This fall, SUNY Sullivan is offering a new course—Creating and Activating Public Spaces—as part of the Catskill Hospitality Institute. This class is offered through the Humanities department, so it’s open to everyone, even if they’re not enrolled in a hospitality-focused certificate or degree program. SUNY Sullivan’s Hospitality and Tourism program has historically been more culinary-focused, but Justine Hoskin—the director for the past year—is adding new energy to the program with an increased focus on relationship building.
“You have the opportunity to change the trajectory of somebody’s day through hospitality,” Hoskin says. “Maybe a guest had a hell of a month at work, and they’re coming to you to rest,” she says. “You have the opportunity to smile and convey hospitality, and if you can remember that they like a bourbon before bed and maybe a cookie, you’re keeping a lost art alive.”
Hoskin’s refreshed program empowers students as individuals to think creatively in their approach to service so they can operate outside the proverbial rulebook. That might look like making someone’s day with a perfect cup of coffee fixed the way they like it, sending a handwritten thank-you note, or remembering a family’s preferences when they return to your resort every summer for a week-long stay. “Anybody on campus can benefit from these skills,” Hoskin says. “And if you start with a hospitality degree, you can go anywhere with it.”
A Natural Partnership
The new public spaces course is a collaboration between SUNY Sullivan and Sullivan 180. “We should be connecting the dots with others who believe in a healthier lifestyle,” Hoskin says about the natural partnership with Sullivan 180, a nonprofit “dedicated to building a healthy community through people, places, and policy; with an intentional focus on prevention and empowering a healthier generation.”
Sullivan County’s natural beauty has attracted people since the Lenni-Lenape settled here. Still, despite all of the clean air, beauty, and outdoor opportunities, the county ranks poorly for health outcomes and high for challenges like childhood obesity and overdose. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings places Sullivan County at number 61 out of 62 New York counties, just above the Bronx. Delaware County is number 46, Ulster County is number 24, Duchess County is number 17, Columbia County is number 16, and Greene County is number 50, to name a few nearby counties for perspective.
The public space course will focus on health and wellness and how public spaces benefit the community’s residents and tourists. “Parks and public space are experiencing a reinvigorated urgency since the pandemic,” says Shannon Cilento, Sullivan 180’s Community Development and Communications Manager who will teach the course. “Parks and public space have always been special,” Cilento says, “but we now see the value of meeting in person instead of on the phone or Zoom—maybe taking a walk while we chat—and we now know how dangerous social isolation is and how important it is for our mental health to have access to nature, fresh air, and each other.”
Sullivan 180 was formed by the Gerry Foundation in 2016 and runs programs such as the Beautification Program to improve the aesthetics of public spaces through planting foliage, removing trash, and fostering a sense of ownership and pride of place for residents through working together to beautify public spaces. Another Sullivan 180 program is the Catskill Edible Garden Project, which highlights gardens as both producers of nutritious food and gathering places.
Big Changes Take Time
Cilento points out that the Sullivan 180 logo is a turtle. “The reason our logo is a turtle is because of the tortoise and the hare fable,” Cilento says. “These are generational things that we’re trying to address, and they will take time.” Sullivan 180 is in it for the long haul and is committed to improving residents’ health outcomes. Cilento is bringing many of these same ideologies to the public spaces course.
“The curriculum is really fun,” Cilento says. “I think it’s very well rounded because it’s not just about the elements of the physical design—the lighting, the seating, etc.—but it’s about how those pieces influence the community.” Cilento will encourage students to think broadly about how lighting, for example, is essential when creating inviting places. Parks need benches and areas for people to sit and gather in nature, but it’s also essential that they feel safe there, and lighting could be the crucial detail that makes or breaks an outdoor space.
“A goal of the course is to create students who recognize the power of being a citizen and the power of their voice to be able to articulate and impact change,” Cilento says. The course will be open to any student—from first-year students to adults doing continuing education—and there’s no prerequisite. “Because it’s an open course, we hope to get some diverse perspectives,” Cilento says. “Surrounding yourself with people who’ve had life experiences different from your own—or opinions unlike yours—is enriching.”
“We hope the students will all stay in Sullivan County,” Cilento says, laughing, “but the truth is they’re going to be citizens of a community wherever they go, and as community members, they’ll have the opportunity to impact change and give feedback to help make changes.” Cilento will cultivate awareness in the students as community members and teach them how to notice what a park might need as far as upgrades, how to make uninviting spaces more appealing, and how to rally around a vacant lot as the community imagines its reinvigorated future together.
Engaging the Senses
The public spaces course will meet once a week, on Fridays, for three hours, so there will be time for lectures and field trips. As they discover the power of placemaking—the design and management of public spaces to inspire people and center public spaces at the heart of communities—Cilento will lead them through the practicalities of how to create welcoming public spaces.
“I like to encourage people to use their five senses when evaluating a place because those are things that you can’t absorb from a textbook and only get through experiencing it in real life,” Cilento says. “Are there sounds? Do you hear nature? Do you hear people interacting? Do you hear people engaging in sports—a basketball bouncing? Do you smell great things coming from a food truck? Are there flowers blooming?”
As students assess a place with their senses, Cilento will ask them to sit and witness it. She’ll ask them if they see people interacting with the space, talking to each other, playing games, reading, or maybe just walking through with their dogs. “There’s so much that you can gain about a place being there physically, so there’s going to be a big field trip component,” Cilento says. “We have some places we want them to see in the community firsthand.”
Historical Sites Reimagined
One place Cilento’s students will visit is Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which, like Sullivan 180, was founded and sponsored by the Gerry Foundation. Cilento loves Bethel Woods as an example for the students because it’s a historic site that was successfully reimagined for the present while mindfully honoring the history of the place. “It’s such a phenomenal example of a space that so many tourists come to,” Cilento says. “They invest money into the community, stay at hotels and Airbnbs, go to restaurants, and of course, they come for concerts.”
Bethel Woods has a section of woods known during the original 1969 Woodstock Festival as the Bindy Bazaar. There were vendors in there—people making and selling art, camping—and the museum at Bethel Woods has partnered with archaeological and hospitality experts to identify exactly where the trails were and recreate them so people can walk through and experience through interpretive programming what it was like.
“Their senior curator, Neal Hitch, is phenomenal,” Cilento says. “He wants the museum to be a living thing that’s continually giving people new, multi-dimensional experiences,” she explains. “I want to get the students out there to see the potential of historical sites to be something people can interact with in the present day and create their own memories and histories there.”
Public spaces are generally public parks and facilities, main streets, and places anyone can visit without a fee. One way to gain access to sites with a fee is to use the passes offered by libraries. Library passes are usually limited to residents of that town, but it’s worth looking into what local libraries offers.
For example, the East Fishkill Library offers passes to the Museum of Natural History and Dia:Beacon, and the Rosendale Library provides passes to Mohonk Preserve and Storm King Art Center. Columbia County’s Hudson Area Library offers passes to MASS MoCA, Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Albany Institute of History & Art. Both the Highland and Liberty public libraries have Bethel Woods passes for residents of those towns.
Whatever your interests, there’s a public space for you to enjoy. And you should; your health depends on it!
This article appears in September 2023.
