My first class at SUNY Oswego began on a Monday at 8 a.m.: Woods with Don Feck. I did not know it then, but this was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with an amazing mentor. Because of my previous experiences and a real love for woodworking, Mr. Feck singled me out for special projects,
Geodesic Dome If you have visited campus in the past 10 years you might have walked past this silver “jungle gym” and wondered: What is it? Where did it come from? And, why it is here? The official name of this type of structure is a geodesic dome; it was made famous by 20th-century inventor
Dr. Marilynn Smiley Some people really know how to make the most of their retirements. Marilynn Smiley is one of those people. When she retired in 2014 after 53 years in the Music Department, she was finally able to spend more time on her research projects, community service and traveling. As president of the Oswego
The Accidental Painter—History Alumnus Turned Artist By Ron Throop ’90 I wish I could say otherwise, but my path to Oswego State came comically by chance. I remember back in high school sitting in a circle of prospective students while an Oswego Admissions rep asked each of us our intended major of study. Practically everyone picked
As you get older you remember certain “red letter” days. One of those, for me, came in the summer of 1971 when I spotted a name in the Oswego course catalog: Campbell Black, a novelist who was teaching fiction in the English Department’s new writing program. That day was, as the cliché has it, the
When I came to SUNY Oswego as a student on that snowy 1978 January day, I could not have imagined that my future, family, home and career would all be here on the shores of Lake Ontario. After all, I was from Wantagh [Long Island] with a certain order to my universe. The expectation was
Was it standing together on the shores of Lake Ontario, holding hands, watching the melting crayon sunsets at night? Was it those long walks around campus holding each other up when caught in a wind tunnel? Was it the onslaught of horizontal snow that pelted our faces as we braved the brutal winters that bonded
By Markisan Naso ’97 I spent my first year of college at SUNY Stony Brook studying archaeology, and it was a complete and utter failure. In a few short months I learned that my dream of becoming an archaeologist (or more accurately, becoming the next Indiana Jones), required a lot less punching and a lot
by Ermine Calandra Cunningham ’73 I was trying to lie low in my dorm room after the raucous lunchtime incident. There was nobody I could talk to about it, either; the other girls spoke little English, and my Spanish wasn’t good enough yet to describe what had happened. It was Friday afternoon and classes were
I’m from a family of SUNY Oswego graduates; father, sister, two brothers and a cousin. I entered Oswego as a junior in the Public Justice program in the fall of 1979. My schedule included Public Justice 301 with Dr. Norman Weiner in one of the large lecture rooms at Lanigan Hall. I had never been