Steve Ciesinski '70 wants everyone to share that enthusiasm
If Union wanted the perfect spokesman for its combination of the liberal arts and engineering, it has to look no further than Steve Ciesinski '70, the College's new chairman of the Board of Trustees.
A Schenectady native, Ciesinski came to Union determined to take advantage of its strengths in the liberal arts and engineering. He did just that, earning Dean's List honors and graduating with a B.S. in electrical engineering and an A.B. in modern languages. After a brief stint at Procter & Gamble, he went to Stanford, where
he earned his M.B.A. and, as he puts it, got the entrepreneurial bug.
“P&G is a wonderful company, and its structured environment and methodical approach to business were a terrific learning experience,” he says. “Stanford was in the middle of Silicon Valley,
and Silicon Valley was at the time completely unstructured.
I learned that if you could manage through the chaos of immediate start-up situations while also planning carefully for the long term, you could build large, market-leading businesses.”
And that's what he did. First, he helped Applied Materials become the leading producer of the equipment that makes computer chips. Then he moved to Octel Communications, where he played a key role in developing the then-new concept of voice mail. Next was Resumix, Inc., which quickly became the country's leader in computer-generated resume evaluation software systems. And now he is a managing director in an international venture capital firm that is focused on emerging technology, communications, and health care investments.
“We fund early-stage
companies with great promise, good core management teams, strong defendable technology, in fast-growing marketplaces,” he says. “With offices in Europe and California, we're well positioned to take advantage of transnational opportunities.”
His career world, Ciesinski says, is one that Union prepared him well for, and it is one that offers some lessons to a historic college.
“Clearly, a college like Union has a long tradition of excellence, and the Board of Trustees wants to make sure that maintaining the quality of teaching and learning that goes on here remains our highest priority,” he says. “At the same time, we have to understand that to be here and be as successful 200 years from now, we have to plan in ten- and twenty-year increments as well as manage our basic-
survival issues right now.”
He does not toss out the word “survival” casually.
“I don't use the word in terms of being out of business tomorrow,” he says. “Obviously, that's not going to happen. Rather, I mean it in the sense that the threats to colleges like Union are increasing, not decreasing.
“Those threats are not just from other private institutions,” he continues, “but they also come from public institutions that act more and more like private institutions while getting funding from government sources. They come from new technologies that give people the chance to take courses in their own homes, something not available twenty years go, and they come from the turbulence of today's economy.
“To counter those threats, we have to continue to sharpen what makes us distinctive,” he continues. “We do a lot of things really well, and some we do even better than well. Those are the things we need to make sure high school juniors and seniors throughout the country know about.”
He sees the College's new effort in converging technologies as a prime example of that distinctive nature. He notes that in bioengineering, for example, the College already has courses in physics (molecular biophysics), mechanical engineering (biomechanics), and psychology (cognitive neuroscience). In pervasive computing, courses in electrical engineering (the digital evolution), computer science (computers and computing), and anthropology (culture and technology) address the impact of information technology. Similar efforts to connect various academic disciplines are underway in mechatronics and nanotechnology.
“This is the kind of innovative thinking that is going to excite high school seniors,” he says. “These are leading edge initiatives, not just in the high tech centers of the world, but throughout society.”
Other strengths Ciesinski cites include international study, where the College has consistently ranked at the top among peer colleges in terms of the percentage of students who study abroad; the depth and comprehensiveness of undergraduate research, which he says is unusual among colleges that do not have Ph.D. programs; and faculty members with national reputations who regularly meet one-on-one with students.
He also notes that Union is perceived as a leader in town-gown relations, and that the relationship that the College has with the city of Schenectady has been flourishing. He is proud that Union hosted a statewide conference in April with the governor, mayors from Albany to Buffalo, and state and private college presidents [coverage of the conference will appear in our summer issue].
A real challenge, he says, is to continue to move in these directions, given the College's limited financial resources.
“Union's endowment is of good size [approximately $270 million], but not large when compared to our peer group,” he says. “Two years ago, the College hired a leading endowment management consulting firm to review the investment policy of the endowment and recommend some improvements. This effort encompassed reviewing current investment managers' performances and asset allocations. The result was that the board voted to implement the revised policy. And we brought on some new managers in some areas. In this tough investment climate, we are starting to show some positive results. Clearly, though, we also need to work on building the endowment.”
The Plan for Union, the comprehensive plan approved by the board last year, will help that effort, he says. “This plan has been scrutinized, analyzed, and endorsed by the board, faculty, students, and the administration, so now everyone knows what we're trying to accomplish. And I'm expecting-I'm going to challenge –our great alumni body to help us achieve the goals of the plan.”
Ciesinski acknowledges that recent decisions to establish a House System and restructure engineering have generated some controversy, but he says that both changes were needed.
“I was a fraternity member, and I was on the committee that looked at the social and residential system here,” he says. “In fact, many of my
co-trustees were also fraternity members or engineering alumni. We recognize that fraternities do some wonderful things, on and off campus, and that's one of the many reasons that we wanted them to stay part of Union. We also felt that we needed to change the social atmosphere here if we were to prosper into the future. I think we've done it about right, and I think that we resolved, through a lot of creative ideas, how to keep the good things fraternities stand for and, at the same time, provide some balance to the social atmosphere.
“I'm delighted that we were able to attract a seasoned professional as our new dean of campus and residential life; he has such great experience in this area. I think that's a good indication of how big a commitment we are making to integrating residential and academic life with social environment.” [An interview with the new dean, Tom McEvoy, appears in this issue.]
“We can't claim victory yet, and as I speak with undergraduates I realize that these types of changes always take time to jell and become part of the fabric of Union,” he says. “But I am proud of how the trustees dealt with the issues. I am pleased with how we worked with President Hull and lots of different
constituencies to reach some common ground, and I am most proud of how we have kept the fraternity system alive and well while incorporating it into a larger fabric
of campus social life.”
As the College continues
to make changes, he thinks it is important that it strengthen and integrate its forms of communication.
“I think we can be fairly criticized at times for not communicating enough in a variety of ways so our alumni and friends fully understand what's happening on campus,” he says. “We use a number of mechanisms-the College's website, Union College magazine, the Chronicle (the weekly newsletter), Roger Hull's on-the-road appearances before alumni-but I think we need to continually make sure we have the right balance of paper, electronic, and verbal communication efforts so everyone has the opportunity to appreciate the great things going on here.
“I have challenged my
colleagues on the Board of Trustees to work closely with the administration, the public relations groups, the alumni clubs throughout the nation and world, and the students to make sure that our message remains clear, accessible, and pertinent,” he continues. “One of the ways I hope we are judged during my tenure as chairman is by how alumni and interested outsiders perceive the unique strengths of Union. It is time to strut our stuff a little bit!
“We have a great body of alumni, students, faculty, and administrators, and I'd love to see more Union faces out there telling our story,” he says. “I think we all need to have the attitude that 'the better the College is thought of, the better it reflects on me.'
“And it's going to take every one of us to work on that. That means that all of us-alumni, faculty, students-need to take some leadership and accountability for our College.”
Ciesinski says that as incoming chairman, he considers it an honor to lead the College as it grows in its third century.
“I take this job after a great run as chairman by my predecessor, David Chapnick '59, who worked tirelessly to move the College ahead,” Ciesinski says. “He has given me big shoes to fill as he crystallized the campus around The Plan for Union.
“I want everyone reading this to remember that the board I chair is populated with men and women who care about Union deeply; who think, discuss, and sometimes agonize over the challenging decisions we must make, but who always
-I repeat, always-are proud of the heritage they represent, the future they hope to help shape, and the responsibility they have been entrusted with. I can't wait to get started.”