With mere days to the end of the Fall semester, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all faculty and staff for their continued dedication and support. I wish all of you a peaceful and joyous Holiday Season.
As always, Harpur College lived up to its reputation for being the intellectual heartbeat of the University with a full calendar of seminars, symposia, concerts, exhibits, performances and guest lecturers. Many of our distinguished alumni returned to campus to share their experiences with students and faculty. Guests included Emmy award-winning filmmaker Alan Berliner '77, environmental lawyer David Weinsoff '80, and nutritionist Lauren Wallack '96, among many others.
We expanded the Harpur College Advisory Council to include alumni from across the country and are looking forward to their help in our efforts to raise the profile of the College and to assist in alumni outreach and fundraising activities. We have increased our overall endowments and look forward to further enhancements as we enter our 50th Anniversary year. And just last week, we sent another band of graduates into the "real" world with good food and celebration including speeches by Julie Wald, a Political Science Honors graduate; Charles Dickson, Director of Alumni and Parent Relations; and Robert Pompi, Associate Professor of Physics.
My goal for next semester is to continue to pursue the possibility of offering a lower level course for freshmen and sophomore students who are having difficulty in choosing a major or who wish to experience a panorama of faculty research. The course would incorporate a lecture on current research delivered by a different faculty member each week. This would allow students to experience a host of faculty research interests across the disciplines, thus ensuring more informed choices about their major.
My thanks and best wishes for a wonderful Holiday Season to both you and your families. Enjoy the well-earned break and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
If this is the first time you are seeing Harpur Hotline, welcome! If you've seen it before -- welcome back! This is the third time Harpur Hotline has been distributed and I would welcome your opinion and feedback
I initiated this e-newsletter earlier this semester in the hope that we could strengthen Harpur College communication channels and tell more of the "stories" that are happening throughout the College. Using e-mail and our website, we are still in the process of "ironing out all the wrinkles" and are reviewing methods of distribution. Not everyone received the first two issues and so we have gone to Plan B -- mass distribution to all faculty and staff.
We are also looking at the possibility of setting up a subscribers list as well as opening up our audience to include alumni and friends of Harpur College. Naturally, if we choose to "open up" our readership, the focus of the newsletter will need to change as well, becoming more "external" in nature. One of my goals has been to create more visibility for Harpur College -- both on-campus and off. And I think Harpur Hotline may be the way to go.
I would be very interested in hearing your opinion and feedback. If you are currently on a mailing list for an e-newsletter that you think really does a good job in communicating news and views to its audience, please pass it on.
I look forward to hearing from you.
(You can e-mail Dean Polachek at polachek@binghamton.edu or Gail Glover, Harpur College's Public Relations Specialist, at gglover@binghamton.edu.)
If a picture says a thousand words, a video is worth a million! Just ask Dr. Romanczyk, director of the Institute for Child Development (ICD). Connecting a digital camcorder to his new iMac and launching movie software, Dr. Romanczyk can edit valuable video footage and produce customized videotapes in a matter of minutes. And via e-mail or a website, he can share the footage with students and colleagues across campus or across the world.
Wayne Kashinsky, the electronics engineer in the Psychology Department, recommended the inexpensive system, which was purchased with grant money. Using his new iMac DV, Dr. Romanczyk can develop his own on-line coursework in less than the time it takes to shoot the material. "I can now offer students the opportunity to follow-up on classroom discussion by making relevant video clips available through e-mail or website. And it can be done easily and in a very short time." The new iMac DV is also going to make cataloging and storage of video footage a snap. "We shoot thousands of frames of video footage a day. With this new editing process, we will be able to take out only the vital frames and add narration and text for a more effective and efficient end-product." The ICD is often called upon to provide videos on a host of topics for a variety of audiences and the new iMac DV promises to make the production of customized videotapes a simple and speedy process. Harpur senior Jennifer Gillis is assisting the conversion process to digital format.
Dr. Romanczyk also sees potential for sharing resources and knowledge between the campus and local and rural medical facilities. "The potential for community outreach is there -- we can send or receive clips using e-mail or a website -- and share our expertise or offer a second opinion."
To find out more about Dr. Romanczyk's new 'toy' and how digital editing can support your teaching experience, contact him via e-mail at rromanc@binghamton.
The next Dean's Lecture will be held Wednesday, February 16, 2000, in Casadesus Recital Hall at 3 p.m. and will feature Professor Kitty Sklar.
The lecture is entitled "Florence Kelley and the Multiple Discourses of Progressive Reform in the United States, 1900-1914." Florence Kelley (1859-1932) was the nation's leading female social reformer from the 1890s through to the 1920s. Professor Sklar's lecture will focus on the multiple reform discourses in Florence Kelley's 1905 book, Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation. A reception in the Theatre Department Green Room will follow the lecture.
The staff of the Harpur College newsletter (Roberta Scheer and Gail Glover) is looking to pull together a feature in the Winter/Spring 2000 edition highlighting the travel activities of Harpur College faculty and/or students.
Please contact Gail Glover at gglover@binghamton.edu if you have:
As you wind down at the end of the Fall semester, please give a thought to Spring 2000. The Harpur College website staff (Liz Abate and Gail Glover) is pulling together a schedule of possible major features for next year. If you have a major event, program or activity taking place during the Spring 2000 semester and would like it to be featured on the Features page of the website, please contact us at labate@binghamton.edu or gglover@binghamton.edu.
Last updated 12/7/99. Written by Gail Glover, Harpur College Public Relations Specialist.