Harry Marten, Edward E. Hale Jr. Professor of English, has been awarded a grant
of $62,300 from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of a seminar for
teachers on the novels of Joseph Conrad. Marten will direct the seminar at Union in July
1996. Marten's essay on contemporary poet Charles Tomlinson — “Charles Tomlinson and
the Experience of Place” — appeared in the British journal Agenda, regarded
as Britain's “most important literary magazine over the past 30 years.”
Howard Billings, energy management coordinator, and the College's lighting
upgrade project were profiled in a recent issue of Green Lights Update published by
the EPA. The article also describes projects like Union's at other campuses including MIT
and the University of Minnesota that save money and energy and improve the quality of
lighting.
George Butterstein, the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of Life Sciences,
authored an article in a spring edition of Endocrine News, in which he reminisces
about his decision to forego a post at a major university: “Union was attractive to
me because of its commitment to excellent teaching and the strong science program,”
he writes. Describing research opportunities for Union students, he adds, “Our
students enjoy the benefits of a liberal arts course of study combined with a strong,
research-oriented exploration of endocrinology.” Butterstein also recently presented
two papers with Union undergraduate co-authors: “Human Follicle Stimulating Hormone
Binding to hFSH Receptor is Inhibited by Extracellular Domain Sequence
hFSHR-R265-S296” with student Julia Lee and James Dias of the state Department of
Health; and “Peri-implantation changes in Plasma Fibrinogen in Woman and Rats”
with student Charles Doering and others.
Donald Rodbell, assistant professor of geology, has received a grant of $173,000
from the National Science Foundation to study the geologic record of climate change in the
Andes Mountains of Ecuador and Peru. He recently returned from six weeks of summer field
work in Ecuador with students Jeffrey Nebolini '96 and Adam Goodman '96. Rodbell's study
is focusing on whether the last “ice age” in the North Atlantic region was felt
in the tropics.
Walter Hatke, professor of visual arts, was included in an article titled
“The Ups and Downs of Apprenticeship” in a recent issue of American Artist.
Hatke describes his apprenticeship with New York City painter Jack Beal: “It was the
watershed period of my life,” he said. “I was around other artists such as Red
Grooms, Al Held, Lee Bontecou. Jack and his wife, Sondra, were such gregarious
personalities and were always being visited by artists whom I had only read about in art
magazines.”
Charles Steckler, associate professor of performing arts, received a merit award
at the 17th annual Photography Regional at the Rensselaer County Council on the Arts
recently. His work, “Replica of Lost Original,” includes gold tracings on a
gold-toned photograph of ancient ruins.
Dan Lundquist, vice president for admissions and financial aid, is chair-elect
of the U.S. College Committee of the European Council of International Schools (ECIS), the
oldest and largest association of international schools. The College Committee serves as
liaison between U.S. colleges and universities and the over 250 ECIS schools worldwide.
Teresa Meade, associate professor of history, was a member of the National
Endowment for the Humanities Institute, “Re-thinking Europe/Rethinking World History,
1500-1750” at the University of California at Santa Cruz recently. She also read a
paper, “Marriage and Identity on the Alta California Frontier, 1770-1850” at the
American Historical Association, Pacific Coastal Branch's annual meeting in Maui, Hawaii.
James C. Adrian Jr., assistant professor of chemistry, published a paper titled
“Convenient Synthesis of Bifunctional Metal Chelates” in the Journal of
Organic Chemistry. Co-authors include Matthew Hayward of Harvard University and Alanna
Schepartz of Yale. The paper describes the easy preparation of four reagents useful for
the conjugation of the metal chelator ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) to either
proteins or nucleic acids. These types of molecules have found use in protein and nucleic
acid cleavage experiments to probe biomolecule tertiary structure, drug binding sites and
to investigate interactions with other biomolecules.
Jay Newman, the R. Gordon Gould Professor of Physics, and Rick Scharf '95 have
published an article titled “Mg- and Ca-Actin Filaments Appear Virtually Identical in
Steady-State as Determined by Dynamic Light Scattering.” The article was selected for
publication as a “Rapid Report” in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, based
on its general interest and timeliness. The work is supported by a National Science
Foundation grant. their paper describes a series of measurements designed to distinguish
between the two differently prepared filaments of actin. The results are significant
because there have been very few definitive comparison studies.