At the conclusion of the Panel Discussion, artists from Mongolia will perform traditional music and dance. Reception to follow. Reservations encouraged.
The Jay Nathan, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar Lecture Series
The Jay Nathan, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar Lecture Series invites international scholars from economically challenged and politically suppressed nations to visit the University of Scranton to address issues that will enlighten and benefit students, faculty and the community-at-large. Its purpose is to enrich the intellectual life or share a cultural exposition in the arts or music for both The University of Scranton and our Northeastern Pennsylvania community. This annual lecture initiative will highlight the research and contributions of guest scholars of international repute who will visit the University to discuss timely and timeless subjects. While visiting campus, scholars will deliver presentations on topics of interest to the academic community and meet informally with attendees, students and faculty.
The Jay Nathan, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar Lecture Series
The Jay Nathan, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar Lecture Series invites international scholars from economically challenged and politically suppressed nations to visit the University of Scranton to address issues that will enlighten and benefit students, faculty and the community-at-large. Its purpose is to enrich the intellectual life or share a cultural exposition in the arts or music for both The University of Scranton and our Northeastern Pennsylvania community. This annual lecture initiative will highlight the research and contributions of guest scholars of international repute who will visit the University to discuss timely and timeless subjects. While visiting campus, scholars will deliver presentations on topics of interest to the academic community and meet informally with attendees, students and faculty.
The Environmental Art Show is now open to the public and will be available for viewing during the library’s regular hours. There will be a Reception on Wednesday, April 23rd from 5-7PM. Please join us for light refreshments and the opportunity to meet with the artists and other environmental art enthusiasts. The show will come down on Thursday April 24 by Noon.
Celebrating Our Towns—Lackawanna County Centennial Books and Community Histories is a collection of books honoring Lackawanna county towns, townships, boroughs, cities and areas. These books were published by local authors and centennial groups to celebrate their towns. This wonderful collection was made possible by a grant from the Willary Foundation.
It’s near midnight on a rooftop in Brooklyn.The air is thick with midsummer heat and cars zipper left to right and right to left across the Williamsburg Bridge directly over my head.I am here visiting my sister who lives about a mile away in Greenpoint.Despite my exhaustion from the near thirty blocks we walked earlier in the day, and the push of my tender heels against my not-yet broken in sandals, I am here with a sweating glass of tap water in my hand, surrounded by my sister’s friends: a mix of Gen X’ers from various backgrounds all seemingly united by a common love for Game of Thrones.I sit apart from the crowd on a hard picnic-style bench and watch the underbellies of the cars above me.Josue, my sister’s friend, wanders over and sits next to me.We know one another tentatively, having met a handful of times, most recently at a reading I gave in Manhattan a few weeks earlier.
“I’m a big fan of your poetry,” Josue says loudly over the hum of the traffic hanging like a hammock over our heads.
“Oh, thanks,” I blush.I’ve never learned to take a compliment.
“No, I mean it,” he says, “Your reading at KGB was great.You were so funny.”
“Oh no,” I say modestly, “they were just a good crowd.”And they were.But you know what?I was good too.It was a great reading, the kind of reading where I had the crowd right there in my hands.They laughed in all of the right places, stayed quiet when I needed them to, and felt sadness in their hearts when the moment called for empathy.For a reader, it doesn’t get any better.For a writer, it doesn’t get any better.
“I could never read like that in front of people,” Josue muses.“How do you pick what you’re going to read?” he asks.
I’ve been asked this question before, as have many of my friends who’ve read their work in public.It’s something not a lot of people understand; our willingness and desire to stand in front of a crowd and share ourselves in a very private and intense way.If you’ve never done it, it’s sometimes hard to comprehend. Therefore, I usually give some kind of generic answer and move on.But Josue is a good guy, and he seems genuinely interested in my process.
“The secret,” I tell him, “is to bring a lot of diverse stuff to read.I read something I think will work, and if it doesn’t, I adjust.”
“So you read the crowd?” he asks.
I take a deep swig of my warm tap water and answer, “Exactly.But it’s more than that.It’s writing with an intended audience in mind.As I’m writing, I can almost imagine the crowd and how they’re going to react to the material.”
“But how do you read the crowd?How do you know?” he presses.
“It’s not an exact science, but I do my best to consider who they are.What age they are, what life experiences they may have had, what stage of life they’re in, stuff like that,” I answer.
Later, after we’ve gone home and I’m staring at the ceiling in my sister’s fourth floor pre-war apartment, I make a connection I have been searching for since I started teaching more than five years ago.As a creative writer, I do exactly what I ask my composition students to do all of the time:I consider my rhetorical situation.I think about my audience, my genre, and my purpose before I write or perform anything.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s taken me a long time and many wrong choices to get to this point.I’ve read spoken-word poetry full of pop culture references to a group of grandmothers at a library.I’ve read about Weight Watchers and baby weight, to rooms full of young, thin, teenagers who stared at me like I had two heads and one of them was on fire.I’ve made those mistakes, the mistakes of a beginning writer, the mistakes of a novice reader.So I adjusted.I changed my process.I learned how to evaluate the audience before I read, but more importantly, before I write.
To me, this is what the Writing Center in the CTLE provides for University of Scranton students:a place to experiment with voice, with genre, with audience, and with purpose. When I hear students reading papers aloud to consultants, I see the connections being made and the transformation taking shape. For all intents and purposes, the Writing Center consultants become those grandmothers sitting in the library, or the young, thin teens staring back. They become the test audience, the safety net, and the student’s soft place to fall.It is my hope that with practice, the students who use the Writing Center on a regular basis will learn to shift their writing to meet the needs of their audience.And that they will begin to build –brick by brick- the bridge between writer and reader, between audience and voice, between genre and purpose, and that their bridge will be as strong and as purposeful as the expansive sky way between Williamsburg and Manhattan lighting up rooftops in Brooklyn.
**The Writing Center is located in the CTLE (Loyola Science Center, room 588). Call today for an appointment: 570-941-6147**
The University of Scranton begins its 125th Anniversary celebration this month with a special mass on August 12. We know all true Royals take pride in the long history of the University of Scranton — but just in case your memory is a bit fuzzy, here’s a quick pictorial primer on the story behind our 1888 cornerstone, featuring materials from the University Archives and Digital Collections.
The University of Scranton was founded in 1888 by Most Reverend William G. O’Hara, D.D., the first Bishop of Scranton, as the College of St. Thomas of Aquin.
The Catholics of Northeastern Pennsylvania responded with enthusiasm. Four packed trains brought attendees from Wilkes-Barre and Carbondale, who joined the people of Scranton in an “immense throng” on Wyoming Avenue. At 2:30pm, community organizations and societies gathered at the corner of Franklin and Lackawanna Avenues and paraded to the Cathedral, carrying banners and (in some cases) bringing along a band. The Scranton Republican noted that “the parade was not a large one, but it made an excellent approach.”
The ceremony began at 3pm, as Bishop O’Hara and several priests, cross-bearers, and acolytes processed from the Cathedral to the cornerstone, accompanied by the Cathedral choir and an orchestra performing Mozart’s Gloria. Bishop O’Hara blessed the cornerstone, placed at the foundation of the planned College building. The granite stone (in a “much admired pink hue”) was inscribed with the College’s name and the date:
The cornerstone, as it appeared in the 1950s
Inside the cornerstone was placed a copper box, which held:
Seven silver coins, fresh from the U.S. Mint, including a rare 3-cent piece
That day’s issues of local newspapers (including the Scranton Times, the Scranton Republican, the Free Press, News, and the Catholic Record, along with the Catholic Standard of Philadelphia)
A record of the blessing, in Latin
Bishop O’Hara then gave a sermon, noting that “God gives His grace to all works that are given in his name.” He charged the attendees with the care and support of the College: “It is for you to put your shoulder to the wheel and to see this institution of learning rising up… [do] not think of educating your children according to the fashions of the world, but to train their minds and impress upon their hearts the great truths of religion and to point out to them the way in which they should walk.” The following day, local newspapers published the text of the sermon along with detailed reports of the event:
August 13, 1888 article about the cornerstone blessing (click for full view)
Bishop O’Hara’s plans came to fruition in 1892, when the construction of College Hall (later known as “Old Main”) was completed and St. Thomas College opened its doors. The three story brick building housed classrooms on the first and second floors, an auditorium/gymnasium on the third floor, and a chapel in the basement:
Old Main (center), ca. 1920s
The cornerstone remained at the base of Old Main for more than 70 years. During that time, St. Thomas College evolved into the University of Scranton (changing its name in 1938), and the campus center shifted from Wyoming Avenue to the property surrounding the Scranton Estate, which Worthington Scranton donated to the University in 1941.
Cornerstone of Old Main, as it appeared in the 1950s
In 1962, the University formalized this shift by moving the cornerstone from Wyoming Avenue to the new campus. The cornerstone was carefully removed from Old Main (which would be demolished in 1968):
Rev. Joseph A. Rock, S.J., overseeing the removal of the cornerstone in 1962
It was then transferred to the new campus, where a newly constructed classroom building — St. Thomas Hall — was about to be dedicated. The September 1962 issue of the Aquinas described the move:
The cornerstone was removed from St. Thomas College to perpetuate those things for which it stands. The intentions of the founding fathers and the service which its building has provided to higher education have all been carried with the stone to its new resting place beneath a new cornerstone in the walls of St. Thomas Hall.
No edifice is stronger than its foundation, and the foundation of St. Thomas Hall and the University is in the ‘Old Main’ building and St. Thomas College. This is symbolically represented by the old cornerstone providing a foundation for the new, as St. Thomas College provides a foundation for the present institution. Along with the stone, St. Thomas College has given its name to the largest building on the University campus, providing a continuity to the history of the school by linking its past with its present.
At the September 16, 1962 dedication of St. Thomas Hall, both the old and new cornerstones were blessed by Rt. Rev. Msgr. Joseph A. Madden, chancellor of the Diocese of Scranton. Msgr. Madden observed: “What we witnessed here today is but a step, though gigantic, towards fulfillment of a divine command… ‘Go, therefore and Teach!'”
Rt. Rev. Msgr. Madden blessing the new 1962 cornerstone in front of St. Thomas Hall
A special guest at the dedication was Dr. Martin T. O’Malley, who at the age of 12 had served as an altar boy at the 1888 dedication. He was the only person to be present at both the 1888 and 1962 events.
The contents of the 1888 cornerstone were removed before it was installed; the original silver coins and the copper box went into other storage for safe keeping. It’s a little unclear from the 1962 accounts of the dedication, but it seems that the original 1888 newspapers were placed into the 1962 cornerstone, along with:
A letter from Robert P. Moran ’25, the architect of St. Thomas Hall, addressed to the future architect of any building that replaced it
A letter from 1962 student body president Jacques P. Kueny
A letter from Atty. James A. Kelly, president of the Alumni Society
A letter from Dr. Frank J. O’Hara, director of alumni relations, to alumni of the future
Bulletins from the Graduate School, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Evening College
The latest issues of the Alumni Bulletin
Promotional materials from a recent development campaign
A pictorial booklet
Copies of student publications
A list of student names for the 1961-1962 academic year
New issues of local newspapers from the day of the 1962 dedication
Three medals
New coins of each denomination
Both the 1888 and 1962 cornerstones were placed at the Linden Street entrance of the new building, which at the time was a very prominent location. Over the years, though, it proved to be a less than ideal spot in terms of cornerstone visibility, with bushes and eventually a tree hiding the stones from direct view:
St. Thomas Hall, ca. 1979St. Thomas Hall, 1982St. Thomas Hall, ca. 1990sSt. Thomas Hall, 2013
As part of the 125th Anniversary, the 1888 cornerstone has been dislodged from its 1962 placement and will be on display – location TBA – throughout the celebration. Keep an eye out for it, and be sure to take the opportunity to pay your respects to Bishop O’Hara and the University’s 125-year-old granite foundation.
The cornerstone on display at the August 12 anniversary Mass.
On Earth Day, Monday, April 22 from 5-7PM the 3rd Annual Environmental Art Show will host a reception open to the public.
The Environmental Art Show boasts a new Instagram Exhibit featuring dozens of photographs from student, staff, and faculty photographers, an exhibit documenting a U of S Travel Course that went to the Philippines , as well as numerous, diverse, and excellent artworks from sixteen different campus artists.
Please join us at the Reception Monday night to interact with the artists and appreciate their art. There will be light refreshments served.
The Art Show is open for viewing any time the library Heritage Room is open and will run until Noon on Thursday, April 25.
The deadline to submit works of art for the Environmental Art Show has been extended to Wednesday April 17.
We are looking for all types of art, including photography, paintings, 3D Objects, repurposed/recycled items, and so on.
Please bring your works of art to the Library’s Reference Desk on the 2nd floor.
The 3rd Annual Environmental Art Show will run from Thursday, April 18 to Thursday, April 25. There will be a reception to meet the artists on Earth Day, Monday, April 22 from 5-7 PM in the Heritage Room of the library.
If you have any questions, contact george.aulisio@scranton.edu
