SUNY Cooper

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Videoconference to bring CNN's Cooper to SUNY Potsdam
By Lori Shull
Times Staff Writer
Friday, April 9, 2010

POTSDAM — Anderson Cooper will be beamed onto SUNY Potsdam's campus later this month as part of the college's campus festival.

The anchor of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" will give an interactive talk in a live videoconference from his New York City studio about the destruction in Haiti following the massive earthquake that struck the small island nation in January.

"As we talked about bringing him up here, it seemed unlikely that we would be able to get him here physically," said Jason N. Ladouceur, director of gift planning at the college. "We heard the best chance was going to be through the virtual media, so we concentrated on that."

Mr. Cooper was reluctant to commit to coming to Potsdam because he is constantly on call to travel to disasters anywhere in the world. SUNY Potsdam decided to talk to him via a video feed so that if he does have to leave his New York City studio, he might be able to connect to the feed from a different location.

If something happens to prevent the Emmy-winning news anchor from talking to SUNY Potsdam students and community members, there are contingency plans in the works to change the event into a talk by professors.

However, if disaster does strike, it's likely the event will be canceled, Mr. Ladouceur said.

"If some great catastrophe happens, we know that Anderson is going to be there and we know that the nation is going to look to him for information," Mr. Ladouceur said. "We're hoping that doesn't come to pass."

A local connection is what is bringing Mr. Cooper to Potsdam, though he does not often give talks.

His executive producer, Kathleen Friery, is a SUNY Potsdam alumna. She will return to campus this spring as the college's commencement speaker.

"She's the talent behind the scenes," Mr. Ladouceur said. "We don't realize what it takes to put on a show, the planning and the topics and things of that nature."

The discussion will be moderated by SUNY Potsdam President John F. Schwaller, but it will be mostly a conversation between Mr. Cooper and the students, according to Mr. Ladouceur. Students have been selected from across the academic disciplines to draft questions to ask Mr. Cooper about Haiti and journalism in general.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to learn from a world-class journalist about disaster response and how they need to stay aware of current events to participate in today's society," Mr. Schwaller said in a statement.

The talk will be part of SUNY Potsdam's campus festival and will begin at 5:30 p.m. April 22 in Hosmer Concert Hall. There will be a limited number of tickets available to the public at the Community Performance Series box office in the Snell Music Theater lobby.