President Roger Hull urged members of the Union community to join together in elevating the College to “the next level of excellence.”
Union is a college that teaches theory and practices its applications, he told the audience at the convocation to start the College's 203rd
year on Monday. Examples include a sustained effort to foster study abroad that has made
Union one of the top dozen colleges in America, broad support for undergraduate research
and encouragement of community service by students.
The capstone effort, he said, “must be to bring
liberal arts and technology together so that, in fact and not only word, all of our
students will be broadly educated and technologically aware.”
Noting the improvements to come with the addition of the
F.W. Olin Center and an expanded Schaffer Library, the president said that Union is at
“an ideal point where we can — at last — turn our attention to bridging the
two cultures at Union and setting a national example and standard.”
The convocation also saw:
o the
investiture of Walter J. Hatke as the May Baker Professor of Fine Arts;
o the awarding
of the Stillman Prize for Excellence in Teaching to Assistant Professor Ashraf M. Ghaly of
the Civil Engineering Department (Ghaly announced he will use the funds to create a prize
in civil engineering.);
o the honoring
of 602 students whose grade point averages last year earned them Dean's List honors;
o the awarding
of the Phi Beta Kappa award for excellence in General Education to Nikhil Sudan '00,
and honorable mention to Sarah Shoemaker '00.