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For my Design and Production class, myself and the other ceramic students in the class worked with a local restaurant, A Tavola, to design dinnerware, decoration and other custom items for the restaurant. My project was candle holders, which are made up of stacking sections to create landscapes (anyone familiar with New Paltz will recognize the Mohonk Tower), and translucent porcelain to create that nice glow. We had an event to unveil our work, and while this was possibly my most exhausting class, it was super rewarding.
Inspired by local landscapes, the glow of candlelight, and the warm atmosphere of A Tavola Trattoria, Skyscapes are truly a product of New Paltz, New York. The silhouette of the Shawangunk Mountains can be seen behind fields and trees, above the village skyline, or can be exchanged with landmarks like the Mohonk Mountain House. Interchangeable sets allow for a playful variety while maintaining unity among multiple table settings. Translucent porcelain pairs with earthy reds and browns for a low luminosity that will help bring warmth to the table.
Hello, all 11 of you! I’ve been off the map, and I apologize, it’s been a crazy semester. There’s too much to say about the events that have occurred since I last posted, so I’ll summarize with a list:
New Paltz Theatre Department alum Alex Eisen’s play, The Dark I Know, was very well received as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival, and had over half of its company come from the New Paltz program
An overwhelming amount of our current students and recent alumni worked on TDIK, Shrek and/or Spamalot somewhere in at one or two of various theaters.
McKenna theatre flooded, and we saved it, like the bosses we are.
In just a month, we put together a production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, to be performed for a 3-week run.
Half of the cast of The Tempest was sick or injured at any given time, and we still put on a great show.
Tempest was also plagued with a fire drill and a dangerously open smoke shaft during rain, after much bureaucratic tribulation on the part of UPD and the New Paltz Fire Department, but we recovered from both.
Spelling Bee and Tempest both put an understudy on stage last-minute/without an understudy performance scheduled in place of another actor, for the first time since most of us can remember, and they both did fantastic jobs!
Spirit, our Blackbox, garnered tons of attention from ACTF alongside our main stage productions.
We held extremely successful workshops with Ted Pugh, Andrea Kron, Bob Etter, AJ Jacobs, local middle schoolers and more!
We dedicated Alumni Weekend to recently retired professor emeritusJoseph Paparone, who is a god among men and who basically designed everything good about our theatre program here at New Paltz.
Our 24-Hour Theatre production for the Fall 2013 semester, Sitcom’d, was a hit, and got a fantastic write-up in our school’s paper.
Fresh Act had its first full house in ages, which reveals the growing support in the faculty and student body for student theatre.
The department went on back-to-back field trips to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot, and the Mark Rylance double-header of Twelfth Night and Richard III.
We put up almost all of our scheduled performance finals, in spite of hazardous, snowy conditions during finals week and the weekend prior.
We said goodbye to six esteemed and influential Theatre Majors as they graduated from our program: Jade Asta Quinn (Shakespeare nerd, techie extroardinaire and beloved actress of the student theatre circuit), Christine Vuolo (award-winning Blackbox director, Honors student, former Fresh Act producer and one of the few Theatre students to come through the program with a 4.0 in all their theatre classes), Jonathan Buckmaster (popular and acclaimed costume designer responsible for things like this and this (co-designed with Andrew Wittkamper)), Nick Ligon (skilled lighting designer and technician who will hopefully have photos of work up online that I can refer you to), Kat Gonzalez (ACTF-nominated actress, Elmo impersonator and bubbly personality extraordinaire) and Davi Haber (another student theatre vet, as well as a beloved performer and speech class TA)
I will try to keep you all updated in a more timely manner about these things as they occur in the future!
Moving forward in these next few weeks, this blog’s probably going to be reblogging a lot. “Why,” you may ask, “would you do a thing like that?” Well, good readers, it happens that I am running yet another blog *gasp* about my experience in SUNY New Paltz’s London Theatre Seminar program *double gasp*! So if you want to see that, keep reading! If you can’t wait for reblogs, then follow it directly! And if England repulses you, come on back at the end of January for more ‘murican, New Yawk, New Paltz theatre news!
By Peter D.G. Brown, Distinguished Service Professor of German Emeritus at the State University of New York at New Paltz and president of the New Paltz chapter of United University Professions.
Inside Higher Ed:
Take the State University of New York, for example. Its top academic officer, David Lavallee, recently stepped down from his position as executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost. Lavallee is currently on a six-month “study leave” while continuing to receive his full salary of $316,000 per year. Despite repeated Freedom of Information Law requests, SUNY has been unable to produce a single document detailing the purpose of this “study leave.”
Lavallee, age 66, will return next spring to his former campus at SUNY New Paltz and receive ten-twelfths of the $199,000 salary he had previously received when he was provost at that college. As the second-highest-paid employee on campus, Lavallee won’t be working either as a teacher or as an administrator. Instead, he’ll be conducting a few leadership workshops, mentoring one lecturer and “building candidate lists for senior leadership positions.” This is one example of the extremely generous packages that many senior system administrators arrange to take with them when they return to their home campuses.
As Linda tells me, Mike and Jason were employees of Bacchus and local musicians who were avid homebrewers who would always bring in their beer for the rest of the staff to try. Always impressed by their creations and their passion for brewing, Bacchus decided to invest in the equipment for the guys to go pro and officially make some beer for the bar. Tucked back in the kitchen, the equipment was installed both in the kitchen itself and in an old walk-in, which also serves as a defacto barrel room, while other areas of the unique building from the late 1800s are built out.
While I won’t reveal exactly what’s in the barrels, I can tell you that there is at least one barrel from nearby Gardiner’s renowned Tuthilltown Spirits, which was originally a rye barrel, that was given to a maple syrup maker after the whiskey was removed, which was then given back to Tuthilltown, who put rye back into it, and then released the result as the limited edition Maple Rye. After THAT whiskey was removed, then the guys from Bacchus got to fill it with beer, and then taste it on a regular basis until it’s ready for release. The guys also have several barrels from Whitecliff Vineyards and Winery that they also have some very cool plans for.
Mike and Jason have already built quite the local buzz with their beer, with their brews selling out completely in about 2 days after they are tapped, about double the rate their most popular draft selections take to kick. While they find it great that people are loving it so much, it’s a catch 22, that more people aren’t able to get some, which is obviously a great problem to have. Some of the styles they’ve got in the portfolio are an IPA, stout, Belgian style ale and their Ad Infinitum Double IPA that has a different blend of hops in each batch.
Keep an eye on their Facebook page and Twitter feed, and of course, the Drink HV feeds and site to find out when the next Bacchus beers will be popping up. And we won’t even mention the farm brewery now…
Conflict waiver granted to IDA attorney on Park Point PILOT
By Roberto LoBianco
A $56 million, 732-bed housing complex would fulfill what SUNY New Paltz college administrators have identified as a “critical need:" housing for commuter and transfer students. According to the college, New Paltz has one of the lowest rates of housing availability among SUNY schools.
But much of residents’ ire regarding the project has stemmed from Wilmorite applying for a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT). The company partnered with New Paltz's non-profit foundation to construct the complex.
The Ulster County Industrial Development Agency (IDA), a six-member board appointed by the county legislature, revised its rules in September 2012 to allow dormitory projects, like Wilmorite’s Park Point, to qualify for the PILOT tax exemption program. The changes were made, “to mirror what IDAs are doing state wide,” according to Steve Perfit, the board’s treasurer.
Six months earlier, at the board’s March 14, 2012 meeting, Joseph Scott, the IDA’s attorney, requested a “Waiver of Conflict of Interest” in order to continue to act as counsel in the IDA’s future dealings with Wilmorite.
In its PILOT application, Wilmorite is proposing to pay $5.2 million to the town, school district and county over a period of 25 years. That amounts to a savings of about $32 million over what if would owe if fully taxed.
In a phone interview, Scott said that he requested the waiver because there was “informal discussion” that “a potential project in New Paltz was going to approach the IDA.”
“We now know, through some of the due diligence that he has done on behalf of the lender, that the IDA may be involved on the straight-lease side of the transaction,” said O’Halloran, according to meeting minutes, referring to a partner at Scott’s law firm, Hodgson Russ LLP.
Hodgson Russ, which represents over 20 IDA boards in New York State, was "looking at representing the lender” that might help Wilmorite finance the construction of Park Point, according to then board chair person David O'Halloran.
“There is a technical business conflict in that situation,” said O’Halloran.
Scott said that because “both the bank and the IDA are adverse to the [Wilmorite]” he was confident that the waiver should have been granted.
“The financing is wholly separate and distinct from the IDA transaction,” said Scott.
The board voted to grant the waiver on March 14, but Perfit voted against it. “In [my] business, even if there is a perceived conflict by the individual, [it’s my] opinion that they should step aside,” said Perfit, according to the board’s meeting minutes.
In a phone interview Perfit said he no longer believes there’s a conflict in having Scott represent the IDA on Wilmorite’s application.
“It’s a very large law firm and after Joe explained to me that they were dealing with the Buffalo office, I was alright with it,” said Perfit.
Scott, who works out of the Hodgson Russ office in Albany, said the firm has over 200 attorneys.
“Whenever there's at a minimum an appearance of a conflict, I always review these with my client early rather than later,” said Scott.
The IDA formally received Wilmorite’s application at its Feb. 13, 2013 meeting: “Today Wilmorite is on the schedule for a presentation. For the first time, these members, members of the IDA board will hear about a project called Park Point,” said O’Halloran.
The board's next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 11 at 8 a.m. in Kingston and the Park Point PILOT is on the agenda.
Ulster County Industrial Development Agency - March 14, 2012 minutes by NewPaltzCurrent
by Jordan Taylor and Luana Horry | New Paltz Oracle
New Paltz students speak out about the current state of racial injustice at SUNY - Photo by Roberto LoBianco
We, the Black People of SUNY New Paltz and those in solidarity with us, are disgusted, outraged and deeply disturbed by the constant disrespect we encounter on this campus. We say people because this issue is not just upsetting to the students, but to the faculty and the administrative staff as well. Prior incidents, such as the “Colored Only” sign which was posted over one of the water fountains in Humanities, along with the paper cut in the shape of a hand giving the inappropriate middle finger gesture which read “Lynch the Niggers November 10th at 7:30pm Main Lounge” posted in Lefevre Hall, are still very fresh in our minds.
In addition, we had someone deface the Shango Parking Lot sign and change it to “Django Parking,” which is disrespectful to the history of Shango Hall and what it means, not only to the college, but to the Black community as a whole. As a community, we are continuously dealing with the manifestation of white supremacy and ignorance. This can be seen in its latest form, “Emmett Till Deserved to Die,” which by the way, once erased, was replaced with something along the lines of “Don’t Erase the Truth.”
The Administration has many times in the past referred to these events (and the heterosexist signs that promoted Queerphobia) as “isolated incidents.”
These are not isolated incidents. These are the physical manifestations of racism on this campus, which does not always surface itself into something tangible but is always present.
It is present in the ignorance of our white peers who ask us to rap for them, dance for them, ask our opinion on their shoes, assume Africa is a country and/or are surprised that there are cities similar to New York across the continent and say the N-word around us, putting us in the awkward situation of letting them slide, not because we are actually cool with it, but because we do not want to take the time out of the day to explain to them the problem and cause friction between us.
It is present not only in the mis-racing of the alleged sexual abuser on Plattekill as a Black male a few weeks back, but also releasing his race in the first place. This is not to condone the alleged actions of the student; anyone who sexually abuses anyone deserves to rot in prison and must find mental help so that they do not offend again. We just want to know what purpose does releasing his racial identity serve if he is detained?
If the campus was really in need of a description of the accused, why not go into his height, facial features, etc.? Was this done to paint an image of fear, encouraging demonizing the Black male presence on this campus? The same demonization that led to the murder of Trayvon Martin?
Plattekill Reclaimed: SUNY students take on rape culture
By Emily Kennedy, third-year Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies major at SUNY New Paltz and member of New Paltz Survivors Support Group
I can walk down any street in New Paltz and feel completely safe — until the sun sets.
After it gets dark, I'm taught to walk in pairs (preferably with a man), with my keys in between my knuckles, to have 9-1-1 dialed on my phone and above all, to walk with purpose. Some call this being safe, or self-defense — I call this rape culture.
When young girls are taught that they're targets and need to defend themselves, they quickly realize that this world is not safe for them. And, if you happen to be attacked, the first reactions you get are ones of doubt and criticism.
In October there was another reported sexual assault on Plattekill Avenue — the third sexual assault on that street in the last two years. Plattekill, practically devoid of street lights, is the most popular and most direct route for college students traveling from downtown New Paltz to the campus late at night. There’s been a 33% increase in sexual assaults and rapes over the past three years on this road alone.
I, along with other members of the New Paltz Survivors Support Group and concerned students, decided that we needed to take back our streets.
On Nov. 2, a group of over 20 students rallied together on the SUNY New Paltz campus. We held signs that read: “Consent isn’t sexy, it’s mandatory,” “Whose streets? Our Streets!” “Old Young Black White. All Survivors take back the night!” We marched through the campus, down Plattekill Avenue to Main Street and back to set up our rally. We even had several community members join our cause and march alongside us.
We stretched halfway down Plattekill Avenue, candles in our hands, chants echoing in our heads and resonating down the avenue: “When our safety is under attack, what do we do? STAND UP! FIGHT BACK!” “Cunt, bitch, dyke, whore, WE WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” And my personal favorite: “Hey rapists, go fuck yourselves!”
We marched not only to stand in solidarity with survivors, but also to show the town that this is an issue that affects everyone who is kept silent for fear that they will be shamed. We marched for everyone who has ever been told that they were different, everyone who can’t walk alone at night without having an anxiety attack, everyone who suffers from PTSD, everyone who's afraid to go to the police or told they're ‘just overreacting.’
I came to New Paltz three years ago with the idea that this was a safe haven for all people — including those who society rejects as ‘unnatural’ or ‘different.' I quickly found out that this was not the case. Aside from the fact that it pledges diversity, New Paltz is just like everywhere else and only delivers an environment that is transphobic, racist, queerphobic, victim blaming and dangerous for everyone.
Rape culture isn’t just a concept in a textbook, it’s an epidemic. As for what you can do to help: realize that this is not an isolated incident — this happens everywhere, every day. This is a crime more likely to be committed by family members, acquaintances, friends, significant others or life partners than by strangers. Don’t be shocked. Get informed. Stand up. Fight back.
Homes lifted off their foundations as the remnants of human lives floated through the streets and a parking lot filled with piles and piles of what was once a community — this is the scene “Gasland” director Josh Fox recalled of Hurricane Sandy’s devastating descent into New York Harbor on Oct. 29, 2012.
Fox addressed nearly 500 people in the SUNY New Paltz Lecture Center (LC) 100 on the storm’s one-year anniversary Tuesday night. The crowded room included just as many students as it did residents from New Paltz and the surrounding area.
In Sandy’s wake, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointed to climate change as contributing to the super storm’s intensity. “But I think part of learning from this is the recognition that climate change is a reality, extreme weather is a reality, it is a reality that we are vulnerable,” said Cuomo just days after the storm.
But for Fox, a banjo-wielding documentary film maker from the upper Delaware River basin in Pennsylvania, Cuomo “breaking the climate silence” isn’t enough.
New York City has some of the best art in the whole world. From the Met to the smallest gallery, from ancient art to performance art happening as I write this, the city has been thoroughly blessed by the art gods. It would be easy to miss the world-class art lying just outside the city limits. But thank goodness for the internet and the Metro North commuter train, or some friends and I would never have discovered Dia:Beacon, located along the breathtaking Hudson River and nestled among the mountains of upstate New York. Dia:Beacon is just a 80 minute train ride from Grand Central Station, but it’s a world away the hustle of Midtown.
Author calls for fight to prevent extinction of the college prof
By Larry Sillanpa
"Obstreperous" isn't a word often associated with a teacher, much less a college professor. It more often would be used to describe a teacher's nightmare - a noisy student who's difficult to control.
But it was a word Benjamin Ginsberg of John Hopkins University used a number of times at his Sept. 26 presentation to University of Minnesota-Duluth faculty, members of the University Education Association/Education Minnesota, the joint American Federation of Teachers-NEA affiliate in Minnesota.
Ginsberg urges all university faculty to become obstreperous in dealing with their administrations. Author of 24 books on a wide range of subjects, Ginsberg's book, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters, led UEA to invite him to campus. His book explains a phenomenon they know too well.
"It's been with us for 40 years," said Steven Matthews, who leads the university's History Department and led the forum. "This is what we need to do - bring in speakers to talk about important issues. We need a free exchange of ideas or there is no university."
Ginsberg said universities were originally run by their faculties, who would take part-time or temporary jobs in administering their schools.
"Deans planned to go back to being faculty," he said. The joke was "don't do a good job or they'll promote you."
Today only a few universities are faculty driven, he said. Harvard and the University of Chicago are among them and are among the best institutions in America. So what happened?
A class of professional administrators started growing. Some were faculty who failed to gain tenure. Most had little faculty experience, Ginsberg said he found out in researching his book. "Now we have many administrators who never taught a student."
And the ratio of administration to faculty is exploding. Ginsberg found that nationally in 1965 there were 446,000 professors to 269,000 administrators and staff. By 2005 the number of professors had risen to 675,000, but administration numbers had leaped to 800,000. During that time the amount of money to pay professors had risen 128 percent, but administration costs rose 148 percent.
Tuition costs were forced to increase to fund administration, he said-and not to pay for the people who were actually teaching and doing the research that makes a university a university.
Ginsberg cited a 2012 research paper by Carter Hill and Robert Martin that found rising administration spending drove two-thirds of the increase in higher education costs in the past 20 years. Hill and Martin found that in terms of costs only there should be one administrator for every three faculty members, but in actuality it was two administrators to three faculty.
The recent recession produced some decline in administration numbers, Ginsberg said, but tight money has more often led to program and across-the-board cuts, harming the schools and their students.
Now faculty is seldom consulted on university matters, he adds.
"Senior administration is relatively autonomous," he said. "We find out (decisions) in the paper."
While numbers can point to the economic effects of administrative growth, the effect it has on the character and academic excellence of universities is even worse, Ginsberg stated.
Teaching and research is what a university should be about, he explained. All else, including buildings and extracurricular activities, is ancillary. But that is what administration uses to "bring customers to the store. They think they have to be customer-friendly and not scare prospective students and their families with such dreaded topics as calculus."
They don't know what to do
"Administration doesn't know what we do," Ginsberg said. "They think one visit to a class will inform them." He added the army of administrators sometimes does no harm "but they can be weapons of academic destruction."
Professional administrators learn from and mimic one another. That's why there is a concerted effort nationally to end the tenure system for university professors. As a result only 25 percent to 30 percent of faculty are tenure-tracked.
"Tenured faculty are the trouble makers, we don't do as we're told, we hold meetings like this one," Ginsberg deadpanned.
By contrast, non-tenured adjunct professors, who often must hold two or three such posts to earn enough income, need to work from administration's playbook in order to keep their jobs. Ginsberg drew applause when he asked, "If part-time is so good why don't we have part-time administration? Full-time faculty and adjunct administration...Without tenure there is no academic freedom...We're about not agreeing with everyone. We need to try ideas out."
Ginsberg said it is too late for the faculties at many universities that have been co-opted by administration, but not for the University of Minnesota-Duluth's UEA. He urged them to develop a consciousness about their importance to UMD and not buy into administration's appeals to their "moral sensibilities" - appeals often heard elsewhere.
Post-lecture questions implied that such skepticism may already be occurring at the Minnesota institution. The university's administration has suggested a faculty governance council, which sounds good, but nominees will be chosen by the deans without a real election. "The technical term is suck-ups," Ginsberg said.
Prioritization is another buzzword in administrators' echo chamber. Based on a book by Robert Dickeson, the university administration wants the faculty to buy into cutting their own throats, Ginsberg said. "I don't want to sound like a Fascist but you should hold a book burning party. Burn that damn book! It's turgid prose!"
"Be obstreperous," he told the faculty, "you'll prevail." That's because administrators have a short time horizon on a campus, and faculty unrest is a career killer for the corporate headhunters hired for administrative searches.
"If they can't keep the peace, they can't keep a job, so have faculty turmoil - be obstreperous," Ginsberg urged. "Oppose everything...be suspicious even if you agree."
He recommended the faculty establish their own committees to investigate and evaluate administration, to review budgets and conduct audits, and form their own personnel committees.
"Do your own opposition research," he said. "Dirt digging seems terrible...but it's important...one-third of administration tells fibs on their resumes."
In a lengthy q-&-a, Ginsberg said universities would be better run if the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which is aimed at financial accountability, were applied to rules for university governing boards and regents to make sure there are no conflicts of interest. "There are two kinds of trustees," Ginsberg said. "Those concerned with the business of the university and those who want to do business with the university."
The last questioner said it sounds like faculty has to act like administration if they are to be "obstreperous." "Yes, it's terrible," Ginsberg replied. "But we have to do these things if we don't want to give up governance of our universities."
The University Police Department (UPD) is investigating what SUNY New Paltz President Donald Christian called a "condemnable posting of racially offensive material in a campus residence hall" found on the evening of Friday, Oct. 18.
According to both University Police Chief David Dugatkin and Student Association (SA) Vice President of Academic Affairs Jordan Taylor, a student discovered the message “Emmett Till deserved to die” on a whiteboard in Dubois Hall. The student then took a picture and uploaded it to Facebook.
While Republicans currently hold a one-seat advantage in the Ulster County Legislature, incumbency, rather than party affiliation, seems to determine the winners and losers on this representative body.
The Daily Freeman reports that 10 incumbent Ulster County Legislators are running unopposed this November. That represents 45 percent of the 23-member body.
During the last set of elections for the county legislature in 2011, 18 of the 23 seats were won by incumbents with three of those races uncontested.
This year, Republicans and Democrats each failed to put forward candidates in five legislative districts to challenge incumbents.
Legislators are elected for two-year terms, but there are no limits on how many terms a member can serve.
Richard Gerentine of Marlborough is seeking a 13th straight term.
Jeanette Provenzano of Kingston is seeking a 12th consecutive term.
Peter Loughran of Kingston is seeking a 10th term on the Legislature.
In 2011, the legislature switched from electing 33 members from 12 multi-member districts to its current iteration of 23 single-member districts. The change resulted from a 2006 amendment to the Ulster County Charter.
For this print I focused on the idea of 'Identity.' When sketching out the idea for this piece it was really hard to try and figure out how to get all of who I am into one piece.
I tried to think of myself from an outsider's perspective. Too many times have I been referred to as “the bunny girl.”
Nibbler is a huge part of who I am and he is one of the most important beings to me. That is why I chose to surround him in a baroque style frame. I want the viewer to look at this piece and feel the same importance that I feel for Nibbler.
Using Photoshop, I separated the channels of a photograph of Nibbler and used our large format vellum printer to print out my transparencies.
I then used Illustrator to make a vector for the frame's details and again printed on vellum.
I printed the frame color first, followed by the backgroud color and finally the cyan, magenta, yellow and black layers. I finished off the piece with the frame detail.
Yo, any of my local people…you should TOTALLY come to Beets to Feed the World this weekend at Brook Farm. Tickets for students are $5 per day. It’s going to be totally awesome. Do it.
Hey New Paltz
If you remember a couple weeks ago, I proposed a pumpkin-anxiety smash event, and long story short it has been approved by the campus. Oct. 19 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
For my "Sculpture Situations" class we have to do a community/relational art piece, and this was my take.
Basically this is an event where you'll carve your anxieties/fear/or depressants into a pumpkin and after carving you get to smash and destroy the pumpkin as a way of conquering your anxieties/fears/depressants.
I'm going to get pumpkins, but seeing as I don't know how many I can get versus how many people plan on coming, this may be a "bring-your-own-Pumpkin" kinda deal.
If some people can stay to help clean up that'd be great, but it's not required.
