Posted on Jan 1, 1995

At 6'2 and 210 pounds, Kojo Attah looks as if he's played football all of his life. In fact, he's a former soccer player.

Attah comes from Ghana, West Africa (his name means “Born on Monday”). He came to the United States in March, 1985, when his father, Martin, a diplomat, was transferred to the United Nations for a four-year term. Kojo attended St. Joseph's grammar school in Manhattan and then Cardinal Hayes High School, where he first donned a football uniform.

It was there that head coach John Audino saw him play.

“He could only practice a few days a week in high school because he also had a job,” Audino says. “He wasn't polished, but I was impressed with his size, speed, strength, and dedication. The talent was there, and we were lucky enough to get him.”

Kojo hasn't seen his parents and two of his four sisters since 1988, when they left New York City for a four-year stint in West Ghana. They are now in Zimbobway.

“It's hard being away from them,” says Kojo, who lives with an uncle and his other two sisters in the Bronx. “But being from Africa, I was taught to be independent at an early age.”

Attah began his career at Union as a fullback for the junior varsity team before moving to tailback. Last year he gained 511 yards with six touchdowns, and this season he had 632 yards with eight scores. A punishing runner, Kojo has the strength to run over tacklers on the inside and the speed to run around them on sweeps to the outside. He is also an excellent blocker as well as pass-catcher.

“Kojo's game is multidimensional, and that makes him a very special player,” says Audino.

Multidimensional also describes Attah's interests outside football. A psychology and women's studies major, Kojo is also president of Alpha Phi Alpha, a resident advisor, vice president for campus life, and a disc jockey for the College radio station, WRUC.

Last fall, the Albany Times Union did a feature on Attah. The article was seen by Diane Micelli, a sixth-grade teacher for School 27 in Albany, whose class
was studying Africa. She called Audino to see if Kojo would be interested in
talking to her class. He was, and he spent more than an hour with Micelli's students answering questions regarding the language, the culture, the clothes, the geography, and the differences between Africa and the United States as seen through his experiences.

For the next half hour, Kojo delighted the class by answering football questions, signing autographs for each student, and posing with them for a class picture.

“That was fun,” he said of his trip to School 27. “They asked some very good questions. I enjoyed that.”

Kojo's goal is to earn his masters in teaching at Union and then to go to law school; he wants to practice immigration law.

He also looks forward to being the featured back next season after spending the last two years behind Chris Irving, who set records with his 3,408 career rushing yards and thirty-three rushing touchdowns.

“You have to pay your dues and wait your turn,” he says sincerely.

“He has improved tremendously over the last three years,”

Audino says. “If Kojo was playing someplace else, he might get thirty or thirty-five carries a game. But he hasn't complained about anything and he does whatever we ask of him. He's a team player and a leader.”

Both on and off the field.

Posted on Jan 1, 1995

Maria McLean '98 entered Union in September, the tenth person from her family to attend the College. Her grandfather, Ray DeMatteo, was a member of the Class of 1941 and she also has three uncles and five cousins who earned Union degrees.

If you can claim ten or more Union relatives, please send your list (names, class, and relationship) to:

Alumni Office
Lamont House
Union College
Schenectady, N.Y. 12308
Attention: Paul Rieschick.

The largest family will be recognized in the July 1995 issue of Union College.

Posted on Jan 1, 1995

Members of the Class of 1998 whose parents or grandparents attended Union include:

Jennifer Angerosa (John '63), Alexander Beckers (Charles '66), Daniel Brennan (John '66), David Carolan (Antonio Faga '73), Timothy Carpenter (Howard '61 and C. William Huntley '34), Christopher Daly (Joseph '67);

Also, Lauren Dellheim (Ernest '69), Peter Farnum (Robert '68), Sara Friedman (Samuel '84), Jessica Hallenbeck (Robert '68 and Robert '42), Karin Lichtenstein (Peter '67);

Also, Lecia Lynn Lupoli (Robert '65), Stephanie Masker (Robert '78), Sarah Matt (Nicholas '67), Katherine Ott (C. Frederick '60), Michael Perrino (Michael '72), Jennifer Plotnik (James '73);

Also, Rebecca Porter (David '72), Akinwunmi Sawyerr (James '72), Julianna Spallholz (Lance '69), Sarah Spaulding (Charles '70), David Strickland IV (David '67), Ruth Strosberg (James '63), and Paul Wersten (Thomas '64).

Posted on Jan 1, 1995

Doris Zemurray Stone '73H, an internationally-recognized expert on the archaeology of Latin America, died Oct. 21 in Covington, La. She was
eighty four.

A resident of Madisonville, La., her interests took her from Antarctica to Latin America to Mongolia to satisfy her lifelong curiosity about the development of civilization. Just this fall she had traveled to Ethiopia.

President Roger Hull said, “Doris was a kindred spirit. Whenever we met we always compared notes about exciting places to travel to and explore. I will miss her sense of adventure, her good humor, and her affection for Union College.”

Doris Zemurray Stone was born in New Orleans, daughter of Samuel and Sara Zemurray. Her father was president of the United Fruit Company and a philanthropist who presented a chair of Middle American research and the Gates collection of Mayan relics to Tulane University.

She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1930
Doris Zemurray Stone and married 73H Roger Thayer Stone, who graduated from Union in 1928. They moved to Costa Rica in 1930, where he operated a coffee-growing business. She became an associate archaeologist with Tulane's Middle American Research Institute and later was named a research fellow in Central American archaeology for the Peabody Museum of Harvard University.

Her travels took her through Central and South America, Europe, Siberia, Greenland, China, India, Tibet, and Outer Mongolia. She published several monographs, contributed to
The
Handbook of South American Indians, and was the author of three books The Archaeology of Central and Southern
Honduras, Introduction to the Archaeology of Costa Rica, and The Talamancan Tribes of Costa
Rica.

At the time of Mr. Stone's death in 1983, he was president of the Zemurray Foundation, of New Orleans, which supports education, cultural programs, civic affairs, hospitals, and medical research. Mrs. Stone was president of the foundation at her death.

She made several visits to the College. In 1973 she received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the College. In 1987 she delivered a Minerva lecture on “Cross-Cultural Influences in the Pre-Columbian Art of Costa Rica,” and in 1989 she attended the inauguration of Martha Huggins as the Roger Thayer Stone Professor of Sociology and Anthropology.

In 1975 the Stones established the Washington Irving Chair in Modern Literary and Historical Studies at the College.

Mrs. Stone was a member of the American Anthropological Society, the American Ethnographical Society, the American Geographic Society, the Sociedad Mexicana de Antropoligia, and the Royal Anthropological Institute (London). She received the Harvard Medal from the Harvard Alumni Association last year in recognition of her scholarship. France, Panama, and Honduras each gave her the equivalent of a knighthood, and Tulane University awarded her an honorary degree.

Survivors include her son, Samuel Z. Stone, who is head of the Center for Political and Administrative Investigation and Training, a respected Costa Rican “think tank;” two granddaughters; and five great-grandchildren.

Posted on Jan 1, 1995

The winter's main event for the College's Bicentennial celebration is Founders Day Weekend on February 25-26.

February 25 is the College's exact 200th birthday. Major events include the Bicentennial Convocation at 10 a.m., complete with an academic procession with representatives from other colleges and universities and a commissioned musical presentation; the rededication of the restored Nott Memorial at 2 p.m. (by invitation); a varsity hockey game against Harvard at 4 p.m.; and an evening Bicentennial Gala in Memorial Field House.

Parties and dinners will be held at more than twenty Alumni Club locations around the country to coincide with the events on campus. Alumni within a
fifty mile radius of Schenectady will be invited to the campus for dinner and the gala. All other alumni are encouraged to attend the party or dinner nearest them, where there will be a one-hour satellite broadcast from the campus
at 8 p.m. EST, including tape from the convocation and the Nott Memorial rededication.

On Sunday afternoon, February 26, there will be a celebration of Union's founding in Schenectady and the historic relationship to the city and the Capital District. The event will begin at the First Presbyterian Church in the
Stockade, move to Memorial Chapel, and end with the first public reception in the restored Nott Memorial.

Coming up in April will be the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, when some 1,500 students and faculty from universities and colleges across the country will come to campus. Classes will be canceled for two days, and there will be almost continuous presentations and poster sessions by students of their research and artistic accomplishments. Speakers will include Dr. Baruch Blumberg '46, former master of Balliol College at Oxford University and winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine.

For those planning way ahead, Commencement Weekend will be June 9-11 and Reunion will be June 23-25. All alumni are invited back for the Bicentennial Reunion. Details will be mailed out in the coming months.

For further information about the Bicentennial celebration, contact the Bicentennial Office at (518) 388-6615 or write to the Bicentennial Committee, Administration Building, Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. 12308.

If you would like to attend any of the Bicentennial events, you should call a few weeks ahead of time to confirm specific times and locations as well as the availability of seating.