on campus - Article - Manhattan College

A Sweet Cawing from the Old Crows
For the 16th consecutive year, the
Association of Old Crows (AOC) recognized
a Manhattan College engineering student
with a prestigious scholarship. Christopher
Barsi ’06, a senior electrical engineering
major, joins fellow Jaspers who have won
more than $37,000 in scholarships from
the AOC. Christopher, a Yonkers, N.Y.,
resident, competed with students from
some of the finest engineering schools
in the metro area to win a scholarship
award for $3,000. A dinner to honor
the winners took place in November in
Long Island, N.Y.
Author Robert Sullivan engaged
the College in November in a witty,
entertaining discussion about garbage,
the environment and rats.
Sullivan is the author of Rats:
Observations on the History and
Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted
Inhabitants, The Meadowlands and A
Whale Hunt. Often described as a nature
writer, Sullivan was quick to say that he
fell into nature writing and is constantly
questioning traditional perceptions of
the environment and nature. In a not
so straightforward lecture, sponsored
by the international studies program,
that answered the question: What Is the
Environment Anyway?, Sullivan discussed
how he tackles nature writing and what
he discovered about the environment
along the way.
For Sullivan, writing about nature
is not to just quietly observe beautiful
scenery and then write about it. It is
more about truly immersing oneself in
any type of environment whether it is a
beautiful piece of land surrounded by
mountains and pretty streams, or if it is
an urban area riddled with garbage and
smoke stacks.
“You have to look at things that are
not exciting, sometimes you’ll see that
there’s excitement there,” he said.
A nonprofit professional group, the
AOC promotes careers in the defense
industry and awards scholarships to
worthy computer or electrical engineering
students. The Empire Chapter, which
awards up to three scholarships to area
students in their junior or senior years,
considers students who are residents of
New York City, Westchester, Nassau or
Suffolk counties.
For nearly four decades, the AOC
has been a leading and knowledgeable
organization that promotes the
Making Sense of Nature and the Environment
In his book The Meadowlands, Sullivan
observes the “nature” and “environment”
of a garbage-filled area. He actually
paddled his way numerous times through
the dirty waters of the Meadowlands and
wrote about it, describing the area as
filled with “streams” of garbage and “hills”
of trash. He joked about how easy it was
to use the language of a nature writer to
describe what is essentially a swamp
and not much to do about nature.
But that was Sullivan’s main point —
that the environment is so much more
than hiking beautiful trails or sitting
peacefully on a picturesque campsite.
One could also hike the Meadowlands
and gain insightful observations on
nature and the environment, he said.
“Instead of exploring mountains, I’d
go to New Jersey and do an exploration
by canoe of the Meadowlands,” said
Sullivan, adding jokingly that most people
thought he was nuts. He said though the
area had been abused, there was still
something special about it. A highlight
was meeting and interviewing the people
of the area who really knew the layout
and the history behind the place.
He used the same technique in his
latest book, Rats, where he devotes one
year to a lower Manhattan alley and
observes the city’s most unwanted
advancement of electronic defense
development. It is comprised of more
than 100 corporate participants with
more than 14,000 members and is
committed to trying to help Congress
and the Department of Defense create
a policy that will provide more defense
for the dollar using the technologies of
Electronic Warfare, a force multiplier
that can do more with less.
creatures. He observed the patterns and
lifestyle of rats, and he also interviewed
many people linked to the creatures,
such as exterminators, civic activists and
garbage men. His book continuously
examines the environment of rats and
then makes many comparisons between
rats and humankind. He said that the
book, though classified also as nature
writing, is secretly about humans and
cities and reveals that the many habits
of rats mirror those of human beings.
Sullivan provided a different kind of
discussion on the environment, insightful
and funny. It’s not just observing nature’s
beauty, he said, but it could be where
you live, the Meadowlands, or observing
rats in the city.
His career into nature writing has
taken many twists and turns. He has
written about the environment but in
the process examines it more deeply,
sometimes even looking to his own
personal journey for inspiration. Sullivan,
a recipient of a National Endowment for
the Arts creative writing fellowship, is a
contributing editor to Vogue and writer
for The New Yorker.
manhattan.edu
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