By VANESSA LANGDON
News Editor
The main lounge in the Events and Athletic Center was filled with the joy of writing on Tuesday. The College, headed by the writing center, had a day filled with events to honor, enjoy, and inspire the written word.
The planning of the day’s events have been on the forefront of Shirlee Dufort’s mind since the beginning of the semester. Dufort, as director of the writing center, worked with a team to create posters, reserve the lounge, write and gather writing prompts, and plan the activities.
“Grad students helped, they’re an integral part of the day,” she said of the five graduate assistant tutors who worked tirelessly alongside her.
In addition to the six of them, there were also some 20 members of the writing across the curriculum committee who pitched in.
Their efforts culminated in a buffet of activities for students and the campus community to partake in and stretch their writing abilities. The stations included a never-ending story, set up using a laptop and a projector allowing participants to add their one sentence take on the story. There were six-word memoirs written on post-it notes, word searches for all skill levels, scrambled words, haiku cubes, two different picture writing prompts, and a magnetic poetry board. Outside the EAC there was a graffiti wall where everyone was invited to proclaim why they write and what writing means to them.
The six word memoirs were a favorite of Lee Geiselmann, a graduate student and tutor at the writing center.
“I’m big into the hyper-short,” he said. “I looked up six word famous memoirs but I thought some of the ones from last year were better.”
One of the examples from last year was Geiselmann’s own memoir. “A man with dreams spectacularly flawed.”
The day was meant to promote writing as to help achieve this goal there was also a laptop for attendees to be involved with the national conversation revolving around the day by tweeting or facebooking their support. The writing center was also video taping those willing to explain on camera why they write – the videos can be seen on the writing center’s website.
The videos coincided with the theme of this years national day on writing – “why I write…”
For each station completed the writer earned a ticket to win prizes. Writing paid off for Malcolm Brownell, Dan Gauvin, and Yan Dai, who each won a $25 Amazon gift card. Piotr Czajkowski earned a Saint Rose hooded sweatshirt for his participation, and Shiyum Liang won a $15 Campus Dining gift certificate. Both Chirs Broast and Katelyn Pierce won Saint Rose travel cups.
The Starbucks in Stuyvesant Plaza donated the gift bag won by Alexandra Muller and the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza donated the $15 gift certificate won by Ariana Zamot.
“We are delighted at the student turnout and the degree of involvement in activities,” Dufort said.
The never-ending story was a new addition to the event this year and was the brainchild of Geiselmann. The story garnered lots of attention from those in the main lounge, but not everyone appreciated the input.
“The beginning was very good because I could tell that actual poetry writers had gotten hold of it but then there were references to drugs and it got weird,” said Vincent Malatesta, a freshman at the College.
The story included references to marijuana and detailed an exchange between a resident assistant, a student, and a professor – all fictional, of course. While Malatesta was not impressed with the direction the story took, he thought it was a good idea and that they should try it again next year.
“I like seeing that they’re doing stuff like this,” Malatesta said. “It’ll get more people interested because they saw it.”
The writing center helps with academic papers but uses the national day on writing to show that the written word is so much more than a final paper.
“I think, especially in academic circles, reinforcing that writing is serious but also really enjoyable and creative,” Dufort said. “It can be light and fun and enable students to express their creativity.”
