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Event Calendar

    • 10 Sep 2025
    • 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
    • The Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003
    Register

    Back to School: Getting Our Bearings for a New Year


    Those of us who work or study at institutions of American higher education are preparing for the start of a new year that promises to be uniquely interesting.  It seems like there is a new crisis around every corner that is challenging all of us to think about what higher education is for, what we stand to lose that we should fight to preserve, how we might innovate or adapt to changing times, and how to effectively articulate why all of this matters to those who might not be so sure.

    The turmoil currently roiling American colleges and universities is revealing competing definitions of “college education”--what exactly is it?  Who is it for?  What’s supposed to happen there?  Who gets to decide?

    There is no shortage of crazy talk or stupid talk around these questions, and a lot of “unsane” thinking and acting.  Certainly it is a good time to use the principles and techniques of General Semantics to help us sort out what is going on so we can start the new school year with the equanimity, composure, and clarity of purpose that the year will require of us.

    Whether you work (or worked) at a university, aspire to a career in higher education, or consider yourself an ally of those in higher education, please join us to hear from our panel of speakers and share your perspectives.

    Panelists

    Missy Alexander is the Provost Emeritus of Western Connecticut State University, where she oversaw all academic programs from Early College to Graduate degrees. Prior to being appointed to the position of Provost, she served as Dean of the Macricostas School of Arts and Sciences at WCSU, championing interdisciplinary programs and general education reform. At Marist College, she taught Communication focusing on theory, research, and ethics. For several years she served in leadership roles in the New York State Communication Association, as Pedagogy Editor of EME, and Associate Editor of ETC. Dr. Alexander earned her doctorate in Media Ecology from New York University, and her MA and BA from Hunter College.  Since her retirement, she has focused on the arts, serving as president on two boards - the Merryall Center and the Sherman Players. When not organizing programming, seeking donations, or painting the stairs, she performs with the trio The Red Dirt Girls and with her husband in Yours Truly.   

    Susan Drucker (Juris Doctor, St. John's University) is a distinguished professor of journalism in the Department of Journalism/Media Studies, School of Communication at Hofstra University.  She is an attorney and a treasurer of the Urban Communication Foundation.  She is the author and editor/co-editor of thirteen books and over 200 articles and book chapters, including the Urban Communication Reader (Volumes 1 and 2, Hampton Press, 2010; vol. 3, Peter Lang, 2012), Voices in the Street: Gender, Media and Public Space (Hamptom Press, 1997) and Urban Communication Regulations: Communication Freedoms and Limits (Peter Lang, 2018).  Her work examines the relationship between media technology and human factors, particularly as viewed from a legal perspective.  

    Nadine Strossen, New York Law School Professor Emerita and Senior Fellow at FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), was President of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1991 to 2008.  An internationally acclaimed free speech scholar and advocate, who regularly addresses diverse audiences and provides media commentary around the world, Strossen serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU and several academic freedom/free speech organizations.   She is the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series distributed on public television in 2023.   Her most recent book is:  The War On Words:  10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail (coauthored with FIRE President Greg Lukianoff) (2025). 


    This event will take place from 6 PM to 9 PM Wednesday, September 10 at the historic Players Club in Gramercy Park. 

    Registration is free, but all attendees must be registered in order to gain admittance to the club. This includes any guests you might want to bring with you.

    The program will take place in the Library on the 2nd floor of the club. Please note that, as an historic 19th century landmark, the site is not handicap accessible. Dress code is business casual and is strictly enforced, including no sneakers, shorts, ripped jeans, or t-shirts.


Past events

29 Apr 2025 Gary Gumpert Memorial & McLuhan Screening
19 Feb 2025 Book Launch: Not A, Not B, &c by Lance Strate
17 Jan 2025 Misinformation, Misdirection, Manipulation and Mischief: Making Sense of Contemporary Political Propaganda
11 Dec 2024 “This Baffling Department of Human Activity”: Exploring the Dimensions of Artistic Expression
16 Oct 2024 Semantic Environments of Psychotherapy: From AI to Zoom
20 Sep 2024 AKML & Symposium
17 Jul 2024 General Semantics Olympics
01 May 2024 Film Screening: Man on a Mission
27 Apr 2024 Non-Aristotelian Perspectives, Ecological Approaches, and the Anthropocene II: An Online Symposium
27 Mar 2024 It’s Real Life: A Book Launch for Paul Levinson's New Novel
15 Feb 2024 Michelle Shocked & bluerace In Concert
31 Jan 2024 Why Everything You Know About Computers is Wrong: Computers As Invocational Media
12 Jan 2024 What's Going On With Education
20 Dec 2023 Poetry Book Launch: First Letter of My Alphabet
27 Oct 2023 AKML & Symposium
30 Sep 2023 Combining: A Reading by Nora Bateson
10 May 2023 Art and Technology: An Overview of 20 Years of Cooperative Creative Practice
25 Apr 2023 Film Screening: The Frontier Gandhi
28 Mar 2023 Non-Aristotelian Reading Circle - Concerning Communication (Strate)
27 Jan 2023 Democracy and Media Ecology
20 Dec 2022 Non-Aristotelian Reading Circle
12 Dec 2022 Metaphors and Definitions: A General Semantics Look at the Language of Pain, Addiction, and the Opioid Epidemic
30 Nov 2022 Massaging the Medium: An Evening with Adeena Karasick
11 Nov 2022 Challenging Some Common-Sense Notions About Language
28 Oct 2022 The Issue of Is: A Commentary on The Case Against the Verb “To Be”
31 May 2022 Non-Aristotelian Reading Circle: People in Quandaries
30 Dec 2021 Non-Aristotelian Reading Circle - Language in Thought and Action
21 Apr 2021 The Intimacy of Enemies: When Maps and Territories are in Conflict and What We Can Do About It
02 Dec 2020 General Semantics and All That Jazz
29 Oct 2020 The Election and the Semantic Environment
10 Oct 2020 The Semantic Environment in a Time of Uncertainty Symposium
09 Oct 2020 The 68th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture
18 Mar 2020 The Intimacy of Enemies: When Maps and Territories are in Conflict and What We Can Do about It
19 Feb 2020 What Would Korzbyski Say? A Panel Discussion
24 Jan 2020 The State of the Semantic Environment 2020
18 Dec 2019 Mediating the Sexes: Women, Technology & Work in American Narrative
20 Nov 2019 The Language of Poetry 3
16 Oct 2019 Politics and Public Discourse 2019: A Panel Discussion
12 Oct 2019 The Tyranny of Words Symposium
11 Oct 2019 The 67th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture & Dinner
18 Sep 2019 General Semantics & GIFs: A Panel Discussion on Symbols & Social Media
05 Jun 2019 The Medium of the Sidewalk: Holocaust Commemoration and Stolpersteine
01 May 2019 Shine the Light: A Presentation by Seamus Kelleher in Story and Song
12 Apr 2019 General Semantics as a Conversing Activity: A Book Reading and Talk by Martin H. Levinson
20 Mar 2019 Between Two Worlds: A Reading and Conversation with Vasu Varadhan
20 Feb 2019 Theatre and Translation: A Reading and Conversation With Robin Levenson
18 Jan 2019 The State of the Semantic Environment
19 Dec 2018 What is Sanity? And Have We Lost It?
28 Nov 2018 The Reformed English Curriculum Revisited 2
27 Oct 2018 Language and Meaning in the 21st Century Symposium
26 Oct 2018 The 66th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture & Dinner
03 Oct 2018 Political Talk and Political Drama: Election 2018
27 Jun 2018 Tom Wolfe, Man of Letters, Man of Words: A Panel Discussion
02 May 2018 Language, Symbol, and the Theatre
04 Apr 2018 The Language of Poetry 2
21 Feb 2018 Trauma: Semantic Reactions, Reflections, Retentions
26 Jan 2018 The Reformed English Curriculum Revisited
06 Dec 2017 Play, Learning, and Language: A Panel Discussion
03 Nov 2017 Dark Nets and Disruptive Practices
28 Oct 2017 Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk Symposium
27 Oct 2017 The 65th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture & Dinner
04 Oct 2017 Words, Mind and Magic
08 Sep 2017 Media Ecology and the Human Condition: A Reading and Conversation With Lance Strate
26 Apr 2017 Between Map and Territory: The Art of the Tour Guide
29 Mar 2017 Systems, Contexts, Frames, and Patterns: A Reading and Conversation With Nora Bateson
01 Mar 2017 Science Fiction, Language, and General Semantics
08 Feb 2017 Post-Truth, Alternate Facts, & Fake News
30 Nov 2016 Music-Lyrics-Language: Bob Dylan and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature
26 Oct 2016 Political Talk and Political Drama Part 2
22 Oct 2016 Language in Thought and Action Symposium
21 Oct 2016 The 64th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture & Dinner
14 Oct 2016 New York State Communication Association Conference
28 Sep 2016 The Language of Poetry
09 Sep 2016 Political Talk and Political Drama: Election 2016
02 Jun 2016 NYSGS Meet-Up


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