Continuing in its tradition of offering flexible program options, Medaille College has introduced two new online bachelor’s degree programs in homeland security and health information administration.

In the wake of terrorist events like 9/11, environmental crises like the BP oil spill and natural disasters like the recent earthquake in Japan, the demand for professionals who can effectively manage emergency situations has led to the introduction of academic degrees in homeland security. Medaille’s Bachelor of Science in Homeland Security is tailored to meet the demand for professionals who can prepare for and mitigate the effects of large- and small-scale disasters.

The Bachelor of Professional Studies degree in Health Information Administration will prepare individuals for management positions in the fast-growing field of electronic health records.

“Few colleges in Western New York are offering online programs,” said Jacqueline Matheny, vice president for enrollment management. “We’re taking our existing approach – of working individually with students and providing the support they need to be successful – and applying that to an online environment.”

These two degrees build upon Medaille’s initial online degree offering, a Bachelor of Business Administration in Information Systems. Each of these programs is designed for working adults who have already earned approximately two years’ worth of college credits. Students pursue these degrees by taking one class at a time, with each class running for seven weeks. Degrees can be completed in about two years, and the programs are accepting applications for classes that start in September 2011.

Over 250 student leaders from colleges throughout Western New York participated in the Be the Change Student Leadership Conference at Medaille on Saturday, April 2. This all-day event drew students and staff from Niagara University, SUNY Brockport, Hilbert College, Buffalo State College, Daemen College, Canisius College, D’Youville College and the University at Buffalo. Sessions included Athletic Leadership, Diversity, How to be a “Super” Supervisor, Mediation, and Living Your Life in a Digital Fishbowl.

Medaille’s Scholars Program is hosting a Love Canal Community Forum on Monday, April 4, from 7-9 p.m. in the Main Building Lecture Hall. This event marks another piece of the semester-long project in which this group of students has studied and evaluated the ethical decisions surrounding Love Canal.  Luella Kenny, a noted local speaker and Love Canal homeowner and activist, will give the keynote remarks and will serve as a panelist, along with a local environmental attorney and a representative from the New York State Department of Health.

Jackie Matheny, vice president for enrollment management in the School of Adult and Graduate Education, appeared on 1230 AM WECK on Tuesday morning, March 29  to speak about college degrees for adults and graduate students.

Listen to the nine-minute clip from the broadcast (MP3)

“No matter what kind of schedule you have right now, whether you’re working  a split shift, a morning, a day – you’re unemployed and looking for work, there’s a way for you to go back to school.” – Jackie Matheny

The Future  Teachers Club hosted a “Seminar for Success” on Saturday, March 26, at the Buffalo Campus. The day included a Student Teacher Panel comprised current student teachers Nathaniel Barnes, Chelsea Busczinski and Jennifer Perry.  Team Scumaci (Mary Beth Scumaci, clinical assistant professor, and her family) presented on technology in education. Illana Lane, Ph.D., dean of the School of Education, and Jeff Faunce, Ph.D., assistant professor, presented on teacher certification and initial employment.  35 students from the School of Education attended the event.

The Medaille College chapter of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) won its division at the SIFE USA Regional Competition on Monday, March 22 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Medaille team now advances to the National Competition in Minneapolis, Minn. from May 10-12. Founded in 2009, this is the first opportunity for the team to advance to the nationals. The team came close in last year’s competition by winning “First Runner Up” and “Rookie of the Year”.

At competition, SIFE teams present community service projects they develop and implement to create economic opportunity for others by effectively educating and empowering people in need by applying business and economic concepts and an entrepreneurial approach to improve their quality of life and standard of living. Competition requires a 24-minute oral presentation and video, accompanied by a four-page annual report, and is followed by questions from a panel of business executives. Teams are judged on the basis of needs addressed and the relevance, depth and meaningful impact that their projects have on the lives of others.

In 2010-11, the Medaille SIFE team implemented projects across a diverse range of communities, from large urban areas of the inner city to a small rural town located abroad. Each of these communities offered access to a variety of populations and problems, offering a number of unique and interesting challenges to the team. Projects include a student run business that provides experiential learning opportunities for Medaille students, new venture creation opportunities for students in grades K-12, after school programs for inner city youth, money management and financial literacy training to young adults, and global outreach projects to benefit female artisans and their families in Guatemala.

The competition presentation team includes Dan Tomaka ’11, Erin Driscoll ’12, Gerard Jackson ’12, Danielle Rollins ’12 and Colleen Wagner ’14. The team’s advisors include four faculty, each from the Business Department: Michael Lillis, Ph.D., professor and chair; Ken Radig, associate professor; Pat Johnson, associate professor; and, Kevin Bosner, Ph.D., assistant professor.

“Medaille SIFE students have contributed over 1200 hours to developing and implementing service projects this year, having a direct and measurable impact on over 500 lives across the globe,” said Dr. Lillis. “Though their service, students develop leadership and professional skills and fulfill Medaille’s ideal of linking the curriculum and the co-curriculum in order to promote active, collaborative, problem-based, and experiential learning.”

SIFE is an international, non-profit organization active on more than 1500 university campuses in 40 countries. Medaille SIFE activities are supported, in part, by the voluntary efforts of 25 business advisory board members who lend a hand when fundraising, develop organizational accountabilities, create valuable connections and help to foster a strategic focus for the team.

Rebecca Weller has been accepted into the Roswell Park Summer Research Program for Undergraduates at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. Weller was selected in a highly-competitive process to study in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Department for a ten-week period this summer. This fellowship, funded by the National Cancer Institute, offers fifteen college juniors the benefit of an intensive research experience, supervised by graduate faculty members.

Deborah Legge, Ph.D., assistant professor and program director of the mental health counseling program, was featured in a March 2011 article in Counseling Today: “Breaking Away from the Pack.” The article outlined how private counseling practitioners can market themselves, and what steps mental health counselors can take to create success within their own practices.

From the article:

[Legge] points to the growth of the counseling profession as the reason why her work as a private practice mentor is so vital. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, counselors held more than 665,000 jobs in 2008, and an 18 percent increase in jobs for counselors is projected between 2008 and 2018. “As our field grows, more and more counselors break away from the pack to pursue private practice,” says Legge.

In March, Medaille will join ConnectNY, a network of 15 private academic libraries in New York State. Faculty, staff and currently enrolled students will now have direct borrowing privileges with 14 other private academic libraries in New York State and the Center for Research Libraries. The books will be delivered for pick up at one of Medaille’s three libraries within three or four business days. The ConnectNY catalog is continuously updated to provide the current circulation status for the more than nine million volumes available for borrowing. Participating institutions include: Adelphi University, Bard College, Canisius College, Cazenovia College, Colgate University, Le Moyne College, Pace University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, St. Lawrence University, Siena College, Union College, United States Military Academy at West Point and Vassar College.

Please feel free to contact Pam Jones (pjones@medaille.edu), director of libraries, or Samantha Purpora, access services coordinator, (sap49@medaille.edu) with any questions you may have.

Three creative writing students attended the Associated Writing Programs conference in Washington, D.C., from February 2-5.

Two of the students, Eric Richardson and Jennifer Comstock, are editors of Prelude, the College literary magazine.  Emmett Haq is an intern for Starcherone Books, the nonprofit fiction publishing company directed by Ted Pelton, Ph.D.  Dr. Pelton advises the Prelude, along with Evan Schnair.

The conference is home to the largest small press book fair in the United States, and features readings and panels on writing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The Prelude editors were able to view other college and independent literary magazines, and all three students, who are writers themselves, got a sense of the marketplace for new poetry and prose writing. Representatives from graduate-level creative writing programs were also on hand to talk to students about future study in the field.

“I’ve had interns go to AWP before, but generally these were students who had already graduated,” said Dr. Pelton. “This is probably the first time current Medaille students have attended AWP, at least since I began teaching at Medaille.”