The term “video game” might conjure up images of space invaders, barrel-flinging apes or a pair of super brothers: kids’ stuff.

For people like game producer Jeffery Gardiner ’95 it’s a lucrative business — and a chance to tell great stories to all ages. A senior producer for Bethesda Softworks in Maryland, Gardiner’s résumé includes titles such as Fallout III, a critically acclaimed hit that sold more than 5 million copies.

Senior Game Producer Jeffery Gardiner '95 speaks as part of the Living Writers Series in October.

“Games are still stigmatized. People still think they’re for kids,” Gardiner said during a campus visit sponsored by the Living Writers lecture series and the Oswego Alumni Association’s Alumni-In-Residence program. “There’s a barrier of entry to games, but I think that is lower now because of phenomena like Wii™ that attract a wider audience.”

A longtime gamer — going back to his elementary school days playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends — Gardiner applied his English writing arts degree to the vast creative avenues offered by his favorite electronic medium.

In video games, the player controls the story. It’s the writer’s job to dream up challenging scenarios that will keep the gamer engrossed, Gardiner said.

“How can you help them lose themselves in the game?” he said. The writer works with a theme, characters and settings, “very much the same as the fundamentals I learned here.”

The gaming industry has evolved considerably in his lifetime. Today’s fantasies are very complex and filled with compelling stories, many of which are targeted at adults.

“Nothing beats a good script,” Gardiner said. “Like a good pulp fiction novel or movie, you’re able to escape.”

— Shane M. Liebler

Hyde is known to generations of Oswego students, who first contemplated the periodic table in Chem 111 and 212, large lecture classes. They learned a lot from the soft-spoken man of science, but he took away something from them, too. “You work with students in the prime of life, some of it rubs off,” he said of the energizing effect of working with undergraduates.

Kenneth Hyde (in blue lab coat) retired after four decades of teaching chemistry.

Hyde joined the fledgling chemistry department in 1968, recruited by Augustine Silveira and the late Richard Shineman.

“When I first came to campus, the buildings were new, the faculty was young and there was energy here,” Hyde said, comparing it to the current situation. “There is a rebirth, a resurgence — the enthusiasm is back,” Hyde said, especially evidenced in renovations for the Science, Technology and Innovation Corridor.

“When I reflect back on my career, it’s not important what you accomplished, but what your students accomplished,” Hyde said. He taught thousands in chemistry survey classes that served majors and non-majors alike and mentored 50 to 100 research students, including Ruth Baltus ’77, who chairs the department of chemical engineering at Clarkson University, and Peter Bocko ’75, chief technology officer for Corning Inc. (See story, p. 22)

Throughout his career, Hyde used sabbaticals to learn new skills that he brought into the classroom to benefit his SUNY Oswego students. He received a National Science Foundation grant to purchase computers for Oswego’s general chemistry lab, and worked with the University of Frankfurt in Germany, General Electric and the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, among others.

And despite four decades on the faculty, Hyde was always willing to try something new. During the past two years, he participated in a living-learning community with students in Riggs Hall. A small group — limited to 19 students — lived in the hall and participated in classes there.