Author: Gretchen Reeves

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Math Department Attends Joint Mathematics Meetings

This past week brought the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) to Baltimore, Maryland for its annual run in 2014. Spanning four days from January 15th to the 18th, the JMM offers hundreds of talks presented by mathematicians, covering topics ranging from research in pure and applied mathematics to teaching methodology to career options for undergraduates. The conference drew nearly 6500 registered attendees and speakers from across the U.S. as well as from across the world, including three math faculty and nine students from Houghton. Professors Kristin Camenga, Rebekah Yates, and Jun-Koo Park presented original work at the conference, as did junior Samantha Fairchild.

MathWhile certain speakers are invited based on their expertise in a field and speaking skills, most submit their own abstracts for review and are approved to present at the conference. “They publish the call for papers with a list of sessions and a description of each of them in late spring or sometime early in the summer and then your titles and abstracts are due in September, early October,” explained Rebekah Yates, assistant professor of mathematics. “Depending on who’s in charge of the session, you find out within a few days or a month whether your talk has been accepted.”

Yates, whose talk was titled “Helping Students Overcome Discouragement in Real Analysis,” presented on her teaching methods in the subject. “It was in the special session on topics and techniques for teaching real analysis,” she explained. Besides presenting to others, Yates also used the conference as an opportunity to receive feedback on her ideas. “You maintain connections that you have and you talk with them about what they’re doing in the classroom and find out what kinds of things are happening at their college and get ideas,” she said. The conference also allowed her to further her professional development by meeting with collaborators for future research.

Math department chair Kristin Camenga’s talk “Developing community norms for proof: forum discussions of the nature and import of proof” also approached mathematics from an educator’s perspective. “I was talking about the forum assignments I use in my Introduction to Proofs class and how one of the goals of that is really to not just learn the mechanics of the proofs but understand why proof is important to mathematics and what it means to be proof,” she said. Like Yates, she also saw the JMM as an opportunity to further both the pedagogical and research aspects of her profession. “I was able to get together with someone I planned to collaborate with and start work on a project, so that’s going to be something that could very well lead to published math papers,” she said.

Meanwhile, assistant professor Jun-Koo Park’s talk, titled “Elastic Model Extensions for Predicting Protein Residue-level Fluctuation,” was included in the conference as part of the contributed paper session on mathematical modeling. It presented original research he began in 2007 as a graduate student at Iowa State University, drawing on his background in biology and mathematics. Still currently in progress, it focuses on “developing a mathematical model for predicting the dynamics of biological structures,” as he explained.

While the majority of the conference is aimed at an audience familiar with higher-level mathematics, various opportunities for undergraduate students are also presented. Recruiters for private and government organizations as well as companies and research programs often attend the meetings, seeking potential hires in well-rounded students.

In junior Samantha Fairchild’s case, the JMM offered her the opportunity to present her summer research. Titled “Rigid Tilings of Quadrants by L-ominoes and Notched Rectangles,” the project was undertaken with other student collaborators during a summer undergraduate research program at Penn State. Although the research had previously been presented at the Shenandoah Mathematics and Statistics Conference in Virginia, presenting in Baltimore allowed her to reach a wider audience. “… [I]t was fascinating seeing all the different projects that [undergraduates] did and realizing how many different areas people can do undergrad research in,” she remarked. However, the highlight of the experience lay elsewhere for Fairchild. “I guess what I was most excited by was that there were actually other girls there,” she explained. “… I was the only girl in my research program.”

Fairchild originally applied to present her research at the JMM after encouragement from Camenga, who saw it as a valuable experience for students wishing to continue with mathematics in graduate school or in a professional setting. Faculty from graduate schools are often judges in the presentations, awarding prizes for poster content and clarity in presentation. “I had a student who presented a poster a few years ago and actually, based on that, decided to apply to a specific graduate school and was known by that graduate school, so he could get in,” Camenga explained. “I think just an awareness of the larger mathematical community and what’s out there in topics that are of interest and having a broader understanding [of them] is another piece,” she added.

Yates echoes this statement. “I think [the JMM] offers a picture of how big the mathematical community is. I know that’s a word that might make Houghton students laugh, but it’s also a word that you might not associate with a discipline,” she said. “We always refer to ourselves as a community in math, but that’s not necessarily something you get to see when you’re just in your small department. …[S]eeing how wide it is and how varied it is is really helpful.”

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Men’s Basketball to Play Against Division I

This winter break the men’s varsity basketball team will be up against a competitive rival, Radford University, in their upcoming game on Monday, December 30th. Radford, a Division I school, will be the first Division I school the team has played since their game against SUNY Buffalo in 2010. Although Houghton is currently a Division III school, athletics faculty are quick to point out that this is not necessarily a discouraging fact. “The perception that Division III is not serious is an incorrect perception,” said Skip Lord, executive director of athletics, stating that the top 15-20 schools in Division III are competitive against bottom-tier schools in Division I. “Of course, they want to bring in someone where there’s a higher probability to win,” he added, but maintained that this is still an opportunity for the men’s team.

Courtesy of houghton.edu
Courtesy of houghton.edu

The chance to play against a Division I school is considered a beneficial and constructive one. “There are a lot of reasons to go into it,” said Drew Hannan, head coach of the men’s basketball team. “Generally speaking, the reason for us to go is the opportunity to play against that level of competition. …[I]t’s an opportunity to really test yourself against a very good team, a very good program….”  Lord described it as a “unique opportunity … to play a game that you probably wouldn’t get to play otherwise.” Chris Enlow, junior and a member of the team, sees the game as an opportunity to show a moral victory to any spectators. “If we come away from it together and just stick together through it, we can sort of make a statement to the Empire 8 that ‘Hey, we can actually play basketball; don’t just look down on us,'” he said.

In addition to providing a substantial challenge to players, the college also benefits from financial compensation from competitors. The practice of scheduling “guarantee games” between a higher-ranked school and a lower-ranked one is not uncommon amongst institutions of higher education. Each game a pair of schools plays is contracted for a certain time and place and financial consideration is often included in such contracts. Talks for such a game between Radford and Houghton began last April even though the men’s team had already filled its schedule at that point. The decision to play against Radford was made in June after a space opened up.

In Houghton’s case, a “modest sum,” as Lord described, was provided to the college by Radford to cover travel and lodging expenses. As the team boasts 20 members, this allows them to travel with a bigger roster. “We’re not able to get any frills or extra stuff with it, but we are able to then travel with a bigger squad then we’d normally be able to carry,” said Hannan. In previous years, extraneous funds have been used for other team expenses. “Even if there is money left in the budget, it goes right back in the institutional kitty,” explained Lord. Added Hannan, “I know one year we were able to use the money to buy uniforms, at least partially. It’s not a huge amount that doubles our budget or anything, but it’s enough to help some.”

Occasionally upsets do happen; Houghton has won guarantee games against colleges in higher divisions before. The chance of winning is still present. Overall, players remain optimistic, albeit anxious. “[O]ur guys are excited about it,” said Hannan. “There are some nerves coming in terms of playing a team that you know is going to be extremely talented. …[G]enerally the first few minutes are very difficult in that game; then you just adjust to that style, that level of play.” “Anything can happen,” said Enlow. “Like they say in football, ‘Any given Sunday.’ Really, if we go down there and play our top game… who knows?” When asked about the possibility of an upset, he laughed. “If we end up winning, we better get a freakin’ parade when we get back here.”

 

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Islamic Studies on the Ropes

As part of a recent series of academic budget cuts, Islamic Studies will no longer be offered as a minor or as a concentration in the Intercultural Studies major. Decisions to make such cuts began back in October, with various meetings with the Academic Council, faculty, and the academic affairs committee of the board of trustees aiding the decision-making process. Academic Dean Linda Mills Woolsey, in charge of making such cuts, stated that, “Ultimately, the decision is my decision as the dean, so I take responsibility for it even though I’ve consulted with other people,” adding that “the decision making for these things is a process.”

Courtesy of http://iqraislamicstudies.webs.com/
Courtesy of http://iqraislamicstudies.webs.com/

One of the driving reasons behind the cuts is a lack of student interest and enrollment in the program. The Islamic Studies program had managed to occupy a middle ground in terms of enrollment in the early years after its initiation in 2006; however, enrollment numbers have since dwindled. The minor has managed to maintain an average of 8.2 minors every five years between 2009 and 2013, but the concentration in the Intercultural Studies major experienced a decline in numbers between 2011 and 2013, averaging 3.6 majors with the Islamic Studies concentration per five years. This year the minor numbers three students while the concentration numbers two. Mills Woolsey cites an overall decline in college enrollment as one of the reasons behind the shrinking of the program, but admits that certain disciplines have suffered more than others. “As our enrollment has declined, it hasn’t declined proportionately across the board, so we’re investing a lot in really small majors.” Michael Walters, chair of the religion, theology, and Bible departments, takes a different view. “I know our numbers in our department have been down a little bit, so I think it’s reasonable to assume that the pool of students who would normally be interested in that sort of thing has been a bit smaller than it was in the past, but I don’t think that’s a sufficient explanation.” Mills Woolsey also expressed a sense of confusion at the lack of student interest. “I thought with the coming of the Arab Spring there would be a resurgence in student interest in Islam, so I don’t know whether it’s that our students aren’t interested in that or that there’s something about the way we framed the minor or the concentration didn’t have a broad enough usefulness for students.”

Further rationale for the cuts determined that the funds from the minor and concentration were needed more in certain under resourced disciplines such as finance, digital media, and biochemistry. According to Mills Woolsey, the cut of the Islamic Studies program is part of the college’s effort to deal with problem areas “where we need to make full-time hires and we don’t have the budget to make those hires, so right now we’re looking at, and will continue to throughout the course of this year, minors and concentrations that have very few students.”

Another problem for the program is its dependence on two part-time professors also engaged in missions work, a situation which creates potential for future career conflicts. “It’s just owing to the good generosity of the missions agencies that Drs. Hegeman and Little work with that we’ve been able to do what we’ve done,” said Walters. “I think that’s very unsettling to a college administrator. What happens if those missions organizations simply say, “we need you to be full-time in Benin or Morocco’? We don’t have anybody in our department who can teach that stuff.” There had been consideration of merging Islamic Studies with the religion department with religion professors teaching similar classes, but, as Walters further explained, “I don’t think we have faculty right now in the department that are qualified to do it.”

While various faculty members expressed regret at the cuts, there is some agreement that changes need to be made to its structure if there is any chance for its reinstatement in the future. Marcus Dean, chair of the Intercultural Studies department, attested to the diversity of the program in its applications, stating that “Some focus on developing an academic understanding of Islam and some are more outreach or missions focused.  This makes the content applicable in diverse areas of service. For example, one of the Islam courses has been an option for international development programs.” Walters also cited applications in international business.

Mills Woolsey wondered if more areas could be covered in the program to capture student interest. “Islamic Studies as we’re doing it is primarily the study of Islam as a world religion and a study from an apologetic, missiological perspective, which are very good things, but it may be that there’s not a big enough group of students who want that perspective on Islam. The other areas where you could study Islamic culture would be social, political, even the art and architecture of the Islamic world. Islamic Studies is kind of a broad field.” She added, “It’s obvious that Islamic Studies is an important field of study, but we haven’t framed it in a way that’s attracting a lot of students, so we have to go back to the drawing board and see what can be done to make this more inviting to students, more accessible to students… sometimes you do have to take something down to build it up again.”

 

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Buddy’s Place Now Open for Business

This past November 9th saw the opening of yet another venture aimed to bring more business to the town of Houghton. Buddy’s Place, which had its first open house then, currently offers spaces for rent to community members, students, and other interested renters in the area to retail artisan crafts and other goods.

Buddys_PlaceAlthough the establishment has received support from the Houghton Group, a collection of professors and community members interested in bringing business and further economic development to the Houghton area, the venture itself was spearheaded by Ralph Kerr, Houghton Group member and owner of the upcoming Genesee Rapids baseball team. Ken Bates, business professor at Houghton and Houghton Group member, said, “We began considering this about three months ago if my recollection is correct. When Ralph brought up the ideas there was an immediate positive reaction and several began suggesting possible businesses that would be interested possibilities.” Added Kerr, “We kind of play off each other and if somebody has an idea, we may just throw it out there.”

The name comes from Buddy Keith, a member of the Houghton community member who passed away about a year ago. “”Buddy was the headmaster of the Houghton Academy for years and years and he and his wife–this was their family home,” explained Kerr. “To the people that live in this area, Buddy Keith was like an icon.”

With eight total rooms open for rental, Buddy’s Place offers spaces at rates per square foot as well as deals on full-, half-, and quarter-room rentals. Several community members have expressed interest in renting spaces. Stephanie Wittenrich, administrative assistant for the Genesee Rapids who is also involved with the project, described the visitors as “a lot of local crafters, just a lot of community members that are crafty but … want to team up with other people. There’re a lot of people in the community that are creative and belong to little groups, so they just do crafts on their own. So, they’re all trying to look at forming groups to rent out spaces together.”

According to Wittenrich and Kerr, two of the available rooms have already been taken. “The first people in this morning… they run a place called ‘Tracy’s Delightfuls.’ They do gift baskets and sell candles and home decorating kinds of things and they also run the Tuxedo Junction tuxedo rental shop…” said Kerr during the open house. Other interested parties have come from the local Allegany Artisans. In addition to accommodating community members, Kerr has also expressed a willingness to work with college faculty and students in putting their pieces up for sale. “We know that, particularly for the students, they’re not going to be in a place where they can commit to a rental,” said Kerr. “But, we’d like to work out something where we could give them a wall to display their stuff and leave it here under consignment or something.”

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Honors Undergoes Revampment

Despite a recent program cut back in September, the college is looking to reinstate and perhaps add another honors program to its offerings as well as renovate the current structure of honors at Houghton. During a meeting with the college board of trustees in late October, it was strongly suggested by the members that a third honors program with a European focus be reinstated. “We had already been working on revisions to honors before the board of trustees met in October. We’ve been concerned that despite the quality of our three first-year honors offerings, enrollments have been weaker than we would like over the past three years,” said Linda Mills Woolsey, dean of the college and one of those who met with the board. She cited the current economic climate and increased competition with other schools’ honors programs as likely causes.

Courtesy of londonandpartners.com
Courtesy of londonandpartners.com

In a recent proposal for a comprehensive revamp of the honors program, Benjamin Lipscomb, professor of philosophy and director of honors programs at Houghton, explained that although “[t]he students we have enrolled remain (by and large) impressive, … there have been too few of them to populate our three gateway programs, and we have not been able to be as highly selective as we were in the past.” In an interview he added, “We did form a waiting list for the first time in a while this last year… but there had been a couple of years in which basically there was no waiting list. We had … a three-tiered system [for admission] in which there was ‘yes,’ ‘maybe,’ and ‘no.’ We had a year or two there after we switched from London to Contemporary Contexts … at which it was basically, ‘yeah, probably, we think you’re a yes’ or ‘no.’”

Although not set in stone, under consideration as replacement for a third honors program is a semester-long study abroad option similar to the London honors program cut back in 2011. “A number of trustees look back to the recruiting success of London Honors and would like to see us have a distinctive program with the same recruiting power,” said Woolsey. She added that the program “will probably be a return to a semester abroad with a focus on modern and contemporary culture, a stronger global focus, and some service components.” Eric Currie, vice president of admissions, also added that “in trying to recruit some of the students who have had significant scores that go for full tuition at other schools … some of this semester abroad opportunity … has an engagement level that seems to spark their interest.” Such a program will take a while to redevelop, however. “I reported to the board that we were undertaking revisions and their request was that we speed up the timeline,” Woolsey said, adding that the intent was to have the new freshman honors program available to students in 2015-2016.

In addition to a third freshman honors program, also under consideration by the college is a full four-year honors program. Starting with one of the three main “gateway” honors programs (Science Honors, East Meets West, or a third new program), students completing one of the programs will be offered the opportunity to take one-credit “seminar” classes on a specific topic. Completion of a predetermined number of seminars will allow students to graduate with an honors diploma and transcript. Seminar topics will be varied, but will most likely be in the social sciences or humanities. However, it was stressed that it was hoped that honors students from all disciplines might be able to participate in the seminars. “Arts could be in it too, and there’s every possibility for people in the natural sciences, mathematics to pick one or two works that would be accessible to someone who hadn’t been through the whole curriculum,” said Lipscomb. “We’re going to try to make that set of offerings as diverse as possible. … The point is mix and mingle, not to extend the gateway programs as segregated phenomena.”

While Lipscomb says the four-year honors program has been approved “in principle” by the board, obtaining official approval is still in the works. However, it is expected that proposals for seminars will be submitted this spring and will be included in the course offerings for the next academic year. “We’re going to send out an email blast the beginning of December to prospective students who are thinking about honors, letting them know … there’s this extension of the program … and we’ll be talking about it on the recruitment weekends.”

Also in development, but still not yet in the works, is a potential honors program for transfer students and Houghton students who display honors potential later on in their undergraduate careers. “As we predict, watching national trends, we might see more and more of … people for cost reasons doing a couple years at a community college and getting an associate’s degree,” said Lipscomb, and the intent of a transfers program would be to accommodate such trends. Also included in the target demographic for such a program would be so-called “late bloomers:” students who, according to Lipscomb, “get a ‘no’ in the honors recruitment process because they clam up in their interview… [when] it turns out they… get into college coursework and discover themselves and turn out to be really excellent students.” For now, the idea of a transfers honors program is still very much in its infancy, with the reinstatement of a third honors program and the creation of a four-year program being among the current priorities of the college.

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Collegiate Baseball Team “Genesee Rapids” to Debut Next Summer

Upcoming efforts to transform incoming traffic to the Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex into a positive, continual impact on Houghton may have another attraction to accommodate: that of a collegiate summer baseball team.

FURapidThe idea for such a team was formed by Houghton graduate Ralph Kerr along with the input of the other members in the Houghton Group, an organization working to bring new business and development to the Houghton area with the new traffic brought in by the athletic complex. Originally inspired by his grandson’s position on the Niagara Power team last summer, Kerr began to consider the possibility of bringing such a team to the Allegany County area. “When I saw not just him but other young men from all over the country having an opportunity to grow as Christians and using baseball as a vehicle to do that, I was really thinking it would be terrific if we could replicate that same thing in Houghton where we already have such a beautiful facility that is just going to sit vacant all summer long,” said Kerr.

After convening a group of potential supporters of a new team and presenting his idea to them, community interest in the project became evident. Kerr was also eventually able to gain support from the Houghton Group in finding support from local businesses, including advertising on the field during games, and from members of the team board, who typically make a financial contribution to the team and participate in its management. Further support comes from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), of which the team is an affiliate, which is able to funnel donations to the team through its website.

One of the aspects of the team which drew interest was its potential to bring traffic to Houghton during the summer, a time during which many faculty and students leave the area, leaving a void of activity. “The first thing is simply people coming to their games from out of town. It becomes summer evening fun, wholesome entertainment. Around here, that’s pretty hard to come by. There’s not much going on here during the summertime,” said Ken Bates, a business professor at Houghton, a Houghton Group member, and a team board member. Adding that team members would most likely be staying in the town during practices and home games, Bates cited this as another source of economic activity in the area. Phyllis Gaerte, director of community relations at Houghton College and a Houghton Group member, spoke similarly. “More people in town to support small business is important, and having small businesses to provide for the needs of people who come to town is important,” she said.

As for the team itself, which has been named the Genesee Rapids, the search for skilled players has already begun. The team was awarded a franchise three months ago by the New York Collegiate Baseball League, a league which already comprises twelve other teams from the state of New York. The League was initially hesitant to take on another team, but after a representative toured the athletic field on the college campus, an agreement was reached. “[He] saw our field, walked around the grounds, and got quite excited about the possibility. …he said something to the effect that this field was on par with some of the fields in the major leagues,” related Bates.

Players on teams in the league must be registered college students by the time they play summer games, so most members are typically sophomores or juniors. Describing the recruitment process, Kerr explained, “The League receives applications from players from all over the country and they forward those to us … [and] they fill out a formal application that includes something about their testimony and where they are in their relationship with God as well as the position they’d like to play, a little bit about how well they play, and then we have references from their college coach and then some other references as well.” Kerr explained that the motivation to play on an intercollegiate team isn’t just for entertainment purposes. Some players have intentions of continuing to play even after college. “In 2010, 38 of the players from the league were actually offered major league baseball contracts,” Kerr said.

With recruitment already underway, those involved with the Genesee Rapids have a vision for what the final team will look like. “We are recruiting from all over the United States and Canada, and so we expect to have 30 players on the team. We may have some players from the college team, but we’re limited to four,” said Kerr. Also aiming to achieve ministry through baseball, it is hoped that team members will be Christians or have some foundation or expressed interest in exploring the Christian faith. “What we’re looking for at a minimum is young men who aren’t afraid to have people talk about Christ with them,” said Kerr. “If we can witness to a young man who’s willing to be witnessed to, I’m all for that.”

So far, the creation of the team has continued with positive results. “Just today we offered 12 contracts to our first 12 recruits, so hopefully within the next couple of weeks we’ll be announcing some of our first signees,” said Kerr. Community outlook appears positive as well. “I feel this will be an asset to the community and a catalyst for economic development and community revitalization projects we’re working on right now for the hamlet of Houghton,” said Gaerte.

 

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Houghton-Backed Vocal Group to Give Performance at Carnegie Hall

Members of the Houghton College choirs will be embarking on a trip this spring to perform on the same stage that esteemed musicians such as the New York Philharmonic and The Beatles have graced over the years.

choircloseupcolor3x2jpgLed by Dr. Brandon Johnson, The National Sacred Honor Choir is an ensemble of Christian musicians wishing to spread their faith through music. The choir is made up of both past and present students, faculty, and staff, as well as other professionals and vocalists from around the globe, with Canada, China, Morocco, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe represented among other countries. Accompanied by a skilled orchestra and including performances from professional soloists, the group will perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

“There is no more venerated hall in the world than Carnegie and launching this new national initiative at such a celebrated place as Carnegie is both an honor and a sacred trust,” Dr. Stephen Plate, Dean and Director of the Greatbatch School of Music, said. “All the music performed will be done to the glory of the Lord by people who join their God-given talents in honor of the God who is the giver of every good and perfect gift.”

In order to practice for the performance, students involved in this opportunity are required to take a great deal of time out of their schedules: approximately seven and a half hours every week just for choir rehearsals. Participation is by invitation or through audition only. Although Johnson and other faculty members have stopped at several Christian institutions on the east coast for auditions, the majority of student auditioners typically send in a letter of recommendation from a voice instructor which outlines their capabilities. Olivia Roland, a sophomore vocal performance major and soloist for the National Sacred Honor Choir, stressed the amount of work and detail that the choir is putting forth to ensure a spectacular performance this spring. “College choir meets every day for an hour and a half or so,” Roland stated, “Rehearsals are extremely rigorous. It’s hard work, but in the end, it will be so worth it.” Performers not only must integrate their voices with others’ in the group but also work on pronunciation, as the majority of the pieces are written in Latin.

Johnson emphasized that the point of the concert was not simply to perform a set of pieces and showcase the ensemble’s vocal abilities. “There are a lot of great musicians in the world and a lot of opportunities to make really great music, but I wanted to explore the ideas behind whether or not it mattered that we’re Christian, whether it mattered in our music-making, not just in an internal way, but in an external way.” Collin Price, a sophomore vocal music education major and member of the ensemble, also expressed the choir’s first and foremost priority as delivering the message of God through music to Christians and non-Christians alike. “I’ve learned that it’s not always what’s written on the page that matters,” Price said, “It’s how you convey the music and what it means to those listening.”

The audience can expect to hear three works during the choir’s performance: Mozart’s “Requiem”, Beethoven’s “Choral Fantasy”, and a new contemporary piece, “Cantate Domino,” by Houghton music professor Dr. David Davies. “It promises to be an emotional and powerful performance,” Plate ensured.

The National Sacred Honor Choir will meet together in New Jersey to rehearse for three days prior to their inaugural performance at Carnegie Hall on March 9, 2014.

 

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Issues Abound with HealthCare.Gov

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been no stranger to criticism, but since the official launch of its Healthcare Marketplace website HealthCare.gov at the beginning of October, criticism has become less ideological and more concrete.

Courtesy of http://www.firstcoastnews.com/
Courtesy of http://www.firstcoastnews.com/

The intent of HealthCare.gov was to provide insurance-seeking Americans with a simplified interface through which to compare private insurance plans, determine eligibility for government insurance subsidies, and ultimately enroll in an eligible plan as per the Affordable Care Act. However, the site’s launch on October 1st brought with it a bevy of issues, including a server unable to handle the incoming traffic as 250,000 visitors instead of the estimated 60,000 attempted to log in the first day. In addition, various glitches in back-end code—code controlling not the visual aspects of the website but the mechanics of it, what the site does that the user can not see—manifested themselves, keeping the site’s help hotline busy. One reported glitch resulted in incorrect recording of information entered into forms by users, information which then became unalterable after submission.

Experts say much of the blame for the site’s current problems lies with CGI Group Inc., the Canadian IT firm which, along with several other firms, was contracted by the Obama administration to develop the back-end code. CGI in turn subcontracted parts of the project to other firms, not an uncommon practice, but the numerous changes made to the project by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services since its inception not only caused the firm to blow through the estimated $93.7 million for the project and raise costs to about $292 million. The frequent changes also forced project employees to scrap large portions of the code and eventually brought them to code to accommodate these future frequent changes. While this method of coding is common amongst developers and often prevents the surpassing of funds budgeted for a project, it also employs shortcuts or certain practices which may not bode well for the strength or stability of the program, especially if such a program intends to service over 300 million people.

However, CGI points to the rushed nature of the project as one of its reasons for downfall. A senior vice president at the company stated that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided to test the site two weeks before launch rather than months beforehand as CGI had recommended. Also to blame was Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), an American company also contracted by the Obama Administration to work on HealthCare.gov. Coincidentally, the Obama administration has since placed QSSI in charge of overseeing repairs on the site. Further controversy arises from the fact that QSSI is owned by UnitedHealth Group, a major provider of private insurance in the U.S.

Although officials from the Department of Health and Human Services have stated that exact healthcare enrollment numbers will not be released until November, at which point the site is expected to be fully functional, Bloomberg estimates that between the 1st and 21st of October, 1% of visitors successfully signed up for insurance through HealthCare.gov. This amounts to about 370,000 enrolled citizens. The deadline for healthcare enrollment has since been extended from the original date of December 15th to March 31, 2014, allowing more time for enrollment if technological difficulties persist.

 

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Dryden Fracking Ban to be Tried in New York Court of Appeals

A recent amendment to zoning legislation in the town of Dryden, NY has propelled the town of 15,000 up to New York State’s highest court and to the forefront of the anti-fracking cause.

Courtesy of inhabitat.com
Courtesy of inhabitat.com

Despite being banned in over 50 towns in New York State, few have been as strategic or promising for natural gas extraction as Dryden, which is situated on more than 141 trillion cubic feet of gas protected by the Marcellus Shale formation. The main group to attempt to seize on this opportunity has been Norse Energy Corporation USA, originally based in Norway, who is being represented as a plaintiff in the case to be tried at the New York State Court of Appeals.

The State of New York is currently under a five-year moratorium on fracking that was enacted by former Governor David Patterson in 2008 and extended indefinitely by current Governor Andrew Cuomo until further research by the State Health Department concludes. The moratorium also prohibits any lower-level activity which would interfere with state jurisdiction over the extraction process. While Norse Energy alleges that Dryden’s zoning changes intersects with state law, town residents state that the legislation merely prohibits “heavy industrial development” on land within the town and does not attempt to regulate the oil, gas, and mining industries. In addition to the nature of the changes, Dryden residents point out that the town’s decisions have been upheld by multiple lower-level courts in the state.

Aside from issues of jurisdiction, the consideration of a fracking ban involves careful weighting of environmental and economic consequences. Fracking involves the use of high-pressured water and chemicals to drill through deep rock formations and access deposits of natural gas, a process which brings the possibility of contamination of water supplies and other public infrastructure, as well as destruction of farmland. However, the approval of fracking activities  in Dryden would open up to 18,000 wells for drilling, bring thousands of new jobs in the industry to the area, and promote energy independence.

Dryden’s case with Norse Energy is not the town’s first on the matter of fracking. 2012 saw a lawsuit with Anschutz Exploration Corp., in which Cortland County Court upheld the town’s zoning ban. Another case was resolved similarly in the same month, with Middlefield, another town west of Dryden, maintaining its anti-fracking activities in a case against a dairy farmer in the area who had contracted with Elexco Land Services, Inc. to seek out natural gas resources on her property.

Fracking, with its array of benefits and detriments, remains a polarized issue. A recent poll conducted by Siena College showed a 43 percent opposition to the drilling, while 38 percent expressed approval.

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College Undertakes New Initiative in China

Courtesy of chinatoday.com
Courtesy of chinatoday.com

In an effort to further its mission of global engagement, President Shirley Mullen, along with vice president of admissions, Eric Currie, and vice president of alumni relations, Dan Noyes, embarked on a two-week tour through the People’s Republic of China this past summer. Houghton College currently has preparations underway to increase its presence in Asia, with special focus on China, intending both to increase enrollment of Chinese students and to establish potential study abroad programs and internships for current and future Houghton students. Explaining the college’s rationale for focusing on the area, Mullen said, “I began to realize that both in our recruitment of international students and also in the parts of the world that Houghton grads were most engaged in, we really were doing very little in Asia.”

Initial efforts toward recruitment, though small, were made about a year ago after Houghton partnered with Zinch, an American website which allows prospective college students to browse a database of profiles of American universities and colleges by entering certain credentials. By having Zinch profile the college as part of a weekly spotlight, Chinese Zinch users have also been introduced to the school. Currie says that the college’s partnership with Zinch has worked out well. “We’ve resourced students out of there. Actually, a student here right now came through our Zinch contacts.”

However, faculty and staff involved in the recruitment initiative emphasize that their main strategy is a long-term one with a focus on forging relationships with Chinese schools. Initially considering working with intermediary recruitment agencies, the college decided to pursue other avenues, opting for a more direct and personal approach. “We’re trying to do something more creative than the agent system, and something that is more organic, more systematized, more on the ground, rather than the agent system, where basically institutions pay agents a certain fee for recruiting a Chinese student,” she said. She expressed concern with many of the tactics employed by the agencies. “As I began listening to the ways that a lot of recruitment in China was happening, I began to think, ‘Good grief, there’s going to be a huge reaction to this someday because it just seems so much more sensitive to what to American schools want out of this than what the Chinese people might want out of it.” Another concern was the ability of incoming Chinese students to adapt well to an educational experience in the U.S., something often unaccounted for by agent groups. “These young people sometimes just get sent over by agents and they are left to sink or swim,” Noyes added.

Other possibilities, mostly for Houghton students, have been explored through alumni contacts in China, amongst whom a network has already been developed. “The alumni connections are so strong, going all the way back to the ‘50s and ‘60s, that there’s a real benefit,” said Noyes.

The majority of Chinese alumni being based in Hong Kong, the college is leaning towards initial programs in the area. “We’d like to start with a student or two who are interested in doing an internship in Hong Kong. It would most likely be a business student at this point because of the connections they have,” Noyes said, naming one contact who runs trade shows for a German company in the city and another alum who works for an IT company as two contacts among many. Although initial programs are hoped to be established in Hong Kong, Mainland China is also a possibility. Said Noyes, “Hong Kong is more like low-hanging fruit for us. We have more of an alumni presence there, we have some potential partners there, so it would make some sense to begin there… but as we uncover more, then I think we could also expand to some different places as well.”

In addition to potential expansion to other areas in China, programs for larger groups also remain a possibility. “We’d love to explore a Mayterm there,” said Noyes, “but it takes a little while to build these relationships.”

Those involved in the project are quick to stress that this initiative is still very much a work in progress. “By December or January I will know where we really stand in those two particular areas I’m looking at,” stated Currie. “I would say we would have it moving forward in its strongest development by spring.”