Suny Cortland Alumni News Summer 2012
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SUNY CORTLAND ALUMNI NEWS SUMMER 2012 BY FREDERIC PIERCE Editor cartographer, is the retired real property tax t’s midnight and the sun is shining. director of Otsego County, N.Y. But she said Mountains 50 miles in the distance neither her father nor her mother, a retired appear to be a few football fields away. Otsego County auditor and clerk of the IAnd no matter which direction Sarah Otsego County Board of Representatives, Child ’07 walks, she ends up going north. really influenced the direction of her career. Child, a former SUNY Cortland She credits SUNY Cortland with that. geographic information systems major, “What my parents did provide was hasn’t entered the Twilight Zone. She hasn’t unending support for any path I wanted fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole or stumbled to pursue,” Child said. “To be honest, when I into a Salvador Dali painting. was very young — about 5 or 6 — I wanted She’s simply following her career to become a geologist. Doing GIS at dreams to the literal end of the earth. Cortland, where I was allowed to explore Child, a 26-year-old glacial geologist, research beyond the classroom, got me back spent nearly a month in Antarctica last year, on that path. And my parents have setting up the field equipment needed to supported me the entire way.” study the movements of island-sized chunks After Cortland, that path led Child to of ice in the most remote and unforgiving the University of Minnesota to work on a landscape on the planet. master’s degree. While there, the GIS skills At times, she wore 12 layers of clothing she learned at Cortland allowed her to against wind-chills as low as minus 60 juggle work as a technician in the university’s degrees Fahrenheit. She traveled across map library and as a GIS analyst for the fields of snow that were two miles deep Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, where and dotted with mountain peaks that poked she mapped out petroleum leak sites. above the surface like iceberg tips. Yes, you read that correctly: two miles deep. “When I first went to Cortland, “You always had to have your harness on, because crevasses were everywhere and the only plan of action I had you never knew when you might fall into one and have to be rescued,” Child said. was to play field hockey. I “The temperature actually wasn’t that bad. It was two or three degrees above zero most figured that once I got there, of the time when we went out. But then there were times you had to make sure no everything else would fall skin was exposed at all.” Child, currently working on a Ph.D. into place, and it did.” in geology at the University of Kansas, — Sarah Child ’07 said she hopes to go back to Antarctica whenever she gets an opportunity. Mean- while, this veteran of four Cortland winters Sarah Child ’07 stands before the remote Transantarctic Mountains. The former SUNY Cortland athletic — an experience that leaves many SUNY and academic standout is now a geologist researching glaciers at the bottom of the world. At the time, the National Science Foun- Cortland graduates wishing they’d never see dation was just starting its Polar Geospatial snow again — will spend a chunk of her Center, which is based at the university. summer camped in the Alaskan wilderness, Child became one of two employees at the studying a 43-mile-long river of ice. non-profit agency, which creates data for “She’s a very unique person,” said Asso- ranked, first-place team that gave SUNY N.Y., which required walking 10 miles of scientists and operations at the North and ciate Professor Scott Anderson, chair of Cortland its first-ever undefeated regular- abandoned track with a GPS unit and South Poles. SUNY Cortland’s Geography Department season field hockey record. researching the complicated legal history “This job was my first look at anything and Child’s former advisor. “This is not a SUNY Cortland athletics helped teach of involved landholders. to do with Antarctica,” said Child, who made stretch for her at all. She’s tough as nails.” Child about facing challenges, staying Research, however, was the farthest Antarctic maps and data sets. Her biggest Child was an All-America field hockey focused and remaining determined. thing from the mind of this former high project was locating and researching 278,000 player at SUNY Cortland, starting as a But it was her experience doing under- school field hockey star from the Cooper- aerial photos of Antarctica and incorpo- defensive back during all four years of her graduate research for her GIS classes that stown, N.Y., area, when she enrolled at rating them into an interactive, online map. College career. She anchored a nationally ignited the passion that led her to her SUNY Cortland in 2003. Child transferred to the University of current career: a line of research aimed at “When I first went to Cortland, the only Edinburgh in Scotland to complete her better understanding the dynamics that plan of action I had was to play field master’s, but continued to work for the Polar cause glaciers to move, melt, spawn icebergs hockey,” Child said. “I figured that once I got Geospatial Center from across the Atlantic and do other things sometimes associated there, everything else would fall into place, Ocean. Her final thesis involved the use of with global warming. and it did. ground-penetrating radar to measure past As part of her SUNY Cortland studies, “I was very fortunate to have Scott snow accumulation rates near a sub-glacial Child mapped land-use classifications for (Anderson) as an advisor. He and (Distin- lake, a body of water hidden beneath the every parcel of property in the town of guished Teaching Professor of Geography) base of a glacier. This was when Child began Hartwick, N.Y. Her work aimed to help show Dave Miller saw I had an interest. They would doing real research about glaciology and where industry, farming, tourism and other let me do a lot of independent study, which I decided that this is what she wanted to do. uses were in the town, which would make really enjoyed. I got to get away from the It took her several months of cycling, implementing town codes easier. constant routine and do my own thing.” hiking and job searching in Scotland before She also mapped a long-unused rail Child was more familiar with GIS than line between Oneonta, N.Y., and Mohawk, many students because her father, a trained continued on page 8 2 COLUMNSSUMMER 2012 PRESIDENT’S Message SUNY Cortland: doorway to the world BY ERIK J. BITTERBAUM President It is often said that college opens one’s eyes to the world. At The College has had rewarding relationships with Turkey’s to look at issues from a variety of di!erent perspectives. As SUNY Cortland, we mean that literally as well as figuratively. Anadolu University and Izmir Economics University for nearly the world economy becomes increasingly integrated, those Every year, about 150 of our students study abroad in a decade. Through these partnerships, we’ve been able to are just the types of attributes that companies, non-profit places as far flung as China, Ghana, Venezuela and Australia. o!er dual degrees in business economics, economics, or organizations and government agencies will be looking for in These young men and women receive an education that English language instruction to dozens of Turkish students. future leaders. reaches far beyond their class work. They are immersed in We have also had a productive relationship with Thai- Several endowed scholarships — such as the Wah Chip di!erent cultures, exposed to new ideas and challenged by land’s ministry of education. Working with Orvil White, and Yuki Chin Memorial Scholarship, which this semester unfamiliar environments. And they return to Cortland as assistant professor of childhood/early childhood education, helped send its first SUNY Cortland student to study for a better world citizens. many Thai science teachers have traveled to Cortland, and to full semester in China — help students from all economic That worldview, developed throughout SUNY Raquette Lake, to learn about American education methods. backgrounds take advantage of the College’s many interna- Cortland’s program areas, both on campus and o!, shapes The College’s recent discussions with Thai representatives tional opportunities. Growing these endowments is one of careers after graduation. Our alumni work and live in more have already led to new and exciting opportunities. This the goals of Educating Champions, the Campaign for than 40 countries around the planet. Research expeditions, summer, a group of SUNY Cortland students will study in Cortland, the College’s drive to raise $25 million by mid-2013. business opportunities and humanitarian e!orts have led Thailand for the very first time. New things are happening all the time to make SUNY graduates like Sarah Child ’07 to the ice fields of Antarctica, Cortland a more international campus. and Bianca Hendricks ’12 to the impoverished villages of Mecke Nagel, a SUNY Cortland professor of philosophy, equatorial Africa (see Ghana story below). As an institution, we place tremendous value is teaching at Fulda University of Applied Science in Germany In short, SUNY Cortland helps prepare students for a life on a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship. She of adventure. This passion for experiencing the world and on hands-on learning and life-transforming had been instrumental in establishing a new study abroad taking on challenges is nurtured by Cortland’s study abroad partnership between Cortland and Fulda, where one of our opportunities, on the College’s athletic fields, through its experiences such as those a student gets students studied in the summer of 2011.