LAST YEAR’S SCIENCE TODAY LECTURE series on women in the science, technology, engineering and math professions, organized by Webe Kadima of Oswego’s chemistry faculty, has won recognition from Sigma Xi, the scientific research society.

Kadima was vice president of the college’s Sigma Xi chapter last year. She was also principal investigator for a recent study, funded by the National Science Foundation, of the status of women faculty in the STEM disciplines at Oswego.

The spring 2012 lecture series earned a Sigma Xi Chapter Program Award for distinguished performance. Oswego’s chapter was one of seven chapters receiving the award nationally. 

ABOVE, ALEX PARSONS ’15, second from right, a technology education major, works with Oswego Middle School eighth-graders Nov. 30 on an activity requiring coordination and teamwork.

At right, he is joined by technology education major Rachel Edic ’16, second from left. The exercise was part of a campus visit of Mentor-Scholar Program participants and their families — more than 150 in all — featuring interactive presentations and dinner. Scott Ball ’09, M ’11, assistant coordinator of the Mentor-Scholar Program, said members of the Oswego Technology Educators Association as well as Penfield librarians organized the presentations. The program partners SUNY Oswego undergraduates with Oswego Middle School students in an effort to create enthusiasm for academics and an increase in high school graduation rates.

SUNY Oswego has partnered with the National Action Council on Minorities in Engineering to award scholarships starting this fall to

The Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation, now under construction, will be the academic home for new students supported by scholarships awarded under a partnership between SUNY Oswego and the National Action Council on Minorities in Engineering.

increase enrollment in engineering fields for students from underrepresented groups.

As part of multiple efforts to boost interest among talented minority students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, Oswego will team with NACME to provide up to 10 awards this fall at the level of Presidential Scholarships—$4,700 a year for up to four years—to students interested in engineering from high schools and academies that take part in NACME’s pilot STEM Integration Model.

President Deborah F. Stanley and NACME President Irving Pressley MacPhail signed an agrement last summer to formalize the college’s participation in NACME’s STEM Integration Model.

Oswego is the only four-year SUNY institution taking part in a series of national pilots that, in the New York/New Jersey region, includes Cornell University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Syracuse University and at least five others.

“We are very hopeful that we are going to attract a pool of highly talented, creative and diverse applicants to the STEM fields as a result of our new affiliation with NACME,” Dan Griffin ’92, M ’00, interim director of admissions at SUNY Oswego, said.

While NACME is known as the nation’s largest private source of scholarships for underrepresented minority men and women in engineering, the new NACME pilot program invites select high schools, colleges and universities, along with corporations, to form a network committed to increasing the number of minority engineers in each region of the country.

Career opportunities

NACME’s STEM Integration Model aims to build a continuum of minority interest in engineering fields starting in middle school and progressing through high school, college and graduate school to jobs in such partner companies as AT&T, Bristol-Myers Squibb, IBM and Merck.

SUNY Oswego is building a comprehensive infrastructure of opportunities for undergraduates in STEM fields, including scholarships, grants and offerings in software engineering and, starting this fall, in electrical and computer engineering inside the $118 million Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation.

NACME is interested in placing students in engineering careers and in particular providing them with an international experience, which is often difficult to achieve in engineering curricula.

MacPhail was very interested in SUNY Oswego’s Global Laboratory as a program to give more NACME engineering students across the country international experiences, principally in the petrochemical industry. Oswego has a strong connection in Brazil, at a lab that works on petro-geological modeling. Benjamin Valentino ’13, a student in a summer Global Lab­or­atory program, worked in the lab.

Since then, admissions counselor Christie Torruella Smith ’08 has visited most of the seven high schools and academies in this region’s NACME pilot program: Albany High School, Bronx Engineering and Technology Academy, City Polytechnic High School, Construction Trades Engineering and Architecture High School, John E. Dwyer Technology Academy, Manhattan Bridges High School and Rochester STEM High School. The partnership includes at least four community colleges in the region as well.

“With the new science facility, the Possibility Scholarships, the new major in electrical and computer engineering and another in software engineering— it’s the perfect time to reach out to those schools,” Smith said. SUNY Oswego’s Possibility Scholarship program puts STEM programs within reach of socioeconomically challenged students.

SUNY Oswego offers several other opportunities for high school students to engage with the college and its science faculty, from the Summer Science Immersion Program to the GENIUS Olympiad global environmental competition.

— Jeff Rea ’71

The new program is expected to help meet demand regionally and nationally for engineers in such cutting-edge fields as bioinstrumentation, robotics and power systems and in embedded systems such as microprocessors, which are omnipresent in machines and products from autos to refrigerators.

Rachid Manseur, director of the electrical and computer engineering program at SUNY Oswego, works on programming a robotic arm with students Samantha Bielli ’13 and Ben Parsons ’13. The bachelor’s degree program will get under way for freshmen next fall.

Oswego is only the second public college in the state to offer an undergraduate degree in electrical and computer engineering. The program joins software engineering in the college’s computer science department.

Industry backing

From the beginning, Oswego’s proposal for an electrical and computer engineering program has had the support and guidance of employers throughout the region, including Welch Allyn, Lockheed-Martin, National Grid, Saab Sensis, O’Brien & Gere, Novelis and SRC, said Rachid Manseur, program director.

Some of those companies are represented on the college’s Engineering Advisory Board, which provides oversight and will assess the program as it moves toward a rigorous accreditation process through ABET, the quality-assurance authority for engineering and technology programs.

The college estimates that it will have at least 80 students enrolled in the program when it is fully up and running, producing about 20 graduates a year.

Lorrie Clemo, provost and vice president for academic affairs, noted that the college is prepared to gear up to meet higher student demand and to help reverse the region’s engineering shortage.

“At the heart of our proposal was a commitment to be laser-focused on curricula, activities, projects and learning facilities that would foster a vibrant, challenging and populous presence in engineering for Central New York,” Clemo said.

The Shineman Center will include two project laboratories, three studio teaching facilities combining lecture and lab, a faculty research lab, a project-building room and a computer lab, with state-of-the-art equipment for designing and testing medical and robotic devices, circuit boards and microprocessors.

A robotics expert, Manseur emphasized that robotics, embedded systems and the other specialties under Oswego’s electrical and computer engineering umbrella are “synergistically compatible” with existing Oswego programs in software engineering, human-computer interaction, cognitive science, graphic design and information science.

SUNY IT is the only other public college in New York that offers a bachelor’s degree program in electrical and computer engineering. Regionally, Cornell University and the University of Rochester offer the degree.

Pagano

The director of the Laboratory Science Technology Program at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester was recognized in the “Outstanding Master’s Universities and Colleges Professor” category. The institute is based out of the Rochester Institute of Technology, where Pagano is an associate professor of science and mathematics.

His award was presented Nov. 15 in Washington, D.C. Pagano was selected from more than 300 nominations.

“If you don’t have this burning passion to do anything that you can do to make a student understand a concept then you may not be approaching it with enough vigor,” Pagano told The Chronicle of Higher Education.

He is nationally recognized for his research in florescence spectroscopy that can help predict the formation of dangerous carcinogens in drinking water and map cancer-causing chemicals in cigarette smoke.

The U.S. Professors of the Year Awards Program, created in 1981, is the only national initiative specifically designed to recognize excellence in undergraduate teaching and mentoring. The awards are presented by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

John Lippincott, president of CASE, commended this year’s award winners for their “intentional, innovative and inspirational” approach to the classroom experience.

U. S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York praised Pagano as he entered news of his honor into the Congressional Record.

A chemistry major at Oswego, Pagano earned his degree in three years and earned his advanced degrees at Tufts University. He has dedicated his college teaching career to instructing deaf students.

“It rang a bell,” Barbara says of the card’s effect on her. It perfectly sums up for her the kind of man Dick was.

Now, thanks to her gift of $5 million — the largest cash gift in the more than 150-year history of the college — generations of students in the science and engineering fields will be helped toward their stars in the name of a seminal figure in the history of sciences at Oswego: the first chair of the chemistry department and a man who had already passed on the love of his discipline to thousands of Oswego graduates.

“Barbara and Dick have been longtime generous supporters of our college. They epitomize the loyalty and devotion of the entire SUNY Oswego community.

“But this gift is of another dimension. As the largest philanthropic gift in our college’s history, it will mean many things to our students — from well-equipped science facilities to top-notch faculty,” said Oswego President Deborah F. Stanley in announcing the gift.

“We are tremendously thrilled and grateful. This gift comes at a key time, as we focus more than ever on educating students in the sciences and related disciplines. The work and recognition made possible by this wonderful and welcome act of generosity will put Oswego on the map in these fields,” she added.

In accordance with state education law and State University regulations, President Stanley, the Oswego College Foundation, SUNY Oswego College Council and SUNY board of trustees have approved recognizing this historic $5 million gift by naming Oswego’s new science complex the Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation. It is now under construction and set to open in fall 2013.

The gift will establish an endowment that will support an endowed chair in chemistry and educational and cultural opportunities including science programs and research and initiatives of the faculty of the Shineman Center.

“It is always a point of pride when our campuses are given philanthropic gifts in recognition of the excellent education they provide to students in so many different fields of learning,” said SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “It is also an honor for campuses to be able to name facilities or scholarships after donors who have shown an exemplary dedication to the campus. Congratulations to SUNY Oswego on this much-deserved donation and many thanks to Professor Emerita Dr. Barbara Shineman and the Richard S. Shineman Foundation for their consistent support.”

“Dr. Barbara Shineman is a lifelong true philanthropist. She embodies the very mission of the Oswego College Foundation,” said Bill Spinelli ’84, chair of the Oswego College Foundation board of directors. “Her personal philanthropy includes a leadership role as a charter member of the Sheldon Legacy Society, the college’s planned giving program, as well as establishing student awards and scholarships, supporting The Fund for Oswego and the Emeriti Association, and most generous gifts to college fundraising efforts.”

“Dick would be overwhelmed by this … and very humbled,” Barbara said, “He really had a great deal of respect for the college. When Dick joined the faculty in 1962, he was hired to help reshape the sciences at Oswego, so he would be so very pleased to see this state-of-the-art building, where all the disciplines will be under one roof.”

Proud History at Oswego

Dick Shineman was one of the founders of Oswego’s chemistry program and its first chair, as well as part of a cadre of professors who helped design the science facilities in Snygg Hall. With an undergraduate degree from Cornell University, a master’s from Syracuse and a doctorate from the Ohio State University, he was hired by then-President Foster Brown to get the sciences program under way, and he worked with chairmen in the other science disciplines and math along with colleagues in SUNY Central Administration to design the building.

Dick Shineman took pride in chemistry graduates who went on to do great things. Dr. Corliss Varnum ’79, one of Shineman’s early students, later became his physician and attended him in his final illness.

One of the courses Dick Shineman was proudest of developing was “Chemistry and the Public Concern,” which spoke to environmental issues becoming prominent in the early ’70s. Long after his retirement, as the new century dawned, he was pleased that it was still being offered as a new generation of environmental concerns surfaced.

Barbara Shineman has deep roots at Oswego, too. She is a proud alumna, having graduated as a non-traditional student with an undergraduate degree in childhood education, master’s in reading education and a Certificate of Advanced Study

She joined the college community as a young mother of two, married to Robert Palmer, director of Auxiliary Services at the college, when she decided to take classes at the college in 1958. Palmer died suddenly in 1969. They had been married for 23 years and his death was a shock to the community.

“It changed my life. I decided it was time to go on to grad school. I got my master’s at Oswego and then decided on Penn State for my doctorate,” Barbara recalled.

About this time she met Dick Shineman, when both were serving on a music committee at the Presbyterian Church, where Dick would go on to serve as a deacon and elder. Through many meetings to choose a new hymnal, the two became friends. “We shared similar values,” Barbara said. “I was impressed with his outlook on life, and the fact that he was a good person.”

When it was time for Barbara to leave for Penn State, Dick urged her to follow through on her educational goals. “Dick would call from Oswego – ‘Are you busy this weekend?’ he would ask, and plan a visit,” Barbara relates. “Before summer ended, he proposed.”

Although Dick encouraged her to stay and complete her degree at Penn State, Barbara was able to transfer to Syracuse University, where she would complete her doctorate. The two were married in 1973.

After marriage to Dick, “life again took a great turn,” Barbara said. Especially after retirement, the couple traveled frequently, to places like the Galapagos Islands and to England, to visit Barbara’s daughter, Kathy.

Barbara stayed involved in the life of the college, teaching at the Campus School. “The Campus School experience was the most professionally rewarding, getting to know the students, working with college students, parents and colleagues,” she said. When the Campus School closed, Barbara joined the elementary education department at Oswego, where she taught until her retirement in 1989.

She would direct the Sheldon Institute for Gifted and Talented Students and the Potential Teacher Program, and coordinate Swetman Learning Center advisement while continuing her work as a professor of elementary education in what is now the college’s School of Education.

“The college was a big part of our life together,” Barbara said.

After retirement, they would go on to be involved in the Emeriti Association. Dick was a founding member and served on the original board of directors. Barbara was president for seven years, and led the effort to establish a historical record within all named campus buildings.

“We took a lot of pride in doing things that reflected what the college was doing and what it needed,” she said. “I felt good about that and really enjoyed working on it.”

Professor Emeritus of English John Fisher and his wife, Joanne, are longtime friends of both Shinemans. “When we think of Dick, we remember how much of a giving person he was, and Barbara is the same,” said Joanne. “She really has put her life into the college,” added John, who taught Barbara in a freshman English class and later served on the Emeriti Association with her. “Her actions told what her feelings were.

Speaking of both Shinemans, he said, “They were both very proud of Oswego.”

Barbara served as the Annual Fund volunteer chair, and was the recipient of the Oswego Alumni Association’s Lifetime Award of Merit. During the college’s first capital campaign, “Inspiring Horizons,” Barbara served as a member of the Presidential Campaign Cabinet.

For more than a decade, she served on the Oswego Alumni Association Scholarship Committee.

President Stanley pre­sented Barbara with a Presidential Medal for her lifelong support to SUNY Oswego at the 2007 Commencement Ceremony.

Both Shinemans were community minded. Along with Dick’s devotion to Rotary and its motto of “Service Above Self,” they have volunteered their time to community organizations in Oswego and their winter home in Florida, including the AARP tax adviser program, the local hospital, Hospice, Literacy Volunteers and the Arts Council.

A life of generosity

Philanthropy – especially giving to SUNY Oswego – has been extremely important to the Shinemans, both of whom served on the Oswego College Foundation board of directors.

The couple focused their giving on the college, providing nearly a million dollars in support during Dick Shineman’s lifetime.

“Dick and I always agreed about the tremendous importance of education. We always felt education is an enabler … it enables you to pursue your dreams and gives you the confidence in your ability to achieve success,” Barbara Shineman said. “It follows that the more resources the college has, the better it will enable students to reach for their dreams.”

Dick Shineman insisted on anonymity during his lifetime, although he acknowledged his support of the Freshman Chemistry Scholarship, with four awarded to incoming Oswego students each year. Barbara Shineman has supported Penfield Library, campus beautification projects and the School of Education, among other initiatives.

To this SUNY Oswego couple, nothing was more important than the college that was at the center of their lives — and its students. “The college was a very important part of [Dick’s] life,” said Barbara Shineman. “He had a very strong, committed, loyal feeling about Oswego — where it was going, what it was trying to do.”

Dick’s generous nature developed through his father’s advice and example, Barbara explained.

A spirit of philanthropy permeated their lives together, from their wedding in the Shineman Chapel House on the Hartwick College campus, which was donated by the Shineman family, who helped found the Beechnut Corp. in Canajoharie.

Barbara tells a story that epitomizes Dick’s approach to philanthropy. “Every June, Dick would take all the solicitations he had received from organizations – the Bible Society, chemical societies, etc. — then write a check to each of them,” she said. “It wasn’t millions, but he wanted them to know he supported them.”

She added, “Dick’s philosophy was that money is not something to hold on to. You come into the world with nothing, and go out of it with nothing.

That philosophy found its ultimate expression in the Richard S. Shineman Foundation, which Dick founded just before his death.

“The money that he put into the foundation will benefit people in the community, who might not otherwise have the opportunity,” Barbara explains.

The gift to SUNY Oswego is the first for the foundation, which aims to be a “Catalyst for Change,” funding community programs in Upstate New York and especially Oswego County.

“[Dick] would be pleased that the foundation is doing what it’s doing,” said Barbara. “He would be so happy to see all the sciences under one roof at SUNY Oswego, to bring so many disciplines together in one building. He would be utterly overwhelmed. Nothing would please him more than to see it. He would be very humbled by it.”

She said Dick would be most pleased by what the gift will mean to the college and to future students. “He would be in awe of the kind of development the future students will have because of the new building: how it will help them get into programs and finish their education,” she said.

Through this historic gift to Oswego, the Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation is just one more way, that even though he has passed on, Dick Shineman can help others reach for their own stars.

The grant will enable the college to increase support services — especially in math and chemistry — and research opportunities for all science, technology, engineering and math majors, with a particular eye to helping younger students avoid academic disqualification, switches to non-STEM majors and other departures from science and math disciplines.

Shirley Peng ’12, right, a chemistry major and journalism minor, talks with Fehmi Damkaci, assistant professor of chemistry and associate dean of graduate studies about the possibility of mentoring freshmen and sophomore STEM majors whose difficulties with required math and chemistry courses can lead to academic disqualification, changes in major or transfer.

“This will be one piece in the puzzle to streamline success for our students from high school to graduation,” said Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Fehmi Damkaci, assistant professor of chemistry and principal investigator for the grant.

The grant outlines a five-step program to shore up support for freshman and sophomore STEM majors: expanding a summer math camp for incoming STEM majors to include chemistry content and more students; integrating “math in context” components for introductory chemistry and physics classes; expanding and improving the tutoring services available to STEM students; instituting peer mentoring by upperclassmen for freshmen and sophomores; and expanding summer research opportunities for freshmen and sophomores in STEM.

The college plans to expand its Summer Scholars program to offer more opportunities for freshmen and sophomores to work with faculty on research projects.

Octavia Morrison ’14, left, a zoology major and McNair Scholar who did research at Oswego’s Global Laboratory in Calcutta, talks Sept. 7 about her poster, “Biochemical Techniques for the Analysis of Proteins,” with biological sciences Professor Eric Hellquist, at the Summer Scholars Poster Symposium in Sheldon Hall ballroom. Provost Lorrie Clemo and the Office of Research and Individualized Student Experiences, or RISE, invited scores of Oswego student researchers, Global Laboratory students from Oswego and other colleges and high school students in Summer Science Immersion to display their posters and discuss their summer projects with visitors.

The Oswego Alumni Association welcomed Yvonne Spicer ’84, M ’85 as this year’s mistress of ceremonies at the Commencement Eve Dinner and Torchlight Ceremony May 11.

“You are deeply immersed in the digital native generation,” she told 700 students, faculty, staff and family gathered for Commencement Eve Dinner. “Many of the jobs you will have, have not been invented yet.”

Spicer is vice president of advocacy and educational partnerships for the National Center for Technological Literacy based at the Museum of Science, Boston.

Inc. Magazine named Christine Do ’80 a top 10 Asian entrepreneur in 2010 and 2011. The Vietnam native and Soft Tech Consulting founder used math to bridge the language gap and make a career in computers.

An Inc. Magazine top 10 Asian entrepreneur in each of the past two years, Christine came to America at 17 as a refugee of the Vietnam War. Today she owns and operates Washington, D.C.-based Soft Tech Consulting, which works with several federal agencies developing, supporting and securing software.

Determining that a math-based discipline would be the best way around her language barrier, Christine came to Oswego after one year of high school in the Finger Lakes town of Phelps.

“At the time, computers were just in their beginning,” Christine recalled. “There weren’t many colleges offering computer science in New York.”

Professor Christine Semeniuke and Dr. Mao, along  with then-department chair Robert Sebesta nurtured Christine’s love of computers that helped her develop a career that began at Unisys.

“Once you have the foundations of computers, you can build on that,” she said.

Christine started Soft Tech in 1996 as a one-woman shop and finally expanded in 2005.

“I feel so honored to be able to help the federal government to do things more efficiently,” she says. “They are passionate about their missions.”

And she is passionate about her work — 16 hours a day, seven days a week as she describes it. “I’m always in front of a monitor,” she says.

A front-runner in her industry, Christine gives equal credit to her team and the place where her professional dreams began.

“It is one of the gems of the [state] university system,” Christine says of Oswego. “And I am proud to have been a part of it.”