students – Page 6

weiner ’24 explores 1947 texas city disaster

Arlo Weiner ‘24 is a history and Middle East studies major. For his thesis, he is creating a documentary about the 1947 Texas City Disaster in which 576 people were killed and more than 3,000 injured. With the assistance of a 2023 Bailey COE summer fellowship, he spent his summer in Texas City and Galveston, meeting with witnesses of the disaster and conducting historical research.

What led you to choose the Texas City Disaster as the subject for this documentary project?
I picked this project because I was able to get in touch with a man named Carl Trepagnier, who wrote a fictionalized account of his experience of the disaster entitled Rise Up: A Novel about the 1947 Texas City Explosion. He offered to bring me to the town and offered to show me around and introduce me to other people who also lived through the disaster.

andrews ’24 retraces her great-grandfather’s farming footsteps

by lfranklin

Every year, the Bailey COE awards fellowships to fund summer research opportunities for Wesleyan students across all majors and class years. Most recently, the COE awarded 35 summer fellowships and 1 fall fellowship to Wes students. Olivia Andrews ’24 is an art history major with a minor in film. Olivia’s summer fellowship project mainly centered around her great-grandfather, Tony Andrews, a black farmer who emigrated from Cape Verde by boat in 1926 and founded the family’s farm in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

senior spotlight: dylan campos ’24

by acmorris

Our 33 class of 2024 ENVS linked majors have primary majors in 15 different departments, from film to government to feminist, gender and sexuality to chemistry. This diversity reflects the deep and widespread interest in environmental issues on the Wesleyan campus and our incredibly fertile coexist community! Dylan Campos ’24 (he/they) is a history and environmental studies major with a minor in global engagement. Learn more about Dylan, below!

angstadt ’25 digs coe summer fellowship opp

by acmorris

Every year, the Bailey COE awards fellowships to fund summer research opportunities for Wesleyan students across all majors and class years. Most recently, the COE awarded 35 summer fellowships and 1 fall fellowship to Wes students. Natalie Angstadt ’25 is a junior majoring in Archaeology and Neuroscience & Behavior. Last summer she engaged in an archaeological dig at Trasimeno Archaeology Field School with the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy.

shiffer-delegard ’23 conducts thesis research in uk

by kwu01

Annika Shiffer-Delegard ‘23 is a senior English and environmental studies double major. Her thesis project explores the fascinating topic of herbal abortifacients through historical and media studies lenses. The research is a thesis in environmental studies that Annika hopes will shed light on the intersection between the environmental justice and reproductive justice movements. To support Annika’s research, the College of the Environment provided funding for Annika to travel to the UK to conduct archival research at Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Physicians.

The inspiration for Annika’s senior thesis dates back to the spring of her freshman year when, in Professor Laura Ann Twagira’s Revolutionary Women class, Annika came across the concept of herbal abortifacients: using plants to cause abortion, a practice used by indigenous women in Suriname to induce abortion so that their children wouldn’t be born into slavery. “Ever since, I just had a little twinge in the back of my brain, thinking I need to study this. It really felt like the most interesting thing ever to me,” says Annika.

youth advocacy day in hartford

by acmorris

Last April, I had the opportunity to attend Youth Advocacy Day at the Connecticut Capitol Building in Hartford. This event was hosted by several Connecticut environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, and Sunrise Connecticut. I attended the event with Sunrise Movement Wesleyan, a student organization committed to environmental advocacy through engagement with politics. The purpose of the day was to facilitate discussion between young people invested in environmental issues and Connecticut legislators. The day saw a large turnout of students, specifically high schoolers, invested in environmental progress.

blackwater photo exhibit by zhang ’23 opens 4/21 @ the coe

by Laurie Kenney

Music and environmental studies major Lily Zhang ‘23 is the winner of the 2023 Elizabeth Verveer Tishler Keyboard Competition here at Wesleyan. When she’s not playing the piano, Lily enjoys scuba diving and freediving and is an enthusiastic amateur blackwater photographer. The opening reception for her COE photo exhibit, A Blackwater Dive, will take place at the College of the Environment, 284 High Street, on Friday, April 21, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm.