Annual Take Back the Night event to raise awareness of sexual violence

Ithaca’s 40th annual Take Back the Night march will be held April 26. The event calls for an end to intimate partner and sexual violence in the community and around the world.

This year’s theme is “Light Out of Darkness.” The event is open to everyone who wants to see an end to all forms of domestic and sexual violence.

There will be three marches at this event, all convening together at the Bernie Milton Pavilion on The Commons. The first one will leave at 6:15 p.m. from Textor Hall at Ithaca College. The second one will leave at 6:30 p.m. from Ho Plaza at Cornell University. The third one will leave at 6:45 p.m. from the Greater Ithaca Activities Center.

When the marches arrive at the Bernie Milton Pavilion between 7 and 9 p.m., there will be a rally and candlelight vigil that will feature community speakers.

Ithaca College team presented BB-8 replica at Star Wars event

Disney announced the newest film in the Star Wars saga at its Star Wars Celebration event held from April 11 to 15. During the event, a team from Ithaca College — comprised of faculty, recent alumni and one current student — presented a panel at the event discussing its creation of a life-sized working replica of a robot from the film, BB-8.

For his senior project in communication management and design, Garrett Chin ’18 worked with Edward Schneider, associate professor in the Department of Strategic Communication, to build a life-sized working replica of the sphere-based robot BB-8 from the new Star Wars films.  

Chin led an interdisciplinary student team comprised of junior Lauren Suna, Avery Clark ’18 and Bennie Lemus ’18 to complete the project. 

The team from the college was invited to speak on a panel at the event to discuss its process and implications for robot building in STEM education. The project was headquartered in the Roy H. Park School of Communications’ Innovation Lab.

Information Technology identifies phishing scam emailed to students

Shortly after 5 p.m. April 10, a phishing email message was sent to numerous Ithaca College email accounts with the subject “Dog sitter needed.” 

The message asked recipients to respond to a Gmail address if they were interested in a job that would supposedly pay a significant amount of money for dog sitting. 

Information Technology quickly blocked communication between the college’s email system and the phishing Gmail address. IT also identified and notified the people who may have responded to the message. 

IT warned students that they should always be extra suspicious of any unexpected emails or text messages that “sound too good to be true,” even if the referenced company or person seems recognizable. 

IT said attackers are increasingly initiating multimessage conversations with victims to get them to lower their guards before asking them to do something risky.

Journalism students to launch podcast on military housing contamination

Students enrolled in a journalism law course taught by Ann Marie Adams, instructor in the Department of Strategic Communications at Ithaca College, produced a podcast series analyzing military housing contamination, toxic tort and precedent-setting laws.

The students involved in the podcast series include seniors Devon Beyoda and Reesa Hylton, juniors Meaghan McElroy, Sobeida Rosa and John Wikiera and sophomore Orian Fitlovich.

The students will host a podcast launch briefing at 8:15 a.m. May 2 in Room 279 in Roy H. Park Hall to reflect on their experiences in interpreting the laws related to military housing issues and to discuss their podcast series.  

Retired professor publishes article presenting theory on King Arthur 

Michael Twomey, retired Dana professor in the Department of English at Ithaca College, published the lead article in the spring 2019 issue of “Arthuriana,” the journal of the International Arthurian Society’s North American branch. Arthuriana focuses on the legend of King Arthur, a British leader in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. His article, titled “Retraction and the Making of Arthurian Texts,” presented a theory about how new texts narrating the legend of King Arthur have been composed.  

Arthurian writers practiced four forms of retraction that opened up narrative space for innovation: palinode, re-creation, adaptation and supplementation. 

Each new act of retraction left intact the existing canon of texts with the received plot and characters in the pseudo-history of King Arthur, thus enabling the continued expansion and renewal of Arthurian literature to the present day. 

Twomey’s article began as a paper presented at the International Arthurian Congress in Würzburg, Germany, in July 2017, an event that he attended with support from the college.