have a dedicated history of promoting voter registration. Consider, however, whether your campus is prepared to address the complexities of student interest and engagement. Working with partners across your campus such as Academic and Student Affairs, Faculty and Student Leaders, Public Safety, IT and Student Support Services to map a suite of curricular and co-curricular experiences can deepen engagement. For example, do your existing student-facing systems (e.g. learning management, new student checklists, etc.) include voter registration links or address verification letters for those who want to vote locally? How do issue and candidate engagement activities align with experiential learning requirements? What material resources (e.g. micro grants) are available to support student engagement? Your plan may also identify campus-based strategies for addressing conflicts that may arise during the election season. How are faculty empowered to respond to tensions that arise in the classroom? How will student affairs staff address challenges in residential spaces? What types of campus convenings will happen after the election to address resulting frustration, joy, concern, anger, or excitement?

Embrace Local Partnerships

We launched the “Diploma to the Ballot” initiative in partnership with local school districts and state agencies to encourage young people between the ages of 17-25 to register. This non-partisan collaboration helps our students build connections beyond the campus while heightening their sense of civic responsibility. We scaffold this local engagement with national partners to build a more global understanding of citizenship. How might this type of approach help your institution grow its network of employers, community partners, future students, and others? What is the local/state context that shapes the need for collaboration beyond your campus?

Build Inclusively and Intentionally

As we endeavor to increase student involvement in the democratic process, we should also consider the structural barriers to their participation. Those barriers include factors such as citizenship status, socio-economic status, transportation, age, carceral history, and even interest. The growing sense of polarization and a perceived hostility to certain views and experiences may also limit student engagement. Building inclusively and intentionally recognizes those challenges while offering opportunities that align with your institution’s values and priorities. It’s also useful to consider how these challenges students encounter mirror those faced by faculty and staff. Building inclusively and intentionally allows us to maximize the benefits of our commitments while embracing the lived experiences of our university community.

Broader debates over public trust in and support for higher education make it even more imperative that we embrace opportunities for collaboration rooted in our shared interests. As a political scientist and self-professed political nerd, I am excited about the possibilities for colleges and universities to be a beacon for informed, responsible, and sustained engagement.

This is a time in American democracy when the involvement of young people can prove decisive. As an educational institution, we believe that such involvement is good for the individual student, good for schools, and good for the country as a whole. We can equip them to participate, have them engage with the issues and the candidates, and help elevate that engagement to be as thoughtful and caring as possible. The time is now.

We’d love to hear your civic engagement is intersecting with local and national elections. What’s not working, and what is? Please write to us by commenting on the blog or write to: engage@wesleyan.edu.

Launching the Class of 2026

August 29, 2022 by Michael S. Roth '78

Such an exciting week at Wesleyan as we welcome members of the Class of 2026 and help them launch their college journeys. Meeting new people from around the world, discovering new perspectives, and hearing about experiences so different from their own—this is just the beginning. Every year I hear from students who get to know people they never would have expected to meet and others who discover folks who share so many of their interests.

In these first weeks of the semester, people will notice there is a lot of old-fashioned construction on campus. You can’t miss the work on the Public Affairs Center and the new art gallery next to Olin Library, but you might not know that underneath there are new pipes that will dramatically increase our energy efficiency. Up at Long Lane (behind the softball field), you can see the new building for the Neighborhood Preschool, and before long we hope to begin construction on the new Life Sciences Building. Read more about this work in The Connection.

But for most students, new or old, it’s not the buildings that matter most at the beginning of the semester. It’s the opportunity to learn by forming new friendships and indulging their curiosity through the breadth of Wesleyan’s open curriculum. There are so many exciting things to study and people to learn from that I hesitate to highlight any in particular, but here are some that students might not discover immediately on their own as they launch their academic careers:

Students beginning their college careers this fall are doing so at a time of great turbulence in the world. From the brutal invasion of Ukraine to the ongoing climate crisis, from the lingering COVID-19 pandemic to the threats against democracy…. These are very demanding times. Reading the news, I am often filled with despair at the challenges that face us. But when I meet the students beginning their journeys at Wesleyan, I can’t help but feel more hopeful. By learning to work together, we have a chance to defend democracy, promote public health, and create culture peace not culture war. We can reject the polarization that often stymies our political system and embrace discovery in an atmosphere of intellectual diversity and compassionate solidarity. Pragmatic liberal education brings joyful resolve into our lives at Wesleyan and far beyond the campus.

Best wishes for the start of the semester!

Engaged Projects — A Different Way to Learn and Earn Credit

August 13, 2020 by Michael S. Roth '78

As we face an uncertain fall with a mix of online, hybrid and in-person classes, the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life has developed an “education in the field” option that I think will be of great interest to many Wesleyan students. Called “Engaged Projects,” these are individualized and “self-designed endeavors in which a student studies a topic of their choice and completes a final project intended for a non-academic audience.” Some students will choose projects that are closely connected to their central course of study, while others will use this option to explore new areas and interests. “Final projects can take the form of blogs, videos, a website, or other media; a work of art, an event, a workshop, a presentation, or panel; a policy proposal or analysis; a white paper or op-ed series; a business plan; and/or any other piece(s) thoughtfully designed for the public.” These quotes are from the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship’s website, which has detailed information about this option.

Interested students should submit a proposal through Handshake. Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis until August 27. Students whose proposals are approved will be added to the course during drop/add.

Given the nature of this experience, students will not be graded on the quality of their work in the traditional sense. Instead, the emphasis is on their learning process, and whether they are engaging with complex material, challenging their assumptions, experimenting with new ideas, learning new skills, engaging with new audiences, and reflecting on their intersecting positions and roles in the world.

Here’s how the Engaged Project option works:

EP students will develop a self-directed research and project plan. They must enlist an EP Sponsor who will serve in an advisory/mentor role. Sponsors can be Wesleyan faculty, staff, alumni, or community partners; family members or friends; or other experts or professionals willing to play this role. Seeking and enlisting an appropriate Sponsor is a component of the EP learning experience.

When I first heard about this option, I thought it was an excellent way to escape computer screens and to do work for academic credit out in the world. This can take many forms, and the project should be fun for the students and convey what they’ve learned to anyone with an interest in the topic (in other words, you shouldn’t have to be an academic to understand the final presentation). I know there are many faculty members and alumni (among others) who are ready to be sponsors.

Cathy Lechowicz Day!

June 10, 2015April 24, 2015 by Michael S. Roth '78

Cathy Lechowicz, right, displaying her award with William Dyson, chairman of the Connecticut Commission on Community Service, and Jane Ciarleglio, executive director of the commission.

Mayor Dan Drew proclaimed Tuesday, April 28 Cathy Lechowicz Day in Middletown! Many Wesleyan students, staff and faculty make enormous contributions to Middletown, and so it’s wonderful to see one of our colleagues recognized for her profound dedication to the community. Recently, the Connecticut Commission on Community Service and the Office of Higher Education announced the recipients of the 2015 Community Service Awards, and Cathy Lechowicz was singled out for her great work.

In a letter nominating Lechowicz for the honor, Rob Rosenthal, director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, pointed to her work with the Center for Prison Education and the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center.

Under Cathy’s direction, the Center for Prison Education “has flourished,” he wrote.

“The Center now provides a program in the women’s prison at York as well as the men’s prison at Cheshire. In the 2013-14 school year, 54 students were taking classes. Over 20 professors (mainly Wesleyan, but others as well) have taught classes ranging from Molecular Biology to Political Philosophy, and always at the same level as they teach these classes to their undergraduate students. Additionally, over 130 Wesleyan undergraduates have served as teaching assistants, writing tutors, research interns, and workshop facilitators. Finally, the Center has been extremely successful securing funding.”

Rob also wrote of Lechowicz’ achievements at Green Street.

“In three years, Cathy has achieved incredible results: Wesleyan’s financial contribution has been cut almost in half, total visitors have more than doubled, student involvement has more than doubled, and faculty involvement has tripled.”

Commemorating Freedom Summer

June 17, 2015September 11, 2014 by Michael S. Roth '78

This weekend The Center for African American Studies and the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life have put together an extraordinary celebration and commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the “freedom summer” of 1964. That year student activists from across the country headed south to work with African Americans in the struggle for civil rights. Others supported that work by organizing protests or doing important logistical tasks, often outside the spotlight. Alliances across religious affiliation, ethnicity, gender and race were key components of that heady time. There were tensions, to be sure, but there was also compassionate solidarity to “bend the arc of history” toward justice.

Wesleyan students, faculty and staff, along with other Middletown residents, were very much engaged in those efforts. Churches played a crucial role here as they did in the south. And music was everywhere linked to this work. So it’s fitting that our freedom summer celebration begins Friday with a “rolling concert” at 6 p.m. (100 Cross Street) featuring choirs from AME Zion Church, Middletown High School and Wesleyan. Dar Williams ’89 and Kim and Reggie Harris will be featured Friday evening, along with a children’s choir. The symposium gets underway Saturday afternoon.

In 1964 many in the Wesleyan community joined with a movement to work for the principles like the right to vote and equal protection under the law. These principles are under enormous pressure once again. As we celebrate 1964, may we be inspired to take up today’s challenges.

Thanks to Lois Brown, Rob Rosenthal and everyone who helped make this event happen.

Freedom Summer Schedule:

Friday, Sept. 12

Rolling Concert

6 p.m.

Location: Dance Department – 100 Cross Street

Performers: Unity Choir, Cross Street AME Zion Church

6:30 pm

Location: Olin Library Steps

Performers: Middletown High School Choir and Wesleyan Singers

7 p.m.

Location: Memorial Chapel

Performers: Children’s Choir of Cross Street AME Zion Church; Dar Williams ‘89, Kim and

Reggie Harris

Saturday, Sept. 13

Freedom Summer Symposium

Fayerweather Beckham Hall – 45 Wyllys Avenue

1:30 p.m. Panel: “Go South, Young Wes Men”: Freedom Summer 1964 and Wesleyan Student Activism

Panelists: Ron Young ’86, John Suter ’65, Stephen Oleskey ’65

Moderator: Ashraf Rushdy, African American Studies Program and English, Wesleyan

3 p.m. Panel: Unwavering Courage: Civil Rights Activists of Freedom Summer

Panelists: Penny Patch, Muriel Tillinghast and Gwendolyn Simmons

Moderator: Anna Wasescha, President, Middlesex Community College

4:30 p.m. Keynote Lecture by Margaret Burnham, Professor of Law and Founder of Civil Rights And Restorative Justice Institute at Northeastern University

Related Events

Friday, Sept. 12: 3-5

Saturday, Sept. 13: 9-12

Wesleyan Special Collections and Archives: “Civil Rights Activism and Wesleyan” An exhibit featuring historic Civil Rights-era Wesleyan materials, documents, and photographs.

Interdisciplinary Social Science Opportunity

March 26, 2014 by Michael S. Roth '78

The Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life has created a great opportunity for interdisciplinary study next year. Dean Joyce Jacobsen, in collaboration with Professors John Finn (Govt) and Richard Adelstein (Econ), has organized a cluster of courses on Centralization and Decentralization.

Here are some excerpts from the Allbritton website:

Two of the courses in the Cluster are sections of regular Wesleyan courses taught in the Fall semester, Professor Finn’s GOVT 203 and Professor Adelstein’s ECON 254, in each of which ten places will be reserved for Cluster students (section 2 of each course). Cluster students must take at least one of these courses, though they may take both if they are admitted to the other course through regular procedures. The third course, CSPL 320-321, is required of all Cluster students and will be a year-long, team-taught (Adelstein & Finn) research seminar on the themes of the Cluster, with one-half credit awarded each semester. Here, students will explore various approaches to the Cluster theme, hear relevant lectures from invited guests from within and without the academy, and split into small, coordinated groups to embark on sustained collaborative research projects that each focus on some aspect of the problem of centralizing or decentralizing economic and political life. The seminar will culminate in a public presentation of the work and a volume of collaborative essays on specific themes and topics that might be published by a scholarly press.

The organizers hope that students will use the perspectives gained in these two courses not only to look more deeply into how American economic and political life have been organized in the past, but to address urgent questions for the present from around the world. How should the US be governed in the next century? What is the future of the EU? What can be learned from the disappearance of the USSR or the unification of Germany? Should Scotland secede from the UK? How can artificially created, deeply divided countries everywhere be governed or restructured? Nor need all the questions be political. How do big firms differ from small ones, and why do some firms grow large while others stay small? What are the political or moral consequences of economic concentration? How can multinational firms be governed and regulated? What might an antitrust law do to concentrate or disperse power?

Professors Adelstein and Finn are hoping to attract students from all majors who are strongly interested in the Cluster’s theme and prepared to work steadily over the year to learn more about the complex and difficult questions the theme raises and present their learning in a substantial collaborative research project. Applications are welcome from students in all majors for a new program to begin in Fall 2014. They are due April 7. If you have any questions regarding this Collaborative Cluster Program, please contact either John Finn (jfinn@wesleyan.edu) or Richard Adelstein (radelstein@wesleyan.edu).

This is a great new opportunity for interdisciplinary work on a vital topic. More information at the website.

Make Art (and Intelligent Policy) Not Violence

June 22, 2015January 26, 2013 by Michael S. Roth '78

Lucy+Jorge Orta: Food-Water-Life

The new exhibition at the Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan gets pretty elemental. The Ortas are in the tradition of “social sculpture,” creating works of art that are meant to function, and, most importantly are meant to change the way we think about functionality. This exhibition is co-sponsored by the College of the Environment, and its themes include biodiversity and climate change. A cool feature of the exhibit is the short essay about the art written by Wesleyan faculty: Stewart Gillmor, Doug Charles, Dana Royer, Michael Singer, Gillian Goslinga, Barry Chernoff, Clement Loo, Courtney Fullilove and Bill Stowe have written pieces that you can see here.

The opening celebration for the exhibition is on Tuesday, January 29 from 4:30-6:30pm (gallery talk at 5pm). It’s a show that will repay attention and reflection!

Guns and Gun Violence

Attention and reflection must be devoted to current debates about guns and violence in the United States. And that’s exactly what the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life is doing. On Wednesday evening, Feb. 6 at 7.30 p.m., the Allbritton Center will host a panel and public discussion, “Guns and Gun Violence: Crisis, Policy and Politics” in the CFA Hall on the Wesleyan campus. The event will shine a spotlight on the rich scholarship on guns and gun violence, and the need for public debate informed by research from different domains, including the social sciences, public policy and public health.

The panel will be chaired by Leah Wright, Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Wesleyan. Following the panelist presentations, the audience discussion will be moderated by John Dankosky, WNPR News Director and host of “Where We Live.”

The three panelists for this event include:
Saul Cornell (Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History at Fordham University, and a resident of Connecticut) is one of the nation’s leading authorities on American legal history and a specialist on the history of the 2nd Amendment. Prof. Cornell’s books include ‘A Well Regulated Militia’: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control (2006) and Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect? (2000).
Kristin A. Goss (Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University) specializes in public agenda-setting and the politics of gun control. The author of Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America (2006, 2009), she has published several articles about women and gun control and gun ownership and the institutional origins of the gun war.
Matthew Miller (Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health) is a physician with training in health policy and the author of several articles on the effects of firearm legislation on rates of suicide and homicide.

Two events in the CFA that encourage us to think about (and deal with) some of the most pressing problems confronting us today.

Profiles in Academic Innovation

June 23, 2015October 22, 2012 by Michael S. Roth '78

Two of Wesleyan’s many centers of interdisciplinary scholarship have new leaders who are doing exciting things:

Jennifer Tucker is now the interim director of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. Jennifer is a historian with deep interests in the intersection of visual and scientific cultures, paying especial attention to how this intersection is often mediated by questions of gender and sexuality. She has long been a member of the Science in Society Program and also currently chairs Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies (FGSS). You probably have seen her op-ed on the “science” behind Congressman Akin’s notions of pregnancy and rape, and she is eager to see even more Wes faculty (especially women faculty) contribute to the public sphere through essays, op-eds and editorials. I’ve gotten to know Jennifer better because of our mutual interest in the intersections of photography and history. Nature Exposed, her book on Victorian science and photography, is already a key text in the field, and she recently edited an issue of History and Theory devoted to photography, history and philosophy. At the Allbritton Center, Jennifer will be developing the foundations and frameworks for planning future programs that link the campus to the most pressing issues in the public sphere.

Ethan Kleinberg began his stint as director of the Center for the Humanities this summer. Ethan is also a historian, with a joint appointment in the College of Letters. I first encountered his work many years ago when he was doing research for his excellent book, Generation Existential, a study of the impact of Heidegger on 20th century French intellectual history. In addition to his work in history and COL, at Wesleyan Ethan has been one of the creators of the Certificate in Social, Cultural and Critical Theory, and he is the Executive Editor of History and Theory. Ethan intends to build on the great tradition at the Center for dynamic interdisciplinary research and teaching, ensuring that Wesleyan’s humanities programs remain a crucial node in the networks of international scholarship. Students, faculty, and distinguished visitors make the Center for the Humanities a place where knowledge happens — where scholarship gets jump-started. You can learn more about Ethan’s vision for the Center here.

There are many faculty across the campus doing exciting things across the disciplines — from the College of the Environment to the Center for East Asian Studies. These two new leaders will surely add to our distinctive educational experience on campus — and beyond!

Thoughts on Scholarship and Public Life

June 24, 2015February 21, 2011 by Michael S. Roth '78

I was a student here in the seventies, and this included more than a little protest and activism. Even then I knew I was participating in a Wesleyan tradition of engagement, and now, as President, I still take pride in that tradition. In the last few years, we’ve tried to integrate that concern for the good of the world with the curriculum – notably the College of the Environment, the Koeppel Fellow in Journalism, and the Civic Engagement Certificate Program.

A milestone in these efforts occurred in the fall of 2009 when Wesleyan celebrated the opening of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. The plans for the Center grew out of the recognition that Wesleyan students and faculty had for generations been finding ways to connect what they study on campus to their lives as citizens and activists. As the Allbritton website puts it: University-based intellectuals have been rethinking their connection to the greater public and, consequently, are forging knowledge-seeking alliances with innovators and leaders in government and the corporate world. Social scientists are developing innovative and productive relationships with other sectors of the public, including artists, grass-roots activists, and independent scholars. And it’s not just social scientists who are developing these relationships. You can find faculty across the curriculum doing so.

Wesleyan demands a lot of its faculty. We want them to be scholar-teachers, deepening the positive feedback between their research and their efforts in the classroom. We also encourage them to connect their intellectual work with issues that matter to the world off campus — to Public Life with a capital P and a capital L. Recent success stories that come to mind include Erika Franklin Fowler’s Wesleyan Media Project, Elvin Lim‘s work on the presidency, Erica Chenoweth‘s studies of politics and terrorism and Peter Gottschalk‘s discussions of Islamophobia.

But does Wesleyan want ALL the research of the university to be responding to issues of Public Life? How about basic research in the sciences? Does our faculty have to justify this kind of specialization by looping the work back to some political or social issue? Does detailed research in literature and languages have to be public (read “popular”) in order to be considered “Wesleyanish?” In other words, has a connection to “Public Life” become a litmus test for research here?

I’ve been led to ask this question by some recent conversations concerning historians and the public stimulated by Anthony Grafton, a wonderfully gifted scholar (with whom I studied) who is now president of the American Historical Association. Grafton has rightly defended the importance of basic research in the humanities and social sciences, but he has also called on historians to fight back against those who manipulate the past without concern for fundamental notions of evidence, argument or honesty. In other words, he wants to ensure that scholars can continue to work on topics that might not appear to be immediately useful, but he also wants to see some scholars engage in questions in the public sphere on the basis of their academic work. Not all the scholarship has to be about civic engagement, but we need some scholars to engage in the public sphere to protect the right to do that basic research.

In addition to our tradition of engaged scholarship, at Wesleyan we are proud to have faculty and students working on topics generated simply from the intense desire to know more about something that has come to seem important. Grafton puts it this way: We’re modeling honest, first-hand inquiry. That austere, principled quest for knowledge matters: matters more than ever in the current media world, in which lies about the past, like lies about the present, move faster than ever before. The problem is that it’s a quest without a Grail. The best conclusions we can draw, scrutinizing our evidence and our inferences as fiercely and scrupulously as we can, will be provisional. We support a culture of inquiry on our campus, one that is willing to live with the provisional so long as we have the opportunity to work honestly, intensively and with the necessary tools (e.g., equipment, languages, documents).

A connection to the public, then, is not a litmus test for the scholarship we support, but there is such a test. It’s connection to the classroom, the “modeling” of inquiry. We expect all the research supported by the university to have a positive feedback loop with teaching. We are committed to sabbaticals, grants and other support because faculty research enlivens pedagogy and learning on campus. That’s what the scholar-teacher model is all about.

When asked about the most rewarding part of his distinguished, prolific career as a historian, Grafton recently responded “teaching.” I know that many of our colleagues at Wesleyan would echo that notion. The opportunity to connect our research with the education of our students is one of the joys of working on our campus. It’s the heart of the “public life” (small “p”, small “l”) of our university.

Western Swing and Local Excitement

June 25, 2015November 3, 2009 by Michael S. Roth '78

Last week I took advantage of Fall break to make a trip out to the West Coast to visit with alumni and parents. This year I attended a series of receptions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Honolulu with alumni from the 1950s to the 1980s, with special attention devoted to those who will be celebrating their 25th reunions. It was a gratifying trip because the groups I met with were so enthusiastic about what’s happening here on campus. I was pleased to report on the new Shapiro Creative Writing Center, the opening of the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, the recent faculty approval of the College of the Environment, and the additions of 20 new faculty members and of dozens of new classes through our Small Class Initiative. All of this during one of the most challenging economic crises in memory!

Discussing the framework for strategic planning, we talked about what it means to energize the distinctive aspects of the Wesleyan experience. Some of our conversations focused on how technology is changing education. What will libraries look like 15 years from now? How will social networks impact continuing education and alumni engagement? We talked about our teacher-scholar model combining wide ranging educational choices with deep research, and how to support that model with a sustainable economic platform. Of course, the ongoing support of our alumni and parents is a key aspect of that platform. Their thoughtful generosity is inspirational!

During my trip I was encouraged by meetings with high school seniors who were considering applications to Wes. This was the most encouraging part of my long trip. It is clear that many of the most talented students at fine schools are making Wesleyan their #1 choice. Indeed, so many are eager to make their way to Middletown that I have to warn them that the competition to get in is getting increasingly tough. Those who have met faculty, alumni and current students seem undeterred. They’ve heard about Wesleyan, and they want to be part of it!

While I was flying out west, the football team was doing some high flying of their own. Blake DuBois ’12 hooked up to Paulie Lowther ’13 for a last minute score to down Bowdoin in an amazingly exciting game. Meanwhile, Ravenna Neville ’10 was racing to a Little Three Crown and a very strong NESCAC second place finish in the 5k event. After my long trip back to Middletown, I was able to catch some of the second half of our men’s soccer game against Colby. What a team we have! After finishing a historic undefeated season, the Cardinals began the NESCAC tournament with a smashing victory. Come out this weekend to cheer for the soccer team at 11 am at Homecoming on Saturday. GO WES!!

[tags]Shapiro Creative Writing Center, Allbritton Center for Public Life, College of the Environment, Blake DuBois, Paulie Lowther, Ravenna Neville, football, NESCAC[/tags]