College hall of fame adds four
In a cheery ceremony celebrating the link between local higher education and a strong economy, the School of Business at SUNY-New Paltz added four new inductees to its Hall of Fame last week.
William Spearman, president and CEO of the Mid-Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union, was named Business Person of the Year. Daniel Devine, an institutional investment specialist with Affinity Group, a wealth management company, won the Dean”™s Award of Excellence; Jeannie Henriques won the Student of the Year Award and Art Palmiotti, program director of the IBM worldwide design center and integration team in Poughkeepsie, was honored as Alumnus of the Year.
About 200 people attended the ceremony May 8 at the Wiltwyck Country Club in Kingston. They heard college President Steven Poskanzer extol SUNY-New Paltz as the “hottest small school in the country, according to Newsweek. And we”™re going to build on that,” Poskanzer said. He was referring to an August 2007 college guide published by Newsweek that ranked New Paltz as the nation”™s “hottest small state school.”
The school with 6,400 undergraduates has reformed its image over the last decade from an institution specializing in arts to one more interested in business and engineering. Poskanzer said the success of that transition is evident in the average SAT score of students applying to the college, 1170, and even more vividly the fact that while the national average of enrollees at colleges is 18 percent of those accepted at any college, this year almost 25 percent of those accepted at New Paltz subsequently enrolled.
Dean of the School of Business Hadi Salavitabar said the event celebrated “the strong ties our School of Business has forged with our business community. It is mutually beneficial; we know our success is your success. Together we will make sure the Hudson Valley flourishes.”
SUNY-New Paltz Provost Dr. David Lavallee noted that the ceremony was the seventh annual Hall of Fame induction and indicated the strengthening ties between the college and the business community. “Every year this ceremony has gotten larger and we”™ve gotten to meet more friends.”
He said the growing partnership between the school of business and local business was shown with growing numbers of business internships and college graduates going to work locally, but said the college and local business must work in knowledge of a global economy. Thus, he said, the college had embarked on seeking accreditation from the AACSB International, which has the mission, according to its Web site, of “advancing quality management education worldwide.”
The process is two years into a five to seven year process, Dr. Lavallee said, and expressed confidence that SUNY-New Paltz would join the 550 schools to attain the coveted accreditation. “We are in a place where we are really ready for the next level.”