Editor’s Note: Seen and Unseen
Do not refresh your browser. Do not restart your computer. This is not a test.
Did you think the cover image on the Fall 2025 Issue was the result of a printing error or a coding blip? Sadly, the nearly blank page with its stark “Content Not Found” message is a rather bleak representation of an all-too-real phenomenon affecting the websites of more than a dozen key government agencies this year. From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Census Bureau to the Environmental Protection Agency, previously accessible federal research data has been removed or altered on sites that millions of Americans rely on for authoritative, evidence-based information. It’s a frightening development that might easily fall under the radar in the bustle of our daily lives. Thankfully, researchers and librarians across the nation and here at Wesleyan are working hard to rescue as much at-risk data as they can. You can read more about it in our cover story, Disappearing Data: A Crisis for Researchers and a Threat to Evidence-Based Public Policy.
Doomsday scenario notwithstanding, this is my favorite kind of story, one in which we peel back the curtain on these behind-the-scenes manipulations and try to shine a light on an issue that is worthy of your attention and concern. It feels very Wesleyan to me.
Digging deeper, seeing the unseen—amid disorienting policy changes and federal overreach in higher ed, the importance of that kind of thinking seems especially critical, and it serves as a running theme throughout this issue.
In Design with a Conscience and The FAB, we explore exciting new perspectives on integrated arts and science education on campus, dipping into product design classes that combine aesthetics, architecture, and regenerative biomaterials in a novel approach to designing everyday objects and finding inspiration in the intersection of artistic disciplines and the power of the communal creative experience.
With Loss and Letting Go: My L.A. Wildfire Experience and How I Met Your Mother: A 20-Year Reunion, we see how the deep bonds of Wesleyan friendships resonate through the years and through some of life’s most challenging turns. In Advocate for the Undocumented, the unbreakable ties of family and community hold fast even for those that society tries to push to the periphery. We even get literal with the underground theme in our roundup of 9 Notable Milestones and Quirky Moments in Wesleyan’s Underground History.
It’s an eclectic mix of stories that reaches into every corner of the Wesleyan identity—politically engaged, fiercely loyal, quirky, inventive, and slightly subversive—enduring qualities that defy complacence and, thankfully, aren’t so easily disappeared.
