August 2016
A Vibrant Summer and Lead-Up to Fall
I hope you have been having a productive and exciting summer. While some of you were away, our classrooms and labs were filled with students developing or refining their skills. Students embarked on faculty-led fieldwork, from excavations in Utah and Greece to solar energy research in Poland. Hundreds more participated in on-campus research projects and pursued area internships through such programs as our Jaggar Community Fellows Program and McDonell Fellowship Program. 

At our Garden City campus, enthusiastic K-12 students have been developing their athletic talents in sports camps, while the labs and classrooms have been buzzing with passionate emerging scientists and writers. You'll read more below about our Alice Hoffman Young Writers Retreat. In partnership with UNESCO, we undertook a terrific summer conference that brought over 300 high school student activists from around the world to campus as part of a global summit at the United Nations. The students participated in a Shark Tank-style competition to bring forth ideas on how we can further our commitment to sustainability.

At Orientation, we introduced over 1,000 freshman Panthers to our community. Thank you to the orientation leaders, affectionately known as OLs, whose enthusiasm got the new students off to a great start, to the advisers who worked relentlessly to ensure that everyone received an exciting and rich academic program, and to the faculty and staff, who showed these new students how motivated we are for them to join us. Many of our freshmen have chosen to participate in our signature Freshman Community Action Program (FCAP). FCAP introduces incoming students to our focus on service to the community--a focus that shows who we are and what we believe. This will be our largest freshman class ever, and I know we will double our collective efforts to ensure our students' success.

Transfer and graduate registration is still going strong at all campuses, with graduate open houses and transfer admission days taking place throughout the month. 
 
Our first day of classes, August 29, is just around the corner. There will be myriad activities for students and families this month, including Move-In Day, Matriculation and our new Panther Picnic on August 31 to welcome freshmen and returning students. At the Garden City campus, you will notice some changes, including the Outdoor Sculpture Biennial 2016-2018, with a recurrent theme throughout the campus of recycled materials, highlighting our commitment to sustainability, and the opening of the Nexus Building, the dynamic hub for many of our student success functions as well as the home of the College of Nursing and Public Health.
 
Additionally, University-wide, you will see program changes to align with our strategic plan, Momentum, such as the redesigned and renamed Center for Career and Professional Development, which will focus on career and professional development for all students and alumni.
 
To stay up-to-date with all the welcome-back programming, as well as all that happens at Adelphi, download version 3.0 of the AU2Go app for campus activities and events. And get your tickets now for AUPAC's season opener, Disco Inferno:  A '70s Celebration, a nonstop dance party that brings favorite disco hits to life.
 
Thank you also to the 323 members of the Adelphi faculty, staff and student employee community who made a gift to the University in support of our Day of Giving and Ice Cream Social. Because of your collective generosity, we secured the full $25,000 challenge grant from two anonymous donors.
 
I can't wait to see everyone. Together we will continue our collective commitment to strengthen Adelphi and the Adelphi experience for our students.  

Christine M. Riordan, Ph.D.
President
CAMPUS UPDATES

 
The High-Impact Learning Heats Up   
One of the key initiatives of Momentum: The Strategic Plan for Adelphi University 2016-2021 is to engage in high-impact teaching and learning for all students. This summer has proven to be a wonderful time to carry out that initiative. Our Jaggar Community Fellows Program is thriving, with 70 students working in paid internships at 40 nonprofits on Long Island and in New York City. Over the summer, eight McDonell Fellows are pursuing original science research alongside faculty mentors, and 13 students in the Honors College have received fellowships for their own scholarly pursuits. 
 
 
Alice Hoffman '73 and Adelphi Faculty Mentor Emerging Writers  
At last month's Alice Hoffman Young Writers Retreat, three dozen high school students had a rare chance to express themselves in poetry and prose and receive advice, not just from Adelphi professors but from Hoffman herself. The Class of '73 alum returned to lead a workshop. So, too, did Brett Clark '10, M.A. '11, a teacher at Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Education High School in Queens. Students traveled for as long as two hours each way to participate in the retreat, organized by Robert Linn�, Ph.D., professor, and Ellen Hagan, adjunct professor. 
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT 
On a Mission 
John Kelly took a long route to Adelphi, from cooking school and restaurant management to the Marines and through Haiti, Liberia and Senegal. Now he's earning his bachelor's degree at University College with an eye on a Master of Social Work and a plan to help vets returning from overseas deployment. He is also a new dad.
STAFF SPOTLIGHT 
In the days after the devastating attack at the Orlando night club, Scott Zotto '03, M.S.W. '09, who works part time as a counselor at Adelphi's Student Counseling Center, traveled to the city to help people recover from their shock and sadness. "I was out in the community, meeting with people in their places of comfort--parks, bars, restaurants. It was definitely different and emotional," he said.

Get an insider's view of the Orlando aftermath.
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT 
The Pain of Misunderstanding and How It Can Be Healed  
Last month, spurred by the recent tragedies in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas, Laura Quiros, Ph.D., associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Social Work and director of the M.S.W. program, and Schanica Pickens, director of student engagement and academic success, organized an on-campus discussion to address the effects of racism and to brainstorm healing social actions.

Dr. Quiros has long been dedicated to advancing multiculturalism and inclusion at Adelphi and in the New York City social services community. In her research, she looks at how personal trauma is linked to race and identity.
 
SHOUT-OUTS
Congratulations to...

Carol A. Lucas, Ph.D. '13, director of counseling and support services, Greta S. Tiberia, M.S.W. '05, coordinator of substance abuse counseling, and student Jenna Noll for being honored by Caron Treatment Centers for excellence in addressing addiction and substance abuse. 

Lisa Innella Santos '08, M.A. '11, who is an adjunct professor as well as founder and director of Camp Abilities Long Island--a sleep-away camp for youth with visual impairments held at Adelphi's Garden City campus. The camp, now in its eighth year, garnered significant media attention for its record enrollment.

Chris Alvarez, a member of Adelphi's Class of 2020, who was named valedictorian at the Henry Viscardi School. Alvarez intends to major in communications and will be a student in the College Science Advancement Program. He has thanatophoric dysplasia Type 2, a severe condition causing skeletal underdevelopment in the chest, rib cage and limbs. Out of the six people in the world with this disorder, he is the second oldest. He spoke to Adelphi student Gabrielle Deonath about his recent honor for an article in The Island Now .    
EVENTS
 
AUPAC Season  
Tickets for AUPAC's jam-packed 2016�-2017 season are now available.

Season highlights include:
Disco Inferno: A '70s Celebration, a nonstop dance party featuring dancers direct from Broadway, on Friday, September 16, at 7:30 p.m.
Crossroads Quartet, a world-champion a cappella group, on Saturday, October 1, at 4:00 p.m.; and
American Brass Quintet, described by Newsweek as "the high priests of brass," on Saturday, October 8, at 8:00 p.m.
 
Adelphi Community Reads Author Ta-Nehisi Coates 
Adelphi has selected Coates' memoir, Between the World and Me--winner of a 2015 National Book Award--as its 2016 Adelphi Community Reads book. Coates will give a free lecture on Wednesday, October 5, at 7:00 p.m., in the Thomas Dixon Lovely Ballroom of the Ruth S. Harley University Center.  

Alumna and Author Jacqueline Woodson '16 (Hon.)
Woodson, the best-selling author of Brown Girl Dreaming and other works of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, won the 2014 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and was named the Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She will give a free lecture on Wednesday, October 26, at 11:00 a.m., in the Thomas Dixon Lovely Ballroom of the Ruth S. Harley University Center.  
 
New York Times columnist David Brooks 
On the eve of the presidential election, Brooks, who writes a weekly op-ed column for The New York Times, will give a free lecture, "What to Expect 'Tomorrow'--Election," on Monday, November 7, at 7:00 p.m., in the Thomas Dixon Lovely Ballroom of the Ruth S. Harley University Center. 
ADELPHI IN THE NEWS

In July, 23 media stories covering Adelphi appeared in the top 100 national media outlets, with 575 stories appearing in total. Some highlights of recent coverage include:

For the eighth consecutive year, Adelphi hosted Camp Abilities Long Island, a four-day camp for youth with visual impairments, founded by Adelphi alumna and adjunct professor Lisa Innella Santos '08, M.A. '11. A number of news outlets, including Newsday, FiOS1 News Long Island, FiOS1 Push Pause and The Garden City News, covered the 2016 camp, which ran from July 7 to July 10 and drew a record enrollment. 

In a survey of OkCupid users, 25.5 percent of respondents who are "looking for love" now say that having similar political beliefs is more important in making a good match than physical chemistry, up from less than 17 percent back in 2012. Bloomberg Politics turned to Lawrence Josephs, Ph.D., professor in the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, to explain why politics is playing an increasingly important role in many Americans' search for a mate.  

Charitable contributions to colleges and universities in the United States increased 7.6 percent in 2015, according to the Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey, conducted annually by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE). Vice President for University Advancement Christian P. Vaupel '96, M.S. '03, Ed.D., was interviewed by Reuters on how to start a scholarship. The article was also picked up by Fortune, Money, Yahoo! Finance and Metro, among others.   

Adelphi has earned the 2016-2017 Women's Choice Award� for Her Guide to America's Best Colleges by ranking in the top 300 of approximately 1,500 eligible colleges and universities nationwide.