C.W. Post Professor Gives "Cool" New Meaning
What does it take to be the coolest professor on Long Island? Ask Andrew
Ruhren, an adjunct art professor at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island
University, who was voted Long Island's Coolest Prof in "The Best
of Long Island 1998" issue of the Long Island Voice.
Filling the gap between Boomers and Gen Xers, Ruhren is a Blank Generation
artist with a "full slate of intelligence and energy and a MacGuyver-like
knowledge of every art technique, from computer design to how to weld together
two girders."
Graduate art advisor and C.W. Post professor for seven years, Ruhren
teaches computer graphics, 3-D design, Graduate Design Concepts and runs
the woodshop for the Art Department. When not pushing his students to their
limits, Ruhren enjoys hiking, cooking, gardening, reading philosophy, and
watching alternative and foreign films as well as being a full-time working
artist making mixed media sculptures. A self-proclaimed "obsessive
collector of music," he attempts to make a connection between himself
and his students and between art and music by playing music in class that
runs the gamut from Mozart, Howling Wolf or Hank Williams to Nick Cave,
Ani DeFranco and Rage Against the Machine. In fact, students don't know
what they'll hear him listening to between classes: Satie's piano suite,
classic blues or the Repo Man soundtrack.
"Teaching is very rewarding, especially when your students accomplish
something that they never thought they were capable of," said Ruhren,
a Westbury, NY resident. "It's great when students can realize the
power of their own potentials."
For more information call the C.W. Post Public
Relations Office at (516) 299-2333 or e-mail cwpostpr@aurora.liunet.edu
or send mail to: Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus, 720 Northern
Blvd., Brookville, New York 11548-1300.
