In November, Leslie Gould ’15 sat at a table in Balfour-Hood with markers, methodically coloring a white paper bag with wide stripes of purple, green and orange. It was a simple decorative act, but it carried a powerful message: Wheaton is about diversity, community and acceptance of all.

The bag was one of 1,200 luminarias used to line the campus for the annual Vespers concert. Each year, Student Activities, Involvement & Leadership and Residential Life collaborate to place luminarias for the evening event.

In the past, the bags have been plain white. However, an incident last semester in which anti-Semitic graffiti was written at the Jewish Life House prompted resident advisors to add value to the luminaria experience this year by initiating a community-centered response.

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Seminar takes on all-American pastime

The game of baseball, says David Fox, is a microcosm.

“There’s a goofy T-shirt that says, ‘Baseball is life’—and there’s some truth in that,” says the Wheaton theatre professor. “Baseball is a lens on the world. And the human stories that come out of it are very, very compelling.”

Last fall, Fox and 18 freshmen explored some of the game’s most memorable stories in a new First-Year Seminar titled “Curses, Cornfields, and Called Shots: Baseball as the Stuff of Myth and Legend.” Fox, a lifelong Red Sox fan, organized the syllabus into “innings” that explored themes such as baseball as romantic fiction, race and gender in baseball, and baseball’s rough side (subtitled “business, bitterness and scandal”).

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Lindsay Powell ’13

Lindsay Powell, a sociology major who is minoring in political science, is preparing for a career in international human rights policy. During her time at Wheaton, the Student Government Association president and Posse Scholar has gained a great deal of valuable experience in the ways of the world through her travels.

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Nancy Gertner, a former U.S. federal judge, to be keynote speaker.

Gertner was appointed to the federal bench of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts by President Bill Clinton in 1994. She retired from the bench in 2011 and now is a professor of practice at Harvard Law School, a position given to outstanding individuals whose teaching is informed by extensive expertise in law practice, the judiciary, policy and governance. She also taught at the Yale Law School while a judge.

Named one of “The Most Influential Lawyers of the Past 25 Years” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Judge Gertner has written and spoken throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. She has published widely on sentencing, discrimination, and forensic evidence; women’s rights; and the jury system. Her autobiography, In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, was published in 2011.

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