Athletics

Coming Home

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As I walked across campus on Friday I marveled at the beautiful, crisp fall day. The Wesleyan campus looked spectacular, and there was excitement in the air as we prepared for visits from families and alumni for Homecoming/Family weekend. Students were busy finishing midterms or getting essays written, athletes were gearing up for Little Three rival Amherst, and faculty and staff were, I think, feeling pretty lucky to be working in this charmed environment.

I had plenty of opportunities to talk with parents, grandparents and siblings throughout the weekend. One of the dominant themes in their comments to me: how happy and welcoming these Wes students seem to be! We joked about how often it is that smart young people show their braininess by also showing their discontent. At Wesleyan by contrast, students are smart, hard working, often very angry about the status quo (including the administration right here), but they display exuberance in their studies, in their sports and cultural activities, and in the way they build their constellation of friends.

The athletic contests were great fun to watch, as our competitors fought hard against a tough opponent. Our scholar-athletes improve with each practice, with each contest, and I am proud to see them strive for excellence in these competitions. And I was far from alone in my pride. At each game there were crowds of family and friends showing school spirit as we cheered on the Red and Black.

Wesleyan Women's Soccer v. Amherst, Oct. 18, 2008 ; photo by Bill Burkhart
Wesleyan Women’s Soccer v. Amherst, Oct. 18, 2008 ; photo by Bill Burkhart

There were many great events over the weekend, from seminars on the current economy, on global warming, and on various aspects of our curriculum. I only wish I could have attended more of the stimulating discussions. I heard from many that the conversations on the current economic crisis and on the presidential campaign were enlightening, and that talks about robots, about anthropology and going home, and about the forces that shape contemporary film left our alumni and parents eager to return to a liberal learning environment.

Another highlight of the weekend was the a cappella concert in the Chapel Saturday night. Several student groups sang a variety of traditional and contemporary songs with talent, precision, and lots of humor. How very Wesleyan that a student group would make up its own rendition of “Tempted by the Fruit of Another.” For this Family Weekend occasion the song was rewritten as “Tempted by the Fruit of Your Mother”! The concert helped raise money for the after-school programs at Wesleyan’s Green Street Art Center in the North End of Middletown.

Wesleyan Spirits, Oct. 18, 2008; photo by Bill Burkhart
Wesleyan Spirits perform in Memorial Chapel, Oct. 18, 2008; photo by Bill Burkhart

The sweetness of the welcome given to our families and alumni is another sign of our generous, open community. An alumnus returning to Middletown after decades of working in Abu Dhabi told me how moving it was to find he still had a home here, and that alma mater continues to be a beacon for liberal arts education. He is proud, and so am I!

[tags] Homecoming/Family Weekend, Little Three rival, Amherst, scholar-athletes, seminars, liberal learning, conversations, economic crisis, a cappella, Green Street Arts Center, liberal arts education [/tags]

Midnight Sun and Scholarship Support

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We just returned this weekend from a week visiting Kari’s family in Norway. Here’s a glimpse of what we saw as dusk settled in around midnight. It grew lighter by 1 AM.

It feels good to be back home on campus. The fields at Long Lane are busy with football and lacrosse practices from the high school camps here in the summer. Volleyball players have taken over Freeman. Over the next few months, the painters, carpenters and other physical plant employees will be working hard to get the various buildings ready for the return of the students. Classes in the Graduate Liberal Arts Program begin Monday, and soon I’ll be meeting with our Admissions officers to talk about recruiting the class of 2013. A few weeks ago I wrote about Summer Rhythms. The pace is already picking up!

When we were in Oslo, Kari and I met with a Wesleyan alumna who has settled there. We talked about how the education system in Norway emphasizes skill building early on, and how different that is from a liberal arts approach. In meeting college age relatives, I was struck by how they felt they had to specialize in a course of professional study by the age of 19. When I described Wesleyan to them, they were struck by the freedom that our students have to mold their own educational experience. “Is it only for the very rich?” they asked. When I described our financial aid program, and the work we’re doing to enhance it, they were very surprised. With strong governmental support, there is not the same tradition of philanthropy for culture and education in most of Europe as there is in the US. Of course, I know that there is plenty we still need to do to improve access to Wesleyan.

Even though our Oslo alum is decades out of Wes and thousands of miles away, she recently made a gift to support our scholarship programs through the Wesleyan Fund. She knows the value of financial aid to the students who receive grants, and to all the other students who benefit from a more diverse community. With the economic turmoil of this past year, it has been a challenging time to raise money. I have been reluctant to do any fundraising through this blog, but as this is the last week of our fiscal year, I will ask you to make a gift to our annual fund if you have not already done so. I know how tiresome it is to be asked for support again and again, and I have been so impressed with the generosity of the Wesleyan community. But nonetheless I now ask for your support because I believe that scholarships are a key component of our educational mission – and we need your help. Please give to financial aid through the Wesleyan Fund. Participation counts, as does every dollar we receive. Here’s the link to make a donation:
http://give.wesleyan.edu

Thanks in advance for any additional help you can provide.

[tags] Norway, financial aid, Wesleyan Fund, fundraising, alumni [/tags]

Happy Frenzy

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As we move into the final days of the semester, the level of activities on campus steps up to an even higher level of intensity. On Friday night after a great introduction to Skull and Serpent, I visited with the Wesleyan Christian Fellowship, which was holding an evening celebration to honor its seniors. WCF has grown over the years, and it is engaged in a variety of civic and spiritual activities. The seniors have clearly made the most of their Wesleyan years, and they have contributed mightily to our campus culture.

On Friday night I also had the chance to hear the thesis project of Zach Fried, whose rock band played at Eclectic. This was my first Eclectic visit this term, and it was amazing. The music was raucous and alive, and the crowd was really into it. I think Zach’s band is opening for Spring Fling. A parent came up to me to say, “That’s my boy playing guitar in his underwear. The one with the tattoo!” While the band was cooking at Eclectic, there were other fine musicians doing their thing all over campus. Here’s how Wesleyan parent Myra Berkowitz described it:

I was lucky enough to visit my daughter this weekend and attended the final concert of the Wesleyan Concert Choir and Wesleyan Orchestra on Friday night. What a special musical event–and congratulations to all the families and students who participated! The concert featured the three winners of the annual concerto competition at Wesleyan, who soloed in the first movements of three different pieces. These students performed beautifully, with great musicality, personality, feeling, and skill, backed by a wonderful orchestral sound. It was a delightful evening.

Even more astonishingly, I witnessed myriads of students busily attending and participating in many performances of all kinds–theater, dance, klezmer, a capella, you name it, this all in the context of the busy year-end schedule of papers, exams, presentations, etc. I’m so impressed by many students’ ability to balance their own academic work, preparation for performing, and attendance/support of their friends’ events. It seems like a happy frenzy (versus the frantic feeling I know I experienced at those times in my past). One common theme might be…lack of sleep.

While everyone can’t do everything all the time, it’s certainly great to see the rich variety that Wes students have available, even at this crunch-time of the semester.

While all this art activity was going on, the Wesleyan Women’s Softball team was making a great run to the NESCAC finals (winning three games on Saturday!), and track meets, baseball and lacrosse games, and regattas saw Wes athletes competing with all their hearts. After watching dance classes yesterday afternoon and hearing the beat of drums from the World Music Hall at night, I was reminded again of how exciting and diverse this place truly is. Happy frenzy indeed!

[tags] Skull and Serpent, Wesleyan Christian Fellowship, Eclectic, Wesleyan Concert Choir, Wesleyan Orchestra, softball team, NESCAC finals[/tags]

Enthusiasm and Excellence

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I am writing this entry from New York City, where the Wesleyan Alumni Association held a great event last night. There were about 500 people gathered in Gotham Hall to see old friends, make new connections, and to hear about alma mater. It was thrilling for me to see some of my buddies from the mid 1970s, and I met grads from the 1950s through last year. There were also many parents of current Wesleyan students in attendance, and they reported on the experience of their family members. There were teachers and physicians, managers from community organizations and from Wall Street, writers and interactive designers. In my remarks, I spoke about the creative, practical value of the liberal arts today (yes, that again!), but one could see that value oneself just by looking around the room and discovering the kaleidoscope of careers that become possible in life after Wesleyan. Of course, I also emphasized how the health of our university depends on active, loyal alumni. It is especially through alumni support of financial aid that we are able to keep Wesleyan a vibrant, open place where one can pursue one’s passion and aim at excellence. The enthusiasm of last night bodes well for the future!

Speaking of enthusiasm and excellence, I hope we can show spirited support this weekend as the Wesleyan softball team hosts (for the first time ever!) the NESCAC championships. The Wes women have had a great season, and they deserve our cheers. Their first game is on Friday, May 2, at 2:30 pm, and the tournament continues through the weekend.

Meanwhile, the mighty men’s lacrosse team is off to Middlebury for the NESCAC championships this weekend. Coach Raba’s men have fought hard all season, and we wish them well as they carry the Red and Black against some very tough competition. Their first game is on Saturday at 3 pm, and you can watch it on the Web. Check out the links, and the schedule for other athletic events, as our teams continue to compete as we move into the final weekend of classes: http://www.wesleyan.edu/athletics/

[tags] alumni reception, New York, financial aid, softball, NESCAC, men’s lacrosse [/tags]

Multi-Sensory Wes Weekend

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At the end of the week I was privileged to hear an established scholar and an undergraduate full of enormous promise. The distinguished sociologist Richard Madsen was on campus to help the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies celebrate its 33rd anniversary. He gave an interesting lecture on contemporary religious movements in China, with special consideration given to their connection to economic growth and social mobility. The Freeman Center was packed with students and faculty. The next day I went to Hartford to hear Wesleyan senior Noah Hutton talk about a contemporary art exhibition he and some other students of John Paoletti’s had curated at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Noah gave a lucid and thoughtful description of some very challenging works. We’d met before because he is also a gifted jazz musician who plays at different Wes events.

Busted RosesThis has been an exceptionally busy weekend on the Wesleyan campus. Friday night started off with a graduate students’ retreat, at which I just stopped by to escort one of the main speakers, Joshua Boger ’73 (a Wesleyan trustee, scientist and CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals). Later that night Kari and I went to hear the Wesleyan-based geezer rock band, BUSTED ROSES, which was playing down at La Boca on Main Street. Dean Louise Brown was in great voice, and the rest of the band was cookin’!!

After a week sitting behind desks, I decided to spend as much of Saturday as possible out of doors. This meant that I would miss Social Justice Day, which the WSA had organized for Saturday. The program looked strong, and I hope those who chose to attend found it worthwhile. Out on the fields there were plenty of athletic contests at which one could cheer on the red and black. The men’s baseball team split an exciting double-header against Amherst. After watching Wes mount a great comeback rally in game one, I saw the mighty men’s lacrosse team have a wild second half against a tough Bowdoin squad. It became a rout. Sophie and I headed up to watch the Cardinal women overwhelm the softball team from Hamilton. It was cold out there on Long Lane, but watching softball made me feel that spring must be on the way.

While I was enjoying the sunshine and cheering on the home teams, a group of scholars were gathered together to consider multi-sensory art experiences and their history. Smith College and Wesleyan organized this art history conference with some leading scholars from around the country. I was lucky enough at the end of the day to hear Professor Katherine Kuenzli discuss her exhibition on Wagner and the visual arts, currently on display at the Davison Art Center. It’s a fine example of how our print collection can support and enhance innovative scholarship.

Last night Kari and I had a delightful dinner with some colleagues and Hayden White, who had been a teacher of mine some thirty years ago here at Wesleyan. Hayden is the most important philosopher of history in the United States, and one of the most original thinkers in the humanities that I have ever encountered. I was so pleased to be able to tell my former teacher that the university he remembered as a hotbed of new ideas and deep community was still inspiring great work in a context that is challenging yet deeply humane.

This week I have office hours Monday at 4 p.m. Students who don’t want to wait should call extension 3500 to sign up for a time.

[tags]sociology, art, baseball, lacrosse, softball, Ricard Wagner, Hayden White, philosophy[/tags]

Spring Break

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Foss sunsetSpring Break at Wesleyan is unusually long – a two week vacation from classes. The campus is eerily quiet at night, and looking across Andrus Field from my office the snow is gone and the baseball field fences have gone up. It really is a break into spring!

Although the campus is quiet, it is certainly not empty. There are many international students who stay in town. Two weeks may seem long, but it is too short for students to justify a trip across the globe. I also bump into the seniors making their way to science labs or to the Olin Library to continue work on their theses. The subjects range from ideas of the French intellectual to politics and religion in Ireland; from problems in micro-economics to issues in Asian art history. Our students complete these independent research projects with close faculty supervision, but it is often the professors who learn so much from the collaboration with these young scholars, scientists and artists. Most of the work is due in about a month, so it’s getting to be crunch time.

Of course, many of our seniors are interviewing for jobs or waiting to hear from graduate schools. There are two very happy Wesleyan students who recently heard from The Thomas J Watson Foundation that their international research projects will be funded during the next year. Cedric Bien will be doing a project entitled, “Documenting the Chinese Diaspora: A Photographic Ethnography of Chinatowns” in Peru, Paraguay, Brazil, Italy, Ethiopia, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia. Rebecca Littman will be investigating the plight of child soldiers in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and Guinea in her project, “Victim and Perpetrator: Reintegrating the Former Child Soldier.” Congratulations to Cedric and Rebecca!

Some of our Masters of Liberal Studies students are spending their spring break on a research trip through some of the important sites of the civil rights movement in Alabama. I have heard already that this was a deeply moving and richly educational experience that complements the work done in the classroom.

Some of our undergraduates have made their way to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Iraq on the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict. American college campuses today often seem to feel immune from the fact that our country is fighting a war in the Middle East. Although we don’t always agree on political tactics or foreign policy frameworks, I am grateful to these Wesleyan activists for reminding all of us that a military conflict is being waged in our name.

[tags]activism, spring break, thesis, war protest, Watson Foundation[/tags]

Full Swing

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Although we are not quite through the first week of classes, it feels as though the Wesleyan campus is already in full swing. Over the weekend my daughter Sophie and I watched men’s basketball, women’s hockey, a large track meet and some swimming competitions. I heard the parties from a distance in the early morning hours, and I know somewhere CSSers are already writing papers. I haven’t even had my first class meeting (that’s tomorrow), and it seems like everybody is racing along with the winter break a fading memory.

On Thursday, January 31 many here will participate in Focus the Nation, a massive teach-in to draw attention to the various effects of global climate change. Many faculty will add modules to their classes concerning environmental issues, and there are several formal and informal discussions planned around campus. We want to promote the consciousness of the possibility of positive environmental change, something I think Wesleyan students will be particularly interested in. Check out a list of events at: http://www.wesleyan.edu/wsa/eon/ftn/

As I think about ‘possibilities of change,’ I can’t help but consider the upcoming primaries. This is the first time in many years that votes across the country will mean something in the presidential primaries. Young voters have played an important role in some states already, and this is a great time to get involved. Why not help stimulate voter turnout for the candidate of your choice? This is a powerful tool of local participation in a national process.

One of the great delights of the Wesleyan campus is the vibrant art scene produced by faculty, students and invited guests. On February 1 we are lucky to be hosting one of the great American string groups, the Turtle Island String Quartet. This week they are playing with Stefon Harris and focusing on the music of Duke Ellington. What a wonderful way to kick off a great series of concerts and recitals at the Center for the Arts!

I’m looking forward to meeting my students tomorrow morning to talk about film, philosophy and history. It will be a treat to step out of my administrative role for a few hours and return to the issues I’ve been teaching and writing about for many years. I’ll be having office hours for the class, but I’ve also decided to have open office hours for students. You can stop by February 4 between 4:00 pm and 5:30 pm, and I’ll be scheduling this every other week afterwards. I’ll make a more formal announcement on this soon.

[tags] Athletics, CSS, Focus the Nation, environmental change, presidential election, Turtle Island String Quartet, Stefon Harris, Center for the Arts, office hours [/tags]

Continuing Education: Semester #1

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My first semester is coming to an end, and as I watch the students make their way across the icy, exquisite terrain of Andrus Field, I find myself reflecting on how these first months of my presidency have developed. I have been listening to students and faculty, to staff and alumni, to trustees and parents, as they try to introduce me to the most pressing issues facing the university today. My second Wesleyan education, like my first, has started with a dramatic encounter with my own ignorance. What do I know about food prices in Usdan or the lines? What about access to courses that are popular but intimate? How can we have more students taking the seminar without spoiling it? How should we balance our immediate budget needs with the long-term health of the school that growing the endowment provides? How can we continue to promote advanced research in all departments while insisting on effective, creative teaching? These are just a few of the many questions I have yet to answer. … Of course, I am still trying to figure out how best to make this blog informative and honest.

By now, people who have read this blog or have heard me speak know that I am given to “thinking in threes.” So, as I think of my chief lessons from semester one, I focus on three main areas:

Access: Wesleyan announced a significant enhancement to our financial aid packages to begin in the fall. We want to ensure that students who are admitted will have the financial assistance they need to thrive here. Many families tell us, though, that we are not doing enough, and they can point to wealthier institutions that are doing more for families in higher income brackets than those to whom Wesleyan offers aid. These families are not poor enough to qualify for the highest support, nor are they rich enough to send students to expensive schools like ours without significant financial sacrifice. I am very aware of this dilemma, and for that reason I have put fundraising for financial aid among our highest priorities. As we increase the size of our endowment for financial aid, we will be able to further ease the financial burden on larger segments of the student body.

Access to Wesleyan isn’t only about financial aid. It is also important that we reach out to new constituencies of students—both in the U.S. and internationally—to introduce the liberal arts and Wesleyan to families from groups currently under-represented on our campus. Diversity is a shared value at our school, but segregation is also a fact of daily life for many on our campus. We must reach out to more groups of potential students, and we must also reach into the various communities at Wesleyan to find ways to connect people across the most obvious identity group barriers.

Communities: I have spent a fair amount of time moving among the various communities that make up the Wesleyan world—from swim meets to COL lectures; from Para la Familia to football games. I know there are plenty of groups I haven’t yet met, and I am looking forward to getting to know students by teaching next term. The multiplicity of groups is exciting, but it also creates challenges for bringing people together in shared purpose, study, even celebration. There are conflicts among our diverse groups over politics, economics, food, personal choices. But we should remember also what we have in common: a devotion to the freedom (and affection) in which education can thrive.

Achievement: I hope to improve access to Wesleyan as I work to strengthen our various communities and their common ties. Why? Because I believe that a Wesleyan education can foster one’s capacity to discover what one loves to do and to get better at it. I’ve seen this throughout my first semester here, as I watch students push themselves to achieve more than they ever thought possible. It is tremendously exciting to see our students shine as performers and scholars, as artists and athletes. Wesleyan students demand a great deal from their education because they give so much to it. I am so grateful to be working among you because it allows me to continue my own education.

Thank you for your patience and your support. Good luck with the remaining papers and exams, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

[tags] Financial aid, diversity, community, achievement [/tags]

Old Haunts, New Challenges

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I am writing this blog entry from San Francisco, where I went for a quick trip to participate in the centenary celebrations of California College of the Arts, where I was president from 2000 to 2007. CCA had organized an alumni reunion for the weekend, and it was a treat for me to catch up with faculty, my colleagues in the administration, board members, and my old students. The school seems to be thriving, and I was especially pleased to see the new Graduate Center, which was recently completed in the South of Market section of San Francisco. This was a project that we had planned over the last few years, and it was exciting to stand in the new buildings that look over what is now an SF campus that also offers a perspective on downtown San Francisco. CCA emphasizes learning through the arts, and I know that some of our Wesleyan alumni have gone onto its graduate programs in design, architecture and fine arts. Larry Sultan, who has taught photography there for years, told me that his studio assistant is coming to Wes to teach in the spring.

Before heading out to California I visited with alumni in New York to talk about, among other things, our plans to enhance financial aid. This is a project that the Wesleyan family can support no matter when they graduated, no matter what their particular majors. We want our school to maintain rigorous admission standards, and these are only meaningful to us if we are sure that access to the university is open to people regardless of their ability to pay. Fellow blogger (and Sun CEO) Jonathan Schwartz encouraged me to ensure that our students have the support they need to succeed. He reminded me that he had no resources when at Wesleyan, and that if not for a scholarship he would never have graduated. Alumni support equitable access, and their financial contributions actually make it possible. Tuition only covers about 2/3 of the cost of a student’s education, and so we are dependent on the generosity of our alumni, parents and other supporters to subsidize the college careers of all our students. This generosity is especially important to ensure that our financial aid packages allow students with high economic need to thrive once they enroll (and not to graduate with too much debt!). Later this semester I hope to be writing more about new initiatives at Wesleyan in this regard.

While I was away (and many of our students are away on fall break), our student athletes had another great weekend of contests. I was able to watch parts of the football game on the web, and I heard about the other contests from excited fans who emailed me. Congratulations to all, and let’s all of us maintain the momentum in the second half of the semester. GO WES!!

[tags] California College of the Arts, Larry Sultan, alumni, financial aid, Jonathan Schwartz, athletics [/tags]