ore than a half-century has passed since Shirley Siegel Passow’s halcyon days as a coed at the New York State College for Teachers, but she still recalls the experience with warmth. “There was a sense of community and intimacy that couldn’t be duplicated today,” says Passow, still energetic at 79. “I got a wonderful education, and the older I am, the more I realize how it shaped my life.”

Passow, B.A.’46, M.A.’53, is now a deputy attorney general for the State of New Jersey, but in the early 1940s she was among a select group of 1,200 young men and women who made up the student body of the highly regarded College for Teachers. Today, it is the University at Albany.

Tuition during UAlbany’s era as the College for Teachers (1914 to 1962) was free. Nearly everyone expected to become a high school teacher. And, according to Siegel, “We were all universally poverty-stricken — but no one seemed to mind.”

Frederic Weed and Shirley Passow chat during Alumni Weekend.

The College for Teachers was unique in two ways: it was devoted exclusively to training teachers in academic subjects for the state’s burgeoning high schools (there were no elementary education programs), and the curriculum focused on the liberal arts. Students came from throughout New York State and went on to distinguished careers in teaching and educational administration. “

It was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” says Helen Caldwell Shure of San Diego, Calif., a classmate and lifelong friend of Passow’s. “We were immediately impressed with the quality of the place (after arriving). You knew you wouldn’t be there long if you didn’t keep up your grades. And the spirit was wonderful — you felt like you belonged.”

Shirley Siegel Passow, B.A.’46, M.A.'53, and Harry Passow, Class of ’42, during the war years.

Downey, above, and Shure from their class yearbooks.

Shure, who was president of Myskania, a prestigious student honorary, taught for 20 years in the California public school system before retiring. Passow, also a member of Myskania and a reporter for the college newspaper, The State College News, completed her studies as the war bride of the late Harry Passow, who became a distinguished professor of education at Columbia University. She taught English for a year in a rural school near Buffalo, then later earned a degree in urban planning from Columbia’s School of Architecture and Planning. In her 60s, she went to Rutgers University Law School and began still another career.

From left, Lloyd Clum, B.A.’41; Frederic Weed, B.A.’40; Leonard Kayle, B.A.’40, and Wilford Thomas, B.A.’41, as undergraduates at the New York State College for Teachers.

Frederic A. Weed, B.A.’40, who was among only 100 men admitted to his class of 300, said he felt fortunate to be there. “It was rigorous,” he recalled, adding that he shared a room with another student for $2.50 a week at a boarding house near campus. He earned his doctorate from Columbia University and went on to a career teaching political science at San Jose State University in California.

Martha J. Downey, B.S.’51, M.A.’56, remembers the “superb faculty members who were always aware of your problems,” an excellent library, and her classes in theater and drama with Agnes Futterer, perhaps the most widely admired faculty member of the day. “I think my training as a business teacher was absolutely the best. One of the things I learned was public speaking, which has been invaluable to me,” says Downey. She taught school for one year in Southold, Long Island, then began a career as an executive secretary that culminated in her appointment as secretary of the State University of New York, where she had an insider’s view of the growth and development of the SUNY system. Retired since 1994, she still lives in Albany.

Martha Downey, B.S.’51, M.A.’56, today at State University of New York headquarters in Albany.

Passow, Shure, Weed and Downey, all of whom returned to campus last June for Alumni Weekend festivities, have proudly watched the evolution of their College for Teachers into a nationally ranked public university with 17,000 students on three campuses. “I’m sure you still have a wonderful experience (as a student today), but I don’t think it’s the same experience I had, since the University has expanded tremendously now,” says Shure. “You’ve got programs in public health, weather, public policy, and so on. Now, (the University) is a champion in all fields.”

ome of those champion programs can be found on the downtown campus — the original home of the College for Teachers. The nearly century-old complex, with its handsome Georgian structures, has served a variety of missions since UAlbany’s uptown, or main campus, was constructed on Washington Avenue in the late 1960s. Today, the downtown campus houses four of the University’s most outstanding graduate programs, each of them nationally recognized:

The School of Criminal Justice is ranked No. 4 in the nation among its peer programs, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of America’s best graduate schools.

The newly renamed Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, formerly the Graduate School of Public Affairs, is ranked 12th among 259 public affairs programs. The College rates very high in certain specialty areas, including sixth in information technology and management and eighth in public management/administration.

The School of Information Science and Policy, ranked 15th by U.S. News, is building on its traditional strengths in library science to educate professionals for careers as webmasters, network administrators, and in information-related fields.

The School of Social Welfare has been ranked 19th in the nation by U.S. News, and the scholarly productivity of its faculty is consistently rated among the top five programs in the nation.

ow did UAlbany achieve this stature in the public policy arena? Both Frank Thompson, dean of Rockefeller College, and James Acker, interim dean of the School of Criminal Justice, say it boils down to outstanding faculty and students, all of them dedicated to understanding the issues shaping their fields of study.

Downtown deans: From left, Deans James Acker (interim) of Criminal Justice, Frank Thompson of Rockefeller College, Katharine Briar-Lawson of Social Welfare and Philip Eppard of Information Science and Policy all lead nationally recognized programs.

“The heart of it is a strong faculty who teach well, carry out research with energy, like to wrestle with public policy problems, and bring back the lessons they learn from the firing line,” says Thompson, who came to the University in 1987. “But it takes a special ethos, a public service sort of culture that distinguishes us. The faculty care about common issues and collective goals, and they have a sense of pulling together.” Other reasons for the program’s success, he said, include the school’s proximity to the state Capitol, perhaps the best internship program in the country, and a willingness to think strategically. “We don’t try to be all things to all people,” he says.

Norma Riccucci, professor of public administration and policy: “Our strength as a department is its multidisciplinary nature.”

Public Administration Professor Norma Riccucci, who received a campus award for excellence in research last spring, says Thompson, in turn, has created the kind of environment that allows faculty to flourish, both as teachers and scholars. “That’s really critical for a highly ranked faculty — leadership from the dean. Frank has had a great impact on (Rockefeller College), and that certainly trickles down to the faculty,” she said.

Riccucci, author of the forthcoming Managing Diversity in Public Sector Workforces (Westview Press), said her colleagues bring a breadth of interests to Public Administration. “I think our strength as a department is very multidisciplinary in nature,” Riccucci said. “We have people doing various things from various perspectives. It’s a very collegial department.” Riccucci’s peers across the country recently nominated her as one of the most successful scholars in public administration today.

Doctoral student Richard H. Cate, chief operating officer of the State Education Department: “You get these diverse perspectives.”

raduate students in the University’s public administration program also have high praise for it. Doctoral student Richard H. Cate, the chief operating officer of the New York State Education Department, had extensive experience as a public administrator when he came to the University in 1996 at the age of 46. He chose UAlbany’s program, he admits, partly because it was conveniently located four blocks from his busy office at the State Education Building in downtown Albany, but mainly because of its reputation. “I checked, and it was highly rated,” he says. He was pleased to find a diversity of faculty. “There are sociologists, economists, political scientists, and that makes it a much richer program. You get these diverse perspectives.”

Cate, whose concentration is in public finance, hopes to complete his doctoral work by the fall of 2002. “I know I’m able to do my job better because of the courses I’ve already taken,” says Cate, who is responsible for a budget of over $17 billion and a staff of 3,200. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises, he says, is just how much he’s enjoyed it. “I don’t think I knew how much I would gain from it.”

The School of Criminal Justice, the oldest such program in the country, grew out of a suggestion from Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller. It opened in 1966 and developed a distinctive curriculum known as the Albany model that has been replicated throughout the country. “We had the vision to understand there really was a need for an academic enterprise to collect information about crime and the best ways to respond to it,” explained James Acker, interim dean of the School of Criminal Justice. “Given the mandate of Governor Rockefeller, we’ve always had this very heavy emphasis on sophisticated research, and especially how research can be used in the public policy arena.”

The program’s graduates can be found on the faculties of the top academic institutions in the country. One of those distinguished alumni, Robert J. Sampson, M.A.’79, M.A.’83, Ph.D.’83, is now the Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. As a graduate student at UAlbany, Sampson recalls working on a national crime survey at the newly established Hindelang Research Center. “Not only did it expose me to cutting edge research, but I also worked with a lot of other graduate students who were really smart,” he said. “There was a community of scholars, and that included the graduate students.”

Page Hall

Sampson will receive the American Society of Criminology’s Edwin H. Sutherland Award this November for his outstanding scholarship. At the same meeting, UAlbany’s Distinguished Professor Hans Toch will receive the August Vollmer Award for his outstanding contributions to applied criminology over his career.

The School of Social Welfare capitalizes on its location near the state’s large human service agencies, offering students top field placements and career opportunities. “We collaborate with our partners to spearhead research and demonstration projects, and in community building initiatives and policy innovations,” says Dean Katharine Briar-Lawson, whose own grandmother, Nola Rieffanaugh, graduated from UAlbany in 1913, just as the era of the Teachers College was about to begin. Outstanding graduates of the School of Social Welfare include Pat Pine, Ph.D.’93, director of the State Office for Aging; Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, Ph.D.’01, now at Columbia University’s School of Social Work; and Lorraine Chesin, M.S.W.’97, commissioner of Unified Services for Rensselaer County and recipient of the 2001 Social Worker of the Year Award, Northeast Division, of the National Association of Social Workers.

“The faculty are excellent. They have practical experience and expertise in a wide range of areas, so we received an excellent education. The school provided a solid foundation for my career,” said Holly Fox, M.S.W.’81. She is program director of the Clinical Competency Center at Albany Medical College and recipient of the l999 Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Social Welfare.

The School of Information Science and Policy (SISP), marking its 75th anniversary, traces its roots to the establishment in 1926 of a program to train high school librarians at the College for Teachers. That is still an important part of its mission, Dean Philip Eppard says, but SISP now also offers education for a wide variety of information professions. The school’s newly revised M.S. in information science has concentrations in archives and records administration, information policy and management, and information systems and technology. It also has a growing undergraduate program in information science. This program, which now has nearly 200 majors, has proven popular with students interested in careers as webmasters, network administrators, or in technology user services.

SISP’s outstanding alumni include Mike Eisenberg, B.A.’71, M.L.S.’73, who is director of the Information School at the University of Washington, and GladysAnn Wells, B.S.’71, M.L.S.’72, state librarian of Arizona and director of the Arizona Department of Library, Archives and Public Records.

Distinguished Service Professor Vince Aceto.

erhaps no one’s career has more closely paralleled the evolution of the University and its downtown campus than Vince Aceto, B.A.’53, M.A.’54, M.L.S.’59, a distinguished service professor of Information Science and Policy.

Aceto, who grew up in Schenectady as the oldest of six children, enrolled as a freshman at the College for Teachers in 1949, one year after the State University of New York system was created. After graduation, he taught school for two years in the Scotia-Glenville and Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake system, then became a high school librarian. A year after earning his M.L.S. he joined UAlbany’s faculty. He has witnessed UAlbany’s development from a front-row seat.

Click to see the front and back cover photo of UAlbany magazine, Fall 2001

“I came here (as an undergraduate) because of its reputation. It was considered a premier institution at the time, and it was very difficult to get into,” Aceto said. “Everything was very personal. I had faculty members who contacted me regularly. The students around me were bright, and very eager to learn. It was a nice atmosphere — and a real learning experience.”

Aceto and Shirley Siegel Passow are both quick to recognize the advantages of the modern University at Albany. Even so, Passow thinks of her Teachers College experience a half-century ago as irreplaceable. “Now, there’s a real richness of opportunities that we didn’t have, and there is also more diversity, which is good,” she said. “I’m sure it’s still excellent, but I think our experience was unique.”