Confluence Spring 2023

Confluence

SOLVING COMPLEX PROBLEMS

CCPA’S GLOBAL IMPACT

Developing solutions to improve mental health

Preparing leaders to make a difference

Creating change by empowering communities

CCPA students, faculty and alumni are driving community change — locally, nationally and globally.

This year’s Confluence is an exploration of how the exceptional people within CCPA are engaged in critical work, making communities better places to live, work, raise families and age in place.

This magazine demonstrates how our students, faculty and alumni are putting into practice CCPA’s mission of solving complex problems to build more just communities for all.

Here are a few examples:

• As discussions of mental health become more open, our faculty and students are leading the nation in developing researchbased approaches to improve the wellbeing of students and their families.

• Driven to succeed and make a difference, Hailley Delisle ’16, MS ’19, found a rewarding career helping businesses in Tompkins County, N.Y., engage in sustainability practices by finding energysaving opportunities that translate into cost savings.

• For 10 years, our Community Research and Action PhD program has graduated students who engage in interdisciplinary research that impacts our society’s most complex social issues.

• Jade Calvin-Nau from our student affairs administration program helps fellow college students navigate the challenges of higher education while also working on proactive ways to foster diversity, equity and inclusion in academic and professional settings.

We hope you enjoy reading about the great things happening at CCPA and continue supporting our important work of educating the next generation of leaders, producing cutting-edge research and engaging with the community.

COLLEGE OF COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

DEAN

Laura R. Bronstein

CONFLUENCE MAGAZINE

EDITORS

Anthony Borrelli

Allen Wengert

ART DIRECTOR

David Skyrca ’85

SENIOR DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE SERVICES

Gerald Hovancik Jr.

VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING

Greg Delviscio

PHOTOGRAPHER

Jonathan Cohen

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Natalie Blando-George

Jennifer Micale

Kim Mousseau

My-Ly Nguyen Sperry ’00, MBA ’02

Laura R. Bronstein Dean, College of Community and Public Affairs

Steve Seepersaud

COPY EDITORS

Natalie Blando-George

Eric Coker

Katie Ellis

JONATHAN COHEN

4

8 Leadership

SOCIAL JUSTICE

11

2 News Briefs

4 Improving mental health

CCPA develops solutions to help students, families navigate struggles

8 Leadership in action

Alumni make major impact at local, federal levels

11 Pursuing social justice

Human Rights program shows students how to empower communities

14 Becoming the change-makers

Community Research and Action students tackle social justice issues

18 Student Spotlight

Jade Calvin-Nau promotes diversity in professional and academic settings

20 Faculty News

Beth Clark-Gareca helps teachers connect with students learning English

22 Alumni Profiles

Hailley Delisle ’16, MS ’19 helps communities stay green

Brandon Manning, MS ’21 guides students to succeed in college

14

25 Advancing real solutions

TRUST program leads with interdisciplinary collaboration

SAA student wins national award

Nii Tetteh, a dual master’s student in student affairs administration and public administration, earned an Outstanding Master’s Student award in December from the national organization dedicated to the field of student affairs.

The award, from the American College Personnel Association Graduate Students and New Professionals Community of Practice, recognized his contributions to his program through collaborations with faculty inside and outside the classroom as well as his work with Binghamton University Residential Life.

It was the second year in a row a master’s student from the Department of Student Affairs Administration (SAA) has earned the national award.

Tetteh, a native of Brewster, N.Y., was also praised for bringing a valuable perspective to planning an SAA fall 2022 orientation, helping improve engagement with students at the event.

TLEL professor earns prestigious Friend of Darwin recognition

Adam Laats, professor of education and history in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership, was one of three nationwide selected in August for a 2022 Friend of Darwin award by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE).

Laats has authored multiple books, including Creationism USA: Bridging the Impasse on Teaching Evolution (2020). He has also published articles in scholarly journals and contributed essays to numerous news outlets, including The Washington Post and The Atlantic.

Friend of Darwin awards are presented annually to a select few who demonstrate outstanding efforts to support NCSE and advance its goal of defending and supporting the teaching of evolution. According to NCSE Executive Director Ann Reid, Laats’ contributions include helping to chart the contours of the controversies over evolution education going back to before the 1925 Scopes trial.

CCPA celebrates ‘Distinguished Citizens’

The College of Community and Public Affairs handed out its first Distinguished Citizen awards during its Harvest Evening gala Sept. 17, 2022. The event celebrated CCPA and its vast contributions to the local community and beyond through the work of its students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Barbara Ellis ’81 and Eve DiMenna, both members of the Harvest Evening Committee, received the awards in appreciation of their commitment to CCPA. Both were recognized for their longstanding outreach to other members of the community to generate support for CCPA’s programs as well as the critical financial and creative assistance they lend to ensure the annual gala’s success.

This year’s gala will be held Friday, Sept. 22, at the SUNY Broome Culinary & Event Center in downtown Binghamton. Interested in attending?

Contact Debbie Collett-O’Brien ’86 at dcollet@binghamton.edu.

CCPA welcomes new faculty

Beth Clark-Gareca joins the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership (TLEL) as an associate professor, having spent six years as a teacher-educator working with preservice and in-service English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Her research focuses on content-based and proficiency assessment and access of multilingual learners in K-12 public school contexts.

Lightning Jay joins TLEL as an assistant professor after completing his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously

worked as a middle and high school teacher in Brooklyn and Minneapolis. His research and teaching focuses on supporting teachers’ development to ensure all students have opportunities to engage in rigorous student-centered learning.

Mina Lee joins the Department of Social Work from the University of Chicago as an assistant professor. Lee’s practice experience and research focuses on how discrimination that immigrants face at workplaces and in everyday life shapes their economic mobility and psychological coping.

Saumya Tripathi joins the Department of Social Work as an assistant

professor with more than five years of research, teaching and practical experience. Her research interests lie in unpaid care work, family caregiving, work-life balance, economic empowerment, international social work and computational social science.

Kun Wang joins the Department of Social Work as an assistant professor. Previously she was acting director of a government agency in China serving economically disadvantaged children and young adults. Her research addresses cognitive aging, older adults’ digital technology use, older adults’ psychological wellbeing and cancer prevention.

Beth Clark-Gareca Lightning Jay

Mina Lee Saumya Tripathi Kun Wang

Eve DiMenna, left, and Barbara Ellis

Improving mental health

CCPA researchers help students, families navigate personal struggles

by Anthony Borrelli

AAs discussions of mental health become more open, the Binghamton University College of Community and Public Affairs is taking a leading role in developing research-based approaches to improve the well-being of students and their families.

CCPA faculty are not only working within their own areas of expertise, but in collaboration with partners across the University and in the community. This interdisciplinary approach results in powerful and effective solutions to address various topics related to mental health.

While they only scratch the surface of the work being done, these unique examples highlight the real impact CCPA is having on classrooms, the community and students’ lives.

+ Impacting students

When preschool elementary school students feel angry or overwhelmed and need help working through their feelings, Tracy Lyman ’99, MSEd ’01, a certified elementary and special education teacher who is also a lecturer in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership (TLEL), encourages them to “think like a turtle.”

Take a cue from “Tucker Turtle,” Lyman tells them: “Tuck into your shell. Take three breaths to help calm down. Once your head is clear, you can think of a positive solution.”

In this case, “Tucker” is a green handheld puppet Lyman uses in her teaching. In her mental health and education course at Binghamton University, she uses methods like the scripted research-based story of “Tucker Turtle” and his namesake puppet to show teachers-in-training unique ways of helping preschool and elementary school students improve their well-being during difficult moments.

“There is a strong research base behind socialemotional learning and for schools that integrate this work, their students are more connected to school,” Lyman says. “For children, we are preparing them to be ready to learn and be more independent as they become problem solvers

and have more successful interactions with peers and adults. This will support them as they move through school and then continue to build these skills into adulthood.”

Lyman also works with Binghamton University students in her class to show them how teachers can integrate well-being practices into their classroom activities and become better attuned to their students’ needs.

“If students are in a school environment where there’s bullying or students getting kicked out of classrooms, that’s going to impact everyone’s mental health and won’t make anyone feel safe or comfortable at school,” Lyman says.

She adds, “We need social workers when there are bigger issues, but teachers who want to help students can teach them to say, ’I’m having a hard time and I need a break.’ When that becomes part of the routine, the students feel less stressed. They feel more connected.”

+ Impacting the learning environment

One of the ways John Zilvinskis, associate professor of student affairs administration, builds connections with college students struggling with mental health challenges is by leaning on what he’s learned in his own research.

Tracy Lyman, lecturer in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership, uses a research-based story of “Tucker Turtle” to help elementary school students improve their well-being.

Zilvinskis, who studies issues affecting students with disabilities, including those tied to mental health, says students are more likely to succeed in settings when they feel welcome to discuss their problems openly.

“Often, students carry stigma related to their disabilities, which prevents disclosing to faculty and finding solutions,” Zilvinskis says. “I try to address this in the classes I teach by describing my own learning and mental health disabilities. For some, this creates a lane for students to talk with me about theirs.”

In a study published earlier this year, Zilvinskis and his research collaborators used survey data from more than 6,000 first-year college students with disabilities to explore aspects of academic advising behaviors that impacted grades and student engagement.

The findings demonstrated effective academic advising contributed positively to grades and engagement, but their effectiveness depends on the student’s individual situation.

Based on his research, Zilvinskis says, it’s important for educators at all academic levels to be trained in the best approaches for promoting well-being practices.

“Educators need to realize that disabilities aren’t always clinically diagnosed,” Zilvinskis

says. “Instead, disability is slippery, especially for students with mental health conditions who may have disparate environments, events and capital influencing their success in managing them.”

+ Impacting the University

For Binghamton University’s Residential Life staff, a pilot program started in 2019 has expanded into a specialized, trained referral program that allows social work interns to provide case management services for students in distress.

It has allowed Master of Social Work (MSW) students like Jessica Laymon to learn while making a positive impact on the campus community.

“Mental health is no different than your physical health, in that they both affect your well-being,” she says.

Interns in the program each work with up to 25 Binghamton students at a time in figuring out the best ways to address personal struggles such as anxiety, depression or other hurdles tied to college life.

Laymon, who graduated from the MSW program in December 2022 and is a senior caseworker in Broome County’s Department of Social Services, quickly realized that helping college students navigate their problems isn’t the kind of difficult conversation she’d begin in an examination room.

“It’s about building a rapport with the students and getting them comfortable,” she says.

This individualized approach would often take the form of meeting students at a coffee shop or talking about hobbies and other interests first. Students feel more comfortable talking about their problems once they feel relaxed, she says.

John Zilvinskis, associate professor of student affairs administration, studies issues affecting students with disabilities, including those tied to mental health.

Jessica Laymon was a Master of Social Work intern in a Residential Life program that provides case management services for students in distress.

Underway for a few years now, the program continues to yield promising results for both the MSW interns and students living on campus.

“Dealing with your mental health is just part of having a normal experience in life,” says Jessica Treadwell, MSW ’16, assistant director of student support in Residential Life and a licensed master social worker who supervises the MSW interns.

“If you’re going through difficult times, you need somebody to help you navigate through that.”

+ Impacting the community

Beyond the campus community, researchers in the Department of Social Work have found other unique ways to assist families facing challenges accessing much-needed mental health support.

Aided by a SUNY Prepare Innovation Grant, Associate Professor of Social Work Youjung Lee, doctoral student and incoming social work faculty member Kelley Cook and CCPA Dean Laura Bronstein collaborated in 2020 to develop a telemental health service. Its goal was to provide virtual mental health services for local children and families, primarily in rural areas with little access to services.

The program partnered with Binghamton

University Community Schools to engage with local families, resulting in around 30 of them being referred through the service.

Before the pandemic, Lee says, telemental health services were viewed as secondary or optional. But given the success of this model, she says social work students should be trained in it just as they are trained for in-person practice. One of the most effective approaches to helping families through the telemental health service was to simplify strategies for addressing seemingly complex problems, Cook says.

For example, if parents were struggling with their child having outbursts because of anxiety and difficulty getting to school, but that same child was able to stay calm and organized when going to bed by a specific time the night before — social workers like Cook would help those parents adapt the practices that proved successful at bedtime into their morning routines.

“I think that creates a space for the individual or family to take ownership, because then it’s from them. We’re implementing solution-focused practices to help clients identify past successes and exceptions to problems,” Cook says. “We aim to create a context for change and bolster solutions, so a client can find workable solutions to problems.”

“Mental health is no different than your physical health, in that they both affect your well-being.”

Jessica Treadwell is the assistant director of student support in Residential Life and a licensed master social worker who supervises MSW interns.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

— Jessica Laymon

ACTION

Alumni make major impact at local, federal levels

By Allen Wengert

Leadership in W

ith its ambitious mission of changing the world, Binghamton University’s College of Community and Public Affairs prides itself in preparing students to become leaders. The evidence of success can be seen in its alumni, who have gone on to head organizations both large and small.

Two government leaders, Mary Whitcombe-Turbush ’02, MPA ’19, and Kimberly Gianopoulos ’88, MA ’89, are making a major impact at both the local and federal levels. While they have learned many lessons over the course of their careers, both agree on one thing — Binghamton played a key role in making them the leaders they are today.

When Mary Whitcombe-Turbush takes on a job, she goes all in.

Born and raised in Broome County, where Binghamton is located, she now serves as the director for the Office for Aging, responsible for “improving and enriching the quality of life for all older persons” in the county.

With services ranging from in-home support to socialization programs to Meals on Wheels, her office covers a lot. But after years of finding ways to meet the needs of the community, WhitcombeTurbush has learned the ins and outs of how to keep things running smoothly.

“I think some people believe they’ll graduate from school and just automatically become great leaders. I don’t see it that way,” she says. “I think you should experience every level of an organization to truly understand how to lead it. You should experience putting on a hairnet to serve food just as much as you should experience writing the grant that pays for that food.”

Whitcombe-Turbush’s immersion into roles that serve the community started when she became a preschool assistant at age 14. At 17, she started helping with an after-school program, and was the assistant director by the age of 19.

“When I jump into something, I tend to jump all in,” she says.

Her work continued through college, when she served as a director at the Boys and Girls Club of Endicott while studying sociology at Binghamton University. After graduating, she was hired by Catholic Charities of Broome County, where she worked for nearly two decades. Her first task was to create a new program to assist families in finding help for their children with mental health issues.

“Developing it from the ground up wasn’t as challenging as I was expecting it to be because I

had done so much work with the community by that point. All of these experiences became pieces of a puzzle that I put together, and it built off of everything I had learned,” she says.

Her time at Catholic Charities led to her guestspeaking in CCPA classes, where she decided to eventually earn her Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree. A single mother working full time, Whitcombe-Turbush completed the program on a part-time basis over the course of five years.

“The MPA program really made me realize how human-service oriented local government could be. I didn’t realize there was this level of management within local governments to meet those needs,” she says.

That education in public administration helped push her to take on her current role with Broome County in 2021.

“The MPA program gave me the confidence to go outside of what I was comfortable with. Those classes and the ideas they exposed me to helped me consider how I could best use this education,” she says.

When it comes to effective leadership, Whitcombe-Turbush stresses the importance of teamwork.

“I can’t imagine I’d be in this leadership role without all of the work I’ve done with people over the years,” she says. “You need to understand where people are at every level of where you work, and that is very helpful in being a leader. We all have to work together to get important things done.”

Mary Whitcombe-Turbush ’02, MPA ’19 Director, Broome County Office for Aging

Kimberly Gianopoulos ’88, MA ’89 Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government Accountability Office

When Kimberly Gianopoulos decided to major in mathematics, she never envisioned that one day she’d be testifying in front of Congress.

As a director in the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) International Affairs and Trade team, Gianopoulos is responsible for providing Congress with fact-based, nonpartisan information that helps lawmakers make important policy decisions.

“We provide recommendations that are 100% based on evidence and facts. Being able to lead this kind of work is very gratifying,” Gianopoulos says.

Her 30+ year journey with the GAO has brought her all around the world to take deep dives into topics ranging from nuclear power to cryptocurrency — all with a goal of providing the best information possible to our nation’s leaders. And it all began at Binghamton.

As Gianopoulos, a Chester, N.Y., native, studied math during her undergrad, she began to wonder how she could apply her love of numbers.

“I wanted to do something that would take my quantitative background and help me understand the world and solve its problems,” she says.

She credits an intro to world politics course with opening her eyes to options.

“I realized that what we do in the public policy realm has real implications, and if you could use data and facts and analysis to inform those decisions, then that could be a very powerful thing,” she says. “It really made me think I could make a difference.”

Gianopoulos moved on to the master’s program in public policy analysis and administration (the precursor to the MPA program) and dove into public policy, which included an independent study on federal budgeting and an internship with the Orange County, N.Y., budget office. She met

a recruiter for the GAO on campus and started working there shortly after graduating.

Originally starting out in the New York City office, her time with the GAO brought her everywhere from China to New Zealand to Hawaii to study a wide spectrum of topics.

“I’ve gotten to see the organization from very different perspectives, which I totally recommend to people,” she says. “Just doing something different gives you such a fresh perspective on your role.”

Now in Washington, D.C., Gianopoulos is responsible for a portfolio of trade-related subjects. She oversees teams that research topics such as intellectual property rights, free trade agreements, international investments and sanctions.

Tasked with taking complex, important issues and making them easier for others to understand, Gianopoulos has learned that a key element of leadership is mastering the skill of communication.

“Who is your audience? What do they need to know about this topic? You need to know what you can provide to them, and how that is going to meet a need,” she says. “Being able to communicate succinctly and directly, whether in written or oral communication, is absolutely critical.”

While her role has changed over the years, her core passion — finding the meaning in the numbers — is still integral to everything she does.

“You can look at a spreadsheet, but without context, it isn’t very meaningful. What we do is add that context and let people know what it all means,” she says. “That purpose is something I was looking for as far back as Binghamton. I didn’t want to just work in the theoretical. I wanted to take that and make it meaningful to the real world.”

As a leader, Gianopoulos is most proud when her employees can find ways to connect the theoretical and practical.

“The little ‘aha’ moments along the way, when our research teams discover something after working hard, are wonderful — especially when they’re so excited about what they found,” she says. “They are taking things to the next level, and it’s exciting. It’s terrific to see people succeed.”

SOCIAL JUSTICE Pursuing

Human rights program prepares students to empower communities

By Kim Mousseau

When people think about human rights, they might focus on international organizations and institutions like Amnesty International or the United Nations, high-profile legal cases and celebrity spokespeople. But in the College of Community and Public Affairs’ Master of Science in Human Rights program, students are trained to build impactful social justice movements that begin with the communities where they live.

If all it took to guarantee human rights was good intentions by elites, then we would live in a very different world,” says Suzy Lee, assistant professor and program director. “For human rights to be safeguarded and secure, we need to organize communities and embolden them with knowledge and tools to demand those rights for themselves.”

Launched in fall 2019, the Master of Science (MS) in Human Rights program uses an

interdisciplinary approach to prepare students to contend with real-world issues while empowering the communities they serve.

The program has 19 graduates from two cohorts. Some came directly from undergraduate programs like CCPA’s Bachelor of Science in Human Development and other Binghamton University majors, including anthropology, political science, sociology and English. As the program becomes established, however, it is seeing an increase in applicants from other universities, both in and out of state and internationally.

“We have a fairly diverse group of applicants,” Lee says, “with some having spent significant

time in the workforce. We’ve had adult students interested in career changes, and in our first cohort we had a student in his 70s who decided to earn a degree in retirement. And we have traditional students arriving from a diversity of undergraduate programs.”

New Jersey native Elizabeth Rodrigues, currently in her second year of the program, earned an undergraduate degree in technical theatre from Emerson College in 2003.

“I never considered going to graduate school,” she says. “But when COVID hit, I had a lot of time to think about my future and what I was going

FROM CLASSROOM TO COMMUNITY

While there is a robust theoretical component to the program, theory is never detached from practical application. Even in the classroom, students are challenged with understanding how human rights theories play out in the real world.

“The program has really changed how I think,” Rodrigues says. “It’s taught me to examine things we take for granted, question my own biases and, like a good sociologist, see past the dominant narratives.”

Experiential opportunities, specifically a 120-hour semester-long internship in the second year, provide students with practical application. Several local nonprofit organizations offer intern placements; however, students can also opt for positions at state, national and international agencies.

As part of the internship, students work closely with faculty to help them process the experience and connect it with classroom work.

Department of Human Development Community Liaison Megan McCabe directs the internship appointments.

“We have several local community-based organizations that we work with, such as the Broome County Council of Churches’ CHOW program,” McCabe says. “Internships vary and can relate to the student’s area of interest, capstone project or thesis, and they all have a social justice or human rights focus.”

to do when my kids graduated. I’ve always been interested in women’s rights, even as a child, and dreamed about working at an organization like Planned Parenthood. I saw this program as an opportunity to level up my skills and knowledge.”

Program faculty also hail from a variety of specializations. Lee is a sociologist with a Harvard law degree, but clinical psychology, education, cultural studies and anthropology also figure into the human rights program’s interdisciplinary approach.

“We have an eclectic mix of faculty who are working on similar questions, but from very different angles,” Lee says. “So, our students get a good mix of perspectives.”

“We also try to prepare students for some of the less glamorous aspects of social justice and human rights-oriented work in our professionalism course,” Lee says. “We want students to understand that sometimes the job requires simply completing everyday administrative duties. We also do our best to equip our students to manage the emotional toll that often accompanies this kind of work.”

PUTTING TIMELY ISSUES INTO FOCUS

Students frequently take on challenging subjects, such as domestic violence, through their wide range of capstone projects. Their goal is to seek opportunities for constructive solutions.

One recent project involved a student-led collaboration of organizations that work with victims of domestic violence and a team of coders and videographers who developed an app that

Elizabeth Rodrigues, a second-year graduate student, sees the human rights master’s program as an opportunity to further explore her interest in women’s rights.

provides resources for women escaping abusive relationships. Lee says the app is proving especially useful for connecting victims to avenues for help when the abuser is keeping tabs on communication outlets.

“One of the most dangerous times for victims of domestic violence is when they are trying to leave an abusive relationship,” Lee says. “It’s a clever solution that serves a need and demonstrates vision and effective project management within the human rights and social justice fields.”

Other notable projects include a studentauthored podcast about COVID and its impact on educational equity in Broome County, N.Y., and an analysis of FEMA and the agency’s response to civil claims in the aftermath of the devastating flooding that occurred locally in 2011 from Tropical Storm Lee.

Student thesis-related research has also led to publication in peer-reviewed journals, including a project about missing and murdered indigenous women in the United States published in the Journal of Forensic Science.

Rodrigues’ capstone project, a series of monologues based on personal stories around abortion that she will perform in her final semester, is directly related to her future ambition.

“I want to destigmatize abortion by humanizing the issues and showing the breadth of reasons why someone might make that choice,” she says.

Program graduates count on a range of employment opportunities, whether locally with agencies based in Broome County, or internationally for organizations such as the International Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland.

‘CREATE TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE’

Given its success, the new program is interested in expanding. In fall 2023, the department will begin offering a post-baccalaureate certificate in human rights. The 16-credit program is geared toward professionals who want to gain advanced competencies in human rights approaches.

“We see the certificate program enabling community outreach and engagement,” McCabe says. “We are sending our students into the community to learn from professionals working on social justice issues, and we want to bring some of those professionals back into the classroom. In this way, we further engage with and invest in our local community.”

According to Lee, one of the most important skills the current program teaches students is community building — empowering communities with the tools to articulate needs and have those needs respected and responded to.

The emphasis on creating change movements at the grassroots level is not just an enlightened or moral tactic; it is pragmatic. Change, according to Lee, is legitimized and lasting when the impetus and energy stem from the community itself. And this philosophy drives the human rights program.

“While we train our students to be confident in the halls of power, that isn’t our focus,” Lee says. “We are preparing our students to galvanize communities and create transformative change at its root.”

“For human rights to be safeguarded and secure, we need to organize communities and embolden them with knowledge and tools to demand those rights for themselves.”

— Suzy

Lee, assistant professor

and Master of Science in Human Rights program

director

BECOMING THE CHANGE-MAKERS

Community Research and Action students tackle complex social justice issues

By Jennifer Micale

Food access in low-income neighborhoods. The relationship between racially segregated neighborhoods and trauma. College readiness and identity among students from rural areas. Economic opportunity among Rohingya refugees in the United States.

What links these issues isn’t a particular topic or discipline, but their sheer complexity. For the past 10 years, students in the Community Research and Action (CRA) doctoral program have tackled a wide range of societal problems, with affected groups ranging from individual neighborhoods to entire populations. Ultimately, its focus is a weighty one: preparing students to improve the world.

The program is highly interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on research methodology that prepares students to ask important questions, explains Associate Professor of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership Loretta Mason-Williams, who has directed the program for the past two years.

According to Mason-Williams, the program’s reliance on data analysis allows graduates to end up in a wide range of roles including university administration, urban planning, research and more.

“The students bring an interdisciplinary perspective in terms of their background and what they have experienced,” she says. “We have students who are social workers, physical therapists, speech language pathologists, teachers, administrators and people in local governance. We have people who have worked internationally in nonprofit arenas.”

Professors from across Binghamton University’s College of Community and Public Affairs teach and mentor students, sometimes in partnership with other University units, such as Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences and Harpur College of Arts and Sciences. The program’s faculty mentors assist students in finding conferences, workshops and other activities that suit their interests and provide opportunities to share their expertise.

Student research focuses on applications, and their scholarship informs and impacts communities in the real world.

INTEGRATING DISCIPLINES

What draws students to the CRA doctoral program is the focus on solving big, complicated questions that go beyond the boundaries of a particular discipline. Often, that’s reflected in

Assistant Professor Matthew Uttermark, center, speaks during a September 2022 Lunch & Learn discussion among students and faculty in the Community Research and Action doctoral program.

their own professional and academic journeys.

Take Montana native Peter Knox, PhD ’22, for example, currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vermont.

His educational background is mixed, with an undergraduate degree in American history and a Master of Public Administration and Policy from the University of Montana, and another master’s in media communications and public relations from the University of Westminster in London. Before coming to Binghamton, he worked for the University of Montana’s Phyllis J. Washington College of Education, as well as with nonprofits, local schools and community partners, on initiatives such as after-school and alternative education programs.

Tanya McGee, an Elmira, N.Y., native and doctoral candidate, was a full-time urban planner in Chemung County while taking classes at Binghamton. Today, she works for a Fortune 500 tech company’s office for racial equity as a project manager for Black communities in North Carolina.

Then there’s Elise Cain, PhD ’19, a native of Schenevus, N.Y., who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Master in Adolescence Education from St. Bonaventure University, planning to become a secondary school biology teacher. Plans shifted after she fell in love with higher education, and she instead began her career working as a residence hall director. Right before beginning her doctoral program as a full-time student, she was coordinator of leadership programs and campus activities at SUNY Oneonta.

“I always say that my path wasn’t necessarily linear to where I am today, but it makes sense with all the things I was interested in,” says Cain, now an assistant professor of educational leadership at Georgia Southern University. “I think that everything came together to where I am today.”

Coming from further afield is Gamji Rabiu Abu’Ba’are, MA ’17, PhD ’19, who received a bachelor’s degree in planning in his native Ghana before earning a master’s degree in geography at Harpur College and his CRA doctorate at CCPA.

“The greatest strength of the program is that it gives you the leverage to choose what you desire to learn, and it doesn’t have boundaries in terms of the discipline you are coming from,” says Abu’Ba’are, currently an assistant professor in the University of Rochester’s School of Nursing and the inaugural Harriet J. Kitzman Endowed Fellow in Global Health Research.

Rubayat Jesmin, a current student in the program, is a Bangladeshi economist who worked with the European Union on issues related to women and children, private sector development and the Rohingya refugee population.

As an older international student, Jesmin says she found Binghamton supportive and welcoming.

“I have lived one part of my career already,” she says. “Now I want to focus on refugee issues, especially women and children.”

MAKING SENSE OF COMPLEX DATA

Tackling complicated social problems means navigating big data sets and finding deeper truths using statistical analysis. That can be daunting for students whose backgrounds aren’t heavily math-centric.

Students credit Mason-Williams’ research design class and the work of Assistant Professor of Social Work Kim Brimhall with demystifying quantitative statistics. Professors play a key role in encouraging students and fostering understanding of such diverse areas as research methodology, intersectional feminism and managing secondary trauma.

Students in CRA apply their research skills in a variety of ways. Both Knox and Cain focused on the experiences of rural youth in contemplating college and continue to research related topics today at their respective institutions.

For his dissertation, Abu’Ba’are continued the work he began in his master’s program, focusing on how race, gender, ethnicity and poverty affect foodaccess in Broome County’s low-income communities. Today, his research is more global in scope; one project deals with healthcare access, HIV and the impact of stigma in low-income communities in West Africa and Italy; he’s looking to embark on a similar project in upstate New York.

Research projects in which CRA students engage are deeply challenging on several levels. For one, they require a massive time commitment, particularly for students juggling full-time employment.

And because they often touch on matters

Students in the Community Research and Action doctoral program are addressing society’s most pressing public policy challenges.

pertinent to social justice, the subject matter can also be heart-wrenching. McGee’s dissertation, for example, focused on how segregated neighborhoods contribute to trauma in Black women. Her qualitative study incorporated interviews from Black mothers living in neighborhoods set apart by race and poverty, all of whom had lost a child due to violence.

“As an urban planner by trade, I am invested in researching disparities in Black communities, because research regarding trauma in these neighborhoods is lacking, and state and local governments have not properly invested in neighborhood services that cater to trauma prevention and remediation,” McGee says. “In my own life, I have witnessed — too many times — the trauma that Black mothers are left to cope with after losing a child to violence and the abandonment that they experience from local government and law enforcement.”

Jesmin, whose project centers on women from the Rohingya community, had her dissertation research upended by the pandemic. She originally intended to conduct it in refugee camps in Bangladesh but has since focused on refugees who live in the United States after migrating through Bangladesh or Malaysia, the conditions of their lives here and how they tackle economic issues.

Despite there being fewer Rohingyas living in the U.S. compared to other immigrant populations, data collection is sorely needed to hone aid efforts. One of the challenges researchers like Jesmin face is that many Rohingyas are reticent to discuss their lives and origins with a stranger,

often due to political and religious sensitivity associated with this community.

“As a policymaker with the European Union, I saw that policymakers and humanitarian workers often prepare a program for the beneficiaries. They hardly take into account the on-the-ground factors, the realities of what the beneficiaries are going through,” she reflects. “My main focus is to find what factors really matter to these women, the daily realities they face … so we can help improve their lives and they become active agents in society.”

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Graduates say the CRA program has confirmed their passion for research that makes a difference in communities, and students have formed lasting relationships with their peers.

Leadership in CRA and from within CCPA has connected students with important networking and employment opportunities, adds McGee. In May 2022, she won state recognition for her research after presenting to New York state leaders during the Future Leaders in Policy Competition.

“We are presented with so many opportunities,” McGee says. “You just have to go after them.”

While earning his doctorate in Community Research and Action in 2019, Gamji Rabiu Abu’Ba’are studied how race, gender, ethnicity and poverty affect food access in low-income communities.

A voice for change

Jade Calvin-Nau promotes diversity, assists college students, using lessons learned around the world

By the time Jade Calvin-Nau graduated from high school, she had lived and learned in a half-dozen countries.

It was her mother’s career working in diplomatic offices that took them both from New York to Haiti and Ecuador, to Switzerland and the French border, then Spain and finally back to

Florida in time for her to finish high school. Moving from one country to the next at a young age was exciting, Calvin-Nau says, though there were plenty of difficulties adapting. During her stint at a French high school, she jokes, the best she could master was a sort of “conversational French.”

Jade Calvin-Nau, a student affairs administration master’s student, says her experiences growing up in a half-dozen countries helped fuel her passion for fostering diversity.

But it was those experiences, Calvin-Nau says, that fueled her passion for fostering diversity, equity and inclusion in professional and academic settings. It’s at the core of her work as an assistant residential coordinator with Binghamton University Residential Life as she pursues a Master of Science in Student Affairs Administration (MS SAA).

“My mom worked a lot, but she always brought me everywhere and those experiences helped me appreciate working with people from different backgrounds,” Calvin-Nau says. “I’m fluent in Spanish and my favorite thing in the world with this job is talking to parents of students in their own language, seeing that kind of ’deep breath’ they take by relaxing and knowing they don’t have to speak through their kid. We can all have the conversation.”

In the fall 2022 semester, she contributed even more to help promote diversity within the University through an internship with the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

One of the many projects she worked on was under Sharon Bryant, associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion at Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Her work involved assisting Bryant and another graduate assistant in cataloging the diversity represented in various works of art throughout the campus.

Calvin-Nau took stock of artwork in residence halls, which she says was just one piece of the important project to ensure artwork on campus accurately reflects the students on campus. For students each day, she says, these artworks could easily become passive fixtures. But showing diversity throughout campus in even small ways is just as important as promoting diversity, she says.

“I believe in proactive diversity versus reactive diversity, and that means making change before change has to be made,” Calvin-Nau says. “I also believe in equity and inclusion for students who are differently abled — those with differences you can’t see — who might not have their own support systems in place.”

In addition to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion while at Binghamton University, she assists college students in aligning their academic and professional goals. In her Residential Life role, Calvin-Nau takes pride in helping undergraduate students work toward an academic path that best fits with their professional aspirations at the time.

It’s a challenge Calvin-Nau understands well.

As an undergraduate at Buffalo State University, it took several attempts to realize her career ambitions didn’t always align with her academic interests.

Failing biology, for instance, convinced her to course-correct initial plans for medical school. Afterward, she considered becoming a clinical psychologist, but she discovered the science of psychology didn’t fascinate her nearly as much as its foundation: helping people.

After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, CalvinNau supervised faculty and staff volunteers at Buffalo’s on-campus COVID testing site. When faculty asked questions like, “What are students feeling right now?” she realized her perspective

could be valuable in helping other students succeed in their college experiences.

Once Calvin-Nau was accepted into Binghamton’s student affairs administration program, she found an ideal convergence of her personal interests and professional goals.

“Working with students can sometimes be just like psychology, just without the ’shrinking.’ I share my experiences; they share their experiences, and we figure it out together,” Calvin-Nau says. “Mom always taught me to be thorough, so I start by asking, ’What’s in this program for you?”

Working in Residential Life, Calvin-Nau steers students to achieve their educational goals beyond college. She also makes it clear that it’s okay if graduate education isn’t the right fit for a particular student as long as there’s still a plan for what to do after earning an undergraduate degree.

“I believe in higher education, but I’m also cognizant that it’s not for everybody. I went through the same thing, thinking I had to be a doctor or a lawyer — my grandmother’s a lawyer — so I once felt I had to follow in her footsteps,” Calvin-Nau says. “But what I’ve learned in working with students from different backgrounds is to just be there to help them, the way my mentors helped me.” —

Anthony Borrelli

“...what I’ve learned in working with students from different backgrounds is to just be there to help them, the way my mentors helped me.”

Bridging the gap

Beth Clark-Gareca helps teachers connect with students learning English

Immigrants bring cultural and linguistic diversity to communities and classrooms. However, at times, they encounter misunderstandings while navigating their new world. By training current and future teachers, Beth Clark-Gareca hopes to help avoid misunderstandings caused by language barriers.

Clark-Gareca joined the College of Community and Public Affairs last fall as an associate professor of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership (TLEL).

The TESOL program supports a number of career paths, such as teaching in English as a New Language (ENL) programs on college campuses, being involved in English education around the world, and teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) in K-12 settings.

Clark-Gareca came to Binghamton from the State University of New York at New Paltz, where she was an associate professor and coordinator of the TESOL program. She also directed the Clinically Rich Intensive Teacher Institute in ESOL, a state-funded initiative designed to better meet the needs of ELLs in New York by providing already certified teachers with a fast track to TESOL certification. Her research interests

include classroom-based assessment for ELLs, second language acquisition and K-12 teacher education.

“New Paltz is a great university and a beautiful place,” she says. “I loved my colleagues and working with preservice teachers and school districts, but New Paltz doesn’t have its eye to research like Binghamton does. At Binghamton, I can prepare teachers for the field, but I also have time and support to make contributions to research.”

Born in Detroit and raised in Oil City, Pa., Clark-Gareca developed a passion for research over the course of what she would describe as a nontraditional career path. She taught for five summers at Wuhan University in China, and was an instructor at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina where she was a Fulbright Scholar.

Wanting to learn how to be a teacher after returning stateside, she pursued a master’s degree at Columbia University’s Teachers College and then moved to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley where she taught at nearly every level from elementary to college. She subsequently started her doctoral program at New York University, where she also taught in the TESOL master’s program.

In her dissertation, with the assistance of a grant from The International Research Foundation for English Language Education, Clark-Gareca examined how English learners were accounted for in classroom-based assessments.

“They are entitled to receive accommodations

“Practical focus is what teachers need ... I want to make sure I give them something concrete.”

on standardized tests, but if they’ve never used any in their classrooms, they won’t know what to do,” she says. “You can’t just give someone an EnglishSpanish dictionary and expect them to know how to use it when they haven’t had one before. Nobody had looked at this in a systematic way before.”

At CCPA, Clark-Gareca looks forward to working with teachers across Broome County, N.Y. She feels there are possibilities for increased professional development within school districts. She is also continuing the outreach she started at New Paltz and actively partnering with teachers

across the state on fast-track certification programs.

“Practical focus is what teachers need,” ClarkGareca says. “I can talk about the theory all day, but if I have precious few hours with teachers, I want to make sure I give them something concrete. There is a tremendous influx of ELLs in our schools currently, and they need teachers. That’s a mandate for me as a teacher-educator to keep my finger on the pulse [of education] and have insight on how best to help teachers going forward.”

— Steve Seepersaud

Beth Clark-Gareca, associate professor of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), hopes to help avoid misunderstandings caused by language barriers.

Seeds for success

Hailley Delisle ’16, MS ’19, bounced back to keep communities green

Hailley Delisle grew up north of the Adirondack Mountains in Plattsburgh, N.Y., where she learned to love the outdoors and the environment. But with no courses in environmental studies available at her high school, Delisle’s only exposure to environmental science was through biology and Earth science, so she majored in biology when she entered her local community college.

A year later, Delisle transferred to Binghamton’s Harpur College of Arts and Sciences as a biological sciences major. Despite her best efforts, she struggled academically and personally.

“My grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and I was in these biology classes and it

just wasn’t gelling,” she explains. “After a year and a half, I decided to take a year off.”

Delisle went home, spent time with her grandmother and returned to community college, this time to complete all the prerequisites required for Binghamton’s environmental studies program.

Upon returning to the University and now in a program she was passionate about, Delisle was determined to succeed.

“When I got back, I kicked butt,” she jokes.

In her senior year, Delisle interned for Network for a Sustainable Tomorrow (NEST), a nonprofit system of programs working toward social, environmental and economic justice. Her task was providing outreach and education on solar energy

debunking myths surrounding the technology.

By the time Delisle graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, she had already been hired by Catskill Mountain Keeper, an environmental advocacy nonprofit and the program that oversaw NEST’s local efforts. Her role was to help communities run solar technology education and outreach campaigns.

After a year, Delisle recognized she needed a master’s degree for career advancement. Binghamton University was an obvious choice logistically since she worked remotely from her home in the Binghamton area, but it was her previous struggle at the University that was the biggest factor in Delisle’s return.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could get my master’s degree from Binghamton,” she says. “It was really important for me to overcome what had happened my first year and a half, so Binghamton University could be a special place for me, because it wasn’t at first.”

Delisle selected Binghamton’s master’s program in sustainable communities, a joint program of the College of Community and Public Affairs and Harpur College. She was among the program’s second cohort.

Planting the seeds for success

The interdisciplinary structure of the sustainable communities program is one of its main benefits, according to Delisle.

“I was exposed to a wide breadth of topics and that helped prepare me for the real world,” she says. “I learned how to educate community members on sustainability initiatives, how to talk to them about the complexities of these technologies and how they can implement them in their own homes. The program touched on all these things.”

Delisle adds: “This gives you a lot of flexibility when applying for positions; you’re able to craft how you market yourself. I have classmates from the program who work in several different industries. There are so many things that you can do with this degree.”

Delisle is in contact with many of the students she graduated with in 2019. Those connections mean a lot to her, as did the support she got from program faculty, including George Homsy, associate professor and director of the Environmental Studies Program. Homsy is also a faculty member in CCPA’s public administration and sustainable communities programs.

“George Homsy is part of the reason I chose Binghamton for my graduate degree,” Delisle says. “He brought a lot of real-world experience and could talk about a lot of different topics; he was also very accessible throughout the program.”

Helping Tompkins County stay green

When Delisle returned to the University to earn her master’s degree, she also returned to work at NEST. She remained there until June 2022, when she joined the Office of Planning and Sustainability in Tompkins County, N.Y. as a sustainability coordinator.

One of her key responsibilities is running the county’s Business Energy Advisors Program, which focuses on business owners who are planning major facility renovations or new construction. The county reviews the business’ plans and provides an energy options report that illustrates potential savings. The reports also include incentives available to offset costs.

“We challenge the business owners to think about their design with the environment and sustainability in mind,” she says. “We also educate them on any economic benefits.”

Delisle has also been monitoring a legal case involving New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG), one of the major energy providers in Tompkins County, which is proposing a significant increase in electric and gas delivery rates this year. She stays abreast of the case and advocates on behalf of county residents.

Delisle admits that there’s no typical day in the office, even on the days she gets to work from her home in Endicott, which she shares with husband and Binghamton alumnus Kevin McKeon ’14 (mechanical engineering).

“New technologies and programs come out, so you’re constantly trying to figure out how to explain things to the public or evaluating if this is what we should be promoting, so it’s everevolving, which makes it interesting,” she says.

— Natalie Blando-George

“At the end of the day, sustainability is about prolonging the health of the planet and the health of the people who live here.”

On the right path

Brandon Manning, MS ’21 steers college students toward success

As he gained more experience, he also felt the urge to gain more education, which led him to the student affairs administration graduate program at Binghamton University. He was especially drawn to courses focusing on research methods that challenged his existing perceptions of the field.

“In student affairs, you gain so many transferrable skills and, honestly, the program at

Brandon Manning, MS ’21, has made it his mission to help students find a way to succeed.

As a resident assistant at SUNY Potsdam, he learned that he enjoyed making a difference in the lives of the students he was working with. And while he originally had aspirations to work in the music field, he soon realized that his calling was in student affairs.

“The reason I went into student affairs was because I wanted to be the kind of person I needed while I was in college,” Manning says.

Manning served as a residence hall director at both Potsdam and SUNY Cortland before moving on to a position as a student rights and responsibilities coordinator at SUNY Broome Community College.

Binghamton set me up for success,” he says. “Whether it’s research or student development in general, this program prepared me to serve as a collaborative leader helping me refine my abilities to better serve my students and campus.”

Manning also credits Binghamton’s program with teaching him how to pivot quickly to address the individual needs of college students, which was especially helpful when he became an associate director of student conduct at Columbia University. His approach was to find ways to turn behavioral or academic violations into learning experiences for students.

“I would talk with the students about critically thinking in the moment and creating action plans to deter their behavior and learn from their experience,” he says.

Now a senior associate director of advising and academic success at Columbia Business School, Manning encourages others to consider the field of student affairs.

“One thing I always talk about with my colleagues is to send the elevator back down for someone else to join you,” Manning says. “Advise them about what they can do to get to your level and then surpass you. That way you help advance each other.” — Anthony

Borrelli

“The reason I went into student affairs was because I wanted to be the kind of person I needed while I was in college.”

an exceptional education

TRUST program offers collaboration across disciplines

Many people are surprised to learn that the majority of health outcomes are not determined by genetics and medical care, but rather by social factors such as income, housing, education and race. Advancing better, forward-thinking outcomes in healthcare that address these social determinants — that’s what social work students in the College of Community and Public Affairs are doing as part of innovative opportunities at Binghamton, including The Rural and Underserved Service Track (TRUST).

TRUST provides interprofessional education for students in CCPA, Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and SUNY Upstate Medical University. Sixteen of the roughly 80 students participating in TRUST are Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) or Master of Social Work (MSW) students.

TRUST Scholars provide direct patient care in free clinics, promote health literacy, and participate in community education and research, building and improving integrated healthcare for rural and underserved areas and a variety of marginalized populations.

“Our vision is that many of the students we train in TRUST will work in the very communities and on the social challenges we address in TRUST,” says Sarah Young, BSW program director and associate professor of social work. “TRUST

“Social work students are advancing real solutions to the most pressing issues in healthcare, working alongside experts in the field while they become the experts themselves, connecting, sharing knowledge and responding to what communities need now.”

— CCPA Dean Laura Bronstein

Donor investment increases access

improves interprofessional team-based healthcare where we spend time learning about other professions’ approaches to cases and teaching them about ways to address and alleviate the critical social factors impeding health. In addition, the service component contributes to bridging University to community, and theory to practice, making significant differences in people’s lives.”

The best thing about the program is working with people in other disciplines, including during case study activities, says Sarah Cerutti ’23, a BSW student who dreams of becoming a school social worker. “We all have very different ideas based on our disciplines,” she says. “It is a great experience to see how, when we come together, we can help the whole person. It is an amazing, eye-opening program.” — My-Ly Nguyen Sperry ’00,

MBA ’02

Binghamton Fund for Excellence supporters are among donors who enable CCPA and other Binghamton students to participate in TRUST, covering various educational costs so students can focus on learning and doing. “We typically have more interest than we have spots to accommodate,” says Sarah Young, BSW program director and associate professor.

Wilkilandjie Marseille, a social work student, left, and Emma Mesi, a nursing student, work together on a case study during The Rural and Underserved Service Track (TRUST) Learning Retreat, Best Practices for Healthcare in Veteran Populations. The event was attended by students from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences, the College of Community and Public Affairs, and SUNY Upstate Medical University.

College of Community and Public Affairs

PO Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000

Through community engagement projects, students in the College of Community and Public Affairs grow inside and outside the classroom. In November, Associate Professor George Homsy’s students in the sustainable communities master’s program explored the City of Binghamton, N.Y., as part of their classwork.