The Hill News

When Pam Charleson wakes up at 2 a.m., she relies on a caregiver to help her wash, eat, dress and later to go outside. A caregiver is often with her for 18 hours a day.

Charleson, 32, has undergone nine surgeries since she was five years old. In her one-room apartment, which is attached to her parent’s home in Potsdam, NY, she moves around with a custom built walker. When she goes to school, she drives a specially equipped van and then uses an electric wheel chair.

He is a towering young man, over 6 feet 4 inches tall, and everyone at Seaway House calls him “Big Dave.”

He started at Seaway about five months ago after leaving the St. Lawrence County Psychiatric Center in Ogdensburg, New York. Now he lives at Northwood Manor, an apartment complex right outside the psychiatric center’s gates, and he comes to Seaway House every day with a clear goal in mind: to learn the job and time management skills so he can earn his G.E.D. and live independently and productively.

Jade Stevenson cheerfully dances around the room while Asian-style music plays in the background. Waving around ribbons made from paper towel roles and colored streamers, Jade, 4, and her classmates mimic their teacher’s movements. It’s Japanese culture week at Head Start in Canton.

A year ago, Shannon Schwartfigure had her home, her health, and her family’s well-being. Much has changed in a year’s time.

She is struggling with cancer. Her house is gone, as well as most of her possessions, and it is only through the kindness of a Canton church that her children have not been taken from her.

Today, a family beset by illness and lacking income is living for free in the parsonage of United Methodist Church in Canton.

A tall man with a broad smile at the Seaway House in Ogdensburg is building his confidence and job skills to overcome his mental illness and live independently.

An elderly couple who recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and who can’t easily leave their Canton home are eating a meal brought to them by social service workers.

St. Lawrence University Board of Trustees elected William L. Fox ’75 as the 18th president today. Fox will replace current president, Daniel Sullivan on July 1, 2009.

Chair of the Board of Trustees, Donald K. Rose ’64 announced the news early this afternoon; Fox was elected unanimously by the Presidential Search Committee and the Board of Trustees.

A graduate of St. Lawrence, Harvard, and George Washington University, Fox has been serving as president of Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri since May 2003.

The university presidential candidate continued his visit to campus today with a student forum in Eben Holden. William Fox ’75 fielded questions from students on a number of topics. He led an easygoing discussion with approximately two-dozen students about a wide range of pertinent issues concerning his possible presidential term.

Leading university presidential candidate William Fox ’75 appeared at a faculty forum in Hepburn Hall Monday and told the gathering “you have a lot to teach me.”  But he also talked about his own ideas and principles that he would bring to St. Lawrence were he chosen as president.

Fox talked of the impact a liberal arts education can have on one’s life as he experienced at St. Lawrence.   When asked what his own autobiography would be titled, Fox replied, “St. Lawrence and me, because so much of my life has been determined by that relationship.”

University administrators announced Sunday morning that William L. Fox ‘75, the current president of Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, is the leading candidate to replace Dan Sullivan as President of St. Lawrence.

Presidential Search Committee members brought Fox to campus Monday to introduce him to the St. Lawrence community. He met for lunch with student leaders on Monday, then attended a faculty forum later in the afternoon. He has multiple forums with students and staff scheduled for Tuesday.

Students, faculty, and community members mulled over the pros and cons of the current drinking age Monday in a forum hosted by President Sullivan.