Campus Remembers September 11

As campus police officers lowered the flag in front of the Administration building to half-mast, the the entire University community took time to remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The Library Tower rang the chimes at 8:46a.m., 9:03a.m., 9:59a.m. and 10:29a.m. Several classes held moments of silence during those periods.

Following the flag ceremony, President DeFleur and Richard Heck, director of alumni and parent relations, went to the Memorial Garden and placed a wreath at the Memorial Stones, which bear the names and etched images of each of the fifteen alumni who perished on September 11.

Liz Erhardt `07 remembered the day by talking on the phone with her best friend from home who's father served as a fire fighter at the World Trade Center on September 11. "My friend said the day taught her the true meaning of a hero."

Kareema Young `04, a sociology major from New York City, was in class that morning. She went back to her apartment off campus and watched the September 11th memorials on television. Young recalls, "I took a moment and prayed for the families who lost loved ones on that day."

  Send this article to a friend

Top

Harpur Professor Brings Italian Artist Into the Spotlight

Sandro Sticca, professor of French and Comparative Literature at Harpur College, hopes his newest book will open the eyes of the art world to an Italian painter who died earlier this year.  Entitled La Pittura di Domenico Mascitti: Il Sapore della Terra ancestrale ("The Paintings of Domenico Mascitti: The Taste of the Ancestral Land"), the book brings Domenico Mascitti from local fame into the larger spotlight.

Mascitti died on March 12, 2002.  A week later, his son Mario, an engineer in Milan, Italy, approached professor Sticca when he was visiting his family in Florence.  Mario had met Sticca years ago at a lecture in Italy.  "We'd had a discussion about art," Professor Sticca recalls, "but I was not aware his father was a renowned painter."  When they met in 2003, however, Mario asked Sticca if he would write a chronology and critical interpretation of Mascitti's work.  "I said yes for two reasons," Sticca explained, "I've had a lifelong interest in art, even though by academic training and teaching, I've mostly dedicated myself to language and literature.  The second reason is that it would give me the possibility of realizing myself intellectually in a project that dealt primarily in art."

Sticca had already seen ten of Domenico's paintings when he accepted Mario's offer; "I was amazed at the beauty and magic presentation of light and colors on the canvases," he recalled. Most of the paintings were dated and signed, making it easy to reconstruct the chronology of Domenico's work.  He painted all of his life, but did not receive much attention until his later years.  He was not formally trained until his late twenties, which was considerably old for a painter.  Through perseverance, however, as well as study and imitation, he realized his own style and ultimately gave his hometown of Abruzzo an artistic legacy.

"I began the project by separating his paintings into three categories," Sticca said.  "Portraits, country scenes of various regions in Italy and the Alps, and scenes of mostly small towns."  Domenico, Sticca says, had a strong rapport with nature, especially in the mountainous and rural areas.

Sticca also discovered a new interest when researching his book: art analysis.  "My urge to interpret was so strong," he says, "that I worked on the book continuously mostly from eight at night until three in the morning for four months from the end of March 2002.  By the end of May 2003, the manuscript was ready.  By the end of July, it was published."

Sticca's intended audience includes art lovers and scholars, historians and students of painting.  Domenico himself had been influenced by French impressionists, particularly Renior, but especially by Italian painters such as Domenico Morelli, the Palizzi brothers, Antonio Pitloo, Michetti and Gali, who painted in the tradition of the schools of realism of southern Italy in the mid-nineteenth century, those of Posillipo and of Resina.  Another big influence was Antonio Allegri (known as Coreggio) who, in the late 14^th and 15^th century , painted a vision of a Christ and his apostles on the ceiling of the cupola of the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Parma, Italy.  Domenico, with slight changes, reproduced this work.  All of his paintings are characterized by chromatic splendor, a triumph of light and colors.

Another of Domenico's influences was Renoir's "Woman with a Parasol," both the one kept in Madrid and the other in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He reproduced the image, pictured right.

Sticca himself has never taught art history, but he took every course available on the subject while he was earning his Ph.D. at Columbia University.

He recalls another honor, on top of being asked to write the book: "At the time Mario asked me, the mayor of Domenico's birth place, decided to affix a plaque commemorating the house were the painter had lived, and the Mayor asked me to give a presentation of the painter and his paintings on August 24.  Two days later, Mario called me from Milan to ask if I would write the words for his plaque, and I did."

Then, the morning after the commemoration, Mario and his mother came over and presented one of Domenico's paintings to Sticca.  "It was a very sensitive and much appreciated gift," he said.

Being asked to write this book, Sticca says, was a nice recognition of his scholarly capacity, but was also a challenging endeavor because Sticca did not have as much training in art history as he did in literature.  "I worked very hard and was able to place the production of the artist within its times and trace the influences that helped him in his artistic voyage," said Sticca, who hopes to do more with art.

"Art fulfills a deep need in my soul," he said. "It is gratifying and provides me with an occasion to grow intellectually even though in a different field than the one in which I've been working all my professional life."

  Send this article to a friend

Top

Harpur Program Aids Asian American Community

Tanya Dasgupta '04 will never forget babysitting three young children in a Queens courthouse as their mother, a battered wife, fought to flee an abusive marriage. It was all in a day's work for Dasgupta, who spent the summer as a legal advocate and domestic violence crisis intern at Sakhi for South Asian Women through Harpur College's Asian and Asian American Studies Community Internship Program.

The job involved answering the crisis hotline and and trying to help the women on the other end of the phone. "I was also a Bengali translator," said Dasgupta.

While her work was rewarding, it was also very difficult. Dasgupta recalls how much the battered woman's children suffered while their mother went to court. "They understood something was wrong, but they didn't know why. They kept asking questions. They just wanted their mother to be happy."

The experience changed Dasgupta's career plans. A political science major who plans to attend law school after graduation, she said her internship introduced her to a new area. "I had been leaning towards corporate law, but now I want to do women's rights and family law."

Six other students participated the internship program which provides valuable work experience and serves a growing population. The jobs are all unpaid, related to the Asian American experience, and coincidentally, located throughout New York City. Students must have a B+ or higher grade point average and write an essay explaining why they wish to participate in the internship program. Only after acceptance by AAASP may the student apply directly to the organization for an internship.

Though being bilingual is not required, most used their native languages on the job.

Amy Lam '05 worked for the Chinese American Planning Council, one of the largest providers of social services for Asian Americans in the United States. She helped clients find day care, literacy training, and English as a Second Language classes.

Wei-Ee (Katie) Cheng '05 and Keiko Murabayshi '04 were both at the Asian American Arts Alliance, which works to increase recognition and awareness of Asian artists throughout New York City. They updated the A4 Online Directory, which lists contact information of art and cultural organizations and individual artists, which Cheng called an "eye-opening, learning experience."

"A lot of work goes into promoting and making a not-for-profit organization run," she stressed.

Michael Hung and Melissa Wu '05 interned in the office of Councilman John C. Liu of Flushing. They both heard the concerns of Liu's constituents. Hung remarked that he "loved going to City Hall." Wu had the responsibility of creating a final presentation of all the summer interns' contributions. "It sharpened my organizational and leadership skills," she said.

At the Asian American Federation of New York, Millie Zhao '06 helped provide assistance to those affected by September 11. She researched grants for the organization to continue helping people and helped write case studies.

John Chaffee, professor and director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Program credited Lisa Yun, Assistant Professor of English and Associate Director of AAASP for not only getting the internship program off the ground, but placing the students in settings that best used their talents. "It is thanks to her vision, her large network of friends and acquaintances in the Asian American communities of New York City, and her tireless work over the past year, that the program has been the success that it is," said Chaffee. "As a measure of that success, Asian American programs elsewhere in the northeast have begun looking to it as a model to be emulated."

Fran Goldman, acting associate director of AAASP, said while the interns have different majors and career plans, they all have a deep interest in serving Asian Americans. For more information on the program, either to hire an intern or to become one, please contact Fran Goldman at 607-777-4938.

  Send this article to a friend

Top

Visiting Lecturer Shares his Views on the Age of the Universe

Can science and the Bible coexist?  In his presentation, on September 12 in the Anderson Center Reception Room, "Genesis and the Big Bang: A Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and Ancient Biblical Commentary," Professor Gerald Schroeder Schroeder said yes - perfectly, in fact.

Sponsored by Professor Emeritus Philip Piaker, the Harpur College Dean, the departments of Judaic Studies and Philosophy, and Chabad House.  Professor Jonathan Karp delivered a welcome speech before Schroeder began.

Schroeder holds a Ph.D. from M.I.T. and has authored several books on the subject of science and creationism, including the best-sellers "The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom," "The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth," and "Genesis and the Big Bang Theory: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible."  He teaches at the Aish HaTorah College of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

Schroeder said everything is the result of the big bang, the dominant theory that a celestial explosion created the universe when it threw particles in all directions. 

Although scientists say this happened 15 billion years ago, the Hebrew calendar says we are in the year 5763.  Who is correct?  Schroeder said both.  Science and religion are not at odds.

Schroeder said wide acceptance of the big bang theory is recent and he gave a brief history of science, starting with Kepler, the 16th century astronomer who was the first to correctly explain planetary motion. He said scientists believed the notion of an eternal universe (that it had always existed) until 1965 when two scientists won the Nobel Prize for discovering radiation in space left over from the big bang.

"That evaporated the idea of an eternal universe," Schroeder said.  "Science had demonstrated that the universe had a real beginning.  Something had created the universe."  Regardless of religion, most people, said Schroeder, believe it's something metaphysical.

Moving past the big bang, Schroeder confronted the Genesis story of God creating the world in 6 days.  "If God was so powerful, why did he need 6 days and not an instant," he asked.

The answer, says Schroeder, lies in the definition of a day.  Using Einstein's theory of relativity, he explained how gravity makes time flexible.

On that account, the universe could have been created in 6 days and 15 billion years.  "When you spin the numbers, science and the Bible actually match up," he said.

Schroeder did not claim to have all the answers.  "If there is a God, I have no idea why it all happened," he said, "You're never able to see before the beginning."

The audience asked many questions, followed by a reception during which Schroeder chatted with students and signed copies of his books.

Students seemed especially smitten with Schroeder.  Pierce Schiller `07, undeclared major, said he added another perspective to his concept of how the universe began.  Alex Diaz `04, a history and philosophy major, called Schroeder "brilliant."

Chris Sgro `05, a chemistry major, said, "I was definitely interested in how he expressed relativity.  I found it interesting how 6 days could equal 15 billion years."

"Dr. Schroeder's appearance in Binghamton was an unprecedented opportunity for our community to listen to a world class scientist and scholar of Bible discuss the fascinating intersection between the two. His brilliance, wit and extraordinarily unique perspective made his presentation a true feast for the mind and spirit," commented Rabbi Aaron Slonim, director of the Chabad House.

Signed copies of Schroeder's latest book are available at the Binghamton University Chabad House. Please call 607-797-0015.

  Send this article to a friend

Top

Don't Miss Homecoming 2003!

Come back to campus for a weekend of fun! Click on the logo above to visit Binghamton University's official Homecoming 2003 webpage. We've got information on class reunions, activities, entertainment, and where to stay. Don't miss out on Homecoming 2003!

  Send this article to a friend

Top

1973: Bruce Freeman has published an article, "With One Tuchus, You Can't Dance at Two Weddings" in the latest issue of Enterpreneur.com. He is president of ProLine Communications, a public relations firm in Livingston, New Jersey. Freeman is also an adjunct professor at Kean University and a regular guest and business consultant for News 12 New Jersey.

1973: The art of Shelley Haven will be on display now through October 4 at the Brooklyn Painters Show and November 1 - 22 at the Solo Works Show at the Brooklyn Working Artists Coalition at the Red Hook Pier, 499 Van Brunt, Brooklyn. Her work will also be part of the Alumni Art Exhibit at the Binghamton University Art Gallery, October 10 - November 8.

Kudzu, Mount Saint Angelo, by Shelley Haven

1975: After graduating from Harpur, Ellen Marian (McDonald) Broome attended Albany Law School and now works for the State Comptroller's Office in the Municipal Finance Section. In 1985, she married Herbert Broome, a science teacher. They have two children, Alan, age 14, and Amanda, age 13.

1987: Kathryn M. Karrer (M.A.) went on to earn a Ph.D. in history from the Catholic University of America. She recently told the Hotline, "Nearing retirement, I decided to take up the double bass. I now play this marvelous instrument with a local community orchestra, thus fulfilling a lifetime dream!"

1997: Linda C. Oot and Jason Emerson tied the knot on May 23, 2003 in Binghamton and spent their honeymoon in Captiva Island, FL. Linda currently attends College Misericordia and is employed by Broome-Tioga BOCES. The Emersons reside in Conklin, NY. Source: Press & Sun Bulletin

2003: Jennifer Dietrich and James Jenks `03 (Watson) are engaged! They plan to marry on September 27, 2003 in Sacketts Harbor, NY, followed by a honeymoon in Hawaii. Dietrich is a preschool teacher in Vestal and Jenks works for IBM in Endicott. The couple lives in Johnson City.

Send this article to a friend

Top

Shop Harpur Online

Follow this link to the Campus Bookstore.

We are currently redesigning this regular feature of the Harpur Hotline. For more Harpur College merchandise, contact the bookstore at 607-777-2745.

Back Issues of the Harpur Hotline

Miss an issue? Want to read more? Check out: http://harpur.binghamton.edu/hotline

Harpur College Development Team Mission Statement:

The Harpur College of Arts and Sciences Development Team encourages alumni, students, faculty and friends to identify with Harpur College's past, present and future by engaging them in events and programs that connect them to the college. We facilitate ways for our constituents to enrich Harpur College through their financial contributions and personal talents and resources.

Contact the Webmaster.

Top