To honor the first dean of Harpur College and its two-time interim president, the east wing of the Fine Arts Building at Binghamton University is being formally named the S. Stewart Gordon Memorial Wing.

Family and friends will gather Friday, April 27 for a private dedication ceremony at the Fine Arts building. The wing was chosen because it housed the original administrative offices at the new campus, following Harpur College's move from Endicott to Vestal.

"It really is an appropriate tribute to Stewart Gordon to name the Fine Arts wing after him," said University President Lois B. DeFleur. "After all, it was the original administration building on campus and I know that Dr. Gordon was very much a presence in the building. As this tribute shows, he was very much admired and respected by the faculty and students of Harpur College, and he articulated many of the ideals that underlie the campus today. I know that he was very much dedicated to the idea of the liberal arts as a foundation of all fields, and believed that professors should be mentors as well as teachers. He strongly believed that the best faculty were scholars actively engaged in the pursuit of new knowledge. This vision was critical to Harpur's growth and development as well as the subsequent development of the University."

DeFleur added, "The University owes him a great debt, and we are pleased to be able to recognize him formally."

Following the ceremony, an English Oak tree in front of the Fine Arts building will be dedicated to the memory of Gordon.

Gordon died in January 2000 at the age of 87. A native of St. Louis, Mo., he earned his MA and PhD in English from the University of Chicago. He was appointed dean of Harpur College in 1955 by then-President and Provost Glenn Bartle, holding that position until 1967.

Gordon also served Binghamton University as vice president for academic affairs and twice as interim president, 1964-65 and 1971-72. He retired from Binghamton in 1976.

Following his retirement, Gordon served as acting president of SUNY Cortland, acting director of the Binghamton University Foundation and interim director of the Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences.

"The strength of Stewart Gordon's academic leadership during the formative years of our University is highly significant," said Thomas Kelly, vice president for external affairs. "It enabled President Bartle to focus on other external and internal priorities during those times. They were a formidable and highly effective team of academic leaders."

Coupled with naming the wing, a scholarship fund has been endowed in Gordon's honor by members of his family and members of the Binghamton University Retirees Club. The scholarship fund will primarily support graduate students of English.

"When I look back on that young, vibrant Harpur College I came to back in 1962, the two figures that leap to mind as the leadership were Glenn Bartle and Stewart Gordon," said Anthony Pellegrini, aprofessor emeritus of Romance languages and literature and president of the Retirees Club. "His single-minded goal was to establish a first-rate institution. He had a vision of excellence that he hewed to unswervingly, and in the process, he certainly ruffled a few feathers, for he had no patience with mediocre performance on the part of faculty and staff."

Professor Emeritus of English Christian "Pete" Gruber served as assistant dean during Gordon's tenure. He recalled Gordon as a leader whose very high standards for teaching publishing and service to the University helped to establish the foundation of excellence for which Binghamton is known. "I always thought very highly of Stew, and was pleased that when he came he made it very clear that he believed that a liberal arts education should include philosophy, economics, literature - in other words, a very broad base. And also, a good deal of independent study."

After Gordon's retirement he focused on Greek studies, Gruber recalled. "He reminded me of my brother-in-law, who said 'I'm only half educated because I only have Latin.'"

HARPUR COLLEGE STUDENT KATIE LOTTERHOS '02 WINS BARRY M. GOLDWATER SCHOLARSHIP

Harpur College student Katie Lotterhos '02 will have another valuable resource in her pursuit of a degree in Physics. She is among 302 recent winners of the Barry M. Goldwater scholarship, awarded to 302 undergraduate sophomores and juniors from fifty states and Puerto Rico.

The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,164 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. One hundred fifty-seven of the Scholars are men, 145 are women, and virtually all intend to obtain a Ph.D. as their degree objective. Twenty-five Scholars are mathematics majors, 198 are science majors, 26 are majoring in engineering, 6 are computer science related majors, and 47 have dual majors in a variety of mathematics, science, engineering, and computer disciplines.

The one and two year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.

Lotterhos said the application included several essays about her future and her academic career at Binghamton University. Upon learning she’d won, Lotterhos was very excited. "I was in such awe of winning such a prestigious scholarship!"

To gain work experience and help cover expenses, Lotterhos works as a T.A. for the Physics Lab and tutors students for E.O.P. In her spare time, Lotterhos enjoys outdoor activities and plays in the soccer club.

Although she did not immediately decide to major in Physics, Lotterhos feels it has been a good fit. "I had been juggling majors for a long time and I knew I loved science. Physics gave me the background I needed to pursue any science I wanted. This way I could also [eventually] branch into chemistry or biology."

Lotterhos especially appreciates Professor Nelson in Physics and Professor Pompi, her advisor. She values the diverse education offered by Harpur College. "I see Harpur College as a way to expand my horizons. Harpur has allowed me to pursue a Biology minor, work in a Chemistry lab, and take Literature courses."

Graduate school in biophysics or neuroscience lies ahead for Lotterhos. "I enjoy research and might find myself working in a lab one day. Life offers lots of things and I think that my life could go down one of many paths."

Goldwater Scholars have very impressive academic qualifications that have garnered the attention of prestigious post-graduate fellowship programs. Recent Goldwater Scholars have been awarded 39 Rhodes Scholarships (8 of the thirty-two awarded in the U.S. in 2000 and 6 in both 1998 and 1999), 32 Marshall Awards, 11 Churchill, 10 Fulbright, 30 Hughes, 93 National Science Foundation, and numerous other distinguished fellowships.

The Goldwater Foundation is a federally endowed agency established in 1986. The Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry M. Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields.

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Harpur College Alumnus Clark Zlotchew '74 has written the newly published military thriller, "TALON Force: Dire Straits." But do not look for it under the author's real name. Dr. Zlotchew is one of a series of ghostwriters contracted to produce the TALON Force novels published by Signet / New American Library (Div. Penguin Putnam).

A different author, each using the same pseudonym of Cliff Garnett, writes each novel in the series, which features the same seven characters drawn from various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. Each book in the series is titled "TALON Force," followed by a subtitle. Zlotchew's is subtitled "Dire Straits."

The novel tells the story of a ruthless extremist, totally dedicated to destroying Western civilization, who threatens to ignite global nuclear war. "TALON Force," comprised of five men and two women, is pulled together to locate the fanatic and his organization.

This novel is Zlotchew's 11th book to date, but his first published novel. "Most of my publications have been non-fiction, however," explained Zlotchew, who received a Ph.D. in Romance Language & Literature from Harpur College in 1974. Several of his other books are translations, including material of Jorge Luis Borges and of Nobel laureates Pablo Neruda and Juan Ramon Neruda.

One of his books is literary criticism of the 19th-century Spanish author, Benito Perez Galdos. Another consists of his interviews with eleven Argentine and Uruguayan writers, including Borges. Another book, entirely in Spanish, teaches creative writing. Last July his self-help book MACMILLAN TEACH YOURSELF SPANISH IN 24 HOURS was published. "Because the person using this book probably won't be in the classroom and won't be able to ask questions of a teacher," he explained, "I've tried to anticipate and answer questions by thinking of problems students typically bring up in my courses."

He's also had over 50 articles, mostly literary criticism (on Spanish and Spanish-American Literature, but also on linguistics and Hispanic dialectology) published in learned journals.His short stories in Spanish have appeared in prestigious magazines in Latin America, while a few of those have been published in English in North American magazines, "very small magazines," Zlotchew emphasizes.

He has taught Spanish at all levels for nearly 40 years.

In 1988, SUNY Fredonia gave Zlotchew the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching and in 1992, he was named the Kasling Lecturer for his outstanding scholarship. Clearly, Zlotchew's Harpur College education has helped launch him to academic as well as literary heights.

Harpur College Assistant Professor Ingeborg Majer O'Sickey Explores Women's Roles in Cinema

When Harpur College Assistant Professor Ingeborg Majer O’Sickey watches a film, she sees much more than the movie itself. She has focused her academic career on analyzing images of women in film and has written extensively on the subject. Explained Majer O’Sickey, "I believe that analysis of films entails looking at the political, cultural, and socioeconomic conditions in which the films were made and in which its target, or intended audience, viewed them."

Majer O’Sickey works on German cinema from its inception in the early 20^th century to current film. For example, she works on the current new wave in German film, such as Aimee & Jaguar, Bandits, and Run Lola Run.

On May 15, 2001, her essay "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets (Or Does She?): Time and Desire in Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run" will appear in Quarterly Review of Film and Video. Majer O’Sickey commented, "The article looks at how German cinema joins international trends of combining traditional filmmaking with techniques made possible by digital technology. Digitalized cinema (by way of ‘electronic quilting’) can subvert traditional power relations and hierarchies in visual terms. The question is, of course, whether Tykwer engages the possibilities inherent in electronic quilting to offer a sustained image of a strong female character. On the surface, it certainly looks like his use of digital technology in constructing a high test heroine turns traditional gender roles on its head. Anyone who has seen the film will agree that the plot and the visual narrative sets her up as a super potent hero. In her quest to get the needed 100,000 Markes for Manni, her hoodlum boyfriend, she runs across a space in Berlin in 20 minutes that cannot possibly be [run] in ‘real time.’ She shatters glass and arrests the roulette wheel on the winning number by merely screaming, and she is able to give a man a heart attack by just looking at him. At the same time, she also manages to save that same man’s life by holding his hand. My analysis shows, however, that the hyper kinetic Lola is reigned during the film’s final segment into a classical Hollywood ending. In this final segment, the mise-en-scene transfers power over to the male protagonist, and Lola’s walk off into the sunset with him, presents us with a deflated, docile girlie. The high energy techno music is given over to him and he commands the social space, while she tags alongside into the credits."

Majer O’Sickey is currently writing a book, "Women in Nazi Cinema: Engendering Heimat, Nationalizing Gender," a study of the representations of gender and nation in films of the Nazi era. In 1998 and 1999, she traveled to the national archives in Berlin and looked at 150 feature films to study how women were represented in Nazi film and how these representations were used for nationalistic purposes. Her research revealed many surprises. She explained, "Many scholars argued ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ [children, kitchen, church] images of women dominated in German feature films during that period, but that idea is slowly making room for more differentiated scholarship." In Majer O’Sickey’s work, she found many different roles for women: "Everything from vamp to doctor, but they always ended the same way. If these roles seemed subversive of images Nazi cinema demanded, this impression is more often than not destroyed in the end; subversive heroines always end up back in the kitchen or even in the graveyard… their uppityness is always punished in the end."

Majer O’Sickey grew interested in this genera of films from growing up in the generation following World War II. The subject was taboo for many years. "[During] the first twenty years after the war, few people would even discuss it," she said. The American TV series "Holocaust" came to Germany. "That was a big wake up call. It sent huge shock waves across Germany," she describes. Suddenly, vergangensheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past), films exploded. "Many cultural productions concerned itself with that legacy," she explained, "People were asking questions of the previous generations that that had never been asked before."

Majer O’Sickey’s book remains a work in progress and will follow a long list of publications, including forthcoming articles in German Politics and Society and Women in German Yearbook.

A native of Heidelberg, Germany, Dr. Majer O’Sickey has lived all over North America. She has been teaching Comparative Literature, Women’s Studies, and Film at Harpur College since 1991. "I went into [academia] because I have the desire to make a difference in the students’ intellectual development, and the new Harpur College Dean’s support of our mission has given me renewed vigor and energy to pursue my goals."

She affirmed, "Harpur College offers great potential for academics to realize their professional dreams, both in scholarship and teaching. I feel that a new respect for the importance of the humanities in the intellectual development of our students is growing, and I am proud to be associated with this trend."