Monthly Archives: April 2014

‘Identify the Signs’ Campaign Promotes Awareness of Communication Disorders

Posted on by

hearing and speech month

With 8-9 percent of young children suffering from speech disorders, May’s Better Hearing and Speech Month is the perfect time for parents to learn how to recognize the early signs of these disorders. The Speech, Language, Hearing Center at the State University of New York at New Paltz is encouraging parents to educate themselves through the Identify the Signs campaign, a national effort of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). The campaign is designed to combat an overall lack of awareness about communication disorders—a major barrier to treatment for the more than 40 million total Americans who are affected.

Speech, language, and hearing disorders are among the most common disabilities in the United States. However, unlike many other disabilities, these disorders often are reversible and even preventable with early intervention. Unfortunately, many parents do not recognize the first signs of these disorders. In young children, early treatment can help prevent them from falling behind academically, socially, and in other key areas at a critical time in their development.

Certified speech-language pathologists see the benefits of early intervention every day. Unfortunately, the consequences of waiting too long to seek treatment are also seen and this is one of the reasons that education and early identification are being promoted. This is the idea behind the American Speech and Hearing Association’s Identify the Signs campaign.

While it is certainly never too late to seek help, treatment is most successful, less expensive, and most effective when a parent or loved one is able to recognize the earliest signs of these disorders. MAY IS BETTER HEARING AND SPEECH MONTH, and this is the perfect time for caregivers to familiarize themselves with these signs at ASHA’s IdentifytheSigns.org website. Caregivers should also seek information or an assessment from a certified speech-language pathologist if they have any questions

Identify the Signs of Communication Disorders

In children, parents should watch for the following signs of speech, language and hearing disorders:

Does not interact socially (infancy and older)

  • Does not follow or understand what you say (starting at 1 year)
  • Says only a few sounds or words or makes only a few gestures (18 months to 2 years)
  • Says words that are not easily understood (18 months to 2 years)
  • Does not combine words (starting at 2 years)
  • Struggles to say sounds or words (3 to 4 years)
  • Does not seem to hear what you are saying
  • Frequently asks “what”?

In adults, signs of speech and language disorders include:

  • Struggles to say sounds or words (stuttering)
  • Repeats words or parts of words (stuttering)
  • Says words in the wrong order (expressive aphasia)
  • Struggles with using words and understanding others (global aphasia)
  • Has difficulty imitating speech sounds (apraxia)
  • Speaks at a slow rate (apraxia)
  • Produces slurred speech (dysarthria)

For more signs, treatment information, and other resources, visit http://identifythesigns.org.

For more information regarding speech and hearing, please contact Department of Communication Disorders Chair Wendy Bower  (bowerw@newpaltz.edu). To schedule an appointment for a speech or hearing assessment, please contact the department secretary at (845) 257-3600.

Media and Journalism Week Kicks off April 23

Posted on by

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences hosts its annual Media and Journalism Week, featuring a keynote presentation by a television studio executive, alumni panel, screenings of two films and a launch party for The Little Rebellion, a student-produced multimedia news publication.  All events are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served at most events.

Schedule of Events

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: 4/23 6 p.m. Honor’s Center 
Things kick off with a keynote presentation on Wednesday April 23rd at 6 p.m. at the Honor’s Center in College Hall. Barry Katz is the Senior VP/ General Manager NEP Studios New York. At NEP Studios, Barry is responsible for the overall management and operation of nine independent television studios in New York City, playing a key role in sales, client management, staff development, and studio design and build. Barry has led the way in HD studio development – opening six HD studios since becoming General Manager. Studios include spaces for The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Al Jazeera America, and Glen Beck. Learn about his career and opportunities in the broadcast industry for all majors.

FIRST SCREENING: 4/24 6:30 p.m. LC102
Thursday, April 24th kicks off the first of two film screenings. Join New Paltz Professor Tom Cznarty for the film ‘Uneasy Sisters: Voodoo and Christianity In New Orleans.’ Professor Cznarty co-directed the film. It was be screened at LC 102 at 6:30 pm April 24th. Ava Kay Jones will be presenting a Q&A after the documentary.

ALUMNI CAREER PANEL: 4/28 11 a.m. in SUB 62/63

Our alumni career panel will be on Monday, April 28.  Panelists include Erin Brady (05’, Producer Nightline) Claudia Gallo (13’ Assistant Editor WWE), Kaleigh Griffin (13’ Independent Producer), Kim Mas (Assistant Graphics and Video Editor at Hearst Digital), and Sarah Miller (Writer/Producer for NBC’s TodayShow).

Lorna Tychostup

Lorna Tychostup’s Film “Bordering on Treason” will be screened Tuesday, April 29.

SECOND SCREENING: 4/29 6 p.m. LC102
Our second screening will take place on Tuesday, April 29 at 6 p.m. in LC102. The film ‘Bordering on Treason’ is a documentary that focuses on photo journalist and journalism professor Lorna Tychostup’s visits to Iraq shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2003. Her work, deemed ‘bordering on treason’ by Fox News, takes a human look at the Iraqi people during the war.

THE LITTLE REBELLION LAUNCH: 5/1 6p.m. College Terrace
Finally, join the Media and Journalism Society for The Little Rebellion Launch Party at the College Terrace on Thursday, May 1 at 6 p.m. Come celebrate our multi-medianews publication created by students in the journalism program and advanced editing class. There will be games, prizes, and lots of food.

Let’s celebrate an excellent year together in style!
Media and Journalism Week is presented by the Media and Journalism Society (a Broadcast Education Association Student Club) and The Department of Communication and Media. Special thanks to Campus Auxiliary Services and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Sociology Lecture Explores Politics of Social Media Activism

Posted on by

The Department of Sociology presents a timely lecture on race and social media activism on Wednesday, April 23 from 3-4:30 p.m. in the Coykendall Science Building Auditorium.

Crystal Fleming

Crystal Fleming

Stonybrook University Associate Professor Crystal Fleming will deliver a lecture entitled, “In Virtual Defense of Harriet Tubman:  Black Twitter and the Intersectional Politics of Social Media Activism,” which examines All Def Digital’s production and release of a “Harriet Tubman Sextape,” as well as the professor’s experience writing an online petition to remove the video. Writing in the genre of analytic autoethnography, Fleming brings reflections of her experience as an African-American woman learning about, viewing and reacting to the video in dialogue with content analysis of over 200 comments written by signers of the petition.

In her work, Fleming develops the concept of “spiritual reflexivity” by exploring how her engagement with Christian mysticism, Hinduism and Buddhism shaped her emotional experience of feeling gendered and racialized offense and rage at the portrayal of Tubman. Fleming’s lecture will introduce a theorization of stigmatization as a “symbolic attack,” demonstrate how spirituality can shape how an individual interprets and responds to symbolic attacks and emphasize the role of the Internet in providing opportunities for transforming emotional catharsis into commiseration and collective action.

The talk is free and open to the public. A reception will follow in CSB 110 from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

The event is sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Campus Auxiliary Services.

McNitt Announces Retirement

Posted on by
McNitt

Dr. Glenn McNitt

The Political Science and International Relations Department congratulates Glenn McNitt, who has decided to retire at the end of this semester after 41 years of teaching.

Professor McNitt has served as the lynchpin of the American Politics section of the department, as well as in various administrative capacities.  McNitt has also been an active voice in state and local politics, and was the elected Chapter President of United University Professions for many years.

His presence in the department will be much missed. McNitt’s retirement party is scheduled for May 8from 4-6pm in Jacobsen Faculty Tower, Room 1010.  Please join us in giving him a great send-off!

Evolutionary Studies Program Hosts Talk on Primate Sexuality

Posted on by

chacma-baboonNew Paltz’s Evolutionary Studies program will host its last event of the year, a talk on primate sexual behavior, on April 21, 2014 at 5:30 p.m. in Lecture Center room 102.

Dr. Craig Bielert, a psychologist and anthropologist at Oneanta, will deliver a lecture entitled, “Primate Sexual Behavior – Confirmations, Continuums, and Cautions,” which will highlight his experimental work with chacma baboons (Papio ursinus). Extensions into work with humans presented with a rare intersex condition will also be described. Dr. Bielert will also discuss the ways in which societal pressures have impacted the research efforts in this topic in both historic and contemporary times.  The lecture is free and open to the public.  A reception will follow after the talk.

The event is sponsored by the EvoS Program, EvoS Club, Student Association, Campus Auxiliary Services and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  For more information, contact Briana Tauber at btauber25@hawkmail.newpaltz.edu.

Lecture Explores How Feminist Theory Can Strengthen Economics

Posted on by

Please join the Economics Department and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program in welcoming Prof. Nancy Folbre of University of Massachusetts at Amherst for a lecture entitled,“Woman Up: How Feminist Theory Can Strengthen Economics,” on Thursday, April 24 at 4:30 p.m. in Lecture Center Room 104.

In this lecture, Professor Folbre will give an overview of the field of feminist economics that developed over the last few decades, the impact of women’s empowerment on the field of economics and the recent contributions of feminist economists to macroeconomics, microeconomics and economic policy making.

Prof. Nancy Folbre published many well received books on topics ranging from the costs of children in Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures of Constraint (Routledge, 1994) to the role of gender in the history of economic thought in Greed, Lust and Gender (Oxford University Press, 2009). She is an associate editor of the journal Feminist Economics, received both the McArthur Genius Award (1998) and the Leontief Prize (2004), and was a member of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic and Social Progress convened by President Sarkozy and chaired by Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen (2009). She is a regular contributor to the New York Times Economix blog.

The lecture is sponsored by the SUNY New Paltz Economics Department, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program, School for Liberal Arts & Sciences, and the Provost’s Office.

 

LA&S Funding for Interdisciplinary Team Teaching

Posted on by

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce support for faculty development and teaching of interdisciplinary and team-taught courses.  To encourage collaborative teaching across the disciplines, LA&S will award two stipends of $2,500 each to two faculty members who will develop an interdisciplinary course in summer 2014 that they will team teach in spring 2015.  It is expected that the course would count for three credits in each of the team teachers’ load for that semester.

Two $300 stipends will also be awarded to two faculty members who will support these team teachers and have been chosen by them to enhance the interdisciplinary nature of the class.

This professional development funding is made possible through the generous support of gifts to the LA&S Dean’s Fund.

Guidelines:

  • Two full-time faculty members from different departments should present a description of the course, student learning outcomes, and a provisional list of texts or other learning materials.  At least one faculty member should be from LA&S.
  • The course description should include a rationale for an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, indicating how an interdisciplinary approach will enhance knowledge of the topic and will serve students’ needs.  Please indicate whether this would be a 200-, 300-, or 400- level course.
  • Faculty will be encouraged to adopt appropriate innovative pedagogies or technologies to teach this course, and to make use of institutional resources to support these efforts.
  • Proposals for four-credit courses are preferred.

To apply, faculty should submit the following:

In one to two pages:

  • A course description, as outlined above
  • A brief account of innovative pedagogies or technologies possibly to be adopted
  • The two faculty members’ curriculum vitae

Applications should be sent to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, JFT 614.  Deadline for applications is May 7, 2014.  Awards will be announced on May 13, 2014.

Lecture on Ethics as a “Human Project”

Posted on by

The Philosophy Department, the Evolutionary Studies Program, the EvoS Club, and the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society present “Ethics as a Human Project,” a talk by Dr. Philip Kitcher, on Thursday, April 10, 4:45 PM in Lecture Center 100.

What makes ways of living good or bad, actions right or wrong? Can we make objective judgments about what is valuable? Western philosophy has struggled with these questions. This lecture will suggest that we can liberate ourselves from familiar difficulties in answering them if we treat ethical practice as an evolving project, with deep roots in our human (and pre-human) past.

Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He studied at Cambridge and at Princeton, where he obtained a PhD in the history and philosophy of science. He has taught at Vassar College, the University of Vermont, the University of Minnesota, and the University of California at San Diego, and he is a past president of the American Philosophical Association. The author of over a dozen books, Dr. Kitcher has written about philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of biology as well as ethical and political constraints on scientific research. His recent work focuses on the relation between science and religion, and evolution and ethics. He has also written on the work of writers James Joyce and Thomas Mann and the music of Richard Wagner.

We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Provost’s Office and Campus Auxiliary Services.

LA&S Summer Internship Scholarships

Posted on by

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce scholarships to support low-paying or unpaid summer internships for students.  For summer 2014 we will offer two or three $1,000 awards.  This program is supported by generous contributions from SUNY New Paltz parents, alumni, and friends to the LA&S Dean’s Fund.

These are merit-based awards that take into account the student’s GPA, the quality of the internship, the relevance of the internship to the student’s academic major and educational goals, and the relevance of the internship to the student’s future career.

Guidelines:

  • Applicants should be majors in a department or program within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
  • Applicants should have a 3.3 or higher cumulative G.P.A.
  • Preference will be given to students in their junior year; seniors who will graduate in May or August 2014 are not eligible for this award.
  • The internship cannot be with a business or organization run by a family member, relative, or close family friend.

To apply, students should submit the following:

  • A 300-500 word description of the internship and its relation to the student’s academic major, educational goals, and career plans
  • A resume
  • An academic transcript with cumulative G.P.A.
  • Two letters of recommendation from faculty

Applications should be sent to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, JFT 614.  Deadline for applications is May 7, 2014.  Awards will be announced on May 15, 2014.

Lecture on Civil Rights in Black Barber Shops Highlights History Honors Society Induction

Posted on by

F

The History Department and Phi Alpha Theta International History Honors Society present a lecture by Dr. Quincy Mills entitled, “Intimacy and Trust: Service Work and Civil Rights in Black Barber Shops.” The lecture will be held Thursday, April 17 at 5 p.m. in Jacobsen Faculty Tower, Room 1010.

Quincy Mills is Associate Professor of history at Vassar College where he teaches courses in African American history. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. His first book, Cutting Along the Color Line: Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America, was recently published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. He has appeared on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate show as well as Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal. With support from the American Council of Learned Societies, he is currently working on a second book tentatively titled The Wages of Resistance: Financing the Black Freedom Movement.  In this lecture, Dr. Mills will examine how black barbers, as service workers, filled a critical role as conduits of racial politics in nineteenth and twentieth-century America.  The intimacy and trust that has historically informed the relationship between barber and customer offers a window onto the politics of deference and the notion of self-segregation.

The reception honoring student inductees into the international history honors society begins at 5:00 p.m.  Dr. Mills will commence his talk at 5:30 p.m.  All are welcome to attend both events.

Refreshments will be provided by Major Connections. The event is supported by Campus Auxiliary Services.