Game Programming

Level up!

Meet the Mount’s new Game Programming major

Video games are an integral part of pop culture. From mobile and PC apps such as Candy Crush and Genshin Impact, to popular franchises such as Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. and Pokémon, video games have become accessible to a wider variety of audiences by constantly evolving and adapting with the introduction of new technologies.

In response, the Division of Mathematics and Information Technology recently added Game Programming to the college’s list of majors. With game programmers in high demand, the Mount is committed to teaching the next generation how to use emerging digital media and programming technologies within the game development industry, and within diverse settings and populations that also use these state-of-the-art technologies.

Game Programming majors won’t just dig deeper into the games they enjoy. They’ll take an interdisciplinary approach by gaining artistic, communication, mathematical, and computational skills that will help them understand what makes games fun.

These skills can be used for more than just making their own games. The computer programming principles they will demonstrate are the same ones that drive the websites, mobile apps, and desktop applications we use every day.

Micah Modell, assistant professor of Information Tech-

nology, explained, “People have played games…because they engage so many aspects of who and what we are: they give us problems to solve; they allow us to exercise and display our skill; they can lend form and structure to our relationships with our communities; and more.”

New science concentrations

The Mount has also recently added several new concentrations and made some changes within the Division of Natural Sciences. Beginning in Fall 2022, students enrolled in the Natural Sciences will now receive a degree in Bachelor of Science (BS) as opposed to a degree in Bachelor of Arts (BA), to better reflect the scientific nature of these programs.

Additionally, students will have the opportunity to choose a concentration within the Biology major. The Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) concentration will allow students to focus on the molecular side of the biology field; the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) concentration will provide a focus on the ecological and evolutionary side of biology; and the General Biology concentration will allow students to choose the courses that best fit their interests in the field of biology.

MBA program offers new online option

In January 2023, the School of Business will introduce a fully online option for the standalone MBA and 5-year undergraduate to MBA programs with majors in Business, Biology, Chemistry, English, and Mathematics. Participants in the 5-year program will be able to complete their undergraduate course work in-person before they have the option to complete the MBA portion online.

News&Notes

The cast and crew of Hope Stories hosted a special Saturday evening performance of the play for more than a dozen Dominican Sisters of Hope.

‘Hope Stories’ - what it means to be a Dominican Sister

They say life imitates art.

For the Mount’s theatre group, art imitated life with Hope Stories, an original play based on a longrunning interview project documenting the history of the Dominican Sisters of Hope.

James Phillips, associate professor of Theatre, and Rebecca Ferretti ’16 sought to honor the legacy of the sisters by interviewing members of the Dominican order. The Mount owes much to the vision and hard work of the Dominican Sisters, who founded the college in 1959.

The interviews illuminate each sister’s history, with questions related to why she joined the order, what she accomplished during her assignments, and how she benefitted from a life as a Dominican.

Written by playwright Jessica Kahkoska, Hope Stories reshaped many of these interviews to create a powerful, authentic script celebrating the legacy of the Dominican Sisters of Hope.

More than a dozen Dominican Sisters attended the final performance of Hope Stories and enjoyed a reception in their honor afterwards.

A performance of faith

When Sr. Nancy Murray, OP took to the stage in Whittaker Hall earlier this year, it was an encore a decade in the making.

Ten years ago, Sr. Murray performed her one-woman show, The Life of Catherine of Siena: A Woman for Our Times, at the Mount. Students, employees, and the public attended, as did members of the Dominican Sisters of Hope, the order that founded the college.

With some familiar and some new faces, the Mount audience was once again moved by Sr. Murray’s portrayal of St. Catherine of Siena’s colorful, passionate, and enthusiastic work in spreading her love of Jesus Christ.

Acting runs in her family: Sr. Murray, a member of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, is actor Bill Murray’s sister.

Born Caterina Benincasa, St. Catherine was the 24th child in her family in Siena, Italy, in 1347. She later became a lay member of the Dominican Order. St. Catherine was born on March 25, making 2022 her 675th birthday, Sr. Murray noted.

Celebrating Holocaust survivors in song

We Remember: Songs of Survivors, a documentary celebrating the lives of Holocaust survivors and featuring concert footage filmed at the Mount, aired on PBS in the spring.

The hour-long special follows four talented singer-songwriters who work for the community arts organization SageArts in the Hudson Valley. Through a program offered by Jewish Family Service of Orange County, they visit local Holocaust survivors to create original songs based on their conversations. The film documents the relationships and songwriting process, culminating in the live concert.

Sharing stories of success

Inspiring alumnae and other local leaders discussed their experiences as women in the workplace at two recent panel discussions.

First, the college’s Latino Student Union (LSU) brought together five women of color to discuss their struggles and successes at the Influential Latinas Panel.

Sharing their expertise with the Mount community were Genesis Ramos, executive director of the Desmond Center for Community Engagement and Wellness and Orange County Legislator (District 6); Susana Alba, former Dean of admissions at the Mount; Giselle Martinez ’20, a Newburgh City Councilwoman (Ward 1); Tiba Araujo, author and on-air personality on CNN’s NotiMuhjer; and Lenora Liz ’12 MBA ’17, Deputy City Treasurer, Middletown, N.Y. Mayor’s Office.

The panel was moderated by LSU president Victoria Veloz-Vicioso, a Mount Business major with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Digital Media Production. She also serves as secretary of the Mount’s Student Business Association.

Later in the semester, three highlysuccessful alumnae returned to their alma mater to share their business experience with the next generation of students. The Women’s Leadership Forum, hosted by the college’s Alumni Office, featured a panel discussion with Crystal Bhagwandeen Johnson ’06 ’13 MBA ’09, assistant vice president and assistant controller with Walden Savings Bank; Jillian Torre ’14, group marketing manager at Money-Media, Financial Times; and Shannon Morris Zawiski ’06, chief operating officer at Independent Living.

The three discussed how they followed in the footsteps of the Dominican Sisters – the women who founded the Mount – and made their mark with service, hard work, and a commitment to their community.

The forum was moderated by Nikki Khurana-Baugh, vice president for Advancement, and kicked off with an introduction by Sr. Catherine Walsh, OP, a Dominican Sister and former Mount professor of Communications.

From left: Crystal Bhagwandeen Johnson ’06 ’13 MBA ’09; Jillian Torre ’14; and Shannon Morris Zawiski ’06 at the Women’s Leadership Forum.

Top photo, from left: Tiba Araujo, Susana Alba, Leonora Liz ’12 MBA’17, and Genesis Ramos at the Influential Latinas Panel.

Ramos receives Forty Under 40 award

Genesis Ramos, executive director of the Desmond Center for Community Engagement and Wellness, and a member of the Orange County Legislature (District 6), recently earned a Forty Under 40 Mover and Shaker Award from the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce. Ramos oversees staffing, program development, and community outreach for the college’s Desmond Center. A lifelong resident of Newburgh and a first-generation daughter of Honduran immigrants, Ramos was also recently elected as the first woman of color in the Orange County Legislature.

News&Notes

Mount alumnus Jay Paige presented “Pitfalls of Startups and How to Overcome Them” during Techstars Weekend on campus.

Bright ideas flourish at Techstars

The Mount recently hosted Techstars Startup Weekend Newburgh, where nearly 30 young entrepreneurs cultivated their ideas for new, unique businesses.

Students from the Mount and Newburgh Free Academy (NFA) formed teams, developed their business ideas, and gave their pitches to the judges, all in a span of about 50 hours. Teams also had the opportunity to attend helpful workshops over the course of the weekend, hosted by more than a dozen local business leaders.

Jorden Hidalgo, a junior at NFA, was awarded $250 and a business bank account to help seed his idea. He pitched a mobile shower – a bus converted to have shower stalls – that could be utilized at festivals such as Burning Man. When it is not being used for events, Hidalgo would provide free showers to people who are experiencing homelessness.

Techstars Startup Weekend Newburgh was co-coordinated at the Mount by Micah Modell, assistant professor of Information Technology; Sagar Raina, assistant professor of Information Technology; Lee Fothergill, professor of Mathematics; A. Reza Hossain, professor of Economics and chair of the School of Business; Ellen Bourhis Nolan, former director of the Mount’s Career Center; Robin Rosenberg, Mount career counselor; Nikki Khurana-Baugh, vice president for Advancement; and many others.

The event was sponsored by Wallkill Valley Federal Savings and Loan, Get Right Results, Beer World, and Focused Wealth Management.

Attendees included students from Mount Saint Mary College and Newburgh Free Academy.

In pursuit of universal justice

More than a dozen members of the Mount community made presentations at the Dominican Higher Education Colloquium, held virtually over the summer.

The colloquium was coordinated by the Dominican Higher Education Council. The theme of this year’s event was “Weaving a Tapestry of Universal Justice.”

“This is the highest number of participants that the Mount has had, and it is a tangible sign of how the Dominican charism is vibrantly expressed and experienced within our campus community,” said Charles Zola, assistant to the President for Mission Integration, director of the Mount’s Catholic and Dominican Institute, and associate professor of Philosophy.

Zola arranged for the colloquium to be screened on the Mount campus for the college’s faculty and staff members. At the conclusion of the presentations, Mount participants discussed the day’s topics over dinner on campus.

The Mount community presented a variety of topics including, “Non-Catholic Students in Catholic Colleges,” “Serving with Compassion: Integrating Awareness and Social Justice Through Service in a School of Nursing,” and “Speech as a Dominican Spiritual Charism,” among others.

Zola noted that the colloquium was “a great opportunity to not only learn how the Dominican charism is expressed at MSMC, but also to learn what our sister Dominican schools are doing. It gives participants the chance to interact with others who are committed to the Dominican pillars of service, study, spirituality, and community, and exchange ideas about how we can best implement them in our campus culture.”

1929-2022: The legacy of James Finn Cotter

Poet, author, and professor James Finn Cotter, the longestserving faculty member the Mount has ever known, passed away on January 8, 2022. He was 92 years old.

Family, friends, coworkers, and former students recently gathered in the Chapel of the Most Holy Rosary to celebrate his life and achievements.

“Jim Cotter was a good man,” said Dr. Jason N. Adsit, Mount president. “He loved his family, he loved his students, he loved his colleagues, and he loved pursuing new knowledge for its own sake. He will be deeply missed, but never forgotten.”

While his colleagues remembered Cotter for his academic triumphs, his children – Anne, Jim, and John – also knew him as a dedicated father.

“He was an educator, a scholar, a writer, a poet, a lover of art and nature, a devout Catholic, and a devoted friend and family man,” stated Anne. Added John, “He taught through examples, and he lived a life that was an example to all of us on a life well lived.”

For nearly 60 years, Cotter shared his knowledge and talent with the Mount campus. A distinguished author and educator, his commitment to the growth of the college and its students was unwavering. He impacted the lives of thousands of students before his retirement in the summer of 2020.

When he wasn’t teaching or aiding with administrative tasks for the college, Cotter delved into his own scholarly work. He was a celebrated translator of Dante’s Commedia, which he began writing on the backs of envelopes and scrap papers early one Christmas morning in the 1980s before his children woke up. Among a great many other publications, Cotter authored Beginnings: The First Twenty-Five Years of Mount Saint Mary College and A New Life: Learning the Way of Omega.

A few years ago, while seated in the campus library named in his honor, Cotter was recorded reading some of his poetry. He ended the session with his poem “The Day I Die.” It reads, in part: “The day I die can be part of a journey, into the bright, starry, heavenly harmony of this great galaxy: another odyssey across an unknown sea. The day I die shall be the moment of unity, when my humanity and His divinity meet at last, lovingly, to end my short story in unending glory.”

Hiking the Hudson Valley

Students, faculty, and staff got back to nature with educational hikes at Storm King Mountain, Black Creek Preserve, and more with the Knight’s Outdoor Pursuits and Education Program (KOPE) led by Douglas Robinson Jr., associate professor of Biology.

Alumna named AVP of Enrollment Management

Kimberly A. Strano, a Mount alumna, returned to campus this summer as the college’s new assistant vice president of Enrollment Management.

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to return to my roots,” said Strano. The Mount “has always held a special place in my heart…This is truly a place where students are not only challenged, but are guided by a community who is dedicated to the education of the whole student.”

Strano brings a wealth of admissions experience, strategic vision, and first-hand knowledge of the Mount to the position.

She comes to the Mount from SUNY New Paltz, where she had been immersed in admissions since 1999. Most recently at New Paltz, Strano served as associate dean of Undergraduate Admission and director of Freshman Admission. In this role, Strano was responsible for the leadership and management of Admissions and Financial Aid, as well as overseeing the college’s recruitment plans to attract qualified and diverse students.

Strano started her career in college admissions right here at the Mount in 1994, the same year she graduated from the college with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Secondary Education.