Posted on May 22, 2007

Slavery is alive and well in the U.S. and abroad according to Liza Taylor ’03, who will present “Fighting Modern-Day Slavery: A Frontline Perspective on Combating Human Trafficking” Wednesday, May 23 at 12:50 p.m. in Social Sciences 104.

The talk is part of Pizza & Politics and is free and open to the public.

Taylor is a legal and policy fellow for Polaris Project, an anti-human trafficking non-profit based in Washington, D.C., and a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme Gender Team based at the U.N.

The Polaris Project was founded in 2002 to address the vital need for a grassroots, community-based and comprehensive approach to combat human trafficking in the United States and abroad.

Since its founding, Polaris Project has pioneered many innovative approaches in the anti-trafficking movement including direct outreach and victim identification methodologies, leadership development, providing direct services and shelter to victims and combining grassroots activism with policy advocacy. Polaris Project has grown rapidly over the last six years to include more than 15 full-time staff in four national and international offices and a Grassroots Network of over 6,000 volunteers and supporters.

Taylor received her Bachelor’s in Philosophy and Political Science from Union College and spent two years at the London School of Economics and Political Science pursuing her Master’s in Political Theory and a second Master’s in Gender. She has recently been accepted into the doctoral program in Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Taylor will begin studying feminist political theory at UCLA beginning this fall and plans to pursue a career in academia.

Funded through an Intellectual Enrichment Grant, Pizza & Politics is sponsored by Pi Sigma Alpha, the Political Science Department and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

Posted on May 21, 2007

The Union College Theater Program presents  “The Birds,” as its main production for the spring term beginning Tuesday, May 29 and running through Sunday, June 3 in Yulman Theater.

Performances are at 8 p.m. daily, except for a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee.

The Greek classic by Aristophanes is considered one of the greatest comedies of all time, focusing on a group of birds who take over the government which Aristophanes calls “Cloudcuckooland.”

Directed by Associate Professor William A. Finlay, the production takes a contemporary approach to the piece with extraordinary costuming.

"This will definitely be one of the most visual productions we’ve ever staged,” said Finlay, who is chair of the Department of Theater and Dance. “With 22 actors in the show and more than 75 costumes, there are multiple costume changes; it’s very different for us. Our costumer, Lloyd Waiwaiole, has brought our costuming to a whole new level.”

Tickets are $10 for general admission and $7 for seniors and Union College faculty, staff and students.

Tickets may be reserved by calling the theater box office at (518) 388-6545. Reserve tickets must be picked up within a half-hour of showtime.

Box office hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 12-1 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 12-1 p.m. and 3-5 p.m.

For additional information, contact Finlay at (518) 388-6475 or  finlayw@union.edu. 

Posted on May 17, 2007

The 5^th Annual Relay for Life at Union, a 12-hour walk to raise money for the American Cancer Society, is set for 7 p.m. Friday, May 18, through 7 a.m. Saturday, May 19.

The event takes place around the plaza alongside the Nott Memorial, with teams taking turns walking or running laps. To keep up the energy and enthusiasm, there will be music, entertainment, activities, contests and food.

Hundreds of candlelit “luminaria” bags will surround the Nott in celebration of cancer survivors and in memory of loved ones who lost their battle to cancer. At sunset, these bags will light the way as moment of silence falls during the “Ceremony of Hope.”

Survivors will be honored during the Survivors Lap.

Since 2003, Union students and other participants have raised more than $100,000 for cancer research. This year’s co-chairs, seniors Kelsey Allen-Dicker, Katie Kaufman and Tara Pezze, are hoping for another robust turnout. Kaufman, who has been working at the Union event the past three years, has participated in a Relay for Life since high school. 

“My aunt passed away my freshman year at Union, and soon after my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, so I decided I needed to take a more active role in raising cancer awareness on this campus,” she said.

To learn more, visit www.acsevents.org/relay/ny/unioncollege.

Posted on May 17, 2007

Through June 17

Mandeville Gallery

Nott Memorial

1 x Fourteen

Senior Exhibition

Features works by Nancy Borowick, Michelle M. Curiale, Greg d’Otreppe, Robert S. Edelman, Molly Garrett, Janielle Porter, Frank Rapant, Elisabeth B. Sartori, Samantha Seide, Jaclyn Siedlecki, Meagan C. Smith, Margaret M. Southwell, Sarah D. Tolzmann and Sarah Webb.

Through June 17

The Humanities Gallery

Humanities Building

A Ojos Vistas – Photographs by Ondra Vrzal ’07

Vrzal is an exchange student from the Czech Republic who is majoring in Cybernetics and measurement. This exhibit features 16 digital photographs made during winter break 2006 while he traveled for three weeks through Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. 

Through June 20

Wikoff Student Gallery Nott Memorial

Impressions of India: Photographs by Tobias Leeger ’09

These photos were taken during a mini-term to India in December 2006.

Posted on May 16, 2007

Daniel Mosquera, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, was invited to present his paper, “Excessive (Nahua) Passions: The 1768-1770 Inquisitorial Case of Chalco Amecameca” at the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies at the University at Albany this month. The presentation was about colonial Mexican indigenous adaptations of the Passion of Christ and the 18th century Inquisitorial persecution of the plays.

Mosquera’s documentary film dealing with the Afro-Colombian feast honoring Saint Francis of Assisi, “Sanpachando: San Pacho is for the Revelers,” co-directed and co-produced with Sean Ferry, is now an official selection of the 2007 San Francisco Black Film Festival. It will premiere June 14-17 and is expected to debut at other film festivals this year, as well.

Mosquera also spoke and screened his documentary film work on the religious feast at the department of Modern and Classical Languages at St. Louis University and in former Union Professor Derek Pardue’s Washington University anthropology class on genocide and violence in Latin America. 

Scott Kirkton, assistant professor of Biology, recently organized and chaired a symposium at the American Physiological Society’s Experimental Biology Conference in Washington, D.C., titled, “Advances in Insect Respiration: Integration from the Gene to the Organism.”

Physiology is the study of how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function to create health or disease.

Kirkton also presented a poster, “Morphological and Biochemical Jumping Adaptations in Smaller Grasshoppers,” at the meeting. A reporter from Live Science published an on-line piece about his research under the headline, “How Grasshoppers Are Like Lance Armstrong,” which can be accessed at http://www.livescience.com/animals/070508_jumping_grasshoppers.html

The article, which was picked up by Fox News, describes grasshoppers’ long legs, sprinting femur muscles

and overall athleticism, detailing their development in stages, from tiny sprinters to powerful adult jumpers.

Kirkton, who plans to research biomedical questions related to muscle performance using grasshoppers as a model, said the grasshopper muscle “is the only invertebrate muscle that functions like our sprinting muscle,” and “the only insect muscle we know of that produces lactate during exercise.”

The symposium, which is also sponsored by the London-based Journal of Physiology, featured Stefan K. Hetz of Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, who researched the insect tracheal respiratory system; Gabriel Haddad, of the University of California, San Diego, who spoke on the genetic basis of fruit flies to survive periods of insufficient oxygen supply; Mark Krasnow, of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Cal., who has studied the development of the tracheal system in the embryo fruit fly; and biophysicist Jake Socha of the Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, and the University of Chicago, who is best known for his work on “flying” snakes.