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When the Mountebanks were tv stars

Posted on Sep 1, 2003

The early days of television
had strong Union connections.
“Twelfth Night” at WRGB, March 1943

In 1945, the electrical engineering power laboratory, in what is now known as Steinmetz Hall, had several large cartons marked “TELEVISION” stored along one wall. No one appeared interested in them, and there they sat, unopened. I had an assignment as proctor in the Alpha Delta Phi house, which was then being used as one of the college dormitories. Another young engineer, Andrew Pletenik, was then an instructor in the Electrical Engineering Department. Part of his duties was to serve as a proctor in another fraternity house, then being used as a dormitory. Proctors were then compensated by free room and board (at Hale House). Hence Andrew and I dined together frequently and became close friends.

He asked Professor Harold W. Bibber, chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department, about the contents of these cartons. Bibber said they had been donated to the College by the General Electric Company and that we could open then if we so desired. In them we found a beautiful wooden floor-mounted cabinet having a top that was hinged at the back and a mirror attached to its underside, a cathode ray picture tube (black and white) about ten inches in diameter, a power supply chassis, an audio and radio frequency chassis, and a separate folded dipole antenna.

We assembled these several components in a room on the second floor of Steinmetz Hall. The picture tube was mounted vertically in the lower part of the cabinet, and the hinged top, with the mirrored underside, could be positioned at any angle near 45 degrees. Hence the picture could be seen by anyone in the room.

The large antenna had to be installed outdoors. We went over to the administration building (now Feigenbaum Hall) and found Professor Charles T. Male, who was serving as college engineer. He had all of the drawings for the College buildings, so we were able to find the height of the parapet above ground. Then we went over to the building and grounds shop and borrowed a suitable extension ladder (about forty feet long). With this we were able to get up on the roof and secure the antenna mast to the back of the parapet, just above the window of the second floor room containing the TV set.

Much to our surprise, it all worked.

In March 1943, the Mountebanks performed “Twelfth Night” on WRGB television—perhaps the first full-length Shakespearean play to be televised.

At that time, WRGB was the only TV station in the area, and it only operated several evenings a week, all with locally-produced programs. Andrew and I then visited the TV studio to see where the programs originated. The studio was in a building at the northwest comer of State Street and Washington Avenue, which is now a part of the Schenectady County Community College. We were cordially greeted by the TV station staff and watched the production of the show (with local talent). When the manager learned that we were from Union, he led us into his office, where he had a large framed map of the Capital District. A colored pin was inserted for each television receiver in the area (about fifty pins total). He added another pin for our Union TV set and put us on the mailing list for future programming. Word spread quickly among the College community that the EE Department had a TV set. Many of the curious came to see it work, but the very limited programming did not attract a rush of viewers. Later on, GE installed a TV relay station on top of Mt. Beacon (just south of Poughkeepsie), which could receive TV signals from New York City and relay them to the Helderberg Mountains, where the WRGB transmitter was (and still is) located.

-Malcolm Horton '45

The Mountebanks were early performers

In April 1942 the Mountebanks presented “The Playboy of The Western World,” a classic by John M. Synge, the renowned Irish playwright. (My library still holds the original published script we used, complete with pencilled stage directions). During some of the rehearsals and performances, a director from WRGB sat in the rear of Hanna Hall taking notes; in those early days, they were looking for readymade programs to use.

Since “remotes” were very rare in those days, we were to perform the play at the new WRGB studio in downtown Schenectady, on Washington Avenue across from the Van Curler Hotel. On April 20, 1942, the Mountebanks presented what we were told was the first full-length, three-act play ever televised anywhere. Unfortunately the only record I have of that show is a photo of the set that was built at the studio.

Student theater performances were featured several times in the early days of WRGB-TV. Here, students and faculty present “Ode to Liberty” in July 1942. Cast members are invited to identify themselves.

During June 1942, President Dixon Ryan Fox contacted me at home in Lake George asking me if I could come to Schenectady to be in a short dramatization on television about John Howard Payne, who attended Union for a short time. I can't remember now what the play was about, but I certainly did not turn down an offer to play young Payne. So, on July 3, 1942 (probably part of some holiday programming), we did “Ode to Liberty.” On the back of the one photo I have of that show is written the title, date, and “Presented by faculty and students of Union College.”
I don't recognize the faculty member standing with me nearest the camera, nor do I remember any of the other four students. I'll be happy to send copies of the picture to any cast member who can identify himself.

The Concordiensis of March 5, 1943, has an article reporting that Shakespeare's “Twefth Night” was to be presented by the Mountebanks “and will be given over television the following week.” So once again a director from WRGB sat through some rehearsals and performances to set up his camera angles and cues. In March 1943, the Mountebanks performed what was certainly the first full-length Shakespearian play to be televised.

WRGB received its commercial license in March 1942, and as Mal Horton has said, there were only about fifty TV receivers in the local area. While the audience was limited. Union can still claim some “firsts” in the then brand-new medium of commercial television.

-Edward Dahlstedt '45

W.R.G. Baker
In at the beginning

Much of the early research and development of television came in Schenectady, and the call letters of the country's oldest television station honor a Union alumnus.

One of the first to achieve success with television was Dr. E.F.W. Alexanderson of the General Electric Co. In the late 1920s he devised a crude, mechanical method for television production (his correspondence and notebooks are in the College's Special Collections).

In 1928, GE engineers took equipment to Albany and televised Gov. Alfred E. Smith's acceptance of the Democratic nomination for president-television's first remote broadcast. Two years later, the company projected pictures on a seven-foot screen before an audience at Schenectady's Proctor's Theater-the first public look at television. And in 1939, W2XB (as the station was called) broadcast the first long-distance reception of modern television, relaying pictures of the King and Queen of England visiting the New York World's Fair that had been sent by NBC's transmitter on top of the Empire State Building.

That fall, General Electric asked John Sheehan '25 and John G.T. Gilmour '27 to manage the station. Not surprisingly, many broadcasts in those early years featured Union people. One show starred Professor Egbert Bacon, who gave a half-hour illustrated talk about postage stamps. Football Coach Nels Nitchman and several of his players made television appearances to demonstrate plays and techniques, and in 1943 a condensed version of the College's V-12 physical fitness program was televised from the station's studios. As the accompanying stories explain, the Mountebanks starred in several productions.

The station's call letters changed to WRGB in 1940-a tribute to Walter R.G. Baker '16, a GE vice president who was one of the key figures in television's development. His many honors included election to the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame.

In 1944 Baker predicted that within five years of the end of World War II, television service would be available to nearly two-thirds of the population of the country. He was right. By the early 1950s WRGB was carrying shows from all the major networks and producing nineteen live shows at its studio. Two more stations appeared in the area, and by 1954 WRGB was on the air eighteen hours day, seven days a week.

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Coming home

Posted on Sep 1, 2003

Dropping the first puck at the Union-Merrimack hockey game is Frank Messa ’73; he and his wife, Colleen, donated $1.5 million for the renovation of Achilles Rink. The ice facility, home to the College’s two Division I hockey teams as well as intramurals a
Fall, fun, family, football…a perfect Homecoming and Family Weekend.

One of the annual highlights is the volunteer appreciation reception and dinner, where the College honors the many alumni who volunteer their help. Recognized this year for extraordinary levels of Annual Fund support were:

The Bicentennial Cup

To the class with the largest
combined annual, capital, and planned gift total-Class of 1932, Gordon Bennett, Class Giving Chair, with $450,351.14.

Third Century of Excellence Award

To the class with the highest
combined percentages of ReUnion attendance and Annual Fund participation-Class of 1953, John Moses, Class Giving Chair, with a combined rating
of 138.02%.

William Jaffe Cup

To the class with the largest Annual Fund dollar total-Class
of 1976, Arnold Hiller and Jean Skolnik, Class Giving Co-Chairs, with $171,323.

Class of 1944 Award

To the class with the most Terrace Council members (gifts of $2,000 or greater)-Class of 1974, Richard Samuels and Michael Ginsburg, Class Giving Co-Chairs, with 17 Terrace Council members.

Dixon Ryan Fox Cup

To the class with the highest
percentage of participation that has not yet celebrated its 50th ReUnion-Class of 1957, Howard Rosenkrantz, Class Giving Chair, with 70.67%.

Class of 1930 Bowl

To the class that has graduated in the last decade and has the highest percentage of participation-Class of 1993, Julie Kriesel and Roxanne Schneider, Class Giving Co-Chairs, with 24.24%.

Clowe Stevenson Wyatt Prize:

To the class with the highest participation among the four most recently graduated classes and the Senior Class-Class of 2003, Kyrie York and Ellen Casper, Committee Co-Chairs, with 45%.

Dr. Joseph E.
Milano '36 Award

To the class with the most improved Minerva standing
-Class of 1941, Morris “Tiny” Weintraub, Class Giving Chair.

Joining the list of awards presented to alumni volunteers during the weekend was the Joseph E. Milano ’36 award, given to the class with the most improved Minerva standing. Here, Betty Milano, Joe’s widow, joins Morris “Tiny” Weintraub ’41 and John Moses

Also honored were the
following 2003 Minerva's Footrace Award Winners (with class giving chairs):

1930s

First:Class of 1939
Second: Class of 1935
Third: Class of 1936, Joseph Milano

1940s

First: Class of 1941, Morris
“Tiny” Weintraub
Second: Class of 1943,
Robert Bishop
Third: Class of 1942, William
Birdsall and Benjamin Leland

1950s

First: Class of 1953, John Moses
Second: Class of 1951, Richard “Dick” Killeen
Third: Class of 1955, Kenneth Haefner

1960s

First: Class of 1963, Cliff Mastrangelo and Neil Kleinman
Second: Class of 1966, Thomas Hitchcock and Joseph Sawyer
Third: Class of 1965, Richard Erdoes and Richard Crookes

1970s

First: Class of 1975, David
Heilberg and Kathleen Perras
Second: Class of 1972, William Fox
Third: Class of 1976, Arnold Hiller and Jean Skolnik

1980s

First: Class of 1980, Thomas Buiocchi
Second: Class of 1985, Timothy Hesler and Suzanne Rice
Third: Class of 1983, David Smith

1990s

First: Class of 1996, Daimee Stadler Isralowitz and Rachel Katz
Second: Class of 1992,
Craig Ferrero
Third: Class of 1994,
Whitney Merrill

2000s

First: Class of 2000, Phoebe Burr

 

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The Idol

Posted on Sep 1, 2003

Peter Sage '04

This year's issue of The Idol came out just in time for the beginning of fall classes. The color cover of Union's literary and arts magazine is an abstract design-“actually a photograph of a group painting, the original of which is about four feet by four feet,” says Editor-in-Chief Peter Sage '04.

The painting was the result of this year's Jackson Pollack party, which involved staff from The Idol. This annual event is now a tradition, explains Sage: “We get together and watch the film 'Pollock,' then we put down plastic sheets and a huge canvas, and throw paint around.”

In keeping with its shoestring tradition, The Idol has no office. “It operates either out of my room or a room in the campus center,” says Sage. “It's a group project-we put it together in one night, starting at 5 p.m. and, with the help of donuts and coffee, going maybe to 3 a.m. We choose the submissions we want to include, do the layout. It's a lot of work. But it's a blast-fun putting it together, and you get to see students' creativity and what some people are doing. A lot of people at Union are talented, but you don't get to see their talent in the course of an ordinary day.”

The production schedule was a little late this year, since Sage had spent the fall term in the rainforest in Australia. A biology major with minors in visual art and chemistry, Sage joined The Idol staff as a sophomore, after seeing a flyer at Club Day. He's always been interested in the intersections of science and the arts, and last spring signed up for The Illustrated Organism course (see separate article in this issue) as one way he could “get a dose of science and art together.” He's also taken drawing, sculpture, and art history, and does photography.

The Idol, Fall 2003

The Idol first appeared in 1910, promising to be “a quarterly of scintillating sarcasm strongly soliciting the
ceasing of swiftly circulating student sobriety.” This humor magazine lasted one issue.

In 1928, it emerged again, and its first two years saw some of the best student literary works ever produced at Union. The lead article in the first issue was titled “Henry David Thoreau: Propagandist of High Thinking,” and ten substantial book reviews ranged from a look at two books on football to an examination of Conversations with Anatole France.

Brooks Atkinson, famous drama critic for The New York Times and onetime professor of English at Dartmouth, commented, “Whether The Idol had reviewed my book or not, I shall still have thought it a remarkable publication from any college. The Thoreau piece goes right back to the old English quarterlies in its completeness and its independent grasp of the subject.”

The author of the Thoreau piece, and The Idol's first editor-in-chief, was William Gilsleichter '28, later to become a technical writer for the Bendix Aviation Corp. and eventually a playwright. Gilsleichter noted in the first issue that the
Concordiensis and the Garnet for years had recorded the activities and expressed the opinions of students. The Idol, he said, was created solely to provide a means of expression for creative and appreciative writing by students. “We hope to avoid the curse of imitative cleverness, the veneer of sophistication, the laboured and strained effort at aping styles and moods, that often is apparent in many undergraduate publications.”

Those first Idols were oversized, gray, and very serious. A later editor had to defend the magazine against charges of being ponderous: “We are not averse to publishing articles of a light nature if we can obtain them, but we shall always prefer genuine ponderosity to strained levity.”

“Genuine ponderosity” must have been difficult to produce, however. One student took aim and unleashed this in a competing publication:

By the doors of old Concordy
Sits the idle Idol boardy
With the folded thumbs a-twiddling,
With their eversharps fididdling
And as ever, in a daze
Known as literary haze.
Nothing serious, I fancy,
Just a bit of lead in Pantsy.

In the early 1930s, The Idol expired, but rose again like a phoenix in 1937, with a fresh list of editorial planks:

  • The Idol will print anything worth reading which seems to make sense and obey the laws of grammar.
  • “It has no patience with institutions or people whose behavior and intellects stammer.
  • “It does not pretend to be right, or articulate, or oracular.
  • “It will make no more than a reasonable attempt to be spectacular.”

In 1939, editorship passed to Alfred (“Pat”) Knopf, Jr. '42, son of the distinguished publisher and himself a future publisher of note. Knopf streamlined the layout; used his connections to obtain subscriptions from the likes of Willa Cather, H.L. Mencken, and Bennett Cerf; and tried to produce a journal that would not embarrass him in their eyes. Contemporaries discovered in it the influence of both The New Yorker and Time. Student contributions virtually disappeared, and belletrist writing was largely replaced by faculty analysis and other features.

Knopf did not ignore the local scene entirely; he commissioned student polls, editorialized against the growing power of the president of Union, and published a photograph of the usually dignified President Dixon Ryan Fox at a dinner, with his mouth full. For these and other sins (presenting “personal opinions” and being “inaccessible” to campus contributions), he became the target of several attacks in the
Concordiensis; one denounced him as 'Mein Knopf.'”

Because of World War II, The Idol suspended publication between spring 1943 and the end of 1946.

The following fall, the journal came back to life, offering students $1,500 in prizes for their writing. Postwar editors included future book publisher Clarkson Nott Potter '50, who revived book reviews and faculty articles, introduced profiles of young faculty members, and published the first photographic essay. Future
Washington Post editor Howard Simons '51 also published several faculty articles and was the first to reproduce photographs for their own sake, rather than as illustrations. Walter Tower '53, later proprietor of Nimrod Press, increased The Idol's attention to the campus, publishing several student polls and analytical articles about the College.

There is no one Idol, with an appearance and content transcending the frequent turnover in editors and contributors. Each
Idol is a distinctive reflection of the small group that produces it. One result, of course, is a notable lack of consistency in style. The Idol of 1928 would not have published the following, from a 1954 issue:

Reporters; “I've got the perfect news story.”
Editor: “Man bites dog?”
Reporter: “No, bull throws professor.”

By the 1950s, The Idol was a magazine about the campus, with profiles of students and faculty members, short stories, sports reports, articles about various departments, a series on the St. Andrews Exchange program, and something called “The Last Page”-an attempt at a humor column.

From the 1960s onward, depending on the editor, changes of direction occurred almost every year. But there was a noticeable trend toward including more and more graphic art (especially photography) and reducing nonliterary content and faculty contributions. “Honesty” and “relevance” were important words, and there was anger, too. Photographers showed poor blacks, empty faces, rundown apartment buildings, desolate highways. Stories touched on murder, suicide, sex, poverty, Vietnam. In 1966, the magazine contained this editorial credo:

“The winds of change. A new size, a new format. An experiment.

“The real change is between the covers. Fiction and poetry that avoid pretension. Photographs that speak for this generation….

“This issue is not esoteric, is not pseudo-intellectual. Its emphasis is on solid material; with no pose and without pretense.

“This issue is honest.”

A poem from that era, titled “My Love Is Like a Motorcycle, or
Ode to a Gas-House Girl”:

POUNDING DOWN THE HIGHWAY DOING NEARLY NINETY.
lurching and accelerating
fluttering, now bellowing, now echoing.
Braking the inertia out from within.

You can wave and jump and fly and scream
and laugh and cry and be happy and hit a
truck head-on.

The Idol mellowed in the 1970s. It had, at times, a certain zaniness, a sort of off-the-wall approach, unlike the hard edge of the 1960s, but by no means a return to the softness of the 1950s. Here's a sample, the start of a long piece in 1973 entitled “Segment From an Unfinished Novel” by John Devlin '73:

“As I drove in the main gateway of the college, I was once more overcome and revolted by the impressive Belcher Memorial in the center of the campus. This structure, which was the nucleus of the campus, was a circular-cylindrical building, jet-black, smooth and shiny, without windows. It curved to a point at its top. Because of the copper color of the dome, the black color of the main cylinder, and its over-all shape, it suggested an enormous bullet or artillery shell. As I was to learn later, this was by no means an accident. Elijah Heath Belcher, the founder and the first president of the college (from 1878 to 1902), was before he entered the academic business a ballistics scientist and entrepreneur.”

In the 1970s and 1980s, The Idol appeared less frequently and less regularly-in the sixteen years between spring 1974 and spring 1990, only about twenty-five issues appeared. One 1985 issue appeared as four pages in the
Concordiensis. Changes of format were very frequent; in some years, no two issues had the same dimensions.

In winter 1989, The Idol, under editor Jose Andrade, also produced an additional publication, called
End., noting, “In the previous decade, we saw the Me Decade of the 1970s turn into a SuperMe decade, lived under Republican rule, watched MTV, and witnessed the Community Empire begin to crumble….”

In her note in the 2002 edition, Kristen Andrews '02 commented, “Much like the art between its covers, the bounds of The Idol consistently look to be stretched, expanded, and redefined.”

The Idol continues to experiment and no doubt, to puzzle. Its eccentric inconsistency has grown out of a tradition of being allowed to simply be itself.

editors and contributors to The Idol:

Codman Hislop '31, Research Professor of American Civilization at the College and author of
Eliphalet Nott.

Harry Rositzke '31, retired CIA agent whose books included The KGB: The Eyes of Russia.

Alfred Knopf, Jr., '42, who went on to serve as chairman of Athaeneum Publishers in New York City.

E. Arthur Kean '50, screenwriter and film director in Los Angeles.

Daniel Smuthe '50, professor of English at Bradley University and a poet.

Howard Simons '51, managing editor of The Washington Post.

Walter Tower, Jr. '53, owner of Nimrod Press in Boston.

Rodham Tulloss '66, research leader at Western Electric
(later Bell Labs) and published poet.

Kate White '72, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine
and mystery writer.

Steven Glazer '85, professional treasure hunt maker and
editor of Valley Quest: 89 Treasure Hunts in the Upper Valley
and The Heart of Learning Spirituality in Education.

Kerrie M. (Ticknor) Droban '87, attorney and award-winning mystery writer (The Watchman's Circle won the Daphne Du Maurier Award and the Claras Award for Mystery
Writing Excellence).

Joy Runyon '88, project manager at The New York Botanical
Garden Press.

Dina M. (Schweitzer) Leitch '90 went from Union to study
feminist psychology, work in a family law office, and become certified in California as a marriage and family therapist.

Rebecca Smackey '92, director of communications and
publications for the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Glenn Konopaske '95, a biology and classics double major,
went on to get a medical degree, and is now a psychiatrist
in Connecticut.

Julianna Spallholz '98, a fiction writer and poet who
completed an MFA in creative writing at Goddard College and who now works in Union College Special Collections.

Duncan Campbell Crary '00, co-founder of Salvage Magazine,
a literary and art publication launched last year in New York's Capital Region.

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The mystery of the unknown initials

Posted on Sep 1, 2003

It makes you wonder:
Were their dorm damage deposits returned?

That might be one of many questions raised by the floorboards from South College, which bear the initials of
students from the mid-1800s.

During South's renovation, workers came across the floorboards that may have been cut down to serve as stair treads. Several sets of initials, some with class years, can be seen. Some are complete; others were cut off when the pine boards were shortened. Some are carved with a stonecutter's precision and artistry; others are as indistinct as mysterious runes.

With the help of the Special Collections staff and the Centennial Catalog, the curious can speculate on the identities of the carvers. Was “HRR” the ill-fated Henry Reed Rathbone, Lincoln's theater guest who sustained grievous stab wounds as he tried to subdue the fleeing John Wilkes Booth? Was
“B Cannon” Benjamin Cannon, Class of 1840, who went on to become an attorney? Was “A Potter DD” Aaron Potter, the Baptist minister from the Class of 1842? And was “J Whitaker” the Jacob Whitaker, Class of 1852, who was a surgeon who served with the New York
Volunteers in the Civil War?

The brash young scholars
who carved their initials for posterity certainly left their twenty-first century counterparts a conundrum.

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College to convert former Ramada into student residence

Posted on Sep 1, 2003

The entrance to the new student residence.

The College has purchased
the former Ramada Inn at 450 Nott Street, which, after its renovation, will be used as
residence space for 230 upperclass students. Two adjacent parcels of land will become soccer fields for use by the
College and the community.

The project was announced
by President Hull at a news conference at the opening of the fall term.

The College will spend $15
million on the project, bringing Union's total investment
in the neighborhood west of campus to $26 million.

“The acquisition of the Ramada Inn and the adjoining land is a key element in our commitment to our students and our continued support and investment in Schenectady,” the president said. “It addresses the needs of the College and at the same time contributes to the revitalization of Schenectady. The future of Schenectady and Union College are inextricably linked, and I feel this project enhances both the city and the College.”

The project comes as the
College is embarking on major changes in its social and residential system for students. A new House System, designed to better integrate social,
residential and intellectual life on campus, is underway; just three days before the announcement about the former Ramada Inn, more than forty students moved into South College,
the first element in the new House System.

In a letter to alumni, the president referred to a continuing transformation of campus social and residential opportunities. “Integral to the comprehensive strategic plan adopted by the Board of Trustees in 2001 is a commitment to seek improvements in the character and quality of campus life for today's students and for those who will follow them,” the president said.

An interior view of the new student residence.

This latest project will further expand the variety of residential life experiences Union offers its students at a time when more students want to live in college-owned housing. A decade ago, about seventy-five percent of the College's students lived on campus; the addition of the former Ramada Inn will bring that figure to more than ninety percent, and students will be able to choose among several residential options, including traditional residence halls, apartment-style housing on Seward Place, theme houses, and fraternities and sororities.

The College plans to sell $15 million in bonds through the Schenectady Industrial Development Authority, and the president emphasized that the project will be self-funded through student room charges.

The College invited five firms to submit designs and budgets for the project, with a completion date for the renovation of fall of 2004. Plans call for the creation of 110 single rooms and 60 doubles, to house a total of 230 students. The Office of Residential Life will staff each floor with one student/staff mentor, and there will be an area coordinator to oversee the entire building. The construction of a lighted and security-patrolled walkway from Huron Street, adjacent to the main campus, to the new residence hall is also planned.

Among the building renovations will be replacement and reconstruction of the roof, repairing and repainting the exterior, installation of new and updated heat and air conditioning systems, increased fire protection, construction of a new entryway, creation of study areas and meeting rooms, creation of a fitness center after filling in the
swimming pool, and general interior renovations such as painting, new carpeting, and new window treatments.
The athletic field complex will bring the College and community together on what used to be vacant industrial land.

Plans call for the construction of artificial turf soccer fields for use by College teams. When College is not in session, the fields will be available for community use. A $450,000 federal appropriation obtained by New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton and Congressman Michael McNulty will help fund part of the playing fields project.

President Hull reviewing plans for the new student residence.

The Ramada project and the changes made as part of the Union-Schenectady Initiative (USI) will bring the campus's total area to about 115 acres, up from the century-old total of 100 acres. The president noted that the enrollment and complexity of the College have changed dramatically over that time; in addition to expanding to its present enrollment of more than 2,000 undergraduates, the College has added a number of buildings (e.g., the F.W. Olin Center) and significantly expanded its academic offerings and extracurricular program, including athletics. This academic, residential, and extracurricular enhancement has made it necessary to look at a physical expansion of the historic campus.

USI, a broad-based plan to revitalize and stimulate home ownership in the College Park neighborhood, was introduced in 1998, and, to date, the College has invested about $11 million in that project. In addition to buying houses and renovating them to become apartment-style housing for more than 100 students, the College converted a former bar and restaurant into the Ralph and Marjorie Kenney Community Center, now the headquarters for community involvement programs (more than 600 Union students take part in some form of community volunteer work each year).

Tom McEvoy, dean of residential and campus life, says the addition of the Ramada will complement the House System. “The key to the House System will be drawing students from their residences to their houses, since only about 175 students will actually live in houses,”
he says. “The former Ramada will not be much different from the other residence halls on campus, in which most of the student body lives. Students in the former Ramada will have a house assignment, and we hope that they also will choose their houses as 'hang out' space.”

The Ramada property, once the site of the American Locomotive Company, will require environmental remediation. The parcel contains some residual levels of aged petroleum products that were used in the manufacturing of locomotives, tanks, and other vehicles. The president noted that the College has worked closely with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the state Comptroller's Office to ensure that all procedures for remediation have been followed. “We hope that this project is a model for the effective use of brownfields and that it will be replicated elsewhere in this city and state,” he said.

Planning your visit

We realize that the closing of the Ramada Inn will affect some of you and your plans for ReUnion, Homecoming, Commencement, and other major Union events.

The Visitor's Center on the Union College web site has information about lodging in the Capital Region; the address is www.union.edu/Visitor_Center/lodging.php.

Other web sites that may help you plan your visit include:

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