Sturges Hall at SUNY Geneseo, from Wikimedia Commons

A few days ago on the PBS Newshour, there was a story about how college towns are faring in the great recession. Ann Arbor was the focus of the piece.

It is in several ways quite atypical of a “college town” simply because of the size of the University of Michigan. The focus was on the university as a generator of entrepreneurs.

SUNY Geneseo is so much smaller and so undergraduate-oriented, that many of the conclusions that Ray Suarez drew are hardly applicable to Livingston County. But it got me thinking of what it means to a community to have a college like SUNY Geneseo.

For 47 years, I have lived in college towns — first Crawfordsville, Ind. as an undergraduate, then Ithaca as a graduate student, then Geneseo, then back to Crawfordsville for two years, and finally a much looked forward to return to Geneseo next summer.

While I was a student, I had little sense of the communities in which I was living. However, in Geneseo I live in the town and work at the college, seeing how the latter has the potential to make life better for all residents of the town and surrounding area.

Some of the most obvious benefits that Livingston County residents are welcome to enjoy are wonderful cultural and sporting events.

For a few bucks and sometimes for no bucks at all, the public can enjoy plays and concerts, films, art exhibitions, and the like. Similarly, everyone can enjoy and cheer on the Blue Knights and the Lady Knights in several ‘spectator sports’ as well as in sports that do not traditionally draw big crowds (swimming and softball, for example).

It is a joy to see real student-athletes rather than semi-pros masquerading as students on the courts and fields and in the rink and the pool.

These are students, skilled in their sports, who spend most of their days in classes, laboratories, and studios and most of their evenings reading Plato or doing research or writing.

You won’t see them in the pro ranks, but they will be the movers and shakers, the teachers, and the public officials of the next generations.

Colleges bring “big acts” to their campuses. When I was at tiny Wabash College (about 850 students) in the 1960s, we had a concert by the Kingsmen. Remember them? Everyone of my generation does.

At Cornell, I attended a professional production of Macbeth. Since I have been at Geneseo, we have had the likes of Bill Cosby, Jay Leno, Red Skelton, the Kingston Trio, Marcel Marceau, Howdy Doody with Buffalo Bob, Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame), The Village People, and the Harlem Boys Choir, just to name a few.

Imagine if there were no college in Geneseo. How many of those acts would have graced our fair county without the college?

In addition to that sort of entertainment, Geneseo has had the famous, the infamous, and the should be famous on our campus.

In the famous category are former presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, Bill Buckley, Julian Bond, and so many more. I suppose at the top of the infamous list is G. Gordon Liddy.

Among those who should be famous are Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners.

The MacVittie Lecture has brought some of the most important Christian thinkers and writers of recent times, including Daniel Berrigan and Tony Campolo. What a treat to walk to campus from my house and hear such people. And if you live in Lima or Portage or Hemlock, it is not a long drive; and there is free parking and for most of these lectures free admission.

Some local folks make good use of SUNY Geneseo’s Milne Library. Of course, various town libraries, including Geneseo’s, are important cultural institutions. But the college’s library has a breadth of resources that small town libraries cannot match.

For a smaller number of people, there is the opportunity to audit the best courses the college offers without paying a dime. New Yorkers 65 and over are invited to sit in on courses if space is available. You want to learn more about Shakespeare or Islamic history or psychology or genetics or American folk music?

You can do all of those things at SUNY Geneseo if you are a senior, and you will be learning from world class scholars and teachers. Try to do that in the boonies of Montana or for that matter in Chicago!

One of the privileges of my life is to spend part of each day with some of New York’s best and brightest. I find that when seniors citizens audit my courses, they get to know some of the students sitting around them, many of whom miss being with people not their own age.

Of course, there are ways to get to know some of our students without setting foot on campus (at church, as volunteer firefighters, etc.), but there is something wonderful and rewarding about meeting them on their turf.

I recall a 74-year-old woman from Perry who sat in on my history of the Bible class and never missed a day.

An immigrant from Dansville attended my early medieval history course a few years ago. A friend of my mother’s not only came to class faithfully but wanted to take the quizzes as a way of encouraging her to do the reading.

I would like to see many more ‘townies’ or dare I say ‘counties’ on the Geneseo campus. We welcome you and invite you to enjoy our resources and our students. As taxpayers, you are helping to pay the bills.

The educated young folks justify those taxes, I believe. But since you are our neighbors, see why our College is too good to be used only by the young.

Tagged as: SUNY Geneseo