Spring 2020

As a business student, Rachel Jackson ’18 came to love the small-campus advantages offered at SUNY Morrisville. She never dreamed that her education would land her on one of the biggest campuses in the world — NBC Universal in New York City. Jackson worked as a campus programs coordinator with advertising sales recruiters for the CNBC network and the popular NBC late-night talk shows, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers.

For Tristan Archambault ’22, receiving a scholarship changed his college experience. It gave him the opportunity to take summer classes, stay on track with his degree and be a member of the Mustang men’s ice hockey team.   “I could not have been more proud and honored to accept such a high honor here at SUNY Morrisville,” Archambault said of the Crawford Scholarship he received. “Scholarship support is a very important part of helping students advance their education.”

A beacon for generations, no end in sight for professor Shirley Crawford, SUNY Morrisville’s longest-standing faculty member Social science professor Norman Dann, Ph.D., recalls very clearly the day he returned to his office on the SUNY Morrisville campus to find a young faculty member, in her first days on campus, waiting outside his door.

Justanna Bohling ’13 keeps a bag packed with her firearm, a helmet with night vision goggles and heavy plated armor that will stop rifle rounds. She is trained in searching for fugitives, responding to active shooter situations and assessing radiological threats, and is constantly prepared to be deployed to any part of New York State. Bohling is the first female member of a special operations team assembled by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to assist law enforcement officers in crisis situations.

Julio Torres Santana ’07 didn’t speak English when he arrived in New York City as a teenager. No one in his family had ever graduated from college, and his childhood in the Dominican Republic was marked with poverty and hardship. But his drive to succeed and passion for architecture pushed him to complete an associate degree at SUNY Morrisville and become the school’s first architectural studies student to be accepted into the bachelor’s degree program at Cornell University.

A supportive professor who infallibly made himself available to his students, even long after they graduated; A hard-working dean always at the center of the action — that is how colleagues and students are remembering faculty emeritus Joseph Nassimos.

Only a lucky few know exactly what they want to be when they “grow up,” but most figure it out mid-way through college. When Jimmy Sardelli enrolled in SUNY Morrisville’s equine science program, he was still trying to find his path in life.

Sheneya Wilson ’13 commanded the room. Wilson, a Ph.D. student, Forbes 30 Under 30 Scholar, author and business owner, visited campus to deliver the keynote lecture for Entrepreneurs’ Day, held February 27. 

At 97 years old, Richard “Dick” McGuire ’42 acts as a living historian. He’s physically spry enough to trudge around in a half foot of snow serving as a tour guide for his 12 museums on his lifelong home of Penope Farms in the rural town of Jackson, N.Y. And he is mentally sharp enough to recollect specific use of 19th and 20th century farm equipment that was critical to the time for food production in America.

When Alexandra “Ali” Bland ’09 was pregnant with her first child in 2015, she asked her husband if he could build a radiator cover that could double as a changing table in their nursery. Before long, Thomas Bland ’09 had created a rustic piece with a drawer, small cupboard and an eye-catching herringbone-patterned top made from pallets.