By MAUREEN PICHÉ

The four colleges in Canton and Potsdam are busy with last-minute preparations for new and returning students who begin arriving next week, refurbishing buildings and ironing out details of new programs and degrees.

A major construction project on a $41 million cultural center is underway at SUNY Potsdam while that college’s Crane School of Music celebrates a milestone Construction is underway on the new $41 million Performing Arts building at SUNY Potsdam.anniversary.

St. Lawrence University will now offer students the opportunity to study for a semester in New York City, and earn new nursing degrees.

Innovative cyber recruiting techniques have helped lead to what Clarkson University believes will be its largest freshman class to date.

And with the opening of the Roos House athletic center and new student housing, SUNY Canton is preparing for its largest freshman class, too.

Anniversary, Construction at Potsdam

SUNY Potsdam is ushering in a year of big change and reflection on its heritage with classes beginning Aug. 29.

Following a busy summer of construction and maintenance projects, SUNY Potsdam is ready for students to return, according to college spokesperson Alexandra Jacobs.

After three months of construction, the foundation of the $41 million Performing Arts Building is becoming more defined. The building is set to open in Fall 2013, and will feature 97,000 square feet of learning and performance space, including a 350-seat proscenium theater, a 200-seat black box theater and a 200-seat dance performance hall.

Around the Academic Quad, renovations are complete in Flagg and Carson halls to make classrooms bigger, smarter and better prepared for incoming students. The anthropology lab and the Crane School of Music MIDI lab also received makeovers. In addition, the Snell Music Theater was renovated.

Many of the residence halls were also renovated, Maxcy Hall got a new roof, and Barrington Student Union’s entrance has been tiled.

SUNY Potsdam students will have a new major to choose from this year. The College’s Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in creative writing is the first program of its kind in the State University of New York system.

Offered through the Department of English & Communication, admission to the BFA program will be by application only, and the courseload will be intensive, with all majors required to complete internships and host public readings of their work.

Crane School of Music is celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2011-12. The college is planning a series of special events throughout the year, including guest artist performances, recitals, alumni concerts, lectures, symposia and more.

The school will welcome another large first-year class, with approximately 920 freshmen expected to enter the college in 2011. In addition, about 325 transfer students will join the SUNY Potsdam student body.

And the college’s residence halls will be full again in 2011-12, with more than 2,500 of Potsdam’s approximately 4,460 students moving in this year.

New programs at SLU

A number of initiatives will greet students, in programs and facilities, when classes at St. Lawrence University begin Aug. 24.

A new off-campus program, the New York City Semester, is to begin in spring 2012, and the university recently finalized an agreement with New York University, facilitating a second bachelor's degree in nursing and master's degree studies in nursing.

Innovation grants, introduced during the past year, yielded a wide variety of new ideas for improvements to campus life.

With $50,000 available in two proposal rounds, 51 proposals were submitted from 96 faculty, staff and students; of those, 17 were funded.

Among them: A "hydration station" in the student center providing filtered water and encouraging reusable water bottle use; the clean-up of recreation trails near campus; support for events allowing faculty to share and present recent research; enhancement of campus traditions, such as convocation; conservation and care of trees on campus; and an internship program with North Country Public Radio.

Over the summer months, a number of campus refurbishments, repairs and renovations took place to improve energy efficiency, assure safety and enhance campus life.

Projects included renovations to Whitman Hall and 62 Park St., creating new residential space for students.

Lee, Dean-Eaton, Sykes, Hulett-Jenks and several theme residences were refurbished or had infrastructure upgrades.

Roofs were replaced on several academic buildings and stonework on Herring-Cole, Gunnison Memorial Chapel and Dana Dining Center was repointed.

Steam lines and pipes were replaced at several campus locations, and other improvements to the heating plant were made in order to be more energy-efficient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Record freshman class at Clarkson

Clarkson University is on track to welcome the largest number of first-year students in the institution's history this month when classes begin Aug. 29.

In fall 1984, Clarkson enrolled a then-record 845 first-year students. With deposits now numbering over 860 for its first-year class and the Clarkson School still accepting students, the University should easily exceed that number this fall.

Clarkson will be completing many renovation projects in late summer or early fall, including its Nanoengineering and Biotechnology Laboratories Center, Moore House residence hall, a Woodstock Apartments prototype unit, Price Hall administrative offices, Clarkson Hall cadaver lab, Cheel Arena locker room, Hamlin-Powers parking lot, new Hamlin-Powers residence hall rooms, and Cheel Campus Center Our Place.

The Moore House renovations add a fourth floor with a peaked roof to each of the two wings, as was done with the Hamlin-Powers, Ross-Brooks, and Cubley-Reynolds residence halls in 2009 and 2010. Each of the new Moore House wings will house 34 students.

The new Moore House center core, which will be completed in May, has been designed to host guests at conferences and seminars in the summer, when not in use by the students.

One unit of the Woodstock Apartments has also been totally renovated this summer using the Adirondack vernacular. The sustainable design by Adirondack architect Nils Luderowski features a 36-inch roof overhang, red cedar shingles, and a stone base.

The interior features radiant floor heating, solid wood trim, laundry space and a large gathering room. Aspects of this prototype will be applied in the near future to the other Woodstock Apartment units.

The redevelopment of Clarkson's Web presence over the past year has been the keystone in the university's new comprehensive communication and information strategy. They’ve newly designed their Web pages, mobile phone apps, Facebook presence and more to improve getting the Clarkson message out to prospective students.

New students are showing more interest in majors like pre-physical therapy, which has experienced a 100-percent increase in majors.

"With an emphasis on health fields and our new physician assistant master's, we are getting a reputation for what we're doing in health-related fields," says dean of admissions, Brian Grant. "This goes hand-in-hand with larger classes in biology and psychology, as well."

Majors in engineering, perennial favorites among first-year students, have also shown growth in enrollment of 25 percent.

Environmental engineering has also shown growth of more than 100 percent, which Grant partially attributes to the university's emphasis on the environment and sustainability.

Roos House Opens

SUNY Canton's record-breaking growth continues for the fourth straight year with the college welcoming its largest incoming class of more than 3,800 students with more than 1,000 freshman and more than 300 transfer students. Classes begin Aug. 22.

Two brand-new facilities, new career-oriented bachelor degree programs, new athletic teams, new on-campus eateries and unique study abroad opportunities are just a few of the changes this year.

The Roos House athletic center is now open to the public and will serve as the host site for many upcoming events for the community this year. The building includes an ice rink, a swimming pool, a new fitness center, basketball court, running track, plenty of student space, athletic offices, a classroom, and much more.

More than 300 students will be the first to live in the college's newest residence hall, which features 83 suites with 304 single-occupancy rooms.

The Grasse River Housing Suites houses mostly upperclassmen and features a large open courtyard for recreation and outdoor activities.

New in-demand four-year programs start this year, including sports management, civil and environmental technology, electrical technology, mechanical technology, health and fitness promotion and veterinary technology. Today, SUNY Canton offers more than 40 degree options, including 20 bachelor's degrees.

With the opening of Roos House, the college has added three intercollegiate sports to its growing roster for the upcoming year--volleyball, men's golf and women's lacrosse. In 2012-13, SUNY Canton will also be home to a women's ice hockey team and a men's lacrosse team.

The school will now feature a Taco Bell and KFC right on campus, another highly-anticipated addition to the College. The venues will be located with Jreck Subs in the Richard W. Miller Campus Center across from the Campus Center Store.

SUNY Canton is the first college in the SUNY system to offer students the chance to study abroad in Sarajevo at the American University of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AUBiH). Students from across the SUNY system and from the Associated Colleges are eligible to take advantage of the program and study for a summer, semester or the year. SUNY Canton graduated nearly 100 students from AUBiH in the past two years as part of its innovative dual degree program with the university.

The College is now also offering a different international experience for students from the International Institute for Health Sciences (IIHS) in Sri Lanka who will be coming to Northern New York to earn degrees in the physical therapist assistant program at SUNY Canton.