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Cutler Fund Provides Special Opportunities for Public Justice Majors

Cutler Fund Provides Special Opportunities for Public Justice Majors Oswego public justice students are exploring career opportunities, attending conferences, and meeting mentors thanks to the generosity of David Cutler ’74, the founder and executive director of the Arapaho Community Treatment Center, a residential community corrections facility in Englewood, Colo.

Public Justice majors, from left, Anthony Turnbull ’14, Kimberly Pikarsky ’13 and Gaston Owen ’13, shown here in the Peer Advisement Center, are among those benefiting from the Public Justice Excellence Fund endowed by David Cutler ’74.

Cutler augmented his Public Justice Excellence Fund with an additional gift of $170,000, bringing the total of the fund to $420,000. He is motivated to help Oswego students because of his love for his alma mater, which he feels provided a great education that helped him build his successful career. “We need good leaders in corrections and law enforcement. It’s a really challenging time right now in the field,” said Cutler, who noted that the field was “shrinking,” due to a drop in crime rates and smaller budgets.

He feels motivated to support Oswego because of his own experiences. “Oswego changed my life — that’s why I really wanted to contribute back to Oswego State,” he said. “I had a great time up there and learned so much.”

Using the Cutler fund money, the public justice faculty sends eight students each year to the Criminal Justice Educators Association of New York State, where they attend presentations and seminars and take advantage of opportunities to enhance their career searches.

“Our students make an excellent impression on faculty members of other colleges and they wish they could take their students to the conference,” said Public Justice Professor Diane Brand. “But they don’t have the blessing of Mr. Cutler to provide them with that opportunity.”

In addition, Cutler’s gift funds field trips for 40 students each year to maximum security Auburn and medium security Butler correctional facilities. As a result of one-on-one interaction with the inmates and corrections officers, some students are inspired to take courses toward a career in corrections and others have gone on to graduate school in counseling to work with inmates and those with substance abuse issues.

The Public Justice Excellence Fund endowed by David Cutler ’74 funds field trips to prisons and attendance at conferences for students like Rachel Lanphere ’13, a public justice and psychology major; Gaston Owen ’13, a public justice major; Katherine Blake ’14, a public justice and psychology major; Michael Muller ’13, a public justice major; Monica Binder ’15, a public justice, communication and social interaction major; Kimberly Pikarsky ’13, a public justice major, and Jon Silva ’13, a public justice major.

“It was very different than the textbook or reality TV shows,” said Gaston Owen ’13, a public justice major and forensic science minor who went on the prison field trip during his first semester at Oswego. “It helps you tweak your career options and think of things you might never have thought of before.” He serves as a peer adviser for other public justice majors and is an active member of the Public Justice Club, which brings speakers to campus and sponsors trips like one this spring to Washington, D.C.

Mike Muller ’13 went to the CJEANYS conference in October, in addition to attending the prison field trips. The public justice major and forensic science minor says hearing presentations by an ex-state trooper and professors from other colleges helped him refine his future goals.

“It was great to have a real-world experience. You can read every day in a book but it’s nothing like this,” he said. “We got to sit down with people who do it every day and hear their experiences.” In addition to his participation in peer advisement and the Public Justice Club, Muller serves as a teaching assistant. At press time, he was awaiting results of a physical that would allow him to accept a job with his hometown police force in Port Jervis right after graduation.

—Michele Reed

Love of Oswego Sparks Loyal Giving

Oswego has been a family tradition for Barbara Brown McCormack ’44, going back to the turn of the last century. That’s why she has been a loyal supporter of The Fund for Oswego for more than 30 years and is a member of the 1861 Society of The President’s Circle.

“I feel it’s important to give what you can to an organization that’s important to you,” said McCormack, who has been giving to Oswego regularly since 1978.

“I loved Oswego when I went there, and think very highly of it.”

The love comes naturally. McCormack’s father, Leon N. Brown, went to the Campus School as a child in the early 1900s. Her mother, Helen Picken Brown ’18 took the train from Yonkers to enroll at Oswego Normal School.

McCormack herself attended the Campus School, literally following in her father’s footsteps as she walked from the family home several blocks away on West Mohawk Street. “In the winter snow, we sure were glad to see that pergola,” she said with a laugh.

McCormack met her first husband, John Murphy ’49, when both were undergraduates at Oswego. After his death, she married the late Robert “Rod” McCormack.

Her life is full of memories of the college, especially as a young bride working as a library assistant under legendary librarian Helen Hagger.

Even now, she loves to attend plays and musical performances on campus.

She supports Oswego with unrestricted gifts, giving to where the need is greatest, because of her high esteem for the college.

“I admire the school – they’ve done a wonderful job. It has a great reputation. Even people from afar know of Oswego. I know because I’ve lived afar,” said McCormack, who spent many years living in Montana and New Jersey.

Thanks to her loyal support and generosity, students today can benefit from the same great education McCormack enjoyed . . . and come to love Oswego as much as she does.

—Michele Reed

New Giving Societies Launch July 1

Okoniewski Gift Adds Up to Hometown Help

JAMES F. OKONIEWSKI ’72 FEELS strongly about two things – his love for his hometown of Fulton and the Oswego County area, and his belief that mathematics is a key subject for success in life.

He decided to act on those convictions by establishing a scholarship for students from Fulton’s G. Ray Bodley High School, his alma mater, to attend Oswego and study math. His gift of $50,000 will endow a scholarship for a Bodley graduate with financial need, majoring in mathematics or in education with a concentration in math. The first scholarship will be awarded for the 2013-14 academic year, and it is renewable, provided the recipient meets certain academic standards.

Graduate student Brendan Carter ’12, right, whose undergraduate degree was in math, helps Abby Fischer ’16, a freshman childhood education major in math, during a Sunday session of walk-in tutoring sponsored by the Office of Learning Services in Mahar Hall. A generous endowment by James F. Okoniewski ’72 will support a scholarship in math.

“I’m trying to counteract the feeling out there that the study of mathematics is not that important,” Okoniewski said. “Math is clearly important in analyzing any situation.”

He pointed out that if people were better able to analyze the risks versus the return on their investments, it would benefit, not just individuals, but the economy as a whole.

It’s a strategy he used to build a successful real estate business by analyzing the value of his property investments.

Now he would like to share his success with students from his hometown school, where his cousin Joseph Sczupac was chair of the math department. Francis Godici was a Bodley math
teacher who influenced Okoniewski.

Okoniewski’s roots run deep in Fulton, particularly in its Polish community. He was the youngest president of the city’s Polish Home, a post he held in his teens during the 1960s. “When I was younger I hung around adults more than kids my own age, so that is when I joined the Polish Home,” he explained.

As an Oswego student, he took his love for his ancestral homeland one step further and studied one summer in Poland at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University, thanks to encouragement from Professor Emeritus Joseph Wiecha to apply and win a Kosciuszko Foundation fellowship.

Okoniewski shared his Polish heritage by starting a Polish language affiliation club at the college, holding a book drive to raise money to buy Polish literature for Penfield Library and bringing the first polka band to Oswego State.

He became a DJ at the student radio station WOCR and his talent was recognized by WRVO station manager Bill Shigley, who invited him to go on air at the public radio affiliate.

His other mentors were in the math department, including Professors Emeriti Richard Orr and John Daly.

Now the influence comes full circle, as with his generous endowed scholarship, Okoniewski reaches out to help generations of Oswego college students to come. l

— Michele Reed

Photo: Sherman Scholarship Recipient

Love Inspires Special Reunion Gift

THEY MET WHILE WAITING IN LINE AT THE DEAN’S OFFICE IN SHELDON HALL and fell in love at Oswego. Now, decades after that meeting and after 50 years of marriage, Ed ’62 and Janet Albreght Heinrich ’63 have made a special Reunion gift that will endow a scholarship fund for education majors.

Ed ’62 and Janet Albreght Heinrich ’63 made a special reunion gift to endow a scholarship for future teachers. Here, they stand outside the door in Sheldon Hall where they met more than half a century ago.

“I started talking to Janet and cut the line,” Ed said. They dated a few times, but no real sparks until senior year when Ed asked Janet to iron a white shirt for him. He was desperate for help, so Janet ironed that shirt and the couple warmed to their new love.

Ed was president of the Class of 1962 and of Delta Kappa Kappa, and worked as a bus driver for the athletic teams. Janet was a member of Alpha Sigma Chi and the Catalina Club. Both went on to become teachers, and Ed spent 14 years in administration.

Along with Col. Jack James ’62 USMC (Ret.), Ed co-chaired the Class of 1962 Reunion giving committee. The 50th Anniversary Class of 1962 won the 2012 Reunion Participation Cup for a record-setting percentage of donors, with 147 donors or 48.5 percent of the class chipping in to raise $37,620.23.

Ed and Janet made a special Reunion gift to endow a scholarship for elementary education or technology education majors. Because Ed attended Oswego on the G. I. Bill, they would like the recipient to be a veteran.

“It is essential that we get the best into the classroom,” they said. The generous support of Ed and Janet Heinrich means that generations of the very best students will have the opportunity to become the best teachers of tomorrow.

To make a gift in honor of your special Reunion, contact the Oswego College Foundation in 215 Sheldon Hall or call 315-312-3003.

Plaque honors late Alumnus during Baseball Reunion Weekend

THE FAMILY OF THE LATE DAVID “AGARN” CRISAFULLI ’81 accepted a plaque made to honor him at the Baseball Reunion Weekend dinner last autumn. It was part of a weekend of events for former Laker players, coaches and fans. Pictured from left are Crisafulli’s sons, Austin and Dan; his sister Colette; mother, Margaret; and brother Dan.

The David “Agarn” Crisafulli ’81 Baseball Excellence Fund established in 2011 supports baseball travel, equipment and other expenses.

Gift Supports International Education

An alumnus who was the first in his family to have a passport and had his life changed by a study abroad experience through Oswego has made a generous gift to the college to pass on the opportunity of international experience to current and future students.

PHOTO: LECET milestone

Video: Nancy Busco Trabold Memorial Scholarship