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Power Update: Classes Resuming Tomorrow, Power Returning

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Power Update

11/1/11 6:50 PM

Dear friends,

As I wrote to you earlier today, Wesleyan is open and classes will be held on Wednesday. The situation with power and heat on campus remains fluid; there have been some power disruptions, and there will likely be more before everything is back to normal. But with the tolerance and goodwill of the Wesleyan community, we will find ways around obstacles and work together to resume our academic endeavors.

From a student perspective, we know these are not ideal conditions for resuming coursework. Student life has been disrupted, from access to the Internet to just having a warm place to sleep. From a faculty perspective, these have also been stressful times. Many professors still do not have power at home, and this has compromised their work and communications. Thus we resume classes in a context that is far from ideal. But we do think that having classes, even when assignments are not completed, is preferable to not having classes. We do expect that deadlines for work this week will be extended and examinations postponed into next week, while taking care not to then create an unrealistic compression of deadlines in the weeks to follow. Professors will be discussing particular arrangements with their students. Specific questions should be addressed to individual faculty members and, if need be, the divisional and class deans. I am so grateful for faculty who are finding ways to communicate with their students and plan their classes.

The Freeman Athletic Center now has electricity, and we will be bringing the facility online tomorrow. In regard to housing, the residence halls now have power. There will be a planned interruption overnight in some of the residence halls, but the impact should be minimal. Allow me to repeat what I said in this morning’s update concerning the wood-frames and program housing:

We realize that a significant number of our students living in program houses and in the wood-frames are still    without power. We are making alternative sleeping quarters available for these students. Those who want to bunk with friends in the residence halls are encouraged to do so. Those who would like the university to find them a place to sleep until power is restored (and those who want to offer to take in a student needing a warm room) should contact Residential Life at: 860 685-3550. We will use common spaces and lounges in our residence halls and will open other venues as needed.

The Wesleyan staff, many of whom have already worked so hard during this crisis, will be reporting to work in full tomorrow unless otherwise instructed by their supervisors.

Meanwhile, we fully expect that Homecoming/Family Weekend will take place November 4-6. We may be a little ragged around the edges, but we are looking forward to welcoming the entire Wesleyan family back to Middletown at the end of the week. Students will be especially delighted to greet their families, and alumni will join us to cheer on the Red and Black.

Thank you again for your patience and support. Unless there is more news to be reported earlier, we will issue the next update at the end of the day tomorrow.

——

A lovely sunset from South College after a hectic day.

Power Update: Classes Resume and University Reopens Wednesday

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11/1/11 11:56 AM

Dear Friends,

With the restoration of power to the core of the Wesleyan campus, the university will reopen and classes will resume on Wednesday, November 2.

We realize that a significant number of our students living in program houses and in the wood-frames are still without power. We are making alternative sleeping quarters available for these students. Those who want to bunk with friends in the residence halls are encouraged to do so. Those who would like the university to find them a place to sleep until power is restored (and those who want to offer to take in a student needing a warm room) should contact Residential Life at: 860 685-3550. We will use common spaces and lounges in our residence halls and will open other venues as needed.

By resuming classes we aim to return to the normal rhythms of our educational mission. The libraries will be open, and meals are being served in Usdan. We are hopeful that the Freeman Athletic Center will have power this afternoon. We are aware, of course, that this return to academic work may be challenging for students who are seeking alternative living arrangements through the aftermath of the storm. Those students who are not able to return to campus by tomorrow are encouraged to contact their professors to make appropriate arrangements to complete their assignments. We are asking faculty and students alike to be flexible.

Much of Connecticut is still without power, and many people, including students, faculty and staff, have been pitching in to help those in need. We want to encourage the Wesleyan community to work together to bring the campus back to full and happy functioning. As a community pulling together, we will make the most of this disrupted semester.

Thank you, as always, for your cooperation and support. We will send a further update at the end of the day today.

——-

Had lunch in Usdan after sending this.

Hot meals work wonders.

 

Power Update – Central Campus OK

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The following message was sent to the Wesleyan community this morning.

Dear Friends,

At 10:00 pm last night we were able to restore power to the central core of the Wesleyan campus, including most classrooms and the residence halls. However, the program houses, wood-frame houses, and the Freeman Athletic Center still have no power, and it is unclear when they will be brought back on line.  We are in regular communication with CL&P, and, as you would expect, are making a strong case that power be restored to these facilities as quickly as possible.

The Usdan University Center is up and running, and we will be serving a hot brunch from 10- 2. Regular dinner service will resume this evening.

This morning we are evaluating all our facilities and will communicate again before noon today about the resumption of classes. We are hopeful that things will be back on track for Homecoming/Family Weekend, and we will send a communication in that regard before tomorrow (Wednesday) evening.

I am very grateful for the hard work of our staff during this difficult period. Many have worked extraordinarily long hours to get us back on track, even as their own homes were without power. I also want to thank the Wesleyan students and their families for their patience, good cheer and messages of support.

Power Update — No Classes Tuesday

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This is a message I sent this afternoon to the Wesleyan community. We will be sure to announce tomorrow before noon whether classes resume on Wednesday. Students should also know that there is a phone bank in 116 Science Center for anyone who wants to make a brief long distance call. Stay tuned for further updates.

 

Dear friends,

Although we are still hopeful that our own generators will be able to bring power back to parts of the central campus, the latest update from Connecticut Light and Power is disappointing. Given this latest news, we will cancel classes tomorrow, Tuesday.  Only essential personnel should report to campus.

Recognizing that many students and faculty are away from campus, we will let everyone know by noon tomorrow whether classes resume on Wednesday. Also, we expect faculty to be flexible with student assignments, and that there will be a collective effort to figure out the best ways to complete the work of the semester.

Food will be available for students who remain on campus, and the Science Library will remain open as a shelter. We will provide updates regarding the situation on campus and in the Middletown area as they are available.

I appreciate that this has been a frustrating experience for members of the Wesleyan community eager for information and reassurance (and heat!). We will continue to share information as we get it and strive to resume educational activities as soon as it is prudent to do so.

Power Update

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The following was sent to students, faculty, staff and parents via email. On campus, we circulated the information with flyers. We will be sending another update this evening.

October 31, 2011
12:30pm

Dear friends,

As you probably know, the weekend’s snowstorm has wreaked havoc with many
of the power systems of the region. In particular, the Connecticut Light
and Power electrical grid has sustained unprecedented damage, and the
Middletown area has been without electricity since Sunday afternoon. This
has left Wesleyan without power in the central campus area for the first
time in memory. We have backup systems for emergency lighting and for our
servers, which have functioned properly. Medical services are available
at Middlesex Hospital, and Public Safety is available to any students in
need of assistance. We have provided a shelter area at the Science
Library and have been serving meals at the Usdan University Center.
Sandwiches will be available at Usdan today from 2 to 4 pm, and we will
provide further information about meals pending restoration of power.

We are working with local officials and our own engineers and are hopeful
that power will be restored to the central campus area sometime this
evening. This will happen in stages, and there likely will be
interruptions — a normal part of the process. Supplying electricity to
the wood frame houses and the surrounding area will take longer, and we
will send information in this regard (including places on campus where
students may stay) in the next 24 hours.

We do anticipate that classes will be held Tuesday.

The aftermath of the storm has been challenging, and I am grateful to the
staff, faculty and students who are all pulling together.

No Power But Plenty of Spirit

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Imagine my surprise last night when my plane from Beijing touched down at JFK and I turned on my phone. Lots of messages about the weather, and then the big surprise: Middletown was without power, and even though our core of campus has underground cables feeding the buildings, Wesleyan, too, was dark. It was a cold night, but students could camp out in the warm science library or just hunker down together in the residence halls. Most chose the latter option, and, in good Wes spirit, took the blackout in stride. It’s a beautiful, brisk morning, and the students are safe and sound. We are serving a continental breakfast at 9 am this morning, and I look forward to seeing folks at Usdan.

Classes are cancelled today, and we will be letting students know more about campus services on an ongoing basis.

In a few hours we will know more about the power situation for the next 24 hours. I will be sending out an official communication in the early afternoon, and I will use this blog for any interim reports.

UPDATE: 9:40 am

Just came back from Usdan University Center, where a line of students were grabbing a healthy breakfast.

Breakfast at Usdan

Tree crews are out cleaning up the campus. Tough year for trees!

Yogurt, Fruit and Coffee Cake to Provide Energy for a Cold Morning
Chilly But Beautiful

As temperatures climb (we expect it to reach the 50s today), and students find food and camaraderie, we will be getting back to normal. A more official power report to come in a few hours.

 

Starting on Labor Day

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Many people ask me why Wesleyan begins classes again this year on Labor Day, a holiday that celebrates the American worker and marks the unofficial end of summer. When the faculty approved the calendar a few years ago, we discussed the tradeoffs of either starting earlier (most were against that), or backing up too close to Christmas and winter holidays (a big problem for our students wanting to return home for break). We were also juggling the length of orientation and reading week. In the end, we decided that Labor Day would remain a holiday for most of the staff, but that faculty and students would begin their classes on the first Monday of September.

Labor is much on the mind for our students as they begin the term. Some of that is in the nature of choosing classes. A few students want to know “how hard is this class?” “How much work will I have to do?” This is almost always an impossible question to answer just by looking at the syllabus. Some professors assign ten books or more to read during the term, while others focus on one or two. That doesn’t mean that the class with the shorter reading list requires any less work. Just check out Brian Fay’s course reading Spinoza’s Ethics — no walk in the park, but a deep dive into a major philosophical work. The truth is that every class offers increased intellectual rewards the more work you give to it.

But labor is on the mind of our students and their families in a more general sense this year.The job situation in the United States is just awful, and it has been depressingly bad for far too long. At the end of last week we learned that the US economy created no new jobs in August, and in a few days President Obama is scheduled to give what is billed as a major address on jobs. The real wages of working men and women in America have been declining for several years now, as the gap between the rich and the rest grows impossibly wide. The most pressing question facing the American economy for the next decade is how we will create and sustain decent jobs. Everything else is a distraction.

It’s no wonder that already parents have begun asking me how I think our Wesleyan education is going to equip our students as they head off into the job market in the spring. One can certainly understand their anxiety. Although a college degree is clearly an advantage, the job market is just awful even for grads with an impressive diploma. After four years of a liberal arts education, what kind of labor will open to our new alumni?

The answer isn’t simple, but it is clear that employers are often looking for workers who can think creatively, solve problems, seek opportunities and be self-motivating. Employers, when they are able to hire for good jobs, are looking for people who can learn while they are working — folks who aren’t just wed to some single skill they learned in the classroom to deal with a challenge that may no longer be relevant. At Wesleyan we believe deeply in the translational liberal arts — a broad, pragmatic education through which one learns how to apply modes of thinking and innovation in a variety of contexts. Even as the contexts change (whether that be through technology, politics or the economy), we believe our students will be well equipped to make their way in the world. We believe our alumni will be at the forefront of those creating and sustaining the jobs of the future.

But this isn’t just an article of faith. Wesleyan also offers practical advice, internship information and personal connections through our Career Resource Center. The CRC is currently located in the Butterfield residence hall complex, and in January it will be moving into the center of campus (in the old Squash Building currently be renovated). Even as students start their classroom labors today, they should remember to pay a visit to the CRC sometime this semester.

Happy First Day of Classes! Happy Labor Day!!

Welcome to Wesleyan!

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It’s been so much fun this week to watch the campus beginning to fill up. Last night I greeted the new international students, many of whom had endured very long trips made even more arduous by Hurricane Irene. Still, they were in fine spirits, eager to begin their Wes careers, whether they were coming from Mumbai, Beijing, Paris or Toronto. I recalled how for me in 1975 Wesleyan seemed like a foreign country  — or another planet! I told them of my confusion when I didn’t get all the classes I wanted and that I was more than a little at sea as I tried to figure out what I was doing here. But after a few weeks, I began to realize that lots of other people were having similar feelings, and that the key was to be open to learning from the extraordinary students, faculty and staff with whom I had opportunities to interact. Lucky me, I still have these opportunities!

Like many faculty, I’m still putting finishing touches on my syllabus for the fall. I am teaching The Modern and the Postmodern, a course that examines how the idea of the modern has been put together (and pulled apart) in the West. We read philosophy, poetry, fiction and critical theory (and sometimes we look at art and listen to music) in an attempt to understand how some core ideas of progress, truth, memory and identity have emerged in Europe and America. Many courses for first year students at Wes are small seminars. My class is a large survey, with a mixture of students from frosh to seniors. Even though I’ve taught for many years, I still get butterflies as the first day of class approaches.

Tomorrow as the frosh move in, older students and staff will lend a hand with the trunks, musical instruments and refrigerators. It’s just one of many ways for us to say  “Welcome to Wesleyan!”

Wild Wesleyan, Peaceful Wesleyan

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There’s a momentary break in the meeting, and I sneak a look out the office window at the  students heading for Foss Hill to take in (finally) the spring sunshine. Can’t we have class outside, I want to ask.  But I don’t ask (and I never take my own classes outside) because I know I’d never be able to concentrate; I’d just  lie down in the grass and enjoy the day. And so I wait for the last meeting to end before heading outside for a walk.

One of the joys of the season for me is just wandering around our beautiful campus as students emerge from their winter hibernation and  greet springtime.  Much credit is due to Dave Hall’s crew, who are marvelously attentive to keeping Wesleyan a home of which we can be proud. And students are joining this endeavor, too. Some months ago I was approached by Miles Bukiet and a group of Wesleyan students dedicated to sustainable landscape design. As they put it in their mission statement: “Pressing environmental problems compel us to question carbon intensive lawn care, inspiring us to instead imagine innovative landscape designs that use wildflowers, native plants, and edible fruit trees to knit our community together around a practical expression of our commitment to sustainability while simultaneously beautifying our campus.” At a  design charrette sponsored by the group, I was very impressed by the thoughtfulness and teamwork displayed by the projects I saw. Last week I met again with the group and was delighted to learn that they are working on a plan for the West College courtyard. I can’t wait to see the result!

As I meander about with Mathilde, thinking about intelligent landscape design, I come across professors starting their evening commute, or catching up with students, and then a wonderful African drumming and dance performance in the CFA courtyard.  I marvel at the skill and stamina of the performers.  Strolling back toward the President’s House, I see a group setting up for a Gamelan Concert on the labyrinth installed a few years back to honor Joe Reed and Kit Reed. No hurry. Why not take in some of this wondrous music and dance as the evening light fades?

 

Gamelan Concert on Reed Labyrinth

 

It’s Time to Choose Your (Our) School

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Each April I enjoy seeing the increased traffic of visitors to campus who have come to see what makes Wesleyan such a magical place. Some are high school seniors who have already been admitted, others are juniors just starting their college search. They have heard about Wesleyan: its great faculty and its creativity, its activism and its research opportunities. They may have heard about the vibrant music scene at Eclectic, or the spring evenings on Foss Hill. They want to check us out.

Most of the students who visit Wes on their campus tours have already seen or are on their way to see other liberal arts colleges and highly selective universities. Last year I blogged about whether the distinctions that are so important to the students, faculty and staff of these schools come through to visitors. With WesFest (our annual celebration for admitted students) starting today [Thursday, April 14], I thought I’d reprise some of that post.

If a student has been admitted to Wes, then he or she probably has other fine options. How to choose? For some, the decision will be made on an economic basis. Which school has given me the most generous financial aid package? Wesleyan is one of a small number of schools that admits students irrespective of their ability to pay, and which meets the full need of students, according to a formula developed over several years. There are some schools with larger endowments that can afford to be even more generous than Wes, but there are hundreds (thousands?) of others that are unable even to consider meeting a student’s financial need over four years of study. I am proud of our financial aid program, and we work hard to strengthen it.

After answering the question of which schools one can afford, how else does one decide where best to spend one’s college years? Of course, size matters. Some students are looking for a large university in an urban setting where the city itself plays an important role in one’s education. Campuses in New York and Boston have become enormously popular. But if one seeks out small classes and strong, personal relationships with faculty, then liberal arts schools, which pride themselves on providing cultural and social life on a residential campus, are especially compelling. You can be on a campus with a “human scale” and still have plenty of things to do. Wesleyan is somewhat larger than most of the liberal arts colleges, but much smaller than the urban or land grant universities. We feel that this gives our students the opportunity to have a broad curriculum and a variety of cultural activities on campus, while still being small enough to encourage regular, sustained relationships among faculty and students. You can always meet new people, and you are unlikely to get lost in the crowd.

All the selective small liberal arts schools boast of having a faculty of teacher/scholars, of a commitment to research and interdisciplinarity, and of encouraging community and service. So what sets us apart from one another after taking into account size, location, and financial aid packages? What are students trying to see when they visit Amherst, Yale and Wesleyan, or Tufts, Brown and Middlebury?

Knowing that these schools all provide a high quality, broad and flexible curriculum with strong teaching, and that the students all have displayed great academic capacity, prospective undergrads are trying to discern the personalities of each school. They are trying to imagine themselves on the campus, among the people they see, to get a feel for the chemistry of the place — and they wonder whether they will be happy in that particular context. Hundreds of visitors will be coming to Wesleyan this weekend for WesFest. They will go to classes and athletic contests, musical performances and parties. And they will ask themselves: Would I be happy at Wesleyan?

I hope our visitors get a sense of the personality of the school that I so admire and enjoy. I hope they feel the exuberance and ambition of our students, the intelligence and care of our faculty, the playful yet demanding qualities of our community. I hope our visitors can sense our commitment to creating diversity in which difference is embraced and not just tolerated, and our commitment to civic engagement as a key part of one’s education and approach to life. Even in a short visit to campus, I want students to get a sense of the opportunities here for doing intellectual work at the highest level. Our students publish their undergraduate research projects, develop shows and make films that travel the country, create sustainable organizations that make a difference in the lives of people all over the world. And they do so with the enthusiastic support of their friends and teachers (and president!).

We all know that Wesleyan is hard to get into. And even in the group of highly selective schools, Wes is not for everybody. We aspire to be a community committed to boldness as well as to rigor, to idealism as well as to effectiveness. Whether in the sciences, arts, humanities or social sciences, our faculty and students are dedicated to explorations that invite originality as well as collaboration. The celebration of senior theses completions at the library this week said a lot about who we are. We know how to work hard, but we also know how to enjoy the work we choose to do. That’s been magically appealing to me for more than 30 years. I bet the magic will strike many of our visitors, too.