Front cover of WaterWrites. Image submitted

Laurence Carr (English) has set sail with an anthology that tells the story of the Hudson River through the creative works of Hudson Valley writers.

Sixty writers are featured in “WaterWrites,” which was published by Codhill Press of New Paltz on Oct. 21. There are well over 12 writers from the college who contributed to the 136-page book.

Carr added that “WaterWrites” is a SUNY New Paltz book. In addition to the more than 12 writers from the college, the 136-page book was designed by Laura Kniffen (Design Services) and the cover photograph was taken by Morgan Gwenwald (Library). Joann Deiudicibus (English), Penny Freel (English) and Rachel Rigolino (English) assisted Carr with the editing of the manuscript.

Inside, the works of professional and amateur writers from the area span the literary and environmental plain. There are essays, short stories, poetry and more. All works share a common theme: the Hudson River. Carr said there was an amazing amount of submissions from high school students, college students, graduates, professional and amateur writers. “The submissions cover the spectrum of every Hudson Valley person,” he said.

“I am so happy to have a very active profile of Hudson Valley writers to celebrate the region and prose and poetry,” said Carr.

The idea came to Carr at a meeting discussing events for the Hudson River Quadricentennial. Carr thought it would be a good idea to have a literary component to the historic celebration. Carr, who had previously edited Riverine, an anthology of works from Hudson Valley writers, decided to get to work.

“This is a people’s book, not an academic publication,” he said. “It also combines the community and university and makes us one entity.”

There will be readings held up and down the river. A launch party is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, at Inquiring Minds Bookstore in New Paltz.

By Samantha Thomson ’09 (Communication and Media)

Public Affairs Intern

Scene from New York premiere of documentary film “This Land May Be Profitable to Those That Will Adventure It” on Sept. 9. Photo submitted

The New York City premiere of the documentary film “This Land May Be Profitable to Those That Will Adventure It” on Sept. 9 celebrated the collaborative efforts of students and faculty from New Paltz and the University of Noord Holland.

“I am thrilled with the final project. It holds a lot of cultural significance for both institutions from Holland and New York State,” said Gregory Bray (Communication and Media), faculty adviser to the project. “The SUNY students were true ambassadors for the college.”

With support from Bruce Sillner, dean of the Center for International Programs, the collaboration was established as a part of the celebration of the Hudson River Quadricentennial. The project resulted in three live, interactive Web programs; a Web video report on the event PICNIC New York, which celebrates Dutch enterprises in the United States; and the longer-form documentary.

“The experience made us bond together and after the first project things went along swimmingly,” said Dan Barry ’10 (Communication and Media).

Bray said that the new era of media includes creating content streamed to the web and having an understanding of international connections.

Students learned from hands-on experiences and were encouraged to experiment. “You just have to be willing to give it a go and fail,” said Bray. “When things went wrong, we laughed and then figured it out.”

Jaimie Pattipeilohy, an international exchange student from Haarlem, Netherlands, attended the premiere of the film, which was held on the rooftop terrace of Rievtvel Architects in the Film Center Building, on 46th Street and 9th Avenue, New York.

“The opportunities that projects like these open up to students and faculties alike in both nations are awesome,” said Pattiepeilohy. “And the people that you meet are energetic, creative, and like-minded. It is a really positive thing to be involved in.”

Other New Paltz Communication and Media students involved in the project were:

• Jarred Thomas ’09

• Mellisa Misner ’10

• Emily Myett ’10

• Adam Schwartz ’10

• Cat Tosiello ’10

• Tina Warren ’10

Daniel Butler ’10g (English), ’08 (Communication and Media) and Joseph Vlachos (Communication and Media) also worked on the project.

Michael Wengen ’11 (Chemistry) participated in this year's Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program. His faculty mentor was Megan Ferguson (Chemistry).

A number of students opted to spend their summer in the lab or classroom working with faculty on research projects.

In addition to the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program, a group of biology and chemistry students were selected to participate in the first year of the college’s involvement with the Merck/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) program.

“These kinds of experiences will help students achieve so much after college,” said Maureen Morrow (Biology), director of the Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities program at the college. “They have learned how to work independently, self-motivate and think critically. These are all traits you want a student to get out of their education.”

This summer marked the first year the college has participated in the Merck/AAAS projects, an interdisciplinary research program.
Earlier this year, the Biology and Chemistry departments received a $60,000, three-year award to provide research opportunities for undergraduate students studying chemistry and biology over the next three years. The award provides stipends for four New Paltz students to work full time during the summer projects under the guidance of two faculty members (one in chemistry and one in biology). The students will present the results of their research projects at a fall symposium on Oct. 19.
Starting in late May, each student put in full days in the lab for eight weeks and received a $2,900 summer stipend. This year’s participants are:

• Kerri Clayton ‘10 (Biology), Tom Nolen (Biology) and Frantz Andersen (Chemistry)

• Juan De Jesus ‘09 (Chemistry), Maureen Morrow (Biology) and Dan Freedman (Chemistry)

• Angela Acevedo ‘09 (Biology), Aaron Haselton (Biology) and Preeti Dhar (Chemistry)

• Kelly Peletz ‘12 (Physics), Jeff Reinking (Biology) and Pamela St. John (Chemistry)

In addition to working one-on-one, students and faculty have met throughout the summer at workshops and group presentations.

Over the course of the program, De Jesus said he gained skills that will be valuable to his future educational endeavors and career. He considers himself lucky because most students do not get to do this kind of research until they are in graduate school or an internship.

“For me this was a lot better as my first step into the laboratory environment,” said De Jesus. “It was a great experience.”

Juan De Jesus '09 (Chemistry) conducted biology and chemistry research as part of the Merck/American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) program.

Meanwhile, now in its sixth year, the SURE program provides students from all academic disciplines with the opportunity to work full time for eight weeks on a research, scholarship or creative project under the direction of a faculty member. Morrow said this year’s group has the most diverse group of projects. This is the first year there has been an art project and a humanities project.

Hope Mary Mahon ‘10 (History) said she gained so much from working on her project titled “Material Culture and Servant-Employer Relations in Late-Medieval London.” “A crucial lesson I learned through this process was time management. I realized how much I can get done in a specific amount of time. I also learned how to pace myself with an abundance of work to get done. I also learned how to meet a deadline.”

Alison Stevens ‘10 (Photography), who worked on the program’s first art project – a study of stop-motion animation and video, said, “Going into this project, I really didn’t know what to expect exactly, and I was surprised at how much I got into the project and enjoyed coming into work every day.”

This summer, there were nine student-faculty pairings working on SURE projects:

• Morgan Anderson ‘10 (Sociology, Spanish) and Eve Waltermaurer (Sociology)

• Kenneth Deegan ‘10 (Geography) and John Sharp (Geography)

• David Gorovoy ‘10 (Biology), Aaron Haselton (Biology) and Preeti Dhar (Chemistry)

• Hope Mary Mahon ‘10 (History) and Katherine French (History)

• Victoria Nichols ‘10 (Anthropology) and Kenneth Nystrom (Anthropology)

• Michael Pianka ‘09 (Geography) and Jo Margaret Mano (Geography)

• Darian Pucciarelli ‘10 (Sociology, Political Science) and Sunita Bose (Sociology)

• Alison Stevens ‘10 (Photography) and James Fossett (Art)

• Michael Wengen ‘11 (Chemistry) and Megan Ferguson (Chemistry)

Wengen said the experience provided him with opportunities to do hands-on work and learn a lot of technical information. He said he has applied lessons he learned in the classroom to his work in the laboratory and hopes his upcoming courses will expand upon some new things he learned in the lab.

“The idea of more potential research will encourage me to pay even closer attention in class,” he said.

Each fall, the students who participated in the SURE program present their research results to the campus community. The 2009 SURE presentations will take place on Sept. 9. Student participants are also encouraged to present their work at appropriate regional and national meetings.

by Danielle Chery ‘09 (Journalism)

Public Affairs intern

A series of READ posters highlighting student and faculty collaboration went on display April 6 in the lobby of the Sojourner Truth Library.

Coordinators of the READ poster project Morgan Gwenwald (Library), Colleen Lougen (Library) and Maureen Morrow (Biology) are exploring ways to encourage students and faculty to work together.

The library has been promoting student reading for about seven years on behalf of National Library Week. They have taken different approaches with the design of the posters. Previously, alumni and celebrities have been featured on the READ posters, but this year, for the first time, there is a specific focus on undergraduate student research.

There are 14 posters representing the departments of Anthropology, Biology, Black Studies, Business, Chemistry, Communication and Media, Geology, Printmaking and Sociology.  The coordinators are looking forward to doing more independent study posters for next year, and are hoping to display a broader spectrum of people.

Gwenwald believes the library is the heart of the university and a great place to showcase student work. “There’s a lot of pride in these pictures,” she said.

Each poster will be displayed in a glass case along the walls of the lobby. “People love looking at them because they usually notice people in the posters,” said Gwenwald.

Lauren Kniffen (Design Services) and Jim Lyons (Printing Services) contributed to the project. “The quality is great. We couldn’t do it without them,” said Gwenwald.

The posters, which were unveiled as part of the library’s participation in National Library Week, April 12-19, will be on display through the end of the month.

For more information about READ posters, visit http://lib.newpaltz.edu/.

Collaboration leads to Second Life classroom

by Lee Conell ‘09 (English) – Public Affairs intern

This semester, Benjamin Junge (Anthropology) was able to move his classroom into the virtual realm with the help of Brian Waite (Academic Computing).

Junge scheduled a meeting in Second Life, a virtual world accessible for free online, into his Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class’s syllabus, in part so that he would not have to cancel the class while at a conference in San Francisco. His students set up program accounts, and arrived at the class’s regular 9:25 a.m. starting time (6:25 a.m. for Junge on the West coast).

The regular rules of the classroom still applied: Collaborating with Junge in order to prepare for the first class discussion on the college’s Second Life territory, Waite even created a device to check attendance: A green orb that, with the touch of their avatars’ (virtual representations of the user) hands, led students to an outside Web site where they could sign in to mark themselves as present.

On Second Life, Waite also built the island where the virtual New Paltz is located, the cyber Paltz Preserve, projecting onto it images of Mohonk and the Jacobson Faculty Tower to give the “seaside” locale a Hudson Valley feel.

Junge’s class meeting was pertinent to the non-virtual world, as earlier in the semester his students had begun to study and discuss Second Life together, using the game to analyze the effects of switching the identities and appearances of their avatars.

While other instructors on campus have had their students use Second Life, Junge’s class was the first to hold a sustained group discussion on the virtual territory that Waite has built for New Paltz. “This is the best example of faculty use to date,” Waite said.

Waite said he appreciated the experience of working on cutting edge technology with faculty like Junge. “When people are driven to embrace something new like this, I try to make myself available. Ben took the island and ran with it.”