Posted on May 29, 1998

On July 1, 1943 – the day Union became a site for the Navy's
V-12 officer training program – a contingent of 450 “kid sailors” marched
from the Schenectady train station, past applauding citizens and through Payne Gate.

With the new sailors, campus life changed dramatically. There were
classes six full days a week, dorms became “barracks,” walls became
“bulkheads,” toilets became “heads.” Reveille sounded at 5:45 each
morning with a shrill steam whistle, followed shortly by mandatory calisthenics. The pool
was used for “abandon ship” drills. Movies about the dangers of VD played in, of
all places, the chapel.

On Friday, May 29, some of those same sailors will arrive on campus
– this time without the march from downtown — to celebrate their 55th ReUnion.

The V-12 ReUnion begins on Friday, May 29, at 4 p.m. at the base of the
Library Field flag pole with a wreath ceremony for Union College alumni who served in wars
since the War of 1812.

The Union V-12 program produced four admirals, a commodore, a Marine
Corps general, a Nobel laureate, a college dean and others.

Posted on May 29, 1998

Friday, May 29, through Sunday, May 31. ReUnion '98. For information on-line, go to: http://www.union.edu/ALUMNI/REUNION(See story this issue.)

Friday, May 29, through Monday, June 1, 8 and 10 p.m., Reamer Campus Center Auditorium. Film, The Boxer, presented by film committee.

Through May 31, 8 p.m., Yulman Theater. “The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade” by Peter Weiss, directed by Prof. William Finlay.

Through June 5, Mandeville Gallery, Nott Memorial. Nikon Small World Exhibition: Photographs Through the Microscope.

Posted on May 29, 1998

A production titled “Music, Medicine and Mozart.”
Minerva's footrace. An open house and “field day” with the College's
amateur radio station, W2UC. An alumni parade, convocation and picnic. Seminars on the
global economy, the American presidency, and changes in medicine. And, of course,
fireworks and ice cream.

Those are some of the events in ReUnion '98, which begins this
Friday and ends on Sunday.

Complete details are available at http://www.union.edu/ALUMNI/REUNION.
Here is a listing of some of the highlights:

Friday

12:30 p.m., Reamer 203. “Careers in Russia” with financier Peter Mansbach '58;

1:30 p.m., Alumni Gymnasium. Signup for Minerva's footrace, featuring one-mile and 5K events. (One mile at 2 p.m., 5K at 2:20, prizes at 3.);

2 p.m., Science and Engineering 106A. W2UC open house. (Also at 8 p.m. Friday and 8:30 p.m. Saturday);

3:30 p.m. Arts Studio. “Music, Medicine and Mozart,” a musical and historical exposition presented by Robert Howe '58 MD and Sondra Howe Ph.D., piano;

9 p.m. Jackson's Garden. Garden party;

Saturday

11 a.m. ReUnion Alumni Parade. Staging is near Frank Bailey Field, to South Lane, ending at Memorial Chapel;

Noon. Memorial Chapel. Alumni convocation and “required” chapel. Presentation of Alumni Gold Medals, Faculty Meritorious Awards, and parade trophies;

12:15 p.m., Alexander Field. All-You-Can-Eat Country Picnic with music of Skip Parson's Dixieland Jazz Band;

12:30 p.m. Alexander Field. “Radio Field Day” with on-site amateur radio contacts;

2 p.m. Old Chapel. “Prospects for the U.S. and Global Economy at the Dawn of the Millenium” with alumni business executives, moderated by Prof. Eshragh Motahar;

3 p.m., Humanities 104. “The American Presidency at the End of the 20th Century: Center for Leadership or Opinion Polls?” Alumni panelists discuss their views, moderated by Prof. Clifford Brown;

3 p.m., Humanities 115. “So You Want to Be a Doctor? Changes in Current Medical Practice.” Alumni practitioners discuss changes in health care and the role of the doctor, moderated by Prof. Carol Weisse;

9 p.m. Nott Memorial. “Jazz at the Nott” with Union's Jazz Ensemble;

10 p.m. Library Field. Fireworks and Ice Cream Social. Fireworks produced and donated by Steve Enté '75.

Posted on May 22, 1998

Felmon J. Davis, associate professor of philosophy, has written a
review of Emmanuel Eze's “Race and Enlightenment: A Reader,” to appear in Constellations,
A Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory (vol. 5:2 June). Davis has also published
an article on affirmative action, “Rassendiskurs, Gerechtigkeit und Demokratie in
den USA. Eine Fallstudie” (“Racial Discourse, Justice and Democracy in the
USA: A Case Study”) in Demokratischer Experimentalismus, Brunckhorst and Koch,
Essen (Germany).

Chandan DeSarkar, visiting assistant professor of management and
marketing in GMI, presented a paper titled “International Entry Barriers: A Strategic
Review” at the annual conference of the American Society of Business and Behavioral
Sciences recently. He also published and presented a paper, “Barriers in Strategic
Marketing: Reviews, Propositions and Implications” in the 1998 proceedings of the
Southwestern Marketing Association's annual conference. He has been appointed track
chair for marketing research for the 1999 annual conference for the American Society for
Business and Behavioral Sciences.

Amanda Mason, capital gifts officer, has earned her Ph.D. in
English literature from the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation was titled
“Intimacy Politics and Virginia Woolf: A Queered-Feminist Analysis.”

George Gmelch, professor of anthropology, had two articles
published. “Groupies and American Baseball,” in The Journal of Sport and
Social Issues, examines the history and relationship of groupies and professional
baseball players. It shows how the groupie phenomenon plays out on a small stage the
larger gender roles played by women and men in American society. “Crossing Cultures:
Student Travel and Personal Development,” published in The Journal of
Intercultural Relations, examines what students do and learn when they travel abroad.

Martha K. Huggins, Roger Thayer Stone Professor of Sociology,
presented three papers from her research on extra-legal police violence in Brazil during
redemocratization. She presented “Brazilian Police Violence: Legacies of
Authoritarianism in Police Professionalism: A Study of Torturers and Murderers” at
the University of Wisconsin (Madison) Legacies of Authoritarianism Conference, attended by
30 national and international scholars. She delivered a paper, “Torture, Murder and
Protection Rackets: The U.S. and Latin America” at the New School for Social Research
Janey Program/Sawyer Seminar on “Coercion, Violence and Rights in the Americas.”
She delivered a paper, “Corpo e Sociedade: A Tortura” at the Federal
University of Rio de Janiero (Brazil) conference on “Que Corpo d Esse?” Huggins
is vice president of the International Sociological Association's 350-member Research
Committee on Deviance and Social Control. She is organizing the research section's
panels for the quadrennial meetings this summer in Montreal. Junior Erika Migliaccio
has been assisting with conference planning.

William M. Murphy, Thomas Lamont Professor Emeritus of Ancient
and Modern Literature, recently presented a paper titled “Learning and Love in
Schenectady in the Eighteen-Forties: The Jotting Book of Charles Lewis Beale” at the
Fortnightly Club of Schenectady. Beale (who lived from 1824 to 1900) was an 1844 graduate
of the College. A Union College senior and a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity, Beale kept
his diary for only 19 days. But during that short time, Murphy says, the writer provided
an unusually rich record of life at Union and in Schenectady.

Posted on May 22, 1998

“The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed
by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade”
by Peter Weiss runs through May 31 in Yulman Theater.

It is directed by Prof. William Finlay.

The play is based on two historical truths: the infamous Marquis de Sade
was confined to the lunatic asylum of Charenton; and the revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was
stabbed to death in a bathtub by Charlotte Corday at the height of terror in the French
Revolution. But the play-within-a play is not historical drama. Rather, it is concerned
with the problem of revolution. Among the questions it raises, Are the same things true
for the masses and for their leaders? And where, in modern times, lie the borderlines of
sanity?

The play runs through May 23, and May 27 through May 31. Performances
are at 8 p.m. Admission is $7, $5 for students and seniors. For more information, call
ext. 6545.