The College's Aerogel Research
Team is well represented in a special, peer-reviewed issue of the Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids:
Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on Aerogels.
Two faculty members – Ann Anderson
of mechanical engineering, and Mary Carroll of chemistry – are co-authors with a
total of five recent alumni, one exchange student and one current student.
The full citations for the papers
are:
·
Ben M. Gauthier ('02),
Smitesh D. Bakrania ('03), Ann M. Anderson, and Mary K. Carroll, “A
Fast Supercritical Extraction Technique for Aerogel Fabrication.”
J. Non-Cryst. Solids, 2004, 350, 238-243.
·
Ann M. Anderson,
Smitesh D. Bakrania ('03), Jan Konecny (exchange student from Czech Republic),
Ben M. Gauthier ('02), and Mary K. Carroll, “Detecting Sol-Gel Transition
using Light Transmission.” J. Non-Cryst. Solids, 2004, 350,
259-265.
·
Desiree L. Plata
('03), Yadira J. Briones ('04), Rebecca L. Wolfe ('03), Mary K. Carroll,
Smitesh D. Bakrania ('03), Shira G. Mandel ('05), and Ann M. Anderson,
“Aerogel-Platform Optical Sensors for Oxygen Gas.” J. Non-Cryst.
Solids, 2004, 350, 326-335.
Anderson and Carroll were the only
faculty from a liberal arts college or predominantly undergraduate institution
to participate in the conference. The other attendees were from
graduate-degree-granting institutions and national labs in the U.S. and Europe,
or from companies working in aerogel-related fields. Anderson and Carroll also
served as peer reviewers for other papers in the special issue.
Anderson, the Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Emma
Watson-Day Associate Professor and chair of mechanical engineering; and
Carroll, associate professor of chemistry, lead the interdisciplinary research
project. It began in 2001, when Anderson and a student, Ben Gauthier '02, began
experimenting with a process to create the ultra-light matrix materials. After
consulting chemistry faculty for help in understanding the chemical processes,
students and faculty from both departments joined forces.
The challenge for the aerogel researchers
is to devise a manufacturing method that will make production of the material
more cost effective. Current applications are widely used in the space program,
where aerogels have been used as insulators on the Mars rover and to collect
comet dust.
Many of the words and images that
people have seen from Union
College over the past 28
years have come through a keyboard or camera in the hands of Peter Blankman.
Our longtime colleague in the Office of Communications is
retiring, and with him go three decades of vivid institutional memory and the
good wishes of faculty, staff, students, alumni and countless other friends. He and his wife,
Lynn, are starting a new chapter in Williamsburg,
Va.
Peter Blankman
Blankman – an observant recorder
of campus happenings through four presidents, 27 Commencements, and thousands
of meetings – arrived at the College each morning with a journalist's curiosity
and the expectation that, news being news, the day ahead would be like no
other. “It's been a great job where almost every day you came into work
wondering what's going to happen,” he said recently. “And I knew that in most
cases it would be interesting and fun.”
Trained as a newspaper reporter,
Blankman found at Union a goldmine of stories.
“It's always puzzled me when people ask where we get ideas for stories,” he
said. “How can you walk across this campus without learning about a story?
There are 3,000 people here, most of them doing interesting things.”
He had the reporter's knack for
cultivating his sources and he visited them regularly during his frequent
campus forays. Rare was the time when he was not the first in the office to
learn some bit of interesting campus gossip. Like any good reporter, he had a
dry wit and a ready supply of fascinating, but unprintable, stories.
He wrote quickly and with an
elegance that made the most complex of issues understandable. He distilled long
budget sheets and reduced faculty meetings to their essence. He wrote
introductions for guest speakers, citations for recipients of honorary degrees
and remarks for the president.
He especially enjoyed the give and
take of working with President Roger Hull. But he admits it took some time to
learn the president's writing and speaking style. “The first time I sent over
copy, Roger called and said, 'I can't say that.' To which I replied, 'that's why
I wrote 'draft' at the top.'”
No stranger to last-minute
requests from the president's office, Blankman would often mentally compose a
piece of writing on the six-minute walk to Hull's office and put a draft on
paper while he sat waiting for the president to finish a phone call.
A lifelong photographer with a
keen eye for design, his hobby became more than a passing interest at Union. It was another way to tell the stories of the
College. He took his camera on many campus walks, capturing the beauty of campus
for magazine covers, calendars, books and brochures. His landscapes were
favorites on- and off-campus; a recent show of his photos stayed in the
Humanities Gallery some seven months after it was to come down.
Winter Storm by Peter Blankman
The best time for taking photos, he
said, was just before sunset. “The kids are outside, teams are practicing, labs
are out and the light is at its best.” He especially liked winter photography.
“There's nothing like fresh snow, golden sun and bright parkas,” he said. One
of his favorite shots is of a snowstorm taken from an eyebrow window of Reamer Campus
Center. And his favorite
subject? “What campus has the Nott, which by itself is a continually
fascinating subject?”
Blankman was destined for a writing
career at a small liberal arts college. He grew up a faculty brat at Saint
Lawrence University, where he rode his bike, watched games and wrote papers in the
library. “When you're not much more than knee high and your father takes you to
the press box to see a hockey game between St. Lawrence and Clarkson, you think
that's a pretty exciting thing and it makes an impression.”
His father, Edward, a longtime
professor of English, took his journalism students on visits to newsrooms and had
them read major national newspapers. The professor's son audited the course.
“I thought it was fantastic, visiting
Jack Johnson [editor of the Watertown Times] and seeing how reporters work
and how editors put papers together,” he recalls. He also remembers his
fascination with out-of-town papers like the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Minneapolis Star-Tribune, where he would become an investigative reporter
and meet his wife.
Blankman joined the College's
Office of Public Relations as associate director in 1976 after an interviewer
wrote in the margin of his application letter, “I think this guy's great. Good,
punchy leads, lots of imagination. Obviously knows how to write something other
than straight news copy.”
Blankman said his most memorable
moments at Union included the time that a crystal-growth experiment built by
student Rich Cavoli and the late Prof. Charles Scaife was lost aboard the
Challenger shuttle. After the experiment flew on a later mission, President
Ronald Reagan praised Cavoli in his State of the Union address as an example of
persistence and imagination for young people.
He remembers the campus visit by NBC
news anchor Tom Brokaw and historian David McCullough, when they interviewed
students in the newly-restored Nott Memorial for an NBC News story about the 50th
anniversary of VE Day.
One incident reminds him that even
the most learned and respected among us are, after all, human. While Blankman
was escorting historian McCullough on a campus visit during the College's
Bicentennial, McCullough announced that he needed to visit a drugstore. It
seems the airline had lost his luggage and he needed some essentials.
Schaffer Library by Peter Blankman
He remembers the graduation of his
daughter, Anne, and hearing from faculty “all the things that any dad wants to
hear.” He also recalls the occasional surprise of hearing a “Hi, Dad” in a
campus hallway, and shifting gears from PR professional to devoted father. (His son, Paul, a graduate of Macalester College, worked at the Minnesota History Center. He is finishing his master's in public history at Northeastern University.)
Blankman said he always
appreciated the College's “unspoken permission to be creative” and the fact
that he could tell stories honestly and forthrightly “without falling into the
world of hype.”
“At the end of the day, the goal
is to make people feel good about education,” he said. “Who wouldn't be
interested in that? It's easy to get excited about the product when it's
education.”
Trustee and presidential search
committee chair Frank Messa '73 told faculty on Friday, Jan. 21, that the board
is aiming to hire a new president by the beginning of the next academic year.
“I realize September first is a
very ambitious timeframe and against conventional wisdom,” Messa said at a
meeting seeking faculty input on the search process. “This would not be just for the sake of
speed, but because of the momentum of the College and our ['You are Union'] campaign.” He said trustees are concerned that
having an interim president could cause a loss of momentum on several
initiatives.
Several faculty members voiced
skepticism about what they considered an ambitious timeframe. “It seems to me
that it is already too late for this year, and that we have lost all the good
candidates,” said Seyfi Maleki of physics.
Frank Messa '73
Messa stressed that the committee
would be flexible, hiring an interim president if the search process does not
surface an outstanding candidate. “Other institutions have done this, and we
think it's worth a try. At about 60 days into the process, we'll know a lot
more about the candidate pool,” he said.
Discussion also focused on the
number of faculty on the search committee and how they would be selected. Most
faculty members who spoke favored a vote.
Messa said he was considering appointing faculty leaders or
nominees.
Terry Weiner of political science
said he favored selection. “This could get very divisive if we have a set of
people with very different views,” he said.
Messa said that the board would
like to keep the committee to 10 or fewer, possibly to include students or
staff. Faculty membership would likely number between two and four, he said.
Most faculty who spoke at the
meeting favored four faculty members – one from each division. Messa said he
could not commit to a number yet, but would keep the faculty informed as the
process moves forward.
Messa said the committee's first
act will be to hire a national search firm. “Although we are not foreclosing
any options, my inclination is to use a smaller firm that specializes in
academic searches,” he said.
Messa met with Student Forum on
Monday, Jan. 24, and asked the student governing body to nominate three
students for a seat on the committee.
Messa and members of Forum agreed
that as the representative student body, Forum should nominate student
representatives. “We have the mandate, we have the student voices,” said one
member. “There is no better [nominating] committee on campus.”
Messa said he will interview the
student nominees and make his decision by January 31.
Union Hockey Game
to be broadcast on Time Warner Ch. 3
Schenectady, NY (Jan.
26, 2004) – The Union men's hockey home game against Harvard on
February 1st at 7:00
p.m. will be televised live on local cable channel 3. It
will be the first college hockey game ever carried by the local Time Warner
affiliate and first televised game of the season for the Dutchmen.
“This is a great thing for the program,” stated Union head hockey coach
Nate Leaman. “We feel that we are a program that is heading in the right
direction and this is another positive step for us. College hockey is extremely
important to the greater Albany
area, including having the ECACHL championships at the Pepsi Arena, and we hope
this helps promote that event as well.”
Coach Leaman was an
assistant at Harvard for four seasons on former head coach Mark Mazzoleni's staff. During his final season with the
Crimson, Leaman served as the team's top assistant and recruiting coordinator,
earning the reputation as one of the top young coaches in the game of college
hockey. Leaman was part of a staff that helped rebuild the Harvard program into
one of the top teams in the ECAC, taking the team from eighth place in the
league to an ECAC tournament championship and NCAA appearance in 2001-2002, and
an ECAC runner-up finish and NCAA appearance in 2002-2003. He now finds himself
coaching against players he recruited and a team he helped to build. Leaman is
now setting the groundwork to build a program he has taken over two years ago.
He will be facing another one of the top
young coaches in the game against Crimson first-year head coach Ted Donato, who was a former Harvard hockey captain and led his
team to an NCAA championship, played in the Olympic Games, and enjoyed a
13-year NHL career. Donato and his squad won the
first meeting between these two teams earlier this season in Cambridge by a 4-1 score.
Union is 3-20-2 all-time against Harvard. The Crimson have won the last seven meetings. The last win for the
Dutchmen was back on February 24, 2001 at home by a 3-2 score. This matchup
has produced exciting hockey over the past couple seasons, two of the last
three games have been decided by one goal.
A Union College football reunion, which was 15 years
overdue, took place in Boulder,
Colorado in January 2005 when Jon Ford (Class of
1985) was reunited with a very special piece of jewelry…his 1984 Lambert Cup
Trophy ring (the Cup is presented annually to the Northeast “Team of the
Year”).
It took 15 years, but Jon Ford '85 finally got his football ring back.
Ford, an
undersized offensive lineman throughout his undergraduate days, lost the ring
while taking part in a game of mountain bike polo in a park in Boulder in 1990.
“It (the ring) was
flopping around on my finger, so I took it off and stuck it in a bike bag,”
Ford recalled. “It must have flown out during the game.”
As soon as he
discovered he lost the ring, Ford conducted an extensive week-long search
before hiring a friend and his metal detector.
It has been 15 years since Jon was able to wear the ring and tell people he was an offensive lineman for the Dutchmen.
“I am proud to
have played at Union and to have been a part of that
particular class of seniors,” Ford explained as to why he put so much energy
and resources into finding the ring. “The
ring is a tangible, unique symbol of those memorable four years. It also served
as convenient proof that I actually played college football. I've shed 30
pounds since my peak playing weight, so if the topic comes up, it often goes
something like,
“You
played football in college?”
When they ask
what position I played,. well, it just goes downhill from there. I have to
explain that it was Division III, (many people around here associate college
football with the Division I University of Colorado), that I wasn't a starter,
and the whole nine yards, so after awhile I pretty much stopped volunteering
the fact that I played.”
Ford read an
article about a metal-detector club in nearby Golden, Colorado. He knew it was a long shot, but he
inquired about putting a notice in their newsletter to see if anyone had found
it. The club sent up a couple of guys with modern equipment to look for it but
to no avail.
Brian Kemp found the ring in 2000.
The reason Ford
and the metal detectors were unsuccessful in their bid to recover the ring was
because Brian Kemp had
already found it by a tree in North Boulder Park in 2000. Realizing how important the ring must have been to somebody,
Kemp did a little detective work of his own.
“I
tried on the web in 2000, sent emails and even called ESPN trying to get some
help, but no one got back in touch with me. In November of 2004 I got a new
computer and tried again because I saw a metal detecting sight that had a
picture of a person in the paper after reuniting a ring its owner. So I surfed the
web again and sent out more emails, and that's when I got in touch with Union sports information director
George Cuttita, who put me in touch with Jon.”
Once
notified that the ring had been found, it took Jon just a couple of hours to
get in touch with Brian. As one might
expect, the reunion was a joyous occasion.
Look what I found!
“Jon was very exited,” said Kemp. “What was amazing is that he has tried to
find it and even had a local treasure hunting shop come look with no avail
because I had already found it. His father tried to get a replacement and could
not because the ring is a one of a kind. Most of the time people just give up
and realize that it's lost. Not Jon. He kept looking and maybe that's the force
that made me keep trying. I just new it was important.”
“I expressed not
only my deep appreciation for his efforts, but my astonishment that he had
found it after it had been gone for 15 years,” Ford explained. “As I said, I
had long since given up on ever seeing it again. The ring was in remarkable
shape considering it had been in the ground for more than a decade.”
Ford, who
graduated with a degree in history and was active in the Outing Club, has been
in Colorado for 17 years working in book publishing
since 1986. Jon and his wife, Heather, have been married 10 years and have two
small children. Prior to the birth of
their son, the Fords took full advantage of all the outdoor opportunities in
Colorado and surrounding states, including a lot of backpacking, telemark
skiing, and mountain biking. They also enjoyed some great trips to Europe, Mexico, north and South Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Ford has fond
memories of his undergraduate experience.
“I had a great
time at Union and received a fine liberal arts
education,” he said. “Superb instruction from the history and political science
departments in particular has helped me immensely in my career as a book editor,
which requires a certain amount of general knowledge on a wide range of topics.
Jon and his Mom during his senior season of 1984.
“As for my time
on the football team, I was a very minor player on a very successful squad. I
was an offensive guard, but I was small for that position even for those days.
I was on the kickoff return team for four years, played in JV games my freshman
through junior years, and got into varsity games when we were winning.
“I was proud to
have been on the varsity travel squad for much of my first three seasons with
the team and for the entire senior season,” said Ford, who did not not suit up for the 1983 Stagg Bowl (the NCAA Division III football championship). “As
Union's participation in the NCAA tournament
became more of a possibility in our junior year, the coaches made the sensible
decision to take me off the travel squad to make way for larger backup
offensive linemen. After that, I hit the weights hard in the off season, put on
30 pounds, and suited up for every game of our senior year, including the two
NCAA games against Plymouth State and Augustana.”
While he has not
had the opportunity to return to campus, Ford still has a passion for Union College football.
“Every Sunday in
the fall I check the scores in the local paper to see how Union did,” he said. “I also keep up on the University of
Pennsylvania to see how Coach Bagnoli and Coach Schaefer are doing in the Ivy
League (Bagnoli was Ford's head coach while Schaefer was his position coach). I
stay in touch with former Union center Eric DeMarco and with Kyle Peck, who
played defensive end with us for a couple of seasons and now lives in Denver.
As for Brian
Kemp, he can take great pride in that he not only did the right thing, he
reunited Jon with a ring that symbolizes his college years.
“I'm
happy to have done right thing, especially when I saw how much that ring meant
to John,” Kemp explained. “I was tempted to pawn it when funds where tight but
I knew it was worth more to the owner. I just hope others will do the right
thing because it feels great.”
“I'd like to
thank George Cuttita and the Union College Sports Information Office for taking
the time to research the ring's owner and get it back to me,” said Ford. “I wore the ring for a couple of days just
for the fun of it, but now it's tucked away in a safe place. I am very pleased
that I will be able to pass it on to my son someday.
