Fisher launches Irish Studies program with daylong conference

St. John Fisher College introduced its new Irish Studies Program by hosting an all-day Irish Studies Conference at the campus on Friday March 16. 

The conference, “Ireland Today: History & Heritage in an Ever-Changing World,” was broken into sessions throughout the day that covered a wide variety of topics.

Tim Madigan opens the conference

The first session lasted about an hour with four speakers who introduced the materials and resources the Irish Studies Program will cover.  The first was Tim Madigan, an assistant professor of philosophy at Fisher and director of the Irish Studies Program.  His session was titled “Frederick Douglass & Ireland: The Unexpected Irish Connection of Rochester’s Most Noted Civil Rights Leader.”   Madigan talked about his experiences in Ireland and was excited to get the ball rolling with more courses offered in the fall for Irish studies, literature and culture.  He gives “best wishes to the new Irish studies program and to the students enrolled.” 

After Madigan, Fionnuala Regan, adjunct professor of English, discussed how she uses one of Ireland’s most famous writers in her creative writing classes. She described using James Joyce’s Dubliners short stories as a model of creative writing courses and an inspiration for the program.  She has hopes in the future to collaborate with students in Ireland through video conferencing. 

The third speaker was from the Rochester community.  Thomas O’Connell, president of  Rochester/Waterford Sister City Committee talked on “Waterford & Rochester: Partners in Business and Education.” He described the opportunities for the new program at Fisher to make connections with this committee and to create international friendships.  He discussed the business side of the new program in providing partnerships in higher education and the main purpose of their support is to gain that personal relationship with tourism and education.  O’Connell said he is passionate for “shared history and creating a tangible difference for students.”

The first session ended with an International Studies graduate student from Fisher, Samantha Adams, who traveled to Ireland last summer and created her capstone paper on “The Peace Accords in Northern Ireland: A Student’s Perspective.”  She was in Ireland for a month to collect research and said some of the most valuable information was the gathering of newspapers every day in each area she visited.  She talked about her experiences that related to peace and bringing people together such as the visits by Queen Elizabeth and President Obama. 

The first session of the conference was successful and brought in a good number of people from the community along with Fisher students.

- Emily Clary

Twitter coverage of session 1

Photo slideshow of session 1