For much of her life, Binghamton University sophomore Jade Maniscalco has had no place to call home. When she was seven, her parents began a long divorce process that left her in the midst of domestic disputes, physical and mental abuse and alienation from her family members. She slept on park benches and had to travel to the local supermarket just to use the bathroom. Maniscalco, who plans to major in psychology, supports herself entirely — relying on student loans and the money she makes at her job with Harpur Academic Advising. She emancipated herself from her parents when she…

The Campus/Community Coalition of the city of Binghamton met Wednesday afternoon to discuss how to deal with recent incidents of crime Downtown. The open-forum conversation, held in City Council Chambers, came on the heels of an incident in which a 20-year-old male allegedly stabbed and killed a 30-year-old male, and left another wounded. Addressing concerns that the State Street bar scene incubated the violence, Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said the incident could have happened anywhere. “It’s not necessarily tied to the bars,” he said. “Unfortunately that’s where it happened.” Some community members at the forum were concerned that local media’s…

Binghamton police have a significant number of witnesses as they move forward in the investigation of a stabbing incident that left one man dead and one man in intensive care over the weekend. Police detective Capt. Alex J. Minor, head of the Binghamton Police Department’s detective division, said police interviewed “a good number” of witnesses this weekend. He would not give a specific number, but said that when a fight broke out among crowds leaving State Street bars, plenty of people were around to witness the stabbings. “Several people have come forward [as witnesses],” Minor said. According to a report…

Legislation before Congress could reform the student loan industry, but Binghamton University’s Financial Aid Services is already a step ahead. The proposed reforms would end a federal policy that guarantees the loans private banks make to college students to pay for education. This would mean that all loans doled out by universities nationwide would come directly from the federal government. Dennis J. Chavez, director of financial aid services at BU, said the University is ahead of the curve and already deals exclusively with direct federal loans. “Binghamton has positioned itself very nicely in what we are hearing,” he said. “For…

MONDAY, Feb. 15, 5:50 p.m. — A 21-year-old female student told police that a male taxi driver pulled her bags out of his cab, grabbed her by the hands and forced her to exit the vehicle, according to Investigator Dennis P. Bush of Binghamton’s New York State University Police. According to the 40-year-old driver, the student entered the taxi along with six other passengers at the Short Line bus stop Downtown. The driver said he dropped off all the other passengers and was by the Hillside Community bus stop when he asked where she was going. When she told him…

A SUNY review of Binghamton University’s athletic department that revealed knowledge and complicity in wrongdoing at all levels of administration — including President Lois DeFleur — also detailed a series of potential NCAA regulatory violations by basketball coaching staff. The authors of the report outlined four categories of possible wrongdoing in an effort to move away from the mistakes of the past. TEXT MESSAGES REVEAL ACADEMIC INTERVENTION The report revealed text message communications between then-player Malik Alvin and assistant coach Marc Hsu. The messages implied that the Hsu was assisting Alvin with homework assignments. “Yo the paper [is] due 12…

In Monday’s State of the City address, Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan was frank about the effect of the economic climate on the city, yet he was optimistic about his government’s ability to unite, and address a wide array of economic and political troubles. From the outset, Ryan framed Binghamton’s economic troubles in the context of the nation’s larger problems. He pointed to federal spending on two wars and deregulation on Wall Street as the factors that led to a widespread economic crisis that has had its impact here in Binghamton. “Binghamton has not been spared by the financial hardships sweeping…

The aesthetic impact of the proposed Downtown student housing project was the focus of a meeting Monday night at Binghamton City Hall. The public hearing was part of a weekly meeting of the Binghamton Planning Commission, which reviews applications for new construction and petitions for zoning variants in the city. One of the applications reviewed at the meeting was for a new multi-unit student housing development to be built on the corner of Washington and Water streets, near the Binghamton University Downtown Center. It is being proposed by the Newman Development Group, LLC, the same developers behind University Plaza apartment…

New York state’s fiscal situation and multibillion-dollar debt is leading it to lift long-standing restrictions on the freedoms of SUNY campuses to allow them to make up for budget cuts. Gov. David Paterson plans to cut state aid to SUNY campuses by nearly $118 million next year, but he is seeking to offset this with reforms that would give individual institutions greater autonomy and new ways of drawing in revenue. It is a compromise that James Van Voorst, vice president for administration, says is a trade of funding for “flexibility that’s going to help you work with less.” Van Voorst…

When President Lois DeFleur retires this July after a 20-year tenure, she will stand out from the four Binghamton University presidents that came before her with a legacy that is already beginning to take shape in the minds of the people who know her. “What the president has done,” James Van Voorst, vice president for academic affairs, said, was to instill “a sense of cooperation, collaboration, among all the parts of the campus.” Van Voorst, who has been at BU since 2000, said that DeFleur’s emphasis on cooperation among all facets of the University is “probably the most important aspect…

As the death toll in Haiti climbs, students at Binghamton University are making their own contributions to supplement statewide, nationwide and international initiatives to assist in the relief effort. The confirmed death toll from the devastating earthquake has topped 150,000 in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area alone, the Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said Sunday. Many more thousands are dead around the country or still buried under the rubble. “Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble — 200,000, 300,000?” Lassegue said. “Who knows the overall death toll?” Experts say chances are slim that more survivors will be found…

In a move that will save the school about $100,000 by some accounts, Binghamton University is switching its e-mail management to Google. The switch is part of a SUNY-wide contract with Google for the use of its free Google Apps Education Edition service. “We will save about $100,000 a year on this,” said Mark Reed, associate vice president of ITS. He said that the savings would come from eliminating software maintenance and hardware cost. At BU, Google Apps will replace Mirapoint WebMail, the school’s previous e-mail client. The transfer to Google, which began in December and will continue until mid-March,…

When Souleymane “Jules” Sakho walked into the Binghamton University Counseling Center nearly two weeks ago to express his concern about his roommate, he said he was advised to avoid interaction with Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani. Later that week, Al-Zahrani was remanded to the Broome County Jail, accused of stabbing professor emeritus Richard Antoun to death. Dr. Mary Muscari, director of the O’Connor Office of Rural Health Studies in the Decker School of Nursing, spoke generally about situations of looming violence. “You really should pay attention to threats,” she said. Muscari is a specialist in forensics and an authority on violence in schools.…

Most students are so focused on exams that they do not give the time and place of their test another thought, but how is the schedule of finals created? Terry Kelley-Wallace, of the Binghamton University registrar, is responsible for directing the planning of the finals schedule. “As you can imagine, it can be a very complex and time-consuming process,” she said. In the past, scheduling was done in such a way that Associate Professor and Director of Environmental Studies Peter L. Knuepfer called “entirely random, or seemed to be anyway.” Knuepfer said that, under the previous system, many of his…

School and city officials are set to speak today at the Turkish Cultural Center’s (TCC) third annual Friendship Dinner. The Friendship Dinner is an invitation-only reception that acts as part of the TCC’s larger effort to foster Turkish cultural heritage, and the city of Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan and Binghamton University President Lois DeFleur will be delivering formal remarks to echo the goals and vision of the group. According to University spokeswoman Gail Glover, the president will be awarded the TCC’s Education Award. In her remarks, the president plans to focus on thanking the TCC for the distinction of the…

The field outside the West Gym was transformed — lined with cones, sand bags and formidable wooden logs — and turned into a temporary boot camp, which would test the physical and mental endurance of three Binghamton University students and a Conklin resident on Tuesday. The test, called the Fitness Challenge, was presented by the United States Marine Corps Officer Selection Program. It was a boot camp-inspired workout session designed to give college students a feel for what it takes to join the Marines. “I’ve always been interested in how the Marines work out,” said undeclared freshman Stephen Hernandez. He…

A group of Binghamton University students were seen rummaging through piles of garbage yesterday outside the Old University Union — not for lost items, or food, but for an environmental experiment. The students were doing an analysis of the waste generated in BU’s four dining halls and the Food Court in celebration of America Recycles Day. Dr. Juliet M. Berling, environmental resource manager for Physical Facilities, organized the events. Her team of student employees and interns collected waste that people had put into the general garbage containers from the dining halls and food court. She said that out of the…

The Student Assembly dismissed calls for the removal of four student leaders, including Binghamton University Student Association President Adam Amit, at Monday’s meeting. Ian Swan, Assembly representative for Dickinson Town Council, authored three resolutions, which separately sought the impeachment of Amit, Assembly chair Elahd Bar-Shai and research and planning chair Lawrence Faulstich. The Assembly voted to discard the resolutions regarding Amit and Faulstich before each of the impeachments could reach a vote at Monday’s Assembly meeting. A resolution calling for Bar-Shai’s impeachment did reach a vote, but was voted down 36 to one, with seven abstentions. A final resolution suggested…

Dateline, the Binghamton University equivalent of B-Line for faculty and staff, has been updated to streamline communication between the groups. The renewed system, which went into effect Nov. 2, was put in place to include staff and faculty members who had previously not been receiving the weekday bulletin. Dateline contains announcements both from the administration and from members of the campus community, and is distributed Monday through Friday. “With Dateline going to all faculty and staff, it will ensure that important information … will be efficiently and widely disseminated,” Katie Ellis, senior director for communications and marketing, said. As new…

Binghamton University Health Services provided its fourth H1N1 vaccination clinic Thursday in the Mandela Room as part of an ongoing effort to prevent or limit the spread of the virus. As of Monday night, Health Services has confirmed only one case of the strain of influenza at BU so far. Gail Mathieson-Devereaux, coordinator of clinical service for Health Services, said it was a slower day for the clinic. “We’ve done almost 90 so far today,” she said. On other days, she said 700-800 students showed up for vaccinations. “To date we’ve given approximately 1,700 doses of H1N1 vaccine.” Health Services…

Colleges nationwide are seeing a drop in acceptance rates with more students submitting applications, and Binghamton University’s admissions staff is experiencing their share of the trend. “The acceptance rate of applicants has decreased over the last five years,” said Cheryl Brown, BU’s director of admissions. “Approximately 33 percent of applicants were accepted in 2009 vs. 43 percent in 2005.” Brown attributed the downward shift to the increasing number of BU applicants. According to Brown, the increase of applicants is a reflection of BU’s increasing national reputation and selectivity. “From 2005 to 2009, BU has experienced a 34 percent increase in…

The Career Development Center announced last month that it will cease operation of their Credentials File service by July of next year and will usher current users of the service to an online system. According to the director of the CDC, Nancy Paul, the switch to Interfolio, an online credentials file management system, was a way to “change and grow in response to changes in the world.” The current service, which uses a physical filing system to manage over 20,000 files, has existed almost unaltered for over 30 years. The switch to Interfolio represented the CDC’s most recent phase of…

The Sodexo bakery, a bedraggled brick building in the parking lot of Physical Facilities, is oft-forgotten (if known at all). But inside is a bright bustling kitchen, where a small but industrious group of students meet twice a week to contribute to a common mission: make challah and make a difference. Lauren Rothschild and Alexandra Kassimir oversee the operations of Binghamton University’s chapter of Challah for Hunger, a national non-profit organization that raises money for charitable causes in communities throughout the country and across the globe. Rothschild, a senior human development major, and Kassimir, a junior psychobiology major, were involved…

Binghamton University Council, the University’s advisory and oversight committee, has already met once this academic year without a student representative. Leaders in student government are working to ensure that a student representative is elected in time for the next meeting. BU Council is responsible for recommending candidates for the presidency of the University and the SUNY Board of Trustees, for drafting the Student Code of Conduct and for reviewing plans for the improvement of the University, among other duties. Nine of the Council’s 10 members are appointed by the governor of New York, and the other member must be a…

In his continued effort to expose secrecy, conspiracy and corruption surrounding the history of oil in America, author Edwin Black spoke about his latest book on campus Tuesday. His 2008 book, “The Plan: How to Rescue Society the Day the Oil Stops — or the Day Before” explains how America is unprepared to stop importing foreign oil. The lecture, which was titled “The Truth about Oil Addiction and a Plan for the Future,” was held in Lecture Hall 8. Approximately 15 people attended the event. During the presentation he traced the history of oil usage in the country, beginning with…