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Celebrating 70 Years as the Free Word on Campus
Tuesday, September 6, 2016 | Vol. XC, Issue 4 | Binghamton University | bupipedream.com
Stenger plans for the future of BU BU president reflects on the "20 by 2020" plan, gives preview of State of the University address Alexandra Mackof News Editor
Kevin Sussy/Photography Editor Pictured: Seven of the nine senior analysts stand in the University Union. Managing a $300,000 investment portfolio, each student is given the task of covering a different sector of the stock market.
Students get taste of Wall St. SOM faculty, students partake in $300K investment fund project Stacey Schimmel Pipe Dream News
A group of students at Binghamton University are getting a taste of careers in finance through an opportunity to manage a $300,000 investment portfolio. The Binghamton Investment Fund, which was created by School
of Management (SOM) students, was originally a class offered for credit. Now, under the supervision of Dennis Lasser, an associate professor of finance, and Upinder Dhillon, the dean of SOM, the program has turned into a hands-on opportunity for students to get realworld experience. The team is comprised of nine senior analysts, or section heads, who cover
different sectors of the stock market. Each of them is responsible for focusing on stocks within a specific industry and finding which company’s stocks are rising and falling in order to allocate the money. The fund’s current biggest holding is NextEra Energy, followed by Phillips 66, Facebook, Lockheed Martin
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Four years into the “20 by 2020” plan, Binghamton University has seen a lot of changes and growth. BU President Harvey Stenger plans to address how far the University has come and where it is expected to go in his State of the University address. Stenger will speak to the campus community on Thursday at 3 p.m. He said he plans to discuss the progress the University has made so far, and his intentions for moving forward. According to him, facilities have improved, the University has grown and it is time to focus more on growing quality and student success. “We’ve got a great physical campus right now, we’ve got a great student body that is engaged academically and in the community,” Stenger said. “We’ve hired outstanding faculty over the last four years to add to the great faculty we already have.” According to Stenger, one major way to judge education quality is through retention rates. BU’s current retention rate is 91 percent and Stenger said he hopes to reach 93 or 94 percent. “We’re making sure that our undergraduates are educated as best as possible,” Stenger said. “This doesn’t mean just sitting in classrooms, this means having great experiences, having
research experiences, having study abroad experiences and internships.” The University is also juggling funding uncertainty, since the NYSUNY 2020 plan was not renewed. The plan had ensured consistent legislative funding appropriation and a tuition increase cap of $300 for the past five years. “It is not as simple as it might have been four years ago,” Stenger said. “Having the NYSUNY 2020 in place was great as it gave us a five-year window that we could plan around, and now we have to be a little more agile in our planning and our implementing and looking at opportunities.” Some of this planning will concern faculty salaries, which Stenger said have become less competitive. In the past five years, faculty salaries raised a total of 4 percent. “Faculty salaries fell behind,” Stenger said. “The union is in the next contract negotiation. We hope that they get a raise, but who will pay for that raise? No one really knows, so that’s a big uncertainty right now that makes it difficult to plan.” Looking at ways to combat funding uncertainty, Stenger said that graduate school tuition might provide additional support for the University. “We know that students need graduate student education now [more] than ever before,” Stenger said. “We have some
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New syllabuses feature BU helps kids in Promise Zone student support services Program promotes community school model, provides tutoring Professors offer guidance, contact information of campus resources for students in distress Peter Brockwell Contributing Writer
Across disciplines at Binghamton University, students may have noticed an extra paragraph at the end of the syllabuses for their classes, informing them of the support services that are offered at BU. The paragraph, which was written and promoted by the Dean of Students office, encourages students to reach out to either their professors or resources offered by BU if they are struggling to manage their personal or academic stress levels during the semester.
These resources are designed to help students responsibly manage their stress and include, but are not limited to, the Dean of Students office, Decker Student Health Services Center, the University Counseling Center (UCC) and the University Police. Depending on the professor’s preference, the paragraph may be accompanied by a chart listing the phone numbers for the different services. The Dean of Students office works to foster student learning and development by helping develop individualized plans to deal with
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NYS mentor program comes to Binghamton Matilda Cuomo initiative partners with CCPA to aid at-risk youth in local middle schools Alana Epstein Pipe Dream News
A mentorship program for struggling schoolchildren, spearheaded by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his mother, Matilda Cuomo, is now making its way to Binghamton University. The Matilda Cuomo initiative, which matches disadvantaged and vulnerable students with volunteers from business and academia, was launched in September 2015. The
program specifically provides life and career guidance to children in foster care or at risk of failing out of school. The mentorship program is currently targeting fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders, but is expected to grow with an increasing number of mentors. As the program enters the Binghamton area, New York state is looking to the College of Community and Public Affairs (CCPA) at BU to recruit faculty and staff for the initiative. The program requires a two-hour training
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ARTS & CULTURE
Amy Donovan Contributing Writer
Broome County was designated to be a Promise Zone by New York state in 2013, and since then, Binghamton University students have been providing local public schools with services like tutoring, mentoring and dance lessons. Promise Zones are high-poverty areas that need financial assistance in providing school services. There are four other designated Promise Zones in New York state, including two in New York City, one in Syracuse and one in Buffalo. The Broome County Promise Zone initiative is funded by the New York State Office of Mental Health, and the Broome County Mental Health Department receives the funding and partners with BroomeTioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services and BU to help local schools. The program uses a community school model, which is is the idea that schools act as centers where students and families can take advantage of a number of health and social services. This model emphasizes the idea of community in a school setting, and allows students to gain access to activities like tutoring or dance lessons that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to afford on their own. Laura Bronstein, dean of the College of Community and Public Affairs, discussed community school models within highpoverty communities, like Broome County, in her new book, “School-Linked Services: Promoting Equity for Children, Families, and Communities.” “I feel like school-linked services and community schools are really the best shot we have at breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty,” Bronstein said. “What these programs do eventually is level the playing field for people from low-income communities with people from middle-class communities.” Bronstein also said that the community school model is a great way
for BU students to get involved. “Linking the community schools’ work with University students is a really nice way for students to get a sense of civic engagement and how they can make a difference,” Bronstein said. BU students make up the majority of volunteers and community partners for the initiative and are involved in a number of different ways. According to Elizabeth Carter, the assistant vice president for student development, students of all majors can volunteer through the
Netflix hit-series “Narcos” rolls out for a second season,
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Contributing columnist Sophia San Filippo writes on the adverse effects of porn,
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Photo provided by Jonathan Cohen Pictured: Laura Bronstein, dean of the College of Community and Public Affairs.
OPINIONS
Update your fashion for fall with Pipe Dream’s help,
Center for Civic Engagement or enroll in the Career Development Centralized Internship Program to receive credit. “In addition to the normal tutoring, mentoring and after-school programs, we had some other different kinds of requests from schools,” Carter said. “Instead of just people who are interested in teaching or mentoring or working with K-12, we started to realize that there are needs that incorporate every major.”
SPORTS
Golf falters at season-opening tournament,
Women’s soccer defeats Siena, Manhattan,
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