WCSU Kathwari Honors Program announces spring seminar series on design and creative thinking

Rhett Miller at Old Boy Vintage in Bend, Oregon, April 2025. Photo by Jason Quigley.

The Kathwari Honors Program at Western Connecticut State University has announced its Kathwari Spring Seminar series, featuring five events exploring design thinking and creative thinking in professional contexts throughout March and April.

The series is free and open to the public, with the exception of the final session, “An Evening with Rhett Miller,” on Friday, April 24. Tickets are required for that event.

Kathwari Honors Program Director Dr. Brian Clements said the annual lecture series is made possible through the support of the Kathwari Family Foundation.

“This year’s speakers focus on the ways that design thinking and creative thinking are applied in professional contexts, sometimes in ways that we don’t expect,” Clements said in a statement. “We’d love to have folks from all over the area join us for these events — especially students and teachers from area high schools.”

On Monday, March 30, Dr. Christine Hegel-Cantarella will present “Anthropology by Design: Imaginative Practices for Social Analysis” at 2 p.m. in Room 125 of the Science Building on the university’s Midtown campus, 181 White St. A cultural anthropologist, Hegel-Cantarella researches legal, economic and environmental issues, with a current focus on informal recyclers in New York City and recycling policy. She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre and has collaborated with designers and artists on projects that integrate ethnography and creative practice.

The series moves to the Westside campus on Wednesday, April 8, with a presentation by Laura Leonard of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Leonard, the museum’s Art Bridges Project coordinator and curatorial researcher, will discuss “Creativity in Curatorial Practice.” A 6 p.m. reception will precede the 7 p.m. lecture in the gallery at the Visual and Performing Arts Center, 43 Lake Ave. Extension. Leonard has overseen several American art exhibitions through the Art Bridges Cohort Program, including co-curating “(Un)Settled: The Landscape in American Art” and curating “Peter Waite: Social Memory: Paintings 1987–2025.”

The seminar series concludes Friday, April 24, with singer-songwriter Rhett Miller, frontman of Old 97’s. The 7 p.m. event will take place in the Veronica Hagman Concert Hall at the Visual and Performing Arts Center. Miller has released 13 albums with Old 97’s and 10 solo albums, most recently “A Lifetime of Riding by Night.” He is also host of the “Wheels Off” podcast and, in 2025, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association with Old 97’s.

Free parking is available in the White Street Garage for Midtown campus events and in surface lots on the Westside campus. Tickets for “An Evening with Rhett Miller” are available through Eventbrite.

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WCSU Kathwari Honors Program announces spring seminar series on design and creative thinking