Voice!

Ever wonder what happens when film studies majors are allowed free range of film screenings for an entire University Campus? Sad you were born too late to see classics like Lawrence of Arabia and Casablanca on the big screen? Well, wonder and fret no more. At Wesleyan, we offer you the finest of film viewing experiences. Here, in our own newly built Goldsmith Family Cinema we have the WESLEYAN FILM SERIES!

Screening movies from Wednesday - Saturday night, the film series offers students an affordable and fun venue for seeing both contemporary and historic films. In your four years at Wesleyan you will never see the same movie twice, which means that over 350 movies will be screened during your time here. With the ability to show films in all different formats ( from digital to 70mm), watching a film at Wesleyan is a unique and different experience.

Going to the film series is not like going to your local cinema. Audience members often shout at the screen ( such as during Bob Saget’s rendition of the dirtiest joke in showbiz during “The Aristocrats”), dance along ( as was the case with the Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” and the Disney musical “Newsies”) , and laugh in one big wave ( constantly during films like “Knocked Up” and “40-Year Old Virgin). More politically oriented movies often spur passionate conversations that can both be heard in the lobby after the film and throughout the next week. The once a semester midnight screening is always a blast and one of the most popular features.

So, if you consider yourself a film buff or just enjoy a casual flick with friends every now and then, the film series will inevitably have something for everyone. And, if you don’t see it when you get here, you can always request it from the completely student run film series board.

Enjoy!

Emily Einhorn ‘08 and Jeff Wong ‘08
Senior Interviewers

Hey all,

I wanted to update you all on the efforts of students, faculty and the university to go green. Last night we had our weekly EON meeting, and it was exciting to see the progress that has been made over the last several years. EON stands for the Environmental Organizers’ Network - it’s basically the place where students come together to talk about environmental stewardship on campus and in the community. We then break up into smaller ‘campaigns,’ where we will work with the community to get a specific goal accomplished.

I’ve been going to EON meetings since my RA (resident advisor) dragged me to a meeting my frosh year. I had never been interested in environmental activism before, but I kept coming to meetings because it was a group of incredibly passionate people, and they had a track record for getting things done. The group has become a big part of my experience at Wes - and I think it proves the point that if you come to Wes, you will undoubtedly get interested in something that you never could have predicted back in high school.

OK, back to the green. EON has worked closely with administrators to become more environmentally conscious. Walk into WESHOP (grocery store on campus) and you will without thinking buy organic, cage-free eggs - thanks to an EON campaign that occurred even before my time. Walk through the dorms and you will see nifty labels for cans/bottles and paper, thanks to pressure from students and support from administrators. We also have an up-and-growing composting program that has taken off thanks to the help of Bon Appetit, the new food service, which will compost all pre-production waste from Usdan.

Most exciting is that the university has started a Sustainability Committee, again with the help/prodding of students. Together with faculty and staff (and the people who hold the purse-strings), we meet to talk about new initiatives and how we can improve sustainability as a school. We have had a couple good meetings and we’re looking forward to the next one, where we will be discussing the possibility of President Roth signing a university commitment to combating climate change.

I’ll keep updating you all on the progress we’re making as a school. But look out on your next visit for recycling labels and compost bins, or ask a student what they think of the environmental awareness here. And, of course, you can do your own part in making your own lifestyles more sustainable.

Izaak Orlansky ‘08
Senior Interviewer

P.S. If you’re interested in following EON more closely, check out our blog at http://www.wesleyaneon.blogspot.com

When going on a college visit, talking to current students can give you as much information as the Office of Admissions. Searching through the campus on your own time can allow you explore different aspects of the campus and talk to current students. Don’t be shy!!! College students LOVE to talk about themselves and their school. So, ask away. They will probably be thrilled to reminisce about how they made their college decision.

THE BEST PLACES TO TALK TO STUDENTS AT WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY:

• The Usdan University Center - the new student center. (you can check out a live webcam of the Usdan here!)
• Foss Hill on a sunny day
• Outside Olin Library during students’ study breaks
• Pi Café
• WEShop

GREAT QUESTIONS TO ASK CURRENT STUDENTS:

• What is your favorite part about college? What would you change?
• What is the best class you took while here? Listen to how passionately they talk about their academic experience.
• What surprised you about the school when you got here? When you got to college what parts of student life, academia, or social life became more important than you originally thought they would be?
• What’s an average day like for you?

Enjoy your visit and just remember everyone was in your shoes once, too!

Emily Einhorn ‘08 and Jeff Wong ‘08
Senior Interviewers

After Adam’s post about the arts scene at Wesleyan, I wanted to let you know quickly about an exciting event from this past weekend. For the past two years, Wesleyan has put together a “€œcommon reading”€ for first year students that allows them to come to campus with a shared work to discuss. At many other schools, this might be a novel or an essay, but at Wesleyan it’s a dance. After the great success of Bill T. Jones’€™s visit last year with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, the Center for the Arts (CFA) commissioned a new piece of choreography from Ronald K. Brown for his Evidence Dance Company. The dance was based on the photographs of Charles “Teenie” Harris, which evoke the spirit of mid-twentieth century black urban America. On September 7, Brown attended the opening reception of a show of Charles “Teenie” Harris’s work at the Zilkha Gallery in the CFA. The following Thursday, Brown gave a lecture on his new piece, “One Shot,” and its connections with Harris’s photographs. The lecture, part of Wesleyan’s First-Year Matters Program, was geared especially for first-year students, who attended in groups from their dorms. The lecture and the discussion that followed provided an opportunity to think about the connections between dance and photography, in addition to connecting the dance to students’ lives using photographs they had brought from home. The culminating event in this week-long residency was the premiere of Brown’s piece at the CFA Theater. The dance blended elements of African, modern, ballet and hip-hop styles, incorporating Harris’s photographs with the movement and various musical styles.

This is just one example of the kind of events that Wesleyan brings through the CFA every semester, and the kind of involvement those visiting artists have with the community. For more listings, check out the CFA’s events page.

Peter Hill ‘08
Senior Interviewer

So, it’s been said that Wesleyan students are movers and shakers — founding projects, starting movements, speaking our minds, using our voices — you can see all around campus that students are fleshing out the real meaning of the word ‘creation’. But not only do Wes students build from the ground up, we build from the ground in too. Wesleyan’s student initiated, founded and run farm is called Long Lane Farm, a totally organic project. Long Lane blossomed from a club created in 2004 for students to come together and learn about food security issues every Monday night at 7 pm, to a full acre piece of land chock full of vegetables and flowers, which also operates as a farmstand, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) accessible on a sliding scale, and the site of an educational internship program for high school students.

This time of year, Long Lane is overflowing with baskets of tomatoes, swiss chard, eggplant, pumpkins, carrots, beets, and more…it’s warm from the cobb stove baking pizza with fresh veggies on top, buzzing with the bees making honey, and full of students from all years biking, walking, jogging out to the farm for Saturday workdays. The Long Lane Farm project has community gardens around town as well. During my freshman spring, I took a student-led forum on sustainability during which I brought a class of students from a local elementary school to the Washinton Street community garden, some of whom had no idea where their vegetables at dinner came from and definietely no idea that they could in fact eat that which they themselves planted! That day I helped them plant a plot with lettuce, carrots and flowers, and then met them back at the garden a few months later to see the progress and harvest their crops.

Long Lane has worked to develop a relationship with the Middletown community through events at the farm such as Harvest Festivals and May Day celebrations in the fall and spring with lots of kids and families, student bands, a may day pole, apple pies, pumpkin painting and harvesting. It’s donated food to the St. Vincent De Paul Place Soup Kitchen, sold veggies to Its Only Natural Market in town, and generally worked to explore and embody the spirit of local, organic foods, sustainability, community-orientation and fun. The best part of it all is that the farm continues to be powered by student energy, commitment, digging, tilling and planting. Students involved with Long Lane still meet weekly to talk about farm planning and issues around food security, but now also have regular potlucks and make jam, pickles and tomato sauce. The farm is always open, with a chalkboard on the side of the shed listing all of the tasks for the week….so, anytime you’re on campus feel free to put on your overalls, grab a hoe and get in the dirt, or simply lie on the hammock and take a breather. Hope to see you out there!

Grace Lesser ‘08
Senior Interviewer

Wesleyan has an absolutely amazing, cutting-edge arts scene. Many students get involved through the arts departments, which are housed in the beautiful Center for the Arts. The CFA is my favorite part of campus, a beautiful and unique complex of minimalist, limestone buildings from the 1970s. The architect designed the compelx so as to cut down as few trees as possible, and uses almost exlusively straight, rectilinear lines. All the departments are fabulous and deserve their own blog entry, but I wanted to highlight instead the wealth, diversity, and innovation in art-making that is spearheaded by students alone. Two examples you can find here in the blogosphere are our arts publications and our music scene of student bands.

Ostranenie is an alternative arts magazine edited and published by a board of students. They accept poetry and any sort of 2-D works you can imagine. Rather than reading me gush about the quality of the work in here, just open up the pdf they have available of their first issue. Wesleyan also has several other arts magazines, ranging from more traditional literary magazines to the radio station’s music-centered WESU magazine. The diversity of Wesleyan’s alternative publications speaks to the wide range of artistic approaches found here, to say nothing of the impressive initiative and independence required to get these beautiful publications out. And if you’re not satisfied that any of the current outlets gels with your own artistic vision, you can always start a new one! Both WESU Magazine and Ostranenie were both just started last year, but I predict a bright future for both of them.

Wesleyan has also historically been a home for independent music, in and out of the Music Department. Perhaps music professors like Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton, both leading lights in the world of avant-garde music, serve as inspiration to students, who adapt the department’s spirit of experimentation to their own music. Among the lauded, succesful pop and rock musicians who went to Wes in the 1980s and 90s include the Dresden Dolls, Adam and his Package and Dar Williams. Recent Wesleyan grads and current students follow in their footsteps, making fiercely independent and consistently interesting tunes. Here’s a recent grad’s blog, where you can find an entire mix containing exclusively Wesleyan bands from the last couple of years. One band of 2005 graduates, MGMT (say “Management) have recently been signed to Columbia records, and their album Oracular Spectacular is getting rave reviews.

Wesleyan bands typically play shows in the Westco Cafe, at Eclectic and the other societies’ houses, and at the school’s many outdoor concert festivals. Then, after school is over, many of them move to Brooklyn, San Francisco and other arts meccas, while staying in touch with their wide networks of Wesleyan contacts in the arts and entertainment industries.

Wait, did you say “many outdoor concert festivals”???

Yes, throughout the sunny seasons, it seems there is practically a concert festival every weekend. Each of the various dorms usually put on a Saturday afternoon of free food, wild decorations, outdoor activities, and a mix of campus bands and outside bands brought in from New York or elsewhere. As soon as the next one happens (that should be Duke Day, an autumn tradition dating back to the 1970s put on by the WestCo community inspired by characters from the comic strip “Doonesbury”), I’ll be sure to post some pictures.

Adam Tinkle ‘08
Senior Interviewer

For those of you interested in radio, Wesleyan has its own radio station: WESU Middletown. This station is actually the second oldest station in the country. It was started in 1939, when students living in Clark Hall connected radio wires to the water pipes in the building. The station has progressed greatly since this time, eventually becoming a legitimate station and broadcasting further throughout Connecticut.

Today, the station broadcasts at 1500 watts, which means that it reaches about 2.1 million people around Connecticut. We broadcast 24 hours a day and you can hear it in most of Connecticut and even some parts of Massachusetts at 88.1FM. WESU also streams live online at www.wesufm.org. While the studio was originally located in the basement of Clark Hall, it was moved down to 45 Broad Street, right above Broad Street Books (our campus bookstore), when the dorm was renovated in the year 2000. The studio’s new location is larger and has more equipment.

Today’s WESU is unique in several ways:

-We are a freeform station, meaning that we allow people to do radio shows in whatever genre they desire. So we have shows focusing on rock music, hip-hop, political talk, alternative medicine, surf music, gospel, reggae, jazz, and many more areas.

-We are a student-community station. So while Wesleyan University owns our license, we allow anyone to become a DJ at the station. About 50% of the DJ’s are Wesleyan students, while the other 50% are community members from the Middletown and Hartford area. This gives us much greater diversity in programming, as well as creating a link between Wesleyan students and Middletown residents.

-We broadcast NPR during the day. In the year 2005, WESU began streaming NPR during the daytime hours. NPR plays from 5AM-3PM on weekdays, with a break from 12-1PM when Democracy Now! airs. This allows our listeners to hear news during the day before hearing music and other talk shows in the afternoon and evening.

In April 2007, I was elected President of WESU and am working to make the station more accessible and unique. I invite you all to check out WESU and listen whenever you get a chance and to get involved if you attend Wesleyan. You can see a program guide listing times and descriptions of all our shows at www.wesufm.org, where you can also stream the station live, from anywhere in the world. I hope you get a chance to listen.

Jeff Wong ‘08
Senior Interviewer

Ok, now for a very important topic. This is something you should all be thinking about as you are looking at different schools. I don’t think I’ll need to convince anyone that academics come first at each and every school. The quality of teachers, departments, courses, even classrooms is absolutely crucial. However, as you will realize once you get to college, you spend way more time in your housing than you do in your classes. Therefore, once you’ve established that a school has a good academic reputation, you should look at what kind of housing they offer and decide whether or not you will be comfortable there.

So, as for housing at Wes…basically, it is awesome. As you will have heard you if you have visited campus already, we at Wes have a philosophy of progressive independence that determines the housing options throughout your four years here. So here is a basic run down of the housing options:

Freshman year:

For freshman housing, the vast majority of students will be living in one or two room doubles. There are a few singles available to freshman with specific needs, but on the whole, singles go to upper classmen. A one room double is pretty much what it sounds like: two people share one room. The one room doubles are spacious and you will never be in the kind of room that requires the beds to be bunked in order to have enough room to walk around. Below are a couple pictures of one room doubles from the two exclusively freshman dorms: Clark and Fauver.

This double is in Clark, an exclusively freshman dorm. All the rooms in Clark are one room doubles. Below the picture of the bedroom are some images of common spaces in Clark. These images are all from the Residential Life website. Feel free to go to the site and see other images or more information.

These images are from Fauver, the newest all-freshman dorm. First there is a bedroom and then images of the lounges and courtyard.

The other option I mentioned is a two room double. A two room double is, again, pretty self explanatory. There are two rooms that are connected by a door, but only one of those rooms have access to the hall.

So basically, your freshman year you live in a pretty typical college set-up. You have a roommate, people living next door and down the hall. Living in a dorm is a fantastic way to meet new people and settle into college life. However, for those of you who don’t like the idea of living in a dorm for too long…

Sophomore Year:

For sophomores (and juniors) Wesleyan has something called a program house. Program houses are actual houses, with a kitchen, living room, bedrooms, etc. There are a couple program houses that have been moved into halls on a dorm, but these halls have been converted to include a private kitchen and common space. A program house is intended to unite students based on some theme, ranging from activities to languages and religions. For example, there is a community service house, a sign language house, a French house, a German house, a Buddhist house, a Jewish house (for more information on the Jewish house, see the entry on Jewish life on campus posted below), and an International house. This is a small sprinkling of what is available; there are about 30 program houses on campus. The program houses are again, a great way to get to know people who have common interests. The houses also host events (or programs, hence the name) for the whole community. These range from religious service to camping trips and conversation hours. These events keep the houses involved with the whole Wesleyan community and give other students the chance to learn about something new. An important detail about program houses: they are not limited to people who have a pre-existing interest in the theme of the house. If you are open and willing to learn and participate, you can be a member of any program house. The sophomores that don’t live in program houses will typically live in the dorms for a second year. The vast majority of them will get singles.

Junior Year:

The majority of juniors will be living in apartments, but a couple will be in dorms or program houses again. The apartments are built for 2, 4, or 5 people, depending on the complex. All of them have a common space, a bathroom, a kitchen, and single rooms. The apartments are awesome! While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they are architecturally pleasing, they are very comfortable. Having a kitchen is really nice, because I can guarantee that, as good as it is, after two years of campus food you will be ready for a change. But, as good as junior housing is, it doesn’t even compare to senior housing!

Senior Year:

Seniors get houses! 85% of the senior class live in woodframe houses, which are just regular houses, on a street, in a neighborhood. The houses are usually older houses, so they are all different and each one has its own character. Below are some pictures of the woodframe houses.

The houses fit 2-6 people, and each one offers single bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom. Some of them have front/back yards, porches, balconies, dining rooms, etc. In all honesty, these houses are probably nicer than anything you will live in for many years after you graduate from college. Another perk: Wesleyan is your land lord, which means that the university will mow your lawn, plow your driveway, fix your toilet if it breaks, take care of an ant problem, or any of the thousands of other things that can go wrong in a house. Its probably one of the cushiest housing situations you will ever be in!

So that is housing at Wes. Back to the philosophy of progressive independence, as you can see, throughout the four years at Wesleyan, you live in housing situations that become increasingly independent. By the time you are a senior you have to keep a whole house clean, learn the trash and recycling schedule, and you are probably doing some cooking for yourself. The idea is that by the time you graduate, you have all the skills you need to live on your own successfully. The progressive independence also means that your housing gets better and better each year!

As I said before, housing is really important to your college experience. Take it seriously and feel free to ask any questions!

Hannah Junkerman ‘08
Senior Interviewer

Thinking back to when I was applying to college, I remember how hectic it was to get all my applications done, take all the necessary tests, get my letters of recommendation, write my personal statement, and still be a student. Going to a large high school, my guidance counselor was the least bit helpful in helping me navigate the college process. Needless to say, after I finally finished I didn’t want to think about having to do that all over again. However, it’s senior year now, and with the dream of going to law school, I’m right back at that point, only with a whole office of people by my side.

I just got back from taking a FREE practice LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) courtesy of Wesleyan’s Career Resource Center. The Career Resource Center(CRC) has been such an instrumental force in my time here at Wesleyan. From the moment you step foot onto this campus and well beyond graduating from Wesleyan, the CRC is there to help you look for possible internships, grants, and fellowships, as well as help you craft your resume and cover letters.

Coming to Wesleyan, I always knew that I wanted to be a lawyer but didn’t want to spend my undergraduate years taking classes specifically geared towards law or the legal system (I’ll have a full 3 yrs in law school to do that). However, I did want to be at a school that would still offer the support I needed to be on a law school tract and be there when it was time to start applying. Wesleyan has a pre-law advisor, Jim Kubat, who meets with students to help them precisely with that. (There is also a pre-med advisor at Wesleyan.) Through one-on-ones, as early as freshman year, Mr.Kubat will sit down with students to review what needs to be done at each stage of the process, as well as prep for the LSAT, the application process, letters of recommendation, personal statements, etc.

Because of my high school experience, with guidance, I paid close attention to the career centers at schools to which I was applying, and implore you to do the same. The CRC, is not only just about job placement after college, but also plays an important part in your undergraduate learning experience. For example, I know people who have applied for fellowships through the CRC to travel during their summer to do research or volunteer work. All of this can add to the richness of your learning experience at Wesleyan.

Just to give you one final example of how helpful the CRC can be, below is a list of a couple of the information sessions that the CRC has coordinated for the next two weeks:

• Fordham U & Roger Williams U, Monday 9/17
• Georgetown Law Center (video conference with dean of admissions), Tuesday 9/18
• Benjamin Cordozo, Northeastern U, Wednesday 9/20
• American U, Boston College, Wednesday 9/20
• Cornell, Duke, NYU, Stanford, Tuesday 9/26
• Yale Law, Thursday 9/28

Those are examples geared toward law, but I guarantee there is a long list of events geared toward other arenas. You’re welcome to check them out at the CRC website.

Good Luck with the college process!!

LaShawn Springer ‘08
Senior Interviewer

Transitioning to college can be scary at times, but holding on to traditions can be one of the best ways to bring a piece of home to school. When I came to Wesleyan I was unsure what would be familiar and what would be foreign and new. One simple way that I found continuity between the two was with the Jewish community at Wesleyan. Although people often assume religious life at Wesleyan isn’t a big part of campus life, many students find religion to a play an important role in their experience here.

As the New Year begins ( this past Wednesday evening and Thursday was the beginning of the Jewish New Year — Rosh Hashonah), I have started to reflect back to what I had anticipated religious life in college would be like for me. Even though I grew up in a Jewish home, I never assumed the being involved in Judiasm would be something important to me in college. But, as I entered a whirlwind of new experiences at Wesleyan, I found that holding on to the past and creating new traditions became something I really valued. While Wesleyan doesn’t have a ‘Hillel’ ( a Jewish student organization found on many larger college campuses), Wesleyan has an exteremely active Jewish student group and Jewish student program house, affectionately known as ‘the bayit’ (Hebrew for house). This house is the center of Jewish life at Wesleyan, and is the home to many religious and cultural programs

Here is just a sampling of a few of the things I have been involved in with the Jewish community since coming to Wesleyan :

-I helped plan a B’not Mitzvah party ( a celebration commemerating the Jewish rite of passage into adulthood) for the entire campus

-witnessed Yom Kippur afternoon discussions with participants ranging from the deeplying observant to to the intensely questioning

-eaten more home baked challah than I ever imagined possible

-attended feminist Shabbats, orthodox Shabbats, yoga infused Shabbats, meditative Shabbats, Reconstructionist Shabbats, Conservative Shabbats, and Reform Shabbats ( to give just a few examples)

-learned new prayers and songs — as well as new ways to conceptualize prayer and religion altogether

So, no matter what your religious tradition currently is, Wesleyan is a terrrific place to become more spiritual. Or, if personal religion is not something you see yourself pursuing, Wesleyan is a great place to learn more about other people’s religions, and meet some great people along the way. While religion can often be a taboo subject in America, at Wesleyan there is really something for everyone, and an open community that will discuss both deeply held religious beliefs and the questions that inevitably arise along the path of any religious tradition.

In the Jewish community, at Rosh Hashonah, it is custom to wish others a sweet and happy new year. I’d like to extend this to all of you going through the college application process. May you have a sweet time looking at schools, and find whatever will make you happy.

Emily Einhorn ‘08
Senior Interviewer