SUNY Oneonta

Five track & field athletes earned academic honors from the USTFCCCA.

Nearly 1,000 students were honored at SUNY Oneonta's 126th commencement on May 16, 2015. Students who completed the requirements for bachelor's degrees, master's degrees and certificates of advanced study in the summer or fall of 2014 or the spring of 2015 participated in three main ceremonies in the Dewar Arena of the Alumni Field House. Caryl M. Stern, a 1978 graduate of SUNY Oneonta and president and chief executive officer of the United States Fund for UNICEF, addressed the graduates.

SUNY Oneonta has awarded scholarships to 270 incoming freshman and five new transfer students. Since 2000, the college and its related College at Oneonta Foundation have more than tripled the number of scholarships available to SUNY Oneonta students, and more than $4 million is awarded each year.

Twenty SUNY Oneonta students have been selected to serve as Orientation Leaders for the 2015-2016 academic year. In addition to leading activities for new students and their parents during 10 summer orientation sessions, Orientation Leaders welcome new students into their new community by leading small groups, answering questions about the college and college life, and mentoring new students through the first few weeks of the semester.

Eleven SUNY Oneonta students and two alumni spent a month of their summer searching for 4,000-year-old cooking hearths, stone tools and other evidence of ancient hunter-gatherer communities. Now in its seventh season, the Pine Lake Archaeological Field School is a collaborative effort of SUNY Oneonta and neighboring Hartwick College. SUNY Oneonta provides most of the equipment for the field school, which is held every other summer at Hartwick's Pine Lake Environmental Campus eight miles away in West Davenport, NY. SUNY Oneonta anthropology Professor Renee Walker and Cindy Klink, an anthropology lecturer at both Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta, co-direct the field school.

Three SUNY Oneonta students have been selected to participate in summer research internships through the SUNY Networks of Excellence. Students will conduct research alongside SUNY faculty members, gaining hands-on experience in their fields of study. The program is administered by the Research Foundation for SUNY.

A total of 141 SUNY Oneonta students earned Provost's List honors for the spring 2015 semester. To qualify for the Provost's List, a student must earn a perfect 4.0 grade-point average while carrying a course load of 12 hours or more.

A total of 1,553 SUNY Oneonta students earned Dean's List honors for the spring 2015 semester. To qualify for the Dean's List, a student must earn a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher while carrying a course load of 12 hours or more.

Junior Traci Lichtenstein was named to the ECAC Division III ECAC Upstate New York All-Star Team.

Brianna Rivera named to the ECAC D3 Upstate All-Star Team.

Two SUNY Oneonta students and one alumna co-authored a paper on contagious yawning in budgies with Andrew Gallup, assistant professor of psychology. Titled "Experimental evidence of contagious yawning in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus)," the paper is published in the May 2015 peer-reviewed journal Animal Cognition. It is the first study to show that contagious yawning occurs between members of a bird species.

Freshman Taylor Casey was selected as the ECAC Division III Mid-Atlantic Rookie of the Year in the sport of lacrosse.

39 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta men's track and field team during 2014-15.

51 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta women's track and field team during 2014-15.

Three SUNY Oneonta students were elected to the College at Oneonta Foundation Board of Directors at a board meeting April 10 in New York City. Established in 1982 with the mission of raising and administering gifts and grants to enhance the academic status of the college, the State University College at Oneonta Foundation Corporation is governed by a volunteer board of directors.

Four SUNY Oneonta students presented research alongside three faculty members from the college's Psychology Department at the 27th Annual Convention of American Psychological Science on May 24 in New York City.

Forty-seven members of the Class of 2015 received Senior Service Awards in recognition of their commitment to community service. Students who completed at least 350 hours of service through the college's Center for Social Responsibility and Community (CSRC) were recognized during a reception in May.

SUNY Oneonta recently recognized 356 students who have attained leadership milestones through the college's LEAD (Leadership Education and Development) program. LEAD@Oneonta is a comprehensive leadership program based on current research and guidelines from the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education. There are three levels of leadership certification: Silver, Gold and Platinum. To attain each level, students must meet a mix of programmatic and experiential leadership requirements

Three May 2015 SUNY Oneonta graduates--Amanda Augesen, Sarah Cummings, and Caitlyn Kuzmich--will present research at the 37th annual Thomas Wolfe Society conference in Albany from May 22-24. Their independent research focuses on Thomas Wolfe's two most celebrated novels, "You Can't Go Home Again" and "Look Homeward, Angel." The conference will attract presenters from all over the United States, as well as Europe.

45 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta men's lacrosse team during the 2015 spring season.

31 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta baseball team during the 2015 spring season.

SUNY Oneonta graduating senior Dustin Tropp of Pittsburgh, Pa., recently published his first book, "Running for Local & State Office: 150+ Things You Should Know & Do To Win." Tropp, who will graduate from SUNY Oneonta on Saturday, May 16, majored in Music Industry and Business Economics, with minors in Political Science and Audio Production. Released May 1, the book is published by the Millennial Candidate Coalition, an organization Tropp co-founded.

20 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta softball team during the 2015 spring season.

22 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta women's lacrosse team during the 2015 spring season.

A team of five physics and engineering majors was awarded $2,043 by the New York section of the American Physical Society for an outreach project called O-SNAP! (Oneonta Sparking New Attitudes in Physics). Under the direction of Dr. Sunil Labroo, the students will visit four Upstate New York middle schools next year to generate interest in physics and engineering fields, particularly among female and minority students.

14 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta men's team during 2014-15.

The SUNY Oneonta athletics department recently held its annual awards ceremony and honored its student athletes.

10 student athletes competed for the SUNY Oneonta women's team during 2014-15.

SUNY Oneonta recently recognized more than 200 alumni as Alumni of Distinction honorees. In recognition of the college's 125th anniversary, the SUNY Oneonta Alumni Association established the Alumni of Distinction program to recognize alumni who have distinguished themselves through their careers, their service to their communities and their commitment to the college.

Eleven SUNY Oneonta students traveled to New York City in April to participate in the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) sponsored by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). The goal of this year's competition was to create an advertising campaign that would increase online orders for Pizza Hut, this year's NSAC corporate sponsor.