County health department officials expect to test between 25
and 30 College employees who may have had contact with an employee diagnosed
with tuberculosis, according to Sandy Mosher, director of health services.
No students have been identified as being at risk, she said.
Testing is to begin on Monday, April 28. Results will be
read on Thursday, May 1.
The College last week notified the campus community about
the case. Officials have emphasized that there does not appear to be a large
number of exposures and, based on the clinical particulars, the case does not
appear to be highly contagious.
Three prominent philosophers will
discuss the nature of consciousness during the annual Spencer-Leavitt Lecture
Series, Wednesday, April 30, through Friday, May 2, sponsored by the Department
of Philosophy. The following lectures are scheduled:
— Daniel C. Dennett – Wednesday, April
30, at 7:30 to 9 p.m., in the College's
Reamer Campus Center Auditorium. His topic is, “Explaining the 'Magic' of
Consciousness.”
— Edward S. Casey – Thursday, May
1, at 7:30 to 9 p.m., in the Reamer
Campus Center
Auditorium. His topic is, “Emotional Consciousness.”
— The Dzogchen Ponlop, Rinpoche – Friday,
May 2, at 7:30 to 9 p.m., in the College's
F.W. Olin
Center Auditorium. His topic is,
“Coarse and Subtle Levels of Consciousness.”
Dennett is university professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of
Philosophy, and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts
University. He holds a doctorate
from Oxford and has taught at Tufts
since 1971. He is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles. His first
book, Content and Consciousness, was
published in 1969 and his most recent, Kinds
of Minds, came out in 1996.
Casey is professor and chair at SUNY-Stony Brook, where he has
taught since 1977. He served as executive co-director of the Society for
Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy and currently is on the executive
committee for the American Philosophical Association. In the past decade, Casey
published three books on the importance of place in human experience.
The Dzogchen Ponlop, Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist lama trained in
the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions. He teaches Buddhist philosophy at western and
Tibetan institutions. Rinpoche is the founder of the Nitartha Institute in Canada
and director of the Kamalashila Institute in Germany.
His most recent book is Penetrating
Wisdom.
This year's crop of retirees shared some witty, poignant and
(sometimes) brief memories of Union at the recent Employee
Recognition Luncheon.
Here are some excerpts:
Sigrid Kellenter,
Thomas Lamont Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature, professor of German
(27 years): “My whole life has been a 'converging to some center' (referring to
an Emily Dickinson poem) and I thank Union College and all you lovely
colleagues and friends for having allowed me to be this 'converging guest' at
your table for a time.” Prof. Kellenter also shared some memorable student
conversations, including — Kellenter: “I hope I didn't see you looking at your
neighbor's test paper.” Student: “I hope you didn't see me either.”
Alice Marocco, director
of gift planning (19 years): Recalling a trip to visit Jim Corbin '34 in Swansboro,
N.C., she described how she and colleague
Sally Webster accompanied Corbin as he drove his Jeep over the storm-washed
beach. “Suddenly, Jim stopped, put the Jeep in reverse, opened the driver's
door and leaned out to pick up something that was lying on the beach. He
turned, and handed me a large, nearly perfect, conch shell – the most beautiful
I had ever seen.” Marocco, who sold her home to travel the country in an RV
several years ago, kept the conch shell that “has become one of my favorite
possessions.” Corbin died in 1999. “I like to think that if I hold that shell to
my ears, I might hear pieces of the conversations I've had over the years with
Jim and the countless other wonderful Union alumni and friends I have had the
privilege and the honor to know in my work at Union.”
Sandy Marshall,
secretary, Admissions (15 years): “I started working in West
College as line server. One of the
students who worked with me handing out food to the students is now handling my
money.” The student has also become a financial consultant to a number of Marshall's
family members. “Thanks to a Union graduate who handed out food, we are able to
retire with financial security.”
Marianne Moore,
secretary, political science (15 years): Recalling when she applied for her
job, she described the conversations she had with the late Prof. Charley
Tidmarch and emeritus Prof. Joe Board. “To tell the truth, if it wasn't for
Charley and Joe, I don't know I would have decided to work for Union.
They both helped me through the years. It has been one of the most comfortable
positions I have ever had, mainly because of those two wonderful people.”
Jeane Sinnenberg,
assistant registrar (36 years): “My most memorable moment while working at Union
College was the first day I went to
the engineering office in Carnegie Hall [now Reamer]. There stood Carm St.
George with a wonderful smile to greet me. Of course, there have been other
special moments, but this particular one always comes to mind. Union has been a
part of my life for a very long time. I have enjoyed working with faculty,
staff and students too numerous to mention. Working in the dean's office and my
tenure as assistant registrar for 12 years was especially challenging and
rewarding. Union College
will remain a meaningful part of my life.”
Jim Underwood, Chauncey Winters Professor of Political
Science (40 years): “While dean [of faculty], I was in Milano Lounge with
[President Roger Hull], the Founders Day speaker/honorand and other members of
the platform party. In the midst of confusion and lively conversation, Jan
Ludwig, the marshal, rushed into the room and said, 'Time to go, follow me.'
Somehow, none of us heard him. Jan proceeded to march to the chapel, climb the
stairs, walk up the aisle and mount the stairs to the stage. All the faculty
were in their places in the front rows. However, there were no members of the
platform party on stage as we were still blathering in Milano Lounge. Next
thing we saw was red-faced Jan rushing into Milano once again. This time, we
marched behind him into the chapel and onto the stage.”
George Williams, professor of computer science (33 years): “I appreciate the attention of
the employee recognition luncheon. As for the 'memorable moment story,' I
really just want to thank the faculty and staff who put up with me for all
these years.”
A Union alumnus, entrepreneur and venture capitalist who realized early
the potential of online applications – and led the nation's first publicly
traded business-to-business Internet company – will deliver the opening address
at the Summit in Tech Valley on Monday, April 28.
Mark
Walsh '76, managing partner at private investment entity Ruxton Associates in
Washington and a trustee of the College, will present “From Phoenix to Ashes to
Phoenix: The Power of Technology Cycles” at the Summit's opening luncheon.
A crowd of over 400 CEOs, presidents and senior-level executives from
the region's technology, business, academic and government communities is
expected to attend the event, Monday and Tuesday at the Marriott Hotel on Wolf
Road in Albany.
“Mark Walsh is a pioneer who understood the enormous implications of
the Internet and online technology long before the dot-com explosion,” said Ann
Wendth, senior vice president of the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of
Commerce and the Summit's lead organizer. “His knowledge and expertise provide a superb foundation
to look at the explosive growth of technology at the same time the Tech Valley region is poised to enter a new era.”
Walsh
joined AOL in 1995 and sensed the potential of the Internet to affect how
businesses bought and sold from each other. He created and ran AOL Enterprise,
the business-to-business division of AOL. Then, in mid-1997, he joined
VerticalNet Inc. as the CEO, taking the company public in early 1999 – in the
process, becoming the first publicly traded business-to-business Internet company.
He became chairman in late 2000.
After
leaving Harvard Business School with an MBA in 1980, Walsh worked for a number
of years at Home Box Office in New York in new business development for the HBO and
Cinemax brands. In 1986, he joined the then-fledgling “online information”
industry as vice president and general manager of CUC International's online
group. CUC offered interactive shopping, travel and automotive information and
transaction services. He continued his leadership role in the collision of
interactive services and consumer markets by becoming president of Information
Kinetics, a venture-backed online employment and career services company, then
became president of GEnie, the online service owned by GE, before joining AOL. He
is vice chairman of VSGi, a video conferencing systems management company.
Walsh
is on the board of Blackboard Inc., an educational software and tools company;
Day Corporation, a publicly traded content management tools company; and the
Philadelphia Orchestra, where he is on the digital rights subcommittee. He was an advisory board member for the New
York Times Digital Company, and has served on the board of a number of Internet
startups and privately funded technology companies. Directly out of college,
Mark was an anchorman and news director for a CBS-TV affiliate station in West Virginia.
Walsh
serves, or has served, as a board member and/or chair of the Software and
Information Industry Association, the Interactive Services Association, the
President's Advisory Group of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Standard for
Internet Commerce. In 2000, he was named
one of Business Week's “e.biz 25,” and that same year was named by Upside
Magazine to the “Elite 100” – the one hundred most influential people in
technology. Walsh has been interviewed
or quoted in a wide variety of national and international publications, and has
appeared on a number of national and global business television programs.
(Photo above: Fiji child, by Peter Devine '04)
John Thompson went to Fiji
last winter term for a wedding of sorts, the unlikely marriage of high
technology and Fijian village culture.
His project, an independent study titled “A Digital
Ethnography of Rakiraki, Fiji,”
used digital cameras and recording equipment to create what he calls “a
web-based interactive cultural learning environment.”
The website – at http://fiji.union.edu/ — explores the cultural identity of Fiji through the perspective of both the local Fijians and the
Union students. The term abroad students and members of the Rakiraki village
were instructed in the use of digital cameras and camcorders with the goal of
recording their reactions and experiences. Through photos, videos, audio
interviews, and field notes, this site provides a unique comparison between a
native view and an American student view of Fijian culture.
If, as the adage goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words,”
the question for Thompson was, “Who can best create those pictures?”
So, on the three-month Fiji
term, Thompson had Union's 10 student-ethnographers
record Fijian culture with photographs, videos, audio and field notes.
But he did something else: he empowered the research
subjects to portray their own culture. “I wanted to give them the means to show
their own culture, to show what is important to them, rather than just having
our students portray it with cultural relativism,” he said. “I wanted [the
Fijians] to establish a cultural identity through their own eyes.”
Amanda Haag '04 with Meme, a child in her homestay family
Under the direction of Professors Steve Leavitt and Karen Brison, 10 Union
students live with Fijian families in a small village, learning effective
research methods and conducting their own individual research projects. The
professors and students set up “FijiNet” during a 1999 trip to the Pacific
island. Thompson's project builds off that earlier effort.
Planning for Fiji
Thompson's project took a lot of advance work. He carefully
researched equipment, being careful to bring digital equipment that was
durable, flexible and easy to use in the field. He had to make sure the cameras
could take the knocks of use, that the batteries could be recharged on the
Fijian power grid, and that the memory cards were large enough to hold a large
number of photos. The equipment purchases were supported by a grant from the
Keck Foundation through the office of Doug Klein, director of the Center for
Converging Technology.
He also had to set up the shell for a web site that would be
at once comprehensive enough to represent a large ethnography, and flexible
enough that it could be updated from the field using laptops and slow Internet
connections.
And somewhat as anticipated, things did not go perfectly. As
Thompson says, “Whatever you think you're walking into, you're not walking
into.” Or, “If you plan for one thing, something else will happen.”
For example, Thompson was surprised to find that the very
technology that was to convey the ethnography may have altered the way Fijians
recorded it. Fascinated with the digital technology and the “instant
gratification” it affords, some of the early results were “goofy photos” of and
by the Fijians, something that would not have been an issue with SLR film
cameras, Thompson said.
“I expected them to make decisions about what is important
to show about their culture,” he said. “I wanted to give them very few
guidelines.
“One of the goals of
ethnography is to not change the environment you are observing, but the
very technology you bring can have that effect,” he said.
Web site focuses on
three groups
The web site was (and is) aimed at three audiences: students
in Prof. George Gmelch's introduction to anthropology course, who corresponded
with the students about the challenges of field work; students at Niskayuna
High's Global Studies class, who corresponded with their counterparts in a
Fijian school (Nakauvadra High School, where Thompson helped teach a computer
course); and family and friends who wanted to follow the Fijian adventures of
the Union students.
Among the highlights are photos and field notes from Union's
student-ethnographers, Fijian recipes, maps of the Rakiraki area, samples of
Fijian music and video clips of Fijian life. The site also features photographs
of Union student adventures during the term, as well as slide shows of a Fijian
funeral, the slaughtering of a cow and a New Year's celebration.
“John has developed a shell that people in other terms can
use,” said Leavitt. This site is a good
model that can be used by other terms, both for sharing the international
experience with those on campus and for involving the local people in the
project, he said.
John Thompson in Fiji
Thompson, a native of Litchfield,
Maine, is a computer information systems
major and economics minor. As a Seward Fellow, he is also earning
interdepartmental minors in computer science and anthropology.
He is a Union Scholar and a Steinmetz Scholar. Among his other research
projects at Union were “Aesthetics in Nature,” a
photographic exploration in Galway, Ireland,
into the aesthetics of nature. See the results at: http://cs.union.edu/~thompsj2/photo.php.
(He did a similar project in Athens, Greece,
on the aesthetics of photography.) He also did a project on the role of
information technology, with a paper concentrating on information technology's
role in transforming the Tibetan struggle for independence.
Among his many activities, Thompson has been a member of the
College's Planning and Priorities Committee; the Alternative Social Spaces
Planning Committee; vice president and treasurer of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity;
volunteer for the Boys and Girls Clubs; and a member of the ultimate Frisbee,
ski and whitewater kayaking clubs.
Thompson was an alternate for junior fellow for the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, a Washington
think tank. He is considering a career in international business.
He also is a frequent panelist for admissions events. What
does Thompson say to prospective students about getting the most out of the
Union experience? “Most of the learning you're going to do in life isn't done
between walls and in chairs. Take advantage of it.”
