Consider some of Roger Hull's vacations: Camping for a week at the foot of Angel Falls in Venezuela; Hang-gliding over the French Alps; Hitchhiking across the Middle East and Africa; Living with missionaries near the Amazon; Riding the trans-Siberian railroad across Russia. Clearly, this is a man who likes to get around, and his travels seem an apt expression of someone who enjoys experiencing different cultures and meeting different peoples.
But they also reflect what he thinks education should be about, and they have had a direct impact on his twenty-four years as a college president. For the past fifteen years at Union and, before that, for nine years at Beloit, Hull put into action his oft-stated belief that people who are going to be effective in the twenty-first century have to feel at home both in this country and abroad. At Union, as he did at Beloit, he worked steadily to expand the College's international programs. Today, Union sends students to more than two dozen countries, and the percentage of students who study abroad at some point in their four years (about sixty-five percent) puts the College among the top dozen international programs in America.
Roger Hull has had a longstanding and consistent vision of what a college ought to do, and the themes he continually emphasized at Union-international education, enhancing academic life and undergraduate research, integrating the liberal arts and technology, and community service-were themes he first broached for the College during his inaugural address in 1990. Indeed, that inaugural address-if not exactly a blueprint for the next fifteen years-gave strong clues as to what direction the new president wanted to go.
Take international education. In his inaugural address, he said, “A student who graduates from college today who is unable to deal with people of different backgrounds will have a very difficult time coping in our society and be at a severe disadvantage with respect to the rest of the world.” Union, he said, should strive to send 100 percent of its students abroad. The College never reached that goal-no American college has-but it did expand into such countries as Barbados, Brazil, and India, and it did so through its own programs, not through programs operated by some international consortium. A primary focus of that inaugural address was the classroom, or, more specifically, Union's commitment to teaching and scholarship.
Hull talked about the mid-nineteenth century, when Harvard, Princeton, Union, and Yale were the four largest producers of college graduates. The other three now focus on graduate programs, he said, while Union has remained-and will remain-an undergraduate institution where teaching and scholarship are integrally interconnected. Great teachers, he said, know the importance of scholarly research as an avenue to intellectual vigor and strength, and great teachers recognize the need to work closely with students for optimum learning. But we must do more than merely preserve that formula, he said; we must strive to become better.
During the next fifteen years, he followed through on those remarks by adding a dozen faculty members, increasing by thirteen the number of endowed faculty chairs, initiating new academic programs (e.g., Africana studies, biochemistry, computer systems engineering) while restructuring others (e.g., creating visual arts and performing arts departments out of a much smaller, single arts department), starting the Charles Steinmetz Symposium to provide a showcase for student intellectual achievement, and encouraging Union to play a leadership role in the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (which the College hosted twice).
He also added two programs to give students special curricular opportunities-Union Scholars, in which selected students can take additional courses to create an enriched program that meets their specific interests, and Seward Interdisciplinary Fellows, who build an interdisciplinary minor that includes a faculty-supervised independent project.
Perhaps the boldest academic initiative-one that is still in its early stage-is the Minerva Houses. This new approach to academic, social, and residential life combines a house system with traditional residence halls, theme houses, and fraternities and sororities. All students and faculty are affiliated with Minerva Houses, which are developing a variety of ways to contribute to the intellectual, social, and cultural life on campus.
To support those efforts, he expanded the campus's academic facilities, including the addition of the Morton and Helen Yulman Theater, the Mandeville Gallery in the restored Nott Memorial, the renovation and expansion of Schaffer Library, the addition of the F.W. Olin Center, and, of course, the creation of the Minerva Houses. He is aware that there are those who say he has an “edifice” complex, but replies that he has never been able to distinguish between an academic program and the building that it requires.
A third area of consistency over the years was his commitment to community service. At his inauguration, he announced a program that would provide financial assistance to Union students and then cancel those loans if the student engaged in public service after graduation. Why such an effort? “Because we believe that one of the most important lessons we can teach the young men and women at Union is to serve,” he said.
The program, called CAUSE, was a modest success, and it eventually was dwarfed by other community service efforts as Hull worked with local business and government leaders to improve Schenectady and with those on campus to encourage student involvement. He and Trustee Neil Golub led the creation of Schenectady 2000, a revitalization effort that involved more than 1,000 local residents as volunteers. His Union-Schenectady Initiative improved a number of properties in the College Park neighborhood immediately west of campus, including the creation of apartment-style housing for more than 200 students and the conversion of the former Ramada Inn into College Park Hall, a residence for 230 upperclass students. The neighborhood is also the home of the Kenney Community Center, which coordinates the volunteer service being done by more than sixty percent of Union's students in the local community and schools. And he added the U-Start Business Incubator Center, which provides expert services to high-tech start-up companies.
At his inauguration, Hull pledged to continue the College's liberal arts and engineering formula-a formula that he said might provide a model for other institutions as the country faces ever-increasing ethical and technological challenges. But, perhaps providing a hint of what was to come, he said that a college's proper role is to do only that which it can do well. Today, Union is well into its new initiative called Converging Technologies, whose goal is to better integrate the liberal arts and technology. CT encourages creative thought from faculty and students to bridge those disciplines, and programs are being developed in such areas as bioengineering, mechatronics, nanotechnology, neurosciences, and pervasive computing. To get there, however, he made the decision to eliminate the College's 145-year-old program in civil engineering, a decision that still rankles some. “No one likes to be vilified, but you can't be in a job like this if your objective is to keep everyone happy,” Hull says. “I knew some decisions would bother people, but over time I would hope they would understand that the decisions were made in the best interests of the College.”
In early January, when Roger Hull announced that he would step down at the end of June as the College's seventeenth president, praise came from many sources.
Stephen Ciesinski '70, chairman of the College's Board of Trustees, said that Hull has made a lasting positive impression on Union. “The College has never been stronger in its 210-year history. Roger leaves Union in terrific condition.”
Trustee Neil Golub said the City of Schenectady is “a better place for Roger's leadership.” Professor of Political Science Cliff Brown, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee, said Hull conducted matters “with integrity, with equity, with decency, and with a constant regard for the well-being of everybody at the College.”
Carl Strock, a columnist for the Daily Gazette who needled Union (and Hull) regularly over the years, praised the president for making a “big difference” in Schenectady, and the Albany Times Union, in an editorial, complimented Hull's “extraordinary vision,” citing everything from the restoration of the Nott Memorial to the establishment of a community center that pairs local children with Union tutors.
And, at a faculty meeting in January, Hull received two standing ovations.
Rather a change for someone whose first year at the College could best be described as tumultuous. He angered students and faculty when he upheld the academic dean's decision not to rehire a popular English professor and poet. He upset parents when he suggested that the fence surrounding the campus ought to come down. He annoyed some alumni by telling them that they had an obligation to give back-that is, give financial support-to their alma mater. To top it off, the student speaker at Commencement said the trustees had made a mistake in hiring Hull.
It was, in short, a year that the Times Union called “troubling,” and one that Hull himself calls, with a sense of understatement, “really interesting.”
In hindsight, at least some of the difficulty could be traced to a management style that unnerved some on campus. Faculty and staff who were accustomed to a more leisurely, collegial approach were taken aback by a president whose first response to most ideas was a challenging, “Why would we do that?”- and whose second response was likely to be a series of questions about every aspect of the idea. It took a while to learn that this was Hull's way of making sure that you had done your homework-and that you really believed in your idea.
Another Hull tendency that caused some to raise their eyebrows was his habit of spinning out ideas, often one after the other, at a bewildering pace. He freely admitted that only some of his ideas were worth pursuing, but to those who wanted their president to propose only after careful study, this freewheeling approach was unsettling. It also took a while to learn that this president accepted it when you suggested that his latest idea might best go back to the drawing board.
Born in New York City, the son of German immigrants who fled Nazi Germany, Hull came to higher education late in life. After earning his B.A. cum laude at Dartmouth, he received a law degree from Yale and then a master's in law and a D.Sc. degree from the University of Virginia. From 1967 to 1971, he was an attorney with White & Case in New York City. In 1971, he became special counsel to Gov. Linwood Holton of Virginia, responsible for the administration's legislative program. Three years later, he joined the National Security Council's Interagency Task Force on the Law of the Sea as a special assistant to the chairman and deputy staff director.
In 1976, he went to work for Syracuse University as vice president for development and planning and as an adjunct professor of international law. Five years later, he became president of Beloit College in Wisconsin-a small liberal arts college in an aging city that faced problems of unemployment and pessimism.
When Hull left Beloit nine years later, he said that one of the things that made him feel good was that “we now have people with rising expectations.” Union, he felt, faced a similar challenge; it was, he says, a first-rate institution that needed reenergizing.
“If I were to put a label on myself, it would be 'turnaround person' or perhaps 'educational entrepreneur,' ” he says. “The turnaround here wasn't so much financial as it was psychological, symbolized by the crumbling state of the Nott Memorial. I knew that there were things that had to be done; the question was, how to do them? Of course, the Nott needed doing, but the first thing was to raise the money for a theater, since the theater then was in the Nott.”
Moving quickly, Hull raised the money for the restoration and renovation of the Nott Memorial, the College's quirky symbol that had fallen into disrepair. The project was popular on campus and with alumni, and it served as a catalyst for some notable visitors. At its rededication in 1995, for example, the historian David McCullough looked around in awe and said, “There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world.” Several months later, at McCullough's urging, Tom Brokaw brought his NBC Nightly News crew to the Nott to film a segment celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II.
Other projects and programs came-more Terms Abroad, a new high-technology classroom and laboratory building, (the F.W. Olin Center) the renovation of an aging library, and, most recently, the addition of the Viniar Athletic Center and Messa Rink. An avid fundraiser, Hull launched the College's Bicentennial Campaign, which ended with more than $150 million in commitments. (A few years later, Hull announced the largest single gift in the College's history-$20 million from John '38 and Jane Wold.) Applications for admissions rose fifty percent during the Hull years, the six-year graduation rate improved (from 83 to 88 percent), the percentage of freshmen in the top ten percent of their high school class went up (from 45 to 59 percent), and the endowment per student nearly tripled (from $45,000 to $130,000 per student).
“We've made some pretty fair progress over the years,” Hull says. Perhaps the accomplishment that Hull feels happiest about doesn't show up on a list like this, however. And that is what he calls a focus on family-the larger family of the campus community, where he says proudly that there have been no layoffs for economic reasons, and his own family, where, as a single father, he's raised “two good human beings.”
There were disappointments, of course. “Where we didn't make great strides is with a more diverse student body,” Hull says. “It's more diverse than it once was in terms of economics, geography, and students of color, but there's more that can be done.”
And that provides a natural segue into his next role, in which he plans to start a foundation aimed at getting at- risk high schoolers to enroll in college. The foundation he has in mind would bring poor inner-city youngsters to college campuses for extra instruction two days a week. The goal, he says, is to “widen and broaden the pipeline to college. It's this type of program that will change people's lives.”
Hull recently bought a home in the GE Realty plot near campus-a good spot from which this avid sports fan can cheer for Union teams.
Asked about his legacy at Union, he says, “It's for others to say. But the things we have done together are things that I feel good about.”
One of Roger Hull's favorite phrases is “do well and do good,” a credo that he has used as his own model. Here, from a commencement speech to Schenectady High School, is what he means:
“First, commit yourselves to effort in whatever you do. Remember, though, that there is a distinction between effort and success. Success has to do with the result; effort has to do with the process. As I keep telling my sons, I care less about the end product than I do about the effort that goes into it, for real success in my mind has to do with making the most of your abilities no matter what obstacles you face….
“Second, commit yourselves to honesty…. The pressures upon you are great, and the temptations for shortcuts great, too. You want to be happy and successful, and, while those are reasonable goals, I hope even more that you will live honest and compassionate lives and that you will have the courage to stand up to things with which you disagree. In that way, you are most likely to feel good about yourself.
“Third, commit yourself to service to others. I am personally convinced that success is not measured by what you get out of life, but what you give back. There is no question that our country needs great leaders, and there is also no question that some of you will rise to positions of great leadership. However, perhaps even more than great leaders, we need great servants. That is, people who serve others, not just themselves.”
Headlines from Roger Hull's fifteen years as president of Union College
1991
130 students take part in the first Steinmetz Symposium for creative, scholarly, and research activities
Union announces $150 million Bicentennial Campaign
Writing Across the Curriculum makes writing a key element of the academic program
Men's ice hockey announces move to Division I
Kresge Foundation makes $500,000 challenge grant for scientific equipment
Students are now able to declare a minor
East Asian Studies begins its second year with 10 majors
Union begins Future Professors of America program to encourage senior minority students to go on to further study to become college professors
1992
Union's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa-the first in New York-marks its 175th birthday
Union becomes the first liberal arts college to bring scientists from the former Soviet Union to work with students and faculty
A new term abroad in Brazil is the only U.S. program for undergraduates that focuses on women and economic development in a Third World country
The baccalaureate service at Commencement, dormant since the 1950s, is revived
Morton '36 and Helen Yulman donate $3 million to build a new theater
Women's Studies graduates its first major
1993
Admissions applications are up 12 percent, to a record 3,491
Swimmer Julie Benker '93 becomes the first Union female athlete to win a national championship
Plans are announced for the restoration of the Nott Memorial; Kresge Foundation makes $750,000 challenge grant for the project
Two students join 31 previous Union students as winners of prestigious Watson Foundation fellowships as the program marks its 25th birthday
Union receives $750,000 grant from the GE Foundation to develop a new engineering curriculum
With major help from Union, a local high school science teacher creates a computer network to enhance the teaching of math and science
Annual Fund raises $3.2 million, the largest amount ever
1994
Eight hardy members of the Union community celebrate the start of the bicentennial year by canoeing from Schenectady to New York City
A highlight of Parents Weekend is a festival of the arts in the new Yulman Theater
Architectural work begins on the renovation and expansion of Schaffer Library, inspired by a $1 million grant from the Schaffer Foundation of Schenectady
Six faculty members are named to endowed professorships, the College's principal way of honoring and supporting outstanding teachers and scholars
Kenya becomes the latest Term Abroad, with 55 students applying for 12 available spots
The Society of Physics Students is named an outstanding chapter; only five percent of the country's chapters receive the designation
1995
NBC's Tom Brokaw, historian David McCullough, and 24 students gather in the Nott Memorial to discuss the 50th anniversary of VE Day, with excerpts broadcast on the NBC Nightly News
At the rededication of the Nott Memorial, David McCullough says, “There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world”
The Murray and Ruth Reamer Campus Center is dedicated, and the Yulman Theater opens
In addition to a giant 200th birthday party for the College, other anniversaries include 75 years of WRUC, 25 years of coeducation, and 150 years of engineering
Presidents of 33 leading colleges join several guests for a two-day symposium on the liberal arts and leadership
Union hosts 1,400 students for the three-day National Conference on Undergraduate Research
The College begins its third century by establishing a new honor for alumni, the Eliphalet Nott Medal for outstanding success in their professional fields
1996
Founders Day pays tribute to international education; with more than 50 percent of its students studying abroad at some point, the College is ranked in the “Top 10” nationally
The College's fledgling web site is ranked in the “Top 10” in a survey conducted by MIT
The administration building is dedicated as Armand V. and Donald S. Feigenbaum Hall
The F.W. Olin Foundation awards Union $9 million for a new high-technology classroom and laboratory building; it's the largest gift in Union's history
The Class of 2,000 gives 2,000 hours of volunteer service as part of orientation
The new Union Scholars program welcomes 17 first-year students
The men's swim team wins its second straight New York State championship
Professor of English Brenda Wineapple's biography of Gertrude and Leo Stein receives national acclaim
1997
Union completes its $150 million Bicentennial Campaign, one of the largest fundraising efforts ever by a liberal arts college; campaign led to more endowed professorships, international study programs, and endowed scholarships; improved research facilities; renovations to Nott Memorial, Schaffer Library, Feigenbaum Hall, and Memorial Chapel; addition of Yulman Theater and F. W. Olin Center
Andrea Barrett '74, the 1996 National Book Award winner for fiction, delivers a lecture in the Nott Memorial
David C. Mandeville '45 leaves $5 million bequest to Union; results include Mandeville Gallery in the Nott Memorial and Mandeville Scholarship Fund
Four sets of twins enter as first-year students
Philosopher Jurgen Habermas leads discussions and seminars for a week as a guest faculty member
Two students win Watson Fellowships, bringing to 42 the number of Union students who have won the award since its establishment in 1969
1998
Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld receive honorary degrees at the opening of a major exhibit, “French Children of the Holocaust”
Crew, the oldest sport at Union, dedicates a new boathouse and becomes a varsity sport
W2UC, the amateur radio station, is rededicated with new equipment
The F.W. Olin Center opens
Union establishes the Intellectual Enrichment Grant to provide funding to students and clubs for speakers, trips, and other activities
An eight-year program offering a B.S., M.S., and M.D. is approved by Union and Albany Medical College
Union announces the Union-Schenectady Initiative, a $10-million plan to revitalize a neighborhood adjacent to campus
Nikki Stone '97 wins a gold medal at the winter Olympics in freestyle aerial skiing
U-START, Union's business incubator, is created
1999
The renovated Schaffer Library is dedicated
UCALL, the Union College Academy for Lifelong Learning, has its 10th birthday
Basketball celebrates 100 years at Union
The women's soccer team has its first NCAA tournament win in the 30-year history of the sport at Union
C-SPAN brings its series on American presidents to campus for a program about Chester A. Arthur, Class of 1848
Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to a capacity crowd in Memorial Chapel
Union receives more than $2 million in grants from several foundations, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City and the Kresge Foundation of Michigan
2000
William R. Grant '49 makes a $2 million gift for the renovation of 3 Library Lane into a new Admissions and Financial Aid center
Women's ice hockey becomes the newest varsity sport
Australia and Jamaica bring to 27 the number of countries where Union students can study
Applications go over the 4,000 mark, a Union record
A spectacular exhibition in the Nott Memorial celebrates the 175th birthday of the Erie Canal
In the College Park neighborhood just west of campus, the Ralph B. and Marjorie Kenney Community Center opens, and 160 students move into apartment-style housing renovated and owned by the College
Professor Charles Scaife takes his science road show to schools across the country, leading USA Today to compare him to Mister Rogers
2001
The Board of Trustees approves The Plan for Union, a comprehensive strategic plan designed to strengthen the education offered at the College and enhance Union's competitive standing; two key elements are Converging Technologies, which will bring engineering and the traditional liberal arts together in new and exciting ways, and a House System to enhance student academic, social, and residential life
Grant Hall opens
The number of Union students studying abroad approaches 70 percent, one of the highest rates in the country
Board of Trustees approves a restructuring of the Engineering Division, including a phasing out of civil engineering
College adopts a new social events with alcohol policy
Annual Fund exceeds $4 million
Geology Professor John Garver and students do summer research in Russia's remote Kamchatka Peninsula, which few Westerners have visited
2002
John '38 and Jane Wold announce $20 million gift to Union, the largest gift in the College's history
Retirements this year include Professor Bob Sharlet, an internationally-known specialist on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Campus turns blue on March 8 as three IBM senior vice presidents-all alumni-pay a visit
Campus projects include the restoration and renovation of Abbe Hall, the College's new alumni center, and an upgrade of the stands and press box at Frank Bailey Field
College hosts a two-day conference to promote collaboration among government, business, and academic spheres to foster upstate New York economic development
National honors for students include a Goldwater Scholarship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and a Beinecke Scholarship
A highlight of ReUnion Weekend is the dedication of the Stanley R. Becker '40 Career Center
Professor Doug Klein becomes director of Converging Technologies and notes progress in bioengineering, mechatronics, nanotechnology, and pervasive computing
Union hosts unique summer learning and living program to encourage talented high school girls to consider majoring in engineering
Implementation committee of students and faculty begins planning College's new House System
Athletic Hall of Fame inducts its first class
2003
Graduate College of Union University, an independent graduate school, forms out of Union's Center for Graduate and Special Programs
COCOA House, an after-school mentoring program begun by Rachel Graham '98, moves into its new home; the program is just one of many at which hundreds of Union students volunteer thousands of hours a year
Encyclopedia of Union College History, compiled by Wayne Somers, is published, the first such compendium of historical data produced at a liberal arts college
The Union chapter of Gamma Gamma Sigma, a sorority devoted to community service, joins the ranks of Greek organizations
Abbe Hall is dedicated at ReUnion; the ReUnion attendance is second only to the record set at the College's Bicentennial in 1995
Gifts from David Viniar '76 and Frank Messa '73 will support the construction of a multi-use sports facility and the renovation of Achilles Rink
College honors Fred Rogers-Mister Rogers-with a posthumous honorary degree at Commencement
2004
Union launches $200 million “You Are Union” campaign to create a new model for the liberal arts college
The Minerva Houses, the College's exciting initiative in academic, social, and residential life, opens
College Park Hall-the former Ramada Inn-opens as a residence for more than 230 upperclass students
The annual economic impact of the College in
Schenectady County totals more than $200 million, according to a new study
Two famous political names-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., visit the campus within days of each other
The College's Ethics Bowl team of students finishes sixth out of 40 teams in the National Ethics Bowl Competition
A team of Union students wins Robot Rivals, a Do-It-Yourself TV Network competition to build a robot to complete a task
A $1.6 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute will help students toward research, study, and careers in emerging fields in the sciences and engineering
Phil Beuth '54 gives $2 million to support Minerva Houses
College pays tribute to Eliphalet Nott, who began his 62 years as Union president 200 years ago this fall