Posted on Jan 1, 1996

The busy November athletic season saw an optimistic start to hockey, another NCAA playoff appearance by the football team, and strong finishes by volleyball and cross country.

The current hockey season is Union's fifth as a Division I program, and early results seemed to justify the Dutchmen's confidence about improving on last year's record of 9-16-4.

After beating Waterloo, 9-0, Union gave national powers Maine and New Hampshire all they could handle in two close losses. By Thanksgiving, the team had tied Army and beaten Dartmouth before losing to nationally-ranked Vermont and Providence.

One of the early-season stars was sophomore goalie Trevor Koenig, a member of last year's ECAC All-Rookie team. Koenig became the first Dutchman to represent the ECAC in the biweekly “Hobey Watch,” which highlights the top players from the four Division I hockey conferences in the country. Koenig's 2.27 goals against average and 93.6 save percentage led the ECAC.

Also among the early leaders was forward Brent Ozarowski, a Schenectady native who was the ECAC's highest-scoring freshman after the first half dozen games.

The hockey team's season was just getting underway as the football team's came to an end with a 38-7 loss to Rowan in the second round of the NCAA Division III playoffs. After an opening loss to St. Lawrence, Union had won nine straight games.

Rowan, which had eleven Division I transfers on its team, was simply too big and too fast for the Dutchmen. On offense, Rowan gained 472 yards; on defense, Rowan held Union to fifty-one yards and forced the Dutchmen into seven turnovers, five on interceptions.

A week earlier, Union caused the turnovers, as the Dutchmen won their first round playoff game over previously-unbeaten Plymouth State of New Hampshire, 24-7. The Union defense held Plymouth to just forty-five rushing yards and 226 total yards.

The defensive effort added an exclamation point to the regular season, when Union finished with the country's best pass efficiency defense. The team's total defense average was sixth in the country, and its scoring defense ranked fifth. For the year, the defense had twenty-six interceptions, thirty-three pass deflections, nine blocked kicks, six touchdowns as a result of returns, a safety, thirty-four quarterback sacks, and eighteen fumble recoveries.

Individual honors for the year went to running back Kojo Attah, who set a Union
single game rushing record when he ran for 250 yards in a 44-7 win over Rochester. The previous record, 236 yards, was set by the late Sam Hammerstrom against Rochester in 1939. Attah's record came a week after he had 202 yards against Muhlenberg.

Junior placekicker Roger Egbert finished second in the country with his 1.33 field goals per game.

For the record, the NCAA trip was Union's ninth (the Dutchmen have gone to the ECAC championship twice, and won both games). Union's playoff record is 10-8 (8-8 in the NCAA's) and the team has gone to the championship game twice, losing to Augustana 21-17 in 1983 and to Dayton 17-7 in 1989. In the past fourteen years, Union's overall record is 118-26.

To wrap up some other fall seasons:

The volleyball team finished ninth in the New York State Women's Collegiate Athletic Association tournament. It was the third time since 1989 that the Dutchwomen had been invited to the tournament.

This year's team had a record of 19-12; the only teams with more wins were 1989 (23-14), 1991 (20-19), and 1994 (24-8).

Gretchen Voegler, a junior, was named to the All-State team. She led the team in kills and digs and was ranked in the NCAA's top five in blocks.

The men's and women's cross country teams finished with the best NCAA regional qualifying efforts in recent years.

The women placed fourteenth of nineteen teams and the men were thirteenth of twenty-two. Amelia Audette, a senior, was the team's first finisher in every race.

Posted on Jan 1, 1996

Alumni are invited to join the fun at a number of events in coming months:

Jan. 19-21: Wonderful Winter Weekend on the slopes of Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, N.Y.

February: Receptions at the Harvard, Vermont, and Dartmouth hockey games.

March: Spring swing through Flordia. Stops in Daytona Beach, Miami, Tampa/St. Petersburg, Boca Raton, and Sarasota are being planned.

May 31 and June 1-2: ReUnion.

For more information, contact the Alumni Office at: Telephone-(518) 388-6165; Fax-(518) 388-6503;
E-mail alumni office@alice.union.edu.

Posted on Jan 1, 1996

Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, came to campus last
fall partly to see the Nott Memorial, partly to deliver an address on “Teaching by Example: The Importance of Campus Preservation.”

Here are excerpts from his remarks:

Why is it important that buildings like the Nott Memorial be preserved?

It's important, first of all, because the buildings themselves are important.

To begin with, they're good to look at. If we agree with the old statement that architecture is frozen music, then we surely must agree that too many recent buildings are little more than Muzak. By contrast, this marvelous structure is a huge symphony orchestra
playing at full blast-a composition so rich and bold and ingenious that we can only marvel at it.

The Nott Memorial, like historic buildings at many older colleges and universities around the United States, is the legacy of a time when buildings were designed to serve an important symbolic role. Victorian government buildings-courthouses and city halls and the
like were intended to symbolize the awesome grandeur and solemn majesty of the law.

In the same spirit, buildings used for educational purposes schools and museums, for
example-were meant to embody the nobility of learning. The form and design of the Nott Memorial convey, as the architect intended, the notion that education is an important thing, a weighty thing, a joyous and uplifting experience not to be undertaken lightly.

The fact that the Nott Memorial is well into its second century of service as the centerpiece of the Union campus is legitimate cause for celebration. The very survival of this building is something of a miracle, you see, when you consider that major chunks of the history of America's universities are lost every year. It's a sad fact that colleges and universities are not always the best stewards of the historic buildings they own and the historic communities in which they are located. That's particularly unfortunate-not only for those of us who care about old buildings and the preservation of our heritage, but also for all the students who come to a college in search of lessons about life and
how to live it more abundantly.

Back in 1966, a group of people got together in an attempt to chart a new course for preservation in the United States. As some of you may remember, those were the dark days of interstate highway construction and so-called urban renewal, when landmark buildings-and entire neighborhoods, in some cases-were being ruthlessly swept away in our misguided pursuit of “progress.” Against that backdrop of wrecking balls and rubble, these visionaries wrote a thoughtful prescription for the future:

“If the preservation movement is to be successful, it must go beyond saving bricks and mortar. It must go beyond saving occasional historic houses and opening museums. It must be more than a cult of antiquarians.

It must do more than revere a few precious national shrines. It must attempt to give a sense of orientation to our society, using structures and objects of the past to establish values of time and place.”

[This is] …one of the major lessons that any college should seek to convey to its students. A college isn't just about calculus and chemistry, elocution and economics. It's about making a meaningful contribution to the community, about maximizing one's potential to make a difference; it's about civilization and life.

And preservation isn't just about bricks and mortar,
columns and cobblestones. It's about human values as well, about connections among people and connections between people and their environment.

When President Eliphalet Nott chose this elevated spot for Union's location, he made the college-intentionally or not-a paradigm of the biblical “city on a hill.” Like any other landmark so prominently sited, Union College casts a very long shadow. What happens on this campus sends ripples-or convulsions
through the commercial and residential neighborhoods that surround it. Stated in its simplest terms, the college's obligation is to be a responsible member of its community, which is particularly important when, as is often the case, the college is one of the biggest members of the community.

That's the sort of thing we should expect from an institution that is, by its very nature, both custodian and disseminator of the fundamental values on which our culture is founded. What else should we expect?

Identification is the first essential-step. If it hasn't already been done, a comprehensive survey needs to be undertaken to identify all college-owned properties that might be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Then the process of listing on both the national and state registers should be carried through to completion.

The next step is the development of a plan for protection of the college's historic resources. To be effective, this plan must be based on information gathered through exhaustive inspection of the buildings and grounds that pinpoints significant interior and exterior features and highlights elements in need of attention. Most important, the preservation plan must be integrated with the institution's master plan.

The purpose of this plan is not to “freeze” the college's historic buildings as static artifacts of the past, but rather to identify a means whereby they can
continue to function both as dynamic educational facilities and as culturally significant community landmarks. The $2 million endowment for ongoing maintenance of this building is evidence of marvelous foresight on the part of Union College, and an excellent example for others to follow.

In saving old buildings and neighborhoods, we strengthen a partnership which makes for orderly growth and change in our communities: the perpetual partnership among the past, the present, and the future. It's a dynamic partnership. It recognizes that we cannot afford to live in the past, so it encourages each generation to build in its own style, to meet its own needs by taking advantage of the very best of contemporary thought and technology. But it also recognizes that we can't afford to reject the history, the culture, the traditions and values on which our lives and our futures are built.

When that partnership falls apart, when the connections between successive generations of Americans are broken, blank spaces open up in our understanding of the long process that made us who we are. History dissolves into myth, neither believable nor particularly useful, and values are eroded. But when it is allowed to work as it's supposed to, that partnership produces a healthy society with confidence, a sense of continuity, a sense of community.

Day-to-day contact with the past gives us confidence because
it helps us know where we came from. It gives us a standard against which to measure ourselves and our accomplishments. And it confronts us with the realization-sometimes exhilarating, sometimes
disturbing that we, too, will be held accountable, that future generations will look at our work as the standard by which to measure their own performance.

Posted on Jan 1, 1996

Milestones Named: William Shafer has been named capital projects and construction manager at the College. A graduate of Stanford University, he has a master of architecture degree from Harvard University and is a licensed architect in Maryland and California. His primary responsibility during the next two years will be to oversee the planning, design, and renovation and expansion of Schaffer Library.

Elected: Lewis Golub, chairman and chief executive officer of the Golub Corporation, is the new chair of the Advisory Council of the Graduate Management Institute. New members on the council are Maus Bergman, president and chief executive officer of Allegheny Power System, Inc.; Bruce Cohen, managing partner of Coopers & Lybrand L.L.P.; and William Davis, chairman and chief executive officer of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.

Works in progress Dan Lundquist, vice president for admissions and financial aid, is the 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 committee is the liaison between U.S. colleges and universities and the more than 250 ECIS schools.

Harry Marten, the Edward E. Hale, Jr., Professor of English, has received a $62,300 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support a seminar for teachers on the novels of Joseph Conrad. Marten will direct the seminar at the College in July.

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 Peru and Ecuador. Last summer, he and students Jeffrey Nebolini '96 and Adam Goodman '96 spent six weeks doing field work in Ecuador.

Nudged to the Nobel Union may have given Martin Perl, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in physics, the nudge he
needed to pursue a career in physics.

Perl was a young chemical engineer at the General Electric Company when he took two courses-advanced calculus and nuclear physics-from Professor Vladimir Rojansky.

Former Professor of Physics David Peak, writing in a history of the department at Union, said, “Rojansky's lectures were so compelling [Perl] was left with no choice but to resign from G.E. and pursue an advanced degree in physics.” He earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University.

Perl, a professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, won the Nobel Prize for his 1975 discovery of a new elementary particle known as the tau lepton.

Union students help Big Brothers-Big Sisters widen its reach Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Schenectady and Saratoga Counties has received $10,333 in funding to pair twenty older “at risk” children with Union students.

Jay Eckenberger, director of the organization, said, “These are kids who might be in some trouble. We're hoping that Union students can show them a different value system and help them latch on to some goals so they can finish school and maybe go on to college.”

The children, ages twelve to fifteen, will come to campus for about three hours each Sunday for activities ranging from sports to tutoring.

More than 200 Union students are involved in Big Brothers-Big Sisters activities on campus, making it the largest chapter locally and one of the most popular student activities.

Posted on Jan 1, 1996

“Out on a Limb” was the title of a three-day gathering to discuss faith and ministry in the college and university setting.

In late November, about 120 campus ministers and chaplains, campus ministry board members, college faculty and administrators, and interested church members gathered at Union. Through plenary sessions, small group discussions, and worship services, the visitors focused on “thinking the faith.”

The conference, organized by Hugh Nevin, former Protestant chaplain at Union and now the Protestant chaplain at the State University of New York at Albany, was one part of a three-stage process-study of the work written by the six conference leaders, the conference itself, and the development of collaborative efforts. All stages work toward providing better resources for students through campus ministries.

Nevin was pleased with both the number of participants and the results. “The event exceeded my own expectations, and from
talking with others, it fulfilled or went beyond what they had hoped for as well,” Nevin said. The degree of collaboration was greater than he had expected, and an annual conference is one possible outcome.

Discussion leaders included:

• Douglas Sloan, professor of history and education at Columbia Teachers College; 
• Sam A. Portaro, Jr., Episcopal chaplain to the University of Chicago and director of Brent House, the Episcopal campus ministry center at the university; 
• Sharon Daloz Parks, senior research fellow in leadership and ethics at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; 
• Douglas John Hall, recently retired professor of Christian theology in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal; 
• Donna Schaper, area minister for 120 congregations of the United Church of Christ in western Massachusetts; 
• Barbara G. Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological
  Seminary in New York City.

The leaders began discussions based on their various written work. Nevin said that all of the leaders went beyond their original work to provide the audience “with a lot more to think about.”

Support and funding came from local interdenominational and ecumenical agencies providing campus ministries at Union, the State University of New York at Albany, RPI, and the Sage Colleges.