by Michael Allchin
Oswego, NY- The 11th annual St. Baldrick’s Day in Oswego County took place on Mar. 26 at the Lake Ontario Event and Conference Center. Participants of the event shaved their heads and donated their hair to cancer patients.
With the help of various volunteers and supervisors, the event raised a large portion of money for cancer research all over the world. Donations are spread out to various hospitals worldwide and are provided to the world’s top cancer researchers so they can find ways to cure kids with cancer. The event in Oswego raised more than $37,000.
Event Coordinator John Sheffield says he is proud to see the county come together to donate.
“This event restores my faith in humanity,” he said. “I have found that the people who often have the least to give are the ones with the most generous hearts.”
The Oswego State men’s lacrosse team and Oswego Firefighters are some of the organizations who donated money and volunteered their time.
To donate, go to St. Baldrick’s website or call (888) 899-2253.
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ESPN writer Kate Fagan shares inspiration for ‘What Made Maddy Run’
by Kerry Ryan
OSWEGO, N.Y. — On Tuesday, October 10th, the Sheldon Hall Ballroom was filled with members of the oswego community; all waiting to listen to ‘I Am Oz’ speaker and ESPN writer, Kate Fagan. Fagan shared her stories of coming out as a gay woman, working for ESPN, and her inspiration to write the book What Made Maddy Run?. What Made Maddy Run? is the story of University of Pennsylvania freshman track star Madison Holleran, who died by suicide at the age of 19 years old after secretly struggling with anxiety and depression.
Fagan originally wrote Holleran’s story as a piece for ESPN. After receiving numerous emails written by high school and college students, as well as their parents, Fagan said she knew that she needed to dig deeper into the story.
“I realized that we had really only touched on a certain piece of the story in the magazine piece and that there were other roads to travel down to make the story more fleashed out for the rest of the college students and young people who saw themselves in her,” Fagan said.
This isn’t Fagan’s first non-fiction story, however. The Former WNBA player previously released a book retelling the story of her own struggles. The Reappearing Act: Coming Out as Gay on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians explains the background of Fagan’s difficulty with her identity and how it would affect her and those around her.
What Made Maddy Run? was an instant New York Times best-seller. This is a first for Fagan, who said she has always wanted to be a writer.
“Basketball was like the pursuit,” Fagan said. “I guess I’ll be a writer when I’m done. And so when i was done playing basketball, that’s when I moved the writing to the front burner.”
Fagan said her next goal is to get some of her fictional work published. She said that, unlike non-fiction, there’s a different way of storytelling in fiction and it allows writers to have more creative freedom.
What Made Maddy Run? by Kate Fagan is available online and in bookstores now.
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Tyler Hall Take Two
Madison Doner, WTOP10-TV
OSWEGO, NY- Thursday October 27, 2016 kicked off a week of celebration for the newly renovated Tyler Hall beginning with the 12th Annual Lewis B O’Donnell Media Summit.
The first phase of the renovations took two-years and cost $22.2 million. Some of the renovations include state-of-the-art performance, rehearsal, recording and gallery spaces.
According to SUNY Oswego’s website, “Tyler Hall is such a public building. It’s where the college really gets to shine and show off its performing arts as well as its visual arts,” said Julie Pretzat, Dean of the School of Communication, Media and the Arts.
Tyler Hall held a Take Two debut open house on Friday, October 28. They welcomed members of the Oswego community, students, faculty, and alumni at their red carpet event.
Sophomore Communications student, Kelly Smith said “From the outside you would never assume that the inside was so beautiful. The art gallery may be the best part.”
The current exhibition is named ‘Restart’, which is meant to address the concept of new beginnings and fresh starts. The Art Gallery is open Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This years Media Summit was also held in the newly renovated Waterman Theatre. The new space has a capacity of 450 people with accessibility for those with disabilities.
The current performance to celebrate the grand reopening this past weekend is conducted by SUNY Oswego Theatre and Music departments creating a contemporary twist on the classic musical “The Wizard of Oz”.
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Student Association Update: March 15th
The Student Association held its eighth meeting of the Senate for this semester on Tuesday evening. Following the meeting being called to order and quorum being satisfied, the meeting began swiftly. The meeting and agenda minutes were approved allowing the meeting to move to it’s first order of business, guests to the Senate.
The first guest to the Senate for the evening was the student organization Two and a Half. They have existed for nine years on campus and their main goal is to combat and raise awareness about sexual violence and assault. Two and a Half will be hosting their “Raise Your Voice” event, which has been taking place annually for the past nine years. The event will be taking place at the end of April corresponding with Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Although the organization does have funds in their budget, and they have paired up with SAPB, they requested funding to help with the costs for the rest of the event. Two senators offered to write the bill which will be voted and presented at a later meeting this semester.
The discussion of Broad Based Fees which include fees for health, technology and athletics, were presented so students were fully aware as to where their money was going. The Broad Based Fee for this upcoming school year will be $25, split three ways to cover the health, technology and athletics fee. The health fee includes everything from counseling services offered on campus, to the clinic/nurses office at Mary Walker. This fee in particular also allows the lifestyles center within Mary Walker to operate. This fee allows things such as toilet talk, open mic night, student health surveys and condom deals on Wednesdays to exist. The technology fee is also essential to campus because of the prominent presence of technology in students’ daily lives. They are looking to increase the technology fee, but that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be any additional benefits that comes along with the increase. The increased technology fee would allow SUNY Oswego to increase network bandwidth and add close a million wireless access points around campus. The technology fee is put in place to ensure that all students have the best access to internet and assistance at all times. Finally, the athletics fee is also expected to increase. Since SUNY Oswego has had the second highest number of teams in the conference for the year, there is a greater need to help fund/support the various sports teams on campus.
The meeting moved smoothly onto executive reports seeing as there were was no one for public comment. Student Association President Emily Nassir was the first to give her executive report. There were no new updates on OzFest, however Nassir has been very busy with meetings to get the SA Food Pantry up and running. Nassir has attended several meetings and has another one coming up to discuss the plans and budget for the pantry. Nassir also stated that SA is currently in the process of working on the new contract with Centro, the bus that allows students to travel from one side of campus to the other as well as from campus to in town and vice versa. Nassir will continue to update students and senators and new information arises.
Shelby Gallaro, SA Vice President was next to deliver her short and sweet executive report. Gallaro revealed that over 900 students voted in the elections on Monday and Tuesday. The election included the voting on the referendum to determine if the student registration fee should be mandatory or not, as well as the election of the new offices for President and Vice President of SA. Matthew Peters shortly followed Gallaro in executive reports, in which he informed senators he started to go through budget requests for the clubs and organizations. There will be more meetings throughout the week to work on and approve the budgets. So far, the process has been a success.
Committee Reports was the next order on the agenda for the evening. Rules and Judiciary revealed that they will now be meeting bi-weekly for the duration of the semester. Finance Committee did not meet this week, however they will meet next week with the several clubs and organizations whose budgets need to be written in order to be proposed and voted on. The Involvement Committee closed out committee reports by revealing that they are currently working on the “Miss-A-Meal” project for the end of the semester.
Hall Council reports were delivered after committee reports, there were however fewer reports. Johnson Hall has reviewed and made changes to their constitution which will then be put to a new vote to see if it passes or not.
The short and sweet hall council reports led to the adjournment of the meeting seeing as there we no general, nor special orders for the evening. The Student Association meets every Tuesday in Lanigan 106, at 6pm. The Senate meetings are all open to the public and students are encouraged to attend these meetings to voice their opinions and express their concerns.
