Most know him as the guy who cut the deal for Alaska known as “Seward's Folly.”
But 1820 Union grad William Henry Seward was also “one of the most prominent political figures in America's history,” according to one student admirer who is planning to commemorate the statesman.
The College will celebrate the 200th birthday of Seward on Wednesday, May 16, at 6 p.m. at the Nott Memorial. The party is to include an Alaska-shaped birthday cake and Eskimo pies.
Read MoreScott Dicks, Erin Fitzpatrick, and Chad Simon this week met Avinash Chandiramani, Salil Jayakar, and Ruhi Khan from Mumbai University in India, having known them only “virtually” since January.
The economics students have been collaborating on a project using Blackboard distance learning software to create a “virtual classroom” with message boards, email, and instant messaging.
The Indian students arrived this week to join their Union counterparts for the Steinmetz Symposium. The group will present their research paper and Powerpoint presentation – both developed completely on-line – titled “Global Financial Crises: A Comparative Study of East Asia and India” on Friday from 2 to 3:20 p.m. in Social Sciences 104.
“This project is a model for distance learning technology on a liberal arts campus,” advisor Eshragh Motahar said.
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A decade ago, when John Spinelli was doing research on the prospects of major computer network failure, no one could relate.
“Now that everyone uses computers, they understand the effects of a network failure,” said the associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science. Spinelli is to give a faculty colloquium titled “Will the Internet Crash: The Reliability of Large Computer Networks” on Tuesday, May 15, at 11:30 a.m. in Reamer Auditorium.
“I am not talking about a few local events, but the kind of structural problems that, though exceedingly unlikely, would be equivalent to an electrical blackout in the entire Northeast U.S.,” Spinelli said.
“Fixing that (type of widespread failure) is not as simple as throwing a switch,” he said.
The Internet is designed as a decentralized or distributed network, Spinelli explains. But having no single point of authority leads to interdependencies that can cause a type of “cascading failure.” Though highly unlikely, conditions that can produce those types of failures are worth studying from an engineering standpoint, Spinelli says.
So, how do you design a distributed system so that keeps local failure local? The answer, Spinelli says, is in a field known as “self-stabilizing systems.” Most network problems begin with a router acting outside a standard mode of operation, where its actions (and its effects on other systems) become unpredictable. Self-stabilizing systems have the ability to recover from starting off in an arbitrary state. While such systems are recognized as good design models, they have not yet been implemented in many distributed networks, he says.
There is something of a Catch-22 with the Internet: a distributed network relies on cooperation. But cooperation also makes the network susceptible to more problems. “To have cooperation, you have to have confidence that the system is reliable,” Spinelli says.
Spinelli, a member of the Union faculty since 1989, holds a bachelor's degree from the Cooper Union, and master's and Ph.D. degrees from MIT.
Spinelli says he is not surprised by the technological improvements in computer networks over the last decade. He is surprised, however, by the extent to which the public has embraced the technology.
Read MoreIt may be the first film shot on campus since The Way We Were. But no one would confuse it with the Streisand-Redford classic.
Juniors Court Clinch and Mike Genadri grew up fascinated with low-grade, formulaic martial arts films, the kind you might see on cable TV at 2 a.m.
So it was only natural when the duo got together last year to produce Rumble in Schenectady, an Americanized film that mocks the genre, complete with bad voice dubbings and haphazard edits.
Produced as a sophomore thesis by the two Union Scholars, the film is to premiere at Steinmetz on Friday at 2 p.m. in Olin 106. Prof. Hugh Jenkins was their advisor.
They used a half dozen students as actors including Jon Kreiness, who plays a martial arts teacher, and Ryan Lee, the upstart student who is out to avenge the loss of his father at the hands of an evil gangster. None of the actors had any experience in martial arts.
Rumble, a 15-minute work, was shot entirely on campus in 8 mm format. Some scenes took place outdoors _ one actor had to run through the snow along West Beach about a dozen times to get the right shot. Others were shot in dorm rooms, complete with unscripted entrances by roommates.
The pair edited the final cut in Instructional Technologies, overdubbing all voice and sound effects to simulate low-quality martial arts films. At one point, one of the actors is knocked down only to find a weapon magically appear in his hand. “Editing mistake in my favor!” he exclaims as he resumes fighting.
“We were each thinking about other projects,” recalls Clinch of their decision to undertake Rumble, “but we decided this would be a lot more fun,”
Read MoreUnion had a total of 25 student-athletes and coaches recognized by the coaches in the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association for their excellence during the recently concluded spring season. The baseball team, which posted its first winning campaign since 1998, swept the three major awards as senior outfielder Jay Warzala (Whitesboro, NY/Whiteboro) was named the “Player of the Year,” freshman Jim Griglun (Southington, CT/Southington) was selected as the “Rookie of the Year” and head coach Gary Reynolds was voted as the league's “Coach of the Year.”
A total of six players were honored by the UCAA. Senior shortstop Bryan Slekes (Rochester, NY/Gates Chili) joined Warzala on the All-Conference first-team while sophomore pitcher Chris Hartnett (Albany, NY/Albany Academy) joined Griglun on the second-team. Junior second baseman Chris Plant (Duxbury, MA/Duxbury) was an honorable mention selection.
Reynolds, who completed his 16th season at the helm, is among the College's all-time winning baseball coaches with his 189 victories. This year's 17-15 record included a 7-5 mark in the UCAA, which put the Dutchmen third among the league's 12 teams. Union's victory at Rochester cost the Yellowjackets the league title and the automatic NCAA berth.
Warzala, who began his career at Union as a pitcher (coming to the plate just once as a freshman), finished with a .388 lifetime batting average (93 of 240) with 62 RBIs and 52 runs scored. He hit a league-best .448 this season and also led the UCAA with his 33 RBIs. Griglun, meanwhile, finished second to Warzala in the UCAA in both average (.424) and RBIs (30).
Perhaps the biggest honor of the spring was the selection of Lauren Stellato (Old Westbury, NY/Friends Academy) who was named the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Division III Northeast “Rookie of the Year.” It is the first time that a Union player, female or male, has ever been recognized. The ITA is the governing body of college tennis for Division I, II and III (similar to the NCAA for all other sports).
“This is a great honor for both Lauren and for Union,” said head coach Greg Roman. “She is considered among the best in the Eastern Region of the United States (which encompasses New York, New England and New Jersey).”
Stellato was named the UCAA “Rookie of the Year” last fall after posting a 16-3 singles record out of the No. 1 position. She also had a 15-4 doubles record with partner, sophomore Susan Yoo (Musikogee, OK/Muskogee). Stellato finished the year with a singles record of 20-6 including this spring's 4-3 standard.
The softball team, which won its first-ever New York State Women's Collegiate Athletic Association championship, saw fourth-year head coach Peter Brown voted as the UCAA's “Coach of the Year” by his peers. Brown, who led the Dutchwomen to a record of 22-11-1 this season, shows a four-year standard of 86-50-1 including a College-record three consecutive 20-win seasons.
The Dutchwomen had eight players named to the UCAA All-Conference team, highest among the spring teams. Junior Sarah Johnston (Troy, NY/Troy), who led the league with her 0.27 earned run average (allowing just three earned runs in 76.2 innings) was a first-team selection as was junior first baseman Meredith Chace (Westwood, MA/Westwood), and senior third baseman Julie Cardettino (Niskayuna, NY/Niskayuna). Senior pitcher Meg Crowley (Leominster, MA/Nashoba Regional), junior shortstop Audrey Brennan (Cooperstown, NY/Cooperstown) and sophomore outfielder Jill Ring (Brewster, MA/Nauset Regional) were all second-team selections while sophomore second baseman Shanna O'Brien (Wyantskill, NY/Catholic Central) was voted to the honorable mention team.
Junior goalie Pat Forrest (Topsfield, MA/Gov. Dummer) and senior midfielder Scott Dutcher (Wellesley, MA/Wellesley) were both elected to the All-Conference first team for the 8-6 men's lacrosse and headed the list of five Dutchmen. This was the second consecutive year that both players have represented Union on the first team. Forrest was the circuit's “Rookie of the Year” and a second-team selection in 1999.
Second-team honors went to junior midfielder Jon Schiff (Glenioe, IL/New Trier) and junior defenseman Chace MacMullan (Newton, MA/Newton) while senior defenseman Mike Guild (Attleboro, MA/Moses Brown) was an honorable mention selection.
Junior midfielder Jane Kaplan (Brookline, MA/Brookline) and freshman goaltender Elizabeth Soto (Greenwich, CT/Loomis Chaffee) were among five women lacrosse players selected to the All-Conference team. Both players were first-team selections.
Second-team honors went to senior attackwoman Margaret Merriam (Fayetteville, NY/Fayetteville) and junior defensewoman Yvonne Turchetti (Red Hook, NY/Red Hook). Sophomore attackwoman Ninal Mandel (Port Washington, NY/Schreiber), last year's UCAA “Rookie of the Year” was an honorable mention choice.
Sophomore Anil Gupta (Williamsville, NY/Williamsville East) was named the UCAA “Player of the Year” after leading the Dutchmen with his 13-3 singles record out of the No.1 position. Gupta's spring record coupled with his 8-1 mark during the fall term gives him an overall record of 21-4 this season thus setting a College standard for victories in a season. Gupta entered the spring term as the first Dutchman ever to achieve a national ranking. Included in Gupta's 13-3 spring record was a 3-0 sweep in the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament. Gupta won 6-2, 6-2 against UCAA champion Skidmore's top player then captured straight-set victories in each of his other two matches.
Gupta's only two losses of the season came in the first match of the season against NYU's top player, 6-2, 4-6, 2-6, and to St. Lawrence's top player in an upset, 6-7, 7-5, 3-6. He owns a two-year record of 30-5 overall (all out of the No.1 spot) and is also 12-9 out of the No. 1 doubles position. This year he and his partners posted a 6-6 record.
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