Campus Notes

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Mount St. Mary Professor Says Goodbye After 57 Years

Author, poet and educator James Finn Cotter retired from teaching Aug. 7 after 57 years at Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh and was granted professor emeritus status, the college announced.

Cotter, a professor of English in the Division of Arts and Letters, was the longest-serving professor at Mount St. Mary, arriving in 1963 when the college had 250 students, compared to the 2,200 students enrolled now.

“I have decided to retire because I believe a new era is about to develop for higher education, and younger minds and hearts can deal with it better than I,” Cotter said. “It is a challenge I will enjoy observing and commenting on as it develops at the Mount and on college campuses across the country.”

“I know the Mount will continue to grow,” he said.

In his nearly six decades at the college, Cotter has taught in or chaired the divisions of humanities, arts and letters, and religious studies and philosophy. He also was master of ceremonies at 40 Mount St. Mary commencements, including the fi rst one in 1964. Among his written works are “Beginnings: the First Twenty-Five Years of Mount Saint Mary College,” and “A New Life: Learning the Way of Omega,” and the Mount’s alma mater, which is sung at every commencement ceremony.

St. John’s Journal of Creative Writing Wins International Award

Volume 24 of Entre Rascacielos, St. John’s University’s Journal of Creative Writing, was named winner of Premio de Festivales de Poesía del Biobío, a newly created award in Concepción, Chile, the university announced.

Volume 24, a 220-page journal, features St. John’s students discussing their experiences during the coronavirus pandemic, discovering the therapeutic power of words and fi nding a new voice.

The journal, dedicated to the centennial of Sigma Delta Pi, was written by St. John’s students from the graduate workshop on creative writing. It was edited by Dr. Marie-Lise Gazarian, José Sarzi Amadea and Mr. and Mrs. Leonor Taiano Campoverde.

Vanesa Mos, president of Epsilon Kappa, one of the poets included in Volume 24, was awarded “The Gabriela Mistral Prize by Sigma Delta Pi” in the spring.

Entre Rascacielos, the creative writing journal of the Epsilon Kappa chapter of Sigma Delta Pi, the National Hispanic Honor Society, was founded 19 years ago after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Fulbright Scholar at Iona College To Study Mission Trips to Zambia

Dr. Nadine Barnett Cosby, an assistant professor of media and strategic communications at Iona College in New Rochelle, has been named a 2020 Fulbright Scholar in the Africa Regional Research Program, the college announced.

In keeping with Iona’s mission of service, her research will explore the expectations and realities of mission trips to Africa, specifi cally working in Zambia, where she has led two Iona mission trips.

“I started to notice there was a disparity in what the groups would think they were going to do versus what the host communities and the people in the communities expected or thought of mission trips,” she said.

Fulbright will fund trips to Zambia for Dr. Barnett Cosby to interview people serving on mission trips, as well as those hosting the trips. She hopes to be able to visit Zambia this winter after the coronavirus pandemic postponed her travel plans this summer.

She will have two years to conduct her research and compile the findings, which may be published as a book and produced visually in a documentary.

Before arriving at Iona, she worked at Madison Square Garden, Fox 5, Lifetime Television Networks and Disney/ABC.