The mobile-friendly site at m.oswego.edu officially launched last fall to meet increasing demand from those accessing the college website on smartphones and tablets. Traffic via mobile devices to oswego.edu more than doubled from the previous year.

The mobile-friendly map feature has GPS functionality so students and visitors to campus can find events, lectures and athletic contests.

Other icons connect to emergency contact information, a staff and student directory, news, athletics, social media links and Penfield Library’s mobile presence.

A team of Oswego faculty, staff and students successfully climbed Mount Kilimanjaro this January as part of a course. Pictured first row, from left, are Gary Morris '88, master guide Protus and Mehran Nojan. Pictured second row, from left, are Ryan Lemon '00, Leila Karkia, Ariel Powers '12, Hannah Richard '13, Allison Tuttle '12, Ashley Krakau '12, Meg Aguila, Katie Loiacono Maxwell' 97, M '02, Stefania Cornnell '12; Jamie Baldanza and Alyssa Amyotte. Pictured back row, from left, are Anthony Catalano '12; Peter Richard, Brian West '12, Fabio Ritmo '12, Matt Kirkman '12, Chris Bankard '12, Robert Madonia '12, Steve Baker '12, Mac Dillman '12 and Nick Hackenfort '12.

The physical education course co-instructed by experienced climber and Director of Career Services Gary Morris ’88 covered mountain-climbing techniques and preparation in terms of fitness, health, nutrition, essential gear and travel to Tanzania to scale the highest peak in Africa.

At 19,340 feet high, Kilimanjaro is also the world’s highest stand-alone peak. The team’s ascent and descent took eight days and required assistance from a team of porters.

“One of our strengths is hands-on learning, and students learned about working as a team, how to prepare their minds and bodies for the trek and about the importance of setting and reaching goals,” said Lorrie Clemo, interim provost and vice president of academic affairs. “The next time they face a challenge during their college years or careers, they can look at everything they did to scale Mount Kilimanjaro and be confident they can succeed at anything.”

Team members also took time to visit a school in a Maasai village to distribute school supplies as well as to go on a safari.

Jack Narayan, distinguished teaching professor of mathematics, leads students through yoga during this summer’s math camp. In addition to project-based and team-based lessons, the incoming freshmen received tips on diet, exercise and study habits.

Faculty Fellow Shashi Kanbur coordinated a $600,000 National Science Foundation grant that launched the math camp while providing $4,000 scholarships to 14 new and 14 returning students pursuing a degree in the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, fields.

The immersive three-week summer program was geared more toward interaction and problem-solving than traditional lecturing, Associate Provost Rameen Mohammadi said.

For one problem — “Would all living humans fit in Lake Ontario?” — students had to calculate volume of the lake, number of people on earth, and other factors while using mathematics concepts like probability and estimation.

“These students were taught in a project-based, group-based, problem-based environment,” Mohammadi said. “There is no doubt that active learning works well in the learning process.”

Mohammadi said administrators would like to find ways to expand the program.

“If these students persist, year after year, both in their disciplines and at the college, that will show the ultimate success of the program,” Mohammadi said. “The goal is to keep students in the sciences. Obviously, the result so far is very promising.”

Uldrich Thompson Sr. 1879 gifted a hand-crafted clock made of Hawaiian koa wood to Oswego in 1928.

Thompson, at right with his clock, made his living in Hawaii, formerly the Sandwich Islands, teaching and providing educational leadership at the Kamehameha School for Boys. He began teaching there in 1889 and served as principal from 1898 to 1901. Charles King and Sam Keliinoi of the first graduating class at Kamehameha, now one of Hawaii’s largest and most prestigious private schools, came to the Oswego Normal School.

In addition to his teaching there, Thompson also completed the hand-bound history “Reminiscences of the Kamehameha Schools” in 1922. One anecdote shows his hands-on approach to even what one would consider mundane matters of object teaching. Then-principal the Rev. William B. Oleson, “came to Dormitory D and found me washing the two windows of my room,” Thompson wrote. “He stood a moment then asked in his concise way, ‘Why don’t you have one of the boys wash your windows?’… [I replied] …‘Because, if I’m to be responsible for the condition of the boys’ windows, I must first learn how to clean windows.’”

Excerpted with permission from an unpublished history manuscript authored by Tim Nekritz M ’05

More than 1,500 students, alumni, faculty and staff turned out for the “Oswego Family Portrait” to launch Inspiring Horizons: The Campaign for Oswego Sept. 30, 2005.

The first building he would see, the one in front of which his statue sits, would bear his name. Sheldon Hall also represents the oldest and first building on the college’s current site. The architecture would likely be the most familiar to him, even if the cornerstone was laid in 1911, or 13 years after his death. The hallways themselves would look like the insides of a school he knew, and he may have felt at home in the historic classroom.

Peering inside one of the modern classrooms or offices, however, would prove more startling. Computers, large-screen video boards, all manners of electronic devices would look unfamiliar, though he likely would approve of the benefits they provided to learning.

But since it was a nice day and the sun was shining on his face, let us assume Sheldon instead favored an outdoor stroll to the lakeshore. Walking several strides west would find him meeting an avenue that bears his name. If he took that left, the first thing he would see on his right is the Mackin Complex. This building houses two residence halls, Lonis and Moreland, as well as a full-service dining hall. Home to traditional features of the residential campus, the building houses around 140 students, many of them upperclassmen or graduate students. The magnitude of today’s residential campus with more than 4,300 students living on it may prove a slightly startling development compared to when most students lived off campus when his normal school was downtown.

On his left, he would find Rich Hall, home to the college’s School of Business. Over the years, it also served as the first campus library building and later home of University Police — could he imagine his little normal school having its own police force? The architectural stylings, part of a renovation more than a century after he passed, may have seemed a tad unusual.

He may be surprised that his teacher training institute now included this School of Business in addition to a School of Education, plus a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and School of Communication, Media and the Arts. The international nature of business, and how people in this building could close deals with a keystroke via the Internet, would perhaps prove mind-boggling. But as a longtime champion of having the most modern and helpful equipment, he would approve of its state-of-the-art nature. And that students learn by doing — the hallmark of the object learning method he helped popularize — would please him greatly.

If he continued to follow Sheldon Avenue toward the lake, he would see a familiar sight: His onetime home, Shady Shore. Today, Shady Shore is the home of the college’s tenth president, Deborah F. Stanley. While the thought of a woman president may have seemed far away for many 19th-century residents, we doubt Sheldon would be too surprised. Many female administrators were key to the college’s foundation, and he made no secret their value to the institution.

But Sheldon’s nostalgia over his homestead would likely be superseded by the sound of hundreds of voices further around the bend on Rudolph Road. There he would see well over 1,000 people, most dressed in yellow T-shirts.

The idea of a $17 million college campaign having its public launch that day may well seem hard to fathom in scope — as could the $23.8 million the campaign would raise before its conclusion. The first building purchased for the campus cost a mere $31,000. The college’s initial state annual funding of $2,128.50 was a lot of money in the 1860s.

But despite all the differences, there would be plenty in the scene the founder would have recognized. The easy camaraderie, the laughing, the grins among the people assembled would have been familiar. The marvelous backdrop, the splendid vista of Lake Ontario, would have looked the same. And maybe, just maybe, he would catch a certain spirit in the air, an affable joie de vivre, that he expected to feel among the community.

One can’t help but imagine Sheldon smiling at the whole scene. How far, yet fruitful, the journey to this place from a dream he had in the middle of the 19th century.

Tim Nekritz M ’05 is SUNY Oswego’s associate director of public affairs/director of web communication. This is an excerpt from his unpublished history of the college, reprinted here with his permission.

Woods’ story of self-discovery chronicles traveling to the Congo to work with her then-fiancé (now husband), which led to her discovering her interest and ability to work with the endangered bonobos.

Rameen Mohammadi of the ORI committee noted the book’s appeal included its focus on interdisciplinary topics and learning about other cultures. “You learn about these species, but you also learn about the Congo and how dictatorships have destroyed its natural resources.”

The college is working with Woods to give an author’s talk and also speak to classes some time in the fall, Mohammadi said. A summer study-abroad course led by Webe Kadima of the chemistry faculty, titled “Treating Diabetes with Medicinal Plants in Congo,” will connect some students with the homeland of the story as well. Other related programming could include film series, art and other speakers.

Shashi Kanbur has a yearlong Faculty Fellowship through the President’s Office in support of two key initiatives: the Possibility Scholars and Global Laboratories programs.

Kanbur conducts many day-to-day activities of the Possibility Scholars program, launched by President Deborah F. Stanley to provide full funding and research opportunities for outstanding students who may not otherwise be able to study in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields.

Shashi Kanbur

“I develop grants to help support the scholarships and work with others to find grant support,” Kanbur said. “I try to publicize Possibility Scholarships with our partners in the Syracuse City School District, Oswego City School District and Syracuse Academy of Science charter school.”

The program launched with four freshmen this year — with an emphasis on first-generation college students — and Kanbur is working on a larger class for next fall.

The Possibility Scholars initiative dovetails with the Global Laboratories program looking to provide opportunities for students to study on all seven continents — from medicine in the Congo to ecology in Brazil to climate change in Antarctica.

“I try to encourage other faculty to make connections with research partners in other countries, to create programs and apply for funding to take their students abroad to do research for six to eight weeks,” Kanbur said.

To his new role, Kanbur brings the experience of taking students to a Brazilian national telescope facility in Minas Gerais, as part of a partnership between Oswego and Brazil’s Federal University of Santa Catarina. Kanbur hopes to take students to a telescope facility in Taiwan as part of a new Global Laboratory placement.

“We’re looking at experiences where students have a central role,” Kanbur said. l

— Tim Nekritz M ’05

Oswego’s School of Communication, Media and the Arts is offering a new interdisciplinary graduate certificate in integrated media and social networks.

Courses such as “Video Game Theory and Analysis,” taught by Ulises Mejias — shown here competing with broadcasting major Kelly Fitzsimmons ’11 — are among the options in a new graduate certificate program in integrated media and social networks.

Designed to help professionals gain greater experience and understanding of a burgeoning field and to help Oswego
students make themselves more marketable, the program brings together work in broadcasting, graphic design, human-computer interaction and new CMA courses on integrated media.

The goal was to develop a program where people could gain skills, through theory and practice, in such areas as social network communication, interactive Web interfaces and other emerging areas spanning disciplines, CMA Dean Fritz Messere ’71, M ’76 said.

“We have two tracks available,” Messere said. “One is more rooted in the technical landscape, design and social networks. The other focuses more on best practices and practical applications in areas like multimedia design, digital illustration and video game theory.”

“I’m hoping this certificate will give our graduates a competitive edge,” said Ulises Mejias of the communication studies faculty. “The point is to prepare them to be more than just web designers, content writers, video producers . . . to help them think about applying integrated media purposefully. In this kind of job market, technical skills are not enough. You also need to demonstrate you can think critically.”

Mejias noted that, whether students are hoping to get a job in the new media field or build the next big social network or application, the program’s focus on ethics and privacy makes it stand out.

— Tim Nekritz M ’05

SUNY Oswego’s new interdisciplinary minor in audio design and production aims to meet student and industry demand while broadening opportunities for students.

The minor will create a production-centered learning environment to provide hands-on experience that accompanies audio theory.

Music majors Ken Bardin ’11, left, and Brad Gorham ’11 work with a recording by a local performer in the Tyler Hall recording studio.

The program, based in SUNY Oswego’s School of Communication, Media and the Arts, includes courses in broadcasting, music and theatre in its core, plus a large sampling of electives — such as multimedia courses through the art department.

The minor connects radio production courses, theatre sound classes and recording courses in music.

Audio moving into digital and software- driven formats, with greater dissemination via the web, has increased demand for graduates and even current students with the requisite skills, noted Daniel Wood, a former professional recording engineer who now teaches students the tricks of the trade in the music department.

The formation of the School of Communication, Media and the Arts last year — bringing together art, communication studies, music and theatre — provided the final impetus in creating the minor.

“When we formed the new school, we really created avenues for people to work with each other across disciplines,” said Fritz Messere ’71, M ’76, dean of the School of Communication, Media and the Arts. “The minor strengthens all of the existing programs while creating new opportunities for our students.” l

— Tim Nekritz M ’05