Leah Houk

The festivities for Hot Dog Day 2010 will include both a first-rate comedian and a wacky cover band.

Stand-up comedian Kevin Hart, who has appeared on multiple TV spots, including Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Chelsea Lately, as well as in movies such as The 40-Year Old Virgin and Scary Movie 4, will perform Thursday, April 22 at the Alfred State College Orvis Center at 8 p.m.

The International Students and Scholars Organization’s annual "Alfred to Asia" show will be held April 11 at 7 p.m. in Holmes Auditorium.

Alfred to Asia, or "A2A," has been a huge success in past years, becoming one of AU's most eagerly anticipated performances and winning an Alfie Award for "Best Student-Directed Production."

The show is an opportunity to experience several Asian cultures in a single night.

Junior Bryan Daly and sophomore Dave Douglas had an opening March 20 in the Random Room Gallery at 26 South Main St. The show focused on different prints they had made during the semester.

Liz Wager, the winner of the first annual Phi Beta Kappa Wit and Wisdom Award, presented her essay "Why Do Personas Matter?" at the March 4 Bergren Forum. Wager's essay examined "the use of different voices and different characters within poetry,” as she described it. In addition to the essay, Wager read some of her poems, two of which are printed below.

Electrical storm

On August nights, when pressing heat and swarms
of heavy air hang thick above your bed,
and traffic lights outside your room birth forms
that shift on darkened walls in ugly red

Senior Claire Bresette and her housemates opened the Random Room Gallery in their apartment at 26 South Main in September, and since then, Bresette said, the openings have been “getting busier and busier.”

Bresette, who curates and manages all the shows, had been interested in opening her own gallery for a long time, and when her apartment happened to have extra space, she decided to go for it.

Director of the Writing Center Vicky Westacott, who taught the study abroad class during this past fall semester, would like to dispel the two most common myths about studying abroad: that it is too expensive and that you won’t be able to graduate on time.

“Your study abroad is just like a semester here,” Westacott said.

The earthquake that devastated the capital of Haiti on Jan. 12 is still reverberating in the collective minds and hearts of both the world at large and the microcosm of Alfred University.

The Alfred University Theatre Department had the honor of attending the Region II Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), held at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Jan.12-16, for its production of “Widows” by Ariel Dorfman.

“Widows” was selected from more than 200 entries from Region II, which includes colleges and universities from western New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

Professor of philosophy Emrys Westacott promised, to much laughter, that he would offend the few people he left out of his last lecture about snobbery with his Nov. 12 Bergren Forum titled “Why Should I Respect Your Stupid Opinions?”

The lecture drew a huge crowd to Nevins Theater.

Westacott explored what it means to respect people’s beliefs, and how respecting a person and respecting the beliefs that person holds do not mean the same thing.

This year, instead of sponsoring the annual Phi Beta Kappa speaker, as it has done for the previous four years, the Alfred University chapter of PBK has decided to hold a student contest for the “Wit and Wisdom Award.”

President of the Alfred University chapter of Phi Beta Kappa Sandra Singer explained the switch in plans.