Posted on Jul 17, 2004

To sum up ReUnion 2004 in words:

More than 1,450 guests visited the campus, coming from as far away as Israel, Italy, and England. Ward H. Bumpus '33 was our oldest alumnus.

At the Alumni Convocation, gold medals for service to the College were presented to William Burns '54, Estelle Cooke-Sampson '74, and James Lippman '79, Admissions and Alumni Volunteer Awards went to Robert W. Fischman '71 and Frederick B. Simon '76, the Laudise Chemistry Alumni Award went to Kenneth D. Legg '64, Ph.D., and the Faculty Meritorious Service Award was presented to Professor of Anthropology George Gmelch.

The Alumni Parade winners were Anable Cup (greatest number in parade): 1979; McClellan Cup (highest class percentage): 1954; Van Voast / Class of 1941 Cup (best costume): 1954; and the Class of 1943 ReUnion Award (overall ReUnion effort): 1954.

ReUnion class gifts totaled $6,407,994.

Room dedications were held for the 1954 Conference Room in Abbe Hall (nicknamed the sun room), dedicated to the Class of 1954 in celebration of its 50th ReUnion, and the 1974 Great Room in South College, honoring the Class of 1974 on its 30th ReUnion. Both classes raised money to support the dedications.

The Choral ReUnion Concert featured more than 100 alumni voices and the current Union College Choir. Alumni returning to participate represented seven decades. The concert was conducted by Professor Emeritus of Music Hugh A. Wilson and Visiting Associate Professor Victor A. Klimash. Alumni and students shared in a BBQ on Friday night prior to their initial rehearsal.

Notable “presentations” during the weekend included engineering and antique boats, as Adam Retersdorf '04 shared his mechanical engineering senior project-restoring a Criss Craft.

Entertainment Today was a panel discussion featuring alumni in the arts and entertainment business. Discussing their career choice, and how they got there, were Jeffrey DeMunn '69, actor; Tom Riis Farrell '81, actor; Julie Greifer-Swindler '79, senior vice president of business and legal affairs, RCA Music Group; Jay Kohn '74, production manager for JFK Center for the Performing Arts; Laura Modlin '84, scriptwriter and consultant; and Peter Sears '79, staff writer for “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno.

Signing her recent book, Perennial Secrets, Poetry and Prose, was Jennifer Smith Turner '74.

Athletic action featured alumni vs.
student rugby games for both men
and women.

Union College Blues Brothers Band played for a packed house at Chet's
Saturday night. The band members included Steve Glazer '85, Andre Enceneat '85, Steve Koelbel '84, Kevin Angus '84, Rob Derbabian '83, Rich Altman '83, Jim Ward '83, Steve Larsen '83, Jason Brandt '83, Mike Zanta '83 and John Sciortino '81.

Spectacular fireworks captivated everyone on Saturday evening. Fireworks,
generously donated by Steve Ente '75, literally filled the sky.

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Posted on Jul 16, 2004

A total of 45 student-athletes were named to the Liberty League's Spring
All-Academic Team bringing Union's total enrollment to 114 for the 2003-04
season (including repeat honorees).  In
order to qualify for the prestigious team, a student-athlete must have at least
a 3.2 cumulative grade point average and be a team member in good standing
(freshmen are not eligible).

   

In addition, senior Tanya Davis and
junior Julia Davis (no relation) were named to the Intercollegiate Women's
Lacrosse Coaches' Association All-Academic Team.  The two Dutchwomen were among 145 student-athletes representing
48 different Division III institutions.

UNION COLLEGE             2004
UCAA SPRING ALL ACADEMIC TEAM

(attained sophomore
status, 3.2 or higher, overall grade
point average)

Baseball                 

Frank Acuri, Jr

Benjamin Brown, So

Adam Chused, So

Cliff Eisenhut, Sr

EricMapplethorpe, So

Benjamin McGuire, So

Dan Mehleisen, Sr

Jerome Schulman, So

Cory Spicer, So

                               

Men's Crew                      

Dan Archibald, Jr

Brett Durie, Sr

Tim Nonna, So

                               

Women's Crew                      

Carrie Dancy, Jr

Lindsey Gish, Jr

Rebecca Hutton, So

Laura Martin, So

Alissandra Stoyan, So

                               

Men's Lacrosse                

Scott Bresney, Jr

                               

Women's
Lacrosse                

Rachel Beckman, So

Emily Blout, So

Julia Davis, Sr

Tanya Davis, Jr

Elizabeth Flanagan, Jr

Ashley LoTempio, So

Robyn Ross, So

Softball                   

Beth Carcone, So

Erika Eisenhut, So

Julie Gawronski, So

Alicia Gifford, So

Jessica Lawton, Jr

Melissa Marra, Jr

Men's Tennis                    

Aaron Agostino, So

Mitchell Linder, Sr

Michael Simon, So

DeVer Warner, So

                               

Men's
Outdoor Track                     

Matt Acciani, So

Chris Bory, So

Richard Insogna, So

Gregory McClung, So

Andrew Schaeffer, So

                               

Women's Outdoor Track                         

Courtney Alpert, So

Kara Chylinski, Jr

Christine Duff, Jr

Carolyn Gabriel, Jr

Smanatha Glover, So

Marnie Smith, So

                               

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Posted on Jul 15, 2004

On Sunday, July 25, Union College joined forces with First Presbyterian Church in Albany for the bicentennial celebration of the eulogy delivered by Eliphalet Nott at the funeral of Alexander Hamilton. Nott's famous eulogy was the capstone of his six-year career as the pastor of the Albany Church and the launching pad of Nott becoming President of Union College a few weeks later that summer (1804).

Approximately 150 people attended the commemorative celebration. The ceremony included a welcome by Rev. Joseph Shook of First Presbyterian and introductory background remarks by Prof. Byron Nichols of Union's Department of Political Science Department. But the main focus was the delivery of Nott's discourse by Prof. David Cotter, who dressed for the occasion as Nott appeared in 1804 (black robe, high collared white shirt and a red scarf). Cotter is Associate Professor of Sociology at Union, as well as an elder at the Union Avenue Presbyterian Church in Schenectady.

Jeremy Dibbell, a 2004 graduate of Union, organized the event and prepared much of the program material. Dibbell also is planning a number of events at Union to commemorate the Bicentennial of Nott's inauguration.

Historical Background

On July 29, 1804, with the country still reeling from the death of Alexander Hamilton at the hands of Aaron Burr, a young minister took the pulpit of Albany's North Dutch Church to condemn the nation's complacency over the practice of dueling and to charge “the polite and polished orders of society” with complicity in Hamilton's death.

The minister, 31-year-old Eliphalet Nott, was already a rising star. Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Albany, he was named chaplain of the New York State Legislature, and chosen by the Albany Common Council to deliver the official Albany eulogy for Hamilton.

Nott's discourse would be a staple of the anti-dueling movement for the next three decades. It was widely reprinted in newspapers and pamphlets up and down the East Coast, and was still being excerpted in declamation books into the 1880s.The editor of the Federalist New York Evening Post urged his readers “'APPROACH AND BEHOLD' how elegant, how deeply affecting, how sublime he is! Perhaps a passage of equal length is not to be anywhere found in our language superior to this.”

As president of Union College, Nott was a revolutionary educator who changed the methods and content of higher education introducing American history, modern languages and engineering. He was a prime example for his students of the involved life he urged them to take up: an inventor of stoves and steamship engines, he remained throughout his long life a pragmatic advocate of political and moral reforms including temperance, abolition and universal education.

Copies of the introduction to the re-enactment of Nott's sermon by Professor of Political Science Byron Nichols and the abridged sermon performed by Professor of Sociology David Cotter, are available online.

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Posted on Jul 14, 2004

by Morgan Gmelch '05

Answer: classes with Professors Sargent and Berk.

Question: What is a great help to a Jeopardy contestant?

For Deirdre Basile '87, it was her
Union education, and her classes with two professors in particular, that were key in her preparation for competing on the TV game show.

“I could skip right over a lot of
information while I was studying for the show because I remembered it from
class,” she said. “Having taken a number of classes with Steve Sargent, my
favorite professor, I was well prepared for all the medieval history questions.
Professor [Stephen] Berk's teachings also stayed with me and I had an easy time
with those questions.”

Basile appeared on the show that
aired on June 17, a contest in which she finished second. Her father, actor
Brian Dennehy, also came in second place on Celebrity
Jeopardy in 1999.

The best part of being on the program
is hearing from people who supported her, she said. “Even my car mechanic sent
me a note congratulating me. I've heard from a couple friends from Union that I
haven't heard from in a long time, which was great. The whole experience was
fun, if a bit surreal.”

Unfortunately for Basile, she was
up against a formidable opponent in Ken Jennings, an all-time Jeopardy champion who weeks after the
show with Basile was still winning with earnings approaching $1 million.

 “He is the nicest person,” Basile recalls. “He
doesn't come across that way, people always say to me 'he seems so arrogant,'
but he's not.

“He's fast on the buzzer. He gets
all the questions that everyone knows, buts he's so quick. By the time the
other contestant and I had gotten the hang of ringing in, he already had 10 or
12 grand to work with. He could play with that, and it took the pressure off
him.”

During Basile's June 17
appearance, Jennings had racked up $37,000 by the end of Double Jeopardy, an insurmountable lead. In Final Jeopardy, Basile was the only contestant to correctly “question
the answer”: Answer: “In the NATO phonetic alphabet [Alpha, Bravo, etc.], the
two that are title Shakespearean characters.” Question: “Romeo and Juliet.”

She finished with a $12,000 tally,
and walked away with a $2,000 prize for second place.

While a student at Union, Basile enjoyed
watching Jeopardy with her Tri Delta
sisters.

Years later, her daughter became a
Jeopardy fan and told her mother
about the program's contestant search. “She told me I had to do it, so I sent a
postcard in and luckily mine got picked.”

With about 100 other contestants,
Basile was asked 50 final Jeopardy-type
questions. She was one of 12 people selected for a screen test to “make sure
you aren't drooling or something.”

“Then they say, 'don't call us, we
will call you.'”

Producers called her weeks later
and told her to come to Los Angeles for the taping. But they pay airfare and
hotel costs only for returning champions. 

Basile said she was surprised by
the stopping and starting during taping. “If  [host Alex] Trebek misspeaks or something goes
wrong with the set, they stop and repeat things,” she said. “They will even
re-tape your answers and questions that have already been asked.”

The show is careful to not let any
information get out that could influence a contestant. “We couldn't even look
in the direction of the writers during taping,” Basile said. “You can't even
talk to anyone in the green room besides the fellow contestants. We had to just
sit and watch the other games until it was our time.”

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Posted on Jul 14, 2004

by Ross Marvin '07

Back in
the early 1970's when Andrea Commarto rode her bike from her home on Wendell
Avenue to Union's bucolic grounds, one campus feature – the Nott Memorial — especially
caught her eye.

“When I
rode my bike past this building, I thought it was fascinating,” she recalled of
her childhood rides past the 16-sided campus centerpiece.

She never
could have guessed, she said, that someday her son, Sam, would walk through the
building on his way to graduation.

At a
party for the graduating biology major, guests were blown away by a centerpiece
on one of the tables. Ms. Commarto had built a remarkable replica of the Nott using
an Exacto knife, Styrofoam, Playdoh, paint, and even some covers from an issue
of Union College magazine. Her detailed
rendering came complete with light posts, railings, shrubbery, and the
intricate roof.

After
the party, Ms. Commarto wanted to convey her appreciation for Union's Financial
Aid Office and especially former staffer Judi Ferradino (now of College
Relations). So, she gave the model to Ferradino and the College. The model is
on display in the College's Major Gifts Office in Abbe Hall.

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