Posted on Apr 25, 2005

Since the building was opened in 1903 in the southwest corner of the Union College campus, the Webster House has had one continuing theme: Shhhhh!

A library its first six decades and a college dormitory for academic-minded students since 1973, the Webster House is at the corner of Union Street and Seward Place. It will be remembered by many lifelong Schenectadians as the former county public library, while to Union College students it is a place where rowdy behavior isn't tolerated and quiet reigns supreme.

“It's our focused-study housing, which means it's a place for students who want to live in a quiet environment,” said Todd Clark, director of residential life at Union. “They are very proactive in terms of confronting each other about noise, and it's also a substance-free zone. No alcohol or drugs. If they're found, the students are removed.”

EARLY LIBRARY

Professor Samuel B. Howe would have no doubt approved of the policy. Howe was the superintendent of schools in the city and a driving force behind the movement to create a Schenectady Free Public Library in 1894. Originally housed in the Fuller Building on the west side of State Street by the Erie Canal, the library moved to Seward and Union when the building was ready to be opened in October 1903. The construction had began in 1901 after a $50,000 grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, a $15,000 contribution from General Electric Co. and $5,000 more from the city council.

The brick building is a light yellowish-gray, and while it is squared off in front (the Union Street side), its rear half is in the form of a rotunda. The names of 16 famous authors, including Bacon, Milton and Emerson, are engraved into the west, east and south sides of the building.

“It's built in a neo-classical style, which was very popular during the turn of that century,” said Karl Griffith, of Cataldo Waters & Griffith Architects PC in Schenectady. “They used a different kind of clay to get that color variation, and it was designed to be a public monument like most of the Carnegie libraries.”

Walking in the main entrance on the Union Street side, a visitor is met by a wide stairway, about the only interior indication of the building's history. There are two floors and a basement below, which housed the library's children's section. However, instead of the spacious room one might expect in an old library building, the inside has been compartmentalized.

“There are five or six rooms that open up to one common room. So it's not the typical dorm where you walk down a hallway with rooms on each side,” said Clark. “We call this pod-style living. There are multiple pods with a mixture of single and double rooms, and there are approximately 28 rooms in the building.”

EXTENSIVE CHANGE

Clark said the transformation of the building from library to dormitory must have taken some considerable effort. “I've seen office space turned into residence hall and the other way around, but it's hard to believe that this was once a library,” he said.

Tom Litts, the electrical supervisor at Union College, worked for the facilities department at Union back in 1969 and remembers the transformation. “I knew it was going to take a lot of work, and I can remember thinking some of the rooms are going to be pieshaped because of the circular half. But it was two guys from Union that laid out the plans for the dorm, and then they contracted out to another company to do the work.”

The land on which the building stands was originally owned by Union College. “It was sold with the understanding that if it ever ceased to be a library, the college had the first option to purchase it,” said Wayne Somers, editor of the Union College Encyclopedia and owner and operator of Wayne Somers, Bookseller, an antiquarian and used book store in Schenectady near the college. “They didn't want to see a gas station on the corner there, and the college was projecting an unusually large freshman class coming in so they wanted it back.”

Schenectady County took over the library in 1949. Twenty years later, ground was broken for a new building at its current location at the corner of Clinton and Liberty streets. On May 5, 1970, Union reacquired the land and bought the building for $40,000. It immediately became a warehouse, and at times Union College professor Arnold Bittleman, a nationally known painter, used the second floor as an art studio.

It also served as headquarters of the Capital District Library Council for two years before it was renovated and changed into student housing for the fall of 1973.

“It looked exactly like a library without books when we were there,” said Charles Kuster, former director of the Capital District Library Council. “There were two big public rooms and each floor was probably about 15 feet high. They had these things called unit stacks [shelves], which were placed all around the rounded part of the building.”

Another distinctive feature of the building's interior was the second floor. It was made largely out of glass. “It was probably about four inches thick and the glass was angled into a cast iron bracket,” said Kuster. “It was pretty fuzzy, so not everybody realized they were walking on glass.” Kuster said the building must have been a grand one for Schenectady in the early 20th century, although not as grand as it might have been.

“It had the big double staircase and a glorious magnolia tree out front that lasted for years,” said Kuster. “It was pretty monumental – so it had all the marks of the Carnegie-type building. But given Schenectady's place in history at the time – we had close to 100,000 people – I thought it was sort of modest. I've seen other Carnegie libraries in other cities that seem a little bit out of proportion to the town it's in.”

The building was renamed in 1973 for former Union College president Harrison Edwin Webster. Webster, a member of the class of 1868 and president from 1888 to 1894, was a man of humble origins, according to the Union Encyclopedia. “He was an interesting guy who's hard to summarize, but unfortunately he wasn't a very good president,” said Somers. “He fought in the Civil War, and he was the only scientist to become a college president at Union. His speciality was sea worms.”

STUDENT CHOICE

Ashley Braniecki doesn't know anything about sea worms. A freshman from Rochester she said picking Webster House as her first home away from home was a great move. “I heard that some of the other dorms get pretty rowdy and I wanted a quieter atmosphere,” said Braniecki. “I wanted to be able to have fun at other places, and then come back here to a quiet place. It was a little tough meeting people at first, but I got a lot of work down.”

In Braniecki's pod, the common room includes some excess furniture, an ironing board and a few other items students couldn't fit into their own rooms. “I really like the common rooms, but I don't think people take as much advantage of them as they should,” said Braniecki, pointing to her ironing board. “You can see we use it, sort of like a living room. Some of the other kids will come over and use our ironing board, but that's OK.”

Posted on Apr 25, 2005

Until he got involved in starting up the GenNEXT Council, a networking and mentoring group for young professionals 23 to 40, Christopher Brantigan had been thinking about leaving the Capital Region.

Brantigan didn't have hard and fast plans, but was attracted to the big-city vibrancy of Chicago or New York City. After all, except for a semester aboard while attending Union College, he has spent his whole life in the region. Once the year-old GenNEXT group started coming together, Brantigan realized the opportunities and the support the region offers. “You're not going to be a big fish in New York City. I know I can make a difference here.”

Deciding to stay makes Brantigan the exception. According to a recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Buffalo, people moving out of upstate New York from 1980 to 2000 outnumbered those moving in by more than 400,000. The demographic aged 20 to 34 decreased 21.3 percent over that 20-year period.

A continuing “brain drain” and the loss of young, educated professionals makes it difficult for companies to replace an aging work force, reduces the number of home-grown entrepreneurs and means fewer consumers to spark downtown revitalization.

By creating a group that helps young professionals find a place for themselves in the business community and extends networking capabilities to local college students, GenNEXT is working to slow the drain to a trickle.

“Really, what we're trying to do is make Generation X a factor as opposed to a variable,” said Brantigan, 28, who is operations and sales manager for mortgage company Nationwide Equities Corp. in Albany and a member of the GenNEXT steering committee.

Stopping the drain

The GenNEXT group numbers about 225 members, making it one of the largest special-interest councils within the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The council's activities consist of a program in which members mentor college students, a program in which council members are mentored by local executives, and various networking events. The events include tours of local technology businesses, a series called “Executives Unplugged,” that invites business leaders to share a bit about their professional and personal lives, and Q & A sessions with local politicians.

The group's primary goal is to get young professionals, senior business leaders and college students–the next generation of professionals–talking to each other, said Kate Hedgeman, GenNEXT chair and founder. Hedgeman, 30, is an attorney with the law firm Hiscock & Barclay LLP in Albany.

Chris Macomber, 22, is enrolled in the Union College/Albany Medical Center eight-year leadership in medicine program. He will finish his bachelor's degree in May, his MBA in August and is preparing to start medical school in the fall.

Macomber said the student mentoring program has been very useful as he learns to negotiate the world of business. Macomber is matched with Brantigan, who in turn is mentored by Pamela Sawchuk, president of public relations firm Sawchuk Brown Associates in Albany.

Though Brantigan and Macomber are in different fields, the two have a lot in common and have become good friends. “He taught me, not the ins and outs of medical technology, but the basics of the business world, how to interact in the business world, how to show yourself off well,” Macomber said.

He said Brantigan also often provides outside advice on Macomber's business, Exousia Health Inc., a health care technology design firm. “You need a well-rounded perspective for anything you are doing in business,” Macomber said.

The idea that there should be any kind of brain drain in the Capital Region doesn't make sense to John Vero, an attorney with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP in Albany and a member of the GenNEXT steering committee.

With 17 colleges and universities, the region has all the talent it could possibly need. It's a matter of getting young professionals better tied into existing business networks and making it comfortable for them to walk into a room of business leaders, said Vero, 30.

“The Capital Region is never going to be tired or old or dead because we have these [educational] institutions,” Vero said.

Good for business

GenNEXT events often do double duty, allowing participants to network with each other and encouraging them to patronize local businesses. Executives Unplugged, for example, is held at the Capital Repertory Theatre in downtown Albany. Group members often say it's the first time they've been in the theater, Hedgeman said.

The group has also met for dinner and a show at the Comedy Works club in Albany, which is paying off in repeat business, said owner Tom Nicchi. Nicchi, 26, is a GenNEXT member. Bringing the group in for the networking event introduced them to a different venue for business meetings as well as a fun place to spend an evening.

Members of the GenNEXT demographic, who often have considerable disposable income, are a key constituency for downtown revitalization. They eat out, take advantage of entertainment options and, in many cases, are interested in living downtown.

GenNEXT is quickly becoming established as an effective voice in the local business community. City leaders last year invited GenNEXT members to preview Norstar Development's plans to convert 733 Broadway in Albany into an 80-unit luxury apartment complex. Young state workers seeking to participate in GenNEXT events helped spur the chamber to add a new membership category. State and federal employees can now join the Albany-Colonie chamber as individual members.

“I get calls every week, even from businesses who want to sponsor things. Everyone wants to get in front of this group,” Hedgeman said.

Spreading the word

GenNEXT's success is encouraging other chambers, including the Fulton County Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Gloversville, the Chamber of Southern Saratoga County in Clifton Park and the Chamber of Schenectady County, to form networking and mentoring groups for young professionals.

The Fulton County group is called NOW, standing for Networking Outreach Works, said David D'Amore, the group's chair and owner of And: Architecture & Design in Johnstown. The group is open to all chamber members and aims to connect young professionals with local business and civic leaders.

Along with the kind of networking that might encourage an existing business to use a young company to develop its Web site or help it add e-commerce capabilities, young professional groups also introduce their members to local nonprofit executives. Nonprofit groups are always looking for new volunteers and often looking for new board members.

At GenX SDY, the Schenectady County chamber's group, which focuses on professionals in their 30s and early 40s, part of the mission is to have fun. For young professionals moving into the area who don't have an established social network, helping them meet people is crucial to retention, said chamber spokesman Marc DeNofio.

“There are thousands of outcomes that can come out of these [networking events]–new jobs, new business ventures, maybe your husband or wife,” DeNofio said.

The Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce plans to start a young professionals group, but since the average age at the chamber's networking events is already quite young, the new group will focus on business education, said chamber president Joe Dalton.

“We don't have a problem keeping people in the community once they are employed. The social life is outstanding,” Dalton said.

The bottleneck as he sees it, is that the region is not producing enough new professional jobs.

Next in GenNEXT's day planner are efforts to collaborate with the new groups springing up and plans for a GenNEXT conference in the fall, Hedgeman said. The conference would become GenNEXT's signature event, discussing ways to attract and retain intellectual capital. She thinks the meeting might attract 500 to 700 attendees and produce a white paper that could be a resource.

Posted on Apr 25, 2005

Is the glass half empty or half full? For middle and high school students coming to Union College's Rube Goldberg Machine Contest Saturday, April 30, this question of optimism versus pessimism won't matter as much as just getting the liquid in the glass.

This year's task in the annual invention contest will be to build a machine that will remove the top from a 20-ounce bottle of soda and fill a 16-ounce cup, preferably without spilling. Set-up will start at 8:30 a.m. and competition will follow at 9:30 a.m. in the College's Field House.

This is the fifth year Union is hosting the event. Previous competitions' tasks included opening a bag of M&Ms, toasting a slice of bread, sticking a stamp on a letter, and making a baloney sandwich. Last year, teams developed contraptions that took a pie out of a box, put it on a plate then added a dollop of whipped cream. A team from Niskayuna's Van Antwerp Middle School took top prize in 2004. This year 21 teams from 11 local school districts and BOCES will compete.

The competition is named for the late Rube Goldberg, an engineer and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. His cartoons appeared in thousands of daily newspapers from 1914 to 1964. The “inventions,” he said, symbolized “man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal results.” His name has become eponymous for anything that is unnecessarily complex, cumbersome, or convoluted.

Contest machines must use at least 20 steps to complete the task and must be no larger than 5 feet in length, depth and height. Each entering team receives an honorarium of $100 for supplies to build their machine. Contest director is James Hedrick, professor of engineering at Union.

The competition is sponsored by Union's Engineering program and Admission's Office, Knolls Atomic Power Lab, and the GE Elfun Society. Members of the GE Elfun Society will judge the contest, choosing winners based on effectiveness, complexity, creativity and presentation.

For more information, visit http://engineering.union.edu/me_dept/rube/rube.html.

Posted on Apr 22, 2005

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Skidmore College will receive $781,170 in capital funding from the state as part of a new state budget appropriation for independent colleges and universities.

The five-year Capital Matching Grants Program, included in a budget amendment recently approved by the Legislature, will distribute $150 million to more than 100 private schools in the state.

Skidmore, a private liberal arts college with a nearly $200 million endowment, is among a handful of schools in the greater Capital Region eligible to receive the state money.

Others include Union College in Schenectady, to receive $806,000; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, $2 million; Sage Colleges in Troy and Albany, $979,000.

“This is the most significant to date of outright grant money” from the state, said Michael Casey, vice president for advancement at Skidmore.

Mark Hansen, a spokesman for state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, said the program will support high-tech growth and economic development by forging links between government, business and institutions of higher education.

“Giving these schools additional capital money for appropriate expenditures would help strengthen them as partners in this effort to do more high-tech research and development, and create more high-tech jobs,” he said.

But eligibility for capital projects isn't limited to technology and economic development. Other areas include academic facilities, urban renewal and historic preservation.

Skidmore plans to use the state matching grant money to help raise funds for a new $30 million state-of-the-art music facility.

Casey envisions a world-class facility, which will include a 700-seat theater, practice rooms, classrooms and offices. The hall will play host to renown performers, lecturers and throngs of visitors from across the region and state, he said.

“This will be a huge addition for everybody in town,” he said, drawing a comparison to the success and popularity of the $10 million Tang Museum, completed in 2000. “It's a real asset for the state.”

The grant funds are awarded on a formula based on enrollment and Tuition Assistance Program expenditures, according to Hansen. For each dollar received from the state, schools are required to raise $3.

Robert Shorb, director of student aid and family finance at Skidmore, said the matching grant program will help the college raise funds during capital campaigns.

“These matching dollars have an effect,” he said.

Shorb said many reasons support the state providing funding to private schools.

Among New York families, “the average family income is lower for those students going to private institutions than to SUNY,” he said. “That's been true for years.

“We're also a New York school,” he said. “Projects that benefit the residents of the state of New York, both economically and culturally, they're real assets. The state is going to get a great return on these investments.”

Union College, which kicked off a five-year, $250 million capital campaign in the fall, will receive $806,000 in the state program.

Lisa Stratton, director of media and public relations, said the money could go toward several planned projects, including a $2.5 million music and arts expansion ands a new $3 million Converging Technologies center.

Tiffany Lohwater, a spokeswoman for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, said the college is awaiting more details from the state Dormitory Authority before determining a use for the money.

RPI recently completed a $100 million Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies and began a multi-year, $1 billion capital campaign in the fall, Lohwater said.

Posted on Apr 22, 2005

SCHEDULE FOR INTERVIEWS WITH BARBARA TAYLOR