Campus Report
News, Calendar & Events

SUNY Fredonia’s Department of Communication has been awarded a grant by the U.S. Department of State to travel to Turkey and instruct high school and college students interested in video production and filmmaking.  Fredonia was the lone organization chosen among 15 applicants to travel to six Turkish cities during an 18-month, $800,000 youth filmmaking instructional project.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has named SUNY Fredonia's Ann Carden to its College of Fellows. This is the highest distinction offered by PRSA, the world’s largest organization of public relations professionals. The College of Fellows honors veteran professionals for their years of exemplary work in the field, high ethical standards, dedication to their local PRSA Chapter, and steadfast commitment to advancing the present and future of the profession.

How city residents and leaders in Curitiba, Brazil, succeeded at very little cost in turning a potential disaster into a thriving metropolis that is friendly to the environment and has expanded city services to the shantytowns, has been the focus of Political Science Professor Ivani Vassoler’s research and teaching for almost 10 years. Her new book tells the story in detail.

Faculty and staff who can answer questions from the news media in their areas of expertise are urged to complete the online Experts Survey Form, Public Relations Director Michael Barone announced.

 The Professional Development Center will hold orientation for new faculty on Thursday, Aug. 21, featuring information, fun, and learning about the campus and the area.  The "Faces and Functions Resource Fair,"  which offers a chance to meet department heads and staff in student services, academic affairs, and university advancement, starts at 12:30 in the Natatorium.  Go to the web page.

Mathematical Sciences Professor H. Joseph Straight has been named among this year’s recipients of the Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Faculty Service. This award is a statewide honor conferred to acknowledge and provide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement.

Graduate Molly McKinney, host of the TV series, “AquaKids,” brought her crew to Fredonia to join area youth and volunteers from a fly-fishing program to release 200 brook trout into Canadaway Creek recently. Local children sold fishing flies they created to buy the trout.

Dr. Clark M. Zlotchew was one of just nine individuals across the SUNY system to be promoted to the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor recently. For 33 years a professor of Spanish at Fredonia, he is an expert scholar of the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges, has written 14 books, and published translations of the works of two Nobel Laureates: Pablo Neruda and Juan Ramón Jiménez.

New poems written by SUNY Fredonia English Professor Aimee Nezhukumatathil and published by Tupelo Press have reaped two prestigious awards. The Balcones Center for Creative Writing at Austin (Texas) Community College selected her book, "At the Drive-In Volcano," as the winner of its 2007 Balcones Poetry Prize.  One poem in the book, "Love in the Orangery," has won the Pushcart Prize.

The Fredonia School of Music faculty now uses ANGEL Learning System technology to examine a large body of incoming students in an accurate and efficient manner and place students in the correct class based on placement exam results. Its innovative use of the ANGEL technology won the school and several individuals honors from the software company.

Besides being SUNY Fredonia faculty who enjoy seeing their students graduate each year, Michael and Carolyn Grady are, this year,  proud parents who will be watching two of their own children mark the milestone.  “We love Fredonia; it is a very nurturing and supportive place for students, and they have done so well here,” Mrs. Grady said. “Any student that goes to Fredonia can end up going anywhere.”

Neil Feit's book, "Belief about the Self," will be published in June by Oxford University Press. The book defends a theory about the nature and psychological content of representational mental states such as beliefs and desires. Dr. Feit is a member of the Philosophy Department faculty. The book offers a sustained defense of the Property Theory of Content, according to which the content of every cognitive attitude is a property rather than a proposition. The theory is supported with an array of new arguments, defended from various objections, and applied to some important problems and puzzles in the philosophy of mind. See the publisher's website.

Highlighting some famous examples of dancers and choreographers throughout western history whose styles were in sharp contrast and even rivalry with each other, Helen Myers will show how her own choreography reflects these contrasts. Her May 7 talk is the final event in the Arts and Humanities Brown Bag Lunch Series.

Fewer than 500 theatre and arena riggers in the U.S. and Canada are professionally certified via rigorous evaluation and written examination, and Stephen E. Rees has just joined the ranks of only a handful from academia who have achieved the distinction.

The Multipurpose Room was filled with scores of employees who received service certificates and pins for length of service recently as three longtime members of the SUNY Fredonia community – Dr. Jeanette McVicker, Dr. Sally Turner and Timothy McGraw – received 2008 President’s Awards for Excellence.