Posted on May 20, 2002

As a junior, Beth Wierzbieniec '99 was planning a career in public health-that is, until the day she heard about Teach for America (TFA) at an alumni presentation at the coffeehouse.

“I remember saying to my friends on the way out, 'This is what I'm going to do!' Even though I had no background in education, the mission of trying to level the playing field in education spoke to me, and I wanted to be part of it.”

Wierzbieniec, then president of Student Forum, a Big Brothers/Big Sisters volunteer, and director of Union's first Big Brothers/Big Sisters summer camp, as well as organizer of a month-long series of dialogs on race and gender, was the kind of student the highly-selective Teach for America seeks.

She joined on graduation, went through a five-week training session in Houston, and arrived in Baltimore that August. She was hired by the district as a first-year teacher and received a TFA stipend as well. She also began graduate studies at Johns Hopkins through a partnership with TFA, under which teachers like her are automatically admitted. She was able to complete her master's degree in teaching, using the stipend to pay her way.

What was it like walking into the Baltimore inner-city school that first day?
“A bit overwhelming-it's the largest middle school in Baltimore, with 1,300 students in one building. And as any teacher will tell you, your first year in the classroom, you don't know what to expect. It was very, very difficult-an enormous challenge to balance what
I wanted to see in my classroom and the reality of what was going on in the building. These schools are under-resourced, so, for example, I had to use the same U.S. history textbooks that I had when I was a middle school student.” She teaches social studies to 115 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders (kids age ten to fifteen).

“I was lucky because I wasn't the first TFA teacher at my school, so I didn't have to set the stage, and I was warmly welcomed,” she adds. “At my school, there are seven TFA teachers now.”

Wierzbieniec decided to stay beyond the two-year commitment and is now in her third year. “My school has been taken over by the state for under-performing, and I wanted to see what kind of reform would get implemented. A lot of people have a very jaded view of what middle school is like, but I'm getting a real perspective on what they're trying to do to fix what's broken in the system.”

Reaching beyond the classroom for ways to motivate her students, Wierzbieniec and another TFA teacher started a girls' basketball team-the Lady Wildcats. “You have to be doing well in the classroom to play on the team. For some, this means academic achievement has to increase.”

Now also a spokesperson for Teach for America, Wierzbieniec returned to Union recently to recruit. Speaking to a packed room of students, faculty, and administrators, she told them about the power of being a part of this effort: “You not only have impact in your classroom; you join a network and can continue
to affect education throughout the U.S. As part of the Americorps network, you are paid a stipend of close to $5,000 year to be used for educational purposes-either paying off undergraduate loans or graduate education. I didn't have to write any checks to Johns Hopkins.”

Although Wierzbieniec isn't sure if she will stay in the classroom after this year, she does intend to pursue a career in education. “After this experience, there's no way I could step outside of education. I couldn't possibly walk away from it.”

Teach for America was born in 1990 to develop a national teacher corps of recent, high-achieving college graduates to improve education around the nation. There are now 8,000 TFA alumni who have taught nearly 1 million students around the country.

Eighteen Union alumni have gone on to Teach for America:

• Erin Aloan '01, Louisiana 
• Jen Caruso '00, New York City 
• Nathan Coffin '95, San Francisco area 
• Randi Dupont '01, New Jersey 
• Rebecca Friedman '00, Atlanta 
• Paul Hays '95 (MAT), Louisiana 
• Piel Hollingsworth '95 (MAT), Louisiana 
• Valerie LeBlanc '00, Baltimore 
• Michelle Leimsider '01, Houston 
• Chris Leone '00, Baltimore 
• Wilson Martinez Wilson '94, New Jersey 
• Jen Miller '01, Los Angeles 
• Paul Palaszewski '90, Los Angeles 
• Sandra Rojas '95, Houston 
• Joann Suchocki '96, New York City 
• Sarah Teasdale '94, Los Angeles 
• Gregory VanHolt '00, San Francisco area 
• Beth Wierzbieniec '99, Baltimore

Posted on May 20, 2002

Using tiny saws, dental implements, tweezers, and forceps, Howard Bartholomew '65 built a six-inch-high house that decorated a branch of the most recent White House Christmas tree.

The balsa-wood replica of the historic Zadock Pratt Homestead, dating from 1828 in Prattsville, Greene County, N.Y., was one of the tree's seventy ornaments created by artisans from around the country.

Bartholomew, a Middleburgh master craftsman and woodworker, was chosen by New York State Gov. George Pataki as one of four New York State artists to create an ornament for the White House tree. The theme was “Home for the Holidays,” and artisans from all fifty states and the District of Columbia designed miniature replicas of historic houses from their regions.

In the early stages of the project, Bartholomew worked with his son, Alex '00, who was a civil engineering minor. “We measured the building, Alex helped with the computation, and I constructed a scale model.”

On Dec. 3, Bartholomew was invited to a White House reception for about 150 artists and their guests. “Visiting the White House, especially this year, after what the country has been through, was a very moving experience,” he says. “It was very much a last-minute event, since they had been canceling most everything. We were the first group let in since they reopened it to the public, and security was naturally very tight. The Secret Service was involved, and we had background checks and photo IDs and we had to pass through metal detectors.

“Once we were in though, we could walk the public rooms at our leisure.

We spent two and a half hours at the White House, we met Mrs. Bush, and there was a string quartet, a Navy choir, and two Marine Corps ensembles. It was wonderful to meet Art Campbell '65 there. This was one of the nicest events I've ever participated in.”

Fifteen years ago, Bartholomew-
interested in antiques-retired from
a career as a social studies teacher to begin professional life as a cabinetmaker. He now specializes in reproductions of eighteenth-century furniture and architectural woodwork, having become increasingly committed to doing historic woodworking, using the old methods and old hand tools. His customers have included collectors of fine furniture and organizations such as the First Baptist Church in Scotia, N.Y., for which he created reproductions of antique communion chairs. He specializes in creating and reproducing items that
are not available in the retail market. “It's limited, one-of-a-kind work, but it's fascinating,” he says.

Since Bartholomew is also a historian especially interested in the region, Pratt's house was the perfect choice for his replica. In fact, Bartholomew's interest in Pratt goes beyond the historic house and beyond woodworking: “Colonel Pratt,” he reports, “started out as a blacksmith and became a master tanner, banker, farmer, and philanthropist. His tannery, near Hunter Mountain, was the world's largest. Interestingly, he was the first recipient of an honorary degree from Union College-Eliphalet Nott conferred an honorary master's degree on him in 1848.”

Pratt had also been a member
of the state militia, justice of the peace, supervisor of the town
of Windham, state senator, and member of Congress (1837-39 and 1843-45). He chaired the committee
on public buildings and grounds and proposed legislation that created the Smithsonian, where Bartholomew's ornament will end up, as part of the White House's permanent collection.
“A man of principle and conscience,” continues Bartholomew, “he was adamantly opposed to slavery, choosing not to run in protest after the Senate defeated an attempt to exclude slavery from the territories gained in the Mexican War.”

The story so fascinates Bartholomew that he is now writing a biography and helping to create a first-day issue and stamp honoring Pratt.

Posted on May 17, 2002

Leo J. Fleishman, professor of biology, is the second author on a paper published recently in the Journal of Experimental Biology. The other authors are Ellis Loew, Cornell University; and Russell Foster and Ignacio Provencio, the University of Virginia.

Posted on May 17, 2002

Hilary Tann, professor of music, was invited to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls on May 14 for a concert devoted entirely to her music. “The Power of Nature: Music of Hilary Tann” included two choral works, three chamber pieces, and three works for full orchestra. The final work in the program was the premiere of “Sarsen,” written last fall and jointly commissioned by the St. Croix Valley Symphony Orchestra and the Saratoga Springs Youth Orchestra. The local premiere was May 5. Each of the three movements refer to different standing stones: an erratic in the Adirondacks, the Bat Stone from the Garden of the Master of the nets in Suzhou, China, and one of the Kennett Avenue stones from the ancient stone circle in Avebury, England.

Posted on May 17, 2002

Robert Sharlet, Chauncey Winters Professor of Political Science, recently presented a paper on “Progress and Resistance to Putin's Federal Reforms for Russia” at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. As the sequel to Sharlet's article last year on President Vladimir Putin's extensive restructuring of the Russian federal system, the paper focuses on political, legal and bureaucratic resistance to the changes. A summary prepared by the Kennan Institute has been distributed through various professional electronic networks here and abroad.