Posted on Apr 11, 2003

Lest we think the recent NCUR conference at the University
of Utah was all serious, there's
Scott Robinson.

Besides presenting on “Determining Myocardial Deformation
in Bullfrog Hearts,” the senior mechanical engineering major made Utah
history by being only the second person to finish a “burrito grande”
at the Blue Iguana, a downtown Salt Lake City Mexican restaurant.

With the encouragement of the other Union students,
patrons and wait staff, Robinson finished a burrito “large enough to provide a
normal person four to five entrees,” said Prof. Tom Werner of chemistry, noting
that three other Union students were unsuccessful in their attempts.

“Apparently,” said Werner, “it does not taste good after
about a third of the way through, which puts Scott's accomplishment in
perspective.

“Unfortunately, Scott passed on the free dessert that
came with finishing the burrito and, truth be told, he paid a significant price
over the next few days for his accomplishment,” Werner recounted. “Don't think
he's ready to go Mexican anytime soon.”

The waiter was so impressed that he asked Robinson to send
him a picture to place next to an autographed one of Brittany Spears near the
restaurant entrance. No word on whether the pop diva had attempted the
gastronomic challenge.

As for the conference, it went quite well, Werner said. “We had 72-degree
weather which most us would kill for about now and the Union students again did
superb jobs. As usual, they also recognized just how well prepared they are to
give these presentations.”

About 30 Union students presented at the 17th National
Conference on Undergraduate Research held this year at the University
of Utah, Salt
Lake City. As in years past, the Union contingent is
among the largest at the conference. Union was a charter
participant in NCUR in 1987, and hosted the conference in 1990 and 1995.

Besides Werner, the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of
Physical Sciences (chemistry) and former chair of the NCUR Board of Governors,
the Union group was accompanied by Ann Anderson, professor mechanical
engineering and member of the NCUR Board of Governors; and Mousumi Duttaray,
visiting assistant professor of economics.

Posted on Apr 11, 2003

Kelly Herrington, associate dean of admissions, will do
almost anything to recruit a student.

You have heard of ambulance chasers? How about an associate
admissions dean ambulance rider?

After taking 23 students from the Overlake
School in Redmond,
Wash., out to midnight
bowl at Boulevard Bowl, Herrington found himself accompanying one with a hurt
knee via ambulance to Ellis Hospital. A
participant in Ironman Triathlons, Herrington said, “I never thought of bowling
as an 'extreme sport' before, but everyone was great about it.”

The College is expecting a record number of admitted
students visiting this month. “Hopefully this will be the last to visit
Ellis,” said Dan Lundquist, vice president for
admissions.

Welcoming the
prospective frosh

With hundreds of accepted candidates and their families
visiting for “Accepted Students Days” on April 14 and April 21, Campus Safety
is directing employee vehicles to peripheral lots to make central lots
available to visiting students and their families.

The College this year accepted a record 42 percent of 4,146
applicants.

Posted on Apr 11, 2003

After
many years in the classroom, Teresa Meade, professor of history and director of the Women's Studies
Program, pretty much knew which books cause her students' eyes to glaze over.

“Because
I've done so much teaching, I know what is wrong with a book that I have
assigned.” Her most recent book, A Brief History of Brazil, was easy for
her to write because she knew what the role of the textbook should be.

Meade's
earlier book, Civilizing Rio: Reform and Resistance in a Brazilian City,
prompted Facts on File publishing to ask her to write a textbook, A Brief
History of Brazil.

“I
really enjoyed the process of writing a textbook because I had done so much
teaching,” she said. Many textbooks on Latin America can be, Meade explained, “horrendously
political.” That is, they go on monotonously “from one president to the next,
or one military coup to the next, or one strongman to the next.” Meade said
such texts don't deal with the material from the bottom up, which makes the
historical connections easier for students to comprehend.

Meade
discovered that her classroom technique for presenting the material also works
in writing a textbook. In the classroom, she tries to make the connections from
the land to the people; from day-to-day life to broader political and economic
events, and from small events to larger historical changes.

Another
characteristic absent from most texts, she continued, is the “assumption that
the world is made up of men and women.” Textbooks are, on the whole, written as
if there are “no women in society.” Meade quoted historian Joan Scott, who
argued in a famous essay that “Gender is the field upon which history is
played.” Patriarchy, law, inheritance and many aspects of history have revolved
around women, said Meade. “The narrative is incomplete if we omit gender from
the analysis,” she said.

Another
goal in her writing is to present the role of popular culture in forming
peoples' identities. Brazilians take tremendous national pride in their soccer
prowess and as a repeated World Cup winner. Surprisingly, soap operas, which
are telecast in the evenings, are viewed by men and women. The scripts
regularly incorporate major political events in well-written and lively
portrayals. What transpired on the previous night's novela is often the
next day's topic of conversation. And of course, Brazil is famous for the yearly pre-Lenten
carnival and its year-round musical culture.

Meade
emphasized that the country has a long tradition linking politics and the arts.
People who are major writers might also have played important roles as
ambassadors, she said, often acting as spokesmen for their country and very
involved in political affairs.

Meade's
third book, A Companion to Gender History, is now in press. It is a
reference book and part of Blackwell Publishers Companions to History
series. Visit http://www.union.edu/PUBLIC/HSTDEPT/meadet.html#Research
for details.

Posted on Apr 11, 2003

Were you satisfied with Union's
extracurricular offerings?

Are you comfortable in recommending students to Union?

What alumni activities and services most interest you?

Those are among the questions the College is asking alumni
in an on-line survey being launched this month. The survey went live on April
7. It will run through April 30.

“Union has always been blessed with
enthusiastic, proud and engaged alumni,” said Tom Gutenberger, vice president
for college relations. “This survey is an important tool in helping us to
understand the perceptions of our alumni and how we can best meet their needs.
I look forward to hearing the responses.”

Alumni can take the survey at the following site:

http://www.tellunion.com/

Posted on Apr 11, 2003

It was a lot to ask of one woman, even a goddess.

Minerva, the Greek goddess of wisdom who since 1795 has
shouldered the brunt of the College's graphic identity, is finally getting some
help: a new logo that features an image of the Nott Memorial.

“The new logo is a distinctive branding of the College's most
recognizable symbol,” said Dan Lundquist, vice
president for admissions and financial aid, during the first of a series of
meetings this week to unveil and discuss the logo with members of the College
community.

“Union has never had a logo, per se,”
said Lundquist, “and we wanted to move toward a distinctive and coherent look
in our presentation. The venerable college seal is an important part of
the school's heritage but it is not suitable for a range of print and
internet-based applications.

“The new graphic identity system built around this logo has
been designed to reflect the mission and vision of the College,” he said. “Its
distinctive treatment of the Nott Memorial acknowledges our proud history of
achievement while conveying a sense of progress and innovation.”

The graphic was the result of months of work by a campus committee
that worked with a graphic design firm, GCF of Baltimore,
which assisted in a one-year make-over of the College's admissions publications and
web site. A number of alumni, faculty, students, and staff were interviewed as
the project moved from concept to implementation. “No college has the great
good fortune to have such an outstanding – and unique – opportunity for a
logo-image,” said Brenda Foster of GCF. “The Nott Memorial is the
emotional and architectural center of Union's campus –
and many peoples' experience of the College – and it was 'the natural' for a
logo.”

“Nowadays, images of the Nott effectively say 'Union
College,' without the words,” said
Lundquist. “Guided by our traditions, we wanted to find a crisp rendering
of that image that would be effective in a wide variety of applications and say
'Union College.'” 

One of the committee's main goals was to develop a design
that conveys the College's distinctive centerpiece in a clean, elegant graphic
that would be easy to reproduce, said Tom Smith,
the College's web site director.

The committee considered a number of images ranging from
stark negative renderings of the Nott to highly detailed ones that resembled
woodcuts. Lundquist related that one committee member, Trustee Mark Walsh '76,
observed that U.S.
currency was designed with great detail to discourage counterfeits. Similarly,
a highly detailed logo would be difficult to reproduce in a variety of media –
print and electronic.

The new image will be phased in over time, so offices and
programs need not waste stationery, for example. “We are not saying that by noon tomorrow everyone must use the new logo,”
said Smith. “This will be rolled out over time and you will be seeing it more
and more.”

The seal of Minerva will continue to be used for official
College documents – like diplomas, transcripts and program covers. The adoption
of the Minerva seal at the College's founding was a radical innovation in that
it incorporated a French motto: “Sous le
lois de Minerve nous devenons tous fréres” (“We all become brothers under
the laws of Minerva”).

The launch of the new logo is accompanied by a “Graphic
Identity Style Guide” that explains the various uses. The style guide and
various versions of the logo and typography are available at the following web
site: http://www.union.edu/logo/