By Walker Snowden
OSWEGO, N.Y.– This past recruiting season the SUNY Oswego laker swim team has brought together athletes from around the globe to build its program. With athletes from the southern and western parts of the United States, as well as from countries in Europe, the diversity of this years team goes far beyond the line of New york.
Oswego Men’s Swim team member Daniel Rodriguez said the men’s team is very diverse this season. “There is a guy from Columbia, there is two kids from Florida, there is a guy from Connecticut, there is a guy from South Carolina, my roommate is from Malaysia, and i’m from Spain, so it’s a very diverse team, at least from the men’s side,” Rodriguez said.
Swim team members said diversity is held in a high regard among the team and it has helped them form strong bonds with each other.
Luis Perez recently joined the team after moving here from Columbia. “I really wanted to change the culture in which I was living. I wanted to experience new things, and what is better than here, almost Canada. Like so far from where I was. I chose Oswego because it is a very new experience for me,” Perez said.
For more information on Oswego’s swim team, visit oswegolakers.com.
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HD Update: One Week Later
What a difference a week makes! Everything is really coming along and we wouldn’t be able to do this without our talented installers. They have been working 12 hour days to make sure the studio is finished in time for our first broadcasts at the end of October.
Check out these pictures we got inside the studio:
V.P. of Productions, Ian Dwyer ‘17 shows off our new HD Ikegami cameras
Fresh out of it’s box, still covered in bubble wrap General Manager, Justin Dobrow ‘17 examines another one of our new HD Ikegami cameras
Speaking of boxes… is that floor we see? Where did all the boxes go? Look at all this progress!
Look at that beauty! Now out of its packaging, our new Ross Carbonite Switcher is sure to be a studio favorite!
The rack room is looking AWESOME. With all the progress that was made in just one week, we can’t wait to see what it looks like next week!
Look at all of these cables! With everything that has to be hooked up we are impressed by this seemingly small cluster that’s left.
From our popular Instagram story to this week’s blog- a handful of our members have frequent meetings with our installers. Not to mention the countless hours they are putting in to help out!
We are nearing the end folks! In just a couple of weeks our HD upgrade will be complete and we could not be more excited.
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Retired Le Moyne professor discusses “The Madame’s Business.”
OSWEGO, NY — Visiting retired professor Ann Callaghan Allen made an appearance on campus to educate students in a public lecture on one woman who broke the boundaries of gender expectations. The Gender and Womens’ Studies program director, Professor Joanna Goplen, served as the head of the event, and is hopeful that the message of appreciation for women in history resonates with SUNY Oswego students.
“I think it’s really helpful for students to see examples of women in history who have accomplished things and may not have gotten the credit that they were due,” Professor Goplen said. “The connection to the Oswego community, I think, is also interesting, so hopefully they’ll pull away some local history as well.”
“The Madame’s Business” follows the true story of Malvina Guimaraes, a businesswoman pressing against the conventional roles of women in society, and the subsequent inventor of the sewing machine. Professor Allen reflected on her research and admires Guimares’ bravery and perseverance.
“I know that people who grew up in Oswego or people who come here for school really aren’t exposed to the history of this city, it’s got a remarkable history, really,” Professor Allen said. “If people can be engaged in the life of Oswego in the nineteenth century, I feel as though I’ve accomplished something.”
Professor Allen’s book is available for purchase locally at Oswego’s River’s End Bookstore and online at riversendbookstore.com.
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National emergency declared in child and teen mental health – what this means for college students
Photo by MGN. In early October, a group of health professionals and psychiatric experts around the nation gathered enough data to declare a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.
This comes nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, and for young adults specifically in higher education, their mental health is also taking a toll.
“With the environment constantly changing, it’s kind of hard to reach stability in mental health,” Nicole Hillyard, a student at University at Buffalo said about her own struggles this year.
This includes SUNY Oswego students who have been feeling the effects of keeping up with mandates as the school resumes in-person activities.
“We’re so used to just having all these online classes, and not doing as much, and now we’re doing so much more,” Seth Nesbitt, a SUNY Oswego student said in regards to coming back in person. “I feel like a lot of my peers and I are having a hard time with the readjustments.”“I just needed to take this semester off to help fix my mental health”
KEAUNDREA HANDFORDA study called Healthy Minds Network found that last fall, college students in particular reported peak levels of depression and anxiety.
The study is led by four professors at different universities, and it details the rising trend over the last several years of mental health concerns, especially depression and anxiety, among college students.
Experts with the study reported that 47% of students screened positive for “clinically significant symptoms of depression, and/or anxiety,” which is the highest percentage since the trials began in 2007.
This data comes from the Healthy Minds Network website – it shows the percentage of students who have screened positive for depression and anxiety from 2007 to 2021. Graph created by reporter Melanie Higgins. “I have terrible anxiety attacks, like constantly, so I kinda knew that if I lived alone, especially two hours away, I would have to come home every day, and I knew that wouldn’t have worked,” Keaundrea Handford, a student at SUNY Brockport said about why she took this semester off. “I just needed to take this semester off to help fix my mental health.”
The Healthy Minds Network also studied that feeling of isolation, something Handford said she dreaded about going back to school.
In the study, they found that about 66% of students indicated feeling isolated from others sometimes or often, which experts said is a key risk factor in mental health.
At Wayne Behavioral Health, a mental health center located in Wayne County, representatives said most facilities no longer have enough staff to cover the rise in mental health concerns. However, the introduction of telehealth services during the pandemic helped them bring a new resource to patients in need.
“Because of the fact that a lot of insurance companies now kind of across the board are allowing telehealth, which is either by telephone or video conference,” Suzanne Catholdi, the communications liaison for Wayne Behavioral Health said. “A lot of people who weren’t seen before now have more accessibility.”
Mental health facilities all over the country have been struggling to keep up with the rise of these mental health concerns, and many have also been utilizing telehealth services as a result.
Catholdi said younger people and college students being seen at Wayne Behavioral are taking advantage of the virtual services now offered if they aren’t already using their on-campus college therapists.
However wait times across the board for many mental health facilities are becoming problematic for those in need. For Strong Hospital in Rochester, they said over the summer that wait times for those seeking therapy reached over one year.
“Our mental health therapists, they need to be able to be available and be on top of the needs, and we need to be supportive of our medical staff as well,” Catholdi said about facilities falling behind.
“They lost that, they lost those contacts, they lost that structure, a lot of kids were at home alone…”
SUZANNE CATHOLDI
She emphasized that staff all around are “suffering,” so It’s important to keep working through the pandemic and keep schools open as a resource for those struggling.“There were a lot of kids who were struggling already, that really needed that contact in the school with the teachers and professors,” Catholdi said while talking about the effects the shutdowns had on students.
“When there’s nothing for people to do, and no support in place, and a big question mark day-to-day about what they’re doing,” Catholdi added. “It was a big disaster waiting to happen.”
She said that students and adults “lost that structure,” and it led to a huge uptick in mental health concerns. Now therapy has become a big point of discussion.
“I did start therapy, and it actually helped quite a lot,” Nesbitt said.
But Nesbitt also said that despite these concerns being more publicly talked about, some students aren’t opening up enough.
“I would recommend that help to anyone,” Nesbitt explained, “Those who may be going through something, but even if you’re just alive, it’s good to just have that outlet.”
As things continue to open up, and people adjust to a normal life after two years shut down, those mental health concerns continue to be analyzed. The Healthy Minds Study is still in the process of gathering data during this time, and more colleges are being enrolled to help diversify the results.
