What Role Does UConn Play in our Local Communities?
WRITERS PROJECT ATTRACTS NOTED AUTHORS, LITERARY DISCUSSIONS
A $250,000 gift to UConn-Torrington is enhancing the Litchfield County Writers Project (LCWP), a program that has become a touchstone of the University and brought dozens of highly acclaimed authors and artisans to campus.
The gift is the largest ever to support the Torrington campus and will allow for a room to be renovated into a dual-purpose teaching and gallery area. It will also sustain the LCWP itself through an endowed fund.
“This has come as a wonderful honor and an unexpected delight,” says Robley E. Whitson, a Litchfield County writer and artist who helped to coordinate the gift from an anonymous couple. “I think what is most impressive about the program is that it allows for a connection between academics and the community. It moves beyond the narrow side of academia and has become something unique, wonderful and valuable—truly where the University meets the public.”
Involving the entire community plays a large role in the LCWP’s success. It is the primary outreach effort of UConn’s Torrington campus, and has attracted such authors as Frank McCourt (photo, right) and Arthur Miller. The free and informal nature of the lecture programs attracts an audience from across the state. Director Davyne Verstandig (photo, left) believes the surroundings of Litchfield County itself may provide some of the artistic and literary inspiration for the program to thrive.
“I don’t think there’s any other community quite like this one,” she says. “There are dozens of award-winning authors in this area, and it’s fascinating to see that talent come together and dialogue with this community. The fact that our project is free and open to the public matters a great deal.”
Geraldine Van Doren is an English professor at the campus and a member of the LCWP Advisory Board. She says the project has helped to encourage faculty from a number of disciplines to come together.
“This campus has such an interdisciplinary atmosphere,” she says. “Torrington is so intimate, which I think gives us a certain freedom to work together. There’s a wonderful value to the community through the writers and filmmakers who have come, and the more we invest in it, the more it will give back to the entire University and the state.”
