TF SU Exit Sign Article

Hands On
At S~ redearch un7
t
jwtfor graduate
dtudentd.
UNIVERSITY P L A C E
J ulie Tansil sits outside a
testing booth at SU's
Institute for Sensory Re-
search (ISR). Inside, a vol-
unteer places his hand on
top of a small vibrator. Surrounded by
large computers and colorful electronic
machines, Tansil adjusts the vibrator
to various levels of intensity at differ-
ent pressure points on the palm of the
subject's hand. She's looking for the
spot at which he can just barely feel
the vibrator's motion. After compiling
data ·on a number of volunteer sub-
Engineering majors Julie Tansil(I) and My Nguyen spent thesummer conducting research at SU's Institute for Sensory
Researchin paid internships.Both undergraduates have moreresearch experience than many graduate students.
jects, Tansil and her research partners
hope to make a correlation between
the hand's sensitivity and carpal tunnel
syndrome.
Tansil is a junior bioinstrumentation
major in SU's College of Engineering
and Computer S cie nce (ECS). Her
participation in this research project is
a unique opportunity. She is one of 23
ECS undergraduates with a paid sum-
mer research assistantship, a privilege
usually reserved for graduate students.
"This is a n unusual opportunity for
ma ny of us in engineering, especially
women," says Tansil. "It helps me not
only in terms of my career, but it lets
36
S Y RACUSE UN IVE RS ITY M AGA Z INE
me see the p ractical applica tions of
things I've learned in my electrical-
engineering classes."
D eveloping this kind of practical
application for undergraduates has
become a focus in ECS. Tansil works
under funding provided to the college
from the General Electric Foundation.
Other companies such as Kodak also
support SU undergraduates by fi nanc-
ing similar research assistantships.
"Ifyou're at all interested in the cre-
ative process, one of the reasons you
should come to a research university is
to experience it in the lab," says ECS
Dean Steven C. Chamberlain. "He re
you can work w ith a faculty member
in a one-on-one relationship. I'm try -
ing to provide as much funding as pos-
sible for people w ho want to immerse
themselves in summer research."
My N g uyen is anothe r stud e nt-
researcher. For the past three sum-
mers, she has conduc ted a uditory
research with Robert Smith, ISR's
director. Spending her summer day s
in a soundproof booth, Nguyen stud-
ies how single-auditory ne rve fibe rs
contribute to the activity of a whole
bundle.
A senior bioe n g inee ring ma jor,
N guyen has shared her research find-
ings at national conferences. This past
summer, Nguy en and Smith presented
"Interac tio n Between R espon se
Modula tion and Ada ptatio n in th e
Auditory N e r ve" a t th e a nnua l
Acoustical Assoc ia t ion of A me rica
conference in Ca mbridge, M assachu-
setts. Nguyen has more research expe-
rience as a senior than many full-time
graduate students.
For N guyen, paid research assist-
antships allow her to w ork full-time at
a summer job that w ill certainly help
her career. After finishing her bache-
lor's degree, she pla ns to earn a mas-
te r 's degree and th e n atte nd a to p
research medical school.
In the meantime, she enjoys work-
ing daily at the Institute for Sensory
Research, w here complicated titles of
research papers line the halls. "I get
the best of both worlds," Nguyen says.
'Tve had the cha nce to learn the tech-
nical side of research and the theoreti-
cal." - ANDRF.A C. MARSH
1
et al.: University Place
Published by SURFACE, 1994

This Way Out
We're walking through the
basement of the Women's
Building with Tom Farrell,
and to be honest, we never noticed just
how many exit signs there are. Four.
In a 50-foot expanse of hallway.
"These have all been completed,"
says Farrell. "See how bright the let-
ters are? It's because we replaced the
plastic inserts."
"What happened here?" we ask.
Tucked around a corner, the last
exit sign is open, innards exposed, its
cover lying on the floor.
"I don't know," say s Farrell. "Look,
the light bulbs are still here, it hasn't
been converted yet." He takes out a
small notebook and makes a note.
Farrell, a 1989 graduate of the
College of Arts a nd Sciences, runs a
lighting business in New Jersey. His
firm, Atlantic Lighting, recently fin-
ished c onverting the ex it sig ns
throughout Syracuse University from
standard light bulbs to energy efficient
light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
Atlantic Lighting has provided SU
with n early 3,5 00 retrofit kits to
upgrade the exit signs in 82 campus
buildings. The cost for the kits and
installation is fully covered by a rebate
from Niagara Mohawk, the local utili-
ty/power company . The switch w ill
save SU about $230,000 annually and
will save 97,000 w atts of energy and
significantly reduce resulting atmos-
pheric pollutants.
Farrell proposed the exit sign switch
a year ago when he was called by an
S U student for the annual Telefund.
"She asked if I'd like to make a gift
to the University," Farrell recalls with
a chuckle. "I asked her if SU was inter-
ested in a $7-million endowment. She
got all excited and got her manager on
the phone."
Farrell then began his pitch: A light
bulb in a traditional exit sign burns out
every other month. LED s last for 80 to
l 00 years virtually maintena nce-free,
using 95 percent less energy in the
process. In 25 years, t he U niversity
could save more t ha n $7 million. He
was referred to Tim Sweet, SU 's ener-
gy conservation manager.
A brief history of campus snack bars:
> People'.I Place~ located in Hendricks Chapel, was
started during spring semester 1971 in what for-
merly was a janitor's closet. Previously, no area
existed on campus where members of the SU communi-
ty could meet, snack, and relax.
In its early years, People's Place sponsored activities such as
story readings with free crackers and milk, yoga, and bread-mak-
ing classes. Coffee and donuts were 10 cents each and a home-
made cookie cost a nickel. Today coffee and cookies are 40 cents
each-not bad considering it's been more than 20 years.
People's Place has always been run by students and supports
itself entirely through sales. The profits go directly back into buy-
ing more food and paying employees. It is the only independent,
nonprofit snack bar on campus.
> Tbe Blinker, a University-run snack bar, was built into the plans
when Huntington Beard Crouse Hall was constructed in 1961. The
snack bar has been plagued by burglaries from hungry thieves
with a taste for potato chips, candy, and cream cheese. After the
Blinker was hit five times, campus security installed a hidden
video camera in the hallway to record the culprits.
> In 198~ when tbe Scbine Student Center opened, the campus
snack bars were viewed as competition. As a result, the Com-
mons in Slocum Hall was closed. There were also unsuccessful
attempts to close People's Place and the Blinker.
Today, SU runs two food courts, one in the former Kimmel
dining center, the other in the Brewster/Boland complex, featuring
outlets of popular fast-food restaurants. There's also a snack bar
in the College of Law, a cafeteria in the Goldstein Student Center,
and a 65-seat cafe in Eggers Hall.
"It just made sense," says Sweet of
the switch. "The product Farrell dis-
tributes is the first of its kind that con-
verts existing signs to LE D s and also
meets requirements set by OSHA, the
N ational Electrical Code, the National
Fire Protect ion Agency, a nd is U L
approved. Not only is the U niversity
saving money, the energy savings are
significant."
Inside the University Photo Center,
Farrell pulls an exit sign and a retrofit
kit from his briefcase to show us how it
works. "Ah, the exit sign guy," says the
p hotographer, w ho's just entered the
studio. "Did you see our sign? It's bro-
ke n," he w hisper s, ou t o f Farrell's
37
FtLL 1994
-Alanna Fincke
earshot.
"It's okay t o ta lk," w e say. "Tha t
sign hasn't been converted yet."
"We'll get it taken care of," Farrell
says.
Farrell tells us about the last time he
stood in this building, five years ago as
a student w ho enrolled in a coaching
class because he thoug ht it would be
easy.
"It was a bear," he says.
"I never imagined then I'd be back
doing business w ith the U niversity.
It's nice."
And so is the new exit sign outside
the P hoto Center in the basement.
-RENEE GEARHARTLEVY
2
Syracuse University Magazine, Vol. 11, Iss. 1 [1994], Art. 11
http://surface.syr.edu/sumagazine/vol11/iss1/11

Different Worlds
0 .n the second night of class, a
young woman reads aloud her
assignment on a personal
experience with the medical communi-
ty. Her essay describes the night she
was raped.
Another evening, a nurse relates her
conflicting personal and professional
feelings watching a baby die in the
neonatal intensive care unit. Later in
the semester, a woman tries to tell of
her son's cancer surgery, but tremu-
lously asks another student to read her
p•ece.
Not the usual classroom experience,
but neither is the course itself, which
draws participants from three of the
city's institutions of higher learning:
Syracuse University, Le Moyne Col-
lege, and the State University of New
York Health Science Center at Syra-
cuse (HSC).
The students are participating in
one of several courses offered each
semester through the Syracuse
Consortium for the Cultural Found-
ations of Medicine. Founded in 1978,
the consortium explores areas of
health care from the viewpoints of var-
ied academic disciplines.
According to codirector Robert
Daly, professor of psychiatry and
medical humanities at HSC and an
adjunct professor of philosophy at SU,
"A number of us perceived that stu-
dents wanted to know more about the
moral and historical foundations of
health care. None of the three institu-
tions had the resources to develop
such an educational program. So we
formed the consortium."
Three codirectors, one from each
college, decide what to offer each
semester, creating courses not avail-
able at any of the three schools .
Faculty members from at least two of
the schools team-teach most courses
and students receive credit from their
home institutions. In 16 years, Daly
says, they've canceled only three class-
es for low enrollment. This past acade-
mic year, 379 students took consor-
tium courses.
Les Friedman teaches M ed icine in
Film and Literature, which requires
UNIVERSITY P L A C E
students to write about their medical
experiences. Friedman is one of the
few faculty members who faces a class
alone; because he teaches m edical
huma nit ies at HSC and is a lso a n
adjunc t professor of film in SU's
College of Visual and Performing Arts,
he actually straddles two worlds.
"Faculty members at all three insti-
tutions hungered to talk to one anoth-
er, and we knew students did, too," he
says. "The primary benefit to this kind
of interdisciplinary effort is that peo-
ple get to peek into each other's uni-
versities."
Mary Ellen Rickert, a pediatric
nurse at a local hospita l, found the
course Ethics and the Health
Professions exposed her to several dif-
ferent viewpoints.
"We had spirited debates on abor-
tion, fetal testing, and do-not-resusci-
38
SYRACUSE UN IVERS ITY MA G A Z IN E
tate orders," says Rickert, who recent-
ly completed her master's degree in
nursing at Syracuse. "My class of 26
people included eight nurses, and our
descriptions of w hat patients and fami-
lies go through seemed to open some
people's eyes."
Second-year medical student Wolf-
gang Miggiani experienced similar
feelings taking the course Culture and
Mental Disorder.
"Psychiatrists and people in medi-
cine often take a very clinical approach
to mental illness," he says. "We tend to
define things in terms of disease and
negate the social aspects."
Miggiani discovered t hat wasn't
possible in a class taught by an
anthropologist. "The mixture of people
in the class d emanded a real inter-
change of ideas."
- CAROL NORTH S CHMUCKLER
3

Baby Love
Eight-month-old Molly sits on
the floor surrounded by five
smiling women. "Boom, boom,
boom," says one of the women cheer-
fully, as she clunks two wooden blocks
together.
Molly looks down at the blocks she
holds in her hands.
"Boom, boom, boom," the woman
says again w hile clunking. " Boom,
boom, boom."
Tentatively, Molly taps her own
blocks together.
"Yay!" The women erupt with
enthusiasm.
This isn't all fun and games. The
women, most of them professional
caregivers at day -care centers, are par-
ticipating in SU's annual Quality
Infant/Toddler Caregiving Workshop.
This afternoon they're trying out
Piagetian Infancy Scales on volunteer
subjects. They're working on Scale IV:
D evelopment of Causality. Molly has
passed with flying colors.
"Have you tried object permanence
with her?" asks Alice Honig, professor
of human development, director of the
work s hop, and an internat iona lly
know n expert on caregiving for very
young children. Honig, dressed in her
trademark flowing Indian print dress
and dangling silver earrings, takes a
small toy, shows it to Molly, then cov-
ers it with a small blanket. Molly stares
at it blankly.
"Why don't you try leaving part of
the toy exposed, " Honig directs t he
women. The blanket is adjusted. Still,
Molly sits and stares.
"It's just too hard for her, " says
Honig. She moves on to the next
group, w here 16-month-old Brandon
busily drops plastic beads dow n a tube.
For 18 years, workshop participants
have come from around the w orld to
spend a week in Syracuse and learn
from Honig. Linda Pecca, a toddler
teacher at a day-care center in Ottawa,
Canada, says she was attracted by the
focus on children under age three.
"Most of the e du cation out there
focuses on preschool children. There's
not much available on infants and tod-
dlers."
Laura Gatto, head infant-room
teacher at the State University of New
York Health Science Center at Sy ra-
cuse, enjoys the networking opportuni-
ties. "People take child-care workers for
granted," says Gatto. "So often we're
looked at as glorified baby-sitters. Here
we're treated as professionals."
Honig believes no more important
job exists than caring for little people.
How children are tended in the early
years has everything to do with their
behavior and relationships later in life,
she says, a theme that pops up often
during the week-long workshop. She
calls her approach "bridging."
"If there is one thing I love most
about my work, it is the ability to take
complicated research and apply those
ideas to children's lives in the real
world of parenting and caregiving,"
she says.
Honig's golden rule: Babies need to
be held. "You've got two wings, two
thighs. If you're nice and plump you
can fit babies in each space," she tells
the group. "If you 're too skinny it
might not work."
The exercises are over. Honig coax-
es the caregivers and mothers into a
What faculty and staff were reading this summer:
> PeterEnglot~ director of graduate admissions and awards, Saratoga
Hexameter by SU English professor Stephen Dobyns. "I loved it.
This book is one of a mystery series Dobyns writes about Charlie
Bradshaw, a private detective in Saratoga. The characters are
unpretentious and seem very real. Dobyns creates the picture of
what I think a private investigator is really like."
> PeterKnoblock~ special education professor, Images by lngmar
Bergman. "This summer I am reading all of Bergman's books. In
Images: My Life in Film, he talks about his work and what was
going on when he was preparing films and doing theater work."
> Sarah Helen Ram..~ey~ professor and associate dean of the
College of Law, Blue Calhoun by Reynolds Price. "It is a very inter-
esting novel about a man in the South and his various relation-
ships with women. It's the story of a man's emotional life."
> Diane Lyden Murphy~ director and associate professor of social
work and women's studies, Whoredom and Kimmage: Irish
Women Coming ofAge by Rosemary Mahoney. "She is an Irish
journalist and feminist in her twenties who lives and travels in
Ireland, providing a woman's experience of the country."
_>. DavUJ We.Jt, associate director of DIPA, The Cauldron by Larry Bond
and Tom Clancy's Without Remorse. "They are both techno-
thrillers. I don't have a lot of time to read, but when I do, I like
futuristic thrillers."
> Carol Cavalluzzi~ library assistant, Geology Library~
Angels and Insects by A.S. Byatt. "It is about
Victorian life and the compulsion to be involved in
the natural sciences. I am reading it because I
liked her book Possession: A Romance very
much."
39
FALL 1994
4

large circle, with the babies and tod-
dlers in the middle. With Honig as
song leader, the caregivers serenade
the children with cheerful baby songs,
their faces beaming. Brandon dances
and hugs and kisses the other toddlers.
"Gentle, gentle," coaxes Honig.
Molly, tired from all the stimulation,
crawls back to her mother's lap and
dissolves into tears. But perched on
mom's shoulder, with Honig singing
sweetly to her, she calms.
"Thank you for coming, everyone,"
says Honig. "Thank you for bringing
these wonderful babies."
-RENi!~E GEARHARTL EVY
Horsing Around
R]th Mealey was anxious.
Although she'd ridden horses
or 12 years and competed in
more than 100 s hows during high
school, this was her first competition
representing the Syracuse University
Equestrian Team.
"I hardly knew anyone on the
team," Mealey recalled. To add to the
UNIVERSITY P 1 A C E
pressure, it was Parents Weekend, and
Mealey's folks were in the audience.
Mealey mounted her horse and rode
into the ring for the jumping division.
The challenge is having a well-bal-
anced horse. Judges reward riders
who appear not to move in the saddle
and make it seem the horse is doing all
the work.
Mealey's experience paid off. She
won a blue ribbon.
Since that first show as a freshman
two years ago, Mealey, an environ-
mental design student, has won
numerous ribbons and been elected
captain of the team.
The equestrian team, a club sport,
has 30 members and belongs to the
Intercollegiate Horse Show Associa-
tion. The c lub gives students the
opportunity to take riding lessons and
compete.
Last March we hitched up with the
team at a show at Skidmore College in
Saratoga Springs, New York. Skid-
more has one of the biggest equestrian
programs in the region and its own
equestrian complex. SU competed
against seven other schools- mostly
40
SYRA CUSE UN I VERS IT Y M AGA Z INE
varsity teams- inside a giant, corru-
gated steel barn.
Seeing the horses sent one writer
into nostalgia. After reading Walter
Farley's The BLack StaLLion as a boy,
he'd become determined to coerce his
parents into buying a horse. He lived
in a town-Colt's Neck-that suggest-
ed life on a horse farm. Unfortunately,
while hanging out at a nearby farm he
discovered he was allergic to hay and
horse hair.
We watched the second part of the
competition-flat riding-with Mealey
and Natanya Levioff, a political sci-
ence student who graduated last May.
Flat riding entails circling a dirt ring
and altering the horse's gait from walk
to trot to canter.
Levioff pointed out the better riders.
Some horses had their heads pointed
downwards. "Their riders are pulling
too hard on the reins, " she said. A
happy horse, she explained, holds its
head up and its ears stand straight up.
Most schools get their horses
through donations, usually because
they're too old to compete at higher
levels. Host schools are responsible for
providing horses for each rider. The
morning of each show, riders draw for
a horse. Part of the challenge is com-
peting on unfamiliar horses.
Levioff said her biggest concern is
losing control of her horse. "If the
horse has been ridden all day, it's tired
and cranky. Horses are like people.
They just want to go home and you're
forcing them to walk, trot, and canter."
Before going off to get her horse,
Mealey pointed to a rider walking a
horse around the open quarter of the
barn. Riders only have a few minutes
with a horse before riding into the
ring. "We're only allowed to walk the
horse," said Mealey. "So we ask them
to walk faster, to halt, and to back up
to see how they respond. We try to get
a sense of their balance before we get
into the ring."
Sometimes a horse can be difficult to
figure out. At a St. Lawrence show last
spring, Mealey told us, she drew Sam-
l-Am. After riding him, she coined a
few other choice names for him.
"The horse was crazy - bucking,
running away, flipping its head," she
says. "I rode him and one other rider
5

rode him, then he got pulled from the
show because he was so crazy."
Suddenly, our writer's allergies
returned with a vengeance, but we
held out long enough to watch Mealey
a nd some of h er teammates add rib-
bons to their collections.
A few weeks later, at the regional
show at Cazenova College, Syracuse
was eliminated from continuing to the
national show. But Mealey remained
optimistic for the new season. "If all
goes well," she said, "we'll bring home
the blue for Syracuse." -ROBERT MOLL
Music Maker
In between completing an advertis-
ing project and preparing for final
exams, Joel Jordan has to finish
the artwork for a record cover.
Busy doesn't cover it. Devoted does.
Dressed in a white tee-shirt, sweater
vest, and faded blue jeans, sitting on
his couch with his legs tucked up
unde rneath him and his hair falling
long on his forehead, Jorda n shines
with e n t hu siasm for Watermark
R ecordings, the independent record
label h e ru ns with his twin brother,
Jason.
Since Watermark started two years
ago, the brothers have produced 18
records; five came o ut this summer.
The label has earned a reputation for
recording talented, alternative bands,
many of w hich have attracted major-
label interest.
Most of Jordan's SU acquainta nces
know nothing about his success in the
music industry. "He's not the kind of
person to go around tooting his own
horn," says brother Jason. "It's not an
ego thing. It's something we do for
ourselves and our artists."
The Jordans find ba nds either by
hearing them live or from demo tapes
sent to them. They also solicit tapes
from artists nationwide after reading
good reviews. Musical talent isn't the
only criterion; content is also impor-
tant. "We won't put out anything sex-
ist, racist, homophobic, heterosexist,
fascist, or closed-minded," says Joel,
w ho also p lays guitar in two bands. "It
totally disgusts us."
The Jordans first began producing
Joel Jordan (I)and histwin brother Jason, runWatermark,one of the hottest labels recording alternative music. Joel,
an SU junior advertisingmajor, handles design and advertising for thelabel, whileJason runs the business end.
records as high school freshmen, pri-
marily to release their own music and
that of their friends. With Watermark,
they've moved to a much grander scale.
Joel, a junior advertising major, is
responsible for the creative end; h e
designs the recordings and the Water-
mark advertising. Jason, w ho lives in
New Jersey, takes care of the business
side.
Style is important, says Joel.
Sophisticated advertisements appear in
fanzines, independent magazines put
out by fans of alternative music around
the country. "We want everything to
look so awesome that everybody's talk-
ing about it," he says. "We put out the
b est-looking re cords, seriously."
Records are pressed on colored vinyl
to give the appearance of special-edi-
tion albums. Joel uses the best photog-
raphers and printers for the covers and
puts a lot of money into making each
record look perfect.
"We are not profit-oriented," says
J oel. "Any profits from record sales are
recycled back into the label to ma ke
future records even more stylish."
Still, the label makes enough money
to record, produce, and manufacture
recordings of its artists and distribute
them worldwide. The brothers a r e
looking for investors so they can manu-
41
FALL 1994
facture more quickly and improve dis-
tribution.
"Then we can really do some dam-
age," says Jason.
Watermark makes su re its bands
receive proper recognition: The label
pays percentages w h e n profits are
earned and gives bands 100 free com-
pact discs of their record.
They also car e about their c u s-
tomers, sending a personalized thank-
you letter w it h each mail order. "It
only takes a few minutes," say s Joel.
Watermark's biggest project
debuted in July. Land of Greed, WorLd of
Need combines the sounds of 14 differ-
e nt bands covering songs from th e
popular Embrace album from five years
ago.
Profits from the recording go to var-
ious grassroots homeless organizations
nationwide. Essays on homelessness-
w ritten by the contributing bands are
contained within the magazine-style
cover.
Because of the predicted success of
this remake, three of the largest record
labels in the country handled distribu-
tion for Watermark.
"We're not trying to be corporate,"
says Joel, re fl ecting on the label's
accomplishments. "We just want to
add our influence to the industry."
- J ODIE M CCUNE
6

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