Mohawk Valley Community College has once again stepped forward to help an economic vision become a reality by hosting the Utica Chamber of Commerce’s Third Annual Community

Business Expo this fall. The College will host the expo in the Jorgensen Athletic and Events Center on Thursday, September 22.

“We are thrilled to have the Com-munity Business Expo come to MVCC,” said MVCC President Ran-dall VanWagoner, Ph.D. “When we designed the Jorgensen center, it was with the idea of our students in mind but also with serving the local

community. I have been amazed over the past five years at the number of ways the community has found to take advantage of this great resource in their own backyards.”

The event is organized by the Greater Utica Chamber of Commerce.

This year’s event will feature more than 140 businesses and organizations and due to the size of the Jorgensen Center the exhibitions can be more elaborate.

“We are hoping this will attract a part of the community we want to tap into - students at our local colleges. This is a great opportunity to show this demographic group that there are many opportunities right here in the Mohawk Valley,” said

Meghan Fraser McGrogan, Executive Director of the Greater Utica Chamber of Commerce.

Adirondack Bank is the main sponsor of the event for the third year. The expo is open to the community and is free of charge. It will showcase business products, services, travel op-portunities, restaurants and not for profit organizations.

Week of May 23, 2016

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MVCC to host business expo

A group of students had an exciting opportunity to explore the city of Boston recently. Twenty-six students from the Welders Among Community (WAC) and Society of Engineering Technol-ogy (SET) clubs went on this trip, which took place April 24-26.

Upon arriving in Boston, the welding and engineering stu-dents - chaperoned by Professor Brian Judycki, Associate Pro-fessor Michael Sorrentino and Instructor Jose Huertas - visited the USS Constitution. During the tour, they learned the history behind the Construction and prices of ships during the 1800s.

The students also learned how changing materials and tech-nology have changed the structure and strength of our military. This was done by comparing a modern naval battleship to the USS Constitution.

The students also visited the Boston Aquarium and found how complex a structure has to be in order to house different

environments. The students also had the opportunity to inspect multiple landmarks and sculptures created around the area. Among the things students found very fascinating were the amphibian tour buses, which not only ride around on dry land but also in water.

While many of the sites seen where very intriguing, the most educational tour was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tour. During this tour, many students were able to experience the impact that technology, welding and engineering have had in the world today. Impacts include ingestible nano surgical tools and other fascinating research that has saved lives.

The members of WAC and SET have expressed their thanks to Student Congress for supporting this once in a lifetime edu-cational experience.

Welding, engineering students see their future potential, new technology

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There was a crime scene in the quad earlier this spring with investigators scouring for remains of three “victims.” But not to worry as these investigators were students from Dr. Diana Ayers-Darling’s Introduction to Forensic Anthropology class.

“This exercise gives the students an opportunity to experi-ence what forensic anthropology is about,” said Ayers-Darling. “Once you learn what a human bone looks like, you are able to distinguish it from an animal’s bone. But it is the fragmented bones that are the most chal-lenging.”

The students taking part in the exercise had mock crime scenes where there were only bones and personal items remaining. The assignment was a culminat-ing task after a semester of learning to identify the bones of the human skeleton and learning to determine ancestry, sex, age, and stature of human skeletal remains.

These students were participating in a mock recovery exer-cise, collecting surface remains to be taken into back the lab and analyzed.

“They collected the evidence from the surface and now they will figure out who they have and their story,” said Ayers-Darling. “Students always enjoy this exercise and will be doing facial reconstruction next week which they really have fun with. What they find is that it is not as clear cut as you would think. When identifying a male from a female, there are certain skeletal features that can be used, however they are not as

discrete as one would like because there is a range of variation in humans.”

For an introductory course, the class is all hands-on and in-formation intensive. An example is when students need to learn the 22 paired bones of the skull during the first week of class.

Ayers-Darling points out that there is a misleading notion about forensic anthropology. “Most forensic anthropologists are academics and very few are fulltime.

They have academic jobs where they consult on the side,” said Ayers-Darling, who describes herself as a “Paleontologist in the realm of Biological Anthropology.”

Students experience crime scene

It was an evening of laughter, fellowship and camaraderie as faculty and staff, both current and past, came together to celebrate another successful year at MVCC.

The semi-annual Celebration of Success as held Wednesday, May 11, on the second floor of the Information and Technol-ogy Building. There was food, music and basket raffle to bring everyone together.

This semester’s basket raffle helped raise $1,100 for the Mo-hawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees. The College has a very close connection to the MVRCR, with Jennifer Boulanger – Dean of the Center for Language and Learning Design – being vice president of the board of directors. Ibrahim Rosic, director of the Learning Commons at MVCC, is also very active with

assisting refugees get resettled in the Mo-hawk Valley.

This spring’s bas-kets were donated by Learning Center, Hu-man Resources, Dorm Corporation, CCED, Institutional Advance-ment, Vice President for Administrative Ser-

vices Office, Library, Business Office, Marketing and Communi-cations, Center for Language and Learning Design, Academic Advisement, Adult, Disability and Veteran services, Athletics, BISS, CAAH, Center for Health and Life Science, Vice Presi-dent for Learning and Academic Affairs Office, Vice President for Student Services Office, Admissions, AMVA, President’s Office, Sodexo, Counseling, Career and Transfer Services.

A special thanks to these folks for organizing the raffle event: Facilities and Operations, Mike Kopec, Debbie Edick, Christine Born, Mary Jane Parry, Lisa Flo, Colleen Cornmire, Victoria Parry, and Marie Kohl.

Employees celebrateanother year of success

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ONE STEP AT A TIME – The Health Center’s Candace Miller has been taking steps to make the College community healthier with the creation of the Noontime Walkers Program. She has recruited 12 women to commit to this walking program that is meant to promote exercise, walking whenever possible, and healthy lifestyles. The participants receive health lifestyle tips and Miller is putting together a recipe booklet with the participants’ favorite foods in mind. Weather permitting, the walkers take to the outside track and utilize the indoor track other times. The program has wrapped up for the spring semester, but will resume in the fall.

91 percent of the Spring-2016 students were millennials, born between 1982 and 2002?

Did You Know?

Frank Bianco, Maribel Pagan, and Mal-colm Flanigan, editors and poets of the Argus Club, showcased and read poems and prose during the Third Annual Argus Reading.

It was hosted and held in the evening of May 10th at The Other Side located at 2011 Genesee Street in Utica. In addition to reading their work from the recently published edition of the Argus Magazine, they read some of their other original poems and stories for the event. A total of 15 people were present for the reading, including the three student readers and the faculty advisor for the Argus Club, Professor Thomas Townsley.

All who attended the reading enjoyed this well-prepared event. The Argus Club hopes to continue hosting more poetry reading events in the following years to come.

MVCC students interested in joining the Argus staff or submitting creative writ-ing may contact Professor Townsley or email argusliterarymagazine@mvcc.edu.

POETRY READING - Malcolm Flanigan reads some of his work during the Argus Club Poetry Reading.

Argus ClubPoetry Reading

Members of the faculty and their support staff pooled their resources to host a STEM Programs Day in the Alumni College Center that attracted more than 200 prospective students.

This event was held on Thursday, March 31, with the design to introduce prospective students to the programs offered in MVCC’s STEM Center, including Mechatronics, Semi-conductor Manufacturing Technology, and Engineering.

The event also provided the chance for prospective students to talk with faculty and alumni about these programs. Admissions counselors were on hand, and information about prerequi-sites, what to expect from the programs, and how to pay for college was shared, along with campus tours.

STEM Programs Day huge success

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Class of 2016

Congratulations