Posted on Feb 26, 2008

Nathan Calabro ’08 presented results of his senior thesis project at the first ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA) Undergraduate Team Workshop at Arecibo Observatory in January.

The observatory, located in Puerto Rico, is home to the 305-m diameter Arecibo telescope, the largest telescope in the world. Calabro’s project is contributing to the development of an interactive exhibit showcasing ALFALFA results, to be displayed at the observatory’s Angel Ramos Foundation Visitor Center.

Astronomers around the world are collaborating on the ALFALFA project, led by astronomers Riccardo Giovanelli and Martha Haynes of Cornell University.

The project is mapping a large area of the sky at radio wavelengths appropriate for the detection of neutral hydrogen gas in other galaxies and is expected to detect more than 30,000 galaxies out to a distance of 750 million light years.

“Calabro’s exhibit will allow visitors to explore the properties of galaxies and compare observations made at radio wavelengths at Arecibo to optical and other wavelength observations made at other observatories,” said Rebecca Koopmann, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy.

The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team workshop, made possible by a National Science Foundation grant to Union, was organized by Koopmann and collaborators.

“The workshop highlight was an ALFALFA observing run in which each student had the chance to control the telescope to make ALFALFA observations,” Koopmann said. Students also had the opportunity to tour the facility, including the 450-foot high platform above the reflecting surface.

Posted on Feb 26, 2008

Musicians of Ma’alwyck will present “Moonstruck," a program of 20th century works by composers Arnold Schoenberg, Hilary Tann and Richard Strauss, Saturday, March 1 at 8 p.m. in the Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium in the Taylor Music Center.

Scored for soprano and chamber ensemble, “Moonstruck” includes Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” Tann's “Nothing Forgotten” and Strauss' “Four Last Songs.” Tann is the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union.

Musicians of Ma’alwyck was formed in 1999 by Director Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz. The group commissioned a chamber ensemble arrangement by transcriber and Bruckner scholar William Carragan; the first-ever performances will be directed by Lanfranco Marcelletti.

Performers include Gene Marie Callahan Kern, soprano; Todd Sisley, piano; Norman Thibodeau, flute; Pavel Vinnitsky, clarinet; Matthew Johnson, viola; Petia Kassarova, violoncello; and Schwartz, violin.

Tickets are $20 for general admission and free with a Union ID. To reserve tickets, contact (518) 388-6785.

The concerts are made possible in part through funding from COMMUNITY ART$GRANTS, a program supported through the State and Local Partnership Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, and The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

In residence at the Schuyler Mansion and Schenectady County Community College, Musicians of Ma’alwyck performs regularly with concert series in upstate New York and presents programs specializing in the music of the 18th and 19th centuries.

For more information, visit: http://www.musiciansofmaalwyck.org.

Posted on Feb 26, 2008

Union is continuing its successful partnership with Community Hospice of Schenectady, whose volunteers provide a range of care to the terminally ill. Information and training sessions set for March.

“Our service learning experiences involving Hospice are expanding. Nearly half of Hospice’s fall training course included members of the Union community,” said Therese A. McCarty, dean of the faculty and vice president for Academic Affairs.

An informational meeting will be held Monday, March 3, 2-3 p.m. at the Community Hospice of Schenectady, 1411 Union Street. The meeting will provide an overview of the training, set for March 18, 21, 25 and 28, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

Union volunteers include students, faculty and staff. They offer companionship and support for patients and their families at home, visit Hospice patients in hospitals and nursing homes, and provide clerical, courier and other help.

 For more information about the training, contact Sue Conlin or Bonnie Kriss, coordinators of Hospice’s volunteer services, at 377-8846; sconlin@communityhospice.org  or bkriss@communityhospice.org. 

Carol Weisse, professor of Psychology and director of the Health Professions Program at Union, is an active Hospice volunteer who is available to speak about her experiences (weissec@union.edu  or ext. 6300).  

Posted on Feb 25, 2008

Brenda Wineapple, the Doris Zemurray Stone Professor of Modern Literary and Historical Studies, will talk about her experience as a judge for the National Book Awards Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Everest Lounge.

Wineapple’s lecture, “To Judge a Book by its Cover,” is free and open to the public.

Wineapple's books include Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner, Sister Brother Gertrude and Leo Stein, and most recently, Hawthorne: A Life, which received the Ambassador Award of the English-speaking Union for the best biography of 2003 and the Julia Ward Howe Prize from the Boston Book Club.

Editor of the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier for the Library of America’s American Poets Project and the current president of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society, Wineapple has served as chair of the nonfiction panel of the National Book Awards. Her essays and reviews regularly appear in such publications as The American Scholar, Poetry, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Nation.

She has been a Guggenheim fellow, a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, twice a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University.

Her next book, White Heat – about the friendship between Emily Dickinson and a Civil War colonel – will be published in August by Knopf.

Thursday's lecture is sponsored by the English Department. For more information, contact Diane Nebolini at 388-6231 or nebolind@union.edu.

Posted on Feb 22, 2008

Musicians of Ma’alwyck will present “Moonstruck” Saturday, March 1 at 8 p.m. in the Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium in the Taylor Music Center. “Moonstruck” features a program of 20th century works from composers Arnold Schoenberg, Hilary Tann and Richard Strauss.

Scored for soprano and chamber ensemble, “Moonstruck” includes Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” “Nothing Forgotten” by Hilary Tann, the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union College, and “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss. Musicians of Ma’alwyck, formed in 1999 by Director Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, commissioned a chamber ensemble arrangement by transcriber and Bruckner scholar William Carragan.

The first-ever performances of these arrangements will be directed by Lanfranco Marcelletti. Performers include Gene Marie Callahan Kern, soprano; Todd Sisley, piano; Norman Thibodeau, flute; Pavel Vinnitsky, clarinet; Matthew Johnson, viola; Petia Kassarova, violoncello; and Ann-Marie Barker Schwartz, violin.

Tickets are $20 for general admission and free with a Union ID. To reserve tickets, contact (518) 388-6785.

The concerts are made possible in part through funding from COMMUNITY ART$GRANTS, a program supported through the State and Local Partnership Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, and The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

In residence at the Schuyler Mansion and Schenectady County Community College, Musicians of Ma’alwyck performs regularly with concert series in upstate New York and presents programs specializing in the music of the 18th and 19th centuries.

For more information, visit: http://www.musiciansofmaalwyck.org.