Posted on Nov 1, 1998
What a year! While college presidents
have a tendency to overstate things, it would be an
understatement to say that 1997-98 was a year of great
progress and remarkable achievements. Whether we point
with pride to the spectacular renovation and expansion of
Schaffer Library or the new F.W. Olin Center (described
elsewhere in this magazine) or to an admissions effort
that has become one of the most selective in America,
whether we reflect on the undergraduate research projects
of our faculty and students or the faculty’s balancing of
teaching and scholarship, we see a Union that has entered
its third century with real, demonstrable strengths.
An academic
program of distinction
A primary asset — indeed, the primary
asset of Union — is, of course, an academic program of
unusual breadth and depth. Today, we have twenty
departments that offer nearly 1,000 courses, in addition
to our Freshman Preceptorial and opportunities in every
department for independent study and senior writing
projects.
Some of that breadth and depth is made
possible by new facilities; we expect our popular
environmental studies program, for example, to show
renewed vigor in its new home in the Olin Center.
However, most of the credit for the strength of our
curriculum belongs to the faculty, whose energy and
imagination continually bring forth new ideas.
Let me turn to the English Department
for examples of what I mean. Among the requirements for
the English major — requirements that are, in some
respects, the same now as they were ten and twenty years
ago — are three courses that cover the major English
authors from Chaucer to Joyce, a course on major American
authors, and a course on Shakespeare. However, English
majors also can choose from courses on Asian-American
literature, African-American literature, contemporary
Russian and Soviet authors, early Victorian literature,
literature of the American West, and contemporary British
and American poets. Many of these courses either did not
exist ten and twenty years ago or were only parts of
courses.
Another example — or examples — of
what Union is about academically is the incredible blend
of majors and minors. Indeed, it is the rule, not the
exception, to find chemistry majors combined with
classics minors, or biology and German, or engineering
and theater, or political science and art. Exciting?
Enriching? It is to me.
This kind of enrichment is common
throughout our academic program. The year saw two other
examples of special note:
During the break between the fall and
winter terms, a group of students (six liberal arts
majors and five engineering majors) studied water
treatment systems in Sao Paolo, Brazil, with Professors
Martha Huggins of sociology and Phil Snow of civil
engineering. The project was intended to serve as a pilot
for exploring new ways to involve students
internationally and as an innovative way to bring liberal
arts and engineering students together to study a problem
from their disciplinary points of view. Moreover, this
effort, which we hope to endow and replicate, builds on
Union’s unique strengths.
A new eight-year “Leadership in
Medicine” program was approved by the Union faculty
and the faculty of the Albany Medical College. The
program, which will replace the existing seven-year
combined degree program we offer with the medical
college, will offer students the opportunity to earn a
bachelor’s degree, a master of science in health
management, and a medical degree in eight years. It will
be the first joint-degree program in the country designed
to produce physicians educated to meet the challenges of
managed care.
In addition to teaching (and looking
for ways to enhance their courses), our 184 full-time
faculty members advise students, serve on college
committees, host guest lectures and performances, attend
student recitals and presentations, offer tutorials, and
engage in their own scholarly activities. The latter
effort leads to books, professional articles, national
fellowships, papers for professional meetings, and their
own artistic exhibits, concerts, or performances. During
the past year, the faculty had five books and two book
translations published, and another six books and one
translation were accepted for publication.
Also during the past year, eight
faculty members of high quality were deemed tenurable and
eight faculty of distinction were hired in tenure-track
positions. And joining us as our new dean of engineering
is Robert Balmer, most recently the associate dean for
academic programs and research for the College of
Engineering and Applied Science of the University of
Wisconsin, Milwaukee. With degrees from the University of
Michigan and the University of Virginia and with
industrial work experience at E.I. DuPont de Nemours and
Westinghouse, he brings a keen interest in projects that
combine the liberal arts and engineering principles and
methods. He joins us just as we received the news that
the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology
(ABET) has given us full and maximum accreditation for
all of our engineering programs.
Involved
students
The number of students involved in
scholarly activity continues to be among the very best in
the country. In mid-April, forty-nine students and three
faculty members attended the three-day National
Conference on Undergraduate Research in Maryland; once
again, Union sent the largest contingent of student
presenters (other than the host institution). In May,
afternoon classes were cancelled for the annual Charles
P. Steinmetz Symposium; nearly 300 students presented, in
a professional conference format, the results of the
scholarly and creative work that had been developed
working closely with faculty advisors. The Union College
Orchestra (directed by Professor Hilary Tann), the Union
College Choir (directed by Professor Dianne McMullen),
and the Union College Jazz Ensemble (directed by
Professor Tim Olsen) also performed as part of the
weekend dedicated to student achievement.
In April, the Mathematics Department
hosted the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics
Conference, attended by 300 undergraduates and faculty
from eighty colleges in the Northeast. Twelve Union
students presented their work at the conference.
During the year, a fund of $50,000 was
established for joint faculty-student initiatives outside
the classroom that will enrich the life of the College.
We supported more than sixty activities, such as Shakti
and the Asian Student Union hosting a fashion show and
dinner for faculty and students, a trip to New York for
students and faculty to see a Royal Shakespeare Company
production of Hamlet, a chess tournament for students and
faculty, a weekly luncheon for scholarly discussion of
current topics in psychology, and students traveling each
week to Albany Medical Center to perform volunteer work.
I am certain that this program will continue to lead to
some exciting additions to campus.
Our students distinguished themselves
in many ways. Among the honors won were Human Rights
Youth Achievement Awards from the Schenectady County
Human Rights Commission. Beth Wierzbieniec ’99 was cited
for organizing “Dialogues on Race,” a
month-long program aimed at fostering diversity at Union,
and Rachel Graham ’98 was honored for founding COCOA
House (Children of Our Community Open to Achievement) in
Schenectady’s Hamilton Hill neighborhood (COCOA House is
an after-school program that includes tutoring,
educational field trips, and speakers).
Jennifer Jakubowski ’00, a Union
Scholar majoring in chemistry, won the Edward Villella
Fellowship and spent two weeks in company dance classes
with the Miami City Ballet, and juniors Carrie Heroth and
Ibrahim Adamu were among 370 student-athletes from across
the country who met to discuss issues facing their peers
at the NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference in Florida.
Gretchen Voegler ’97, a mechanical
engineering major, won the ASME Region II Speaking
Contest at Penn State by besting representatives of the
forty engineering colleges in the region. Last November,
she traveled to Dallas for the national competition,
where she won third prize honors among the twelve
regional contestants.
In athletics, the men’s swim team won
the New York State Division III championship for the
fourth year in a row and later placed seventh in the
national meet. The women’s swim team placed third in the
state and sent one swimmer, Megan McCarthy, to the
national meet where, as a one-person “team,”
she placed twenty-first out of fifty-three teams.
A rich calendar
of events
The College had a rich and varied year
of special events. For me, the most vivid memories are
from Lessons for Humanity, our Holocaust remembrance
series. In the Nott Memorial were two outstanding
photography exhibits, French Children of the Holocaust
and Of Light Amidst the Darkness — the Danish Rescue; in
Memorial Chapel, an enthusiastic audience welcomed Serge
and Beate Klarsfeld, who have devoted their lives to
bringing to justice the perpetrators of Nazi terror. The
discussion was videotaped for showing on PBS and C-SPAN,
and I hope you had the opportunity to see this very
special event.
Other events of
special interest included:
— Andrea Barrett ’74, winner of the
National Book Award in 1996 for Ship Fever and Other
Stories, opened the “Perspectives at the Nott”
speakers series.
— Robert Coles, the renowned child
psychiatrist and author, delivered a memorable address on
the “Moral Energy of the Young” at our annual
Founders Day celebration in February.
— The Graduate Management Institute
was host to a panel discussion on welfare that was taped
for broadcast on New York public television stations.
— Jurgen Habermas, the German
philosopher, came to campus to deliver a lecture and to
meet with students and faculty.
— Katha Pollitt, feminist author,
poet, and columnist, discussed the political focus on
family values.
— Clifford Stoll, an astronomer turned
computer-guru, offered cautionary words about the
computer revolution.
— Helen Vendler, literary critic and
the A. Kinsgsley Porter University Professor of English
and American Literature at Harvard, discussed Melville’s
Civil War poetry.
— Professor Frank Wicks of mechanical
engineering curated an exhibit that featured the
contributions of Joseph Henry, a native of Albany and the
first head of the Smithsonian Institution, and an article
about the event appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
Increasingly selective
in admissions
Admissions reached new highs. The
applicant pool was the largest ever, at 3,600, and we
were more selective, admitting forty-eight percent — a
number that puts Union among the most selective colleges
in the country. Those numbers are especially noteworthy
when we recognize that Union is one of only five colleges
in New York (out of 108) not offering so-called merit
financial aid.
Our geographic diversity is increasing.
Although New York is still our largest
“feeder,” the percentage of students from the
state continues to decline, as planned, and is now at
forty-six percent. The freshman class comes from
thirty-one states and eleven countries, and fourteen
percent of first-year students are self-identified
non-white students, a record. Simply stated, we cannot be
a national (and international) institution with a
regional, Caucasian student body.
Academic quality remains high, with the
Union Scholars program, which enables students to take an
enriched course of study and graduate in three years if
they fulfill all requirements, enrolling thirty-nine
students this fall. Now in its third year, the Scholars
Program has proven very attractive to outstanding
students and has helped us reach third place in New York
(behind Columbia and Cornell) in yield — the percentage
of accepted students who decide to enroll. Academic
interests remain about the same as they have been, with
thirteen percent indicating engineering, forty percent
the natural sciences, and the remainder divided between
the humanities and the social sciences. About fifty-five
percent of the class is receiving scholarship assistance.
As of this writing, the Admissions
Office is well into recruiting the Class of 2003. In
addition to the ever-expanding traditional forms of
recruitment — travel, school visits, college fairs, and
on-campus recruiting — the office continually adjusts
its direct mail, publications, and electronic efforts. A
“Welcome to Union” Web page created last spring
for accepted students proved highly successful, for
example. And the alumni network continues to grow, with
1,600 volunteers now spreading the word about Union.
Continuing financial strength
The College also showed financial
vitality as we balanced our budget for the ninth straight
year. Between July 1, 1997, and June 30, 1998, the value
of the endowment increased to $240 million. The
Bicentennial Campaign concluded successfully on September
9, 1997, with a total of $151,135,150. Of that total,
about $31 million was raised for the Annual Fund, $38
million was provided for construction and renovation
projects, and $82 million went to the College’s
endowment. Gifts received during the year totaled nearly
$27 million, a historic high, while alumni and friends
contributed more than $4 million to the Annual Fund.
Meanwhile, the tuition, room, and board increase for
1998-99 was 3.79 percent — the lowest increase in
decades.
Of particular note was a three-year,
$335,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The
grant will enable faculty to experiment with and adapt
computer and multimedia technologies and tools in the
freshman preceptorial and to develop new
interdisciplinary team-taught courses that also will
incorporate these new electronic technologies.
Even before the arrival of the Mellon
grant, we converted a classroom in the Social Sciences
Building into the fourth general-purpose electronic
presentation classroom on campus. Forty-eight different
faculty members have used the rooms for teaching.
A historic and changing campus
The physical face of the campus
continues to undergo major change. During the break
between the winter and spring terms, the staff of
Schaffer Library moved from the old building into the
addition, thus allowing the final phase of the library
renovation to begin. Student, faculty, and staff response
to the building has been extremely positive, and the new
building already is providing what we had wanted and
needed — a light, attractive setting that welcomes
students, researchers, and casual readers.
By the time you read this report, the
F.W. Olin Center will have been dedicated. The new
building is expected to be used by every student at some
point, and the Registrar’s Office reports that so far
nineteen academic departments or programs have scheduled
at least one course or section in the Olin Center.
The completion of the Olin Center and
Schaffer Library are two examples of the ways we continue
to improve the College’s academic, athletic, residential,
social, and administrative facilities. Other examples
from the past year:
— The Union College boathouse was
completed in March, and crew held its first race on April
26.
— A ramp was constructed to provide
permanent handicapped accessibility to Memorial Chapel.
— Old Chapel, Mrs. Perkins’ Garden,
and the Rathskeller were enhanced to provide a
comfortable and inviting social space for students. (We
continue to encourage the development of new social
activities and outlets; the Rathskeller, for example, is
now a late-night alternative on Fridays and Saturdays,
and we have contracted with a concert production company
to bring more concerts to Memorial Fieldhouse.)
— After several years of litigation,
we won the right to use our Lenox Road properties; we are
moving ahead with plans to use the Parker-Rice House as
the home for College Relations and to adapt two of the
remaining four houses as student theme housing. When the
renovations are completed, we will be able to accommodate
about eighty additional students on campus, providing
them a better academic and social setting.
— The Board of Trustees voted to
accept the recommendation of a campus planning advisory
committee to relocate the Admissions Office to the
building now occupied by the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.
The committee, comprising three students chosen by the
Student Forum (each of whom was a fraternity member),
four faculty, and two staff members, worked with Dober
Lidsky Craig and Associates, the most respected college
planning firm in the country. Following extensive
discussions, Alpha Delta Phi has agreed to relocate to
Fero House after the 1998-99 academic year.
Under the terms of the agreement, Fero
House will be renovated to include expanded kitchen and
dining facilities, and Alpha Delta Phi will have an
equity position in the house for the next twenty-five
years, with the College agreeing to pay the fraternity
$300,000 if it moves Alpha Delta Phi out of Fero House
within that period. The fraternity will raise funds to
pay for a chapter room, to move interior features from
the old house to the new, and to match the College’s
contribution to endow a $25,000 scholarship fund that
will be open to English and humanities majors, in
recognition of the fraternity’s origin as a literary
society.
A fundamental principle
All of these actions reflect the
never-ending conversation that helps us define what
constitutes a good college. At times, this conversation
can be a difficult one. But to me, the essential
principles that guide these conversations are that they
be broad-based and that the College should have control
over its own institutional, social, and residential life.
I believe fervently in the freedom to
choose and, accordingly, I continue to believe that the
College’s system of fraternities and sororities is one
with a future as well as a past. However, I also believe
that the system needs to evolve.
In April, the faculty voted 119-2
(one-third of the faculty did not vote) for
implementation of a sophomore rush policy. There were
several meetings at which the proposed change was
discussed. At one open meeting, attended by about 250
students — most of them members of Greek organizations
— the mood was confrontational. The students advanced
several arguments, the main one being that they ought to
be able to make their own social decisions and that they
be made to pay the consequences if they failed to meet
their academic responsibilities. Conversely, the faculty
and administration believe that postponing rush will give
students more time to adjust to college, to resist as
sophomores the pressures put on them during rush that
they might be unwilling to resist as freshmen, and to
reduce accordingly the occasions when students come to
class tired and unprepared and unwilling (or unable) to
participate.
Under our system of governance, the
student-dominated Student Affairs Council had to act
affirmatively on the faculty recommendation before it
could become policy, and it failed to do so. I found it
unacceptable — totally unacceptable — to have faculty
and students at loggerheads and to have the close, very
close, Union relationship between faculty and students
undermined. I therefore brought together the faculty and
student leadership to continue the discussion and resolve
the impasse. Working throughout the summer, the group put
together a proposal that will have a major impact on the
future of the Greek system at Union. Their report
(described in the College news section of this magazine)
calls for implementation of sophomore rush and effort
during the next five years to improve fraternities at
Union. I am convinced that this proposal can improve the
fraternity and sorority system, and I thank the committee
for dealing with this difficult issue in a responsible,
unemotional way.
An inclusive community
The second issue — diversity — that I
want to discuss has greater import for Union and society.
Among the various meanings of diversity are several that
point to responsibilities of higher education:
— There is the responsibility to
create a community where the composition of faculties,
student bodies, staffs, and boards reflect in a
reasonable fashion the pluralism of American society.
— There is the responsibility to
create a campus environment that recognizes and
appreciates cultural differences while forging bonds of
common understanding and purpose across those
differences.
— There is the responsibility to
educate students to be able to move across cultural
boundaries by balancing affiliation with their own
cultural group with the community as a whole.
— There is the responsibility to build
an academic program that takes into account the insights
and perspectives of traditions that, in the past, have
not been accorded an important place in our academic
programs, while at the same time recognizing the
historical foundation on which this nation was based.
Last spring a four-week series of
conversations about race on campus was held. The first
two weeks were designed by students, who enlisted the
support of fraternities, sororities, theme houses, ethnic
clubs, faculty, and staff to host the discussions; the
second two weeks were coordinated by the chair of the
Multicultural Advisory Group, a group I created to advise
me on matters of race. During this period, nearly thirty
dialogues and more than thirty follow-up activities
occurred, with the result being that several helpful
suggestions emerged from those provocative discussions.
Again, these conversations should continue and, more
importantly, the barriers among people on the campus and
between groups should be removed.
Concurrent with these discussions, the
faculty and I had meetings to talk about initiatives that
could be taken to hire more faculty of color. We decided
to pursue a multi-pronged approach that, for want of a
better name, I have labeled an “affirmative
affirmative action program.” Under the plan, the
following initiatives will be implemented:
— a program of cancellable loans for
Union students of color who return to the College;
— exchange programs with
historically-black institutions;
— a minority fellows program (we have
hired the first of those fellows in the English
Department);
— the meeting of the market
financially for black and Hispanic faculty (our first
hire under the program was made);
— four additional tenure-track lines
for hiring under-represented minorities (we have hired
our first individual under this program).
There was little controversy among the
faculty about hiring faculty at more senior levels; much
more controversial was the idea of targeted searches,
that is, hiring at entry-level positions. After heated
but civil discussion among colleagues, the faculty voted
two-to-one to support targeted searches.
Little discussion was required earlier
in the year when a committee dealing with gender equity
issued a report with several recommendations. Simply
stated, the goal is to attain equity in the men’s and
women’s athletic programs within three years. While our
previous position was legally defensible, it was not
morally sound. So we made changes to bring morality and
law into accord. In this connection, crew has become a
varsity sport, and women’s ice hockey will reach varsity
status in the academic year 2000-2001; each women’s sport
will have a head coach who will not be the head coach of
another sport; and significant funds will be infused into
recruiting female athletes.
The steps we have taken with regard to
fraternity and sorority life and diversity do not signal
a close to the conversations. Both are issues that elicit
searching questions and intense debate, and both, I
think, are issues that will continually challenge us.
Recognizing that the kinds of conversations we have been
having help define a good college, I am personally
pleased with the discussions. Let the conversations
continue.
Showing the colors
As important as conversations on campus
was the opportunity to meet with Union’s alumni and
friends in the Capital District and across the country.
Their love of the College is legendary, and my travels to
Florida and to Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Washington, D.C., among other cities, to meet with alumni
clubs and individuals continued to impress me with the
intensity of support the College enjoys. Whatever the
event — a Union Day at Mystic Seaport or a performance
of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah Wilderness at Lincoln Center in
New York — alumni proudly show their Union colors.
Yet of all the individual efforts of
alumni this year, I want to single out those of Joe
Hinchey ’47, who stepped down as Chairman of the Board of
Trustees after his four-year term. Throughout his tenure,
Joe served as a valued partner and counselor.
Fortunately, for Union and me, Joe will stay actively
involved.
It was a good year. No, it was a very
good year. We recognize, however, that we have much to
do. Thankfully, those working at Union and those working
for Union continue not just to raise the bar but to clear
it easily. With their help — the faculty, staff, alumni,
and friends of this marvelous college — the future for
Union will be even more brilliant than the College’s
bright past; and with their help, we will form a more
perfect Union!
Roger H. Hull
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