Posted on Nov 5, 2007

Professor Ralph A. Alpher  

Ralph A. Alpher, a distinguished research professor emeritus of physics and astronomy and a pioneering architect of the Big Bang model for the origin of the universe, died Aug. 12, 2007 in Austin, Texas. He was 86.

Alpher taught at Union College from 1986 to 2004 and was director of the Dudley Observatory. Before coming to Union, he spent more than 30 years at the General Electric Research and Development Center in Niskayuna.

As doctoral student at George Washington University, Alpher co-wrote the mathematical model for the Big Bang and published his seminal paper, “Formation of the Chemical Elements,” in the April 1, 1948 issue of Nature. The paper was based on his dissertation, which he presented at George Washington University before hundreds of people and members of the press. In that presentation, Alpher stated that the universe was formed in five minutes, a claim that was lampooned in a Washington Post editorial cartoon by Herbert L. Block, better known as Herblock.

Alpher's groundbreaking work was recognized with a number of awards including those from the American Philosophical Society, the Franklin Institute, the National Academy of Sciences and the Belgian Academy of Sciences. Last June, he received the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for science. It honors individuals for pioneering scientific research in a range of fields, including physical, biological, mathematical, social, behavioral and engineering sciences. Unable to travel due to illness, Alpher’s son, Victor, accepted the award from President George W. Bush.

“I was very sad he couldn’t receive it himself,” said Victor, a retired clinical neuropsychologist who lives in Austin. “This was the crowning achievement of a long and distinguished career.”

In 1965, two radio astronomers in New Jersey who were tuning their equipment stumbled on proof of Alpher’s background radiation theory and were, in 1978, awarded the Nobel Prize. Many in the scientific community thought Alpher should have received the Nobel Prize.

In 2004, Lauren Gunderson, a student at Emory University doing research for her one-act play about Alpher’s life, asked Alpher if he would have done anything differently. Alpher replied, “I would have worked harder to get the credit I deserved.” Gunderson’s play, Background, had a reading at Yulman Theater with Alpher taking his own part. The experience of reliving his scientific career, he later related, was at once joyous and painful.

“He was an absolute genius in his field, but always very modest,” said Professor Rebecca Koopmann ’89, a protégé and later colleague of Alpher’s, during a recent interview with the Albany Times Union.

Alpher was an avuncular figure on campus, particularly in the physics department, where he was revered by colleagues for his scientific achievements and helpful encouragement. Most students were only vaguely aware of his iconic status. Quiet and unassuming, he did little to cultivate the celebrity many thought he deserved.

Professor Jon Marr recalls a day when Alpher, always helpful, quietly delivered a stack of copies to his astronomy class, which happened to be discussing the Big Bang theory. After Alpher left the room, Marr identified the visitor and two students exclaimed, “That’s Ralph Alpher? He helped us with our homework in a laundromat last night.”

Alpher was of often sought out for media interviews, which he grudgingly accepted, often after much convincing by the College’s media relations officer. Once the interviews were under way, however, he reveled in the experience. He and his wife, Louise, once hosted a television production crew from the Netherlands at their home for most of a week. He once allowed a CNN crew to convert his living room into a television studio. At nearly 80, Alpher spent several grueling hours posing in the Nott Memorial for photographs that would accompany an article about him in Discover magazine.

Alpher was aware of the spiritual and philosophical questions raised by his work, but left them for others to ponder. Asked by a third grader who was preparing a science fair project on the Big Bang about what existed before the cataclysmic event, Alpher replied, “I have no idea.” During an interview in which he described a pre-Big Bang nothingness, he paused to quip, “Now, wouldn’t that give the theologians a start?”

Alpher’s wife, the former Louise Simons, died in 2004. In addition to his son, Alpher is survived by a daughter, Harriet Lebetkin, of Danbury, Conn. and two granddaughters.

Memorial contributions can be made to the National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology of the American Museum of Natural History (www.amnh.org), the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation (www.nationalmedals.org) or the American Institute of Physics Education Division to support science fellowships and grants at the undergraduate and graduate level (www.aip.org).

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Posted on Nov 5, 2007

A fresh momentum 

President Stephen C. Ainlay capped off orientation for roughly 560 first-year students in early September by highlighting a fresh “institutional momentum” during a speech at Opening Convocation, which also featured brief ceremonies for two prestigious awards.

The convocation marked the start of the College’s 213^th year and also offered a chance to honor 636 Dean’s List students and confer two awards. The Stillman Prize for Excellence in Teaching was given to Rebecca A. Surman, an associate professor of physics and astronomy who has been at Union since 1998. Heidi Ching ’10, a sophomore pre-med student from Toronto, received the Hollander Convocation Musician Prize. She performed “Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor” by J.S. Bach on piano before Ainlay took the podium at Memorial Chapel to deliver his first Opening Convocation speech.

“I believe we are building institutional momentum,” Ainlay said. “But a claim of momentum is not a claim that we’ve arrived. We have ‘promises to keep,’ as Robert Frost wrote, and ‘miles to go before we sleep.’”

Ainlay cited success in a variety of areas. Annual giving increased nearly $550,000 during the last year, more than double the goal. The College endowment is ranked among the leaders among all institutions at $369 million, as of August. Admissions received a record number of applications, up by more than 500 from the previous year. And for the first time in history, there are more women than men in the incoming first-year class.

The president thanked those who helped develop the new Strategic Plan: “You’ve given us a critical tool that will allow us to attend to our deficiencies, focus our energies, and hone our educational mission.” He also urged participation in the ongoing meetings to discuss the plan’s implementation.

Ainlay listed a number of projects and changes set for the current school year. Among them, the newly renovated Social Sciences Building with two electronic classrooms; a new Minerva Office headed by Tom McEvoy, who will focus full-time on supporting the Minervas.

The president spoke of the opportunity to further integrate the liberal arts and engineering, a central differentiating element in the Strategic Plan. The Mellon Foundation has supplied an award that will cover a conference to develop integrative models.

“We have an opportunity to make an enormous contribution here if we seize the leadership role we’ve been offered,” Ainlay said. “This will undoubtedly be a theme you will hear more about in the upcoming year.”

 

Alumni art in ReView

Five Union College alumni artists exhibited paintings, sculptures, photographs and drawings at “ReView: Five Union Alumni,” an exhibit which ran through early October at the Mandeville Gallery in the Nott Memorial.  

Gallery director and curator, Rachel Seligman, wrote in the exhibit’s guidebook: “The five artists in this exhibit walk a delicate line between abstraction and naturalism in their work, a balancing act which results in rich, dynamic works of art. The work of each artist involves the examination of our perceptions of the world, and our place in it. This exhibition gives us the chance to discover or rediscover these talented artists and to re-view the world around us through their art.”

Featured were the aerial photographs of Nori Lupfer ’03, the landscape paintings of Linda Fisher ’87, the oil-on-canvas work of Stephen Pentak ’73, the mixed media work of Dr. A.J. Nadel ’56 and the sculptures of Chester Urban ’93.

Nadel, a native of New York City, has been a practicing surgeon for more than 40 years and began to study painting in 1982. He has been a full-time artist since the late 1990s. Nadel has had solo exhibitions at galleries in New York City and elsewhere, and his work has been included in group shows nationwide.

Pentak, professor emeritus of art and a past associate dean of the College of the Arts at The Ohio State University, has co-authored two books: Color Basics and Design Basics. He has shown extensively across the United States and abroad. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Columbus Museum of Art.

Fisher also has displayed her work in solo and group shows nationwide. She has been an instructor at Snow Farm, in Williamsburg, Mass., since 1994, and now teaches at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.

Urban, of Holyoke, Mass., has exhibited in group shows in Tribeca and the Bronx, and his work was recently reproduced in The New York Times.

Lupfer, who was a freestyle aerialist on the U.S. Ski Team and performed with Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, was awarded a Watson Fellowship in 2003 to study “Circuses and Stunts: Photography of Entertainment in Motion.” She has exhibited her work in Spain and Connecticut. Her exhibited aerial photographs were taken during the last 18 months during an expedition to update the Garmin GPS marine database.

Becker Career Center gets new leader 

A former human resources leader and corporate recruitment officer at Rhode Island’s Bryant University became the new director of the Stanley R. Becker Career Center in early October.

Bob Soules helped lead the career services office at Bryant University during the last year and, before that, provided career counseling at Quinnipiac University and the University of Hartford. In 2005, Soules shifted into college career education after more than two decades in corporate human resources positions including a stint from 1996 to 2005 with the CIGNA Corporation, an insurance and health care company based in Connecticut with more than 30,000 employees.

That experience will help Soules provide students and alumni with insight and advice from an employer’s perspective. Soules earned a master’s degree in education from Springfield College in 2006 and brings to Union a fresh energy and new perspective on career education.

"We want students to end up with a job that they are genuinely interested in, that they are passionate about, so that it drives their natural curiosity. If that happens, they will work longer hours without realizing it, they will be much more productive, and the rewards will take care of themselves,” Soules said.

The Becker Career Center provides distinctive educational programs and services to assist students and alumni with their professional development. The Center’s Web site features a host useful links for students, alumni and parents. But the center’s educational efforts go beyond Web services.

“What we hope happens with our center is that alumni provide students with a realistic understanding of what’s going on out there in the marketplace,” Soules said. “Alumni are a valuable resource to the students. And many alumni want to assist students in their job search. When a graduating senior can network and do an informational interview with an alum, they are already ahead of the game.”

Soules, 48, relocated to the Schenectady area from Providence, R.I. with his wife, Patty. The couple have two sons, Mike and Brad, both graduates of Trinity College, and a daughter, Chelsea, a junior at Drexel University.

 

Parents perspective

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all parents of first-year students and their families to the Union community. These are exciting times for us all as we watch our children blossom in the classroom, on the playing fields, and in other social settings offered at the College. 

During the summer months, the Parents Program Office organized 11 receptions throughout the country, welcoming more than 25 percent of this year’s first-year class. I would like to thank parents and alumni who took the time to serve as hosts; they opened their homes to the newest members of the Union family; and to Lisa Mason, from the Parents Program Office, for organizing receptions from California to Boston. 

This past year has been marked by success thanks to those who supported our Parents Fund, and the efforts of our chairwoman, Vivian Falco. Almost half of all Union parents made contributions to the institution during the 2006-2007 academic year. Your generosity allows the College to continue its mission of providing our children with the superlative education needed to be the leaders of tomorrow. 

During his first year as president, Stephen C. Ainlay has positioned the institution for even greater advances in the upcoming academic year, and years ahead, by implementing a Strategic Plan for Union College. By building off the plan’s strengths and evolving with today’s ever-changing world, the plan will allow Union College to be a leader in educating students to be engaged, innovative and ethical contributors to an increasingly diverse, global and technologically complex society. Examples of the Strategic Plan can be seen with the opening of two newly renovated academic buildings, the Taylor Music Center and the Bioengineering and Computational Biology facility. This is only a glimpse of the many great endeavors on Union’s horizon, which are evident in the pages of this magazine and the enclosed President’s Report to the Community.  

It should be a great year for all our children at Union. I hope to see many of you on campus and I thank you for all you do for Union College.

Warmest regards,

Karen Dumonet (Vanessa ’07 and Sebastian ’09)

Parents Association Chairperson

 

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Posted on Nov 5, 2007

 

Indiana physicians group cites a natural leader 

Dr. Risheet Patel ’01 talks fast. That may be a reflection of an always-active inner drive that has led to an impressive, though still nascent career as a physician.

Patel was raised in Indianapolis and entered Union College in 1997 as part of the then seven-year Leadership in Medicine program with Albany Medical College. That program, which now requires four years at Union, allowed Patel to complete a double major in biology and French before tackling four years of medical school.

After graduation from medical school, Patel moved on to residency with the Community Health Network Family Medicine Residency program, based in Indianapolis. Today, he’s in his first year as a family practice doctor at Olio Road Family Care in Fishers, Ind. And in late July, Patel was honored with the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians Outstanding Resident Award. The award is presented annually to a family practice resident who shows exceptional interest and involvement in family medical care and exemplifies the best qualities of a family doctor.

The organization described Patel as: “A natural leader who has made a lasting impression on patients, students, fellow residents and teachers in just a few short years. He has been an ambassador for the specialty and a pillar in his community. Though cognizant of the importance of the physician-patient relationship, Dr. Patel sees beyond the walls of his residency and new practice, recognizing the responsibility that he is faced with in the greater community.”  

That storyline is common to a set of pre-med students who earned a Union College degree and later became doctors and leaders in their field. Patel, like other physicians with Union roots, credits study abroad and a liberal arts education with broadening his professional interests and improving his bedside manner.

“Half of my job is communicating with patients and getting to know them. Obviously, I am diagnosing and treating them too,” Patel said. “But if I can communicate and relate with them better, that allows us to have a better relationship. Then, patients tend to do the things I ask them to do.”

Patel completed a term abroad in Rennes, France, studying French in the fall of 1999. That international experience came a few years before Patel joined a group of 13 Albany Med students on a medical mission in Kenya and Uganda in 2003. The students visited small villages and gave basic care.

“We just did not have the capability to treat everyone that we met. We really felt bad that we had to turn people away, but we had limitations to what we could do,” Patel said.

That was an early lesson in another area of interest for Patel: Aiding large populations by influencing public health policy. Patel has, along with the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians, taken up an effort to help create local laws to ban smoking in restaurants and public buildings. Unlike California and New York, Indiana has no statewide ban on smoking. Patel, 28, has appeared at town and city council meetings to testify about the public health benefits of smoking limitations.

“As a physician, you can treat people one at a time by seeing individual patients, but you can also affect thousands or millions of patients by working with public health policy,” Patel said.

Patel’s parents, though born in Kenya, hail from the Gujarat region in western India. His mother, Shobhna Patel, is a pharmacist and his father, Raj Patel, is a dentist. His sister, Reisha Patel, is now completing her final year at Albany Medical College.

“But I am the first physician in my family,” Patel joked.

 

 

 

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Posted on Nov 5, 2007

"I have been given for the first time, an opportunity to entirely plan and execute my own research,” said Rosalba Queirolo ’08, who studied fluvial formations in the Plotter Kill Preserve in Jaclyn Cockburn’s Geomorphology class, Geology 202: Origin and Evolution of Landscape.

“It has been a very trying yet exciting experience that will strengthen my scientific foundation. I now have a better understanding of the steps involved in doing research and am more prepared for future research.”

Queirolo and her fellow students will participate in a poster session Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2-4 p.m. in the F.W. Olin Center Rotunda.

They are presenting their term projects based on the independent research they designed and conducted in a variety of settings in the Plotter Kill, located in nearby Rotterdam. 

“Field work is an important aspect of Geosciences, and at Union we have a unique opportunity in that there are several sites close by that are excellent examples of many processes that contribute to landform evolution,” said Cockburn.

Students were required to establish a research question and methodology before going into the field. Once there, they worked as partners and individually to collect data. 

“Designing my own field research project has shown me that there is much more to learn about geology than can be found in texts or classrooms,” said Rivka Fidel ’10, who studied bed load movement.

Erica Erlanger ’08’s research, “The Dynamics and Future Stability of a Hill Slope,” deals with the occurrence of landslides in the Plotter Kill.     

“Landslides represent geologic hazards around the world, and are therefore necessary to understand how to mitigate further natural disasters,” she said. “I was able to tailor a project to my interests and challenge myself at a new level.”

The best part of her experience, she said, was “having the freedom to go and observe what I deemed to be important. Field work is always more complicated than the simple models in a classroom. There are so many more forces at work in nature, and to grow as a geologist, it’s important to be exposed to the complexities involved in field work.”

Others who participated in the Geomorphology research, and their projects, are: Colin Cameron ’09, “Human Impacts on Soil Profiles”; Joe Catalano’09, “Variations in Forested Floodplain Soils”; Michael Gillin’08, “Quantitative Analysis of Mass Wasting”; Kara Gillivan’08, “Comparing Soil Profiles Along a Slope Gradient.”

Also: Ashley Kovack ’10, “Characterizing and Comparing Waterfalls”; Leigh Mastin’08, “Fluvial Landforms and Terrace Formation”; and Scott Morlando’08, “Climate Change and Slope Stability.”

“In addition to developing and advancing their field skills, the students gained experience and confidence in interpreting and evaluating landscape forms and processes,” Cockburn said.

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Posted on Nov 2, 2007

Nearly 400 prospective students and their parents are expected to attend the final Admissions Open House of the year on Monday, Nov. 12. The full day’s schedule of activities begins at 8 a.m.

“The Veterans Day Open House is the last hurrah for seniors looking at Union,” said Ann Fleming Brown, interim vice president for Admissions and Financial Aid. “We depend on the entire campus community to welcome our guests and help them decide to apply to Union.”

During the open houses, students and their parents will have the opportunity to sit in on classes; tour the campus grounds and facilities; attend sessions on financial aid, housing and career planning; meet faculty and visit specific departments; and discuss varsity, club and intramural athletic options.

Personal interviews are a key element of evaluating a student’s application and are highly recommended. The interviews are offered Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. through Feb. 1, and may be scheduled by calling Admissions at (888) 843-6688.

Prospective students and their parents can register for the open house at http://www.union.edu/Admissions. Advance notice is appreciated.

For more information, contact Lilia Tiemann, coordinator of event planning for Admissions, at ext. 6586.

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