Syracuse University Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric F. Spina has announced
enhancements to the University-wide program for first-year students that introduces
them to the campus's vibrant intellectual life. The Shared First-Year Reading Program
is evolving into the
Shared First-Year Experience, based on the recommendation of the
program's steering committee of faculty, staff and student representatives, and
consultation with SU's school and college deans. The name change signals a shift in
focus from a single book that first-year students read to a cultural event in which they
participate and which will be a point of intersection for academic activities coordinated
within the schools and colleges.
"The Shared First-Year Reading Program was initiated to provide a unifying
intellectual experience for students on our academically expansive and diverse
campus," says Spina. "An annually selected common reading helped us make great
strides in that direction, but it became clear that we could do even more to promote
broader engagement with a common focus across the schools, colleges and
disciplines."
For fall 2009 first-year students, that focus will be a performance by
Shen Wei Dance
Arts (SWDA). This world-renowned dance company performs under the direction of Shen Wei,
internationally acclaimed dancer/choreographer and a principal choreographer of the
2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies, who has been hailed by The Washington
Post as "one of the great artists of our time." On Sept. 24 and 25, SWDA
will ignite the stage of the historic Landmark Theatre in Syracuse, performing
especially for SU's first-year students. Lauded for his media-crossing and
technologically savvy artistry, Shen weaves together ancient and modern themes that
speak to contemporary life. The company's Syracuse performance will feature a new
work, titled "Re-," developed in part during its
spring 2009 residency on the SU
campus.
"It's an incredible privilege for the University and the Syracuse community to have
such deep interaction with an artist of Shen Wei's stature for such an extended period,"
observes SU Arts Presenter Carole Brzozowski, who coordinated the company's
residency and its impending performances. "At the same time, it's important to
understand that Shen Wei wanted to come to Syracuse because he'd learned about the
unusual synergy between SU and the community, especially around cultural and
intellectual resources, and he thought it would feed his and the company's creativity."
The Shared First-Year Experience will not be defined solely by the event of Shen Wei's
performance, but will be extended in time and breadth through a website being
developed by the SU Library. It will serve as a clearinghouse for readings, multimedia
files and links to external resources selected by SU faculty members to help their first-
year students interpret Shen's work and relate it to issues and themes arising in their
disciplines and related professions.
Spina sees distinct advantages in the expansive definition of shared experience inherent
in the first-year program's evolution. "Building a shared first-year experience around
an issue or theme, rather than a particular book, will enable faculty members
from the array of disciplines and intellectual approaches represented at SU to choose
the means by which they believe their students can engage most effectively with the
issue or theme," he says. "Not only will this provide each new student with means of
approaching a topic that are most amenable to her or his particular course of study, but
the multiplication of perspectives accessible through the program's website will
encourage students to explore approaches that they may not have considered before."
SU's schools and colleges are coordinating efforts among their faculties to develop
methods and means for engaging ideas related to Shen's work within existing course
curricula or through co-curricular activities. Likewise, the schools and colleges are
planning communications with their first-year students over the summer and into the
academic year that will inform students how to access resources being prepared for
them.
In this inaugural year of the Shared First-Year Experience, the SWDA performance also will serve as the Milton First-Year Lecture of the First-Year Forum in The College of Arts and Sciences. The Milton lecture program, funded by the Laura Hanhausen Milton Freshman Lecture Endowment, brings a speaker of national stature to campus each fall to address the new Arts and Sciences entering class. Paul Farmer, Ishmael Beah, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, and Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel are examples of past guest speakers. Syracuse Symposium -- a semester-long intellectual and artistic festival celebrating interdisciplinary thinking, imagining, and creating, presented by The College of Arts and Sciences to the entire Syracuse community -- also is collaborating in presenting the SWDA performance.
Brzozowski sees exciting possibilities for faculty members across the full spectrum of
SU's schools and colleges to connect Shen's work to prominent disciplinary issues and
challenges. "Shen Wei's boundary-crossing work draws upon themes that resonate not
only throughout the arts and humanities, but in the social sciences, professions and
even science and technology," she says. "Our campus-wide intellectual engagement
will be limited only by our imagination."
Faculty members interested in developing curricular or co-curricular activities related
to Shen's residency, performances and underlying themes will find resources to
support their work at http://researchguides.library.syr.edu/shared_exp. They are
encouraged to contact their school or college coordinator to discuss individual school
or college activities and plans. Additional information about SU's Shared Experience,
including a list of school or college coordinators, is available on the Provost website.
