geneseoA magazine for alumni, parents and friends of SUNY Geneseo

sceneSummer2015

GENESEOFindingHow do they get here?

13/30278405_2gDzmp#!i=2608098493&k=m8gQqSt

FEATURES8 Numbers Game

Every year, Geneseo chooses a new freshman class and anew freshman class chooses Geneseo. Here’s howGeneseo admissions makes it happen.

14 First ImpressionIncoming Geneseo President Denise Battles talksabout rocks, her management style and her roots inUpstate New York. Her colleagues at UNC Wilmingtontalk about her.

18 Challenge and ResponseThree special programs and an unusual classroomintervention show faculty at Geneseo’s Ella ClineShear School of Education at work in the real world.

DEPARTMENTS3 One College Circle: Campus News

23 Athletics and Recreation

27 Alumni News

33 Class Notes

COLUMNS2 President’s Message

17 What’s Your Story?

24 Perspectives

26 Random Profile

Cover Photo by Keith Walters ’11.

Table of contents: High above Laguna del Maule, a volcanic

caldera in Chile, Geneseo geological sciences professor Jeffery

Over points out features of Andean geology during the depart-

ment’s biennial trip to the country in January 2015.

geneseosceneSummer 2015

CONTENTS

Postmaster: Please address changes to the Office ofAlumni Relations, Doty Hall, SUNY Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Geneseo, NY 14454-1484. Standard-class postage paid at Lebanon Junction, KY 40150

Vol. 40, No. 2 Summer 2015

Geneseo Scene is published bySUNY Geneseo, Division ofCollege Advance ment, Office ofCollege Communications.

Carol S. Long, Interim PresidentJon A.L. Hysell, Interim VicePresident for College Advancement

Judson Mead, Interim EditorCarole Smith Volpe ’91,Creative Director

Contributing writers:Kris DreessenTony HoppaJim Memmott

Contributing photographer:Keith Walters ’11

Alumni Relations OfficeRonna Bosko,Director of Alumni Relations

Michelle Walton Worden ’92,Associate Director of AlumniRelations

Amanda McCarthy,Assistant Director of AlumniRelations for Regional Events

Tracy Young Gagnier ’93,Assistant Director of AlumniRelations

Alumni Relations Office: Doty Hall SUNY Geneseo 1 College Circle Geneseo, NY 14454-1484 Phone: (585) 245-5506 Fax: (585) 245-5514 alumni@geneseo.edu

Contact the Scene at scene@geneseo.edu. Visit the website atwww.geneseo.edu/geneseo_scenePhone: (585) 245-5516

s the academic year comes to a close, we welcome another graduating class of studentsinto our extended alumni community of influence. Commencement is always a joyous time, when we celebrate the success of our core mis-

sion, educating socially responsible citizens equipped with skills and values important to the pur-suit of an enriched life and success in the world. The world will benefit from the presence of our2015 graduates as they take up their careers or pursue graduate and professional programs. In this issue, you will learn about our new efforts in admissions and enrollment. Under the

leadership of Vice President Meaghan Arena, who joinedus nearly a year ago, our staff, faculty and alumni are work-ing to sustain a diverse and able student body. Because ofthe culture we sustain, we always fight above our weight.We’re small but powerful. Whether taking five awards inour second year of participation in the New York StateBusiness Plan competition; ranking as one of the top 15Relay for Life events in the country; taking top paper hon-ors in communication and English in national undergradu-ate research conventions; or winning the CommissionersCup in the SUNY Athletic Conference, we achieve unex-pected excellence because of our motivated students andthe fine mentors on campus and in the community. Our

efforts in enrollment management help us to sustain that culture. You will also learn more in this issue about our Ella Cline Shear School of Education and its

excellent faculty and staff. Beginning as a statenormal school, Geneseo has always seen educat-ing teachers as a core mission of the college.Faculty across the curriculum are involved in ourteacher programs. Both the Robert NoyceTeacher Scholarship Program, funded by theNational Science Foundation, and the New YorkState Master Teachers Program involve our STEMfaculty. The history department sponsors anannual teacher day. Our student teachers gainexperience in urban and rural settings and havethe opportunity to engage with internationalplacements. For Geneseo, education at all levels is a global enterprise. Perhaps most importantly, in this issue you will get to meet our new president, Denise

Battles, who takes the helm as our 13th president on July 1. President Battles has alreadymade many friends on the campus and in the community, and we know that she will be agreat leader for this gem of a campus. We hope you enjoy learning a bit about her, and thatyou will visit Geneseo soon to meet her in person.

FROM THE PRESIDENTgeneseoscene

Carol S. LongInterim President

A

Fighting above our weight

2 geneseo scene

“The world will benefit from the presence of our 2015 graduates as they take up their careersor pursue graduate and professional programs.”

Summer 2015 3

PHOTO BY KEITH W

ALT

ERS ’11

One College Circle

Psst...Looking for a good time?Bubble ball battle, Geneseo Late Knight, spring 2015. In the MacVittie College Union on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights? Youcould also get an airbrush tattoo, or watch a balloon artist get twisted, or bellydance; try your luck at the Blizzard of Bucks or Casino Knight with mocktails; getsticky with cotton candy and snow cones, go on a digital scavenger hunt, play ina dodge ball tournament or frolic at a foam party.

Need to relax? Get in a giant hot tub. Daring? Ride a mechanical bull. Monster Mash Bash, Nerf Wars, Oxygen Bar and the Rocky Horror Picture Show;or the roller coaster simulator, roller skating in the ballroom, spelling bees andtango lessons. The list goes on.

4 President named

4 A Mars landing

5 Student engagement recognized

6 Geosciences earn grant

7 Diabetes breakthrough

CAMPUS NEWS

4 geneseo scene

CAMPUS NEWS

ONE COLLEGE CIRCLE

Before joining the Department of GeologicalSciences as an assistant professor in fall 2014,Nick Warner ’00 spent three years working onMars projects as a postdoctoral fellow at theJet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. When he came home to Geneseo, he

brought his Mars work with him. Warner ispart of a small team of surface geologistsresponsible for choosing the landing site forthe upcoming InSight mission, scheduled tolaunch in March 2016 and touch down sixmonths later.InSight will sit where it lands, not rove. It

carries two main research instruments: a seis-mograph and a heat-flow probe that will pen-etrate 5 meters (about 15 feet) into the sur-face of Mars. The landing site can’t be rock-strewn or

steep, to minimize the risk of InSight tippingover when it lands; but just as important, thesite has to be on ground InSight’s probe canpenetrate. The probe is not a drill: it will pushdown through the Martian regolith (loosematerial) like a pile driver. Landing on solidrock or on a thin layer of regolith above solidrock will defeat the purpose of the mission’sheat-flow instrumentation. So Warner and one of his planetary geolo-

gy students, Anthony Pivarunas ’15, are study-ing thousands of images from the orbitingHigh-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment,looking for areas of the Martian surface withincandidate landing zones that have been

churned up by small meteor strikes—what iscalled “impact gardening.” Larger strikes blastright down to bedrock, throwing up largerocks and scattering less loose material.For Warner, the work is a planetary geolo-

gist’s dream assignment; for Pivarunas, it’s afirst chance to touch the Red Planet.

Craters with rocks around them in the InSight landing region.

Denise Battles namedGeneseo President

The State University of New YorkBoard of Trustees has appointedDenise Battles as the new president of SUNY Geneseo. She begins her tenure in July. At the time of her appointment,

Battles was provost and vicechancellor for academic affairs atthe University of North CarolinaWilmington.Her appointment caps a

25-year career as a geologist, professor and higher educationadministrator that includes positions at the University ofNorthern Colorado, at GeorgiaSouthern University and atWilmington, where she also holdsthe rank of professor of geogra-phy and geology.Battles succeeds Christopher C.

Dahl, who retired in the fall of2013 after 20 years of service. She becomes the third woman

appointed to lead Geneseo; CarolC. Harter served from 1989 to1995 and later became presidentof the University of Las Vegas,Nevada. Interim President CarolS. Long has led the college sinceDahl’s retirement and will returnto her previous position asprovost and vice president foracademic affairs.

For a profile of President Battles,see page 14.

From Geneseo to Mars

Summer 2015 5

Geneseo’s “exemplary prac-tices of community engage-ment” have earned the col-lege a highly respectedCommunity EngagementClassification for 2015 fromthe Carnegie Foundation forthe Advancement ofTeaching. To be selected, institutions

had to provide descriptionsand examples of exemplarypractices of communityengagement. The college has been

engaged for many years incommunity outreach initia-tives at the local level andbeyond. In 2014, an estimat-ed 3,678 students engaged in262,706 hours of communityservice and academic servicelearning. Local projectsincluded such efforts as pro-viding leaf raking for seniorcitizens, Red Cross blooddrives, numerous charityfundraisers and serving as

volunteers for the GeneseoFire Department.Nationally, 826 college vol-

unteers have participated in32 Livingston CARES servicetrips to the Biloxi/Gulfportregion since 2006 for disas-ter relief and recovery effortsfollowing Hurricane Katrina.Volunteers have done simi-

lar relief work on StatenIsland and Long Island since2013 following HurricaneSandy. In addition, the college is

actively involved in globalservice learning initiatives inGhana, Haiti and Nicaragua. Geneseo’s commitment to

community service also hasput the college on thePresident’s Higher EducationHonor Roll every year sinceits inception in 2006. For thefourth year, the 2014 honorroll gives Geneseo the desig-nation “with distinction.”

Twenty-five rings for Geneseo’s Roemer Arboretum

Founded in 1990 with an endowment from Spencer J.Roemer, a generous benefactor of the college and formerdirector of admissions at Geneseo who died in 1997, the20-acre arboretum that bears his name is both littlechanged and very different from his day.The land, which adjoins the south end of the campus,

belonged to the Wadsworth Homestead from 1790 to the1960s when Geneseo acquired it as a site for futureexpansion. Roemer’s gift assured that it would be pre-served in its natural state in perpetuity.According to Jennifer Apple, associate professor of

biology at Geneseo and chair of the arboretum’s board ofadvisors, in Roemer’s day, he would have been able tolook out across the Genesee valley from the arboretum.Today, the view is obscured by two decades of forestgrowth. As late as the 1960s, the land was mostly open,used for grazing, dotted with old oaks, one of which isnow the arboretum’s logo. Apple says that after some early tree plantings, now

lost in the thickening woods, the arboretum has largelybeen left to grow on its own. In addition to the oaks, abiology department survey has counted 70 species oftrees, shrubs and wildflowers.Apple is now introducing some native perennial herba-

ceous plants, such as bloodroot, Solomon seal, twinleaf(which is threatened in New York) and wild ginger.She has organized students to help control invasive

shrubs such as honeysuckle and European buckthorn.Apple conducts research with her students in the arbore-tum on the habits of the slave-making ant. One colleagueuses the arboretum to study bird songs and another isplanning to conduct research on the old oaks.Apple says contributions to the arboretum support

modest projects and landscaping materials.Beyond science, the arboretum’s gazebo provides a

peaceful sanctuary for strollers from the campus and thevillage. Another change in the past 25 years: Roemer

Arboretum has a website (arboretum.geneseo.edu) and alively Facebook page (find it with the search term“Spencer J. Roemer Arboretum–Outdoors”).

Geneseo engagement earns Carnegie, White House recognition

6 geneseo scene

ONE COLLEGE CIRCLE

New chief namedThomas J. Kilcullen was appointed chief ofUniversity Police Department in March 2015.Kilcullen came to Geneseo as interim chief of

police in January 2014after service in theUniversity at Albanypolice department,where he was deputychief of police andchief investigator. He is a graduate of

Southern VermontCollege, Hudson ValleyCommunity Collegeand the FBI NationalAcademy PoliceExecutive Training Program in Quantico, Va.The Geneseo University Police Department

recently earned accreditation status from theNew York State Law Enforcement AccreditationCouncil. It is the ninth SUNY police department toachieve accreditation.“It is highly complimentary to be recognized

for our accomplishments as a professional policeorganization,” said Chief Kilcullen. “I congratulateall of my staff and particularly those who workedtirelessly to achieve our goal of becoming anaccredited agency.”The department has 18 officers and three staff

members. Officers are on duty 24 hours a day.

Benjamin Laabs, middle, chair of the Department of GeologicalSciences, works with Jenelle Wallace ’16, and recent graduate EricKolakowski ’15 during the department’s recent biennial field trip for jun-iors and seniors, which took place this year in Chile.

NSF grant to fund geosciences students

Academically talented students with financial need will benefit froma $639,136 grant the National Science Foundation has awardedSUNY Geneseo to recruit students interested in geology, geochem-istry and geophysics programs at the college.Called the “Geoscience Scholarship to Improve Recruitment and

Retention of Academically Talented Students,” the funding programwill provide an estimated 34 students with 114 annual scholarshipsof about $4,575 over the five-year project period from April 1, 2015,through March 31, 2020. “The faculty members of geological sciences are excited to launch

the GeoS program,” said Benjamin Laabs, chair of the Department ofGeological Sciences, when the grant was announced. “The program istimely and important, given the growing interest in the geosciences atSUNY Geneseo and the national need for more and better-trainedgeoscientists.”The college will recruit freshmen and sophomore students to the

program who will be granted scholarships for three to four years.Department faculty will work with the Office of Admissions andsome 20 alumni who are geoscience teachers in area high schoolsto recruit candidates for the scholarships.

Summer 2015 7

This summer, Brandyn Balch ’15 is con-ducting stream and forest canopyresearch to measure the effect of a tinyinvasive insect that poses a big threat toLetchworth State Park’s hemlock trees.Last winter, a team of geography profes-sors taught a geography course over asnowy camping weekend in the park. A five-year partnership between the

college and the state park will provideopportunities for more hands-on educa-tional experiences and research at thenew Letchworth State Park NatureCenter. Construction of the $6 million center is

expected to start soon as a centerpieceof Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s NY Parks 2020initiative. The center will be a hub for visi-tors to learn about the rich geological his-tory and diverse ecosystems of the park.The college is providing $75,000 for dis-play and research equipment that will be

used at the center by Geneseo studentsand faculty members.The college will have preferential use

of two classrooms at the center, as wellas a group campsite and other facilities.Letchworth is a valuable resource forstudies, says Jim Kernan, assistant pro-fessor of geography. At least 10 proj-ects or field studies will have been con-ducted there by fall 2015, from studyingthe impact of deer on park biodiversityto surveying and monitoring invasivespecies.

The partnership with the collegemakes it easy to incorporate the parkinto projects and programs. An adviso-ry committee composed of faculty,staff, students and park officials is justbeginning to develop the agreement. “There are so many opportunities—it’s

wide open,” says Kernan.

Geneseo research calls for diabetes rethink In a study published in the journal Nutrition, Wendy Pogozelski,Distinguished Teaching Professor and chair of Geneseo’sDepartment of Chemistry, describes evidence from clinical andexperimental studies that supports a carbohydrate-restrictionapproach to treatment of type 2 diabetes.According to the study, evidence in favor of a low-carbohy-

drate diet as a first line of attack on the disease is so over-whelming that waiting for results from long-term randomizedclinical trials on the effectiveness of such an approach couldheighten the incidence of the disease.Pogozelski and her co-authors contend the evidence merits a

re-evaluation of current recommendations for treating diabetes,already at epidemic levels in the United States. The second leadauthor on the study is Richard Feinman, professor of cell biolo-gy at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. A group of 24 addition-al physicians and researchers from around the world are co-authors of the publication.“My co-authors and I believe that resistance to carbohydrate

restriction is partly due to the erroneous belief that high fatintake is more detrimental than high carbohydrate intake,”Pogozelski says. “Reducing fat leads patients to compensatewith the intake of more carbohydrates, which we now see hasexacerbated the diabetes problem, leading to less glycemiccontrol, more complications and increased and oftentimesunnecessary treatment through medication.”The authors of the study recommend that government or pri-

vate health agencies conduct open hearings on the carbohy-drate restriction approach in the treatment of diabetes.

College partners with Letchworth State Park

8 geneseo scene

FindingFriday, Feb. 20, 2015, the last day of mid-

winter break in most school districts inNew York. It’s prime time for college visits

by high school juniors, as is spring break andsummer. By fall, they’ll be making their applica-tions.Geneseo is postcard beautiful—cloudless sky,

bright sun, fresh snow. Prospective applicantsand their parents arrive at the Office ofAdmissions in Doty Hall for an afternoon oftours and presentations. Couches and chairs fillup, then standing room, until the crowd spillsinto the lobby. Geneseo student “lobby hosts” circulate,

introducing themselves, asking visitors wherethey’re from, answering questions (mostly fromparents): Is this as cold as it gets? How did youdecide to come here? How’s the food? What’sthe typical class size? Is it true there’s free laun-dry on campus?By noon, the reception area and the Doty

Hall lobby are packed with more than 100 visi-tors. Parents sip coffee, prospective applicantslook around for clues to what this place mightbe like. The doors to Doty Recital Hall swingopen and the crowd files in for a general infor-mation session.Georgenson Anselme, senior assistant director

of admissions, warms them up with a suspensefulstory told with perfect pacing in his faintCaribbean lilt about arriving as a Haitian kidfrom Brooklyn on the rural SUNY Potsdam cam-pus—SUNY’s northernmost outpost—to beginhis freshman year, without having first visited. He advises his audience to tour as many col-

leges as they can before they decide where toapply. “If that school is Geneseo, I’ll look for-ward to welcoming you back.”

The college is its students. They don’t just materialize. This is how they get here.

By Judson Mead

Summer 2015 9

Finding

10 geneseo scene

Bring us the Class of 2019Anyone who has been to college, andevery parent of college-bound children,knows about the college search. But whatabout the other side of the hunt? Howdoes Geneseo find its new class? This is the assignment for the Geneseo

admissions department: deliver for registra-tion every fall approximately 1,500 new stu-dents—mostly first time freshmen, but trans-fers as well—who will invigorate and con-tribute to the Geneseo college communityand maintain its character. As a group, theyshould be diverse in their talents, race andethnic background, interests, hometown(city, suburb, village) and economic situa-tion. Each new student must be able tomeet Geneseo’s academic standards.And, not least, they must number

1,500, give or take a few. Geneseo is built,staffed and budgeted to accommodate acertain enrollment. Within a fairly narrowmargin, either more or fewer could throwthese complex calucations off balance. The appearance of the incoming class

in the fall can feel inevitable, like anoccurrence in nature. But, in fact, eachnew class is the product of calculation,legwork, customer service, painstakingscrutiny, guesswork, science, hope, wordof mouth, accident, guidance, contact,visits and a little luck.

Congratulations!At the close of an admissions departmentmeeting, Meaghan Arena, Geneseo’s newvice president for enrollment manage-ment, reminds everyone, “Customer serv-ice is everything.” They know. She knowsthey know.They’ve been discussing yield. In late

February, one of the signal dates in theso-called admissions cycle is just daysaway: Decision letters—accepting, notaccepting, or wait-listing—go out to allapplicants on March 1. Yield is the per-centage of students Geneseo accepts whowill eventually enroll. A certain numberof acceptances yields a certain number ofenrollees.

You know exactly what your yield wasafter everyone has enrolled. But whenyou send out acceptance letters, you canonly predict what it will be. Set the yieldtoo high or too low and that produces

too many or too few enrollees.Applications arrive during the fall; the

deadline is January 1. A few hundredprospective students apply for early deci-sion, committing to attending Geneseo ifthey’re accepted. They will either be accept-ed by Dec. 15 or have their applications for-warded to the general applicant pool.In a typical year, Geneseo receives

around 9,500 applications. From January1 to March 1, admissions counselorsreview them all, often more than once, toselect which applicants to offer admissionto the new class. Applications come from prospective

students who know of Geneseo from mail-ings—Geneseo sends literature to stu-dents who have scored well on the SATand ACT—from high school guidancecounselors, from Geneseo admissions

counselor visits, from college fairs, fromGeneseo-connected friends or familymembers, from college guides.Most (more than 90 percent) are from

New York State. The college is working toincrease out-of-state enrollment and hassigned on part-time regional admissionscounselors in New Jersey and throughoutNew England. Out-of-state enrollment,including international enrollment, iscurrently about 4 percent of the Geneseostudent body.Some applicants have their hearts set

on attending Geneseo; for others, whohave their hearts set on going elsewhere,Geneseo is a second choice. Other appli-cants, using a shotgun approach to choos-ing a college, don’t know much aboutGeneseo, or even much about where theywant to go. Some applicants have visitedthe campus more than once; others (anincreasing number) have never visited.Arena, who came to the post at

Geneseo from Westfield State Universityin Massachusetts, is looking for data thatwill make the admissions process—fromattracting applicants to fine-tuning theyield—even more precise.“I like the actual hard numbers,” she

says. For example, she wants to knowwhere all the accepted students who decid-ed not to attend Geneseo went, so she canlook at whether those schools have beendoing anything different recently. She will

ARENA REED PATTERSON

Shopping for college: Prospective applicantsand their parents on a guided tour of theGeneseo campus. Campus visits are the mostimportant factor in decisions to apply and toattend.

Summer 2015 11

get that data from a national clearinghousefor college decisions.She wants to know whether the number

of times an applicant visits the campus isan indicator of likeliness to enroll. Theanswer already exists in Geneseo databases,waiting to be teased out. It could make abig difference in gauging how many appli-cants to admit to make up the class. Data will be crucial in the next several

years as Geneseo and its peer institutionscompete for enrollment from a decliningapplicant pool. The demographic realityis that there are fewer high school stu-dents in New York State: in 2012, thestate produced 181,604 high school grad-uates; by 2016 that number will have sunkto 166,975, remaining within a few thou-sand of that total each year through 2020.“There are fewer students applying to

college today,” Arena says, “but therearen’t fewer seats in college.” So keepingup the application and enrollment num-bers means increasing them as a share ofthe total. Arena says alumni can help byspreading the word about Geneseo topotential students. (See the card attachedto this issue of the Scene.)Arena is assessing Geneseo’s admissions

marketing efforts to be sure it is reachingaudiences likely to respond, and deliver-ing the messages the kinds of studentsGeneseo is looking for need to hear. Shealso hopes metrics will point to specificopportunities to increase diversity in eachincoming class.

One by oneAs March 1 approaches, Kevin Reed,interim director of admissions, andAmanda Patterson ’02, senior assistantdirector of admissions, meet daily toreview applications as they round out thenumber of acceptances needed to pro-duce the class, now that the yield hasfinally been set. They stare into computer screens in

Reed’s office, Reed at his desk, Pattersonon a laptop, pilot and copilot. In 2014,Geneseo did not receive a single paperapplication; supplementary material thatcomes in on paper—letters of recommen-dation, transcripts—is scanned andattached to the digital application.

This spring, after four hecticmonths of preparation—write acommunications plan, build a

website, produce informational fliers, cre-ate an online application, get a phonenumber, set up email management, opti-mize search results—Mike George,Geneseo’s first graduate enrollment coor-dinator, was ready to open his office for

business. In the short

run, that busi-ness will berecruiting andenrolling stu-dents to startGeneseo gradu-ate programs inthe spring 2016semester. Thecollege nowoffers master’s

degrees in the School of Business(accounting) and in the School ofEducation (four programs) that togeth-er enroll about 130 students annually.He will start recruiting close to home,

in fact, for the most part, at home.Geneseo students with the right interestsand career plans make great graduatecandidates, but they may not have con-sidered the benefits of staying for anoth-er year. In the longer run, George will be part

of the effort to match what Geneseocould offer beyond bachelor’s degreeprograms with what potential graduatestudents are looking for.Meaghan Arena, Geneseo’s vice presi-

dent for enrollment management, saysthere are high-demand areas—she citesdata analytics as one—in which Geneseofaculty have an interest in developingmaster’s-level programs. She expects thatfive years from now Geneseo will havemore graduate students.Creating a graduate enrollment posi-

tion and hiring George was one of herearly initiatives.A robust graduate enrollment brings

tuition to the campus that supports all ofGeneseo, not just graduate programs; italso helps smooth the effects of year-to-year fluctuations in undergraduateenrollment. Graduate students live and, for the

most part, eat and recreate off campus,so enrollment can rise without addinginfrastructure, such as dorms. George, who spent two decades in

graduate enrollment at Canisius Collegein Buffalo, N.Y., before coming toGeneseo, says prospective graduate stu-dents ask very different questions fromthose asked by prospective undergradu-ates—all pragmatic: Do you have my pro-gram? What does it cost? When can Istart?

Now recruiting college graduates

GEORGE

They are taking a detailed last look atapplications that have already been readand commented on in detail, decidingwho will be getting acceptance letters in afew weeks. Grades, program of study and test

scores are important, essentially a thresh-old for further consideration—it would-n’t be fair to admit someone who could-n’t handle Geneseo’s academic expecta-tions. But recommendations, personalessays, extracurricular activities andachievements—even parent essays—areequally or more important.Arena wants to get the word to high

school guidance counselors that Geneseois taking a holistic approach to admis-sions, not just looking at numbers. “We’re in an odd sweet spot right now

with guidance counselors,” she says.“Because we’re known as a selective school,we know some students with 1250 SATscores are being dissuaded from applyingbecause they’re being told they won’t getin.” She wants those students to apply.Reed says that in the total pool of appli-

cations, a portion are clearly not possibleto accept, a portion are clearly easy toaccept, and the rest—most, in fact—arethe ones he and his colleagues spend

12 geneseo scene

their time considering. Admissions counselors read the applica-

tions (about 1,500 each) from the countieswhere they recruit: they know the schools,they know the guidance counselors. Theysift and sort. They consult each other. Theyforward the files to Reed for the next roundof review. Gradually the potential Class of2019 takes shape.

Trying it onHow does a 17- or 18-year-old decidewhere to go to college? Distance fromhome? Prestige? People? Cost?Scholarship offers? Feel (whatever thatis)? Most prospective students have nevermade such a momentous decision. It’snot like shopping for a dress, or even acar. Parents chaperon the process andform their own opinions.The first decision is where to apply.

The second decision is the big one—where to go. And that produces a secondrecruitment season: closing the deal,recruiting accepted students to acceptyou back.To give accepted students the informa-

tion they need to choose Geneseo, the

college invites them to spend the night,or at least a day, on campus. The collegehosts these extended visits on six days inMarch and April.On the first of these, a late March after-

noon this year, accepted students visitingovernight arrive at Doty Hall with pillowsand sleeping bags under their arms, par-ents in tow. The students head off withtheir hosts. Their parents are left alone.Hello, college! The college hosts an early evening

reception for the parents at the Big TreeInn. They’ve come from Long Island,Queens, Manhattan, Niskayuna, Homerand other places around New York. Onecouple is from Phoenix, Ariz., having visit-ed with their daughter the previous sum-mer during a trip to Niagara Falls. Thedaughter was impressed enough to apply.For Sara and Jim Brazo, from Homer

in central New York, this is a third trip toGeneseo. Sara brought her daughter Juliafor a visit in June; Julia brought her fatherback to show him the college later in thesummer. The oldest of three, Julia applied to 22

colleges, was accepted at all of them, and

has reduced the choice to four, two public,two private. She’s active in everything, anathlete, and wants to study mathematicsand physics. One of the privates hasalready offered her a $22,000 scholarship.In Julia Brazo’s case, it may not matter.

The cost of attending the school offeringthe big scholarship is $60,000 a year. Thecost of attending Geneseo is $19,000 a year.

She texts herparents occa-sionally thatevening (“We’redoing home-work now”) andagain in themorning(“Showers areawesome”).After breakfast,on the way to aclass, she comeswith her host to

Wadsworth Auditorium, where her par-ents are waiting for a Preview Day infor-mation session. By the end of the day, Julia has gone to

a class, eaten lunch with other accepted

BRAZO

Geneseo depends entirely on student volunteers to present the campus to prospective applicants. While they can reel off volumes of informationabout all things Geneseo, the tour guides’ most important message is “this is who we are.”

Summer 2015 13

students and hosts in the MacVittieCollege Union ballroom, gone off on herown across campus (after huddling over amap with an admissions counselor) tomeet a professor in the math depart-ment, and attended a panel discussion byfive young Geneseo alumni with impres-sive stories to tell.Finally, 24 hours after she arrived, she

huddles briefly with her parents andmakes her deposit. She goes home JuliaBrazo, Geneseo Class of 2019. At 11:20that night, she posts to the Geneseo Classof 2019 Facebook page. “Hey everyone! I’m Julia and I’m from

Homer, NY (just north of SUNYCortland). I sent in my deposit today andofficially committed to Geneseo. I plan todouble major in physics and mathematics[…] I was voted my senior class ‘most ath-letic’ so I guess you can say I like sports. Ialso play the French horn […] I’m reallylooking forward to attending Geneseo inthe fall.”Everything she experienced at Geneseo

contributed to her decision, but theclinchers were the arguments in favor ofa pure undergraduate experience, espe-cially what she heard from CharlieFreeman, chair of the physics depart-ment, and the success of Geneseo stu-dents getting into top graduate schools.For Sara Brazo, it was a happy choice,

because of all the schools they visited, shefelt Geneseo had treated them the best.“It felt like you were being pampered,”she says. Later, her husband, Jim, said maybe

they should skip the college search whenJulia’s brother, Jackson, now a highschool freshman, is ready, and just bringhim to Geneseo.

I am GeneseoWhat sells Geneseo, if that’s even theright word, is the place and the people—students and faculty. Especially students.Especially students like Sarah Nafis ’15,from Clifton Park, N.Y., who leads a smallgroup tour out of Doty Hall on thatbright, bitter cold February afternoon.It’s so cold, Nafis says she’ll just hurry

the group from building to building and

explain whatthey’ve seenalong the way,when they’reback indoors.From the atriumof the newly ren-ovated BaileyHall, she gesturesin the directionof Main Streetand talks aboutthe village; in

Milne Library, she tells what to look forin Sturges Quad when they fly throughon their way to the Mary Jamison dininghall—the Seuss Spruce, the Painted Tree.All the way, Nafis talks. She tells the

Geneseo story, building by building. Shedelivers a stream of facts with commen-tary, and a few things about herself—she’s a senior, she’s going to graduateschool next year, she has studied abroad,when she applied to Geneseo she wishedshe’d applied for early admission becauseshe knew Geneseo was the place shewanted all along. Mary Jamison is busy and loud. Nafis

rocks up on her toes as she talks. Her

enthusiasm is casting a spell. By the timeshe shows a sample dorm room andwinds up the tour in the MacVittieCollege Union, she’s what the visitors willremember most: the soundtrack for whatthey’ve seen, the person who, for them, isGeneseo. She’s not promoting the college, she’s

just being Sarah Nafis. But for some even-tual applicants, she may be why Geneseofelt right. Admissions is a data-driven numbers

game—it’s a complex information deliv-ery and data processing business, a cus-tomer service operation. It’s also thethousands of uncontrollable momentsand emotional reactions that make upany individual decision to come toGeneseo, or not. At the end of the day, all the work—

and all the wonder—produce a class. Andthat class, green and hopeful when itarrives to enroll, which saw in Geneseowhat it wanted—will make the Geneseothat attracts the next class, and the oneafter that.That’s the virtuous circle of Geneseo

admissions.

Decision day: A big Geneseo envelope in an applicant’s mailbox in the first week of March isgood news. By May 1, Geneseo has its next class.

NAFIS

14 geneseo scene

RockSolid

By Tony Hoppa

“Ikeep rocks around to remind me that I am ageologist,” says Denise Battles, Geneseo’s incom-ing president.

Her words are as much a reflection on her academ-ic identity as an invitation to discovery in her provost’soffice at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Figuratively — and literally — evidence abounds.A watercolor conveys the rugged beauty of the

Grand Teton Range. A rare North Carolina sample oforbicular diorite (a relative of granite) sits in a glasscabinet, its opaque green circles radiating against abackground of white. And on her desk? A small rockholds business cards.“It’s a skarn — a rock type that I studied when I was

doing my dissertation,” she says, picking it up. “Yousee red, that’s garnet, and it has some quartz andsome feldspar-looking minerals.The green would be epidote — E-P-I-D-O-T-E —

and it looks like it has some amphibole in there, too.You know, good old mineralogy.” This “geology minute” offers a telling glimpse into

Battles’ knowledge and her love of teaching. “You can do some great quality instruction within

the confines of the lecture or the laboratory,” she says.“But geology requires you to get out — boots on theground.” Her own introduction was more like boots on the

shore. Battles spent childhood summers at her grand-parents’ cottage in northern Oswego County, alongthe rocky shoreline of Lake Ontario.“Instead of having a lemonade stand, I had a rock

stand,” she recalls, laughing, “with a differential pric-ing structure. The pretty rocks — the granites, were

far more dear than the soft sedimentary rocks.” Growing up in Central Square, N.Y., Battles followed

the path to geology by way of Colgate University,where she graduated with honors in three years. Theoldest of four (and the only daughter), she took localcollege courses while in high school to spare her par-ents the cost of extra tuition. “I went to Colgate thinking, ‘Maybe art, maybe sci-

ence,’” she remembers. But one course changedeverything: “Hot-blooded Dinosaurs.” “I loved it,” she says. “Dr. Linsley was marvelous —

very energetic, very engaging. And I said, ‘Oh, this iswhat I want to do!’” After graduation, she began her academic odyssey.

UCLA, Georgia Southern University, AuburnUniversity, University of Northern Colorado, UNCWilmington, and now, back to her upstate roots,Geneseo. Becoming a dean, then provost, brought greater —

and unpredictable — demands. Passionate aboutteaching, Battles did not want to shortchange her stu-dents due to last-minute meetings or travel. She scaledback instruction and research, yet delighted in unex-pected opportunities for student interaction, likechaperoning an undergraduate research conference.Battles’ easygoing manner and genuine interest in

students’ lives resonated with participant Colby Jones’13, who was unaware that UNC Wilmington’s provostwas part of the group. “It wasn’t until the next day that I learned who she

was,” she recalls. “Yet I never felt intimidated, andthat’s what I love most about her: she was willing to lis-ten, to encourage me.”

Denise Battles brings a life’s work to lead Geneseo as its 13th president

Summer 2015 15

Denise Battles, at home in Wilmington, N.C.

PHOTOS BY M

ARK COURTNEY

16 geneseo scene

Incoming President Denise Battles and her husband, Michael Mills, will become a daily sight on Main

Street, walking Texas Lucy, their 12-year-old Basenji. They moved into the President’s House in June.

As an administrator, Battles brings thesame precision and discipline to chip away atacademic bureaucracy as she did with a rockhammer to unearth samples in the SingatseRange in Nevada for her dissertation. Some300, to be exact. (Read the story of her rocksonline at go.geneseo.edu/traveledrocks.)Jessica Magnus, associate professor of

management, worked with Battles on UNCWilmington’s Innovation Council andknows her managerial skills.“Denise doesn’t want to make a decision

without knowing all of the details,” Magnussays. “But once she has the details, she wantsto make a decision. I think that's importantbecause you can have scenarios where theoutcome is not what everybody likes, butthat’s okay as long as everyone thought theprocess was fair. She’s a master at that.”Geneseo College Council Chair Bob

Wayland-Smith, who directed the presiden-tial search, observed similar qualities duringBattles’ interviews. “We were looking for someone who was

strong enough to get lots of input on thefront end but not be paralyzed when itcame time to make decisions,” he says.“Those are two different skills.”Battles knows that she’s quite analytical.

She brings a reputation for being incrediblythorough and precise. In meetings, shetakes detailed notes. “She catches the little details that could

have serious implications down the line,”says Aaron Wilcox, associate professor of artat UNC Wilmington. “One of her strengthsis looking forward and seeing what that'sgoing to mean.” “I like to make decisions that are data-

informed, and I think I’m a good problem-solver,” Battles says. “But my interest andpassion for the arts and humanities havehelped round me out. I don’t look at thingspurely from a scientific perspective.” Still, her background as a geologist offers

an advantage. “You have to have a prettyhigh level of tolerance for ambiguity andworking with the relics that you have, to fig-ure out the story,” she explains. “And a lotof administration is dealing with ambiguity.You never have as much information as youreally would enjoy having. You make yourbest call based on what you have.”There is no doubt, however, how Battles

and her husband, Michael Mills, will worktogether. Mills has been a faculty member inthe Department of English and the HonorsCollege, as well as coordinator of major fel-lowships at UNC Wilmington. At Geneseo,he will serve as director of national fellow-ships in the Center for Inquiry, Discoveryand Development, raising awareness of pro-grams, including the Goldwater andFulbright awards among Edgar Fellows, andGeneseo’s student ambassadors.“Michael and I are a team. We’re going to

do everything we can to advance the col-lege,” Battles affirms. “We give everything toevery position we’ve been in.”Former UNC Wilmington Chief of Staff

Max Allen, who served with Battles on thechancellor’s cabinet, knows the partner-ship works. “I think you’re getting a twofer,” he said.

“They’re going to immerse themselves inthe community. People will enjoy getting toknow Denise and Michael. They comple-ment each other.”

What colleagues say ...UNC Wilmington and former colleaguesshared their thoughts on Denise Battles.

Wendy Murphy – past chair, Board ofTrustees “Denise has done a really good job ofeducating trustees from the academicside and I’m thankful for that. She’s hadto make some tough decisions and becreative, and that’s always difficult inhigher education.”

William Sederburg – interim chancellor“I’ve increasingly admired her ability tomake good judgments on personnelitems and to recruit a good team.Denise is very ready for this role.”

Clyde Edgerton – Thomas S. KenanDistinguished Professor in CreativeWriting“Denise will inspire fellowship as a con-sequence of her leadership. She is thor-oughly researched in whatever positionshe might have but graciously willing tolisten and discuss other points of view.”

Tobi Polland ’15 – Student GovernmentAssociation president“She’s a very kind-hearted person. WhenI first met her, I would try to match herprofessionalism. I still remember thefirst time she really joked around withme and I was like, ‘Whoa, this is great!’”

Anny Morrobel-Sosa (former colleague, Georgia Southern University) —president, Association for Chief AcademicOfficers; provost, Lehman College“Denise is a visionary. She can developideas and set direction. Her ability toforecast directions that an institutionshould move in is a result of her net-working and collaboration in highereducation circles.”

Michael Shivar – chair, Board of Trustees“She was working day and night —she’ll do whatever it takes. Whateverlearning curve there is as president ofGeneseo, Denise has that learning abili-ty and work ethic to grasp it.”

Summer 2015 17

Personal injury law can be harrowing:people don’t sue unless they’ve beenhurt. Often the injury is devastating.

Anne Joynt ’02 practices in the area oftoxic torts, an especially tough corner ofpersonal injury litigation. Her firm, Lipsitzand Ponterio, in Buffalo, N.Y., sues onbehalf of persons, usually old, who are sickwith mesothelioma from asbestos exposureand on behalf of children who have beendamaged by exposure to lead-based paint.Mesothelioma means certain death.

Lead-paint exposure causes a lifetime ofdiminished intellectual capacity.In her first years with the firm, Joynt

worked on asbestos cases. They were emo-tionally challenging. “I was coming in atthe end of someone’s life,” she says.“Because of the age difference, I felt likea granddaughter.” Now that she specializes in injury from

lead-paint exposure, she likes to think a suc-cessful suit can help make the victim’s lifebetter, even though damage is permanent.She didn’t know the exact destination,

but Joynt’s path from the Erie Canal townof Medina, N.Y., to an office with a view ofthe federal courthouse in Buffalo was setbefore she was 10 years old.Her father was director of admissions for

the University at Buffalo School of DentalMedicine; her mother was an elementaryschool principal. On family sightseeing vaca-tions, they liked to visit college campuses.Anne Joynt, who was a third-grader at the

time, vividly remembers walking aroundHarvard University in Cambridge, Mass.,and, when they reached the law school, ask-ing her father what lawyers do. He said theyresearch, read and argue. All three werethings she liked to do, especially argue. By the time she was a senior in high

school, Joynt was knocking on the door ofthe University at Buffalo Law School. She’dbeen accepted at UB and at Geneseo. If sheplanned to come to law school at UB, she

asked, where should she go to college?“Geneseo, definitely.”At Geneseo, where she double-majored in

English and Spanish, Joynt honed her writ-ing under the tutelage of Graham Drake,English professor and pre-law advisor.In law school at UB (there was never a

question) her writing made such an impres-sion on her first-year research and writinginstructor that two years later, when Lipsitzand Ponterio called him looking for poten-tial recruits, he forwarded her name withthe strong recommendation.“So I fell into this,” Joynt says today. “It

was a happy accident. I never expected tolitigate.” Writing was the ticket. She creditsGeneseo for that.She has around 90 cases on her desk at

any time in various stages, from the earliestconversations to settlement negotiation orpreparation for trial. She tries half a dozencases a year.Lead-paint exposure injury requires a lot

of fact-finding, which can he heartbreakingwhen the injury is unquestionable but thefacts to support a case are lost. Asbestos lia-bility is relatively unambiguous: mesothe-lioma is a signature disease, only caused byasbestos. Low IQ can have many causes.Children who have been exposed to lead

paint usually don’t show clear signs of dam-age until they reach fourth grade, althoughthe exposure may have been years earlier.A lead-exposure injury suit must show

negligence, with proof the defendant land-lord knew there was peeling or chippingpaint on the rental premises; knew therewas a child living on the premises; wasaware of the hazard of lead paint; knew thebuilding had been built before 1979 (whenlead paint was removed from the market);and retained the right of entry on thepremises at the time in question.She sums up the plaintiff’s burden with

the adage, “It’s harder to build a bridgethan knock it down.” When a case winds up in court (most are

settled), its final success or failure is in thehands of a jury, which introduces yet anoth-er set of considerations for the lawyers oneither side. Joynt is a member of the SUNY Geneseo

Regional Board of Directors; she lists morethan a dozen ongoing professional andcommunity activities on her resume. Shewas named an Upstate New York Rising Starby Super Lawyers in 2013 and 2014. She clearly loves what she decided to do

way back in the third grade.

WHAT’S YOUR STORY?

A goodargument

Anne Joynt ’02 always wanted to be a lawyer. Geneseo helped her realize her ambition. She uses

her skills on behalf of children who have been injured by lead-paint exposure.

PHOTO BY KEITH W

ALT

ERS ’11

By Judson Mead

18 geneseo scene

Teaching the teachers of the future is the primary business of Geneseo’s EllaCline Shear School of Education. But faculty at the school are also active outside their Geneseo classrooms, building and directing programs designed to serve the needs of particular populations — and, as an additional benefit,creating learning opportunities for Geneseo education students. The followingpages describe three of those programs and an experiment based in a first-grade classroom that’s making an entire elementary school happy.

Decked out for St. Patrick’s Day, a Livonia first-grader reads

a story to Laney, the classroom therapy dog.

CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

FIELDTRIPS

By Judson Mead

PHOTOS BY KEITH WALTERS ’11

Summer 2015 19

Laney poses for her portrait in Erin Marozas’s first-grade class at the Livonia Elementary School

where she works as a therapy dog.

Three years ago, Erin Marozas, a first-grade teacher at the Livonia, N.Y.,elementary school, had to bring her

puppy to school because her husband wason a study abroad trip.She got an inkling of the beneficial effect

of a dog in the classroom when her normal-ly rambunctious class started whispering the“Pledge of Allegiance.” When Marozasasked why, someone pointed at the puppyand whispered, “She’s sleeping.” She is Laney (aka Evergold’s Beautiful

Lady of the Land), a big, soft golden retriev-er, now a certified therapy dog and fixturein Marozas’s classroom. Erin Marozas owns Laney with her hus-

band, Don, a professor in the School ofEducation and a supervisor of Geneseo stu-dent teachers in the Livonia school. Theyare watching how Laney’s presence changesthe demeanor of the class as a group, theschool as a whole and the behavior andlearning of individual students.For this kind of observation, circum-

stances have to be exactly right. The mostdifficult to arrange would be the dog. It wasonly after Laney proved herself that therewas anything to watch.When she came to the class as a puppy,

she seemed to acclimate to the childrenquickly. Erin and Don wondered if shecould be trained to work in the school.Training consisted of up to three obedi-

ence classes a week with constant reinforce-ment at home. After working through sever-al increasingly rigorous training schools, shewas certified as a therapy dog and went towork in Erin’s classroom.The Marozases tick off results they’ve

observed: petting Laney reduces the rigidityin the muscles of a child with cerebral palsy;she’s a good listener, and students pick upthat behavior; students know she can’t cometo class if they aren’t calm, kind and quiet—so they are. Students love to read to her andshe has a calming effect on jittery students.One student who could never completeassignments started to finish work whenLaney sat next to him so he could rest ahand on her. The stories go on and on. DonMarozas calls what he’s seen amazing.From the beginning, Erin Marozas has

observed that the first-graders more readilyempathize and express caring and concernfor Laney than they are yet able to consis-tently toward each other.In another role, Laney, accompanied by

Don Marozas, goes to school counseling ses-sions. He reports that her presence in theroom, always within reach of a hand seekingcomfort, has caused students to open upwith the counselor. Don Marozas speculatesthat Laney’s demeanor and soft coat con-tribute to the comfort that comes fromtouching her. One boy said he would missLaney over the summer because her fursoaked up his stress.Laney wears an official vest when she’s at

work—complete with faculty photo ID.When the vest is on, she’s a therapy dog.When it’s off, according to the Marozases,she’s like any high-spirited young dog, run-ning and playing. In school, Laney is quiet, unflappable and

curious. Erin Marozas says Laney has anuncanny sensitivity to students’ needs; shewill sit or lie down next to a student who

needs her company. The class keeps thefloor picked up because no one wantsLaney to swallow something that might hurther. Time with Laney is an effective rewardin many behavior management plans in theschool.Laney’s own training must be consistently

and constantly reinforced. Don Marozas canput a dog treat on the back of her out-stretched paw and command her to wait;she won’t touch it until he releases her. Laney is a masterpiece of training. Using

dogs in this way in classrooms will always berare.But what the Laney effect can teach the

observer is something to be pondered andreported. If she can help students, maybethis is an idea that should reach moreschools.

THERE’S A DOG IN MY CLASSROOM!

Challenge: Do therapy dogs in an elementary school classroom teach us anything about students and learning?

Response: The nonjudgmental companionship of a dog in a classroom appears to help students make academic, social andemotional progress. This might have interesting implications for all classrooms.

20 geneseo scene

RURAL PROGRAM INSPIRES FLEXIBLE THINKING

Challenge:How can we improve educational outcomes for rural youth challenged by economic disparity?

Response: Provide a summer learning program that builds on children's interests, enhances the family's role in their child's education,and develops the child's sense of self-worth and competence.

City schools get a lot of attention forlow graduation rates. But ruralschools also can have trouble get-

ting students to graduation. Annmarie Urso, associate professor,

taught in rural schools for 20 years beforeearning a doctorate and joining theGeneseo faculty. She says it’s not unusualto see schools with 90 percent attendancebut 60 percent graduation. Students leaveschool to work because they don’t knowwhat they could do with their education.“The data on kids in rural schools is

heartbreaking,” Urso says. “I used to seekids who had dreams but didn’t know howto realize them.”Geneseo’s Soaring Stars program, which

Urso directs, is designed to widen thoselimited horizons. For five weeks every sum-mer, Soaring Stars has provided enrich-ment and stimulation to disadvantagedrural elementary school students. It is apicture window looking out on a widerworld of possibilities.Located in a wing of the Genesee Valley

Educational Partnership’s May Center inMt. Morris, Soaring Stars started in 2011with 27 kindergarten students and has pro-moted that cohort and added 33 morekindergarten students each year since. By2017, the program will have a full comple-ment of the elementary grades.The program has three professional

teachers and employs a handful ofGeneseo education students.Students come, three each, from 11

Genesee Valley school districts. Criteria foradmission include family income that qual-ifies for free or reduced-price lunch.According to Urso, the students range

from academically capable to needingboth academic and emotional support.One student came to the program havingnever seen crayons.Following the Reggio Emilia approach

to education—favoring pupil-initiatedexploration and discovery—Soaring Starsbuilds on whatever is interesting to stu-dents at the moment, using what Ursocalls provocative activities. The question,What do you know about water? might

lead to splashing with a garden hose andthen talk about evaporation. Noticingshadows on a sidewalk might lead to chalkoutlines and a look at what happens tothose shadows later in the day.The sight of a big cargo helicopter one

day last summer led a group of boys tobuild a 20-foot “airplane,” complete withaccommodations for a goldfish bowl in thecockpit. They corresponded with a localpilot. They spent the entire five-week ses-sion on their project.It took imagination, cooperation, prob-

lem-solving and persistence—good quali-ties to bring back to school.Urso stays in contact with principals at

the schools that send students to SoaringStars. They are enthusiastic. Teachersreport that program students, who were

often the ones who had the most troublesitting at their desks, come back as moreflexible thinkers.Children fall out of the summer pro-

gram when they move, or when family liv-ing arrangements take them away in thesummer. Of the 27 who were the SoaringStars initial cohort, 12 remain with theprogram. Soaring Stars fills vacancies asthey occur.It is Urso’s hope that Soaring Stars will

gain recognition as a national model forincreasing parent involvement and, ulti-mately, graduation rates in rural school dis-tricts. Two years from now, when the firstSoaring Stars students graduate from theprogram after their sixth-grade year, Ursohopes to blend them into Geneseo’s sum-mer science, technology, engineering andmathematics camp (see story on page 21).“We want to give these kids glimpses of

what’s out there,” she says, “and the confi-dence that they are capable.”

(Above) Younger Soaring Stars with faculty.

(Left) The premier performance of “The Three

Snow Tigers,” a play written and produced by

Soaring Stars students.

Summer 2015 21

By Jim Memmott

Campers in the Rochester Young Scholars Academy at Geneseo summer program study clues on a

scavenger hunt designed to familiarize them with the Geneseo campus.

“Ithink we may learn more from ourstudents than they learn from us.”So says Susan Norman, director of

Geneseo’s Xerox Multicultural Center,about a Geneseo tutoring and enrichmentprogram for students from the RochesterCentral School District.“We don’t change the reality of their

lives,” she says, “but at least we can accompa-ny them along some of their journey.”The program is the Rochester Young

Scholars Academy at Geneseo (RYSAG).The students come from neighborhoodspredominantly defined by poverty, wherethe need to work or the lure of growing upfast often competes successfully against edu-cational opportunity.Every summer for the past nine years,

Rochester students have come to theGeneseo campus for a two-week sleep-overeducation camp. They study, they worktogether, they have fun—and then they goback to what Norman knows is the reality of

their lives, a little more curious, she hopes,and possibly excited by what they’ve learnedthey can do.The camp is organized each year around

a theme calling for the understanding ofthe principles of science, technology, engi-neering and mathematics (STEM). Oneyear it was crime scene investigation, whichstudents knew from the popular CSI televi-sion series; another year, students appliedscience to crisis response, in this case to aninvasion by zombies.When Norman polled prospective

campers for this year’s theme, having float-ed such weighty topics as teen pregnancy orsubstance abuse, they came back with cook-ing. So, the theme is “nutrition from a mul-ticultural perspective.” The experience isorganized to mimic the popular FoodChannel show “Chopped.”Campers’ core coursework will consist of

English and language arts, in which they willdo research on nutrition; social studies and

anthropology, looking at the foods of theworld; the chemistry of food; and, of course,cooking. Campers will cook in theInterFaith Center kitchen. They will bedivided into four teams by age.From 45 students in 2007, the RYSAG

summer camp has grown to 90 this summerwith a waiting list of 30. In any summer, athird to a half of the campers will haveattended before. Recruitment is by word ofmouth and by information circulated by theschool district.The camp is staffed by 25, mostly Geneseo

education candidates, many repeating twoor three summers. Two former staffers whonow have master’s degrees are back thissummer. Two weeks of dorm life, classes, group

activity like talent shows and dances give theGeneseo education candidates immersivecontact with students from backgroundsusually quite different from theirs. Normansays this is a valuable opportunity for educa-tion candidates to practice culturally rele-vant pedagogies and more generally to workoutside their everyday comfort zone.During the school year, RYSAG offers a

four-hour tutoring and enrichment pro-gram staffed by Geneseo education candi-dates on Saturday afternoons at theRochester Central Library. Recently, accord-ing to Norman, other Rochester school ini-tiatives have pulled students away from theseSaturday afternoons, so she is looking forother formats to keep the Geneseo connec-tion strong.When camp is over after two short weeks,

the Rochester students will have seen sci-ence applied to something they know intheir everyday lives. They will have been ona college campus, so maybe that seed willgrow in some. And they will have worked allday with college students—models of whatthey could be.

GENESEO AND ROCHESTER LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

Challenge:How can Geneseo provide teacher education candidates long-term, meaningful teaching experience with students from linguistically, ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds?

Response: Rochester Young Scholars Academy at Geneseo brings grades 6-12 Rochester Central School District students to SUNYGeneseo for a residential summer camp and a follow-up program on Saturdays in Rochester during the academic year. Geneseo teachereducation candidates staff both experiences.

22 geneseo scene

WONDERFUL LIVES

Challenge: Can students with moderateto severe intellectual or other developmen-tal disabilities benefit from a college expe-rience that teaches independence andvocational and educational skills?

Response: Geneseo LIVES (LearningIndependence, Vocational andEducational Skills), a rigorous, campus-based four-year program, has graduated 21students. Eighteen now have competitiveemployment. Four earned GEDs.

Students with intellectual and/orother developmental disabilities canstay in high school until they are 21

years old. But from age 18 to 21, they areoften stuck: their grade cohort has gradu-ated and they are left behind withnowhere to go.Elizabeth Hall, then an assistant profes-

sor in the School of Education, was galva-nized in 2007 by the appearance of youngpersons with developmental disabilities ina panel discussion on the Geneseo campusorganized by New York’s Office of Personswith Developmental Disabilities. She wanted to create a college-like pro-

gram for students with intellectual orother developmental disabilities. Geneseocould be an ideal setting.Students would benefit from four more

years of classes after high school and fromjob-readiness education. For School ofEducation certification candidates, thiscould provide on-campus practicum andcourse credit opportunities working withthe LIVES program students. For the college, such a program would

add a new dimension of diversity to cam-pus life. After a whirlwind nine-month effort that

touched almost every corner of theGeneseo campus, Hall opened LIVES toits first students in fall 2008.The program is a partnership among

Geneseo, the Genesee Valley EducationalPartnership, Hilltop Industries (a divisionof The Arc of Livingston-Wyoming), and

the Finger Lakes DevelopmentalDisabilities Regional Services Office. Itaccepts students in two divisions: ages 18-21, and 21 and older. Hall is LIVES’ program project coordina-

tor. Tabitha Buggie-Hunt, Geneseo assis-tant dean for disability services, is adminis-trator and college liaison. LIVES staffincludes full-time graduate assistants, a spe-cial education teacher, a teaching assistant,two day-habilitation aides, a day-habilita-tion manager, and 10 to 15 Geneseo stu-dents who serve as mentors and tutors dur-ing the academic year. The program is self-sustaining, funded by tuition. LIVES students are on campus for a little

over six hours, from 8:30-2:45 five days aweek. They take four years of functionalacademic classes; audit Geneseo courses—in subjects that range widely, from anthro-pology to philosophy; hold on-campusinternships in such settings as MilneLibrary, Campus Auxiliary Services and theFitness Center, working beside Geneseo stu-dents who are considered their “natural”supports.Hall says the Geneseo students rapidly

come to regard their LIVES worksite col-leagues as buddies and peers.The program also includes a social and

recreational component, with LIVES stu-dents participating in campus clubs andorganizations, and instruction in inde-pendent living.According to Hall, every LIVES graduate

leaves the program with skills necessary to

gain competitive employment. Many liveindependently in apartments with supportservices.Potential LIVES students apply to the

program in much the same way studentsapply to Geneseo: they take a campus tour,they interview. Geneseo students who wantto work in the program complete a seven-page application, four background checksand interviews with LIVES students andwith Hall. Hall says that when those education stu-

dents drop into her office to discuss theirwork with LIVES students, they invariablystart with, “Hey, you’re not going tobelieve this….” In the second year of the program, LIVES

students developed a list of 40 questions andsurveyed 78 Geneseo college students abouttheir strengths and weaknesses, likes anddislikes, in order to find out how and if theywere similar and different from Geneseo’scollege students. They presented the resultsand conclusions at Geneseo’s GREAT Day(Geneseo Recognizing Excellence,Achievement and Talent).LIVES students have presented at

GREAT Day every year since, and regularlypresent at the New York Council forExceptional Children’s AnnualConference.It is a perfect realization of what Hall

hoped a college experience could be forthese exceptional students—and whatthose students can bring to the college.

LIVES program graduates (l-r) Brenden Porter, Mariely Vazquez Andino, Andrew Sass, Jenna Diskin,

and Patrick Chmela at the School of Education convocation, May 2015.

Summer 2015 23

Women’s basketball

A season for the books

ATHLETICS AND RECREATION

It was an amazing run.On Feb. 28, when the top-seeded

Geneseo women stepped onto the courtfor the SUNYAC championship gameagainst Cortland in Schrader Gymnasium,they were riding a 16-game winning streak. Geneseo senior forward Shannon

McGinnis dominated, scoring 14 points andgrabbing 14 rebounds for her 17th double-double of the season to lead the Knights toa 61-54 win over the Cortland Red Dragons.They were SUNYAC champions for the

first time since 2010-11. Their win streakwas now at 17.McGinnis was named the SUNYAC

Tournament MVP. Junior forward AllisonMcKenna was named to the All-Tournament Team. The win gave Geneseo an automatic bid

to the NCAA Division III Women’sBasketball Tournament. As it happened,Geneseo was hosting first- and second-round games in the tournament.So six days later the Knights were back in

Schrader Gym to take on the 23-4 Castleton(Vt.) Spartans.Once again, it was forward Shannon

McGinnis’s night. She scored 27 points, tiedfor second-most in Geneseo NCAATournament history, and grabbed sevenrebounds to lead the Knights past Castleton,84-40. That ran the Knights’ consecutive vic-tory streak to 18.The next night, McGinnis totaled 20

points and 14 rebounds for her 18th dou-ble-double of the season to lead the Knightsto a 69-54 win over Muhlenberg (Pa.).Junior guard Dana Cohan recorded 18

points, while junior forward AllisonMcKenna had 10 points and six reboundsand sophomore guard Kara Houppert alsoadded 10 points. The team headed for the Tufts University

campus in Medford, Mass., and the NCAASweet 16.And that’s where the run ended. Despite

20 points and 16 rebounds from ShannonMcGinnis, defending national champion

FDU-Florham (N.J.) rode an early lead to a68-54 victory that sent the Knights home.The Knights couldn’t overcome a first

half that saw the hot-shooting Devils (29-1)connect on 10 of 19 three-pointers for a 48-20 lead. The Knights out-scored FDU-Florham 19-5 to start the second half andgot as close as 10 down the stretch, butGeneseo saw its 19-game winning streakstopped in its first appearance in the NCAAround-of-16 in 20 years.The season was over, but the honors

were not.On March 19, Shannon McGinnis was

named All-America by the Women’sBasketball Coaches Association (WBCA).She was only the second Knights player inprogram history and first in 20 years to win

the award.Also voted the d3hoops.com East Region

and State University of New York AthleticConference (SUNYAC) Player of the Year,McGinnis became the first player in pro-gram history to eclipse 1,000 rebounds, fin-ishing with 1,011. She finished third all-timein scoring with 1,473 points. On March 24, the final USA TODAY

Sports NCAA Division III Women’sBasketball Coaches Poll ranked the 25-5Knights No. 19 in the nation. It was the firsttime the Knights had cracked the top 20 inthe national rankings in 20 years.It was a season that will be remembered

any time a Knights team starts a win streak.With 19 consecutive wins, the second-longest streak in program history, the 2014-15 women will be in any conversation aboutGeneseo basketball for a long, long time.

Knights on the brink: A last huddle before their quarterfinal game in the NCAA tournament. They

lost to FDU-Florham.

PHOTO BY KEITH W

ALT

ERS ’11

By Judson Mead

The season was over, but the honors were not.

24 geneseo scene

PERSPECTIVES

April 15, 2013, dawned bright, clearand cool—the perfect day for run-ning my first Boston Marathon. I

was excited, but anxious. This was mybiggest running challenge to date. No—itwas my biggest life challenge to date, peri-od! But my best friend, running buddy andbusiness partner, Jared Chrudimsky, and hisbrother Jason, were running with me. They kept telling me I could do it. As we

headed toward the starting line, I thoughtabout having taken my first, tentative runless than three years earlier. Yet here I wasat age 59, running in what many considerto be the world’s most elite marathon.It turned out to be a far more fateful day

than I could have imagined. But let me takeyou back to the beginning of the story….

• • •The winter of 2009-10 was the darkest timeof my life. Between November and March, Ilost my father, my mother and my mother-in-law; my father-in-law had died a yearbefore. For eight months, I made weeklytrips to New York from my home inMassachusetts to take care of family. All thewhile, I had to keep my business running. Iwas physically and emotionally exhausted. Before these calamities, I’d told Jared I

wanted to do something to stave off thecreeping effects of age I was feeling. Theextra pounds that appeared during the hol-idays weren’t disappearing. I was sluggish. Jared, a lifelong runner, suggested that I

run. I said, “Can’t do it.” I didn’t want toembarrass myself in front of my best friend.I couldn’t run from here to there. Or so Ithought.Growing up, I was always the least athletic

kid on the block. I got teased and bulliedfor it. Even at age 57, I was afraid to submitmyself to that kind of ridicule again. ButJared had planted the seed.In mid-April 2010—after a couple of

practice jogs—I sucked up my fears andasked Jared if he would take me on a run.He ran from his house to mine to pick meup. Talk about being intimidated!We ran two miles, including some gentle

inclines. I kept saying, “I can’t do this….”But I made it back to my house. It was thebeginning of a new day for me. Jared start-ed taking me out three times a week,encouraging me to run just a little farthereach week. By September he had me readyto run my first 5K. I finished the race in 24minutes. I did it!

Yes I am...This once “wimpy kid” leaves hisdoubts behind

By Tom Ingrassia ’74

Ingrassia starts the Boston Marathon in 2013...

Summer 2015 25

This former wimpy kid had competed inhis first-ever athletic event and done prettywell. In that moment of personal victory, Ifelt the missing piece of my life fall intoplace. I’d felt a little “less than” because Ididn’t do what the other guys did. Now, Ifelt whole. And I put into practice what Ipreach to my coaching clients—if you thinkit, you can do it. If you believe in yourself,you can achieve anything.Running became a life lesson for me. For

decades I told myself that I was no good atsports. Couldn’t compete. Was a loser. Sureenough, I wasn’t any good at sports—because I told myself I wasn’t any good. Yethere I was, competing in races.After that first race, I ran a Thanksgiving

Day 5K, then another, then 10Ks, then ahalf marathon and another half. And next,Oh, no… not a marathon! Me? Run 26.2miles? Can’t do it. No.In October 2012, Jared and I ran the

Atlantic City Marathon. Atlantic City is flat.If I was going to run 26.2 miles, I wantedthem to be very flat. My goal was to finish infive hours. I crossed the finish line in 4:48.Then came the big one. The Boys and

Girls Club of Newton, Mass., invited me tojoin their marathon team. At 59, this wasthe first time I’d ever been picked for anathletic team. All I had to do was train, andagree to raise $5,000 for the club. I discovered that people are willing to

support you—if you ask. Before long, I’dsurpassed my fundraising goal. I discoveredthat I inspired people because of what I’daccomplished with my running in a shorttime and at my stage of life. And that’s all Iever wanted to do—to inspire people, tomake a difference in someone’s life. Whoknew that my dream would come true inthe form of athletic competition?

• • • Everyone knows about the bombing atthe finish line of the Boston Marathon onApril 15, 2013. I was less than a mile fromthe finish line when I was stopped. I waspanicked when I heard what had hap-pened. I’d arranged for a VIP pass so mywife, Barbara ’74, could sit in the bleach-ers right at the finish line. Was she therewhen the bombs went off? I didn’t knowwhere Jared and Jason were. Barbara had been delayed in traffic, and

was 10 minutes away from the finish line

when the bombs exploded. Jared and Jasonwere only .2 miles ahead of me when theywere stopped. We were all safe.If it weren’t for the tragedy, I’d have

nothing but good memories of my firstBoston Marathon. It was the best, mostjoyful race I’d run. A friend watchingfrom the top of Heartbreak Hill said Ihad a huge grin on my face as I powered

up the hill. Even though I didn’t crossthe finish line, I achieved something thatday that I’d thought was far beyond myendurance and ability.I witnessed acts of human hope and heal-

ing in the hours after the bombings: therunners gathered around an older runner

to keep him warm; residents alongMassachusetts Avenue who offered blanketsand water; the woman who offered me herjacket to keep warm when she found mestanding in a storefront bedraggled, shiver-ing from cold, caked in salt from sweating,wearing nothing but my running shorts, sin-glet and running shoes.

• • •Running changed my life. It inspired me topush beyond my self-imposed limits and tolive life with vision, courage, determinationand passion. I ran Boston again in 2014,and this time crossed the finish line. I haverun ultra-marathons. Running allowed me to prove to myself

that I can do anything I set my mind to—no matter the obstacles. And, I’m told, Iam inspiring others to live their lives with-out limits.You never know where you will find your

inspiration and your passion.

“I am a runner.I am an athlete.I am …”

...and finishes in 2014.

26 geneseo scene

It’s nine miles by bicycle from home to work. Emily Nolan ’03

mentally plans out her day as she pedals past the bluffs along

the windy Willamette River and into downtown Portland, Ore.

On her way home, she reviews her day at Perka, a tech startup, clear-

ing her mind. She wants to live in the moment at work, then at home.

“I also just really enjoy the feeling of being self-sufficient and

healthy and doing some small part of helping the environment by

bike commuting,” Emily says.

She started bike commuting in Alaska, when she lived in Fairbanks

and worked with AmeriCorps.

“You think you can’t bike in sub-zero but you can throw on five lay-

ers and a hat and not lose your nose,” she says.

Emily flew into remote places like Nome and Barrow, and tiny vil-

lages between, organizing Girl Scout troop volunteers and running

summer camps for Farthest North Girl Scout Council. It was a good

fit: She was a lifelong Girl Scout and earned her Gold Award.

She later worked directly for the Girl Scouts in Seattle, organizing

more than 1,000 volunteers in the area. The lessons from rural Alaska,

where residents tried to overcome rampant alcoholism and other

social problems, stuck with her.

“It taught me so much about the world and how fortunate we are in

America to have the resources we have, and also how great our

responsibility is to help others who are struggling, right here or

abroad,” she says.

The job with Perka, a mobile loyalty program for small businesses—

think frequent-buyer cards for coffee at your favorite café—brought

her to Portland.

She still commutes by bike, and branches out on 500- or 800-mile

journeys with her brother and friends.

Free from zooming by at 55mph, Emily sees the world more inti-

mately: “In Missouri, we had been riding along a forested trail for

about three days, when we came into a clearing with a beautiful field

on either side. The sun was beating down on us so hard but it felt so

good, and the cicadas had just hatched so there was a roar of cicadas

all around us.”

On one long trip, she was thrown over her handlebars into traffic in

rural Tennessee. She was lucky; she just needed stitches.

“For about a year I would wake up feeling like I was crashing again,”

Emily remembers. “It took me some time to get back on my bike, but

I knew that getting over my fears was really the best thing I could do.”

That strength to get back on the road gave her back all those miles

for time for reflection. Is she happy? Does she need to make some

changes? The quiet times lead to more immediate day dreams of

what food she’ll eat at the next stop, and those slowly evolving

epiphanies, that change her path.

“Those big life choices that you push to the back of your mind on a

daily basis, they all come to the forefront,” Emily says about time on

the open road. “I think a lot about where I am in life and what I want

to do next.”

Emily Nolan Class of 2003

Home: Portland, Ore.Graduation year: 2003Degree: geography and secondary education

Favorite Geneseo hangout:Mama Mia’s

Best Geneseo memory: Beingridiculously goofy with myroommate and friend, Colleen.

Most rewarding experiencesince college: Riding mybike down the Oregoncoast with my brother andmy friend Karen.

People are usually surprisedto discover: I lived in Alaska.

Favorite quote: “Cheese, Milk’sleap toward immortality.”

A life lesson you’ve learnedalong the way: My parentsalways told me not to sweatthe small stuff, but it took alot of wasted energy andtime worrying about thesmall stuff and a couple ofmajor life events to realizethat, in fact, my parentswere right all along. Thesmall stuff is gonna happenno matter what and youreally have no control over it.

One Cup

ILLUSTRATION BY AMANDA LINDLEY

RANDOM PROFILE

By Kris Dreessen

Inspired by the idea that

everyone has a story to share,

we offer the “random profile.”

Each issue, we don a blindfold

and throw a dart at a map of

the United States to choose

our state, then take aim again

to choose a lucky alum. We

catch up, relive memories and

share life insight, like we are

talking over coffee.

Up next ... Florida

Could it be you?

ONE CUP

QUICK FACTS

PHOTO PROVIDED

Summer 2015 27

29 Alumni event photos

32 Revitalizing downtown

33 Class Notes

35 Scene Around the World

ALUMNI NEWSOur first Reunion block party!“You come on campus and you get goosebumps,” says John Gleason ’87.He and 1,000 other alumni celebrated what makes Geneseo so special atReunion.Most them of them gathered for the first-ever block party off Main Street,

with music and group photos of Greek organizations. Milestone reunions endingin 0 and 5 were also celebrated.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEITH W

ALT

ERS ’11

SEE YOU A

T

REUNION 2

016!

JUNE 3-4

Alumni News

28 geneseo scene

GREAT Knight — Tampa

GREAT Knight — Raleigh N.C.

Alums show their love for Geneseo and start a tradition

What do one night, 22 events and more than 500alumni across the world celebrating Geneseohave in common? They equal a Great Knight.

On April 21, the alumni office and volunteers from NewYork to California partnered to launch Great Knight, the firstsimultaneous celebration of Geneseo around the world.Alumni, parents and friends gathered at official andimpromptu events, and connected on social media.Gatherings took place from New York to Southern Californiato Portland to Florida to Boston, with alumni from as far awayas Hawaii, Taiwan and New Zealand participating throughFacebook and Twitter.“Who’s up for celebrating Geneseo in New Zealand?” asked

Joe McGarry ’96 with a sign, standing in front of theAuckland skyline sporting a Geneseo sweatshirt. PamelaReader ’98 sent a selfie from the sunset in Maui, and anotheralumna sent greetings from a park in Taipei.

What’s best is Great Knight is grassroots, created by alumniwho wanted to create the feeling of being at Geneseothrough one night of events. The Rochester crew evenbrought in Mama Mia’s pizza. The night connected all thosealumni with one another, while back on campus, we celebrat-ed GREAT Day, a college-wide symposium celebrating the cre-ative and scholarly endeavors of Geneseo students. More than900 students marked the ninth anniversary of GeneseoRecognizing Excellence, Achievement & Talent Day, present-ing research, performing musical and theatrical pieces andother diverse talent and work.“Great Knight is proof of how much our regional commit-

tees have grown in such a short period of time,” says BrockBuffum ’02, whose Buffalo, N.Y., regional committee sparkedthe event. “We kicked the idea around at the regional level,and it was taken to the national level and eventually the piecesall fell into place. A nationwide event like that doesn’t happenovernight, and it took the combined efforts of a lot of dedicat-ed alumni to orchestrate what turned out to be an amazingevent. It was really cool to follow along on Twitter andFacebook throughout the night to see people celebrating allover the country. I’m really looking forward to watching thisdevelop into a tradition that people look forward to every year."It was an amazing turnout. Special thanks to the alumni

who hosted and sponsored events. We can’t wait to celebrateagain with you next year!

GREAT Knight — El Segundo, Calif.

SAN FRANCISCO

Save the date!Great Knight 2016 is April 19.

Summer 2015 29

Alumni Events — GREAT Knight

GREAT Knight — Philadelphia

GREAT Knight — Atlanta

GREAT Knight — Buffalo

GREAT Knight — Utica

GREAT Knight — RochesterGREAT Knight — New Zealand

30 geneseo scene

Upcoming

AlumniEventsThe Office of Alumni and Parent Relations is alwayslooking for regional event ideas. Contact the office atalumni@geneseo.edu if you would like to work with usto plan an event in your area.

Family WeekendSEPTEMBER 25-26, 2015

25th Anniversary Celebration ofGeneseo CrewOCTOBER 3, 2015

Homecoming Weekend*OCTOBER 16-17, 2015

Great KnightAPRIL 19, 2016

Simultaneous Event in all regions

Alumni Weekend/SpringfestAPRIL 29-30, 2016

ReunionJUNE 3-4, 2016

Celebrating Reunion class years ending in 6 or 1

Make sure we have your email so we can invite you tojoin us! We are always planning events on campus andthroughout Geneseo’s 18 alumni regions across the

country. Most of our event invitations are sent by emailto reduce cost and conserve resources.

Visit alumni.geneseo.edu for events in your area!

*Volunteer Board Meetings held during these weekends.

Boston Externship

Chicago Externship

Alumni Reception — San Francisco

GENESEO EXTERNSHIPS

Summer 2015 31

Alumni Events

GREAT Knight — Parker, Colo.

GREAT Knight — Hawaii

GREAT Knight — NYC

David Colligan came toattend Geneseo almostby accident.

“Let me tell you, my deci-sion to go to Geneseo was oneof the most random decisionsin the history of the world,”says the ’74 graduate. “I neversaw the school before I hitch-hiked there to start classes.”And yet the Buffalo, N.Y.,

lawyer can point to two pointsin his college career that gaveshape and purpose to his life.The first might have hap-

pened anywhere, but Colligancredits Geneseo with themoment. He was on campus when he

happened to read a story onforestry in the New York StateConservationist that sparkedhis interest in raising trees,harvesting trees and perhapsespecially valuing trees as akey part of our environment.Later, after he had graduat-

ed from the University atBuffalo Law School, Colligan’spractice increasingly involvedtimber law, a subject area inwhich he is a recognizednational expert.He also would chair the

Olmsted Parks Conservancy, agroup that preserves Buffalo’sparks created by beloved land-scape architect Frederick LawOlmsted.Beyond that, Colligan owns

timber property throughoutWestern New York, though hisheart of hearts may be with hismaple sugar bush in Colden,Erie County. With the help offriends and family, he tapstrees there every spring, thenmakes maple syrup that hegives away to those who

helped him.His timber holdings have

given Colligan a handymetaphor for a key part of hislaw practice and his communi-ty service. For years, he hasbeen an advocate for entre-preneurs and business start-ups. In this, he takes the longview, just as he does in the for-est. Investors and the compa-nies they fund can’t expectovernight results.“A lot of it goes back to trees,”

Colligan says. “Every decision Imake in the woods about trees isa 10-year decision.” Colligan, who lives in Buffalo,

N.Y., came to Geneseo in 1971as part of a program thatallowed students to graduate inthree years. In connection withhis major in political science,Colligan spent a semester inWashington. It was the otherkey transformative influence ofhis time at Geneseo.He got to work in a con-

gressman’s office. He got tostudy the practice of lobbying.

Most importantly, Colligan wasin Washington when theWatergate scandal brokeopen. It was a real-time, real-life case study in politics.“Where was a young boy

going to get an education likethat for all the money in theworld?” Colligan says.It may have been a caution-

ary tale, as well. After he start-ed practicing law, a life in pol-itics tempted Colligan. “Iwanted to help Western NewYork,” he says. But the woman who would

become his wife convincedhim that politics could wrecklives, and he could do morefor the area as a private citi-zen. Colligan came to agree,and he has proved her rightwith a long list of contribu-tions to life in Buffalo andbeyond. Currently a partner in the

firm of Colligan LLP, he is thechairman of Launch NY, a ven-ture development group thatassists startups.

class of ’74David Colligan

ALUMNI PROFILE

ALUMNI NEWS

32 geneseo scene

Buffalo’s man for all four seasons stops at the city’s new waterfront skating venue he helped create.

PHOTO BY KEITH W

ALT

ERS ‘11

Playing the long gameHe’s on the board of direc-

tors of the Erie Canal HarborDevelopment Corp. TheBuffalo News called him “per-haps the most progressivemember” of that group, lead-ing efforts to repurpose theold Erie Canal in downtownBuffalo. This past winter,Canalside, as the area isknown, was open to ice skat-ing for the first time. In thewarmer months, there areconcerts and other attractions.“What happened at

Canalside helped to shape anew thinking about what waspossible in Buffalo,” U.S. Rep.Brian Higgins told the News. For Colligan, it’s more proof

of what he took away from theConservationist magazine — amagazine he still has — andfrom his time at Geneseo.Good ideas, like forests, taketime to develop. But with careand attention, they are wellworth the wait.

By Jim Memmott

Summer 2015 33

1950sClass of 1951 — celebratingtheir 65th reunion and Classof 1956 — celebrating their60th reunion in 2016.Sorrell Chesin ’58 retired last yearafter more than 45 years in adminis-trative positions at SUNY Albany.He was recently appointed to theGovernance Council of the UAlbanySenate and elected president of theUAlbany Emeritus Center.

1960sClass of 1961 — celebratingtheir 55th reunion and Classof 1966 — celebrating their50th reunion in 2016Texas-based interior designerMimi Rosenthal ’65 won the2015 Black Sheep Unique’s annu-al rug design competition for“Nicknamed Celeste,” which wasinspired by the puffy clouds shesaw from an airplane window.Philip McCray ’69 wrote a book,“Briffault’s Passchendaele: Arts,Empathy and the First WorldWar.” The sixth chapter deals withthe three individuals he met inSeptember 1965 during his firstweeks on the Geneseo campus,who were immensely influentialon his artistic and literary career.

1970sClass of 1971 — celebratingtheir 45th reunion and Classof 1976 — celebrating their40th reunion in 2016.Thomas Hellems ’71 recentlyaccepted a position as director ofoperations at Ecogate. PatriciaFoley ’74 ran the Cooler in PoolerResolution 5K in January 2015 inGeorgia and was joined by Geneseograduate LuAnn Boulio-Lucier ’94.Thomas Ingrassia ’74 recentlyreceived two awards. His book,“One Door Closes: OvercomingAdversity by Following YourDreams,” was recognized with aNational Indie Excellence Award.He also was named Best Radio

Personality by readers of TheLandmark, a weekly regional news-paper, in its annual Readers’ ChoiceAwards, for his show “The MotownJukebox,” which airs on WCUW91.3 FM in Worcester, Mass.

1980sClass of 1981 — celebratingtheir 35th reunion and Classof 1986 — celebrating their30th reunion in 2016.Alfred Ntoko ’80 recently accept-ed a position at SUNY EmpireState College as provost and vicepresident of academic affairs.

Jeffrey Meadows’82 recentlyaccepted a posi-tion at CitizenLinkas the director,alliances southeastregion. ArleneGiczkowski ’85received a doctor-

ate in special education from NovaSoutheastern University in 2013.Peter Crosby ’87 received a mas-ter of arts in nationalsecurity/strategic studies(Asia/Pacific) from the U.S. NavalWar College in 2014. Julie RothDemcheshen ’87 obtained thecertified professional contractsmanager designation through theNational Contract ManagementAssociation. Cynthia Nagle ’88and her husband, James Larkin,relocated from the Albany, N.Y.,area to Albuquerque, N.M. She ismarketing director at DNV GL-Energy, which manages theBusiness Energy EfficiencyPrograms for Public ServiceCompany of New Mexico.

1990Kevin Vanyo was recently pro-moted to the rank of colonel inthe U.S. Army.

1991Celebrating their 25th reunion in 2016.

chair of member programming andcommunity outreach for theWestern New York GenealogicalSociety Inc. She is serving a three-year term on the society’s board ofdirectors. Stephen Noviello wasinducted into his high school’s alum-ni hall of fame for his Emmy award-winning accomplishments as a TVjournalist and consumer advocate.Mary Woods Tischler and JamesTischler are proud to announce thebirth of a baby girl, Ruby Catherine,born on April 25, 2014.

1997Stephen Harris was recently pro-moted to vice president and gen-eral manager, Dell FederalSystems at Dell. Kerri Donaleski

Howell hasrecentlyaccepted aposition atSyracuseUniversity asdirector ofcommunica-tions andmedia rela-tions for the

Martin J. Whitman School ofManagement. Karen Manganarois proud to announce the birth ofa baby boy, Giovanni, born onOct. 20, 2014.Jeremy Oczek, an intellectualproperty and technology attorneywith Bond, Schoeneck & KingPLLC, has been chosen as a 2015Rising Star for lawyers under age 40who are top contributors in thefield and in their communities.

1998Marisa Capuano Philp recentlyaccepted a position at EastRochester Elementary School asthe elementary principal. Sherecently was employed at RedJacket Elementary School as princi-pal. Sean Diehl and his researchteam have received a three-year,$2.2 million grant at the Universityof Vermont to study the immuno-

1992Julie Tong Arduini hit theAmazon Kindle Bestseller list forwomen’s Christian fiction with herAdirondack romance, “Entrusted.”Anthony Mesi released a secondbook in his supernatural youngadult series, “Sage Volume II,”which is about a fictional SUNYGeneseo student.

1993Beverley Waller-Braun was recent-ly promoted to partner at JaeckleFleischmann & Mugel LLP inBuffalo, N.Y. Stuart Davidson, apartner at Robbins Geller Rudman& Dowd LLP in Boca Raton, Fla.,was appointed by Federal DistrictJudge Susan Richard Nelson inMinnesota as one of the plaintiffs’lead counsel in the NHLConcussion Litigation, representingdozens of former National HockeyLeague players in their case againstthe league.

1994LuAnn Boulio-Lucier recently ranthe Cooler in Pooler Resolution 5Kin January 2015 in Georgia and wasjoined by Geneseo graduatePatricia Foley ’74.

1995DanielGurvich hasbeen namedexecutivedirector of theNeighborhoodMusic Schoolin New Haven,Conn.

1996Celebrating their 20th reunion in 2016.Kevin Burns was elected vice presi-dent of the Society of EmergencyMedicine Physicians Assistants.Jennifer Liber-Raines was named

ClassNotes

MEADOWS

HOWELL

GURVICH

34 geneseo scene

ALUMNI NEWS

2005Danielle Higgins and JeffreyGreen are happy to announcetheir marriage on Oct. 4, 2014, inNew York, N.Y. They currentlyreside in New York, N.Y. ZacharyStaff and Betsy Staff are proud toannounce the birth of a baby girl,Colbie Mae. She was born on Jan.24, 2015.

2006Celebrating their 10th reunion in 2016.Theresa Clar has started her owninterior design business, NAFASI,based in Arlington, Va. TaralynBouquin DiMillo and Ryan DiMillowere married in September 2011and are proud to announce thebirth of their first baby boy inSeptember 2012 and their secondbaby boy in September 2014.Megan Havey MacDavey recentlyaccepted a position at The Peterand Elizabeth C. Tower Foundationas a program officer. SandraFrandina Segerson and BenjaminSegerson are proud to announcethe birth of a baby girl, ValerieLynn, born on Feb. 5, 2015.

2007 Michelle Humble English andJustin English are proud toannounce the birth of a baby boy,Maceo Gregory, born on Aug. 31,2014 in Chapel Hill, N.C.Michelle was recently promotedto director of operations at J&JEditorial LLC in Cary, N.C.Jenna Nigro Gutman and KevinGutman are proud to announcethe birth of a baby girl, Cora,born on March 1, 2015. JamesTraylor created his own planningcompany, Upstate Special NeedsPlanning Inc., for individuals withdisabilities. Martha Valentirecently accepted a position at

logical basis of protection fromdengue fever. David Friedmanstarted his own blog, The DisabledFoodie, to review restaurants andfood venues on their food andservice and on their accessibility.Amanda Pielecha Sauter recentlyaccepted a position at theUniversity at Buffalo as a pre-health academic advisor.

1999Darren Anderson and MeredithAnderson are proud to announcethe birth of a baby girl, MeghanRose, born on Sept. 19, 2014. LoriLehmann Brady and Steven Bradyare proud to announce the birth ofa baby boy, Nicholas Steven, bornon May 6, 2014. Matthew Ebbeckeand Amanda Ebbecke are proud toannounce the birth of a baby girl,Allison Kimberly Ebbecke, born onJune 8, 2013. Dennis Lowenfels isvice president and senior compli-ance officer at HGI AssetManagement LLC. Bradley Mattoxis vice president and relationshipmanager for Citizens CommercialBanking. Mattox joins Citizens inBoston from BNY Mellon, where hewas a vice president and senior pri-vate banker. Rachel Peters Razzaand James Razza are proud toannounce the birth of a baby girl,Sophie Anne, born on Jan. 30,2015. Tara Sweeney Sroka wasrecently promoted to art supervisorat FCB Health, a pharmaceutical adagency in New York City.

2000Kelly O’Coyne Huss and JosephHuss are proud to announce thebirth of a baby girl, Sophia Marie,born on Nov. 7, 2014. Ann GallicTiede is proud to announce thebirth of a baby boy, BrooksBenjamin Tiede, born on Nov. 20,2014.

2001Celebrating their 15th reunion in 2016.Julie Ann Bruno-Burton andJames Burton welcomed the birthof twin sons, Deskin Joseph and

Jake Bruno, Jan. 29, 2013, inValhalla, N.Y. Born prematurely,Jake died Jan. 31 and Deskinspent more than nine months inthe hospital before coming homeNov. 12, 2013.

2002Jessica Exelbert Weiss and ElliotWeiss are proud to announce thebirth of a baby boy, Max Edward,born on Jan. 30, 2015.

2003Christine MacDaniels Fergusonis proud to announce the birth ofa baby girl, Miranda Rae, born onSept. 15, 2014. Tami Root Holihanis the full-time library media spe-cialist at Park Road ElementarySchool in Pittsford, N.Y. MargaretSites Kite and Joseph Kite areproud to announce the birth of ababy boy, Donovan Kilmer, bornon June 24, 2014. ElizabethTertinek Midgley was recently pro-moted to partner at AnspachMeeks Ellenberger LLP in Buffalo,N.Y. She focuses her practice on lit-igation, including the defense ofmedical, dental and legal malprac-tice, as well as professional respon-sibility and ethics.

2004Tim J. Conheady recentlyaccepted a position at MoodyAssociates PA in Mt. Pleasant,S.C., as the director of contractcompliance and analytics. LauraTaczak Jacobs, senior accountexecutive at e3communications,has been elected 2015 chair ofthe 32nd annual Taste of Buffalopresented by Tops. Kyle Nix wasnamed the 2014-15 Teacher ofthe Year at LaVergne High Schoolin Nashville, Tenn.

Mirror Show Management inWebster, N.Y., as program manag-er. Martha recently was employedat Foodlink Inc. as donor andgovernment relations manager.

2008Tarik Kitson is a health careadministrator at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NewYork City and is the founder andCEO of Active Plus, which focuseson reversing the epidemic of child-hood obesity. Joseph Malachrecently accepted a position atSageworks Inc. as product manag-er. Kathryn Meyers Emery andKeith Emery are happy toannounce their marriage on Oct.4, 2014. They reside in GrandRapids, Mich. Benjamin Povinelliearned his doctorate in cell andmolecular biology from theUniversity at Buffalo in May 2014and began his postdoc fellowshipat the University of Oxford inAugust 2014. Emily RustinSewnauth is a stay-at-home momwho also works from home and waspromoted to team manager forJamberry Nails. She was previouslya Premier consultant. MelissaWaterman Solomon was acceptedinto the Emerging WildlifeConservation Leaders program.She has been working as azookeeper at Disney’s AnimalKingdom since 2008 and is com-pleting her master’s in environ-mental studies through GreenMountain College.

2009Ashley Westerbeck DePutronand Jesse DePutron are happy toannounce their marriage on May25, 2014, in Rochester, N.Y.Larkin Kimmerer Podsiedlikrecently accepted a position atCornell Cooperative Extension ofSteuben County in Bath, N.Y., assenior nutritionist/issue leader.

2010Brendan Chella recently accept-ed a position at Minot PublicLibrary in Minot, N.D., as an

CLASS NOTES

Submit your class note or notice atgo.geneseo.edu/classnote

Submit your class note or notice atgo.geneseo.edu/classnote

Summer 2015 35

Scene around the world

Anne Bergstrom Gnagi ’69 tries to interest the gentoo penguins onPetermann Island, Antarctica, in the Scene.

Submit your images to scene@geneseo.edu with a subject line of “Scene Around the World.”See the complete photo gallery at go.geneseo.edu/goworld.

Maureen Goldsberry ’75 waited 40 years to visitEngland. When she finally did last summer, she broughtGeneseo with her.

Bob McCarthy ’92 reunited with a group of alumni fromthe early 1990s in Miami for Memorial Day 2014. They arealready thinking about the next visit.

Greg Gian ’83, left, and hisfamily visited the GrandCanyon and representedGeneseo. His mother-in-law,Mary Lou Martello, to hisright, is a class of 1964 alum-na. So is his wife, DarleneGian ’83. Also pictured istheir son, Stephen, father-in-law, and daughter, Maria.

Darice Jill Ayson-Faley ’98 poses withher daughter, Brianna Faley, inside aprehistoric “beehive hut” in Slea Head,County Kerry, while visiting family inIreland.

Geneseo alumni reunited at ChocolateMoose Chalet in Raystown Lake, Pa., lastwinter. From left are: Nick Inzinna ’08,Sara Hempson ’08, Cara Nelson ’08,Maggie Tagarelli ’09, Caitlin LenahanSchrimmel ’08, Alicia Austin ’08, DaniellePavone Henderson ’08, Kerri Schulte ’08,Leah Robbins ’08, Jill Kuhn ’08, CarlyO’Keefe ’11, Mike Baker ’08, CourtneyCoggins ’08 and Christina Moriarty ’08.

Bill Schnier ’75 and wife, Maureen, tooktheir Scene to San Pedro Town,Ambergris Caye, Belize, this spring.

36 geneseo scene

Research Program, analyzingtherapy effectiveness.

IN MEMORIAMALUMNIBeulah Vandyke Westover ’35,Oct. 20, 2007Martha Akin Brown ’36, July 6, 2014Julia Ryan ’38, Jan. 9, 2015Ruth Shaw Roat ’39, July 17, 2014Virginia Zimmer Fosdick ’40,Jan. 14, 2014Victoria Kosek ’40, Dec. 22, 2014Gladys Henty Stamp ’40, Sept.15, 2014Dorothy Jackman Bielefeld ’42,Nov. 10, 2014Smith Higgins ’42, Dec. 27, 2014Doris Barnard Werder ’42,March 30, 2012Yvonne Furey Baker ’44, July 12,2013Martha Collins Cullinan ’45, Aug.26, 2010Claire Finnigan ’45, Jan. 3, 2015Jennette Rausch Van Patton ’45,Jan. 22, 2009M. Jeanne Brunner Osborne ’46,Nov. 22, 2014Robert Halsted ’48, Sept. 3, 2014George Mascho ’48, Sept. 10, 2014Carol Irene Timby ’48, Nov. 15,2014Betty Baudendistel ’50, Jan. 6,2015

Samuel Pagano ’50, Nov. 5, 2014Dorothy King ’51, July 19, 2014Edward Dwyer ’53, Dec. 11, 2014Harry Bartz ’54, Oct. 23, 2014Barry Bower ’54, Oct. 22, 2014Elizabeth Herrala da Cunha-Koski ’55, March 14, 2015Margelia Voorhees Fournier ’55Lennart Hagberg ’55, Feb. 1,2014Barbara Rich Muller ’55, Jan. 29,2014Ramona Smith ’55, Oct. 3, 2012Sylvia Young Yueckstock ’55,Jan. 23, 2015Erma Hotis Hover ’56, Feb. 3,2015Joyce Ardelle Newberry ’57,Oct. 24, 2014Evaline Kinney Dusek ’60, Nov.14, 2014William Webster ’60, Feb. 1, 2005Beverly Pratts ’61, June 18, 2014Jack Hawley ’62, Dec. 3, 2014Donald Khoury ’62, Feb. 28, 2015Gertrude Kanaley Yaxis ’64, Dec.15, 2011Ronald Cicoria ’65, Jan. 7, 2015George Grimes ’65, Jan. 2, 2015Beth Bentley Ostrander ’66Kevin Dolan ’68, Feb. 6, 2015Frances Pickens ’68, Feb. 15,2015Barbara Hejduk Gausman ’69William Boutwell ’70, Nov. 7, 2014Hubert Henrichs ’70, June 15,2014

ALUMNI NEWS

CLASS NOTESBetty Curcio Orlando ’71, Jan. 17,2015Patricia Trumpfheller ’74, Feb. 9,2015Marie Dibiase Hallenbeck ’75,Jan. 25, 2015Jay Turzillo ’75, Nov. 16, 2014Kenneth Nazinitsky ’77,March26, 2008Donald Garramone ’79, Oct. 29,2014Marshall Simonsen ’80Valerie Walter ’81, Jan. 16, 2015Robert Episcopo ’82, Jan. 10,2015Patricia Milne Burt ’84, Oct. 1,2014Victor Tabuntschikow ’84Christine Walker ’85, Jan. 1, 2015Karin Golder Young ’86, Jan. 17,2015David Ours ’89, Jan. 22, 2015John Scarpelli ’89, April 23, 2014Gary Hodgins ’95, Feb. 8, 2014Katie Taft ’11, Feb. 11, 2012

FACULTYKenneth L. Deutsch, professor ofpolitical science at Geneseo for 42years and a scholar, died March 16,2015. He joined the department in1973 and was promoted to full pro-fessor in 1984. He served as depart-ment chair from 1979 to 1984. Hereceived a Fulbright award forteaching and research in India andmost recently was working on abook about free speech and theadvocacy of violence in constitu-tional democracies.

Shirley A. McNally, adjunct lectur-er in the School of Education from1995 to 2007, died on Jan. 5, 2015.

David Martin, professor emeritusof economics, died Nov. 25, 2014.He served Geneseo from 1976 to2000 as professor, chair of theDepartment of Business andEconomics, and then head of theSchool of Business. A prolific schol-ar, he published dozens of articlesin professional journals andauthored 10 books, and receivedthe SUNY Chancellor’s Award forExcellence in Teaching in 1990.

adult services librarian. Brendanrecently wasemployed atCopiah-LincolnCollege as assis-tant librarian.ElizabethKrause waspromoted fromCPA to a senior

accountant at LumsdenMcCormick.

2011Celebrating their 5th reunion in 2016.Adrienne Koder is graduatingfrom medical school in May 2015and starting an orthopaedic sur-gery residency in Philadelphia inJune 2015.

2012Lauren Kmetz recently accepted aposition at the Wake County PublicSchool System in Cary, N.C., as afifth-grade math and scienceteacher. Cladia Plantin joined thePeace Corps in the EasternCaribbean as a primary Englishteacher. Mariel Webber will begraduating from the University atBuffalo School of Dental Medicinein May 2015; she will join the LongIsland Jewish Medical Center.

2013Adam Reinemann recentlyaccepted a position at the NewYork State Department of Healthin Albany, N.Y., as a health pro-gram administrator.

2014Elizabeth Faulisi has joinedNortheast AssociationManagement Inc. as a claims ana-lyst. Debbie Medina recentlyaccepted a position at Casa-Nicain Nicaragua as program manag-er. She recently was employed atthe New York State Assembly.Molly Vierhile accepted a job asa research coordinator atStanford University. She will beworking in the Eating Disorders

Reuniting – for 30 yearsBrothers of Phi Kappa Chi/Sigma fraternity have been gathering forshopping and dinner on the Monday before Christmas for 30 years. Thetradition started in 1984 while some were recent graduates and mostwere students at Geneseo. This year, they reunited on Dec. 22, 2014.They are: Sam Gueli ’88, Jon Culpepper ’86, Mike Sanguinito ’86,

Brian Coleman ’86, George Gagnier ’88, Scott Tinsley ’85, Tom Clarke’85, Pete Deckman ’86, Kevin Sweeney ’84, Joe O’Donnell ’83, FrankTortora ’84, Robert Carll ’88.

KRAUSE

Giving Back

: To learn more about planned givingvisit go.geneseo.edu/fund/ways-giveor call (585) 245-5077.

A plannedgift thatsings

By Kris Dreessen

Professor Robert “Doc” Isgro chaired the music department three times,and led the Chamber Singers choir for 35 years, from fledgling days tocelebrated programs.

The dedication he asked of his students for their success, he gave right back.His wife, Mary—or “Docette”—was at his side, a cheerleader for every aspiring

musician at Geneseo. Together, they instilled the virtue of hard work and dedi-cation, and other lessons students carried into life.“They are the chosen adopted parents of so many Geneseo alumni,” says

Laura Heimes ’90, a world-class soprano.The Isgros never stopped mentoring, even after retirement. They go to

almost every faculty and student recital and are proud of the talent.The Robert M. And Mary L. Isgro Endowment Fund is an extension of that

unwavering support, included in their estate plan. It will fund scholarships forstudents pursuing a passion for music at Geneseo. “We are providing opportunity,” says Doc.

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