Posted on Oct 18, 2006

Pull weeds, trim hedges, rake leaves, remove trash or help plant 2,000 daffodil bulbs. The 12th annual John Calvin Toll Community Service Day, during which students, faculty and staff join city leaders and residents to spruce up Schenectady, takes place Saturday, Oct. 21, 9:30 a.m.- noon.

“It's always wonderful to see the Union College community working side by side with our neighbors,” said Gretchel Hathaway Tyson, director of the Kenney Community Center, which coordinates the event with the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation, Schenectady Promise and local volunteers.

Named for one of Union's first graduates in 1799, John Calvin Toll Day is supported by Al Hill '46 of Buffalo and his wife, Perrie. Toll was Hill's great-great-grandfather.

Individuals and groups – such as Minerva Houses, student, athletic, business and community groups – are encouraged to join members of the Pre-Health Society, Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and Psi Upsilon Fraternity, who have already signed up. Residential Life will once again sponsor a pizza party for the Greek house and the residence hall floor with the highest Toll Day participation.

Volunteers will meet at Old Chapel at 9:30 a.m. to receive assignments and board buses. For details, contact Angela Blair at blaira@union.edu.

Posted on Oct 18, 2006

SCHENECTADY — Union College has become the first school in the Capital Region to drop its requirement of the SAT or ACT tests for admission.

 Union announced Tuesday it is joining a growing list of more than 700 colleges and universities nationally who have made such standardized test scores optional for admission.

Other local colleges and universities are mulling making a similar change, but higher education moves at a measured pace and such a shift is apparently at least a year or more away on other area campuses.

At Union, the discussion about dropping the SAT began nearly two decades ago when a pair of professors found there was no correlation between the outcome of student success and graduation rates with SAT or ACT scores.

After years of debate, Union administrators decided such standardized tests were “a prestigious but flawed instruments” with demonstrated biases based on racial, gender, socioeconomic and cultural factors, according to Dan Lundquist, Union's dean of admissions and financial aid.

The tipping point for Union's decision to drop the standardized test requirement for admission came amid widely reported SAT scoring errors in the past year and a continued refrain from the anti-test movement.

“There's a growing frustration in the college admissions world about what they consider an arms race on college competitiveness and an explosion of test coaching,” said Robert Schaeffer, publication education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. The group was formed in 1985 and is based in Cambridge, Mass., under the banner of making the SAT and ACT obsolete.

Schaeffer said there is a backlash against affluent parents who “buy” an additional 200 to 300 points on their child's SAT score by paying for expensive tutoring.

As of Tuesday, the fair test advocates counted 732 colleges and universities nationwide that have made SAT or ACT optional.

In New York alone, nearly 90 institutions have dropped standardized tests for admission, although that includes dozens of non-traditional, specialty or religious colleges.

In the Capital Region, administrators at the College of Saint Rose, Siena College and Skidmore College said they currently require SAT or ACT scores, but all three are actively discussing whether to make them optional in the future.

There are no plans to drop the SAT or ACT requirement at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, but James Nondorf, vice president for enrollment, said test scores are a single element in the “holistic approach” they take to assessing prospective students.

“It's an important piece, but it's not the only piece,” Nondorf said of the standardized tests.

The decision to make the SAT and ACT optional takes effect immediately at Union. Lundquist said some early applicants for next year who submitted their SAT or ACT scores will be contacted and given the option of whether to pull their scores out of their application packet.

Among so-called selective colleges, in whose ranks Union counts itself, 32 of the U.S. News and World Report's 100 best liberal colleges have become SAT- or ACT-optional, Schaeffer said.

“Numerous long-term reports have backed up our contention that schools end up with a better class in terms of intellectual abilities and diversity by dropping the SAT and ACT,” Schaeffer said.

Previously, Union proudly touted its average SAT score of 1240 for this year's freshman class. The college received a record 4,373 applications for this year's class, with 1,841 accepted and 560 freshmen who ended up attending.

Rather than relying on SAT or ACT scores as a yardstick, Lundquist and his admissions staff will focus on the student's class ranking, the rigor of classes taken, community service and other factors.

Posted on Oct 17, 2006

Britain's world-renowned Floristan Piano Trio aims to prove that three times really is a charm, when they return to Memorial Chapel Sunday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m. for their third appearance as part of Union's acclaimed Chamber Concert Series.

In 2000 the ensemble, comprised of Susan Tomes on piano, Anthony Marwood on violin and Richard Lester on cello, received Britain's Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music-marking the first time the prize was given to a piano trio. Their first major tour of the U.S., in March 2004, included a debut at Carnegie Hall and all three members of the trio were taught by violinist Sandor Vegh who epitomized the approach of expressing every detail of a piece of music and their first major tour of the U.S.

Florestan's recordings have received outstanding reviews in the European tradition of chamber music playing, with their discs garnering critical acclaim and coveted honors including the prestigious Gramophone Awards-oft perceived as the Oscars of the classical music world.

Their recording of Schubert's B flat Trio was described by The Times of London as “marvelously alive, played with palpable joy and an unerring sense of ensemble.”

Tomes, recognized as one of the finest pianists and chamber musicians of her generation, has recorded more than 40 CDs of solo, duo and chamber music which have won international awards including three Gramophone Awards, the 1999 Classic CD Award, several Diapasons d'Or in France and several Deutsche Schallplattenpreise.

In May 2006, Marwood was named Instrumentalist of the Year at the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, the first string player to receive this honor in more than a decade. Lester, who is equally at home in period instrument performance and in ‘modern' performance, divides his time between the Florestan Trio and as principal cellist with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

The group will perform Mozart's K. 496 in G; Saint-Saens' No.2 in e, Op. 92; and Schubert's D. 898 in B flat (Op. 99).

Concert tickets are free for the Union community, $25 for the general public and $12 for area students. They may be picked up at Facilities. For more information, call 388-6080 or 372-3651; or visit www.union.edu/concertseries.

Posted on Oct 17, 2006

Joining a growing list of top schools nationwide, Union College announced today that it will make the SAT and the ACT optional for high school seniors who apply for admission.

The decision, which is effective starting with the Class of 2011, comes after months of discussions between campus administrators, faculty and high school guidance counselors, who urged the College to maintain its high standards by emphasizing academic achievement.

“We have learned that the best predictor of academic success is a past record of academic achievement in a demanding, rigorous class roster,” noted Admissions Dean Dan Lundquist. “While always preferring more data rather than less, we are more concerned that many attractive, success-bound students might not be looking at Union.

“By deciding to make SATs optional we hope to continue to broaden our reach, and we will certainly not lower our standards,” he continued. “We want to send the message that admission will still be merit-based and driven by years of academic success, as reflected on the transcript. Union seeks students with excellent academic credentials. That credential is, primarily, the transcript.”

Lundquist said that as the College's recruitment outreach extended to a broader and more diverse audience, it became clear that requiring standardized test scores was sending the wrong message.

Union received a record 4,373 applications for this year's freshman class, with 1,841 accepted. Sixty-four percent of this year's freshman class of 560 students graduated in the top 10 percent of their class. The average SAT score for the class was 1240.

“Many of the most important lessons to be learned in college occur outside of the traditional academic settings,” Lundquist said. “We believe that in all learning environments, the richness of the educational experience is enhanced by breadth, depth and diversity; we seek a talented student body with individuals who will have an educational impact on each other in and out of class. With that in mind, it is our hope that this move encourages more high-achieving students to apply to Union.”

The College will continue to accept standardized test scores from students who believe they strengthen their academic record. The new policy does not affect students who apply for admittance into the College's Leadership in Medicine program.

Union, which has ranked consistently in the top half of U.S. News and World Report's 100 best liberal arts colleges, is the 27^th school on that magazine's list to become SAT-optional. Other schools include Middlebury, Hamilton and the College of the Holy Cross.

“Union College's decision to drop its testing requirements for all applicants confirms that highly selective admissions decisions can be made without the distortions from coachable, biased and poorly predictive SAT or ACT scores,” said Bob Schaeffer, public education director, National Center for Fair & Open Testing.

Union has long been a leader in the debate over the value of standardized test scores for prospective students. In 1987, the College was one of the first in the country to no longer require the SAT for admission. Instead, students could submit scores from the College Board's achievement tests or the score on the American College Testing exam.

Posted on Oct 12, 2006