Stormy skies failed to dampen the enthusiasm of the Class of 2004, which gathered at the Connecticut Tennis Center in New Haven for undergraduate commencement on May 28.

Playwright and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith gave the commencement address. Hailed by Newsweek as “the most exciting individual in American theater,” Smith received the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius” Fellowship in 1996. Another highlight was the presentation of an honorary doctorate of humane letters to Lillian Vernon, philanthropist and founder of a catalog and online retail company.

Commencement exercises for graduate students were held on May 27 at the Lyman Center for the Performing Arts. Graduate students in the schools of Arts and Sciences, Business, and Health and Human Services received their degrees or diplomas at an afternoon ceremony. Shirley A. Jackson, president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an internationally recognized theoretical physicist, gave the commencement address. Graduate commencement exercises for the School of Communication, Information, and Library Science and the School of Education were held in the evening. Addressing the graduates was Lorraine Cole, president and chief executive officer of the Black Women’s Health Imperative.

[from left] Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs Ellen R. Beatty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Emeritus J. Philip Smith with Outstanding Teaching Award recipients Professor of English William H. Shea and Professor of Public Health William G. Faraclas.

Professor of Public Health William Faraclas and Professor of English Michael Shea were recognized at commencement as the 2004 recipients of the J. Philip Smith Outstanding Teaching Award, named in honor of Southern’s recent interim president.

Professor Faraclas came to Southern in 1975 as the university’s first public health faculty member and has been the department’s chairman for 24 years. As a curriculum planner, Faraclas wrote the extremely successful bachelor of science program in public health. He also serves as the director of the department’s International Field Studies in Health program.

Award recipient Professor Michael Shea has been a member of Southern’s faculty since 1985. Shea teaches Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and film, and has team-taught in the Honors College for the past decade. Shea, whose research specialty is Shakespeare in the classroom, has made frequent presentations at the annual conference of the Shakespeare Association of America.

Communication Disorders Professor Rhea Paul, who has dedicated her career to building bridges to the world of isolation that surrounds people with autism, has received a major grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Paul, a 1999 Southern Faculty Scholar, was awarded a five-year, $500,000 Mid-Career Development Grant to help forward her research on autism, a range of developmental disorders that inhibit an individual’s social and communication skills. During the next five years, Paul will study prosody in high functioning individuals affected by autism. Prosody refers to the many characteristics of communication that accompany speech, including rhythm, pauses, stress, intonation, and emotional undertones. Paul’s research will focus on children and teens at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven, where she is a researcher.

Individuals with autism, even those with extraordinary intellectual abilities, often have significant problems with prosody. Many speak in a mechanical manner and fail to read prosody in others’ speech. The impact can be significant, since prosody often colors or changes the meaning of communication. Among the most exciting aspects of Paul’s research is an intervention component that will pair the Southern professor with former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) robotics engineers, who are working at Yale to develop toy-like robots to help train autistic individuals in prosody.

Political science major James O’Brien, ’04, completed his senior year on a spectacular high note when he was recognized as one of the nation’s top undergraduate scholars.

In the spring, USA Today named the stellar student to the Third Team of its All-USA College Academic Team. O’Brien was the only college student from Connecticut to be chosen. USA Today annually selects 20 students each for its first, second, and third teams and 22 students in the honorable mention category.

In addition, O’Brien recently became one of only 39 students from across the country to receive the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship, which will give him up to $50,000 a year to cover his graduate study at Tufts University, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The 39 scholarship winners were chosen from a pool of 1,226 nominees submitted by 747 colleges.

While an undergraduate at Southern, O’Brien worked as a foreign trade specialist for the U.S. Department of Commerce, made a presentation at the U.S. Army War College, and delivered a paper on “The Geopolitical Implications of an Occupied Iraq” at a conference at the University of Calgary.

A former U.S. marine, he graduated summa cum laude in May, completing three years of course work in a two-year period after transferring from Norwalk Community College.

O'Brien

James O’Brien, ’04, was one of four students to receive Southern’s Henry Barnard Foundation Distinguished Service Award. (See previous story.) The award is presented each year to four seniors who best exemplify outstanding scholarship in combination with service to the campus and greater community.

Melissa Grosso, ’04, graduated summa cum laude in January 2004 with a bachelor of arts in a double major, English and political science. During her academic career, she was a member of the Honors College and the Zeta Delta Epsilon Honor Service Society. Grosso also served as an international trade specialist for the U.S. Commerce Department while still a student.

Wachter

Heather Wachter, ’04, completed her bachelor’s degrees in communication and elementary education with a 3.9 grade point average. Her many achievements include assisting Cheshire Youth Services in developing programs in leadership and recreation. She is a recipient of Southern’s Communication Excellence Award and has volunteered with the Special Olympics for 12 years.

Millspaugh

Samantha Millspaugh, ’04, graduated magna cum laude with a degree in communication disorders. An active member of the U.S. Coast Guard from 1993-2000, she earned several honors during that period. In addition to her academic success, Millspaugh has volunteered as a youth adviser for her church and was a member of the Zeta Delta Epsilon Honor Service Society and the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Three years ago, Michelle Bogart expressed a wish that her intellectually disabled son, Sean, then a sophomore at Hamden High School, could continue his schooling to age 21 without having to spend seven years in a high school environment.

Bogart believed that Sean would be better served in a college setting after he turned 18, the age when most of his high school peers graduate. At the time, however, there were no programs that would allow him to learn life skills and engage in job training programs away from high school, even though by state law, some special education students are entitled to a free education through the age of 21.

Bogart spoke to Sandra White, the director of secondary special education for the Hamden School System. White quickly contacted James Granfield, then Southern’s associate dean of the School of Education, to develop an idea. A small committee was formed and Granfield, who is now the school’s interim dean, outlined a plan in which Southern would be the site for a work-transition program for older special education students.

Last fall, half a dozen 18-year-old students, including Sean, were brought to Southern each weekday for a series of educational, work, and socialization experiences. This year, plans call for 12 students to participate.

A true partnership, the program also benefited Southern students. Melissa Ross, ’04, who graduated in May with a degree in special education, worked with the students as part of her student teaching experience. “It was inspirational watching them discover new ideas and concepts,” she says.

The first of its kind in Connecticut, the program was supported by two state grants totaling $50,000, and by funding from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, the elder statesman of the Democratic Party, addressed a range of key issues relevant to the upcoming presidential election when he delivered the sixth Mary and Louis Fusco Distinguished Lecture in April.

Cuomo cited statistics showing that 35 million Americans are poor and that fewer than one in four workers is highly skilled. He also said that the average chief executive officer (CEO) today earns more than 500 times the average employee’s salary, a gap that has mushroomed from 15 years ago, when the average CEO earned 12 times the amount of the average worker.

The presidential election also was the focus of a related forum titled, “U.S. Presidential Campaigns — Past, Present & Future,” which was held one week prior to the lecture. Charles Cook, one of the top political analysts in the country, delivered the keynote speech.

Previous speakers in Southern’s Distinguished Lecture Series were Colin Powell (1999), Walter Cronkite (2000), Christopher and Dana Reeve (2001), Ehud Barak (2002), and Rudolph Giuliani (2003).

Southern’s revamped sixth-year classroom teacher specialist program is designed with a “teacher’s teacher” in mind.

The 30-credit program is geared toward educators who want to stay in the classroom while expanding their opportunities, perhaps by becoming department heads, attaining certification in other areas, or furthering their area of expertise.

Christine Villani, program co-coordinator, notes that Southern is the only college or university in Connecticut offering a sixth-year classroom teacher specialist program. The university also offers sixth-year programs in educational foundations and educational leadership, as well as an Ed.D. in educational leadership.

“This program fits perfectly with our academic mission and our historical strength in producing teachers,” says David Levande, program co-coordinator. Among the benefits for those in the program is the opportunity to become cross-certified. Those holding sixth-year diplomas also may teach graduate-level courses at colleges and universities in Connecticut.

The patient lies in bed gasping for air. His blood pressure is a bit high, but his other vital signs appear stable. “I… (cough) am having trouble…(cough) breathing,” he says. Immediately nursing students tend to the patient, taking steps to help him breathe.

Though the symptoms are serious and the response professional, the patient in this case is not a person, but rather a high-tech training mannequin, one of two purchased by Southern’s nursing department as part of an upgrade to its lab facilities and equipment. The mannequin was a highlight of a tour of the lab last spring by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, who has played an integral role in helping the department receive nearly $1.4 million in federal funding during the last few years. The money has enabled the department to renovate the lab, purchase state-of-the-art equipment, upgrade the RN to BSN program to include graduates of Gateway Community College’s new associate degree program, and, eventually, to construct an $800,000 temporary building for the department. Scheduled to be in operation by January 2006, the building will add critically needed space for the program and allow Southern to train more nurses. The facility will be used as an annex for the nursing department until a permanent building is constructed to house all of the health-related departments within the School of Health and Human Services.

At the Nursing Laboratory ribbon cutting: [from left] CSU Chancellor William Cibes, Jr., former Southern Interim President J. Philip Smith, Assistant Professor of Nursing Barbara Aronson, U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro, Nursing Department Chairman Cesarina Thompson, and CSU Board of Trustees Chairman Lawrence McHugh.

During her visit, DeLauro referred to grim statistics showing a worsening shortage of nurses, especially in Connecticut. Projections from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration call for Connecticut to have the fifth highest shortfall of nurses in the entire nation by the year 2020.

Southern has been a clear leader in the push to combat the nursing shortage. The number of Southern undergraduate nursing majors skyrocketed by 35 percent between the fall of 2001 and the fall of 2003, including a 20 percent gain from the fall of 2002 to the fall of 2003. Among the department’s initiatives is an accelerated nursing program that allows students to complete their degrees one semester ahead of schedule. Other recruiting efforts include a partnership with Career High School in New Haven.

Beginning this fall, registered nurses who wish to obtain a baccalaureate in their field can take their classes online. The revamped RN to BSN program requires 124 credits. In most cases, students transfer from a two-year school, where they obtained their registered nurse certification. Those students often can transfer 63 of their credits to the university. They then need to earn an additional 61 credits from Southern, including 22 credits in nursing.

Currently, about 30 percent of all registered nurses have a baccalaureate, according to Cesarina Thompson, nursing department chairman. “But that need is steadily rising and in the years ahead will reach 60 percent,” she says.