This new set of profiles includes Leah Nero '03 discussing
her independent study at Union; Allyson Kohlman '03
talking about internships; Dapo Akinleye '03 on Campus Life; and Michael Iger '00,
a legislative assistant in Washington,
on life after Union.
In case you missed them, the first four profiles are still
online: Dean of the Faculty Christie Sorum on the Nott Memorial, Fred Cyr '03
recounts his experiences abroad, David Chapin '03 on Converging Technologies, and
Ariadne Papagapitos '03 on Union's new House System.
The rest of the 16 profiles will be added during the
admissions season.
Chris
Duncan, sculptor and professor of visual art, presents a collection of two
dozen works in an exhibit, “Recent Work: Sculpture and Drawings,” Jan. 23 through
March 16 at Mandeville Gallery in the Nott Memorial.
The
show opens with a reception and gallery talk on Thursday, Jan. 23, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
“Drawing and sculpture have
always been related in my work,” Duncan writes
in the exhibit catalog. “The drawings aren't sketches or diagrams from which to
build directly; instead they are a means to formulate and record possibilities.
“When I begin a sculpture, an
underlying structure of steel allows me to generate forms quickly and
improvisationally. Sometimes the steel alone forms the finished sculpture, or I
may add plaster and found objects over the steel. In recent years, I've cast
bronzes from these plaster and steel pieces.
“My drawing process is similar to
what happens when I make sculpture. It requires a physical involvement, and
erasing or scraping away is as important as adding. To preserve a quality of
immediacy I often work in a series. I'm interested in how the making process
helps determine the final shape of the work. Later I go back, edit, and fine
tune.”
Paul Goldberger, the Pulitzer
Prize-winning architecture critic for the New
Yorker magazine, will be speak Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
His talk, “After the World
Trade Center: The Struggle to Make a City for Our Time,” is part of the College's
Perspectives at the Nott series.
He will examine the current
proposals for the rebuilding of Ground Zero and Lower Manhattan.
Goldberger is renowned for his
writing on architecture, design, and urbanism. He is widely regarded for his
efforts to foster an understanding of and appreciation for architecture to the
general public. The author of numerous books, his most recent works include The World Trade Center Remembered and
due out later this year, Manhattan Unfurled.
A reception in Hale House Dining
Room will follow the program.
A more contemporary, attractive, and user-friendly Union
home page has been launched. The new home page incorporates several new
features, and points to several new sites.
Features include:
— An audience-specific approach. “Our important audiences
will be able to quickly identify the section of the site designed for them,”
said Tom Smith, web site director. Those
audiences include students, faculty, staff, alumni, prospective students,
parents and partners (corporations, foundations, and government visitors).
— More striking photography: a large number of color
photographs will rotate on the home page. The large color photographs will
showcase the beauty of our campus and give visitors a compelling look at some
of the people in the Union community. There are 20 images in the pool; more
will be added regularly.
— The Campus: the new site features all things related to
the physical campus and grounds: campus map, directions to campus, trees of Union,
virtual tour, webcam and others.
— Search: there is now a search box directly on the home
page.
At the Nobel ceremony, David Haviland '83, left, and Jason Slaunwhite '04
If undergraduate education was a
sport, you might think of Jason
Slaunwhite as an extreme athlete.
The junior with a double major in
physics and computer science and a minor in math peppers his conversation with the
kind of expressions you might expect from, say, a skateboarder at the edge: “bit
off more than I could chew” … “learned about my limits” … “out of my league.”
This winter, he's back at Union wearing
the intellectual bandages from a term last fall at the Swedish Royal Institute
of Stockholm (KTH), where he took on an upper graduate-level course in
mathematical modeling (“that I'm pretty sure I failed”), joined a research
project with a doctoral candidate (“learned a lot about what it takes”) and
even attended the Nobel Prize awards ceremony (“out of my league”).
Slaunwhite, a Union Scholar who hails from Baldwinsville,
N.Y., heard about David Haviland '83, a
nanotechnologist doing cutting-edge research at KTH, from Prof. Bill Thomas,
who has been close with Haviland since he was a student in Thomas's freshman
preceptorial. Thomas, as director of international programs, had long been
eager to explore the possibility of linking students with KTH. “Jason
was the ideal guinea pig,” said Thomas. “He's a Union Scholar, a physics-C.S.
major, and quite the amazing student. So off he went, and had a very
challenging experience, since David is really running a graduate program.”
Slaunwhite said he also had help from physics profs Jay Newman and Chris Jones
(emeritus), who also have kept in touch with Haviland.
Once there, Slaunwhite joined
Haviland's research in scanning probe microscopy, using an atomic force
microscope much like the one IBM donated to Union last year. (Slaunwhite worked with Prof. Seyfollah Maleki on the Union
instrument.) Besides a course in Swedish language and his self-described ill-fated
math course, Slaunwhite joined a Ph.D. student in a project to develop a
perfectly flat gold surface through a process called hydrogen flame annealing.
While he didn't optimize the process, he did have “mild success.” And he says
the experience taught him about the “consuming passion” it takes to be a
research scientist, something he may consider as a career.
Haviland who arranged tickets to the Nobel ceremony, a two-hour affair at which Slaunwhite thrilled
to see about a dozen of the world's top scientists, economists and writers
receive the honor of their lives from the King of Sweden. He was one of the few
Americans, and perhaps one of the only undergraduates to attend. His invitation was
addressed to “Professor Jason
Slaunwhite.”
Back at Union
this term, Slaunwhite has resumed his schedule, an ambitious combination of
classes and research projects.
“It's important for me to find out what is too much,” he said. “Projects take a long time. When I go to do my senior project, I'll take on a more reasonable project. I say that now … we'll see what happens next year.”
