The 488 students in Union's Class of 2005 include eight from the City of Schenectady, 19 from Schenectady County, 79 from the Capital Region, and 14 international students from 10 countries.
They also include a doctor-entrepreneur in training, a legacy student with a flair for student government, and a lute-playing linguist who has won a travel fellowship in Central Asia.
Christopher Macomber: Doctor-entrepreneur to be
Albany native and entrepreneur Christopher Macomber doesn't need much sleep. Good thing, since along with spending the last four years in Union's eight-year Leadership in Medicine Program, he is founder and CEO of Exousia Health Inc., a healthcare software start-up located in the U-Start Incubator. He is also director of the College's a capella musical group and is working on a master's degree.
Macomber, who earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Union, will receive an MBA in August from the Graduate College of Union University before heading to Albany Medical College this fall.
He has served as director and manager of the Dutch Pipers a capella group and co-chair of Union's Student Alumni Association. A graduate of The Albany Academy, he is on the school's Alumni Association Board of Directors and is active in the Albany Chamber's GenNEXT Council.
This spring, Chris won the Josephine Daggett Prize given annually to the senior exhibiting the best conduct and character.
Adam Grode: Lute-playing linguist
Philadelphia native Adam Grode plans to study the lute the way he has approached Chinese, Russian, and French: through total immersion.
Grode has received a Watson Fellowship to study “Long-necked Lutes from Baku to Bishkek: A Musical Journey to Central Asia.”
Grode is the 44th Union student to receive the prestigious travel-study grant from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation since the program started in 1969. He is one of 50 students nationwide to receive the $22,000 fellowship this year.
He will travel along the Silk Road in the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, a route not only of commerce but of musical styles and instruments developed from centuries of cultural syncretism. He plans to live in cities and learn from local masters to play the instrument indigenous to each. The experience, he says, will help lay a foundation for understanding the region's rich culture and musical heritage.
Grode is near-fluent in French and Russian (and progressing in Chinese and Arabic), in part through programs in which he takes a pledge to speak no English. He took a similar pledge at Union's radio station, WRUC, and this year did weekly shows, featuring one language each term in Russian, Chinese and French. A former co-president of Coffeehouse, he is a regular organizer and performer, often singing songs in something other than English.
Carl Paulsen, M.D.: First a medical career, now a college degree
One graduate of the Class of 2005 hasn't seen the inside of a Union classroom in more than 50 years.
The College awarded a bachelor's degree to Dr. Carl Paulsen, an area orthopedic surgeon, who left the College in 1954 just shy of completing his graduation requirements to attend Albany Medical College.
The Colonie native, who lives in Schenectady, earned his medical degree from AMC in 1958. His medical practice has included a working as team doctor for a number of Union's athletic teams.
He and his wife, Joann, have four children: Cindy Keegan of New Haven, Conn.; Peter of Buffalo; Suzanne Atkinson of Aspen, Colo.; and Janice Schriefer of Rochester.
Christina Muir: Restoring Frederic Church's murals
A couple of years ago, if you had told art history major Christina Muir that she would be studying physics and chemistry and operating high-tech lasers and microscopes, she might have looked skeptical. But these days, those are just the sort of things she is doing as part of a Union project with the State Historic Site at Olana.
Muir and Physics Professor Seyfollah Maleki have been working with staff from the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to test, clean and restore intricately painted stencils at Olana using laser technology. The Persian-style house, built between 1870 and 1891 as the home of renowned landscape painter Frederic Church, was purchased by the state in 1966 and designated a State Historic Site and National Historic Landmark.
The stenciled walls of Olana's Court Hall have become stained and dirty over the years, and traditional cleaning and restoration techniques are not working. Maleki, who has been researching the use of lasers for cleaning art for the past four years, learned of the Olana quandary from Joyce Zucker, a painting conservator with the State Parks office on Peebles Island in Waterford.
Maleki looked to his art historian colleagues at Union for students interested in an independent study project using laser ablation for art restoration and found Muir an able and inquisitive student.
The melding of the arts, sciences and technology is something increasingly familiar and useful to Union College students like Muir. The initiative, officially dubbed “Converging Technologies,” is providing students with experience in emerging, cross-disciplinary fields of study such as bioengineering, nanotechnology, digital art, and neuroscience.
For Muir, a native of Barre,Vt., Union's focus on bridging the arts and technology has given her future a clear direction. She plans to continue working in the field and is applying to the few graduate schools that offer advanced degrees in art conservation.
She will spend this summer at Union continuing work on the project.
Gillian McCabe: All in the Union family
Park Ridge, N.J., native Gillian McCabe knew about Union College almost from the time she learned to walk and talk.
She is from a long line of Union grads that stretches back to her great, great grandfather. Also included on that list are a grandfather, great uncle, both parents, and a brother who graduated in 2003.
And she isn't the last. Her sister Kara will be joining the Class of 2009.
However, the political science and Spanish major paved her own road at Union. McCabe was president of Student Forum her senior year, a member of the Minerva Council and House Implementation Committee, vice president of her junior class, and a member of the Presidential Search Committee and the Student Alumni Association.
A dean's list student who did a term in Seville, Spain, she has received a number of other distinctions: Sigma Delta Pi, the national collegiate Hispanic honor society; Junior Class Citizen of the Year; the Calvin G. Schmidt Prize to the junior who has contributed the most to the betterment of student life; and Delphic Honor Society for service to the College.
This spring, she received the Frank Bailey Prize given annually to the senior who has rendered the greatest service to the College. After a break this summer, she may pursue marketing or continue to study Spanish and teach abroad.
Doug Bush: Brotherly connections
Doug Bush of East Islip, N.Y., the middle child of three boys, animatedly talks of growing up and having fun with his siblings. So it's only natural that when he arrived at Union, Doug decided to pursue another “brotherly” relationship with a Schenectady boy through Union's Big Brothers Big Sisters Club.
For four years, he has spent a few hours each week with Larrell, a sixth grader at a Schenectady middle school, playing sports, swimming in the Union pool, and sharing milk shakes at Union's Skellar.
This year, Doug, who is graduating with a bachelor's degree in biology, served as president of the BBBS Club and has been praised for his commitment and creativity as a leader. He led many outings that benefited not only his own “little” but the 100 or so others whom Union students serve. Among the activities were an apple-picking field trip, a Halloween party, a Thanksgiving feast, and a movie day.
As a member of the Alpha Beta fraternity, Doug's “brothers” on campus were called on occasionally to host the children at their house.
Doug's plans after Union include volunteering at a hospital and attending graduate school with the hopes of pursuing a career in medicine.