Word about Prism Paterson – Felician’s new Interdisciplinary Humanities Program – is front and center after being featured in a Positively New Jersey segment on News 12 NJ. News 12’s Brian Donohue spoke to Dean Abaunza about the program which is funded with a $100,000 National Endowment for the Humanities Initiatives at Hispanic Serving Institutions Grant. The link to the News 12 piece can be accessed here.

George Abaunza

Prism Paterson will be used to strengthen the teaching of the Humanities at Felician. The new program offers six place-based-learning courses that make up separate Minor and Certificate programs focusing on the literature, music, art, and photography of the city of Paterson.

Too often students study the Humanities by looking at literature and the arts from the distant past, created in distant places. Paterson has significant writers, poets, artists, and musicians who were inspired by the city which played a major role in the Early Industrial Revolution.

“Prism Paterson” will offer students the experience of combining trips to historic and artistic sites in Paterson with meeting some of Paterson’s important artists, musicians, poets, and writers and studying their widely acclaimed works. Students will learn about these famous people who have walked on the same streets they have and felt the same emotions and inspirations that live in our students’ own hearts today. The program is available to students in all majors.

The new courses include the Literature of Paterson, Music of Paterson, a studio course on Photography in Paterson, Community Writing in Paterson, Travel Writing about Paterson, and Texts and Contexts: Social and Cultural History of Paterson. Creating new experiential courses in the Humanities that reflect Felician University’s first-generation students’ identities will increase student engagement, improve skills, enhance retention, initiate collaborative opportunities, and build long-lasting connections between the City of Paterson and the University, enriching Humanities learning at Felician.

This program will be implemented by the team of Arts & Sciences Humanities faculty led by Dr. Sherida Yoder and members Dr. Kristen Abbey, Dr. Barbara Gordon, Dr. Robert McParland, Prof. Michael Nyklewicz, and Dr. Julie O’Connell.