ANNUAL MANUAL ’09: Rochester Colleges

 [
COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES ] BY LEAH KRAUS

With nearly a dozen colleges and universities in the area, Rochester
offers an academic atmosphere mixed with all the fun that comes with having a rich
vein of young adults making the most out of their college years. For those
already past their four (or seven) boisterous years of themed parties, cramming
for exams, and receiving all those cool event discounts that come with being a
starving college kid, the past is knocking. Many area colleges offer lecture
series that are open to the general public, with several bringing in big names
offering words of wisdom you won’t find anywhere else. Below find a handful of
free lectures and educational series open to the general public.

The Plutzik Reading series,
named for the late poet HyamPlutzik,
brings well known writers to the University of Rochester’s river campus, where
they read and discuss pieces of their work as, well as answer questions from
the audience all in the comfort of the cozy Welles-Brown room in Rush Rhees Library.

            “Our goal is
to bring the best writers, the most serious practitioners of verbal artistry,
poets, and novelists who stand up to the best writers in our literary history,”
says James Longenbach, director of the series and English
professor at UR. “Such writers are
sometimes famous, but they are always extremely entertaining. By which I mean a
wide array of things: not just funny, but challenging, harrowing,
thought-provoking — the whole human contraption.” Past authors who have taken
part in the series include Jonathan Franzen, Edward Hirsch, Claudia Rankine, and John Koethe.

            Upcoming
speakers in the 2008-09 series include authors Frank Bidart
on March 23 and Anthony Doerr on April 8, both at 8 p.m. For more information call the UR English
department at 275-4092, or visit rochester.edu/College/ENG/plutzik.

The Caroline Werner Gannett Project invites a variety
of speakers in the sciences and humanities to Rochester Institute of
Technology’s Henrietta campus to lecture on anything from jazz to geography. “Speakers
or performers do not do a single fly-in, fly-out lecture for the campus and
community,” says Dr. Mary Lynn Broe, the Caroline
Werner Gannett chair. “They have lunch with and are videotaped being
interviewed by RIT students. Usually there is a workshop or colloquium or
gallery talk about the speakers, often involving their participation. We have a
book sale and signing following each talk where the community can hang out for
a while and visit with our guests.” Past lecturers have included transrealist author and mathematician Rudy Rucker, extreme
dance choreographer Elizabeth Streb, and blogsterZe Frank.

            Coming up
the project will welcome “BoingBoingBlog” author and illustrator Mark Frauenfelder
and his wife, Carla Sinclair, editor-in-chief of Craft magazine on March 26;
children’s book author and illustrator MairaKalman on April 6; and Leroy Hood, founder of the Institute
for Systems Biology, who will lecture about the complexities of biology in the
21st century on April 23. Rumored to be coming in the fall is J. Craig Venter,
biologist and founder of the Institute for Genomic Research. All lectures start
at 8 p.m. in the Webb or Ingle
auditoriums, and are free and open to the public.

            For more
information call 475-7174 or visit cwgp.org

A unique collaboration between Nazareth College and the
Italian-American community in Rochester, Casa Italianahosts a bevy of events year-round to help educate the general public about
the rich culture of Italy. Programming includes language courses, kids activities, and a variety of special events — you can
even reserve the bocce court for a game or two. The spring 2009 edition of the
Casa’s free public lecture series dealt with fascism in literature in film, and
will conclude April 15 with a screening of the film “Edda
Ciano Mussolini,” followed by a lecture by professor
Maria Rosaria Vitti-Alexander. A travelogue focusing
on Southern Italian regions Calabria
and Sicily will take place April
18.

            For more
information call 389-2468, or visit naz.edu/dept/casa_italiana.

SUNY Brockport is home to two public lecture series, one of
which focuses on business and the other on writing. In spring 2009 the Business
Briefings Speaker Serieswill
welcome Sarah Lentini, president and CEO of the Arts
& Cultural Council for Greater Rochester, on March 26; Michael Doyle, the
regional vice president of Entercom Communications
Corporation, on April 16; and Ali M. Zoibi, the
president and publisher of the Democrat and Chronicle on April 23. The lectures
will address national and regional challenges and opportunities in the arts,
print, and broadcast media. Lectures start at 7:45
a.m. in the grand hallway of the Brockport MetroCenter
at 55 St. Paul Street.

            The Writer’s
Forum, like the Plutzik Series, also brings
writers to campus to discuss their work. In the spring 2009 semester cartoonist
Lynda Barry, fiction writer Michelle Wildgen, and
non-fiction writer Ian Frazier will share their work with the public on March
25, April 8, and April 29, respectively. All lectures are at 8 p.m. in the New York Room of Cooper Hall on
Brockport’s campus. For more information call 395-5713, or visit brockport.edu.

The First Friday Faculty Lecture Series at St.
JohnFisherCollege
adds faculty members to the mix. Professors lecture on various topics on the
first Friday of most months throughout the semester. Past lectures have
included Dr. Linda MacCammon’s “What is the Bible Anyways?”,
and “When it Comes to Title IX, Please Don’t Recycle,” by Professor Emily Dane.
The final lecture of the spring 2009 semester will take place April 3 with the
topic still pending, and lectures will continue in the fall semester. All
lectures start at 10 a.m. in Basil
135 on the Fisher campus. For more information call 385-8354 or visit sjfc.edu/alumdev/FirstFriday.asp.

This article appears in Mar 18-24, 2009.