Posted on May 17, 2002

Rebecca Koopman, assistant professor of physics, gave an invited talk at the Ringberg Workshop on the Virgo Cluster in Germany last month. The title of her talk was “An Halpha Imaging Survey of Massive Star Formation in Virgo Cluster Spirals.”

Posted on May 17, 2002

Schenectady, N.Y. (May 17, 2002) –
Jon Sterngass, the author of First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at
Saratoga Springs, Newport and Coney Island will give a lecture titled “The Legacy of Saratoga Springs as a Resort Community” on Monday, May 20, at 8 p.m. in the Nott Memorial at Union College.

His talk, sponsored by the College's history department, is free and open to the public. Sterngass also will show a number of prints of Saratoga Springs during the late 1800s.

Sterngass, who teaches history at
Union College, writes that Saratoga Springs is relatively unchanged since the early 1800s when Gideon Putnam's grand hotels tapped into the popularity of the mineral water spas.

Today, more than 50 years after the hugely successful Grand Union and U.S. hotels were demolished, the city
still boasts what Henry James lambasted in an 1870 travel sketch as “a
momentous spectacle: the democratization of elegance.”

That democratized elegance is
precisely what makes Saratoga Springs so special, according to Jon Sterngass,
whose book is an unusual multi-site historical study spanning a century of
American leisure at the Northeast's best-known playgrounds.

For calendar listings:

Speaker: Jon Sterngass, author of First Resorts:
Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport and Coney Island

Topic: “The Legacy of Saratoga Springs as a Resort
Community”

Date: Monday, May 20

Time: 8 p.m.

Place: Nott Memorial, Union College.

Cost: Free and open to the public

Information: 388-6131

Posted on May 17, 2002

Events

Friday, May 17, 12:30 p.m.
Olin 115
Amos B. Smith, the Rhodes-Thompson Professor of
Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, on “The Design and Synthesis
of Non-peptide Peptidomimetics: From Neuropeptide
Hormone Agonists and Antagonists to HIV Protease Inhibitors.” Sponsored
by the chemistry department.

Friday, May 17, through Monday, May 20, 8 and 10 p.m.
Reamer Auditorium
Film: Mothman Prophecies

Saturday, May 18, 10 p.m.
College observatory at F.W. Olin Center
Open house.

Monday, May 20, 6 p.m.
Memorial Chapel
Union College Choir, under the direction of Prof.
Dianne McMullen, performs a program titled “Music from the
Renaissance to Gilbert and Sullivan.” Accompanist is Elinore Farnum, organ
and piano. The concert will include three choruses of
Handel's Messiah.

Monday, May 20, 7 p.m.
Memorial Chapel
Nutritionist Deanna Latson on “Eat Right, Feel Good, Look Great!”

Monday, May 20, 8 p.m.
Nott Memorial
Jon Sterngass, visiting assistant professor of history and author
of First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport
and Coney Island, on “The Legacy of Saratoga Springs as a
Resort Community.”

Tuesday, May 21, 11:30 a.m.
F.W. Olin Center Auditorium.
Donald T. Rodbell, associate professor of geology, will deliver
a faculty colloquium on “Global Climate Change: The View
from the Tropical Andes.”

Tuesday, May 21, at 7 p.m.
Old Chapel
Leroy Fogle, a former gang leader in New York City, and now
director of youth services at the Carver Community Center on his
work with gang prevention. There will be a panel discussion on area
gang-related issues on Thursday, May 23, at 7 p.m. in Reamer
Auditorium, and a volunteer day at local organizations on Saturday, May
25. For more, call ext. 8215.

Thursday, May 23, 4 p.m.
Humanities 019
Francine D'Amico, political science professor at Syracuse University,
on “Gender and the U.S military: How do the Social Hierarchies of
Race, Class and Sexuality Intersect or Shape Military Issues?”

Thursday, May 23, 7:30 p.m.
Old Chapel
“Highway 61,” the third annual celebration of Bob Dylan's
birthday. An evening of song, food and spoken word.

Thursday, May 23, 8 p.m.
Yulman Theater
Opening night of “What the Butler Saw” by Joe Orton, directed
by William Zisken. Other performances are through May 25,
and May 30 through June 1, all at 8 p.m.; 2 p.m. matinees are May
26 and June 2. For more, call box office at ext. 6545.

Friday, May 24, through Monday, May 27, 8 and 10 p.m.
Reamer Auditorium
Film: Slackers

Exhibits

May 13 through May 18
Arts Atrium Gallery
Senior art shows by Julia Cantor (paintings and prints based on
the work of Spanish painter Juan Miró) and Melanie
Thornton (photographs comparing cultural impacts on children in
Barbados and Schenectady). Reception is Thursday, May 16, at 4 p.m.

Through May 19
Mandeville Gallery, Nott Memorial
“Orchestrated Objects” a joint exhibition of works by
photographers Jed Devine and Abelardo Morell.

May 19 through May 25
Arts Atrium Gallery
Senior art show, “Martinique Magnified,” a collection of
acrylic and watercolor paintings by Jill Foster. Reception is Thursday,
May 23, 4:30 to 6 p.m.

Through June 3
Fourth Floor Gallery, Reamer
Juried exhibition of art and photography by women at
Union. Prizes from the Katharine Van Meter Sadock fund will be
awarded on Tuesday, May 14, at 3:30 p.m. in the Sadock Lounge
(formerly Women's Studies Lounge).

Through June 7
Social Sciences Faculty Lounge Art Gallery
Exhibit of baseball memorabilia collected by Union faculty and staff.
Gallery hours are weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Posted on May 17, 2002

Donald T. Rodbell, associate professor of geology at
Union College, will deliver a faculty colloquium on “Global
Climate Change: The View from the Tropical Andes” on Tuesday,
May 21, at 11:30 a.m. in the F.W. Olin Center Auditorium.

Rodbell specializes in the geology of the Andes
Mountains in Peru and Ecuador, and his research centers on what
the region can tell about long-term changes in global climate.

He was the lead author of a 1999 article in
Science that suggested that during the past 5,000 years, El Niño
occurred every two to eight years, the same frequency we see in modern
times. The study also suggested that the phenomenon was weak or
non-existent between 5,000 and 12,000 years ago.

Rodbell also is a co-author of a paper to be published
this month in Science about a study suggesting that the tropics
may drive the global climate system. “The results of this study
really fly in the face of conventional wisdom about climate change
on glacial-interglacial time scales,” he said. “For years we have been
led to believe that the high latitudes – particularly in the
Northern Hemisphere – hold the key to globally synchronous
climate change.”

Rodbell's research has been supported by a number of
grants from the National Science Foundation.

At Union since 1993, he holds a bachelor's from St.
Lawrence University, and master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University
of Colorado.

Posted on May 17, 2002

Thomas Hoffman, former professor of electrical
engineering, died May 8 at his home in Daytona Beach, Fla. He was 78.

Hoffman, a native of White Plains, N.Y., served in the
Navy during World War II and graduated from Union in
1945. He joined the Union faculty in 1946, left in 1950, and returned
in 1954, retiring in 1979. He moved to Florida and worked for
the General Electric Co. for 10 years. While at Union he taught
at foreign universities three times – the University of
Alexandria, Egypt; Chiao Tung University, Taiwan; and the University
of Canterbury, New Zealand.

He was a deacon and elder at the First Presbyterian Church
in Daytona Beach, and was on the Board of Directors of
Serenity House, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, and
the Volusia/Flagler Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.