Posted on Mar 29, 2006

Do you know a junior who demonstrates exceptional academic achievement, is a talented leader and can make an impact outside of his or her studies? This individual may be a candidate for the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships this fall. Margaret Tongue, director of postgraduate fellowships, is seeking a handful of students to apply for the highly prestigious honors. Rhodes scholars study at Oxford, while Marshall scholars study anywhere in the United Kingdom. For eligibility requirements (the Rhodes scholarship no longer requires athletics), or to forward potential candidates' names, contact Tongue at ext. 8311; tonguem@union.edu.

Posted on Mar 29, 2006

The weight is over – or it could be, now that extensive renovations on Alumni Gym have been completed.

There are plenty of opportunities to break a sweat. The new facility is open Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 8 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 11 p.m.

The 12,000-square-foot center is a knockout. At triple the size of the former facility, it features an upper level with more than 40 pieces of cardio equipment and 20 weight training machines.

The lower level houses free weights, a dance and aerobics room, offices, upgraded locker rooms and more. 

The new gym, made possible by an anonymous gift of $2 million, “will fill a critical void for the entire campus community,” said Interim President Jim Underwood, noting not only the increased fitness factor but attractiveness to applicants.

The project was designed by Sacco and McKinney Architects and built by MLB Construction Services. The design preserves many of the architectural elements of the original 1914 building, such as arched windows and roof structure, while adding new lighting, flooring, reception area and other features. 

Both gym levels contain custom audio and video systems with plasma TVs, and one recumbent bike has its own “cardio theater.” Users can plug headphones into consoles and tune to the audio on any of the six TVs. All of the cardio machines face the gym's east wall.

“I love the natural light coming in through the large new windows,” said one junior, thrilled at what he discovered his first day back from spring break.

 “This really gives us a ‘wow' factor,” said Jim McLaughlin, director of athletics.

Posted on Mar 29, 2006

Harold Holzer, one of the nation's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era, will speak on “Lincoln in New York” on Tuesday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Nott Memorial.

His talk, part of Union's Perspectives at the Nott lecture series, is free and open to the public.

Holzer has written hundreds of magazine articles and dozens of books about Abraham Lincoln. His latest book is “Lincoln in the Times: The Life of Abraham Lincoln as Originally Reported in the New York Times,'' co-edited with Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer David Herbert Donald. The book presents, for the first time in a single volume, the original press coverage Lincoln elicited in the country's newspaper of record, with expert commentary by the editors.

Holzer's 2004 book, “Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President,” won the prestigious Lincoln Prize in 2005.

His work has appeared in Life Magazine, American Heritage, Civil War Times and The New York Times.  

Holzer is the senior vice president for external affairs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He appears frequently on network news programs, including The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. He has also made numerous appearances on C-SPAN.

A former press secretary for Gov. Mario Cuomo, Holzer is the founding vice chairman and regular lecturer at the Lincoln Forum, which hosts an annual symposium each year in Gettysburg. He lives in Rye, N.Y. with his wife Edith, director of public affairs for the New York State Council of Child Caring Agencies.  

A free reception will follow Holzer's talk. For more information, call ext. 6131.

Posted on Mar 29, 2006

At some, it's the ability to walk backward. That's right: Guides at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute need to be able to give a tour that way because it's more personal and allows parents and students to hear what is being said. Luckily for more clumsy students, walking backward isn't the most sought-after skill for college tour guides.

“Ideal candidates must be well-spoken, professional and willing to communicate their experiences at Rensselaer to prospective students and their families,” said RPI spokeswoman Jessica Otitigbe. The College of Saint Rose and Union College say they look for the same.

Guides, who at most schools also work with the admissions office to promote the college in other ways, are usually involved in a variety of activities on campus.

Athletes, members of clubs and students involved in Greek life are guides at Union, said Geoffrey Bowman, assistant dean of admissions.

The schools also look for ethnic and geographic diversity when hiring guides.

Some schools want guides to be at least sophomores, but Union also encourages freshmen to apply.

Grade point average is important, too. Both Saint Rose and Union prefer a 3.0 or higher, but exceptions can be made.

Another key trait for guides is a genuine love for their school and the experience they have had there. Bowman said that's particularly important at Union, because unlike guides at Saint Rose and RPI, Union's ambassadors aren't paid.

“Enthusiasm for the college supersedes everything else,” he said.

Posted on Mar 29, 2006

“No one really came to the emergency room,” said Brown, who stood by at Bellevue Hospital. “Either people were dead or they walked away from 9-11.”
On her walk home, she found a way to help. She joined a small group unloading human remains at a makeshift morgue on 30th Street. So began her participation in what Dr. Charles Hirsch, New York City's chief medical examiner, called “the forensic investigation of the… largest mass murder in the history of the United States.”
Photos and interviews of Brown and 17 of her classmates at NYU Medical School who joined in the forensic effort are featured in Being There: Medical Student Morgue Volunteers Following 9-11 by Barry Goldstein '73.
Goldstein has captured the range of emotions that followed the tragedy, and the personal cost to each medical student who contributed to the effort. He had each student pose for a photo, most with a meaningful prop or person. Later, he interviewed each one.
Goldstein was interested in the motivations of the students and their personal accounts of the tragedy. Their stories, though perhaps no different from those of other New Yorkers, could serve as a distillation of experiences and fears of others.
Eunice Kang posed with her cell phone set to speed dial her cousin, who had escaped from Building 2. “The worst part was not knowing. After that, I understood why people posted up flyers all over the city. It gives you something to do when you're waiting.”
Matthew Goldstein (no relation) held a photo of a family friend, Gus, a NYPD detective investigating the attacks. Gus died of lung cancer the following year, but not before he spoke with Goldstein's father about his son's work. “I think he was just incredibly touched and most importantly, proud of the work I was doing.”
In the days after 9-11, Wasif Ali, a practicing Muslim, wore his EMT shirt and shaved his goatee. “I thought I'd lay low, I guess. [Being Muslim] was something I had to deal with after 9-11. We're not a perfect country.”
Michael Starsiak said simply of coping with the grim task, “You detach. You dehumanize. You do the work…”
-Elizabeth Hackett spoke
of her guilt over leaving the morgue after learning that the father of her childhood friend was missing. She chose to
be photographed with her boyfriend, Joe, who told her “you're not a weak person…
to say you don't want to go back there.”
new post on 9-11

In the fall of 2001, Goldstein was starting a visiting professorship at NYU Medical School (on leave from the University of Rochester, where he is associate professor of medical humanities and biochemistry and biophysics). He was to teach medical
students about the history
of photography in medicine, how photographs portray
doctors and patients, and how those representations have changed over time.
His first day at NYU was September 11.
He spent much of the first week photographing the aftermath of the attacks. For the next several months, he documented a “memorial wall” of missing victims that would be featured in “Dialogues,” a book published by the NYU Masters Scholars Program and a number of exhibitions. Emotionally exhausted after six months, he planned to return to his original projects.
During the winter after the attacks, however, he heard about the NYU medical students who assisted the forensics team. “I was astonished that medical students, most of whom were still in their first year, had been allowed entry into this world,” he wrote in the introduction to the book.
Skeptical at first about what new medical students could contribute to the effort, Goldstein learned from Dr. Hirsch that their familiarity with anatomical nomenclature made them especially suited as scribes.
The students, though still
in what Hirsch called their “professional infancy,” felt a strong need to be of help, Goldstein said. “What motivated each of these students to seek this particular work was this incredible drive to be of service.”
Goldstein started the project in April 2003, “just the point where they had started digesting these experiences and were dealing with emotions that had been fairly suppressed,” he said.
At Union
At Union, Goldstein's circuitous route to a degree in physics went by way of the biology and chemistry departments. First a biology major, he switched to chemistry after his last freshman bio final to pursue an interest in the field that would become known as structural biology. In his junior year, there was a time conflict between a fascinating physics course and a class he needed for his chemistry major. He switched to physics.
He went on to earn his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester.
He cultivated an interest in photography during high school, but didn't pursue it
at Union. During the 1980s, most of his photography was confined to taking book jacket photos of his wife, award-winning novelist Andrea Barrett '74. The photo bug struck again in 1997 when he joined Barrett in the Arctic for her research into Voyage of the Narwhal. The region is so beautiful, he says, you can “close your eyes, point the camera, and get magnificent images.” Since then, he has taken courses at the International Center for Photography, where he met his mentor, renowned portrait photographer Harvey Stein.