Oddfellows Hall has unveiled a new gallery showcasing past Single Voice Reading Series memorabilia. The gallery, located on the second floor, also includes a display of books from various featured authors.
Professor of English Christopher Bakken, organizer of the Single Voice Reading Series for the past 26 years, spoke about the inspirations of the series. The program is meant to be utilized in tandem with the curriculums english professors teach in their own classrooms. Featured writers have been both Allegheny professors and writers whose work has been studied in their syllabi.
“This is great for writers because, when they visit Allegheny, they’re not just showing up to an audience who have never heard of them and don’t know their work,” Bakken said. “They get to read to an audience of students and faculty who really intimately know what they’ve written and are really curious about it, ready to ask brilliant questions and, sort of, hang on to every word.”
The idea for the gallery came from repurposing materials found in Bakken’s office. In the fall 2024 semester, Bakken moved offices and found a collection of past Single Voice documents. Some of the materials were missing, which, with no extra copies, prompted Bakken to properly archive and preserve their information.
“In one cabinet, I had been throwing all the Single Voice Reading Series posters that I had collected over the years, only to find out that I had missed so many,” Bakken said. “I didn’t save copies of them because I never imagined that they would serve a purpose other than, ‘we should have been keeping archives and more detailed records all along.’”
Building Coordinator Jess Sakal manages both Oddfellows Hall and Arnold Hall, ensuring their upkeep for students and staff members. She also works with Allegheny’s Marketing and Communications team to secure promotional materials for events, such as the Single Voice Reading Series. This was instrumental in the production of the gallery.
“When Professor Bakken first approached me, he let me know that we have all these years and all these posters of the Single Voice Reading Series, and he wanted to do what is called a ‘visual archive’ which I love the terminology for.” Sakal continued, “Then it was a matter of some historian bits. He went through files to see how many hard copy posters he could find. We approached (Marketing and Communications), they went through to see how many different digital files they could find.”
Not all materials were recovered, and some memorabilia of the featured speakers were only in brochure form. However, Sakal took all the materials she did find to Allegheny’s Print Shop to have the posters printed on foam for their display. Archiving was the next step of the project to make sure all the materials found were correctly catalogued and conserved.
“We also made sure that, moving forward, all of these, as well as any ones that we’re going to have in the future, (Archives & Special Collections Librarian) Chris Anderson has over at archives,” Sakal said. “So, they also will be stored at Merrick Archives so that we have that on campus forever.”
Anderson works to collect and conserve materials relating to Allegheny’s history, including promotional materials for the Single Voice Reading Series. In an interview with The Campus, he spoke about the gallery and its significance to archival collections.
“It’s a really interesting exhibit in that it covers a lot of years in a small amount of space. It really showcases the variety of speakers and scholars who have been invited to Allegheny, came to Allegheny and then spoke,” Anderson said. “It’s a really interesting series in that you have speakers that the Allegheny community might know. Then, also, you have international speakers that have been invited to come in and had opportunities to meet these speakers if we go to those events.”
The gallery itself, and all of its promotional materials, have been scanned and categorized into the Merrick Archives in Lawrence Lee Pelletier Library.
“When we think of archival work, our goal is, yes, we want to showcase and promote that history, but also we want to protect and preserve it,” Anderson continued. “That’s where, thinking of this particular exhibit, all of those posters on display have been digitized. So, now, we have electronic copies here in the archives.”
Since its initial inception in 1989, Allegheny College has had administrative changes, differentiating priorities and budgeting shortages that altered the series. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was nearly cancelled completely.
Bakken believes the perseverance of the program speaks to its significance not just to the English department, but to Allegheny College as a whole.
“One of the purposes of the exhibit is to show how long and celebrated this series has actually been at this small college,” Bakken said. “Here’s why that’s remarkable. To sustain a series like this, you have to have a commitment from the institution to fund this series for that long. The gallery allows you to see the sustained commitment to excellence to the English department, but also the humanities at Allegheny in a really tangible way.”
Bakken stressed the importance of the history concerning the Single Voice Reading Series, citing different English programming throughout the past 100 years at Allegheny. W.E.B. Du Bois spoke on campus in 1925, Robert Frost read from his poems in 1938 and Peter Viereck visited in 1962 to share his writing. Students who attend the programming have an opportunity not only to interact with the writer they meet that night, but also to observe the lineage of writers and thinkers who have come before them.
One of these students is Peyton Bender, ’26, who is currently working on her senior comprehensive project. Her creative writing comp explores identity and what it means to be a writer. She became involved in the Single Voice Series in her sophomore year, attending it regularly and even announcing speakers for the event. She values the series because of its pertinence to writing and the process of crafting cohesive stories. Bender was also able to speak with featured author Derek Mong about his work and writing in preparation for her senior project.
“I had the honor of being able to introduce Derek Mong when he read for the Single Voice Reading last semester,” Bender said. “I studied Mong’s work of his new poetry collection the previous fall in Professor Bakken’s advanced workshop for poetry. Just being able to deep dive into that book and write an introduction that really connects the book to the present, connects the book to the things that I’m feeling as a young woman living in America and things that everybody seems to be feeling.”
Bender hoped that students recognize the progression of writers who have come through Allegheny to share their work. English professors of Allegheny, alumni of Allegheny’s English department and writers from diverse backgrounds have all had the opportunity to share their work with attendees, bolstering the appreciation for literature. The students who attend get to be a part of a rich tradition themselves.
“It makes me almost think of when I go around in the (Henderson) Campus Center and McKinley’s (Food Court) and see all the posters of the past student events, just being able to reminisce on how many cool things our school community has done,” Bender said. “Specifically for the English department, especially since our creative writing program has shaped so many wonderful writers over the years, and how a lot of those writers have been able to come back when they’re published and read through the series. I think that’s an amazing opportunity.”
