Year in Review 2011

year in

review Ithaca College 2010-2011

life

arts

89

104

74 82

page 68

page 86

71 // Hungry for glory

89 // Behind the lens

103 // Album reviews

74 // King and Queen

90 // The real ‘Slim’

104 // Theater reviews

76 // Ithaca marks the spot

92 // Chicago

106 // Movie reviews

82 // Just chilin’

99 // Video game reviews

109 // Art reviews

85 // Symphony of support

100 // Live reviews

Students flock to eateries downtown to attempt some of the most ridiculous eating contests around

The Class of 2011’s Mr. and Ms. Ithaca dish their favorite pizza, bars and clothes to wear

Ithaca’s local wineries and fresh produce make a name for the small upstate town and increase area tourism

Locals came out to taste Ithaca’s most creative versions of chili despite the cold that postponed the festival by a day

Students and bandmates come together to raise money for the medical costs of Joshua Oxford’s recovery in the hospital

Junior takes daily portraits of his friends and acquaintances on campus in their natural environment

Freshman breaks out his original raps for the community to see at his first concert at The Haunt

Alums flock back to their alma mater as seniors take the stage in Ithaca College’s production of “Chicago”

This year’s latest video games captured and amazed reviewers, leaving them wanting more

Kid Cudi crashes the stage at Cornell University, barely in time to save his failing opening act

Taylor Swift tops the charts again with her latest album “Speak Now,” while Lil Wayne didn’t fall far behind

“Electra” displays the theater departments ability to shock and awe audience members in one act

“The Social Network” defines a generation, while “The King’s Speech” takes home the Academy Award

Photographs branch out at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art to show a new side of naturalism

0/20 IC20/20

Diversity

Global Reach

Academic Excellence

Over the next decade, Rochon said, the college’s commitment to faculty excellence will continue. The IC20/20 plan includes the formation of a Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, a department that would be staffed by professionals in faculty development, assessment, instructional design and technology and enrichment.

This isn’t the first time a department like this has been proposed. Last semester, Faculty Council debated whether hiring a new staff member to assess faculty would be effective.

“This is a much broader commitment to faculty development, especially focused on the demands for teaching excellence in a time where technology is changing fast,” Rochon said.

Rochon said funding for this project and all the projects of the vision would need to be drawn from new sources, including fundraising and a capital campaign.

Assessment In the area of faculty assessment, the IC20/20 plan pulls from existing initiatives, stating the administration’s desire to continue in a similar vein with reviewing faculty performance through initiatives such as student evaluations.

Graduate Learning Continuing toward its goal of national recognition, the college will continue to expand its graduate studies programs.

In addition to considering more master’s programs with a fifth-year option for undergraduate students, the plan would aim to strengthen online learning and professional development programs.

Another section of the plan focuses on the national and international sphere of influence the college possesses. The college administration would consider the creation of an Ithaca College center in New York City while expanding existing centers in Rochester, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and London.

Woodward said a New York City center has been an ongoing topic of discussion.

“For years, there’s been conversations about the advantages of having our students … study in New York and take advantage of the resources there,” he said.

Rochon said the center would illustrate the broad goals of the entire plan.

“This is there not because it just sounds like a fun idea,” Rochon said. “It’s there because it connects to the biggest theme of this entire document — to focus student learning in ways that are integrative, applied and inquiry-based.”

Civic Engagement In the past, the college has hosted a number of conferences and workshops geared toward teaching faculty how to integrate service-oriented learning in their classes. With IC20/20 in place, the college would eventually create a Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement to direct community service initiatives in the classroom and in living communities on campus.

Citing the effectiveness of some existing learning communities, Rochon said having more specialized living communities on campus would benefit the student body. He said he visited the Spanish living community, Vecinos, and the Outdoor Adventure Living Community on Aug. 22. He said students gave positive feedback about their residence halls.

“The students in those living communities spoke eloquently about how being part of a themed residential experience added to their overall campus experience,” he said.

Coming off the heels of diversity initiatives like the “I Am Diverse” campaign, which focused on highlighting students’ racial, social and personal traits, and diversity listening sessions held last year on campus, the IC20/20 vision includes broad provisions and goals for fostering diversity at the college.

The plan includes an initiative that would “incorporate learning outcomes focused on diversity into every student’s program of study, through the major, minor, liberal education curriculum, graduation requirement or course electives, as well as through student life.”

The plan also states a goal to increase the number of international students and faculty and to encourage students to study abroad.

Curriculum

Drawing on existing proposals and initiatives, IC20/20 calls for the consideration of an interdisciplinary education requirement for all students. This 24-credit minimum would be created to further define an Ithaca College education, Rochon said.

One of the newest proposals in the plan is a Peer Learning Curriculum that would encourage students to stop their normal course of study for a few days each semester to take mini-courses in other schools.

“We thought [this would be] one of the ways to have students be able to explore more in their time here,” Woodward said. “In other words, to be able to go into schools they normally wouldn’t get into and to meet students and to learn a little bit about other fields they normally wouldn’t get to engage with.”

The curriculum objectives also expand on specialized living communities, including creating a required first-year residential community, an optional sophomore living community and housing for transfer students.

In an effort to bolster alumni-student relations and offer more networking opportunities, Rochon said he also included a proposal that could create a networking program of alumni mentors for interested students.

“Many alumni have clamored for exactly this opportunity,” Rochon said. “We haven’t had the technical ability to match up the interests of alumni with the interests of students. In the era of Facebook and IC Peers, finding those matches is far easier.”

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Technology

Job recruiters flock to Twitter

Restaurants get Google-fied

My first job was working in the gardening department at Kmart. I rode my bike down the street to drop off my application and landed my first formal job — arguably because of my expert shopping-cart gathering skills and not my nonexistent knowledge of the difference between pesticides and perennials.

From operating the cash register to paging people over the central speaker system when I didn’t know how to credit someone for returning a bag of mulch, technology is inevitably connected with the business world. With the birth of Twitter and other social media, new technologies also provide an alternative way to find jobs — instead of a bicycle and a No. 2 pencil.

Companies are making a shift to incorporate social media into the hiring process. LinkedIn is a perfect example of how businesses are beginning to adapt to social media and benefit from already established connections. Businesses will also use Facebook posts or tweets as new methods to search for potential employees. It’s not out of place to inquire on job openings using a simple “@reply” to companies on Twitter.

The White House has also tapped into this social-networking keg of information. Members of the Monster.com community can now jump over to Monster’s Facebook page and post questions for the Obama Administration about America’s employment climate. The White House will address the questions that get the most “likes.”

It’s in a company’s benefit to broadcast to the people who follow them when there’s a position open because it’s obvious those individuals are interested in the business. It’s like when I bought the limited edition box set of the “Gilmore Girls” complete series — obviously there’s a fan base there, and the addition of a bonus content DVD only increased my desire to have it.

But the hiring process isn’t the only area of the job hunt that’s experiencing technological benefits.

Smartphone apps are just one more way technology has changed the hiring process. With mobile apps that allow you to manage résumés, scan business cards for contact information and even make face-to-face video calls, they allow the recruitment process to be accomplished from a phone.

As the job market expands, so will social networks. Soon, more companies will begin using these connections to find qualified people to fill available positions — which reminds me, if I don’t want to wind up back in the gardening department at Kmart, I should probably remove “Weed whacking” from my Facebook interests.

During my backpacking trip across Europe, I constantly found myself running into a question that none of my four friends could answer: Where should we eat? Though my memory is sharp enough to offer directions to the lone Burger King in Venice — just outside the east end of Piazza San Marco — I can’t pinpoint one local restaurant. But this is where Google steps up to the plate.

Google’s local directory, Hotpot, which allows people to rate restaurants using a “flash-card” style interface and share those rankings with friends, has recently started to flex its culinary prowess in a digital realm that has been previously dominated by a similar service — Yelp.

Hotpot streamlined the menu of options and ratings. Released in November, it became an instant competitor in user reviews that Google integrates with search results.

Yelp, on the other hand, has been up in arms regarding Google running its users’ reviews but is unwilling to pull the plug on its relationship with Google because of referral traffic. Google has an ace up its sleeve already, just in case Yelp ever has a change of heart.

Hotpot’s crème de la crème feature is referring.

Imagine walking around a town where every restaurant is serving up uncertainty and the potential to leave a bad taste in your mouth. Now, with Hotpot’s update and integration with Google Maps for Android on March 3, users can tweet reviews and ratings of eateries right from the Maps app to alert friends of what’s hot and what’s not.

But Hotpot still needs some time in the digital “oven” until it’s ready for mass consumption. One way Google has been pushing the use of Hotpot is through mobile platforms.

The Google Places app is the first big step for Google in taking Hotpot from a hole-in-the-wall service to a five-star stud in social media. Recently, Google sat down with Mozart’s Coffee Roasters in Austin, Texas, and arranged an incentive for Places app users. On March 5, if someone flashed their Android or iPhone app at the counter, they got a free drink in a limited edition Google travel mug.

This is just a taste of how Google Places with Hotpot can be implemented on a small scale.

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