Campus Champion

Fit and active his whole life, Ian White constantly swaps roles as college student, teacher and paid program assistant. He is the kind face encouraging the shivering student who hesitates on a high ropes course. He lends a hand when students learn to paddle a canoe, kayak or paddleboard or to ski downhill or cross-country style. A 2013 graduate in physical education from East Greenbush, N.Y., White likely will remain a friendly fixture at outdoor activities until he collects his master’s degree in environmental and outdoor recreation in December.  “I just keep taking things on and learning from everything,” White said.

SUNY Cortland Professor of Kinesiology Jeffrey Bauer knows what Parkinson’s disease looks like: shaking hands, a shuffling walk, soft speech. He sees the symptoms in his 85-year-old father, who was diagnosed with the progressive movement disorder five years ago.

So it’s for both personal and professional reasons that he’s leading a research team comprising four colleagues and assisted by several SUNY Cortland students. They’re not focused on finding a cure for the disease, which affects more than one million Americans. Instead, they’re looking to improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s disease in an innovative and active way.

“We know we’re not going to ‘fix’ people completely,” said Bauer, the project’s principal investigator. “Through application of our understanding of movement science, we’re seeking to temporarily reduce or remove the physical symptoms of the disease.

“We’re trying to maintain functional capability for as long as possible with the hope that one day a cure can be found.”

The project tests people with young onset Parkinson’s, ranging in age from 21 to 50 years old, on an elliptical-type machine known as the QuadMill. Initially designed for Olympic mogul skiers to perform high-intensity, low impact training, the machine targets the lower body.

Many researchers have prescribed exercise as a way to improve life with the disease. In most instances, however, recommendations such as two hours at the gym or a 20-mile bike ride prove unreasonable in both their time commitments and feasibility for an older population, Bauer explained. Enter the QuadMill, a moving platform that users balance on in a squatting position. It offers lower body strength and conditioning benefits in a fraction of the time required by traditional methods.

The new research also blends the study of biomechanics and speech pathology, relying on collaboration between two departments within the College’s School of Professional Studies.

“It’s great collaboration,” said Irena Vincent, an associate professor of communication sciences and disorders, who is collecting data on speech and voice while supervising the project with Bauer. “Our students are phenomenal, and the participants are just incredible.”

Parkinson’s, an incurable degenerative disease of the nervous system, frequently causes speech and swallowing problems along with physical movement issues.

Kindra Bell was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in March. The Ithaca, N.Y., resident discovered SUNY Cortland’s research project through a trial finder tool created by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to finding effective therapies and cures that was created by the popular actor who used his public struggle with the disease to raise awareness. Bell traveled to Cortland twice a week during a six-week trial.

She still returns to use the machine regularly even though the initial study ended.

“I would do more if you let me do more,” she told researchers while riding the QuadMill recently in the College’s biomechanics lab.

“Really, it’s been fantastic,” Bell said. “I see (Bauer and Vincent) twice per week and I’ve seen a neurologist only three times … They’re almost like my healthcare team.”

The training system also boosts confidence and mental health without prescription drugs. Besides the slow deterioration of motor skills, Parkinson’s decreases the flexibility of the vocal folds, which makes it more difficult to speak. This struggle can lead to social withdrawal and eventually depression in some cases.

“It’s empowering because people can do something to help themselves,” Bauer said.

For Bauer and Vincent, the project also fulfills a goal they set several years ago to lead meaningful, life-changing research together. Bauer served as Vincent’s faculty mentor when she arrived at SUNY Cortland in 2007. A colleague and study participant from a nearby college also played a key role in jumpstarting the research.

Bryan Roberts, the associate dean of Ithaca College’s Park School of Communications, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s six years ago. Today, he also works as a passionate advocate on the Michael J. Fox Foundation Board of Directors. Roberts connected with the Cortland research team after Bauer read about a 2015 keynote talk he delivered for ARISE, a Syracuse-based nonprofit that serves people with disabilities.

“I think the work that Dr. Bauer and Dr. Vincent are doing is on the vanguard of Parkinson’s disease research,” said Roberts, 36, a former collegiate baseball player who remains active in sports and still works long hours each week. “It’s the kind of work that can impact people immediately, and that’s what we value at the Fox Foundation.

“There’s a head and a heart behind it. That’s the cornerstone for good scientific inquiry.”

The project also brought in the expertise of other SUNY Cortland kinesiology colleagues: Philip Buckenmeyer, associate professor and chair; Erik Lind, an associate professor; and Mark Sutherlin, assistant professor. The work also attracted the interests of both undergraduate and graduate student researchers.

“We talk about these opportunities all of the time in our classes,” Bauer said. “We try to create opportunities that are more meaningful than just sitting in a classroom.”

The research team hopes to test more Parkinson’s patients on the QuadMill and gather additional data on its biomechanical, speech and psychological effects. Its overall goal is to maintain or improve the patients’ quality of life. Eventually, the machine, first tested as a possible Parkinson’s therapy at SUNY Cortland, could be seen as a widely accepted treatment for the disease.

“There are problems out there that can’t be fixed individually,” Bauer said. “But there are probably tools out there and other people who can help. And if we can bring them together, then we should.

“We should try to help people with our research, and this is a way I think we can do it.”

Few experts in the United States are better than Timothy Delaune at guessing how the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will decide cases.

By “few,” we mean 14.

Delaune, a SUNY Cortland assistant professor of political science, placed 15th in the nation at an online game on that subject called FantasySCOTUS — Supreme Court of the United States. It was the second consecutive year that he placed in the top 1 percent of all aspiring SCOTUS experts.

	Timothy Delaune

In FantasySCOTUS, players predict in advance how the SCOTUS — an old telegraph acronym now commonly used as a shorthand reference by political insiders — will decide lower court rulings, and whether each appeals court case will be affirmed or overturned.

“I’m definitely getting better, and it was in a year that was significantly complicated by the death of a justice mid-term,” said Delaune, a constitutional law specialist who serves as SUNY Cortland’s pre-law advisor and moot court coach. Justice Antonin Scalia, the court’s strongest conservative voice, died unexpectedly in February.

Delaune edged up from the 18th spot in predictions related to the prior year’s Supreme Court term to number 15 in this term, which ran from October 2015 to the end of June. The field of competitors included more than 5,800 people.

The game is an attempt by political science researchers to refine a computer program aimed at predicting the outcome of Supreme Court cases. Sponsored by Thomson Reuters, the competition is run by LexPredict, which uses algorithms to forecast the famously secretive body’s actions.

Since 2009, the company has offered attorneys, law students and other followers of the Supreme Court the opportunity to give it their best shot at guessing the overall outcomes as well as the votes of each justice in cases pending before the court.

Participation is free and contenders can earn cash prizes of up to $10,000 for correctly analyzing Supreme Court outcomes based on their observations and understanding of the cases, views of the justices and substantive federal and constitutional law.

It’s only Delaune’s second year competing at FantasySCOTUS. He was about 79 percent correct overall in predicting the votes of individual justices. Delaune accurately guessed every vote that Justice Scalia cast before his death and was roughly 84 percent spot on for the votes of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Scalia’s liberal, political opposite. His overall accuracy rate on court decisions was 83 percent.

“Last year, when I won the 18th spot I received a $100 gift certificate,” said Delaune. “This year they cut back on the prize a bit. I needed to get in the top nine or 10 spot to get anything valuable. But I do suppose I have bragging rights for having cast all of Justice Scalia’s votes correctly before his passing.”

A graduate of Georgetown University, Delaune has a law degree from University of Chicago, a master’s degree from Tufts University and a doctorate from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He practiced as an attorney in Concord, N.H., and Boston, Mass., for six years. His research interests are law and political theory. He currently is writing articles about Justice Clarence Thomas’s conception of dignity and the constitutionality of the Presidential Succession Act.

For FantasySCOTUS, Delaune said he sifts through past voting patterns, judicial philosophies, questions at oral arguments and other expressed views of the justices to arrive at logical conclusions.

Justice Scalia’s untimely death may have simplified this year’s predictions, Delaune said.

“Initially it was my reaction that it would complicate cases, but in some ways it created a built-in advantage,” Delaune said. “When the Supreme Court ties in an opinion, then the judgment of the lower court stands as it is. But that tie in the lower court’s opinion only stands in that part of the country.”

When there is a 4-4 tie, the justices don’t issue an opinion or publicize votes of the individual justices. So for the FantasySCOTUS competitors, no action is required.

One notable example was the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case, which was of great interest to campuses because they involved the fee public sector labor unions charge to members and non-members alike.

“Had Scalia lived to decide that case, there’s really no doubt in my mind, or really in most observers’ minds that public mandatory fees would have been struck down,” Delaune said. “Because Scalia died, that was a four-to-four tie.” The deadlocked case was ruled in favor of the labor unions.

“That was an important case, but perhaps not as important was others the court did figure out how to decide,” he said. “The justices really did go out of their way to try not to have the result of a tie in especially important cases.”

This also was not possible in a whole suite of cases surrounding the issue of birth control coverage under Obamacare, Delaune noted. “They tried to sketch out a compromise, then sent it back to the lower courts without a decision because it was clear they were going to tie four-to-four. So that was basically a “no decision,” but with strong encouragement from the Supreme Court for the lower court to try to address it, to reach a compromise.”

In terms of individual cases, the professor performed especially well on analyzing the court’s direction in the Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt case, involving abortion rights in Texas. On June 27, the court ruled 5-to-3 that the state can’t place restrictions on the delivery of abortion services that create an undue burden for women seeking an abortion.

“I got all the justices exactly right on that,” Delaune said.

He also correctly figured out where the justices would fall on a raft of decisions that turned on whether police in certain states could legally demand a breathalyzer test based on a traffic infraction stop. Law enforcement officers in North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota had laws on the books allowing them to jail a suspect for refusing the test without showing a warrant first.

“The answer is the police can’t draw blood from you without a warrant, whether they are pulling you over at roadside or taking you back to the station,” Delaune said. “But if the state wants to pass a law, the police can demand to administer a Breathalyzer test for a roadside traffic stop, because that is not considered too invasive. … It’s still going to vary state by state. That case was kind of a big deal.”

Most cases Delaune correctly predicted aren’t big deals, at least to ordinary people.

“I tend to be a little bit better at the very important cases or the very unimportant cases,” Delaune said.

Naturally, Delaune uses his pastime to keep on top of current rulings for the sake of students in his Constitutional Law I and II classes.

“I’ll be weaving all these in some lectures and discussions where I’ll tell my class that there are some changes in the law because the court made some decisions in this last term,” he said.

SUNY Cortland will open its 2016-17 academic year with the pomp and circumstance of an Academic Convocation on Sunday afternoon, Aug. 28, in the Park Center Alumni Arena.

All first-year and new transfer students, along with the SUNY Cortland faculty, librarians and professional staff, are invited to participate in this hour-long event, which will begin at 4 p.m.

“First-year students at SUNY Cortland mark the beginning of their academic journey with Academic Convocation,” said SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum. “The ceremony affords faculty and staff the opportunity to formally welcome incoming students to the College. This important milestone reflects that the entire campus community plays a supportive role in ensuring academic achievement.”

Anne Burns Thomas, the 2015-16 Faculty Student Connections Award winner, will deliver the Academic Convocation address. Speakers will include Bitterbaum; Prus; and senior Michael Braun, president of the Student Government Association; senior Court Pineiro; and Michael Sgro, representing the SUNY Cortland Alumni Association.

Marina Gorelaya, adjunct professor of performing arts, will provide the processional and recessional music. Hannah Truman, junior speech and hearing sciences major, accompanied by Gorelaya, will sing the national anthem and the Alma Mater. Several returning students have volunteered to serve as student marshals.

The Academic Convocation processional begins with the all-college gonfalonier, who leads in the faculty, followed by the Schools of Arts and Sciences, Professional Studies and Education gonfaloniers. Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Mark Prus will carry the all-college gonfalon, while the gonfalons representing the College’s three schools will be carried by John Cottone, dean of the School of Professional Studies, R. Bruce Mattingly, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, and Andrea Lachance, dean of the School of Education.

The processional concludes when the macebearer brings in the platform party, which consists of members of the College’s administration and faculty leadership, the College Council, visiting dignitaries and honorees. Caroline Kaltefleiter, professor of communication studies, will carry the mace, a ceremonial staff used as a symbol of authority.

The concept for an opening academic convocation, modeled after a ceremony held during the College’s earlier years, was developed from a recommendation by the College’s Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee. The tradition, restarted in 2003, is coordinated through the President’s Office. For more information, visit the Academic Convocation website.

Last year, SUNY Cortland recycling efforts kept nearly 175 tons of plastic, paper and cardboard out of the solid waste stream, according to the company that collects and hauls the College’s refuse.

That diverted mountain of recyclables is equivalent to about a third of the 534 tons of trash discarded by SUNY Cortland’s students, faculty and staff between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016, according to Rochester, N.Y.-based Waste Management.

Having trouble visualizing what that many recyclables might look like? Consider some other things that weigh about 175 tons:

• The largest great blue whale on record, an aquatic behemoth that stretched longer than a basketball court.

• The biggest aircraft on the planet, Russia’s massive Antonov An-225 Mira cargo jet, which beats the Boeing 747 passenger jet by nearly 56 feet.

• The building-sized statue of Abraham Lincoln seated inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Now keep in mind that paper and plastic weighs a lot less than marble, metal or blubber so the volume of trash SUNY Cortland’s recycling program kept out of area landfills is several times larger than those examples.

Maybe it would be easier to visualize the College’s recycling success with some different, and more meaningful, comparisons:

• Diverted paper from SUNY Cortland’s trash cans potentially saved the lives of 1,825 trees, according to Waste Management’s annual recycling report. That’s the equivalent of more than 2.6 million sheets of newsprint.

• By recycling a third of its trash, thereby preventing the need to process raw materials from scratch, the College saved about 718,000 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to meet the annual energy needs of 59 American homes.

• Similarly, recycling saved more than a million gallons of water from being used. That amount of water could supply a full day of showers, cooking, cleaning and drinking for 14,192 Americans.

Campus Artist and Lecture Series (CALS) Lecture Grant Applications are now available for the 2016-17 academic year. Applications are eligible for a maximum of $500 and are open to any club, program or department. These lecture grants will not cover performances of any kind.

Applications must be received by Thursday, Sept. 8, in order to be considered for September, October, November and/or December 2016 lecture programs. Applications received after this date may not be eligible for any fall semester funds remaining.

For more information or to request a hard copy of the CALS Lecture Grant Application, contact Sandra Wohlleber at 607-753-5574 or via email at sandra.wohlleber@cortland.edu.