President’s Letter

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 cancel the upcoming Spring Break so as to finish the semester early, the room erupt…

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…

2019 Issue 2September 17, 2019

Whatever you study in college, you should be prepared to talk about what you’ve learned with people who haven’t studied your subject. In a world in which so many are locked into small silos of understanding, it’s a great…

2018 Issue 3December 6, 2018December 7, 2018

President’s Letter: Interdisciplinary Education

IDEAS is now a minor, and I suspect before too long it will take its place among the interdisciplinary majors offered at the university. I can hardly wait to see what faculty and students make of this addition to our edu…

2018 Issue 2September 7, 2018May 21, 2019

President’s Letter: Student Publications, Editorial Autonomy

“Reading the morning newspaper is the realist’s morning prayer,” wrote Georg Friedrich Hegel. “One orients one’s attitude toward the world either by God or by what the world is. The former gives as much security as the l…

2018 Issue 1May 10, 2018December 12, 2018

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

The question took me by surprise. I had just finished lecturing to about 75 undergraduates at Peking University on the virtues of American-style pragmatic liberal education. My book Beyond the University: Why Liberal Edu…

2017 Issue 3December 12, 2017December 12, 2018

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

Across America, groups are enclosing themselves in bubbles that protect them from competing points of view, even from disturbing information. This has always happened to some extent; it’s easier to be with people who sha…

2017 Issue 2August 1, 2017December 12, 2018

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

We hear it all the time: The cultural and economic context into which our graduates enter is a global one. For many years, Wesleyan has energetically recruited students from across the United States because we …

2017 Issue 1April 1, 2017December 12, 2018

President’s Letter

In March I received a carefully thought-out proposal for a resource center that would support students who feel themselves to be at risk because of their own experience on campus or who feel marginalized by long-term tre…

2016 Issue 3December 1, 2016November 13, 2017

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

When I arrived on campus in the fall of 1975, Wesleyan was well-known for its pioneering ways, its great research output from the sciences to the arts, its demanding and productive teachers, its creative, rambu…