Campus Report
News, Calendar & Events

Robert Caruso, retired from nearly three decades in higher education at the University of California at Los Angeles, recently took the long flight back to his Dunkirk roots and alma mater, SUNY Fredonia, the to meet Amanda Straight of Fredonia, the first recipient of a Caruso Memorial Scholarship.

Biology students who were awarded summer research fellowships will present the findings of their research at an open session on Friday, Oct. 17, at 2 p.m. in Jewett Hall Room 101. The students undertook a wide range of studies involving local fish, water quality, little brown bats, and native plants.

Sophomore and childhood education major Christine Padasak of Springville, N.Y., is one of 40 students nationwide with Cystic fibrosis who have received a $2,500 scholarship from Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc., based on her essay about achieving her goals despite living with the disease. She is now eligible for a $10,000 scholarship from the company which will be awarded through an on-line voting process.

The Musical Journeys Program of the SUNY Fredonia School of Music will kick off its third season of free concerts designed to appeal to very young children. Selected student ensembles from the Fredonia School of Music will perform half-hour Children’s Concerts on four Saturday mornings at 10:30 a.m. beginning on Saturday, Oct. 4 in Darwin R. Barker Library.

The SUNY Fredonia School of Music announced a vocalist, a horn player and four saxophone students who play as a quartet are the 2008 winners of its annual Concerto Competition, held every fall to select “the cream of the crop” among music students for solo performances in spring concerts.

On Saturday, Sept. 13, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m., the men's ice hockey team will host “Power Plays for Cancer,” to officially unveil the team’s extended commitment to raising funds to battle cancer. From its first game of the season on Oct. 17 until its 2009 “Pink the Rink” game on Feb. 7, 2009, supporters will be asked to pledge money for every power play goal Fredonia scores.

Making a 13-week summer commitment, the Fredonia seniors are immersing themselves in an Australian perspective on education, while at the same time forming comparisons that they hope will make them better teachers in the U.S. "It's a unique program and it's actually a world exemplar in terms of international student-teacher programs,” said Colin Balfour.

A key component of a comprehensive public relations plan designed by senior public relations majors to help the 1891 Fredonia Opera House expand its membership and attract younger audiences has been awarded a $1,000 grant from the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Foundation

Seventy-two Fredonia State student-athletes were cited by the State University of New York Athletic Conference for their academic achievement during the Spring 2008 semester. Among the honorees were 39 student-athletes named to the Commissioner’s List, for varsity athletes who completed their entire season and maintained a GPA of 3.3 for three semesters.

Six undergraduates have just finished the first annual six-week study-abroad program in Mexico this summer at the Ollin Tlahtoalli Centro de Lenguas y Cultura Mexicana. Located in Oaxaca, the center is dedicated to preserving endangered Mexican indigenous languages, the teaching of Spanish within a Mexican cultural framework, and the promotion of Mexican culture and traditions.

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.

Most of SUNY Fredonia’s students have left campus for the summer by now, but many of the items they left behind — sweatshirts, microwave ovens and cans of soup and pasta — will stay in Chautauqua County and benefit needy families for months to come.

For the first time ever, a team of SUNY Fredonia students reached the semifinals of the annual Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) USA National Exposition. They competed among 3,200 students from 143 schools at the event held May 13-15 in Chicago. To put this year’s exceptional ranking into perspective, Fredonia is firmly lodged in the top 2 percent of some 950 SIFE teams sponsored by schools across the United States.

A total of 12 SUNY Fredonia theatre arts majors under the tutelage of Professor Ted Sharon passed national Skills Proficiency Testing by the Society of American Fight Directors in the broad sword and small sword recently.

The sev enth annual Jurgen P. Banse-Fay Production Management Internship Award at the Michael C. Rockefeller Arts Center has been presented to Rick Haug, a BFA Production Design major at the State University of New York at Fredonia