CHEMISTRY FACULTY MEMBER FEHMI DAMKACI, LEFT, recently was honored with a Center for Environmental Initiatives’ Environmental Excellence Award for his work in creating and growing the GENIUS Olympiad, SUNY Oswego’s environmental competition for high school students around the world.

The center recognized GENIUS Olympiad at its 39th annual Community Salute to the Environment for leadership in environmental education and “outstanding commitment to the environment through implementing effective changes.”

GENIUS — Global Environmental Issues-U.S. — is an international high school science, art, writing and design competition where students present solutions to environmental problems using scientific methods and artistic and design disciplines. More than 450 finalists are expected to attend the third annual GENIUS Olympiad June 16 to 21 at SUNY Oswego.

“What makes the GENIUS Olympiad is that it’s unique in itself both in the United States and internationally,” Damkaci said. “And as a new thing this year, we would like to encourage our cities to implement projects relating to the environment.”

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 Oswego chemistry graduate is focused on doing high-level research in florescence spectroscopy that can help predict the formation of dangerous carcinogens in drinking water and map cancer-causing chemicals in cigarette smoke as a member of  the Rochester Institute of Technology faculty.

Pagano’s work involves fluorescence spectroscopy (the “glow” created by certain matter when stimulated by light energy) as it pertains to environmental and medical applications.

He’s devoted to teaching deaf students at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT, opening for them a new world of scientific inquiry and careers in that promising field.

He’s dedicated to advocating for undergraduate research, acquiring grants to help RIT students conduct research alongside faculty members, as well as publishing and presenting his case for hands-on learning.

He’s not trying to win recognition. Yet the awards just keep coming.

Last fall, Pagano was elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society, an honor reserved for the top one percent of society membership. He was one of only 213 awardees nationwide, recognized for accomplishments in chemistry and service to the ACS.

Last month, he traveled to San Diego to give the keynote address at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. His former mentor, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Raymond O’Donnell was at the black-tie affair to see his former student honored with an ACS national award supported by Dreyfus Foundation. That honor came with $15,000 to use in a way that can further the research and teaching he was cited for. It was a proud moment for O’Donnell, who started the student ACS chapter at Oswego.

In February, Pagano won NTID’s top award for research.

In 2005, he received the Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from RIT, and in 2008, the Stanley C. Israel Northeast Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences from ACS.

“I’m on a bit of a hot streak,” admits the dedicated scientist, who would rather be sporting a lab coat than a tuxedo.

A Lifelong Goal

Pagano knew he wanted to be in academe ever since his undergraduate years at Oswego. He came to the college from his hometown of Rochester, following in the footsteps of his father, Carmen Pagano ’62. His love of the classroom is something he inherited from his father, a former school principal, and his mother, Eleanor, who was a longtime teacher.

So Pagano accelerated his Oswego degree, graduating in just three years, and enrolled at Tufts University in a doctoral program.

How he landed in front of a classroom of deaf students was a bit of serendipity. When Pagano was finishing up his doctorate someone sent him an advertisement for the teaching position. “I was shocked at how I met all the requirements. It seemed like the position was written for me,” he said — with one important exception. At the bottom of the list it read, “Must learn sign language.”

It was an opportunity to come home — his family was still in Rochester — and to fulfill his dream of a college teaching career. He wouldn’t let a little thing like learning a new language stand in his way.

“I achieved fluency in sign language very rapidly, because I wanted to communicate with my students,” Pagano said. “I wanted to deliver my lessons directly to the students and I didn’t want students asking me questions through an interpreter.”

Now he teaches both hearing and deaf students, inspiring them to careers in chemistry.

Many of his students are from traditionally underrepresented populations.

Nelsey Carcamo was one of the students Pagano inspired. A native of Honduras who is hard of hearing, Carcamo came to NTID with two languages to learn — English and sign language. No one in her family tree had ever attended college. “Professor Pagano immediately made me feel like I had an academic home,” she wrote in supporting him for a teaching award.

Carcamo came to NTID hoping to earn an associate’s degree. Thanks to Pagano’s mentoring, she not only earned a bachelor’s degree, she is enrolled in a

Todd Pagano ’96 discusses scientific theory with three student members of his research group.

master’s program. She is learning about science, but also about America. As part of her research experience with Pagano, she has traveled to California and Salt Lake City to present their findings.

Roots at Oswego

Pagano learned a lot about how to be an effective teacher at Oswego, he says. Four faculty members especially inspired him.

O’Donnell “opened my eyes to what it meant to be a member of the profession,” he said. O’Donnell took him to his first professional meeting of the ACS. “Every morning I drink my coffee out of the mug I got there,” Pagano said.

Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus Kenneth Hyde was Pagano’s advisor and also taught him the introductory chemistry course. “At other institutions, it is a gatekeeper course. Students can be turned on or off — some even become science-phobic,” Pagano said.

“Professor Hyde really cares about his students and teaches it well — he turns them on. In my case, he confirmed for me that I wanted to major in chemistry,” he remembered.

Professor Joseph LeFevre influenced Pagano’s classroom style. He remembered that LeFevre told his students on the first day of class that three things were important to him: God, his family and the students. “He didn’t only say it, he acted in a way that showed he really cared,” said Pagano. “The care he gave his students is something I try to emulate in my class.”

Professor Jeffery Schneider was a new faculty member when Pagano enrolled. “He liked football and I did too,” Pagano said, “He really related to the students. He showed me I could still be who I am — still like football and interact with students in that way.”

Schneider is an environmental chemist and his focus also influenced the choice of Pagano’s research subjects.

Environmental studies

Today Pagano studies how excessive amounts of dissolved organic carbon in drinking water supplies — potentially caused by climate change — when treated with chlorine can produce carcinogenic compounds. In cases of high dissolved organic carbon, water would have to go through costly pretreatment procedures before it can be treated with chlorine. It could be a big problem for Third World countries. Pagano is working on an algorithm to predict the probability of a water supply’s potential to form the dangerous chemicals.

Pagano is also working on a project that is related to lung cancer. Collaborating with bio-engineers who developed a biochemical lung, he studies where different carcinogenic chemicals are deposited in the lungs from the smoking process. He has also recently gotten involved in the study of electronic cigarettes, claimed to be healthier, analyzing them to see if their claims are true and if they are indeed safer. (Since there is no tobacco and no combustion, which together form many of the cancer-causing compounds, these claims may be, in part, true.)

Finally, his pedagogical research on the scholarship of teaching and education — how to make chemistry courses more desirable, how to teach chemistry to deaf and hard-of-hearing populations, and how to conduct undergraduate research — is beginning to gain him recognition. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities and has been invited to present his findings at scientific meetings around the country.

His philosophy of teaching is one of which his Oswego mentors and college founder Edward Austin Sheldon would likely approve.

“The classroom should be student-centered,” Pagano said. “Give them lifelong learning skills — how to be productive learners unto themselves in the future.”

His goal is to break down the science phobia many students have.

“If I go into a middle school, students are so passionate about science. There’s so much enthusiasm, so much magic in the field of science,” he said.

“It’s a tragedy they lose it in high school or early courses in college. We need to keep students aware of the wonder of science.”

That wonder of science, as evidenced in his research and teaching, is the greatest award Pagano could ever receive.

As the nanoscale — a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter — images appear in high definition, Damkaci reminisces about having to travel to Syracuse to obtain sample data about atomic structures that were once only theorized … and not being able to touch the machine.

Chemistry Professor Fehmi Damkaci and field engineer Martin Jones explore the Japan Electron Optical Laboratory, a scanning electron microscope that provides nanoscale views.

“This has been used mostly by nanotechnology-related research and engineering,” said Damkaci, associate professor of chemistry and project leader for acquisition and implementation of the scanning electron microscope, or SEM. “But now the use of the equipment has extended into biology and materials science and anthropology, geology — all different areas.”

The college already has a room planned in its rising $118 million Sciences and Engineering Innovation Corridor for the new Japanese Electron Optical Lab, or JEOL, JSM-6610LV currently housed in Snygg Hall.

“I started teaching nanotechnology, and I’m planning to apply for a [National Science Foundation] grant to increase nanotech education on campus,” Damkaci said. Students have already been training to use the equipment. “Having an SEM on site for educational purposes — that’s great.

“Currently we just teach it, but students don’t get to see an SEM,” he added. “Now, when they graduate, they will be able to say, ‘I know how to use an SEM,’ and that makes our students more marketable.”

With more than $1 trillion in federal and state funds expected over the next few years, job growth to support this explosion would leap from 150,000 nanotechnology workers in 2008 to 800,000 in 2015 nationally, a National Nanotechnology Initiative report noted.

“The report also says that by 2012-13, nanotechnology will be a common field of study in undergraduate science education,” Damkaci said. “We are positioning ourselves right now just ahead of that phase.”

“Not everybody gets to say that they worked with a Nobel Prize winner,” said Michael Plante M ’75. He is one of more than a dozen chemistry students of Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus Augustine Silveira from the 1970s to 1990s who can say just that.

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.

As a teacher and mentor, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Richard Shineman touched the lives of thousands of Oswego students. Since his passing in May of this year, he will impact generations more, thanks to his generous $100,000 bequest to the college.

“He had a very strong, committed, loyal feeling about Oswego — where it was going, what it was trying to do,” said his wife, Barbara Palmer Shineman ’65, professor emerita of education.

Professor Emeritus Dick Shineman

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.

Thomas Weil ’66, one of the first class of chemistry majors, remembered Shineman as an important mentor to him. “He was a great teacher and along with Professor (Augustine) Silveira played a key role in my becoming a chemistry major and going into the field,” wrote Weil, who is a part-time chemistry professor after retiring from three decades in research and development at Amoco Chemical Corp.

Philanthropy was important to Shineman, who nonetheless insisted on anonymity during his lifetime. He would, however, acknowledge his support of the Freshman Chemistry Scholarship, with four awarded to incoming Oswego students each year. But his generosity to the college went far beyond that one program. In addition to his monetary gifts, Shineman gave of his time, serving on the Oswego College Foundation board of directors. He encouraged his brother, who was on the board of the Arkell Foundation, to consider Oswego students when it came time to award grants.

“The college was a very important part of his life,” said Barbara Shineman. “And along with it, he had this allegiance in the community to the church, the hospital and to the Rotary Club.”

With his generous bequest, Dick Shineman will share his love for the college with generations of students to come.

— Michele Reed