Steam rose from bowls of homemade soup as students settled into their seats in the . A presentation on winter traditions in Turkey sparked conversation, drawing murmurs of recognition and a few nostalgic smiles.

When the slideshow ended, attendees gathered in small groups for a matching game connecting landmarks, customs and historical moments. Those more familiar with the traditions offered hints while others brought fresh curiosity to each pairing.

For an hour, Syracuse felt a little closer to Istanbul.

The gathering was part of the Maxwell School’s Culture and Conversation Tables, a series hosted by the Moynihan Institute that brings students and community members together to explore languages and cultures from around the world.

Held about once a month, each table takes a slightly different approach, from language-intensive practice sessions to film screenings and themed cultural presentations. All serve a shared purpose: building community while advancing Maxwell’s mission of exposing students to a wide range of perspectives and preparing them for an increasingly interconnected world.

Moynihan is home to Maxwell’s seven regional centers, focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, East Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, and South Asia. Located on the third floor of Eggers Hall, the institute supports teaching, research and programming that prepares students to engage with the world’s most pressing challenges. The Culture and Conversation Tables are a natural extension of that work.

“The tables are one of the most accessible ways we connect students to the world beyond the classroom,” says , director of Moynihan and professor of political science. “Whether someone is preparing for fieldwork abroad, practicing a language they’re studying or simply curious about a part of the world they haven’t encountered before, these gatherings offer something genuinely valuable.”

Much of the tables’ day-to-day coordination falls to George Tsaoussis Carter, event specialist, and , regional programs manager for Asia. “What stands out most is the enthusiasm students bring to these tables, both the ones who help organize them and the ones who show up to learn,” says Baxter. “They leave with more than vocabulary or cultural trivia. They gain a broader sense of the world and a genuine connection to people from very different backgrounds.”

Baxter is also impressed by the care and commitment of table hosts, which, on the Asia side, include faculty such as , and Tomoko Walker from the , as well as graduate students and, on occasion, highly motivated undergraduates.

Originally known as Language Tables, the program was renamed to reflect its broader emphasis on culture, conversation and connection, according to , associate director of the Moynihan Institute.

Over the years, the institute has hosted tables in more than 20 languages, many supported by U.S. Department of Education grants aimed at strengthening international and language education. Currently, 16 tables are offered, spanning languages from Arabic and Hindi-Urdu to Chinese, French and Tamil. For most of the tables, the institute partners with faculty and instructors in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics in the College of Arts and Sciences

The tables have at times reflected the urgency of world events. For instance, visiting scholar Tetiana Hranchak hosted a Ukrainian table that drew strong attendance from students across the University, some directly impacted by the war with Russia. Hranchak, who fled her home in Kyiv after the invasion, joined the Maxwell community through the Scholars at Risk program, which supports academics displaced by conflict and persecution.

The tables also give international students a place to hear their native language and share traditions from home. Open to all Íű±ŹĂĆ students, not just those in Maxwell programs, the tables invite anyone across campus to engage with new regions, customs and perspectives.

Story by Mikyala Melo

There’s a lot of research underway about how climate affects agriculture, examining how heat waves reduce crop yields, among other impacts.

But there is some thinking among researchers that the crops also affect the local climate to some extent. Vegetation transpires water, acting as a pump that pulls the moisture from the ground, making the air surrounding it a little more humid, effectively altering the heat index or felt temperature.

Exactly what that impact on the local climate might be is one of the questions , assistant professor of geography and the environment in the , is seeking to understand with his current research.

“Ultimately metrics like the heat index are most important for human heat exposure,” he says.

Examining the influence of crops on local climate isn’t a new pursuit for him. A few years ago, he published a paper that aimed to estimate the amount of cooling corn crops caused around them.

“They reduce basically the amount of heat waves that occur, which is a positive for the crops,” he says. “And so effectively, the crops are modifying the climate in a way that is actually helping the crops grow.”

Coffel was awarded a $582,000 grant from the National Science Foundation in 2023 to support his research on agriculture as a driver of climate extremes. With co-investigator Justin Mankin from Dartmouth College, Coffel is the principal investigator for the three-year project, titled Quantifying Agriculture as a Driver of Regional Climate Extremes.

One of the questions he’s pursuing under the NSF grant is examining how crops, namely the staples of midwest agriculture corn and soy, affect humidity.

“We want to try to say how much do crops affect the climate around them, and how much does that affect the crops themselves,” he says. “So do the crops really make it cooler in a way that reduces the chance of there being heat waves? We think this is probably true. And then also, does that mean the human impacts of heat are reduced? Or are they increased? And that depends on the humidity.”

Below, Coffel shares more about his research with Íű±ŹĂĆ Today.

Renowned filmmaker Ron Howard recently spent an afternoon with students in the and the (VPA), offering an inside look at his latest film project and the creative decision-making that shapes work at the highest levels of Hollywood.Ìę

Howard, one of the industry’s most respected directors, was joined by producer Bill Connor ’89 and Doug Wilkinson G’87, both alumni of Íű±ŹĂĆ. Together, they engaged filmÌęand dramaÌęstudents in a discussion about storytelling and the realities of bringing a major motion picture from concept to completion.Ìę

“It’s always a pleasure to welcome alums back to campus, and this time around it was a double pleasure. We had not one but two of them accompany Ron Howard—one of Hollywood’s most well-known directors—to come and speak with our Newhouse and VPA students,” says , professor and graduate program director of the Department of Television, Radio and Film in the Newhouse School.Ìę

During the visit, HowardÌęscreenedÌęhis most recent project, inviting students into the filmmaking process at a stage rarely accessible outside the professional world.Ìę

“Howard asked our students what they thought and answered their questions with real candor,” says , professor of film and chair of the Department of Film and Media Arts in VPA. “Seeing an unfinished film and talking directly with the director, producer and editor about choices they’re still making is something you can’t replicate in a classroom. That’s what so special about being at Syracuse.”Ìę

For students aspiring to careers in film and media, the visit offered a unique opportunity to bridge theory and practice and connected classroom learning with firsthand perspectives from some of the industry’s most accomplished professionals.

Elle Key ’93, an award-winning film, television and commercial director, writer and producer, will deliver the 2026 convocation address to bachelor’s and master’s degree candidates of the at the college’s convocation ceremony on Saturday, May 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the JMA Wireless Dome.

Key earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in illustration from VPA and was a starting goalie for the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team. She was born in New York City and is the co-president and founder of Bigger Picture Media Group.

Key spent her early years working off-Broadway with theater companies such as Malaparte, Naked Angels and the Atlantic Theater Company. She then went into television and film production and has helmed numerous national commercial campaigns as well as several projects for the NFL, the Pro Bowl, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, The Peabody Awards and The Gotham Awards.

She was officially the first female head writer for “The NFL Honors” in 2017. She came back and served as segment director, producer and head writer for “The NFL Honors” in 2021 and 2024. She was an executive producer on “Brain Games” for Disney/Nat Geo and was an executive producer with James Corden for “Game On!” for CBS.

Key is currently in development as creator and show runner for a new scripted streaming comedy series. She has been writing and directing with, and for, her Emmy and Peabody Award-winner partner, Keegan-Michael Key, for over a decade.

In 2022, Key won the Webby Award for Best Podcast Writing for her original Audible series “The History of Sketch Comedy.” Key, and the series that she created, wrote and directed, was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

She then followed her award-winning podcast with the book “The History of Sketch Comedy,” which became a best-seller, garnered rave reviews and quickly reached the No. 1 spot on Amazon’s comedy book list. “The History of Sketch Comedy” made 2023’s Barnes and Noble’s Best Books of the Year list as well as Vulture’s Best Books of 2023.

Key is a member of the Creative Coalition and Women in Film, and she is on the Leadership Council for RFK Human Rights.

A group of Íű±ŹĂĆ students has spent months working with Syracuse youth, guiding them through theater, design and media workshops that will culminate in a live public performance this spring.

The students are leading (Theater Workshop), an annual, bilingual creative arts program based at on Syracuse’s Near West Side.

The program, which involves and in addition to La Casita, delivers culturally oriented arts education for community youth, says , the University’s executive director of cultural engagement for the Hispanic community. The workshops build dual-language skills, artistic presentation abilities and stage-presence confidence for children ages 6 and up.

The public performance will be held on Saturday, , at La Casita as part of the annual Arte Joven/Young Art exhibition, a celebration of visual art, music and dance. The event is open to the public.

Mutual Benefits

Taller de Teatro benefits both the students who lead the workshops and the children who participate, Paniagua says. “This program creates meaningful opportunities for University students to engage directly with the community while developing professional skills.”

The structure of the collaboration creates a dynamic environment where students and youngsters learn from one another, she says. “Several of the student instructors are studying drama and they are facilitating workshops alongside students from the creative arts therapy graduate program. Other students are contributing through documentation, photography, video and communications skills. In this way, the program becomes a multidisciplinary learning experience where students apply their training in a real community setting.”

For young actors and for theater students in particular, the chance to gain experience as instructors early in their careers can open important professional pathways, Paniagua says. “They are learning how to guide creative processes, work with children and adapt theater practices to educational and community contexts. Ultimately, the efforts of those involved are tremendous and they allow La Casita to offer high-quality theater programming to local youth.”

Kate Laissle, director of education at Syracuse Stage, says involving Syracuse students as teaching assistants for this program helps inspire and train the next generation of theater educators while providing programming that supports community connections.

‘For Everyone’

“The ability to partner with La Casita and build on our relationship and its well-established programming also helps show that theatre is for everyone,” Laissle says. “Working collaboratively between performance, design and storytelling, students get to experience the depth and breadth of theater. Using multiple capacities of theatrical art-making lets young people use their creativity in ways that serve them best. It is outstanding to see the growth of the students, both school- and college-aged, over the course of this program.”

This year’s student participants, who lead acting workshops and provide media support and documentation, are: GB Bellamy ’27 and Sofia Slaman ’27, acting majors, Department of Drama, VPA; Nashaly Bonilla ’28, major, Department of Drama, VPA; Catie Kobland ’21, G’26, fine arts graduate and master’s candidate in VPA; Iman Jamison G’26, master’s student in , School of Information Studies; Sara Oliveira ’29, film and media arts major, Department of Film and Media Arts, VPA; and Sophia Domenicis ’28, , Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Three Presenting Partners

The program is possible because of a collaboration among three university-connected organizations:

• La Casita Cultural Center is a program of Íű±ŹĂĆ established to advance an educational and cultural agenda of civic engagement through research, cultural heritage preservation, media and the arts, bridging the Hispanic communities of the University and Central New York.
• Punto de Contacto/Point of Contact, celebrating its 50th year, bridges cultures and disciplines through exhibitions, poetry andÌę a permanent art collection. Its El Punto Art Studio has served youth since 2008.
• Syracuse Stage, the city’s leading professional theater, contributes expertise through acting and playwriting workshops that strengthen University-community connections and support literacy development.

Syracuse junior Flynn Ledoux ’27, an illustration major in the ’ (VPA) School of Art, has been selected as the winner of a VPA student design competition to create the official 40th anniversary poster for the 2026 .

Ledoux, who also majors in environment, sustainability and policy in the , will see his design featured on official 2026 festival materials and will receive a $1,000 cash prize.

In operation since 1982, Syracuse Jazz Fest has become one of the Northeast’s premier free admission music festivals, drawing world-renowned artists and tens of thousands of fans each summer to Central New York. Jazz Fest 40 will take place July 9–12, with hosted across campus and at Beak and Skiff Apple Hill Campus in LaFayette, New York.

The competition was created after Jazz Fest founder and Syracuse alumnus Frank Malfitano ’72 reached out to VPA Dean about holding a student poster design contest in honor of the festival’s milestone anniversary. The college issued a call for entries and received submissions from students across its schools and departments. Representatives of Jazz Fest then reviewed the entries and voted on the winners.

In addition to Ledoux, three other VPA students were recognized by the festival:

• Katerina Anastasopoulos ’26, a senior environmental and interior design major in the School of Design, received second place.
• Kelsey McMillin ’28, a sophomore illustration major in the School of Art, and Hayden Celentano ’26, a senior film major in the Department of Film and Media Arts, tied for third place.

“Jazz Fest has always been about bringing people together through great music, and this year we’re celebrating 40 years of doing just that,” says Malfitano. “Partnering with VPA to put a student’s work at the center of this anniversary felt exactly right—it connects our festival’s future to the next generation of artists.”

“The 40th anniversary of Jazz Fest is a milestone worth celebrating in a meaningful way,” says Tick. “Flynn’s design is a testament to the exceptional talent we have here at VPA, and we’re grateful to Frank for giving our students the chance to be part of this iconic community festival.”

Jazz Fest 40 is presented by Íű±ŹĂĆ with additional support from the New York State-Empire State Development Corporation in association with New York State Assemblyman Al Stripe, Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon and the Onondaga County Legislature, Visit Syracuse, National Grid, Amazon, JMA Wireless, RAV Properties, CNY Family Care, Empower Federal Credit Union, CNY Arts Council, the Central New York Community Foundation and numerous additional community partners across Central New York.

Stephen Kuusisto, Urayoán Noel and OlaRose Ndubuisi—three poets whose work embody resilience, identity and the radical possibilities of language—will present their work at the annual poetry reading on

The event, produced by Punto de Contacto/Point of Contact, takes place at the , where the “” spring exhibition, which recognizes artists who live with disabilities, is currently displayed.

“This unique setting provides Ìęmuch excitement for our Cruel April series this year,” says , the University’s executive director of cultural engagement for the Hispanic community and Point of Contact director. “Just as the exhibition’s artistic expressions expand on ideas of creativity shaped by body, mind, culture and history, the works of the three poets enter into a dialogue across cultures and disciplines. Both forums offer varied perspectives on how artists navigate the world on their own terms.”

The poetry program begins at 5:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Poet and essayist is a University Professor and director of the . Blind since birth, Kuusisto has built a celebrated body of work that redefines understandings of perception and beauty. His poetry collections, “Only Bread, Only Light” (2000) and “Letters to Borges” (2013), along with memoirs including “Planet of the Blind” and “Have Dog, Will Travel,” have established him as one of the most compelling disability voices in American letters. His work has appeared in Harper’s, Poetry and The New York Times Magazine.

is an internationally recognized poet and scholar, an associate professor of English and Spanish at New York University and a defining voice in Latinx and Nuyorican literary traditions. He is the author of the landmark study “In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam” (2014) and the poetry collections “Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor HemisfĂ©rico” (2015) and “Transversal” (2021), which was a New York Public Library Book of the Year. He is also the winner of the LASA Latino Studies Book Award. His work explores neurodivergence, migration and the politics of language. Cruel April is presented in partnership with the , , , and the .

’29, the 2024–25 New York State Youth Poet Laureate, is a Syracuse student pursuing dual majors in biology and journalism. She is also a Coronat Scholar and RenĂ©e Crown honors student and is enrolled in SUNY Upstate Medical University’s B.S./M.D. program. Her poetry draws on her experience with scoliosis, her Nigerian heritage and her commitment to uplifting marginalized communities. A premature birth survivor, she is the founder of The Finding Scoliosis Kindly Project and a Prudential Emerging Visionaries award winner.

The has received a significant gift of more than 25 works by 16 artists from the collection of Nancy Delman Portnoy.

A New York-based collector, gallerist and educator, Delman Portnoy’s collection focuses on artists addressing political and social issues across a wide range of media. She has held board positions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. The gift was facilitated by alumna Elizabeth “Liz” C. Tenenbaum ’98.

The donation transforms the museum’s holdings in lens-based media and broadens its representation in painting and contemporary voices. Highlights of the gift include works by Rashid Johnson, John Waters, Shimon Attie, David Goldblatt and Abel Barroso.

Johnson’s “Green Belt” (2009), a large-scale photograph of the artist’s father wearing a newly awarded taekwondo belt and seated against a bookshelf with a CB radio perched on it, offers a nuanced portrait of a soon-to-be-father’s self-exploration during the social upheaval of the 1970s.

“Rashid Johnson is one of the most incisive artists working today, and this early photograph encapsulates so many of the ideas he has explored throughout his career—Blackness, family, home life, community, literacy and access to sport,” says Art Museum Curator Melissa Yuen. “The wide-ranging conversations that a single work of art can encourage is the hallmark of what we do at Syracuse. We aim to acquire works that spark conversations across disciplines, and this incredible gift further develops our vision for the collection.

The gift also includes eight works by filmmaker and artist John Waters, whose photography draws from and recontextualizes iconic film imagery. The works by Waters present opportunities for collaboration with campus programs in film and media arts.

Other works turn a creative lens on histories that happen on local, neighborhood levels. Shimon Attie’s “Lasers Writing Out (in Yiddish) Jewish Senior’s Sleeping Dream” (1998) is part of his celebrated public art project which used animated laser projection to inscribe the personal and collective memories of immigrant residents onto the architecture of their neighborhood on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

David Goldblatt’s “Sunset over the Playing Fields of Tladi, Soweto, Johannesburg, August 1972,” (1972) photographed during the apartheid era, is a striking example of Goldblatt’s commitment to documenting everyday life in apartheid South Africa. Goldblatt’s photograph is currently on view at the in New York City as part of the exhibition “New In: Recent Acquisitions at the Íű±ŹĂĆ Art Museum” through June 4.

The gift advances the museum’s commitment to a collecting philosophy that fosters interdisciplinary teaching and research across the University, with particular focus on programs and institutions that include and the in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

“This gift is transformative—for our collection, and for the students and faculty who learn with it. When a collector of Nancy Delman Portnoy’s vision chooses to place works at an academic museum, it reflects a deep belief in the power of art to educate,” says Art Museum Director Emily Dittman. “These artists speak directly to the interdisciplinary, socially engaged teaching that defines Íű±ŹĂĆ, and expand our ability to teach across disciplines in meaningful ways.”

The Íű±ŹĂĆ Art Museum stewards a collection of more than 45,000 objects spanning 4,000 years of world art and serves as a teaching laboratory for students, faculty and the broader community. For more information on the museum, including current and upcoming exhibitions and programs, .

In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability to understand cultures beyond our own has never been more important. One of the most powerful ways to achieve that knowledge is through literature and cultural work. Accessing the stories, texts and art that reflect the daily lives and values of people across the globe makes one world legible to another and offers the potential to bridge divides.

Enter the translator, an artist who makes creative yet critical judgement calls. Something misunderstood is that translation involves more interpretation rather than a one-to-one exchange of words. It requires an interdisciplinary approach and deep cultural knowledge, whether that be immersing yourself in Caribbean Spanish sociolinguistics, researching 19th-century whaling vocabulary or delving into Greek mythology to translate a passage about the Milky Way Galaxy. Such answers can’t be found in the dictionary or Google Translate.

Experts’ Invisible Artistry

College of Arts and Sciences faculty members , and work across different languages, time periods and forms—literary fiction, opera, Renaissance scholarship— but each demonstrates that translation is among the most important yet underappreciated intellectual arts in the humanities in the world today. They agree that, if done well, this invisible work is rarely recognized for what it actually involves.

Surovi put it another way, borrowing a quote from Israeli writer Etgar Keret: “Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.”

A Prisoner’s Story

TĂŒrkkan, an associate teaching professor in the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, did not set out to publish a translation. She began translating “The Stone Building and Other Places,” a collection of three short stories by the Turkish author and human rights activist Aslı Erdoğan out of curiosity. She had no contract, no publisher and no deadline, but was teaching Erdoğan’s fiction and wanted to make it accessible to her students.

That all changed when the Turkish government arrested Erdoğan in 2016 and imprisoned her.

“I went out of my way to talk to publishers and say, this work is important,” TĂŒrkkan says. “Nobody will know about this writer if we don’t get it into English.”

Ìępublishers accepted the translation. When “The Stone Building and Other Places” appeared on shelves in 2018, it was a finalist for theÌę. Erdoğan, still under a travel ban, could not travel to Amsterdam to accept a European Cultural Foundation award the book had earned. TĂŒrkkan went in her place and read Erdoğan’s acceptance letter before the audience.

“As the translator, I really was also her agent,” TĂŒrkkan says. “Working on her behalf, advocating on her behalf, receiving awards and reading her acceptance letter.”

The translation itself required months and months of intense work and careful thought around every decision—three months to produce a single version of the book followed by an eight-month revision. Sometimes, a successful day meant translating a single paragraph.

For example, Turkish uses a single third-person pronoun—“o”—where English requires he, she, it or they. In Erdoğan’s novella, that ambiguity is intentional. TĂŒrkkan had to decide, sentence by sentence, whether to clarify or preserve it. In another instance, she opted to leave “abla,” the Turkish word for “sister” in place as “a little reminder that this is an English translation from the Turkish language.”

A passage involving the Milky Way and the zodiac resisted every direct approach. Eventually, TĂŒrkkan turned to Greek mythology to find English language capable of matching the original’s poetry. Erdoğan later told her the English translation was the most poetic version of her books.

“I was like, ‘I passed the test,’” she says. “I see the translation as the metaphor of the original. I never claim that my translation is the last word on this book. I would like to see more translations of it. The sum total of multiple translations can help us understand the original better.”

TĂŒrkkan advocates for broader recognition of translators’ contributions and says translators should be credited as co-writers of the books they translate. She notes that translations account for roughly 2.7% of all books published in the U.S. each year. In Turkey, that figure is 85%. Unfortunately, she notes, only a small handful of colleges in the U.S. offer programs to train translators.

TĂŒrkkan was born in Bulgaria and moved to Turkey with her family when she was 11. Growing up, she was caught between two languages. In Bulgaria, her parents spoke Turkish to her at home to counter the Bulgarian she was absorbing everywhere else. When the family moved to Turkey, they switched and started speaking Bulgarian at home.

She never felt fully comfortable in either language. She spoke Turkish with a Bulgarian accent and Bulgarian with a Turkish accent, while her Turkish name marked her as an outsider in Bulgaria.

TĂŒrkkan started learning English at age 7 in Bulgaria, ironically from a French instructor her mother hired. She describes this as her “mom’s legacy,” as her mother believed that “language meant life” and wanted her children to have “multiple lives.” Later, TĂŒrkkan lived in Germany during her graduate program, picking up yet another “life.”

’ paintings line the walls of her studio in Anchorage, Alaska. From “icon portraits” to landscapes, her artwork holds a palpable verve—carrying a panorama of stories, ideas and interpretations with them, often centered on Alutiiq culture and identity.

From April 6-17, Infante Lyons will bring her visual and academic storytelling to Íű±ŹĂĆ as the 2026 . Her two-week residency is organized around the theme of “Visions of Resilience: Sacred Art and Storied Landscapes.” Humanities Center Director Vivian May says she is excited about the many different ways Infante Lyons will engage the community through dialogues, lectures and seminars focused on her art, Indigenous cultural resilience, approaches to environmentalism and environmental activism, storytelling and more. Infante Lyons’ work, says May, “immerses us in a sense of place and asks us to build relationships across boundaries. Infante Lyons visualizes the sacred, imagines the environment and builds stories in ways that invite us to come together and imagine a more just future for all.”

All are welcome to meet Infante Lyons and experience her work in person at an at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, in Eggers Hall and at other .

Infante Lyons, a painter and multimedia artist whose work engages themes of Indigenous sovereignty, cultural resilience and environmental sustainability, was raised in Anchorage. After earning her bachelor’s degree from Whitman College, she studied at the Viña del Mar Escuela de Bellas Artes and spent 18 years in Chile. Her maternal family is from Kodiak Island—a large island in the Gulf of Alaska and the ancestral homeland of the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people—where her grandparents were commercial salmon fishers. She is a registered Alutiiq Alaska Native and has tribal affiliation with the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq corporation, Koniag.

“I’m looking forward to conversations about learning from different cultures: the importance of a diverse mindset, the richness of looking at Indigenous cultures, how they see the world,” says Infante Lyons. Turning to the future, she asks: “And then, how can you apply that to a conversation [about] where we go forward? It could be applied to sustainability, or how we get along as human beings, or how we get along with the rest of the world.”

Notably, two new paintings by Infante Lyons will find a permanent home in the Íű±ŹĂĆ Art Museum. Melissa Yuen, curator at the museum, says Infante Lyons’ potrtaits “invite interdisciplinary conversation, highlighting humanity’s relationship with the environment, disrupting Eurocentric worldviews and celebrating the role women play in Alutiiq culture as connectors with the world.”

These as-yet unnamed pieces, to be unveiled on April 7, each depict Alaskan Native women dressed in kuspuks. The works incorporate traditional and contemporary Indigenous designs, and each woman cradles an animal central to Alutiiq culture: a seal pup in one painting, an otter in the other. The compositions echo a “Madonna and Child” style painting, complete with halos and other visual symbols of reverence.

In portraying animals in the style of sacred Orthodox paintings and iconography, Infante Lyons emphasizes an intimate relationship between humans and the natural world—one that opposes Western models of extraction and domination. Relatedly, some of her upcoming events on campus will highlight how Indigenous mindsets forge new pathways for understanding and caring for the environment.

Chie Sakakibara, associate professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies and geography and the environment, says when she came across one of Infante Lyons’ icon portraits, “” she was speechless.

“I was immediately struck by the work’s powerful expressivity, as Linda brings together multiple elements—ancestral presences and sacred, spiritual words—into the present, rather than relegating them to a past that no longer exists,” says Sakakibara.

Sakakibara invites the campus and broader Syracuse community into a shared encounter with Infante Lyons’ artistic wisdom, and hopes the residency will spark some of the same kinds of connections she cultivates with students around traditional and land-based knowledge, cultural resilience, multi-species relations and the continuity of Indigenous storytelling.

For co-host Timur Hammond, associate professor of geography and the environment, Infante Lyons’ residency opens up new points of academic connection, particularly for his Spring 2026 course, ‘Geography of Memory,’ and for strengthening his ongoing collaborations with the (EHN). One of EHN’s projects includes an , developed with Infante Lyons, to help spark discussion and activity in the classroom and community.

While Infante Lyons’ work carries many layers of meaning, her creative process begins without a preconceived agenda. Referencing Syracuse creative writing professor and author George Saunders, Infante Lyons subscribes to the idea that “the muse finds you.” A blank canvas is an invitation for her to explore meaning, and to see her life experiences naturally flow out onto the canvas.

“You come to the studio, you start something, and you may try to have a concept or an idea or a composition, but that will change,” she says. In being open to spontaneous inspiration during this creative process, “you end up with a better piece of artwork,” says Infante Lyons.

She hopes to inspire the same approach in those who come across her art. Her paintings—and the conversations that arise around them—need not uphold a rigid, absolute message. Rather, her work invites an opportunity for thought, exploration and emotion.

Story by Colette Goldstein G’25

Heather Hendry, senior paper conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, will present at Íű±ŹĂĆ Libraries’ annual Brodsky Series for the Advancement of Library Conservation. Hendry’s hybrid lecture, titled , will be held on Wednesday, April 15, 2026 from 3–4:30 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons (Bird Library Room 114) and on Zoom. Registration is required for the Zoom webinar and is encouraged for in-person attendees. Interested attendees can .

A on Dacron lining maps will be held the following day, Thursday, April 16, 2026, from 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. on the 6^th floor of Bird Library in the Antje Bultmann Lemke Seminar Room and the Joan Breier Brodsky ’67, G’68 Conservation Lab. The workshop is limited to 15 people, and advance registration is required. To register for the workshop, please email Max Wagh, SCRC administrative coordinator, at mlwagh@syr.edu.

All events are free to attend and open to the public.

The annual is endowed through a generous gift by William J. ’65, G’ 68 and Joan ’67, G’68 Brodsky. The series features prominent library conservators that promote and advance knowledge of library conservation theory, practice and application among wide audiences, both on campus and in the region.

Hendry specializes in challenging conservation treatments of works of art on paper of all eras. Current projects include conservation of Jacob Lawrence’s Toussaint L’Ouverture paintings; early maps and founding documents of the United States; and a collection of Civil War drawings. She teaches conservation treatment techniques to other conservators, including a “Blackened Lead White” workshop, and has presented and published internationally on conservation of iron gall ink, lead white pigments, historic maps, Asian screens and pressure sensitive tape.

She studied conservation at Queen’s University in Canada, and she has worked as a conservator at the Canadian Conservation Institute, the Yale Center for British Art, the Harvard University Weisman Center and in private practice.Ìę She is a fellow and a professional member of the American Institute of Conservation and will be co-chairing the Art on Paper Discussion Group on “Washing” at the 2026 AIC Meeting.

Looking for your next great read? Members of the University’s in the College of Arts and Sciences have a few suggestions for titles that deserve a spot on your shelf. These eight books, all written by alumni and either released in the last decade or forthcoming in 2026, span poetry, short stories and novels.

Whether you’re looking to read more this year, or add to your already long “to be read” list, they say these titles by graduates of the Syracuse creative writing master’s program are not to be missed.

Below, the recommended reads and why the faculty members recommend them:

by Bridget Lowe G’09 (February 2020)

Professor suggests picking up this second, aptly titled poetry collection from Lowe, in which she makes meaning from the perversity of suffering. “Bridget Lowe interrogates the profound disquietude of the world, and that world is both miraculous and haunted; it’s both a world we recognize—work, Missouri—and a world she sees transformed by her vision into the numinous,” Smith says.

by Peter Mishler G’07, G’08 (May 2024)

Smith also recommends this collection, which received the Iowa Poetry Prize, and is set in distinctly American landscapes. “Peter Mishler poems are most sensitive to rumbles of culture and the intimacies that find their most acute analogy in the lives of children,” Smith says. “They astonish in their range and unnerving truth.”

by Max Delsohn G’24 (October 2025)

Young transmasculine characters navigate life in 2010s Seattle in this recently published collection of short stories, which professor recommends. “Max Delsohn is a brilliant new voice, as funny, wild and original as they come,” she says. “He writes with bracing honesty and complexity from an insider’s perspective. His work can be sharply ironic and wonderfully entertaining while also exploring deeper questions about connection, about dignity, about identity.”

by Aaron Fagan G’06 (October 2025)

Faculty member G’88 recommends reading this collection of sonnets that delve into existence and impermanence. “The poems in Aaron Fagan’s ‘Atom and Void’ are lyrical and witty philosophical treatises on the human condition in the chaotic world of the 21st century,” says Kennedy, whose own debut novel “Stealing Marquee Moon,” in May 2026.

by Sydney Rende G’21 (January 2026)

This debut collection of short stories, which capture the obsession with how we are perceived, the desire to be adored, big ambitions and the fascination of fame, is not to be missed, according to , professor and director of the creative writing program. He says it is a “a hilarious, savvy, tender-hearted short story collection about life in the age of social media and reality TV: how to be seen, how to be liked and how to be careful what you wish for.”

by JR Fenn G’22 (February 2026)

, associate professor emeritus, recommends this collection of 17 pieces of flash fiction, that travels backwards and forwards in time, focused on what it means to be human. “Jess Fenn’s tiny collection of tiny tales is a masterpiece of flash fiction in which every word is a full grown story, a consummate work of art,” Flowers says.

by River Selby ’15, G’18 (May 2026)

Flowers also recommends this debut memoir that captures the author’s experiences as a female wildland firefighter from 2000 to 2010. “River Selby’s account of a young woman’s journey as a wildland firefighter brings literary intensity and narrative grace to a tale of personal, gender and environmental struggle,” Flowers says.

by Leila Renee G’22 (August 2026)

This debut novel, an off-kilter coming-of-age-novel that follows a recent college graduate after she runs away from home, is one to keep on your list, according to professor G’88. “It’s a wry, funny, beautifully written story of a fraught but intense friendship, by a writer with real heart,” says Saunders, whose latest novel released in January.

Molly McConnell, a Ph.D. candidate in composition and cultural rhetoric in the (A&S), was selected as the 2026 winner of the prestigious Mary Hatch Marshall Essay Award for her work titled “Working with Microbes: The Collaborative Nature of Techne.”

A&S and the Íű±ŹĂĆ Library Associates will host a on Wednesday, April 8, at 1 p.m. Anyone interested in attending can register by emailing libevent@syr.edu by April 3.

McConnell, this year’s recipient, will receive a $1,000 prize. Her essay explores what it means to consider a domestic, small-scale fermentation practice as a techne. She frames techne as a collaborative effort and questions what that collaboration means for the practice itself as well as the actors involved. McConnell relies on work in the field of more-than-human studies and in the social study of microbes, along with various work on fermentation as a practice, to think about how humans collaborate with microbes and what power dynamics are at play in that situation. This article asks about the temporality and intimacy in the collaboration when fermentation is viewed as techne.

McConnell’s essay was chosen from those submitted by A&S graduate students currently enrolled in African American studies; English; art and music histories; languages, literatures and linguistics; philosophy; religion; and writing studies, rhetoric and composition.

McConnell will be graduating in May. She serves as an editor for , an organization that publishes creative work of people impacted by the carceral system, and she volunteers for .

Professor Mary Hatch Marshall was a founding member of the Library Associates and holds a distinguished place in the college’s history. In 1952, she became the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature —the first woman appointed a full professor in the college— after having joined the faculty four years earlier.

Library Associates established the annual Mary Hatch Marshall Award to honor and help perpetuate her scholarly standards and the generous spirit that characterized her inspirational teaching career, which lasted through her retirement in 1993. Members of Library Associates, Marshall’s friends and family, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Central New York Community Foundation all contributed to the endowment, established in 2004, that funds the award.

Library Associates are a group of dedicated Íű±ŹĂĆ Libraries supporters who help to raise funds and accessibility for the Libraries’ special collections, rare books and manuscripts through opportunities like the Faculty Fellows program.

Allison Hinman G’15, G’16 goes to work every day in a place filled with the historical memory of courageous acts: the Rochester, New York, home of Susan B. Anthony where she fought for women’s right to vote and was arrested for casting a ballot.

As president and CEO of the National ÌęHinman leads the institution she first interned at while pursuing her dual master’s degrees in museum studies and arts leadership administration in the and . It’s a role that she says set the course of her career.

Going into the internship, Hinman was skeptical she’d learn anything new about the operation of historic house museums, since she’d already interned at the , the historic home of William Henry Seward, who served as a New York State senator, governor of New York, a U.S. senator and secretary of state in the administrations of both Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

But her time at the Anthony Museum had a profound impact on the way she thought about her path.

“It was such a transformative experience for me with the type of programming the Anthony Museum was doing and how they were creating programming with community, instead of for community,” Hinman says. “That was really influential in how I wanted to move forward with museum education and thinking about how to work with community. ”

Hinman ended up the Anthony Museum in 2021 as deputy director and was promoted to chief operating officer in 2024. She the new president and CEO as of January 2026.

“I work with the absolute best staff and the best volunteers,” Hinman says. “Everybody is so passionate, and it’s just a great environment to work in, and everybody really views it as a team effort in how we make all of the work happen here.”

Currently, Hinman is focused on overseeing and for a that will include a 6,000 square foot self-guided exhibition space to the museum. She says the new building will allow the museum to expand its programming.

For Women’s History Month, the museum is a series of guest lecturers, and Hinman said she’s looking forward to the historic house once again serving as an early voting location for the 2026 election cycle. In 2024, more than 6,000 visitors chose to vote early in Susan B. Anthony’s backyard.

Below, she delves into lessons she learned from her time at Syracuse and what she hopes current students will keep in mind during their own time on campus.