Independent (UK)
Quotes Gayle Pemberton, professor of English and African American studies, emerita

"America's potential First Lady hasn't been one for hiding behind her presidential candidate husband. Nor has she been afraid to speak out against her country's reluctance to talk about racism."
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International Herald Tribune
Letter to the Editor by Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought

"As NATO leaders ponder the wisdom of offering membership to Georgia and Ukraine, it is worth asking whether their inclusion in the alliance would have prevented Russia's military action in South Ossetia."
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WNPR- "Where We Live"
Peter Rutland, Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor in Global Issues and Democratic Thought

"Today on Where We Live, Connecticut's reaction to the new Russia. Scholars David McFadden from Fairfield University and Peter Rutland from Wesleyan take your questions about tensions in the region and what to expect."
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The Middletown Press
Wesleyan featured

"As many of us continue to watch and take note of the great athletes competing in Beijing, the Olympic Games provide a great example of the wonders of sport. Beholding the feats of these athletes, we see that sport can be a way to express one's self while contributing to a team at the same time."
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Washington Post
Features Elvin Lim, assistant professor of government

"Authors Elvin Lim ("The Anti-Intellectual Presidency") and Rick Shenkman ("Just How Stupid Are We?") were online Friday, Aug. 8 at noon ET to debate which group in the U.S. has been more ignorant of late -- the government's politicians and bureaucrats, or the people who put them into office."
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The Hartford Courant
Features Jade Scott '09

"Four athletes of Chinese descent with Connecticut ties were asked to weigh in with their thoughts on the Beijing Olympics and how the Games will affect China. Two of them will be at the Games, including one working as a translator for NBC."
[ Read More ]

Middletown Press

"MIDDLETOWN - Several Wesleyan University students had an idea to create a photography magazine that would showcase student work in the school and local community. That idea became a reality in May, when the first issue of Exposure was released."
[ Read More ]

New York Times
Book review written by Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies

"Jean-Luc Godard's name has always inspired both love and hate. Some shout hurrah and some shout humbug, but almost no one disagrees that at a crucial point in film history, he forced audiences to consider that film might, just might, actually be an important art form. (And not necessarily the one they thought it was.) In 'Everything Is Cinema,' Richard Brody reopens the arguments, lifting Mr. Godard out of the 1960s and placing him where he rightfully belongs: ahead of the game."
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Middletown Press
Features Barry Chernoff, Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies

"About a mile from Harbor Park in Middletown, by way of the Connecticut River and the Mattabesset River, where it meets the Coginchaug River, is a freshwater tidal wetland that is considered ecologically significant."
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WNPR
Interview with Peter Gottschalk, associate professor of religion

"Political cartoons have been called a 'yardstick to measure tolerance in a society.' So what does the latest cartoon controversy tell us about ourselves?"
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Middletown Press
Features Wesleyan's Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Science (PIMMS)

"Catherine Nowsch shouted gleefully when she found that her tightly wrapped package, which sat in the corner of a conference room in the Usdan Center at Wesleyan University for several hours Wednesday, still contained a chunk of ice."
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San Francisco Chronicle
Book review written by Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan

"Richard Rorty was the most widely read and influential American philosopher of the past 50 years."
[ Read More ]

National Public Radio
Interviews Matt Weiner ?87, creator of 'Mad Men'

"This year's Emmy nominations for Best Series include for the first time two shows on basic cable: AMC's 'Mad Men' and 'Damages' on FX."
[ Read More ]

Block Island Times
Features Johan Varekamp, Harold T. Stearns Professor of Earth Science

"A team of college students, headed by professors Johan Varekamp of Wesleyan University and Ellen Thomas of Yale, were on-island Tuesday to take core samples from three locations in the Great Salt Pond."
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Chicago Tribune
Book review written by Kirk Davis Swinehart, assistant professor of history

"Back in the day, sailing to America could be traumatic stuff-when, that is, it wasn't incredibly dull. Anything might go wrong, and frequently did."
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National Public Radio
Features Green Street Arts Center filmmaker symposium

"So everyone's got a great movie idea - but never before has it been more within our grasp."
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New York Magazine
Features Andrew VanWyngarden ?05 and Ben Goldwasser ?05

"Some bands sell their souls to attain hotness. Some have it thrust upon them, like MGMT, which began this year as New York?s other hot band."
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New York Sun
Features Halley Feiffer ?07

"Actress Halley Feiffer left her audition for the Second Stage Theatre's revival of Richard Nelson's play "Some Americans Abroad," currently in previews and opening July 24, convinced she had blown it."
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Foreign Affairs
Features response by Francisco Rodriguez

"Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera argues that I have ignored evidence showing the Chavez administration's commitment to the poor and the effectiveness of its social policies, and he cites several indicators that would appear to counter the central arguments of my article."
[ Read More ]

NPR
Interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda '02

"Young playwright Lin Manuel Miranda is taking Broadway by storm."
[ Read More ]

Washington Post
Features Elvin T. Lim, associate professor of government

"People campaign for the presidency by talking their heads off. By the time the winner reaches the White House, the habit is so ingrained that it is impossible to shake."
[ Read More ]

Los Angeles Times
Quotes Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies

"So far this summer, I've had my brain pummeled by Robert Downey Jr. flying around in a techno-suit, Adam Sandler as an invincible (and priapic) former Mossad agent, Steve Carell as a nerdy indestructible super spy, Harrison Ford as a Teflon 60-year-old archaeologist, Edward Norton as the incredibly angry green dude -- which I admit I missed but saw the ads."
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Chronicle of Higher Education
Quotes Barbara Jones, university librarian

"When the College Art Association decided recently to settle rather than fight a possible libel action in Britain over a book review published in one of its journals, it did more than sidestep a costly and probably doomed legal battle."
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The New York Times
Feature on Matthew Weiner '87

"Matthew Weiner stood on the set of his hit show, 'Mad Men,' ready for his close-up in extreme anxiety. He was watching the rehearsal of a scene that seemed fine to me, better than fine, but his staccato commentary was a scene in itself."
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Variety
Includes Lin-Manuel Miranda '02

"Broadway ushered fresh talent into the winner's circle at the 62nd Tony Awards Sunday, when a fistful of prizes including best musical and play went, respectively, to "In the Heights" and "August: Osage County," both written by Rialto newcomers."
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The New York Times/Reuters
Includes Lin-Manuel Miranda '02, Thomas Kail '99

"He is called Stew and describes himself as a rocker, not a playwright, so he finds it surreal to be up for four Tony Awards, more than anyone else."
[ Read More ]

St. Petersburg Times
Quotes Francisco Rodriguez, assistant professor, Latin American studies

"The line for chicken began forming at four in the morning."
[ Read More ]

NBC Nightly News

Wesleyan was again featured prominently with a number of other universities and colleges in NBC's annual college commencement story, airing June 9.

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Wall Street Journal: Buzzwatch
Wesleyan included in commencement roundup

"To save you the trouble of attending dozens of college commencements, Buzzwatch sifted through the speeches to find the themes and highlights."
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Middletown Press

"PORTLAND - The word had gone out that the beavers had taken over at the Helen Carlson Wildlife Sanctuary and the boardwalk was flooded over. The high water level limited access to the sanctuary and made cranberry picking almost impossible."
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Newsweek
Quotes Douglas Foyle, Douglas J. and Midge Bowen Bennet Associate Professor of Government

"Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) presidential campaign has sought to highlight his diverse foreign policy experience derived from time as a naval aviator and later service in the U.S. Senate."
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Los Angeles Times
Quotes Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies

"Sydney Pollack, the Academy Award-winning director of 'Out of Africa' who achieved acclaim making popular, mainstream movies with A-list stars, including 'The Way We Were' and 'Tootsie,' died Monday. He was 73."
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The Hartford Courant
Features theater program by Ron Jenkins, professor of theater

"At first, the two young men staging an informal production of 'Waiting for Godot' stay close to the script."
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Los Angeles Times
Book review written by Michael S. Roth

"Late in the summer of 2003, former senior administrators of American correctional institutions were busy refurbishing the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib."
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Middletown Press

"MIDDLETOWN ? He's won numerous awards throughout his career as the head coach of the New England Patriots, but Bill Belichick said after Friday afternoon's induction as a member of the inaugaural class of the Wesleyan Hall of Fame that this was a honor that meant the most to him."
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Science Magazine
Quotes Fred Cohan, professor of biology

"Sex in the salt pond. The search for genetically isolated microbial special in hypersaline pools like this one near San Diego, California, revealed rampant gene swapping among species."
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Middletown Press

"MIDDLETOWN - If you tune into WESU radio during the school year, you will not be surprised to hear student deejays. But tune in on Friday evenings at 6:30 p.m. and you may be surprised to hear DJs as young as 10 years old."
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The New York Times

"The good news for students and their parents facing high tuition bills is that the student government at Wesleyan University voted last month to establish an endowment to reduce costs at the liberal arts university in Middletown."

[ Read More ]

PBS - Online NewsHour
Quotes Vera Schwarcz, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies

"When China bested four other finalists to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, the win brought a new global status but also renewed scrutiny on its handling of free speech and human rights, particularly in the area of Tibet."
[ Read More ]

Reuters/New York Times
Lin-Manual Miranda '02

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - 'In the Heights,' an original musical written by a university student about life in a working-class New York neighborhood, led the nominations for Broadway's top theater honors, the Tony Awards, on Tuesday."
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Hartford Courant
Features 'Feet to the Fire' and Barry Chernoff, Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies

"It seemed an odd way for the trio of college students to show off their freshly-inked tattoos: posed dramatically on chairs and ensconced like museum exhibits in a display case."
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Reuters News
Quotes Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics

"An assault on climate change on many fronts makes good economic sense but will be money badly spent if the world focuses exclusively on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, a study said on Thursday."
[ Read More ]

WNPR - Where We Live
Interview with Christiaan Hogendorn, assistant professor of economics

"Stuck in traffic on 95? Packed Like a sardine into a train? It?s the life of the Connecticut Commuter."
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Boston Globe

"A growing number of college students are pushing for a voice in how colleges invest - and spend - their endowments. Now, Wesleyan University students have taken matters into their own hands, creating what appears to be the country's first investment fund run by a college student government."
[ Read More ]

Denver Post
Jessica Posner '09 directs theater premier

"The Arvada Center's newly announced 2008-09 season of blockbusters is a proactive response to free-falling attendance and soaring costs at the state's second-largest theater company."
[ Read More ]

WNPR - Where We Live
Interview with Vera Schwarcz, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies

"The controversy surrounding the Beijing Games is threatening to overshadow the world's biggest sporting event slated to begin in early August."
[ Read More ]

The Roanoke Times (Hartford Courant)
Op-ed by Mary Alice Haddad, assistant professor of government and East Asian studies

"Why now?

Why is it this year, 2008, that we have the first serious black contender for president?"
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Hartford Business Journal
Features Michael Roth, president


"Michael Roth's father was a furrier, a maker of fur coats. And on weekends during high school, Roth worked with him, doing "whatever the lowest level employee would do," said Roth, now the president of Wesleyan University."
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Washington Post
Quotes Gregory Pyke, senior associate dean of admission

"After working long and hard to win acceptance to Cornell University this fall, D.C. high school senior Isabela Guimaraes thought she could finally take a breath. Then she decided to enjoy an entire year of them."
[ Read More ]

San Francisco Chronicle
Book review by Michael Roth, president

"Gerard J. DeGroot tells readers that his history of the 1960s, unlike others published in the past decades, is "unplugged." By this he means his story won't be distorted by amplification or enhancements."
[ Read More ]

USA Today
Quotes Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics

"Ed Begley Jr. leads what seems an enviable life."
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Middletown Press
Features Michael S. Roth, president

"A creative education such as one from Wesleyan University leads to innovations, said University President Michael Roth at the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce member breakfast meeting Friday."
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ScienceNOW
Quotes Frederick Cohan, professor of biology

"It's a good thing Darwin studied finches instead of bacteria. The ubiquitous microbes have such a messy family tree--with various types of sexual reproduction and genes jumping between distantly related bacteria--that the very concept of a microbial species is in doubt."
[ Read More ]

Star-Ledger (NJ)
Quotes Richard Grossman, professor of economics

"In case you didn't know, the nation is barreling toward disaster."
[ Read More ]

The Nation
Written by student essay finalist, Max Rose '08

"The world from which FDR's New Deal was borne is no more. No longer can individuals expect that American industry will bequeath them steady employment and a gateway to the consumer middle class."
[ Read More ]

NPR - Where We Live
Features William Herbst, John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy

"Astronomers have been watching the beginnings of an earth-like planet near a distant star. So, what can this tell us about our own beginnings?"
[ Read More ]

Baltimore Sun
Quotes Jonathan Cutler, associate professor of sociology

"Giant Food and Safeway supermarket chains and the union representing 23,000 store workers remained deeply divided on key issues yesterday as they approached a weekend deadline for a new labor contract, raising the threat of the first grocery strike here in more than three decades."

[ Read More ]

Energy Tribune
Written by Francisco Rodriguez, assistant professor of economics and Latin American studies

"Last month, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States. This was in response to news that Exxon Mobil had obtained court orders in the U.K., the U.S., and the Netherlands to freeze $12.3 billion of assets owned by PDVSA, Venezuela's state-owned oil company."
[ Read More ]

US News & World Report
Quotes Douglas Foyle, associate professor of government

"It was not all that long ago when it looked as if Iraq was going to dominate the 2008 presidential campaign, a situation that seemed to make just about any Democratic nominee a shoo-in."
[ Read More ]

Variety
Features Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Chair of Film Studies

"Jeanine Basinger's name may never appear in lights, but to many Hollywood insiders, she's a star in her own right."
[ Read More ]

Variety
Features Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Chair of Film Studies

"This summer, Wesleyan U. will dedicate the $10 million Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies, the culmination of a two-phase, seven-year mission to give the university's film department its own identity and its own home."
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Variety
Features Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Chair of Film Studies

"Founded by Jeanine Basinger in 1985, the Wesleyan Cinema Archives have emerged as one of the finest collections held by any small university."
[ Read More ]

NPR
Interview includes Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics

"Connecticut has joined a group of 'institutional investors' from the US and Europe to propose a 'climate change action plan' at the United Nations."
[ Read More ]

Variety
Features Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Chair of Film Studies

"ALEXANDER PAYNE, director ('Sideways'):
'I was a big fan of Jeanine's Anthony Mann book long before I met her. She is one of the five or 10 people who know more about film than anyone on earth. You can ask her anything about film; she's seen everything and knows everything. And besides, she's the sexiest woman over 70 I've ever met."
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Book Forum
Review written by Michael S. Roth, president

"Post-Freudian thought, especially in the United States, can be divided between those writers (often clinicians) who turn the master's work toward a theory of accommodation of the world and those (often in the humanities) who turn his work toward a critique of the world."
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The Hartford Courant
Quotes Richard Slotkin, professor of American studies

"U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy was deep into the first hour of a town hall forum in Avon on Tuesday night before he fielded his first question about Iraq."
[ Read More ]

New York Times
Interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda '02

"To be perfectly clear, Lin-Manuel Miranda did not grow up in Washington Heights, the physical and spiritual setting of his musical "In the Heights," which opened on Broadway this week."
[ Read More ]

New York Times
Features William Herbst, John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy

"Back in 2002, astronomers from Wesleyan University concluded that a star brightening and waning in an unusual 48-day rhythm was dipping in and out of stuff swirling around the star in a so-called protoplanetary disk."
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The Hartford Courant

"They already spend 24 hours a week at Macdonough Elementary School, helping grade-schoolers decipher the mysteries of grammar and syntax."
[ Read More ]

The Economist
Quotes Francisco Rodriguez, assistant professor of economics

"FOR most of her life, Ana Silva was illiterate, even though she completed primary school. Then she joined Mision Robinson, a literacy programme organised by Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez."
[ Read More ]

Los Angeles Times
Features Andrew Bridge '84

"'Please, don't hurt her.

Don't argue with them. You told me this would happen.

Leave her alone.'

This is what 7-year-old Andrew Bridge thought as the police took him from his mentally ill mother on a Saturday afternoon on the streets of Los Angeles."
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San Francisco Chronicle
Quotes Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics

"You may be one of those gardeners who note the first flowering dates every spring, maybe on a spreadsheet. Or you may just have a vague feeling that your plants are leafing out and blooming a little earlier each year. In either case, Project BudBurst would like to hear from you."
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New Scientist Space
Quotes Roy Kilgard, assistant astronomer, astronomy department

"The heaviest black hole formed from the collapse of a single star weighs as much as 33 Suns - double the previous record, new measurements confirm."
[ Read More ]

USA Today
Quotes Lisa Dombrowski, associate professor of film studies

"Heroes are old hat. Villains are too easy."
[ Read More ]

New York Daily News
Features Lin-Manuel Miranda '02

"The 'In the Heights' sign is already up on the Richard Rodgers Theater on W. 46th St. just off Times Square, clearly visible to the masses passing by every day."
[ Read More ]

Hartford Courant

"Like many Wesleyan University students before him, senior Alex Levy capped a library all-nighter with a meal at O'Rourke's Diner early Monday, a momentous day in the landmark restaurant's 67-year history."
[ Read More ]

Boston Globe
Features Andrew VanWyngarden '05 and Ben Goldwasser '05

"As freshmen at Wesleyan University, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser first bonded over a perverse dream: Writing what they considered bad songs - on purpose, no less - and then performing them on campus with the intention of alienating as many people as possible."
[ Read More ]

CNN Money
Features Herb Kelleher '53

"Legend has it that the idea for Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) was hatched on a cocktail napkin."
[ Read More ]

New York Times
Feature on Gabriel Cohen '82

"An Italian woman tends her garden in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, and worries about her neighbor, an increasingly sullen black teenager, all the while arguing with her bigoted mother."
[ Read More ]

The Enquirer
Quotes Peter Gottschalk, associate professor of religion

"Islamophobia looks like this: Maher Arar, a Syrian-born software engineer living in Canada, tried to catch a connecting flight home to Ottawa in 2002, but was detained in New York City."
[ Read More ]

The Hartford Courant
Film by Isabel Vega '98 at Sundance

"It starts with a post-Thanksgiving phone call to congratulate you on having your film accepted by the Sundance Film Festival. Then the dreaming really begins. For three filmmakers with Connecticut ties, the festival marks a milestone and ratchets up the expectations."
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USA Today
Quotes Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies

"'I'm staying pregnant,' Ellen Page announces with an air of defiance as the 16-year-old title character in Juno, the current sleeper hit. Then, in often humorous episodes, audiences follow Juno through her plight - telling her parents, finding an adoptive couple, going to high school pregnant and enduring the ups and downs of her relationship with the baby's father."
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Hartford Courant
Wesleyan to participate in Focus the Nation event

"Students in Missouri will truck in 15 tons of coal. Wesleyan will serve a 'sustainable' dinner, while kids at the Laureate Elementary School in San Luis Obispo, Calif., are using worms to compost the remains of their lunches."
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Hartford Courant
Jennifer Finney Boylan '80 book reviewed

"'I'm Looking Through You' can be read as a meditation on the permeability of boundaries - between the present and the past, between male and female, between families and individuals."
[ Read More ]

Toronto Star
Interview with Tierney Sutton '86

"Grammy-nominated vocalist feeling good about emotional disc 'On the Other Side.'

She doesn't get to Toronto very often, but Tierney Sutton's making the most of this visit."
[ Read More ]

Boston Globe
Written by Patricia R. Hill, professor of history and American studies

"In the midst of the Civil War, the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon of Yale quipped that the country was inhabited by 'saints, sinners and Beechers.'"
[ Read More ]

Voice of America
Features Peter Gottschalk, associate professor of religion, & Gabriel Greenberg '04

"In their new book, Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, coauthors Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg explore a largely unexamined phenomenon - the 'deeply ingrained anxiety' some Westerners, and especially Americans, experience when considering Islam and Muslim cultures."
[ Read More ]

New York Times
Peter Gottschalk, associate professor of religion and Gabriel Greenberg '04 book reviewed

"Is there such a thing as Islamophobia?"


[ Read More ]

Hartford Courant
Quotes Gary Yohe, Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics

"Former Vice President Al Gore could never quite turn his passion for global climate change into an effective campaign issue - at least not while he was running."
[ Read More ]

The Hartford Courant
Features Andrew VanWyngarden '05 and Ben Goldwasser '05

"The band's first performance should have been a sign. While they were students at Wesleyan University, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser debuted as MGMT at a dorm party in 2002 with a set that consisted solely of them playing the theme to 'Ghostbusters,' over and over."
[ Read More ]

Los Angeles Times
Quotes Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies

"Ah, to be young and in love on-screen. Or young and in grief, in guilt, in the family way, in search of life's meaning. Basically, it's the young part that counts. A preponderance of actors and actresses under the age of 25 have stood out this year at the cineplexes and in the awards races thus far."
[ Read More ]