Author: Saratoga TODAY

SARATOGA SPRINGS — New grants totaling nearly $2 million will support interdisciplinary and collaborative programs at Skidmore College and reinforce its position as an innovative, leading liberal arts institution, and a professor’s collaboration with other leading research programs is being recognized as an outstanding effort in promoting firefighter health and safety.

Skidmore College’s John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS) has received a $798,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to foster enduring community partnerships and documentary projects. 

The four-year grant is the latest in a series of awards from the foundation to the College since 1970 that have together exceeded $9 million. 

“At the heart of this initiative, generously funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, is the concept of co-creation — that professional documentarians and members of the Skidmore community partner with community organizations to use documentary as a means of addressing important issues that affect our region,” said Adam Tinkle, director of MDOCS and assistant professor of media and film studies. “We are grateful for the opportunities for community partnerships, innovative learning and new approaches to documentary that this funding supports.”

The program builds on MDOCS’ record of sustainable, impactful documentary initiatives with the community. Recent partnerships have included work with the Saratoga County Economic Opportunity Council’s (SCEOC) Latino Community Advocacy Program and a separate project with a coalition of community groups (SHARE/Sheridan Hollow Alliance for Renewable Energy) that advocated for environmental justice for a predominantly Black community in Albany.

The latest Mellon Foundation grant, which continues through 2024, will support MDOCS faculty and staff positions and provide support for grants to community organizations. The scale of MDOCS’ resources and opportunities for documentary production are unique among liberal arts colleges. 

The grant will also help to infuse documentary production experiences into Skidmore’s new General Education curriculum, which received previous support from the Mellon Foundation and goes into effect this fall. 

GRANTS WILL FUND NEW SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT

An award of approximately $500,000 through the Sherman Fairchild Foundation’s Scientific Equipment Program and two grants totaling nearly $600,000 from the National Science Foundation come at a pivotal moment for sciences at Skidmore. As the number of science majors at Skidmore has doubled over the past decade, the College’s new Center for Integrated Sciences (CIS) will support the conviction that scientific literacy is essential in today’s society and will drive the careers of the future. The North Wing of the CIS was completed this summer and construction of the East Wing is now underway. Completion of the full facility is expected in 2024.

Over the four-year grant period, 2020 to 2023, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation funding will allow Skidmore to purchase $494,240 worth of new scientific equipment — from a Raman microscope to an electron spin resonance spectrometer — to support inquiry-driven research and collaboration in Skidmore’s chemistry, environmental studies and sciences, health and human physiological sciences, biology, neuroscience and geosciences programs and beyond. The CIS will house all of Skidmore’s science departments and programs and foster interdisciplinary connections between and among the sciences, arts, humanities and social sciences.

“The grant brings to CIS cutting-edge equipment that will allow students to integrate and connect ideas from classrooms and laboratories across departments,” said Juan Navea, associate professor of chemistry. “It will provide them with hands-on experience on techniques to untangle challenges, be creative and find their way around our increasingly integrated world.”

Two new awards from the National Science Foundation — nearly $327,000 for the Skidmore Chemistry Department’s purchase of a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and nearly $267,000 for the Neuroscience and Biology departments’ purchase of an analyzer that measures glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration — will also enhance research and instruction in the CIS.

In addition to coinciding with the phased completion of Skidmore’s new state-of-the-art science facilities, the grants are timed with the rollout of its new General Education curriculum this fall and will help students and faculty fully realize their innovative and multidisciplinary educational goals.

PROFESSOR EARNS PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR IMPROVING FIREFIGHTER HEALTH AND SAFETY

Denise Smith, Tisch Family Distinguished Professor of Health and Human Physiological Sciences and director of the First Responder Health and Safety Laboratory at Skidmore, is one of the leading scientists on a series of studies that have earned a prestigious 2020 Bullard-Sherwood Research to Practice (r2p) Award from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for improving firefighter health and safety across the United States and abroad.

Smith, who has researched the physiological effects of firefighting for decades, worked alongside partner researchers from the Illinois Fire Service Institute, Underwriters Laboratory and NIOSH for five years to study cardiovascular and carcinogenic risks under realistic firefighting conditions and translate that work to firefighters across the country. The NIOSH-IFSI-UL-Skidmore research team’s findings and actionable recommendations to firefighting agencies have led to policy and procedural changes and improvements, including in training videos created by the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control and distributed throughout New York state.

“The award was personally very gratifying because it validates our research agenda, which is to provide sound scientific research to the fire service so the policies and procedures they use to protect themselves and the community can be grounded in science,” said Smith.

The Bullard-Sherwood Research to Practice Award recognizes outstanding efforts by NIOSH scientists and their partners in applying occupational safety and health research to prevent work-related injury, illness and death.

The mission of the First Responder Health and Safety Laboratory at Skidmore College is to conduct research that enhances the health, safety and performance of first responders. The lab receives major funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Independent School (S.I.S.) has worked diligently since the spring preparing for the 2020/2021 school year. The school’s top priority is the health and safety of every member of the school community. Equally important is maintaining the quality of education and sense of community that S.I.S. provides, whether in-person or remotely. 

The school’s administration, faculty, staff, and board members have developed a school-wide in-person learning plan and remote/hybrid learning plan. The in-person plan includes new health and safety measures, policies, and procedures, including new outdoor classroom spaces, reconfigured indoor classrooms to allow for proper social distancing, plexiglass table dividers, daily temperature checks and health screenings for all staff and students, and much more. The remote learning plan includes daily learning schedules, student engagement goals, and plans to address the emotional health of each student. 

To help communicate the new plan to the school’s families, S.I.S. has hosted several tours for families and students to visit the school to learn about the new measures that are in place, and have questions answered. 

Head of School, Lisa Brown, stated, “it has been wonderful to see so many families come through for our tours. Our goal has been to provide as much information and reassurance to our families as possible during this unsettled time. We are lucky to have such a strong school community and are excited to welcome our students back in the fall, and we will continue to involve students in our curriculum in person or remotely, and will carry on S.I.S.’s values of leadership, respect, creativity, active engagement, and meaningful learning.” 

Jayne Kirber and Geoffrey Hill, MD, parents of S.I.S. intermediate and fifth  grade students, said “after visiting SIS today and talking with Brown, we are feeling safe and ready to send our kids back to school. The small class sizes, large class spaces, ample outdoor space, and general creativity and flexibility of the faculty and staff make S.I.S. particularly suited to keeping kids both safe and engaged this fall. We can tell that the administration is prepared to adapt quickly, as state and local guidelines will undoubtedly change throughout the year. S.I.S. is staying well-informed, adaptable, and positive, and we know that this will help our kids stay adaptable and positive throughout the school year.” 

After work by faculty, administration and the Board over the past year, SIS has a new mission statement. Brown said, “the new mission statement incorporates much of the language of our original mission, while reflecting a stronger sense of the spirit of the school and its commitment to the values of diversity and inclusion.” 

The new mission of Saratoga Independent School is to empower students to be curious and confident learners, capable of critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and articulate expression. As an inclusive, nurturing community that values diversity and mutual respect, we strive to cultivate in our students the knowledge, skills, work ethic, and character to lead purposeful, healthy lives. 

The full reopening plans for in-person and remote learning for S.I.S. can be found on their website at www.siskids.org/about/covid.cfm.