Wellesley College to offer new minor
The college will offer a new minor in the fall of 2016, entitled the “Minor in Comparative Race and Ethnicity.” Professors Peggy Levitt and Markella Rutherford will be the advisors for the minor. It is an interdisciplinary minor that requires five classes. Students can count classes from Africana Studies, Anthropology, English, Sociology, American Studies and other disciplines towards the minor. The course catalog stated that the minor entails studying “how power dynamics, operating across time, space and scales of social experience, shape the categories of race and ethnicities.”
Italian Studies Professor honored for work in film
Professor Flavia Laviosa was honored on April 18 in Rome, Italy for her work in Italian film and media studies. She received a David di Donatello award for her contribution to the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, which she founded and now edits. Italian president Sergio Mattarella met with Laviosa and praised her for her contribution to Italian cinema and culture. During the awards ceremony she was also asked to make a presentation about her journal during the Cannes Film Festival on May 18th.
Seniors publish work from Calderwood Seminars
Idalmis Vaquero ’16 and Ashley Funk ’16 participated in a Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing called Environmental Synthesis and Communications. Students who partake in Calderwood Seminars write extensively, and both Vaquero and Funk have had work from their seminar published. Funk published an article in the Huffington Post called “Why I’ll Let Chevron Pay My Family’s Bills, For Now.” Funk stated that her Calderwood Seminar allowed her to publish the article because it taught her how to draw from various sources. Vaquero published an essay titled “Latinos Care About the Environment. So Why Aren’t Green Groups Engaging Them More?” in Ensio magazine, which she drafted in her Calderwood Seminar.
Wellesley combats employee stress
Wellesley was recognized for sponsoring a workplace wellness program called meQuilibrium on benefitnews.com, a website that reports on health benefits for employees. The app sends daily emails to users that include stress reduction tips. 1,200 employees of the college are eligible for the program, and 250 utilized it this past year. Starting in 2015, Wellesley offered a $150 incentive for employees to use the program. A survey shows that since the program has been offered at Wellesley, anxiety at the college has decreased by 15 percent, along with a 3.9 percent decrease in overall stress.
