SUNY Maritime Takes the Ice Bucket Challenge

Taking full advantage of one of the summer’s hottest days, twelve administrators and staff at the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College today took the Ice Bucket Challenge, and raised more than $1,250 for the ALS Foundation in the process.

With temperatures topping 90 degrees and humidity levels at 60 percent, Rear Admiral Michael A. Alfultis, president of SUNY Maritime, was joined by Provost and Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Timothy Lynch, Athletic Director Heather MacCulloch, and coaches from many of the College’s 15 intercollegiate athletic programs, in taking the plunge.  See the video: http://youtu.be/2el5-0hIeXo

Admiral Alfultis threw down the gauntlet and challenged the heads of the maritime academies in Massachusetts and Maine to do the same.   

The Ice-Bucket Challenge went viral on social media in the middle of this year, with celebrities, politicians, athletes and everyday Americans posting videos of themselves participating in the event.  It has been widely reported that the ALS Association had received more than $40 million in donations through late August.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.  It did not become well known until 1939 when beloved New York Yankees baseball player, Lou Gehrig, disclosed that he was suffering from the disease that would take his life two years later. 

sunymaritime.edu