Posted on Apr 12, 2002

Ethicist and philosopher Robert Audi will speak
on “Religion, Politics and International Justice” on
Wednesday, April 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Old Chapel.

His talk is the Spencer-Leavitt Lecture sponsored by
the Philosophy Department.

Audi, the Charles J. Mach Distinguished Professor
of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska, is
internationally known for his contributions to ethics, epistemology
and philosophy of mind and action. He is also co-director of
the University of Nebraska's Center for the Teaching and Study
of Applied Ethics.

His books include Political Reasoning (1989),
The Structure of Justification (1993),
Action, Intention and Reason (1993), Moral Knowledge and
Ethical Character (1997), and The Cambridge Dictionary
of Philosophy (1999), Religious Commitment and Secular
Reason (2000) and The Architecture of Reason
(2001).

He is past president of the American Philosophical
Association and has served as editor-in-chief of the
Journal of Philosophical Research and
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. He has
directed many National Endowment for the Humanities seminars
and institutes, and serves as consulting editor for a number
of journals and scholarly presses.

Also, on Thursday, April 18, at 4 p.m. in Reamer
Campus Center Auditorium, two bioethicists – Dan Brock
and Bernard Gert – will join Audi for a discussion titled “What
Ethics and Bioethics Can Teach Each Other,” on the new
eugenics (stem cells, cloning, sex selection). Additionally, Brock
(of the National Institutes of Health and Brown University) and
Gert (Dartmouth College) will speak on “From Chance to
Choice: Ethics and the New Eugenics” on Friday, April 19, at 1:30 p.m.
in Old Chapel.

Audi and the others will also be visiting a number of
classes during the week.

For more information, call ext. 6376.

Posted on Apr 12, 2002

With the admissions office accepting about 40 percent of
this year's 3,813 applicants, now it's the College's turn to wait.

Faculty are invited to join prospective students and
their families at an Accepted Students Day luncheon on Monday,
April 15 from noon to 1 p.m. in Memorial Fieldhouse.

To reserve a seat, please call ext. 6590.

Prospective Union Scholars are to be on campus during
the April 15 open house for a preview program.

An open house for high school juniors is set for
Friday, April 19.

Posted on Apr 12, 2002

President Roger Hull closed this week's conference on
Upstate campus-community partnerships by announcing the formation of
a consortium to foster relationships between business,
government and higher education to strengthen the civic and
economic roles that upstate institutions play in their communities.

Though the consortium has not been fully developed,
Hull indicated that Robert King, chancellor of the State
University of New York, would be involved.

Hull said the group could use some of the ideas discussed
at Tuesday's sessions to promote the upstate economy and attract
and retain the best possible workforce. Among them were
business incubators linked with colleges and universities,
mentoring programs, partnerships with the native countries of
foreign students and taxation authorities such as Schenectady's Metroplex.

Hull cited Metroplex as an idea that is replicable
throughout the state. “It might be an example for Buffalo, Utica or
Rochester,” he said.

In the closing keynote, Randy Daniels, New York Secretary
of State, told the audience that
colleges and universities will
be the economic drivers that bring the state out of its
current recession. “In the past, there has been a disconnect between
the campus and the community.”

The two-day conference was sponsored by Union, the
State University of New York and the Commission on
Independent Colleges and Universities.

Posted on Apr 12, 2002

David Cotter, assistant professor of sociology,
on Tuesday received the Faculty Community Service Award
from the Hudson Mohawk Association of Colleges and Universities
on Tuesday.

Cotter, with the College since 1995, was recognized for his
work in 2000 in leading 20 students in a nine-month study hunger
in Schenectady County.

The study found that while most of the county's
150,000 residents can afford to feed themselves, 18 percent – twice
the national average _ have reduced their food intake, skipped
meals or gone without food for a day.

The study has been invaluable to a number of
service agencies that have used the data to assess current and future need.

Commissioned by the Council of Community
Services of New York State, the study was presented March 15 –
National Hunger Awareness Day – in a news conference attended by
a number of county food providers and their clients.

“Doing community-based research and service learning
has a large number of values,”
Cotter said. “It gives students real hands-on experience in a real
research situation. For a liberal arts college like Union, it provides an
element of moral education: it allows students contact with a set
of people that they might not meet in their everyday lives, and it
gives them a better sense for their world and community.”

The award was presented by President Roger Hull
at HMACU's annual awards dinner.

Posted on Apr 12, 2002

A number of attendees at this week's Upstate
Partners conference said they were impressed that Union had
it's own brand of bottled water.

One speaker was even prompted to suggest that
the College enter the cola wars with “Union Cola.”

But we're not the only ones. A handful of other
colleges contract with a vendor to produce their own brand
of bottled water.

And where is this vendor? Love Canal, one suggested.