SUNY Oneonta's Best: Professor Cohen

BY SHARON SEYMOUR -- (ONEONTA, NY)

Professor Cohen

Professor Cohen is known on the SUNY Oneonta campus as the Hollywood screenplay writer turned professor. Professor Cohen is part of the writers guild and has written many screenplays throughout his career. He teaches a course called “Writing for TV, Radio, and Film.” This is professor Cohen’s third year living in Oneonta and in a personal interview with me he declared that his “soul has finally landed in Oneonta.” I asked professor Cohen about his process in deciding to teach at SUNY Oneonta and he said "I met the chairman of the Mass Communications department who I adore, Gayane Torosyan, and we hit it off right away."He adds,"Screenwriting is an art form in itself and I wanted to be in a place where I could be set free to develop my screenwriting class." Many students enjoy Professor Cohen’s upbeat, bubbly, and endearing personality. Weston Blasi is currently a teacher’s assistant for professor Cohen and he remarks, “he’s always positive he always brings this great energy for an old dude he really seems to care about his students and about what they're writing."

Darrel Persaud(Left) Weston Blasi(Right)

From my own experience of having professor Cohen as a teacher I can say that he really does care deeply about his students. He spoke to me about a memorable experience with a student he had that was very passionate about screenwriting. Cohen remarks, "After every single class John would come up to me to talk to me about this screenplay he was working on, he was very determined to write this story about vikings."Professor Cohen explained how he began to collaborate with John on his screenplay and he says, "The fact that he so respected me, and who I was... and allowed me to work with him on his screenplay...it was a very humbling experience." Cohen goes on to say, “I’ll do anything for a student that’s really serious about what there doing.” Professor Cohen makes sure to meet individually with his students to discuss their progress and share creative ideas with students to spark their imagination for writing screenplays. Professor Cohen often has the class form a circle with their desks and this creates a sense of intimacy and allows for valuable class discussion time. Darrel Persaud explains what he loves the most about working with professor Cohen and says “One of the things I love most about professor Cohen is the way he communicates to us. I think that’s important in any different type of teaching style; the way you convey yourself to your students.”

Left to Right: Darrel Persaud, Professor Cohen, Weston Blasi

   


Professor Cohen explains that he is very experienced with professional screenwriting and he has been crafting screenplays for over 30 years! Professor Cohen states, “As I continue to write I keep learning new things. There are so many aspects to writing screenplays, just the emotional upheaval of writing things and having to re-write and re-write again, it’s a challenging and rewarding process.” Finally, I asked Professor Cohen about what his next move will be at SUNY Oneonta. Cohen remarks “I’m setting up an advanced screenwriting course for the kids that are really interested in writing screenplays and working one-on-one and really collaborating with them.” Professor Cohen is looking for talented writers to join his advanced screenwriting class that are up for the creative challenge of crafting compelling screenplays this upcoming semester.