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 Syracuse University 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 Syracuse University 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 and�� 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 Syracuse University 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 ��much 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 Hemisférico” (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 Renée 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 Syracuse University 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 Syracuse University, and expand our ability to teach across disciplines in meaningful ways.”

The Syracuse University 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

Türkkan, 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,” Türkkan says. “Nobody will know about this writer if we don’t get it into English.”

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

“As the translator, I really was also her agent,” Türkkan 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. Türkkan 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, Türkkan 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.”

Türkkan 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.

Türkkan 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.

Türkkan 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, Türkkan 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 Syracuse University 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 Syracuse University 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 Syracuse University 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.�� 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 Syracuse University 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 Syracuse University 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 ��Hinman 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.

The in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) is launching ¡Guitarra!, a new recital series that will bring world-renowned classical guitarists to campus for free public performances and master classes for Setnor students.

The inaugural performance of ¡Guitarra! will take place on Thursday, March 19, with by at 8 p.m. in Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College. Recognized as “a young 21st-century virtuoso” (The Guardian), Whittingham’s debut album “My European Journey,” released in 2021, was described as “a superb debut” (BBC Music Magazine) and led to her being chosen as one of Classic FM’s “Rising Star” artists in 2022.

The series will continue on Wednesday, April 1, at 8 p.m. with by , in Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College. Smits, who plays on eight-string guitars and historical instruments, has been praised as “an uncommonly musical guitarist” (The New York Times) and “one of the most sensitive and cultured performers of our time” (Diapason).

¡Guitarra! is generously supported by VPA alumna Ronna B. Erickson ’76, whose love of classical guitar inspired her to establish the series first at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and then at Syracuse University.

“We are beyond grateful for Ronna’s generosity, as it enables us to bring international concert artists and educators to our students and community, for years to come,” says , instructor of guitar in the Setnor School.

will present “New In: Recent Acquisitions at the Syracuse University Art Museum” at the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery through June 4, 2026. Featuring paintings, photographs, prints,��sculpture��and ceramics��acquired��since 2021, the exhibition reveals how��the��academic��museum puts new acquisitions to work in its galleries and study room, in faculty research and in conversations that reach beyond the museum walls.

“The museum’s wide-ranging collection provides opportunities to practice visual literacy and communication skills—essential to many fields and professions—across the University’s departments, schools,��and colleges,” says curator of education and academic outreach Kate Holohan. “In addition, teaching with objects is active, experiential and student-centered. Students themselves��analyze��visual��evidence in real time��in order to��pose��critical��questions,��develop interpretations of artworks and��make interdisciplinary connections.”

Many of the works on view have already been��activated��at the museum with University students and faculty.��“Hotel Paradise Café,”��a��resist-ground etching and engraving by Peter Milton, is��a layered composition of mirrors and reflections��and other works by Milton��were featured��in an exhibition��co-curated��by Lyndsay Gratch, associate professor of communication and rhetorical��studies,��and a 2024-2025 Art Museum Faculty Fellow.

Gratch brought students from her course Performance Studies into the galleries,��and��using Milton’s print,��explored��questions of reflexivity, positionality and how the act of looking is never neutral. The Faculty Fellows program,��,��engages��professors from disciplines across the University with the permanent collection to develop this kind of object-based��teaching.

The Faculty Fellows program and others like it��are part of a broader effort. The museum routinely welcomes classes into its galleries and study��room,��where students examine original works firsthand. In 2025, over 200 classes from 38 different departments on��campus��made��observations, weighed��evidence��and built��research questions in real time. It is the kind of sustained, object-driven engagement that distinguishes��the��teaching museum, and one reason the��SU��Art Museum has made expanding��the perspectives and lived experiences in the collection a priority.

That priority is on full display here.

A photograph by Chinese American artist Jarod Lew, from his series “In Between You and Your Shadow”��grapples with��the limits of knowing your family history��within the social��context of��Asian American��by recreating��a scene from his childhood.��In “Untitled (Snack),” a��handwritten Post-it note��sits before a��plate of cut fruit��left by his mother��as an after-school snack.��It’s��a��quiet, intimate��photograph, but one that carries the weight of a larger history:��Lew’s mother was the fiancée of Vincent Chin, whose 1982 murder became a turning point in Asian American��history.

A��monocast��rubber sculpture by��Niho��Kozuru��points toward the kind of interdisciplinary conversations the museum aims to foster, with the potential of��catalyzing conversations��with material scientists in chemistry and the College of Engineering and Computer Science��and curators of the plastics collection in the Special Collections Ressarch Center at Bird Library.

The exhibition also includes a screenprint by painter,��College of Visual and Performing Arts����alumnus and��Syracuse University��Art Museum Advisory Board member James Little, made to��support��the 150th anniversary of the Art Students League where he now teaches; a print from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation,��donated through��; and press photographs that build on the museum’s connection to the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Many of these works are on public view for the first time.

“These acquisitions��are a testament to��the Orange community’s commitment to the University’s mission of teaching and research, and demonstrate how a diverse collection��strengthens��those efforts,” says curator Melisa Yuen. “We are grateful for the��generous��donations that made this��exhibition��possible, through both gifts of art and through funds that allow us to��purchase��work strategically.”

“New In”��presents��a��portrait of a museum where��acquiring��a work of art is only the first step. At Syracuse,��students��catalogue, curate and build research questions through direct engagement with original��art.��This exhibition��invites visitors to��explore that��process and��encounter��the works��that make it possible.

“New In: Recent Acquisitions at the Syracuse University Art Museum” is on view��now��through June 4, 2026, at the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery in midtown Manhattan. For more information, visit�����ǰ� .

doesn’t remember who first bestowed the “Red Carpet” Ralphie nickname on him, but he remembers when. It was 2010, and Aversa was working as a radio show host for Citadel Communications when his program director finagled a press pass to cover the Video Music Awards.

“As someone who was an aspiring entertainment journalist at Syracuse University, I couldn’t believe my luck being on the red carpet. The nickname just stuck through my 16 years of red-carpet coverage,” says Aversa, who earned undergraduate degrees in broadcast journalism from the and marketing from the .

Aversa has carved out a decorated career as an entertainment reporter, covering everything from the Grammys and the Super Bowl to the Oscars—and on Sunday night, as the senior entertainment correspondent for USA TODAY, he will earn his nickname once again, camping out on the red carpet at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles for the 98th Annual Academy Awards.

Here’s what he shared about his time in the press line for these star-studded events:

1. There’s Glitz and Glamour, and Chaos

Before the Oscars begin, another less glamorous scene unfolds under a tented structure at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. There, the reporters responsible for covering the Academy Awards jockey for position, hoping to land an interview with Oscar contenders like Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael B. Jordan, Jessie Buckley, Kate Hudson and Teyana Taylor.

“Where we’re set up is far from the glitz and glamour you will see if you tune in,” Aversa says. “It’s quite the scene between the security, the blocked-off roads and the tourists trying to get a glimpse of their favorite celebrity. It’s a circus environment.”

2. When the Story Changes, You Change With It

Aversa may never have a more newsworthy night at the Oscars than his first time covering the red carpet. After landing interviews with stars like Jessica Chastain, Nicole Kidman, Andrew Garfield and Dame Judi Dench, those conversations paled in comparison to what happened inside the theater.

As comedian Chris Rock was making jokes about Jada Pinkett Smith, her husband, Will Smith, left his seat, walked onstage and delivered what Aversa remembers as “the slap heard around the world.”

“All the great coverage and interviews we got on the red carpet didn’t matter anymore. All anyone was talking about was ‘The Slap,’” Aversa says. “We were trying to figure out in real time whether we saw what we just saw. Was that scripted or unscripted? And how are we going to cover that? It was a very eventful first Oscars.”

Aversa modified the coverage plan on the fly, re-filmed an open, a middle and a close for the package, then sprinted back to his hotel room and edited together a video segment blending red carpet interviews with highlights from the night.

“That package had incredible viewership numbers because of the interest,” Aversa says.

3. Snubs Are an Occupational Hazard

Red-carpet snubs happen every time and are “an occupational hazard,” but Aversa says entertainment reporters need to have a short memory and learn to not take a celebrity snub personally.

“You have to move on. The worst thing you can do is dwell on the moment of a big name snubbing you, but if you wallow, you could miss another celebrity walking right past you who could give you that memorable quote,” Aversa says.

4. Make Sure You Know the Fundamentals

Aversa says his must-have interviews are Chalamet, the star of “Marty Supreme,” along with DiCaprio and Taylor, two of the talented stars from the Best Picture contender, “One Battle After Another.”

As Aversa prepares for his fifth Oscars, he credits his ability to write across multiple platforms—from video scripts and web stories to social media posts and photo captions—to his Newhouse School professors, who taught him the fundamentals of a great sentence and story structure.

5. One Question, So Make it Count

Aversa says the key to a good red-carpet interview is to keep it simple and make sure it’s not a yes-or-no question.

“If I’m lucky, I get to ask one question,” Aversa says. “It’s a matter of making sure that question can be answered in a quick manner, and then you hope the response is something the audience will care about.”

The begins at 7 p.m. EDT Sunday evening. You can follow Aversa’s Red Carpet coverage on his and on the account.

The Syracuse University Art Museum is now accepting applications for the 2026-27 Faculty Fellows program. The program supports faculty across all disciplines in bringing the museum’s collection of over 45,000 objects into their teaching.

Now in its fifth year, the Faculty Fellows program centers��on object-based teaching and research through an active,��experiential��approach that asks students to make close observations, analyze evidence and develop their own interpretations in real time. Up to four��fellows��will be selected and paired with museum staff—including curators Melissa Yuen and Kate Holohan—for a hands-on introduction to the collection and ongoing curricular support. Each Faculty Fellow receives a $2,500 stipend or research subsidy.

What’s Involved?

• Fellows work with museum staff to develop a museum visit lesson plan, at least one object-based student assignment and a collection-based teaching guide tied to a 2026-27 course.
• The bulk of the work takes place during the summer of 2026 (total time commitment of approximately50 hours).

Who can apply?

• The Faculty Fellows program is open to all University tenured, tenure-track and full-time non-tenure track faculty teaching in 2026-27.
• Proposals from any school, college or discipline are welcome.
• For fall 2026 courses, the museum especially welcomes proposals engaging in themes of ecology, climate change, consumption and material culture in connection with our upcoming exhibitions.

What you need to know

• More information including the entire call for applications andr equired application materials can be found on the .
• The museum’s collection can also be viewed .

Previous��Faculty Fellows

Colleen Cameron,��professor of practice in human development and family science in the College of Arts and Sciences,��is a Faculty Fellow for 2025-26 who integrated museum materials into her course, Healthcare Communications: Research, Theory and��Practice this past fall. As part of��the course, students selected an object that connected to death notification and presented their research at the end of the semester.

Omar��Cheta,��a 2023-24 Faculty Fellow and assistant professor of history in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs,��utilized��a carpet, painting and 19^th-century photograph in his course, The Middle East Since the Rise of Islam. Cheta��encouraged his students to��explore��traces��of the past��through material objects, rather than��just��through��textually transmitted ideas.

Elizabeth Wimer, assistant teaching professor��in��the Whitman School of Management, was a 2024-25 Faculty Fellow. She��explored how artistic representation of African culture relates to the continual evolution of the interconnectedness of the global economy through objects in the museum’s collection as part of her Managing in a Global Setting course.��Her work culminated in a Spring 2025 exhibition along with��a separate exhibition���ǰ�ganized by��Lindsay Gratch, a 2024-25 Faculty Fellow.

The Faculty Fellows program is made possible with the support of the Office of Strategic Initiatives and Office of Research.