Cortland in the news

09/10/2019 

Steven Canals spent six years on the SUNY Cortland campus helping students. As residence hall director of Shea Hall, he assisted students who were homesick or uncertain about their majors. He also worked as a program coordinator in the Multicultural Life and Diversity Office and was advisor to Spectrum, the university’s gay-straight alliance.

He has taken those same skills to a much larger audience.

Canals is co-creator and executive producer of Pose on FX, a breakout hit that has been nominated for seven Emmys. The show is centered around a cast of Black and Latinx LGBTQ and gender nonconforming characters in the dancing and modeling scene of New York City’s underground ballroom culture of the 1980s and 1990s.

GQ magazine recently featured his rise from SUNY Cortland RD to Hollywood showrunner.

In other news:

• Robert Spitzer, distinguished service professor and chair of the Political Science Department, was quoted in a story about the potential political response to recent mass shootings by French news agency AFP. He also spoke with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about the future of the National Rifle Association and rival gun groups in the U.S. Spitzer was additionally quoted in a story in The Washington Post about gun-themed ads on Facebook that were paid for by a joint fundraising committee run by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.
• Biru Paksha Paul, professor in the Economics Department, wrote a column on how to reform the finance ministry of Bangladesh in The Daily Star, the largest English-language newspaper in the country.
• Andrea Davalos, assistant professor in the Biological Sciences Department, teamed up with volunteers from FORCES (Friends of Recreation, Conservation and Environmental Stewardship) to research pale swallow-wort biocontrol efforts in Clark Reservation State Park in Jamesville, N.Y. Davalos is also working with FORCES to study invasive jumping worms at Taughannock Falls State Park in Trumansburg, N.Y. She will be a guest speaker for Wells College’s Science Colloquium series on Dec. 6. Davalos will deliver a presentation, “Gauging the Combined Effects of Deer, Earthworms and Invasive Plants on Native Vegetation.”
• Andrea DeKoter, a former lecturer in the university’s History Department, was featured in The Citizen (Auburn, N.Y.) after being named acting superintendent of the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park.
• The Cortland Standard mentioned SUNY Cortland faculty working with teachers in the Cortland Enlarged City School District to create curriculum that teaches students life lessons on social and emotional regulation as well as academic and career planning.
• Herbert Haines, professor and chair of the Sociology/Anthropology Department, was quoted in a Cortland Standard article about the declining crime rate in Cortland County.
• The Cortland Voice republished a SUNY Cortland press release about the university being ranked No. 5 in the nation for its master’s in coaching degree.
• Matt Rote M ’17 was named head athletic trainer at SUNY Cobleskill. Rote served as a graduate assistant athletic trainer at SUNY Cortland, working with the university’s men’s and women’s soccer teams, field hockey, softball and both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. He was the assistant athletic trainer at Cobleskill for the last two years.
• Danielle Flahive ’09 was featured in The Daily Gazette (Schenectady, N.Y.) for her rise in the world of dance. She has performed in Las Vegas in shows including “Jubilee!” and “Crazy Girls” and has also worked with artists including Cee Lo Green, Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez.
• Jason Licker ’98 was featured in Menu, Canada’s foodservice magazine, for publishing a cookbook, Lickerland. The book focuses on Asian-accented desserts and leans on his experience as a chef in Shanghai, China and Bangkok, Thailand.  
• Nick Marcantonio ’15 was an All-American track and field athlete during his time as a student at SUNY Cortland. He never stopped competing after graduation. Marcantonio won the prestigious Ironman Lake Placid 70.3 triathlon in a time of 4:16:40. The course includes a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bicycle circuit and a half-marathon run. He also won an Ironman 70.3 triathlon in Connecticut in June.
• Tom Bazzicalupo ’85 was featured in the Long Island Herald for his retirement from the North Bellmore Public Library, which he worked at for 28 years. He had originally planned to become a kindergarten teacher but instead became a librarian, creating a number of programs for children.