That's right, the Alumni Association is now a group on LinkedIn, the web site for networking professionals.

If you are a member of LinkedIn, join us there as well:

http://www. linkedin. com/e/gis/132024/06389759EB9C

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners.You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Your network consists of your connections, your connections' connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

I originally wrote this entry last year on Memorial Day and it is worth reposting (with a few modifications)... I am posting it here as a way to remember a Purchase hero. - Jeffrey Putman

I hope all are having a peaceful and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. Whatever your opinion is about our current administration in Washington, don't forget that Memorial Day is a day to honor our fallen American Soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom and our way of life. Take a moment to find a way to thank our fighting men and women, in even the smallest way, especially those who have been placed in harms way in Iraq and those who are currently serving in Afghanistan and throughout the world.

Every time I need to be reminded our our heroes I remember the only member of the armed forces that I know personally who gave his life in Iraq in 2005.



Anthony N. Kalladeen and his older brother, Chad Pillai, were put up for foster care when they were just 9 and 10 after their mother suffered a nervous breakdown. But Kalladeen, at age 17, came looking for her and his brother to reunite the family. "He showed us what true love was," said his cousin Ana Rodriguez, 46. "He showed no animosity toward his mother."

Anthony Kalladeen served as a Purchase College resident assistant for three semesters in the freshman residence halls Big Haus and Crossroads, enjoying great popularity with his peers and first-year students. He was a superb mentor and model for the residential community. He touched students' lives and helped them grow in his capacity as an RA. I still remember the day he came to our office to request a military leave of absence. He was so proud of his military service and felt that it was his duty to return to Iraq. A former Marine, he was about to begin his second tour of duty in Iraq as a member of the Army National Guard 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment out of New York City. He planned to return to Purchase to complete his studies.

Anthony Kalladeen, 26, a resident of Purchase College in Purchase, N.Y., died Aug. 8, 2005 in Baghdad of injuries sustained Aug. 7, when his Humvee was struck by two improvised explosive devices and he received small-arms fire.

Anthony Kalladeen is a true American hero. Whenever I need a source of strength, I think about him. I only wish I had gotten to know him better.

It is one of the saddest duties of a Student Affairs professional to attend the funeral of a student who has passed away, and I have unfortunately attended three, but Anthony Kalladeen's military funeral, with a helicopter fly-over and 21-gun salute will live with me forever.

In May, 2006, Purchase College dedicated Kalladeen's Corner in the Crossroads residence hall which continues to serve as a place of reflection where students can gather to socialize and study. Every time I visit the College, I try to be sure to take a moment to visit it and reflect.

On this Memorial Day, 2008, I remember Spec. Anthony N. Kalladeen and all of the fallen heroes, and think about all of our men and women in uniform who continue to serve to this day. I hope you take a moment to think of them as well.

Portions of this entry were adapted from an article in The Washington Post.

Below are the remarks delivered by award-winning playwright Tony Kushner at Purchase College's 36th Commencement on May 16.


This business of receiving an honorary degree, this transaction, perhaps I ought to say, goes basically like this: someone or some group here at SUNY Purchase has decided to honor me for my writing and speaking, and several decades of hard working psychotherapists stand behind me imploring me not to question too extensively the wisdom of that decision, and my parents who taught me how to behave in public stand behind me imploring me to at least have the good taste and graciousness not to question the decision publically; and in exchange for the honor, I appear onstage, most often to accept diploma and hood and shake hands and wave, or occasionally, as is the case today, to say a few words. Whether silent or speaking, I'm decoration, I'm here to help adorn, decorate, make more festive this most festive occasion.

I love participating in commencements because, well, I'm a pretty depressed person, I read the newspaper every day and so of course I'm depressed, who isn't depressed nowadays, everyone is depressed, you are depressed, or you ought to be, not today, of course, when you are celebrating, but usually you are depressed, your pet has probably gotten a contact depression just sitting next to you while you read the newspaper; I'm depressed and most of the time, when I'm not in rehearsal or, you know, as we say in Hollywood, taking a meeting or doing lunch, I have to sit alone with myself, all alone with myself staring at a blank page or the ghastly white glare of an empty laptop screen, wondering how it's possible that at a mere 51 years of age any trace of talent or intelligence or moxie I once possessed could so abruptly, so unceremoniously, have departed, leaving not a trace behind; depressed and lonely, I attend graduations, looking to mooch off the day's celebratory spirits, the bright sexy seductive promise of a future of change, novelty, discovery, progress — even on a rainy day like today, the radiance attendant upon real accomplishment, the bacchic non-Euclidean ecstasy of liberation – joy, in other words, sheer lovely human joy, rises up to turn stormclouds and rainfall into rococo chariots transporting Divinity and the promise of pennies from heaven.

I come to mooch off your joy, not to dampen it. The price of my admission, since I haven't done the work you've had to do to be here, is that I must speak to you; that's the deal, that's how I can get in at the banquet table of your joy. It's sometimes a complicated deal: a hard assignment. I began speaking at commencements in the mid-1990s, during the Clinton Interruption of the Reagan Counter-Revolution, and I have continued speaking at commencements, at shorter and greater lengths, throughout the resumption of the Reagan Era, through these past eight years, these long, long, long years of an administration whose every action outflanks one's wildest satirical impulses and surpasses even the most hyperbolically alarmist imagination. I am, as I mentioned, depressed, but my depression these days isn't the depression I was born with, not my birthright depression, it's a new kind of depression, it's like the depression you get when you put a lab rat in a cage and he learns that if he pushes one button he gets corn and if he pushes another button he gets malt, and he's happy when suddenly, Oh No, he pushes one button and he gets shocked, but that's OK, the other button still dispenses malt, until oh no, now THAT button shocks him, maybe he'll try the corn button, maybe that button will now –OW! No, that shocks too! Oh no! Try the malt butt – OW! Oh NO! Try the – OW! The rat gets depressed. I am the rat's poor earth-born companion and fellow mortal. Ow! I feel his pain. I know it well. It isn't depression; call it by its correct name: it's terror. The world, which once seemed a flowing fountain of corn and malt, now stands revealed as the cage it actually is, a prisonhouse of no good possibilities and a future we cannot see but which will bring, we guess, more shocks, further fear, further terror. Ow! The subprime mortgage collapse! Ow! The bloody, criminal miasma in Iraq! Ow! Global warming! Ow! The cyclone and the junta in Burma! Ow! Ow! The earthquake and the lack of construction standards in China! Ow! The President of the Unites States stands before the Knesset and deliberately – to the extent that anything this President does truly merits the adverbial form of the word "deliberation" – and deliberately confuses appeasement and diplomacy! Ow!

The conundrum of the speaker at a banquet table of joy laid out in a prisonhouse cage of terror: Everyone who speaks at a commencement ceremony is a threat to the festive spirit, everyone who opens his or her mouth near a live mic at commencement may well prove to be the buzzkill. That's how menaced, that's how fragile our joy is.

But maybe that's what graduation day is intended to teach us, maybe that's The Point: We gather together to celebrate, among other things, the proximity, the disquietingly vital intimacy of Terror and Joy.

I mean let's face it, you're not entirely joyful, are you?  No!  You're anxious, too.  You're Free!  But free to do what?  The Future awaits!  But what will it bring?!  Are those grey skies outside a canopy concealing a delightful surprise, or... are they a portent of future disaster!?!?

Perhaps I'm kidding myself, perhaps I come not to mooch off your joy, but to seek out kindred souls, souls similar to mine, souls brimfull of PANIC!!!

But if under your joy is panic, I believe that under that panic, that terror, is more joy, a deeper, truer, stronger joy: hope, desire, expectation that the stormclouds will deliver not discouragement and disillusion but some bright sexy God, or some unanticipated goodness, to Earth.

And so yesterday as I sat at my desk facing the horror of my empty laptop screen, my head filled with newsprint terrors, wondering how I was going to speak to you, what it was I would say, the phone rings, and it's my husband, informing me that all of a sudden it has become unconstitutional in the state of California to deny same-sex couples the right to marry! Joy! These glad tidings are followed by the fear that homophobes in the Fall will manage to adulterate the California State Constitution's beautiful echo of the simple moral majesty of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal treatment under the law. That fear's followed by hope, my husband reminding me that a likely heavy big-D Democratic turnout, far greater in number than the Republican turnout in the primaries, in November will favor the defeat of the homophobes' plans; which hope is followed by the depressing news that neither candidate for the Democratic nomination is going to openly disavow the separate-but-equal discriminatory treatment implicit in any exclusion of LGBT citizens from the legally-sanctioned estate of marriage; followed by the news that Governor Schwarzenegger, who's a Republican, sort of, is going make a break with his party and not support the homophobes, and so on...

My point is: Joy and Terror follow fast upon the heels of one another, and this is how the world's set spinning, and the trick is not to give up pushing those buttons. Don't be afraid to push buttons, food or electroshock buttons or other people's buttons, DON'T BE AFRAID! Keep hoping, keep hungering, for corn and malt, or, if neither corn nor malt but only nasty shocks are forthcoming...

Start to look around you, start to fight for a way out of the cage.

Thank you for inviting me to share this gloomy, glorious, scary day with you. Thank you for this lovely honor, which means a lot to me. And a million billion mazels to you all, to your parents and teachers.

Make us proud: We've been waiting for you!

Today at the Purchase College Commencement Rehearsal, I got to address the Class of 2008. Although I didn't use this speech in its entirety (I ad-libbed), I am posting it here anyway...
- Jeffrey Putman, President, Purchase College Alumni Association
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You are almost there. Graduation is tomorrow. An end to your undergraduate, and for some of you, graduate study. It is also a new beginning… a time to look toward the future.

When I received by Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1996, I did not dream that today I would be honored to stand before you today as the President of the Alumni Association representing more than 15,000 alumni of Purchase, and tomorrow I look forward to celebrating with you at the Thirty-Sixth Annual Commencement.

As President of the Alumni Association, the Board of Directors and I are seeking and implementing innovative ways for graduates and families of graduates to stay involved with the College. Yes, we are on Myspace and Facebook, so come find us there… but it is really a two-way street. The College will continue to enrich your lives as long as you stay connected and feel the pride that you, too, are "Proof of Purchase". I also hope that you will avail yourself of many other opportunities which the College and the Alumni Association offer to you which enable you to network, interact, and return to Purchase College.

The Class of 2008 is very generous to have raised money as part of the Class of 2008 senior gift in support of scholarships for future Purchase students and you can continue to assist in that effort today by purchasing a "Class of 2008" t-shirt. Your continued support of Purchase College is important, and I hope you will continue to join me in giving back to Purchase. That way, we can help the students of tomorrow to ensure that they have the ultimate "Purchase experience", just like we did.

It is my hope that each of you will continue to participate and be a part of the Purchase College family in ways that help to support and preserve the special place that is Purchase. The Alumni Association is here to help you with your career, networking, and discounts at the Performing Arts Center, Neuberger Museum, and the gym. Our Alumni Association continues to grow and needs the help of all alumni to keep us connected. In other words, don't forget to "keep in touch."

So, as you sit here tomorrow and reflect on your experiences, among your many feelings, be sure to feel the pride in who you are and all that you have accomplished and feel the pride we all feel in all of you.

As you leave, please remember to always make the most of your individual lives. No matter what your future plans are, as you start your new journey, believe in yourself, your family and remember the meaning of friendship, loyalty and integrity. But as those students who joined me in New Orleans to assist in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts back in 2006 have already learned, be sure to use your degree as other Purchase alumni have before you, use it as a means to help others, use it as a way to give back to your communities, use it as a ticket to change the world.

On behalf of the entire alumni association, I once again congratulate you and wish you the very best…

BUT… before I go, I have one other responsibility before I leave this stage. There are two very important members of the Purchase College community who are leaving us this summer. While they have both promised me they will be keeping in touch and never truly leaving our family, the Board of Directors of the Alumni Association wanted to formally thank them for all they have done for students since they joined the Purchase community.

Lynn Mahoney and Charlie Ponce de Leon, by the power vested in me by and on behalf of the Board of Directors and members of the Purchase College Alumni Association, I hereby bestow upon you the "Golden Brick Award" which includes honorary membership in this Class of 2008 and the Alumni Association.

The Alumni Association is working with the College to find an appropriate way to memorialize Professor Potter.

Once we have more information, we will let everyone know.

 _____________________________________________
From: President Thomas J. Schwarz
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 3:00 PM
Subject: Passing of a member of the Purchase community

It is with great sadness and that I must inform you of the loss of one of our most illustrious Professors Emeritus, Joan Potter, who passed away on Friday some thirty- three years after joining the faculty of the Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film. Born and raised in Canada, Joan came to the US following the death of her parents, attended high school in Duluth, MN, and then enrolled in Northwestern University as a music major before following her muse into theatre. Moving to New York in 1950, she garnered roles in live television dramas such as N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker, and became affiliated with the Actors Studio while nevertheless remaining critical of Lee Strasberg’s techniques. After theatre and film work she returned to Northwestern for graduate study and taught at Southern Methodist University before being asked in 1975 to join the faculty of the young Theatre Arts and Film conservatory at Purchase, where she soon became a lynchpin for the Acting Program. She was a truly beloved teacher, and a champion of this college’s special history and potential. Those who knew Joan as friend and colleague could not help but be struck by her incredible spirit, honesty, propriety, and sheer dedication to the art of acting. As a faculty member she fought hard for what she believed in, and as a teacher she fought hard so that her students might begin to realize their dreams. The faculty and staff of the College, and especially the Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film, feel a great loss right now, but Joan’s spirit remains with us as guide and inspiration. We are also lucky to benefit from her generosity in the form of awards which Joan generously bequeathed before her passing in the name of her Film colleague Prof. Miriam Arsham, with whom she collaborated in the classroom; the awards will honor the work of one Acting major who best exemplifies the highest standards of acting for Film, and one filmmaker whose work with actors best epitomizes respect for the craft of their discipline.

 

Thomas J. Schwarz

President

February 2008

When I graduated from Purchase College in May, 1996, Professor Connie Lobur, who was my advisor and Senior Project sponsor, gave me a copy of The Education of Henry Adams. The work, an introspective account of Adams's own opinions, fears, and responses to a changing world as America approached the 20th century, remains relevant today as our world seems to change faster and faster every day.

As a Purchase alumnus, and long-time employee (I worked for ten years in various positions for the Division of Student Affairs from 1996 - 2006), I can firmly say that the experiences I took from Purchase helped shape the person I am today. When I meet with other alums, they too share the same philosophy.

As Henry Adams proposes in his book, it is more than just the formal education provided by a superb faculty, but the friendships and experiences developed at Purchase that continue to influence our lives to today. The Alumni Association exists to help our fellow alumni continue to take advantage of those networks, friendships, and experiences you developed at Purchase. Networking is very important, and so many of our fellow alumni are eager to re-form connections they made while at Purchase and to make new connections.

At the Alumni Association we are taking our cues from our newest generation of alumni as well. Although it is often difficult to keep up with trends in technology and communication, we continue to work to improve the way we communicate with you. We are on Facebook and MySpace, and we continue to develop additional outreach through our web site in addition to traditional methods of communication. In the past year, we have also added two current students to the Board of Directors in order to better understand the needs of our future alumni.

The Alumni Association looks forward to working to provide leadership and career development opportunities, to help network both socially and through career-based initiatives, to encourage community service, both at the College and beyond, and to help cultivate a new generation of scholars, artists, and leaders by working with current students at Purchase.

I have many ideas on what we can do together to make the Purchase experience more fulfilling for students and alumni—I'd love to have your input as well. Feel free to e-mail me ( jeffrey.putman@purchase.edu ), add the Association as a friend on Facebook ( Alumni Association on Facebook ), friend us on MySpace ( Alumni Association on MySpace ),  call the alumni office at (914) 251-6054 or even snail-mail me (Purchase College Alumni Association c/o Purchase College, SUNY, 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577-1400).

Tell me about what made your time at Purchase a success, or let me know what you might have changed. I look forward to hearing from you and am honored to serve as your president.

- Jeffrey S. Putman, '96
President, Purchase College Alumni Association, Inc.

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Jeffrey S. Putman, '96 was elected President of the Purchase College Alumni Association in December 2007. He is currently Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.