Campus Champion

Professor of English David Franke understands writing can be a high-risk activity — not just for students, but for teachers and colleagues too. That’s why his best work goes beyond poetry and creative non-fiction; it involves creating safe spaces for writers to experiment. David regularly consults with the Faculty Writing Group and leads students on a transformational retreat to Raquette Lake. Another example: the Seven Valleys Writing Project’s Summer Institute, a three-week course for K-12 educators, soon will attract the area’s brightest teaching minds. For nearly a decade, the regional program that David oversees has taught participants to learn and lead through their writing. Read more about Summer Institute

SUNY Cortland will pay as many as five employees up to $4,000 toward the cost of buying a home in selected neighborhoods around campus as part of a Live-In-Cortland Committee program aimed at raising the number of employees who live near the College.

Currently, only about 30 percent do so, according to a committee survey, in large part because many new employees find good, affordable local housing hard to obtain.

The SUNY Cortland Neighborhood Homeownership Pilot Program is designed to encourage all full-time SUNY Cortland and Research Foundation employees to purchase and occupy homes in designated neighborhoods surrounding the campus and along the I-81 entryway to campus.

Employees become eligible for this benefit, which can be used to help pay closing costs or serve as a down payment on an owner-occupied home. Starting July 1, an employee is eligible to receive this benefit by buying a single-family residence within the defined neighborhoods.

Those interested should visit the group’s website for more information regarding the program, eligible neighborhoods and instructions on how to apply.

The Live in Cortland website also serves as a resource for finding suitable rental properties.

“The College and community benefit when our employees live in the city,” observed the committee chair, Randi Storch, a professor and History Department chair. “And we found that when people started off living in Cortland, whether renting or owning, they tended to stay in Cortland.”

The Live-in-Cortland Committee is a voluntary group composed of faculty and staff. Members especially want the College to offer this housing “welcome mat” to all employees but particularly newly hired faculty and staff members moving to Cortland from outside the region. The pilot program will run until the end of the fiscal year or until the $20,000 budgeted for it runs out.

“What we found is that many of the people wanted to live in the city, but found it was impossible to find quality rentals,” Storch said.

Among many other ideas, the committee recommended this project in a May 2014 “Live-In Cortland Initiative” report, which indicated that personnel who live close to campus enjoy greater job satisfaction. The year-long study involved a survey and focus groups that included College and SUNY Research Foundation employees of less than three years, realtors and real estate developers. The findings were presented to SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum.

The survey subjects who decided to live elsewhere were asked for their reasons.

“There’s nothing about our program that’s about telling people where they have to live,” Storch said. “This is about trying to facilitate living in Cortland for people who want to.”

Committee members include Kathleen Burke, professor and chair of the Economics Department; Jose Feliciano, assistant director of admissions; Christopher Kuretich, assistant vice president for student affairs; Tracy Rammacher, director of publications and electronic media; Brian Tobin, head swimming and diving coach; and Carol Van Der Karr, associate provost for academic affairs. Joanne Barry, assistant vice president emeritus for human resources, also served on the committee. David Duryea, vice president for finance and administration, offered the group advice as well as provided the seed money to try the program.

The program first was advertised on campus email.

“Within three minutes after it posted, I got a phone call,” Storch said. “An hour later, I got another call. So I thought that was very exciting.

“I hope they will be spreading the word to their new friends and colleagues. And I hope we will find that five stipends are not enough. I do think anything is possible.

“The big motivation is for stabilization, partnering with the community,” she said.

“It’s going to take a few years to notice that it’s having the kind of impact we want. Of course, hopefully it will become institutionalized and just be part of what we do, something that we can depend upon as part of our recruiting tools.”

Members of the Live-In-Cortland Committee have had conversations with representatives of the school district, hospital and city about what other incentives could be created to attract a strong workforce.

“We’re hoping this is just the start of a larger conversation in the community, with other businesses taking on a similar approach,” she said.

From summer camps to community playgrounds, children and youth of all abilities across New York state soon will benefit from a $400,000 grant awarded to further the success of a visionary recreation program housed at SUNY Cortland.

The College’s Inclusive Recreation Resource Center (IRRC) — a one-stop shop for recreation professionals and people with disabilities seeking accessibility information — will use the funds awarded by the New York State Developmental Disabilities Planning Council (DDPC) to take on a two-year, two-part project.

One piece involves delivering a training program known as Inclusion U to teenagers online.

	Community groups across the state will benefit from the IRRC's newest initiative to provide expert training.

The other, larger portion of the grant will enable the College to provide expert training to 15 youth agencies across the state over each of the next two summers. The overall goal is to fully incorporate long-lasting best practices for inclusive play into their programs.

“The dream is that all parks and rec departments, camps and youth organizations will one day make this a staple of their training,” said Lynn Anderson, the IRRC’s founder and a SUNY distinguished service professor of recreation, parks and leisure studies at the College. “The goal is to get teenagers thinking about inclusion during their formative years and all of the things they can do to promote inclusive recreation environments.”

The grant’s work will look to reach ethnically diverse areas, especially those that traditionally are underserved when it comes to promoting health, fitness and recreation.

“When we choose the 15 agencies that we’re going to mentor each summer, we’re going to focus on the ones that meet those criteria,” Anderson said.

The IRRC, which launched in 2007, offers many different services to help recreation destinations improve accessibility and to assist people with disabilities find leisure sites that can accommodate their needs. Funded by the New York State DDPC, the center’s most robust tools are available online.

The IRRC’s recreation referral service offers an individualized recreation recommendation for people who may have difficulty gaining access to buildings or parks due to a disability. The center’s online recreation database — arguably its most impressive tool — provides detailed inclusion information about more than 1,100 sites across the nation, from parks to museums to baseball stadiums. It can be found online at search.inclusiverec.org.

The database includes basic information, such as parking availability, but goes further to include the width of restroom doors, the slope of accessible ramps and many other facility features of interest to individuals with disabilities and their families.

Inclusion U, the IRRC’s training program that teaches best practices for inclusion, has produced more than 4,000 certified inclusivity assessors. Those are people who can measure, collect and compile accurate and descriptive accessibility information about recreation sites. Many teenagers would be trained as assessors through the new funding, but Anderson said the goal has a larger goal in mind.

“What we’re more interested in is attitudinal,” she said. “We want kids to open their eyes to the activities that they can do as part of a summer staff to ensure that all children are a part of recreation activities.”

Although the bulk of the IRRC’s work assesses sites and opportunities in New York state, the center’s reach continues to grow across the country. Partners such as the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point and San Jose State University have weaved IRRC’s training into their curriculums. Anderson and colleague Vicki Wilkins, a professor of recreation, parks and leisure studies, also have led Inclusion U sessions internationally, most recently in Calgary.

The new grant focuses exclusively on youth organizations in New York state.

“The dream would be for Eagle Scouts to take this a step further and use it as a common pathway for their final projects,” Anderson said. “And hopefully, that work would benefit people who need it the most.”

With the excited interest of scientists watching a rocket launch, members of the College’s Physics and Engineering Club gathered around a rectangular contraption that gradually layered thin sheets of melted plastic in an intricate pattern.

They were creating a tiny cat; a “waving cat” to be specific, similar to the porcelain sculptures frequently seen in Chinese restaurants.

The feline figurine that gradually took shape on the bed of the machine on March 22 was the very first multi-dimensional “print” produced by the club’s brand-new 3D printer.

“It’s been quite a process to find out precisely how to get nice clean prints,” said Nathaniel Rose, a sophomore dual physics and mathematics major from Norwich, N.Y.

	The 3D printer promises to offer students at the College some serious applications — like prosthetics — but Nathaniel Rose recently demonstrated on the printer in a Bowers Hall laboratory a lighter learning experience.

“But through many hours of hard work, head scratching, and a few ‘oh-duh’ moments, we are finally getting consistently good prints,” said Rose, who will preside over the Physics and Engineering Club in the fall. “So it definitely was not just a plug-and-play machine.” 

Weighing about 40 pounds, the printer is essentially a metal framework surrounding a 10-inch-square printing area linked to a laptop that briefly turns spools of solid material into thick liquid that immediately hardens in a programmed pattern. Currently the new equipment is housed in Bowers Hall.

3-D printers can be used to create almost anything from toys to tools. Club members plan to use it to begin creating prosthetics. These devices will be used for a variety of purposes, including donations and research projects.

“I hope to take the club in a more engineering and robotics oriented direction with the help of the printer next year,” Rose said.

That doesn’t preclude students from outside the sciences from gaining valuable experience on the machinery.

“I feel it will benefit other students in a very similar way,” Rose said. “They will have the opportunity to be creative in a way that wasn’t previously possible. Whether their interest be functional or purely artistic, it is just a very exciting and unique tool to have.”

Students and others may use the printer with the club’s permission.

“As far as general public access, that is something we are still working on,” Rose said. “For the time being if someone has a project that they feel could benefit from the use of the 3D printer, we’d be happy to talk with them.”

Early next semester, the club wants to host a training seminar for anyone interested in learning how to use the printer. It will double as a recruitment party for people interested in joining the club.

It’s a sign of the future. Eventually,everyone will have a 3D printer, predicts Anthony D’Accolti, last year’s club president.

“Owning a 3D printer enables us as students to stay ahead of the curve, and familiarize ourselves with cutting edge technology before others have the chance to,” said D’Accolti, a Seaford, N.Y., native who in his junior year as a physics engineering major set in motion the effort to acquire the 3D printer.

D’Accolti first approached the Student Government Association (SGA) for funding to buy the equipment. Later, he reached out to College administrators, including President Erik J. Bitterbaum.

D’Accolti said the club needed a printer along with the equipment that would modify it into essentially two printers — plus parts and different types of filament — materials from which very slender threads or fibers are pressed through the printer bed. The SGA supported part of the cost through its student clubs budget and the remainder was paid for out of the President’s Discretionary Fund and College administration money.

The 3D printing is expected to have a huge impact on industry, D’Accolti said.

“Some predict it will usher in the second industrial revolution and rely on localized manufactured goods rather than shipping goods from manufacturers in China,” he said.

The process of 3D printing works by additive manufacturing. It begins by inserting a filament of material into the printing head, or extruder. Then, the user loads a design into the printing software. The computer translates that into the coding system.

The system tells the extruder head the temperature needed to make the filament hot enough to melt and be deposited into the printing bed, but cool enough so the material can re-solidify into the design. The print solidifies instantly, and can be removed immediately after being printed.

Club members have already used the machine to manufacture a temporary replacement part for itself, D’Accolti said.

Presently club members are refining the more difficult process of producing objects made of wood and ceramic material. The ceramic object is printed using a ceramic dust, D’Accolti explained. Combined with a polymer, the material is heated with a kiln after extrusion in order to make the result more compact. The wood filament is a composite of recycled wood and binding polymers, making it possible for the filament to be extruded like plastic.

“We hope to have it usable next year,” D’Accolti said.

Prepared by public relations intern Bethany Lunden

Shortly after the school year ends, SUNY Cortland’s Summer Institute for teachers begins. And all local educators should be aware of the program’s many benefits, from the $1,000 tuition stipend and professional development credit it offers to the high quality of teaching talent it attracts.

Teachers from all grade levels in all content areas are invited to apply to the three-week program, which focuses on digital writing this year and runs weekdays Monday, June 27, to Friday, July 15. The entire second week of the program, which starts Monday, July 4, will be delivered online.

The application deadline is Sunday, June 12, and space is limited. The program is open to current teachers as well as graduate students looking to enter the profession and even retired educators.

Up to six graduate credits, more than 80 professional development credit hours and a limited number of $1,000 stipends to offset graduate school expenses are available to participants.

“I like to tell people that Summer Institute attracts the colleagues you’ve always dreamed of,” said David Franke, a SUNY Cortland professor of English who leads the Seven Valleys Writing Project. “One of the values of our program is great diversity. These are enthusiastic, creative teachers who are self-selected.”

He’s quick to point out that a three-week seminar devoted to a craft like writing shouldn’t scare teachers away. Elementary school teachers and those from the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines bring added value, he said.

“Writing is a high-risk activity, and what we’re doing is creating safe space to take those risks,” Franke said. “We’re not quoting Shakespeare or correcting each other’s grammar. We’re writing to learn, writing to teach and writing to lead.”

That means focusing on personal writing, research and ways to write collaboratively with others. The Summer Institute will be offered in a hybrid format for the first time in its nine-year run, which means participants will spend the entire second week outside of the classroom. They’ll learn how to use technology to teach writing plus ways to incorporate online writing projects that involve blogs and web research.

“We’re not just telling them, ‘Technology is the wave of the future,’” Franke said. “We do it together in real time.”

Teachers are invited to explore several different forms of expressions during the three weeks, including creative writing, grant writing, memoir writing, letter writing and writing lesson plans. Past participants have traveled from several hours away each day just to attend. They praise the program for its encouraging environment and tangible results.

“Very few people have ever been part of a learning community that really works, and this works,” one Summer Institute graduate wrote in an evaluation. 

“We still have to pay homage to state assessments, but through the project, I’ve learned about ways to bridge the gap,” another wrote. “I’ve also become a better writer in the process, and can speak with students from a new position of personal passion and experience as a writer myself.”

One participant put it simply: “I never imagined working so hard during July and liking it so much.”

Complete registration information for the Summer Institute can be found on the Seven Valleys Writing Project website. For more information about tuition, payment or credit, or to ask any questions, contact Franke.

Earlier this spring, amid growing public concern related to the presence of lead in the drinking water of aging school buildings, participants in SUNY Cortland’s Joint Labor-Management/Environmental Health and Safety Committee raised questions about the College’s drinking water.

In response, the College tested water from 63 of the 232 drinking fountains in buildings throughout campus in, using standard methods approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. All campus buildings were represented.

We are pleased to announce that none of the tested fountains are currently above the action level set by the EPA. More than half show no presence of lead at all.

This indicates that SUNY Cortland’s water system – the infrastructure of pipes that feed the campus and its buildings – is free from widespread lead contamination.

Two of the tested fountains – old, seldom-used models in Corey Union and Van Hoesen Hall – initially showed lead levels that were above the EPA threshold of 15 parts per billion. (49 parts per billion in Corey and 29 parts per billion in Van Hoesen) Upon re-testing, however, both fountains tested below the action level. It should be noted that these two fountains were immediately taken out of service by the college after the initial tests. Although their follow-up tests were below the action level, both fountains will remain out of service until they are replaced.

Technically, there is no “safe” level for lead contamination. Lead’s health impacts depend on many variables, including the amount consumed, length of exposure and an individual’s size, age and health. To put SUNY Cortland’s findings in perspective, however, consider that the contamination levels that caused health problems in Flint, Mich. ranged from a low of 200 parts per billion to a high of 13,000 parts per billion.

Please keep in mind that the EPA’s action level is not a hard line for toxicity. Rather it is the level at which the EPA recommends action be taken to reduce the lead content of the water. More information about the EPA’s approach to minimizing the lead in drinking water is available on the agency’s website.

Although our water system meets EPA requirements, SUNY Cortland wants to make sure that no individual drinking fountains are contaminated by lead from sediment or old soldering connections. That’s why the College will test all campus fountains. That work should be completed sometime in 2016.

If anyone has concerns or questions, they may contact Glenn Wright, director of environmental health and safety at 607-753-2508 or glenn.wright@cortland.edu.

The physical education classroom can be a scary place for young students who identify as transgender. Fortunately, there are steps that preservice and elementary school teachers can take to calm those fears.

That’s according to an article published in the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance earlier this year that counts a SUNY Cortland faculty member and student among its authors.

John Foley, a professor of physical education, and Court Pineiro, an outdoor recreation major who identifies as transgender, co-authored the piece along with Melissa Foley, the College’s former field experience coordinator for physical education, and Dan Miller, an elementary school physical education teacher in Ithaca, N.Y.

The article’s intention was to help teachers work successfully with elementary school students who identify as transgender. Two different perspectives were offered: a current teacher’s, from Miller, and a student teacher’s, which Pineiro provided as someone who identified as transgender from an early age.

“We realized that we need this type of training in our field,” John Foley said. “That’s really how this article germinated.”

It’s common for teachers to assume that gender identity questions start in the middle school years or later, but the truth is that they often come up at a younger age, according to the article. Multiple studies suggest that many teachers and school administrators are not educated in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) issues, nor are they fully trained in creating the type of environment that experts say children who are transgender need to succeed.

“To be completely honest, even I didn’t realize children identify as early as they do,” Foley said. 

Foley said he remembers the discussion that prompted Pineiro to speak up in a physical education class focused on skills assessment. Other students were having difficulty conceptualizing what it’s like to work with a student who is transgender. That’s when Pineiro, who was born a female but started self-identifying as a male in kindergarten, shared his experience with classmates.

“I thought it was courageous,” Foley said. “Court’s a strong advocate for transgender rights, and it showed in that moment.”

According to the SUNY Cortland research team’s work, determining what is right for all children can be difficult. Personal beliefs sometimes conflict with fair and appropriate action. Students who are transgender and their parents might also receive mixed messages from different groups — full acceptance by some and hostility from others.

In the article’s student perspective, Pineiro offered teachers the following tips:

• Ask students for their nickname or preferred name during attendance on the first day of class, or give them the opportunity to share it in private. This establishes openness and acceptance from the start.
• Use a student’s preferred pronouns if they are known. Mistakes will happen. Corrections and quick apologies always are a good idea.
• Never create groups in a classroom by sorting students exclusively by their gender. Divide them in other ways.
• Bathrooms and locker rooms can create high levels of anxiety. Allowing a separate bathroom to be used for changing clothes can be helpful if students feel uncomfortable. Unisex bathrooms in a nurse’s office offer another alternative.
• Always intervene and follow up with students who are transgender if bullying takes place. This requires more than simply telling bullies to stop. It means following up with students who are bullying and taking appropriate action.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that students who identify as transgender show a higher risk of being bullied or committing suicide. But physical education teachers in particular assume a unique position to address the negativity that LGBTQ students sometimes face.

The teacher’s perspective that Miller prepared offered additional tips for educators working with students who are transgender. Those suggestions include the elimination of allowing students to pick teams; the creation of a universal bathroom for students who prefer not to use the one for their assigned sex; and the establishment of unified, school-wide communication that promises a comfortable environment for students of all genders.

More resources for teachers and school administrators can be found on the CDC website, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and “Stop Bullying,” a website intended to help teachers promote a safe classroom environment.

Another successful spring sports season is in the books for SUNY Cortland’s Athletics Department, highlighted by the College’s second individual national title of the academic year.

Nick Vachon, a junior physical education major from Johnson City, N.Y., won the national title in the high jump at the NCAA Division III Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships on May 27, leading his team to a 10th place finish nationally. SUNY Cortland’s women’s lacrosse, baseball and men’s lacrosse teams all finished in the top 10 of their respective sports, while its softball team placed 17th.

Vachon, who captured the College’s 102nd individual national title and its first in men’s track and field since 2009, was one of two competitors to clear 2.10 meters (6 feet, 10.75 inches) and did so on his first attempt, which earned the title.

SUNY Cortland’s women’s lacrosse team fell in the national semifinals to Middlebury College, 16-11, wrapping up an impressive season at 21-1. The Red Dragons tied for 3rd nationally in the NCAA Division III standings.

The College’s baseball team also tied for 3rd nationally at the NCAA Division III World Series, after being eliminated by eventual national champion Trinity University (Texas).

The College’s men’s lacrosse team was knocked off by eventual national runner-up Tufts in the second round of the NCAA Division III Men’s Lacrosse Tournament, finishing tied for 9th nationally.

SUNY Cortland’s softball team finished the season 38-11 and tied for 17th nationally in the NCAA Division III Softball Tournament after coming up just short in a four-team NCAA regional hosted on campus.

For complete coverage of the College’s 25 varsity teams, visit the SUNY Cortland Athletics website.

SUNY Cortland will welcome more than 1,200 new first-year students and 600 new transfer students and their families to campus for Orientation this summer.

Beginning Monday, June 20, and continuing through Friday, July 15, new students and their families will learn about life as a SUNY Cortland student. Discussions will range from expectations and policies to resources for support and strategies for success. Students will get to know each other and there are opportunities to meet faculty and staff members.

Twenty-four orientation assistants will be on hand throughout the program to help the new students and their families learn about the realities of college life.

The campus community is asked to join Advisement and Transition in welcoming the incoming class.

For more information, visit cortland.edu/orientation or contact Advisement and Transition at 607-753-4726.

New this year, SUNY Cortland faculty and staff can get a $20 discount when they send a child to one of the College’s Summer Sports Camps.

Held in SUNY Cortland’s professional-caliber competition venues, the camps, coached by SUNY Cortland athletes, help children and teens hone their skills in volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, lacrosse, field hockey, swimming and diving, tennis and gymnastics.

Pricing varies from camp to camp. Faculty and staff interested in the new discount can email summersportscamps@cortland.edu to receive the promotional code.

For more information, visit cortlandreddragons.com/summercamps, or call 607-753-2739.