Posted on May 1, 2001

“Where do I know you from?”
“Are you from Carolina?”
“Did you go to Michigan State?”

“C'mon, don't kid me — you bought a Christmas tree here last year!”

He often gets reactions like these. His face is familiar. You've seen him before. But you can't quite place him.
For thirty years, Jeffrey DeMunn '69 has been acting on stage, film, and TV – and making a living at it.

In The Green Mile, he played prison guard Harry Terwilliger at Cold Mountain Penitentiary in the Depression-era South. Filming was a good experience, he recalls, that was “very, very long – a twenty-week shoot. We got a lot of books read! But it was amazing to work with Tom Hanks. He's the funniest human being I've ever met.”

DeMunn has played “a lot of lawyers, a few doctors.” He has a recurring role on NBC's award-winning “Law and Order” (“as a really nasty defense lawyer”) and plays a district attorney on the spinoff “Special Victims Unit.” Filmed in New York City, these shows are “really valuable for the acting community, where's it's almost impossible to make a living on the stage. It's a way for a lot of New York City actors to support themselves between off-Broadway plays.”

And he was Robbie Beals on “Stephen King's Storm of the Century,” the ABC television miniseries. “Brilliantly written,” says DeMunn, “and the character was a pompous, self-righteous town manager. Jesus, that was fun! An enormous undertaking – three-part miniseries – so much work in a short time (sixteen weeks) – every week was seventy to ninety hours, working under horrible conditions, constantly in 'snow.' It wasn't real snow – in fact, we were indoors the whole time. The 'town' was built inside a former sugar cane factory in Toronto. A recipe for an awful time, but it was a dream from beginning to end – thanks to director, Craig Baxley – everybody loved him.”

Synthetic snow and uncomfortable working conditions are nothing new to DeMunn. He also costarred as Taylor, with Peter Boyle, in the Broadway play K2, climbing a sheer “Himalayan rockface” three times per show, eight performances a week. “It was a slightly negative wall – it leaned in a little bit, so I couldn't use my feet. I was climbing more than I had anticipated!” He received a Tony nomination for this performance.

For his role as psychopathic serial killer Andre Chikatilo in the HBO movie Citizen X, he was nominated for an Emmy and won the Cable ACE Award. Says DeMunn, “It takes place in the Soviet Union in the '80s. Chikatilo was a very successful serial killer. I think he killed fifty-two people over many years. He was finally caught, but the detective (played by Stephen Rea) had a nervous breakdown in the process. There was an amazing cast, including Donald Sutherland and Max von Sydow.”

He's played a papal nuncio in Noriega: God's Favorite, with Bob Hoskins, the prosecuting attorney who helps convict Tim Robbins's banker at the start of The Shawshank Redemption, and one of James Garner's partners in Barbarians at the Gate.

And wasn't he Harry Houdini in the 1981 film Ragtime? “Well, scarcely!” he says, “after the edits!” But he relates the thrill of getting together with director Milos Forman in Manhattan, going into a hotel, and meeting with James Cagney. “We rehearsed our little scene, and Milos was ecstatic: 'It's going to be great!' Cagney gave me a little wink and said, 'I don't think it's going to be very good.' We shot the scene in Brooklyn – Jimmy Cagney's first scene in twenty-two years. He was in rough shape. He stepped out on a balcony, I was standing on the sidewalk below, and we spoke our lines. A crowd gathered. There were about 150 utterly silent people during our fourteen takes – no dog barked, the birds didn't even dare peep. But after every take, the crowd roared: 'You're on top of the world, Jimmy!' I was one big goosebump!”

Most of DeMunn's favorite roles have been on stage (“that's where I've had the most joy in the doing of it”), from playing Modigliani (in the play of the same name) to playing Victor Franz (in The Price). A favorite movie role was in Frances, where he portrayed playwright Clifford Odets. “It was a character who took all of the energy and imagination I had, and I got to work with a fabulous actress, Jessica Lange.”

As a Union student, DeMunn planned to become an engineer, but it was acting that was in his blood. His parents, James DeMunn and Violet Paulus DeMunn, were both established actors in his native Buffalo. (The bloodline continues: his son, Kevin, is in Hollywood now, “doing extra work when he can get it.”) DeMunn starred in several productions with the Mountebanks (the oldest continuously running student theater group in the nation). He has fond memories of those days: “I was fortunate enough to work with [instructor in speech and dramatics] Bill Meriwether. Nothing he told me has ever proven untrue.”

DeMunn also directed Waiting for Godot at Union. But he hasn't directed since. “I don't know how I'd be now, but I was too much of a martinet back then. I don't think it was much fun for the actors! The show turned out very well, but it was horrible in the way I was running it. I think they were ready to lynch me!”

In England after college, he studied and worked in repertory for two years at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol. He began his professional career back in the United States, touring with the National Shakespeare Company.

Arriving in New York City, he worked off-off-Broadway before his first union job, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, starring Mickey Rooney. Since then, he's worked in numerous Broadway plays, films, and television movies. The Comedians was his first Broadway play, directed by Mike Nichols, and featuring Jonathan Pryce and John Lithgow.

What's next for DeMunn? In late March, he went on location for the shooting of The Majestic, a feature film directed by Frank Darabont, the same man who directed him in Shawshank and Green Mile. “This is my sixth project with Darabont. He's just so darn good, enormously talented. He casts his movies in large part from people he knows. I play the mayor of a small town in northern California. This film is his tribute to Frank Capra.”

About his life as an actor, DeMunn says, “It's been very hard, but I've loved it — at times, as much as or more than I did on my first day. I feel so fortunate. I've been able to make a living at the thing I'd do for free.”

What would he tell a kid being pushed in a practical direction, such as engineering, though his heart is in the arts? “I think you have to follow your joy – and then find a way to make a buck. If you turn off one desire or emotion, you turn them all off. It's not like they're individual spigots. You can't just tighten that one little valve. You have to keep it open, let it flow.”

Posted on May 1, 2001

MEN'S BASKETBALL (13-12)
Union 103, Neumann College 82
Christopher Newport 73, Union 68
Utica 62, Union 58
Union 68, Haverford 61
Union 102, Swarthmore 82
Union 91, Lasell 83
Drew 68, Union 47
Skidmore 66, Union 64
Union 88, Clarkson 67
Union 84, St. Lawrence 71
Union 70, Middlebury 67
Union 73, Hamilton 69
Hobart 86, Union 78
Union 71, Hartwick 59
Rensselaer 70, Union 64
Union 78,Vassar 56
Union 92, Hobart 76
Hamilton 82, Union 73
Union 91, Skidmore 72
Clarkson 57, Union 51
St. Lawrence 77, Union 73
Williams 75, Union 74
Rensselaer 65, Union 57
Union 66, Vassar 55
UCAA Tournament
Rensselaer 69, Union 62

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL (18-9)
Union 57, Smith 32
Union 65, Manhattanville 44
Union 58, Utica 44
Union 74, Williams 58
Union 60, Russell Sage 46
Middlebury 66, Union 56
Union 69, Southwestern 54
Wisconsin-Stout 80, Union 44
Union 93, Southern Vermont 10
Union 45, Skidmore 42
Union 64, Clarkson 55
St. Lawrence 54, Union 53
Union 64, Hamilton 52
William Smith 63, Union 50
Hartwick 77, Union 54
Union 69, Rensselaer 59
Union 65, Vassar 47
Union 61, William smith 44
Union 51, Hamilton 48
Union 65, Skidmore 54
Union 55,Clarkson 52
St. Lawrence 77, Union 55
Rensselaer 61, Union 46
Union 56, Vassar 45
UCAA Tournament
Union 71, Hamilton 54
Rensselaer 62, Union 58
ECAC Upstate New York Tournament
Rochester 59, Union 47

MEN'S ICE HOCKEY (12-18-4)
Union 4, Army 1
Union 4, Merrimack 2
Providence 8, Union 0
Union 4, Rensselaer 2
Union 2, Cornell 0
Union 4, Colgate 2
Union 2, Mercyhurst 2
Union 5, UMass-Lowell 3
Union 2, Rensselaer 2
Quinnipiac 3, Union 2
Princeton 3, Union 2
Yale 4, Union 3
Minnesota 3, Union 2
Union 2, Bemidji State 2
Harvard 5, Union 2
Brown 6, Union 3
Umass-Lowell 5, Union 3
St. Lawrence 5, Union 2
Clarkson 5, Union 0
Union 5, University of Connecticut 1
Dartmouth 6, Union 4
Vermont 6, Union 3
Union 3, Vermont 1
Union 4, Dartmouth 3
Union 2, Clarkson 1
St. Lawrence 6, Union 0
Union 5, Yale 1
Princeton 7, Union 2
Union 2, Brown 2
Union 3, Harvard 2
Colgate 4, Union 1
Cornell 2, Union 1
ECAC Playoffs
St. Lawrence 6, Union 3
St. Lawrence 4, Union 2

WOMEN'S ICE HOCKEY (3-19-2)
Connecticut College 1, Union 0
Wesleyan 2, Union 0
Union 6, Cortland 2
Union 4, Cortland 3
Middlebury 6, Union 1
Buffalo State 2, Union 1
Colgate 7, Union 0
St. Catherine 6, Union 1
St. Benedict 1, Union 0
St. Benedict 4, Union 0
Amherst 4, Union 1
Union 2, Trinity 2
Rensselaer 4, Union 2
Vermont 3, Union 0
Holy Cross 2, Union 1
Williams 4, Union 0
Sacred Heart 3, Union 1
Manhattanville 5, Union 0
Bowdoin 2, Union 1
Colby 2, Union 0
RIT 6, Union 1
Union 2, Hamilton 2
Union 12, MIT 0
Southern Maine 3, Union 0

MEN'S SWIMMING AND DIVING (2-6)
Union 5 of 10 in Union Relays with 50 points
Union 135, Rochester 101
Amherst 136, Union 93
Union 3 of 8 in UCAA Meet with 574.5 points
Williams 153, Union 80
Union 156, Springfield 93
Hartwick 126, Union 111
Rensselaer 128, Union 115
Middlebury 175, Union 122
Hamilton 141, Union 89
Union 4 of 13 in State Meet with 939 points

WOMEN'S SWIMMING AND DIVING (2-6)
Union 1 of 10 in Union Relays with 90 points
Rochester 147, Union 96
Amherst 136.5, Union 102.5
Union 3 of 8 in UCAA Meet with 656.5 points
Williams 163, Union 75
Springfield 153, Union 91
Union 123, Hartwick 118
Union 130, Rensselaer 100
Middlebury 185, Union 106
Hamilton 145 Union 92
Union 3 of 14 in State Meet with 1037 points

MEN'S TRACK
Hamilton 81, Union 70
Union 4 of 16 in Wesleyan Invitational with 53 points
Union 11 of 14 in State Meet with 23 points
Union 35 of 40 in ECAC Championships with 3 points

WOMEN'S TRACK
Hamilton 69, Union 66
Union 9 of 16 in Wesleyan Invitational with 18 points
Union 13 of 14 in State Meet with 3 points

Posted on May 1, 2001

Intriguing changes
The cover story in the winter issue is intriguing even to one who, like me, has lived in the Schenectady area and witnessed the changes to the campus. I was a Union student in the 1960s and therefore on the cusp between two cultural eras of college life and of society. Architecture was only part of the change.

The College I entered was still a male place, steeped in the tradition of old campus songs, rites of passage, tweedy professors, and the aroma of pipe tobacco everywhere. The one I left was on its way toward coeducation and a much more cosmopolitan self-image.

Washburn Hall was a perfect metaphor for the bygone epoch: too small, lacking in breadth, unadaptable in form. While it had to give way, the College did not. It grew, changed, and adapted.

I still sing the old College songs, and I hate artificial turf. But I am as proud of Union today as I was when I first arrived.

Harry Willis '67
Scotia, N.Y.

Wrong year
I enjoyed “How we got …”, but the photo which forms the backdrop of the first page is clearly not circa 1950. Looking between the lower legs of the capital “H” where the Psi U house should be is a building which appears to have a turret and a conical roof. I know that the current Psi U abode dates from about 1939, so what might be the date on this photo?

Bill Allen '59
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

In the winter issue you label the first photograph of the campus as “1950.” It is at least a dozen years older than that. The old Psi U house, shown next door to the chapel, was torn down in the mid-thirties. The first class in the new house was 1942, entering in the fall of 1938.
Excellent issue. Interesting to see how the campus has changed since I entered in 1942.

Craig Mitchell '46
New Milford, N.J.

Tanks, not cars
On page four of the winter issue you mentioned that the Pasture was used by American Locomotive during World War II as a parking lot. It was not cars or locomotives that were parked there. It was tanks by the hundreds. I noticed the lot quickly emptying and not long thereafter the American army invaded North Africa. The lot then filled up again.

Howard S. Halpern '47
Stamford, Conn.

P.S. I actually graduated in February 1946 after two years and eight months of the then-standard accelerated program. We had classes/labs five and a half days a week, three terms a year, with a week off between terms while the profs were busy grading finals. The Navy V-12 students were on this same schedule and in the same classes plus having to rise early for marching around on frigid mornings.

I stayed on for the spring term as a teaching assistant in chemistry working for Charlie Hurd, then the department head. I thought highly enough of Union to recommend it to my daughter, Nina (Class of 1975, graduating a year early with advanced placement credits and extra courses). She started with the first group of females living on campus. She is now a lawyer and accountant overseas; I retired after working on projects for our national defense from 1947 to 1990.

All we like sheep
That was one terrific Union College. Really enjoyed it. What changes!
I related closely to your remarks about the Pasture. Too bad these photos (from 1939) are a little late, but here they are, positive proof that sheep used to graze there. The houses in the background are on Seward Place. Believe it or not, I used to study my chemistry and physics on a balmy spring day under those trees.

Rennie Pomatti '39
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

The tough choices in bioethics
Just read the blurb on Dr. Baker's career (“Giving patients a voice” in the winter issue).
I found the opening interesting from a more personal point of view. I've been an ER doc for almost twenty years. Every day, we have patients in the ER who've been stabilized and are ready for the ICU, but there are no beds for them. The most common result of this dilemma, at our institution as well as those across the country, parallels that of similar tough decisions in other disciplines … defer the decision, or, translated, “do nothing.” In our case, the patient goes nowhere, the other patients in the ICU go nowhere until they're ready, and thus, “everyone's happy and no one gets cheated” (out of medical care).

Unfortunately, no one looks at the patient still sitting in the waiting room with his chest pain (asthma, what-have-you). He's not really a “patient” yet, it seems, since no one acknowledges the fact that he is the least stable and the most in need of medical care; by keeping the “admitted but no bed” patient in the ER, the bed that is designated to take an unstable patient and make him stable is instead being occupied by a patient who is now stable.

We need more Dr. Bakers to help implement the “tough decisions” process nationwide, so that the untreated patients get their fair consideration in the process.

Paul Mele '76, M.D., M.S., M.P.H.
Chapel Hill, N.C.

Clank
I felt compelled to write after reading Jan De Deka's recollections of Prof. Freund. I too remember the professor's stories vividly, but De Deka misquotes the good professor.

Hans Freund was an actor in his youth, and he often spoke about it. It was in describing the effeminate way that the famous actor Maurice Evans played Shakespeare that prompted the professor to say, “When MacBeth walks on stage, you know, his balls should clank!” It was MacBeth, not Hamlet. (I don't think Prof. Freund thought Hamlet had any balls).

This forever stuck in my mind, too, and now, as a stage and opera director, I have often quoted Professor Freund in my own work. He taught me about
theatricality, sometimes without even knowing it.

Helena Binder '76
Washington, D.C.

Logically speaking
I'm enclosing an account of an encounter I had with Dr. [Harold] Larrabee while I was at Union in 1938. Some of his students might get a kick out of the story about this bright, human man.

I was a so-so student in Dr. Larrabee's logic class which was, by all odds, my favorite college course.
I ran into him on campus one time and remarked that I had given up football so I could devote more time to my studies and that “I guess it has paid off because you gave me a B+ this semester.”

Quick as a flash, Dr. Larrabee replied, “Mr. Farr, have you eliminated all the other variables besides football which might have a bearing on your better score?” Be careful what you say to a logician.

Sam Farr '38
Portsmouth, Va.

Playing or praying?
The delightful letters in the latest issue of the magazine on readers' reminiscences of chapel services, along with the recent broadcast of Ken Burns' jazz anthology, triggered a very fond remembrance.

In 1964 or 1865, Dizzy Gillespie and his group traveled to Union to play a gig at the chapel. I had invited a friend from Bolton Landing (where I grew up) to attend the concert with me. We were both on campus on the Saturday when the group (minus Gillespie) arrived — lucky we ran into them, since there was not another soul in sight. We directed them to the chapel, indicating that this was the site of the concert, and helped them get settled. As they entered, one of the members of the group remarked, “Are we playing or are we praying?” — a great quote I'll never forget.

James Moody, Gillespie's flutist (and still an active musician) was extremely gracious; following the concert that night, be brought us backstage, telling Gillespie how we had helped the group. Cool as the beebop he pioneered, Gillespie dispassionately remarked, “That's nice” — nothing more. Of course, a great concert, but an unforgettable personal experience.

Richard Krapf '67
Herndon, Va.

Wandering Chet
At one time in the late forties the statue of Chester Arthur was located to the rear of the Nott Memorial. My recollection is that some clever student painted footsteps indicating Chester had hopped off to relieve himself. The steps were in the direction of a nearby tree about ten feet from the sidewalk; steps were also painted showing that he returned to the pedestal. Maybe some others can verify my recollection.

Sig Giambruno '51
Lake Placid, N.Y.

As always, we welcome Union stories from alumni. If you have a favorite anecdote and would like to share it, please send it to:

Mail: Office of Communications
Union College
Schenectady, N.Y. 12308
Fax: 518-388-7092
E-mail: blankmap@union.edu

Posted on May 1, 2001

No dry science lecture, but a talk on “slanted truth” and independent spirit.

At Founders Day this year, internationally-recognized cell biology researcher Lynn Margulis spoke not about cell biology, her research specialty, but about Emily Dickinson. The audience was surprised and delighted as Margulis spun together threads of biology, environmentalism, poetry, mythology, and mysticism, to remind us that independent critical thinking is humanity's salvation against arrogance.

Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Margulis was this year's honorary degree recipient. She is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and 1999 recipient of the National Medal of Science.

Margulis spoke about the importance of a liberal arts education, which can help us become aware of how our culture's prevailing mythology, or thought collective, influences our behavior. For example, we tend to think that development — “converting more and more land into more and more space for people” — is a good thing.

Long committed to making science more accessible to the general public, she wondered aloud, “Why, when we know it's not in our best interest, do we chop down all the trees, put PCBs in the Hudson River, destroy the environment at the rate we do?” Mystical thinking has also played a role in the catastrophic growth in human population, she said. Our mythology has to change before alternative “truths” can be widely accepted and acted on.

And there's the cherished myth of productivity, and its concomitant misguided belief that humans are superior to other life forms. Commented Margulis, only autotrophs – organisms that make their own food and energy from sunlight – are productive: “Without them, there is no productivity, no biosphere.”

Animals are cooperative by nature, with altruistic behavior common among them. Sometimes, she said, quoting nature photographer and writer Reg Morrison, animal behavior is preferable to human behavior, ” 'free of the tedious sermonizing and self-congratulation of the prattling prodigy that is the human race.' ”

She recited from memory several poems of Amherst “neighbor” Emily Dickinson — “a person of great independent spirit.” She concluded that what Dickinson wrote about understanding nature was meant for all the biologists in the audience: “Those who know her, know her less, the nearer that they get.'”

A second highlight of the celebration of the College's 206th birthday came when Lakshmi Rao, chemistry teacher at Brighton High School in Rochester, N. Y., received the Gideon Hawley Teacher Recognition Award. She walked up to the lectern, holding hands with her former student Rosabeth Kriegler, now a Union College sophomore and electrical engineering major, who had nominated her.

Kriegler's nomination read, in part, “Dr. Rao helped me not only to appreciate how important math and science are, but she also taught me the virtue of patience and understanding…. We watched her get sick [with throat cancer], and we were there at the end of the year when she recovered. She was someone to look up to, being strong in both mind and body …. She taught me more than chemistry, she taught me how to learn from life.”

Posted on May 1, 2001

At her retirement in 1989, Ruth Anne Evans received the following tribute from a longtime colleague, Professor of English Carl Niemeyer:

Shall we quaff a hearty drink now in praise of all librarians,
Who form a sturdy barrier twixt us and the barbarians,
Who guard the rows of books on neatly ordered shelves
And take good care we students won't make asses of ourselves?
They have vast stores of knowledge just at their finger tips;
They can silence profs and children by a finger to the lips.
In silent reading rooms they know just who it was coughed where;
Themselves, they speak in voices softer than all computer software.
And if sometimes perhaps they're too authoritarian —
Why, that's the rightful privilege of being a librarian.
They know the shortest way to reach Castille from Aragon,
And each one is in every field an utter paragon.
To any question you put to them they can find some kind of answer
From how to make Beef Wellington to how to cure a cancer.
Does Junior seek a college that provides a snare-drum major?
Have you staked your life and fortune on a wildly desperate wager?
Do you crave to take a flyer in Consolidated Trump,
Bur are fearful lest your purchase initiate a slump?
Do you want to write a poem to your love in ancient Greek
Or discover why your favorite team is on a losing streak?
Do you wish to read a document in Elizabethan court-hand,
Or find the quickest way to master Isaac Pitman's shorthand?
Just go to any library, whatever be your preference,
March boldly to the desk that's clearly labeled “Reference,”
And put your question squarely to whoever's sitting there,
Who, even if it's nonsense, will never turn a hair.
You may even get an answer without a second thought,
And if you don't at least you'll learn just where it may be sought.
For it may be your informant is of that gentler gender
Who faced with any obstacle knows not the word “surrender.”
Then having given aid from her store of library science,
She addresses the demands of other waiting clients,
For ignorance is a dreadful thirst that never can be quenched:
The pot is always leaky no matter how it's drenched.
The Pythoness in olden days was prompted by Apollo
And gave her cryptic oracles for all the Greeks to follow.
But nowadays librarians are strictly on their own
With no Olympic god to lurk behind the mighty throne.
They've done their work for years — we'd hoped they'd stay forever,
Enlightening the stupid and putting down the clever.
For the mob is always at the gates: they make a lot of noise;
To the lady seated at the desk they're just a crowd of raucous boys.
Ask her for knowledge, ask her for facts — she's never unprepared;
Ask for more — but then, alas! True wisdom's not so lightly shared.

So farewell to Ruth Anne Evans, who now is leaving Schaffer!
For when she dwelt among us the Word was somehow safer.
She leaves behind a legacy that — thankfully — will last.
Her gifts in future may be equalled. They can never be surpassed.