News

Naton “Nate” Leslie, Ph.D., a Siena College English professor since 1990, passed away on December 26 after a long battle with cancer. He was 57 years old.

Siena College’s Introduction to Engineering course reached egg-citing new heights this semester by holding an egg drop contest as its final project. Students were divided into teams and tasked with designing an object, or objects, that would allow three perfectly intact eggs to survive a drop from the top floor of Rosetti Hall, the College’s newest academic building.

Siena alumna shows the Christmas spirit on ABC's hidden-camera show "What Would You Do?"

As Co-Editor-in-Chief of Siena’s student newspaper The Promethean, I interviewed two Siena College professors turned authors: Siena College Research Institute Founding Director and Professor of Finance and Statistics Douglas Lonnstrom, Ph.D. and Professor Emeritus of History and American Studies Thomas Kelly. Their recently released book titled “US Presidents From Awesome to Awful. The Best 3 in a Row & The Worst 3 in a Row” analyzes the success of two presidential trios and the failure of a third presidential threesome.

As the fall semester concluded, economics major Felipe Rasmussen Petterle ’14 made history. He became the first student to graduate with a dual degree from Siena College and FAE Centro Universitario in Brazil.

When it comes to campus safety, Siena College makes the grade. According to the website SafeWise.com, Siena gets an “A.” The College was listed along with the University of Notre Dame, Colgate University and Juniata College as one of the safest college campuses on The SafeWise Report. SafeWise helps consumers gather information about safety and security products.

As a promising high school student from New York City, Ben Velazquez ’93 had his choice of colleges to attend. He had offers from a number of schools, including Syracuse University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Siena College. During his trip to Loudonville, he met Carol Sandoval, director of Siena’s Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), who interviewed him and toured him around campus.

Students in Assistant Professor of Computer Science Sharon Small, Ph.D.’s computer science class gained hands-on experience creating robots that could perform tasks on command. Their creations were the stars of this year’s RoboShow, sponsored by the Computer Science Department and Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

The Noon Book Review at the Sanford Library in Colonie, New York provides a venue where local experts and members of the community can discuss and discover new books together. In the past, a number of Siena faculty members have participated in the program. Last week, Siena College history students made history themselves by becoming the Noon Book Review's first student guest speakers.

For days, Taryn Dwyer ’16 was uncertain if her family survived Typhoon Haiyan, the devastating storm that slammed the Philippines last month. According to the United Nations, it killed more than 5,230 people. Dwyer was worried about her grandmother and two uncles who live in San Carlos City and her cousins in Cebu City. Finally, her cousin DJ found Wi-Fi and sent a Facebook message to her sister Krista, saying that everyone in the family was okay.