Video: The Simple Life, Unplugged
At Geneseo, Nik Varrone is the support services manager for IT. At home, he and his wife, Anya, run a farm and plows the land using a method that was most popular in the 1700s. The Varrones use horse plowing and have created a lifestyle that fits their beliefs, goals and is more sustainable. “If you look at what we do from the outside, it looks simple,” says Nik Varrone, Geneseo’s support services manager in the IT...
Video: A Home Away From Home
If it’s Tuesday or Thursday, Terry Price ’58 is probably at the Home Away From Respite program, which provides companionship and programming for seniors with memory-related illnesses and free time for their caregivers. Students like Raina Schoen Thomas ’20, he says, have become friends and help him with his memories....
Your Guide to a Little Zen — Anywhere
Pausing a few minutes inspires mindfulness and boosts your everyday well-being. By Kris Dreessen Deadlines. Errands. There are a million tasks to do each day. But by taking a few minutes to sit, breathe and immerse ourselves in the present, we can boost our focus, reset our distracted minds and bring some much-welcome calm. “There is a natural slowing down when you are not trying to do 20 things at once,” says Beth Cholette,...
Video: A Forest Sanctuary
Geneseo’s Director of Sustainability Dan DeZarn and Kimberly Keil-DeZarn ’06 show us around their home, which they’ve built to have many sustainability related features. It’s even built from mostly recycled and reclaimed...
Return to the Simple Life
It’s not always easy, but these Geneseo staff members and alumni have created lifestyles they love. Story by Jim Memmott One couple lives in a house that might make a room in a campus residence hall seem spacious. Another has created a sanctuary in the woods, with a yurt and A-frame they built themselves, where they are at one with nature’s silence and sounds. Yet another couple lives on a farm with a herd of sheep — and ducks and...
Toothsayer
Tanya Smith ’97 shows how simple teeth can reveal complex stories about how humans evolved. By Lonny Lippsett When Tanya Smith ’97 peered into the time capsules, two small children who lived 250,000 years ago came back to life. They were Neanderthals, an ancient species of now-extinct evolutionary cousins of humans, who had dwelled in what is now southeastern France. One child, Smith could make out, was born in springtime and was...
Uplifting Voices for LGBTQ History
Illustration by Ellice Weaver Learning our own stories empowers us. When I saw a need to share LGBTQ history, I created my own walking tour to share with the world. By Michael Venturiello ’13 If you look on the homepage of SUNY Geneseo’s website, you will see an enticing message: “Discover why there’s no place like Geneseo.” As a proud alumnus of 2013, I can understand the rationale for that statement. There truly is no place...
All the Buzz
The Geneseo Beekeeping Club learns about the complex role of honeybees — and encourages them to thrive on campus. By Mary-Margaret Dwyer ’20 As Beekeeping Club President Allison Menendez ’20pries the top off the beehive, bees emerge from their sticky shelter, flying in and out of the hive. A few puffs from a smoker put the honeybees into survival mode. The smoke urges bees to retreat back into the hives, so club members can...
Make What You Imagine
Alumni conquer real-life boundaries — and serious topics — as illustrators, editors and actors of graphic novels, comics and anime. In the world of graphic storytelling, a teen morphs into a super-hero and swings between buildings with webs spun from his fingertips, and an orphaned goblin faces danger and creatures we’ve never seen before with a wolf pup friend on a mission for justice. What’s fantasy for readers and viewers is...
Connections Count
Embracing the principle of integrative learning, members of the Geneseo community weave disparate strands of knowledge and experience into a strong new fabric. Watch a video about the philosophy curriculum that’s related. In college, you choose a major. In the wider world, you never just have one focus. You might be a software engineer who plays jazz piano, leads a scout troop or calls on knowledge gained in chemistry courses in...
Scene Around the World
Where will you take your issue of the Geneseo Scene? Check out our Scene Around the World photo gallery and submit your own snapshot.