SEE PAGES 5 & 6 Thursday, September 17, 2015 | Vol. LXXXVIII, Issue 5 | Binghamton University | bupipedream.com
The Free Word on Campus Since 1946
SUNY debuts streamlined credit system Transfer Paths allows for seamless reassignment policy between campuses Haley Silverstein Staff Writer
Raquel Panitz/Pipe Dream Photographer Zachary Alexander, a junior double-majoring in accounting and business administration, talks to Talia Schwartz, a junior majoring in human development, and Gabrielle Alexander, a senior double-majoring in mathematics and business administration, who both tabled for Suicide Prevention Day. There were 1100 yellow flags planted on the Spine, representing the 1100 student suicides each year nationwide.
Service animals lend a guiding paw to their student companions From service dogs to emotional support animals, Services for Students with Disabilities sees increase in creatures on campus Gabriella Weick
Assistant News Editor Looking through crowds of students rushing to class, it is no longer a surprise to see a furry face in the mix. According to Jean Fairbairn, director of Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at Binghamton University, there has been an increase in the number of service animals and Emotional Support
Animals (ESA) on campus in recent years, with a total of 15 currently registered with the SSD. “Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals support equitable access, independence and health maintenance for the students who need them – and contribute in exciting ways to the rich diversity of our student population,” Fairbairn wrote in an email. “Having a service animal on campus
is a civil right under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990,” Fairbairn said. This includes guide dogs or miniature horses for students with vision or hearing impairment or students who have seizures or panic attacks, and these animals are allowed everywhere on campus. Emotional support animals (ESAs) are also welcome on campus for individuals whose disabilities make it extremely
difficult or impossible for them to live in their environment without such an accommodation. ESAs are usually restricted to residential halls only, but accommodations can be expanded, Fairbairn said. He added that there are certain precautions students must take when
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For students trying to switch between State University of New York (SUNY) schools, transferring credits will no longer be a complicated process. SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher has announced that the system now has the most comprehensive transfer policy in the nation, meaning SUNY students will be able to transfer all completed general requirements and major requirements to and from all SUNY campuses. Transfer Paths is a core curriculum for courses covering each major across SUNY campuses. The curriculum consists of general requirements and even major-specific courses to be completed in the first two years of study, and will allow any student with junior status to easily transfer to any SUNY institution. Nearly 900 SUNY faculty members participated in an online review of the Transfer Paths to determine the core courses for each discipline to transfer. The transfer policy was passed in
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Series of scam emails plague B-mail inboxes, putting information at risk To combat influx of phishing emails, Information Technology Services issues warnings to protect, secure student passwords Alana Epstein Staff Writer
Sophomore Jane Towery signed on to her Binghamton University Gmail account this summer only to see that emails were being sent out under her name and her own emails were being forwarded to another user. Earlier that week, Towery had fallen victim to a phishing scam. According to the website of Information Technology Services (ITS) at BU, phishing is a technique in which users are directed by an official-looking email to provide personal information under false pretenses. These phishing scams, which typically claim that the user’s mailbox has reached its full capacity, can cause the user’s B-mail account to become compromised. According to Towery, who is majoring in mechanical engineering, she received an email that told her she needed to give them her B-mail username and password so that her email wouldn’t be terminated. “The email looked official so I gave them my Pods login,” Towery said. “I realized a week later when friends contacted me asking why I was sending them suspicious emails that I had fallen for a scam.” ITS will never ask students for personal information via email, according to Erik Langert, a junior majoring in computer science and the senior Residential Consultant (ResCon) for Hinman. A
ResCon is a student technician who lives in the dorms, providing Internet and tech help for fellow students. “If they ever did need that information for some reason, they would make them give that information in person,” Langert wrote in an email. “If someone ever feels iffy about an email they got, tell them to email the department they got [it] from.” According to Towery, when she realized her email had been compromised, ITS told her to change her password and the settings on her B-mail so her emails would no longer be forwarded to the scammer. The ITS desk urges all people who responded to phishing scams to change the passwords on their accounts to a stronger password that is a minimum of eight characters. Students like Rebecca Wolf, a sophomore majoring in human development, said that she has learned the warning signs, as the phishing scam emails often have spelling errors that lead her to believe they aren’t legitimate. “Over the course of the summer, I got a lot of emails for users from Birmingham University,” Wolf said. “I knew this was weird and unusual, so I deleted the message. Some of the other messages looked more promising, but if they weren’t regarding my coursework or anything that seemed important to me, I simply
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Raquel Panitz/Pipe Dream Photographer Pictured: A Binghamton Police Department car. By this fall, the Binghamton Police Department will spend $116,000 for body cameras that officers will wear while on duty.
City of Binghamton police officers to wear body cams With execuive order, Mayor Rich David pushes for purchase of 90 chest cameras Travis Clines
Contributing Writer By early November, all Binghamton Police Department officers will be mandated to wear body cameras while on duty. The city of Binghamton will purchase 90 chest cameras from Taser International, an equipment manufacturing company which specializes in electronics. According to Jared Kraham, deputy mayor of Binghamton, the police department
will spend $116,000 to cover the first year of a five-year contract that will include the storage of the captured video. The body camera bill was introduced to the city council via executive action from Mayor Rich David. The council is set to approve the transfer of funds on September 23 and the next day the mayor plans to sign the legislation. The cameras will take about four weeks to arrive and will start off in a pilot program — with certain units of the police department — before expanding to all officers.
The policy and regulations for the cameras that officers will use is still in the works, but is in the final stages. According to Kraham, the cameras are part of the administration’s push for advances in safety. “This is the latest example of the mayor’s commitment to public safety and reducing crime in our community,” Kraham said. “It allows for increased transparency, increased trust and protects
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Poets and performers from countries around the world showcased in fourth annual festival Farsi poetry, Italian songs about Emily Dickinson amongst performances at University Downtown Center Zachary Wingate Pipe Dream News
Tali Schwartz/Contributing Photographer The Fourth Annual Binghamton International Poetry Festival, titled “Crossroads,” took place Saturday afternoon in the atrium of the University Downtown Center. Fifteen poets and musicians performed in a variety of languages and styles.
Poets from all around the world gathered in the atrium of the University Downtown Center to share their work and participate in “Crossroads: The Fourth Annual Binghamton International Poetry Festival,” which took place Saturday afternoon and featured 15 poets and musicians performing in a variety of languages and styles. Organizers including Italian professor Mario Moroni and Brian Trimboli, a Ph.D candidate studying English, put their contacts together to get poets and musicians from around the world to come to Binghamton for the event. “Mario got me through the creative writing department,” Trimboli said. “So we reached out to the right people and it kind
of just worked out.” Some artists came from as far as Iran, Hungary and Italy. Performances included readings of 14th century Persian poet Hafez in both English and Farsi, a musical number dedicated to Emily Dickinson sung in Italian and a piece about the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Performers each took their turn on stage — sometimes one at a time, other times in groups. During intermissions, the audience was able to speak with performers while snacking on refreshments or buying CDs and books by the performers, which were sold in the back. This was Trimboli’s first year as an organizer. He said he would like to see this festival continue to return every year as a part of Downtown Binghamton’s budding art scene.
“A lot of people don’t know this but Binghamton has a great art scene. We have a great community here and the more that we put in, the more we will reap from it,” Trimboli said. He said that this year, his goal for the festival was to be centered more on the different cultures featured from around the world while still bringing the local community together. “For a while, the festival was a lot of Binghamton grad students. We minimized the University’s impact on it and brought in members from the community, like people from the Binghamton Poetry Project,” Trimboli said. The Binghamton Poetry Project is a literary outreach program that is part of the Binghamton Center for Writers and is designed to bring awareness for art and
literacy. Through poetry, the program aims to bring together Broome County and BU. New Yorker James Ellis also performed. He has taught poetry to inmates and homeless people as a way of self-expression and he said that he hopes people will walk away from this festival with an understanding about the power of words. “Poetry gives people a chance,” Ellis said. “I think festivals like this help to bring back what pure poetry is supposed to be about — transcendence through the power of words.” Shai Re’em, a senior majoring in psychology, said he was surprised at the interesting variety of performances and that his favorite was the back and forth readings of Hafez poems in English and Farsi.
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