From the President: Doing Our Part to Shore Up Democracy

2024 Spring IssueMarch 2, 2024March 5, 2024

From the President: Doing Our Part to Shore Up Democracy

There is a clear and present danger to American democracy and to American higher education: populist authoritarianism. This is no secret, and yet many in higher education would prefer not to talk about it. Instead, we find ourselves wondering if presidents at a few elite schools should resign. This…

2023 Fall IssueNovember 7, 2023December 20, 2023

From the President: This Is Wesleyan

I always look forward to Homecoming Family Weekend at Wesleyan. Interesting seminars to stimulate the mind, music and dance to get the bodies moving, and plenty of athletics action in which we see Cardinal pride. The pu…

2023 Summer IssueJune 15, 2023July 7, 2023

From the President: Race & College Admissions

Preparing for a Supreme Court Decision Earlier this spring I was joined by Amin Abdul-Malik Gonzalez ’96, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid, to discuss the then still-pending ruling by the Supre…

2023 Spring IssueFebruary 24, 2023February 27, 2023

President’s Letter: Pragmatic Liberal Education

Colleges and universities in the United States come in many forms, but one of their most distinctive elements is pragmatic liberal education. This form of learning—no matter what you are studying—combines the acquis…

2021-2022 Winter IssueJanuary 18, 2022January 18, 2022

President’s Letter: Thinking Beyond the Pandemic

I write this column as we approach the last week of fall semester classes. What a term it has been! We arrived in Middletown in late summer as the Delta variant was surging in different parts of the country, and although…

2021 Issue 1May 15, 2021January 17, 2022

President’s Letter: Intellectual Diversity Empowers Discernment in Students

It’s been a hard time for the partisans of progress. We’ve just seen how suddenly things we value about modern life—accomplishments of Progress with a capital “P”—can be swept away. It might just be a wet food market, a …

2020-2021 Winter IssueFebruary 6, 2021February 6, 2021

President’s Letter: Effective Leaders Learn from Crises

Now that I’ve been a president for about 20 years, I’m frequently asked what it’s like to be in charge of a very decentr…

2020 Issue 2September 24, 2020

President’s Letter: ‘This Changes Everything’

Each year, incoming students are asked to read a common text as an intellectual introduction to Wesleyan. This year’s selection, a documentary entitled "This Changes Everything," offers an unflinching look at the impact …

2020 Issue 1May 1, 2020

President’s Letter: Building Toward a New Normal

At a faculty meeting in early March, the coronavirus was third on my list of agenda items to talk about, after facilities improvements and fundraising progress. When I mentioned a colleague’s suggestion that Wesleyan can…

2019 Issue 3December 3, 2019

President’s Letter: “Borders Don’t Confine an Inquisitive Mind, a Compassionate Heart, and a Courageous Spirit!”

When I arrived as a student here in 1975, I had never ventured far from the United States. My mind-opening studies in European cultural history soon took me to France, where later I would live for some years. When I retu…