Awards List

The following list, in alphabetical order by the last name of the principal investigator, includes all current awards at SUNY Cortland. Each section shows the investigator name(s), project title, project performance period, sponsor name, allocated funding approved for the project, and estimated project amount over the life of the award.

 

"Development of a Statewide Inclusive Recreation Resource Center at SUNY Cortland"

  • New York State Developmental Disabilities Planning Council
  • Anderson, Lynn - Recreation & Leisure Studies
  • 1/1/07 - 12/31/10
  • Award: $624,000

The purpose of this Award is to sustain a Statewide Inclusive Recreation Resource Center (IRRC) at SUNY Cortland. This mission if the IRRC is to promote and sustain participation by people with disabilities in inclusive recreation activities and resources throughout the state. The mission will be achieved through: 1) educating future recreation and park professionals in best practices in inclusive recreation; 2) developing collaborative and ongoing relationships with self advocates with developmental disabilities, local and state recreation agencies, and the IRRC, to initiate systems change that is sustainable and relevant; 3) assessing the availability of inclusive and accessible recreation opportunities in the state with rigorous tools and protocols, and cataloging the results in a user friendly, sustainable online database, in collaboration with other recreation and self-advocacy agencies; 4) developing and sustaining a referral service that helps people with disabilities and their families find services and facilities for the recreation activities they desire, and assisting them in accessing those resources; 5) providing technical assistance to recreation providers to help them move toward more inclusive models of recreation service delivery; and 6) carefully studying, through a rigorous research/evaluation design, best practices in improving inclusion in recreation for people with developmental disabilities.

"Mathematics Achievement = Success (MAS)"

  • New York State Education Department
  • Barduhn, Marley - Interim Assistant Provost for Teacher Education
  • Miller, Deborah - Coordinator
  • 10/1/08 - 9/30/10
  • Award: $95,264

Math Assessment = Success (MAS) is a Migrant Education Program Consortium Incentive Grant designed in response to substantial needs identified among migrant students in the lead state of Texas and the consortium receiving states of Arkansas, Illinois, Montana, New Hampshire, New York and Wisconsin.  The goal of MAS is to increase migrant student achievement in mathematics by operating a multi-state consortium aimed at offering high-quality curriculum, instruction, professional development and innovative uses of technology through interstate and intrastate collaboration.  MAS curricula is created locally and impacts 14,000 New York children and families.  This MEOP grant is Deborah Miller and Marley Barduhn’s third consecutive national award to improve mathematics fluency.

"Liberty Partnerships Program 2009-2010"

  • New York State Education Department
  • Barduhn, Marley - Interim Assistant Provost for Teacher Education
  • Rightmire, Jean - Coordinator
  • 7/1/09 - 6/30/010
  • Award: $407,720

Liberty Partnerships Program is part of New York State's initiative to develop comprehensive programs for high risk youths to complete their education and seek further education or meaningful employment upon graduation. The Liberty Partnership Program based at SUNY Cortland is comprised of fifteen school districts, three colleges, a university, and numerous community based organizations and business organizations who work collaboratively to identify and engage existing resources for identified students. Specifically, programs are geared for middle and high school students which provide variations of the following components: mentoring, tutoring, academic/career/personal counseling, case management, parenting, enrichment classes, special events/field trips, and staff development.

 

"Migrant Education Outreach Program 2009-2010"

  • New York State Education Department
  • Barduhn, Marley - Interim Assistant Provost for Teacher Education
  • Miller, Deborah - Coordinator
  • 9/1/09 - 8/31/10
  • Award: $1,046,422

The Cortland Migrant Education Outreach Program (MEOP) was established in 1978 after an intensive needs assessment of the migrant population was completed in the Central New York area . Over the past 25 years, SUNY Cortland's MEOP program has provided educational and health services to thousands of migrant children and their families. The project is coordinated by Ms. Deborah Miller and currently is the fourth largest MEOP in the state, providing direct services to approximately 1,313 migrant students in 2000-01. Each year the Cortland MEOP has been evaluated during the summer and school year program by the State Education Department peer review team and each time the program evaluations have been extremely positive. The Cortland MEOP currently has a staff of 23. Over two thirds of the Cortland MEOP staff have between 6 and 24 years of experience working in Migrant Education. The MEOP staff provides direct tutoring, ESL, advocacy, family literacy, secondary credit exchange, interstate cooperation, Portable Assisted Study Sequence (PASS), High School Equivalency Program (HEP), agency coordination and/or referral, preschool education and career exploration. Secondary students have attended programs such as WIN (Women in the Nineties), GAIN (Getting Ahead in the Nineties for boys), Leadership School and Adolescent Outreach Program activities. During the summer, three summer schools have been conducted, in Wayne County, Cayuga County, and Cortland County. A Summer In Home Program services the remainder of the program areas. Additionally, MEOP hosts one of the three Family Centers in New York State which is located on campus. Parents visit this Center to hone their own skills (GED), make educational activities with their children, have access to computers, conduct research, etc.

"Cortland Area Early Childhood Professional Development Service"

  • New York State Office of Family and Children Services
  • Bridge, Heather - Childhood/Early Childhood Education
  • 9/1/06 - 8/31/09
  • Award: $148,297

This goal of this project is to improve the delivery and quality of childcare and educational services offered to preschool children in public, private, and not-for-profit early childhood settings in the Cortland area by creating the Cortland Area Early Childhood Professional Development Service. This goal will be achieved by offering professional development services to meet specific needs of early childhood educators who host SUNY Cortland students for a 75-hour preschool experience. The key aspect of this program is that educators and practicum students will receive professional development services together in their early childhood settings. This approach will improve upon existing practice by: 1) ensuring that educators and practicum students use the same educational practices shown to be effective by current research; 2) helping educators deal with problematical areas of their curriculum, using action research; and 3) enabling educators to be good role models and supervisors of practicum students. The SUNY Cortland Early Childhood Program and the Cortland Area Childcare Council will collaborate in order to provide the professional development services, thereby ensuring due emphasis on both education and care.

"Cortland Urban Recruitment of Educators Program (C.U.R.E.)"

  • Park Foundation
  • Burns Thomas, Anne - Foundations and Social Advocacy
  • 8/1/08 - 5/31/12
  • Award: $175,000

In an effort to address urban teacher shortages, SUNY Cortland has, since 1998, administered a comprehensive program in urban teacher preparation, supported in part by the Park Foundation.  Cortland’s Urban Recruitment of Educators (C.U.R.E.) Scholarship Program has capitalized on previous funding in order to address these issues and increase the number of highly qualified teachers committed to urban schools each year.  The 2008-2012 Park Foundation grant supports scholarships for one cohort of C.U.R.E. students as well as funding for research travel related to the program.  The rich, ten-year history of the C.U.R.E. Program at SUNY Cortland has resulted in some remarkable achievements, including an extraordinarily high graduation and retention rate for students.  The impact of this program has been felt far beyond the SUNY Cortland campus, including the placement of more than 40 new teachers in high need schools in New York State, the majority of who have stayed in challenging teaching positions far past the program’s two year commitment.

"Access to College Education 2009-2010"

  • ACE Consortium
  • Cottone, John - School of Education
  • Barduhn, Marley - School of Education
  • Ouckama, Michael - Program Coordinator
  • 7/1/09 - 6/30/10
  • Award: $86,884

ACE (Access to College Education) is a consortium of four area institutions: SUNY Cortland, Tompkins Cortland Community College, Cornell University and Ithaca College, working in partnership with 15 local school districts. The program is designed to help academically capable high school students overcome barriers to college education. Throughout the four years, students and their parents are offered a wide variety of opportunities to experience various aspects of college life. ACE is funded by the four colleges in cooperation with participating schools.

"Environmental Sentinel Biomonitor System Support for New Cell Line Evaluations"

  • US Army Center for Environmental Health Research
  • Curtis, Theresa - Biological Sciences
  • 9/29/08 - 12/15/09
  • Award: $31,842

The US Army Center for Environmental Health Research is developing an Environmental Sentinel Biomonitor (ESB) system using eukaryotic cells to detect a broad range of agricultural and industrial chemicals in drinking water.  A number of toxicity sensors for testing field water using a range of eukaryotic cell types have been proposed, but it has been difficult to identify sensors with both appropriate sensitivity to toxicants and the potential for long-term viability.  To accomplish this goal, a variety of cells (isolated from different tissues and organisms) are being screened for chemical toxicant sensitivity, and for the ability to serve in a portable ECIS (Electric Cell-substrate Impedance Sensing; www.appliedbiophysics.com) based sensor.  To achieve cell layer stability in the ECIS system, multiple cell seeding densities, adhesion substrates, and cell feeding protocols will be evaluated.

"Amphibian and Reptile Conservation in New York: Investigative Research and Protocol Development"

  • NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
  • Ducey, Peter - Biological Sciences
  • 4/1/04 - 3/31/09
  • Award: $118,992

Construction of a permanent habitat module (PHM) and two wetland connections in the northwest quadrant of Onondaga Lake is complete. Further construction of similar or modified structures may be advisable, depending on the effectiveness of these structures in enhancing the local environment for increased population growth, health, and diversity of aquatic plants and animals. A post-construction monitoring period of sufficient duration is necessary to make a defensible assessment of efficacy. The purpose of post-construction monitoring is to identify the effectiveness of the PHMs and hydrologic exchange between lake and wetland waters in producing viable littoral habitat for spawning and young-of-the-year fish. This project will assess the effects of the constructed PHMs and wetland connections on habitat quality as indicated by amphibian reproduction, reptile recruitment, and bird visitation.

"Carol M. White Physical Education Program Grant Assessment Project"

  • US Education Department / Cortland YMCA
  • Foley, John - Physical Education
  • Yang, Stephen - Physical Education
  • 9/1/09 - 1/31/11
  • Award: $52,447

The purpose of this project is to collect and analyze data to support the implementation of the Cortland County Physical Education Program (PEP) Grant from the Department of Education that is intended to improve physical education classes district-wide.  SUNY Cortland graduate and undergraduate students will assist in the collection of teacher and student data such as attitudes towards physical activity, time spent in physical activity, and motor skill testing.  Results of the assessments will be reported back to the grant administrator to include in the grant progress reports to the U.S. Department of Education.  School level reports will also be generated to inform administrators and educators.

"Seven Valleys National Writing Project"

  • National Writing Project
  • Franke, David -English
  • 7/1/09 - 6/30/10
  • Award: $46,000

Cortland's participation in this long-term renewable matching grant brings together direct college support and national support for K-12 teachers as writers, researchers, and professional teachers.  Recently designated as a Writing Project "site," the Seven Valleys Writing Project at SUNY Cortland is committed to the belief that the best way to learn is through writing, and, furthermore, that teachers together can determine their own intellectual paths and passions.  The heart of the Writing Project is a four-week "Summer Institute" which grants graduate credit while supporting teachers' practice and study of writing in all its forms, from creative to scholarly. David Franke (Associate Professor, English and Professional Writing) is the Principal Investigator of this project.  The Seven Valleys Writing Project Planning Committee, made up of six regional educators, was pleased to recently choose and invite fifteen master teachers to its inaugural 2008 Summer Institute that runs from July 7 to August 1 of this year.  The Summer Institute, housed in the newly renovated Beard Building, is a perennial matching funds grant, serving area teacher centers, schools and districts which employ graduates of the Summer Institute to deliver high-quality writing-based professional development workshops to their faculty during the academic year.

"Development of an HIV-AIDS Undergraduate On-line Pedagogy Course"

  • New York State Student Support Services Center, Center for Disease Control
  • Hodges, Bonni - Health
  • Videto, Donna - Health
  • Beshers, Sarah - Health
  • 1/1/06 - 9/30/09
  • Award: $10,000

Health Department colleagues Bonnie Hodges, Donna Videto, and Sarah Beshers have been awarded a contract from the New York State Student Support Service Center to develop and pilot test an online course for New York State teachers on the teaching of HIV/AIDS. Age-appropriate HIV/AIDS education is mandated in New York yet a need for teacher training and continuing education in this area has been identified.  In-service teachers often report feeling unprepared for and uncomfortable about teaching this topic, largely due to their own lack of education, the cultural taboos surrounding adolescent sexual behavior, and a perceived lack of support from administrators and the local community.  Teacher training that addresses these barriers can be very effective.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that HIV/AIDS education is most effective when embedded into a comprehensive K-12 school health education program that focuses on the relationships between behavior and health and provides the opportunity to develop skills such as decision-making, refusal, and interpersonal communication, and the self-efficacy to use those skills in “the real world. The CDC also recommends that all school personnel should receive periodic continuing education about HIV/AIDS to assure that they have the most current information and effective teaching strategies. This course will address both basic content as well as pedagogy, including state and national guidelines, relevant theories of behavior change, and the “programs that work,” i.e., those curricula which have been shown to have a significant and positive impact on sexual risk reduction and which are widely recommended by experts in the field. The course will be available through the Health Department for K-12 educators and teacher education candidates across the state.

"Carbon Tetrachloride Hydrolysis Experiments"

  • Pacific Northwest Laboratory
  • Jeffers, Peter - Chemistry
  • 1/1/06 - 9/30/09
  • Award: $140,377

The determination of hydrolysis rates of volatile organic compounds such as CCl4 is a highly specialized task in which few scientists have any experience. Peter Jeffers has a great deal of experience with this type of experiment and has published several key scientific articles examining the hydrolysis rates of volatile chlorinated compounds. Due to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's need for technical assistance in determining the hydrolysis rate of carbon tetrachloride at temperatures relevant to groundwater conditions at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Peter is investigating the development of techniques and conducting experiments in parallel with similar efforts performed on-site. The results will be used in part by the U.S. Department of Energy to help determine whether active remediation is needed for the carbon tetrachloride plume located in the 200 West Area. This work will include design and fabrication of experimental vessels, selection of experimental conditions and parameters, and development of analytical procedures.

"SUNY Cortland AmeriCorps"

  • New York State Office of Children and Family Services
  • Kendrick, Richard - Sociology/Anthropology
  • 10/1/08 - 12/31/09
  • Award: $148,489

SUNY Cortland and its ten community partners received funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service to create an AmeriCorps program for the Cortland community.  In addition, $51, 975 was awarded in Segal Education Award funds to provide tuition assistance for those completing the AmeriCorps program.  The grant is renewable for two additional years (and our application for the second year has been submitted).  The program funds 13 AmeriCorps positions serving 11 different agencies in the Cortland community (ten positions are full-time; one is half-time; two are quarter-time).  The agencies served include the City and County Youth Bureaus, Family Counseling Services, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, Lime Hollow Center for Environment and Culture, Seven Valleys Health Coalition, SUNY Cortland’s Institute for Civic Engagement, Cortland Downtown Partnership, YWCA and the Cortland County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.  AmeriCorps members work on projects that focus on child care, youth mentoring and recreation, economic development, volunteer recruitment and development, and environmental education, among others. Additional information about the program can be found at www.cortland.edu/civicengagement.

"Building Community Leaders:  A Model Demonstration Project"

  • Legislative Award/USED/FIPSE
  • Kendrick, Richard - Sociology/Anthropology
  • 7/1/09 - 6/30/11
  • Award: $247,000

This project seeks to create the Building Community Leaders Program, which is designed to take our current Institute for Civic Engagement (ICE) academic initiatives to the next level.  Through a three-pronged campus wide approach, students in this program will develop the self-awareness and confidence to seek out and assume leadership roles in Cortland, their own communities, New York State and the nation.  The goals of this project are:  1) to transform the educational experiences of our students over a three-year period through curriculum design and development that will infuse course curricula with leadership development training for students.  Such curricula will include credit-bearing coursework that prepares students to participate fully in the democratic process; 2) to target a group of exceptionally motivated students for participation in a newly created Building Community Leaders Program.  Student leaders may participate in workshops or courses, attend seminars with prominent community leaders, and engage in instructive retreats on leadership skill development, among other activities, to become proficient at problem-solving skills that can be directed to key issues, such as economic development, education, poverty abatement and community revitalization; and 3) to develop a comprehensive student leadership program that unites faculty and staff in academic affairs and student affairs to participate in a number of activities designed to promote student leadership development throughout the College.

"Infants' Use of Intersensory Cues in Operant Learning"

  • National Institutes of Health
  • Kraebel, Kimberly - Psychology
  • 8/16/07 - 7/31/10
  • Award: $156,500

This project will examine human infants' ability to utilize cross-modal information within a learning and memory task. It will also determine if there are any age-related differences in the ability of cross-modal correspondences to facilitate learning and memory processes. The long-term objective of this project is to study the role intersensory integration plays in learning and memory processes in human infants, to determine the functional significance of this role, and examine how this role changes across development.

"SUNY Cortland Teacher/Leader Quality Partnership Program 2008-2009"

  • New York State Education Department
  • Lachance, Andrea - Childhood/Early Childhood Education
  • Benton, Cynthia - Childhood/Early Childhood Education
  • Klein, Elizabeth - Childhood/Early Childhood Education
  • 9/1/08 - 8/31/09
  • Award: $73,577

This collaborative initiative is aimed at building partnerships among the Department of Childhood and Early Childhood Education, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the Cortland City, Cincinnatus and McGraw School Districts to improve teacher education. Through these partnerships, a structure will be developed to provide activities in both preservice and inservice teacher education which combine best practices in pedagogy with strong content understandings in the arts and sciences. In addition, grant activities will attempt to address and respond to the self-identified professional development needs of area schools. Ultimately, this five-year project seeks to establish a permanent system through which college and district partners will continue to work collaboratively to support the development of quality teachers in this geographic area

"Building Smart & Good Schools: Multi-year Research, Development, and Dissemination to Help Schools Implement a New Paradigm of Character Education"

  • John Templeton Foundation
  • Lickona, Thomas - Childhood/Early Childhood Education
  • 5/1/07 - 4/30/11
  • Award: $959,010

This project calls for a four-year expansion of the Smart & Good Schools: Integrating Excellence and Ethics for Success in School, Work, and Beyond that was previously supported by the John Templeton Foundation. The new work will take the Smart & Good School model to a new level of national prominence, validation, and implementation.  This four-year project will work with pilot schools and other school reform organizations to design, field-test, and disseminate the instructional materials, professional develop manuals, and assessment instruments that schools need to fully and effectively implement the Smart & Good  vision. The Smart & Good Schools vision focuses on integrating excellence and ethics, redefining “character” to give equal emphasis to performance character (needed to realize one’s potential for excellence in school, work, or any other performance environment) and moral character (needed for successful relationships and ethical behavior), and argues that the mission of every high school is to develop performance character and moral character within an ethical learning community. 

"Building Smart & Good Schools: Multi-year Research, Development, and Dissemination to Help Schools Implement a New Paradigm of Character Education"

  • Upstate Medical Center / National Institute on Alcohol, Abuse, and Alcoholism
  • Lombardo, John - Psychology
  • Berger, David - Psychology
  • 1/1/10 - 12/31/12
  • Award: $108,000

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has just awarded a 1.8 million grant for the establishment of the Developmental Exposure to Alcohol Research Center at three SUNY campuses: Upstate Medical University, Binghamton University and SUNY Cortland. Only two center grants were awarded this year. Drs. David F. Berger and John P. Lombardo, faculty members in the Psychology Department, are the Co-Principal Investigators conducting the research at SUNY Cortland. Using an animal model of addiction, Berger, Lombardo, and their student assistants have shown that exposure to environmental levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), like those found in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence and Hudson Rivers, produced an increase in the voluntary consumption of alcohol (ethanol) by female, but not male, rats, compared to unexposed controls. Collaborators from Upstate Medical University also found that the PCB-exposure resulted in alterations in the gene expression associated with reward circuits in male rat brain samples sent from Cortland. The relevance to public health and the mission of NIAAA is that research has shown that estrogen enhances human drug-seeking behavior, and that ovarian hormones, especially estrogen, are a major contributor to sex differences in the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse. Pregnant women who eat PCB-contaminated foods expose their developing offspring both during gestation and while nursing. Over the next two years the funded research at Cortland will attempt to answer the following questions: 1) Will PCB exposure only during gestation or only while nursing, versus exposure during both developmental periods, affect ethanol consumption in adolescent male and female offspring differently? 2) Will the developmental time of exposure have different effects on gene expression in the reward areas of the brains of the male and female offspring? 3) Will the PCB exposure result in decreases in the neural transmitter, dopamine, in the relevant areas of the brain, along with upregulation of selected dopamine metabolic mRNAs? 4) Will the rats exposed to PCBs show evidence of increased estrogen activity in relevant brain centers? 5) Will there be a difference in brain PCB levels resulting from the PCB-exposure during the different developmental periods? 6) Will voluntary ethanol intake by PCB-exposed females correlate with estrogen levels in their brains?

"A Planning Grant to Explore SUNY Cortland Professional Science Masters Degrees in Energy and Sustainable Development, Conservation Biology, and Biomedical Sciences"

  • State University of New York College at Oswego; Sloan Foundation
  • Mattingly, Bruce - School of Arts and Sciences
  • Ducey, Peter - Bioogical Sciences
  • Paul, Biru Paksha - Economics
  • Brice Smith - Physics
  • Mosher, Joy - Graduate Studies
  • 3/6/09 - 6/30/09
  • Award: $10,000

This wide-scale collaborative effort is designed to explore the development of Professional Science Masters (PSM) degree programs at SUNY Cortland.  PSM degrees combine rigorous training in science, math and technology with supplemental coursework in business management, public policy, marketing, communications and writing.  The co-investigators will work with a broad range of faculty collaborators from the sciences, mathematics, economics, political science, philosophy, English and communications to draw upon their disciplinary expertise and interest to develop feasible curricula.  Activities include:  a) creating a planning group from participating departments to develop the PSM degree program(s) that are aligned with state-wide and regional economic development planning initiatives; b) creating a PSM advisory committee; c) engaging consultants to survey the labor market for existing employment and job creation trends; and d) charging the SUNY Cortland Graduate Studies Office, in consultation with participating PSM faculty and the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, to formulate a business plan that will include enrollment projections, plans for expenses and revenues, student recruitment strategies, marketing and branding.  The State University of New York is developing PSM programs at several SUNY campuses with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to promote economic growth and workforce development in New York State. 

"MRI: Acquisition of a Powder X-Ray Diffractometer to Enhance Faculty and Undergraduate Research and Education in Geology and Chemistry"

  • National Science Foundation
  • McRoberts, Christopher - Geology
  • Collins, David- Chemistry
  • Darling, Robert - Geology
  • Downey, Karen - Chemistry
  • 9/1/09 - 8/31/10
  • Award: $100,097

Funding for the X-ray powder diffractometer (XRD) will markedly enhace the infrastructure for research at SUNY Cortland and will permit increased faculty and undergraduate studentparticipation in research activities with the Geology and Chemistry departments with potential applications within the department of Biology and Physics. The XRD will also be heavily utilized in existing science curricula in geology, chemistry, and their embedded teacher education programs. The XRD will be available on a hands-on basis to students un upper-level laboratory courses, and thus will positively impact educational efforts at SUNY Cortland. The broader impacts of the new XRD include the exposure and training for student researchers in state-of-the-art instrumentation. This new instrument will directly support SUNY Cortland's new initiative to enhance undergraduate research experiences.

"SUNY Cortland Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program"

  • National Science Foundation
  • Phelan, Gregory - Chemistry
  • Burns Thomas, Anne- CURE
  • Cirmo, Chris - Geology
  • Klotz, L. Richard - Biology
  • Gfeller, Mary - Mathematics
  • Janke, Rena - Biology
  • Smith, Brice - Physics
  • 6/1/09 - 8/31/14
  • Award: $899,968

Through this scholarship program, SUNY Cortland will create 50 scholarships for secondary school teacher candidates in math, science and technology areas. These teachers will serve in central New York and the five major city areas of New York State. Partners in the project include departments of Biology, Chemistry, Geology and Physics, the School of Education, SUNY Cortland's Urban Recruitment of Educators (CURE), the SUNY Urban Teacher Education Center, and CNY school districts including Cincinnatus, Cortland, Dryden, Homer, Marathon, and South Seneca public schools. The broader impact of this project will increase the numbers of well qualified STEM teachers in NYS through the creation of 50 scholarships. Ideally, having highly trained STEM teachers who truly understand both their content and pedagogy will engage students in such ways as to increase the numbers of both future STEM professionals and the next generation of STEM teachers.

"Cortland Road Pour"

  • National Endowment for the Arts
  • Randall, Vaughn, Art and Art History
  • 1/1/09 - 8/31/09
  • Award: $10,000

The Cortland Road Pour artistically reinterprets the manufacturing heritage of Central New York as a cultural tradition through engaging the public in the process of creating cast iron sculptures. Eight art students from area high schools with a range of socio-economic backgrounds will be recruited to apprentice under SUNY Cortland sculpture professor Vaughn Randall for a five-week program in metal arts. These students, mentored by SUNY Cortland BFA students and directed by Vaughn Randall, will develop a public exhibition of iron casting and invite Central New York residents to create their own artistic works in cast iron based on Cortland County's manufacturing heritage. The Cortland Road Pour will introduce sculptural metalworking to the local community that has limited access to arts due to its rural location and challenged economic environment.

"New York Higher Education Support Center for Systems Change Research Grant"

  • Syracuse University/NYS Department of Education/US Department of Education
  • Rombach, Kimberly Childhood/Early Childhood Education
  • Stratton, SusanChildhood/Early Childhood Education
  • 9/1/07 - 8/15/09
  • Award: $46,194

Dr. Kimberly Rombach and Dr. Susan Stratton are the Mid-State Regional Co-Liaisons for the Taskforce on Quality Inclusive Schooling. The Taskforce is part of the Systems Change Project, a collaborative effort of the New York State Education Department's Office of Special Education Services and Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) and higher education institutions.  This project works with regional higher educational institutions, New York State government offices and school districts to reach the following goals:  (1) to help institutions better prepare preservice teachers to teach in inclusive classrooms; (2) to assist regional in-service teachers to implement promising inclusive education practices; and (3) to work to create partnerships between schools who are using promising inclusive practices and schools that are in need of assistance.

"The American Dream Project"

  • US Department of Education / OCM BOCES
  • Sheets, Kevin - History
  • 7/1/07 - 6/30/10
  • Award: $328,419

“The American Dream Project” is a federally funded Teaching American History grant designed to enhance the professional development of K-12 teachers of American history.  Sponsored by the U. S. Department of Education, Teaching American History grants identify elementary, middle, and high school American history teachers and provide them with rigorous professional development experiences in content and pedagogy.  These grants aim to deepen teachers’ knowledge of American history and sharpen their teaching skills and practices to positively affect their students’ achievement in history.

The American Dream Project, funded for three years, works with teachers from the 23 school districts in the Onondaga-Cortland-Madison Board of Cooperative Educational Services OCM BOCES and the city of Syracuse.  Each year, the project recruits a different cohort of teachers and immerses them in the events, personalities, and ideas of a distinctive era in America’s past.  Teachers enroll in a series of graduate -style seminars, culminating in an intensive one-week summer institute.  Project historians, including SUNY Cortland faculty and other distinguished historians from around the country, lead workshops, discussions, and seminars.  Historians and pedagogy experts introduce teachers to cutting edge scholarship and showcase best practices and innovative approaches to teaching America’s past.  The project will result in a number of outcomes:  a cohort of trained teacher-leaders who can continue the work of professional development in their districts and an archive of project-created resources for teachers’ classroom use, including an innovative “podpast” collection of short history-based audio and video podcasts featuring historian interviews, virtual tours of historic sites, and tutorials.

"Healthy Choices for a Winning Future"

  • NCAA
  • Sitterly, Joan - Athletics
  • 9/1/07 - 6/30/10
  • Award: $30,000

During the first year of the program the primary focus of the "Health Choices for a Winning Future" will address problematic drinking behaviors through students' perceptions that drinking is wide-spread and essential to SUNY Cortland's campus life. This project will provide a coordinated and comprehensive delivery of programs to educate students about effective and responsible decision making concerning alcohol consumption. The second year of this project will build upon student experiences to guide the effectiveness of program delivery. There will be an increase in the peer mentor and student coordinator visibility on campus. In particular, the peer mentors and student coordinators will use SUNY Cortland's highly visible "Cortaca Jug" football game to spread healthy messages about alternative choices to drinking. Year three will include dedicated efforts to institutionalize the program at SUNY Cortland. The Athletics Department will establish regular meetings with other collaborating organizations within the College to assure delivery of educational programming well into the future.

"NCAA Division III Ethnic Minority and Women's Internship Program"

  • NCAA
  • Sitterly, Joan - Athletics
  • 8/2/08 - 8/1/10
  • Award: $46,200

This is Joan’s second award for this internship program!  The SUNY Cortland Athletics Department is the recipient of one of fifteen National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Ethnic Minority and Women’s Internship awards funded in the U.S. in 2006.  This two-year award is designed to support an intern with opportunities for learning and contributing to administrative leadership and coaching activities.  At SUNY Cortland, the selected individual will work with event management, corporate sponsorships and serve as an assistant coach for one of the sports.

"Excellence in Mobility"

  • Buffalo State College / USDOE FIPSE Atlantis Award
  • Steck, Henry - Political Science
  • 9/1/09 - 8/31/10
  • Award: $15,000

Working collaboratively with Buffalo State College, and in conjunction with European Union partners Manchester Metropolitan University (United Kingdom) and Babes-Bolyai University (Romania), funding for this project will enable undergraduate students from four colleges and universities to study abroad at partnering campuses. The overall mission of the consortium will be to advance undergraduate training in public administration in an era of change. By facilitating exchanges between students who are studying public administration the partnership will promote a broadening of perspectives on the key issues and challenges being faced by the public sector.

"Development of a Study about Uses of Passenger Rail for Tourism between Binghamton and Cortland"

  • State Appropriations Fund 2007-09
  • Todd, Sharon - Recreation and Leisure Studies
  • Anderson, Lynn - Recreation, Parks, and Leisure Studies
  • 7/1/07 - 6/30/09
  • Award: $100,000

The purpose of this Senate Initiative is to develop and implement a study about the use of expanding passenger rail between Binghamton and Cortland to increase tourism, as well as operational aid for support of expanded passenger service along the New York Susquehanna and Western (NYS&W) Railroad mainline.  The study will be completed under the leadership of Dr. Sharon Todd, with assistance from Dr. Lynn Anderson and a project assistant.  The study will be completed during the academic year as a part of the graduate research course sequence, REC 601 (Fall 2007 semester) and REC 602 (Spring 2008 semester), Research and Evaluation I & II, a required course sequence in the Master’s degree program in the Recreation and Leisure Studies Department, taught by Dr. Sharon Todd.  As a part of the course sequence, graduate students, under the guidance of Dr. Todd, will review the relevant literature and best practices in historic rail lines as tourism attractions, design a needs assessment/feasibility study, obtain human subjects approval from the institution’s Review Board, implement the study (tentatively conceptualized as a phone survey of citizens in Cortland and Broome Counties, focus groups, and on-site interviews on the train during special events), analyze the data, and prepare a written and oral report with findings to be used by the New York State Senate, by the NYS&W Railroad, and by tourism officials in the affected counties.  The report will be delivered by July, 2008.  The operational aid for tourism trains will be a contractual service provided by the NYS&W Railroad.  The NYS&W Railroad will run the train for tourism destination events in Central Upstate New York, with an initial market focus on Cortland and Broome Counties.  The Maple Fest is an example of a tourism destination event that brings large numbers of people to the region.  Tourism destination opportunities and expanded passenger rail service that result from the market analysis will be promoted jointly between the railroad and local entities such as the Cortland and Broome County Industrial Development Agencies, and partners such as Binghamton University, SUNY Cortland, local Chambers of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureaus, Cultural Councils and more. 

"Study Habits of Thai Gifted and Talented Science Students: Implications for Education at all Levels"

  • Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand
  • Orvil L. White, Childhood/Early Childhood Education
  • 5/16/08 - 8/15/10
  • Award: $36,934

Researchers:  Dr. Orvil L. White Assistant Professor Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department SUNY Cortland, Dr. Sumalee waiyarod, Academic teacher in Physics, Mahidol Wittayanusorn School.  This research project includes a pilot study (December 2008-January 2009) with the full research project (July-August 2009) being conducted onsite at the Mahidol Wittayanusorn School and is an exploratory mixed method study (Creswell, 2002).  The research plan includes the collection of data through the use of questionnaires, teacher/student interviews and observations of the study habits of Thai gifted and talented (G/T) students. This will include Olympiad students (top 6% academic scorers) that are in residence during March and throughout the time between school years.  In this research, the study habits of G/T students in the sciences and how these students’ study habits may have changed over time will be assessed.  Results from the pilot study will guide the full research and findings from the final research will have implications for informing Thai teachers and students as to best practice for improving study habits in the new Thai educational system.  The results of this research will be useful for both teachers and students.  Understanding the findings from a study of Thai G/T students’ study habits in science would yield ideas as to how other students can improve their learning in the sciences, mathematics, and computer science.  Teachers will know how their students study and how much time is spent in studying their content areas.  These findings will also facilitate the development of ideas and guidelines on how to nurture and facilitate G/T students in these areas.  Additionally, students at other grade levels who want to improve their knowledge in science, mathematics, and computer science can adopt these habits of study.  The experiences and findings will assist in designing professional development to be given to Thailand’s secondary teachers and students through the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST), Bangkok, Thailand.

"Coordinated Collection Development Aid 2008-2009"

  • South Central Regional Library Council
  • Wood, Gail - Memorial Library
  • 7/1/08 - 6/30/09
  • Award: $11,678

Funds received through the 2008-2009 Regional Coordinated Collection Development Aid program will be used to purchase needed library materials for the Memorial Library at SUNY Cortland. In accordance with Education Law 273.5, SUNY Cortland in receiving the Award: has demonstrated a continued commitment to using these and other funds to maintain or expand its effort to keep Memorial Library materials current and topical for the students and other patrons of the library. Acquisitions are consistent with the Regional Coordinated Collection Plan of the South Central Regional Library Council in Ithaca, New York.