Warren County Community College will host Scott McVay on Thursday, March 2nd, for a reading and discussion about his extensive experience with some of the world’s most prominent scientists, authors, artists, and mathematicians, as well as several whales.

The event, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in room 123A on the college’s main campus on Route 57 in Washington Township, is sponsored by the college’s Common Experience Committee and the WCCC Board of Trustees.

Poet, naturalist, and grant-maker, Scott McVay, will read from his recently published memoir, Surprise Encounters with Artists and Scientists, Whales and Other Living Things (Wild River Books, 2015). A leading figure in environmental and artistic enterprises, McVay served as the 16th president of the Chautauqua Institution. Influencing public and philanthropic philosophies for decades, he was the Founding Executive Director of both the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. With Jim Haba, he established the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival (the largest poetry festival in North America), which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary in Newark, N.J. McVay has also served on two dozen not-for-profit boards, including the World Wildlife Fund and the Smithsonian Institution.

McVay is also the author of a collection of poetry, Whales Sing and Other Exuberances. Inspired by Herman Melville’s masterwork, Moby-Dick, he led two expeditions to the Alaskan Arctic to study and film the majestic Bowhead whale. He discovered and described the six-octave song of the Humpback whale, publishing a cover article about it with Roger Payne for Science magazine. He has also published pieces on whales in Scientific American, Natural History, and American Scientist, and Op-Eds in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

All WCCC facilities comply with ADA regulations and are fully accessible. Sign language interpreters are available with two weeks’ notice. This event is free and open to the public.

For directions to the campus or for more information about the college’s academic degree programs, please visit www.warren.edu or call 908-835-WCCC.