Posted on Apr 25, 2006

Middle and high school students will compete in the annual Rube Goldberg machine contest this Saturday (April 29) beginning at 9:30 a.m. in Union College's Memorial Fieldhouse.

This year's challenge: The machine must place a golf ball on a “tee” and then execute the swing of a putter and tap the ball (hopefully) into a hole.

Students are required to create a machine that can mimic motor skills by completing a simple task. Twenty-five area teams will participate this year, including one from Cooperstown.

Union College engineering professor James Hedrick oversees the contest each year. Volunteer judges from Knolls Atomic Power Lab (KAPL) and General Electric choose the winners based on effectiveness, complexity, creativity and presentation.

“We really try to get students interested in physics, math and science during the creation of these machines – that's the goal, much more so than the outcome of the competition,” said Hedrick.

The winning machine will be displayed at the Schenectady Museum. The competition will also be videotaped, and visitors to the museum will be able to view the tape. 

This is the sixth year Union College will host the event. Niskayuna High School was triumphant last year for creating a machine that could remove the top from a 20-ounce bottle of soda and fill a 16-ounce cup, without spilling a drop. Previous competitions' tasks included opening a bag of M&Ms, toasting a slice of bread, sticking a stamp on a letter, and making a baloney sandwich.

The competition is named for the late Rube Goldberg, an engineer and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. His cartoons appeared in thousands of daily newspapers from 1914 to 1964. The “inventions,” he said, symbolized “man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal results.”

Contest machines must use at least 20 steps to complete the task and must be no larger than 5 feet in length, depth and height. Each entering team receives an honorarium of $100 for supplies to build their machine.

The competition is sponsored by Union's Engineering program; General Electric; Lockheed Martin; KAPL and the Schenectady Museum and Suits-Bueche Planetarium.

For more information, visit http://engineering.union.edu/me_dept/rube/rube.html.

Posted on Apr 25, 2006

World-renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida will perform at 8 p.m., Monday, May 8 at Union College's Memorial Chapel. This will be the final concert of the 2005-2006 Chamber Concert Series at the college.   Mitsuko Uchida, pianist Uchida is giving an all-Mozart program in honor of the composer's 250^th birthday. This program will only be performed in the Capital Region, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Carnegie Hall in New York City. The last time she appeared in the International Chamber Concert Series was 1998. This year's program includes: Mozart's Fantasie in C minor, K. 475 and Sonata in C minor, K. 457; Adagio in B minor, K. 540 Sonata in F Major, K. 533/494 and Sonata in D Major, K. 576. The Chicago Tribune raves, “Uchida is, simply Uchida – an elegant, deeply musical interpreter who strikes an inspired balance of head and heart in everything she plays.”   Uchida's career reveals her reverence for the masters: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, and the composers of the Second Viennese School, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. Performing throughout the world, Uchida plays with many different partners. Currently, this musician is Artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Orchestra and appears frequently with both the Chicago and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. She is also co-director of the Marlboro Music Festival.  Tickets are $25 for the general public and $10 for students; available at the College Facilities Building, call 388-6080 or at the door one hour before the performance. For further information, call 372-3651 or visit the Union College website at http://www.union.edu/ConcertSeries/.

Posted on Apr 24, 2006

World-renowned pianist Mitsuko Uchida will perform at 8 p.m. Monday, May 8, at Union College's Memorial Chapel. This will be the final concert of the 2005-2006 Chamber Concert Series at the College.

Uchida is giving an all-Mozart program in honor of the composer's 250^th birthday. This program will be performed only in the Capital Region, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Carnegie Hall in New York City.

The last time Uchida appeared in the International Chamber Concert Series was 1998. This year's program includes: Mozart's Fantasie in C minor, K. 475 and Sonata in C minor, K. 457; Adagio in B minor, K. 540 Sonata in F Major, K. 533/494 and Sonata in D Major, K. 576.

The Chicago Tribune raves, “Uchida is, simply, Uchida – an elegant, deeply musical interpreter who strikes an inspired balance of head and heart in everything she plays.”  

Uchida's career reveals her reverence for the masters: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Debussy, and the composers of the Second Viennese School, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.

Performing throughout the world, Uchida plays with many different partners. Currently, this musician is artist-in-residence at the Cleveland Orchestra and appears frequently with both the Chicago and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. She is also co-director of the Marlboro Music Festival.

Tickets, free for the Union community, are $25 for the general public and $10 for area students; available at the College Facilities Building, 388-6080, or at the door one hour before the performance. For more information, call 372-3651 or visit the Union College Web site at http://www.union.edu/ConcertSeries/.

Posted on Apr 24, 2006

When it comes to studying business as an undergraduate, Union College professor Hal Fried doesn't mince words. “I am absolutely convinced that if you really want to be a successful businessman, you don't want an undergraduate major in business,” Fried says.

What you want, Fried says, is to follow your passion, be it modern art or ancient Greece, and link your passion to an entrepreneurial attitude. Hence Fried's own passion – the Center for Analysis of Productivity and Entrepreneurship at Union College.

“At Union, a student should feel free, almost be liberated, to major in whatever it is they really enjoy – knowing they can overcome whatever obstacles exist and turn it into a successful career,” Fried said. “If a student is interested in classics or visual art, they should follow that passion rather than major in economics because they feel it is more practical.” 

Fried's opinion is in good company at Union, which does not offer an undergraduate business major. In lieu of what Fried derides as a “how-to program” for management, the school has embarked on a mission of educating students in the principles of transforming the impractical into the practical. 

“I think you can teach all the principles in business by teaching the underlying fundamentals,” Fried explains. “Don't teach what works today – you can infer the things that work today – you'll be a much more creative and effective businessperson if you know how to think and you know how things work and you know how to write.”

MAKING YOUR OWN DESTINY 
CAPE – the acronym for the center – has been “on the books” at Union for several years, but it is only within the past two that the center has embarked in earnest on spreading the gospel of making your own destiny.

With financial support from Union alumni and the private James S. Kemper foundation, CAPE has organized a package of multidisciplinary courses, activities and competitions – even a study-abroad program in Fiji – all centered on entrepreneurship.

Among the course lineup are some unexpected offerings. Psychology professor Ken DeBono teaches a section in “The Mind of the Entrepreneur” on the psychology of persuasion.

“We don't teach marketing per se; instead we teach cognitive psychology and what psychologists have learned about how to obtain compliance,” explained Fried, who teaches another section in the same course.

David Ogawa, a professor in the department of visual arts, will teach “Modern Art and Its Markets.” The course explores how Impressionist painters departed from the traditional model of reliance on wealthy patrons and state-sponsorship in favor of self-funded and self-organized shows with the goal of making a sale.

Political science professor Richard Fox will teach “American Politics and Investigative Journalism” with a segment on the entrepreneurial elements of successful investigative journalists – such as Upton Sinclair, Bob Woodward and “Fast Food Nation” author Eric Schlosser.

Each course views its subject through “an entrepreneurial filter,” Fried said. “It's very different from entrepreneurship as starting a business.” 

Sophomore Steve Walker is among the early adherents to Fried's vision. Walker, a double-major in political science and economics, said he joined the school's fledgling entrepreneurship club last year on the unrefined ambition that someday he will develop his own commercial idea and work for himself. 

In January, Walker and fellow student Josh DeBartolo won the college's first business-plan competition with a pitch for an online textbooks exchange. Several companies, including Amazon and eBay, host textbook trading. Walker said he and De-Bartolo have taken those models and added a twist, although he declined to divulge specifics. 

“We're keeping all our ideas to ourselves, as they're not patented. But it definitely improves on what's out there,” he explained. The students hope to launch their site among Union students next year and expand to other schools. 

Walker has already taken “The Mind of the Entrepreneur” and this trimester is enrolled in “Theories of International Relations” which includes a segment on transnational criminals. 

“Entrepreneurship's always been an interesting topic, going out and doing whatever you can, ideally whatever you want to, and getting something people are looking for,” Walker said.

Walker said he is intrigued by the challenge of fixing a problem or filling a need, and also with the broad range of opportunity.

“You make people's lives better or make them happier, you bring them a shoe they've never had,” Walker said.

PAVING OWN PATHS
At first glance, his family background – his father is a lawyer, his mother a dietician – doesn't scream entrepreneur, but Walker said that growing up, his family members were forever paving their own path.

“We do a lot of work around the house. It's an old farmhouse and we have a lot of different things to fix,” Walker said. “With our limited resources, we have to set up stone walls, fix septic systems, figure out things as you go. That's what got me started.”

Walker said he has no doubts about his decision to attend Union despite the lack of a business major. “I think it's not essential, so long as one offers good academic foundation that you can attack other opportunities from,” Walker said. “For an undergrad college, I think the most important thing you can do is lay a solid academic foundation – so people can write well, communicate well, have a handle on whatever specialty they choose.”

Posted on Apr 24, 2006

Last fall all Union College students received a letter on what needs to be done to maintain a civil community.

It didn't tell them that they should hold the door more often, or that they ought to consider saying thank you to more people.

The letter, from interim president James Underwood, outlined some of the concerns of the college administration. Chief among them were excessive drinking, vandalism and student assaults. 

“It is very clear that alcohol consumption at many campuses is
excessive, as are the acts that such consumption promotes,” stated the letter. “Indeed, it is quite common that on weekends and Wednesdays we at Union must transport to the hospital one or more students who have consumed excessive amounts of alcohol.” 

Now the school plans to take the discussion on civility a step further. It will establish a collegewide commission on civility, and ask students and faculty what the school should do to restore civili- ty on campus.

A major focus will be drinking. “Alcohol is a big piece of it,” said Stephen Leavitt, vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Union College. “There are pockets of problems that persist. We are sending a message that we're concerned about it.”

The civility commission is the most recent step Union has taken to improve campus culture and curb excessive drinking and the problems that go along with it. Members will be appointed this spring, and the commission will probably begin meeting in the fall. 

At Union, students have helped revise the school's alcohol policies, and the school is prosecuting more alcohol-related cases and stepping up discipline. 

But Leavitt said more is needed. “There are improvements,” he said. “It is much better, but it's nowhere near where it might be. . . . There are aspects of the drinking situation on campus that trouble me. There's too much drinking going on. The drinking has probably gotten worse in the past few years. There's more extreme drinking.” 

Students who are 21 and older are allowed to have alcohol in their rooms, although there are limits. They are not allowed to have parties, and any gathering of more than six people is considered a violation of that policy. 

Leavitt said more restrictions could be considered if there isn't a marked improvement in campus culture. The civility commission, he said, is the sort of things schools usually create after there's been some sort of tragedy on campus, such as a student dying from alcohol poisoning. “We don't want to wait for that,” he said.

“I don't have anything fundamental against alcohol as such,” Leavitt said. “What I'm against is binge drinking, and the boorish behavior that accompanies being drunk, the lack of civility that goes along with being drunk.”

“It's not most students, it's relatively few, but it's significant enough to trouble us.” Underwood's letter urged students to think about their “obligations to each other. We could merely ask ourselves that none of us do any harm to others. If that norm were to be adopted by the minority who do not at present abide by it, we would be a more civil place.”

“Our hope is that by becoming an oasis of civility in an often uncivil society, Union can become a model that other colleges will seek to follow.”

A couple of years ago, several of Union's fraternities were forced to give up the big mansions in the center of campus and move into the dorms. 

A new house system, called the Minerva house system, was created, and all students were assigned to one of seven houses, which were envisioned as inclusive social spaces that would create a more robust intellectual life. 

“The aim was to make Greek life not the only game in town,” Leavitt said. 

There is a pub in the student center, where students who are 21 and older are allowed to drink. Leavitt said he doesn't support the idea of a dry campus, and likes the pub. He noted that the Minerva houses, where professors also hang out, serve wine to those who are 21 or older. “It sends a good message about the role of alcohol, that alcohol does not have to be about ‘let's get wasted,' ” Leavitt said. 

If Union were to become a dry campus, it would run the risk of enhancing what Leavitt called a “credibility gap.” “At Union, you've got underage drinking all the time,” he said. “You've got policies you can't enforce.” It would be even harder, he suggested, to enforce a policy completely barring alcohol, and, as a result, students wouldn't pay much attention. 

But he said a ban also has the potential to do good. “The upside to the approach is that it sends a message that you're serious about the situation, that you're bothered by it,” Leavitt said.