The Upstate Institute recently awarded grants to support faculty scholarship on, or directly pertaining to, the upstate region of New York.
The institute serves to promote scholarly research that relates to the region’s social, economic, environmental, and cultural assets.
This year’s recipients are:
Charles “Pete” Banner-Haley, professor of history and Africana & Latin American Studies, who will conduct research on the history of African Americans in the upstate counties of Broome, Chemung, and Steuben to consider gender relations between African American men and women between 1890 and 1950.
Haley will examine attitudes toward child-rearing and family structure, and the role that they played in the struggle for racial equality in these communities.
Once completed, this research will contribute to an understanding of African American experience in these counties, which is an important, and often overlooked, part of New York state history.
Joscelyn Godwin, professor of music, will write a manuscript about some of the eccentric spiritualities in upstate New York, which once was known as the “Burned-Over District” for its history of religious revivals such as the Oneida Community.
Godwin, whose relevant books include The Theosophical Enlightenment, will examine some of the lesser-known communities, and discuss why the communities happened in their time and place, such as the opening of the western corridor through the Erie Canal, and a general awakening that favored women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, and the temperance movement.
His goal is to create knowledge about this part of upstate New York history, making it better understood, appreciated, and enjoyed by residents and visitors of the region.
Beth Parks, associate professor of physics, will conduct a project that will allow homeowners to learn the insulation levels of their houses and consider ways to increase their homes’ energy efficiency.
The project includes development of a device that will use a thermocoupler to measure the temperature difference between a wall surface and the interior air of a heated room. This temperature difference can then be used to calculate the wall insulation.
With this grant, Parks can test the device in single-family homes in the village of Hamilton and assist homeowners who often spend more than $1,000 annually on heating because of the region’s harsh winter weather.