http://www.binghamton.edu/inside/index.php Stories from Binghamton University Magazine en-us magazine@binghamton.edu (Binghamton University Magazine) Copyright 2011 Binghamton University Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:40:14 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/not-the-dining-hall-you-remember magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/not-the-dining-hall-you-remember#When:15:53:25Z Newing Dining Hall? Gone. But see what has taken its place. The Chenango Champlain Collegiate Center is open and ready to feed Newing and Dickinson students this fall. In addition to dining services, the building has offices, multi-use rooms and a stage for the Dickinson Community Players. Even the water fountains are updated with water bottle-filling stations. Here are some other features: • Each community will have its own entrance (Newing on the left, Dickinson on the right), and its own color scheme. • The academic center, accessible from both sides, includes seminar rooms for tutoring, benches and computers, tables with data/power and a printer room. • The Newing side includes a new Broome Closet, a soundproof practice room. • The Dickinson side includes space for the CoRE (computers, robotics and engineering) special-interest housing module. • The large multipurpose room that includes a stage for the Dickinson Community Players can be divided into six smaller spaces as needed — each with multimedia capabilities — and includes ramp access to the stage. • There will be a shared kitchen and serving area, with separate dining rooms that will each accommodate about 400 people in varied style seating. A connecting, outside patio can be accessed from both dining rooms. • The Kosher Kitchen has two separate kitchens in the building, separated from the main kitchen. • The kitchen will include several stations: deli, pizza (with a wall oven), pasta, expeditions (Mongolian Wok), entrees, beverages, granary, international, soup/salad bar, grill. • The common dish room includes a more efficient conveyor system that can move 300 trays at a time into the cleaning area. • Health Services will have a room on each side for outreach efforts and programming. • Each side has a meeting room, and offices and storage for its hall government, as well as for its faculty master. • There is a gas fireplace in the large Dickinson lounge. • A large table being built from local trees will be the centerpiece of the large Newing lounge. • There will be a refurbished, working phone booth on the Newing side, salvaged from one of the former Newing buildings. • There are elevators and meeting rooms on each side. • Skylights provide natural lighting. B-Lines Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:53:25 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/a-bucket-list-binghamton-style magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/a-bucket-list-binghamton-style#When:20:02:07Z Before you leave Binghamton, you should ... What are some of the things every student should do before graduating? Here are 11 ideas from the Class of 2011. 1. “Go to the Troll Bridge.” –Evan Feinberg 2. “Turn 21 and instantly be too old to be at The Rat.” –Anthony Zampardi 3. “Hike to the top of the Nature Preserve at midnight with friends.” –Evan Ashton 4. “Be in Weekend Warriors in Pipe Dream.” –Allison Rothstein 5. “Start in the Anderson Center and try to get to the Union without going outside for more than a minute.” –Joe Monte 6. “Earn your passport from the Ale House.” –Gavin Boehm 7. “Go to the Cider Mill in Endicott. The doughnuts are so good.” –Michele Aronson 8. Explore downtown Binghamton. “It’s a great area to walk around, especially on ‘Gorgeous Washington Street.’ Be sure to stop by M.Y. Boutique at 134 Washington St., a student-run business.” –Anna Dallis 9. Go gallery hopping. “On the first Friday of every month, from 6 to 9 p.m., downtown Binghamton offers art exhibits, music, and wine, cheese and coffee tasting. It’s the most fun you will have downtown prior to the bars opening.” –Jonathan Guerrera 10. “Go star-gazing at the Kopernik Observatory or on campus on the Dickinson co-rec field.” –Su-Ann Wong 11. Take a river walk. “There’s this cool walkway that starts from the Court Street Bridge and runs south along the river downtown toward the Memorial Bridge on Riverside Drive. It ends up bringing you to this cool park if you want to just relax. Highly recommended.” –Kenneth Baumann By Matthew Coleman, Class of 2011 B-Lines Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:02:07 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/where-in-the-world-are-bearcats-now magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/where-in-the-world-are-bearcats-now#When:19:56:41Z When Oktay Sekercisoy, MA ’00, MBA ’02, flies halfway around the world, which he does frequently, he always takes a little bit of Binghamton University with him. When Oktay Sekercisoy, MA ’00, MBA ’02, flies halfway around the world, which he does frequently, he always takes a little bit of Binghamton University with him. Sekercisoy knew the University was diverse — the native of Turkey came here as a student in 1998. But during his trips abroad as Binghamton’s associate director of dual-diploma programs in the Office of International Programs, he realized just how diverse it really is. “Last year, I traveled in 12 different countries and met with friends in Colombia, Canada, Turkey and India who graduated from Binghamton. This summer, I arranged a boat trip with three Binghamton alumni and parents of an alumna in Turkey,” says Sekercisoy, who also is a citizen of Canada. And thus, the Traveling Bearcats project was born. Sekercisoy unfolds his Bearcats banner in a distinctive foreign setting and has a photo taken. The pictures go on Facebook for a group he created, called Traveling Bearcats. “Wherever I went, I received a great reception and comments not only from Binghamton students and alumni but from strangers who heard about Binghamton University,” he says. Sekercisoy hopes students and alumni will take Binghamton items wherever they travel and show how far the University reaches and how deep their pride runs. His next stops: China, Korea and Singapore in December. Look for Traveling Bearcats on Facebook.com. B-Lines Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:56:41 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/new-president-named magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/new-president-named#When:21:40:14Z Harvey G. Stenger Jr. will leave UB to lead Binghamton University. The State University of New York Board of Trustees on Tuesday appointed, upon the recommendation of Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, Harvey G. Stenger Jr. as the seventh president of Binghamton University, effective Jan. 1, 2012. Stenger has been interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University at Buffalo since April 2011. “Dr. Stenger brings remarkable experience as both and educator and a leader to Binghamton University, and the Board is extremely proud to be appointing him to the post,” Board Chairman H. Carl McCall said. “I congratulate Chancellor Zimpher and the search committee for this very promising conclusion, I thank President Magrath for his dedicated service to the campus, and I look forward to working with Dr. Stenger as we move Binghamton University even further into the national spotlight.” “Harvey Stenger is the innovative leader we have been searching for to lead Binghamton University, one of SUNY’s most highly regarded institutions and one of New York’s greatest assets,” Chancellor Zimpher said. “Dr. Stenger promises to be a dynamic catalyst for the campus and Southern Tier. He is student-focused, holds a deep commitment to the liberal arts, and brings with him the experience necessary to forge critical partnerships within the community and around the globe. I thank the Board for its confidence in Harvey, and look forward to working with him as he takes Binghamton University to the next level of academic excellence and national prominence.” “Harvey Stenger is a first-rate choice for this first-rate University, where it’s been a tremendous pleasure for me to serve as president of for the second time,” said C. Peter Magrath, who is retiring as president of Binghamton at the end of December. “I know that I am leaving this place that I love in excellent hands. Harvey Stenger’s strong background in teaching, research and service is evidence of his exceptional abilities, and his understanding of the SUNY system coupled, with his administrative experience, underscores my belief that he will lead Binghamton University to even greater accomplishments.” “I am honored to have been chosen as Binghamton University’s next president,” Stenger said. “Binghamton’s focus on student success and high quality academic and research programs make it one of the finest public universities in the United States. The selection of a university president is a landmark moment in an institution’s history, and I am humbled and honored to have been selected to lead Binghamton at this important time. My goal is to lead the University to even greater levels of excellence by working collaboratively with Binghamton’s impressive faculty, staff, students, alumni and volunteers. Together, we will develop and implement a plan to strategically advance Binghamton’s position as one of our nation’s top public universities.” A native of Auburn, N.Y., Stenger arrived at the University at Buffalo in 2006 as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is a chemical engineer by training, earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University in 1979 and his doctorate in the same discipline from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He holds registration as a professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the administration at UB, Stenger was a professor at Lehigh University’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, where he also served as dean for six years and served terms as co-chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and director of the Environmental Studies Center. While dean, the college launched an award-winning Integrated Product Development program, expanded cooperative education programs, and received the largest gift ever made to Lehigh — $25 million — from P. C. Rossin to establish an endowment and name the P. C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. While at Lehigh, Stenger also oversaw the founding of the Pennsylvania Technology Alliance, which promotes economic and technology development. His research has focused on hydrogen production, selective catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides, mercury reaction pathways, catalytic destruction of chlorinated hydrocarbons and fuel-cell modeling and optimization. Under Stenger’s leadership at the University of Buffalo, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences significantly improved student quality and program rankings at the undergraduate and graduate levels. During his tenure, the size and quality of the engineering faculty increased, and the school recruited to its faculty two members of the National Academy of Engineering. Stenger has led the engineering school’s ongoing $100 million capital campaign, which generated support for the construction of the new 130,000-square-foot Barbara and Jack Davis Hall. In partnership with UB’s dean of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Stenger also launched UB’s innovative new program in biomedical engineering. He has enhanced the school’s student and faculty diversity and expanded its international programs in Turkey, India, and France. Stenger is a member of the boards of the Buffalo-Area Engineering Awareness for Minorities and the UB Foundation. He has been honored as a distinguished alumnus of Cornell University; has received multiple awards at Lehigh for student advising, excellence in teaching and unusual promise of professional achievement; and been recognized in Buffalo and from professional associations for his teaching, mentorship and public and professional service. Stenger will move to the Greater Binghamton area with his wife, Cathy. His daughter Elisabeth lives, works and goes to graduate school in New York City, and his daughter Hannah is in graduate school at UB. His state salary will be $385,000, and he will be authorized to receive $50,000 in supplemental compensation from Binghamton University’s allocation of funds within the Research Foundation. Since there is no presidential residence at Binghamton, he will also receive a $60,000 annual housing allowance.   B-Lines Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:40:14 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/india-rising magazine@binghamton.edu (Jim H. Smith) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/india-rising#When:19:18:06Z Binghamton students who travel to India to study it as an emerging market get a lesson no books can deliver. From the boardrooms of modern Indian commerce to the nooks of a 350- year-old public bazaar, 26 Binghamton School of Management students spent 10 days last January immersed in one of the most important emerging markets in the world. They were participants in the trip to Delhi that is the centerpiece of Assistant Professor Vishal Gupta’s Doing Business in Emerging Markets: India course, and they were fortunate. Demand for the popular course quickly outstripped capacity when it was offered last fall, and enrollment was soon capped. Gupta was not surprised. Doing Business in Emerging Markets: India was an immediate success when he introduced it two years ago, and students who took it quickly became grassroots advocates. The course features an innovative curriculum that includes lectures, readings, videos and case studies of corporations and organizations doing business in India. But the big draw — the experiential learning opportunity that builds upon all of the classroom work — is the required 10-day trip during winter break. “Schools across the U.S. talk about how we need to prepare students to compete in the global world,” Gupta says. “Many purport to introduce students to the dynamics of business in remote markets, but often they only pay lip service to it. At some schools, students study abroad at another university. Sometimes they travel as a group on tour or with an instructor they meet when they arrive at the remote location. “Our course is different. We recognized that it’s very hard to bring a different country into the classroom just by talking about it. So we use the classroom to prepare students, and then we take them to India ourselves, offering them an opportunity for sustained, involved interaction.” A taste of India The Gali Paranthe Wali bustles with commerce, but it’s about as commercial as a used clothing store. Therein lies its charm. It’s a cramped alley in the Chandni Chowk, the famed 350-year-old public market that sprawls over acres across from the Red Fort within the walled city of Old Delhi. And it’s the kind of gritty culinary destination — like an unadorned barbecue pit on the outskirts of Memphis or a neighborhood spiedie joint in Binghamton — where pilgrims travel seeking the authentic taste of a city or a region. Christian Hall was such a pilgrim. The treasure for which he had waited in the scrum for half an hour was parantha — the fried flat bread from which the street takes its name — served warm and glistening with clarified butter called ghee. With each delicious bite, he was satisfied that he had achieved his goal of traveling to India to “get immersed in the culture.” Perhaps few places in Delhi offer visitors a better opportunity to dive into the culture of the region than the Chandni Chowk. Its thousands of shops, large and small, offer everything from fabrics and clothing to electronics, consumer goods and an array of regional consumables that boggles the mind. And it is choked with denser throngs of shoppers than most Westerners are accustomed to encountering, even in major cities. Hall, a senior accounting major, says he plans to concentrate his education on global management. “If I’d never been to India, it would be different,” he says. “That experience changed me.” Digging into the culture Gupta could not be better qualified to lead the sojourn. Born and raised in Delhi, he returns to his hometown annually and maintains strong connections with family, friends, educational institutions and businesses in and around the Indian capital. His students benefit from those connections. On the trip last winter they toured seven companies and met with senior executives including Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL, the giant global technology company, who generously spent time talking with them and answering their questions. They also interacted with students from Fostiima Business School, a leading Indian center for business education, and visited many cultural sites including the Taj Mahal, the huge Akshardham Temple Complex and the Kingdom of Dreams, a new tourist attraction that describes itself as the “ultimate entertainment destination.”  But Gupta is quick to note that the educational experience transcends both the visits to Indian companies and the side trips to cultural sites. The trip is far more than the itinerary would suggest. A unique feature, key to the educational value of the experience, is the pairing of each Binghamton student with an “e-buddy,” an Indian student with whom he or she begins corresponding well in advance of the trip. Through dialogues, via e-mail and social networking sites, the Binghamton students get a more personal sense of Indian culture and business practices, and the Indian students learn more about America. They also serve as hosts, accompanying the Binghamton students on visits to neighborhoods in Delhi, where they get a deeper taste of Indian culture than any tourist might expect from a more narrowly structured excursion. Gupta and the other professors who accompany the students — Assistant Professor Danielle Dunne on the first trip and Associate Professor Surinder Kahai on last winter’s — also lead such field trips. A highlight of the experience is the alfresco rooftop dinner Gupta hosts for the students at his family home. “When our students visit India, they aren’t going to a faceless school,” he points out. “They are going to a place where they already have a friend. There’s a personal connection, so students are not just passive recipients of lectures by me or other professors. They really get to dig into the culture of India.” Preparing leaders for globalization Students who’ve taken the course return from India enthusiastic about the experience. Many, Gupta says, express an interest in returning there. “Foreign countries are often very different from what you see on television,” says Dilafruz Sultanova ’11, a native of Uzbekistan. “When Professor Gupta’s course was offered, I was eager to take it because I wanted to experience India firsthand. Just as I had expected, I discovered a country very different from what is portrayed in the media. I had imagined, for instance, that India was advancing quickly because it was adapting Western management styles and ways of thinking about business. But I came away convinced that while India is learning a lot from the West, Indian business leaders are very circumspect. They want to make sure that Western ideas and products fit within their culture.” It’s a perception that Rafal Pisarski ’02, MBA ’10, shares. “I’ve worked abroad, and I found Professor Gupta’s course to be especially illuminating,” he says. “When you better understand people from other countries and cultures, you better understand yourself. You expand the ways in which you think and how you view the world. That’s what the Doing Business in Emerging Markets: India course does. It is much more than simply a business course.” “As we prepare leaders for globalization, the School of Management is committed to preparing students for leadership roles in global business,” says Upinder Dhillon, dean of the School of Management. “Increasingly, what we’ll see is managers working with teams across continents. In order to prepare our students for those opportunities, we must familiarize them with not only the way business is conducted in those regions, but the broader culture, as well. That’s what Professor Gupta’s course achieves.” The course has arrived at a propitious moment. The University has been building bridges to India for years, and last spring a trio of new engineering-related initiatives aimed at building on that groundwork was announced. The initiatives commit Binghamton to aiding Indian educational institutions in the development of new educational collaborations and a state-of-the-art engineering research center. “India has become an economic, educational and intellectual powerhouse over the last decade,” Binghamton President C. Peter Magrath said when he introduced the new initiatives. “This is India’s moment, and universities in the United States will be remiss if they are not part of it. Binghamton University is deeply interested in being part of this movement and is developing the kind of collaborative partnerships that unite researchers in New York and India.” India is not the only emerging powerhouse in the world, though. Gupta believes his course has already proven itself to be a successful model, and he hopes the template can be expanded in the future to focus on other emerging global economies, including China, Brazil and Russia. “Many of the things we are doing in this course have never been attempted,” he says. “We learn something each time the course is offered, and we get better at it.” Features Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:18:06 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/design-on-demand magazine@binghamton.edu (Brian Crawford) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/design-on-demand#When:19:06:37Z New computer-aided engineering lab with state-of-the-art software offers more opportunities for collaboration When Ron Miles struggled to get his hands on a realistic mock-up of a working hearing aid, he knew who could deliver it: an undergraduate working in his lab. Miles, distinguished professor of mechanical engineering and associate dean for research at the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, is working with colleagues at Cornell University and the University of Bristol, in England, to develop tiny microphones that can help hearing-aid users better distinguish voices in a crowded room or on a busy city street. But getting hearing aids for research is difficult. “We wanted a hearing aid to put our microphone in,” Miles says, “but companies can’t give us their detailed proprietary designs.” So Miles turned to Jeremy Ecock ’11, a mechanical engineering student with experience using computer-aided engineering (CAE) software. Using a photograph of a hearing aid and their CAE skills, Ecock and fellow student Matthew Smith developed a three-dimensional digital representation that was, in turn, sent to a machine shop to create a life-size prototype made of plastic resin. “It looks just like a hearing aid, but can hold our microphone,” Miles says. “To see a physical object being made from your drawings — nothing was more satisfying than that,” Ecock says. The success was made sweeter by the fact that Ecock found the CAE software difficult when he started learning it in mechanical engineering Associate Professor Roy McGrann’s class. “When I first started, I hated it. I wasn’t good at it,” he says. “I always hear how students struggle and work hard in his class,” Miles says of McGrann, “but in the end they find it educational and enabling. But if Roy weren’t here, we couldn’t do this.” Miles means that literally: He prefers to not work with CAE software, so he relies on undergraduates and graduate assistants for most of his CAE and computer-aided design (CAD) needs. “Having undergraduates who do [CAE] work has greatly benefited my work. What we are doing is very challenging, and having students who have the ability to design and fabricate small plastic parts has made those challenges easier.”  Ecock has been working with Miles on his hearing-aid project for two years. As a junior, he worked to design a laser mount to help Miles develop directional microphones. It involved securing a live mosquito and using lasers to measure the response when its antennae are exposed to sound.  Ecock, working with Smith and fellow mechanical engineering student Jared Klein, designed an auditory probe using Miles’ directional microphone. The device measures differences in sound-wave pressure to distinguish between direct and reflected sounds. A probe like this could make it easier for doctors to detect hearing problems in children for early diagnosis and treatment. For their efforts, the team received a MacDonald Family Prize for Excellence in Senior Design in spring 2011. Ecock’s experience in undergraduate research is not unique. Students throughout the University are encouraged to participate in research programs, and Binghamton has made increasing opportunities for undergraduate research a priority. Last year the University received a $1.4 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to fund undergraduate interdisciplinary research in the life sciences. This fall it opened the new Computer-Aided Engineering Instructional Laboratory, in which engineering students can use the most powerful CAE and CAD software available. Some of it is part of a $25.9 million gift from the Siemens GO PLM Partnership Program, the largest in-kind donation in University history. McGrann says the opportunities to hone CAE and CAD skills, as a result of the gift, will give students a competitive advantage when it comes time to look for jobs. “This is state-of-the art equipment — students could build an entire airplane, designing everything from the engines and fuselage to the wires that run the electrical systems and the bolts that hold it together.” “It’s much more realistic in terms of what I expect graduates will encounter in the global workplace environment,” he says. Ecock also is optimistic. Now in his fifth year as a mechanical engineering student in the 4+1 BS engineering + MBA program, his work on the hearing aid has piqued his interest in acoustics and bioengineering. “This is a very difficult time to get a job, even for engineers,” he says, “but knowing CAE and having these experiences in Professor Miles’ laboratory will be beneficial. Hopefully, this will put me on someone’s list.” Features Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:06:37 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/a-woman-of-many-words magazine@binghamton.edu (Diana Bean '81) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/a-woman-of-many-words#When:17:12:04Z Distinguished Service Professor Susan Strehle ensures more than 1 million essays from the AP English Literature exam are graded fairly and consistently. When it comes to scoring more than 1 million essays on the Advanced Placement English Literature exams, Susan Strehle has the final word. That’s because Strehle, distinguished service professor of English, general literature and rhetoric, is the chief reader of the test. Not only does she help develop the standards by which the essays will be scored, she chooses the thousand-plus people who will do the scoring. In the hierarchy of the people hired by the College Board to score the exams, she is at the top of the organizational chart. She has an assistant, 6 question leaders, 134 table leaders, 1,231 readers and a week to score the approximately 360,000 exams that were taken this year by high school students. With three essays per exam, that adds up to about 1,077,000 essays to be read. “There’s an enormous emphasis on trying to standardize the grading among all the people reading it,” Strehle says. To do that, Strehle and her team establish rubrics with 9 score points for each essay. They start by culling both good and not-so-good writing samples before the actual scoring starts. “What you want is a sample that is either good in writing and good in thinking, or weak in both. You’re looking for samples that will help everybody get a quick, clear sense of scores at each of the 9 points,” she says. All of the readers are either AP English teachers in high school or teach at the college level. About half belong to each category. Thomas Jordan, MA ’07, PhD ’11, traveled to Louisville in June for his first — but probably not last — stint as a reader. Jordan is an adjunct lecturer at Binghamton; for the record, he took AP math, not English, in high school. “I was surprised that I had a lot of fun,” Jordan says of the grueling hours of grading. “I was expecting it to be fairly difficult to read 7 days straight for 7½ hours.” He also was surprised by the scale of the effort. In addition to 1,000-plus English literature readers, there was an army of English language test readers. They work out of a convention center, where enormous rooms are partitioned off into smaller rooms — one for each essay topic. “It was done seamlessly, from what I could see,” Jordan says. Readers are guided by table leaders. Table leaders can turn to question leaders for clarifications and guidance. Question leaders answer to Strehle. “The table leader and question leader try to keep the whole room in sync. Which, of course, is impossible,” she laughs. Strehle started scoring tests as a reader in 1982 and moved up through the ranks. In 2012 she will serve her fourth and final year as chief reader. As the number of students who take AP courses continues to grow — 3.2 million tests were taken in 2010, up from 1.2 million in 2000 — the demands of scoring the tests also have grown. “When I started, there were probably 50 people in a room. Now there are 350 in a room,” she says. “We use headphones now so it’s not bedlam,” Strehle adds. And did she mention that the essays are handwritten? “We don’t take off for bad grammar, bad spelling or bad handwriting. However, a student who has a lot to say can sometimes write so fast that his handwriting is hard to read.” “It’s a huge amount of fun,” she says, describing readers as conscientious and committed to the AP program. While the readers are paid for their work, they also enjoy the networking and exposure to other ideas in their field. She’s never wanted for new applicants, she says. “Susan Strehle sets a tone of professionalism,” Jordan says. “Nobody there was slacking. Everyone was genuinely motivated and committed to being fair to the students.” In the nearly 30 years that Strehle has been involved in scoring AP exams, she says the percentage of students who earn a 5, the highest score, has remained about 8 percent. There are more students at the other end of the scoring spectrum, getting 2’s or 1’s. “That’s both a good thing and a bad thing,” she says. Scores below a 3 won’t be accepted for credit by colleges. But Strehle says no matter what score a student receives on an exam, that student has been exposed to a higher standard of learning. “We think they get something really good out of being in the AP classroom and having a challenging approach to reading and analyzing literature and writing.” Features Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:12:04 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/fast-track-freshmen magazine@binghamton.edu (Diana Bean '81) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/fast-track-freshmen#When:16:29:24Z Many of Binghamton's incoming freshmen are technically sophomores before their first year is done. Joshua Paley started at Binghamton University as a freshman in fall 2010. By his second semester, he was a sophomore. Technically. Paley is not unusual. That’s because he and more than half of his incoming classmates started college with Advanced Placement credits. The average number of AP credits was 15 — about the same number of credits a full-time freshman earns in a semester. For all of the ways a university sorts students — by program, major, residential community — the category that really counts is academic year, as determined by credits. Paley found out that having sophomore standing as a first-year student gave him an edge. “It’s a big advantage for registration for classes. It’s a bit of a competition to register for the class you want and at the time you want,” he says. AP classes are designed to give students challenging, college-level work while they are still in high school. After completing an AP course, a student has the option of being tested on the material. A grade of 3, 4 or 5 means the student can ask her college to accept the AP credits for college credits in lieu of class work. For parents, it can be appealing to think that a child going to college with a semester’s worth of credits might graduate a semester — and a tuition payment — early. Some students do, but at Binghamton, most use AP credits to enrich their college experience, not shorten it. “They use the credits as a cushion to advance themselves,” says Cheryl Brown ’74, MA ’88, recently retired from a decade as director of admissions. “They can study abroad, do a more extensive internship, do honors classes in their major or complete a double major. These are kids who love learning.” Maturity doesn’t always match academics Binghamton is rich with AP learners. In fall 2010, 59 percent of incoming freshmen had college or AP credits. And in a list of the 200 colleges and universities receiving the most AP scores, as compiled by the College Board, Binghamton ranks 130th. All freshmen start off on an equal footing, but AP credits quickly become stepping stones to other opportunities. Extra credit 3.2 million AP tests were taken in 2010, up from 1.2 million in 2000. 3,200 colleges and universities accepted AP credits in 2010. In a list of the 200 schools receiving the most AP scores, Binghamton ranks 130th. 59% of incoming Binghamton freshmen in 2010 had AP credits. 15 is the average number of Binghamton credits awarded for AP scores of 3 and higher — about a semester’s worth. 3 top AP subjects taken by Binghamton freshmen are U.S. history, English literature and composition, and calculus AB. The more credits you have, the earlier you can sign up for your second and subsequent years of on-campus housing, says Sharon O’Neill, associate director of residential life. And, as Paley discovered, there’s the coveted opportunity to register early for classes. “It gives you a leg up if you can move into the next level faster,” says Terry Webb, assistant vice president for student life. The perks aren’t all for the students. A department that doesn’t have to teach an introductory-level class to every freshman can put its resources elsewhere. “Harpur College plans its course offerings carefully, and AP credit influences how many sections we offer in certain courses,” says Jennifer Jensen, associate dean for academic affairs. “We would have to offer more sections of calculus if so many students did not come with AP credit in this area.” Professors appreciate the academic skills of AP scholars. “We have had many department chairs tell us that our students are capable of doing work at a much higher level than at other colleges at which they have taught,” Brown says. Academic skill, however, isn’t always on the same plane as maturity. “Some of the brightest students are young in their social skills and not very mature in their conscientiousness,” says Susan Strehle, distinguished service professor of English, general literature and rhetoric, and chief reader of the AP English Literature test. “What you ideally want is for academic skill to go together with maturity and responsibility, and in the best of all worlds it would.” Learning that so many Binghamton freshmen are on the fast track to becoming sophomores has led the University to tweak a few policies in an effort to balance a first-year student’s maturity level with a second-year student’s privileges. Some opportunities cannot be accelerated by AP credits. Joining a fraternity or sorority, keeping a car on campus and applying for some scholarships require a student to have a particular number of Binghamton University credits. Those are credits earned for actual class work on campus. “While they may have academically completed things,” Webb says, “the reality is they have not had the on-campus living experience, which is valuable in many ways that contribute to graduation.” Features Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:29:24 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/more-than-a-phd magazine@binghamton.edu (Merrill Douglas, MA ’82) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/more-than-a-phd#When:16:03:42Z For graduate students, sometimes the most useful advice isn't about the dissertation. Working toward a PhD, a student gains intellectual muscle and, at the end, a diploma proclaiming that he or she is a practicing scholar. A fortunate student might also gain a bonus: a relationship with a faculty mentor who shares everything from practical advice to enduring wisdom. The advisor might help the student keep a dissertation on course, learn to make valuable connections at conferences or land a great job. And although it’s not inevitable, sometimes the student and advisor become good friends.  For Louis Matzel, PhD ’87, a bond with his graduate advisor, Ralph Miller, started on Matzel’s first day in Binghamton. Miller spent hours that Saturday helping his new student hunt for an apartment. Later, at a restaurant, Miller refused to let Matzel contribute toward the bill.  “He told me, ‘When you get your PhD, you can take me to dinner,’” Matzel says. “I still owe him that dinner.” By Matzel’s account, he also owes Miller a good deal more. Miller’s deep involvement in his grad students’ work, and the spirit of discipline and fun that he brought to his psychology lab, helped Matzel add a PhD to his master’s in just three years while having a terrific time. Miller, distinguished professor of psychology and director of graduate studies, runs a tight laboratory. Matzel isn’t sure what magic Miller used to keep his graduate students moving on schedule toward their degrees. “It was clearly by design,” he says. “We didn’t have any stragglers, and I know that’s really unusual.” The prospect of conducting experiments often intimidates psychology students, and that fear is one of the biggest barriers to finishing on time, Matzel says. But in a lab like Miller’s, which completes an experiment on average every day and a half, the work becomes second nature. “It was just what we did every day. We all liked doing it, and Ralph liked being part of it.” That appreciation for the nuts and bolts of research has stuck with Matzel. It makes his current job as professor of behavioral neuroscience at Rutgers University a delight. “I’m amazed that they pay me to do this stuff,” he says. Guiding students as they grow into skilled researchers is a crucial aspect of Miller’s work, but his role as graduate advisor also takes many other forms. “Helping students learn to present themselves well and build bridges to other academics is important,” Miller says. So is teaching them to make good use of academic conferences. “I get them to at least two conferences a year, using money from my grants to pay their way,” Miller says. He urges students to give presentations at some of those events, rehearsing and critiquing them for as long as it takes to get their performances right. Learning how to teach “The type of advisor you are depends greatly on the type of advisor you had,” says Martha Escobar, MA ’00, PhD ’02, associate professor of psychology at Auburn University. She and Matzel both emulate Miller’s style. Furnishing the essentials For Ralph Miller, distinguished professor of psychology and director of graduate studies, playing host to new PhD students is standard operating procedure. “This may sound corny, but I see my role as sort of a surrogate father until they get on their own two feet,” he says. Besides taking new arrivals apartment hunting, Miller also helps them locate furniture, leading trips to the Salvation Army or steering them to former students who are leaving town. Prize finds include some well-traveled pieces that once belonged to Miller’s parents, he says. “They are now in their fourth or fifth generation of graduate students’ homes.” “I take my students to conferences and take them to meet people who will be important for their future,” Escobar says.  “In my laboratory, as in Ralph’s, no one ‘owns’ a research project,” Matzel says. He and his grad students collaborate on design, execution and analysis. “We could contrast this approach with one where an advisor gives a student a topic and tells him or her to go into the lab and pursue it,” Matzel says. That sink-or-swim strategy sometimes works well, he says. “But I like to think that multiple heads, and hands, are usually better than one.” Of course, besides serving as models, excellent teachers also help students learn to think and act for themselves. So it’s no surprise that some of Miller’s alumni have embraced different teaching modes. “I have admired and benefited from his hands-on style,” says Aaron Blaisdell, PhD ’99, associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. But that’s not the tack he takes in his own lab. “I’ve tended to be more of a Type B personality and use gentle nudges and prodding to direct my students,” he says. Blaisdell also teaches by example, sharing drafts of his grant proposals and manuscripts and leading his students through extensive group discussions. “I set a style and culture in the hope that the students will pick up the bits they find useful while they learn to find their own style.” Stay focused, find a job When you’re writing a dissertation in philosophy, it’s easy to start musing so deeply on the work that it becomes your entire universe. “That’s very unproductive in the grand scheme of things,” says Elizabeth Randol, PhD ’01. So Randol looks back with thanks on the way Bat-Ami Bar On, her advisor, helped her “slice and dice” the project into manageable chunks and focus on getting it done. “She said, ‘I’ll miss you when you’re gone, but you need to get out of here and get a job,’” says Randol, policy director for Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord and director of the state’s Women and Money project. Helping students stay on track to finish their degrees and find work is an important aspect of the graduate advisor’s mission, says Bar On, professor of philosophy and women’s studies, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and chair of Judaic studies at Binghamton. It’s part of the bargain she strikes with all of her PhD students. “We are going to map your education semester by semester,” Bar On tells them. “I’m responsible to get you to the best possible place that you can get into in four years.” Long before Randol started writing her dissertation, Bar On suggested how to lay the groundwork for that project. For example, when Randol wrote papers for her courses, Bar On encouraged her to choose research that would help her later with her capstone project. So when the time came to start the dissertation, Randol already had a hoard of raw material to draw upon. “It helped me to craft a much broader end-product that had been thought about over a number of years,” she says. In 1999, Randol got her first teaching job when Bar On recommended her to fill in for a colleague at the University of Scranton who was going on sabbatical. “She’s a fantastic teacher,” Bar On says. Randol says she is grateful to Bar On, not only for her scholarship and teaching, but also for the wisdom her advisor passed along. “I’ve only continued to grow more appreciative of that as I’ve moved through my professional life.”  For Matzel, Miller continues to take his colleague and former student’s interests to heart. Take the time Matzel found himself without any grants. “Ralph lent me money to run my lab,” Matzel says. If Matzel sends Miller a grant proposal or paper he is writing, Miller responds with generous comments and suggestions. “I almost feel it will be an imposition, because I know how much time he’s going to put into it,” Matzel says. Luckily, Matzel sometimes gets a chance to return the favor. More than 20 years after he earned his PhD, Matzel is no longer surprised by Miller’s generous spirit. But, he says, he’s a bit surprised at how their relationship has endured. “He’ll always be a friend of mine. I don’t know that everyone would say that about their graduate advisor.” Features Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:03:42 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/conviction magazine@binghamton.edu (Doug McInnis) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/conviction#When:20:52:25Z Federal prosecutor Nick Lewin '96 couldn't understand what he was hearing when, after a month-long trial of an al-Qaida operative, the jury foreman kept saying, "not guilty." As a kid, Nick Lewin ’96 didn’t know what he wanted to do when he grew up. But he did know what he liked to read — books on crime. Espionage and the mob topped the list. As it turned out, his youthful reading habits and his future vocation intertwined when Lewin signed on as a federal prosecutor in New York. “If you looked at my reading, you would have found signs that I would have ended up in this office,” Lewin says. But in his new career, he has focused on something he didn’t read about as a kid — terrorism. Last year, he was part of the prosecution team that won a conviction against al-Qaida operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The attacks killed 224 people and wounded more than 4,000. Ghailani is appealing his conviction. In the immediate aftermath of the bombings, hundreds of FBI agents were dispatched to East Africa — the largest overseas deployment in the history of the FBI. For his role in the bombings, Ghailani was charged with more than 280 counts of conspiracy and murder. But he had gone into hiding in Pakistan. Over the next six years, he served al-Qaida in a variety of roles including as Osama bin Laden’s cook and bodyguard. In mid-2004, he was captured after a 14-hour firefight with Pakistani authorities. From 2004 to 2009, he was held first at a secret CIA “black site” and then at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Over time, the case largely slipped from the news, though it stayed on the radar of the Justice Department, which doggedly pursued it. Meanwhile, Lewin was on a roundabout path that would eventually land him at the Justice Department. He earned a master’s degree in public administration from the University of North Carolina and a law degree from Yale. He served as associate director of the White House Council on Youth Violence and, in the months after the shootings at Columbine High School, he worked on an FBI project that sought to find common denominators among youths involved in school shootings. “The hope was that you would be able to design violence-prevention programs based on real-world school-shooting cases,” Lewin says. Nick at Binghamton At Binghamton, Nick Lewin ’96 split his time between being a part-time disk jockey and a full-time student. As a DJ, he worked campus-wide events and at the Rathskeller Pub in downtown Binghamton. “I paid much of my college expenses with the profits,” he recalls. But most of his time was spent on his studies. He had dual majors. One was political science, the other a hybrid that combined philosophy, politics and law. A course on the philosophy of religion nearly tripped him up. “I’m not sure why I struggled with it so much,” he says. “But here’s my deep, dark secret — I failed it.” One of his favorite Binghamton courses dealt with a theory of justice advanced by Harvard Philosophy Professor John Rawls. The other, which combined law and literature, focused on the issue of justice in fiction. The reading list included To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter and, of course, Crime and Punishment. “I still have all the books we read during that class. They occupy a prominent place, both on the bookshelf and in my Binghamton experience.” Four years ago, he signed on as a federal prosecutor in New York, where he has worked on white-collar and violent-crime cases. He also represented the Justice Department on the President’s Guantanamo Detainee Review Task Force, which assessed the viability of holding federal court trials for suspected terrorists incarcerated at U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. In 2010, Lewin was assigned to the team prosecuting Ghailani, the first and so far only Guantanamo detainee to be tried in the federal court system. The Ghailani case turned out to be a legal and logistical thicket. First, Lewin had to coordinate witness testimony — no small chore given that most witnesses were spread across Kenya and Tanzania, and 12 years had passed since the bombings. “I spent weeks in East Africa going to homes in remote villages, meeting with dozens of witnesses, as well as with husbands, wives and children of the victims,” Lewin recalls. The case might have fallen apart, but several factors kept it intact. One was the FBI’s ongoing effort to maintain contact with potential witnesses. “Two of our case agents could go to East Africa 12 years after the bombings, go to people’s homes and be greeted as friends,” Lewin says. The other factor was the desire of African witnesses to come to New York to testify. “They came for many reasons,” Lewin says. “But the transcendent reason was that they had a powerful sense of justice and that testifying was a way to achieve that.” When he returned from Africa, Lewin joined prosecutors and investigators for last-minute trial preparations. “There were multiple, consecutive all-nighters in preparation for certain aspects of the Ghailani trial,” Lewin recalls. “I became a proficient trial-room floor-sleeper. I was able to lie down on any floor, grab an article of clothing to use as a pillow and get an hour of pretty solid sleep.” Then, on the eve of the trial, the judge ruled the prosecution’s key witness could not testify. The judge concluded Ghailani had disclosed information under CIA coercion that led the government to identify and locate the witness. (Ghailani’s lawyers said he had been tortured.) The witness was scheduled to testify that he sold Ghailani hundreds of pounds of TNT in the months leading up to the bombing. Even without the key witness, the case went forward. Lewin delivered the prosecution’s critical opening argument, which outlined the government’s case. He began with a description of the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the morning of Aug. 7, 1998. U.S. Ambassador John Lange had just sat down for a meeting. With him was his Swahili interpreter, then eight months pregnant. A young American Marine stood guard. Outside, a two-and-a-half ton truck pulled up to the embassy’s front gate. The truck had been turned into a massive bomb. “At 10:30 in the morning, that truck bomb explodes with vicious and lethal force,” Lewin told the jury. “The explosion rips through buildings and blows apart walls. It tears through people … By the time the smoke clears at the embassy that morning, 11 people are dead and scores more are injured.” The ambassador, his interpreter and the Marine survived and testified at the trial. Lewin then shifted to the defendant’s role. Ghailani, he said, was part of an al-Qaida terror cell that orchestrated the Tanzanian bombing and another bombing 10 minutes earlier at the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. Lewin said Ghailani acquired the truck used in the Dar es Salaam bombing through a cash deal with a street-corner used-car salesman. He also bought about twenty 150-pound tanks that were filled with gas — some with pure oxygen, others with acetylene — and crammed them into the truck. When mixed, these gases produce a white-hot flame that can melt steel. The actual attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. After a month-long trial and five days of deliberations, the jury’s verdict was read. On count one, Ghailani was found not guilty. Count two — not guilty. Count three — not guilty. Count four — not guilty. “My brain initially didn’t have a chance to catch up with the verdict as the foreman was reading it,” Lewin recalls. “By the time my brain did catch up, the foreman said, ‘Guilty on count five.’” Count five specified that Ghailani had conspired to destroy government buildings and that his actions had resulted in the death of another person. As it turned out, it was the only guilty finding among 280 counts in the indictment. But it was enough. It carried a maximum life sentence, which the judge imposed. Ghailani is imprisoned in the federal “Supermax” facility in Colorado, where his fellow inmates include Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Now Lewin is on to other investigations. As is often the case with prosecutors, he can’t talk about them. But he can talk about the job: he says he loves it despite the pressures, grueling workload and months away from home. He is where the action is. “New York is a huge city, so you get huge problems. You have terrorism, organized crime, financial scandals and public corruption,” he says. “There’s no job in the legal world that I would rather have.” This story was based in part on federal court records and the Ghailani trial transcript. Features Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:52:25 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/signed-sealed-buried-delivered magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/signed-sealed-buried-delivered#When:20:07:44Z When members of the Class of 1984 heard Newing College was going to be rebuilt, they remembered they had left something behind at graduation: A time capsule. To unearth a buried time capsule, you need the right tools: Shovels, flashlights, Facebook. It helps if you remember exactly where you buried it. And it really helps if there’s a construction crew on site, ready to lend assistance with a metal detector and earth-moving equipment. That’s how members of the Class of 1984 managed to retrieve their time capsule from the Newing College construction site 27 years after they buried it. And it was no capsule — it was a full-size galvanized garbage can, shrouded in plastic and interred about 3 feet underground. The impetus for the time capsule, says Steven Cohen ’84, was probably a book called The Quartzsite Trip by William Hogan. “It was a coming of age book, which we all read that year.” When Cohen says “all,” he’s talking about eight housemates at 13 Murray St. and five at 130 Oak St., plus a wide circle of friends. “We spent so much time at one another’s house that we sometimes had trouble recollecting who lived in which house. “I recall Elliot Amster coming to 130 Oak St. after finals had ended to ask us for sacrificial items, which reflected our college experience,” Cohen says. “I donated my ‘Up and Coming’ football jersey, which meant everything to me at the time after quarterbacking our team to a loss in the A-League intramural championship to Lush, which was quarterbacked by my good friend Elliot. “The plan was to dig a hole in the middle of the night to bury the capsule,” Cohen says. “We intended to dig a deep hole in order to slide the capsule in vertically. Within the first five minutes of digging, I knew that there was no chance of digging 5 feet into the rocky dirt. I was dripping sweat and made the executive decision to dig a more shallow grave and lay the garbage can down on its side.” Not all items — nothing made of paper — survived the years or the water and mud that managed to seep inside the can. But plenty of items were still intact — a Van Halen record, a can of beer (with the old-style pull tab), a pair of Nike sneakers and, inexplicably, a hamster ball from a Habitrail. William Ziegler, associate professor of computer science and faculty master of Newing College, and Terry Webb, assistant vice president for student life, were there when the time capsule was dug up in July. They were following through on a promise made two years earlier to help find the buried treasure. A reminder resurfaces In 2009, Kathy DeAmbra Carter was reminded of the time capsule when she found a list of names and answers to the question, “Where do you want to be in the year 2000?” It had been filled out the night before graduation, the same night the time capsule was buried. “The night before our graduation, many of us had high hopes for the year 2000,” says Carter, who fell short of her stated goal: Mars. Instead, she is director of human resources for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. This time, the capsules won’t be buried One thing that came out of the Newing 1984 time capsule was the idea to create more Newing College time capsules. Faculty Master William Ziegler has created two, one each for 2009-10 and 2010-11, using lengths of PVC pipe with caps on the ends. The first one was filled by students and alumni to mark the last time Newing was intact before construction began. The second was filled by students (although Ziegler threw in a cell phone.) The tubes won’t be buried; they’ll be stored somewhere out of the way in the Chenango Champlain Collegiate Center and opened in 10 or 20 years, Ziegler says. Using Facebook, she found many of the 30 people on the list. Plans were hatched to try and find the capsule during their 25th reunion at Homecoming 2009. “During the reunion, Steve Cohen, Gregg Lieberman, and I went to Home Depot in Binghamton and bought flashlights and shovels. It was a blast!” she says. But unsuccessful. “Matt Chartan, a mathematics graduate student, had the job of triangulating the corners of Delaware, Endicott and Chenango in order to be able to relocate the burial spot,” Cohen remembers. But even with the help of a metal detector and people from the buildings and grounds facilities, it couldn’t be found. “It’s always a little dicey driving picks and shovels into the ground around campus,” Webb says. “I told them we could look when the buildings came down.” “I never thought in a million years they would ever find the thing,” he says. Ziegler took the muddy items home to clean them up as best he could. Of all the items, he enjoyed the symbolism of opening a plastic Easter egg and finding a tiny, shiny Star of David pin. Not everything was so neat and sweet. “The thing I was washing when my wife saw me was labeled 34C,” he laughs. What’s next for the time capsule and its contents? That’s still being decided. But in the meantime, the contents and the memories live on — in the digital time capsule, also known as Facebook. B-Lines Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:07:44 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/alumni-and-professor-honored magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/alumni-and-professor-honored#When:19:49:21Z Each year, the Alumni Association honors those who represent the spirit of service. Each year at Homecoming, the Binghamton University Alumni Association honors those who represent the spirit of service that is a cornerstone of the University’s mission. This year’s winners are: Judith Bernstein-Baker ’66 received the Edward Weisband Distinguished Alumna Award for Public Service or Contribution to Public Affairs. She is executive director of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Council Migration Service of Philadelphia. Anthony S. Kendall ’83, MBA ’85, received the Glenn G. Bartle Distinguished Alumnus Award. Kendall is chief executive officer at Mitchell & Titus LLP in New York, a member firm of Ernst & Young Global Limited. He is immediate past president of the Alumni Association. Stephanie Skiba ’07 is the first recipient of the Lois B. DeFleur Distinguished Young Alumna Award. She is a third-grade teacher in the Bronx, where she leads a program that empowers students and faculty to give back to the community. Sean Hembrick ’09 received the Alumni Admissions Volunteer Recognition Award. He has assisted the University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions with recruiting students in the New York City area. Marilyn Gaddis Rose received the Distinguished Service Award. Gaddis Rose is Distinguished Service Professor in Comparative Literature at Binghamton University and has been a member of the Harpur College of Arts and Science’s faculty since 1968. B-Lines Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:49:21 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/problem-solver-civil-war-death-toll-too-low-historian-says magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/problem-solver-civil-war-death-toll-too-low-historian-says#When:19:34:41Z Historian tackles the problem of "recounting" the number who died in the Civil War. The problem: The death toll for soldiers killed in the Civil War has long been cited as 620,000 — a number also considered to be inaccurate because neither the Union nor the Confederacy kept standardized personnel records. The researcher: Binghamton University historian J. David Hacker. The research: Hacker analyzed census data to arrive at what he says is a more accurate number of deaths, about 750,000. His findings will be published in December in the journal Civil War History. The strategy: There are problems using census data to estimate mortality, Hacker explains. “You can track the number of people of certain ages from one census to the next, and you can see how many are missing. But the potential problem with that is that each census undercounted people by some unknown amount, and an unknown number of people moved in and out of the country between censuses.” However, new data sets produced in the past 10 years or so, instead of giving the aggregate number of people in certain age groups, identify each person and his or her age, race and birthplace. Hacker realized that civilian deaths were so low relative to soldiers’ deaths that he could compare the number of native-born men missing in the 1870 Census relative to the number of native-born women missing and produce an estimate from that. Hacker looked at the ratio of male survival relative to female survival for each age group. He established a “normal” pattern in survival rates for men and women by looking at the numbers for 1850–1860 and 1870–1880. Then he compared the war decade, 1860–1870, relative to the pattern. His new estimate of Civil War deaths contains a wide margin: 650,000 to 850,000, with 750,000 as the central figure. –Rachel Coker B-Lines Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:34:41 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/will-you-be-my-neighbor magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/will-you-be-my-neighbor#When:19:13:59Z Book looks at evolution through the lens of Binghamton neighborhoods. In his new book, The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time (Little, Brown & Company, 2011), David Sloan Wilson, distinguished professor of biological sciences, contends that evolution is not just about DNA, but about PTA — that evolution is both in our genes and in our involvement in our schools and communities. His book tells the story of the Binghamton Neighborhood Project, a collaboration between Binghamton faculty and community members putting evolutionary theories to work for the improvement of the city. B-Lines Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:13:59 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/just-what-the-doctor-ordered magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/just-what-the-doctor-ordered#When:19:12:21Z There's a new partnership between Binghamton and SUNY Upstate Medical Center. A closer relationship between Binghamton University and SUNY Upstate Medical University will benefit students. Both institutions will be able to expand and diversify their curricula in the neurosciences through the use of videoconferencing technology, according to a memorandum of understanding signed this summer. An additional agreement provides a pathway for an exceptional Binghamton University student to be automatically admitted into SUNY Upstate Medical University’s highly competitive Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program and reserves, at minimum, one slot per year for an exceptional student to enroll in SUNY Upstate Medical University’s College of Graduate Studies to pursue a PhD in the biomedical sciences. The SURF program enrolls just 10 students a year from a pool of more than 100, and last year the College of Graduate Studies enrolled an entering class of 21. B-Lines Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:12:21 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/high-water-and-good-will magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/high-water-and-good-will#When:18:26:44Z When 8.7 inches of rain fell on Sept. 7 and 8, there were 23,139 people forced out of their homes. Nearly 2,000 ended up at shelters on the Binghamton University campus. In the two months since floods devastated communities in the Southern Tier, Binghamton University students, faculty, staff and alumni continue to provide support to those affected — and to learn from the experience. Whether it has come from individuals, student organizations, performances at the Anderson Center for the Performing Arts, visits by alumni during Homecoming Weekend, collections in departments and offices on campus or other initiatives, money has been raised, supplies have been delivered and volunteers have grabbed gloves and shovels to help with cleanup. The Center for Civic Engagement began serving as a clearinghouse for volunteer efforts almost immediately, and continues in that role. Director Allison Alden sees a long road ahead. “I want to emphasize that we will continue to be busy for weeks,” she said. “It’s clear that it will take a long time for us to recover and rebuild, and I see students playing a very vital role. “There are a lot of students helping,” she added. “We maintain an extensive database and within the first few days of the flooding, about a thousand students asked to be added to our e-newsletter (there are now over 3,500 subscribed).” Alden, who herself could not get to campus for several days after the flood, said the center was fortunate to have its infrastructure in place to establish solid communication with potential volunteers. “The fact that we had our website ready meant we could share information immediately,” she said. “And we update it daily with new information. We’ve been getting over 1,000 hits a day, and when we put out our e-newsletter, it spikes even higher.” First-person account When floodwaters forced more than 20,000 people from their homes on Sept. 7 and 8, almost 1,800 took refuge on the Binghamton campus. One of the evacuees was our staff photographer, Jonathan Cohen. He spent his days documenting life at the shelters and his nights sleeping in his office (with his dog). See a slide show and read his first-person account here. The center also gets calls from the community and is in regular contact with outside agencies such as the Red Cross and other nonprofits. “We probably still have one of the most accurate websites around. I see our role as managing information, making sure information is available and working closely with student groups who want to do something and don’t know how. “We guide them and mentor them through it,” she added. “It’s really amazing how our students step up. They couldn’t all help at the Events Center when it was a Red Cross shelter, but they didn’t give up. It’s just amazing to see them want to make a difference — and that will continue.” For some students, the opportunity to make a difference is paying off academically. A 2-credit service learning internship course called Community in Recovery: Southern Tier NY After the Flood of September 2011, was developed to respond to the recent flooding, and it filled up immediately. In the six-week course, University faculty members frame the issues from perspectives in a variety of disciplines including psychology, geography, geology/environmental studies, public administration and leadership studies. Then community professionals speak about the disaster within the local context. Students participate in cleanup projects and do coursework in addition to listening to speakers. A small sampling of student initiatives, some in the immediate aftermath of the flood, and others continuing, include: • Rock the Flood, a 10-act event organized by Binghamton University students and friends, took place on Oct. 9. • The wrestling team joined with the Red Cross and National Guard and helped close one emergency shelter in nearby Johnson City, readying displaced individuals and families for transportation to the shelter at the Events Center. Team members also loaded and unloaded donations at a local charity before heading out into the neighborhoods to help several elderly families begin to clean up from the damage. • The baseball team demolished damaged sheet-rock, ripped up and removed flooring, removed wet insulation and hauled out appliances for one family who lost nearly everything to the flood. • Student volunteers helped collect clothes for the “Share What You Wear” clothing drive. • The softball team worked side-by-side to help clean out flooded buildings. • Each weekend, dozens of students load onto buses outside the University Union to be taken to homes ravaged by the floods to help with cleanup. • The volleyball team saw its practice court in the Events Center turned into a Red Cross staging area, so instead of serving volleyballs across the net, they promptly served meals and supplies to the emergency visitors. • Members of the women’s basketball team helped at the Events Center, setting up beds, feeding the evacuees and escorting people to the first-aid station as needed. Alumni also stepped up to help their adopted hometown. A few examples: • Michael Nagler ’87, superintendent of the Mineola School District on Long Island, drove up on Friday, Sept. 23, with a truck full of school supplies, clothing and furniture. The furniture came from a school building that was closed in his district, and everything else was donated to be given to the Binghamton, Owego and Susquehanna Valley school districts. The president of the Mineola PTO, a Binghamton-area native, was also instrumental in getting parents together to help collect supplies. They felt fortunate that they escaped major damage from Hurricane Irene, but if they had been hit, they would have needed help — hence their desire to help people here. • Danielle O’Neill ’07, MsED ’10, posted on Binghamton University’s Alumni Association Facebook page that she is collecting baby clothing, formula, toys and anything infants and toddlers need, as well as cleaning supplies, ready-made meals and personal care items to donate to those in need. Binghamton University President C. Peter Magrath praised all volunteers for their efforts, but also noted that the University was not untouched by the floods and needed to relocate offices and classes from the University Downtown Center to the main campus. “The College of Community and Public Affairs, though temporarily displaced, will be moving back downtown to their permanent home as soon as repairs can be finalized,” he said (probably not in time for spring semester). “But what still strikes me is how quickly everyone came together to help — and how volunteer efforts continue. You inspire me and make me proud to lead this great University and celebrate the joint accomplishments of University faculty, staff and students who stood side-by-side with our community partners, volunteers and leaders toward a single common goal: to provide emergency relief and support to those in need.” — By Katie Ellis B-Lines Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:26:44 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/cinema-department-film-plays-new-york-film-festival magazine@binghamton.edu (Diana Bean) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/cinema-department-film-plays-new-york-film-festival#When:13:45:24Z An experimental film made in the early 1970s by Binghamton students and their teacher, legendary director Nicholas Ray, plays the Venice and New York film festivals, then goes on for additional screenings. It is accompanied by a documentary made by Ray's wife, Susan. The name of the film is We Can’t Go Home Again. But for the Binghamton alumni who helped make the experimental movie in the early 1970s, seeing a restored copy of it at the New York Film Festival was, in fact, like going home again. “I never thought I’d see this again,” says Pat Cannon ’80, who viewed it a few weeks earlier at the Venice Film Festival. “I got to relive the past life of 40 years ago.” We Can’t Go Home Again was the last major project of acclaimed director Nicholas Ray, best known for the classic Rebel Without A Cause. Ray was a rebel, himself, when he was invited to join Binghamton’s brand new cinema department in 1971. To teach his students about film, he decided they would make a film. Under Ray’s direction, it was an intensely personal, creative process that inevitably attracted attention and controversy. The film was shown, unfinished, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973, and Ray was still editing it when he died of lung cancer in 1979. How to watch an experimental film We Can’t Go Home Again is an experimental film not only because of its content but because of the way it was shot. Nicholas Ray used split screens and superimpositions — techniques that were difficult to do in the 1970s but that are simple and ubiquitous today. For that reason, the film may be easier for younger viewers to follow, says Susan Ray, widow of Nick Ray and creator of the accompanying documentary, Don’t Expect Too Much. “Their minds are more aware of taking in multiple images at one time. They’re more practiced in multiple story lines. What the film reflects is what Nick used to say, ‘We do not think in straight lines.’ We’re not awake to how multidimensional our minds are, and we miss a lot of what goes on around us.” Larry Gottheim, founder and former professor and chair of Binghamton’s Cinema Department, says: “There are many ways to understand experimental film. The many elements are held together by valuing the artistic rather than the commercial nature of the work. “One of the innovations of We Can’t Go Home Again is to create a film that has elements of Hollywood narrative with techniques that are influenced by avant garde cinema.” The film tends to draw an emotional reaction, Susan Ray says, which is what Nick Ray wanted. “Young people respond viscerally to it in a positive way. It’s not a cosmetically altered film; it’s raw emotionally and technically. Its lack of perfection and polish is part of its appeal, she says: “It seems young people have a hunger for what’s real; everything is genetically modified and airbrushed.”   To mark the centennial of Ray’s birth, his widow, Susan Ray, had the film restored. She also made a documentary called Don’t Expect Too Much, featuring many of the Binghamton alumni who worked with her late husband, to accompany it. Both films premiered in Venice, then were shown at the New York Film Festival and now will move on to television, DVD and other venues. The making of We Can’t Go Home Again was a wild ride that helped shape students’ lives and careers. “I wanted to make a living dancing and was successful at it,” Cannon says, “and in a way I have to give Nick Ray credit for it.” She recalls traveling to Manhattan with Ray and some of the other students to screen part of the film for a potential backer. “Nick was running out of money for film. He would go to his black book and try to call in favors.” At the screening room, the sound didn’t sync up with the film, so Ray told the women to sit in the front row and say their lines along with the film. “It was chutzpah to do what we had to do. That was Nick’s gift to me.” Cannon, who owns Pat Cannon’s Foot & Fiddle Dance Company, says she was a gaffer and in a few group scenes, but was mostly a writer for the film. The film had no real script. Much of the dialogue came from prompts that Ray used after he got to know his students, says Ken Ross ’73, who did sound for the film and has spent his career as a filmmaker. “He would get to know them and use the material from their lives, the conflicts they were having — twist them, triangulate them, instigate them — find things below the surface.” “Nick would dig around in people’s psyches,” Cannon says. What came out was captured on film. The story line in the film is a fictionalization of the lives of the actors. “Nick’s film is about the dynamics between a group of young people and their teacher on a microcosmic level and how each of them was searching for self-image — which he described as being as dangerous as a riot,” Susan Ray says. “It deals with a moment in our cultural history when the younger generation was alienated from the older generation. As one of the kids says in the film, ‘we want to do our own thing.’ They were withdrawing into a narcissistic time, and I think Nick captured the moment when that was really taking seed.” Binghamton embraces cinema The Cinema Department at Binghamton must have looked like a safe haven for Ray when he first visited. The department was the first regular academic department in the world to offer cinema as an official liberal arts undergraduate major, says Larry Gottheim, a founder, former professor and department chair in cinema at Binghamton. “The emphasis was on cinema as fine art,” he says. Early hires included filmmaker Ken Jacobs, who came from an art, rather than an academic, background, and Ralph Hocking, who started with photography and then moved into the nascent area of personal video production. “So this was, from the start, an unconventional program,” Gottheim says.  When it came time to hire the next faculty member, many experimental film artists were considered, he says. “I had read that Nicholas Ray was at loose ends … and had had a difficult time in Hollywood in recent years.” He invited Ray to visit campus. Ross recalls the visit: “There was a two-week period where we watched as many of his films as we could get. They Lived By Night — we memorized every frame.” “When he came, he made us get out all the equipment (much of it acquired from New York state surplus) and began thinking of uses for it. He fascinated the students,” Gottheim says. Ray was asked to join the faculty with the understanding that he could be innovative within the constraints of a university program but without Hollywood-style restrictions. “The administration saw his hiring as part of their vision of making Harpur College a distinctive and innovative liberal arts college,” Gottheim says. And Ray was excited. The wild ride begins At Binghamton, Ray was no aloof academic; his life became centered around his students. “He was such a towering and charismatic presence: eye patch, white hair, tall and lanky,” Ross says. “He was a force of nature, and you could get swept into it,” Cannon says. The movie began to take shape. “His first idea and guiding principle was to teach the kids how to make a film by making a film,” Susan Ray says. What it would be about shifted over time as Ray and his students got to know one another. “Working with Nick was a roller coaster,” Cannon says. “He’d give you his soul — the genius and the demons — and he brought out the genius and the demons in us, too. There were long nights in the Lecture Hall, a half gallon of Almaden white wine attached to his arm.” Ray rented a farmhouse in Vestal, where he and the students worked on the film. “He increasingly created an insulated world around himself and the students working for him,” Gottheim says. “Nick was a brilliant, lost filmmaker at the time,” Ross says. “He was out of the milieu where he had made his best work. He was addicted.” The relationship between Ray and the University began to crumble. Tensions arose within the department, and to some extent, rival “camps” developed between Jacobs and Ray. There were misunderstandings and confrontations. “Nick seemed to have a problem with authority, a subject of many of his films,” Gottheim says. As the demands of Ray’s film became greater, the project was consuming a disproportionate amount of the department’s resources, he says, “and he began to confuse my efforts to manage the use of the equipment with his prior problems with authority in Hollywood.” Ray left after just two years. He took the unfinished film to the Cannes Film Festival and continued to edit it until he died. Many of his students went on to careers in film and the arts. Susan Ray’s says her documentary is not an attempt to explain Ray but to convey more about what he had in mind. “Anybody who is worth their salt is going to be difficult to some people some of the time,” she says. “He was very honest, he was not a people pleaser. “It’s very difficult for people to imagine that somebody might be tired of Hollywood,” she says. “The last 10 years of his life, when he was heading away from Hollywood, they are incomprehensible to people, so they assume he had lost his talent or was too far gone in his addictions. The reality was that he was extremely creative in that period. He didn’t have the money to do what he wanted. “He didn’t want to let those kids down,” Susan Ray says. “He loved those kids. He knew that a lot of them had invested hope and energy and expectation in the film and he knew his vision hadn’t been fulfilled.”   Features Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:45:24 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/happy-new-school-year magazine@binghamton.edu (Magazine Staff) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/b-lines/happy-new-school-year#When:16:48:08Z A quick look at the newest (and brightest) students. The 2,450 freshmen who started classes on Aug. 29 have some of the most impressive academic credentials of any Binghamton undergraduate class ever. “Every year, Binghamton University attracts some of the most talented students from across the nation and around the world,” says Sandra Starke, vice provost for enrollment management. “But this year, we welcomed one of the most impressive classes in University history. With an average high school GPA of 94 and an SAT score of 1931 in math, verbal and writing, the Class of 2015 is particularly impressive. “Coming in at 422 points above the national average, their SAT scores alone are record breakers for the institution, and when combined with strong high school performances, it is very clear that this group of students will bring exceptional academic excellence to the classroom,” she adds. In addition to the Class of 2015, there were 950 transfer students and 900 new graduate students joining the Binghamton University community this year. In all, nearly 15,000 students began classes on Aug. 29. The University received more than 32,000 undergraduate and transfer applications; 28,024 from freshman and 4,582 from transfer students. The Graduate School had nearly 4,500 applicants, with high demand for master’s and doctoral programs, including computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, nursing, K-12 teacher education, clinical science, accounting, business administration, chemistry, materials science-engineering, economics and social work. Graduate School Dean Nancy Stamp explains that graduate degrees are becoming more valuable. “In today’s economic turbulence and global business world, recent bachelor’s degree graduates and professionals realize that a graduate degree furthers their marketability,” she says. “And while they are here, they contribute to exciting innovations and discoveries in their fields of study.” Of the incoming class, about 8 percent come from Broome and Tioga counties. Approximately 30 percent of the class is from upstate New York, another 22 percent is from Long Island and 19 percent is from New York City. Binghamton welcomes more than 1,000 transfer students as well, with a mean GPA of 3.4. Approximately 200 of them come to Binghamton University from Broome Community College. Binghamton has again welcomed a large number of new international students. The approximately 500 incoming international students represent 55 countries, with the largest numbers coming from China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, the United Kingdom and Turkey. –Ryan Yarosh B-Lines Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:48:08 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/lets-talk magazine@binghamton.edu (Kara Larson Maloney and Melissa Sande, both earning PhDs in English) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/lets-talk#When:19:34:31Z Two graduate students offer a point / counterpoint on the how the teaching of foreign languages should evolve. Point: It’s time to rethink which languages are vital While being able to read Dante or Virgil in their original language was once considered the mark of the truly educated, the old literary canon has evolved into a liberal arts curriculum for the 21st century. At SUNY Albany, the classics and Romance languages are being cut because of a decline in student interest. While I don’t advocate following suit and eliminating Binghamton’s programs, perhaps it’s time to consider offering only minors in some or all of these languages. It’s no longer appropriate to offer majors that have no widespread practical use in modern society. What do you do with a major in French or Russian? You could teach or become a simultaneous translator for the U.N. or work in literature translation. But are these options enough to sustain a major? We need to consider these questions: Though Binghamton just added majors in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, can it support so many language programs? Is it time to scale back Romance language majors in order to expand the Arabic major? Should advisors push students to pick a more practical language as a major? One possible answer: Collaboration among SUNY schools so that one school within each region of the state becomes a knowledge expert in a particular language, where students could thrive in a rich language environment. While some Romance languages seem to have little practical use, they are still part of the tradition of the liberal arts curriculum and can help Americans develop the multiple language proficiencies we find in so many other countries around the world. Don’t kill them, but cut them back, so that all language needs — the practical and the historically important — can be met. –Kara Larson Maloney is a second-year English PhD student at Binghamton University. Counterpoint: More languages mean more business Considering that most students look to the university not only to educate them, but to prepare them for careers, it is sensible for language departments to emphasize not only the Romance languages, but also languages such as Korean, Chinese and Japanese. SUNY Albany’s recent cuts to foreign language programs, and the University of Maine’s consideration of suspending bachelor’s degrees in several languages, speaks to how language study is thought of as unnecessary to an undergraduate education now. However, in an increasingly globalized world, it is hard to deny the tie foreign languages have to “professional” majors. The emphasis should now be on making room for language programs that match the emerging business worlds. According to Tracy Jan’s recent Boston Globe article, business is currently the most popular undergraduate major in the United States. With so many students choosing to go into business or economics, they must be made aware that business is an increasingly “transnational community” of workers, as described by Chrystia Freeland in the January/February issue of The Atlantic. American business, she says, is catching up with other countries that have typically led the way in this regard. “The younger generation of chief executives has significantly more international experience than the older generation, and the number of foreign and foreign-born CEOs, while still relatively small, is rising,” Freeland writes. While it is typically thought of as bad news for the future of the humanities that so many students are turning to other areas of study, business majors will need to be more familiar with diverse languages and cultures in order to succeed in the global market. Therefore, instead of offering just the languages of the majority of the world’s population or casting the Romance languages as only necessary as part of a high-quality liberal arts education, concentration ought to be on expanding language programs to accommodate greater diversity in the university and the working world. The humanities and would-be corporate executives would both benefit. –Melissa Sande is a second-year English PhD student at Binghamton University. Features Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:34:31 +0000 http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/new-tool-for-nurses magazine@binghamton.edu (Brian Crawford) http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/feature/new-tool-for-nurses#When:19:07:09Z Fulfilling a need, Binghamton trains its first class of psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners. Anxiety and anorexia. Depression and attention deficit disorders. Stress and schizophrenia. These and other mental illnesses affect more than 57 million Americans each year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. For those who suffer from it, the consequences of mental illness can be devastating, increasing the risk of unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness and suicide. “There is a great need for mental healthcare workers,” says Decker School Clinical Assistant Professor Linda K. Tuyn ’97. “Worldwide, depression is second only to heart disease as a public health problem. And in the United States, the causes of mental illness seem to keep increasing.” Helping to address this need, the Decker School of Nursing three years ago established its graduate-level Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program. In May, the program graduated its first two students. In addition, three other students received post-master’s certification as psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners. Following professional certification, all will be qualified to assess, diagnose and treat patients with mental illness. “This program has pushed me harder than any coursework I’ve ever had before,” says Kate Slotwinski ’07, ’08. A two-time graduate of Binghamton University, with degrees in French and nursing, Slotwinski admits to an almost genetic interest in psychiatric nursing. “Both my parents are social workers in Rockland County,” she says, “and my mother is a psychiatric nurse in private practice. So when Decker began the psychiatric nursing program three years ago, I was really excited to join.” The program involves classroom and online experiences, as well as 600 hours of clinical experience in hospital or outpatient settings. Students learn individual and group therapy techniques, mental and physiological diagnostics, and advanced health assessment. Job opportunities The aging American population has resulted in high demand for all types of nurses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates a 22 percent increase in employment opportunities for nurses during the next decade. Prospects for psychiatric nurses and psychiatric nurse practitioners are especially strong. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities value the knowledge and services nurse practitioners provide, so students who enter the field can expect a variety of job opportunities and excellent salaries. Psychiatric nurse practitioners are among the highest-paid positions in nursing, with an average salary of more than $85,000, behind only certified registered nurse anesthetists, according to Payscale.com. Currently there are 11 students in the program. “We want to keep the program relatively small so that we can maintain our attention to students and give them the faculty contact they need,” says Mary Muscari, associate professor and director of the O’Connor Office for Rural Studies at the Decker School of Nursing. Nonetheless, she expects the program to double in size in the coming years because psychiatric nurse practitioners are in high demand. Many of the program’s students are already practicing RNs or nurse practitioners. Students say the ability to earn advanced certification online is a strong selling point. “The online program fits my schedule,” says Leah Scilingo, a post-master’s student who has been a nurse and nurse practitioner for more than 30 years. “While it is more work doing everything on the computer, I feel it is worth it. The good part,” she laughs, “is that you can be doing your work and the laundry at the same time.” Apart from the boost to their careers that psychiatric nurse practitioner certification provides, students also are motivated by the personal rewards that come from helping troubled patients. “People with mental illness have to overcome huge challenges — they often have other illnesses, or have problems keeping jobs and have to deal with issues like homelessness. They deserve respect for their efforts,” Slotwinski says. The commitment and dedication of the students is not lost on their professors, Tuyn says. “Those who work with the mentally ill have a deep and abiding respect for people — you have to have compassion and concern to work with people in psychic pain. It is humbling and potentially spiritually broadening and helps you to learn about and be in touch with your real self.”   Features Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:07:09 +0000