Creating a more connected outlook, academic experience, community and life are among the main goals for the new School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), part of SUNY Oswego’s College of Liberal Arts, Science and Engineering (CLASE).

“The future of higher education or the world isn’t all about technology,” said Alanna Ossa, who serves as SBS director and is a member of the anthropology faculty. “It’s about investing in individual people and giving them the ability to understand other people, states and connections.”

The School of Social and Behavioral Sciences consists of the following departments:

  • Anthropology 
  • Criminal Justice 
  • Economics 
  • Human Development 
  • Politics 
  • Psychological Sciences 
  • Sociology

“Our departments do a good job of bridging two schools of thought: Scientific discovery and understanding the social world,” Ossa explained. “We also understand and talk about concepts the social world has created. For example, anthropology, politics and sociology focus on that creation, how states work, what it means to be a citizen and cultural concepts shared by people.”

“So much of what we think about and are affected by are people problems and people solutions,” said Kristin Croyle, dean of CLASE. 

“The programs in this school help us better understand how to work together, talk to each other and move forward,” Croyle noted. “It also provides a better understanding of the changes in the technology world, how AI changes our relationship with each other, and the importance of developing more self-control around our computers and phones.”

Every generation invents and reinvents important concepts in terms of freedom, roles, responsibilities, hierarchies and understanding differences, but social sciences help to create and grasp the larger shared concepts.

“To understand humanity, you need to go back further in different timescales,” Ossa said. “Think about what a difference it makes when you gain the power to understand those things. We create that social world every day.”

With a goal of serving the Oswego community and the world beyond, all the departments and studies in SBS are very people-focused.

'People are the key infrastructure'

“People are the key infrastructure that never goes away,” Ossa said. “Studying these fields should help you create a more connected, more aware life, and show how you create the world you’re in and the world you want to create.”

Majors within the school connect skillsets across disciplines and thus provide opportunities for future employment and success, Ossa said.

“You’re not a cog in the machine,” Ossa noted. “Our undergraduate students have a lot of opportunities to participate directly in creating research. That’s because of the nature of the research that’s done and what we value as a school and an institution.”

Ossa noted that Oswego punches well above its weight in terms of research opportunities and ability to attract grants. The Anthropology Department is home to two National Science Foundation-funded projects that span borders in multiple ways. 

Ossa’s ongoing work probes the history of open market exchange and economic development in the Gulf Coast area of Veracruz, Mexico –- while also providing student research opportunities and shedding light on what this means for modern communities.

Working with a number of institutions around the world and in Kenya, Princehouse’s research allows Oswego students and others to investigate a historically important site with some of the world’s oldest found remains –- from 29 million years ago –- in that nation’s Turkana County.

In sociology, Emily Estrada, who also is the associate dean of CLASE, earned an NSF grant related to studying the legitimacy of what is known as the prison-industrial complex. 

In addition, Sien Hu of the psychology department and a number of students are working on a National Institutes of Health-funded project studying the impact of aging and related impairments on the human brain.

Having two of the five faculty members in a department with grants of this nature is “unheard of” for a comprehensive public university, let alone for most private schools, Ossa noted: “The number and variety of research projects that are really big and really impactful and that provide students with hands-on experiences are extraordinary.”

Faculty publications in areas such as criminal justice, economics and human development help explore the justice system, financial markets, relationships and much more.

But faculty members impact communities in other ways. Paul Stewart of the psychology faculty has helped transform the neighborhoods of the Port City through establishing and leading the Oswego Renaissance Association, a nonprofit organization that provides grants for local residents to improve their homes and surroundings, house by house and block by block.

“The death of civic society is a big problem, but here is a project that lets people directly participate in rebuilding that through a series of initiatives,” Ossa said. “That’s something this initiative has done successfully.”

Also from the psychology faculty, Matthew Dykas has earned many grants for his Circle of Security parenting program, which trains parent educators to better respond to the needs of children and families.

Ossa has run a pair of field archeological field schools in local communities, including a very successful dig at the Oswego County Historical Society’s Richardson-Bates House Museum that led to student Nerissa Conklin, before graduating, hosting an “Antiques Roadshow” type event where community members could bring in items for analysis to discover their potential backstories.

In the near future, Ossa looks forward to finding more ways to collaborate among departments and the new School of Humanities and the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences on programs such as an energy summit that can address important issues from a variety of perspectives and expertise. The faculty are also interested in more ways to get into the K-12 spaces to share the opportunities that exist.

“I want us to be seen as a resource for the community so they can ask us for information,” Ossa said. “We want to continue to develop meaningful partnerships, and introduce social science at an earlier age so social science is something that younger students, schools and the community have access to.”

Student experiences

The award-winning student-run Vote Oswego non-partisan civic engagement program is an example of making an impact in understanding and engagement, as well as the political sphere’s ability to improve greater society.

Ashley Girdlestone, a dual major in political science and in criminal justice, worked two semesters for the effort last year, first in the “Vote Oswego” course during the presidential election cycle and then as an intern looking to help students better understand their rights and applicable laws.

“Working with Vote Oswego was so important to me because without civic literacy or civic education, it is incredibly difficult to make changes in the world around us,” Girdlestone said. “Especially because many individuals of my generation (including myself at times) feel like change is impossible and that voting doesn't matter, it was critical to make civic education more accessible for everyone on campus.”

Girdlestone’s majors and interests dovetailed in entering the SUNY-wide Scharps Legal Essay Competition, and earning second place. 

“While I am currently working on my application to law school … I had previously done very little formal legal writing, just a few case briefs here and there but nothing like what the competition was asking of me,” Girdlestone recalled. “I found it quite interesting as I have always been interested in debates and the legal loopholes within legislation, and this case was full of opportunities to argue a convincing case on either of the parties behalf.” 

Oswego offered many memories and connections, with an additional opportunity to study abroad benefiting Girdlestone’s time as a Laker.

“Additionally my experience in my time abroad in New Zealand … allowed me to fully experience a different culture and look at criminal justice and politics through the lens of a different country which I think will impact what I do in the future,” Girdlestone noted.

For anthropology major Josh Winoski, research has spanned exploring the past of the local community to a fossil site from 29 million years ago in Kenya through Princehouse’s research.

“While I was there, my job was to survey the vast desert landscape and look for fossil specimens,” Winoski said. “The site was rich in fossils; there were extinct primates, hyraxes, hyaenodonts and rodents, as well as an abundance of fossilized plants.”

In addition to the hands-on research at a critically important paleontological site, the Kenya research also allowed Winoski to interact with a variety of people in the community while learning about the local language and culture.

“We also were granted access to the fossil vaults of the Turkana Basin Institute and the National Museum of Kenya, where they have fossils that are older than the dinosaurs and some of the world’s most famous hominin fossils like Paranthropus aethiopicus,” Winoski said.

Closer to home, Winoski is working on research in Oswego’s historic Fort Ontario and previously completed an archaeological field school run by Ossa at the Van Buren Inn and Tavern near Fulton –- which is leading to another international experience.

“She is taking some of us field school graduates down to Veracruz, Mexico, during the coming winter break to assist in a survey project and aid in the recovery of ancient pre-Hispanic artifacts,” Winoski said.

“I think these research opportunities benefit my college experience greatly in that they have allowed me to apply the things that I have learned in class to real-world projects and see whether or not anthropological fieldwork is something I want to do after I graduate,” Winoski said. “The answer to that question is definitely yes, but I probably would not have known for sure had I not been offered these awesome fieldwork experiences by the Anthropology Department.”   

Well-rounded opportunities

Amirah Riddick, a psychology major with a cognitive science minor, praises fruitful research opportunities with Adam Fay of the psychology faculty with providing a variety of skills and experiences. 

“It really helps you become well-rounded. You learn how to meet with people, talk with them, do research and become a leader in that way,” Riddick said. “Doing research itself is a great way to meet people and learn about different types of research.”

Now Riddick is continuing psychology research with Fay as well as a cognitive science project with Adan Gomez Salgado of computer science, related to the development of emotionally intelligent AI. 

Riddick is studying to become a neuropsychologist, with Oswego experiences paving the way toward graduate school, while also balancing involvement with student organizations including The Oswegonian, Great Lakes Review and international psychology honor society Psi Chi. “I’m getting as many opportunities as I can before I graduate,” Riddick noted.

“What appealed to me most about Oswego is that it had so many opportunities in psychology,” Riddick said. “I’ve been interested in psychology since my senior year of high school and knew I wanted to do something in that field. … I love the study of the brain, how the brain affects our thoughts and how we do things, and diseases of the brain. This is research I want to continue in grad school. This works out perfectly.”

Even in an age where people look to artificial intelligence as the future, Ossa points back to human beings and their brains as “the source of the creativity” that powers the past, present and future.

“You make more of that by supporting individual education,” Ossa said. “Every time you invest in people, there’s a huge payoff. We are the technology that matters.”

Developing people skills, Ossa said, is something that comprehensive universities like SUNY Oswego do, and what the new school will even better equip students with.

“We do very well for our size, emphasizing teaching, with a lot of initiatives run by faculty,” Ossa said. “We’re not just producing research, we’re producing whole students.”