Posted on Sep 20, 2007

Friday, Sept. 21, 11 a.m. / TBA / Women’s Tennis ITA Tournament

Friday, Sept. 21, 4 p.m. / Frank Bailey Field / Field hockey vs. Vassar

Friday, Sept. 21, 4 p.m. / The Turf at College Park /Men’s soccer vs. Hobart

Friday, Sept. 21 / Kosher Kitchen / Pre-Yom Kippur festive meal

Friday, Sept. 21, 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. / Downtown Schenectady / Art Night Schenectady

Friday, Sept. 21, 7 p.m. / Memorial Field House / Band: Gym Class Heroes

Friday, Sept. 21 – Monday, Sept. 24, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: Mr. Brooks

Saturday, Sept. 22 / Kosher Kitchen / Yom Kippur break-fast

Saturday, Sept. 22, 11 a.m. / TBA / Women’s tennis ITA Tournament

Saturday, Sept. 22, 2 p.m. / Frank Bailey Field / Field hockey vs. RPI

Saturday, Sept. 22, 2 p.m. / The Turf at College Park / Men’s soccer vs. Hamilton

Sunday, Sept. 23, 2 p.m. / Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium / Puccini’s “La Boheme” simulcast

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 4 p.m. / Tennis Courts / Women’s tennis vs. Hartwick

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 4:30 p.m. / F.W. Olin Center Auditorium / Speaker in the Humanities Program presents “Designer Children” by Ellen M. McGee

Tuesday, Sept. 25, 7 p.m. / Viniar Athletic Center / Women’s volleyball vs. Middlebury

Thursday, Sept. 27, 7 p.m. / Nott Memorial / Presidential Forum on Diversity presents  Black Ice author Lorene Cary

Friday, Sept. 28, 7 p.m. / Messa Rink / Women’s hockey vs. Wisconsin

Friday, Sept. 28 – Monday, Oct. 1, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: Chuck and Larry

Saturday, Sept. 29, 1 p.m. / Garis Field / Women’s soccer vs. Utica

Saturday, Sept. 29, 7 p.m. / Messa Rink / Women’s hockey vs. Wisconsin

Posted on Sep 20, 2007

Mechanical engineering professor Frank Wicks wrote an article, “Plastic Arts,” for the June 2007 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine. The piece traces the accidental discovery of a plastic called Bakelite by Dr. Leo Baekeland in 1907, from its first use in phonograph records to its eventual marketing as a material with an infinite number of uses. The material spawned the petrochemical industries that now produce billions of pounds of plastics in the United States each year.

Daniel Mosquera, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, presented a paper titled “Placeres (o)cultos: nuevas miradas al – y desde el – margen en el cine colombiano” as part of a panel he chaired dealing with new Latin American film and the concept of cultural cannibalism. The paper was presented at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress in Montreal.

David R. Gerhan, professor and reference and instruction librarian, has published an article in College & Undergraduate Libraries (vol. 14, no. 2, 2007), titled “Wanted: One Principal Search Engine for Digital Images.” The paper examines current approaches for retrieving digital images (specifically pictures on the Internet) in support of humanities, historical or cultural research and notes that with the proliferation of online images, effective, systematic retrieval remains haphazard without a form of centralized and consolidated searching. 

Posted on Sep 20, 2007

“Designer Children,” a lecture by Ellen M. McGee, founding director and bioethics associate of the Long Island Center for Ethics, will be held Tuesday, Sept. 25 at 4:30 p.m. in F.W. Olin Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public, with a discussion and reception immediately following.

The Center for Ethics is housed at Long Island University, Brookville, where McGee coordinates the Nassau-Suffolk Health Care Ethics Network.

She teaches medical ethics, ethics and philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and researches, lectures and publishes in the areas of end-of-life care, suicide intervention, human rights, enhancement technologies (particularly implantable brain chips) and reproductive issues.

There are now more than 30 ways to have a baby, ranging from the administration of fertility drugs to the possibility of cloning. McGee’s presentation will offer some principles for ethical analysis of assisted reproductive technologies. She also will look at examples of controversial cases and practices to examine the uncertainties and ethical debates raised.

McGee has been a member of both The Hospice Project and The Hospice and Alzheimer Project at the Hastings Center; and she was a member of the Advisory Committee on Nursing Homes: New York State Partnership to Improve End-Of-Life Care. She has appeared as an ethics consultant on network news and radio shows and has developed, organized and presented conferences on dying with dignity, enhancement technologies and health care for diverse  communities. She holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from Fordham University and a B.A. from Marymount College, Tarrytown, N.Y.

Her visit to Union is a New York Council for the Humanities Speakers in the Humanities program.

Posted on Sep 19, 2007

The fall 2007 issue of Union College magazine will arrive in November and include the 2006-07 President’s Report to the Community: Innovation, Integration & Inspiration for the 21st Century. 

The 32-page report will chronicle the highlights of the past year: student and faculty achievements, development of the Strategic Plan, strong progress in alumni giving and steady endowment growth. The report will be inserted in the magazine.  

The magazine will feature a story about the College’s first Alumni Symposium, staged in July with help from Professor Byron Nichols. The symposium was modeled after Nichols’ “Moral Dilemmas of Governing” course and focused on illegal immigration and undocumented workers in the United States. About 20 former students returned for a weekend of debate and classroom-style lessons with their former professor.

Also, the winter 2008 magazine will include a new, regular section featuring letters to the editor. To submit a letter via e-mail, write to magazine@union.edu.  

Read the summer magazine online at: http://www.union.edu/magazine

Posted on Sep 19, 2007

On Wednesday, Sept. 19, the College will begin a regular monthly test of its emergency warning siren, which was recently installed on the roof of the Reamer Campus Center.

The tests will be conducted at 1 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month and last no more than a minute. When you hear the siren, please don’t be alarmed. We also urge that you don’t react by placing calls to the Campus Safety Office or local emergency services, such as the Schenectady Police and Fire departments.

In the event of a real emergency, that is an incident which would require us to alert the entire campus community, the siren will sound continuously for up to three minutes. When you hear the siren, if you are in your residence hall or apartment, remain inside and seek information through the College’s Web site (www.union.edu), WRUC (89.7 FM) and UC-TV (Channel 21). If outdoors, seek shelter inside and get further information from the above sources.

Also Wednesday at 1 p.m., we will conduct a test of our new text-message alert system. Since last spring, the College has collected more than 2,300 cell-phone numbers from students, faculty and staff to allow text-message alerts to be sent in the event of an emergency. Only those people who provided their cell-phone numbers will receive the test message. A system will be finalized shortly allowing people to voluntarily update or provide their cell-phone number. Although we will continue to use e-mail alerts in an emergency, we encourage the entire campus community to participate in the text-alert system.

As I stated in my message to the campus community last week, the siren and the text-message alerts are part of our comprehensive Emergency Notification System, which we have been reviewing and refining since last spring.

Thank you for your cooperation during our test periods.

 If you have any questions, please feel free to contact my office at 388-6358.