Robert L. Fleischer, research professor of Geology, has co-authored “Etched Tracks and Serendipitous Dosimetry” in a recent issue of “Radiation Protection Dosimetry,” with Research Associate Sekyung Chang and students Jeremy Farrell '03, Rachel C. Herrmann '07, Jonathan MacDonald '02 and Marek Zalesky '01 of the Geology department; and Professor Emeritus Robert H. Doremus of Materials Science and Engineering at RPI. The paper describes retrospective personal dosimetry using etched-track methods. It includes neutron dosimetry by fossil fission tracks in glass from Hiroshima, radon dosimetry using alpha tracks in eyeglass lenses, and long-term radon measurements in homes via stored surface alpha activity in household glass caused by embedded decay products of radon.
Read MoreRelay for Life: Overnight walk to support cancer society
This weekend, Union students and others will join Relay for Life, a 12-hour walk to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
“Each year, hundreds of people sign up,” said Trevor Simon '06 of Blue House, one of the organizers for the event, set for 7 p.m. Friday through 7 a.m. Saturday on the walkways around the Nott Memorial and Rugby Field.
There will be free food, music and performances, and hundreds of candlelit “luminaria” bags purchased by participants will surround the Nott in celebration of cancer survivors and in memory of loved ones.
Since 2003, Union participants have raised more than $100,000 for cancer research. To join a team or donate, visit www.acsevents.org/relay/ny/unioncollege.
Read MoreA feather in Union’s cap
All of Audubon's birds are back together again in the Schaffer Library at Union College, a wondrous and valuable 19th-century flock that looks better than ever.
Even a thief in the night three decades ago couldn't steal the luster from this pinnacle of artistic achievement by John James Audubon, America's foremost wildlife artist.
The stunning, life-size color lithographs have been restored — the thief's blood was removed and rips sustained in the crime repaired — and placed on public display this week for the first time.
They're being studied by professors and students in a new effort to move the prized works of art from a dark vault into the bright light of intellectual inquiry.
“I can't think of any collection more important to both art and science,” said Claire Stone, a sophomore art major from Schodack. She studied, awestruck, the Audubon lithographs Tuesday as part of a class titled Illustrated Organisms.
“Seeing the scope and skill of Audubon's work up close is daunting,” said Stone, who expected to spend more than 20 hours drawing one wing of an American wigeon for her class.
But what a long, strange trip Union's birds have taken — Audubon's exquisitely detailed crane and white egret, golden eagle and great blue heron among them — across two centuries on a journey studded with intrigue.
The 435 Audubon hand-colored etchings — a “double elephant folio” size measuring 26 by 39 inches — are valued in excess of $1 million.
“The Audubon caper” began with the purchase of the avian art. The 435 plates of Audubon's seminal “Birds of America” were bought from the artist himself in 1844 for $1,000 in gold following Audubon's visit to the campus to inspect a notable garden.
The plot took a sinister turn in the summer of 1971 when a thief broke a window in Schaffer Library. He smashed open a case and used a box cutter to cut out 100 of Audubon's lithographs from a leather-bound volume and made off with the pilfered art — trailing blood from a glass cut.
One month later in 1971, tipped off by an Austin, Texas, antiquarian book and art dealer, federal agents recovered the stolen Audubons.
The FBI set up a sting at a motel near LaGuardia Airport, where the thief tried to fence the loot and a valuable copy of the Quran.
The FBI arrested Kenneth Pall, a parolee from Pennsylvania who had done time for robbery.
Pall was traveling under the alias of John Galt of Burlington, Vt., and driving a car registered to R.P. Heffin, an alias for Ronald Ravich, who had escaped from prison while serving a 25-year term for robbery.
The 100 stolen lithographs were returned to the special collections vault in the college library later that summer. But the intrigue didn't end there.
The Austin art dealer who helped crack the case, John Holmes Jenkins III, 49, was shot dead and found floating in the Colorado River near Bastrop, Texas, in 1989.
The killing was investigated as a homicide, but never solved. No weapon was recovered.
According to Carl George, emeritus professor of biology at Union and an Audubon expert, the death was fishy. Jenkins was rumored to owe gambling debts to organized crime figures and may have committed suicide, George said. Jenkins' body was found in the river not far from his abandoned car, a Mercedes-Benz. His wallet was empty, causing investigators initially to suspect a robbery and murder.
“It's an amazing story,” George said, as he gave the art students a tutorial on Audubon, his ornithological art and Jenkins' demise at the Schaffer Library.
“You're the first students to see the birds in their newly restored state,” George told them.
The back story to Union's Audubon trove is no less bewildering. The college paid Jenkins a $2,000 reward. A bit of a showman, Jenkins gave back the money and earmarked it with great pomp for a $250 annual award at Union that he named the John H. Jenkins Award for Bibliography.
He returned to Union in 1976 to receive an honorary doctor of letters degree. A few years later, when the $2,000 ran out, his eponymous award was discontinued.
Jenkins' own oeuvre lives on. The author of several books on Texas history, he also edited the 10-volume “Papers of the Texas Revolution.”
Although his role in the return of the Audubon birds interests George, the Audubon scholar is more concerned about how the illustrations came to Union in the first place.
Their provenance dates to 1844, when Union's president, Eliphalet Nott, invited the illustrious wildlife artist to visit Jackson's Garden on campus.
Isaac Jackson was a mathematics professor at Union who suffered from stomach ailments. Nott, a Renaissance man, suggested that gardening might relieve the professor's dyspepsia.
Jackson took Nott's prescription to heart and created a garden that became the envy of the East Coast. After giving Audubon a tour of the garden, Nott decided Union must own a set of “Birds of America.” Fewer than 200 of the double elephant folio editions had been produced and all had been sold.
Audubon wrote to his son and asked him to take down one of two sets of the bird collection from the shelves of Audubon's own Manhattan home library and ship it to Schenectady. The lithographs were bound in four gargantuan leather volumes, 435 lithographs in all. Each volume weighed more than 40 pounds.
The thief cut the 100 works of art out of Volume I.
In a perverse way, the thief may have been an accidental preservationist.
The bound volumes were so densely compacted and heavy that, after more than 150 years of storage, the lithographs were showing stress, including ink transfer and indentations.
As part of an ongoing $50,000 restoration, each lithograph is being permanently removed from its binding. The artwork will be repaired and cleaned by a conservator and placed in an individual archival mat.
“They look a lot better individually,” said Ellen Fladger, the Schaffer Library's head of special collections for 27 years.
Fladger was thrilled when George came up with the idea of showing some of the Audubons at the library and integrating them into the study of art and science.
“This is part of our new emphasis to get our collections out of storage and put them to good use in our classes,” Fladger said.
Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at pgrondahl@timesunion.com.
Information:
What: Selection of Audubon's “Birds of America” lithographs on display in the Schaffer Library
Where: Union College campus, Schenectady
Information: Free and open for public viewing
When: Thursday through Sunday. Variable day and night hours. For specific hours, call 388-6278 or go to http://www.union.edu/library/
Read MoreUnion chapter of Alpha Delta Phi awards campus literary prizes
Alpha Delta Phi (ADPhi) Literary Competition awards were presented recently at a reception in the fraternity's chapter house. Winners were announced by Price Williams '07 chapter president.
Three of the five winners were present to accept their awards, which totaled $1,350. The funding was donated by the chapter's alumni association.
The judges for this year's competition were professors April R. Selley and Nathan P. Wallace of the English Department, and Gary L. Dryfoos (Union '77) a chapter trustee and technical writer.
The five winning works received a total of seven awards in the categories of poetry, short story, and chapter from a novel. A grand prize of $500 was awarded to the best entry overall.
“The quality of this year's entries was impressive,” said Dryfoos. “The students chose unusual topics and settings, and displayed sureness and a real grasp of writing craft. I hope they'll keep at it.”
The Union College Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi was established in 1859. Since its founding as a literary society at Hamilton College in 1832, the fraternity has maintained a tradition of encouraging interest and accomplishment in literature by its own members.
The literary competition, which is open to all Union students, was started 10 years ago. As of this year, the chapter's alumni members have committed to sponsoring the contest as an annual campus event. “Good writing is so important to education, and to so many kinds of work,” said Dryfoos. “ADPhi wants to help students see writing in new ways, and to take pride and enjoyment in their writing skills.”
Here is a list of this year's winners:
GRAND PRIZE: $500 – Max Clarke '09
POETRY:
First Prize: $200 – Michael Montesano '08
Second Prize: $100 – Stephanie Spano '07
Third Prize: $50 – Scott Alfano ‘08
SHORT STORIES:
First Prize: $200 – Kristen Puliafico '07
Second Prize: $100 – Scott Alfano '08
NOVEL/SERIAL CHAPTERS:
First Prize: $200 – Stephanie Spano '07
The winning entries will be posted online at http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/ADP/litcomp06.
Read MoreInterim dean of Arts and Sciences named
David M. Hayes, professor of chemistry who is finishing his 30th year at Union this term, has been named interim dean of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1.
“Along with being an excellent teacher and scholar, Dave has served the College on nearly every committee in the governance system, most recently as science division chair on the Faculty Executive Committee and as chair of the Compensation Committee,” said Therese McCarty, interim dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs, in announcing Hayes' appointment this week.
“He also has served as department chair in chemistry for five years. I am very much looking forward to working with him in this new capacity.”
Hayes succeeds Charlotte Borst, who becomes provost of Rhodes College in Memphis this summer. McCarty thanked Borst for her years of service to Union. “Charlotte's many contributions are very much appreciated,” she said.
A member of the Union faculty since 1976, Hayes has a range of teaching experience in general chemistry and the physical chemistry sequence.
His research interest is mechanistic organometallic photochemistry.
He holds an S.B. in chemical physics from MIT (1966) and a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from Cornell University (1970). He completed postdoctoral fellowships in theoretical chemistry at the University of Rochester and at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. He taught for a year in Lima, Peru, at the National Engineering University.
“I welcome this wonderful opportunity to work with the faculty to advance academic programs and move the College forward,” Hayes said. “I think there'll be interesting, good things happening in the academic arena at Union.”
Hayes, who grew up on Portland, Oregon, lives in Niskayuna with his wife, Susan, a former chemistry teacher who is manager of quality assurance at Starfire Systems in Malta, N.Y. They have three grown sons.