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Featured News
2020-2021 Remembrance Scholars Announced

Syracuse University’s Remembrance Scholar Selection Committee has chosen the 35 students who will be the 2020-21 Remembrance Scholars. Three scholars are from the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA). The scholarships, now in their 31st year, were founded as a tribute to—and means of remembering—the 35 students who were killed in the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Those students, who were returning from a semester of study in London and Florence, were among the 270 people who perished in the bombing. The scholarships are funded through an endowment supported by gifts from alumni,...
Faculty News

"Polaris," written and directed by Soudabeh Moradian, assistant professor of film in the Department of Transmedia, is proud to be a 2020 ReFrame Stamp Recipient. Founded by Women In Film (WIF) and the Sundance Institute, the ReFrame Stamp serves as a mark of distinction to recognize standout gender-balance films and TV projects. Read More...
Featured News
VPA Students, Faculty Honored with 2020 One University Awards

Syracuse University has announced its 2020 One University Awards, honoring members of the University community for their scholarship, teaching, academic achievement, leadership and service. The annual ceremony was scheduled to take place on April 17 in Hendricks Chapel but was canceled due to COVID-19 guidelines. Three members of the VPA community received awards:
- Naiya Campbell ’20, a communication and rhetorical studies major in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, received a Chancellor's Citation for Excellence in Student Research.
- Rebecca Kelly, assistant professor of communications design in the School of Design, received a Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contributions to the
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Featured News
Fashion Design Students Impress Renowned British Designer Elizabeth Emanuel with Innovative Takes on Marie Antoinette

When U.K.-based fashion designer Elizabeth Emanuel began posting design challenges on Instagram to spark creativity during this time of social distancing, Jeffrey Mayer, professor of fashion design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design, was hit with a flash of inspiration. As Mayer was preparing to teach a unit on collage to sophomores in his Advanced Fashion Illustration class, Emanuel posted a challenge to design an updated costume for a re-booted Marie Antoinette movie. “I saw her post on Instagram and I thought, ‘What fun!’” Mayer says. “It fit really well with the collage theme and I...
Featured News
VPA Graduates Nourish a Community—with Soup, Sandwich and a Dash of Hope

She had red hair. He had blue hair. Both artists and students in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, they created a comic strip together, published in The Daily Orange. It told the story of a fish who loved a frog. The fish kisses the frog, turning him into a prince—drawn holding a dead fish in his hands. It was a creative illustration of love and sacrifice, the giving of self for the good of another. It foretold, perhaps, what alumni Gareth Manwaring ’06 and Patricia Rounds Manwaring ’07 would be doing more than a decade later to care...
Featured News
The Art of Sustaining Creativity During a Pandemic

Eliot Raynes pursues his transmedia studies and job search from home in Maryland while reflecting on a rewarding journey at Syracuse University.

Eliot Raynes ’20 attended an arts magnet high school in Maryland, where he was able to nurture his creative talents with classes in drawing, painting and photography along with traditional public school requirements. “When I was deciding on a college, I wanted to continue
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Featured News
International Students Pursue Their Passions While Adjusting to Remote Learning

With the COVID-19 pandemic looming large in the United States, international students at Syracuse University faced an unpredictable dilemma. As campus instruction shifted to a remote learning environment after spring break, many international students undertook the gauntlet of airline travel, accompanied by the uncertainty of the virus’ impact on their countries and whether they would be placed in quarantine when they reached home. Others remained in Syracuse, distant from family and friends and not knowing when they could return home. VPA film major Saachi Jain ’22 and museum studies graduate student Zvipozvashe Ngwenya G’21 were among the Syracuse University students...
Featured News
Award Will Help School of Design Examine Students’ Attitudes Toward Sustainable Materials

A research project by a team from the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design is the recipient of one of two $5,000 awards from the New York State Association for Reduction, Reuse and Recycling (NYSAR3) and the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP21). The second award went to a team from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). Each year, NYSAR3 and NYSP21 provide two $5,000 grants to New York state universities and colleges that are members of the NYSAR3 College Council. The grants go to campuses that have projects that focus on source reduction,...
Featured News
A Lesson in Courage, Creativity and Humility

Beloved music instructor, trombonist and volunteer firefighter William “Bill” Harris reflects on decades of commitment to his alma mater and the Syracuse community. It was supposed to have been a program for the ages—back-to-back concerts of German and Russian Romanticism, served up by the then-fledgling Syracuse Symphony Orchestra (SSO). On the podium was none other than the great Leopold Stokowski, making his SSO debut. But the tall, imperious maestro who had shot to fame in Disney’s Fantasia decades earlier, seemed preoccupied, according to principal trombonist William “Bill” Harris ’65, G’79. “Stowkie was pretty old and cranky,” says Harris, recalling the ailing conductor’s visit in March 1971....
Faculty News

Kelly Gallagher, assistant professor of film in the Department of Transmedia, was commissioned by Planned Parenthood to create the animated video “June Medical and the History of Attacks on Roe.” She will be a juror for this year's Centrally Isolated Film Festival (CIFF), a student-run competition at Cornell University that celebrates student filmmakers from across the nation.
Featured News
Three VPA Students, Alumni Receive 2020-21 Fulbright Student Awards

Next year, Emma Ettinger ’17 plans to work on a master’s degree in Shakespeare and creativity in the United Kingdom. Leah Garlock ’16 hopes to encourage students in South Korea to seek out cross-cultural experiences. Joshua Ratel-Khan ’20 wants to create a public speaking club for students in Colombia. The three are among the 10 Syracuse University students and alumni who will make impacts around the globe as 2020-21 recipients of awards through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Read the full story
Faculty News

Sam Van Aken, associate professor of studio arts in the School of Art and the creator of the Tree of 40 Fruit series, participated in the panel “Design for the Future” as part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Earth Optimal Digital Summit, a two-day virtual event highlighting success stories in conservation.
Featured News
Setnor School of Music Awards 2020

Student awards for the Setnor School of Music's 2020 year. Read More...
Featured News
Navigating Polluted Information Amid COVID-19

Assistant Professor Whitney Phillips discusses the ‘long-standing dysfunction of our information ecosystem’ and the risks it may pose to public health.

A 2015 TED Talk by Bill Gates warning of the growing peril of an infectious virus has resurfaced, but seemingly for the wrong reasons. Titled “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready,” Gates’ speech foreshadows the coronavirus outbreak while reinforcing the importance of vaccine research and testing. Since then, the Microsoft founder-turned-philanthropist has faced backlash from anti-vaccination activists and conservative pundits, some of whom claim
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Faculty News

Whitney Phillips, assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies and a columnist in Wired, recently authored “Anti-Quarantine Protests Are Dangerous and Weird.”
Featured News
Hendricks Chapel Choir, Setnor Sonority Come Together to Create Virtual Performances

When the Spring 2020 semester began, choirs and ensembles around the Syracuse University campus started working on the pieces they planned to perform during spring concerts. It takes weeks and weeks of preparation and practice to get the concerts—and the performers—to the point where they are ready for an audience. The coronavirus pandemic has not only forced the cancellation of concerts but has also taken away precious time from students—time meant to be engaged in music and the college experience. The Hendricks Chapel Choir and Setnor Sonority, two of the University’s premier vocal ensembles, are not allowing the pandemic to stifle their...
Featured News
Communications Design Senior Nicole Stallings-Blanche Named University Scholar

Nicole Stallings-Blanche, a communications design major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design, is one of 12 seniors who has been named a 2020 Syracuse University Scholar, the highest undergraduate honor the University bestows. The Syracuse University Scholars Selection Committee, a Universitywide faculty committee, selected the 2020 scholars using criteria that included coursework and academic achievement, independent research and creative work, evidence of intellectual growth and/or innovation in their disciplinary field, a personal statement and faculty letters of recommendation. Stallings-Blanche is minoring in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. She is...
Faculty News

Lynn Greenky, assistant teaching professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, was quoted by Fox News and the New York Post in the story “Nasal swabs are being 3D-printed amid coronavirus outbreak.”
Featured News
The Power of Music in Times of Crisis

Music educators at Syracuse University help students learn, perform and sustain meaningful connections in the digital realm to ease the “pandemic of separation.” Read full story
Featured News
Alumni, Faculty and Staff 3D-Print a Response to COVID-19

Syracuse University schools and colleges are collaborating to print face shields that will protect health-care workers responding to community needs. On March 17, Lynn Greenky, an assistant teaching professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ (VPA) Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, reached out to a few of her colleagues. Greenky saw a local news story about a Central New York firm that has made 3D-printing plans for a face shield available on its website. Budmen Industries, operated by Syracuse alumnus Isaac Budmen ’12, has offered a template and instructions to produce the shields, which provide crucial protection for...

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