SUNY Canton News

Soon, a Wyoming resident will travel to SUNY Canton to celebrate their graduation ceremony, and yet it might be the first time they ever step foot in the Empire State.

A recent agreement between college officials from SUNY Canton and Gillette College makes it possible for Wyoming students to obtain bachelor’s degrees without having to leave their home state or even their hometown. Several SUNY Canton officials are in Gillette for a formal announcement on Thursday March 8.

“We are ready to start offering our four-year degrees to Gillette College students in Law Enforcement Leadership and Management, and Technology Management for the Fall 2007 Semester,” said SUNY Canton President Joseph L. Kennedy. “We believe our colleagues at Gillette College share the same educational values as we do and are ready to move into a new age of education.”

The agreement will allow two-year students enrolled at Gillette College the ability to obtain baccalaureate degrees via SUNY Canton OnLine (SUNY Canton OL), through distance learning video technologies, from Gillette Campus faculty, or through a combination of the three methods. SUNY Canton currently has 13 bachelor’s degree programs, most of which are available online. The college’s continued growth and online expansion prompted the college to form SUNY Canton OL to exclusively serve students who wish to obtain a degree via the Internet.

“Recent additions and upgrades to SUNY Canton’s video distance learning technologies and Internet upgrades have made it possible for seamless in-class participation, despite geographic differences,” said SUNY Canton Provost Jeremy D. Brown. “With these additions we have been able to build on our extremely successful online and distance learning programs.”

Brown is in Gillette, Wyo., this week with Canino School of Engineering Technology Dean David Wells, School of Business and Public Service Interim Dean Karen Spellacy, Admissions Counselor Rebecca Armstrong, and Director of Public Relations Randy Sieminski. SUNY Canton has similar agreements with colleges in Russia, Japan, Massachusetts, and a number of other colleges in New York.

Gillette College is operated by Sheridan College through the Northern Wyoming Community College District and offers outreach programs in several counties. Gillette College offers associate of arts, associate of science, and associate of applied science degrees, certificate programs, and program tracks that prepare students to transfer to a four-year college or university. Gillette College is run by Dean Paul Young, who will be joining his SUNY Canton counterparts for the official announcement.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to work with people from locations around the world,” Young said in a past interview. “You can go to Princeton and not get that type of experience, and we’ll have it right here in Gillette.”

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A SUNY Canton assistant professor’s new findings about U.S. employees working in foreign embassies will be presented this May at the International Workshop on Human Resource Management in Jerez De La Frontera, Spain.

Assistant Professor of Technology Management Charles R. Fenner, Ph.D., and co-author Jan Selmer, Ph.D., of the Aarhus School of Business, created The Work Situation of Public Sector Expatriates. Fenner served as an expatriate, or somebody who works outside their own country, during his 20-year career as a military officer.

“Most cross-cultural adjustment studies are based on many different types of jobs in one location,” Fenner said. “Our research turns previous studies on their head. We studied the cross-cultural adjustment of U.S. employees in the same position from across the world.”

He said their findings, based on his doctorate dissertation, demonstrate the importance of role clarity in the adjustment of the expatriate to their position. More specifically, when the expatriate clearly understands his or her role and function in the foreign environment, the expatriate’s adjustment to their work is greatly enhanced. “It’s important for the local leadership to enforce and enhance the vision of the multinational corporation overseas,” he said.

Fenner collected the information online for his dissertation while he was stationed in Moscow, Russia. He based his research on U.S. Department of Defense administrators stationed in embassies worldwide. “I saw responses everywhere as far as Ulan-Bator, Mongolia, to Santiago, Chile,” he said.

While living in Moscow, Fenner was in a comparable role to his studies. He said his personal adaptation appeared to be remarkable, but he was only interacting with counterparts who spoke English in the embassy. “My family had a harder time adjusting to their surroundings, because they were immersed in a foreign language,” Fenner noted. “Language can cause barriers to adjustment.”

Fenner is the lead faculty member for the Technology Management four-year program. He has run the office operations at embassies in Hanoi, Vietnam; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Moscow, Russia and Bucharest, Romania. Technology Management is offered as an online program through SUNY Canton OnLine, allowing students from around the world to earn their SUNY Canton Bachelor of Business Administration degree.

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