Posted on Jun 17, 2004

Kevin Rampe '88, president of the
Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and honorary chancellor of the 2004
Commencement on June 13, was profiled in the New York Times on June 17 in an article titled “A Consensus Builder
for Ground Zero's Renewal.”

Rampe delivered the main address
at Commencement, urging students to follow the model of recovery in lower Manhattan
by pursuing public service. (For more on Rampe's talk at Commencement, with a link
to the full text of his address, click here: http://www.union.edu/N/DS/s.php?s=4583).

“Mr. Rampe, 37, a corporate lawyer
by training but a make-it-better guy at the core, heads a group charged with
waving $2.78 billion in federal money like a magic wand to initiate the
revitalization of downtown Manhattan,” said the article, by Times reporter Robin Finn.

The article continues:

“Last week, the development
corporation completed its selection of four diverse arts groups – a theater
company, a dance troupe, a museum and a drawing center – that will serve as the
cultural beacons of the rebuilt World
Trade Center.
And on July 4, a date not selected by coincidence, the groundbreaking is
scheduled for the Freedom Tower,
a sort of single-spire reincarnation of the twin towers. As of that date, says
Mr. Rampe, there will be 'nonstop construction' at the site.”

“Getting downtown rebuilt is
not a moral responsibility, it's a moral imperative,” he says, choosing
his rhetoric carefully. He is sitting in a small, utilitarian office where the
wall art consists of photographs of a reimagined trade center as envisioned by
the architects Daniel Libeskind, David Childs, Michael Arad and Peter Walker,
along with a site plan – a trade center composed of Legos and designed by a
6-year-old New Yorker – that was not chosen but embodies the same sense of
civic engagement that spurred him to take on this chronically thankless job.

Not that he has a martyr complex.
Consensus builders can not stoop to self-indulgence. Or kowtow to bullies.
“Anyone who tries to insert their ego into this process is summarily
destroyed,” he says with a satisfied smile.

As for the critics, amateurs or
pros, who dislike the Libeskind design, dislike the memorial, dislike the
Freedom Tower, disagree with the arts groups chosen, and ad infinitum, Mr.
Rampe is all for dialogue, with a caveat: “It doesn't mean you put
everything out for referendum.”

“This is a process
tailor-made for Monday-morning quarterbacking. The worst thing would be if we
made these decisions and there was no reaction. And the best thing that ever
happened to this agency is that we failed at the beginning. No, really! When we
put out the first site plans and everybody said they were horrible, it changed
everything. Once you turn that switch on and let the people in on the process,
there's no going back.”

Once Mr. Rampe left home for Union
College, he switched from a farm
boy's career aim (veterinarian) to the law. After graduating from Albany Law
School of Union University in 1991, he joined Shearman & Sterling as a
litigation associate; when a not-so-plum assignment arose – travel to Kuwait
to prepare $200 million in environmental and health claims against Iraq
in the aftermath of the first Gulf war – he fought for it, and went.

“It was incredibly
interesting and incredibly sad,” he says. “What had happened there
was really a rape of their country, and my job was to document that.”

He says the Kuwaiti people were
intent on rebuilding. They were resilient. Just like New Yorkers.

Posted on Jun 16, 2004

Babs R. Soller '75,
associate professor of anesthesiology, surgery and bioengineering at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School, has been
appointed associate team leader for the Smart Medical Systems Team of the
National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI).

Soller will help manage scientists working on NSBRI remote
medical care projects. The team's research focuses on identifying and
developing new methods of assessing, monitoring and diagnosing health problems
on long-duration space missions. New technologies developed by this team will
have immediate benefits to medical care on Earth.

Soller received her bachelor's degree in chemistry from Union. She received her master's and doctoral
degrees in physical chemistry from Princeton University.

The NSBRI,
funded by NASA, is a consortium of institutions studying the health risks
related to long-duration space flight. The Institute's research and education
projects take place at more than 70 institutions across the U.S.

Posted on Jun 14, 2004

Peter Williams,
a longtime member of the College's grounds operations staff, died June 3 at his
home at 1032 Eastern Ave. He
was 68.

Williams, who began with the
College in 1964, retired in 2000. More than 100 colleagues attended his
retirement party, held on the occasion of his 65th birthday, and
sang a chorus of “Happy Birthday.”

He was cited at the event by
President Roger Hull, who acknowledged that Williams should get much of the
credit for the College's then-recent beautification award from the American Society
of Landscape Architects.

Williams' contributions to campus
beautification also were recognized by the
Class of 1993, which presented him with a special citation at their
Commencement.

Williams was the son of the late
Clinton Williams, professor of civil engineering at Union.
Survivors include two brothers and a sister.

Plans are for interment in the College
Plot of Vale Cemetery sometime this fall. Arrangements are with Kazyaka Funeral
Home, Schenectady.

Posted on Jun 13, 2004

For the first time in recent
history, faculty and graduates are making their way through the campus
centerpiece – the Nott Memorial – in the processional and recessional at
Commencement.

The idea came from William Finlay,
professor of theater, who suggested the change to President Roger Hull. Finlay
produced a play about Eliphalet Nott, president of Union from 1804
to 1866, who implored early graduates to make their lives in what was then the
uncharted west. Even the plan of Union's campus,
designed by Nott to open toward the west, reflects his vision.

“Symbolically, what I'm hoping for
is that our graduates will be following [Nott's] advice and go out into the
world to chart their lives and discover themselves.”

No stranger to choreography,
Finlay says that this production has one interesting challenge: “In all my time
in theater, I have never done a production where none of the participants have
rehearsed,” he said. “It's like having a wedding without a rehearsal.”

The Nott Memorial, named for the
early Union president, was completed in 1878 and fully restored in time for the
College's Bicentennial in 1995. A rare example of Victorian High Gothic
architecture, it is on the National Register of Historic Places and one of the
most memorable buildings in American higher education.

'Robot Rivals'

Two graduating seniors, Adam
Retersdorf and Marissa Post, are becoming celebrities in the robot world. The
two mechanical engineering majors, along with junior Jason Fishner,
recently took the championship trophy in “Robot Rivals,” a television contest
that requires college and university teams to design and build robots that can
do tasks like harvest a crop, rake leaves, play hockey and navigate a maze. The
show airs on the DIY Network.

Shorter ceremony

Today's ceremony will be shorter
than usual, thanks in large part to the fact that 150 graduate degrees were to
have been awarded on Saturday at the commencement of the Graduate College of
Union University. GCUU, launched this year as an independent institution, used
to be known as the Graduate Management Institute and degrees were awarded
during Union's Commencement.

Grads far and near

The 492 students in the Class of
2004 include nine from Schenectady, and two
– Jonathan Goossen and Aung Naing – from Singapore.

Senior class gift

About 75 percent of the members of
the Class of 2004 gave a total of nearly $5,000 toward a gift to the College.
The gift will be used to update the projection and sound systems in the Reamer
Campus Center Auditorium.

Posted on Jun 13, 2004

Ann Rutter of Rocky Point, L.I., who earned a bachelor's degree in
biology and history, was selected to give the student address at the College's
Commencement on June 13.

A 2000
graduate of Rocky Point High School, she is the daughter of John and
Gwendolyn Rutter.

An
interdepartmental major in biology and history, she is enrolled in the
College's Leadership in Medicine Program, a combined-degree program with Albany Medical College and Union University. She is to earn a master's degree
in health systems administration from the Graduate College of Union University
and then an M.D. degree from AMC.

An aspiring
doctor, she said she is interested in family practice but is considering other
options.

At Union she has been a member of Phi Beta
Kappa honor society; and a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor
society. She also played varsity tennis and intramurals, worked as a pool
lifeguard, and as a student assistant in Women's Studies. She was a tutor of
local children at the College's Kenney Community Center.

Her
address, titled “The Real World,” focuses on the accomplishments students have
made long before they graduate.

Following
is the complete text:

The real world. I have heard that
phrase perhaps more often than I would have liked over the course of the last
few months, something to which many of you, I am sure, can relate. Apparently,
that is where we are heading, the “real world.”  It seems like some mysterious place we are
all destined for after our time at Union ends. 
It is made out to be an unwelcoming place of hardships and cruel people,
of politics and money…a place we seemingly won't understand until we get there.

 For some reason, though, those two words have
always seemed to bother me; they have never sat quite right. If the years ahead
are the real world, what am I living in now? And for the past four years? And
even the years before that?  Are people
saying that before we get to this “real world” we are in a place of phony
relationships, fictitious and insincere people and artificial experiences? Are
they trying to tell us that everything we have done and accomplished has been a
fabrication? A figment of our imaginations? 

To me, that doesn't seem to make
sense. Looking out at these faces before me today, telling them they are going
into the real world only now seems belittling to the achievements and
adventures they have already attained and pursued. Students among us are world
travelers and have been given the opportunity to see and feel the global
environment. There are students who have become true scientists and have
already made contributions to the community outside of Union's gates. Many became mobilized in
one way or another, both on and off campus, to make a true difference in our
communities and society. Or what about those of us who just took it all in,
gained knowledge and skill and are ready to apply that to whatever lies ahead.

We have all met at least one person
who has influenced us and helped us to grow, whether it was a faculty member or
fellow student. Bonds have been formed across seminar tables and lunch tables;
connections that lasted an hour, a term or over the length of four years. We
have been through tragedy and triumph, as individuals, classes, teams and as a
campus community. It certainly isn't just or accurate to say that these things
aren't real. There isn't one person here who can say they are the same as when
they arrived or that they have been untouched by something along the way.  For it is these experiences and relationships
that have gotten us to this moment and molded us into the graduates sitting
here today. 

Graduate; yet another word that seems
to stir up a lot of emotion. It is a term to describe many of us here and in
just a little while, alumni will be another one. These are the two hats we all
have in common, but there are many others that we may have arrived with when we
first set foot on this Schenectady campus or have acquired since that time. We
have among us scholars and artists, scientists and philosophers, activists,
mentors, musicians and actors … and through the beauty of a liberal arts
education, many of us are a combination of these things. 

Now, don't get me wrong here, I know
that things will be different. After all, commencement by definition is a
beginning, so we must be starting something new. But we will still smile and
still cry. The earth will still turn the way it always has. We will continue to
realize our dreams. It's just that now these things will happen in new places
with new people. We may not always have someone watching over our shoulders to
make sure our footing is secure and perhaps we may slip a time or two, each
time growing and learning. But all of these things are part of the process, a
process that began long before today.

As we venture back through the Nott
Memorial this morning, we will be walking toward the once uncharted west. As we
do so, we will not be headed into the quote “real world,” but instead towards
our own unmapped destiny. Towards a place where we can take everything real
that we have already done, expand upon it and use it as a stepping stone into
everything real that we are yet to do. The world you set into won't be any more
genuine or authentic than the world you have already experienced, it will just
be different. You have already proved you have the
tools, skills and experience to do great things, don't let those go to waste as
you take your next step.