Posted on Feb 22, 2006

Prominent musicologist, author, lecturer and designer of fine harpsichords Ed Kottick will deliver two seminars addressing connections between engineering and music on Wednesday, March 1, in Memorial Chapel.

Both talks, organized by Palma Catravas, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Dianne McMullen, associate professor of performing arts, with funding from an IEF grant, are open to the campus community.

At 10:50 a.m., Kottick will speak on “Gods and Mortals, Monkeys and Dolphins: The Exotic World of Early Keyboard Instruments.” The talk is geared toward McMullen's music history class, “From Beethoven to Bernstein.”

The 12:05 p.m. talk, “Wire, Wood, Air, and Ear: How the Harpsichord Makes its Sound,” is targeted at Catravas' “Engineering Acoustics” class.

Kottick, retired professor of musicology from the University of Iowa, is the author of the classic, The Harpsichord Owner's Guide, and, with George Lucktenberg, wrote “Early Keyboard Instruments in European Museums.” For many years he made regular visits to the great European museums to examine, play and listen to antique harpsichords.

His articles have been published in Scientific American, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and other prestigious journals. His book, “A History of the Harpsichord,” covers the instrument's entire 600-year history in nearly 600 pages. Read more about him at http://kottick.com.

Posted on Feb 22, 2006

Mark Jaccard will speak on “Fossil Fuels – Friend or Foe?” on Thursday, March 9, at 7 p.m. at the Nott Memorial as part of the College's Environmental Studies Program on series on sustainable energy. Jaccard is director of the Energy and Materials Research Group and a professor at the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. His talk is free and open to the public.

Posted on Feb 22, 2006

The College has received an unrestricted gift of more than $5 million – one of the largest individual gifts to the school – from the estate of William Denison Williams '32, a former General Electric manager. The gift will be used to endow two chairs in his honor and for renovation of Butterfield Hall. The academic designation for the chairs is to be determined.

Williams, a longtime resident of Scotia, N.Y., died in Doylestown, Pa., on Oct. 15 at the age of 95. He earned his B.S. from Union in electrical engineering and was a member of Eta Kappa Nu. He also studied at Duke and Cornell universities.

At GE, he was manager of the Magnetics Section and worked in the engineering laboratory, retiring in 1954. He and his wife, the late Virginia (Smith) Williams, had no children.

Williams contributed modest amounts to Union each year. When he died, he left behind an estate that exceeded $20 million, much of it acquired through investments. He divided the bulk of it between Union, his wife's alma mater, Piedmont College in Georgia, and the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown.

An accomplished violinist, Williams also left gifts to individual musicians.

“We are extremely grateful to receive this generous gift,'' said Jim Underwood, interim president “Union obviously played a big role in William's life.”

Posted on Feb 22, 2006

Buy your tickets now for the Winter Dance Concert at the Yulman Theatre, Friday, March 3, and Saturday, March 4, at 8 p.m.

One of the major pieces, “Jean Cocteau: Le Prince Frivole,” set to music by Erik Satie, is an original creation by Miryam Moutillet, director of the dance program, and Charles Batson, associate professor of French, who co-taught “Staging Explorations in Theater and Dance.” It is the first collaboration of its kind between the theater and dance programs.

Other modern, ballet, jazz and tap pieces round out the program,  including several works by two professional dancers who are members of the Union faculty, Alexis Pangborn and Marcus Rogers.

Tickets, available at the Yulman Box Office, are $10 for general admission, $7 for the Union community.

Posted on Feb 22, 2006

John Zogby, considered one of the most accurate pollsters in America, will give a lecture on “The Political Landscape in 2006: The U.S. and the World,” Monday, Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. in Union College's Nott Memorial.

The talk, part of the Perspectives at the Nott series, is free and open to the public.

He will also speak to Union College students at noon in Room 103 of the Social Sciences building as part of the Pizza and Politics series put on by the Political Science Department.

Zogby is the president and CEO of Zogby International, an opinion and marketing research organization based in Utica, N.Y., with offices in Washington, D.C. The firm works with psychologists, sociologists, computer experts, linguists, political scientists, economists and mathematicians to “explore every nuance in language and test new methods in public opinion research.”

The company has tracked public opinion around the globe since 1984, working in more than 60 countries. Clients have included the Reuters News Agency, NBC News, Fox News, The Houston Chronicle, the Miami Herald and the Albany Times Union.

John Zogby appears regularly on all three nightly network news programs plus NBC's “Today Show,” ABC's “Good Morning America” and is a frequent guest for Fox News and MSNBC special programs, along with CNBC's “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” He also is a regular political commentator for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the British Broadcasting Corporation.

In 1996, Zogby was credited with being the only pollster to accurately predict within one-tenth of 1 percent the results of the presidential election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, and in the 2000 race, Zogby's polling foreshadowed the tight race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, while others predicted an easy victory for Bush.

He is currently working on a book about American consumers, which is scheduled to be published by Random House this fall.

Zogby holds degrees in history from LeMoyne College and Syracuse University.  

A frequent lecturer and panelist, he is listed with Leading Authorities, a top speakers' bureau in Washington, D.C., and the National Speakers' Bureau in Chicago.