Wesleyan in the News: September 2025
Claire Weinraub ‘93 won an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking as an executive producer on Patrice: The Movie. This is Weinraub's third Emmy win and seventh nomination. Six alumni received a total of nine Emmy nominations this year.
For The New York Times, President Michael S. Roth '78 reviewed Yale Law School professor Justin Driver’s book, The Fall of Affirmative Action. “Authoritarians use fear to stifle dissent…Yet, as Driver writes, ‘it is precisely when universities are most under siege that they must safeguard their core commitments,’” Roth said. “The siege is well underway, and one can only hope that university leaders, faculty members and students will consult this worthy book as they work to ensure that those commitments survive.”
Roth also wrote about higher education as a space where students practice freedom and the need to defend campuses from authoritarian influence for Inside Higher Ed. “We want to learn to think for ourselves in the company of others, leaving behind a dependence on authority,” Roth wrote. “As the new school year begins, we in higher education must redouble our efforts to model and defend the enlightenment ideals of education and freedom—while we still can.”
Inside Higher Ed cited Roth’s “ongoing engagement with religious groups and defense of campus pluralism," including a piece he wrote for the publication in March as an example of a meaningful effort to fight antisemitism on college campuses.
Roth’s blog post on the assassination of Charlie Kirk was cited in an Associated Press article on the impact of the shooting on higher education. “Those who choose violence destroy the possibility of learning and meaning,” Roth wrote. “Mr. Kirk’s murder on a college campus is an assault on all of us in education.”
Roth signed an open letter, “American Jews Opposing Deportations,” condemning President Donald Trump’s “disingenuous claims of antisemitism” to attack institutions of higher education and deport pro-Palestinian student activists. “We, as Jewish Americans, reaffirm our support for free speech and independent scholarship,” the letter reads. “We wholeheartedly condemn these heinous and anti-democratic policies of the Trump administration.”
Roth spoke with Bloomberg for a story on schools like Vanderbilt University that have taken a position of institutional neutrality in higher education. “The argument is you want to protect your school,” Roth said. “I actually want to protect the country.”
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver aired a segment of Roth’s interview on CBS’ Face the Nation in an episode on President Donald Trump’s targeting of higher education on Sept. 7. Roth said, “the idea that [Trump is] attacking antisemitism by attacking universities I think is a complete charade. It’s just an excuse for getting universities to conform.”
The Washington Post praised a new biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, highlighting author Daniel Pollack-Pelzner’s deep analysis and deconstruction of some of Miranda’s most popular works for stage and screen, including Hamilton and In the Heights.
In an obituary for actor Robert Redford, The Washington Post cited an interview with Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies, Emerita, Jeanine Basinger and a movie review from Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism A.O. Scott. “Redford did not live inside his celebrity as a star,” Basinger said. “The Sundance Institute had an enormous effect on filmmaking and film distribution through the development of new talent, shepherding the independent film scene and making it a legitimate rival to the Hollywood studio system.”
Vice Chair of the Film Studies Department Michael Slowik also remembered Redford’s legacy in an interview with WFSB. “As a regular movie-goer, as much as I love the impact he had as an actor, if anything the Sundance [Institute] might have had an even greater impact,” Slowik said. “Even as he was being a major movie star, he was championing independent film.”
Actor, screenwriter, and best-selling author Tembi Locke ’92 appeared on CBS Mornings to discuss her recently published audio-only memoir Someday, Now, which explores her experience as a mother with children who have gone off to college. “We are reimagining our lives as mothers, as parents, we are reconfiguring the family dynamic and family relationship,” Locke said. “It's a reimagining of a whole season of possibility that awaits both the child and the family.”
Bloomberg spoke with Richard Locke ’81 on the importance of supporting a diverse student body as he steps into his new role as Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management. “We need to stay focused on providing our students with the very best education so that they can succeed in the turbulent marketplace resulting from the policy shifts that are happening,” Locke said. “Let’s address the big problems that affect everybody regardless of political stripe.”
Travis Ridout, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project (WMP) and professor of political science at Washington State University, was interviewed for an article in The Washington Post exploring how successful politicians' names have gotten shorter over time. In his work at WMP studying political ads, Ridout sees the resonance in the theory that shorter names could give candidates a slight boost in memorable branding.
Spotlighted in ArtDaily, Salim Green ’20, Sullivan Fellow in Art, is showcasing his debut collection with François Ghebaly. The exhibition, Taileater, explores themes of surveillance and survival through a hybrid digital-physical world.
Robert Wintsch, emeritus professor in Earth and Environmental Sciences, is part of the team mapping the low-level radiation caused by different rocks—including pyrrhotite, which can cause massive building damage if used in concrete—in a project led by U.S. Geological Survey. Wintsch talks about the importance of this work for an article by MassLive.
Other Headlines
The New York Times profiled ventriloquist and actor Sophie Becker ’16 on her journey from performing in theatrical productions to ventriloquism on stage at venues throughout downtown New York City. “Ventriloquism has given me the gift of an artistic practice, so I feel like I can’t give up on it,” Becker said, who studied performance art at Wes. “I hope there’s a future for me in it, but I don’t really know what will happen.”
Instrumentalist and composer Mary Halvorson ’02 was noted in a story by The New York Times that previewed upcoming new work and shows from artists throughout the music industry. Halvorson was also profiled by the Lexington Herald-Leader, which highlighted her experience at Wesleyan and inspiration she took from John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus Anthony Braxton. “I had gone to that college intending to study biology,” Halvorson said. “…Then I signed up for one of [Braxton’s] classes in the first semester and it just completely changed everything for me.”
For The Hill Sebastian Zimmeck, associate professor of computer science, wrote about a recent trend of the government buying the private data of citizens from data brokers, circumventing federal privacy law in the process. “This practice represents a profound threat that transcends consumer rights,” Zimmeck wrote. “It is a structural threat to the very foundation of democracy. The cooperation between commercial data collection companies and state power creates a chilling effect on free speech, association and dissent—bedrock principles of a functioning democracy.”
Assistant Director in the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life Tracy Mehr-Muska appeared on WNPR's Where We Live to talk about self-care and stress mitigation. “My invitation for people is to be attentive to your body, mind, and spirit, and be conscious of what you’re feeling,” Mehr-Muska said.
An analysis by the Wesleyan Media Project, Brennan Center, and OpenSecrets, which projected that political advertisers spent at least $1.9 billion on online advertisements during the 2024 election cycle, was cited by yahoo! creators in a piece on Meta’s artificial intelligence spending.
Jordan Sears ’18 was hired as an assistant coach by the Dallas Mavericks under head coach Jason Kidd for the 2025-26 season. Sears had previously worked for two seasons as the Mavericks head video coordinator before spending the last two seasons as the head coach of the Texas Legends, the Mavericks G League affiliate.
WGBH’s The Culture Show featured a charcoal still life from art studio major Daniel Chan ’27 on its community digital mural on Sept. 2.
