A greater number of outstanding New Haven high school students will have access to college-level classes, thanks to an agreement announced today between Southern and the New Haven Public Schools.

The university already offers tuition-free college classes to a small group of excellent high school students willing to come to the SCSU campus. Most of the 60 or so such students are from New Haven and the immediate surrounding communities.

But for the first time, Southern is offering the option of taking those college classes at the city’s various high school campuses. Those classes will be taught by SCSU faculty or high school teachers who meet specific criteria and are hired as SCSU adjunct faculty members.

“Part of our mission is to improve access to a college education,” said SCSU President Joe Bertolino at a recent signing ceremony with New Haven Schools Superintendent Carol Birks. “By expanding this program, we will provide greater access to local students. It is an example of what we mean when we say Southern is not only in the community, but of the community.”

Terricita Sass, SCSU associate vice president for enrollment management, agreed.

“Some students are well-prepared to take college classes, but may be reluctant or unable to travel to a college campus,” Sass said. “We want to remove the transportation barrier if we can. This will give some students an option to take classes at their own school.”

Birks said she is excited about the potential academic and financial benefits to students.

“This program obviously offers our students an immediate financial benefit with tuition-free classes,” Birks said. “But the college credits also can either lessen the time it will take them to earn a degree, which reduces student debt, or provide them with more academic flexibility in college to take additional courses of their choice. Either way, it’s a win-win for the students.”

SCSU student Dayana Lituma, who graduated from Wilbur Cross High School in 2017, said taking college courses in high school helped her tremendously. She took five such courses, including three at Southern. As a result of the credits earned, she plans to graduate after the fall semester of 2020, a semester earlier than the traditional four-year college experience.

“Not only will I be able to save money on tuition, but the college classes helped me figure out early on what direction I wanted to pursue,” she said. She plans to seek a master’s degree in speech-language pathology, and eventually become a bilingual speech-language pathologist.

Bertolino said the tuition-free college classes comprise just one of several joint SCSU-New Haven programs being created, continued or expanded to benefit students and their families. He also announced:

*Southern has created a Residential Leadership Scholarship that provides a small group of students with free on-campus housing. The students must meet the criteria for the New Haven Promise Scholarship program, as well as write an additional essay and provide a letter of recommendation to be eligible. If selected, the students must complete activities in leadership development, community contribution/campus involvement, academic enhancement, mentoring and activism/civic engagement. Last fall, seven students were chosen for the one-year scholarship. Next fall, five of those seven students will be offered a continuation of the scholarship, while five additional New Haven graduates will receive the scholarship.

*Southern will set aside $100,000 in merit-based aid, and $100,000 in need-based aid, to incoming freshmen next fall who graduate from New Haven schools. The allocation is expected to continue each year.

*SCSU social work students will work with the New Haven Housing Authority (Elm City Communities) to assist students and their families with truancy, financial literacy, online applications and other matters. The housing authority has allocated $25,000 for the program, which calls for six students to collaborate with resident managers in the West Rock community. The program is scheduled to begin next fall.

*The university plans to increase its presence at local middle and high schools, particularly in the Newhallville section of the city. This will include workshops, participation in field days and other similar types of events. It is part of a community collaborative effort that also involves local businesses, clergy and other neighborhood leaders.

*Southern launched a Visiting Scholars program last semester, in which SCSU faculty members teach academic lessons to area K-12 students. Many of these visits are to New Haven schools. The program offers hands-on learning experiences, giving them deeper insight into various disciplines. The lessons are designed to align with the classroom curriculum.

*SCSU plans to host a career exposure day in May for Common Ground High School. The university will organize panel discussions on public health and recreation, tourism and sports management. In addition, CARE (Community Alliance for Research and Engagement), a program co-housed at SCSU, has been helping Common Ground redesign its 10^th grade health curriculum.

It’s not a bird. It’s not exactly a plane, either. But drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, are becoming a sort of superman of modern technology – used by professionals and amateurs alike.

Drones, which generally take aerial photos and videos, are being used today for a smorgasbord of purposes – from journalism to education to public safety to the inspection roads and bridges.

“This cutting-edge technology is not only growing in popularity amongst enthusiastic hobbyists, but finding application in a variety of different professional fields,” said Ian Canning, associate dean of Southern’s School of Graduate and Professional Studies. “In response to this growing demand, and because of our university expertise, we wanted to offer a comprehensive program for working professionals seeking to expand their knowledge in the field of drone operation and utilization.”

As such, SCSU has created a Drone Academy, which is set to begin on April 24.

The academy is designed to prepare individuals for the Federal Aviation Agency exam (which is required for some drone uses); to teach people how to safely operate a drone; to teach basic photography and videography using a drone, and to instruct students on video editing using Photoshop and Video Pro.

Although the SCSU Drone Academy is open to anyone, the program will be geared toward the professional seeking to increase their understanding of drone operation.

The academy will be divided into four modules of eight hours each for a total of 32 hours. It is a non-credit program and the cost totals $800 a person. The academy is scheduled to include classes on Wednesdays from 6:15 p.m. to 9:15 p.m., and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The instructors are Scott Graves, SCSU associate professor of the environment, geography and marine sciences, who is also an FAA-licensed drone pilot; and Mark Mirko, a Hartford Courant photojournalist who is an FAA-certified Part 107 pilot.

Graves specializes in coastal geomorphology, wetlands, beaches and coastal forest research, as well as computational aerial imaging. He also has engaged in research focused on science education. He has authored many journal articles, a book chapter and conducted presentations on the use of drones for landscape and habitat mapping.

Mirko is an adjunct instructor of journalism at Southern. He brings extensive experience in drone flight navigation, safety, controls and aerial photography. He was part of a team of photographers at the Palm Beach Post in Florida that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for its coverage of Hurricane Andrew.

For additional information about the Drone Academy, please contact Ian Canning at canningi1@southernct.edu, or either of the instructors: Scott Graves at gravess1@southernct.edu, or Mark Mirko at mmirko@courant.com.

Register for the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Conference here.

Are you interested in a career in one of the fasting growing high-impact areas? Don’t miss Jackson Labs/BioPath Career Day on Friday, April 26, from 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. in Engleman Hall A120 and the Academic Science and Laboratory Building. This year’s theme is personalized medicine/digital health and team science, and the conference features a line-up of notable professionals, innovative companies, and distinguished speakers. Last year’s event drew more than 250 students from Southern and surrounding universities and professionals in the bioscience fields. At this event, students will gain a solid understanding of what type of training is needed for a bioscience career, learn what skills employers are looking for, and how to land a job. There also will be panel discussions and networking sessions for professional advancement. This event is hosted by The Jackson Laboratory, Southern Connecticut State University, BioPath: Bioscience Academic and Career Pathway Initiative, and the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities System (CSCU). In partnership with BioCT, dedicated to growing a vibrant bioscience ecosystem in Connecticut.

Register for Jackson Labs/BioPath Career Day here. 

The CSCU Faculty Research and Creative Activity Conference will take place Saturday, May 4, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Entitled “Making An Impact: Pursuing New Knowledge Through Boundary-pushing Research and Creative Activity,” this RAC conference will feature artist talks; films screened in a dedicated theater; a gallery of posters and the opportunity to interact with the researchers; studio demonstrations; oral presentations; and tapas, during which speakers will give four-minute rapid-fire presentations.

Register for the CSCU Faculty Research and Creative Activity Conference here.

On Monday, May 13, the Graduate Student Research and Creative Activity Conference will be held from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Adanti Student Center, 3rd floor. According to Broadbridge, “This event allows SCSU graduate students to showcase their outstanding research and creative efforts while also benefiting from numerous very significant professional development opportunities. SCSU’s Division of Research and Innovation provides the infrastructure, but the students are actively engaged in all aspects of planning and running the event. The result is a collaborative effort with some major impact on all involved.”

The conference, which is a new tradition in recognition and support for graduate students, aims to not only encourage continued work as a community, but also to awaken individual curiosity and purpose. In 2018, graduate students showcased more than 130 presentations.

Register for the Graduate Student Research and Creative Activity Conference here. 

Dana Casetti, research associate in the Physics Department, is the catalyst for the recent awarding of a three-year grant to Southern totaling $509,480 from the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute for a project to measure motions of distant and old star systems.

The project entails the calibration of an older imaging camera that was used at Hubble between 1994 and 2009. Casetti said previous Hubble measurements used imaging cameras that were well studied/calibrated, but had observations taken for 10 years or less.

“We proposed using an older imaging camera that acquired measurements from 1994 to 2009, thus extending the time baseline of such measurements by 10-15 years,” she said.

“This was seen as valuable by the Hubble Space Telescope panel as it will enable numerous other studies well beyond the science we proposed in the project. It is an extremely challenging project, but our team is unique and extremely well-equipped to address this task.

“Our members are experts with more than 20 years in the field,” Casetti said. “Three of them are Southern faculty members (Elliott Horch, professor of physics; Terry Girard, adjunct faculty member in the Physics Department; and Casetti), one member is at Space Telescope Science Institute, and one is at Johns Hopkins University.”

Casetti said one of the goals of the project is to help scientists better understand the formation of the Milky Way Galaxy in a cosmological context. It also is intended to help better understand the roots of our own solar system.

“In a galaxy that underwent substantial harassment via interactions with other galaxies, it is difficult to have stable circumstances for a solar system to form and evolve to the point of developing intelligent life on a terrestrial planet,” she said.

This project will aid in helping to understand how that happened in the case of Earth.

Casetti also recently had been part of a team of experts that used NASA’s Hubble Telescope to help provide an answer to an astronomical mystery pertaining to two satellite dwarf galaxies. Astronomers believe that project is providing additional insight into how stars are “born.”

Last year, she taught in the summer school program at the Vatican Observatory, one of only a handful of astronomy experts selected to teach Ph.D. students, post-doctoral researchers and other outstanding astrophysics students from around the world.

To Bonnie Edmondson, a world-ranked Olympic athlete and program coordinator of the School Health Education Program at Southern, the support systems in place for Olympic-level athletes are no different than those needed by today’s students — and she’s not alone in her thinking. Nationwide, health education policy is gaining traction, and it means an increase in demand for qualified professionals in the field.

“Athletes have family, coaches, and doctors on their team ensuring that their physical, social, and emotional needs are met,” Edmondson says. “The goals of health education work in the same way, to make sure students have the knowledge, skills, and behaviors to be successful in all that they do. Students have to be ready to learn in order to reach their maximum potential.”

More importantly, in Edmondson’s opinion, “Students need to understand why they need to make healthy choices.” For instance, “Children need a healthy lifestyle in order to learn, but physical education is just one piece of that,” Edmondson says. “Students need to understand why the physical activity is important.”

Health education addresses that why; much like school nutrition, it has garnered governmental support. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) coordinated school whole health (CSH) approach has steered Connecticut schools in the development and implementation of health-promoting policies, processes, and practices. Recognizing the need for enhanced collaboration between school education, public health, and school health sectors, the CDC and ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), recently expanded and merged the CSH model with tenets of the ASCD’s whole child approach to inform a new “Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC)” model, which seeks to “to engage students, families, staff, and the community-at-large to improve the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development of every child.”

In short, everyone is getting on board to positively affect student health, from top to bottom. For those passionate about this comprehensive wellness, Southern’s Master of Science degree in school health education teaches students to actively connect family, school, and community. It also prepares graduates for leadership roles in the field because, although data indicate a clear link between student health and achievement, oftentimes schools aren’t equipped to take on the task.

“Health education has evolved,” Edmondson says. “It’s not just about regurgitating facts, it’s about affecting behaviors, so preparing our health educators to be able to address these needs, it’s a significant paradigm shift.”

It’s also a timely shift.

“For the first time, Connecticut has outlined in its guidelines to school districts that health education and physical education are viable content areas for federal support,” Edmondson says. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaces the No Child Left Behind Act, identifies both school health and physical education as part of a student’s well-rounded education. And new Connecticut legislation mandates that this year, all incoming high school freshmen must have one health education credit in order to graduate. In light of this new state requirement, additional health educators will be needed.

“Many high need districts are integrating whole student policies,” Edmondson says. “There’s more and more need for leaders in the field to be vocal advocates in our communities, for graduates to become ambassadors to field.”

Southern’s Master of Science degree in school health education arms graduates with the skills and knowledge needed to lead, coordinate, teach, and advocate for school health education programs in grades pre-K through 12. The skills are also applicable in community-based settings.

“This is an incredible time for us,” Edmondson says. “Southern’s Master of Science degree in school health education caters to teachers and coordinators in this field. We’re cultivating future leaders and practitioners.”

Edmondson is a two-time national champion and former world-ranked hammer thrower, a participant on expert panels, and a peer reviewer for numerous publications and journals.

Southern’s Buley Library will now be the repository for the papers and related materials of three New Haven mayors, thanks to a fund established by alumnus and attorney Neil Thomas Proto, ’67.

Southern had recently acquired the papers of former New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who served from 1994-2014. The Neil Thomas Proto Mayoral Papers Fund will now see that the university houses documents dedicated to former mayors Biagio DiLieto (1980-1990) and John Daniels (1990-1994).

Included in the Mayoral Papers will be correspondence, special project materials, proclamations, and memoranda such as newspaper articles, photographs, and campaign literature from each mayor’s tenure. The archive will also chronicle the mayors’ early lives and feature supporting items from individuals who served or associated with DiLieto and Daniels during their time in office.

“As New Haven’s public university and consistent with its historically thoughtful relationship with the city, Southern is a natural home for this important archival collection,’’ said Proto, who last year established a Scholar and Civic Fund in Law and Social Justice at the university. “I knew both mayors. They made valuable contributions to the civic good and political life of the city long before and during their mayoralty. Their lives warrant this active effort to preserve and chronicle who they were.”

The fund will also support a public exhibition of the three collections of Mayoral Papers, sponsored and organized by Southern, and scheduled to be held in 2020.

“The exhibit will provide a wonderful insight into the processes of city government and how critical decisions were made,’’ said SCSU President Joe Bertolino. “Neil Proto’s generosity has helped create an archive of historical and societal significance for the City of New Haven.”

Clara Ogbaa, director of Buley Library, has been charged with management of the Mayoral Papers project, aided by librarian Jacqueline Toce and SCSU political science faculty members Jonathan Wharton and Theresa Marchant-Shapiro.

A retired partner with Washington, D.C., law firms, Proto has made his mark in numerous professional fields since graduating from Southern with a degree in political science and history and subsequently earning a master’s degree in international affairs and a Juris Doctor degree at George Washington University.

His public service in the United States Department of Justice, counsel to a presidential committee on nuclear power plant safety, and private practice in law includes 45 years of experience in land use, environmental, and federal litigation, as well as teaching assignments at Yale and Georgetown universities.

Widely held as a leading environmental litigator, Proto has represented Native Hawaiians, fought against the construction of highways on civil rights grounds, the unnecessary use of natural resources, and harm to Indian reservations. He also chaired two New Haven mayoral inaugurations and represented the city in its successful battle to stop regional shopping malls.

Senior Princess Bart-Addison was born and raised in the Bronx. But she grew up hearing stories about the Republic of Ghana — her parents’ homeland — and, while English is her first language, she also speaks Twi (Akan), one of the more than 250 languages and dialects spoken in the country. In 2018, she paid her first visit to Ghana, traveling alongside her mother who’d left the country more than two and a half decades earlier and was returning for the first time.

Bart-Addison recalls the trip as life-changing; the people electrifying. Children walked throughout the streets selling items to passersby. A young woman carried her child on her back, deftly balancing large packages on her head as she walked through the streets. “Everyone is doing something. There is so much determination,” says Bart-Addison. Inspired, she visited an elementary school in Ghana — and, upon returning to the U.S., helped her sister, a high school senior, collect much-needed supplies to send to the students.

In January 2019, Bart-Addison returned to Ghana, traveling with the university’s chapter of Global Brigades — a secular, student-led service organization. Global Brigades has university chapters throughout the world with an overarching goal: to empower volunteers to help resolve global health and economic disparities in communities around the globe.

Founded in 2016, Southern’s chapter has quickly attracted members. Bart-Addison was one of 21 Southern students to join the brigade along with a faculty member. “I was so excited to be going back to Ghana. The first time was a vacation. This time was for service. It was a different feeling,” she says.

Southern participated in a “public health brigade,” traveling to the community of Ekumpoano in Ghana to help local masons build biodigester tanks for use with pour-flush toilets. The work is critically needed. Nationally, 22.9 percent of people in Ghana do not have access to any sanitation facilities (open defecation is the norm) and only 15 percent use improved, unshared sanitation facilities, according to UNICEF.

Global Brigades launched its first public health initiative in Ghana in January 2019, so the Southern students joined the effort on the ground floor. For Bart-Addison, the prospect was simultaneously exhilarating and intimidating. “There was a group before us, so we saw what they had built [a completed biodigester tank]. I remember thinking, ‘How are we going to do this?” she says.

The students stayed in a modernized hotel, traveling by bus each day to the community. With temperatures rising through the 90s, they worked from early morning through the late afternoon, using cement, cinder blocks, bricks, and sand to help construct the biodigester tanks. “There was so much sand and dirt in our shoes and on our clothes. And we were so tired immediately after, but on the bus ride back we always had enough energy to sing and talk,” she says.

Southern’s team built five biodigesters. After completing the project, they provided lessons on how to correctly use the systems. They also taught a children’s class on hygiene, demonstrating proper hand-washing techniques with a song. “One of my friends wrote it in their language. It was really nice. The children sat in a circle and sang it to us,” she says.

Completing the project brought an amazing sense of accomplishment and gratitude. “It definitely gives you a great sense of appreciation. I have a toilet that flushes — and I don’t think anything of it. But to them, this is probably the best thing that has happened in a very long time. . . . It will make a difference in their lives.They will remember it,” says Bart-Addison, with a smile.

As will she. An interdisciplinary studies major with concentrations in forensic science, sociology, and social science and medicine, Bart-Addison plans to work with at-risk youth. She’s spent the past three summers as a counselor at Epworth United Methodist Church Day Camp in the Bronx — and also volunteers with KHAIR (pronounced “care”), which serves at-risk youth from New Haven through mentoring and workshops on topics like financial literacy and dressing for success. On campus, she’s a vital member of the True Blue Owls team, working within the Division of Institutional Advancement to highlight the importance of giving to students, alumni, and friends.

Bart-Addison graduates in May and is looking into service work opportunities. Meanwhile, her Global Brigades teammates have stayed in touch — in person and through social media. “We’ll put pictures up. If someone is listening to a song we heard in Ghana, they’ll share it with everyone — and it always brings me right back,” she says.

Photos by Southern student Brokk Tollefson, a sociology major and journalism minor, who will graduate in May 24, 2019.

See an album of photos from Ghana.

Barnes & Noble (B&N) stocks more than 1 million titles for immediate delivery — so it’s a particular thrill for authors to find their work among the mega-retailer’s most eagerly awaited. So it was for author Erin Jones, ’10, whose debut young-adult novel, Tinfoil Crowns, (Flux Books) was included on B&N’s “10 Most Anticipated Indie YA Books for 2019.”

Jones graduated magna cum laude from Southern with a degree in journalism and went on to earn a graduate degree from Emerson College, where she’s now an affiliated faculty member. She’s also editor-in-chief of the Platform Review, a literary journal focused on publishing quality literature from emerging and established writers. The former head of marketing at Ploughshares, Jones regularly contributes to the Ploughshares Blog.

April 2019 was a great month for journalism at Southern. Student journalists won six awards at the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Region 1 Conference in Boston and a recent alumnus was part of a New Orleans-based newspaper team that won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.

As part of The Advocate team that won the nation’s most prestigious journalism award, Jeffrey Nowak, a 2012 journalism graduate, prepared the digital presentation, compiled a massive splash page, created an interactive timeline, and led social promotion for a series that helped change Louisiana’s controversial split-jury law.

Nowak, a native of Windham, Conn., and graduate of Windham High School, joined The Advocate digital content staff in April 2106. He leads many efforts in New Orleans while also working remotely with Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La., newsrooms. His team consists of four digital content editors and a digital general manager.

Before relocating to New Orleans, Nowak worked as a digital editor, production desk chief and sports producer at The Sun in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Previously he had been a reporter at The Daily Voice in Westborough, Mass., and a freelance sports writer for the Hartford Courant. While a student at Southern, Nowak was editor-in-chief of the Southern News. And in 2102 he received the Outstanding Journalist of the Year award from the Journalism Department.

Meanwhile, at the regional SPJ conference, journalists from Southern’s new student-published Crescent magazine won four awards, including the Finalist Award for Best Student Magazine for its fall 2018 edition, the second publication in its young start.

Alumna and journalism minor Jefferine Jean-Jacques was the winner in the Feature Photography category for her series of photos, “Through the lens,” published in Crescent’s inaugural edition in spring 2018. Jean-Jacques’ photo package was culled from various trips she took with her three children to countries including Haiti, India, Ghana and Ethiopia. Her photos will move on to the national SPJ college competition.

Other regional winners for Crescent included managing editor Jacob Waring, who won a Finalist award for the non-fiction magazine article, “A lot to juggle,” about SCSU students who are also parents in the fall 2018 edition. Photo editor Meghan Olson, a Studio Art-Photography major, won a Finalist award for Feature Photography, for “Funky hair,” the fall 2018 cover package.

Southern News Editor-in-chief Kevin Crompton won a finalist award in the Sports Writing category for a profile on Owls linebacker Jhaaron Wallace, “Wallace joins elite company in record books.” The story highlights the journey from high school to college for one of the top defensive players to come through the Owls football program.

The student newspaper’s second award went to former Managing Editor Joshua LaBella, alumnus, and former Op Ed/Features editor August Pelliccio: a finalist award for Breaking News Reporting.

Each category included one winner and one finalist. SPJ Region 1 encompasses universities from Maine through New England to New York, New Jersey to Philadelphia.

Photo credit for home page image: The Advocate (Digital Content Editor Jeff Nowak working at computer in the New Orleans Advocate newsroom as Investigations Editor Gordon Russell walks behind. Russell was a leader in the reporting effort for the non-unanimous juries project that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.)

He’s endured sweltering temperatures, swum in treacherous waters, hunted wild rodents for food, and encountered the occasional inhospitable native. And then there were the bugs — swarms of tiny sandflies eager to feast on any bit of exposed ankle or shin.

Welcome to the world of scientist James Kearns, who spends part of his professional life in the laboratory and Southern classroom — and the other conducting research in remote corners of the world.

An assistant professor of chemistry at Southern, Kearns travels deep inside the Amazon jungle for several weeks each summer, living with an indigenous tribe known as the Secoya. His research subject is the Paullinia yoco, a tropical vine that grows wild among the trees in the eastern Ecuadorian rainforest, near the Peruvian and Colombian borders.

Kearns has studied the plant’s chemical properties (its bark contains high concentrations of caffeine and theobromine, a stimulant found in chocolate) and is exploring its potential use in energy drinks. The Secoya make a tea from the bark and consume it early in the morning for sustained energy before a day of hunting or farming.

“It’s similar to taking in a couple of cups of coffee, but the effects lasts longer because materials that are in the bark result in much slower absorption into the stomach,” Kearns explains.

It’s not unusual for scientists and academics to conduct fieldwork in remote places, or even to bring adventure-seeking students along. But Kearns describes his Amazon trips as “a totally different level of incredible insanity.”

The journey alone is a test of mental stamina. Traveling to the village begins with an eight-hour plane ride to Ecuador’s capital, Quito, followed by 12 hours on a bus to Lago Agrio, an oil city that developed in the 1960s as a base camp for Texaco. From there it’s a two-hour taxi ride to the village of San Pablo, and another 40 minutes by motorized canoe to a Secoya settlement accessible only by boat.

“There are a lot of challenges and risks,” Kearns says. He first learned about the Secoya as a college student in 1996. While studying biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts, he worked for an engineering firm that was developing a water-filtration system for the tribe.

The Secoya live downriver from Ecuador’s largest oil fields, and decades of drilling and exploitation by the petroleum industry has contaminated their water sources. In response, villagers have turned to harvesting rainwater, Kearns explains.

In 2012, shortly before joining the faculty at Southern, he first traveled to Ecuador for a separate research project that involved testing water samples for airborne pollutants. There, he met Luke Weiss, an American who had assimilated into the tribe and married a Secoya woman.

Weiss is working with Amazon Frontlines, a nonprofit organization that is helping the 500 or so Secoya and other nearby tribes reverse the devastation caused by industrialization and preserve their way of life.

The pair became fast friends (Kearns is now godfather to Weiss’ daughter), and on a canoe trip one afternoon, Weiss led Kearns to a wild yoco vine entwined around a fallen tree. He showed him how to scrape off the bark with a machete and squeeze it into a gourd to make a cold-water infusion, similar to a tea.

The dream, Weiss told him, was to harness the plant’s stimulant properties for use in an energy drink, turning the wild vine into a sustainable cash crop that could reduce the Secoya’s dependence on oil drilling as an income source. (Many younger Secoya have taken jobs with oil companies in nearby cities, threatening the dwindling tribe’s future.)

So in 2013, just as Kearns was settling into a new teaching job at Southern, Weiss enrolled in a master’s program at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science to study the plant’s viability as an agricultural product — and he enlisted his friend the SCSU chemist to help with the research.

The pair spent the next two years analyzing samples of the woody vine in a lab at Yale, using a technique called high-performance liquid chromatography to measure caffeine and theobromine levels in the bark, seeds, and leaves. They found higher levels of the chemicals than initially thought, with the greatest concentrations in the bark. Perhaps not surprisingly, they also discovered that the most potent plants were those with the thickest stems. Their findings were published in the Yale journal Tropical Resources in 2015.

Amazon Frontlines has used the newfound knowledge to help pinpoint the yoco’s optimal growing conditions, and is now helping the Secoya and allied tribes experimentally farm some 3,000 of the formerly wild plants. In August 2018, Kearns returned to the settlement with Southern student photographer and sociology major Brokk Tollefson to document their progress.

The pair also spent part of the trip in the Andean region of Ecuador, working with a women’s cooperative that uses sap from the Agave Americana plant to make agave-based sweeteners. Kearns is leading a research project at Southern that involves testing the sap for the presence of toxic metals as well. (He received a provisional patent for a low-cost field kit that detects metal levels. It was developed based on research conducted in collaboration with then-student Cody Edson, ’16, M.S. ’17.)

Embracing the Challenge
Because it’s so demanding, Kearns usually travels to the rainforest solo. But he was confident the 26-year-old Tollefson, who served four years active duty in the Marine Corps, including a tour in Afghanistan, could handle the trip. Staying with Weiss and his family, they spent 10 days immersed in tribal routines, which included back-breaking agricultural work in extreme heat. Tollefson took more than 1,000 photos of the yoco farming and other aspects of Secoya life for an independent study project.

Even the military-trained Tollefson, however, wasn’t fully prepared for life in the jungle. “The bugs were crazy, the weather was hardly bearable, and after waking up to a very large cockroach the size of my fist crawling on my arm, it was hard to sleep,” he says. “It was the most sobering and surreal experience of my life.”

But then he adds: “I’d love to do it again.”

Photos by Southern student Brokk Tollefson, a sociology major and journalism minor, who will graduate in May 24, 2019.

To meet Daisha Brabham is to be immediately swept up in her infectious enthusiasm for history. Brabham graduated from Southern in 2017 with a degree in history, and her passion for her discipline, along with her scholarship and creative activity, are taking her far. She has just been awarded a prestigious U.S. Fulbright – U.K. Partnership Award that will allow her to receive full funding to complete a Master’s of Public History degree at Royal Holloway University of London during the 2019-2020 academic year.

Brabham currently teaches U.S. history and an advanced placement course in human geography at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School, based at the University of New Haven. Previously, she taught for a year at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven.

Her Fulbright project will involve a play she wrote for an independent study in the Women’s Studies Program in her senior year. During her senior spring and the summer following, the play — Homegoing: A Herstory of the Black Woman — was performed on campus, but Brabham has reworked the script and says it is now “an entirely new play.” Homegoing reflects the history of Black womanhood in America, beginning with the Yoruba tradition of West Africa and going on to travel with a number of different African American women, such as Venus Hottentot, Billie Holiday, and Mammie.

Brabham says that originally, the play “was like a physical manifestation of my search for myself.” During her junior year, she studied at the University of Plymouth, U.K., where she became interested in researching the lives of women in Elizabethan England. But then, she says, she realized she was studying women who had already been studied extensively and she was “leaving out women who looked like me.”

She changed her focus to African American women and decided to write Homegoing, but as the play has evolved, it has come to be more about women in the African diaspora around the world. “I am drawing all of these narratives together about what it means to be black,” she says. She sees the play as a celebration of resistance and as bringing to the public “those stories we don’t talk about.”

The play features 10 actresses, the majority of whom are high school students from the Greater New Haven area. Brabham herself is also in the play. A teacher to her core, Brabham wants her students to learn the history of the women they are portraying in the play.

Being a teacher can be confining, she says, due to curriculum requirements, adding that she works in a school where more than half of the students are African American, and she “really wants African American people to know about their own history.” In the play, she uses traditional African modes of communication, such as song, dance, and movement.

Homegoing is now Brabham’s bridge to her future, as she’ll be incorporating voices from black Britain in the play as part of her Fulbright project. As a student at Royal Holloway, she will have access to the National Archives, the London Records Office, the Black Cultural Archives. She also plans to interview some of the women she meets.

“I’m a public historian,” Brabham says, explaining that public history is about bringing historical knowledge to the public in engaging ways, such as museums, exhibitions, documentaries, and theater. This means of presenting history is important, she says, because it makes history accessible. “It lets people learn about themselves,” she says.

Tricia Lin, who served as the faculty adviser/sponsor for Brabham’s senior independent study, wrote in her Fulbright recommendation for Brabham that her project “will be of tremendous contribution to the literature/scholarship on Black womanhood . . . The complex untold stories of Black women is . . . Daisha’s intellectual project—which is truly her calling.”

Darcy Kern, assistant professor of history, who was Brabham’s adviser at Southern, wrote in her letter of support for Brabham’s Fulbright application that Brabham was “the most enthusiastic student I have had at SCSU” and that Brabham “offers a unique, refreshing perspective on women’s history, in part because of her own background.”

Assistant Director of the Office of International Education Michael Schindel, the Fulbright Program Advisor, says that, “Those who have worked with Daisha know that she is incredibly persistent. She is receiving this award after her third attempt at applying for a Fulbright grant. There is only one slot for the U.K. Partnership Award to Royal Holloway University and it is highly competitive.”

Brabham credits the people she worked with at Southern over the years with helping her realize her goals. “The History Department really changed not only my view of the world but also of myself,” she says. “I received such loving, caring feedback, advice on life, etc. – they gave me great advice not only on how to be a historian but also on how to be a good human.”

And the Women’s Studies Program “taught me how to be a good person and not to give up and be persistent and keep going. The confidence they had in me helped me keep going,” she says.

Homegoing: A Herstory of the Black Woman will be presented twice on May 5, 2019: at 12 p.m. and at 6 p.m., in the Garner Recital Hall (Engleman C112). Tickets are $10 with an SCSU I.D. and $15 for general public. Purchase tickets online.

Four outstanding students at Southern have been selected for the Henry Barnard Distinguished Student Award.

A total of 12 students are chosen for the award each year from the four Connecticut State University campuses, including a quartet from Southern. It is considered among the university’s most prestigious awards. Criteria include a 3.7 GPA and having demonstrated significant participation in university and/or community life. They were honored at a recent banquet at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.

*Ariana Bengtson of Newington is an English major with a concentration in professional writing and a history and Spanish minor with a 3.94 GPA.

She is a member of the Honors College and recipient of the Presidential Scholarship and the Roberta B. Willis Merit Scholarship. She is president of the SCSU Global Brigades, where she organized and executed a medical brigade with 18 students to Nicaragua.

Bengtson is also a writing tutor in SCSU’s Academic Success Center and an editorial assistant at SCSU’s Metaphilosophy journal. She is an intern with the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants in Bridgeport, helping victims of human trafficking get access to legal and social services. She eventually hopes to work for a nonprofit organization to help immigrants and refugees, and then as a human rights lawyer.

Cynthia Stretch, professor of English, praised Bengtson both as a student and as a writing tutor she supervised.

“Ariana excelled at her work,” Stretch said. “I never had to second guess or worry about the actual reading and writing instruction she was providing to the students; it was always on point. And she very quickly established a near-peer tutoring relationship with the students that was friendly, approachable, and yet down-to-business.”

*Victoria Bresnahan of Trumbull is a journalism major and women’s studies minor with a 3.97 GPA.

She is the recipient of the Outstanding Women’s Studies Student Award, the Robin M. Glassman Journalism Scholarship, and the Charles S. and Eugenia M. Whitney Journalism Scholarship for academic excellence and commitment to her major. She is a news editor and general reporter for Southern News, and a co-editor in chief of Crescent magazine. She is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, where she served as secretary.

She also worked as a copy editor for a local art magazine and is currently manager of the Southport Galleries. After graduation, Victoria intends to write for a newspaper or accept a fellowship, and plans to obtain her master’s degree in women’s studies or journalism.

Cindy Simoneau, chairwoman of the Journalism Department, said Bresnahan has been an excellent editor who also served as a mentor to her fellow student journalists.

“I have seen this confident and selfless approach toward fellow students in the classroom as well as through these student activities,” Simoneau said. “Victoria is simply, a leader among students who will, no doubt, be a leader among professionals someday soon.”

*Taylor Hurley of Canaan is an elementary education major and interdisciplinary studies minor with a 3.94 GPA.

She received several scholarships, including the Roberta B. Willis Merit Scholarship and SCSU Foundation scholarships. She is an Urban Education Fellow, which is a student-led program for students committed to social justice and education.

Hurley also worked with students at the Beecher Museum Magnet School, Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School, and Quinnipiac STEM School. She volunteers at Noble Horizons, assisting residents in daily living; and at Salisbury Central School.

She hopes to work in the education system with an interest at studying systemic inequities in education and the goal of attending graduate school.

Jessica Powell, assistant professor of curriculum and learning, said Hurley demonstrated strong leadership and collaborative skills in her classroom and as an Urban Education Fellow.

“She worked with her peers to navigate and grapple with controversial topics and helped the group come to consensus,” Powell said. “She also was a leader in presenting ideas to the class and challenging her peers to consider the ethical dimensions of education. I feel confident that Taylor is graduating from our program as a beginning teacher who will be a positive change agent in whichever school community she serves.”

*Zachary Jezek of Moodus is a public health major with a 3.92 GPA

He was the owner of Grist Mill Market in Moodus from 2005-18, where he helped address the issue of food insecurity. Currently, Jezek is an intern with the state Department of Public Health Food Protection program, where he is responsible in helping review and test data systems, log foodborne illness complains, and track certified food inspectors and food establishment inspection reports.

Jezek will be trained in the National Environmental Reporting System and become a certified food inspector. He belongs to the East Haddam Lions Club, where he twice served as president and was awarded the Lions International Melvin Jones Fellowship. He is a member of the East Haddam Leos, where he advises 12- to 18-year-old students through community engagement. He intends to earn his master’s degree in public health at SCSU with the goal of becoming a health director.

Elizabeth Schwartz, instructor of public health, said Jezek was not only prepared for each class, but was ready to tackle challenging concepts.

“Though he often came to class with a given perspective on an issue, he also made it very clear that he is open to grappling with new ideas and points of view, an attitude that I believe is at the core of a meaningful college education,” Schwartz said. “In presenting this combination of gentle confidence and open-mindedness. Zac was a role model to his classmates, demonstrating that being a distinguished student isn’t just about knowing the ‘right’ answers but is about exercising patience, fortitude, respect and encouragement.”

Get to know the 2019 Barnard Scholars in these video interviews.

Meet Kevin Buterbaugh

Political Science / Professor and Department Chair

Through a Student’s Eyes…

“Dr. Kevin Buterbaugh sees the best in students and invests in them accordingly. Dr. Buterbaugh is constantly introducing students to scholarships, internships, and extracurricular opportunities he thinks they should strive for. Even when a student feels they are not equipped for it, he encourages (and convinces!) students to try anyway. He addresses his advisees as his equals; never once have I seen him talk down to a student or make them feel as if their questions or concerns are not worth his time.”

– Tea Carter

Favorite Teaching Moments

I have many favorite teaching memories. I have two in regards to Tea Carter who nominated me.

Tea in my Contemporary World Politics class asked me a question on civil war resolution. I gave a rather cursory answer to Tea. Once class was over I realized that my answer was insufficient. I went home and reviewed the material we read for class and reviewed material I had collected on civil wars and their resolution. I began my next class by answering properly Tea’s question. Why is this a favorite memory? This is why I teach – to be challenged by students – and to interact. I learn as students learn. And, it is often through the most challenging questions that I learn the most. Or even learn that I do not have an answer.

Two weeks ago I read the first draft of Tea’s thesis proposal. I was amazed by its quality and the growth that it showed. Tea came in as a very strong student, but her thesis proposal shows she has reached a new level. Watching her grow through 3 years at Southern has been a wonderful experience. I am proud of the small part I may have played in her growth. And, I feel honored to be her thesis advisor.

Teaching Philosophy

My primary philosophy is that students write to learn – and learn to write. Thus, my classes have many small writing assignments connected to course readings. These assignments help students to engage with the course material. In engaging, they learn to write.  Through their writing, they learn the course material – but more importantly – how to interpret, critique, and discuss course material. The assignments are low pressure – none will be decisive in the grade – this allows students to work without fearing failure. The assignments are significant in total but each on its own is not.

I also work to encourage students – especially – through advisement. I often send students emails encouraging them to participate in an activity, to compete in a contest or to apply for an internship. I hope by encouraging students that they will expand their world and become more active in their educations. Students often do not know how good they can be. Part of my role is to prod them into activities where I believe they can thrive, even when they may not believe it themselves.

Favorite Course to Teach

This is a difficult one. I guess “PSC 230: War” is my favorite course. It is a Tier 2 LEP course that is not tied at all to the major. So, I get a wide variety of students that take it.

The course covers a broad range of content – theories of war, ethics in war, and the experience of war (soldiers and civilians). The diversity of the classroom leads to some very interesting discussions. This is especially the case when we get to the experience of war, as students engage with first-person narratives.

I created this course in 2012 when the new LEP came online. I teach it every semester. I have tweaked the course occasionally – but in general – the course has been so rewarding that I have kept the general framework of the course the same. This is rare for me. Most of my courses change fundamentally every 3 or 4 years.

Recent Courses Taught

Fall 2018:

• PSC 230: War
• PSC 398: Terrorism – Extreme Politics

Southern Connecticut State University head baseball coach Tim Shea broke the program record for career wins with the 467th of his career, passing Joe Bandiera’s record of 466, as the Owls topped the College of Saint Rose, 3-1. With the win, the Owls pick up a crucial win in Northeast 10 Conference Southwest Division play to improve to 8-9 in the divisional standings and 19-25 overall.

Shea’s 467 career wins have come over the course of 17 seasons as the Owls’ head coach beginning in 2001 after serving as Bandiera’s top assistant for the previous 11 seasons. Shea has averaged 27 wins per season across his career and has led Southern to six NCAA Tournament appearances (2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2017) as well as a pair of NCAA College World Series berths (2005, 2011). He also has nine 30-win campaigns under his belt including a program-record 45 wins in 2011 that saw the Owls win the NE10 Regular-Season Championship, the NCAA Regional and finish the year as NCAA National Championship Semifinalists.

Ronnie Rossomando (Stratford, Conn.) pitched a gem for the Owls, holding Saint Rose to a single run on seven hits while striking out seven over eight innings. Rossomando gave up a run on a pair of hits in the first inning before holding the Golden Knights scoreless over the next seven frames. A day after committing four errors in a 5-4 win at New Haven, the Owls defense spun two double plays to end the 3rd and 5th innings while Rossomando retired nine-straight batters from the end of the 5th through the top of the 8th.

At the plate, John Spoto (Stamford, Conn.) put the Owls on the board with a two-run double in the bottom of the 5th inning while Jim Palmer (Milford, Conn.) also drove in a run. Nick Lamberti (East Haven, Conn.) was 2-for-3 with a walk.

Read more 

The Nursing Department has been informed by the State Board of Nurse Examiners that the traditional BSN degree program graduates of 2018 had a 100 percent first-time pass rate with NCLEX-RN (National Council Licensing Examination for Registered Nurses). Although Southern’s pass rate last year was remarkable at 95 percent — the highest of all public nursing programs in Connecticut, including UCONN — this is the first time since 2008 that graduates of the 4-year traditional program have achieved 100 percent.

The 2018 first-time pass rate for ACE (Accelerated Career Entry) program graduates was 96.77 percent and first-time FNP (Family Nurse Practitioner) certification pass rate was 91.7 percent, also excellent results.

Associate Professor of Nursing Lisa Rebeschi, department chair, says, “I could not be any more proud of the students and my faculty colleagues. The success of the SCSU Nursing Department is a true testament to the commitment and talent of our students and the dedicated faculty who are privileged to learn with and from them. I must also recognize the incredible support from University administrators who have provided the Department with the necessary resources required for academic excellence in nursing education.”

SCSU creative writing alumnus Tony Fusco, a West Haven, Conn., resident, was recently named that city’s poet laureate. Fusco is co-president and past-president of the Connecticut Poetry Society and has a master’s degree in creative writing from Southern. He was the editor of Caduceus, the anthology of the Yale Medical Group Art Place, and past editor of The Connecticut River Review, Long River Run, the Southern News, High Tide, and Sounds and Waves of West Haven. His work has appeared in many publications including the Connecticut Review, Louisiana Literature, the Red Rock Review, The South Carolina Review, Lips, and The Paterson Review.

His most recent book is Extinction, published in 2018.

His book Java Scripture was published in 2014 by Flying Horse Press. Previous books include Droplines (Grayson Press) and Jessie’s Garden (Negative Capability Press), which feature poems about his youth in West Haven, Savin Rock, and Allingtown. His poetry has won prizes in many contests, including The Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. His poem “Harvest” was nominated for a Pushcart Award. He is a member of the New England Poetry Club, past literary chair for the West Haven Council of the Arts and the Milford Fine Arts Council. Fusco produced West Shore Poets, a television poetry series at CTV, and served on its board of directors and the Cable Advisory Council.

The New Haven Register published an article about Fusco being named West Haven’s poet laureate, which is available here.

Students enrolled in biotechnology — applied molecular and cellular biology — at Southern Connecticut State University get their hands dirty. No, really. Part of the required learning for the B.S. in biotechnology is to dig in the dirt.

“We’re looking for phages,” explains Nicholas Edgington, associate professor and biotech program coordinator. “In the ground.”

A “phage” is short for bacteriophage, and a bacteriophage is a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria. In simple terms, finding phages is important because it enables students to discover new bacteria-killing viruses.

Southern’s phage hunting course, SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science), starts with simple digging in the soil to find new viruses and progresses through a variety of microbiology techniques to complex genome annotation and bioinformatic analyses. The two-semester course is embedded into Genomics I and II and is one of two innovative national educational programs that are part of the degree and give students hands-on access to real world health threats. The other program, Small World Initiative, or SWI, requires students to roll up their sleeves and get digging again — this time for antibiotic-producing bacteria. SWI seeks to address the problem of antibiotic resistant “superbugs” or bacteria, by having students isolate soil microorganisms that may produce new antimicrobial products.

Southern student Amelia Hoyt’s eyes light up when she talks about the courses.

“Small World and SEA-PHAGES are actual research projects that had a huge impact on my education,” she says. “SEA-PHAGES is a really interesting class. You get to work with viral particles — viruses that affect bacteria.”

A self-described science enthusiastic — “I always enjoyed learning about science, especially the scientific discovery process and scientific research” — Hoyt quickly launches into the how-to process: “You take a soil sample and you grow it in media for a while and you inoculate the soil with host bacteria. Then you filter out the dirt and bacteria and what you’re left with is liquid full of virus particles, and you can take a sample of the liquid and you mix it in with cells from the host and then plate a lawn of that bacteria, and if a virus attaches it creates a plaque. It’s real lab work.”

So real, in fact, that the students’ findings are presented at regional symposiums and national conferences and are published in peer-reviewed research journals like Microbiology Resource Announcements and Nature Microbiology, as well as scientific databases like PhagesDB.org and the NCBI’s GenBank. Southern has 15 genomes published in GenBank with students as authors.

In addition to the dirt extracting courses, biotech students also participate in a required internship at a local company such as Alexion, Isoplexis, Quantum BioPower, Synovel Laboratory, Archillion, and more. Hoyt interned at The Jackson Laboratory. Her research, conducted under the guidance of Dr. Julia Oh, focused on the microbiome, specifically the differences in the interaction between the microbiome and the immune system in people with chronic fatigue syndrome.

“We took gut samples, isolated the bacteria from them in different conditions, making sure we got a wide range of samples,” she says. “Once we have certain bacteria sorted out, we can do experiments on them. And once we have results, we’ll write a paper about the methods and the results, trying to create a systemic way to characterize microbiomes of patients. We can take a population and identify the characteristics, so we can say, ‘This bacteria causes chronic fatigue syndrome.’”

With her internship ending in May, it’s too soon for Hoyt to draw any scientific conclusions, but she’s not disappointed: “I got a job offer at The Jackson Laboratory, so I’ll be able to see it all the way through.”

Internships can often evolve into employment, and while Southern does maintain strong relationships with businesses in the biotech field, Edgington is quick to point out that the strength of the program and the student are ultimately what get them in the door.

“Southern has a close relationship with BioCT [an organization dedicated to growing the bioscience ecosystem in Connecticut],” Edgington says. “But these companies aren’t holding positions open for our students. We have relationships, but students still get employed on their own merits.”

Employment prospects in the field are good. According to the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC), STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) occupations out-earn non-STEM fields by 12 to 30 percent across all education levels, and STEM jobs have doubled as a proportion of all jobs.

“Biotech is just applying molecular biology to programs,” Edgington says. “It’s coming up with new drugs, new pathways for interactions, new disease states, genome sequencing and risk predictions for fetuses. It’s pretty rare to have two genomics courses in an undergraduate program, like Southern does, and genomics is exploding.”

Southern’s biotech program also offers bioinformatics, which is the science of collecting and analyzing complex biological data such as genetic codes. Much like genomics, the field is ripe with opportunity.

“Biotech students get experience with programming and biologic data sets,” Edgington says. “Companies can’t hire enough students in bioinformatics.”

Then, there’s the research. Antibiotic resistance and diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome are just two examples of the endless applications of research in the biotech field. To a science-loving student like Hoyt, the thought is a cheery one.

“There’s so much work to be done on human biome,” she says, “we’ll never run out of research projects.”

Southern Connecticut State University’s biotech program is currently applying for accreditation from The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), a nonprofit scientific and educational organization, for its genomics courses.

Several major faculty awards were presented at this year’s Celebration of Excellence, an annual ceremony to honor awardees for outstanding achievements in teaching, scholarship, research and innovation.

This year’s honorees included:

Million Dollar Club
Ms. Alycia Santilli, Director of CARE

Joan Finn Junior Faculty Research Fellowship
Dr. Meghan Barboza, Assistant Professor Histology, Physiology, Marine Mammalogy
Dr. Victoria Zigmont, Assistant Professor of Public Health

Mid-Level Faculty Research Fellowship
Dr. Md Shafaeat Hossain, Associate Professor of Computer Science

Senior-Level Faculty Research Fellowship
Dr. Kalu Ogbaa, Professor of English

Faculty Scholar Award
Dr. C. Michele Thompson, Professor of History 

Robert Jirsa Service Award
Dr. Michele Vancour, Professor of Public Health

Outstanding Academic Adviser Award
Dr. Gayle Bogel, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the School Library Media Program

Board of Regents Teaching Awards for SCSU
Dr. Charles Baraw, Associate Professor of English
Ms. Patricia Mottola, MFA Adjunct Faculty, Creative Writing

Board of Regents Research Award for SCSU
Dr. Darcy Kern, Assistant Professor of Medieval Mediterranean History

J. Philip Smith Outstanding Teacher Award
Dr. Kyle O’Brien, Assistant Professor of Social Work

Social Justice Community Award
Dr. MaryJo Archambault, Assistant Professor of Recreation, Tourism, & Sport Management

Milana Vayntrub, actor, activist and humanitarian, will be the keynote speaker at the Undergraduate Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 24, 2019, at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Conn. The ceremony begins with an academic procession at 10:15 a.m.

Michael R. Taylor, Chief Executive Officer for the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center, will be the speaker at the 2 p.m. Graduate Commencement for the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Health & Human Services on Thursday, May 23, 2019. Lynn M. Gangone, an education leader, association executive, lobbyist, and policy analyst, will speak at the 7 p.m. ceremony for the Schools of Business and Education, including Library Science. Both graduate commencements will be held at the Lyman Center for the Performing Arts.

Many know Milana Vayntrub (above left), as saleswoman Lily Adams in AT&T’s popular series of commercials, or as Sloan from This Is Us on NBC. But she also has a compelling story as an ex-refugee and advocate for combatting the global refugee crisis.

At the age of two, Vayntrub fled religious persecution in Uzbekistan with her parents to make a home in America. Twenty-five years later, she co-founded the grassroots #CantDoNothing organization, created to encourage others to give their time, money, and voice to assist refugees worldwide.

An Upright Citizens Brigade-trained comedian, Vayntrub has appeared on TV and the big screen, including on Showtime’s House of Lies and HBO’s Californication, as well as in Ghostbusters and Life Happens. She was also cast in the role of Squirrel Girl in Marvel’s 2018 series, New Warriors, on Free Form.

In 2016, Ms. Vayntrub was named among the top 100 thinkers, makers, and doers in marketing and media by Adweek, which described her as a “creative force for good.”

Michael R. Taylor (above, center) has been employed by the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center (CS-HHC) since 2010 and served as its chief executive officer since 2012.

Prior to that, he was founder and president of a health care consulting firm that served more than 200 community health centers nationally and also held leadership positions with several national accounting and health care consulting firms, including The Lewin Group.

Taylor is a creative entrepreneur who is deeply passionate about community health’s capacity to improve the quality of people’s lives. Under his guidance, CS-HHC’s leadership team fortified the health center’s financial position; blazed a trail of care integration, quality, and patient centeredness; renovated and expanded or replaced existing care sites; added new care sites and services; and bolstered internal systems and infrastructure.

Due in large part to these efforts, CS-HHC is projected in the next two years to direct more than 700 staff members who annually serve over fifty thousand Greater New Haven residents.

Dr. Lynn M. Gangone (above, right) is a seasoned education leader with association, agency, and campus-based leadership experience.

She began her career in education working on Carl Perkins Vocational Equity grants, working through the New York State Education Department, and went on to develop and deliver PK-12 professional development to teachers and guidance counselors in New Jersey.

Later, as vice president of the Maryland Independent College and University Association, she led the association’s academic policy and related lobbying work, with specific oversight of teacher education and education accreditation.

She has held faculty appointments at two colleges of education: visiting professor at the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development in Washington, D.C., and full professor (clinical) at the University of Denver’s Morgridge College of Education.

Prior to her appointment as president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), she served as vice president at the American Council on Education (ACE), where she and her team guided ACE’s suite of programs, products, and services for current and future leaders.