Keep Looking for Moore

BY RONALD HANAKI
SC Staff Writer

ESU’s “One Book, One Campus” initiative featuring the book entitled The Other Wes Moore – One Name, Two Fates, continued on Wednesday night, September 18 in Lower Dansbury.

The story is about two boys with the same name who lived in the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

One became a Rhodes Scholar and a distinguished business leader. The other grew up to serve a life sentence in prison for felony murder.

This book was selected by a committee of ESU professors in order to engage students and faculty members alike in an open dialogue with the overall aim of stimulating a campus-wide discussion and fostering more of a sense of community on campus.

The evening’s program and discussion were led by the director of the Honors Program, Peter Pruim, and Dr. Cynthia Leenerts and Dr. Jeffrey Hotz of the English department.

Rick Franzo, the supervisor for the convenience store in the University Student Center, was also present as a special guest.

Dr. Pruim began the evening by lamenting that the art of long-form reading was becoming all too rare. He then gave way to Dr. Hotz, who discussed storytelling and its meaning.

In general, stories consist of plot, characters, narration, and setting. He also went over Gustave Freytag’s Pyramid and Viktor E. Frankl’s logo therapy.

Logo therapy is where human beings find meaning in their experiences, even difficult ones, and use this meaning in terms of a larger story of one’s life and one’s purpose. This is illustrated in the Wes Moore book.

During Dr. Leenerts’s reading of the section of the book entitled “From D.C. to the Bronx,” the audience was asked to listen with grace , look for nuances and think about Wes Moore’s turning point here.

In an effort to stimulate thought and discussion, the audience was asked to write down their thoughts on the readings on note cards distributed by the English professors.

Finally, Rick Franzo was asked to read some excerpts from his upcoming autobiography, “How Horseshoes Saved My Life: A Tale of Two Brain Tumors.”

Mr. Franzo is the manager of the campus convenience store. His autobiography tells his story of battling and surviving brain tumors.

The next evening discussion on “The Other Wes Moore – One Name, Two Fates” will continue on Wednesday, September 25, in Kurtz Lecture Hall inside Moore Biology and will be led by Uriel Trujillo, Director of Upward Bound.

The next public reading from “The Other Wes Moore – One Name, Two Fates” will take place in Lower Dansbury on October 2 and will be led by Professor Stephanie French, Associate Professor of Theatre, and some of her students.

The series will culminate with Wes Moore himself delivering a guest lecture at the Abeloff Center for the Performing Arts on November 19.

Email Ronald at:
rhanaki@hotmail.com