SUNY Sullivan School Scene 2016

SCHOOL SCENE A Special Supplement to the Sullivan County Democrat

SECTION S • APRIL 22, 2016 • CALLICOON, NY

A look at activities at Sullivan County Community College

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SULLIVAN COUNTY DEMOCRAT

APRIL, 2016

In the eyes of the president the joys and challenges of a small community college

BY KATHY DALEY

The $42 million that New York City has poured into its own City University of New York colleges – 11 four-year schools and seven community colleges – may factor in significantly. Instead of applying to junior colleges like SUNY Sullivan, prospective students from Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island are choosing to attend colleges closer to home.

Hilgersom said the head-count for local students entering SUNY Sullivan is on an upswing, and that’s terrific. But it’s the out-of-county students that haul in major funds – they are billed twice for tuition, with the student paying half, and their home county paying the rest.

In 2015, Sullivan County legislators increased the county’s financial share of the SUNY budget from $4 million to $4.3 million, beginning this past February.

“That was a welcome commitment,” said Hilgersom.

C

ommunity colleges around the state face declining income and revenue, but if students like Joel Reyes, Anita Dubas and Tyler Buchholz know about it, they’re not telling.

The young people at SUNY Sullivan in Loch Sheldrake simply focus on getting a solid college education that is affordable and close to home.

Reyes of Monticello is completing his prerequisites as he prepares to apply for the college’s popular nursing program. Buchholz of Rock Hill, who works at New Hope Community, wants to focus on the needs of the disabled.

Dubas pursues an A.A.S. in the Administrative Assistant Degree program, which is a management and human relations course that is one of the college’s 40 academic and professional programs.

“The teachers here are always willing to help,” said Dubas of Jeffersonville. “I’m getting a good education.”

Credits:

DOLLARS DOWN

It’s no Easy Street for New York State’s 30 community colleges.

“Every single community college in the SUNY system is down in enrollment – no one is exempt,” said SUNY Sullivan President Dr. Karin Hilgersom.

As the college deals with shrinking enrollment and revenue, ‘We need to re-prioritize and seek grants, and we’re doing it,’ says SUNY Sullivan President Dr. Karin Hilgersom. For example, the college is now seeking a grant to connect with the Latino community for potential students.

School Scene A Look at Activities at SUNY Sullivan Published by

Catskill-Delaware Publications, Inc. Publishers of the

(845) 887-5200 Callicoon, NY 12723 April 22, 2016 • Vol. CXXV, No. 89

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All photographs and stories for this special School Scene are by Sullivan County Democrat Photographer/Reporter Kathy Daley.

The Democrat would also like to thank the SUNY Sullivan for all its cooperation in this project.

Fred W. Stabbert III Dan Hust Carol Montana Ken Cohen Willow Baum, Kaitlin Carney, Kathy Daley, Alex Rau, Richard Ross, Jeanne Sager, Autumn Schanil, Ed Townsend Liz Tucker Sandy Schrader Cecilia Lamy, Barbara Matos Susan Panella Susan Owens Patricia Biedinger, Joanna Blanchard Michelle Reynolds Janet Will Nyssa Calkin, Petra Duffy, Elizabeth Finnegan, Ruth Huggler, Rosalie Mycka, Tracy Swendsen Billy Smith, Richard Stagl

This year, the college raised tuition but, unlike other junior colleges, will refrain from doing so next year.

“Families cannot afford it,” the president said.

DIGGING AND LINKING

Faced with belt tightening measures including a handful of layoffs, the college welcomed the news of a $100 per-student hike in state aid, although the SUNY system had asked for $285.

Partnering for grants has become essential.

As a member of the Hudson Valley Education Consortium, SUNY Sullivan and other regional junior colleges learned they would receive a grant for a career readiness initiative that would, among other things, link students and community members with services and jobs.

A second grant will fund the Catskill Hospitality Institute at SUNY Sullivan. The faculty is at work now on preparatory courses for those wishing to enter the hospitality and tourism trade, particularly but not limited to the Montreign Resort Casino due to open in a year and a half near Monticello.

In networking with Montreign and the county, Hilgersom has found herself rubbing shoulders with occasional retired employees of Kutsher’s Hotel, which shuttered in 2013.

“They were hotel tech majors who got their degrees at SUNY Sullivan while they worked weekends at places like Kutsher’s,” Hilgersom said. “It’s exciting that the casinos and resorts in a small way are coming back, and that will help the college. Hopefully we’ll get a lot of local people taking the new course.”

Will Hilgersom herself be around for that infusion of energy?

It’s no secret that, for the past year, the college president has applied for the top spot in several colleges elsewhere in the country.

The road for Hilgersom, who arrived at SUNY Sullivan in 2013, has not been easy. She inherited an eroded budget with literally no reserve fund, pitiful faculty salaries and no labor contract for four years, and no strategic plan to direct a course for the future. She spent her first two years untangling, retrenching and rebuilding.

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Lately, family and personal issues have propelled her to seek employment elsewhere, she said.

“This is an excellent college,” Hilgersom said, “and as long as I stay, I’ll continue to do my very best work.”

Her best includes a number of major pluses this year.

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LEARNING BY THE RIVER The college’s outreach to the western part of the county is taking shape at Narrowsburg’s former public school, which is now a community and business center a quick walk from the Delaware River. As of January, the Narrowsburg Union is home to a number of SUNY Sullivan community enrichment courses and a credit-bearing 20th Century Art History Class.

The newest offering on the college’s Loch Sheldrake campus embodies the green technology and sustainability emphasis for which SUNY Sullivan is duly heralded.

Hope Farm, a two-acre plot, will be cultivated by the New Hope Community for developmentally disabled individuals. College students will work one-on-one with their neighbors on the project, and courses will focus on farming to support and celebrate people and the earth.

Further, the college is crossing its fingers for Empire State Development approval of a project involving a New York City beverage manufacturer. The business would like to move a small marketing team onto the SUNY Sullivan campus, opening up internship opportunities in the culinary arts and graphic arts, Hilgersom noted.

“We have a faculty and staff who really want to try new things and who really care about the students,” explained the president. “That part is joyful.”

Still, the need for an infusion of capital for the college – certainly a jewel of Sullivan County – is ongoing.

“When they’re looking for colleges, families seek a good program mix, which we have, affordable tuition and eye-popping facilities,” said Hilgersom. “Our competitors are doing it. What we need is more help from our friends in the private sector.”

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arrowsburg’s got the river, bald eagles, boutiques and now a college.

It’s a slice of a college, for sure, but there’s more of the pie coming, and it’s got people licking their lips.

“You can’t imagine how excited people are in the class,” said SUNY Sullivan art professor Michael (Rocky) Pinciotti, speaking from a classroom at the Narrowsburg Union.

A working artist and gallery director for the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, Pinciotti teaches 20th Century Art to a class of 14 in the tidy red brick building that for generations educated local children as the Narrowsburg public school.

Pinciotti’s class, by contrast, is composed mostly of adults thrilled to be doing college work so close to home.

“They’re waiting at the door before I get here,” he said. “They’ve done their research, they’re taking the class seriously. Their eyes light up.”

SUNY Sullivan officials couldn’t be more pleased. They say the college had long wished to extend its reach into the western part of the county.

“Here we are, and they’re all the way over there,” said Hillary Egeland, the college’s Director of Special Events and Campus Activities. She’s organizing the classes from her office in Loch Sheldrake.

“That end of the county is very artistic ... people with second homes,” Egeland noted. “Some of them have not been familiar with the college. But the reaction to us has been extremely positive.”

Years ago, the college offered courses in a satellite branch in Monticello,

but the office closed about five or six years ago. Narrowsburg, therefore, is the only non-campus location to host SUNY Sullivan courses.

In addition to Pinciotti’s art history class, which is for degree-seeking students and for community members alike, SUNY teachers instruct painting and drawing classes at The Union, along with yoga and music classes.

“We are looking to establish more credit-bearing classes,” Egeland said, “as well as a program of summer workshops in the arts.”

Local and New York metropolitan area artists will teach those warmweather workshops in drawing, landscape painting, sculpture, watercolor, oil and pastel. Other subjects might be spinning, weaving and dyeing, along with woodworking and printmaking, to name just a few.

The workshops will range from one-day courses to those lasting a week or two, Egeland said.

All will be targeted for the general public as well as for working artists seeking further development, and they may include field trips to studios, foundries, greenhouses and so on.

Brendan and Kathy Weiden, owners of the Union, are delighted with the presence of the college in their midst.

“Education is dear to our hearts,” said Kathy. “We have a solid working relationship with SUNY Sullivan, and we’re working hard to give them roots here.”

The Weidens both work in New York City, Brendan as a partner in an engineering consulting firm, and Kathy,

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“We believe education can be a game changer,” says Kathy Weiden, owner along with husband Brendan, of the mixed-use facility constructed as the Narrowsburg School.

New facility: the Narrowsburg Union features a SUNY Sullivan art history course taught by Delaware Valley Arts Alliance gallery director Michael (Rocky) Pinciotti.

who holds a Ph.D and taught at aFairfield University, as a CPA for a real estate conglomerate.

Weiden family members have lived on property on Swamp Pond Road for four generations, once owning a mill.

The Narrowsburg Union, located at 7 Erie Ave., is being developed as a mixed-use facility for commerce, education and community. Special event space includes a 550-seat auditorium with stage. There’s also a commercial kitchen that could attract a glight-industry food factory.

Education wise, the Weidens would like to expand the de facto learning center to include courses offered ktoward a four-year college degree “so that people don’t have to separate from the county for higher educa-

tion,” said Kathy.

It’s all good, according to one of the college’s Narrowsburg students, Jane Luchsinger.

“The art history class is phenomenal,” said Luchsinger, who also serves on the Tusten Town Council.

“Everybody looks forward to it, and as you walk down Main Street, you hear people saying ‘Did you do your homework?’

“We’ll all be thrilled,” Luchsinger added, “if SUNY Sullivan makes an even greater presence here.”

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Cultivating soil, student skills and hearty relationships at Hope Farm

BY KATHY DALEY

W

alton Bauder is an expert at gardening. “I have a garden at my house, where we grow tomatoes, blackberries and raspberries, and a lot of beets,� he said.

Rosena Jett loves learning how to plant vegetables and fruit: “I like to make them grow to be healthy,� she said.

Jett and Bauder are just two of the gardeners who will soon volunteer on a new farm at SUNY Sullivan. The two-acre plot named Hope Farm will link people who live in New Hope Community – like Bauder and Jett – with the college, which is only a few miles away.

New Hope Community provides independent living for people with

intellectual and other developmental disabilities, both at the Loch Sheldrake site and in apartments, condominiums and family-style homes throughout Sullivan County.

The connection between New Hope and SUNY Sullivan is longstanding.

New Hope residents delight in taking special courses at the college on art, music, cooking and more, and they graduate at annual commencement ceremonies. New Hope staff often teach the classes, which also attract people from Center for Discovery, Sullivan ARC and Crystal Run Village.

New Hope’s Jon Jon Thomas, who runs the Community’s greenhouse, said the SUNY farm will yield apples, plums, pears, grapes, raspberries, blackberries along with greens, potatoes, squash, broccoli, peas, cucum-

bers and corn.

Planted in a field between the main SUNY campus building and the college baseball field, the crops will grow naturally, with organic fertilizer and no pesticides, said Thomas, who serves as a Master Gardener with Cornell Cooperative Extension.

The farm will provide learning opportunities for SUNY students: field work, internships and learning projects related to the culinary arts, farming and human service.

For example, a hands-on seminar this fall will introduce students to the sustainably-run farm, which will feature a special “high tunnel� greenhouse and use of the composting area already in play on the college campus. “We are so excited to have our students working with people from New

Hope,� said Kathryn Scullion, Instructional Assistant in the college’s Division of Science, Technology and Mathematics.

Scullion and chef Michael Bel, coordinator of the college’s culinary arts program, conceived of the idea of doing something extra with some of the college’s vacant acreage. They then spoke with president Dr. Karin Hilgersom, and she suggested a meeting with New Hope. “This project celebrates human diversity and engagement,� said Hilgersom, “as novice farmers work together toward a common goal. The farm presents a terrific applied learning opportunity. We can also take pride in providing nourishment grown from local and personal tending.�

Officially, New Hope will staff the

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A new farm at SUNY Sullivan connects New Hope Community staff and residents with SUNY students and teachers. From left, back row, New Hope’s Jon-Jon Thomas, Walton Bauder, Niki Binder, Tashayla Bright, SUNY Sullivan’s Kathy Scullion, New Hope’s Karen Russell. First row, from New Hope, Christina Seti, Pedro Hernandez, Rosena Jett and Wanda Green.

farm and have unlimited access.

While the Community will own the produce, a certain amount each year will go to the college for its culinary program. The college will also store

the food and farm equipment.

Meanwhile residents of New Hope say they are no strangers to the joys of growing things.

At the greenhouse on their own

campus, they may adopt a plot, plant, water, cultivate and reap the harvest for their dinner tables.

They also volunteer at community gardens on Main Street in Liberty and

at Cornell Cooperative Extension, as well as for the flower garden behind Catskill Region Medical Center in Harris.

“The agency as a whole focuses on wellness and a healthy lifestyle,” explained Karen Russell, assistant executive director of New Hope.

At the new farm, protective fencing is due to be erected soon, along with soil preparation, said Thomas.

Seedlings for planting are springing up in the greenhouse. Gently coaxing the little green shoots into the earth at SUNY Sullivan can’t come soon enough for Wanda Green.

“I like being out in the weather,” said the New Hope resident with a smile in her eyes. “I like it when things are coming up.”

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