Posted on Oct 10, 1997

Members of the Union community are invited to participate in the College's
inaugural employee craft fair to be held on Friday, Oct. 24, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
in Reamer Campus Center. College employees who would like to sell crafts that they have
made may register for a table with Cheryl Alusow, organizer, in Becker Hall. Tables will
be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call ext. 6580.

Kevin Ramundo '87 (MBA '90), vice president senior analyst for
Health Care Ratings Group of Moody's Investor Service, will speak on “How Wall
Street Views the Health Care Industry” on Oct. 20, at 6:30 p.m. in Reamer Campus
Center Auditorium.

Mark Walker, associate professor of history, will talk on “Do the Archives
of the Swedish Academy of Science Tell Us Why Lise Meitner Never Got the Nobel
Prize?” on Thursday, Oct. 16, at 12:15 p.m. in the Phi Beta Kappa Room of Schaffer
Library. His talk is part of the city-wide celebration of National Archives Week.

The College's entry in the co-ed team competition of the Chase Corporate
Challenge last May finished ninth of 142 teams. The four-member team of Janet Anderson,
Charlie Casey, Kristin Fox and Don Rodbell finished the 3.5-mile course in an accumulated
time of 96:28. General Electric won the division in 81:23; the state Department of Health
was second, Fleet Bank third.

Posted on Oct 10, 1997

A memorial service for the late Frederick Hartwig, former chairman of the political science department, will be Saturday, Oct. 18, at 11 a.m. in Old Chapel.

Hartwig died May 30 in Arlington, Va., after a battle with cancer. He was 56.

He worked with pro-democracy groups in Chile to help overthrow the Pinochet military
dictatorship, and also was instrumental in the early 1990s in the first-ever, all-race
election in South Africa by training voters in the electoral process.

He was a political science professor at the College for 20 years, specializing in
quantitative analysis, or polling data. Hartwig became a public opinion researcher in 1983
when he joined Peter D. Hart Research Associates in Washington. At the time of his death,
he was senior vice president of the Democratic political polling and consulting firm.

His companion, Debbie Klingender, who also had worked with him in Washington, said
Hartwig considered his work in Chile among his greatest accomplishments. “He helped
understand public opinion there before the 1988 vote that overthrew Pinochet,” she
said. “He listened to the Chileans' needs, and he developed a plan for them to
work collectively.”

He was born and raised in Elmhurst, Ill., and obtained his Ph.D. in political science
at Northwestern University.

Survivors include his former wife, Johanna Petersen of Schenectady; a daughter, Karen
Hartwig of Albany; and a son, John Hartwig of New Haven, Conn.

Posted on Oct 10, 1997

“Robert V. Wells examines life through a lens of death.”

So begins an Associated Press story running this month on the national wire.

Wells, the Chauncey H. Winters Professor of History and Social Science, has spent the
last decade researching the changing culture of death in Schenectady over its 300-year
history.

“It's an important topic in terms of cultural history,” he said.
“One can see some of the basics of a culture's attitudes about a lot of
different things in how they confront death and manage it.”

As the community grew, death and funerals shifted from being public events to being
private ones. In 1858, he said, one family displayed the body of a child on their front
lawn for some 3,000 mourners, an act that would be unthinkable today.

Wells, who this year has a Fulbright Fellowship to teach American history at Odense
University in Denmark, used public records like death certificates and eight personal
diaries to provide insight into attitudes and customs about death.

Among the most unusual was the diary of Tayler Lewis, a language professor at Union,
who mourned the death of a 17-year-old daughter by translating Biblical passages in
several different languages. The Civil War-era diary of Lewis' son, Charles, gives a
chilling account of Lincoln's assassination, which the writer witnessed at
Ford's Theater.

On current attitudes about death, “Some say we are a death-denying culture,”
Wells said. “I don't think that's quite right. We have a vicarious
relationship with death,” experiencing it at a distance through television shows,
movies and the news. “We lost the vocabulary, but in some ways we are immersed in
it.”

Wells also was interviewed by National Public Radio.

Posted on Oct 10, 1997

About 30 members of the Class of 2001 are enrolled in the Union Scholars program, twice as many as last year, it was reported by Kristine Gernert-Dott, associate dean of admissions, at a recent faculty meeting.

About 500 applications came from non-seven year med applicants with Ivy credentials (as
determined by grades, test scores and activities). Of that group, 13 percent, about 60,
matriculated. In addition, 19 students have enrolled in the seven-year medical program.

Of the 3,500 applications received, the College admitted about half; 521 matriculated.

The male-female ratio is about even. Ethnic and geographic diversity is enriched with
13 percent identifying themselves as members of underrepresented groups, and 47 percent
from New York State (the first time under 50 percent). Twenty-six states are represented.
About three percent of first-year students listed international addresses. About 70
percent of students were from public schools, 30 percent from privates. Sixteen percent of
the students are Union legacies, having had a family member attend the College.

The average SAT I score for members of the Class of 2001 was 1,220. Half of the class
was ranked in the top 10 percent of their graduating class.

Financial aid was on target with 53 percent receiving need-based financial aid, down
from about 60 percent last year.

Posted on Oct 10, 1997

Two of the world's leading authorities on Total Quality Management will be featured in a discussion titled “A Liberal Arts Education for a Technological Age” on Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 3:30 p.m. in the Feigenbaum Hall Conference Room.

Armand V. and Donald S. Feigenbaum, principals of General Systems Co. of Pittsfield, Mass., are to participate in the second annual Feigenbaum Forum. Named last year in their honor, the Feigenbaum Forum brings leaders from the academic and business worlds together at Union College to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern.

The Feigenbaums, both Union grads, are founders of General Systems Company in
Pittsfield, Mass. The company designs and implements integrated management systems for
major corporations throughout the world.

Besides introductions and conclusions by the Feigenbaums, the program is to include
remarks by President Roger Hull, Dean of Faculty Linda Cool, Dean of Arts and Sciences
Christina Sorum, Professor of History Steven Sargent, GMI Director Joseph Zolner, and
Jennifer Lawton '85, chief executive officer of Net Daemons Associates Inc.