Like Superman, Resnick Engineering Hall at SUNY New Paltz now receives power from the sun. College leaders met last week to unveil Resnick’s new rooftop solar-panel array, a setup projected to save SUNY New Paltz $1000 per year for utilities on that building.

For Daniel Freedman, interim engineering dean, the project is reminiscent of his entry into science and engineering. In an experiment he did as an eighth-grader, he tried to heat water by reflecting the sun’s rays with aluminum foil to a copper pipe. Alas, it didn’t achieve the desired result. “It maybe heated the water a half a degree,” he said. But the exploration of what light could do stayed with him.