President's Report Masthead
June 30, 2016

Dean of Students Office

Student Affairs student employee appreciation

The first annual Student Affairs student employee appreciation party, held April 21 in Old Union Hall, was a successful event attended by a few hundred students. They came to enjoy snacks and refreshments, music and mingle with their peers/co-workers. The feedback from the students was that they very much enjoyed it and were thankful we recognized them in such a way.

Senior week events

This year, seniors were treated to five days of free events and activities before they walked across the stage at graduation. From cap decorating to Senior Bowling Night, participants had a chance to get together and celebrate the end of their Binghamton University career with events paid for with their Campus Life fees. Highlights of the week:
• Three busloads of students traveled to Seneca Lake on Wednesday evening to enjoy a dinner cruise during the second annual Senior Cruise Night. Dinner, dancing and beautiful scenery make this event special – and the hot ticket during Senior Week.
• The chance to connect one last time on the Peace Quad Friday afternoon with an outdoor picnic complete with DJ and a gorgeous sunny day.

Parents Leadership Council

The Parents Leadership Council (PLC) was created to offer parents an opportunity to enrich the Binghamton student experience and is designed to serve as the link between Binghamton University and parents of our undergraduate students. For the past two years, the council has been given the privilege and responsibility of allocating dollars that were brought in from parent fundraising initiatives to the student affairs priority of their choice. 

In the spring of 2015, the PLC voted to allocate $10,000 from the Binghamton Fund for Student Life to the Dean of Students (DOS) area, with the intention to provide support to the Emergency Fund, as well as toward training for staff for the 2015-16 year. Because of this funding, the DOS area now has a toolkit it can reach into for any case, even if funding is not needed. Recently, the parent of one of our students passed away and it was requested that a staff member notify the student prior to the family arriving on campus. In notifying and consoling the student, DOS staff was able to offer this emergency fund to the student to pay for a bus ride home before the family was able to get to campus. Being able to offer our assistance in every way is invaluable in these situations. 

In 2015-16, the largest category for grants was for travel related to family emergencies, especially the death of a loved one or a student being in the hospital. The second highest category paid for was to victims of off-campus fires.

The DOS area sees thousands of students in a year, and sometimes students apply for the emergency fund, but sometimes staff also uses their best judgement to offer it to students of concern.

In addition, because of this funding, any staff at Binghamton University who are Title IX investigators recently attended an important training that will keep the University compliant with ever-changing federal and New York state laws. 

This training will have a major impact on our staff and students. These investigators will now be more knowledgeable about how to sensitively elicit the facts. This will help provide the most safe environment for students to be honest. This will also help train staff on techniques that ensure fair, effective and efficient investigations to reduce pain for everyone involved.

Most recently, the PLC voted in its annual meeting to allocate funds for 2016-17 to the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development for internships, and to the Emerging Leaders Program.