Read back issues of Harpur Hotline!
The English department is pleased to announce the creation of the Alfred Bendixen Prize, which will be awarded to the student who writes the best undergraduate honors thesis.
The endowed award fund was established by Alfred Bendixen '73, who is currently Professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles, and Executive Director of the American Literature Association. Awarded annually, the prize will benefit a Harpur College senior enrolled in the English department honors program.
"The reason I chose to make this prize available is because of the relationship I have with Harpur College," said Bendixen. "I was introduced to the world of ideas by a faculty devoted to making education meaningful and exciting. Harpur is responsible for much of the success I have had in my career as a teacher and a scholar. I feel honored to be able to offer this prize as an expression of my appreciation and gratitude."
Selecting criteria for the annual award wasn't difficult for Bendixen. "The experience of doing an honors thesis proved invaluable when I went on to graduate work. In fact, I was the only member of my graduate class to complete all of the work for the MA in English degree in one year," he said. A committee of English department faculty will review honors theses to select appropriate recipients.
"We are very pleased that Professor Bendixen decided to make this gift to Harpur College," said David Bartine, chair of the English department. "Through his generosity, we will be able to recognize and reward students who display particular academic promise and enhance the entire college by challenging others to perform their best." Bartine added "It is especially gratifying to our faculty to be remembered for nurturing a career as distinguished as Professor Bendixen's."
Alfred Bendixen graduated with honors from Harpur College in 1973 and went on to earn his MA (1974) and his PhD (1979) in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has taught at UNC, Barnard College, the University of the Pacific, and California State University, Los Angeles, where he has recently completed a five-year term as department chair. He is the founder and Executive Director of the American Literature Association. His scholarly work has focused on American women writers (including Edith Wharton, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Harriet Prescott Spofford) and on the literature of the supernatural. He is the Associate Editor of the recently published Encyclopedia of American Literature (Continuum 1999) which is 1300 large double-columned pages. He has written and lectured widely on all areas of American writing.
Professor Bendixen will not only be lending financial aid to Harpur College. He and his wife plan on visiting the Binghamton campus in fall 2000 to meet with students and faculty.
How can world historians actually DO world history? Or more specifically, what training do they need, what overarching concepts, theoretical apparatus and methodologies can they use to yield the best results in the writing (and teaching) of world history? On March 3 and 4, community college and secondary education teachers, as well as college and university historians and historical sociologists will gather on the Binghamton University campus to ponder, discuss and offer insight into these and other issues during a conference titled Paradigms in World History: Global Studies and World History.
Hosted by the Harpur College History department and Broome Community College, the conference will offer a Conversation in the Discipline, allowing leading figures in the field to talk to each other, exchange ideas, and enhance their own research and teaching. "To my knowledge we have not had a conference quite like this on campus before," said W. Warren Wagar, distinguished teaching professor of History and conference collaborator. "We came pretty close in March, 1972, when our department hosted a 'Conference on Comparative World History' which identified the similarities and differences in the historical experiences of a variety of civilizations worldwide. The March 3 and 4 conference is more about theory and method and what can we learn from other disciplines, such as anthropology and sociology. As for speakers, we have managed to attract some of the most senior and prolific scholars in the field which I think will lend itself to providing a forum for discussion the likes of which we have not seen before."
Invited speakers include Bruce Mazlish, professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Christopher Chase-Dunn, professor of Sociology at the Johns Hopkins University, Robert Strayer, professor of History at SUNY College of Brockport and Kevin Reilly, professor of Humanities at Raritan Valley College. Panel discussions will include topics ranging from "Regional Studies and World History/Global Studies" and "The Arts and World History" to "Environment, Population, and World History" and "Gendering World History."
Wagar is working closely with Broome Community College to host the conference. Traditionally, community colleges have a required world history course and a broader experience in the study and teaching of this subject, said Wagar. In fact, community colleges around the country have tended to take world history as a discipline more seriously than most four-year colleges and universities. But because graduate degree programs in world history are rare, most historians entering the classroom to teach and research world history have little professional training in the field. In most cases, they are thrown on their own resources to figure out how to present such a vast subject to their students. In secondary education, the problem is the same. Many high schools offer a world history course, but face real challenges in acquiring insight into the nature and structure of world history when almost all graduate degree programs in history focus on selected areas, such as the U.S., Europe, East Asia, or Latin America. "So we hope to attract a good cross-section of educators and we will try to help them sort out the ways of thinking about world history." said Wagar. "With a variety of speakers at the cutting edge of world history and historical sociology, we think we have something to offer."
Wagar went on to note that although the invited speakers and panelists are of many minds, they all share one belief: that we live in a globalizing world where national and civilizational boundaries mean less and less. Therefore it is incumbent on scholars and teachers to view the human experience from a global perspective. "We owe this to one another and above all to our students," he said. "The History department at Harpur College demonstrated its commitment to this goal in 1994 by adding a required tenth course in the History major in the field of 'world or interregionally comparative history,' and we have developed a number of courses to meet this requirement. We have also lent our enthusiastic support to initiatives on this campus to offer 'global studies' program at both the graduate and undergraduate level. We feel this is the direction in which higher education in the social sciences and humanities will go in the 21st century and we would like to be in the vanguard of that line of march."
For more information about the Paradigms in World History: Global Studies and World History conference, visit the History department's website at http://history.binghamton.edu/conference or contact Professor Wagar at wwagar@binghamton.edu.
Each year, a significant number of Harpur students, as well as those from the professional schools, consider attending law school immediately or within a few years of graduation. Binghamton University has been quite successful in placing its graduates in law school, in part due to its strong pre-law program. The program features a host of services including advising and providing volunteer and network opportunities. In the coming weeks, those services will also include junior pre-law meetings, a law alumni panel and an informal session with two respected judges.
The events begin on Wednesday, March 1, with a series of junior pre-law meetings. Coordinating the meetings is pre-law advisor Heather Struck, who will cover general issues about law school, legal careers and the job market. Struck will also describe the procedures needed to apply to law school. "I try to use these sessions to educate students about their options," said Struck. "As pre-law advisor for a campus that produces about 300 law applicants each year, I am regularly invited to top law schools each year and also visit several more as part of the annual Northeast Pre-law Association of Pre-law Advisors (NAPLA) Conference. These visits give me in-depth knowledge of the programs, location, selectivity, and ambience of the law schools, and enable me to better advise students." Struck will be holding the pre-law meetings in two one-hour sessions, beginning at 4 p.m. in the UU East Lounge. Pre-law walk-in meetings are also available Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 1-2 p.m. in SW110. Students and graduates can also schedule individual appointments to discuss their questions and future plans.
The second event in the spring pre-law schedule is an Alumni Pre-Law Panel. Sponsored by the Binghamton University Alumni Association and Academic Advising, the informal panel will bring local alumni attorneys and current law school students back to campus. Discussion will include what it's like to be an attorney as well as a brief question and answer session. The Alumni Association has been organizing and sponsoring this panel for several years and values its importance as an information forum for prospective law school students. "Law school is an expensive endeavor and shouldn't be entered into lightly," said Valerie DiRocco-Ruskin, assistant director for Alumni & Parent Relations. "We hope that the alumni attorneys and law school students help dispel the myths about being an attorney and surviving law school, and help solidify the decision of undergraduates who may be 'on the fence' about applying to law school." The panel is scheduled for Wednesday, March 8, from 6-8 p.m. in UU133 and will feature Alyssa M. Barreiro '89, Robin Engler '87, Bernadette Crespo '98 and Kimmone Ottley '97.
Finally, on March 31, the Harpur College Law Council will be hosting an informal "Lunch with the Judges" program. The event is in support of the Council's goal of providing venues and opportunities for pre-law students to meet with and ask questions of law alumni. The two judges invited to participate in this event are Spero Pines from the Broome County Family Court and Jerome Hornblass representing the New York State Supreme Court. The judges will talk about their fields of interest and the jurisdiction of their particular courts. They will also offer insight into the skills needed to be an effective judge and what, in their minds, makes a successful court advocate. The event will offer an informal question and answer opportunity and light refreshments will be served. "I think the 'Lunch with the Judges' event will offer students the opportunity to learn more about the New York State court system and the skills needed to be successful within that environment," said Lee Nesslage, Alumni and Development Programs Associate. "It will also give them a realistic view of what this area of the law is all about." "Lunch with the Judges" begins at 12 noon on March 31 in UU East Lounge.
For more information about the spring pre-law events, contact Heather Struck at hstruck@binghamton.edu or Lee Nesslage at nesslage@binghamton.edu.
The Reader's Series, and Writers & Other Artists, a course that runs concurrently with the Series, together offer everything that books should be -- stimulating, challenging and educational with opportunities for discussion about a wide range of topics. And with subjects ranging from NASCAR to a celebration of hair, the spring Reader's Series schedule promises to not only honor and celebrate fine writing but to expose all lovers of the written word to poems and stories that are sure to capture the sheer thrill of reading.
Established over a decade ago, the Series is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program of the English department, with additional support from other sources, including the Office of the Dean of Harpur College, the Comparative Literature department and the Africana Studies department. The Series continues to be a significant contributor to Harpur's intellectual environment, bringing some of the country's most prominent writers to campus. "Readers for the series are selected by the Creative Writing faculty with the aim of assembling writers whose work is of the highest quality," said Christine Gelineau, Readers' Series Coordinator. "The faculty strive to gather a group of writers who will provide a range of approaches, ideas and practices and appeal to the broadest spectrum of students possible, therefore providing a variety of literary experiences." The spring 2000 Series kicked off on February 24 with a visit from John Keene, author of the critically acclaimed novel Annotations. "Keene's is a fresh and interesting new voice in the world of literature," said Gelineau. "His fiction, poetry, essays and reviews have been published widely in publications such as African-American Review, Agni, Code, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares and the Washington Post. Keene's participation has set a high standard for the 2000 Reader's Series and with the caliber of the writers scheduled for the upcoming months, we are anticipating an exciting year."
The next writer scheduled to participate in the Series is Jonis Agee, who has a special connection to Harpur College and BU -- she earned an MA and then a PhD here. She is the author of four novels, including The Weight of Dreams and four short story collections, most recently Taking the Wall. Three of Agee's volumes have been named New York Times "Notable Book of the Year." Agee will be visiting the campus on March 2.
On March 9, Bruce Bennett, a founding editor of both Field and Ploughshares magazines, will be reading from his work. He is the author of eleven chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry, including Navigating the Distances, Taking Off and Straw Into Gold.
Author of the poetry collection Every Room We Ever Slept In, Jason Shinder will participate in the Reader's Series on April 6. He is editor of an acclaimed series of poetry anthologies on the family and is founder of the YMCA National Writer's Voice, a nationwide network of literary arts centers. Shinder is also Visiting Writer in residence at Harpur this semester.
Carolivia Herron, author of a highly praised first novel, Thereafter Johnnie and the award-winning and controversial children's book, Nappy Hair, will close the 2000 Reader's Series on April 27.
In conjunction with the Series, the English department runs a course designed to give students insight into the writing process. Formatted as a 2-credit mini-course, the class is open to grads and undergrads as an informal session on craft and the writing life. "Typically the class attracts students from a wide variety of majors," said Christine Gelineau, who facilitates the class. "And also typically, students are very enthusiastic about this course and the opportunity it presents to meet interesting people with a wide variety of viewpoints. Conversely, writers have often expressed to me their pleasure in meeting with BU students and have been impressed with the liveliness and intelligence of the conversations and discussions."
The Readers' Series readings are open to the public and are held Thursday evenings at 8:15 p.m. in FA 258. For more information about the Reader's Series, contact Christine Gelineau at 777-2404 or gelineau@binghamton.edu or visit the Reader's Series website at http://english.binghamton.edu/readers-series/.
Reunion 2000 is going to be special. Not only is it jam-packed with exciting events and activities but it will also hold particular significance for Harpur friends and alumni. Celebrating 50 years of academic excellence, Harpur College will launch its anniversary celebration at Reunion 2000, and you are cordially invited to help kick off the yearlong festival of historical observances and special events.
Scheduled for the weekend of May 5-7, Reunion 2000 promises to be a walk down memory lane not only for those celebrating their reunion year but for all Harpur friends and alumni. The festivities begin on Friday, May 5, with a reception in the Grand Corridor of the Anderson Theater. Later that evening, a special 50th Anniversary performance by Harpur College's Artists-in-Residence, the Second Hand, will be "unveiled." On Saturday, a host of special Harpur-focused programs will be held, including a book signing and presentation by travel writer Peter Guttman '76. Campus tours will be available to see the old, the new and coming soon. Visitors may stop by their old residential communities and meet with some of the current occupants. And the traditional Saturday afternoon barbecue will be yet another opportunity for friends to catch up on the "when-we's." Alumni will also have an opportunity to reminisce with favorite professors during the Festival of Faculty and make merry at one of the many special dinners on Saturday evening.
As Reunion 2000 draws to a close, there will be one more dose of Harpur magic at the farewell breakfast on Sunday morning. "The celebration of our 50th Anniversary is a momentous occasion for Harpur College," noted Dean Polachek. "And I encourage all Harpur alumni to join us at Reunion 2000 to help launch this golden event. For as much as things have changed on campus, Harpur College's intellectual environment continues to thrive. And I hope through Reunion 2000, you will be able to reacquaint yourself with the Harpur experience and celebrate with us."
For more information regarding Reunion 2000, visit http://alumni.binghamton.edu/reunionschedule.htm. And don't forget to check out the Harpur Anniversary website for event dates and information on Harpur milestones at http://harpur.binghamton.edu/50th.htm.
If you would like to share your Harpur anecdotes and memories with alumni, staff, faculty and friends, contact Gail Glover at gglover@binghamton.edu.
Dean Polachek, the Harpur College Law Council, and the BU Alumni Association will host an Alumni Law Reception at the White and Case LLP offices in New York City on Wednesday, March 1. All law alumni and Harpur College friends are invited to stop by.
The event begins at 5:30 p.m. at the White and Case offices located on the 40th floor of 1155 Avenue of the Americas at 44th Street. For more details about the law reception, or about how you can support the Law Council programs or become involved in upcoming projects, contact Lee Nesslage at (607) 777-4278 or via e-mail at nesslage@binghamton.edu.
Last updated 2/26/00. Written by Gail Glover, Harpur College Public Relations Specialist.