Psychology major Kristyn Bermingham ’12 works with furry friends such as Hana, an Akita mix, at the city’s Oswego Animal Shelter as part of the service learning requirement. Oswego continues to add courses with service learning components as part of its commitment to community engagement.

The Corporation for National and Community Service bestowed the “with Distinction” designation on 110 colleges around the country for 2010-11. The overall honor roll includes 513 colleges this year. Oswego was one of three SUNY schools on the distinction list, along with Cortland and Geneseo.

Alyssa Amyotte, coordinator of the college’s Center for Service Learning and Community Service, said the breadth and depth of involvement in initiatives — from President Deborah F. Stanley and other administrators to professors to student organizations — was key to repeating on the prestigious list.

“We see so much support, in the number of administrators, faculty members and students, even when the support is as simple as a professor encouraging students to get involved,” Amyotte said. “The interest among students here is amazing, much of it from positive word of mouth.”

When Laura Hess Brown ’84 began offering students a service learning option in an introductory gerontology course in 1998, only a couple of other Oswego courses challenged students to get out in the community to apply what they were learning in class.

Between service learning courses, volunteering and other community involvement, more than 4,000 SUNY Oswego students contributed more than 430,000 hours of service last year, according to the honor roll application.

Jerry Jones ’67, M ’71 literally sold the farm to move to the southern African nation of Malawi in 2008. Here he poses with some of his students at the Iris Africa School for orphans.

He’s held more titles in 10 years of retirement than he ever did as a professional, including literally selling the farm to become headmaster of a private elementary school for orphans in the southern African nation of Malawi.

One of the poorest nations in the world, Malawi is home to more than a million orphans. The AIDS virus affects one in six adults, Jerry says.

Jerry and his wife, Linda, braved the harsh conditions — including 125-degree heat — to work for free in heed of their religious calling, but also for the rewards.

“They were the most wonderful kids I’ve ever worked with,” says Jerry, who started his career as a math teacher before landing a government job. “They were so grateful.”

Jerry stepped away from his job as manager in the Research Division of the IRS after 30 years as an analyst to purchase a piece of countryside he dubbed Redemption Farm and established a home for troubled young men in western Maryland.

After seven years as foster parents to more than two dozen boys, Jerry and Linda headed West on a classic post-retirement tour of America via RV. At a church in California, a fellow congregant introduced the idea of missionary work in Africa to Jerry.

“It’s been an ongoing adventure,” Jerry says.

He currently volunteers as part of Celebrate Recovery, a national Christian ministry dedicated to helping people who struggle with addictions.

“There’s an awful lot of teaching with this mentoring,” Jerry says. “Oswego did a great job of teaching me how to teach.”

For more than 20 years, the Newman Center has been the location for the sale. One function of People Against Poverty, a committee of the Newman Center, is to have “students donate their items to us, instead of the dumpster,” longtime volunteer Kathy Brooks Nyman ’74 explained. Fellow alumna Laura Bush Angelina ’70 is also a member of the committee.

“It’s a win-win for everyone,” Director of Campus Life Richard Hughes says. “For students, it gives them somewhere to bring things they no longer have use for, and provides for someone else. It’s good for the college, because it keeps items out of the waste stream.”

The Leave Green program helps the local community and contributes to the college’s participation in climate initiatives, like the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, or STARS; and the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, of which President Deborah F. Stanley is a signatory.

Last year, on-campus students donated items directly to the Newman Center, while off-campus students brought 900 pounds of items to the Swetman Gym.

This year, all items will be brought to the gym, sorted, weighed and sold. Items that do not sell will be donated to Catholic Charities’ St. Vincent de Paul store in Oswego. To get involved, contact richard.hughes@oswego.edu.

— Emily Longeretta ’12

But the numbers she is proudest of add up to one huge accomplishment — 320 miles walked by Patti and 500 miles by Noreen Moloney ’90 and more than $500,000 raised for breast cancer research.

Patti Fennessy Novy ’89, at left, and Noreen Moloney ’90, right, lead a team that has raised more than half a million dollars for breast cancer research.

The Alpha Sigma Chi sisters have led a team in the New York City Avon Breast Cancer Walk since 2004, the year after the disease claimed the life of Michele, the sister of Patti’s husband, David Novy ’89.

Little by little, their team — the Wellness Warriors — grew in numbers and fundraising prowess. At the October 2011 walk, they passed a landmark. Their eight-year team total is $582,824. They placed third for fundraising the last two years, out of more than 300 teams.

Patti and Noreen are proudest that their team, which numbers between 30 and 40 walkers each year, raised their money without any corporate sponsorships. They work all year to accomplish their goal, with fundraisers at a local bowling alley, a Super Bowl pool, a comedy show and a bartending night at a local establishment.

When walk weekend comes each fall, they join 4,000 other participants for a two-day 40-mile trek through New York City.

“We walk because we can,” says Patti. “A lot of people can’t.”

“A walk is easy compared to what a cancer patient has to go through,” says Noreen, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor. “It’s my way of giving back and helping others — just a chance to make a difference.”

The friends realize that finding the cure to one cancer is the key to curing all cancers. And having reached a half-million dollar milestone, Patti has another goal. “I don’t want to walk forever,” she says. “I would love it if I never had to do again, because that would mean we have a cure.”

A state Education Department report on graduation rates found that of the Oswego City School District students who began high school in 2006, 11 percent had dropped out by 2010 while 73 percent of their peers graduated with Regents or local diplomas. The remainder were still trying or had converted to other diploma programs, such as the GED.

The program will start with at-risk students in Oswego Middle School’s eighth grade, and plans to support them through high school.

“We’re trying to build their self-confidence, build their self-efficacy, give them their own tools to be effective students and, down the road, to be good citizens,” said Michael Marr ’08, who leads the program as part of his AmeriCorps-VISTA service. “We’ll be working on homework, working on study skills, working on interpersonal skills.”

SUNY Oswego students taking an upper-division service-learning course will receive two credit hours on completion of a yearlong mentoring assignment and other course requirements. Each college student will meet with a middle school partner twice a week for about an hour each session.

“Some of these eighth-graders are right at the point where they’re asking themselves, ‘Is secondary education for me?’” Marr said. “If we can catch them right at this early point, if we can get them valuing education — valuing it as a way
of progressing their lives —then we can drastically decrease their chances of dropping out later on.

The honor roll recognizes higher education institutions for “exemplary community service” and “meaningful outcomes in their communities.”

SUNY Oswego students Amy Wolff ’11, center, and Raymundo Lopez ’12, right, work alongside Alyssa Amyotte, coordinator of the college’s Center for Service Learning and Community Service, to plant trees in January on the outskirts of New Orleans as an additional barrier against hurricane-force winds. Such community-service Alternative Breaks are among the SUNY Oswego projects that helped the college earn a place on the latest U.S. President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, with Distinction.

In its application for the 2009-10 honor roll, SUNY Oswego highlighted three of its many programs: Adopt-a-Grandparent, with six weekly programs at seven Oswego area nursing homes as well as the annual Senior Ball; Mentor Oswego, where students tutor and mentor 150 local youths through partnerships with nine Oswego area schools and the Salvation Army; and Alternative Break, with 10 student and adviser trips in the spring of 2009-10 — and more during winter break — for projects ranging from Head Start in New Jersey to the Volunteer in Jamaica Opportunity Program in impoverished areas of the Caribbean nation.

The newly released SUNY Report Card calls the Carnegie classification and the President’s Honor Roll “the gold standard in recognizing effective community service” and pledged that more State University campuses would join Oswego in achieving such recognition.

Scott Ball ’09, who is working toward his master’s degree in adolescence education, has made numerous Alternative Break trips, including one in 2009-10 to an impoverished community in Florence, Ala., to build homes for Habitat for Humanity.

“I think it (the honor roll with distinction) shows just how great and compassionate this school and its student body are,” said Ball, who this summer took part in his second flood-relief project in New Orleans.

The Carnegie Foundation has awarded SUNY Oswego a prestigious Community Engagement Classification, recognizing that the college has deeply intertwined community engagement in its leadership, curriculum, outreach programs, strategic planning and community partnerships.

The Carnegie Foundation named 115 colleges and universities for the community service distinction this year among 305 that applied. Another 196 institutions have received the classification since the program began in 2006. Applications are now closed until 2015.

Helping at Harborfest are Marquise Rochester '13, left, and Andrew Magnemi '13.

Nine New York colleges and universities received the classification in 2010. The others are Cornell University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, St. John’s University, Skidmore College, Jefferson Community College, SUNY Stony Brook, SUNY Oneonta and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

“We are honored that SUNY Oswego has been designated an ‘engaged campus’ by the Carnegie Foundation,” President Deborah F. Stanley said.

“Starting with our Engagement 2000 strategic plan, our college has magnified its efforts to put community service, outreach and partnerships at the very center of what we do. The Community Engagement Classification recognizes the energetic, generous and diverse efforts across the campus — and among our many community partners — to make this goal come to life. More and more, our faculty, staff and students are engaging community needs in the classroom, through research and as volunteers,” Stanley added.

Oswego has a wealth of community service initiatives, from alternative break projects in New Orleans and Jamaica, to student-driven Adopt-a-Grandparent and Miss-a-Meal programs.

Central to mission

But the designation goes beyond service programs, requiring that successful applicants demonstrate the importance
of community engagement to the institution, from faculty to students to staff, across the curriculum and campus.

“This is absolutely a campus-wide honor,” said Christy Harrison Huynh ’98, M ’08, associate director of the Compass and part of the team that completed the rigorous application process for the designation.

Among the findings:

In 2009-10, more than 1,500 student volunteers and 700 unpaid interns logged 110,000 community service hours. Upon graduation, 72 percent of Oswego students report they engaged in community service.

Through student, faculty and staff organizations and departmental efforts, the campus has sought to engage and serve through the Benin Calculator Project, Adopt-a-School, Leadership Oswego County, the Oswego Children’s Project, Sustainability Fair and community service components for at least 30 courses.

SUNY Oswego has been a founding member since 2001 of the New York Campus Compact to encourage community service and civic engagement, and has been on the national President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll since its inception in 2007.

Next steps

Now that Oswego has received the designation, what’s next? Huynh said it provides an impetus to continue weaving community engagement into the college’s fabric.

“It recognizes—and I think it provides almost an obligation to invest in and to continue to develop—those programs,”
she said. l

— Jeff Rea ’71

Civic Ventures honored Virginia “Ginny” Donohue ’88, executive director and founder of On Point for College, as a 2010 Purpose Prize Fellow at a November ceremony in Philadelphia. Purpose Prizes honor Americans over age 60 for making an extraordinary impact in their encore careers.

Donohue was named a Purpose Prize Fellow based on her founding On Point for College, which has enrolled 2,723 inner-city youth in more than 200 colleges and universities.

Virginia “Ginny” Donohue ’88 of Syracuse, at right, executive director and founder of On Point for College, was honored as a 2010 Purpose Prize Fellow.

“I am grateful to the Purpose Prize for this honor,” said Donohue. “On Point for College has never turned away a single student.”

“I never knew what tenacity meant, what courage meant or what loyalty meant until I met our students,” she said. “If we can make the road easier for these amazing young adults, it is an honor.”

In July 2009, SUNY Oswego President Deborah F. Stanley honored Donohue for her work with On Point for College by awarding her a Presidential Medal, calling her an “inspirational activist.”

In April 1999, after eight years of helping students from a local homeless shelter to enroll in college, she left the corporate world and her position as chief financial officer in order to launch On Point for College out of the trunk of her car.

On Point for College has expanded to 13 staff members and 160 mentors and volunteers, and has enrolled 2,723 teens from inner-city Syracuse in more than 200 colleges and universities. The not-for-profit boasts more than 350 college graduates in addition to several young people who have obtained or are pursuing post-baccalaureate degrees.

The new partnership is part of the Peace Corps Master’s International program. It fits well with Oswego’s many global awareness initiatives, President Deborah F. Stanley said.

Barbara Garii, associate dean of the School of Education, said the program, approved to begin this spring, should have 10 students in a year or so, and build to about 25.

For more information or to learn how to apply, visit oswego.edu/academics/graduate/Peace_Corps

— Jeff Rea ’71