Professors kick major rear-end

So a few weeks ago, I realized something that made me happy to be at Syracuse. I have some very accomplished professors. The professor for my one art history class (17^th c. Dutch Painters) assigned a reading from a book. As I searched for the reading online, I noticed that the author was my professor (Wayne Franits)! I continued looking and discovered roughly ten books that he has published (mostly on Dutch painting in the later half of the millennium). And these were not BS books either- they were published by Cambridge University Press. Pretty impressive if you ask me! I feel a privileged to be able to listen to his lectures twice a week. Knowing about the books made me realize that this man is so much more intelligent than I had thought. It is easy to fake knowing about a topic, but he has spent his entire life researching this subject that I now am getting to learn all of that directly from him! (be a sponge, Liz, be a sponge!)

So if that was not enough to make me feel satisfied with the instruction that I am getting out of my tuition money, I realized another professor of mine is also highly accomplished. Short story, my painting class is being taught by Jerome Witkin, who the Metropolitain Museum of Art has bought paintings from. Seriously. The biggest art museum in the entire United States sought my professor out and gave him money for his work! And while the man is a little old and quiet, I am listening to every word he says and trying every technique he recommends.

So I guess this blog really sounds like an advertisement for the university… But keep in mind- I am writing this on a completely voluntary basis, and I can write about anything I want. I could write about how much I love to eat peanut butter sandwiches in the ‘sculpture garden’, or how the one bathroom in Shaffer (the main art building here) really smells. But I am writing what is on my mind, and I am thinking that I love Syracuse!