Category Archives: Faculty Feature

Class Profile: CSL 538 with Dr. Jim Jeffreys

Posted on by
Reply

Last week, I sat down with Dr. Jim Jeffreys, professor of the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counseling course at Saint Rose. Jim Jeffreys has a Masters in Social Work and a PhD in Social Welfare from the State University at Albany. He is a Licensed Certified Social Worker in New York State. He is currently the Clinical Director of Hospitality House, a residential treatment program for addicts.

Photo Credit to Jim Jeffreys

Photo Credit to Jim Jeffreys

While an adjunct instructor at Saint Rose, Jim has taught Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counseling, Drug Use and Abuse, the State Education Department required Substance Abuse Workshop, provided training in alcohol and substance abuse prevention for Saint Rose Resident Assistants, and is a Field Instructor. Jim has served on the Board of Directors for the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York and the Capital District Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime and is a member of the Capital District Regional College Consortium on Alcohol and Other Drugs.

How did you get into Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counseling?

I went to Geneseo State. There, you were allowed to take courses and get A’s if you volunteered. It was a program they had. I began in the community psychology program . When I found out that you could volunteer at the suicide hotlines and get an A without books, tests, or class, I opted for that. I went to the Alive Center, the next year I got two A’s for running the Alive Center, then the following year I got 3 A’s for running the volunteer center for over 100 people. I got the bug for human services, social work, that kind of thing. Then I went to SUNY and did an internship at Hope House. When I was there in 1980, I was the only one on staff who never used heroine. I learned to get a gut, they had me hold all the money, so I had a niche. I was the one that helped people get into college.

What came out of working at Saint Rose? How did you make the course more experiential?

I was challenged by Claudia Lingertat-Putnam and Mike Bologna. They asked me to teach the Chemical Dependency Course and after the first semester they came to Hospitality House for a tour and asked, “how can we make the course more experiential?” It’s a three year course, with a lot of book learning, with an internship closer to graduation. The challenge was to get more experiential early on before students got to their internship component. What they found were a lot of people coming into the program that hadn’t had much experience in human services.

So what we worked out was that I would do two things simultaneously. I would encourage people if they wanted to get an “A” that they would have to go to either an AA meeting or an NA meeting and then they would write a paper about it. When my students go, I tell them that they have to be either very honest or very quiet. You can go into a meeting and say that you are just there to listen and no one will give you pressure. Or you can go in and say you’re a student. Some people might embrace you, some might ignore you, and then there are the old timers who will say “Hmmph”. But it’s an open meeting so that’s what they’re there for: People can come in and learn more about AA.

The reason I do that is because when you refer someone to AA, you will be able to say, “I know what it’s like” or “I know how hard it is”. A lot of the paper contains your own feelings. You feel uncomfortable? Well, yeah. Now you know how they feel.

The second way, is that the students come to the Hospitality House for half a day. They get a tour by a client in the all-male program.

Continue reading →

Meet Daniel Nester, Associate Professor of English

Posted on by
1

I sat down and had lunch with Daniel Nester, an Associate Professor in the English department, as well as coordinator of the new MFA program. I got to ask him a few questions about his life as a teacher and what he has accomplished throughout his life.

He told me he grew up in Maple Shade, New Jersey and completed his undergraduate degree at Rutgers-Camden University. He then continued on to get an MFA in poetry from New York University. Since then, Nester has published three collections including God Save My Queen: A Tribute, God Save my Queen: The Show Must Go On, and a poetry collection, The History of My World Tonight. His latest publication, How to Be Inappropriate, is a collection of humorous non-fiction.

Why did you choose to go into teaching?

Photo by Gregory Cherin

Daniel Nester: For the money. No, no, just kidding. I didn’t want to be a teacher at first, but I taught a class at a halfway house my super-senior year. I really loved it. I was teaching people who were transitioning from incarceration. I ran creative writing workshops there. Then when I got to NYU I taught at the Goldwater Hospital. Then I taught at The Lower East Side Needle Exchange. I don’t think I really taught “traditional” students until my last year of grad school when I taught a class at NYU. So by then, I was really interested in teaching non-traditional populations.

What did you want to do before that? Did you want to stick to writing?

DN: To be honest, I didn’t think I wanted to be a writer until I took a graduate class. I took a one-off graduate class at Rutgers-Camden. It was a poetry class with Afaa Weaver. I was really into it, really motivated. It was around then that I really took myself seriously as a writer. Before that, I don’t think I knew what it meant to really be a writer. I think I wanted to be an editor, but I’m not all that great at being an editor. I worked at a car wash for a long time. I think I just thought I would work there forever.

What did you do while you were on sabbatical?

DN: I wrote as much as I could. I stayed at home with my girls. I tried to rewrite this coming-of-age memoir. I wrote a lot of essays, articles, and even a few poems. I have a lot that just came out. I wrote about the Beach Boys that was in The New York Times. You wouldn’t expect it, but they’re overtly political. They do a lot of fundraisers for Republican candidates. I’m not like an arch-political person, but I thought it was a strange thing. I wrote about having small hands and feet. I wrote about my thyroid problem. I wrote one about The Doors. Jim Morrison in particular.

Somebody actually wrote about my writing. That really was wacky. I did The Memoir Office thing right out of the gates. I set up a desk in an art gallery in Troy and put up a sign that said “The Memoir Office” and people would come and talk to me. Or other people would just stare at me, like, what the hell is happening here?

Continue reading →

Meet Dr. David Bebe, Assistant Professor of Music

Posted on by
1

Dr. David Bebe, Assistant Professor of Music, joined the School of Arts and Humanities faculty at the start of the 2011-2012 academic year.

Dr. Bebe received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Indiana University and completed his doctorate at the University of Miami. He is originally from Salem, Oregon.

As a professor of graduate students in the Music Education program, Dr. Bebe says that he enjoys cultivating a personal and supportive learning environment for his students. He notes that the program also allows students to balance full-time jobs while taking advantage of the opportunities offered to them at Saint Rose. “Students have the option to maintain their professional careers while they attend school, which has proven to be an important balance for many of our students. There are also many opportunities to perform in a variety of ensembles. So, Music Education graduate students not only learn from experienced experts in the classroom, but they can also take their musicianship to the next level on stage,” he says.

For those interested in applying to the Music Education graduate program, Dr. Bebe encourages interested students to contact the faculty with questions. “We are a friendly bunch and will do the best to guide you to find the answers to your questions. Also, we’ll make sure you are familiar with the credit requirements for the degree and that it’s the right program for you.” More information about the graduate Music Education program is available here. If your undergraduate degree is in an area of music other than music education, you must complete all undergraduate music education requirements before being admitted to the program.

Reflecting on his first year as a faculty member here, Dr. Bebe says that he has had a positive and enjoyable experience at Saint Rose thus far. “The faculty and administration have been very supportive of all of my ideas and we all want to see the Music Department continue to strive for providing excellence in Music Education,” he says.  “What I enjoy the most are the passionate students and the overall sense of community on this campus.”

Dr. Bebe also enjoys interacting with his graduate students and learning from their own teaching experiences. “Our graduate students have valuable life experiences which results in clear ideas on what they need to do to improve and become better teachers. They often are very inquisitive and engaged in class and want to seek out specific opportunities to take advantage of while they are here at Saint Rose. I love to hear what knowledge they have gained from their own teaching experiences and I find that I personally learn a lot from my students.”

Are you interested in the MS in Music Education program? The Fall 2012 preferred application deadline is June 1. If you have any questions about the admissions process, please call Graduate Admissions at 518-454-5143 or email grad@strose.edu.

Meet Dr. Dandan Wu, Assistant Professor of Finance

Posted on by
Reply

Dr. Dandan Wu, Assistant Professor of Finance, joined the School of Business faculty at the start of the 2011-2012 academic year.

Dr. Wu earned her Ph.D. from Washington State University and taught corporate finance there before coming to Saint Rose. She is originally from Shenzhen, China, the city where the stock market of China originated.

Dr. Wu began teaching her first graduate level class, Managerial Finance, this Spring 2012 semester. She says that the design of the graduate business programs provides unique flexibility in terms of how a student can complete the degree program. For MBA students, the program can be pursued full-time or part-time, in one or two years of study. The Master of Science in Accounting degree is a 30-credit hour program designed to satisfy certain requirements for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examination. Both programs offer day and evening classes.

For those interested in pursuing the MBA or MS in Accounting, Dr. Wu suggests that students should adjust their mindset for graduate study. “A graduate student should be more independent and be ready to take initiation in learning. Subjects in business are diverse. One should aim at gaining solid understanding of all of them and also being exceptionally knowledgeable in one subject area,” she explains, “For MBA students, knowing clearly what your subject of interest is will be especially important. Graduate programs can be hectic and knowing what you want to learn about enables you to use your time and energy wisely.”

As a new faculty member, Dr. Wu says the most impressive experience she has had in her seven months at Saint Rose has been observing how dedicated her colleagues are to teaching. “As a newcomer, I am motivated and inspired everyday to work harder to become a good member of the teaching community. I know that this is not the case at all colleges and universities, and I deeply appreciate being in a group of people who are passionate and devoted to education” she says.

Dr. Wu also hopes to share her passion for finance in the classroom. “I always believe that finance is a key piece of knowledge that can reduce the unnatural inequality among people. Therefore, I hope that I will gain more experience with teaching finance and Saint Rose is a perfect place to do that.”

Are you interested in the MBA or MS in Accounting program? Dr. Wu suggests that applicants contact course instructors before beginning the program to ask for advice on how to prepare for courses and familiarize yourself with the resources at Saint Rose and in Albany for graduate students.

The Fall 2012 preferred application deadline for both the MBA and Accounting programs is June 1. If you have any questions about the admissions process, please call Graduate Admissions at 518-454-5143 or email grad@strose.edu.