The Campus-Wide Convocation Committee Invites You to join us for a full day of great events on Tuesday April 9 for Convocation 2019.  Join your fellow students, teaching faculty  and colleagues from all over campus. 

Note that details regarding the Spring 2019 Convocation speaker and themes follows at the bottom of this announcement and at: http://www.sunybroome.edu/convocation 

Please read over the 2019 Convocation website details which appears in the link above. It will provide you with the following:

·         Fast Facts for Convocation Day 2019 

·         FAQ

·         Convocation Day Schedule 

·         Suggested Readings/Films

·         Bio of psychologist, author and Convocation Day keynote speaker, Dr. Jean Twenge

Don’t Miss SUNY Broome’s Biggest Campus Event of the year, including a guest keynote speaker, musical performances, a student-prepared lunch for sale, a documentary film screening, afternoon workshops, and a poster session by undergraduate researchers from our Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Health Sciences (HS) and Liberal Arts (LA) Divisions. 

A photo of Dr. Jean Twenge and her book

Convocation Speaker Dr. Jean Twenge

The campus-wide Convocation Committee is pleased to announce that Dr. Jean M. Twenge,  psychologist and author of the best seller, iGen,Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood, has been selected as our 2019 Convocation Day speaker. Twenge (pronounced “Twangy” as in “twangy guitar”) is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and has published more than 130 articles. Twenge is the author of books on social psychology, personality psychology and narcissism.

Convocation 2019 will focus on important and relevant themes such as how technology effects our daily lives and how i-Gen has been effected by being immersed in portable phone/computer culture. Twenge will discuss her research regarding how our technological devices have over-taken our lives and may have had a devastating effect on our youngest citizens. Dr. Twenge will cause us to consider the role that the use of technology plays in mental health and development toward adulthood as well as how the overuse of technology and social media may undermine sociability and happiness.

We hope that Twenge will inspire students and faculty alike to reconsider the overwhelming presence of smartphones, social media and technology in their daily lives. Please note that Tuesday April 9, 2019 is Convocation Day on which no day or evening classes will be held.

Attention Teaching Faculty: Over 80 teaching faculty members enrolled as CFS in 2018. This program recognizes teaching faculty who actively support student attendance at Convocation Day 2019 through the creation of Convocation-related scholarly activities.

For teaching faculty who wish to read the author’s book, iGen,Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood, and delve into a deep discussion of the issues raised by her work, we plan to offer a 3 hour Convocation Institute on January 23, 2019. More details regarding the Convocation Institute for teaching faculty will be released shortly.

Campus-Wide Convocation Day Committee Members

Professor I.J. Byrnes (Chair)

Professor Anne Haner-Uncapher, Health Sciences Division

Dr. Virginia Shirley, Liberal Arts Division

Dr. Victor Lamoureux, Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics Division

Associate Librarian, Dr. Amanda Hollister, Library

Professor Gian Roma, Business and Professional Studies Division

Professor Carla Michalak, Liberal Arts Division

Orion Barber, Student Assembly

More Information about Dr. Jean’s Twenge’s book on iGen

With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults. Born after 1995, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person – perhaps why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality. iGen is also growing up more slowly than previous generations: eighteen-year-olds look and act like fifteen-year-olds used to.

As this new group of young people grows into adulthood, we all need to understand them: Friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation—and the world.

Drawing from nationally representative surveys of 11 million young people as well as in-depth interviews, iGen is the first book to document the cultural changes shaping today’s teens and young adults, documenting how their changed world has impacted their attitudes, worldviews, and mental health.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: Who Is iGen, and How Do We Know?
  • Chapter 1: In No Hurry: Growing Up Slowly;
  • Chapter 2: Internet: Online Time – Oh, and Other Media, Too;
  • Chapter 3: In Person No More: I’m with You, But Only Virtually;
  • Chapter 4: Insecure: The New Mental Health Crisis;
  • Chapter 5: Irreligious: Losing My Religion (and Spirituality);
  • Chapter 6: Insulated but Not Intrinsic: More Safety and Less Community;
  • Chapter 7: Income Insecurity: Working to Earn – but Not to Shop;
  • Chapter 8: Indefinite: Sex, Marriage, and Children;
  • Chapter 9: Inclusive: LGBT, Gender, and Race Issues in the New Age;
  • Chapter 10: Independent: Politics. Conclusion: Understanding – and Saving