Posted on Jan 5, 1999

Schenectady, N.Y. (Jan. 5, 1999) – Ten area printmakers will exhibit their work in a show titled “Under Pressure” opening Monday, Jan. 11, in the Arts Atrium at Union College.

The show, which is free and open to the public, runs through Sunday, Feb. 7. There will be a closing reception on Thursday, Feb. 4, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The printmakers are Tracy Straight Freed, Karen Gallagher, Allen Grindle, Kate Leavitt, Naomi Lewis, Pattie Lipman, Sunghee Park, Jeff Weber and Wendy Williams. These artists have studied printmaking at the University at Albany under the tutelage of the renowned Thom O'Connor, professor of printmaking at Albany since 1962. O'Connor's work also is to be featured in the show.

The show consists of a variety of printmaking techniques including monotype, etching, lithography, polymer gravure, mezzotint and computer-generated imagery.

“In the contemporary art world where painting, sculpture and installation rule, printmaking is not always given its due,” says Sandy Wimer, artist in residence at Union and curator of the exhibit. “Within the Capital District alone exists a strong group of printmakers who continue to create and show their work. One of the purposes of this exhibition is to showcase this group of artists as well as to highlight a variety of ways to make prints.”

The Union Arts Atrium is open weekdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

For information, call 388-6714.

For calendar listings:

Exhibit: “Under Pressure” featuring 10 Capital Region printmakers

Dates: Through Feb. 7
(closing reception is Thursday, Feb. 4, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.)

Place: Arts Atrium, Union College Arts Building

Time: Weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.

Cost: Free

Information: (518) 388-6714

Posted on Jan 1, 1999

Find a flame. Blow it out.

It seems simple enough, but try to build a robot that can do what most of us take for granted at birthday parties. Or worse, try to build that robot with teammates who are half a world – and six time zones – away.

That's precisely what four pairs of Union College students have been doing this year with their counterparts at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. And this Sunday, the Union students will travel to meet the Turkish students they've known for 16 weeks only through their design sessions over the Internet. The teams will enter their robots in an international contest to be broadcast on Turkish television.

The Union students will demonstrate their robots at a sendoff party on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. in Room N205 of Union's Mechanical Engineering Department. Each will traverse an obstacle course in search of a flame. Once it finds one, it must extinguish it. As the students have found, sometimes the robots work, sometimes they don't.

Each robot is equipped with a flame detection sensor with a microprocessor that will trigger an extinguishing fan. Each team's design is unique.

“The toughest part is not the technical side, but communicating effectively with the students at METU,” says Peter Flynn, a senior. “At times, progress seems slow, because the project incorporates aspects of real-world problems that are not addressed in the classroom.”

Now in its third year, the International Virtual Design Studio, is the brainchild of Ron Bucinell, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Union. By partnering mechanical and computer systems engineers from Union with students in Turkey, Bucinell says, Union students can better appreciate that engineering is a global enterprise. “It is important to educate engineers who can make decisions with a global perspective, who have the breadth of knowledge to understand the social and ethical implications of what they are doing,” he says. “This is why it is so important to have engineering in a liberal arts environment, and why I feel our engineering program is unique.”

Posted on Jan 1, 1999

The Union Bookshelf regularly features new books written by alumni authors and
other members of the Union community. If you're an author and would like to be included in
an upcoming issue, please send a copy of the book as well as your publisher's news release
to the Office of Communications, Union College, Schenectady, N.Y. 12308-3169.

Frederick Maser '30

The Little Known Appearances of Jesus is
a fantasy containing several vignettes of Jesus appearing after his ressurection. The
confrontations covered in the book are speculative accounts of what could have happened if
Jesus met again with people he had dealings with in the Gospels, such as Pontius Pilate,
Caiaphas, Herod, the rich young ruler, and the woman at the well. The author says that his
book is an effort to “fill in the gaps” and proposes that there were moving
conversations between Jesus and people other than the disciples. He notes that the early
manuscripts from which these stories were taken do not follow the generally-accepted New
Testament chronology. The 100-page paperbound book is published by Academy Books, of
Rutland, Vt.

Nguyen Dinh-Hoa '50

Professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics at Southern Illinois University,
Nguyen Dinh-Hoa has written several books. Two volumes, Beginning
English for Vietnamese Speakers and Intermediate
English for Vietnamese Speakers, are designed for the student who has no
knowledge of the English language. Language in Vietnamese Society: Some Articles by Nguyen
Dinh-Hoa is a compilation of nine articles designed to acquaint the reader with Vietnamese
culture, concentrating on linguistic and literary topics.

Vietnamese Literature: A Brief Survey,
published in 1994, is what the author calls “a bird's-eye view of the vast garden of
Vietnamese literature from the earliest times down to the 1980s.” The book reveals
various aspects of the life of peasants and scholars alike and includes hymns and poems
written by Zen Buddhist monks, writings by classical Chinese and southern Vietnamese
writers, and stories carried down by oral traditions. The 190-page book is published by
San Diego State University.

In 1997, Dinh-Hoa completed Vietnamese, an Introduction
to Southeast Asian Language prepared from lecture notes the author used in
his Vietnamese grammar classes over the years. The work is included in the London Oriental
and African Language Library, Europe's largest institution specializing in the study of
languages and cultures of Africa and Asia. Each volume in the series is written by an
acknowledged expert who has carried out original research and who has firsthand knowledge
of the area in which it was spoken.

Vietnamese Literature: An Anthology,
completed in 1998, has poems and prose texts by a large number of authors, both historic
and contemporary. The author says the work will enable the reader to “enjoy the
masterpieces of a literature that has been called a literature of the people, by the
people, and for the people.” This book was published by San Diego State University.

Chauncey Wood '57

Herbert's Golden Harpe or His Heavenly Hymne
is a compilation of 238 numbered entries of paragraph length accompanied by a list of
biblical passages from which the author put together his text. The readings, written by
George Herbert in the early 1600s, are described as “an attempt to cast the sinner's
prayer entirely in the words of God, thereby showing the author's dependence upon God for
anything of a positive spiritual nature.” For inquiries about this volume or others
in the series, contact Editor, George Hebert Journal, Department of English, Sacred Heart
University, Fairfield, Conn. 06432 or e-mail spgottllieb@aol.com.

Hershel Raff '75, Ph.D.

Physiology Secrets, published by Hanley and Belflus, is a Socratic-method study guide
to medical physiology for use primarily by medical and dental students in their first year
of study. The book is intended especially for study in Part I of the medical and dental
board exams. Raff, who lives with his wife, Judy Kornfeld Raff '75, in Milwaukee, is
professor of medicine and physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and director of
the Endocrine Research Laboratory at St. Luke's Medical Center.

David Strom '76

How do you solve common e-mail problems such as avoiding unwanted spam, reading
attachments, securing your messages, and interpreting errors? In
Internet Messaging: From the Desktop to the Enterprise, Marshall T. Rose
(one of the inventors of Internet e-mail) and David Strom '76 (a mathematics major who has
written many articles about networking and Internet-related topics for computer trade
magazines) offer lots of practical advice and explain the latest e-mail and Internet
standards and the ways they are implemented in several popular e-mail products. The book is helpful for both information systems professionals and advanced e-mail users alike. The book was published by Prentice Hall.

Posted on Jan 1, 1999

Michael Newell '74 does more at Union now
than he ever did as a student.

The father of three Union students (Jessica '98, now in the Master of Arts in Teaching
program; Jeremy '00; and Sarah '02), an
ardent Union football fan, an active member of the Chemistry Alumni Society, and treasurer
of the Alumni Council, Newell finds himself on campus often.

As a married student, Newell lived off campus with his wife, Karen, and had little
interest in extracurricular activities. In the 1980s, he became involved with Union again,
first by attending football games.

“The games were another thing I could enjoy with my kids,” he says. “It
just got to be a regular thing.” Newell hasn't missed a home football game in years,
and the family regularly gathers from different corners of campus to cheer on the
Dutchmen.

Newell, a chemistry major, began a doctoral program in the subject at the University of
Georgia before deciding that what he really wanted was a sales position that would
incorporate his technical background in chemistry.

“I liked the independence and the fact that it was different everyday,” he
says. “And I liked that there was some connection between effort and income.”

Newell has been in sales and marketing for several high-technology chemical
instrumentation companies for the past twenty years with a focus on new businesses. He now
works for Rheodyne, a company that produces high-technology valves that are a component of
instrumentation for chemistry and biotechnology. Although he travels extensively
throughout the United States, he uses his home in nearby Charlton, N.Y., as his main
office since it gives him the opportunity to spend more time with his family and maintain
his 200-year-old home (the house has been in his wife's family for about fifty years).

Working from home also means that Newell has a better chance to be outside, whether
it's fishing, hunting, backpacking, or canoeing. A longtime lover of nature, he is a
licensed New York State outdoor guide and past president of the New York State Outdoors
Guide Association. For a short time, he ran a small, part-time company with a friend that
offered guided trips.

The idea for the company came on a hunting trip with some friends. “We were
sitting on the shore of Indian Lake and it was thundering and lightening to beat the
band,” he explains. “We were all under this huge tarp with a fire at one end and
a lantern at the other, sipping wine and eating hors d'oeuvres. It was then that somebody
said to me, 'Wow. You really know how to set a camp. I'd almost pay for this.'”

Newell was careful not to push his children to attend his alma mater. “I think
that Union is a great place to get an education and learn how to think, but the kids
always knew that they had the choice to go wherever they wanted,” he says.

All three of Newell's children have thrived at Union, he says. Jessica was a resident
assistant for two years, was active in the Philomathean Society, and did extensive
research with faculty in the Civil Engineering and Geology Departments; now working on her
master's in teaching, she teaches earth science at Schenectady High School. Jeremy has
worked as a research fellow for two summers with Professor Andreas Kriefall in the English
Department, is active in the College Republicans and the Philomathean Society, and is a
student writer for the Sports Information Office. Sarah is also involved in the College
Republicans, the Philomathean Society, and is a sports information student writer, but is
also a member of COCOA House (Children of Our Community Open to Achievement), an
after-school mentoring program, and is a writer for Concordiensis.

Karen, Mike's wife, worked to put Mike through Union but went back to college herself
when the children were in school. “She was a great role model for the kids because
they were old enough to see their mother going to college and working so hard at it. I
think it reinforced their work ethic,” he says.

Newell's children all say that they might one day encourage their children to seriously
consider attending Union — or at least go to the football games. “I can definitely
see that happening,” says Jessica. “There is such a big love for this school in
our family.”

Posted on Jan 1, 1999

There's a saying among ultra-marathon runners: “It never always gets worse.”

It's a saying that Daniele Cherniak '83 and
Steve Szydlik '88 know well. Having
“been there, done that” about six times per year over the last decade in ultras,
they know a great deal about the grueling and often misunderstood sport. And now they are
among the world's best.

Last October, each was among the top American finishers at the 100-kilometer (62-mile)
world championships in Japan. On a hilly and scenic rural course, Cherniak finished eighth
among women in 8:45:23 while Szydlik was sixteenth among the men in 7:25:41. She led the
American women's team to a bronze medal; he led the men to a fourth-place finish.

An ultramarathon race is a test of endurance, strength, character, and patience. The
races are longer than the standard 26.2-mile marathon, and common problems include
dehydration, heat, indigestion, muscle pulls, muscle tightness, cramps, and exhaustion.
But by “running through the bad sections,” as Cherniak puts it, an ultrarunner
can “still recover and have a decent finish.” Szydlik agrees: “The nice
thing about an ultra is that you can feel awful and then it comes back.”

At Union, Cherniak and Szydlik enjoyed cross country and track, but the races — no
longer than 10 kilometers — never seemed long enough. “By the time the races were
over, I was just starting to get warmed up,” recalls Cherniak, who majored in
physics.

Szydlik, who graduated as co-valedictorian with a degree in mathematics, began
ultrarunning in 1989, the same year that he began his graduate work in mathematics
(“the multi-year ultra”). Cherniak, who also did a “multi-year ultra”
en route to a Ph.D in physics, did her first ultra in 1984, but injuries forced her to
keep the mileage down for the next five years. Since 1989, when she took up ultras again,
she has steadily improved. Now, after a decade of serious ultrarunning, she — like
Szydlik — is on the world list.

Ultramarathons are run on roads, trails, and tracks. They can be point-to-point, or
held on loop courses. Rules allow runners to “go as you please,” meaning they
may take walking breaks, pause to drink or eat and even sleep. The only penalty from a
break is the time a runner adds to his or her finish time. Runners compete over a set
distance (such as 50 kilometers, 50 miles, or 100 kilometers) or attempt to cover the
greatest possible distance over time (such as twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours, or six
days).

The sport enjoys little media attention or commercial support. Runners like Cherniak
and Szydlik pay for much of their own traveling expenses with some support from running
clubs, ultrarunning organizations, and race organizers.

How do you bring yourself to run for longer than most people sleep at night? Training.
Lots of training. For Szydlik, that means running about 100 miles per week, including long
runs of 30 or more miles on the weekends. Cherniak runs twice daily, accumulating between
120 and 140 miles per week. Szydlik's running career has seldom been interrupted by
injuries, but Cherniak has not been so lucky. Her worst injury, she says, came in 1996 at
the world championships in Moscow, when a stress fracture (a microscopic break) turned
into a full fracture. The broken and displaced bone kept her on crutches for seven weeks.
Six months later, however, she was back to racing ultras.

Training means a huge time commitment (it can take twelve or thirteen hours per week to
train 100 miles), but both runners are blessed with flexible work schedules. Cherniak, a
research physicist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, usually hits the treadmill for up
to an hour before work in the morning and does a second run on roads for up to two hours
in the afternoon. Szydlik, a mathematics professor at the University of Wisconsin,
Oshkosh, sandwiches his runs among lectures, office hours, and research.