Around SUNY
Each
campus will create its own set of core courses based on guidelines set
down by a SUNY task force of administrators, faculty and students, according
to a recent task force that examined how state university campuses can
tailor general education courses to meet the first statewide core curriculum
in the SUNY system.
Beginning next fall the new standards will require bachelor's degree candidates in the SUNY system to complete no fewer than 30 credit hours in 10 core subject areas, such as math, science and American history. “I am pleased that this task force, with so many different voices and perspectives, could reach a consensus on how these new standards should be implemented before the fall 2000 semester,” said Task Force Co-Chair Muriel A. Howard, president of Buffalo State College. The task force's other co-chair is Peter D. Salins, provost of the State University, who organized the task force. The provost's office is responsible for implementing the new general education standards.
Perimeter Road: Over the summer, Perimeter Road on the west side of campus was realigned to move traffic and parking farther away from the main academic podium and create a “green belt” up to 400 feet wide of open spaces and pedestrian walkways. The new roadway and expanded parking areas were opened in late August. Landscaping is scheduled to be completed in November. The $4.2 million project also includes a number of intersection improvements, construction of a major new parking lot southwest of Colonial Quad, and a new bus stop just west of the Social Science Building.
University Police Department Headquarters: Construction is now under way for a new University Police Department facility on the east side of campus, with completion of the $2.6 million project set for May of 2000. The current UPD building, on the west side of campus, will eventually be torn down.
Rehabilitation of Sayles Hall: Sayles Hall, part of Alumni
Quadrangle near the University's Rockefeller College campus, was completely
renovated over the summer at a cost of $1.5 million. It houses 134
students. Other improvements include new sidewalks for Waterbury
Hall and new furniture and floors for Eastman Suites in State Quad.
Chancellor John W. Ryan
received an honorary degree and was named an honorary professor at Moscow
State University during a visit to the university Aug. 31 through Sept.
4. Ryan was invited by Professor Viktor Antonovich Sodovnnichy, the rektor
(president) of MSU.
The University at Albany
and Moscow State University expanded their 23-year relationship last October
by establishing a center for the United States and Russia on the Moscow
State University campus and a center for Russia and the United State here
at the University.
Space Shuttle Commander
Eileen Collins, a graduate of Corning Community College, became the first
woman ever to command a spaceflight when she piloted the space shuttle
Columbia in July.
Collins credited her
SUNY education with encouraging her love of math and science. She graduated
from Corning in 1976, went on to earn two master's degrees, and entered
the Air Force before being selected as an astronaut in 1990. She first
made history in Feb. 1995 when she became the first woman to pilot a space
shuttle. Collins guided Discovery to within 30 feet of Mir in a dress
rehearsal for the first Shuttle/Mir docking. Two years later, she revisited
the Mir space station as pilot on board Atlantis for the sixth Shuttle/Mir
docking mission, delivering astronaut Mike Foale and returning Jerry Linenger
to Earth.
Patricia Elliott Stevens,
who has been closely affiliated with Monroe Community College and SUNY-Brockport
in the Rochester area, was appointed to the SUNY Board by Gov. George E.
Pataki. Her appointment to a seven-year term as a University Trustee was
confirmed by the Senate on May 4.
Stevens served SUNY-Brockport
as executive director of the Educational Opportunity Center from 1989-1992
and Monroe Community College from 1970-1989 in several positions, including
director of the Educational Opportunity Program. Most recently, she was
Deputy Commissioner of the Division of Temporary Assistance in the New
York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance in Albany.
On June 15 the
New York State Senate confirmed Pataki's appointment of Nelson A. Rockefeller,
Jr. and Bernard F. Conners to the State University Board of Trustees and
the re-appointment of Board Chairman Thomas F. Egan and Trustee Edward
F. Cox. The Senate's action brings the State University Board of Trustees
to full strength, filling all 16 seats on the board
Conners, former
publisher of The Paris Review, is a best-selling novelist and owner of
British American. A native of Albany and a Loudonville resident, Conners
is a Golden Gloves boxing champion, as well as a former FBI agent who received
several personal citations for valor.
Rockefeller was
a domestic policy adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole after
working as a special assistant to the White House Office of Management
and Budget between 1990 and 1993. Since 1993 Rockefeller, son of the former
governor, the late Nelson A. Rockefeller, has been chairman of Hacienda
Campo Alegre Management, Inc., of Raymondville, Texas, and New York City.
The company manages cattle and non-native wildlife.