Campus Report
News, Calendar & Events

Clifton Wheeler, an investigator and head of the shooter team for the University Police department at SUNY Fredonia, won four medals at the North American Indigenous Games, held Aug. 2 to 10 in British Columbia. The Gowanda, N.Y., resident won one gold and three silver medals in rifle shooting.

Dr. Rhea Simmons has been named director of the College Core Curriculum (CCC) Program at SUNY Fredonia, effective Aug. 20.

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.

Cast members in an upcoming production of the Chautauqua Opera will include three faculty members and two students from SUNY Fredonia programs in music and theatre. Part of a large cast of singers, dancers, and actors in "Street Scene" will be theatre faculty members James Ivey, Tom Loughlin, and Tina Rausa, along with sophomores  Michael Valvo of Kennedy, N.Y., and Kyle Blount of McKean, Pa.

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.

Tracy S. Bennett, vice president of Administration at SUNY Fredonia, has received the Robert J. Wagner Business Officers Award, the highest citation given by the State University of New York Business Officers Association (SUBOA).

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.

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

A photograph taken by Charlotte Morse (AIT) was selected for the 2008 Concord Grape Belt Heritage Association Calendar, which features the scenic beauty of local vineyards within the Lake Erie Concord Grape Belt. All of the photos used in the calendar were from the "I love My Concord Grape Belt Heritage Area" photo contest sponsored by the Association as part of New York State's 25th Anniversary Celebration of the Heritage Area Program.

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.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded SUNY Fredonia $20,000 for the second Big Read Program to feature the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee.  The Big Read is an initiative to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. SUNY Fredonia's Reed Library will conduct the project locally in conjunction with other libraries.

The Research Corporation of Tucson, AZ, has awarded $27,376 to Chemistry Professor Matthew Gronquist for his project, "Ecological Chemistry of the Pine Spittle Bug," which starts this summer. The Research Corporation is an active, hands-on foundation that stimulates advances in science.

Joseph Flaxman, a 2006 graduate of the Fredonia School of Music, will be one of four resident artists of the Opera Memphis to perform in a one-hour broadcast on Wednesday, May 14, for National Public Radio station WKNO. He will be singing, "Avant de quitter" from Gounod's "Faust." The program can be heard online with Windows Media Player.