Exchange student
Faculty advisor: Bradley G. Lewis, Professor of Economics measuring stock market behavior
Six weeks into his 10-week research project, Filip Holub’s laptop goes kaput. The week before, his advisor, Bradley G. Lewis, had the same problem.
“Maybe they don’t want us to do the research,” Holub jokes about the coincidence.
Holub, a 22-year-old exchange student from the Czech Republic who used to play stock games, was practically destined to do the research. He has a broad knowledge of mathematics, statistics, finance and computer modeling, rounded out by reading the Wall Street Journal and part-time work as a financial advisor in his native Prague.
“Filip combines the strengths of an engineer and an economist,” Lewis says. “He’s ideally suited for this project.”
For 20 hours each week, Holub has been delving into a theoretical economic universe familiar mostly to those who take exception to the efficient markets theory that has dominated academic finance over the years. New literature suggests it’s time for economic and mathematical paradigms that are broader and more accurate.
“I’m analyzing how stock markets are changing, how they are interdependent and how changes are influenced by the past. So far, I’ve studied four different markets and almost a whole century,” Holub says of his work with fractal finance, which measures the uneven nature of markets.
He and Lewis are attuned to the work of maverick mathematician Benoit Mandlelbrot, the guru of fractals, who teamed up with Wall Street Journal reporter Richard Hudson to write The (Mis) Behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward.
“My research has unveiled what Mandelbrot is saying,” Holub notes. “He wrote that today’s market returns positively correlate with returns that have occurred in the last 1,500 days. I have studied data for 19,200 days and Japanese, German, U.S. and Swiss markets all show similar patterns.”
When not immersed in fractal finance, Holub keeps busy as a member of the College Investment Club and by playing volleyball and soccer.
Meanwhile, developing his investment skills and broadening his knowledge by working with Lewis have added up to what he calls an unparalleled experience.
“This summer research can boost my career (management consulting in civil engineering). This was a very attractive opportunity since there are no other programs such as this offered in the Czech Republic. You never meet with a professor on a daily basis. I can do my own research, yes, but meeting with a professor would be like asking for a favor.”
Holub returned last fall to Czech Technical University, where he studies micro and macro economics and leads the International Students Club.
Faculty sponsor: Deidre Hill Butler, sociology Other Mothering in Motion: Parenting Styles of African American Stepmothers
Mary Olushoga stands outside Wold House, greeting the 94-degree day with a generous smile. “I love this weather,” says the 20-year-old who moved from Nigeria to the Bronx when she was 14.
With a major in sociology and a minor in Africana studies, Olushoga gravitates toward the study of social structures and human interaction. “I like to view people in the context of their environment…If someone thinks, ‘Mary is Mary because she is from Nigeria and lives in the Bronx and goes to Union College,' they will have a better idea of who I am.”
Last summer Olushoga assisted Prof. Deidre Hill Butler in researching the parenting styles of African American stepmothers.
“There hasn't been a lot written on this,” Olushoga says. “The divorce rates are very high among working- class African Americans because of economic stress, social stress, and husbands who feel they can't live up to the role of provider.” The rates are equally high, she noted, among African American women who are college-educated.
Olushoga unearthed her senior thesis topic: why a high number of college-educated black women are single and choose adoption.”
Olushoga's scholarly pursuits provide only a glimpse into her many talents. Last summer she was a counselor and tutor for STEP, the Science and Technology Entry Program for high school students. A natural performer, she was the recipient of the Edward Villella Fellowship for dance and gave daily lessons in African cultural dance at the Hamilton Hill Arts Center in Schenectady.
She also sings with the College jazz band, leads the gospel choir, Heavenly Voices, and has performed in every dance program since setting foot on campus. She inspired the song, “Smile,” in The Black Tulip by Kit Goldstein '05, and sang the number in the musical.
Her involvement on campus doesn't end there, however. As Prof. Hill-Butler describes, “Mary has been an active community builder at Union and has brought both vision and enthusiasm to her leadership roles on campus.” She is also an admissions interviewer and was elected vice president of campus life for Student Forum.
Faculty advisor: Gary Reich, physics Searching for a Random Number Generator in Simulating Lattices
On a steamy August day, Luther Vucic stays cool in the air-conditioned physics lab as X's dance around his monitor in seemingly random patterns. Vucic has learned to make sense out of the chaos.
His summer project isn't easy to render in layman's terms. He is studying a branch of statistical mechanics known as percolation theory. He uses a computer program to study the phase transitions of materials at the quantum level, simulating levels of magnetism, conduction and temperature.
Explored by Professor Gary Reich for the past five years, the field is a fit for Vucic, who was drawn to physics because it provides “the ability to describe, in minute detail, the physical properties of life,” he said. To Vucic's credit, Reich says, “It is no small task to learn programming, and Luther has been industrious and successful.”
Vucic is sincerely intrigued with tackling academics and life. He believes the mysteries he can solve with physics-how chalk sticks to a chalkboard or why the life-giving sunlight is no different from the glow of fireflies-are so broad they can provide a lifetime of inquiry.
A self-proclaimed “extremist” with his own diverse array of interests-he has rowed on the College crew team and belongs to Union's Motorcycle and Astronomy clubs-Vucic aspires to the title “mad scientist.” He dreams of owning his own lab to explore everything his curiosity dictates.
He admits his dreams change daily, however. “Maybe tomorrow I'll want to be out at sea on a research boat or in space as an astronaut or in the rainforest as a doctor.”
A native of Angola, N.Y., Vucic is a member of Green House. He transferred to Union as a sophomore, drawn by the College's reputation for undergraduate research, he said.
A summer stroll across campus is an ideal time to catch up on quiet thoughts. Save for the hum of a lawnmower or the occasional distant wail of a siren, Union seems a tranquil place that awaits the arrival of fall.
Open the door to nearly any building, however, and you find a buzz of activity as dozens of students participate in one of Union's most distinctive programs-undergraduate research.
Campus labs, libraries, classrooms and offices bustle with an array of thought-provoking, mind-stretching research and other scholarly pursuits.
While many projects are scientific in nature-consider “Laser Scattering from Beta Amyloid” or “Synthesis and Luminescence Properties of Platinum Complexes,” respective physics and chemistry efforts-students and their faculty sponsors also immerse themselves in a range of research across disciplines.
Herewith, a glimpse at some of this last summer's student research. Most students have continued their work throughout the academic year, work that began on an otherwise serene summer campus.
On a cool morning in early April, three months before he is to start his job as Union's 18th president, Stephen Ainlay answers the door at the President's House.
Wearing a charcoal suit, crisp blue shirt and tie, he looks a little out of place in a building that clearly is in the hands of contractors. The air is thick with the smell of fresh paint. There are drop cloths and tool boxes sitting in a corner. And a brief tour Ainlay gives to a pair of visitors is punctuated by the thrum of saws and drills from somewhere in the kitchen.
Eager to jump in at Union, Ainlay couldn't wait to get started, even if it meant moving in while the house was full of noise and dust. He quickly finished up his duties as dean of faculty at Holy Cross, made a brief visit to see his son, Jonathan, in Arizona, and took a short vacation to London with his wife, Judy, who is finishing her job as director of the Gerontology Studies Program at Holy Cross in Worcester.
Now, he is filling his days with meetings on- and off-campus to get up to speed when he officially starts June 15. He meets regularly with Interim President Jim Underwood and other members of the administration to learn day-to-day operations. He meets with trustee and campus groups to develop a strategic plan (an effort launched by Underwood). And he's a popular guest at student and alumni events, where he is happy to share what he has already learned about the College or its history.
He took some time to discuss his background, his research, his family and what brought him to Union.
Thanks, Jim
“As a new president, I couldn't ask for a more ideal situation,” he says. “Jim [Underwood] and his wife, Jean, have been just so warm and welcoming to Judy and me. Jim is handling the day-to-day operations and meeting with me, which has been enormously helpful in the transition. What he has done is extraordinary, basically coming out of retirement to take on such responsibility. He's doing some important things…his work [to promote] civility is very important. And he is so well known, and knows Union and its history so well, he has been enormously helpful.”
Learning Union history
Ainlay's current reading list is skewed toward Union's historical characters. In Doris Kearns Goodwin's A Team of Rivals, about members of Lincoln's administration, he is especially fascinated with one member, William Henry Seward (Union Class of 1820). A political rival of Lincoln, Seward would overcome the bitter disappointment of losing the party's nomination to become the president's secretary of state and architect of the anti-slavery agenda. “Seward was the hands-down favorite [for the nomination] …they even set up cannons around his house to celebrate. But he was able to manage that disappointment, and then rise to the common good. If you're looking for a role model…someone who was able to put themselves and their own aspirations into context of something much greater than themselves, you'll find no better example than William Seward.”
Another name, Franklin Giddings (Union Class of 1877), is well known to a sociologist like Ainlay. Giddings was generally regarded as one of the founding members of American academic sociology, holding the country's first chair at Columbia University. “What intrigues me about Giddings was that he was trained at Union as an engineer,” Ainlay says. “And then he goes on to start this whole new field, which is not only a mainstay in the modern college curriculum, but an important discipline in its own right. Giddings has become emblematic of a Union grad rooted in tradition but at the same time thinking outside the box [to create] this whole new endeavor.”
‘You're President Ainlay'
One evening recently, Ainlay was holding a pound of coffee in a checkout line at Price Chopper when he was approached by a trio of Union students, their cart brimming with the makings of a barbecue. “President Ainlay,” they said, “we're having a cookout tonight at Beuth House. Any chance you'd want to come?” He did. “They had hundreds of kids there and the smoke from the grill was drawing students up to the patio. The students would sort of do a double-take and then introduce themselves. I'm looking forward to being a presence in the students' lives, and I think that's beginning to happen.” Ainlay was invited to another cookout, this one at Golub House. He politely declined, explaining that the 1 a.m. starting time did not fit his schedule.
Ainlay also has found his way into the classroom, a psychology class where students and administrators were discussing the Minerva housing system. “The students right away engaged all of us,” he said. “They could have been intimidated, but they certainly weren't.”
Research- People part of greater whole
Ainlay's own research seems eclectic-blindness, aging, spirituality and Mennonite life. But the thread that connects it all, he says, is “the human need for people to see themselves as part of a greater whole.”
It's a theme Ainlay will revisit often during the course of conversation.
“There is a lesson here for leadership generally, that people want to believe they're part of something bigger than themselves,” he says. “I think the great thing about being a college president is that you get to remind people of that greater project.”
His first book, Day Brought Back My Night, explores how people cope with blindness late in life. His most recent book, Mennonite Entrepreneurs, examines how people balance their drive for personal gain with commitments to a community that frowns on material acquisition. He is working on a book-The Drift Toward Modernity-about the development of seminary education for Mennonite clergy in the 1940's, the start of a somewhat uneasy 20-year transition toward a professionalization of church leadership. Before 1940, members of the Anabaptist farming sect chose their non-paid, lifetime clergy by lot. “It was one thing to have authority given to you by God,” he says. “It was another thing to have authority by credential.”
Although not a member of the Mennonites, a largely agrarian Protestant group that advocates baptism of adult believers only and rejects military service, Ainlay grew up with a close connection that would inspire much of his scholarly research.
Growing up in Goshen
Goshen, Indiana, Ainlay's hometown, sits halfway across the state and eight miles south of the Michigan border. It is home to a large Mennonite and Amish population, an industrial sector that produces boats and RVs, and Goshen College, from which Ainlay and his father graduated.
The Maple City has changed some since Ainlay was a kid. It has doubled its population to 30,000, and there is the ubiquitous Wal-Mart. But it still has a downtown parking lot for Amish buggies. And a native son makes front-page news for being appointed president of a college 700 miles to the east.
Ainlay was raised in a Methodist family, the second of Charles and Dorothy Ainlay's five children. His father, who died in 2004, was a prominent attorney and a fixture in local politics and civic organizations. As young Stephen Ainlay rode his bike down the street, shopkeepers called him by name.
The Ainlay kids grew up well grounded. When Ainlay's mother read a glowing press release announcing her son's appointment at Union, she wryly remarked that she didn't know who it was about. His siblings have noted that at about the same time, Ainlay's younger brother, Chuck, a renowned Nashville recording engineer, was winning a Grammy award as producer for the 20th anniversary Surround Sound version of the Dire Straits classic album, Brothers in Arms. (His oldest brother, John, is a vice president for Allied Van Lines in Chicago; a younger sister, Susan, is an art therapist; and his youngest sister, Ann, teaches Arabic at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.)
Ainlay was a legacy at Goshen College. (His father, who lost his own father at the start of the Depression, found a mentor in a Mennonite teacher with a family connection to Goshen. He received a full scholarship, graduated in 1941 and served as an alumni advisor.) All but one of the Ainlay children took courses at Goshen, but Stephen was the only one to get a degree there.
Ainlay was a minority at the college. Its charter at the time required that 65 percent of the students be Mennonite, and there was mandatory chapel. “It was not completely new,” he recalls. “I had many Mennonite friends, but I certainly got to know Mennonite life better there than I had when I was growing up.”
To Rutgers
When Ainlay, a senior sociology major, read Peter Berger's influential The Social Construction of Reality, he decided to pursue graduate study with the author at Rutgers University. When he arrived in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he marched into Berger's office-rather naively, he now recalls-to announce that he would be working with him. Berger gladly took on the promising young man for a master's and Ph.D.
Ainlay and his wife, Judy, were high school sweethearts who met when he offered her a ride home after a student government meeting. She followed him to Goshen College; they both spent a term in England and then went on to Rutgers, where they were married. Judy earned her M.S.W. at Rutgers and then worked for agencies serving seniors while her husband was finishing his doctorate and doing post-doc work at Princeton.
When Ainlay took a teaching position at Holy Cross in 1982, Judy took a job doing PR for a senior services center. For the past 12 years, she has directed the Gerontology Studies Program of the Colleges of Worcester consortium, which includes Holy Cross, Clark University, Assumption College, Worcester State College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Though the next chapter of Judy's career is still taking shape, Ainlay says the couple looks forward to working together at Union. “This is a partnership of sorts that we're working on,” he says. “And we look forward to working together. I think we need to figure out over the next six months what exactly that means. We have two boys, both of whom are out of the house, so we're excited about having 2,200 students around. We just enjoy working with young adults at that age.”
Jesse, their oldest boy, graduated from Holy Cross. He is working as a legal assistant in a New York law firm and plans to go to law school. Jonathan will be a junior this fall at the University of Arizona.
Why Union?
To the recurring question, Ainlay says, “It felt very much like home.”
“It was immediately striking to me just how much the students, alumni and people who work here are attached to this institution,” he says. “The kind of care that people take of the campus, for example, seems to be emblematic of the care that people take in the classroom and in doing their work here.
“When you have a place that people care about so deeply, when you have a history like Union's, it's very easy to get caught up. I'm certainly well on my way to being caught up in Union.”
Stephen C. Ainlay
Hometown: Goshen, Indiana Age: 54 Family: wife, the former Judith Gardner; two sons, Jesse and Jonathan Last position: former vice president for academic affairs and professor of sociology at College of the Holy Cross Field: sociologist, with research covering aging, blindness, spirituality, and Mennonite life Education: master's and Ph.D., Rutgers University; bachelor's degree, Goshen College Selected books:Day Brought Back My Night, Mennonite Entrepreneurs and The Drift Toward Modernity (in preparation)
