By Erin DeGregorio '16
While St. Francis week is celebrated around the world during this time of year, Siena put its own twist on celebrating the College’s patron saint through various events and lectures on campus.
The week kicked off with the Third Annual Friar Appreciation Night on Tuesday, September 29, where students had the opportunity to celebrate and personally thank Siena’s friars for all that they do for the Siena community.
On Wednesday, September 30, Neslihan Şenocak, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History at Columbia University, was the key guest speaker for this year’s Clare Center Lecture. Şenocak gave an afternoon lecture titled “Why Study?: The Franciscan Answer from the Middle Ages” to students and faculty members of the Siena community.
“Studying is necessary to be a better Christian … and it’s what God wants us to do,” said Şenocak.
Şenocak specializes in medieval religious, intellectual and social history, in particular the Franciscan Order, popular religion, the rise of scholastic education, the history of criminal justice and the social and legal history of the medieval Italian communes. Her research has specifically focused on medieval Franciscan history and Franciscan learning, as seen in her most recent publication in 2012, The Poor and the Perfect: The Rise of Learning in the Franciscan Order, 1209-1310. The Department of Religious Studies and the Franciscan Center sponsored the Clare Center Lecture for Catholic Studies.
The week concluded with an 11 a.m. mass in the Chapel to commemorate the life of St. Francis and to celebrate his actual feast day on Sunday, October 4.
As indicated by its mission statement, Siena College is a learning community advancing the ideals of a liberal arts education, rooted in its identity as a Franciscan and Catholic institution. While the first week in October is solely dedicated to St. Francis, every week here at Siena is St. Francis Week as our community lives vicariously through his mission.
