President Harold C. Martin
Harold Clark Martin, the 14th President of the College from 1965 to 1974, died on Monday, May 2, at the age of 88.
Harold Martin served this College with distinction,” said Roger H. Hull, president of the College. “He led the College through a number of milestones including curriculum revision, student unrest during the Vietnam War, the admission of women and the construction of a number of buildings. We are better today because of his leadership.”
Born in Raymond, Pa., he graduated high school in the depths of the Depression but worked his way through Hartwick College, where he earned a B.A. in 1937.
He taught high school English in Adams, N.Y., and took summer graduate courses in English Renaissance studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 1939 he married another Michigan student, Elma Hicks of Webster Springs, W.Va., and returned to his high school in Goshen, N.Y., to teach English and then serve as principal. Exempted from the draft because he was a high school principal and father, he enlisted in the Navy late in World War II to serve a year as instructor in English at the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Bainbridge, Md. After his discharge, he returned to Goshen and pursued full certification through courses in education at Columbia and then at Harvard.
Shortly after Martin's arrival at Union in 1965, “Hal,” as he was called, oversaw the adoption of the current trimester calendar and a revised curriculum, “CompEd,” which required all students to take courses in both of the newly organized academic “centers” -Humanities & Social Sciences, and Sciences & Engineering.
He also urged a re-thinking of Union's mission, arguing that a number of trends, including the rapid rise to prominence of public institutions in the Northeast, imperiled traditional liberal arts colleges like Union.
The most drastic proposal of his tenure, initiated by the faculty, called for reconsideration of the policy which, since 1795, had restricted enrollment to men only. In 1968, Martin appointed a committee to study the question of adopting coeducation. When the committee unanimously endorsed coeducation, the faculty voted in the affirmative without audible dissent, and the trustees nearly so. The first full-time women students entered in 1970.
At the height of student activism, Martin joined with 34 other college presidents in signing a letter to President Richard Nixon urging attention to student voices.
During Martin's tenure, Union added a number of buildings including Humanities, Social Sciences, Fox, Davidson and Achilles Rink (now Achilles Center).
After Union, Martin became president of the American Academy in Rome, a position he resigned in 1976. After a year as Martha Bundy Scott Professor of English at Williams, he joined the faculty of Trinity College. He retired from Trinity as Charles A. Dana Professor of Humanities in 1982.
In retirement, the Martins returned to their farm on the outskirts of Rensselaerville, N.Y. He completed two books of Episcopal history, St. George's Church: Spanning Three Centuries (1984) and “Outlasting Marble and Brass”: the History of the Church Pension Fund (1986).
In 1988 the Martins moved to Corrales, New Mexico, where Elma Hicks Martin died February 26, 1995. Harold Martin subsequently moved to Maine.
Martin last year published his edited two-volume Diary of Jonathan Pearson, and wrote three articles for the Encyclopedia of Union College History, published in 2003. He attended Homecoming last fall to do a book signing for the Pearson book. He also participated in the processional at Commencement 2004.
Some of the above material came from Wayne Somers, compiler and editor, Encyclopedia of Union College History (Schenectady: Union College Press, 2003), page 472.
Christina Sorum, dean of faculty
On a glorious mid-May afternoon-the kind of day that Christie would have found perfect for taking her dog, Hector, for a walk around campus-the Union community filled Memorial Chapel to remember the vivacious dean of faculty who was a “teacher to her core.”
Christina Sorum, whose personality Prof. Suzie Benack compared to sparkling water, died on Monday, May 16, following a heart attack three days before. Her daughter, Eve, recalled her mother's wide-ranging intellectual interests and her excitement over meeting new faculty members and students. She often came home to announce, “I had the most interesting conversation today,” Eve said.
President Roger Hull described her as “energetic and ebullient.” Hull said he found in Christie, a classicist steeped in Greek and Roman mythology, a contemporary who joined him in making decisions using the lessons of the classics.
Joan Hinde Stewart, a close friend of the Sorum family and president of Hamilton College, described Christie's love for Union from the moment she joined the faculty. Fellow administrators Kimmo Rosenthal and Terry Weiner remarked that Christie somehow always found delight even in long administrative meetings.
Therese McCarty, professor of economics, recalled frequent lunches with her mentor, when they discussed more than teaching and the College: they shamelessly bragged about their daughters. Christie once gave a book to Therese's daughter, Helen, as a gentle attempt to expand her horizon beyond the Harry Potter series.
Some of the recollections were likely new to most of the nearly 1,000 people at the service. Christie, of Midwestern roots, was surprised when authorities at Wellesley College confiscated her rifle during freshman year, said her husband, Paul, who added, she was a good shot with a gun. Christie also had a clever way of “chasing” a group of teens from a hangout near her home, said McCarty. She brought them lemonade and cookies.
Sorum was a strong champion for Union's distinctive broad education, undergraduate research and international study.
She served the College in a variety of administrative capacities including department chair, and a member of the General Education Board, Faculty Review Board, Academic Affairs Council and numerous tenure and review committees.
A native of Jacksonville, Ill., Sorum graduated from Wellesley College with honors in Greek and received a Ph.D. from Brown University. She was a visiting instructor at Union in 1973-1974, became an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, and returned to Union in 1982 as an associate professor and chair of the Department of Classics. She became the Frank Bailey Professor in 1992. She was named dean of arts and sciences in 1994, and acting dean of faculty in 1999. She was named dean of faculty and vice president of academic affairs in 2000.
She wrote extensively for both classics journals and academic administrative journals. She was a featured scholar in a History Channel program titled “Gods and Goddesses.” She wrote, with Tom Werner, Florence B. Sherwood Professor of Physical Sciences, an article, “Enriching Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity Opportunities in All Disciplines at Union College” in the June 2003 issue of the Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly.
In an interview shortly after her appointment as dean, she said that one of her chief goals would be to continue to improve what the College does extraordinarily well-undergraduate research and international study. “Those experiences are the most transformative for both the personal and intellectual development of students, and they provide some of the best preparation for life after college-how to learn on your own, how to deal with difference,” she said.
She was also a strong advocate for the College's investment in arts and engineering. “Participation in the arts ought to be available to every student,” she said. “Few things are more rewarding after college than having an active interest in, and participating in, the arts.” Given engineering's strong tradition at Union, she said, “We need to ensure excellence. I want to continue to work with the dean of engineering and the rest of campus to discover the proper role of engineering on a liberal arts campus-how it can enrich the rest of the College, and how the rest of the College can enrich engineering.”
She said the College must continue to pay attention to the “more traditional” elements of education-communication skills, quantitative skills, a grasp of the elements that comprise the culture from which we came-and pay increased attention to academic and career advising. Other topics of great interest, she said, are enhancing the diversity of students and faculty, continuing to develop innovative ways to link the residential and intellectual life on campus, and revisiting the College's General Education program.
Memorial contributions may be made to the College, Planned Parenthood or a local animal protection center.
For a complete biography of Dean Sorum, click here.