Cultural Events
Cultural events take place on campus throughout the year. Among the programs are theater productions, gallery exhibits, and concerts presenting jazz, classical, and contemporary music.
The University’s Jazz Room Series, launched in 1978, is one of the largest and most prestigious college-sponsored jazz events in the country. Performers include renowned professionals who encompass the complete spectrum of jazz, from practitioners of traditional jazz to avant-garde to bebop to swing to Afro-Latin jazz, as well as William Paterson’s own student ensembles. The series has won numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for its innovative programming.
The University also sponsors the Distinguished Lecturer Series (DLS), which brings to campus discussions by speakers from the worlds of politics, government, the arts, literature, science, and business. Over the past 30 years, the series has presented such speakers as New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox general managers Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein, musical theatre composer Stephen Sondheim, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, film directors Oliver Stone and Spike Lee, performer Gregory Hines, writers Alice Walker and Joyce Carol Oates, and, most recently, entertainers Penn and Teller. As part of the 2009-10 DLS season, William Paterson University hosted the New Jersey Gubernatorial Debate, which featured candidates Chris Christie, Jon Corzine, and Chris Daggett.
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