University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

A ‘close-knit’ department

Members of the “close-knit” group in the Department of Classics are, clockwise from bottom left, Meghan Farrell, sophomore; Jenny Collins, senior; Leslie Feldballe, master's student; Meagan Ayer, third-year doctoral student; Carolyn Higbie, professor; Rhodora Vennarucci, fourth-year doctoral candidate; Katey Olley, senior; Jenn Bradley, junior; and Jackie McGuire, department secretary. Photo: NANCY J. PARISI

By KEVIN FRYLING

Published: April 8, 2009

A small group of faculty, staff and graduate and undergraduate students gathered together recently for a short timeout from their hectic schedules in a sun-dappled lounge on the third floor of the Ellicott Complex between Porter Hall and the Millard Fillmore Academic Center.

What brought them together? The desire to knit and crochet, to cross-stitch and needlepoint—even to spin wool.

This simple ritual, which takes place about twice each week among yarn and wool enthusiasts in the Department of Classics, College of Arts and Sciences, has been going on now for about four years.

“I think our department’s a little more close-knit than most,” says Jacquelyn McGuire, secretary in the classics department, who helped start the unofficial club with Carolyn Higbie, professor of classics, and Elizabeth Poyer, a classics graduate student. “This really brings us all together.”

On peak days, she says as many as 20 people have shown up to work on projects, including a significant number of students, several of whom originally joined to learn to knit scarves for their girlfriends. A visiting professor also was a part of the group for a time. Anyone is welcome, no matter their department, she adds.

“We discuss anything, really,” says Higbie, who’s taught several members to spin wool over the years, and notes that the group’s a great way to get to know students in a non-academic setting. “I have 7-year-old twins, so they have to listen to my 7-year-old twin stories, and I get to hear about what they do on a Friday evening,” she says.

Among those who learned to knit and spin wool from the group is Rhodora Vennarucci, a graduate student in classics. In fact, she says that fiber art has become an academic interest since joining the group.

“This club has actually inspired me to look into the historical production of textiles,” she says. “A lot of my graduate work has been devoted to the Roman textile industry.”

Group members also get together several times a year for “field trips” to local yarn stores and fiber art festivals, says McGuire, recalling weekend car pools to Knox Farm in East Aurora and the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival in Hemlock. Everyone usually grabs a long lunch together on the trips to local shops, she adds.

In addition, Poyer says the group has begun creating a “community blanket” using scraps of material left over from others’ projects. “It’s kind of hideous, but also kind of fabulous,” she laughs. In addition, she says they’ve created so many scarves over the years that just about everyone who visits the department—from prospective graduate students to visiting lecturers—now gets one as a present.

“It seems like a Buffalo-appropriate gift,” she says, joking that several years ago participants in a departmental conference couldn’t get their scarves until the spring because the snow was so severe the university closed and the event was postponed.

“Every department can take [prospective students] out to dinner and tell them how great the place is,” says Higbie, “but how many can give away hand-knit scarves?”