Posted on Apr 23, 2008

Steve Walker '08 had a simple plan. He wanted to alter the misperceptions some Union students harbored about Schenectady. He hoped to persuade more students to venture downtown. Ultimately, he wants to boost the social and economic fortunes of a city that has seen its share of tough times.

The plan gets its first test Saturday, April 26, when local restaurants, shops and cultural attractions host “Show Me Schenectady,” a daylong event for students to sample city life.

It’s the first major event organized by the Union-Schenectady Alliance, a group created by Walker and Josh DeBartolo '08 to improve relationships between the College and the city.

Working with organizations like the Chamber of Schenectady County, the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. and Proctors Theatre, the alliance hopes to lure hundreds of students downtown Saturday.

From noon to 5 p.m., students can dine on specially priced entrees, enjoy discounts on merchandise and participate in other games and activities, including a scavenger hunt. Students can also register for a poker run, which allows them to collect cards from select businesses throughout the afternoon. Students with the best poker hands will win prizes.

At 5 p.m., the College’s a cappella groups will provide entertainment at Jay and State streets, weather permitting. During the evening, some restaurants will offer specials for those with Union IDs. Proctors will also offer Union students half-price tickets to the New Plays Festival performance of “Battles of the Bands” at Upstairs, 440 State Street; and a free performance of “Barrage” on the main stage at 8 p.m. In addition, Iwerks movies at Proctors that day will be half price for Union students.

Trolley service will be available to shuttle students between the campus and downtown.

“We want to show everybody what Schenectady has to offer,” said Walker, a Political Science/Economics major from Wolfeboro, N.H.

Since January, the Union-Schenectady Alliance, which numbers about two dozen students, has met weekly in Wold House to promote its mission. Students have joined numerous committees and boards in the Schenectady community as non-voting members to engage local leaders in working together.

“We wanted to connect the brightest people on campus with the most influential people downtown,” said Walker.

The alliance evolved from a project Walker and DeBartolo, an Economics/Psychology major from Middleburgh, N.Y., did last fall for Hal Fried, the David L. '39 and Beverly B. Yunich Professor of Business Ethics. Told to ignore practical considerations and rely instead on their creativity and imagination, the pair was asked to create a vision of a Schenectady that young people would be reluctant to leave. Their resulting study was presented at a regional economic conference, where it was greeted enthusiastically by area business and civic leaders.

“The Union-Schenectady Alliance is a remarkable student-driven initiative,” said Fried. “It is based upon the premise that the College can benefit from a richer connection to Schenectady and vice versa. The concept is working in Schenectady, and it’s certainly scalable to other communities with educational institutions.”

One of the alliance’s biggest supporters is Proctors Theatre CEO Philip Morris. He envisions a downtown filled with Union students, starting with Saturday’s event.

“It’s the beginning of making Schenectady a college town,” said Morris. “You look at old pictures and see all the people downtown. We can have that again, because the energy of these students is incredible. They made this happen.”

Posted on Apr 22, 2008

Geologist Roger Kuhns will present “Jungle Gold,” a monologue about his experiences in French Guyana, Thursday, April 24 at 5:30 p.m. in Green House.

The talk is free and open to the public.

While conducting research in the rainforest of French Guyana, Kuhns discovered a treasure more valuable than gold. “Jungle Gold” is the true story of the drama, humor and life lessons learned from attempting to balance the opposing forces of multi-national interests and the indigenous people.

Kuhns left the mineral exploration industry many years ago and now works for a large consulting company that develops environmentally sound projects.

In his free time, Kuhns talks about his experiences in South America, Africa and Russia.

For more information, please contact George Shaw, John & Jane Wold Professor of
Geology, at (518) 388-6310 or shawg@union.edu.

Posted on Apr 21, 2008

Ever wonder about the size of the College's carbon footprint?

Students in Assistant Professor of Biology Jeffrey D. Corbin’s Environmental Studies class recently examined the College’s energy usage, transportation habits, dining services production and consumption, waste and paper production. Their unscientific peek into the campus community's habits last term revealed that the College produced between 19,500 and 28,000 metric tons of CO₂ (carbon dioxide) last year.

That’s equivalent to the emissions produced by 7,100 cars in a year of typical driving; 30,000 rainforest trees or the average annual emissions produced by 3,000 Americans.

“We have to know where we stand before we can begin to devise strategies to reduce our carbon emissions,” said Corbin, who, along with Stephen Po-Chedley ’08, co-chairs U Sustain, a committee of students, faculty and staff committed to establishing a carbon baseline for the campus.

The group is teaming up with the Enviromental Club for Earth Day on Tuesday, April 22 at the Reamer Campus Center. From 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., both groups will share information about sustainability and environmental initiatives with the campus community.

Faculty will also devote at least 10 minutes of Tuesday’s classroom time to environmental topics and concerns.

“There’s no one way to calculate a carbon footprint because you can compare the data any number of ways,” Corbin explained. “Factors such as the size of the school, the student population, the age of the buildings and the types of energy used all produce dramatically different results. So, we had students calculate a range to serve as our baseline for future comparison.”

Union's carbon footprint averaged out to 9.5 metric tons per student, typical for a school of its size. Students learned that energy usage accounted for between 60 and 80 percent of the total carbon footprint, and that each student used nearly 2500 sheets of paper—or five reams—annually.  Students also found that food purchase and consumption, particularly how much red meat is consumed, can also greatly impact carbon emissions.

“We eat a lot of red meat at Union,” Corbin explained. “Cows are tremendous methane producers. That, and the cost of raising them, has a negative impact on carbon emissions.”

Students found that implementing simple changes, such as reducing meat consumption by merely one meal per day, can reduce an individual's carbon footprint by 20 percent.

“Recycling is by far the easiest process to implement,” said Sam Basta ’08, who researched Union’s energy usage by studying the amount of waste produced and the way it's recycled or disposed. “Reducing is best, but it’s much harder to implement.”

Last year, College President Stephen C. Ainlay was among the first to sign the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), which formally commits the College to reducing and eventually eliminating its global warming emissions.

The College also promises to provide critical research and education that will help eliminate global warming.

For more information on Earth Day history and events visit: http://www.earthday.net.

Posted on Apr 18, 2008

Kara Lightman ’09 took her first trip to Cambodia in 2005 after graduating from high school. The Concord, Mass., native traveled there with her family, who had started a foundation to help the villagers of Tramung Chrum.

“The first time I went, I didn’t quite grasp it. Everything was so different and frightening,” Lightman said. “The second time, I had an overwhelming sense I needed to do something. The country has been so heavily destroyed. You walk down the street and see people whose faces have been burned off.”

This summer, Lightman, who was particularly taken by the plight of the women of Cambodia, will travel alone to the Southeast Asian village. Her mission: to help Cambodian girls escape lives of poverty, ignorance and domestic violence by introducing them to the importance of education.

Lightman’s efforts are being supported by the Kathryn Wasserman Davis Projects for Peace. She is one of 100 students from more than 85 American colleges and universities who will receive $10,000 to help promote world peace.

An interdepartmental major in Anthropology and Political Science, Lightman is the daughter of Jean, an artist, and Alan Lightman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the 1999 international bestseller, “Einstein’s Dreams.”

In 2006, Alan Lightman created the Harpswell Foundation, a non-governmental organization (NGO), after helping a friend build schools in Tramung Chum, about 50 miles from the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

“We became very close with this village,” said Kara. “They have no plumbing, no running water, no electricity; they tell time by when the sun rises.”

Upon learning that many women can’t go to college because there is nowhere safe for them to live (men can stay in monasteries, but Buddhist rules bar women from taking shelter there), Alan Lightman raised money and bought land, and in 2006, Harpswell built the first women’s dormitory in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh. The more than 30 young women who live there also receive room and board and leadership training.

“I have been greatly inspired by this project, and now I want to do my own work to help the women of Cambodia,” Kara Lightman said.

She noted that thousands of women suffer from domestic violence and marital rape, and that by 13, many girls are often sent away to work in the rice fields or as prostitutes to support their families.

“I would like to encourage girls to stay in school and become educated, which will allow them to get reputable jobs and eventually give money back to their families and villages. I want to use education as a tool to given women a voice.”

One of the poorest countries in the world, Cambodia saw almost its entire educated class destroyed when the notoriously brutal government, the Khmer Rouge, took power in the 1970s.

Lightman will spend about six weeks traveling around the country with three women from the Harpswell dormitory who will share their struggles and their stories. Ultimately, she wants her efforts to embody what is inscribed in both Khmer and English on the brass plaque in the Harpswell dormitory: “Our mission is to empower a new generation of Cambodian women.”

Lightman will leave for Cambodia in July. After spending her fall term in Fiji, she will return to campus with a photojournalistic account of her work in Cambodia. 

“I’ve been there four times, and I have far more cultural shock now coming back to the States than I do when I go there,” she said. “It’s hard to go and not do anything. The people are so generous, and the thing that is so amazing is that even though they have so little, they have hope.”

At Union, Lightman is a member of Sigma Delta Tau, the Young Democrats Club and the Model UN Club. She credits her Political Science advisor, Darius Watson, and the Anthropology Department for sparking her passion to study other cultures.

Lightman is the second Union student to be named a “peace scholar.” Last year, when the awards were created, Karyn Amira ’08 received funding for her efforts to curb landmines in Cambodia.

For more information about 100 Projects for Peace, visit www.kwd100projectsforpeace.org.  

Posted on Apr 18, 2008

David Friedlander, a stem cell researcher, will speak on “A Lack of Plasticity: Embryonic Stem Cell Policy in the United States,” Thursday, April 24 at 5:15 p.m. in F.W. Olin Center Room 115.  

He will cover issues ranging from the applied therapeutic use of human embryonic stem cells, the Bush administration policy and how the mandate has affected research in this country, to what state-funded and private institutions have done to circumvent this policy.  

Friedlander is a recent graduate of Bowdoin College, where he wrote his honors thesis on the U.S. stem cell policy. Since graduation, he has worked in a stem cell research lab and was awarded a prestigious internship with the California State Legislature, assisting in the drafting and initiation of the bond-funded California Stem Cell Institute.

His talk is sponsored by the Department of Biology and the Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum Initiative. For more information, contact Assistant Professor of Biology Nicole Theodosiou at theodosn@union.edu.