Each spring, Union invites high school juniors to campus for its popular Junior Jump Start Open House, which helps prepare students for their upcoming college search and application process. This year, Junior Jump Start takes place on Monday, May 26. In addition, the Admissions Office is extending an invitation to alumni and their high school junior relatives to enjoy a legacy reception on Sunday, May 25.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for prospective college students with family ties to Union,” said Dr. Aaron Feingold '72, who attended last year's reception with his twin daughters. “The experience really made Rachel and Zara feel special as children of a Union alumnus, and it gave them some confidence as they began their college search – thus playing a major factor in their decision to apply to Union for the fall of 2008. I will always be grateful for that.”
Marc Ginsberg also attended the 2007 Legacy Reception and Junior Jump Start programs, accompanied by his father, Dr. Harris Ginsberg '72. Marc's older brother Aaron graduated from Union as well, but Marc firmly states, “The reception and Junior Jump Start were a great opportunity for me to see Union through my own eyes, and not simply through my dad's and brother's experiences. I gained a very good sense of what Union has to offer, and I was provided an excellent overview of the entire college admissions process.”
The legacy reception runs from 5-7 p.m. on Sunday May 25, and Junior Jump Start will take place the following day on Monday, May 26 from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. For details and to register for these programs, please go to: www.union.edu/legacy.
“Triumph at Carville,” a documentary by Sally Squires ’74 that chronicles leprosy on a Louisiana plantation, recently aired on PBS.
An award-winning, syndicated health columnist for The Washington Post. Squires produced and wrote the film with John Wilhelm. The original music was composed and performed by Grammy Award-winner Béla Fleck.
Squires, who received support for the project while a media fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, calls leprosy “one of the most feared diseases in the world and one of the most misunderstood.” The film tells the story of a group of caregivers who dealt with this public health issue over many decades, beginning in 1894, at the Louisiana leprosarium known as Carville.
Squires made the first of many reporting visits to Carville in 1989, making numerous friendships with patients traditionalyl wary of outsiders.Using contemporary interviews, as well as old radio shows, movie news accounts and other archival materials, including an exclusive trove of photographs taken by a longtime patient, she documents the struggle of patients, nuns, doctors and staff who lived and worked there.
Over the years, the once prison-like facility evolved into a hospital and later into a gated community. From its dedicated researchers came a multi-drug therapy that is considered a cure. Today leprosy is known as Hansen’s disease, named for Gerhard Hansen, the Norwegian discoverer of the bacteria that cause it.
Squires has covered health, medicine and science in Washington since 1981, first for Newhouse Newspaper and later for the Post’s Health section. She serves as a regular television and radio commentator on local and national programs and has been an invited speaker at many national health conferences.
She is the author of “The Secrets of the Lean Plate Club: A Simple Step-by-Step Program to Help You Shed Pounds and Keep Them Off for Good” (2006; based on the weekly column she writes) and “The Art of Healing” (1999). Her articles have appeared in many national publications including Woman’s Day, Modern Maturity, Parade and Reader’s Digest.
Squires holds master’s degrees in journalism and nutrition from Columbia University. In 2004, she became the first journalist named an Honorary Fellow of the Society for Public Health Education.
Students from Mont Pleasant Middle School compared pollution in the Jackson’s Garden stream to streams in the surrounding area for their summer 2007 STEP project. From left: Tatiana Edmonson, Alvin Doodnauth, summer STEP mentor Amelia Whitney ’09, Earl Co
Union College students will lead three teams of area middle and high-school students competing in the 10th annual Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) Research Conference Friday, March 28 through Sunday, March 30, 2008, at the Albany Marriott.
The statewide poster competition caps off student research begun during the three-week, intensive summer program at the Kenney Community Center and continued throughout the academic year.
Last year, a team coached by Union students took a first place in the “Technology” category. A member of that team was Jocelyn Girigorie from Niskayuna High School. She returns this year to a team mentored by Sarai Canario ’09. Other members include Natalie Graham (Scotia-Glenville High School) and Marsé Pulley (Schenectady High School). The title of their research project is “Glucose and its Effect on Memory.”
“Since students tend to love sugar and other unhealthy foods, we wanted to understand how the consumption of sugar affects our memory,” said Girigorie.
Hyma Kavuri ’10 led a group of eight-grade students from Mont Pleasant Middle School who studied water pollution in Schenectady-area streams. Tatiana Edmonson, Earl Co, Matthew Schleich and Alvin Doodnauth compared levels of E. coli and other contaminants in the stream that runs through Jackson’s Garden on campus and two others in Schenectady County.
The final project paired Mushfique Ahmed ’10, with Schenectady High School students Jonpaul Brown, Serge Wamukendi, Joshua Fields and Jedai Stevens. The group compared electricity from solar energy to electricity from fossil fuels to determine the impact of using renewable energy sources. They also cooled a can of soda using a solar-powered refrigerator.
The winning STEP team featured Union mentor Jeannette Hiciano ’07; David Pérez Jr. from Shaker High and 8th graders Diimond Mortimore of Schalmont and Jocelyn Girigorie of Iroquois Middle School.
Union faculty that assisted with the projects include James Hedrick, lecturer, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Engineering Professors Ashraf Ghaly and Richard Wilk; and Assistant Professor of Biology Jeff Corbin.
Established in 1985, STEP provides state grants to prepare middle and high school students from underrepresented populations or economically disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue postsecondary study in science, technology and health-related fields.
Union’s Kenney Community Center has been offering both summer and academic-year STEP opportunities since 1996.
For more information, contact STEP Assistant Director Angela Blair at (518) 388-6609 or blaira@union.edu
The Agnew Clinic by Thomas Eakins (Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Art Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
“The Human Use of Human Beings in Medicine and Science” is the theme for the 11th annual National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference, to be held at Union College April 4 and 5.
Planned and organized by students, NUBC covers issues of current interest in the field of bioethics with discussions led by experts from across the country.
The theme reflects the ideal of "medical humanities" encompassed in the American Society for Bioethics and Humanties (ASBH) name by embracing art, drama, literature, films and the media, as well as the humanities and the social and natural sciences. It includes three specific sub-themes:
• Portrayals of the Human Use of Human Beings in Medicine and Science in Art, Drama, Literature, Film, Mass Media and the Web (e.g., in paintings like Thomas Eakin's “The Gross Clinic” and “The Agnew Clinic”; in dramas like “Wit,” etc.)
• Historical Reflections and Case Studies of the Human Use of Human Beings in Medicine and Science (e.g., the abuse of human subjects in medical research)
• Controversies Over the Human Use of Human Beings in Medicine and Science (e.g., stem-cell research involving human embryos)
Bob Baker, Bioethics, Philosophy
“This is a celebration of undergraduate research and an opportunity to introduce a new generation of students to the field of bioethics,” said Robert Baker, chair of the Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum Initiative and the William D. Williams Professor of Philosophy. He also directs the Union Graduate College-Mount Sinai School Medicine Bioethics Program.
Tod Chambers, president of ASBH and author of “Narrative Bioethics and Prozac as a Way of Life,” will open the conference with a talk on “Witches, Punks and Bioethicists.”
Susan Lederer, chair of the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and author of “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature,” will discuss “The Myth and Metaphor of Frankenstein.”
Other speakers include award-winning journalist Harriet Washington, author of “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.”
The event also will include a series of panels, workshops and discussions. A Bioethics Bowl will draw teams from Dartmouth, the National Hispanic University, University of Miami and other schools for formal debates on numerous bioethical topics.
Union is the first liberal arts college chosen by ASBH to host the conference. Previous hosts were Princeton University, the University of Virginia, Notre Dame, Emory University, Boston University, Texas A&M, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania and Michigan State University.
David D'Agostino '06 as DJ Wits at Party in the Garden, 2005
David D’Agostino ’06 was well known on campus for his curiosity, warmth and wit. He was also widely admired for the independence and perseverance with which he overcame blindness.
He died on Friday, March 14, 2008 at his home in Colonie, N.Y. He was 25.
“He was such a nice guy, so polite, bright and hardworking,” said his advisor, Prof. Linda Stanhope of Psychology. “He just never let [blindness] keep him down at all.”
D’Agostino was an ID major in history and psychology. He transferred to Union from Schenectady County Community College at the start of his junior year. He had been blind since his mid-teens, the result of a brain tumor.
He had a strong interest in music – especially hip-hop, reggae and blues – and he took on the persona of DJ Wits to provide music for campus events. He was a popular DJ the last three years at the Party in the Garden, said Matt Milless, director of student activities. “The students loved him,” said Kerrie Wolf, assistant director. “He had all the music that they wanted. He had quite the variety.”
He had a radio show at the University at Albany, and served as DJ for a number of clubs in the region.
As a student, he was a frequent reporter and commentator to Concordiensis.
“He was such an independent person who rarely asked for help,” recalled Shelly Shinebarger, director of student support services, who worked closely with him to provide academic and logistical accommodations.
He took public transportation each day from his home in Colonie to Nott Terrace, and from there he would walk to campus, Shinebarger said. Rarely, she said, he would ask for a ride from Campus Safety. Shinebarger recalls the day David showed up in her office after being hit by a car while crossing the street. “He said he was fine and that he just needed to sit down,” she said.
After he graduated, Shinebarger stayed in touch with David. They met for lunch about once per term, most recently last week, she said.
Prof. George Bizer recalls David as a student in his experimental psychology class, a challenging course that requires analysis of visual data. “I thought, ‘how is he possibly going to understand this stuff?’” Bizer recalls. But using a small tactile graph to communicate concepts and occasional explanations from the professor, David mastered the material.
William Thomas, director of International Studies, recalls David’s fearless approach to the unknown. He made two trips to England, and one to Germany. “The amazing part of David was his independence,” said Thomas, who helped arrange his term abroad in York, England. At York, he received the Kate Hollister Prize as an outstanding study abroad student, and he returned to commencement at York St. John University to receive the prize and a warm ovation, Thomas said.
“He loved participating in everything we arranged for the exchange students during his term abroad,” said Maggie Williams, a coordinator of exchanges at York, “especially going to Paris and realizing a childhood dream of visiting the Eiffel tower and the Louvre.” Said Priscilla Preston, head of Student Services at York, “I don’t think I have ever known an exchange student to leave such a positive imprint upon the University and the people around him.”
Funeral services will be Thursday at 11 a.m. at NewComer-Cannon Family Funeral Home, 343 New Karner Rd., Colonie (Rte. 155 south of Central Ave). Calling hours will be Wednesday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the funeral home. Interment will be in Memory’s Garden. Memorial contributions may be made to Northeast Association of the Blind at Albany, 301 Washington Ave. Albany, N.Y. 12206 or Habitat for Humanity, 696 Delaware Ave, Albany, N.Y. 12209.
