At Year’s End, Vassar Faculty Celebrate Scholarship with Real-World Impact

“These projects you do outside of the classroom or your normal duties represent academics at their best,” Dean Eudell said. “It’s a challenging world right now, and in these turbulent times, this work reminds us all why college is important.”

While those in attendance socialized and enjoyed a wide variety of hors d’oeuvres, PowerPoint slides were displayed on a screen highlighting many of these projects. Some examples: a book on the potential pitfalls of youth sports co-authored by Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Education Christopher Bjork and Professor of Sociology William Hoynes; a textbook on environmental science co-authored by Professor of Geography Mary Ann Cunningham, with grants secured by Marianne Begemann, Dean of Strategic Planning and Academic Resources and Associate Professor of Chemistry; Kelli A. Duncan, Associate Dean of the Faculty and Academic Resources and Professor of Biology on the Patricia Shoer Goldman-Rakic ’59 Professorship Chair; Jenn Rubbo, Director of the Environmental Cooperative; Keri VanCamp, Director of the Field Station and Ecological Preserve; and Elizabeth Cannon, Director of Community Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship.

The book co-authored by Bjork and Hoynes, titled More Than Just a Game: How the Youth Sports Industry Is Changing the Way We Parent and What to Do About It (Central Recovery Press, 2025), has its origins in experiences both Bjork and Hoynes had as parents of young athletes. Bjork said he and Hoynes had both observed instances in which parents lost sight of youth sports as an activity for fun, instead pursuing some other goal, such as securing college scholarships. Their research centered on 9th- and 10th-grade athletes who participated in competitive travel-team sports.

“Our research showed that only about seven percent of young people who play on youth travel teams ever compete at the college level, and only two percent compete on NCAA Division I teams,” Bjork said. “Our book advocates seeking a balance between that competitiveness and simply providing a fun activity for their children.”

Cunningham has been updating a textbook titled Environmental Science: A Global Concern since she joined the Vassar faculty in 2001. Most recently, she has written new chapters on energy consumption. “The book touches many of the subjects I teach in class,” she said, “and as I learn new aspects of the subject and revise my courses, I revise the textbook as well.” Cunningham said the book is used primarily in colleges, “and I’ve had some students tell me they read it when they were in high school.”

Duncan was part of a team of faculty and administrators who obtained funding for two projects at The Preserve at Vassar. She and the Directors of the Environmental Cooperative and the Preserve secured a grant from the New York State Office of Parks and Recreation to increase accessibility at the Vassar Barns and Preserve through accessible signage, which plays a vital role in ensuring that all individuals can navigate and interact at the Preserve, and for sound attenuation equipment to lower ambient noise in the Vassar Barns—especially helpful for individuals with hearing impairments or sensory sensitivities. The other grant will help to fund a new pavilion at the entrance of the Preserve. Both grants were obtained through the state Parks and Recreation Office’s Zoos, Botanical Gardens, and Aquaria Operational Support Grant Program. Additional funds for the pavilion project have been donated by members of Vassar’s Class of 1971, Duncan said. Groundbreaking for the pavilion project is scheduled to take place in June.

Cannon helped secure a grant from the United Way of Dutchess and Orange Counties to expand Vassar’s English Language Learners Outreach Program (VELLOP), enabling student tutors to provide academic support to multilingual students in the Poughkeepsie City School District.