Wes in the News

All American Wesleyan volleyball player Lisa Drennan ‘09 has signed to play professional volleyball in Denmark this year.

No Quarter: The battle of the Crater, 1864 by Richard Slotkin, Olin Professor of English, emeritus, is praised in a recent review in The New York Times. The book examines a Civil War battle in 1864 that involved extensive use of black soldiers by the Union and became a polarizing political symbol that might have cost Lincoln his second term as President of the United States. The review calls No Quarter “a riveting narrative and fair play to both sides, while exhuming an important episode from relative obscurity.”

Jeanine Basinger, Chair and Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, discussed in The Los Angeles Times the recent reappearance of gigolo-type characters in feature films and television. Basinger talks about the social and economic implications of such characters and what they may imply about current times.

Geoffrey Ginsburg ‘78 is part of a team that has developed a genetic test for influenza that identifies infection before symptoms can even arise. The advance, reported in USA Today, could offer tremendous opportunities for early treatment of flu and the potential  reduce the number of people who come down with the illness as save lives.

Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics and a lead member of the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said in an article in USA Today that impoverished people, especially in underdeveloped nations, will be the hardest hit from global climate change.

The Hartford Courant profiled the ground-breaking stem cell research of Laura Grabel, Lauren B. Dachs Professor of Science in Society, professor of biology, and Janice Naegle, professor of biology, professor neuroscience and behavior, as well as the work of Gloster Aaron, assistant professor of biology, assistant professor of neuroscience and behavior. Wesleyan, along with Yale University and The University of Connecticut, has received grants from the State Stem Cell Initiative, a program that allows scientists to research human stem cell lines. Grabel, Naegele and Aaron are doing research aimed at replicating cells that would ultimately help cure a form a epilepsy.

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.

Kennedy Odede ‘12 and Jessica Posner ‘09 are making progress on the school they are building in Kibera, Kenya. The students received a grant earlier this year to build the school. The school was officially dedicated on Tuesday, August 18.

Deb Olin Unferth, assistant professor of English, has won the 2009 Cabell First Novelist Award for her book Vacation. The award is presented by Virginia Comonwealth University and was the result of votes by readers as well as members of the Cabell award board.

Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought, professor of government, discussed for Russia Today TV, some of the issues that have exacerbated the tensions between Russia and Ukraine.