Her “person” was Mary Alice Smothers, a community organizer in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Syracuse. Her “place” was the Central Park Great Lawn. Her “thing” was a 2002 New York Times op-ed by Anita Hill about women institutional leaders who kept their “outsider” values.
Those were some of the highlights of the radio interview Hunter President Nancy Cantor gave to journalist Randy Cohen on the show Person Place Thing, which was broadcast by WAMC Northeast Public Radio on March 24.
Person Place Thing works from the premise that people are most engaging when they speak about their interests rather than directly about themselves. Cantor obliged, talking about concepts such as diversity, public goods, and civic infrastructure: The audience applauded, chuckled, and generally enjoyed her talk.
Cohen taped the episode on January 30 in front of Hunter students, faculty, and staff at Lang Recital Hall. Three Hunter students — Chris Swan, Christopher Panchame, and Yuka Kameda — performed a medley of jazz music and tap dancing at the taping with their teacher, trombonist Ryan Keberle.
Cohen’s first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker, Harpers, and The Atlantic. His first television work was writing for “Late Night With David Letterman,” for which he won three Emmy awards. He wrote “The Ethicist,” a weekly column for the New York Times Magazine, for 12 years.
The Cantor interview is only the first Person Place Thing episode Cohen has planned for Hunter. He will interview Office of the Arts Executive Director Gregory Mosher, a theatre director, at the Frederick Loewe Theater in front of a live audience April 8.
