Wesleyan in the News: October 2026
President Michael S. Roth ’78 wrote a piece in The New York Times discussing the relationship between fraternity culture and sexual assault on college campuses. Roth argued that the University’s 2014 decision to require residential fraternities to become coeducational contributed to a more equitable and safe campus environment. “Recognizing that our residential Greek organizations do inspire loyalty, community and independence, but that they undermined the ability of women to have full access to the benefits of a Wesleyan education, I concluded that they should be permitted to remain open but not to remain single-sex,” said Roth of the decision. “Fraternities would have to admit women or become off limits to Wesleyan students.”
Merve Emre, director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism and Shapiro-Silverberg University Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism, wrote about author and former professor at Princeton University Anne Carson’s selection as the 2026 Nobel Prize laureate in literature for The New Yorker. In the essay, Emre explored Carson’s use of poetry, translation, and other literary forms to explore desire, grief, and human emotion, which allows her work to give “shape and weight to the maelstrom of passion.”
Tammy Nguyen, associate professor of art, was featured in The Art Newspaper and Hyperallergic. Ahead of the Venice Biennale’s closing program, an aria from Nguyen’s debut opera, Timaeus and The Teacher, will be presented on Nov. 13 and 14. Commissioned and produced by Wesleyan, the unfinished opera explores nationhood and journeys for freedom, drawing on Nguyen’s father’s experience as a Vietnamese refugee and her own research into geopolitics and history. “I’ve been thinking more about the audience now in my paintings. Before making the opera, I was trying to create a symphonic space, a holistic world where you can immerse yourself in the image and explore. All of that is still there, but now I want to have a psychological connection with the audience through images that are ordinary to talk about things that are extraordinary,” Nguyen told The Art Newspaper.
Gary Yohe, Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environment, emeritus, wrote an article for Newsweek about preparing the next generation of climate researchers for the issue of “overshoot”—when the Earth temporarily exceeds a warming threshold before eventually returning to cooler temperatures. Yohe argued that eventual cooling would not necessarily reverse earlier climate impacts and he called for universities and research funders to support interdisciplinary research examining how communities can prepare for the persistent effects of climate change. “A cooler future would be worth pursuing, but that future will only materialize decades into the future. Climate impacts, in the meantime, will not disappear,” he wrote.
Wesleyan Media Project
Erika Franklin Fowler, Wesleyan Media Project (WMP) co-director and professor of government, was featured in a story in The New York Times about the rapid growth in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in political advertising in the lead-up to the midterm elections. Fowler said she was surprised by the range of candidates that are utilizing AI advertising, especially in cases where the ad fails to provide a disclaimer. “AI can be used in so many different ways that it creates new opportunities for advertising,” she said. “Some of the ways in which A.I. is used, honestly, if there wasn’t a disclaimer on the ad, it would be hard to know that A.I. was there.”
Franklin Fowler appeared on the TODAY Show on Oct. 21 to discuss AI use in political advertising. The WMP found that around $137 million has been spent on political ads using AI this cycle, but this is a likely undercount since it can be difficult to tell which ads use AI. “There is way more out there and that’s in part because we have trouble detecting it,” she said.
Fowler also made an appearance in the Financial Times. “We’re seeing a lot more [AI ads] than we have ever seen before,” she said. Last month, the WMP identified 164 political ads generated or enhanced with AI.
In a WSHU piece, Fowler was quoted discussing the WMP’s finding that $1 billion has been spent on midterm campaign ads since Labor Day. “It's an unbelievable amount of money,” she said. “I think even though we had expected advertising costs to continue to go up because they have always continuously gone up, I think the amount of money being poured into this election is astonishing.”
WMP findings on AI ads were also cited by Bloomberg Government, USA Today, Al Jazeera, Campaigns and Elections, Pluribus News, Scripps News, IndyStar, Crains Detroit, Gizmodo, and Talking Points Memo. Alongside the number of ads and total spending, WMP data suggests Republicans, specifically Republican groups like PACs or nonprofits, are more likely to use AI than Democrats or Democratic groups, while politicians and candidates lobbying against ads tend to be Democrats.
The CT Mirror provided coverage of a new Wesleyan SurveyLab poll examining Connecticut voters' views on the economy and the 2026 gubernatorial election. Fowler emphasized the importance of affordability to Connecticut voters, stating that “cost of living issues and expenses are top of mind for Connecticut voters.” Further, more than eight in 10 respondents found it at least somewhat difficult to earn a living wage and afford basic goods in the state. The CT Mirror later discussed the poll results with elected officials as well.
Logan Dancey, associate professor of government, spoke with WNPR about Wesleyan SurveyLab’s poll. “When you ask people what the most important issue is, 40 percent say inflation/cost of living,” Dancey said. “But even going down beyond that, the issues people name like taxes and housing and these other things are also tied up in cost of living concerns.”
A recent Wesleyan Media Project (WMP) finding that the federal government has spent at least $3.5 million on ads touting the Trump administration was mentioned on ABC News’ This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Franklin Fowler was featured in The Washington Post in a story about the September jobs report and its potential political implications ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Fowler explained that affordability remains “the dominant issue for most Americans this cycle,” as concerns over inflation and the cost of living continue to shape public opinion.
Fowler also appeared in Houston Public Media, discussing the importance of political advertising in competitive elections. “Advertising really matters at the margin,” she said. “It’s really in the fraction, up to a couple percentage points, that advertising can move or benefit a particular candidate.”
Michael Franz, WMP co-director and professor of government at Bowdoin College, was featured in Business Insider discussing voter concerns over data centers and how candidates are using AI in their campaigns. Franz highlighted how the pairing of these issues serves as a double whammy for challengers who are attacking AI. “Not only can you tie data centers to increasing costs, especially around energy costs, but you can also whack big elite interests at the same time,” he said.
In Al Jazeera, Franz discussed gubernatorial and congressional midterm advertising buys. As of Sept. 17, there has been at least $4 billion spent on political advertising. As Franz points out, this election cycle is on track to be “perhaps the most expensive midterm on record.”
Franz also spoke with The Washington Post about the rapid growth of AI-generated political advertising and its potential impacts on electoral campaigns. He discussed the ways in which AI advertisements utilize emotionally compelling messages, predicting that candidates across partisan lines will leverage these ads in the future. “Persuasion is often tied to the emotional punch in an ad,” he said. “You can do that in creative ways with AI.”
WMP received additional coverage in the Associated Press, The Economic Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and Fox News regarding the increased presence of AI advertisements in the current election cycle. They identified at least 164 political ads generated or enhanced with AI, with 69 percent of the ads failing to disclose the use of AI tools. Travis Ridout, WMP co-director and professor of political science at Washington State University, told the Associated Press, “I think it’s a time when campaigns are really trying to figure out what are the norms surrounding this, what are the laws surrounding this?”
In an article by CNN, Ridout discussed the growing challenges posed by AI political advertisements, where voters may have a difficult time determining authentic campaign content from AI-generated material. The danger is that “people are seeing things that didn’t happen, seeing politicians say things they actually didn’t say,” he said.
Franklin Fowler, Ridout, and Franz co-wrote a piece in The Conversation on their research into AI-generated political ads this cycle. “What we found has surprised us: AI use spans from hyperrealistic deepfakes to subtle enhancements; Republican sponsors—both candidates and interest groups—are much more likely to use AI than are Democratic sponsors; and, thanks to a patchwork of state legislation, many of these ads do not disclose the use of AI at all,” they said.
Ridout was also interviewed by the Michigan Information and Research Service about the targeting of political advertisements, specifically when a voter receives ads for candidates not on their ballot. He explained how streaming and connected television (CTV) advertising facilitates more accurate targeting than traditional broadcast television. “Some campaigns use very sophisticated algorithms. Other campaigns, it might be a 19-year-old intern who’s buying the internet ad, and they don’t know how to use the dashboard very well,” he said.
The Reporter also featured the WMP’s research on AI political advertising, highlighting its expanding use in the current election cycle. The article cited the WMP’s findings that 80 percent of the political ads were sponsored by either Republican candidates or pro-Republican groups, while 11 percent were from pro-Democratic sponsors, and 9 percent were ads for independent candidates. Most ads failed to disclose the technology's use.
Other headlines
Maaza Mengiste, professor of English, was recognized in The New York Times, NPR, and CT Insider after receiving the 2026 MacArthur Fellowship Grant. Her work in fiction centers on how conflict, memory, and justice shape the historical record. Her forthcoming book, A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths, contemplates the rise of the Nazis from the perspective of Black Germans. The prestigious “genius grant” provides recipients with an $800,000 stipend distributed over five years. “Every historical record is territory rife with fault lines, with pockets of omission, and it's the task that I have dedicated my life to, finding where those spots are and at least beginning to shine a light on them,” Mengiste said in MacArthur's announcement video.
The New Yorker published A Very Safe Place, a short story by Assistant Professor of English Rachel Heng, and interviewed her about its inspiration, her character choices, and how the laws in Singapore, where the story is set, affects the piece. “I think every society makes choices about what trade-offs it is willing to make—whose liberties and whose safety are prioritized,” Heng said. “Perhaps some Singaporeans have been steeped in these choices for so long that those trade-offs have become invisible or are no longer questioned. That is as true here in the U.S. as it is in Singapore.”
A book published by the Wesleyan University Press, Still House in the Desert by Brenda Hillman, was named as a finalist for the National Book Award in the poetry category. The poetry collection examines a family home in the mid-20th century through an ecological lens.
Variety interviewed Bradley Whitford ’81 about his starring role in the Broadway revival of A Few Good Men, his longstanding collaboration with Aaron Sorkin, and his upcoming Hollywood Walk of Fame honor. The three-time Emmy winner also discussed the play's contemporary relevance, the trajectory of his acting career, and his optimism toward the future of political participation and free expression. “Something I’ve been saying for a long time is—pulling together what a bunch of people have said—despair is a luxury that my children can’t afford, that their future can’t afford, and action is the antidote,” he said about political participation.
Former Foreign Affairs Analyst at the U.S. Department of State and Wesleyan alum David Abramson ’87, P’23 wrote an article in CEPA about the evolving relationship between Russia and North Korea, reinforced by their 2024 comprehensive strategic partnership treaty. He argued that the relationship is rooted in self-interest and is highly transactional; the treaty’s long-term durability will depend on Russia's military needs and China's regional influence. “The transactional nature of the partnership suggests that the relationship might be of little value to Russia beyond the war.”
