Whenever I can, I like to have lunch with students-preferably students Whom
I do not know-to talk about their experiences and their
reactions to what is going on at the College. Recently, I sat down with several sophomore women, and I was surprised during our conversation when they told me that, when the
new House System is in place, all fraternities are going to be forced off campus.
Their comments were surprising because one of the central points of the House System-a point we have made repeatedly
-is the retention of fraternities and sororities. Rather than close our fraternity system, as most colleges like Union in the Northeast have done, we are creating a social and residential environment to complement the contributions of fraternities and sororities to the vitality of campus life. Simply stated, sororities and fraternities-with the exception of Chi Psi,
Psi Upsilon, and Sigma Phi, which will be rehoused in spaces built for fraternities in Davidson and Fox-will remain
where they are now.
As unsettling as it was, the students' misunderstanding of
the House System did have a positive side. It reminded me
of the need to communicate, communicate again, and then communicate once more. In that regard I am happy to tell you, and perhaps retell you, about some of the exciting developments at our college:
-Tom McEvoy joined us as our new dean of campus and
residential life. Tom, who came to Union from Williams, is already busy meeting as many students as he can, and working on the recommendations regarding residential improvements, which were made to us last fall by Sasaki Associates and adopted by the Board of Trustees. This summer, as a first step, we will start work on the renovation of South College to convert
it from a dormitory to two houses in the new House System.
-Our pioneering work with converging technologies received a major boost from IBM, which announced that it would give the College $1million in support that will help
our students gain access to leading-edge technology. Their
gift includes software access, software development, visiting faculty, and a variety of sophisticated equipment (you can
read far more about this initiative on our converging
technologies website, www.ct.union.edu).
-Two faculty members received prestigious national awards. Ed Pavlic, assistant professor of English, won the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize for Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue, and Tom Werner, the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of Physical Sciences, received the American Chemical Society's Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution. (And alumna Andrea Barrett '74 recently received
a so-called “genius” award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Andrea won the National Book Award in 1996 for Ship Fever and Other Stories.)
-All faculty now have access to their advisees' transcripts on the Web, which enables them to better review and plan a student's course of study.
-Several recent gifts will strengthen our faculty and
programs. The Mellon Foundation provided $250,000 as a presidential discretionary fund to help implement the House System and our efforts at converging technologies. The Freeman Foundation gave us $1.2 million for our East Asian Studies program, which will include adding two faculty
members. Two gifts totaling $3 million have been contributed to create two named professorships. Finally, Gordon Gould '41, the inventor of the laser, recently gave the College $3.1
million, in addition to the Gordon Gould Professorship of Physics he established in 1995.
-The Geology Department was ranked fourth in geoscience research at national liberal arts colleges in a recent study, and Union was ranked eleventh among all U.S. colleges in the
number of students who studied abroad in the most recent study by the Institute for International Education.
-As part of our renewed emphasis on helping students
prepare for life after Union, we have opened the new Stanley R. Becker '40 Career Center, which combines inviting space with state-of-the-art resources, such as an electronic seminar room. Frank Bailey Field is getting a new look with an upgrade of the stands and press box, with the work to be completed by the time students return next fall. And work is accelerating on Abbe Hall, the College's new alumni center and home for its alumni and development offices.
Our goal with these efforts-as with all of our efforts-
is to continue to offer our students the best possible array
of experiences. Our society is one of rising expectations,
with our students mirroring that characteristic, and I remain convinced that we must continue to prudently but aggressively engage our various constituencies to move Union forward.
We must also make sure that we find the right way to communicate what we are doing, for, although I want to continue to learn from students over lunch, I do not want to learn that they are uninformed.