Posted on Aug 19, 2002

Dear Chronicle
Reader:

Summer greetings from Union.

In the Office of Communications, we're using the warm months
to plan for some exciting new projects. One of those will be next month's
launch of a new version of the Chronicle,
the weekly newsletter of the Union College
community.

The Chronicle,
long a “paper first” publication has also become a popular read on the Web in
recent years, with an increasingly large portion of our readers using the Web
as their primary source for reading the Chronicle.
Starting this fall, Sept. 13 to be exact, we plan to further that trend by publishing
the Chronicle as a “Web first”
publication.

This change will speed the delivery of news and allow for
more complete coverage of campus happenings. Without the current limitations of
a paper layout, we can include longer stories, more photos (in color) and links
to a number of related sites and stories.

We know that some readers prefer a paper version of the Chronicle, so we've developed a “print
friendly” version that can easily be printed to paper from the Web. Just click
on the “print this page” link you see on any page in the Chronicle site.

The Chronicle will
be published on Thursday each week during academic terms (30 times per year). On-campus
users will be notified weekly via e-mail when the Chronicle is published. Off-campus users are welcome to sign up for
“About U,” Union's bi-weekly electronic newsletter.
About U includes all of the stories from the Chronicle as well as stories fromUnionCollegemagazine, athletics and press releases. To sign up for About U, visit
http://www.union.edu/AboutU and enter
your name and email address.

And for readers who don't have access to the Web, each week we
will do a limited run of paper copies for distribution on campus and to
off-campus readers. If you do not have access to the Web, or would simply prefer
the Chronicle on paper, please call
Jill Warner in the Office of Communications, 388-6131.

Regardless of the format you prefer – electronic or paper –
our goal is the same: to deliver the news about Union in a timely, interesting
and informative way. Please don't hesitate to contact us with questions or
comments.

The first Chronicle
of the fall will be published on Sept. 13. Until then, enjoy the rest of the
summer.

Sincerely,

Charlie Casey
Director of News
Union College

Posted on Aug 16, 2002

The Union web office has announced a new web site developed with the on-campus audience in mind: UniONcampus (http://oncampus.union.edu). This new site has been designed to give Union faculty, staff, and current students quick access to the web tools they use most often.

Some of these tools and links include:

• Search the faculty/staff directory
• Search the Union web site
• Online forms
• Quick links to Human Resources, Schaffer Library, Information Technology Services, etc.
• Campus announcements

The new site is accessible to everyone, on-campus or off-, but some links will be protected by a username and password (such as the Blackboard system). The “external” home page (www.union.edu) can easily be reached from oncampus.union.edu, and vice-versa.

To request that a link or announcement be added to oncampus.union.edu, send a note to wwwstaff@union.edu.

ITS is installing oncampus.union.edu as the home page for all new computers (and all upgrades) on campus. Users are encouraged to make this their home page.

http://oncampus.union.edu

Posted on Aug 15, 2002

The College's Summer Science
Workshop each year gives high schoolers valuable exposure to college-level
study. And Union gets something valuable too: eager students,
19 and counting.

Besides exposing nearly two dozen
budding scientists to the rigors of scientific research, the two-week
residential program has been something of a boon to the College's minority
recruitment effort.

Since its inception in 1996, 19 students
from the program have enrolled as students at Union. Several
have become counselors for the summer program. This year, three of the four
counselors were former campers.

Summer Science Workshop, which
targets minorities who are underrepresented in the health professions and
biological sciences, provides exposure to college-level classroom and
laboratory study, and career guidance for fields in health professions and
scientific research.

“We used to soft sell the students
on Union,” says program coordinator Karen Williams of
the first few years of the workshop. “Now we take them down to the admissions office
for interviews and invite them to a reunion in the fall.”

The program has HIV/AIDS as its
overarching theme. The students research the scientific, social and political
aspects of AIDS, and give presentations on a variety of topics related to the
epidemic. Beyond classes and labs in immunology, computer technology and
cellular biology, the students attend lectures at Albany
Medical College
and meet HIV-positive people and their families.

Williams is joined by colleagues including
Peter Tobiessen, director; Twitty Styles, who
teaches immunology; James Hedrick, computer technology; and Quynh Chu-LaGraff, molecular
biology.

Now funded entirely by the College,
the program was launched with support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Posted on Aug 15, 2002

Tribute of 3,000 flags to symbolize the losses of September 11

Ceremony to reaffirm founders' goal of creating ‘union of all faiths'

At opening ceremonies on September 11, one of the nation's oldest non-denominational colleges will pause to reflect on the losses of last year's terrorist attacks and reconsider the meaning of its name.

Throughout the day, members of the Union College community will place some 3,000 flags – one for each of the lives lost in the terrorist attacks – in a central green on campus. By the end of the day, the campus community will have created a powerful symbol of the enormous human toll of last year's tragedy.

That evening, the College will dispense with the traditional agenda for opening convocation, usually a lively, colorful affair at which dean's list students and outstanding teachers are loudly applauded. Instead, a procession of faculty, students and staff will circle the campus on their way to Memorial Chapel.

At 8 p.m., the campus community will gather in Memorial Chapel for a ceremony of remembrance. There will be an address by President Roger Hull and remarks from representatives of the Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Protestant faiths. The convocation will conclude at the central green and the flag tribute with a candlelight ceremony and the playing of “Taps” (the bugle call composed by Daniel Butterfield, an 1849 graduate of the College who served as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War).

“This September 11, the College will commemorate the human and emotional toll of last year's terrorist attacks,” said Roger H. Hull, president of Union College. “We will also reaffirm the values that our founders had in mind 207 years ago when they created a ‘union of all faiths.' Now more than ever, the word ‘union' and all that it suggests – diversity, understanding and tolerance – has a special meaning on this campus and across the nation.”

Union College had its beginnings in 1779 when a group of senior elders at local churches petitioned the brand-new state legislature for a non-denominational college that would be a “union of all faiths.” But with the Revolutionary War raging throughout New York, the full legislature failed to act. “In the midst of war,” wrote historian Samuel Fortenbaugh, a 1923 Union grad and former chairman of the board, “the issue seemed inappropriate and no action was taken.” The petitioners persevered, however, and 16 years later, the College was chartered by the state Board of Regents.

Posted on Aug 15, 2002

Union workshop targets
women engineers

Who said girls can't be engineers? Certainly not Chantani
Newton and 20 of her newest friends.

“I came to Union to prove a point to
a boy who told me 'women can't be engineers,'” said the Bronx
high schooler who completed the two-week EDGE Workshop, a live-in camp that
introduces science-saavy girls to engineering.

A focus of the camp, in its inaugural season at Union,
was re-engineering toys and electronic devices to be used by severely disabled
children. At the start of the camp, the girls visited patients at Schenectady's
Northwoods at Hilltop brain injury rehabilitation center where they met with
patients and began to re-design everything from stuffed animals to TV remotes.

“We focused on something they could embrace immediately,”
said Bob Balmer, dean of engineering at Union.
“Certainly, I think that for girls of this age and children in need there is a
natural affinity.”

Campers are high school junior and seniors, about half from
the Capital Region. Some come from as far away as Washington, D.C.

At a time when less than 10 percent of the nation's
engineers are female, there is a critical need for recruiting, Balmer added. “Engineering, which essentially began as an outgrowth of our military, has for too long been largely without the creative energy of half of our population. It's time we changed that.”

The EDGE Workshop was supported by Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, Pratt & Whitney, Capital Region Robotics, the AYCO Charitable Foundation, ASME Hudson Mohawk Section, Dynamics Research Corporation, the Northeast Chapter of the Society of Women Engineers and the GE Women's Network.

Click here to read a Daily
Gazette story on the EDGE Workshop.

http://www.union.edu/N/DS/s.php?s=2801