Author: Blythe

Honors Community Outing

We in the Honors Program are always impressed by the bonds created between our students and professors. It is no wonder we call it an Honors COMMUNITY. We wanted to share these wonderful photos of a recent trip that our Honors professor and Core Faculty member, John Western, took with his former students to the Whetstone Gulf Gorge. Yes, former students. We are proud that the bonds in the classroom lead to relationships well after our students have left the seats of their former classes. This recent trip just goes to show what wonderful friendships can be created here in the Honors Program!

Students on Nature Walk
Students on the lip of the Whetstone Gulf Gorge.     

Group on the very northern end of the 15 miles or so of continuous sand dunes at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. This place is called Black Pond, a couple of miles north of Southwick Beach State Park.
Dramatis personae: Hannah Louys, John Western & Belle, Paige Jarmuz, Bo Stewart, Andrew Frasier, Margo Woodring, Brian Cheung.

But What ARE the Commons?

18th Century graphic of lord and commonersSo Honors keeps sending messages about this thing called the commons because there will be a talk Thursday, November 8th at 8pm in LSB 001, but what ARE the commons?
One answer comes from history and the enclosure movement which was a land grab by the moneyed class that denied predominantly rural citizens the rights to public lands–or, the commons:

A significant precursor to the Industrial Revolution was the end of the so-called “open field system” during the Enclosure Movement in England during the 18th Century. Many families lost their traditional holdings and ultimately drifted into the growing industrial cities in search of work.

Further answers are available at a very popular location within the rubric which we call the commons–Wikipedia. Here you will find the wisdom and editing labors of a collective of commoners among them author, George Orwell (of 1984 and Animal Farm fame):

Stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land got hold of it. They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers to provide them with title-deeds. In the case of the enclosure of the common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the land-grabbers did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; they were quite frankly taking the heritage of their own countrymen, upon no sort of pretext except that they had the power to do so.
—George Orwell, As I Please, Tribune, 18 August 1944

HNR 240 Food Stories presents….”Rot or Not?”

A group of students in Jolynn Parker’s HNR 240 Food Stories class has created this display on the ground floor of Bird Library to educate the SU community about chemicals in processed food.  The food should rot, right?  Wouldn’t it be disturbing if it didn’t rot?  Follow the progress of the three burgers (McDonald’s, campus dining, and locally sourced, respectively) at their tumblr feed below. 

http://rotornot.tumblr.com/

5th SU Songwriter Showcase

Calling All SU Songwriters!

You’re invited to share your songs at the 5th SU Songwriter Showcase at Schine’s Panasci Lounge on November 30th. The SU Songwriter Showcase has drawn hundreds of students annually to listen to the best songwriting on campus, and now we want to hear your songs!

Submit mp3s or links for at least two of your original songs to susongwritershowcase@gmail.com by October 29. Open to all SU/ESF students and all music styles. Songwriters will be chosen based on the quality of the songs and performance, not recording quality.

Questions? Email susongwritershowcase@gmail.com.

Isn’t it time for your songs to be heard?

 Singer-Songwriter Poster