Ask someone in academe to define “liberal education,” and you'll get variations on a few familiar themes:
- Creative and independent thinking
- The development of curious and inquisitive minds
- A greater appreciation for complexity and difference
- The ability to look at a problem in many ways, work through the challenges, and move ahead with confidence
Ask the alumni who got a liberal education at Union, and you might get the reply, “Look at my life.”
The alumni in the following story have taken paths that they did not expect, yet all say their years at Union made them well prepared for their adventures.
Jeffrey Hedquist '67
Jeffrey Hedquist's business card should read “Writer, Director, Producer, Actor, Announcer, Narrator, Spokesperson, Character.” Among the characters he's birthed are the world's most experienced traveler and a Bogart-like fellow named Nick Diamond, private eye. In fact, he's created dozens of characters, dialects, impersonations, and even talking animals. And you've probably heard his alternately mellow and comic voice in “person-on-the-street” commercials. Nationally, you can hear him on radio and TV for Goodyear, Ford, McDonald's, Time-Life, Dutch Boy Paint, Sunbeam, and the American Heart Association.
He counts among his success stories a humorous commercial promoting the Stamford (Connecticut) Downtown Shuttle, complete with sounds of car horns, balking engines, jackhammers, and even a car crash all synchronized to the Blue Danube Waltz. “Isn't it time you stopped dancing to the Stamford Commuter Waltz?” he exclaims at the end. Shuttle rider ship rose by 33 percent in three weeks.
He always knew his destiny was on the stage or behind a mike. He says it all began in elementary school, confessing that he was “the bane of many teachers' existences, making mouth noises, wise-guy comments, doing what I could to win an audience over in the classroom.”
Then his dad, who had sung on the radio, taught him a few guitar chords, and Jeffrey's musical career was launched. He channeled his energy into less disruptive endeavors, such as singing in school assemblies and community talent shows. Performing one day on a radio show at age 16, someone told him he had a good voice for radio. It was not long before he took his first job on the air, hosting a rock-and-roll show on a 500-watt daytime station in Bristol, Connecticut.
So Hedquist didn't exactly get his start at Union College, but perhaps it was here where he began perfecting his craft. As an undergraduate, he helped resurrect the college's student-run radio station, wruc. Between terms, he worked at whatever radio jobs he could find–from newscasting to disk jockeying to reading the farm report. He even produced some commercials. Working summers at Albany's rock
station wptr and a classical show on wfly in Troy, he says, “I went from the Supremes in the morning to Gustav Mahler in the afternoon.”
Today he runs a successful, four-person production house, called Hedquist Productions, Inc., in a studio set on his own farmland in Fairfield, Iowa. Hedquist Productions also works with ten freelance writers, six composers, and an international talent pool of 6,000 voices. And he has earned nearly 700 advertising awards creating and producing commercials for companies like at&t Wireless, Motorola, Holland-America Lines, and The Body Shop.
Part of the time, he shares successful radio techniques with audiences across the country. “Being chosen as a featured presenter at the national conventions of the aaf, Retail Advertising Conference, rab, and National Association of Broadcasters have been some of the highlights of my speaking career. I just returned from delivering the keynote address at the national Holland radio conference in Amsterdam ”
Hedquist is a featured columnist for national publications such as Radio & Records, Radio and Production, Small Market Radio Newsletter, and AdGenius. “Now, if I could finish the books I'm working on–Radio Writers Block Busters and Life Is Like a Radio Commercial
–that would be some sort of culmination. My wife says my problem is I have too many careers!”
He's taught and directed at the National Audio Theatre Festival Summer Workshop for the past two years with audio luminaries such as Tom Lopez (zbs Productions) and David Ossman (Firesign Theatre)–“the high point of my radio/
education career.”
Hedquist is still an active songwriter, performing his acoustic originals throughout the Midwest. He's also in demand as a stand-up comic for corporations, where he customizes humor for each audience, including songs created for the occasion.
He's been farming organically since 1996 and is now converting his farm to native prairie seed production.
On Earth Day this past April, Hedquist was invited to host the Prairyerth Living Treasures of North America Heritage Awards, where he shared the stage with author and columnist Studs Terkel, folksinger Ella Jenkins, and environmentalist, folksinger, activist and educator Pete Seeger. “During the event, I sang some of my original songs as well as joining Seeger on some of his. This was pretty close to heaven for an old folkie like me.”
For more on Hedquist and his work, visit his website, at
www.hedquist.com and
www.jeffreyhedquist.com.
William Unterborn '84
As a youngster, William Unterborn '84 aspired to be a geologist, so we might not find his current career surprising–selling geologic, palentological, and natural history specimens.
But his journey there is yet another example of how a
liberal education can take you in many directions.
While attending Union, Unterborn participated in the Men's Glee Club and the Dutch Pipers. After graduating with a degree in English, he moved to New York City with some friends to pursue music. The spirit and the money ran out in a couple of months, and Unterborn's music career came to a halt.
The next step in his odyssey came when he was offered a managerial position at a Pier 1 imports store in his hometown of Rochester, N.Y. “It was not the road I had anticipated,” he says–but it does connect to his career.
After eight years as a Pier 1 manager, Unterborn became a district manager, then merchandising coordinator for World of Science, Inc., where he founded, designed, and managed the company's web operations. In September 2000, Natural Wonders, Inc., bought World of Science; in late December, Natural Wonders filed for bankruptcy; and by January 2001, Unterborn was out of a job.
It was a good time to remember the childhood advice he had always received from his family– “that you can do anything you want, and always strive to be the best that you can be.” After filing for unemployment, he took out a business loan, and by July 2001 he and a colleague from the World of Science joined forces and began their own business, called Collectology. This Internet-based business (www.collectology.com) sells geologic, palentological, and natural history specimens such as
fossils, meteorites, insects, seashells, skulls, scientific antiques, display reference materials, and equipment. The specimens are tracked and collected from experience and relationships built from World of Science. “It's a matter of networking,” says Unterborn.
He finds the meteorites especially fascinating. “They have pedigrees; there are stories behind them all,” he says, pointing to a meteorite that has chips of red paint from a car it hit in the driveway of a New York woman's house. Another meteorite is estimated to be more than 4.5 billion years old. “That's older than the sun–it boggles the mind.”
Unterborn also organizes geological field trips. On his most recent trip, he led an expedition to some streambeds in western New York. “Everyone came away with some nice specimens.” By this spring he hopes to expand his field trips out west.
Collectology is not the
only business that Unterborn oversees.
“My wife and I traveled to Britain and always stayed at b&b's,” he says. “We dreamed of running one ourselves.” In 1998, the dream came true. Unterborn became a three-time champion on the popular game show “Jeopardy” and he used his $31,899 in winnings to buy a Victorian house in Palmyra, N.Y., which he opened as
Libertyhouse Bed and Breakfast (www.libertyhousebb.com).
Unterborn also does voiceover work for radio commercials and corporate video narration, serves as chairman of the local planning board, and–shades of his experience at Union–he is beginning to sing once again for some friends of his in a band.
Clearly, Unterborn has pursued his interests, and then some. “I really like the fact that I'm my own boss.”
Bill Unterborn remembers the childhood advice
he always received from his family– “that you
can do anything you want, and always strive
to be the best that you can be.”
Steven Glazer '85
After traveling the world, and years of moving around, Steven Glazer '85 has found his
home in the small Vermont town of Thetford, where he works as a professional treasure hunt maker.
Glazer has transformed the 150-year-old British tradition of letterboxing into Valley Quest, a program that helps children and adults learn more about the natural and cultural history of their region. As the director of Valley Quest, Glazer teams with community members to research local sites, write poetry, draw maps, create riddle-like clues, and finally put all the pieces together in a public, installed treasure hunt that the larger community can enjoy.
“The kids learn that you can really read the world, and that our communities are embedded with clues, stories, and knowledge,” he says. More than 1,000 children, adults, students, and historical society members have contributed to the creation of these quests, and the 125 hunts now stretch across forty towns in the Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire.
This is not the career he once envisioned. An English major, Glazer earned his M.A. at the University of Chicago and thought he would become an English professor. Searching for a job, he had a chance meeting with a man who had just returned from a three-year traveling experience in China.
Glazer was inspired; after a year of working long hours and several odd jobs at a time, he and his wife, Stacy Helfand Glazer '86, quit their jobs and traveled to places such as Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, and China. In an eleven-month span, they each spent a mere $3,300 (including airfare), while seeking to live on the same level as the people they were visiting. They sometimes slept in corncribs, on straw mattresses, and on mud floors, and they quickly realized that “heat, toilets, and running water are luxuries,” says Glazer. “It's a shame that we had to travel all the way to Nepal to learn that.”
Back in America, Glazer became an administrative assistant at the School of Sacred Arts in New York City, an organization seeking to teach and preserve sacred art traditions such as calligraphy, manuscript illumination, and icon painting. In 1990, he and his wife moved to Boulder, Colo., where he began a seven-year stay at the Naropa Institute, a university devoted to a spiritual and intellectual environment. A highlight of his time there was a four-day conference in which nature, spirit, and the practice of contemporary education were discussed; the Dalai Lama was one of the attendees. Glazer transformed the conference into a book, The Heart of Learning–
Spirituality in Education.
In 1997, Glazer became co-founder and managing director of Living Education in Patagonia, Ariz., an organization committed to exploring, teaching, and patterning place-based education. Two years later he connected with Vital Communities, a nonprofit organization in White River Junction, Vt. As Glazer read the job description of the Valley Quest Coordinator, he said to himself, “Wow, I can be a treasure hunt maker! I don't even have to go to Nepal!”
In a way, we should not be surprised at the path Glazer has taken. Back in 1983, when he was on a term abroad in England, he researched the remnants of the Industrial
Revolution–mines, railways, canals–to put together the mystery of how Bathstone moved from Bath to London. He says the term contributed to his lifelong fascination with acquiring knowledge by exploring the clues the past has left behind.
Glazer hopes that others across the country will create their own community treasure hunts. “Every place has disappearing elders and local cultures,” he says. “We need to remember who we are, where we are, and where we come from–and carry this into the present.”
Steven Glazer hopes that
others across the country will create their own community treasure hunts. “Every place has disappearing elders and local cultures,” he says. “We need to remember who we are, where we are, and where we come from–and carry
this into the present.”
Tim Smith '94
Since graduation, Tim Smith '94 has studied with notable primitive skills and survival instructors around the U.S. and Canada, earned his M.Ed. from the University of North Texas, become a Registered Maine Guide, and acquired the title of a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician.
Now, he has fulfilled his search for the perfect job by creating Jack Mountain Bushcraft and Guide Service.
Smith, a New Hampshire native who always felt that exploring the outdoors was “second nature” for him,
managed to sneak in some hikes in the Adirondacks while at Union. Immediately after graduation, he used a free airline ticket to go to Alaska.
There he met a fellow outdoor enthusiast and was invited to participate in a 30-day primitive living skills practicum in the bush. At the end of the practicum Smith was invited to return to Alaska and stay awhile. After flying back to New Hampshire, Smith bought a twelve-foot travel trailer for $500 and pulled it to Alaska, via the Trans-Canada and Alaska highways. He spent two years in Alaska, fishing and exploring the wilderness while washing windows for his primary income.
The experience sparked Smith's interest in making a living out of the wilderness, and when he returned to the East Coast he looked up Dan Fisher, a friend and lobsterman who also ran a wilderness school in Brunswick, Maine.
Smith began teaching with Fisher. A year later, Smith created his own wilderness school, Jack Mountain Bushcraft and Guide Service, in Wolfeboro, N.H., where he teaches primitive and traditional outdoor skills ranging from mammal tracking to winter survival, and also guides multi-day canoe and snowshoe trips.
In the winter of 2002, Fisher and Smith began their “Earth Skills Semester Program,” which puts students in the proper environment to learn with hands-on experience. Smith says the “low tech, high skill” program teaches students to live on the earth “like it is their home, which it is. They come to us not really knowing anything about the natural world and leave feeling much more at home.”
The students live in a large shelter made from gathered natural materials. They learn how to find wild foods and medicines; how to track, canoe, and snowshoe; and how to make musical instruments, soap, and anything else “required to live well.” They also maintain daily journals; create portfolios of crafts and skills; and research final projects, which complement their total outdoor experiences.
In its first semester, five students came from around the country. Smith is expanding the program in 2003, with winter/spring, summer, and fall semester programs.
Smith has also found time to create his “tongue in cheek” online business newsletter, The Moose Dung Gazette.
The newsletter includes journal entries from various outdoor excursions; information about courses, outdoor gear, and supplies; and anecdotal information and stories on animal and plant life. The newsletter is posted on the Internet bimonthly (www.jackmtn.com), and
runs as a column in his local newspaper.
Tim Smith, a New Hampshire
native who always felt
that exploring the outdoors
was “second nature” for
him, managed to sneak in some hikes in the Adirondacks while at Union. Immediately after graduation, he used
a free airline ticket to go
to Alaska.
Jillian Shanebrook '91
Jillian Shanebrook can trace
her Far East odyssey to her childhood.
“As far back as I can remember, I dreamed about the Far East and a way of life so different from my own,” she says.
So, when the time came for her to go on a Union Term Abroad, it probably was inevitable that she would head for Japan. And, since she came from academe (her father, Dick, taught mechanical engineering at the College for thirty-five years), it may have been inevitable that she thought of becoming a professor.
After graduating with honors, she began a fellowship in the Asian Studies program at the University of Michigan, with an eye on earning a Ph.D. and going into college teaching. When funding evaporated, she switched to economics. After earning two master's degrees, one in Asian Studies, the other in economic development, she decided she needed a respite from school and longed for an adventure in Asia. Because she wanted to stay in the Far East long enough to get a sense of everyday life, she applied for a Peace Corps-like program at Princeton. Accepted, she was given a one-year assignment to teach English to Indonesian students in the city of Yogyakarta, on Java.
It was, she recalls, a wonderful assignment–“a dream life, paradise, full of cultural opportunities”–and she lived comfortably on her
$200 a month stipend.
Although Indonesia is a Muslim country, life was not as constrained for her as it might have been in the Middle East. She freely explored the city, and soon found that her height (5'7″) and looks were attracting stares. A fashion designer invited her to model in a show. That first job, which paid $10, was quickly followed by others, and she began to model regularly on weekends while continuing to teach during the week. By the end of a year, she had traveled throughout Asia, appeared on numerous magazine covers, been a “spokesmodel” for several advertisers, been offered a “Charlie's Angels” type of role in a film, and was going to star in an exercise video.
But then the Far East econ-
omy took a nosedive, job offers began to disappear, and she decided to return to America to direct an English as a Second Language program in Portland, Ore. Although she made a few trips back to Indonesia for modeling assignments
(“The dichotomy was interesting. Here in America, I was taking the bus to work, and there I was a celebrity.”), six years ago she moved to Brooklyn, where she now is an adjunct professor of English as a Second Language at Brooklyn College.
The adventure isn't entirely over, though. Out of her experience came a book (Model: Life Behind the Makeup), and she now combines teaching with book promotion tours, which have taken her all the way to Australia. And she still does a little modeling, traveling to China this January.
Does she hand out advice along with autographs?
Yes, she does. “If you think you have an adventure in you, go for it. I'm just glad Union had such a great Terms Abroad program. It really nurtured
my whole experience.”
From Model: Life Behind the Makeup
As far back as I can remember,
I have dreamed about the Far East; of wet-green rice paddies, fragrances of jasmine and lemongrass, bold empresses, jade mines and bamboo groves. I was charmed by stories of orchid-scented nights, Buddhist monks dressed in saffron robes, and clandestine opium lairs. Little did I know that my fascination with Asia would lead me into the world of international modeling…
For more information, www.jillianshanebrook.com
James “Kenny” Scott '00
As if to disprove the adage that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, James “Kenny” Scott has followed
a path eerily similar to Jill Shanebrook's.
Scott, a slim six-footer, went on his Term Abroad shortly after finishing the 1998 cross-country season. At his host college, Bond University in Queensland, Australia, he
met people from all over the world but struck up a special friendship with an Australian student who, as we shall
see, played a key role in his modeling adventure.
Back at Union, Kenny, a history major, began work on his thesis while beginning to think about life after Union. But the night before his oral defense, his thesis (on a computer disk) was stolen. “I couldn't concentrate on anything except recreating the thesis, and I did a lot of extra work in the spring to catch up,” he says, proudly adding that he eventually got an A minus. “So after graduation I just went home to Buffalo and got a job in a bank.”
Meanwhile, that Australian friend had been offered a job teaching English in Japan, and she began to e-mail Scott, urging him to come to Japan to teach.
“I decided I had nothing to lose, so I worked hard, saved money, got a job interview in Toronto, and was offered a teaching job in Tokyo.”
Kenny arrived in Japan in January 2001, with modest goals–learn Japanese and work for a year. Like Jill Shanebrook, though, he found that his looks would take him in another direction.
A fellow in his Japanese class asked him if he had thought about modeling, saying Japanese agencies were always searching for a “foreign” look. On his day off, Scott visited eight or nine agencies, and within a week had his first job, portraying a runner in a documentary being made about the 1964 Olympics in Japan.
At about the same time he met another teacher, this one a struggling photographer who took hundreds of shots of Scott and created a portfolio that both could use. Scott, portfolio in hand, went back to the agencies, and it didn't take long before his phone began to ring regularly with offers for modeling and acting jobs. He was in a fashion show, posed for commercials and ads, appeared on a CD cover, did music videos, and was a character in a movie called “Gun Crazy,” released in Japan last May. In the last few months he has been working in “Gun Crazy 3” as the number-two man in a terrorist group. He says he has a lot of lines, gets to look nasty, and will be listed sixth in the cast credits.
“I still teach full time, so my modeling is done on my days off,” he says. “It's sure taken a toll on my social life, but the money is great and I'm getting a lot of experience.”
So much experience, in fact, that when his teaching contract is up he plans to pursue acting, perhaps in Japan, perhaps back in New York or Los Angeles.
“Sure, I know that on most jobs I'm the token black guy, but it's been a great experience,” he says.
Some roles played by Kenny Scott in Japan:
street fighter in a music video, intelligence officer in a movie, baseball commentator on a variety TV show, Tiger Woods for a cable company commercial, nasa researcher for a life insurance company commercial, soccer player in
a fashion show, friend at a wedding in a Fuji film ad, businessman in an office
supply catalog, face in the crowd for a Toshiba ad.
For more information, see
www.portfoliopromotions.com/models/?modelid=_0nu0cy2ih or e-mail Kenny at
leoiscariot@yahoo.com.