Wesleyan in the News: November 2026
President Michael S. Roth ’78 joined WBUR On Point for a show on a recent debate over whether fraternities should be allowed on college campuses. In 2014, the University ordered fraternities on campus to become coeducational. “The fraternity that admitted women found within a year I think, that this works pretty well,” Roth said. “They enjoy each other's company, and within a year or two, there were women officers of the organization, and they still had their traditions. They still met with their alumni.”
Roth also appeared on the radio program “It’s the Democracy, Stupid” with Edwin Eisendrath to discuss his recent New York Times guest essay on Wesleyan’s decision to require residential fraternities to become coed. “I was the president of a fraternity, it was coed when I was here in the 70s, but I really do understand why people value the relationships they forge in these houses or with their brothers,” Roth said. “I thought you could just extend that to men and women. Also, the networks that fraternities provide after you graduate, the kind of professional help, that should not be limited just to men.”
Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, emeritus, made an appearance on The Founder’s Story podcast to discuss the global response to climate change. Yohe outlined three approaches to addressing climate risks: mitigation, adaptation, and managing the consequences of continued warming. He reflected on his decades-long commitment to climate research, his work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the urgency of preparing communities for the impacts of climate change.
The Gordon Career Center received a 2026 Handshake Career Spark Award, signifying Wesleyan is in the top two percent of Handshake’s more than 1600 member schools and one of 10 private, 4-year universities in the country to get this recognition.
In The New York Times, Bradley Whitford ’81 was featured in a story about the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men. Whitford, who plays Colonel Nathan R. Jessep in the production, reflected on his enduring connection to the play, his experience as an understudy-turned-performer as character Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee in the original Broadway production, and the play’s specific relevance in 2026.
Sam Wasson ’03 was interviewed by The New York Times about his biography of influential filmmaker Frank Capra, Frank Capra: A Life. “How much compassion do you afford your subject?” Wasson said. “This is a biographer’s challenge, prerogative, gift, curse. I always want to give the most possible. I think with a rare exception you’re not doing the job if you don’t.”
Wesleyan Media Project
Erika Franklin Fowler, Wesleyan Media Project (WMP) co-director and professor of government, was interviewed by CBS Sunday Morning for a story on political advertising and the use of artificial intelligence in campaign ads. “It's having candidates say things that they never said or do things that they never did,” Franklin Fowler said. “Those are particularly concerning because it's not clear to the viewer that this never happened.”
Fowler was featured in PBS Newshour coverage analyzing the growing use of AI in political ads. She discussed the danger of voters not being able to distinguish whether an ad contains AI or not. “The big point to underscore is that, even though we have identified quite a few ads that use AI, there’s undoubtedly much more that we cannot detect because it is just that challenging to be able to tell,” she said.
Fowler was also quoted in The Guardian commenting on the use of AI-generated deepfakes in political ads across Spain and the United States. “For comparison, we identified less than $50,000 in spending on AI-generated ads in the 2024 cycle. Much of the AI use is not disclosed through any type of disclaimer.”
Fowler appeared in Katie Couric Media in a story that examined the ways in which AI is changing the scene of political advertising. She discussed the difficulty in identifying ads that use AI, explaining how some ads only entered the WMP’s database “solely because there's a label at the end” and that, without the disclosures, “we would not be able to detect” the technology’s use. Fowler also noted the financial appeal of AI for campaigns, saying, “You can produce content in a much quicker and cheaper way than you could without AI.”
Fowler appeared on Bloomberg Tech to discuss the rapid growth of AI-generated political ads. She described AI as introducing “a whole new type” of political ad, including candidate deepfakes, and noted that more than 80 percent of the ads identified by the WMP came from Republican sponsors, while more than 70 percent did not include an AI disclaimer. “We’ve tracked over 220 ads so far, and that number will increase,” she said.
Fowler was quoted in France 24 in a story examining the proliferation of AI-generated political ads. “AI is making its way into the 2026 midterms in a big way this year,” Fowler said. She added that only 27 percent of the ads carried an AI disclaimer, calling the trend “problematic.”
Michael Franz, WMP co-director and professor of government at Bowdoin College, was featured in an NPR story examining how digital political advertising is changing campaign messaging. Franz explained how candidates often use different strategies when producing in- or out-of-state political ads. “In a general election campaign for a [local] TV ad, a candidate will never say, ‘I’m the Democrat,’ because they want to appeal to moderates and swing voters and they want voters across the aisle,” Franz said. “But with a digital ad that's airing outside of your state, the party label becomes more important.”
In a CNN article, Travis Ridout, WMP co-director and professor of political science at Washington State University, discussed the use of violent crime in political advertising. He claimed that Republicans are emphasizing crime because voters tend to trust the party more on the issue.
Ridout was also featured in a NBC News article examining the growing use of AI-generated political ads. He expressed concerns over the ability of voters to distinguish between ads that have been created with the use of AI versus not, along with the potential consequences for political discourse as a whole. “That’s, I think, what’s most concerning from a democratic perspective,” he said. Ridout also touched on the creative possibilities of AI in political advertising, but also warned about its possible future effects: “I do worry about the lasting impact of those images, even if people know that it might not be true,” he said.
Ridout was interviewed for a Fortune article which explored AI ads as evidence of how consequential this election cycle is, and how pervasive artificial intelligence has become in content creation. He explained the potential for AI-generated content to affect voters’ perceptions even when they recognize that an advertisement is fabricated. “For voters, there’s a temptation to say, ‘I don’t know what to believe anymore, and so I’m not going to believe anything,’” Ridout said. “That makes voting on the basis of facts quite difficult.”
Ridout also was cited in Axios about the WMP’s finding that $137 million had been spent on 220 AI-generated ads nationwide through October 11, mostly from Republicans, noting that the project’s tally is “almost certainly an undercount.”
WMP was cited in The New York Times Opinion’s coverage of AI in political advertising. The WMP found that political advertisers have spent more than $137 million on ads generated or enhanced with AI this election cycle, while only about one-quarter of those ads disclosed their use of AI.
Findings from the WMP were also cited in The Washington Post, CBS News, NewsNation, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Yahoo! Tech, and Inside Elections. The Washington Post noted that Republicans accounted for 88 percent of AI ad spending. Inside Elections reported that nearly half of the AI-generated videos it reviewed featured deepfakes of real politicians and that 70 percent did not include an AI disclaimer.
