November 2024

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are enjoying some time outdoors during this resurgence of late summer with the fiery colors of autumn!

This Fall semester has been blazing by with classes, the capital campaign launch and a great collection of speakers all over campus. It has been particularly wonderful to hear from our colleagues about their scholarly work. Rebecca Benefiel, Urquhart Professor of Classics showed us how in ancient graffiti in Pompei she reads the story of a family beset by tragedies; Julie Woodzicka, Kenan Professor of CBSC, compared self-predicted and actual behavior in stressful circumstances; and Robin LeBlanc, Wilson Professor of Politics, described her body of research on power and identity gleaned through her ethnographies of people in Japan and Italy.

We also learned from artist Stephanie Shih, whose exhibition Long Time No See remains available in the Reeves Museum through June 2025; and Staniar Gallery artists Liz Lugori and, most recently, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz. Wanda's multimedia exhibition, "Quiero Ir pa'l monte (I want to go to the mountains)," can be seen until December 13, 2024.

Please join us for a talk by Mohamed Kamara, Boetsch Professor of French, in which he will reconceptualize humanitarianism. This will take place on Wednesday, November 13 at 5:00pm in Hillel 101.

Now that we are past midterms and careening quickly into the next break, please accept our gratitude for all that you do for our students in class, in the library, on stage, on the athletic fields and everywhere else. Thank you!

See you on Monday at the Faculty Meeting in Stackhouse!

Best wishes,

Chawne

To learn more about Mohamed's endowed professorship and presentation, click here

Special Collections temporarily closed from Mid-April to September 2025

The University Library is excited to announce that the Special Collections and Archives reading room and staff working spaces will be renovated in 2025. Faculty should be advised that Special Collections and Archives will be closed for renovation from approximately mid-April to early September 2025. If you are teaching a spring term course or are doing summer research that involves access to collections held in Special Collections and Archives, please contact Kim Sims (ksims@wlu.edu) for a consultation as soon as possible.

Associated College of the South - Post-Election Event

On Friday, November 15th from 2:30-3:30pm ET, ACS will host a virtual panel on fostering civil discourse post-election. This will feature a terrific lineup of leaders from Southwestern, Trinity, Furman, and Davidson. I'm excited about this conversation and the chance to elevate outcomes of the Courageous Conversations summer working group and to highlight Furman's On Discourse initiative and Davidson's Deliberative Citizenship Initiative.
I hope you will share this opportunity with your faculty and staff. Here is the registration link: Building Bridges: Strategies for Fostering Civil Discourse Post-Election | Associated Colleges of the South (acsouth.edu)

2024 Nobel Symposium

The College is proud to announce this year's Nobel Symposium. Join us as we celebrate the most remarkable achievements in science and humanity over the past year, honoring those who are making a real impact in our world.

All talks are in the atrium of The Harte Center for Teaching and Learning (Leyburn 128) at noon, with refreshments provided. These sessions are interactive and concise, with 20 minutes dedicated to the presentation, followed by ample time for questions and discussion. We express our gratitude to Natalia Toporikova and Irina Mazilu for their exceptional work in selecting the speakers and organizing the Nobel lectures.

November 7, 20204

Son Nguyen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics, will present the Nobel Prize in Physics. This prize was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks"

November 15, 2024

Dan Mazilu, Professor of Physics, will present this year's Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again"

January 13, 2025

Chris Elford, Assistant Professor of Chinese, will present this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize was awarded to Han Kang "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."

January 29, 2025

Peter Grajzl, John F. Hendon Professor of Economics, will present this year's the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The prize was awarded jointly to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson "for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity"