Posted on May 8, 1998

Daniel Brennan will discuss “The Impact of Bullets on Body Armor.” Sally Hodges will present her findings on the geology of Ballston Lake. Ryan
Nespeca will examine the jazz style of Harry James' “Sing, Sing, Sing.”

At a time when a new Carnegie Foundation report is criticizing research
universities for not promoting research-based learning for undergraduates, Union is
celebrating faculty-mentored research that has been a feature of the College for nearly 70
years.

Charles Hurd, a chemistry professor at Union from the 1920's to
1956, gained a national reputation not only for his contributions to silicon chemistry,
but for collaborating with Union undergraduates on most of the papers he published. This
was at a time when the predominant view was that of Robert Hutchins, president of the
University of Chicago, who believed it inappropriate even for undergraduate faculty
to do research.

On Friday more than 200 students – about 10 percent of the
enrollment – will present their research and creative work at the eighth annual
Steinmetz Symposium.

New this year to Steinmetz is a program that will contain the abstracts
of most of the student presentations. They will be available at various locations.

The Union College Orchestra, directed by Prof. Hilary Tann, will present
“The Russians Are Coming,” a “Pops” Concert featuring works by Russian
composers at 8:30 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. The program is to include Grieg's Peer
Gynt Suite, Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, Mussorgsky's Night on
Bald Mountain, known to many from Walt Disney's film, Fantasia.

The Union College Choir, directed by Prof. Dianne McMullen, will perform
Friday at 2 p.m. in the Arts Atrium. The Union College Jazz Ensemble, directed by Prof.
Tim Olsen, will perform Friday at 2:30 p.m. in Chet's, Reamer Campus Center.

The Steinmetz Symposium is the first part of “Recognition
Weekend,” the second being Prize Day on Saturday, May 9, at 11 a.m. in Memorial
Chapel.

Posted on May 1, 1998

Gary Tomlinson, Annenberg Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, will give a free public lecture titled “Montaigne's Cannibals' Songs” on Thursday, May 7, at 7:30 p.m. at Union College's Nott Memorial.

Montaigne's “Of Cannibals,” perhaps the most famous of his essays, features with extraordinary prominence the singing of the Brazilian Tupi Indians who are its subject. Few accounts, however, have attended to this aspect of the essay. Tomlinson's lecture will examine the Tupi singing in “Of Cannibals” in an effort, first, to understand the roles Europeans could imagine for song in the New World and, second, to tease out of Montaigne's text a set of different functions of song, arguably closer to the outlines we can reconstruct of Tupi society.

Tomlinson's research and writing focus is on Renaissance and early Baroque music (especially Italian); opera; theories concerning music historiography and anthropology; and music in the New World before and after European contact. He is the author of Monteverdi and the End of the Renaissance (1989 Deems Taylor Award); Italian Secular Song 1606-1636; Music in Renaissance Magic: Toward a Historiography of Others; and The New Strunk Source Readings in Music History: The Renaissance. His article, “Madrigal, Monody, and Monteverdi's via naturale alla immitatione,” was given the American Musicological Society's Alfred Einstein award. His book, Ghosts in the Voice: Opera and the Chancing Self, 1600-1900, is in press.

Awarded a MacArthur Prize fellowship for 1988-93, Professor Tomlinson has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and from the NEH. He was the Danziger Lecturer at the University of Chicago and Housewright Eminent Visiting Scholar at Florida State University. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Center for Black Music Research, and is a former board member of the American Musicological Society and the Renaissance Society of America. He was a visiting professor at Duke and Princeton, and a seminar director at the Folger Shakespeare library.

The 16-sided Nott Memorial is located at the center of campus and parking is available on campus and on nearby side streets.

For more information, call 388-6131.

Posted on May 1, 1998

New York's average per capita monthly cost for each welfare recipient is about $1,200, almost twice the national average.

Runner-up Oregon is a distant second at $900 monthly.

New York State also leads the nation in numbers with a total of 1.1 million on welfare (roughly the population of the Capital Region), even after a recent reduction of some 300,000 due to reform measures.

Why is the cost of welfare in New York State so high? How do changes under state welfare reform affect welfare recipients?

These and other questions will be considered in a panel discussion among the state's major players in welfare titled “Welfare Reform in New York State: Can it Succeed?” on Wednesday, May 6, at 3 p.m. in Union College's Nott Memorial.

The Nott Memorial will be closed to study that day.

Union students are invited, but seating is limited, so reservations are encouraged. For reservations, call Rhonda Sheehan at 388-6238.

The event is sponsored by Union's Graduate Management Institute as another in a series of topics on statewide issues of importance. It will be taped by WMHT Educational Telecommunications for later broadcast on New York public television stations.

The taping will run from 3 to 6 p.m. (Attendees are asked to arrive by 2:50 p.m.) A limited number of questions from the audience will be taken after the panel discussion.

Discussants will be available for interviews after the program.

Joining moderator Ed Dague of WNYT – NewsChannel 13, will be:

Thomas W. Carroll, president, CHANGE-NY
Peter Cove, founder, AMERICA WORKS

Aaron R. Dare, president and CEO, Urban League of Northeastern New York Inc.
Lawrence W. Mead, professor of politics, New York University

Deborah W. Merrifield, commissioner, Erie County Department of Social Services
Richard P. Nathan, director, Rockefeller Institute
Karen Schimke, executive director, State Communities Aid Association
Brian J. Wing, commissioner, NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance

Posted on May 1, 1998

At a time when a new Carnegie Foundation report is criticizing research universities for not promoting research-based learning for undergraduates, Union College is preparing to celebrate faculty-mentored research that has been a feature of the College for nearly 70 years.

On May 8, more than 200 students – about 10 percent of Union's enrollment – will present their research and creative work at the eighth annual Steinmetz Symposium. (Nearly 50 of the students involved have just returned from presenting their work at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research.)

Charles Hurd, a chemistry professor at Union from the 1920's to 1956, gained a national reputation not only for his contributions to silicon chemistry, but for collaborating with Union undergraduates on most of the papers he published. This was at a time when the predominant view was that of Robert Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, who believed it inappropriate even for undergraduate faculty to do research.

Union's undergraduate research has been going strong ever since. Union has been a charter member of NCUR, has twice hosted the conference, and continues to have one of the largest contingents.

The Steinmetz Syposium, named for Charles P. Steinmetz, a Union professor and the “electrical wizard of General Electric,” began eight years ago as a way for students to showcase their faculty-mentored achievements to the campus community. Each year, a number of parents and alumni attend.

New this year to Steinmetz is a program that will contain the abstracts of most of the student presentations. They will be available at locations throughout campus.

Steinmetz Symposium Schedule

Classes will be canceled during Steinmetz Symposium, Friday, May 8, starting at 1 p.m.

The Steinmetz Symposium is divided into four sessions:

Session I, 1 to 2:20 p.m., concurrent oral presentations in Humanities, Social Sciences, Science & Engineering and Steinmetz Hall.

Session II, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., poster sessions and Jazz Ensemble performance in Reamer Campus Center; art exhibitions in arts atrium; dance performances in dance studio, and choir performance in performing arts studio.

Session III, 3:30 to 4:50 p.m., and Session IV, 5 to 6:20 p.m., concurrent oral presentations in Humanities, Social Sciences, Science and Engineering and Steinmetz Hall.

The Steinmetz Banquet in Upperclass Dining will follow Session IV.

The Union College Orchestra, directed by Prof. Hilary Tann, will present “The Russians Are Coming,” a “Pops” Concert featuring works by Russian composers at 8:30 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. The program are Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite, Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, known to many from Walt Disney's film, Fantasia.

The Steinmetz Symposium is the first part of “Recognition Weekend,” the second being Prize Day on Saturday, May 9 at 11 a.m. in Memorial Chapel.

Posted on May 1, 1998

Renowned pianist Grigory Sokolov will present the final concert of this year's Schenectady Museum-Union College Concert Series on Saturday, May 16, at 8:00 p.m. in the College's Memorial Chapel.

The program is to include Rameau's Suite in G from “Nouvelles Suites de Pieces de Clavecin,” Beethoven's Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31, No. 1, and Brahms' Sonata in C major, Op. 1.

In 1966, as a ninth grader, Grigory Sokolov entered the renowned Tchaikovsky Piano Competition and walked away with First Prize and the prestigious Gold Medal. In The New York Times, Harold Schonberg wrote, “He possesses brilliant finger and chord technique, he easily wields the piano, so easily that he performs prestississimo… with refined lightness. It was a startling performance.”

Musically precocious, Sokolov had attracted attention in the Russian music world since the age of five. His early education was at a special music school, but then he attended the Leningrad Conservatory, and made his first important public appearance at age twelve. After winning the Tchaikovsky, he toured with the Moscow Philharmonic to Italy, Portugal, Germany, and the United States. Critics have consistently labeled Sokolov as a “world-class pianist,” “a born storyteller,” “an impulsive, volcanic personality with immense musical versatility and stature.”

Memorial Chapel is located near the center of the Union campus. Parking is available on campus and on nearby side streets.

Tickets, at $20 ($8 for students), are available in advance at the Schenectady Museum (518) 382-7890 and at the door at 7 p.m. For more information, call 372-3651.