On Wednesday evening, Oct. 10, 2012, Wagner College held its annual Founders Day convocation, marking the 129th anniversary of the founding of the institution in Rochester, N.Y., in 1883. The first part of the program was dedicated to the recognition of several student groups and individuals who have served the college community with special distinction this year:
- SGA’s Best New Student Organization: Maintaining Outdoor Fitness Organization
- Fraternity with Highest GPA: Delta Nu
- Sorority with Highest GPA: Alpha Omicron Pi
- Athletic Team with Significant Campus and Community Service: Women’s Swimming Team
- Rev. Dr. Frederic Sutter Founders Day Award for Service: Julia Zenker
The Sutter Service Award was created through the generosity of Maria Hartmann to honor her great-grandfather, Pastor Frederic Sutter, founder of the college’s Staten Island campus. Hartmann herself presented the Sutter Award to Julia Zenker.
Below is a video of the awards presentations:
The second portion the 2012 Founders Day convocation was given over to the 7th annual Kaufman-Repage Lecture. This lecture series is supported by the generosity of the former chairwoman of our board of trustees, Dr. Louise Repage Kaufman ’75 M’78 H’12, and her husband, Dr. Peter Kaufman. The Kaufmans were unable to attend the Oct. 10 program due to the death the previous weekend of Louise Kaufman’s mother, Selma Repage.
This year’s Kaufman-Repage Lecture was delivered by Dr. Bonnie Bassler, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. Dr. Bassler’s fascinating presentation focused on her discovery that bacteria talk to each other, using a molecular mechanism called quorum sensing. Dr. Bassler explained that one of the implications of her research is that, if we understand how bacteria talk to one another, perhaps we can find a way to disrupt their conversations, thereby short-circuiting the disease process.
Bonnie Bassler won a MacArthur “genius grant” in 2002 and currently serves on the governing board of the National Science Foundation.
Below is a video of Dr. Bassler’s lecture, entitled “Tiny Conspiracies: How Bacteria Talk to Each Other”: