What's New on the Wellesley CWIS?

Summer 2000

by Rebecca Schaefer

General Interest

125 Years of Dorm Life
A Wellesley scrapbook celebrating 125 years of dorm life.

wellesleyweek
New publication of news and on-campus events.

Library

Voices of Women
The digital version of an exhibition inspired by the wealth of artists' books in the Wellesley College Library Special Collections.

Administration

Friends of Horticulture
The Friends of Horticulture have a newly designed page with event listings, maps and tours.

Continuing Education
The virtual home of the Davis Scholar and PostBac Community introduces the CE Dean, describes community traditions, and has pertinent information about the office.

Academic

Admissions Office
Admissions added a set of QuickTime Virtual Reality panoramic videos of different areas of campus to its virtual campus tour. The panoramas complement the text and photographs previously included there, and provide a fuller sense of "being at Wellesley" for prospective students and other visitors to the site.

American Studies
The American Studies Page offers advice for the prospective major, lists of courses within and without the department, and research assitance.

Biochemistry 221
The Chemistry 221 (Biochemistry 1: Structure and Function of Macromolecules) class web site was redesigned. The site features a course description, the syllabus, lab details, grading information, and useful links (including a site that accompanies the textbook, as well as sites on molecular modeling, protein structures, enzymes, and the 'molecule of the month'.

La Chanson Française
French 223a is a new course on French popular song from postwar existentialist poem-songs to contemporary French rap. Over thirty songs were digitized, compressed, and then embedded into web pages with lyrics and discussion questions. Students¹ answers to these questions are automatically sent to a FirstClass conference. Note: this site is accessible only to computers on Wellesley¹s campus and requires QuickTime 4.0 or later.

Child Study Center
The Child Study Center is a laboratory nursery school for the Department of Psychology. Its website provides information on Center admissions, working or doing research at the Center, and the student handbook.

Cognitive Science
Cognitive Science curriculum, faculty, research and resources.

Comedian Harmonists
The site focuses on the Comedian Harmonists, a German singing group of the 1920s, and the events surrounding the period. Features include text with an accompanying glossary, sound clips and lyrics of some of the group's songs, and a timeline of contemporary events. Note: this site is available only to computers on Wellesley's campus, and requires QuickTime 3.0 or later.

Developmental Psychology
This site has course information and syllabi for Psychology 207 (Developmental Psychology), 207R (Research Methods in Developmental Psychology) and 345 (Early Relationships). The site includes information about Professor Tracy Gleason's research on imaginary companions, as well as links to organizations that advocate for children or do research on children's issues.

English Department
The new English department page offers advice on choosing an English class and majoring in the department, as well as some "serious fun."

German Department
The German Department web site got a facelift. In addition to providing course and faculty information, the site includes pages on study abroad opportunities in Vienna, alumnae news, and department activities.

History of Jazz: Electronic Reserves
Most of the assigned listening for this course comes from the required 5-CD anthology. To supplement areas where the anthology is weakest (e.g., jazz after 1950), Panetta selected 51 recordings (approximately four hours of music) which were digitized and compressed. For each recording, a web page was created with discographical information, an image of the musician, a link to the online Wellesley College library catalog record for the CD from which it was digitized, and a brief 'mini-essay' on the music. Artists featured in the site include Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and many others. To comply with copyright guidelines supported by the Music Library Association, password authentication limits access to students currently enrolled in the course, and the site is completely inaccessible during semesters when the course is not offered. Thus, the URL for this site links to one sample page from the site, modified to present only a twelve-second excerpt.

International Financial Institutions Research site
The site lists research material on international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group.

Japanese Digital Audio and Video
A site was created for second year Japanese students, digitizing over 150 clips of audio and video from 16 lessons. While the sound quality of the original audio cassettes was quite poor, the sound quality was dramatically improved using Pro Tools audio software from Digidesign. Note: this site is accessible only to computers on Wellesley's campus and requires QuickTime 4.0 or later.

Mathematics Department
The Mathematics department was the first departmental homepage on the CWIS, put up in 1994. Their new page has everything from photos of faculty/student softball games to online course materials. Mathematical animations were also added to the Mathematics 205 course page.

Peace and Justice Studies
This interdepartmental program site was redesigned. Notable features include information on internships, volunteer opportunities, career opportunities, Wintersession in India, and events. In addition, there are links to graduate study and research institutions, women's organizations, governmental sites, think tanks, online electronic journals, and news sources.

Psychology 205 Review
The site provides a quick reference to the basic statistical tools and concepts covered in the Psychology 205 lab. Students who visit the site can take an online review test, follow a decision tree to determine which test is appropriate for their dataset, or directly access a list of lab procedures with all the information needed to run a test and interpret the output.

Russian Department
Pesnia (the Russian word for "song") allows students to study the text of Russian songs and was first developed in the early 1990s using Toolbook, a Windows-only application. Mellon interns completed the initial conversion of Pesnia to a web site this summer. The site allows students to listen to songs by such composers as Borodin and Glazunov set to texts by poets such as Pushkin; view the text in Cyrillic; read an English translation; and click on unfamiliar words for a direct translation. The web version of Pesnia greatly increases access to this material, and also adds a new feature (a QuickTime Cyrillic text track synchronized with the music). Note: Pesnia can be viewed on all Windows 98 computers as well as on Macs running OS 9 and the Cyrillic Language Kit.

Sailing (Physical Education)
This site distributes basic sailing instruction to beginners in a paper-friendly and interactive manner, and also serve as a review for experienced sailing students. The site is based on a sailing guide written for MIT students by Harold ³Hatch² Brown, but has been supplemented with photographs of Wellesley sailboats taken by a digital camera.

Swimming (Physical Education)
This site offers basic stroke and drill review for beginning swimming students. Over a dozen digital video clips demonstrate the proper form of freestyle, back stroke, breast stroke, butterfly, turn drills, and dives.

Writing Program
The new Writing Program site serves as an excellent resource for students, featuring comprehensive information on the Writing 125 requirement, program offerings beyond the writing requirement, directions for electing courses, faculty biographies, Internet resources for writers, as well as information on the department's Writing Tutors and annual writing prizes. Overall, the site aims to convey a sense of the writing process and the Writing Program's dedication to familiarizing students with that process, as well as easing anxieties about writing.

Student Organizations

Request to Change Student Organization Information
This form allows officers of student organizations to change the information listed on either the alphabetical or descriptive list of student organizations.

How to Start a Club at Wellesley
Sponsored by College Government

Architectural Forum
"The Architectural Forum will provide an arena in which Wellesley students may convene to discuss their shared interest in architectural history and theory, as well as current design trends."

Art Club
The art club's purpose is "to promote student discussion of art on the Wellesley College campus."

Alianza
"Alianza's purpose is to increase cultural and social awareness of Latin Americans and Iberians in the Wellesley College community, and to advance the common concerns of these people."

Consulting Club
"The purpose of the organization is to serve as a forum for Wellesley College students to learn about the field of business consulting, to develop the students' interest in the field, and to assist the students in obtaining internships and jobs in consulting."

General Judiciary
"General Judiciary is a body of students, faculty, and staff who seek to educate the Wellesley College community about the Honor Code and who administer and enforce Honor Code legislation."

McAfee Hall
"Immerse yourself in this exciting adventure of surfing through McAfee Hall, one of the dorms in the New Dorms Complex. Hopefully, this will let you better assess what this place is like and whether you would like to live here!"

Open World
Open World is Wellesley's journal about international issues.

Pakistani Students' Organization
"The Pakistani Students' Association was formed to promote awareness of Pakistan and to provide a support system for Pakistani students on the Wellesley College campus."

Pomeroy Hall
"'Pom,' as the dorm is affectionately called, has much to offer to its residents including a kosher/vegetarian dining hall, a small, intimate living environment, great activities and fun people."

Unifem
The objectives of the college's chapter of UNIFEM are to further awareness of UNIFEM; to promote the political, economic, and social empowerment of women; and to undertake action, such as educational support and fund-raising (if necessary), for UNIFEM.

Queer Resource Handbook
From Wellesley Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transgenders and Friends.

Wellesley Women Advocates
The Advocates are an on-campus group devoted to domestic violence awareness and education.

 

For a history of these listings, go to the Wellesley CWIS What's New Archives.