*This dream is a post-project artifact, courtesy of Emily Steinberger.

Dennis Kinsey
Dennis Kinsey sits for a portrait in his office at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. He chose this space because of its convenience, he said.

“I kind of live life by this acronym FAM, and it stands for family, art and music. And particularly in that order as well. So I think everything kind of enhanced by FAM. … When I have a tough decision to make between a family activity, art, music and something else, this really helps me. It pretty much puts everything in perspective for me.

So family is pretty much the most important thing to me. And this is what I think of when I think of the American Dream. And so, part of that family is the idea of sports. … I have four kids, and so a big part of our lives has been tee ball and baseball and softball and basketball and soccer and track. And there’s nothing more enjoyable, I think, than sitting next to a baseball or softball field and watching your son or daughter out there competing. And it’s a real joyous thing.

When I think of additional words … I just think of the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. And so, happiness, life and freedom, I think, for me, it’s really part of that American Dream.

“We have this idea that life shouldn’t be hopefully – is not difficult and painful and hard and always serious.”

I think a lot of times in America, happiness is a term that we talk about a lot. That is odd in other countries. I recall – when I was working, before coming back to the education world, to the academic world – I recall working in an office [with] a friend from the UK, and he was going somewhere. I said, “Hey, have fun.” He said, “Pfft, fun. That’s for sure an American thing.” And I’m thinking, yeah, maybe it is, I don’t know, I didn’t realize it.

But it is kind of ingrained in us. We have this idea that life shouldn’t be – or hopefully – is not difficult and painful and hard and always serious. That there is some joy that we get out of life, there is some fun that we get out of life. And I think a lot of that stems from the fact that we are free.

I think a lot of the conflict that we have in the United States and around the world is because we’ve kind of forgotten God, we’ve pushed Him off. We keep talking about all the races. Well, in God’s view, there’s one race: there’s a human race and we’re all brothers and sisters, we’re all children of God. And I think, boy, if we could really believe that and get to that, I think we’d solve a lot of problems.

Dennis Kinsey
Dennis’s baseball bat from the 1997 all-star game at Jacobs Field, Ohio, which former dean of Newhouse David Rubin gave to him. He said the baseball bat represents his American Dream – specifically the “family” aspect of his acronym, FAM – because sports has been one of the things that brings him and his kids together.

I think the diversity in the world it’s just a wonderful. … This is how exciting the world is. There are people with different skin colors, for example, and different genders, … and everyone has different interest … and a different story to tell.
One of the great things about being brothers and sisters is that we ought to be able to talk a little bit. Because even if you think you’re set in your way, if you hear stories, or you hear the other side, or you hear a different perspective, it makes you think about things a little bit, it makes you grow. And I think by shutting down all these conversations, no one’s gonna grow, no one’s gonna get back together.

And so I like the fact that we can have some dialogues, have an interesting conversation with others, hear other points of view. And hopefully, if we can be respectful of the points of view, then, all of us we might learn something.”