Wes in the News

Former major league baseball player and current Wesleyan Football receivers coach Rico Brogna hopes to be coaching at the professional level soon – in baseball. But he is drawing leadership lessons from Wesleyan’s head football coach Frank Hauser in that quest.

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth has a piece in The Huffington Post on the 100th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s only visit to the U.S. Freud came to New England 100 years ago this fall to deliver a series of lectures.

Marwa Aly, Wesleyan’s Muslim Chaplain, discussed what it’s like to be a Muslim Chaplain at American universities, and details some of the challenges she faced in general growing up as a Muslim student in the American school systems.

My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, edited by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian, published by the Wesleyan University Press, is one of the winners of the 30th annual American Book Awards for 2009.  The awards are presented by the Before Columbus Foundation and will be formally award on Sunday, October 11th, in New York City.

The Department of Film Studies Elia Kazan Centennial, which opens Saturday, Sept. 12, was the focus of a feature in The Hartford Courant. A seminal director and founder of the Actors Studio, Kazan was both a brilliant and influential figure in film. He was also surrounded by controversy during his career, especially during the 1950s and the investigations by House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee. Kazan was also a “fixture” at Wesleyan, where he often came to write and speak to the classes of Jeanine Basinger, Chair and Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies. His personal papers reside in the Wesleyan Film Archives. The Elia Kazan Centennial celebration at Wesleyan will run through December and feature a variety of screenings and presentations on his work.

In a piece in The Huffington Post, Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth recounts the strong ties Senator Edward Kennedy H’83 had with Wesleyan, and how the late Senator had the “courage to believe in the possibilities for positive change.”

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth reviews The Battle for America 2008 by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. The book chronicles the two years leading up to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, with heavy emphasis on the candidacies of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama.

Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth reviews Michael Schama’s new book The American Future, which Roth says is powerful and offers “promising vistas.”

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.

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.