Wes in the News

Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, P’09 has been elected by the Wesleyan University Board of Trustees to serve as its chair, July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2011.  Boger has served on the board for 10 years, previously chairing the Campus Affairs Committee and the Facilities Working Group.  In addition, he has served on the Board’s Finance Committee and chaired the Science Advisory Council of the University.  Boger founded and recently retired as chief executive officer of Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Mass.

Also elected to leadership positions on the Board of Trustees were Ellen Jewett ’81, who will serve as vice chair of the board, and Brian Schorr ’79, who will serve as secretary of the board.

Committee chairs elected at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees in May, 2009, include Shonni Silverberg ’76, Campus Affairs; Stephen Daniel ’82, Finance; Robert Allbritton ’92, University Relations; Darryl Hazel ’70, P’03, Audit; Megan Norris ’83, Governance; and Frank Sica ’73, Portfolio Subcommittee.

Tucker Andersen ’63, P’95 and Amy Schulman ’82, P’11 were elected by the Board  of Trustees to serve six-year terms, and Robert Allbritton and Ellen Jewett were re-elected by the Board to serve second terms through 2015.  Illana Wind Newell ’94, Ellen Remmer ’75, P’12 and Michelle Anderson Lyn ’84, P’12 were elected by the alumni to serve three-year terms on the Board.

Trustees retiring from the Board in 2009 were James van B. Dresser ’63, P’93, Lael Brainard ’83, Stephanie Ivy ’92, Michael Klingher ’78, P’12, and Thomas Wu ’72.  At the recent Annual Meeting of the Board, Dresser was elected chair emeritus of the Board of Trustees, and Stewart M. Reid ’72 and George M. Ring P’98, P’02 were each elected trustee emeritus.

Assistant Professor of History Kirk Swinehart reviews Chloe Hooper’s gripping new book Tall Man which recounts a true crime incident that brought Palm Island back into the public consciousness of Australians and made news throughout the world.

Tags: The Chicago Tribune

Drew Dominguez ‘09 is featured in an article in The Boston Globe that details how the government major and two sport star is fulfilling a childhood dream by being signed by The Boston Red Sox. He has reported to the short season low A-level minor league Lowell Spinners.

Neely Bruce, professor of music, conducted the East Coast premiere of “Orbits” a piece written in 1979 by renowned composer Henry Brant. The orchestra conducted by Bruce included 89 trombones, a soprano and an organ.

Tags: The New York Times

In a recent Inside Higher Education article, Claire Potter, chair and professor of American studies, professor of history, director of the Center for the Americas, comments at length about academic inquiry into LGBT struggles going back before Stonewall and into the near future.

Tags: Inside Higher Ed

Richard Grossman, professor and chair of economics, made an appearance on public radio’s “MarketPlace” to comment on how the federal government gauges when to ease up on the stimulus spending program.

Tags: Marketplace

Emilio Daddario ‘39, Winthrop “Wink” Davenport ‘64, Sally Zimmer Knight ‘81, Kofi Appenteng ‘81 and the 1994 Baseball Team will all be inducted into the Wesleyan Athletics Hall of Fame this fall.

Ann Burke, associate professor of biology, recently received a three-year, $395,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the development and evolution of the shoulder girdle using transgenic mice, frog and salamander. The mice will be generated in collaboration with a lab at the University of Michigan and will allow Burke and her associates to turn off Hox genes, which are specific patterning genes, in specific sub populations of the embryonic mesoderm that make the musculoskeletal tissues. Comparing the dynamics of gene expression and cell interactions during the formation of the pectoral region in a variety of embryos will help Burke and other scientists understand the evolution of these musculoskeletal structures and the dramatic variations among vertebrate lineages associated with adaptations for different locomotor strategies, like swimming, scurrying, crawling and flying.

Burke also received a two-year $100,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to use the same amphibian systems (salamander and frog) to develop a model system for understanding body wall defects in humans.

The San Francisco Chronicle has published Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth’s review of Geoffrey Nunberg’s The Years of Talking Dangerously. The book is a “new collection of essays and commentaries explores how we have attempted to combine, divide or dismiss parts of the world simply by talking about them.”

Tags: The San Francisco Chronicle

The Boston Red Sox have signed Drew Dominguez ‘09.Dominguez is the first Wesleyan baseball player signed by a major league team in 44 years. Dominguez was an All NESCAC Player this year and broke the Wesleyan single season hits record this year - a record Dominguez set last year. He will report to the A-level minor league Lowell Spinners after signing.

Tags: Campus Community News