Posted on Jan 9, 2002

Schenectady, N.Y. (Jan. 9, 2002) – Combining the personal stories of incarcerated women, historical facts, sardonic humor, incantations, poetry, and movement, performance artist Kathy Randels explores the reasons women resort to violence in her 90-minute solo performance Rage
Within/Without, on Friday, Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. in Union College's Yulman Theater.

“Rage,” which has been performed extensively in the United States and Eastern Europe, has received critical acclaim for its ability to evoke powerful responses from the audience. As the San Francisco Weekly
wrote, “The text is complex and disturbing – neither a simplistic celebration of women's anger nor an apology for it…this is a dangerous, passionate, powerful work, featuring an explosive performer.”

The first half of the show focuses on individual stories of incarcerated women who have killed a lover or husband, and others who dream of killing their abusive partners. The
remainder is an overview of the history of women who commit violence and why.
Following the performance, the audience is encouraged to take part in small
discussion groups, led by experienced facilitators, to talk about their
personal responses to issues raised.

According to Randels, who worked with the Illinois Clemency Project for Battered Women while writing “Rage” in 1991, she continuously refines the piece out of a “devotion to women in prisons all over the world – literal prisons, relationship prisons and self-imposed prisons. Unfortunately, societal conditions for women have not
changed enough to eliminate my need to perform it.”

Raised a Southern Baptist in New Orleans and a graduate of the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and Northwestern University, Randals is a writer and performer using dance, movement, and an exciting vocal range to tell her stories.

Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors. Due to limited seating, reservations are required; call the box office at 388-6545. This performance is not appropriate for children.

NOTE: Kathy Randels is available for interviews prior to the performance. To arrange an interview, contact Bill Schwarz 518-388-6749.

Posted on Jan 3, 2002

Schenectady, N.Y. (Jan. 3, 2002) – The College recently received a $3.1 million gift from Gordon Gould '41, of Southampton, N.Y., the inventor of the laser.

A previous gift of $1.5 million from Gould established the R. Gordon Gould Professorship of Physics in 1995. The
professorship, which is held by Jay E. Newman, was established to honor Frank
Studer, a former professor of physics at the College who sparked Gould's
interest in the physics of light and inspired a love of optics that led to
Gould's development of the laser.

President Roger Hull, announcing the most recent gift, said, “Union is incredibly fortunate to have the support – again – of Gordon Gould. As the inventor of the laser, Gordon has had an impact on all of us; as one of Union's strongest supporters, Gordon will long have an impact on generations of students.”

Gould, who idolized Thomas A. Edison as a child and always wanted to be an inventor, was a physics major and member of Sigma Chi fraternity at Union. He did graduate research in optics at Yale, where he taught physics to premed students, and was a doctoral student and research assistant at Columbia when he developed the basic concept of the laser process. Working throughout a weekend, he filled the
pages of a notebook with descriptions of ways to amplify light and use the
resulting beam to cut and heat substances and measure distance. To describe the process, he coined the word laser, standing for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”

A few weeks after filling his notebook with ideas, he went to an attorney and came away believing – erroneously – that he needed a working model before he could get a patent. He did not submit a patent application until April, 1959 – after two other men had filed an application.

Legal battles began, and finally, in 1977, the patent office awarded Gould a patent on optically pumped laser amplifiers. During the next ten years he won a series of other legal victories that left him in control of patent rights to an estimated ninety percent of the lasers used and sold in the United States. He is now
acknowledged as the pioneer of the laser, and he was elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1991. Union recognized Gould's achievements by awarding him an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 1978 and the Eliphalet Nott Medal in 1995.

Gould devoted much of his career to research in optics and, in 1973, was a cofounder of an optical communications company named Optelecom, Inc., where he earned further patents before retiring in 1985. Since then, he has advised a gem and precious jewel communications company and six other ventures in which he has invested.

Posted on Jan 3, 2002

Schenectady, N.Y. (Jan. 3, 2002) – Helmut Jahn, named one of the ten most influential living American
architects by the American Institute of Architects, will deliver a lecture
titled “Archi-neering” on Thursday, Jan. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Union College's
Nott Memorial.

His talk, part of the College's Perspectives at the Nott series, is free and open to the public.

Jahn, president and CEO of the firm Murphy/Jahn, will speak on his innovative approach to materials, light, engineering and technology in a concept he calls “archi-neering,” in which the architect and engineer work in close partnership. Jahn's book of the same title highlights the theory, development and design of projects made possible through such a collaboration.

Jahn's major works include the Kemper Arena in Kansas City; Xerox Center, Ha-Lo Center, and United Airlines Terminal at O'Hare Airport in Chicago; Park Avenue Tower in New York City; the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany; Munich Airport Center; and Sony Center in Berlin.

Born in Nuremburg in 1940, Jahn was trained at the Technische Hochschule in Munich. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1965, he spent a year at the Illinois Institute of Technology studying under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He joined C.F. Murphy Associates in 1967, which would become Murphy/Jahn in 1981. He has taught architectural design at Harvard and Yale.

“Creativity has to do more with the elimination of the inessential, than inventing something new,” Jahn once wrote. “Perfection is achieved not when nothing is to be added, but when nothing can be taken away.”

For calendar listings:

Speaker: Architect Helmut Jahn

Topic: “Archi-neering”

Date: Thursday, Jan. 17

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Place: Nott Memorial, Union College

Cost: Free

Information: (518) 388-6131 or www.union.edu

Posted on Jan 1, 2002

Jeff Greenfield, political analyst, author, and
national news anchor will be honorary chancellor and deliver the main address
at Commencement on Sunday, June 16, at 10 a.m. in Library Plaza.

Greenfield is host of the CNN's Greenfield
At Large, a roundtable program drawing on people from all walks of life to
discuss the public agenda.

Greenfield is also CNN's senior
analyst for Inside Politics, the nation's first program devoted
exclusively to politics. In 2000, he was a host of the network's nightly
special election program during the 37 days of the Florida recount, an
experience from which he penned the book, Oh Waiter! One Order of Crow!

Since joining CNN in 1998, he has
reported on and provided analysis for stories ranging from the impeachment and
trial of President Bill Clinton to the public reaction to the death of John F.
Kennedy Jr. He has guest hosted for Larry King Live and moderated CNN's
town hall meetings, such as Listening after Littleton and Investigating
the President: Media Madness?

Greenfield, who will be introduced
by Prof. Clifford Brown, is to receive an honorary doctor of laws degree.

The College is to award 507
bachelor's degrees and 136 master's degrees.

Farhan Javed Khawaja and Jessica
Erin Cook are valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively. Leah Nero is to
deliver the student address.

Posted on Jan 1, 2002

Schenectady, N.Y. (December 21, 2001) – The Emerson String Quartet, acclaimed for its insightful performances, will perform at Union College's Memorial Chapel on Sunday, Jan. 13 at 3 p.m.

The performance will include Haydn's Op. 20, No. 5 “Handel”, Op. 33, No. 2 “Joke”, Op. 64, No. 5 “Lark”, Op. 74, No. 3 “Rider”, Op. 76, No. 2 “Fifths”,  and Op. 77, No. 1 “Compliments.” This will be the 18th Series appearance of the group The New York Times calls “one of the hottest quartets around.”

Dynamic performances, brilliant artistry and technical mastery make the
Emerson String Quartet one of the world's foremost chamber ensembles. Currently celebrating its 25th anniversary season, the Quartet has amassed an impressive list of achievements: a brilliant series of recordings exclusively documented by Universal Classics/Deutsche Grammophon since 1987, six Grammy Awards including two unprecedented honors for Best Classical Album, and complete cycles of the Bartok, Beethoven, and Shostakovich string quartets in the major concert halls of the world. Today the ensemble is lauded globally as a string quartet that approaches both classical and contemporary repertoires with equal mastery and enthusiasm.

In 2001, the Emerson String Quartet celebrated its 21st year as faculty at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music. This is also the 23rd season of the Emerson's series at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

The Quartet began its anniversary season in July 2001 at London's Barbican Centre with eleven
performances of “The Noise of Time.” This theatrical presentation was directed by Simon McBurney and features Complicite and the Emerson String Quartet in a live performance of Shostakovich's 15th String Quartet. Future performances of the work are slated for Berlin, Los Angeles, New York, Northampton, Mass. and Urbana, Ill. The South Bank Centre and Lincoln Center's Great Performers Series will feature the Emerson in three concerts devoted to selected Haydn quartets, Beethoven's Razumovsky quartets, Op. 59, and the complete string quartets of Bela Bartok. The Quartet gives the U.S. premier of Wolfgang Rihm's Dithyrambe for Quartet and Orchestra with Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Cleveland Orchestra in Severance Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and New York's Carnegie Hall.

Exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artists, the Emerson has received six
Grammy Awards: two for its Bartok cycle, one for American Originals (works by Ives and Barber), and one for the complete quartets of Beethoven. At the 2001 Grammy awards the Quartet received two additional Grammy awards for “Best
Chamber Music Performance and “Best Classical Album,” for the complete quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich. Among the group's extensive recordings (including several Grammy nominees) are works by Schubert, Schumann, Dvorák, Prokofiev, Webern, Shostakovich, Edgar Meyer and Ned Rorem.

Formed in 1976, the Emerson String Quartet took its name from the
American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Violinists Eugene Drucker
and Philip Setzer alternate in the first chair position, and are joined by
violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist David Finckel. The Quartet is based in New York City.

Tickets at $20 ($8 for students) are available in advance at the Office of Communications, Union College (518) 388-6131 and at the door at 7 p.m. For more information, call 372-3651.

The Union College Concert Series is made possible, in part, with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency; additional support comes from the Times Union Newspapers. Memorial Chapel is located near the center of the Union College campus.

Parking is available on campus and nearby side streets.