Posted on May 26, 2000

The faculty on Wednesday voted down a proposal that
would have modified the College's pass-fail policy.

The proposal would have allowed students to take a total
of four pass/fail courses over four years, limited to one per term, rather
than the previous policy of one per year. The new policy was to be
reviewed in the fall of 2001 to consider an amendment to allow students to
take two pass/fail courses in one term.

In other business, faculty approved a transportation
studies minor. The six-course interdisciplinary program is to provide
planning, political, social, and economic insight into the development of
transportation systems and their interactions with society and the
environment.

On Friday, faculty defeated a proposal to enact a
semester calendar by a vote of 104 against and 95 in favor.

Also, Steve Leavitt was elected secretary of the
faculty.

Posted on May 26, 2000

Imagine a meeting of Pablo Picasso and Albert
Einstein in a bar in Paris in 1904 — when both men were in their
twenties — and the resulting examination of science and art and their
impact on a rapidly changing society.

Written by Steve Martin, one of the great comedic actors
of our generation, Picasso at the Lapin Agile is Martin's
poker-faced — and very funny — riff on the birth of the modern
century.

Director is Jon Galt.

Shows run through Saturday, May 27, at 8 p.m.; and
Sunday, May 28, at 2 p.m.

Admission is $7 (students/seniors $5). For tickets and
information, call ext. 6545.

Posted on May 26, 2000

John I. Garver, associate professor of geology, has
been awarded a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's
Office of Polar Programs to continue work in the tectonic evolution of the
Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.

This project, directed by Garver, is in association with
long-time collaborator and geologist Mark T. Brandon (Yale University).
The title is: “Collaborative Research: Cenozoic Evolution of the
Aleutian-Kamchatka Junction.”

The research builds on work that Garver and Brandon have
done in Kamchatka since 1993. The focus of the new project is the tectonic
evolution of Kamchatka for the last 45 million years.

Their previous work documented the timing of a terrane
collision where a far-traveled chunk of continental crust started at about
the equator and rode oceanic plates thousands of kilometers north to the
collision zone in Kamchatka. The discovery that this collision occurred in
the Eocene (about 45 million years ago) opened up theories that the
collision changed the plate tectonic configuration in the Pacific Ocean,
resulting in the formation of the Aleutian Islands. This finding is being
published in the Physics and Chemistry of the Earth.

The new project builds on that idea and investigates the
post collision events that led up to the modern-day setting of the
Aleutian-Kamchatka Junction.

This summer the Union-Yale research team plans a
five-week field program on remote Karaginski Island off the east coast of
Kamchatka. The Union team will include Garver and geology major Jason
Lederer '01. They will be accompanied by Russian colleagues A. Soloviev
and G. Ledneva (Institute of the Lithosphere, Moscow) as well as a Russian
geologist from the Institute of Volcanology and Petrology (Petropavolvsk-Kamchatski,
Kamchataka).

Posted on May 26, 2000

William Finlay, associate
professor of theater, has been named artistic director of the Saratoga
Shakespeare Company, premiering in Congress Park in Saratoga Springs this
summer. The fully-professional company, funded in large part by the State
of New York, will open with Twelfth Night on August 9 and play for
two weeks. The cast will include veterans of Broadway and several students
from Union College who will be serving as interns during the summer.

Walter Hatke, May I. Baker
Professor of Fine Arts, is exhibiting “interior” works through
June 17 at the MB Modern Gallery, 41 East 57th St., New York City.
A reception with Hatke is set for Saturday, June 10, from 1 to 5 p.m.
Also, two of his oils – one of paper, one on canvas – will be in
“Landscape Show” during the month of June at the John Pence
Gallery, 750 Post St., San Francisco. Hatke has just completed a
commissioned 3- by 4-foot oil on linen of a three-person historical
subject for Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., a work that was
donated by the former president and CEO of American Express. Also, Hatke
served recently as visiting critic and reviewer at Yale University's
School of Art and Architecture.

Maritza Osuna, visiting
instructor of Spanish, has published an article in the Journal of
Educational Computing Research (Vol. 22 No. 3) titled “Promoting
Foreign Culture Acquisition Via the Internet in a Sociocultural
Context.”

Fuat Sener, assistant
professor of economics, presented a paper, “Minimum Wage Effects on
Unemployment and Growth in the Global Economy” this month at the
Midwest International Economics Meetings. He also is author of a
forthcoming article, “Schumpeterian Unemployment, Trade and
Wages,” in the Journal of International Economics.

Charlotte Eyerman, assistant
professor of visual arts, gave a lecture “Images of the Piano in
Impressionist Painting and 19th-century French Popular Art” at the
Smithsonian Institution this month in conjunction with “Piano 300:
Celebrating Three Centuries of People and Pianos.”

Posted on May 26, 2000

Carmine's Table, a cooking
show with chef Carmine Spiro, had an unusual guest for a show taped last
week: the president of Union College.

Roger Hull joined Spiro in the preparation – and
eating – of dishes that included a chicken pasta dish and swordfish, two
entrées the president admitted he wouldn't have made himself.

As usual, the show was as much focused on discussion as
on food, the topic for this show being community revitalization. So, in
between adding the blood oranges and browning the chicken, Hull explained
things like the Union-Schenectady Initiative and a revitalized downtown.

The show is to air Wednesday, June 14, at 11 a.m. on
Channel 13, WNYT.