Faculty-Staff Achievements, July 31, 2008

Activities
Peg Boyers, lecturer, Department of English, is one of three judges who will choose the 2008 winner of the 11th Triennial Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize. The prize, to be formally awarded in November, is given to an American writer chosen by the judges from work they peruse on their own and not from solicited entries or nominations. Saginaw Valley State University hosts the poetry prize. Roethke, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born in Saginaw May 25, 1908, and died Aug. 1, 1963, of a heart attack. He was a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, at the time of his death.

Charles M. Joseph, professor of music, gave two presentations at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in July prior to performances of the New York City Ballet. On July 25 he discussed ?West Side Story: The Fruits of Collaborations?; on July 26 he gave a talk titled ?Jerome Robbins: Musical Instincts, Challenging Choices.? The NYCB?s performances of Robbins? West Side Story Suite drew 10,000 people to SPAC this year.

Jay Rogoff, lecturer, Department of English, provided an introduction to William Shakespeare?s As You Like It at the Saratoga Springs Public Library July 14 prior to a performance of the Saratoga Shakespeare Company?s production of ?As Y?All Like It? in Congress Park.

Robert Shorb, associate dean and director, Student Aid and Family Finance, was a presenter for two sessions at a College Board meeting and national financial aid conference, both held in Orlando, Florida. His first session titled ?Financial Aid Presentations to High School and Other Audiences? was presented July 4 at the College Board POWERFAIDS Users Meeting. His second session, titled ?Ethics in the Financial Aid Profession,? was co-presented with Karen Krause, director of financial aid at the University of Texas at Arlington, on July 6. The sessions were held in conjunction with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) annual conference.

He also gave two presentations at a regional financial aid conference in Portland, Maine, on May 20. The first session was ?Financial Aid Presentations to High Schools and Other Audiences.? His second session entitled ?So You Think You are Ready to be a Financial Aid Director?? was co-presented with Heather McDonnell, director of financial aid at Sarah Lawrence College and John View, director of financial aid at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The sessions were held in conjunction with the Eastern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators annual conference.

Publications
Ruth Copans, college librarian, is the author of ?The Business of Suffering: Maureen Cummins?s subversive signatures? published in the Bulletin du Bibliophile, No. 1, 2008.

Gove Effinger, professor of mathematics, has an article titled ?Toward a Complete Twin Primes Theorem for Polynomials over Finite Fields? published in Finite Fields and Applications, Vol. 461 of the Contemporary Mathematics Series published August 2008 by the American Mathematical Society.

Mary Ann Foley, professor of psychology, and Jeff Foy ?07, a rising second-year graduate student at the SUNY Stony Brook cognitive program, have a new manuscript titled ?Pictorial encoding effects in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm: Evidence for spontaneous imagery? accepted for publication in the journal Memory. The research reported in this publication was partially supported by the Class of 1948 by way of funds associated with Foley?s appointment as the Class of 1948 Professor for Excellence in Teaching.

In the News
Sandy Baum, professor of economics, was a source for a story titled ?A Federal Idea?Well-Received?!? that ran July 18 in insidehighereducation.com


Robert Turner, associate professor of government, was a source for a story reacting to the major economic announcement by Gov. David Paterson. The report featuring Turner originally aired July 28, the day before the governor?s address, on WNYT, News Channel 13.