Public

Mikaelie (Fletcher) Lanzafame '11 has a challenging job. As a Human Resources Business Partner at Marquardt Switches in Cazenovia, she's trying to find workers at a time of profound labor shortages. The plant has approximately 260 employees and dozens of openings. "Our apply rates are down. We work with temp agencies to get people in here and they are struggling. We've put incentives in place, sign-on bonuses, we've increased wages, we've increased perks. It's just a very challenging time."

If you ask Joey Tschopp (pronounced "shop") what kind of a student he was at Cicero-North Syracuse High School he'll tell you with a big smile, "a fun one!" He says he had the potential to be an outstanding student but didn't apply himself.

When he arrived on the Onondaga Community College campus three years ago his transformation began. "I never felt accepted in high school. I felt judged. Here I feel accepted by both students and faculty and felt I could accept other people as well. OCC gave me the opportunity to be who I am."

Brandon Phelps is a busy student. He's working toward two degrees as he pursues his dream of becoming a music teacher, and he's serving the campus community as an RA in the residence hall.

Phelps graduated from Lowville High School in 2020 and spent the first year of college at home taking general education classes online. In the fall of 2021 he came to OCC for in-person classes and began working as an RA. "I really like public speaking, being a leader, and talking to people. I thought the RA position was a place where I could continue to do that."

Two spring semesters ago, during the early stages of the Covid pandemic, Onondaga Community College made a seismic student-focused shift in its structure. All of the degree and certificate programs were organized into eight distinct Schools within OCC. The goal was to give students in like-minded courses of study a home on campus where they could go for assistance with almost anything.

Five Onondaga Community College students will spend their summer at SUNY Binghamton, participating in paid internships as part of the Bridges to Baccalaureate program. It supports under-represented students interested in pursuing careers in biomedical sciences. The OCC students benefiting from the experience are members of the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (known as C-STEP) or the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (known as L-SAMP). OCC's students participating in the Bridges to Baccalaureate program are:

Iannelis Castro Calderon has been named Student Speaker for Onondaga Community College's Commencement ceremony. She was selected by a committee of faculty and staff following a round of in-person interviews and extensive review of each candidate's credentials. "To be chosen is a gift. It encourages me to reflect, to appreciate, to honor, and to always consider our community. I am overjoyed to have the opportunity to share words of encouragement with the whole class and to celebrate our success together."

A popular weather-themed movie coupled with real-life meteorological mayhem propelled Josh Kozlowski '03 down his first of two career paths. Between the Blizzard of 1993, the movie Twister which came out in 1996, and the Labor Day storm of 1998, Kozlowski had plenty of inspiration. "We experienced this severe ebb of weather and I was fascinated by it. I said to myself the night of the Labor Day Storm that I wanted to be able to, at some point in the future, tell people something was coming before it got there. There were so many people who said 'I didn't know it was coming.'"

Students in Onondaga Community College's chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society are hosting a series of podcasts titled "Voices of Our Community" which introduce listeners to international students on our campus.

You can listen to the podcasts at places like iTunes and Spotify by searching "Chatting About College" which is the year-round home of OCC's podcasts.

A panel discussion about the PTK podcast series was held Wednesday, April 27th in room C116 of Coulter Hall.

If there's a game of chess being played on the Onondaga Community College campus, there's a pretty good chance you will find Connor Burkhart on one side of the board. Burkhart is the president of OCC's Chess Club. And he's worked hard to organize the CNY College Chess Tournament which will be held on campus this Saturday. "I love chess. When you're playing in a tournament, the only thing you hear is clocks ticking and people saying 'check' and 'checkmate.' It's like music to me."

When Joe Doyle was growing up he watched his mother battle lung cancer and the extraordinary care she received from health care professionals. It made a lasting impact on him. "I was always thankful for the oncology team, the radiation therapists, and the radiologists who saved my mom's life. They are the reason she's still alive today. That's something that's always been near and dear to me and something I want to give to other families."