Posted on Feb 14, 2008

Union is among 14 colleges and universities that have been awarded a grant from the Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program.

Sponsored by the Merck Institute for Science Education (MISE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the awards provide up to $60,000, paid over three years, to support research stipends for undergraduate students and programs that encourage research collaborations between biology and chemistry departments.

“The most exciting advances in science are occurring at the intersection of traditional disciplines spawning new fields of study,” said Joanne Kehlbeck, assistant professor of Chemistry.

Kehlbeck said the award will promote increased collaboration in the areas of chemical ecology, environmental science, enzymatic physiology and chemical biology as well as the more traditional cross-disciplinary projects in biochemistry.

The proposed projects involve an ecosystem ecologist (Assistant Prof. Jeff Corbin), a disease ecologist (Assistant Prof. Kathleen LoGiudice), a physiologist (Assistant Prof. Scott Kirkton), a cell biologist (Associate Prof. Barbara Danowski) and a geneticist (Associate Prof. Steve Horton) in the Biology Department.

They would work with chemists with training in analytical chemistry (Assistant Prof. Laura MacManus-Spencer), organic chemistry (Kehlbeck), physical chemistry (Visiting Associate Prof. Sue Kohler) and biochemistry (Associate Professor Kristin Fox).

The Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program is a competitive program that provides up to 15 awards annually.

Launched in 2000 as a national competition, the $9 million initiative is funded by MISE and administered by AAAS. It is open to institutions in the United States and Puerto Rico that offer an American Chemical Society-approved program in chemistry and confer 10 or fewer graduate degrees annually in biology and chemistry combined.

Established in 1993, MISE works to build capacity in the biomedical sciences through partnerships with education institutions. The AAAS, founded in 1848, is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal, “Science” (www.sciencemag.org).  

Posted on Feb 13, 2008

Historian Spencer Crew, executive director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, will give a talk on “The Underground Railroad in the Ohio River Valley” Friday, Feb. 22 at 3 p.m. in Social Sciences 017.

Crew, former director of the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, is participating in the annual weekend conference of the Underground Railroad History Project (URHPCR).

The event, to be hosted at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, is open to the public. It features a range of cultural and intellectual presentations by amateur and professional historians, local teachers, history buffs, high school students, graduate students and academics.

For nearly three decades, Crew has presented African American history to public audiences. After receiving a PhD. in U.S. history from Rutgers University in 1979, he taught briefly at the University of Maryland before moving to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH). There he curated “Field to Factory: African-American Migration, 1915-1940,” which opened in 1987 and later became a permanent part of the museum. The exhibition was based, in part, on Crew’s family’s 1920s migration to Cleveland from the South.

A former NMAH director, Crew was chosen to head the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in 2001, while it was under development. Opened in 2004, the center has become a major national and international interpretive site for the African American struggle for freedom.

For more information, visit: http://www.ugrworkshop.com/conference/index.html. 

Posted on Feb 13, 2008

Paul LeClerc, president and chief executive officer of the New York Public Library and a former professor at Union, will give the keynote address at Founders Day Thursday, Feb. 21 at 12:45 p.m. in Memorial Chapel.

LeClerc will receive the inaugural John Bigelow Medal, established by President Stephen C. Ainlay to recognize friends of the College who have contributed to the advancement of humanity.

Bigelow, of Union’s Class of 1835, was an author, publisher, lawyer and statesman who was instrumental in the formation of the New York Public Library. Schaffer Library is exhibiting selections from Bigelow's personal library, which was donated to the College and housed in Special Collections.

LeClerc has been with the New York Public Library since 1993. He was a professor of French at Union from 1966 through 1979 and chair of Modern Languages from 1971 through 1977. From 1988 to 1993, he was president of Hunter College in New York City.

He is a scholar of 18th-century French literature and the author or co-editor of five scholarly volumes on writers of the French Enlightenment. His contributions to French culture have earned him the Order of the Academic Palms (Officier) and the French Legion of Honor (Chevalier), and he has received numerous honorary doctorates from other institutions including the University of Paris III-La Nouvelle Sorbonne and Oxford University. He is a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, and a director of the National Book Foundation and the American Academy in Rome.

He received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Union in 1997.

Also at Founders Day, the Gideon Hawley Teacher Recognition Award will go to Mark C. Litton, an English teacher at Miramonte High School in Orinda, Calif. Litton was nominated by Thanh-Mai Bui-Duy ’11. The award is named for the 1809 graduate of Union who was New York state’s first superintendent of public education. It is awarded to secondary school teachers who have had a continuing influence on the academic life of Union students.

Founders Day commemorates the 213th anniversary of the granting of the College’s charter from the New York State Board of Regents.

Posted on Feb 13, 2008

Union is among 14 colleges and universities that have been awarded a grant from the Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program.

Sponsored by the Merck Institute for Science Education (MISE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the awards provide up to $60,000, paid over three years, to support research stipends for undergraduate students and programs that encourage research collaborations between biology and chemistry departments.

“The most exciting advances in science are occurring at the intersection of traditional disciplines spawning new fields of study,” said Joanne Kehlbeck, assistant professor of Chemistry. “This award will promote increased collaboration in the areas of chemical ecology, environmental science, enzymatic physiology and chemical biology, in addition to the more traditional cross-disciplinary projects in biochemistry.”

The proposed projects involve an ecosystem ecologist (Assistant Professor Jeff Corbin), a disease ecologist (Assistant Professor Kathleen LoGiudice), a physiologist (Assistant Professor Scott Kirkton), a cell biologist (Associate Professor Barbara Danowski) and a geneticist (Associate Professor Steve Horton) in the biology department. They would work in collaboration with chemists with training in analytical chemistry (Assistant Professor Laura MacManus-Spencer), organic chemistry (Kehlbeck), physical chemistry (Visiting Associate Professor Sue Kohler) and biochemistry (Associate Professor Kristin Fox).

The Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program is a competitive program that provides up to 15 awards annually. Launched in 2000 as a national competition, the 10-year, $9 million initiative is funded by MISE and administered by AAAS.The program is open to institutions in the United States and Puerto Rico that offer an American Chemical Society-approved program in chemistry and confer 10 or fewer graduate degrees annually in biology and chemistry combined.

In addition to Union, winners include Boise State University, Claflin University, Colorado State University, Francis Marion University, Gustavus Adolphus College, Juniata College, Muhlenberg University, North Carolina A&T University, Northern Michigan University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Roger Williams University, University of the District of Columbia and University of Tulsa.

Established in 1993, MISE works to build capacity in the biomedical sciences through partnerships with education institutions. The AAAS, founded in 1848, is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org). 

Posted on Feb 13, 2008

Gail George, who lent her talent and creative energy to a number of arts, cultural and celebratory events on campus, died Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008, of metastatic breast cancer at the Hospice Inn of St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany. She was the wife of Carl George, professor emeritus of biology. She was 74.

She was a co-founder in 1997 — with Professor Twitty Styles; his wife, Dr. Constance Glasgow; and her husband, Carl — of UNITAS, a foundation fostering diversity and community at Union.

A festival of departure will be held in the Emerson Auditorium, Taylor Music Center, on Sunday, February 17, 3 – 5 p.m. Friends are invited to attend, to share their artistic talents and to bring flowers or fruits to be blessed, in the Balinese tradition, and then returned to their homes.

Gail embraced acting, playwriting, sacred dance, and the production and direction of theatrical events. She danced with The Movement, Sound and Light Concert Company of Dover, Mass.; and with the company of choreographer Lynn Barr in Urbino, Italy. She conceived and performed Rite of the Matriarchs at six universities and two national conferences; and directed and performed in the Passions of the Soul Company. She was engaged in numerous international conferences accenting the role of women in theater, which led to hosting Balinese artists at Union and elsewhere. With Helen Quirini, she wrote and choreographed Helen and Jack, a one-woman show presented to many audiences to foster improved benefits for GE retirees.

She completed her undergraduate study, with full scholarship, at Hollins College in Roanoke, Va., in 1955. She studied at Harvard Divinity School from 1956 to 1958 under theologian Paul Tillich, an experience that paved the way for her first teaching position in philosophy, drama and dance at the American Kiz Koleji in Ismir, Turkey. After three years in Ismir, she moved to Beirut, Lebanon, and became an instructor at the American University of Beirut and completed her master’s degree on the theology of Tillich. At AUB, she also garnered the rapt attention of the fellow teacher who would become her husband and world travel partner.

The couple moved to Schenectady in 1967, when Carl joined the faculty at Union and Gail taught philosophy and dance at Russell Sage College in Albany. Her interest in dance led to the position as dance therapist at the Capital District Psychiatric Center from 1975 to 1979, and prepared her for independent psychiatric practice with specialization in dance therapy and eating disorders.

She traveled to India and Nepal in 2000, hiking the high Himalayas with Anna Bess Sorin, one of Carl’s students. Her penultimate trip was to the House of John of God near Brazilia, Brazil, in January of 2008. In total, her wanderlust led her and Carl, her husband of 46 years, to more than 40 countries.

Survivors include her brother, James E. Wood Jr. and his wife, Nancy, of San Antonio, Texas.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Gail George World Music and Dance Fund at Union’s Department of Music or the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Co., P.O. Box 775, Troy, N.Y. 12181.