Posted on Jan 21, 2005

Seth Greenberg, Gilbert Livingston Professor of
Psychology, has authored an article with Jean Saint-Aubin of Moncton University
in Canada
titled “Letter detection for homographs with different meanings in different
languages.” It appeared in the December 2004 edition of Bilingualism:
Learning and Cognition. Material included in the paper was contributed by
former Union student Jessica Zuehlke. The paper considers whether words with
the same spellings in two languages, but with different meanings (e.g., “pour”
in English and French), activate both meanings when read in a particular
language (e.g., French) or only the meaning appropriate to the text's language.
Results suggest both meanings are activated though the inappropriate (non-text
language) is rapidly suppressed.

Posted on Jan 21, 2005

Frank Wicks, professor of
mechanical engineering, has authored an article that describes one man's
amazing feat of flying a six-pound model airplane loaded with five pounds of
fuel across the Atlantic Ocean in August 2003.

Wicks' article, “A Model Mission,”
appeared in the December 2004 issue of Mechanical
Engineering.

The flight was organized by
Maynard Hill, a 77-year-old and legally blind engineer. Hill has been building
model airplanes for seven decades, and has held most of the world records for
speed, altitude and distance. He was an invited lecturer in May of 2004 at the Empire State
Aero Science
Museum at the Schenectady County
Airport, where Wicks took
the opportunity to meet him.

The flight required reducing the
total weight of a Global Positioning System based automatic pilot, gyros,
process computer, and telemetry to satellites and radio control to a few
ounces.

Wicks notes the similarities
between the epic manned flight of Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903 and Hill's model
flight a century later. Neither flight received much attention at the time.
However, the Wright's demonstrated the aeronautical principles that started the
aviation age. Hill's flight demonstrated the dramatic progress in avionics that
can be used over the next century for human and pilotless flight in air and
space.

Posted on Jan 21, 2005

Bill Schwarz has been appointed
director of communications and public affairs for Union,
it was announced by President Roger H. Hull.

In this new position, Schwarz will
oversee all facets of the College's communications activities including media
relations, print and web-based communications, and integrated marketing. He
will also lead all government and corporate relations efforts at Union, serving as the institutional contact with local,
state and federal government entities and the industry sector. His primary
focus in these arenas will involve integrating the College and its Converging
Technologies initiative with the region's quickly developing technology sector.

Schwarz joined Union
in 1998 as director of media and government relations, moving to director of
corporate and government relations four years later. At Union,
Schwarz was a key player in the development of a number of community outreach
programs, including Upstate Partners, a college-business partnership, and the
Union-Schenectady Initiative, a neighborhood revitalization program. Schwarz
was selected last year as one of “40 Under 40,” a program that recognizes the
Capital Region's young area business leaders. He also was named “Best
Spokesman” in the Times Union's “Best Of” supplement in 2002.

For much of the past year, Schwarz was
manager of global communications and public affairs for GE Energy in Houston, Texas.

Posted on Jan 21, 2005

Former teammates still call him
“Bones, ” and the nickname assigned to the lanky freshman still fits David
Viniar '76.

At Saturday's Alumni Basketball Game,
things were very much as they used to be during Viniar's
playing days. Except for one thing: the game was played on the gleaming hardwood of the Viniar Athletic Center.

The game preceded the dedication of the center, made
possible with a $3.2 million gift from Viniar and his family. “I got a lot out
of playing basketball at Union,” Viniar said.
“I'm very pleased to be able to give something back to Union.”

The Viniar is the fourth home of Union basketball. Dutchmen basketball began on Feb. 3, 1898 in the old gym, now Becker Hall, where the College also stored hay for livestock. Later, basketball moved to Alumni Gymnasium, sharing space with the track and wrestling teams. When basketball moved to Memorial Fieldhouse in 1955, the team practiced and played in the middle of a dusty dirt track (since resurfaced) and shared the building with all the other winter and spring programs.

The first basketball game in the Viniar Athletic Center was the Dutchwomen's 52-41 victory over Williams on Nov. 28.

The new home of the men's and women's basketball team has won praise from Union fans and foes alike. Brighter and more intimate than the fieldhouse, fans can see and hear the players, coaches and referees. There is a welcoming lobby with trophy cases. The Joel Fisher '76 Hall of Fame Room, perched above the west end of the court, is an ideal space for social gatherings.

Posted on Jan 21, 2005

If students had any doubts that their mini-term at the Double E Ranch in arid southwestern New Mexico would be a new adventure, they surely must have vanished when it came time to hold down a hollering calf for branding and castration.

And if that wasn't enough, there was the “traditional” cowboy meal that followed.

“No sooner had I stepped up to find out why my classmates were huddled around a fire, than I had a small spongy lump resting hesitantly on the back of my tongue,” Rebecca Carlisle '05 wrote in her journal. “I stood shocked by the knowledge that, not only had I just eaten a testicle, but it hadn't even been that bad.”

Prof. Bonney MacDonald and 10 students will talk about their experiences and show photos from their mini-term last December on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 4:15 p.m. in Humanities 112.

Their time as buckaroos was the culmination of a course last fall that covered the journals of Lewis and Clark, some John Wayne films, and writings by Wallace Stegner, Mark Spragg and Annie Proulx.

Beauty and 'Inhuman Scale'

 “You have to get over the color green,” wrote Stegner in Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs. “You have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to get used to an inhuman scale.”

Students recalled the author's words at the 30,000-acre ranch of high desert mesas dotted with juniper, piñion pine and cactus.

“When have you ever seen a night sky that made you feel as though you were in a planetarium?” asked Lauren Lohman '05. “When have you ever seen the entirety of a 200-car freight train, unobscured by trees or a bend in the track, stretched out on flat, endless land, so dwarfed by the mountains and sky that it looks like a toy? There is a point where silence is your only reaction to this amazing and breathtaking scenery, simply because you're tired of saying, 'wow'.”

'Non-Union schedule'

Students got into the heavy lifting of running a ranch, following what MacDonald calls a “very non-Union schedule”: chores at 7; a massive breakfast at 8:30; class until noon; lunch; an afternoon of trail riding, cattle herding, fence mending and roping lessons; an evening meal of ranch-raised beef or buffalo followed by reading and talking in the ranch's Cantina. Lights-out was 11 p.m., long after most students were asleep, MacDonald said.

“There was hardly a moment when we weren't thinking about Western issues and hardly a moment when we weren't socially engaged,” MacDonald said. “I had hoped to set up a seamless experience, off the beaten path, where intellectual rigor, manual labor and new friendships could all happen at once. It's testament to these ten students and to the folks at the Double E that it did.”

“It's one thing to deconstruct poetry and chase after Kerouac with a highlighter,” wrote Zack Lazovic '07. “It's an entirely different experience to read nature writing in the morning and hike rugged canyons and majestic trails by noon. New Mexico provides the opportunity to live the adventure, ride after the myth on horseback, and retell the tale over a buffalo meat and cornbread dinner. I dove deep into the Southwest culture at the Double E Ranch and will never look at dry earth, a soft orange sunset, or the tail of a bay mare the same way again.”

“The history of Western settlement describes processes of continuous adaptation and rebirth – telling of adjustments to an arid geography, newly created social structures, hard work and new ideas born of that adaptive experience,” MacDonald wrote. “With pen and pitchfork, 10 students relived that memorable and complicated Western story of adaptation and renewal. I offer thanks and tip my Stetson to each and every one of you.”

Photos by Erin Kane '05