Spring Brings Bread, Roses, and Education Policy Speaker
The 14th Annual Spring Celebration of the Women�s concerns Committee and the Council of Women�s Groups will bestow the University�s highest awards for leadership and achievement among women to one administrator, two faculty members and two students, and also hear from a gay/lesbian movement leader on "Social Change in Higher Education." The event will be held in the Campus Center Assembly Hall on Tuesday, April 14, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Urvashi Vaid, director of the Policy Institute of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, will give the feature address. An attorney and community organizer whose involvement in the gay/lesbian movement spans 20 years, Vaid since last year has directed the Institute, a community-based think tank committed to research, policy development, strategic thinking and coalition-building from a progressive gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender perspective.
A columnist for two national magazines, The Advocate and Gay Community News, she is the author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation (1993), an award winning analysis of the gay rights movement. She is also the recipient of a 1997-98 Rockefeller Residential Fellowship at the Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies at CUNY.
The 1998 recipients of the 12th Annual Bread & Roses Awards are Nancy Belowich-Negron, assistant dean for student affairs and director of Disabled Student Services since 1980; Shirley Jones, Distinguished Service Professor from the Department of Social Welfare, Bonnie Spanier, associate professor of the Department of Women�s Studies; Elizabeth Burnworth, a Ph.D. candidate and instructor in the Department of Sociology; and Helen Petrozolla, a senior majoring in Russian and Eastern European Studies.
Belowich-Negron has empowered women with disabilities. She founded Abilities Awareness Month, and in 1994 initiated and chaired the All-University Women�s Luncheon Series.
Shirley Jones since 1987 has been a tireless mentor to young women faculty and staffers, and is the author of numerous articles on gender issues and a highly sought after conference speaker.
Bonnie Spanier was a long-time chair of the Women�s Studies department who oversaw its growth into one of the nation�s leaders in the field.
Elizabeth Burnworth is the founder and president of Women Organized for Radical Difference, a graduate student group that has engaged in numerous philanthropic efforts in the Capital Region. Helen Petrozolla resuscitated the undergraduate feminist group P.O.W.E.R. (People Organized for Women�s Empowerment and Respect) and headed the anti-sweatshop campaign on campus.
Acosta-Belén Awarded for Advancing Scholarship on Latinos
Edna Acosta-Belén, distinguished service professor of Latin American & Caribbean studies and women�s studies, received the "Outstanding Faculty in High Education Award" from the Hispanic Caucus of the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) on Sunday in Atlanta, Ga.
The award, conferred at AAHE�s annual conference, goes to a faculty member at a U.S. institution who, according to AAHE�s criteria, has "provided exemplary academic and professional leadership and made significant contributions to advancing knowledge about Latino populations, and enhancing their post-secondary educational experience."
Griggs-Janower Led Lenten Chorus
David Griggs-Janower of the Department of Music, director of the University Chamber Singers, led his renowned community group, Albany Pro Musica, in two concerts last month, entitled "There is Sweet Music Here: Music for Lent, Music for Spring." Featuring Lenten music by Bernstein, Pinkham, Fine, Mulholland and others, the group performed at St. John the Evangelist Church in Schenectady on Saturday, March 21, and at Blessed Sacrament Church in Albany on Sunday.
Susan Blood - Baudelairean Scholar Appointed for Fall
The Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures has appointed Susan Blood as an associate professor in French Studies for 1998-99. Blood received her B.A. summa cum laude from Reed College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in French literature from the Johns Hopkins University.
She is currently an associate professor of French at Yale University. Her book Baudelaire and the Aesthetics of Bad Faith was published by Stanford University Press in 1997. Blood has been the recipient of a Danforth Fellowship, a Gilman Fellowship, an A.A.U.W. Fellowship, a Mellon Fellowship and a Morse Fellowship.
Carlson at Symposium for Protecting Women and Children
Bonnie Carlson of the School of Social Welfare will be one of the roundtable presenters at a statewide symposium For Children And Battered Women�s Advocates. Child protective workers and domestic violence advocates will meet to learn how to collaborate on strategies to protect women and children, as well as to identify factors that contribute to cooperation and safety in the community. The conference will be held on Wednesday, May 6, at Albany Law School.
Widom Travels to University of Alberta
Cathy Spatz Widom of the School of Criminal Justice recently delivered the Nettler Lecture at the University of Alberta at Edmonton, Canada. She also spoke to members of the Forensic Assessment and Community Services Unit at Alberta Hospital in Edmonton.
Leslie (Bennie) Siegel - Obituary
Leslie (Bennie) Siegel, 78, long-time equipment manager for the University�s Athletic Department and a member of the University�s sports Hall of Fame, died on March 29 in St. Peter�s Hospital after a long illness.
Few colleges or universities have had a more devoted employee or personal booster for their athletic programs than Albany had in Bennie Siegel. A diminutive man with an at-times fiery temper (that he learned to control admirably as he approached 60), Bennie was famed for personally attending to broken equipment, connecting hundreds of athletes� names to faces each year, and making sure that every uniform looked as brand-new as possible for each contest. He also assigned lockers to teams, faculty and staff alike, and guided hundreds of student work-studies through the proper attendance of laundry care and towel distribution.
He was notable for more than his at-work performance, however. Bennie attended nearly every home contest for every sport, cheering on the Albany players, runners, swimmers, etc., as if they were family. He was particularly notable at football and basketball contests, even after retirement. At them, equipped with a megaphone, he would lead the University�s crowds with the spelling out of "Albany," letter by letter, sometimes stretching his body to form the letters.
Bennie and Sylvia contributing unforgettable spirit to an Albany
football game in 1993."At his funeral service, his daughter started an Albany �cheer� like he used to do," said Robert Downey �85, a former Albany football player. "And I swear that several of us started to yell in response when she said that �Give me an A . . .� Bennie was a classic. He will be missed."
Leslie Siegel was born in Troy and moved to Albany�s South End in 1937. He served in the Anti-Aircraft Division of the U.S. Army during the invasion of African and in the European Theater from 1941-45. He worked as manager of the Strauss Auto Stores in Albany and then for Plaine Boys in Schenectady before coming to the University in 1967.
He retired after the Spring of 1988, and that Fall was inducted into the Hall of Fame, one of the few non-athletes or coaches so honored.
He is survived by his wife and fellow great friend of the University, Sylvia, a son, a daughter, two grandchildren, a brother and a sister. Memorial contributions may be made to the Bennie Siegel Scholarship Fund (made out to the University at Albany Foundation), to Congregation Beth Abraham Jacob on 380 Whitehall Road, Albany, 12209, or to a charity of one�s choice.
What the Master Plan Will Mean to Me
by Judith Baskin, Department of Judaic Studies
I serve not only on the Master Plan Committee but also on its academic subcommittee. The way the changes coming to the campus will affect the academic climate is of course a major concern of mine. As a professor in the humanities, I know that in the short term many of the new advances that the Master Plan will bring may not affect me as much as they will teachers in the sciences and social sciences.
Judith Baskin
I do believe, however, that the Master Plan can have a profound impact on the use of space in our academic settings at Albany � and that will help all our teachers and students. When the University was designed, the planners really did not think in terms of small group learning. Rooms big enough for lectures are now largely incapable of being subdivided to allow work with small groups of students. These rooms are not amenable to discussions.
The Master Plan � and there is a Classroom Design Subcommittee specifically charged with dealing with this issue � will include the renovation of current buildings to create flexible classroom space, which can be easily subdivided. The conversion of the current Administration Building into an academic building will free up space in other buildings to allow this kind of renovation. Better classroom interaction and overall learning atmosphere will be the result.
When I look at the campus as a whole, I think a major improvement will be a new entrance building on the current "Circle" that will give this campus something it sorely has needed: a defined entrance. I believe that in time there will also be constructed a wonderful underground passageway from this building to the podium. Everything about the Master Plan seems to be connected with providing all members of the University community with a more attractive and efficient learning, living and working environment.
Another concern I had on the committee involves everyone in the University community: there are very few pleasant social spaces for us to interact here. These include places were faculty can sit down with students after class, or places any of us can sit and read, or have casual meetings with our co-workers.
The Master Plan will create that kind of meeting space in our academic buildings through structural reconfigurations, and the atrium space, leading from the entrance building to the Lecture Centers, will create the same kind of casual areas for all of us. The result should be an enhancement of the general atmosphere of the University at Albany.
Along with that aim had to be a new vision for the outdoors on this campus. A big decision for the committee was the elimination of parking spaces around the podium. Many of us on the committee, along with many faculty and staff colleagues, will lose our premium parking spaces adjacent to the podium.
This, I finally decided, after seeing the aims of the Master Plan, is a worthwhile sacrifice to make the campus far more pleasant and user-friendly. The original design of the campus, after all, did not call for any parking near the podium. That area was supposed to be all grassy and pretty. It is now unpleasant � and often dangerous. There are no real paths; we are crossing parking lots and roadways all the time.
Worse, there is no feel of a university community. If parking lots can be turned into landscaped settings, with the proper safe walking links established between the podium and the quads and the parking lots, then we will wind up with another essential part of a productive learning community: a more humane environment. I am optimistic that this will now happen through the Master Plan process.
Blanca Ramos, Former Secretary,
Now Both Faculty Member and Award-Winning StudentBy Greta Petry
When Blanca Ramos started working at the University in 1981, she was a secretary in the Department of Latin American & Caribbean Studies. Since that time, she has earned a bachelor�s, a master�s, and a Ph.D. degree at the University, and today is an assistant professor in the School of Social Welfare.
Blanca Ramos
Most recently, she learned that she is among the more than two dozen recipients of the 1998 President�s Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award, who will be recognized at the honors convocation in May. A full-time faculty member in the School of Social Welfare since fall 1996, Ramos completed a Ph.D. at the University in December 1997.
Ramos was born in Peru and moved to the U.S. in 1978. And while she has many pages of accomplishments in her curriculum vita, this award has special significance for her because it required writing the dissertation in English, her second language.
Her long list of community service activities includes appointment by Congress to the New York State Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She has also served on the City of Albany�s Community/Police Relations Board (1991), and was a member of Bishop Howard Hubbard�s Advisory Committee on Women�s Concerns in Society from 1983-86. She has long acted as a Spanish language interpreter for various community organizations.
For Ramos, whose office is decorated with a giant yellow smiley face (to relieve student stress) and a wall-hanging of a Tumi (a knife-shaped Incan god from her homeland), the road to a Ph.D. began when she was senior stenographer in the Department of Latin American & Caribbean Studies.
"I was surrounded by an environment of learning and academia and I just aspired to one day be in the classroom and teach. It was very tempting because I was surrounded by books, readings, articles and conferences all the time," Ramos said.
Taking one course per semester, she began to work on a bachelor�s degree. Like many non-traditional students, she was older than 22, with other responsibilities that included family and work. For example, while still working on her undergraduate degree, Ramos remembers being pregnant with her second child. The idea that she could be a professor did not take hold overnight.
"I think it evolved. At the beginning it seemed like such a long road. In my heart I dreamed of teaching, but I didn�t really set it as a goal. Once I got immersed in the world of education and was about to finish my bachelor�s degree, I thought I should go for the master�s. And once I was in the M.S.W. program, I applied to the Ph.D. program and was accepted," she said.
Ramos is part of a University at Albany family. Daughter Angelica, 19, is a student at Albany; husband Gary Wright is a professor in the Department of Anthropology. Their son Ricardo is now 12.
After graduating with a bachelor�s degree in psychology in 1989 (she was Phi Beta Kappa), Ramos enrolled full-time in the M.S.W. program.
"I knew it was a challenge to be admitted to the School of Social Welfare because it is a highly competitive program," she said. After completing a master�s, she moved back and forth between being a part-time and full-time student, at one point working full-time as a social work researcher at the Veterans Administration Medical Center Hospital in Albany, while a full-time Ph.D. student.
"I learned to be disciplined," she said. "If we are disciplined we can have a job and do the academic work slowly." Ramos found ways to fit her education around her family. She studied while her daughter played with the baby. She brought the children into the office and they did their homework while she did hers.
"I always try to make my family come first. This is very important to me even now. We all work ways around situations. And of course, Gary was a factor. If you have a supportive family it makes it easier," she said.
Today Ramos teaches graduate students and is involved in the research projects of senior faculty members Ronald Toseland (on Alzheimer�s disease) and Bonnie Carlson (on the subject of domestic violence).
"It�s a long road," said Ramos of the academic goal she reached. "If you do it a little piece at a time, it can be done. I tell my children that I don�t focus on the external gains of salary or being called �Dr.,� but on the feeling you have in terms of who you are and how you are accomplishing something that is all yours. Nothing can compare with that. You walk around with it. It�s what it does for you as a person."
Since graduating, Ramos has declined job offers from as far away as the University of Alaska.
"I always knew nothing could top the University at Albany," she said. "When I was applying for positions, wherever I went, the University at Albany was at the top � that had something to do with my marketability," she said.