Campus Champion

Students from other countries often find their first resource at SUNY Cortland in Daniela Baban Hurrle, the College’s trusted international student advisor. Born and raised in Moldova and a former international student herself, Daniela does it all: from answering questions regarding visa paperwork to assisting with campus employment opportunities to supplying vital study tips and everything in between. A weeklong spring semester orientation for new students is next on her list, and she’ll encourage them to leave their own mark on campus — just as she’s done. There are more than 100 international students at SUNY Cortland who depend on her work.

Two SUNY Cortland construction projects are slated to break ground during the spring semester, including a major electrical distribution system upgrade that will impact the majority of campus.

The electrical infrastructure work, which involves excavating and replacing distribution lines that date back more than 50 years, likely will begin by late March. A tennis and basketball court renovation also will start in March.

Both projects will continue through the summer.

“It’s a pretty substantial dig and it’s not something that can be neatly contained behind fences like the rest of our projects,” said Rob Shutts, the interim co-director of the College’s Facilities, Planning, Design and Construction Office, referring to the electrical work.

The excavation means digging two trenches — measuring roughly six to eight feet wide — from the south electrical substation near the College’s Route 281 entrance to the upper portion of campus that includes structures such as Miller Building and Old Main. Those trenches will cut across campus, including a portion of the parking lots that service VanHoesen and Bowers halls and Old Main. Digging also will close Water Street this summer and likely will impact car traffic briefly on Broadway Avenue.

In addition to its electrical system upgrade, the College will install 16 tennis courts and two basketball courts beginning in the spring.

The targeted completion date for the excavation work is the start of the fall semester, although factors such as weather could push that back, Shutts said.

The College anticipates that contractors will split up the work into increments of three to four days — digging first, laying pipe in the ground, pouring concrete and then backfilling. Two crews will dig at any given time, meaning two sections of trenches will be open throughout the summer.

It’s the second phase of a larger, $26 million project to completely upgrade the campus electrical infrastructure.

“The wiring underground slowly has been deteriorating and shorting out, causing power outages over the past several years,” Shutts said. “We’ve been lucky in that very few have happened while students were on campus …

“This part of the project should significantly improve our situation.”

The State University Construction Fund has allocated $9 million for the upcoming phase of construction, which involves putting the duct bank in the ground and reconnecting 11 buildings on the upper portion of SUNY Cortland’s campus. An earlier phase of the electrical project resulted in a new primary south substation to handle the College’s entire electrical load. The third phase will connect the remaining buildings. The College anticipates completion of that phase in 2016-17, pending funding from the State University Construction Fund.

When the entire upgrade is complete, the need for a north electrical substation near SUNY Cortland’s heating plant will be eliminated.

Shutts said the electrical infrastructure project will go out to bid to contractors in early December, with their bids coming early in 2015 and work slated to begin in March. He will explain its impact in greater detail at the College President’s Spring Opening Meeting in January.

The $2.5 million project to install 16 tennis courts and two basketball courts is expected to go out to bid in the early spring with a targeted completion of the fall semester. The courts, which are open to the community when competitions are not in session, will not be available for recreational use during the summer.

A 50-space parking lot to support the College’s new Student Life Center also will be constructed as part of the tennis court project and will be located where the construction crew trailers now sit.

“We have a lot of people from the community who walk our campus regularly,” Shutts said. “This spring and this summer, they’re probably going to encounter construction that might disrupt their normal routine.

“We just want them to know that there’s going to be a lot of activity on campus.”

Green lines on the above diagrams indicate areas where crews will dig trenches as part of SUNY Cortland's electrical system upgrade. The top diagram depicts the south end of campus closest to Route 281, the middle diagram shows the portion of campus near the intersection of Neubig Road and Broadway Avenue, and the bottom diagram includes upper campus.

Starting in January, students will be able to try a brand-new residential dining facility, The Bistro Off Broadway, as well as purchase a redesigned meal plan that offers home-style meals and much more flexibility for a campus community on the go.

“Just like at home, the students will get a variety of healthy food at the best value and in a convenient location,” said William McNamara, director of dining services for the SUNY Cortland Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC), which handles campus dining operations.

The Bistro, a 350-seat residential dining facility, is the first area to open its doors in the newly constructed, $56 million, 150,000-square-foot Student Life Center off Pashley Drive. The approximately 13,000-square-foot dining annex is scheduled to open to students returning for spring semester on Friday, Jan. 23. The facility will celebrate with the entire campus community during a grand opening on Wednesday, Jan. 28.

The Bistro becomes the second residential “all-you-care-to eat” — as opposed to retail-style — dining hall on campus, joining Neubig, located in Neubig Hall. For the 2,700 students getting their meals on campus, the operation brings the total number of large, dining hall seats to 680 and addresses a demand students had expressed on an ASC survey that more meal-time seats be made available.

The new, state-of-the-art campus dining locale will feature a cooking demonstration area and numerous on-site food preparation stations. Students will be offered a different approach to purchasing on-campus dining, called “unlimited access residential meal plans.”

Recently, one specialized food preparation area received its final touches in preparation for going into operation in January.

“You come and go all day long, as many times as you want all day,” McNamara said, describing the meal plan at Neubig and The Bistro.

Whether they pick the Platinum Plus option for $2,390 during the Spring 2015 semester at the higher end of the four meal plan choices or the more budget-conscious Copper Plus meal plan for $1,990 that semester, students can eat as much and as often as they need at the two residential style dining halls during open hours and not worry about running out of weekly meals.

The essential difference among these dining options is that the more deluxe ones allow more declining balance dollars for students to use at the campus retail dining outlets than the less lavish ones. However, plan participants who chomp their way through all their Dragon Dollars can still pay as they go with cash, credit or a Connections account for greater flexibility in their dining options.

Over winter break student-athletes, residential assistants and international students will get to test run the new eatery situated in the wing closest to Broadway Avenue, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and for a few lunchtime meals.

To gear up for the grand opening, Dining Services analyzed several years’ worth of National Association of College and University Food Services Customer Service Benchmark Survey results completed by students, faculty and staff.

They also reviewed food service planning and design specialist Porter Khouw’s 2003 facility master plan and completed their own internal dining service master plan in 2010. This information helped them to design the new facility, develop its new five-week menu and develop the new meal plans.

To promote and test the unlimited access dining menu, Dining Services hosted a two-week long “Taste The Bistro” event in October at Neubig. In addition, ASC has featured several “unlimited access days” so students could try the new plans without counting meals and provided feedback to staff. ASC also advertised the meal plan changes through informational tables, open forums, email and social media.  

“With this testing we were able to identify items that students enjoyed as well as take valuable feedback to change or enhance certain recipes,” McNamara said.

Student survey information helped identify the top student dining needs: seating, value, hours, variety, healthy menu options, speed of service and nutritional information. The data also indicated how the new dining facility, the new meal plans and the new five-week menu rotation will improve students’ quality of life:

• Seating — With more seating added at The Bistro, students at every facility will have more opportunities to enjoy a relaxing meal with friends instead of eating on the run.
• Value — In addition to what was noted previously, the Unlimited Access Meal Plans make it easy to snack and get a balanced meal containing all the food groups without the stress of “losing value through lost meals and nickel-and-diming.”
• Hours — The Bistro’s extended hours — until 11 p.m. seven days per week — provide students with more scheduling flexibility.
• Freshness — The Bistro will emphasize “from scratch” cooking as well as “made-to-order” stations where the food is freshly prepared in front of students.
• Variety — Students will find their daily favorites but they’ll also see new recipes not found anywhere else on campus.
• Healthy — With an emphasis on whole grains, vegetables and lower fat cooking techniques, The Bistro will offer an abundance of items that meet dining’s “healthy” criteria.
• Speed of service — Students swipe their cards to get in, so they don’t have to wait in line to pay for their food. With more seats available across campus, lines will be shorter for everyone, including  those waiting at the more leisurely retail dining outlets.
• Nutritional information — The various eateries already post a dining digital menu board that provides nutritional information about calories, select nutrients, allergens, gluten and symbols designating vegetarian, vegan, gluten friendly and healthy choices. The signs will begin providing information on menu items produced “locally,” that is, in New York state.

Since introducing a retail approach to campus dining services in the early 1990s, ASC has been gradually returning to an earlier model of universal student access, starting with Neubig in 2005, according to McNamara. That year, students no longer used only the straight declining balance plan called Dragon Dollars to purchase their meals at any campus food outlet. Instead they combined a reduced Dragon Dollars allocation for retail purchases with a “meals per week” plan at Neubig or other dining outlets around campus.

Now, according to McNamara, with the opening of The Bistro the campus has enough seats at the dinner table to complete the relatively seamless transition.

Students had complained about a lack of value, running out of money on their meal plan and standing in long lines to charge their meal credits.

“We needed to find a way to feed students from their first day to their last day and not have to add money to their meal plan,” McNamara said. “For the plan with the $25 in Dragon Dollars, we wanted to make sure that everyone is fed, say if you’re one of those who is struggling to afford college.”

Nor will a student be as likely to end up with wasteful, unspent Dragon Dollars at the end of the semester, according to McNamara.

Empty at present, next semester the spacious dining area in The Bistro Off Broadway will seat up to 350 students.

With the opening of The Bistro, Dining Services will close the Friendly’s Ice Cream Shop in the Corey Union basement and the Poolside in Park Center will no longer serve meals but will return to its former role as an athletic event concession stand. The remaining dining outlets will retain their retail character, honoring ASC accounts like Dragon Dollars, Connections and Privileges as well as cash and credit card.

Additionally, Dining Services plans to open Fuel, a new small retail café similar to The Bookmark, serving Starbucks Coffee in the lobby area between The Bistro and the SLC.

Speedier service is another bonus of the unlimited access menu at The Bistro or Neubig, which caters to students who don’t have time to stand and watch their meal cooked in front of them. However, both large-scale dining locations feature plenty of on-site preparation stations as well.

“At Neubig we try to make everything as much to order as possible, and The Bistro is actually designed to have all the food prep and cooking right out in front of you,” McNamara said. “The open kitchen is right there in the front.

“Both dining facilities will assemble sandwiches and offer deli, a salad bar, grill, pizza and pasta stations,” McNamara said. “The Bistro also will feature a rotisserie oven.”

“We’ll have a live demonstration kitchen and we’re very excited about that,” McNamara said. “If you ever watch one of those live cooking shows, it’s a lot like that. There’s seating for about 30 people in front of our demonstration kitchen, which we plan to use for all our menu and recipe testing, for bringing in chefs, and just to educate people on health cooking and fun things as well. We’ve tried cooking classes in the past.”

The Bistro will be as prepared for the student who wants to pile into a large meal as for the one stopping by to chat with their classmates over a quick nibble or beverage.

“We are looking at the opening of The Bistro as a new era in dining services at SUNY Cortland,” McNamara said. “Everything students need can be found from day one until the end of the year without the need to add money to a meal plan or losing or counting meals. The Bistro is state-of-the-art, innovative and interactive and, best of all, stress free dining.”

For more information, visit the website or contact ASC at asc@cortland.edu or 607-753-2430. The office in Neubig Hall is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

More than 300 dancers will bring four performances of the holiday classic “The Nutcracker Ballet” to SUNY Cortland’s Dowd Theater on Saturday, Dec. 6, and Sunday, Dec. 7.

Students from the College’s Performing Arts Department will join young dancers from the Cortland Performing Arts Institute (PAI) under the direction of performing arts faculty members Kevin and Cynthia Halpin, who also serve as artistic directors of PAI. 

Performances will begin at 1 and 6 p.m. both days. Tickets will be available at the Dowd box office one hour before the show and also are on sale at The Bling Store located at 101 Main St. in Cortland.

The collaboration of young dancers from the community working with college performers began in 2004 when the Halpins choreographed and directed the first production of “The Nutcracker Ballet.” Presented biannually and featuring the classical ballet technique, this will be their fifth presentation of Tchaikovsky’s full-length production.

“College students push their skills as dancers and performers as well as discover their abilities as role models and mentors to the young dancers,” said Kevin Halpin, associate professor of performing arts.

“The community students have the unforgettable experience of working side by side with the young artists who are moving into the professional theater and dance worlds,” he said.  “The larger campus and Cortland communities have the privilege of seeing this beautiful holiday story brought to life in a full ballet that involves over 300 performers.”

The ballet premiered in Russia in 1892 and is based on the story “The Nutcracker and the King of Mice,” written by E.T.A. Hoffman and revised by Alexander Dumas, with a score by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. It gained popularity in the U.S. during the 1960s, and has become a staple of many ballet companies, especially during the Christmas season.

The performance follows the traditional story of young Clara’s magical Christmas Eve adventures with her gift from her Godfather Drosselmeyer: a nutcracker soldier.

SUNY Cortland’s husband and wife team has choreographed and directed as many as 50 people on stage at the same time, each year making changes and improvements based on the abilities of the cast and past successes. In addition to the many dancers, the production requires a crew of backstage and technical staff members as well as months of planning, scheduling and communicating.

For more information, call the Cortland PAI at 607-288-4343 or SUNY Cortland’s Performing Arts Department at 607-753-2811.

SUNY Cortland’s Performing Arts Department is engaging in a town-gown collaboration to bring two holiday season performances of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” to the Cortland community on Friday, Dec. 5, and Sunday, Dec. 7.

The College is working with The Arts at Grace to offer the concerts, featuring SUNY Cortland’s Choral Union, a quartet of promising New York soloists and a remarkable professional orchestra drawn from Central New York.

Both concerts will take place at Grace and Holy Spirit Church, 13 Court St., beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 and at 3 p.m. on Dec. 7. The performances are free and open to the public.

The concerts will feature soprano Sarah Shaiman, a junior musical theatre major at SUNY Cortland. Always immersed in music and theater, Shaiman formally studied classical, jazz and musical theater repertoire during high school. At the College, she had memorable roles in “Candide,” “Wicked,” “Brigadoon,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Rockabye Hamlet,” “A Christmas Carol” and “Spring Awakening.”

Also performing will be mezzo-soprano Allie Tamburello, a senior at Cortland completing a degree in musical theatre. She has appeared at the College in many main stage musicals as well as sung at some of New York City's well-known cabaret and jazz clubs including The Metropolitan Room, The Duplex and Don’t Tell Mama.

Tenor Nathaniel McEwen, who is pursuing a master’s degree in performance at the Eastman School of Music, also will appear. While an undergraduate at Cornell University, he was tenor soloist in several major works and sang selections at a concert for university donors at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. At Eastman, McEwen has been the tenor soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic, the Eastman Philharmonia and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. He made his operatic debut in Eastman Opera Theatre’s recent production of Britten’s Albert Herring.

Rounding out the soloists is Emmanuel Sikora, a native and current resident of Cortland, who holds a degree with a concentration in composition from Queens College (CUNY) Aaron Copland School of Music. He recently earned a Masters in Music Composition with a Certificate in College Teaching from Binghamton University. Sikora has sung with the Choral Union since 2001.

David Neal, the artistic director for the concerts, is a professor of performing arts at SUNY Cortland. A graduate of Cornell University and the Peabody Conservatory of Music, he has performed as bass-baritone soloist with many opera companies nationally and internationally.

The Arts at Grace is a community outreach of Grace and Holy Spirit Church supported by many individuals, businesses and foundations from the greater Cortland community. The series currently receives funding through CNY Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts and the Wilkins Foundation. For more information, call 607-753-3073 during business hours.

Construction has resumed on the new Student Life Center following an explosion last week that injured three workers and extensively damaged the building.

The extent of the wreckage is still being assessed, and it is not yet known if it will delay the planned opening of the $56 million facility at the start of the spring semester, according to Rob Shutts, interim co-director of the College’s Facilities Planning, Design and Construction Office.

The natural gas explosion occurred in an emergency generator room on the Pashley Drive side of the 150,000-square-foot building shortly after 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 25. The blast knocked out a large, louvered vent on the side of the building and damaged walls, doors and ceilings.

Three contractors were injured and taken to SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. Two of them, contractors with Louis N. Picciano and Son Inc., were admitted to the hospital and released the next day. The third, an employee of Matco Electric, was not admitted overnight.

The exact cause of the blast is still under investigation.

The visually striking, high-ceiling building has been under construction on the site of the former Carl "Chugger" Davis Football Field since 2012. When completed, it will offer dozens of student recreational and social activities under a single roof.  

Donations still are trickling in from October’s annual CROP Hunger Walk, an event that saw more than 86 percent of its walkers come from SUNY Cortland.

The three-mile walk on Oct. 26 has raised $11,046 so far, with almost half of the donations coming from the College community, especially students associated with Greek organizations. SUNY Cortland’s contributions are up more than $700 from last year, and 23 more students walked this year than in 2013.

“This year we experienced increases in funds raised all around,” said Catherine Faughnan, this year’s CROP Walk intern for the History 429 Class. “This is an amazing accomplishment for the students and the community members, who were able to rally together and fight global hunger needs.

“Despite the dismal weather, some of the worst we’ve seen at a walk lately, a grand total of 314 walkers showed up to support the cause,” she said. “Even in the cold and rain they managed to trek out on a Saturday morning to support an important cause.”

Cortland-area food pantries and feeding programs will receive 25 percent of the funds raised by the event. The Church World Service sponsors more than 1,600 similar walks across the U.S. and has raised nearly $4 million for food banks and other similar programs across the country.

Several campus groups will receive plaque recognition for their contributions in 2014. They include the varsity women’s lacrosse team, Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, the Interfaith Crew and the COR 101 “Yes We Can” team.

For more information, visit www.crophungerwalk.org/cortlandny.

SUNY Cortland will go red during the first week of December in support of World AIDS Day, which takes place Monday, Dec. 1.

The AIDS Prevention and Awareness Club (APAC) and Eta Sigma Gamma, the College’s health education honors society, are teaming up for a weeklong fundraiser that community members easily can rally around. In exchange for $1 donations, the groups will provide red ribbons in three campus dining facilities throughout the week.

Ribbons will be sold Monday, Dec. 1, to Friday, Dec. 5, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. in Neubig Hall and outside the food court in Corey Union. They also will be sold 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Hilltop. Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC) will make it possible for students and employees without cash on them to donate $1 using their Cortland IDs.

The Southern Tier AIDS Program (STAP) in Johnson City, N.Y., will receive the collected donations.

“All of the money raised will go directly to them,” said Jena Nicols Curtis, an associate professor of health and faculty advisor of APAC. “And we already have the ribbons, so there’s no cost to hold the fundraiser.

“We’re really excited to do something to help STAP because they do amazing things for people in our community.”

STAP’s services include HIV testing, counseling and housing assistance. SUNY Cortland’s donations will support Robbie’s Pantry, which provides toiletries for HIV/AIDS patients. The service is named after Robert Carro, who died from the disease in 2005.

“Most of our clients live below the poverty line, which makes donations crucial,” said Mary Kaminsky, the director of development for STAP. “This time of year, when people are paying for a lot of things, those donations become even more crucial.”

More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV, including roughly 180,000 who are unaware of their infection, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The weeklong fundraiser is just one of the regular events that APAC and Eta Sigma Gamma support. Throughout the year, APAC stages events to promote safe sex and the importance of sexual consent, while the honors society educates on topics such as obesity and nutrition.

For more information about the fundraiser, contact Curtis.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals may have passed, but there's still time to score a big-ticket item for just a tiny fraction of the cost.

SUNY Cortland’s annual Super Bowl Raffle offers an expenses-paid trip for two to the big game, which takes place Feb. 1 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.

That means a trip to the warm and sunny Southwest during winter. And this year’s deal is twice as sweet because SUNY Cortland is selling raffle tickets for just $50 apiece, or half the cost of a ticket during each of the College’s five previous raffles.

This year’s drawing will be held Tuesday, Dec. 30, making tickets a great holiday gift option. All entries must be received by Monday, Dec. 22. Sales are open to the public, but participants must be at least 18 years of age to purchase a raffle ticket.

All proceeds support scholarships for SUNY Cortland students.

The grand prize, valued at $4,121, includes two tickets to the game at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.; a three-night stay the Best Western Inn and Suites in Youngtown, Ariz.; and $1,000 for travel and other expenses.

The College acquired the tickets through its close ties with the NFL’s New York Jets, the team that calls SUNY Cortland its official university partner and summer training camp home. It’s the sixth time SUNY Cortland will offer the Super Bowl prize.

Those interested in buying a raffle ticket should send payment — in cash or check — with name, home address, phone number and an email address to Sheila Morse, the financial operations specialist for the Cortland College Foundation, at P.O. Box 2000, Cortland, NY 13045. Checks should be made payable to Cortland College Foundation, Inc.

For more information, contact Morse at 607-753-2532.

From a baby’s crawl to a golfer’s backswing, the biomechanical work that inspires a group of SUNY Cortland students proves seemingly endless.

Luckily they’re well trained with a popular movement analysis software — one that has connected SUNY Cortland with the U.S. Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, Colo. The technology support team that works with the nation’s top athletes entrusts the College’s aspiring exercise scientists to manipulate and analyze video for USA Fencing, an informal partnership that eventually may lead to a unique internship program in the future.

“What we’re doing now is a lot of database work and categorizing for them,” said Andrew Branca, a junior exercise science major from East Setauket, N.Y.

Branca and senior Melissa McKeveny serve as officers of the College’s Dartfish Club, a group with approximately 40 members who share an interest in movement of the human body and innovative technology used to capture it.

SUNY Cortland’s relationship with Dartfish Ltd., an international software manufacturer, has existed for more than 12 years. And during that time, the College has been gifted more than $1 million in software and services.

“We actually have the largest undergraduate program developing Dartfish-certified people in the world,” said Jeffrey Bauer, a professor of kinesiology and an expert when it comes to implementing digital technology in the classroom. “We’re the best at what we do.”

On a most basic level, Dartfish allows users to capture, analyze and share videos in innovative ways. The SimulCam feature, for instance, offers a way to overlay videos to provide easy visual comparison of complex movement sequences. It’s used at the NFL Draft Combine to compare the 40-yard dash trials of football’s top prospects.

SUNY Cortland exercise science students use Dartfish to capture a range of human movement activities, from a baby’s crawl to a weight lifter’s technique.

Prominent users — there are roughly 35,000 across the globe — include professional sports teams, NCAA Division I athletic programs and nearly every Olympic body in the world. And then there is a clinical application to the physical therapy and occupational therapy fields.

“I’m already a personal trainer and I want to be a strength and conditioning coach as well,” Branca said. “I think that (Dartfish) is something that will set me apart rom the other people in my field.

“You can tell a client anything. But when they actually see video analysis of it, it’s likely to click that much more.”

McKeveny, an exercise science major from Holbrook, N.Y., hopes to pursue research in the biomechanics field after she graduates. Like Branca, the Dartfish technology was new to her when she started at SUNY Cortland. Now she uses it almost daily.

“We went from just being technical support for the Sport Management Club to working with the Olympics,” she said. “It’s a big deal.”

The student members of the Dartfish group work closely with Mounir Zok, the senior sports technologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee. They receive raw videos of fencing matches and they’re expected to trim the clips and tag them with keywords that allow for easy analysis.

“We send Mounir the video, we wait and then he tells us if he’s happy with it,” McKeveny said.

But their work with the software is more than just an easily learned task; it’s a marketable skill. Users can pay to obtain Dartfish certification. If they pass the exam, they receive access to a Dartfish video channel reserved exclusively for the certified community.

“It's sort of like LinkedIn,” Bauer said. “It puts them out there with a video résumé and it introduces them to others in the field.”

SUNY Cortland already has sent Dartfish-trained graduates to Colorado Springs for internships, and Bauer hopes to send even more students.

“The club allows for continuity,” the professor said. “(Students) have an ‘in’ with Mounir, he knows their names, and they don’t have to be trained.

“For them to be able to put the Olympics on their résumés, that’s pretty special.”

The StroMo feature unique to the Dartfish software allows for image and video capturing similar to the jumping sequence shown above.

Orientation programs have been planned for 2015. Below are the program dates for January, June/July and August. All first-year orientation programs are two days with advisement and registration occurring on the second day of the program and all Transfer Orientation and Advisement programs are one day.

January 2015

Transfer Orientation and Advisement 1: Friday, Jan. 9

Transfer Orientation and Advisement 2: Thursday, Jan. 22-Friday, Jan. 23

Open Registration: Friday, Jan. 23

June/July 2015

Transfer Session 1: Wednesday, June 17

First-Year Session 1: Thursday, June 18-Friday, June 19

Transfer Session 2: Monday, June 22

Transfer Session 3: Friday, June 26

First-Year Session 2: Monday, June 29-Tuesday, June 30

First-Year Session 3: Wednesday,  July 1-Thursday, July 2

First-Year Session 4: Monday,  July 6-Tuesday, July 7

Transfer Session 4: Wednesday, July 8

First-Year Session 5: Thursday, July 9-Friday, July 10

August

Orientation: Thursday, Aug. 27-Friday, Aug. 28

Open Registration: Friday, Aug. 28

This program is for students who cannot attend a June/July Orientation.

Various offices and departments work together to make these events a success and to aid our new students in their transition to SUNY Cortland. The campus community is invited to participate in these programs.

For additional program information, refer to the orientation website at cortland.edu/orientation. Any questions regarding the Orientation program should be directed to Marinda Souva in Advisement and Transition.

Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC) is now accepting Program Grant applications online for the 2015-16 academic year.

Applications are submitted online and must be sent by midnight on Friday, Feb. 20. Applicants are asked to read the grant guidelines carefully before submitting an application.

Each year the ASC Board of Directors allocates funds to support grants for a wide range of purposes and projects that enhance the life of the SUNY Cortland community.

Although ASC is willing to consider a wide range of ideas, it seeks to avoid duplicating other funding sources or funding projects more properly supported by state funds. Therefore, applicants should first seek funding from primary funding sources.

ASC grant funds may not be used for salaries, honoraria, travel normally funded by the College's budget, or scholarships for SUNY Cortland faculty, staff or students. Funds may not be used to purchase computers, related hardware or software. All purchases will be processed in accordance to ASC’s financial and related GAAP policies.  In general, Program Grant funds may not be used exclusively for food for SUNY Cortland students, faculty or staff. Funding for food may be considered if the food is deemed integral to the success of the program or event. All food shall be provided by ASC. Other grant guidelines are described in the application package and online.

For more information, contact Annette O’hara at 607-753-2761.