Inspired Excellence

An artist whose music is at once timeless yet utterly of its time, Gregory Porter solidifies his standing as his generation’s most soulful jazz singer-songwriter with the release of "Take Me to the Alley", the much-anticipated follow-up to his million-selling Grammy-winning 2013 Blue Note debut "Liquid Spirit".

Recorded in New Orleans in just six speed fuelled days (allegedly for less than $2,000), The Gun Club’s unsettling, inspirational debut supposedly had Jack White fixated by its gut wrenching howl. Driven/Sermonized by quixotic frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Fire of Love is a bite from the shit sandwich of his visceral world, in which the lines of religion, morality, ethnicity, and (most importantly of all) the blues; punk and rock and roll are twisted beyond recognition. Using the souls of possessed delta troubadours and Blondie as his muse, the shamanic Californian conjured up an unsettling Bayou panorama full of menace and soaked in blood, bourbon, and voodoo.

Building Effective Client Relationships

William R. Cook is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at the State University of New York at Geneseo, where he has taught since 1970. He received his Bachelor’s degree cum laude at Wabash College and his Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Professor Cook teaches courses in medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation history as well as the history of the Bible and of Christianity. His books include Images of St. Francis of Assisi and Francis of Assisi: The Way of Poverty and Humility.

Professor Cook received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1974. In 1992, the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education named him New York State’s Professor of the Year.

Professor Cook and Professor Ronald B. Herzman have been collaborating intensively since 1973 when they team-taught a course at SUNY-Geneseo called "The Age of Chaucer." Subsequent courses included "The Age of Dante" and "The Age of Francis of Assisi." Both prolific writers in their own right, together they have published The Medieval World View with the Oxford University Press, currently in its second edition. In 2003, Professors Cook and Herzman were presented with the Medieval Academy of America’s first-ever CARA Award for Excellence in Teaching Medieval Studies.

Kenneth W. Harl is Professor of Classical and Byzantine History at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he has been teaching since 1978. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and went on to earn his Master’s and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Dr. Harl specializes in the Mediterranean civilizations of Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Byzantium. He has published numerous articles and is the author of Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East, A.D. 180-275 and Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700. He is also a veteran field researcher who has served since 1999 on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Archaeology.

Professor Harl’s skill and dedication as an instructor are attested by the many teaching honors he has won. He has earned Tulane’s annual Student Award for Excellence in Teaching eight times. He is also the recipient of Baylor University’s nationwide Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers…