By Samantha Thomson ’09 (Communications and Media)

Public Affairs Intern

On the Esopus, Meadow Groves, ca. 1857-58, oil on canvas by William Hart (1823-1894). Image submitted

The college is hosting “Revisiting the Hudson: 19th Century Landscape Painting in Context,” a daylong symposium on Saturday, Nov. 7, focusing on the art featured in the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art’s “The Hudson River to Niagara Falls: 19th Century American Landscape Painting from the New-York Historical Society” exhibition.

Kerry Dean Carso (Art History) organized the symposium, which will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Lecture Center, room 102.

The lectures will cover a wide range of topics relating to the Hudson River School of Art, including discussions of notable artists Thomas Cole and Frederic Church; landscape painting in the Shawangunks; and architecture found along the Hudson River. Lecturers include art history scholars and professionals from colleges, historical sites and museums from the East Coast.

In addition to the lectures, guided tours of the museum’s successful exhibition, which is on display through Dec. 13, will be available between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

The event, like the “Hudson River to Niagara Falls” show, is part of the Samuel Dorsky Museum’s “Art &The River” project – a six-month series of exhibitions, lectures and events celebrating the Hudson River’s Quadricentennial.

The symposium is free and open to the public and was made possible through the generous support of The Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area.

Sara Pasti (Dorsky Museum) has been awarded a $4,818 grant by the Hudson Valley Greenway Communities Council for a project titled “Revisiting the Hudson: 19th Century Landscape Painting in Context.” The symposium will be held in conjunction with the exhibition, “Views and Visions: The Hudson River to Niagara Falls – 19th Century American Landscape Paintings from the New-York Historical Society,” which is on display through Dec. 13 at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. The interdisciplinary symposium will contextualize 19th-century American landscape painting.

OUTSTANDING ASSESSMENT AWARD: Lynn Spangler (Communication and Media), center, received the 2009 award for outstanding service in educational assessment at the college’s General Education (GE) forum on Oct. 28. Associate Provost Laurel Garrick Duhaney, left, and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences James Schiffer presented Spangler with the award.

The college will host an international symposium in late September focused on the history of the Hudson River Valley’s settlement and how the subject is presented in the classroom.

“Henry Hudson, New Netherland and Atlantic History” is sponsored by the college’s Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach and takes place Sept. 25-26 in Lecture Center 100. The event is open to the public and members of the campus community.

The symposium will be led by L.H. Roper (History) and Dennis Maika, a professional historian and teacher at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, N.Y.

“It will be a unique opportunity for teachers and anyone interested in the voyages of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain and the history of the European colonization of our region to interact with leading historians for an exciting, intensive discussion of early 17th-century North America,” said Roper.

The majority of the day’s events will be devoted to the settlement of the region. Top scholars from the Netherlands, Germany and France will be among the speakers. At the end of each day, Maika will lead a discussion about how these issues are taught in the schools.

The keynote speakers for the event will be Tim Shannon of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, who is an expert in Colonial New York and will be speaking at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, and Charles Gehring of the New Netherland Project in Albany, who will speak at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Roper said the dialogue started at the symposium will be continued after the event through the program’s Web page and social media presence.

Registration is encouraged. For more information, visit the Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach’s Web site or call x2901.

Jan Hammond (Educational Administration) was appointed to the Professional Standards and Practices Board for Teaching by the New York State Board of Regents. Hammond’s term will end on June 30, 2010. The board serves the Regents and the Commissioner of Education on teaching issues and related professions.

Sara Pasti (Museum) received sponsorship from the Greenway Heritage Conservancy HRV Inc. for the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art’s educational symposium, “Revisiting the Hudson: 19th Century Landscape Painting in Context.”

L.H. Roper (History) has been named a co-general editor of the new Journal of Early American History and related book series, The American Colonies, 1500-1830, both published by Brill Academic Publishers of Leiden, the Netherlands. Roper will serve with Jaap Jacobs, a Dutch independent scholar, and Bertrand Van Ruymbeke of the University of Paris-8 in St. Denis. The journal will be housed in the Department of History at New Paltz and will publish its first number in early 2010. For more information, visit www.brill.nl/jeah/.