Posted on May 19, 2006

The Graduate College of Union University received a $1 million taxpayer-funded shot in the arm Thursday to jump-start fundraising for a new headquarters the school wants to build at a defunct shopping plaza.

The money, member-item spending steered to the college by state Sen. Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna, will go toward construction of a 30,000-square-foot, three-story building the Galesi Group plans for the site of the old Big N plaza on Nott Street.

“It's a start,” graduate school President Sue Lehrman said, adding the college has sent out a number of requests for support from governments, private foundations and other donors “that we think are going to come to fruition soon.”

The graduate school is based at Union College, with administrative offices at the Lamont House, and uses campus classrooms. Lehrman said the school, which has 700 students, needs its own home.

Earlier this year, the college received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Senate. Galesi plans to build four structures on the land. The Capital District YMCA plans to build a new 59,000-square-foot gymnasium and community center at the site. Two other buildings, one for medical offices and another for corporate space, are also slated for the land.
 

Posted on May 18, 2006

Albany Med FLIGHT's helicopter landed in the middle of Rugby Field recently to raise awareness and give students insight into careers in the medical field, especially jobs in emergency medicine.

The touchdown was organized by the Union College Emergency Medical Services (UCEMS).

UCEMS began as a student club and is now officially sponsored by Health Services, guaranteeing the group an annual budget.

Sharron McCullough, director of Health Services, is the group's advisor. There are approximately 50 members, 20 of whom are certified emergency medical technicians, or EMTs.

Eden Neary '08, UCEMS director, arranged to have the helicopter land in Rugby Field. Traditionally, most landings are conducted over the soccer fields, where there is less foot traffic.

Both Neary and former director Ruth Ebert '06 joined the group during their first year on campus. The students train in the Schenectady County Community College's spring course offering.

UCEMS use their own personal time to train eight hours each week while still taking the usual number of classes here at Union. Students must also pay the course fee. Credit is not given toward their Union College degree. It is all voluntary.

Albany Med FLIGHT, operated as a Life Net program, began serving upstate New York in February 1996.

The program was developed as a cooperative venture between Albany Medical Center, the region's Level I Trauma Center and Rocky Mountain Helicopters, the world's largest EMS helicopter service provider.

The helicopter landing coincided with Union's Heath Fair. The annual event, sponsored by Health Services and the Wellness Committee, highlights health and wellness issues. Vendors offer advice, hold raffles, and give blood pressure checks, body fat analysis and freebees.

For more information visit: http://www.union.edu/healthservices. 

Posted on May 18, 2006

Posted on May 18, 2006

Hundreds of applications to Capital Region colleges were reevaluated because of SAT grading problems, but admissions officials said their original decisions have stood in all cases so far.

The College Board said the faulty scanning of answer sheets to SATs taken on Oct. 5, 2005, resulted in 4,411 students nationally getting lower grades than they should have earned. The average under-grade was 100 points on the 2,400-point examination.

Dan Lundquist, director of admissions at Union College in Schenectady, said he was concerned that although the numbers of Union applicants with incorrect scores was low, it could still be a life-changing situation for some of those students. Forty out of about 4,400 Union applicants had their SATs mis-scored, the College Board informed Union.

In March, the College Board gave colleges the names of students whose scores were wrong and their correct grades.

“In the heat of the moment, before we really knew what was happening, the concern for us was not so much it was a small percentage of our applicant pool,” Lundquist said. “If you flip it around, it was 100 percent of each of those 40 kids' applications. … In the end, it didn't make any difference.”

SAT scores adjusted upward did not affect students that Union had already accepted, Lundquist said. Nor did lower scores change the status of students who had been denied acceptance, Lundquist said. In those cases, other factors-such as students doing poorly on demanding high school courses-still warranted denial of admission, he said.

“In no case did we find any of the swings, plus or minus, were enough to become an individual factor” to change initial admissions determinations, Lundquist said.

Siena College in Loudonville also reevaluated about 40 applications because of the scoring problem and, like Union, changed no admissions determinations, Siena spokeswoman Janet Gianopoulos said. No admissions decisions were changed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, either, spokeswoman Theresa Bourgeois said.

As many as 200 University at Albany applicants were among the students with mis-scored SATs, President Kermit Hall said.

UAlbany was still working with the College Board this week to find out more about the scoring problems and understand more about what they entailed, Hall said.

However, “we don't think we will change anything based on what we know,” Hall said.

Decisions, decisions

All the Capital Region college officials said SAT scores are a factor, but not the major one, in deciding which students they admit. A student's high school record, especially in difficult courses, extracurricular activities and other factors are also given major weight in the decision, officials said.

Lundquist said that about 30 years ago, Union became one of the first colleges to de-emphasize SAT scores in favor of giving greater weight to other factors in evaluating students for admission worthiness.

“We think the most important indicator [of college success] is a high school track record of good grades on tough courses,” he said.

In an appearance this week before the state Senate's higher education committee in Albany, College Board President Gaston Caperton said the scoring irregularities did not have a “major impact” on students or the college admissions process for fall 2006.

He said that scores were under-reported by 40 points or less in more than 80 percent of the instances where students earned more points than was reported by the College Board.

The College Board urged colleges to reevaluate admissions decisions for all students involved with scoring irregularities, Caperton said.

“We believe they did so,” he said. 

Score sheets will be double-scanned by the grading contractor to the College Board, Pearson Educational Measurement of Iowa City, Iowa, to minimize the chances of future problems, Caperton said.

In just over 600 instances nationwide, Caperton said students were credited with higher scores than they should have gotten because of the scoring irregularities.

Just under 500,000 students took the SATs last Oct. 5.

Posted on May 18, 2006

Thursday, May 18, 5:30 p.m. / Memorial Chapel / Voice Recital featuring Adrienne Hart '09 and Kara McCabe '09

Thursday, May 18, 6 p.m. / Golub House / Speaker from Birthnet on “Childbirth in America: Myths & Realities”

Thursday, May 18, 7-8:30 p.m. / Sorum House / Poetry workshop and reading with Profs. Hilary Tann and Yu Chang

Thursday, May 18–Sunday, May 21 / Campuswide / ReUnion 2006

Friday, May 19-Saturday, May 20, 8 p.m., Sunday, May 21, 2 p.m./ Yulman Theatre / Play – “The Bald Soprano”/

Friday, May 19-Monday, May 22, 8 & 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Movie: “Curious George”

Friday, May 19-Saturday, May 20, 7 p.m.-7 a.m. / Nott Memorial / Relay for Life

Saturday, May 20, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. / Golub House / Wilderness first aid, Gearys@union.edu

Saturday, May 20, 4-7 p.m. / Orange House / Campus Safety – The Band

Saturday, May 20, 6 p.m. / Sorum House / Class of 1941 dedication

Saturday, May 20, 10 p.m. / Old Chapel / Alpha Phi Alpha party, step show

Sunday, May 21, 5 p.m. / Old Chapel / Catholic Student Association mass and dinner

Tuesday, May 23, 6 p.m. / Arts Building 215 / Feminist film series: “Swimming Pool”

Tuesday, May 23, 7 p.m. / Social Sciences 012 / Latino film series: “Bread and Roses”

Tuesday, May 23, 7:30 p.m. / Nott Memorial / Mike Kenny and Barbara Marten on “The Making of a Playwright…”

Wednesday, May 24, 1 p.m. / Golub House / Sushi lunch

Wednesday, May 24, 1:30 p.m. / Old Chapel / Screening of “Favela Rising” and Q&A with director Jeff Zimbalist

Wednesday, May 24, 7:30 p.m. / Arts Building 215 / “‘each shadow a shot in the dark': A Farewell Poetry Reading by Ed Pavliæ,” associate professor f English

Thursday, May 25, 11 a.m. / Becker Career Center 212 / Resume workshop

Thursday, May 25, 12:30 p.m. / NWS&E 304 / Physics seminar: Karen Masters, Harvard University on “Mapping the Cosmic Web”

Thursday, May 25, 12:40 p.m. / NWS&E 222/ Computer science seminar: Judith Franklin, Smith College on “TBD”

Thursday, May 25, 4:30 p.m. / Phi Beta Kappa room / Philosophy speaker: Ken Taylor, Stanford University, on “Where Norms Come From: A Naturalistic Approach”

Thursday, May 25, 7:30 p.m. </OLD 8^th annual Bob Dylan tribute

Friday, May 26, 12:05 p.m. / Arts Building 215 / Lunchtime jazz: Modern jazz, Tim Olsen, associate professor of music, and Friends

Friday, May 26-Monday, May 29, 8 & 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Movie: “Medea's Family Reunion”

Friday, May 26, 10 p.m. / Jackson's Garden / Party in the garden

Saturday, May 27 / Minerva Field Day

Saturday, May 27, 5:30 p.m. / Memorial Chapel / Senior recital featuring Sarah Serbun '06 assisted by Sarah Bills '06