Campus Champion

Andrew Fitz-Gibbon did not foresee becoming a U.S. citizen when he visited from his native England 17 years ago, but the chair of the College’s Philosophy Department recently did just that, alongside his wife and daughter. The pacifist minister, educator and author took a modified oath as a conscientious objector to war. Months of preparation and declarations from distinguished comrades further proved that this champion for peace and nonviolence lives what he teaches. The newly elected president of Concerned Philosophers for Peace, an international organization of philosophers, will give the presidential address in October at Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

John Stephens, all six feet and 230 pounds of him, held his emotions in check as he stared at the computer screen, wrapping his head around an email that answered a question that had lingered for the past two years.

The message’s title said it all.

“You saved her life,” it read.

The August email was written by Brooke Boyle, of Menlo Park, Calif., on behalf of her 2-year-old daughter Clara. The toddler survived leukemia because of Stephens’ bone marrow donation. Rules forbidding contact between donor and recipient had prevented any earlier communication between Stephens, a junior physical education major from Goshen, N.Y., and the Boyles.

“Her name is Clara Violet Boyle,” the email message began. “She is very much alive. … I imagine that’s the answer to your biggest question. And I have no idea how to thank you or how to really begin the conversation with you.”

Stephens, a hulking linebacker for Cortland’s football team, said his eyes welled.

“I was teary-eyed, but they were tears of joy,” he said. “To finally know a name, where they’re from, what they went through. It was overwhelming.”

What started with a swab of Stephens’ mouth to obtain cheek cells will soon turn into something much bigger, when the Boyle family is expected to travel nearly 3,000 miles to attend Cortland’s Oct. 13 home football game against Brockport. The Division III contest will be a Super Bowl of sorts for both Stephens and the Boyles; the perfect reward for coming out on top in Clara’s back-and-forth battle with leukemia.

“It can’t come soon enough,” Stephens said. “I wish it was tomorrow.”

The spring of 2010 seems like lifetimes ago, he said. That’s when Stephens and his parents participated in the football team’s effort for the “Get in the Game, Save a Life” National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Drive during a recruiting visit to the College. They recognized it was for a good cause. But they also realized the remote likelihood of being chosen as a match.

On average, only one in every 540 members of the NMDP registry will go on to donate bone marrow or blood stem cells to a patient. Including Stephens, SUNY Cortland has contributed four potential matches in the four years it has organized a bone marrow drive.

“No question, we just did it,” Stephens said.

Less than two months into his Cortland experience, in October 2010, he received the first phone call from an NMDP advisor. She informed him he was a potential match for a newborn girl and asked if he wanted to move forward with the process. Stephens discussed it with his parents, who encouraged him, and soon after he reported to Cortland Regional Medical Center for blood work.

Around the same time, at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Clara Boyle was enduring three months of chemotherapy blasts. A tube stayed taped to her face to provide food and oral medication. Needles regularly pricked her skin. And doctors soon delivered frightening news: Clara was suffering from aspergillus, a fungal infection potent enough to kill cancer patients.

Stephens’ November appointment to extract the bone marrow was postponed while Clara’s infection was treated. Like every bone marrow donor and patient, the two sides were strangers to each other. They only knew the other’s age and gender.

“During this whole process, you’re just so grateful for this boy,” Brooke Boyle said. “It blew me away that this kid was in no way a kid. I was so thankful he was willing to do what he was willing to do for a complete stranger.”

Stephens eventually donated his bone marrow on Jan. 11, 2011, at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y., during the typical hour-long extraction process that requires anesthesia. Doctors took twice the amount required and sent it to the West Coast, where Clara received the transplant the very next day.

“She’s a newborn girl and I’m a 230-pound linebacker,” Stephens joked. “So even though they took more than they needed, the pain I felt wasn’t too severe.”

The toughest part for him was the waiting game that ensued.

Clara’s health improved dramatically — so quickly that doctors waited to tell the Boyles due to a fear of dashing their hopes. She went home roughly a month later in early February and slowly acclimated to life as an infant. Stephens received word in the spring of 2011 that his recipient’s condition had improved. But that’s the only news he heard for more than a year due to the contact restrictions.

“I always wanted to know who it was,” said Stephens, noting that he checked in with his advisor at the NMDP monthly. “My family knew from past stories it could take up to a couple years and that we needed (the recipient’s) consent.”

Finally, on Aug. 3, he opened the email from Brooke. She sent it two days earlier — the same day she received his contact information and a day before Clara was given a clean bill of health.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to be allowed to contact you,” her email continued. “But I also haven’t known what I wanted to say to you or what you’d want to know or say to us. It’s kind of impossible to truly express our gratitude, and I also do not know what you have thought about how this moment would go.”

The rest of Boyle’s note detailed Clara’s battle with leukemia and praised Stephens for his choice to donate.

“You made a choice that many people don’t make,” it read. “And your choice and your self-sacrifice and your prayers saved our daughter’s life.”

One line in particular struck Stephens.

“Your blood is clearly running through my daughter’s veins,” Brooke wrote. “She LOVES football.”

Without even speaking to each other, both Stephens and the Boyles shared the same dream: get Clara to a Cortland football game so she could see “her football player,” as she refers to Stephens, in action.

A second-string linebacker, he captained the College’s junior varsity squad last season. During the upcoming Brockport game, Clara will sport a custom-made Cortland jersey with Stephens’ name and No. 34 on it.

“I’m not going to the NFL or anything but it’s awesome she’ll be able to do that,” he said.

Family members and friends from both sides stepped up to make sure the Boyle family’s first big vacation would happen by raising funds to cover the trip’s expenses.

So far, $3,880 of the $4,000 goal has been contributed. Gifts are still being accepted.

Brooke Boyle has not worked since Clara became sick. Her husband, Alan, is pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford. And the couple welcomed its second child, Rosalyn, in the winter.

Add in Clara’s medical costs and the living expenses of one of the country’s priciest areas; the trip seems far from a given.

But just as Clara found a way to beat slim survival odds and Stephens managed to accommodate a complete stranger’s needs, the Boyle family looks to have found a way to Cortland.

To say both sides are eager to meet would be an understatement. They’ve communicated on Skype several times and they text message each other regularly. Each night, Clara prays for her football player. He, in turn, has her picture set as his computer desktop wallpaper and now wears a dog tag with her name on it.

And when he needs a pick-me-up after a particularly grueling practice, he thinks back to their first phone conversation.

“Clara said: ‘Thank you for my bone marrow,’” he remembered. “It was incredible to hear that from a 2-year-old, not even close to anything sports- or football-related.

“It’s something a lot higher than sports,” he said. “It’s life.”

SUNY Cortland will explore book and poetry readings, film screenings and discussion topics offered by host speakers that all raise questions about the common humanity shared by peoples across the globe as well as their ethnic and socio-economic divides.

Titled “In/Common,” the year-long event series is the eighth organized by the College’s Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee (CICC) around a single theme. All the activities are free and open to the public.

“We in the committee hope for a vibrant campus-wide discussion of The Kite Runner, Afghanistan and Islamic culture this fall,” said Scott Moranda, an associate professor of history and the chair of the CICC. “The film screenings, speakers, discussions and poetry reading will provide an opportunity for faculty, staff and students to engage the themes and issues raised by this heart-wrenching novel. Given our country’s continued — and often forgotten — involvement in Afghanistan, the book is as timely as ever.”

The series kicks off on Tuesday, Oct. 16, with a screening of “Restrepo” in Sperry Center, Room 105. The 2009 documentary by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington tells the story of the Second Platoon as it manned a remote outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. The filmmakers try to provide a window into soldiers’ lives that has rarely been highlighted by American media outlets.

This semester’s “In/Common” events also include:

• Eamon Coyne will offer his perspective as an honorably discharged veteran from the U.S. Navy, at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 18, in Brockway Hall Jacobus Lounge. Currently an MBA candidate at Ithaca College’s Park School of Sustainable Enterprise, he will discuss “Combat, Afghanistan and Millenials.” Coyne was an information systems technician, 2nd class, also known as an enlisted aviation warfare specialist, and served from 2004 to 2008 in many capacities in both combat and shipboard operations including tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He will build from his personal experiences of combat in Afghanistan to discuss the meaning of the war for college-age students.

• A discussion of The Kite Runner will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, in Brockway Hall Jacobus Lounge. This work of fiction tells the story of two friends kept apart by ethnic and class differences. SUNY Cortland faculty who are using the book written by Khaled Hosseini in their classrooms will guide the conversation.

• Siddiq Barmak’s 2003 film "Osama" will be shown at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 8, in Sperry Center, Room 105. "Osama," the first film shot entirely in Afghanistan since 1996, tells the story of a girl living under the Taliban regime. The story allows audiences to reflect on Afghanistan’s economic and political upheaval and, in particular, gender politics in the years between the Soviet invasion in 1979 and NATO’s American-led invasion in 2001.

• Howard Lindh, a lecturer in SUNY Cortland’s Performing Arts Department, has organized a poetry reading in many languages, titled “In Translation: A Multilingual Poetry Reading,” for Tuesday, Nov. 13, in Brockway Hall Jacobus Lounge. Poetry is common to all languages and cultures. Much of a poem’s meaning is contained in the sound and rhythm of the language it is written in and, often, that part of the poem’s resonance is lost when it is translated. The presentation will feature readings of poems in their original languages, read by exchange students and faculty who are native speakers, with the English translations read by their counterparts.

• Award-winning artist and scholar Rachel Lehr will speak on “Women Mending Afghanistan” at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 15, in Brockway Hall Jacobus Lounge. Her talk will bring attention to aspects of Afghan culture underrepresented in The Kite Runner. Currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago, Lehr’s academic training in linguistics and Persian, at Barnard College and the University of Chicago, took her traveling across Central Asia during the 1970s and 1980s. Lehr will discuss Afghan culture, in particular the role of women in public and private. She works with Afghan women through Rubia, a New Hampshire-based, non-profit organization that helps Afghan women translate their craft heritage and textile skills into sustainable livelihoods and economic development opportunities. More information is available at www.rubiahandwork.org.

• Concluding the fall common reading will be a screening of “The Kite Runner” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 28, in Sperry Center, Room 105. Afterward, the audience is invited to discuss the creative choices made by the film’s writers and directors and compare the film with the book.

“We chose the theme ‘In/Common’ for three reasons,” Moranda said. “First, we wanted to have the college community share a common reading experience,” Moranda said, announcing the slightly new program format.

“In other words, we hope to not just invite the community to talks and film screenings, but also encourage the discussion of intellectual theme in the classroom and beyond,” he said. “Thus, students attending events may have read something related to the talk and be better prepared to engage with the material or the speaker.

“We believe the common reading can create a shared academic experience that helps us continue discussions of ethics, civility, and global citizenship, foster connections among students, faculty and staff, and increase cross campus participation in and awareness of the yearly theme.”

Secondly, the series focuses on two chosen books, The Kite Runner this fall and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in the spring semester, he said. Both volumes look at the shared nature of human connections amid the many geographical, cultural and socio-economic differences. College faculty members are encouraged to assign their students the book readings, which could be featured in a variety of settings and disciplines, such as health, science, humanities, social science, international studies, education and professional studies.

“Third, we wanted to build on last year’s discussion of civility and incivility by using these two books to gain greater perspective on the dangers of incivility and the importance of community building and civil behavior,” Moranda said.

The “In/Common” series is funded by the offices of the President and the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The Brooks Museum and the James M. Clark Center for International Education are supporting the Rachel Lehr lecture; and the Campus Artist and Lecture Series and the student Web magazine NeoVox will help underwrite the Eamon Coyne presentation and “Restrepo” screening.

To stay current with announcements regarding the series’ events, visit the committee’s Facebook page. For more information, contact Moranda at (607) 753-2052.

Tonight’s “Rock the Vote!” concert is both a grand finale of recent efforts to register new voters and an opportunity to get those who have not yet registered to fill out the forms.

So far, 1,050 SUNY Cortland students have registered. The goal is to secure at least 1,500 voters by Friday, Oct. 12, the last day to register for the Nov. 6 election.

Tying in with National Voter Registration Day (NVRD), the local New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) affiliate is sponsoring the event from 6 to 8 p.m. on the steps of Corey Union.

Colleen Kattau, associate professor of Spanish, will perform, as well as cast members from the Performing Arts Department’s fall semester play “Spring Awakening.”

“This is an open, non-partisan event, as we will be looking to register as many people as possible on campus and in the community,” said NYPIRG Project Coordinator Amanda Carpenter.  “We are working very closely with the Institute for Civic Engagement, Student Government Association, Campus Activities, and other groups on campus to register students to vote, and get them involved in the political process.”

NYPIRG is taking a lead role in organizing NVRD, which is being held for the first time. By joining forces with grassroots organizations, the public interest group will be engaging tens of thousands of new voters from across the nation and generating excitement about participating in the political process.

NVRD encourages affiliates to host voter registration drives in communities and on college campuses. In the weeks leading up to the event, NYPIRG conducted voter registration training for people looking to get involved. 

For more information about NVRD, visit NYPIRG’s website. 

A respected political scholar’s overview of the 2012 elections kicks off SUNY Cortland’s four-part Community Roundtable Series.

Robert Spitzer, a SUNY Cortland distinguished service professor and a nationally recognized authority on subjects such as the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. presidency and the politics of gun control, will present “The 2012 Elections: A Referendum or a Choice?” on Thursday, Oct. 4, in the Park Center Hall of Fame Room.

Spitzer will speak at 8 a.m. and a question-and-answer session will follow. Refreshments will precede the lecture at 7:45 a.m.

Sponsored by the College President’s Office, the Community Roundtable is free and open to the public.

Spitzer, who also chairs SUNY Cortland’s Political Science Department, said the event should provide a broad overview of the 2012 presidential election, especially for those who aren’t politically savvy. It’s important that everyone of age takes advantage of his or her right to vote, he said.

“For anybody who says it doesn’t matter who the president is, I believe this election proves them wrong,” said Spitzer, who has appeared on national television news shows that include NBC’s “Today Show” and ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It does make a difference and what you think about that difference determines how you should vote.”

Spitzer will provide an unbiased overview of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as well as the perceived advantages and disadvantages of each candidate’s campaign.

He also will discuss some of the major issues shaping this year’s election, including the economy.

Beyond that, Spitzer will lay out some of the other major Election Day themes, including foreign policy in the Middle East, the future of health care, the environment and energy exploration.

Additionally, he will explain how the election has evolved in the short term over the past few weeks.

Attendees will be invited to share comments and ask questions related to any topic, Spitzer said.

A regular panelist on “The Ivory Tower Half Hour,” WCNY-TV’s popular public affairs program which airs every Friday night, Spitzer is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.

His books include The Politics of Gun Control (1995; 4th ed. 2007), Politics and Constitutionalism (2000), Essentials of American Politics (co-authored, 2002; 2nd ed. 2006), and The Presidency and the Constitution (co-authored, 2005).

The Community Roundtable series provides programs on diverse intellectual, regional and cultural topics of interest to College faculty, staff and community members. Three more roundtables are scheduled this academic year. They will take place on the first Thursdays of November, April and May.

Parking in the Park Center lot is open to the public during the roundtables. For more information, contact the President’s Office at (607) 753-5453.

Imagine a world where the chilly climate of Pittsburgh feels more like the mild climate of Raleigh, N.C., and large swaths of coastal cities like New York were under water. Some projections suggest that it could happen by the end of the 21st century.

That’s why SUNY Cortland will lead an important discussion on climate change Wednesday, Oct. 3, featuring a panel of the College’s faculty members and local authorities on the topic.

“A Campus Conversation on Climate Change” will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. in Brockway Hall, Jacobus Lounge. The free event includes a local foods dinner at the end of the discussion.

Anyone wishing to attend must pre-register by Friday, Sept. 21. Attendees may sign up by emailing climate.change@cortland.edu.

The discussion’s panel members include:

• Dave Eichorn, an instructor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry who worked as a meteorologist at WSYR-TV in Syracuse for 20 years.

• Gay Nicholson, the president and director of programs for Sustainable Tompkins, a citizen-led organization based in Ithaca.

• David Barclay, an associate professor of geology at SUNY Cortland.

• Larry Klotz, a SUNY distinguished teaching professor of biology at the College.

• Brice Smith, an associate professor of physics and a member of SUNY Cortland’s Climate Action Plan Committee.

Although the event is geared primarily toward students, College employees and members of the public will be allowed to register on a first-come, first-served basis. Students or classes interested in attending the event as a club or organizations can register as one unit but they will need to provide an email address for each group member.

Scientists and world leaders have long discussed the issue of global climate change: the idea is that weather patterns around the world will continue to change as greenhouse gasses caused by the burning of fossil fuels continue to build in the atmosphere.

The expected changes include rising global temperatures over the next century that could cause sea levels to rise, increase the number of extreme weather events such as floods and storms and hasten the spread of diseases.

SUNY Cortland is one of 21 colleges nationwide participating in Carnegie Mellon University’s Campus Conversations program by organizing events around the theme of “Climate Change and Campus.”

Richard Kendrick, a SUNY Cortland professor of sociology/anthropology and director of the College’s Institute for Civic Engagement, said he helped organize the discussion because climate change is an issue of dire importance to college students.

“For all my years of teaching, the discussion of environmental issues is something that has always intrigued students,” he said.

Kendrick said he believes that students will get a lot out of the event, even if their knowledge on the topic is limited. Climate change directly affects each and every person, he said.

“If no one takes this issue into consideration, these possible effects will only grow worse,” he said. “What will the population do, and where will everyone migrate? Such effects seem so far off in the future that a lot of times we neglect to pay attention to the overall cause, which is climate change.”

The event is meant to be interactive, he said. Participants will be surveyed on the issue in advance, and they will be given balanced background information. At the event, they will be divided into smaller groups for discussion and invited to participate in a question-and-answer session with the speaking panel.

A second survey will be conducted after the event to gather post-discussion thoughts about the issue. Both surveys are optional.

Questions about the event can be directed to Kendrick at (607) 753-2481.

In the race to bring technology into the classroom, many educators appear to have tripped over the electrical cord leading to their laptops that generate the ubiquitous PowerPoint presentation.

That’s according to Shufang Shi, a SUNY Cortland associate professor of instructional technology who’s seen or heard her share of reality stories. On campuses across America, hordes of yawning college students are turning on their assorted personal electronic gizmos and completely — and understandably — tuning out today’s all-too-often tedious, digital age “slide lecture.”

Typically higher education faculty view social media associated with Web 2.0 and mobile learning as being disruptive to both teaching and learning, according to Shi and her colleagues.

“Faculty who are fluent in technology don’t always get the tools or support they need,” Shi said. “Nor do they always find a cohort of support from their peers, so they do things by themselves. It’s like everyone inventing their own wheel.”

Shi and peers from three other SUNY campuses — SUNY Fredonia, Onondaga Community College and University at Buffalo — proposed a project called “4C-CITI: Four College Consortium of Innovative Technology Integration.” Shi leads the project. 

“We faculty plan to work together through mutual mentoring as we use, demonstrate and then compile exemplary teaching strategies of technology integration for teacher education programs,” Shi said. “Our goal is to pilot a collaborative model of innovative instruction and to decrease cross-program insularity and capitalize on inter-campus skills.

“SUNY-wide, particularly among teacher education programs, we need to make digital age learning an integral part of the curriculum map,” Shi said. “We want to engage future teachers in deep interaction with content and pedagogy using digital age learning tools. We want our SUNY teacher education graduates to be not only tech-savvy themselves but to be leaders in technology integration in their schools and classrooms.”

University system officials like their plan, and on Aug. 2 SUNY announced that Shi’s project proposal was among 48 of 117 submitted to receive support. The 4C-CITI project was awarded a $20,000, one-year 2012 Innovative Instruction Technology Grants (IITG), in the middle of three different funding tiers.

Shi and her multi-campus research team plan to develop what they call “digital backpacks.”

“These will help faculty use web-based tools in their teaching,” Shi explained. “CITI-4 is adapting the concept of “backpacks” from prior uses, to get useable information into faculty’s hands, about using Web-based tools in context. Too often, learning new tools is all about ‘the new cool app.’ Since ‘cool apps’ are everywhere, the project is packaging apps with teaching strategies that faculty across disciplines can use. Backpacks will include not only an intro to functional Web 2.0 tools, but — more important — how tools can fit into existing assignments, amp up student engagement, help to formatively check on student learning and more.”

They will start by identifying core “backpack tools” that have dual feasibility for use in teacher education program course work and P-8 classrooms, and that can be efficiently used to promote digital learning among future educators. Through rounds of developing, modeling, reusing and refining, collaborators will disseminate digital backpacks within the four core campuses first and, later, across the SUNY system.

The project formally began in September. Team members from the four institutions met Aug. 8 and 9 at SUNY Cortland to get an early start.

Demonstrating the use of the smart pen, with Shufang Shi looking on, is Sharon Raimondi of SUNY Fredonia. Karl Klein follows the discussion on his laptop screen. In the photo above left, Shi, a SUNY Cortland faculty member, teaches a class.

 “I’m a big advocate of social media in the classroom,” Shi said. “I practice what I preach: I use social media tools to build and host my own courses. I model for my students how to meaningfully integrate technology into content areas to engage school children.”

When meeting recently, the collaborators showed proficiency with all manner of real-world equipment and software, from taking notes using smartpens that record and translate the conversation, to having one member attend the meeting via Web-conferencing technology.

The giant face on the screen at that meeting was Kathleen Gradel, a professor in the Language, Learning and Leadership Department, College of Education at SUNY Fredonia.

Meanwhile at the meeting table, Sharon Raimondi, a professor of exceptional education and director of the Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education at Buffalo State College, wielded a smartpen to quickly convert written notes from the conversation to meeting minutes with a recorded transcript.

Christine Widdall, an instructor in SUNY Cortland’s Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department, used an iPad to jump around the Web for ideas while taking notes with her smartpen and carrying on the conversation with colleagues.

Karl Klein, an associate professor and chair of the Computer Studies Department from Onondaga Community College, promised to bring many ideas to the table as the group works together to develop  and disseminate exemplary teaching strategies of technology integration for teacher education programs.

The Innovative Instruction Technology Grant awards will foster study and development of areas including educational gaming tools, e-textbooks, online classes and e-portfolios for lifelong learning, according to SUNY officials. The campus innovations and initiatives that are developed have the potential to be replicated throughout the SUNY system and benefit students and faculty nationwide.

IITG encourages development of innovations that meet The Power of SUNY’s transformative vision. Grant recipients are sharing project outcomes openly, enabling SUNY colleagues to replicate and build upon an innovation.

“This new competitive grants program will enable partnerships across SUNY to leverage technology as a means to educate students,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “It serves as an excellent example of the power of SUNY to realize efficiencies through the sharing of resources and instructional partnerships within our system.”

“The IITG program puts SUNY in a position to support specific projects on our campuses that have the potential to be implemented elsewhere in the system, to the greater benefit of our faculty, staff and students across New York,” said the program’s administrator, David K. Lavallee, SUNY executive vice chancellor and provost.

A complete list of grant-funded projects is available online at www.suny.edu/provost/IITG.cfm. All awarded projects included an assessment and communications plan to ensure that the new innovations can be openly shared and replicated across SUNY. Funded projects demonstrating potential for multi-campus use will be eligible to apply for additional funds in 2013.

What’s the most effective way to determine what kind of health programs youths need most? Especially those in populations where obesity is a trend and knowledge about well being and access to exercise often are limited?

Just ask the kids.

It may seem obvious, but when Brooke Burk, a SUNY Cortland assistant professor of recreation, parks and leisure studies, asked girls in suburban mid-western communities about what could be done to improve their health through local after-school parks and recreation programs, she was taking a new approach.

Burk, who was working on what turned out to be a nationally honored doctoral dissertation at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, discovered that many programs were essentially cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all in design. Sometimes parents filled out surveys to measure program satisfaction, but the youngsters actually in the programs usually did not.

The result has been a mismatch between some youth and the after-school programs intended to serve them.

Young African American girls were interested in having opportunities to develop lifelong health pursuits through activities that they felt were fun, such as cooking classes, dancing or cheerleading programs rather than a prescribed fitness hour, Burk found.

 “When you do go about creating programs, the after-school program at one facility might not look the same as the one at the other location,” said Burk, who joined SUNY Cortland in 2011. “The goal may be the same but the things you are doing might be a little bit different.”

Burk’s findings resonated with an awards committee of the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration (AAPRA), which recently named Burk among three finalists for the 2012 AAPRA Best Paper/Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Burk will accept the recognition at the academy’s General Membership Meeting during the 2012 National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) Congress on Thursday, Oct. 18, in Anaheim, Calif. She also will present her dissertation findings during the congress.

Burk earned her Ph.D. in leisure behavior in August 2011. She had two years to submit her dissertation with a nomination summary to the academy’s Best Dissertation Awards Committee, as the national award only is given out every other year.

Her dissertation was titled “African American Girls’ Perceptions of Health, Obesity and Recreation.”

Burk, in her dissertation, presented prior research that indicates only 21 percent of African American girls meet the daily, recommended levels of physical activity in school; and 39.2 percent of them are overweight and obese. Her study also noted that, historically, African Americans have suffered from discrimination in the availability of leisure programs and spaces.

The purpose of her research was to examine what African American girls thought about health and obesity and what leisure-service organizations could do to address their health needs.

She interviewed, transcribed and analyzed the information gleaned from 18 girls in this cultural population. They were between the ages of 7 and 13, and were enrolled in after-school programs at either a Boys and Girls Club or a park district in a mid-sized mid-western town. The young females were asked questions like, “What activities do you wish were offered here?”; “What does health mean to you?”; and “What does it mean to be fat, skinny or thick?”

Burk noticed patterns of how the girls thought about health, body types and lack of opportunities.

“Learning about health was important to the girls as well, but they wanted to learn in a fun environment such as an after-school program,” Burk stated in her dissertation. “The girls were interested in interactive learning environments where they could participate in activities such as cooking classes or engaging in conversations about health with program leaders. They desired programming that focused on health because they currently were not learning about health while at the agencies.”

Tellingly, when the research subjects were asked to name their important role models to learn about health, the girls listed family caregivers and health professionals, but not leaders at leisure service agencies such as parks programs and youth clubs.

Because of parents’ working schedules, many African American girls don’t have necessarily an adult around to teach them about food preparation, eating choices and dining habits that could affect their longtime health. Their schools don’t always provide sufficient gym or recreational time, either.

So the after-school recreation program can meet a critical need in a young Black woman’s development.

 “These things need to be addressed culturally,” Burk said recently. “We need to be aware of how (African American girls) are thinking.”

Burk maintains you have to get to know the children to find out how they think about certain types of foods and certain types of people. For example, many teens, Black or White, may avoid associating with thin people because they think they’re doing drugs or have an eating disorder, Burk said. A recreational mentor can be the one to teach them how to make healthier choices and associations.

“I guess my own philosophical approach is that universal programs are not necessarily always good,” she said. “So it really goes back to understanding, when it comes to recreation, who you’re serving and how to serve those individuals. Which is a challenge.”

Burk is interested in continuing her research in this vein. After she finds a suitable study population, she will look for research funding.

“No one else that I know of from our faculty ever has received the award,” said Sharon Todd, chair of SUNY Cortland’s Recreation, Parks and Leisure Studies Department. “We are so proud of Brooke. She has been such a solid addition to our faculty, and she’s certainly ‘hit the ground running’ in terms of teaching, research and service to the department and College.”

A native of Indianola, Iowa, Burk also earned a Master of Arts in Leisure, Youth and Human Services with an emphasis in youth development at University of Northern Iowa and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Iowa. In 2008, she was honored by the University of Northern Iowa as the Outstanding Graduate Student in Research.

At SUNY Cortland, her scholarship has been supported by a small grant from the College’s Faculty Development Center and an Individual Development Award from United University Professions.

She has served the NRPA since 2009 as an at-large member of its Programs Committee. Starting this coming October year, she will be a liaison between the NRPA and the College and also will serve as a young professional representative on the organization’s Education Network. Burk chaired the NRPA’s Young Professional Network from 2010-11.

The New York State Education Department recently awarded SUNY Cortland a $429,197 grant to  engage future high school science and mathematics teachers in a full-year teacher residency program at  Binghamton High School, a high-needs, urban school district.

The Undergraduate Clinically Rich Teacher Preparation Pilot Program, led by Angela Pagano, associate professor of biological sciences, and Mary Gfeller, associate professor of mathematics, aims to shift the center of teacher education by increasing the role of school partners in the preparation of effective science and mathematics teachers, particularly for high-needs districts.

The proposed program, offered in collaboration with Binghamton High School, will enable approximately 12 SUNY Cortland students to spend one full academic year, from 2013-14, immersed in clinically rich study and application of teaching practice.   

Motivated by research that called for the creation of transformational teacher preparation programs, Pagano and Gfeller worked with Andrea Lachance, dean of the College’s School of Education, to develop a model that would best prepare teacher candidates for the realities of working in high-needs schools, lead to greater teacher retention and positively impact student learning. 

“SUNY Cortland has always been a leader in teacher education and this grant allows us to remain at the forefront of innovation,” Pagano said. “By embedding candidates within the school culture, we are providing them with the most authentic preparation experience possible.”

“For their senior year, the students will mostly be on-site at Binghamton High School,” Lachance added. “What they will really have is an apprenticeship.”

This unique partnership comes at a time when secondary school administrators have heightened concerns about student and teacher performance and working teachers are generally more reluctant to devote time to supervise student teachers in their classrooms. The grant will support mentor teachers by providing professional development opportunities and stipends for their work with teacher candidates.

A SUNY Cortland undergraduate who aspires to become a secondary schoolteacher gives a lesson in a school classroom.

The grant also forges a new collaboration between SUNY Cortland’s schools of Arts and Sciences and Education. 

“Through this grant, faculty from the two schools will be able to work together on blending coursework for teacher candidates from multiple perspectives,” Gfeller said.

Faculty from the School of Education in Literacy, Foundations and Social Advocacy, and the Cortland Urban Recruitment of Educators (C.U.R.E.) program will join Pagano and Gfeller in maximizing the residency experience from their respective expertise through this innovative program. 

The grant will fund full tuition and fees as well as provide stipends and travel allowances to support approximately 12 science and mathematics teacher candidates during the program’s cycle. That cycle will run from Nov. 1, 2012 through Aug. 31, 2014.

Upon successful completion of the program and graduation from the College, candidates will receive initial New York state certification to teach science or mathematics in grades 7-12.

Although it’s not as exciting as spying the Lake Champlain monster, the discovery of bones from a prehistoric seal in the bed of a former inland sea in the Lake Champlain Valley should intrigue anyone interested in New York state’s natural history.

John Rayburn, a SUNY New Paltz environmental geologist, will share his research findings during a visit to the SUNY Cortland campus on Tuesday, Sept. 25.

Rayburn, a specialist in glacial geology, geomorphology and paleoclimate studies, will discuss “The Champlain Sea: A Record of Marine Conditions in the Lake Champlain Valley” at 7 p.m. in Brockway Hall Jacobus Lounge.

The event continues the Geology Department’s ongoing speaker series that has run for a number of years. The talks are free and open to the public.

While today’s Lake Champlain Valley contains a most impressive long lake, in prehistoric times an inland sea dominated that same region, according to Rayburn.

The marine embayment developed in northern New York around 12,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, Rayburn explained. The weight of the Laurentide Ice Sheet had pressed the entire surface of the earth downwards over the preceding millennia and, as the edge of the ice retreated northwards, salt water was able to flood along the Saint Lawrence Seaway and enter the Champlain Valley.

“The evidence is in the sediments,” Rayburn said. “Marine shells are found in clay deposits throughout the region for this time, and bones of a marine seal also have been found.”

Rayburn has spent the past 14 years documenting the timing and causes of the Champlain Sea event using sediment cores and shoreline deposits. His work has shown the linkage between catastrophic floods from ice-dammed lakes in the Ontario basin and changes in lake and sea levels in the Champlain Valley. These floods reshaped much of the landscape of northern New York and may have influenced circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean and global climate.

David Barclay, a SUNY Cortland associate professor of geology, noted that the College’s own Brauer Education Center in Selkirk, N.Y., is located south of the area flooded by the Champlain Sea.                  

“However, some of the glacial lakes that were in the Champlain Valley extended south into the Albany and Brauer area, and the catastrophic floods swept all the way down the Hudson Valley and out past what is now New York City,” noted Barclay, who leads geology field trips to the area for his Supplemental Field Studies class.

Rayburn and Barclay are conducting ongoing research in the Champlain Valley using tree rings to model regional climate change.

Rayburn joined SUNY New Paltz’s Geological Sciences Department in 2007 as an assistant professor. He teaches courses within the Geological Sciences and Environmental Geochemical Science programs.

He earned a Ph.D. at Binghamton University, where he was a graduate fellow and teaching assistant. He received an M.Sc. in geology from University of Manitoba. Rayburn completed a bachelor’s degree in geology at SUNY Plattsburgh and another in economics from St. Lawrence University. He completed a research fellowship with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va.

Previously, as a Mendenhall Fellow at the United States Geological Survey, Rayburn conducted research on the record and mechanisms of abrupt climate change.

Since 2008, he has edited the New York Glaciogram, an informal newsletter of shared geology information in New York state. He is a co-principal investigator of a study that involves undergraduate student researchers titled “A Comprehensive Approach to Watershed Characterization Focusing on the Source of New York City Water.” The program is funded by the National Science Foundation.

The series is sponsored by the Geology Department, the Geology Club, Campus Artists and Lecture Series and the student activity fee.

For more information, contact Barclay at (607) 753-2921.

SUNY Cortland’s AmeriCorps efforts will provide a boost to local community organizations for the fifth straight year, employing up to 25 workers in 2012-13 through a federally funded program run through the College’s Institute for Civic Engagement.

The College’s newest AmeriCorps crop will be funded by a $235,187 grant recently awarded by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and administered on the state level by the Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS). Workers will spend the year serving one of more than a dozen not-for-profit locations in Cortland County.

“We are extremely happy to have been awarded a fifth year of funding,” said Richard Kendrick, the local AmeriCorps project director and the director of the SUNY Cortland Institute for Civic Engagement. “The program is having a huge impact in the community. For that reason, if no other, we’re very pleased to be able to continue.”

SUNY Cortland AmeriCorps, which received its first grant in 2008-09, is a community-based coalition that seeks to increase civic involvement through service. AmeriCorps members agree to devote up to a full year to tutor and mentor disadvantaged youth, operate after-school programs, maintain the outdoors, provide health education and a fill a wide range of other community needs.

For the first time this year, the College has added a new community partner in the Homer Center for the Arts to expand its work in the area of cultural activities, said Kendrick, a SUNY Cortland professor of sociology and anthropology.

Other local organizations that will benefit from AmeriCorps support include: Catholic Charities, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Cortland Child Development, the Cortland City Youth Bureau, Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation District, Family Counseling Services, Lime Hollow Center for Environment and Culture, the Seven Valleys Health Coalition, SUNY Inclusive Recreation, Sustainable Cortland and the YWCA.

“The groups that we’ve had working with us — some of them have been with us the entire five years — have just done a fabulous job,” Kendrick said. “It’s impressive the type of individuals we have working in our programs.”

SUNY Cortland was awarded funding equivalent to 19 full-time positions for 2012-13, which it can allocate in different ways. Kendrick said SUNY Cortland AmeriCorps expects to hire between 20 and 25 people in a variety of full- and part-time positions.

In return for their service, full-time workers will receive an annual stipend of $12,100 to help with housing and food. After completing a year of service, they receive $5,550 to put toward college costs.

SUNY Cortland AmeriCorps is headquartered with the Institute for Civic Engagement in Main Street SUNY Cortland, the College’s downtown building at 9 Main St. It is part of the College’s effort to play a positive role in the community while providing potentially transformational educational experiences for students. SUNY Cortland this year was named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with distinction for a second year in a row. It was the College’s sixth consecutive year on the honor roll.

AmeriCorps is one of three initiatives created by the CNCS, a federal organization that engages more than five million people in service to meet local needs. The other two programs are Senior Corps and Learn and Serve America.

Kendrick thanked the CNCS and the OCFS, SUNY Cortland AmeriCorps’ network of community partners, College President Erik J. Bitterbaum and the Cortland area’s congressional delegation, particularly Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Richard Hanna, for supporting Cortland’s efforts.

The SUNY Cortland Institute for Civic Engagement is currently accepting applications for positions.

For more information, interested people may contact Wendy Burton, the program coordinator for the Institute for Civic Engagement, at (607) 753-4270. Possible volunteers may also apply online by searching programs in New York state and looking for SUNY Cortland AmeriCorps.

The SUNY Cortland baseball team is allowed one day of “non-traditional” competition in the fall semester, per NCAA rules. On Sunday, Oct. 7, the Red Dragons will use that allowed date to host two-time NCAA Div. III champion Marietta College of Ohio for an exhibition doubleheader and support the United Way for Cortland County in the process.

Last fall, Cortland traveled to Marietta for a doubleheader that raised money for the Strecker Cancer Center at Marietta Memorial Hospital. The “Etta Express” agreed to return the favor and travel to Cortland this autumn and will play the Red Dragons in a pair of nine-inning games at Wallace Field beginning at 11 a.m.

There will be no admission charge for the games, but donations will be collected, a 50-50 raffle will be held and commemorative t-shirts, designed by local company Graph Tex, will be sold. Money raised will be given to the United Way for Cortland County to support its 14 local member agencies.

Fans can also contribute by going online and downloading a donation card at:

http://cortlandunitedway.org/waystogive/individual.htm

Those using the donation card are asked to write “2012 Cortland Fall Baseball Event” underneath the signature on the form before sending it in.

Christella Yonta, a United Way board member and its 74th Annual Campaign Co-Chair, and her 9-year-old son, Nicholas, will be on hand to throw out the first pitch prior to the opening game. In between games, promotional activities will be held for kids in attendance with prizes available. In addition, military veterans are encouraged to attend the games and will be recognized prior to the start of the second contest. Concessions will be available to purchase during the doubleheader from Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC).

Fans unable to attend will be able to listen to the games. Bobby Comstock, Cortland’s radio voice, will be broadcasting the first game on local radio station WXHC (Oldies 101.5 FM), which is available online at www.wxhc.com. The second game will be broadcast on Cortland Internet Radio at www.cortlandreddragons.com/radio.

Last season, Marietta and Cortland both competed at the NCAA Div. III World Series in Wisconsin, although the teams didn’t meet. Cortland finished fourth at the Series with a 2-2 record. Marietta bounced back from a second-round loss in the double-elimination tournament to win four straight games and claim its second straight national title and sixth overall (2012, 2011, 2006, 1986, 1983, 1981).

Since 2000, Marietta and Cortland are the two most successful Division III baseball programs in the country with 489 and 479 victories, respectively. Cortland has made 11 NCAA Division III World Series appearances since 1995, including national runner-up finishes in 2010 and 2005.

Cortland and Marietta have met on the diamond three times during spring play. Marietta defeated the Red Dragons at the 1995 World Series, while Cortland won at the 2007 World Series and in a 2005 regular season contest in Florida.

The founder of a national program encouraging young people to act when they see negative, unhealthy or violent behavior will discuss how students can find the courage to speak up or intervene during a Wednesday, Sept. 26, campus presentation.

Mike Dilbeck, a Chicago-based videographer-turned-advocate, will present Response Ability: Being an Every|Day Hero,” at 7:30 p.m. in the Corey Union Function Room. The event is free and open to the public.

Dilbeck’s talk is the keynote event for “Students Against Violence Week,” and is co-sponsored by the Sexual Assault Awareness and Programming Committee. The presentation also is part of the College’s ongoing “Wellness Wednesday” series.

Dilbeck created Response Ability and the Every|Day Hero Campaign, two national programs that stress the importance of speaking up and acting based on one’s values. He seeks to help students overcome the obstacles that lead many people to act as silent bystanders in the face of potentially harmful incidents, and become instead everyday heroes.

“Eighty percent of students make good decisions, and they have the power to notice and act on the other 20 percent making choices that bring down their communities,” Dilbeck said.

Dilbeck’s program aims to equip students with the life skills necessary to make a positive impact whenever they see unhealthy or dangerous behavior among their peers on campus.

In his presentation, Dilbeck demonstrates how people who witness negative incidents like assaults, thefts or sexual harassment as part of a large group often do nothing, even they know the behavior is wrong. He includes situations where he, himself, witnessed harmful situations and let them occur without intervening.

Dilbeck uses video clips to help frame the discussion and to share “real” conversations among students. Before audience members leave, they will be asked to take the Every|Day Hero Pledge.

Dilbeck has produced an award-winning DVD package to help people find the courage to act in negative situation. It is used on more than 250 campuses nationwide and was incorporated into the curriculum of the 2009 Undergraduate Interfraternity Institute. He has produced more than 60 educational and promotional film projects for higher education organizations over the past two decades, earning awards and a reputation for challenging negative social norms in college student communities.

Dilbeck received the 2009 Laurel Wreath Award from the North American Inter-fraternity Conference and was honored with the 2009 Fellow Award from the Fraternity Executives Association for outstanding programming in the inter-fraternity world.

He is a member of Sigma Nu Fraternity and founded his chapter at Texas Christian University. He served his international fraternity as assistant executive director.

Sponsored by the Health Promotion Office and the Student Development Center, the Fall 2012 “Wellness Wednesday” series takes place every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Corey Union Exhibition Lounge, unless otherwise noted.

 For more information or accommodation to attend an event, contact Catherine Smith, the College’s health educator, in Van Hoesen Hall, Room B-1, or at (607) 753-2066.

Educational programs about apples, fire safety, solar and wind energy and technology games will be offered during SUNY Cortland’s Fall 2012 Children’s Museum Saturday Family and Children Activities series which began on Sept. 22.

The programs will take place at a new location, the SUNY Cortland Child Care Center, located on the ground floor of the College’s Education Building.

The Children’s Museum offers interactive, hands-on educational experiences in an environment where Cortland community members and families can be inspired to play and learn together.

Presented by faculty and students in SUNY Cortland’s Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department, the programs run on selected Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. and are open to community families and their children. Admission is free but donations are accepted.

Sample a variety of apples and learn more about this fruit at “Apples and More Apples” on Sept. 29. Participants are invited to bring their own apple recipe to share.

On Oct. 20, learn about basic fire safety, try on turnout gear and check out a real fire truck when local fire fighters help present “Fire Safety with the Cortland Fire Department.”

The 21st Annual Education Club Halloween Party will be held in Corey Union’s Function Room on Oct. 27. Activities will include face painting, games and storytelling.

On Nov. 3, the Ross Park ZooMobile will visit. Participants will observe animals up close and have the opportunity to touch some of the animals with supervision by a naturalist from the zoo.

College students and faculty will demonstrate hands-on solar, wind and other energy activities in the Nov. 10 program titled “Having Fun with Energy.”

Computers and other tools will be introduced Dec. 1 at the “Technology” program featuring iPads, technology games and other tools designed to teach children and adults.

Entrance to the Education Building’s Child Care Center is to the right of the playground. Parking is available on Prospect Terrace or in the Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC) paid lot across the street.

For more information, contact Emilie Kudela at (607) 753-5525 or Susan Stratton at (607) 753-2467, or visit the Children's Museum website at www2.cortland.edu/community/childrens-museum.

Winter Session contracts were distributed to faculty by campus mail on Sept. 17. One signed copy of the contract should be returned to Mary Cervoni, Miller Building, Room 223, within 10 days of the contract date.

Timely return of the contract assists the office with preparation of the Winter Session payroll so individuals may be paid on time. In addition, courses will be listed on the Web in October based on the receipt of a signed contract.

Those with questions about their contract, or those not receiving a contract but expecting one, should contact Cervoni at (607) 753-4207.